Pineapples

A few months ago, I saw a meme that said, "Be a pineapple, stand tall, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside."  I immediately identified with the saying.  You see, I'm a lover of quotes.  I'm a loquacious bibliophile, so loving quotes comes along with the territory.  I could read quotes all day long.  When P and I were first dating, I'd send him at least one quote a day.  The truth is, sometimes we don't need to think of our own words.  Sometimes, there's someone else who has thought what you've thought, felt what you've felt, and feels exactly the same way.

"But, that's inauthentic!"you say.  False, is my reply to you.  I think reading what someone else has said and identifying with it on a very personal level is not only a revelation of your authentic self, it's a revelation of the mere idea that every human on this planet has things in common.

I've been working hard on trying not to be judgmental.  It's not so pervasive that I treat others differently because of my thoughts, but in my opinion, it's TOO much.  Looking at someone walking across a parking lot and thinking, "What IS she wearing?!" is usually the extent of my judgment, but it's enough.  It's enough to lead to another, deeper judgment.  It's enough that someday it could lead to me treating someone differently.  We all have our own viewpoints, we all view the world through a different lens.  I want to change the focus of my lens.  I don't want to look at a woman wearing something that in my opinion is too tight, too revealing, too short, or whatever and immediately think badly of her.  I want to neutralize it into a thought such as, "That's what she's choosing to wear," or perhaps pay her outfit no mind.  I'd like to think I could mentally give her props for being so confident, but I know I'm not going to be able to do that all of the time.  I know I'm still going to falter.  I also know that if I try to make this one little change in myself from the inside out, that it'll help me to stand tall and develop my own confidence.  It'll help me be sweet on the inside.

Wearing a crown is something I've always found lovely and fascinating.  Growing up, my sister was the princess aligned child.  I was feminine, but I wasn't the girly girl.  I'm much more of a girly girl now.  I do not leave the house without mascara.  I think glitter is one of the most beautiful inventions ever.  Pink is my absolute favorite color.  But I still don't consider myself a "princessy" kind of girl.   My favorite Disney princess is Belle.  She starts off as a provincial French girl who loves to read and take care of her Papa and ends up with a library I can only dream of.  Oh, and the prince, too.  (In the interest of my above paragraph, I won't comment on that particular prince.  In his defense, it's difficult to follow Prince Eric!)  But Belle didn't get all of that wonderful stuff or fall in love because she was wearing a crown.  It all happened for her because she was sweet on the inside.  In fact, most of the archetypal Disney princesses weren't born princesses, wearing a crown, at all.  But they all were indeed, sweet.

Yes, I know this world isn't a fairy tale.  I know that animals cleaning my house, glass slippers, and magic carpet rides are a fantasy, and one I'd best avoid wallowing in for too long lest I create unrealistic expectations in my future marriage.  But I think it's perfectly realistic to stand tall and work on my self confidence.  I think it's wonderful to wear a crown on special occasions and let others take care of you (I realllllly struggle with this!).  To me, wearing a crown symbolizes the "I'm worth it, I'm worth something!" idea.  I unequivocally think we need to be sweet on the inside.  This woman shaming, fat shaming, skinny shaming, sanctimommy, judgmental highway that women seem to be driving on needs to be destroyed.  We are all connected.  We are all human.  And we all have it in us to be pineapples.

Anxiety Girl!

I have anxiety.  I didn't have anxiety (or at least it didn't affect me in any real way) until I became a teacher.  During my second year of teaching, I would lie awake in bed at night (I shared a room with my best friend because we could afford a super cute condo with another friend that way) and my heart would race and race.  I was terrified that I was having a heart attack at 23 years old.  I went to my PCP at the time and was sent to a cardiologist, etc, etc.  I was fit as a fiddle (well, as fit as you can be toting around an extra 5th grader's worth of weight).  My heart was great.  Everything looked good.  We discussed my symptoms again and...he suggested it might be anxiety.

When my parents divorced when I was 17, I had gone to see a therapist a few times, mostly because my wonderfully caring mother wanted to make sure there was someone unbiased I could talk to about everything.  It was a positive experience, but I've never felt that I have a lot of lasting concerns/effects from their divorce.  If I'm being honest, I think it was the absolute best decision my mother has ever made, for herself and for my sister and I.  She removed the toxicity from our lives and God has since replaced it with so much positivism that there's no doubt in my mind all of His plans are for good.  But...I digress.  Through that time with the therapist (and I was honest with her) we never came to the conclusion that I had anxiety.  

In college, I was pretty at-ease with myself, as much as you can be when you've lived your life overweight.  Some people are loud, boisterous, and funny when they carry extra pounds.  Some are painfully shy.  I'm somewhere in the middle.  If anything, teaching has forced me to become more extroverted, even though at times it can be incredibly draining.  At other times, I can't stand to be alone.  I'm a walking contradiction.  A beautiful mess!

The PCP prescribed Zoloft at the lowest dose for me and I started seeing a therapist in St. Augustine.  I filled out the paperwork, none of the check boxes applying to me at all.  After two visits the therapist looked at me and said (I'm paraphrasing since it was 10+ years ago), "There's nothing wrong with you.  You have normal human worries.  I think you solely have a chemical imbalance, and therefore the Zoloft is going to be your best bet.  If you have concerns that you want to talk about, you're welcome to come back..."  I was surprised, but okay with that arrangement.  After all, this whole anxiety thing was new to me.

I tried again to go to therapy (two different therapists after that one) and only ever made it through one to two sessions before they were having a similar conversation with me.  Then my fabulous nurse practitioner obgyn increased my Zoloft dose.  The anxiety subsided. (WOOT!)

Now, I know that my case of anxiety is mild.  I'm not debilitated and even though it may delay me from certain activities, I still end up going/participating, because I've learned that if I can overcome that initial fear of what people think of me, I'll end up having a great time.  It has prevented me from going to a few events in my life, but nothing formal/really important, and nothing where I had already said I would go and then cancelled.  Mostly situations where the thought of attending gave me anxiety and so when asked, I said, "Maybe."  (I learned from my mother that maybe is a much nicer way of saying "probably not."  For example: "Can I have a sleepover with so and so next weekend?"  "Maybe.")

I did notice, however, that as more birthdays passed, my anxiety intensified.  The thing about anxiety is that you get ridonkulously frustrated with yourself because you know that the thoughts you're having are irrational but you cannot stop having them.  In fact, the more you try not to have them, the more you have them.  The inside of my brain, subconsciously, says things like, "She didn't respond to your text right away because you offended her and now she's mad." or "Those people whispering over there are talking about me.  I knew I shouldn't have worn this!"  or the dreaded response to, "We/I need to talk to you." "Oh no.  I'm fired/she hates me/I made a huge mistake/my life is over!"

Even just reading that is embarrassing because I consider myself a relatively intelligent person and it just sounds so...silly.  The aftermath of that is is that you beat yourself up because you can't believe you let your emotions get the best of you like that.  Because 9 times out of 10, all of those things that my mind perceives and convinces me of...they turn out not to be true.  But that 1 time out of 10, well it's worth more than all those other 9.  Because it feeds the anxiety monster.  It reminds me that 10% of the time, my fears are justified.  10% of the time, I hate being right.  

In this past year, my anxiety has had its ups and downs.  New situations sometimes make it worse, and I've had a bunch of those this year.  When I saw my obgyn* this year, she and I decided to go back up to the highest dose of Zoloft I had been on.  We had cut it down to half before because things were good.  But you know...wedding planning and all.  I thought I'd be more disappointed in myself for needing it, but I'm actually not, and that in itself is a miraculous gift.  I've also found a therapist I really like.  She gets that my anxieties are not just "normal" worries.  She challenges me to to stop the negative self-talk.  That, my friends, is a HUGE challenge for me.  Some other time I'll tell you about some other stuff she's taught me.  For now, I'll leave you with something that I found endlessly fascinating.  Emphasis in the article is mine.  The original article can be found here. 

An influential study conducted 100 years ago by two Harvard psychologists, Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson, laid the foundation for the idea that moderate levels of anxiety improve performance: too much anxiety, obviously, and performance is impaired, but too little anxiety also impairs performance. “Without anxiety, little would be accomplished,” David Barlow, the founder and director emeritus of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, has written.

The performance of athletes, entertainers, executives, artisans, and students would suffer; creativity would diminish; crops might not be planted. And we would all achieve that idyllic state long sought after in our fast-paced society of whiling away our lives under a shade tree. This would be as deadly for the species as nuclear war.

So I'm going to take my moderate anxiety and keep using it to be a superhero...getting stuff done and done well, loving myself and sharing that love with others, even if I'm second guessing myself part of the time.  

I truly believe the second graph about myself.  Anxiety does NOT define me. 

*She's seriously one of the top 10 people I know...we hugged in Target once and she squealed and jumped up and down and was so excited about my engagement that the cashier asked if it was a close friend I hadn't seen for awhile.  Imagine that cashier's face when I told her it was my gynecologist!  I wish it wasn't so weird (for her AND I, we've discussed this) to hang out outside of the doctor's office.  

History

Today I had a follow-up with my endocrinologist.  To backtrack, I went for my first appointment in December, because for a few years I've been having this horrible 4:00 slump.  Like, to the point where sometimes on my way home from tutoring I was afraid I'd have to pull over and take a nap. My drive is only 20-25 minutes. This is with going to bed at a normal time (I swear I used to).  I also was working out like CRAZY and eating really well and was still not losing weight.  I had Lap-Band surgery in 2006, worked out with a personal trainer, did Weight Watchers, Body by Vi, Shakeology (this actually worked some but is crazy expensive), P90, T25, Turbo Jam, Zumba...weight loss was ridiculously time consuming with little to no return on my investment.

My PCP had already diagnosed me with Metabolic Syndrome aka Syndrome X.  Metabolic Syndrome is actually an umbrella term (or is it?) for a bunch of different symptoms, that when coupled, magically become Metabolic Syndrome.  The #1 treatment for Metabolic Syndrome is weight loss.  My PCP also prescribed me Metformin, because one of the hallmarks (not as fun as the store) is becoming pre-diabetic.

Back to the #1 treatment for Metabolic Syndrome: weight loss.  I've already established this is something I've wanted/worked on/been desperate for during most of my life.  But there's a catch with Metabolic Syndrome.  Your body works against you at every turn.  My PCP described it like this:
If myself and an "average" person ate the exact same meal, down to the exact macro-nutrients, it would take my body 2x (or more) longer to process the food, to burn it.  She also added that I'm a "survivor" body type, and that during cavemen times, I would have been the best kind of person because food shortages wouldn't have affected me.  Hooray for being a badass cave woman! *sarcasm*

Back in the late 90s, my first obgyn suggested that I might have something called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), but that it was nothing to be concerned with and taking birth control would prevent the cysts from forming. I thought that was the end of that.

Fast-forward to December 2015.  My endocrinologist does a TON of blood tests and a 24 hour urine sample (which suuuuuucked).  All that pointed to me having low, but in normal range thyroid levels, low human growth hormone (is that why I'm short and have T-rex arms?), normal range blood sugar, and high blood pressure at the beginning of our visit in December because I have an intense anxiety of having high blood pressure.  (This is a story for another time, but I promise it has a cause and isn't completely irrational).  The endocrinologist mentioned that she saw all signs pointing to PCOS.  That wasn't new, so even though I was upset that it was coming back to the forefront again, I wasn't blindsided.

What confused me was when she told me that Metabolic Syndrome falls under the umbrella of PCOS.  Whaaaaat?  All along I had been told/misunderstood that it was the other way around.  I'm still not sure which is actually correct, but it doesn't really matter in the long run.  She continually asks me if I have excess hair growth on parts of my body where females don't normally have hair.  I want to say, "I have told you no at least 6 times now...the answer is NO!"  Instead I calmly shake my head no, after all, it's her job to ask me uncomfortable questions, even if I become suddenly afraid that I look like Chewbacca without even knowing.

The only way to confirm for sure that I indeed have PCOS, is to test my testosterone levels.  This can only be accomplished by going off the birth control for at least a month, then testing my levels, because ya know, the birth control apparently makes you less filled with dude hormones.  I was all for that, but then I asked her what the treatment would be if we had the definite diagnosis.  She replied, "You're already on the number one treatment, birth control coupled with Metformin."  That sealed it for me.  I didn't need an affirmative box checked if the outcome was going to be identical to my life now.  So basically I have (not definitively) PCOS.  That was a harder pill to swallow at my age. PCOS can make getting pregnant very difficult.  I'm not going to worry about that now, though. God's got a plan and I trust it. I trust Him.

I'm just going to keep walking, running, and dancing down this path.  I'm going to exercise as much as I can, eat as well as I can (most of the time, because...cake, cheese, Mexican food), and listen to the advice of my doctors.  I'm going to keep taking thyroid medicine even though my numbers are in low-normal ranges because new research (and some from the 90s even) shows that even low-normal ranges have a huge affect on weight loss ability and fatigue. (Read this article for more info).  Also, I've lost about 25 pounds since December.  I still want to lose about 135 more, but 25 pounds is something to celebrate!

I'm going to keep trying because I firmly and personally believe that I will only fail when I stop trying.

Not Just Sweating for the Wedding

So ya'll, I've tried to start a blog many times.  I had a teacher/craft/life blog.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Thoughts that go through my head about blogging are things like this:
"No one wants to read what I write."
"My blog is no different than a million other blogs out there."
"Blogging, the way I would do it, would make me vulnerable, exposed.  Who wants that?"
"Time.  Once school starts up again, will I even have the time?"
"What will my friends and family think?" (This one pops up in my head...all. the. time.)

Then I respond to those thoughts:
"Even if JUST ONE, just ONE! person reads what I write and doesn't feel alone, or feels validated, or feels loved, or considered, or anything, then isn't my writing worthwhile?"
"True, there are a million other blogs out there.  But those million other people are NOT ME.  There's only one me.  So therefore, my blog is different because it's me!"
"Again, there's the potential to help just one person.  Vulnerable and exposed can let it negative stuff, but it also opens the door for positive stuff.  And who doesn't love positive stuff?"
"I'll worry about the time thing when school starts up again.  Maybe posts will be less frequent.  Maybe not."
"What WILL they think?  Most likely they'll be proud and share my blog and tell me how much they love me even when I write silly/crazy/funny/stupid/embarrassing posts.  Because they're my tribe.  And if they don't love me in spite of the aforementioned posts, it's ok.  It doesn't change who I am."

A dear, sweet, wonderful, encouraging, adjectives-haven't-even-been-made-for-her-yet friend of mine told me to absolutely start this blog.  I asked her if writing this blog would make me seem pretentious.  Her reply was, "NO!  It will allow others to know you are there for them and they are not alone!  It will help so many people!!"  She sold me.  I have a heart for helping.  Also, the original post that inspired this blog got 87 likes on Facebook.  That's a lot of likes for little old me.  It also got 16+ comments.  For a simple Facebook post on my private page, I feel that garnered a lot of attention.  Like, maybe even people who don't struggle with their weight but have value for the human struggle in general will read this.  As one of the most incredible human beings I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting wrote, "Life is Brutiful."  (Brutal + Beautful.)  That human being is Glennon Doyle Melton, and you can read her blog +Momastery.  Just be prepared to clear your calendar.  Her writing is...breathtaking.

So this blog will be many things.  I don't want to pigeonhole it from the get-go.  I want to give it life. But the basic principle behind the comes from this original post (with a few edits), the one I talked about from Facebook:

A couple of months ago, these adorable workout pants appeared on my Facebook feed with the slogan down the side, "Sweating for the Wedding!"  "How cute!" I thought, "I need those!" (I didn't buy them.  Because hello?  Saving money for a wedding!)  But the more I thought about it, the more it kinda bugged me.  I mean, I'm all about looking amazing on my wedding day, but the reality is that I don't want to sweat for the WEDDING.  I want to sweat and get healthier for my LIFE.  So that I can live a lot longer, healthier, and happier AFTER the wedding.  Today I got up when Patrick left for work (I'm a teacher and it's summer) and restarted my Zombies, Run 5k app and then after that workout was done finished it up with about half of a mission in the regular Zombies, Run! app. All in all, about an hour's time spent moving.  Spent sweating.  Holy cannoli, Batman, was it hot, even at 8AM.  And it begins. #sweatingforlife #NOTjustsweatingforthewedding

I won't lie.  It's taken me 36 years to reach this mindset. (I like to think I was a very thoughtful child from birth, contemplating life issues from the crib.)  I still struggle with this mindset EVERY. DAY.  Everyday, people.  I want to lose weight.  I always have.  Seriously, like since 2nd grade.  It took me a long time to realize, though, that I don't want to JUST lose weight, that's secondary.  I don't want to look good for my family or friends or Patrick because I'm afraid I embarrass them - that's tertiary.  I want to FEEL good for life and live it.  That's my new goal!

If you have that same goal, welcome to my tribe.  If you don't, but you love reading about someone who is human and makes many mistakes but also has many triumphs on the way to her goal, welcome to my tribe.  If you, like me, believe that love is amazing, the only weapon we have, and never ever ever meant to be mediocre, welcome to my tribe.  If you think glitter is amazing and that God made sweat look like glitter so we can think we're fancy when we're burning calories and fat, then welcome to my tribe and...leave a little sparkle wherever you go.

XOXO