The story you are about to read may be hard to believe. It is the kind of story that would occasionally make it into my email inbox, and I would scan it briefly before clicking delete and muttering about how this kind of junk gets past my spam filter. If it hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't believe it. But it did happen to me, and I pray that you read this and consider what it says.

A few weeks ago, I was watching my favorite Christian television station. The show was a talk show-type discussion about hormones. I almost changed the channel, but something (Someone) made me stop and listen. The woman on the show was named Dr. Barbara Hoffman, and she was talking about her line of bio-identical progesterone creams. They discussed how progesterone balanced estrogen, and how it was very important to choose bio-identical over synthetic. Synthetic progesterone can do all kinds of awful things in the body, because the body just doesn't always know what to deal with it. This includes birth control pills and shots. I began to think back over the past few years, about how my health began a downward spiral after I had my son. Then it occurred to me that it was after I had him that I started on the depo-provera shot. I started to research progesterone, and came across all kinds of literature that talked about how progesterone deficiency can cause all kinds of problems, including some that were hauntingly familiar: fatigue, weight gain, mental fuzziness, painful periods, cravings for carbs and sweets, and body pain, to name a few. And on other pages, I read that depo-provera will cause the body to stop producing its own progesterone, since it is a synthetic form of the hormone and causes the body to think it has enough.

After about a week of research, I decided to go ahead and order the cream that I had seen on tv (Better Heath Naturally ProHelp Moisture Treatment Cream). I figured that I would try it out, and if it made me feel bad I would stop, but hopefully it would help me with some of my fibromyalgia symptoms. When the cream arrived, I went ahead and put it on as per the directions on the container. That day, I didn't feel any different. The next day, I used the cream again, once in the morning, once in the evening, as the directions suggest. I thought I could notice a little bit of a difference, but brushed it off as being psychological.

The third day, I woke up, went downstairs, and started making breakfast for my son before I realized that my body didn't hurt. At all.

I went through the day without saying anything, because I again thought this must be a psychological thing, or I was just having a good day, or something like that. But my boyfriend noticed that I was much happier and seemed to be in less pain than normal. And after a few days, I had to say something. I had almost no pain. I was able to play with my son for the first time without hurting. I had tons of energy, and I just felt good. It just felt so good to feel good again.

Then I noticed that I was starting to go longer between meals without being so hungry. While before I was counting the minutes until the next meal, now I could go for hours past "meal time" and not even notice.

But what really got me was when I passed up chocolate. My son brought home some Easter candy, and was trying to feed it to me, but it just didn't sound appetizing. When it hit me that I had just passed up chocolate, I had to run and tell everybody I knew about this stuff.

I have gone about a week now with no cravings at all. When I eat, I actually feel full before I am done, and it has helped me cut down on some of the high-processed carbs that are so bad for me. I sleep better at night, even though I have stopped taking my sleeping medication. Plus, I am cutting down on the meds that were previously keeping the pain in check, and am still feeling great. I feel happier, and my son loves being able to play with me without being afraid of hurting me. The scale has been going down steadily, but I have noticed that my body seems to be changing a lot more than it was. However, I'm confident that it will start going quicker soon, since I am more active and eating less.

I know that no single thing is a "magic bullet" for everyone, but I just had to tell you all about how this cream has helped me. I am including a link below to the site where I bought it, and also the site of the manufacturer where you can read a little more about it. If you are considering trying this, please do some research first. Some women do fantastic on this stuff, but some don't. But if you are one of the ones that are helped by it, then it is so worth it.

http://shop.daystar.com/

http://www.bhnformulas.com/

We all have different triggers that cause us to overeat. For some people, it's celebrations. For others, it's stress. Or boredom. But for me it is depression, and everything that entails.

I would regularly just get into a "funk" where I had super negative thoughts. I got very depressed, and sometimes really angry. I would pout and feel bad about myself, and bad for myself, and eventually end up deciding that nobody cared. And if nobody else cared, I didn't care either. And inevitably, this would end up with me binging on whatever I could eat in the highest volume. The more, the better. That little voice was telling me that I wasn't good enough, and I was trying to shut it up with food.

A few years ago, I started to realize that this is what I was doing. I worked with my therapist to try to stop the behavior, because I knew in my head that it was bad for me. But when I would get in that mood, I would get to the point where I just didn't care. My emotions would override my sensibilities every time.

And then I suddenly got a revelation. I realized two things - one, that just because my stomach felt a certain way didn't mean that I was hungry; and two, that even if I was hungry, that was ok. It was like someone flipped on the light switch and suddenly I could see clearly. It's not that these ideas were new - in fact, I had been talking about them with my therapist for a year and a half. I honestly can't tell you what it was that did it, but it just suddenly made sense. It went from being words to being real. And I was able to stop binging almost completely.

Almost.

Yesterday, for whatever reason, that all-too-familiar funk came back. I don't know why. It started out a pretty good day, but as time went on, that little negative voice started getting louder and louder. And before I knew it, I was brooding and thinking about how nobody cared about me. I tried getting myself out of it, but I just couldn't make that voice shut up no matter how hard I tried.

And so shortly after my son went to bed, I baked and consumed an entire roll of flaky butter biscuits. With jam.

Not all at one sitting, but over the course of several hours. It was as if I couldn't stop myself. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and I winced at the idea that I would have to write this in my food journal. I imagined the disappointed look on my nutritionist's face when she found out. And I felt awful about that as I licked the jam off my fingertips.

It is just amazing to me that such things can happen to a person. How in my head I can know something is the wrong thing to do, yet somehow my emotions put me on auto-pilot and I end up doing it almost against my will.

Let me say for the record that I am not crazy, so far as I know. And I am not schizophrenic or bipolar. But every once in a while, my emotions just hijack my body in such a way that I could never explain to someone who had never experienced it.

Today I have huge, painfully swollen feet because those biscuits had something like 500 mg of sodium each, and there were eight of them, so that puts me up to 4000 mg just from the biscuits. And because of this, I have vowed that I will not buy those biscuits again.

But on the positive side, I do finally realize that this is not the end of the game. All I have to do is clean up the mess and keep moving.

Hi all, long time no blog.

Sorry it's been so long, things have been super busy and drama-filled here at home. My boyfriend and his dad have been renovating the business they just bought, so he's been gone all day, every day since the beginning of this month. Then he comes home and works on the computer until I don't know when. He's been under so much stress that it's starting to become a problem for all of us. They've been working frantically to try and open by this weekend, St. Patrick's Day. But unfortunately, today he found out that the previous owners pulled some not-so-funny business with the liquor license, so now that plan has to be scrapped. I've been pretty good food-wise, though, despite all the stress and chaos. I will fully admit that I have had several episodes of stress-induced sugar indulgence, but nothing that has been so bad that it's affected my weight. Thank the Lord.

But that brings me to the confounding question. The question that I've been asked about a half-dozen times this month. Every time someone finds out that I'm losing weight, they smile and say "Great, now you don't have to worry about having surgery, right?"

It would be frustrating enough to hear that from anyone, but especially so because I've heard it from my mom, my nutritionist, and even my family doctor. And it makes it even more hard for me to get excited about losing this weight. I already have that little negative voice in the back of my head saying "So what, you've done this before! You've lost more than this before, and look what happened! You gained it all back and then some! So you might as well give up now because you're going to fail anyway. Why suffer any longer, just go to the store and buy yourself a bag of Reese's cups and forget about this nonsense!"

I guess this question bothers me so much for two reasons. The first reason is that I feel it's too early to decide that I can do it myself this time. My gosh, it's only been 22 pounds. Let's not jump to conclusions. And secondly, if anyone is going to decide that I can do this myself, it should be me! I don't want to be pressured out of surgery just because I've lost 22 pounds! I've got six more months to make up my mind, and then I will decide. Not before then, and not because somebody else thinks I should or shouldn't.

In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on the positive. I'm working on my food issues, my eating habits, and my emotional relationship with food. And it's hard to believe it, but it's getting easier to ignore that little negative voice. I don't think it'll ever go away, but it is getting quieter, and for that I am incredibly thankful.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about one particular habit that dies awfully hard - eating what's on your plate whether you like it or not. I know that there are times when we should choose to eat certain things because they are good for us, but if they're bad for our health and we don't like them, why should we be eating them? And by we, I mean me. Does anybody else do this, or is it just me?

I really started to think about this a few weeks ago at dinner. Every Wednesday, the church down the street from us holds a community meal that is free to everyone. We always get it, because it is a nice break from cooking for me and something different every time. That day it was spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and fruit. I was eating the spaghetti when I suddenly realized, hey, this doesn't taste good at all. It was greasy and salty and not at all the way I would choose to have it. But I kind of mentally shrugged and thought, oh well, it's free (well, we did put money in the donation jar, but it's not like we went out to a restaurant.) But here's the thing - even though it was unpleasant, and I knew it was bad for me, I still continued to eat it. In fact, I finished it. Then I sat there staring at the grease at the bottom of the styrofoam container and thought, now why did I just do that?

It was then that it occurred to me that all those years of my grandparents constantly scolding me to finish what was on my plate has really ingrained itself more deeply than I imagined. Between that and the years of mindless eating, I had stopped being picky about what I put in my mouth. I realized at that moment that it was something I had to change.

Over the next few days, I watched how my son ate his dinner. If he liked it, he would put a bite in his mouth, put down his silverware, chew it thoroughly, talk a little bit, and then eat another bite. If he didn't like it, he would refuse to eat it. On those days I would push him to eat at least three bites, and sometimes that was all he would eat. So I have decided that from now on, I will try to eat more like my son. After all, those are the habits I will need after I am banded anyway, so why not start learning them now? I will make my best attempt to do all of the following at every meal:

• pay attention to the flavor of the food I am eating
  
• put down my fork and have some conversation between bites
  
• chew thoroughly
  
• if I don't like it, I won't eat it (within reason)

I hope that by doing these things, I can start to develop those good eating habits that I will need to be successful in losing and maintaining my weight.

Things have been changing quite a bit here over the past week or so. I haven't been blogging nearly as much because my boyfriend has been on the computer every night. He had quit his job driving the Amish construction crews because they weren't paying him (yes, the Amish can be jerks too, lol) and things were pretty tight here for a while. But last week, his dad bought a local business and has hired him as the general manager (woohoo!) so he has been pretty busy. It's going to be crazy for a while until we get settled into a routine again. And another super bonus is that I will be doing some cleaning on their closed days, so I can finally have some income of my own and have a reason to get out of the house! I would be doing cartwheels with excitement if I weren't so achy and, well, 360-pounds-y. (lol)

I hope you all had a great Valentine's day! <3

I had my second of nine supervised diet visits today. I wanted to go in anyway because I have been having trouble with my feet swelling. Not just regular swelling, but the kind of swelling that makes the skin hurt because it is being pulled so tight. I spent almost all day on the couch Saturday because my feet were so swollen and painful that I could hardly walk. So today I went in with my food and exercise logs to get my visit done and over with.

I got on the scale without taking off my shoes or coat, and so the number showed that I had actually gained a little since my last visit. My scale at home says I am holding steady. My doctor looked over my logs and said he was pleased with what I was doing. I told him about the swelling and he poked at my ankles a little bit, then said he would order a blood test to make sure that my kidneys were functioning normally. He also said that my blood pressure was a little high, and that if it was still elevated at my next visit, he would put me on a blood pressure medication and a diuretic.

I guess that the elevated blood pressure is both good and bad. Bad because, well, nobody needs high blood pressure. But good because it will probably indicate more of a need to the insurance company for the surgery - another comorbidity. I mentioned to the doctor that my blood pressure is usually normal unless I am in a fair amount of pain, which I was today and have been for the past few days. He agreed but said that he would still put me on the medication if it was still elevated next time. I noticed on the receipt that he also ordered a test for my thyroid hormones, probably because I haven't lost any more weight despite eating less than 2000 calories per day and burning from 300 to 600 per day with exercise (numbers from myfitnesspal.com) So they will call me with the results sometime later this week and we will see what they say.

Two down, seven to go. The goal is coming slowly but surely. I think I can, I think I can!

I have heard many people on this board getting so upset about weight gain and lack of weight loss. And don't get me wrong, I completely understand. I have gotten on the scale myself and had that sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw the number. I have wanted to scream and cry when I saw the number go up. Trust me, I understand. But there is something that I was missing, and that was Godly love.

I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was four years old. I don't remember if I even understood what that meant at the time, but it was what the grown-ups wanted from me, so I did it. I went to church with my mom until my pre-teen years. But then things started to fall apart in our family and we all lost our way. I don't want to get into it all right now, but there were many things that happened that were emotionally painful, and I felt like God had turned his back on me. I felt lost and abandoned. So I gave into the world's way of living, doing basically whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I still felt like I was a good person, and I believed in God, but felt like he didn't want much to do with me.

After years of living this way, I noticed that He was showing up in my life more and more. Little things that would happen, little comments that people would make. I felt the need to go back to Him, but I didn't. I thought that after all of the bad things I had done, all the commandments I had broken, that there would never be a church that would accept me. After all, you can't be a Christian without going to church, right? But God kept insisting, kept calling me. Eventually I went out and bought myself a Bible and started to read.

It took me a while, but it finally dawned on me that I didn't have to go to church to be a Christian again. I didn't need other people to accept me to be a Christian. I didn't have to be perfect. I didn't have to have a perfect past. Jesus did most of His work among the people who the church considered "undesirable," like prostitutes and tax collectors. If Jesus could accept them and love them, maybe He could love me too.

Several months later, I was watching a television show on Daystar network, a Christian station. The woman who was speaking was talking about God's love. She said something that changed the way I looked at myself forever. "God loves you just the way you are," she said (paraphrasing.) "You don't have to lose ten pounds, you don't have to do anything different for him to love you." The woman was Joyce Meyer, and I have watched her regularly ever since. But that message really opened my eyes.

It's really true. God loves you exactly the way you are right at this very moment. He loves you just as much as he loves anyone else. You are His child, and he made you knowing that you would be just who you are right now. He knew you would do everything you have ever done, good and bad, and he loved you just the same. When you feel the most unloveable, He still loves you just as much as He ever did. Even if you don't believe in Him, He still loves you! How wonderful!

If you take anything at all from this blog, I want you to know that you are loved. You are loved more than you know, more than you could ever believe possible. And this love is not dependent on how much weight you lose, what kind of clothes you wear, or even how you act. You are loved simply because you exist, and you are important simply because you were born. God does not do things by mistake, and He would not waste time creating something that He was not proud of. It is important to take care of your body and make sure that you stay healthy, because our bodies are our home until we are done with our journey on the earth, but your weight is not everything. It is part of you, but not the thing that defines you. Even if you never reach your goal weight, God sees you for the beautiful creation that you are. And I hope that you do too.

Hi all!
I am subscribed to an email newsletter called Godvine. Every weekday they send me an email with a verse, several video clips, and a story. This story was in the letter from yesterday, 2/3. It really warmed my heart, so I had to share it with you all.

"Get Off The Scale

Whether weight is a 'problem' in your life or it's some other single factor, this can apply to everyone. Never forget it!

You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.

Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life.

It's true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That's it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don't give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!"


Source: Something I Just Had To Share

It's times like these past few days that make me question whether I can actually do this or not.

The past several days have been really rough. Thursday through Sunday were high pain days, the kind of days where I really didn't want to do anything but curl up on the couch and cry. I have tramadol to take for the pain, so I went ahead and took it for the last two days. Then Sunday I woke up with a migraine so bad that I couldn't keep anything down, including water. After throwing up for six hours, I decided to go to the emergency room. I really dislike going in there for pain, but I didn't want to end up getting dehydrated and become really sick. They gave me fluids and a few shots, and I came home feeling halfway human again.

Yesterday I laid on the couch for most of the day, being harassed by my three-year-old. I don't usually do that, so he just assumed that I was doing it for his own personal enjoyment and tried to use me as a jungle gym. To help me feel better, he put his praise CD on his radio and turned it up really loud so I could hear it. He danced and sang for me for a little while, but then he got bored and went to play on the computer with his dad, leaving me to listen to the music on repeat. It was very sweet of him to try and help, but let me tell you that one can only listen to the Veggie Tales cast sing "This Little Light Of Mine" before one seriously considers chucking the CD out the window.

Of course, with all this pain competing for attention in my head, my healthy eating plan backslid quite a bit. We had takeout twice, and the other days were mostly high-carb convenience foods. I know that it probably didn't help me feel better, but when I'm in pain I don't care too much about healthy - it's all about what I can make with the least amount of effort. It's this very thing that makes me wonder how I will do this after being banded. I try very hard to keep fairly healthy stuff around that I can make quickly, but when that runs out I'm willing to get almost anything as long as it's not ridiculously unhealthy. And sending my boyfriend to the store to get "something good" for supper is not necessarily a good idea either. I guess next time I need to specify "good" as in "healthy," and definitely NOT pizza rolls. I guess this is something I will have to talk to my nutritionist about when I see her next week; maybe she will have some ideas that I can use for the next time.

I am proud to say that I won the battle with the leftover chocolate cake in the refrigerator, though. My boyfriend ate most of it, and left the last slice for me. I was determined not to eat any more of it, so I just ignored it until it went stale and then I actually threw it away!!!

Is it just me, or are more and more food commercials starting to look more like food porn? Granted, I am probably a little bit more sensitive today because of the leftover chocolate birthday cake in the refrigerator that I have successfully been avoiding all day. But really, today's food commercials are getting a little out of hand. It seems like the two main types that are airing now are the "look how happy you can make your family and yourself by eating our food" commercials, and the "food porn" commercials.

If I stop and think back, I can remember food advertising going through several different stages in recent history. The first one, which was several years ago, was the "we know how busy you are, so why not make it easy on yourself and buy our food?" movement. They basically played on the fact that most american families were two-income households, and seemed to be trying to do us a favor by taking care of the meal preparation. Never mind the fact that the food was loaded with fat, sugar, and salt.

The next phase I recall is the "healthy options" movement. This is when americans started to wise up to what they were putting in their bodies, post-Super-Size-Me. Instead of featuring fries and burgers, most commercials featured salads or some sort of "fresh" options. Unfortunately, after not too long people began to realize that even their salads and other "healthy" foods were not nearly as good for you as they would have you believe. You can make anything fattening if you slather it with enough ranch dressing.

The current type of food commercials running are the "happy family" commercials. Example: The Little Caesar's commercial that talks about how making your family happy is as simple as spending five measly dollars on their pizza. Another gem: Arby's new slogan. "It's Good Mood Food." This type of advertising really irritates me. I understand that the job of advertisers is to make you want to eat their food, but by exploiting the issues that so many people have with emotional eating? Really? Are they that desperate to sell me a hamburger?

But the latest generation of commercials seems to be the "food porn" commercials. You've seen them, I'm sure. The announcer talks seductively about how toasty, cheesy, melty, or chocolaty their food is while Barry White-esque music plays in the background. And it seems like there are more of them every day. It does make me laugh, though, that almost every time I see one of these it is immediately followed by a Weight Watchers commercial.

I realize that the purpose of these ads is simply to get you to buy what they are selling. They are not at all interested in your health, how you feel, or whether their food will actually contribute to your happiness and well-being. The motive is profit. But it is amazing how well they are able to get under your skin just enough to get you to say "oh, that does look good. Maybe I'll go there..." But I have discovered my own secret weapon against these commercials: DVR. I will record my shows, then when I am ready to watch them I will fast forward through the commercials. Now I don't have to be worried about being tempted by anything that isn't already in my refrigerator.

Did I mention there was chocolate cake in my refrigerator? Shoot, now I want cake. Where's my hunger tool box...

Yesterday Dr. Oz did another show about WLS. This one was about gastric bypass, and whether it should be available to more people (mainly diabetics.) I just happened to come across it, and my mom just happened to be over visiting me. Like I mentioned before, my mom has been very anti-WLS (for me anyway) because of what she saw on the Dr. Oz show about lap band. I was going to change the channel, but she said that she had wanted to watch it and asked me to leave it on.

We watched together in silence until Dr. Oz started talking about who would currently qualify for bypass. He said that a woman of 5'4" and 200 pounds would qualify. After the segment ended, she looked at me and said "he just described me. I'm 5'4" and (a number close to 200) pounds." She was absolutely shocked that she would qualify for gastric bypass. After talking about it for a while, she finally said that it would be a good idea for me to go ahead with the lap band. I felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off my shoulders! What a relief to finally have her start to be okay with this.

Lately I've been throwing myself into this physician supervised diet as much as I can. I've been eating much more sensibly, tracking my calories, working through my emotional issues, and exercising. That last one is no minor thing for me, either. Because of the fibromyalgia and the bulging discs in my back, I haven't been able to exercise like I used to. I have been doing tai chi and yoga, but was really longing for pilates. I love pilates - it was the main contributing factor in my last large weight loss success. I love the way it makes me feel, how it improves my posture, and how quickly it trims me down. But I thought that with my issues I would never be able to do it again.

Thankfully, I found a program called Classical Stretch on PBS. It is a combination of pilates, stretching, tai-chi, and ballet-like moves. I watched it for quite some time before I decided to go ahead and try it. I have been doing it every day for several days now and I have to say it does not aggravate my fibromyalgia nearly as bad as I thought it would. My back, though, is not happy, and that is my fault. Instead of going slowly, I decided to go ahead and dive right in to the moves where you are required to bend at the waist and hang your head to the floor. I should have known better. My back popped, and I have been hurting since yesterday. But I do have to say that it doesn't hurt nearly as badly as it has in the past. At least this time I can walk, and it is manageable with the prescriptions that I have. So I am soldiering on. I figure if I'm going to hurt, I might as well hurt and do something instead of just sit around and be depressed about how much I hurt.

I've also been practicing amazing restraint when it comes to sweets lately. Today is my boyfriend's birthday, and I bought him a frozen cake a few days ago. I made it until today without eating any, and today I have only had one piece. Now it is sitting in the refrigerator calling to me. I have the feeling that I might have to white-knuckle it until bedtime, but I WILL NOT EAT MORE THAN ONE SLICE. I have already done a fair share of prayer and gotten out my hunger tool box. Did I mention that the cake is chocolate?

Oh well, off to do some sudoku...