realizations

Hi Everone!

So I went home to see my brother's graduation (yay, Jason!) and while I was there I wanted to look for some photos I promised a friend I would post. I found out some stuff I hadn't remembered.

For as long as I can remember I have thought of myself as fat. I remember being told I was a heavy baby because I was 8 or 10 pounds when I was born. I remember being put on weight watchers as a child. I was the youngest one in the meetings, the only child. I remember my grandmother looking at me when I was a child and telling an aunt that she could tell I had lost some weight because you could, "see it in the neck. It looks smaller."

I've always thought of myself as having been fat my entire life. But when I was looking through these photos of me as a child I realized I wasn't always fat. I saw lots of photos of me and could see my collarbones. I could see my legs were thin and my neck was thin. I wasn't always fat.

And it made me realize that I could get back to being thin. That I was capable of actually being thin because I had been thin before. Which made me realize that I hadn't actually thought I was capable of doing this. I was trying as hard as I could but I would eventually fail, as I always did, because I can't lose it. How can I lose it if I'm a fat person? I have always said to myself, "Don't waste their time! Don't waste their time! You have to do as much as you can as fast as you can so you're not wasting their time!" Well, why would I be wasting their time unless they chose someone who couldn't do it?

It makes sense that I would initially think I couldn't actually lose the weight. Having tried and failed as many times as I have, how could that not be in the back of my mind? But I had no idea how deep it went. And no idea that it was really there until I saw those photos. It was a revelation to me.

Since then I have felt a calm I never felt before. I really, truly believe this will happen for me. I truly believe that I can actually reach my goal now.

I hope you're well!

Kelley

first exercise back

Hi Everybody!

After a couple weeks of trying not to sweat the doctor has told me that I can officially shower again. No more sponge baths! Yay!

I am still a bit sore every once in a while, but I was given the go to exercise and so I started back up. I went to the gym Friday, the day after the doctor said I was good to go. I did a very small amount of weight lifting to try things out. I did about 15 or 20 pounds on the cable machines and did every exercise I could think of on it. But only 1 set of each exercise. I promised myself that no matter whether I felt great I would only do one set of each. I didn't want to overwork myself by accident. After the weights I did 15 minutes of cardio on an elliptical machine. By the end of all that I was exhausted and felt like I could sit down. But I also felt good.

Then I had a workout with Mike on Monday. I felt like I had never worked out before in my life. I was so exhausted! He had me stop and rest about ever other exercise, but, still, at one point I got dizzy. He asked me to walk around and just breath deep until it passed. I was worn out like I've never been worn out before. But I felt great that day and the next. I had just the small bit of tightness that comes from working out muscles that haven't been worked in a while. And the day after the workout I had a follow up with a doctor who said everything looked great.

I've had a few sessions now with Mike and it's getting better, but I'm still not 100% I don't think. We're not doing really strenuous stuff yet, but we're doing enough and I'm burning the calories. And that's really the important part. Everything is getting back to normal.

And the spot is healing just fine. I have a checkup with my doctor soon and there shouldn't be any issue that I can think of. It all looks good. And I still lost 6 pounds while I couldn't exercise! That was surprising! It just goes to prove that it's more about what you put in your mouth than how much exercise you do. It's hard to accept that, seeing as how for as long as I can remember I've always pushed myself to exercise more and harder than the day before. I have to remind myself all the time that it's about the food. How much of what am I eating? That's the important thing.

Hope you're all well!

Kelley

injury :(

Hi Everyone!

So I had an epidermoid cyst on my back. It got infected and the infection would not clear up so my doctor removed the cyst. I've been on powerful antibiotics for 2 weeks now and have 3 more days to go of them. I haven't been able to exercise because I can't get the area dirty. So for the last week I've been keeping very strictly to my eating plan so I don't gain while I'm stuck doing almost nothing. This is a difficult task because when I get sick I want to eat everything in sight. Why can't I be one of those people who can't eat because they get nauseous? Oh well.

This definitely curtails the swimming for a while.

Mike keeps checking in on me to see when we can get started again, but no word from the Dr yet as to when that will be.

But I gotta say, I feel much better with the thing removed! And it is healing well. The nurses change the bandage every couple days and they say it's looking better and better. So overall it's good.

I will hopefully see Manuel on Friday. I'll let you know-

Kelley