Food!

This post is (hopefully) going to be short and sweet. Tyler and I had dinner, then I took a shower, then we watched the Grinch movie (the live action one with Jim Carrey). I didn't realize it was an almost 2 hour movie, so we just finished! All I want to do right now is dry my hair and go to bed!

But last night, I promised I would blog tonight about food, since there has been SO MUCH OF IT the last couple of weeks.

It's funny, but what prompted me to want to talk about it was the pics I posted of my makeup last night. When I posted them and actually looked at them, I realized how much it showed how much weight I had lost. And just for comparison purposes, I went back and looked at pics of me from around Christmas last year, and wow. Now, I know it would make sense to insert both pics here, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not very happy with pics of myself normally, but to show exactly how fat I looked last year compared to this year...yeah. Not going there just yet.

It's not like I didn't know I've lost a lot of weight. I go to the doctor almost every month. Sometimes more often, depending on what's going on. It's hovering around the 70 lb mark right now. That's since April. There are a LOT of contributing factors to how so much has come off so quickly. Namely, stress and anxiety. At least, that's what got the ball rolling. I've also had some, shall we say, "medical" issues that close friends and family know about (but that I'm not quite prepared to share openly with strangers and/or less desirable people who might come across this blog). But I really just started losing. I didn't really change the way I eat, or what I eat, because while I'm not a saint when it comes to food, I don't think I'm terrible. I don't overindulge often, and I don't eat horrible things, generally. I think a lot of it was hormonal, and the last 2 years it had more to do with a mixture of my injury (and subsequent lack of moving around, at all) and various medications the doctors were giving me to try to get me well (steroids, narcotics, etc.). For the most part, I am currently medication free. And unfortunately, I have to move around much more now because I don't have someone there to help me. My son is here, but he can't do everything. So I make do.

But I did have a significant "medical issue" toward the end of summer/early fall that caused the greatest amount of weight loss. And it started in late July and went straight through today. I am still losing weight because of this "medical issue". Let's just say it's a real calorie burner lol. I'm not complaining, trust me, but it wasn't something I had planned or was expecting, so it kind of came out of left field. Because I went so long without knowing about it, it could have been terrible. But I did find out about it when I did, so I was able to seek medical treatment and they helped me deal with it and get me as well as can be expected. But this is something I was dealing with for months before we addressed it, and looking back now, I can see how it was affecting me back then. I'm just glad to know now what was going on, because it was definitely affecting me. It made me tired, cranky, sick, and moody, so I'm glad there was a reason and it wasn't just me being weird.

But the reason for the blog tonight is that there has been SO MUCH FOOD the last couple of weeks. I've already blogged about all the cooking and baking we have done here. And most of what we made, we gave away. I did have enough to give Tyler a good Christmas, but I couldn't really afford to splurge on friends and family. And because everyone knew how hard things were in the weeks and months after we split from the ex, they told us NOT to get them anything. But I can't just do nothing, so we baked and we cooked. The irony is: quality baking ingredients are EXPENSIVE. A bag of walnuts is like $5 alone! And good quality semi sweet chocolate is like $5 for 8 oz. Crazy! So when you consider that we baked something like 200 cookies, and then pies, cakes, strudels, etc. it all adds up. It might have been cheaper to just buy gifts! LOL.

But my thinking was: we are giving everything away. So to have one cookie out of two dozen (have to taste test, after all) wasn't so bad. But then Christmas came, and it turns out that everyone else had the same idea we did! From my dad and Beth alone we got: 3 different kinds of cookies, chocolate fudge, white chocolate bark with raisins and cranberries, home made chex mix, banana AND pumpkin bread, and a crap ton of candy! My grandma also baked and gave us pumpkin bread AND pumpkin pie and a ton of Christmas cookies. Of course, Tyler got a crap ton of candy in his stocking. And it goes on and on. My aunt had at LEAST five different kinds of dessert at her house, and her fiance had baked it all, so when he kept asking us to try each thing, I felt rude to pass. Not that I really wanted to pass, but I kept thinking- I don't want to fall off the wagon! By the time I left their house, my stomach hurt SO BAD.

So I'm sitting here now, trying not to go in there and heat up a piece of dutch apple pie and scoop some french vanilla on top of it! That's all I want to do right now! But I am trying to be good. It's my own fault for making it, but I am trying to be good!

I think, for me, it's just about being more aware of what I'm eating and just not overdoing it. I wish I could say oh, I'm on this amazing diet and I work out five times a week. In fact, I would love nothing more. Maybe then it would be over 100 lbs instead of 70? But I cannot work out. And if I cut any more calories from my (normal, every day) diet, I might not be able to function! I already have had to make some drastic changes to my usual diet because of my "medical issues", so that's been an adjustment itself. But I'm working with my doctor to try to get back to eating the things I love and still feel well. But the biggest thing is, now that I'm finally losing weight, and keeping it off, I don't want to jeopardize that in any way.

So I'm thinking now about the new year and how I would like things to go. I was sitting here last night, thinking about how different things are for me since last Christmas, physically. I missed Christmas with my extended family because of my back. My hair was shorter. It wasn't the color I love! I was substantially heavier, and I wasn't very happy, generally. I didn't know it yet, but I was already dealing with the "medical issue" that came to a head this summer and has caused me to now lose so much weight. If I had known then what I know now, I might have done a lot differently. But then, I also might still be in a situation that I didn't want to be in then, and I'm grateful to be out of now. Everything happens for a reason, I'm sure of it.

So I think instead of having a piece of pie and ice cream, I'll grab a mini Snickers from Tyler's stocking on the way to bed. I am much happier with myself now, especially compared to last Christmas, and the pie will wait for another day.

I hope I can look back on this post in another 365 days and say I've lost another 70 lbs. Then, I'll be below my pre-pregancy weight! That would be amazing! But I'm a realist. I'd be happy to lose another 50 and be at my pre-pregnancy weight. Hell, I'd be happy to lose another 30 and be within 20 lbs of my pre-pregnancy weight! But, even if I don't lose another pound, I'm happier. Not because of how I look, the size I wear, or how I feel, but because of how different things are now than they used to be. How far I've come.

So, today's song is something that came up on my ipod on Christmas day, while I was doing my makeup to go to my aunt's house. How wonderfully, amazingly perfect: