Feeling Defeated

Tomorrow marks week 4 of no fast food or diet coke. I've been successful in finding alternatives that I love even more. I do not miss fast food and definitely not the poison that diet coke was. I do miss convenience. I've not had meat in 1 week yesterday. I actually don't miss meat too much. I'm trying my hardest to find alternatives to dairy but haven't succeeded. Baby steps! I'm still fixing dairy for the kids and if they want milk, I'm giving it to them. I would rather see how I feel on the no meat/dairy diet before I make drastic changes that will affect them. I think the hardest thing about giving up meat and dairy is the realization that I have no idea what to make that doesn't have meat or milk! Seriously, I can't believe that I ate it that much! I don't think that I even ate a tenth the vegetables and fruit I should have had! I'm angry at myself. These are things I knew from growing up...eat your vegetables and fruit. Dumby me! What is different now? Why am I finally doing it? Well...obviously...because I don't want to be fat, tired, bloated, unhappy, irritable and off balanced any more. But how long will it be before I go back? And gasp...what if these changes don't actually fix these issues?

Sunday I was feeling defeat. I didn't give in and I didn't have temptations of meat. I just felt like maybe I wasn't doing the right thing for my body. Maybe these vegan novels are written by insane people that believe in creationism. Am I just buying in to a fad? Will there be books out next year by the same authors admitting fault? On Sunday I was hungry and a little anxious. Then later that night...I started my period. It IS the first period in my entire life that I have ever been able to successful calculate a period. Wonderful! That means I am finally learning how my body works! I was really excited for this period. I thought that my new eating habits would rid my terrible cramps. It turned out that my cramps were worse. In fact...I'm surprised I didn't go to the hospital. I must have had a cyst rupture! I'm feeling better today, but I still feel the stabbing pain of a cyst.

What else got me down? In the midst of reading The Kind Diet and the gruesome cruelty of what animals endure, I flipped out and made a Facebook announcement that I was not eating meat again! That was stupid. I've set myself up for failure with that. I'm not not eating meat to save the planet. I honestly feel that even if I never ate another meat product or dairy product again, it would not save a single animal. It would just be an animals life going to waste. I don't know if that is valid, but that is how I feel. I'm not feeling like I can make a difference in the world right now. I'm not even sure that I'm making a difference in my body right now.

I know one thing hasn't changed...periods and hormones are still a bitch!

I'm confused about soy. Isn't soy bad? Isn't tofu and edamame bad? Or is it just processed soy like processed wheat and sugar are bad?

Feeling better today...my body...my mind is still scattered. Cooking without meat means my food lasts longer and my kitchen is cleaner. That is a nice feeling. Plus the dog isn't standing underneath me waiting for scraps...unless i'm cutting carrots or apples.

The kids are pooping better. Unfortunately, Fin is still in diapers.

I don't feel stuffed after eating. I don't feel tired like I normally do after I eat. I'm energized and ready to run. I think i need to eat more.

Music Makes a Difference in Life

Somehow I have gone from a lover of music to rarely playing music in my daily routine. My husband is very much a music lover and I feel that me ignoring what he is playing and wanting me to hear has distanced us. Starting to listen again has made me realize how powerful music is. I had him put a CD on for me while sewing the other night. It was amazing!

I haven't had that much fun sewing in a long time! I can't remember what he played for me. I think it was The Black Keys. After that CD was over, I put in an old favorite, Pound Hound! I don't want to sew again without music.

My new found energy is an amazing feeling! The next piece of the puzzle is exercise. Today I started the Couch to 5K running program. I downloaded the app to my phone as well as Pandora radio. I decided to create a The Black Keys channel. Their new album, El Camino has made me so excited to move! The first track, Lonely Boy gets me moving and thinking about Ol' dude in their video of the song. He has amazing energy and some moves!

Week 1, Day 1 of the Couch to 5K completed successfully! It felt amazing! My favorite song of the workout was The Cave by Mumford & Sons. I made a station for this song for my next run. During this work out, I reflected on how I want my life to go. Life feels good and I am looking forward to every moment in the future! Starting weigh is 150. I hope to be back to a healthy 120 by summer!

Running today inspired me to start write for the first time in years!

Educating Myself and Making Decisions

At the end of 2011 I watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives. It took me a full month to watch it with interruptions from little ones asking to watch Thomas the Train or rip Beyblades. The documentary was very inspiring on the importance of the right foods in your diet. It encouraged vegan-ism. I am not ready for that completely drastic change, but the movie has helped me lower the amount of meat and animal products that I take in and feed my family.

That documentary was the gateway for other documentaries to educate myself on nutrition and living a long, healthy life. Between Christmas and New Years, I also watched Food, Inc., Food Matters, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Dive! Living off of America's Waste and The Future of Food.

Food Inc., may have cured my fast food habit and definitely has opened my eyes to eating organic, grass fed, free range animals and products. I also want to eat more vegetarian meals. I don't think I could ever be completely vegan as Forks Over Knives suggested, but I can definitely change my diet and health by reducing the amount of meat consumed.

Food Matters focused on food being your medicine and how pharmaceuticals mask our diseases rather than fixing the problem. The problem can be fixed with food. It excited me to learn how our bodies can self heal if we give it the right vitamins and fuel. I now take a multi vitamin as a result of this show and remember to give the boys their vitamins as well.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead was a perfect follow up to Food Matters. It added to my new desire to eat more fresh veggies and fruit.

Dive! Living Off of America's Waste open my eyes to the amount of waste we produce as a country and as a house hold. It has inspired me to buy less food and sickens me at the amount of food we waste and I've personally wasted!

The Future of Food was pretty scary. Genetically modified food taking over our food supply! OMG! The government does not protect us. It is driven by greed and power. I grew up trusting in the government.

One of the messages in one or more of these movies is that we have the power to vote on what food we eat and what is in our food. We vote 3 times a day by eating 3 meals a day and by buying the foods that we want to eat. I don't want to vote for corporate greed, toxic food, genetically modified food or toxic air any longer.

I will be buying more local foods and teaching myself how to cook fresh, delicious meals.

Change has Started

I have been reborn in to this life. This rebirth was not started by religion or by a specific, life changing event. No one event made me wake up and say "it is time to change and it starts now!" Instead it was a progression of events, experiences, words, thoughts, moments, precious giggles that gave me the strength to realize that the path I was taken was bad for myself and my family. The time it took for me to realize this has been longer than a human gestation period. I was overdue on the pregnancy of a new life.

I knew change needed to happen when I was at my lowest point of denied postpartum depression. Let me start with how depressed I felt during the end of my pregnancy with my first son, Oliver; however, how amazing I felt after he was born and how clear I thought life was. When he was 6 months old I joined a gym and worked the 60+ pounds I had gained during that pregnancy. My diet was a modified South Beach diet. Fast food was not in my diet regularly. I worked out at the gym during the day and then went back for more on some days after my husband, Eli got home from work. I took walks with my awesome Baby Jogger Performance series stroller all day long! I got down to 118 lbs. That weight was perfect for my height of 5'2", still having curves to show that I was a woman and not a girl. I was working in the evenings back at Chili's as a server rather than a manager. I made enough cash to pay off whatever money I had racked up on a credit card from the transition of being a stay at home mom vs full time employee.

I felt great all the way through my pregnancy with my second son, Finley. No during pregnancy depression. During that pregnancy, my diet and exercise routine dwindled until there was no exercise and extremely poor food choices. When Finley was born I laughed at the doctor for giving me information about postpartum depression. I thought that would never happen to me because I thought that I was the most sane person around with great control over my emotions. I quickly realized that hormones could really (for lack of a better word) fuck with you. I didn't go down all at once. It was gradual until I hit a serious low point that scared the shit out of me and shocked me in to small changes that helped a little.

What changes to my life were going on after Finley was born to get me so low? For starters, my diet was poor. There was no exercise. Sleep was not happening. I was obsessing over a new hobby that kept me up at night even when I could have been sleeping. Postpartum depression lasted me a full year and a half! It can happen to anyone with great diet and exercise, I believe. I didn't get clinical help. There was a moment at my lowest point when I realized that I needed help that actually snapped me out of that dark time. Coming to that realization was a spark! It changed my attitude, but I continued to have dark moments that were uplifted by good moments. It wasn't until I actually stopped nursing Finley at 19 months old that my hormones calmed down. I was forced in to it by a hernia surgery. I didn't want to quit nursing my baby. But, I'm glad I did! On a side note, I nursed Oliver until 18 months old with out any hormonal issues. Every pregnancy and breast feeding experience is different for every woman. I would not discourage any woman from breastfeeding their child for as long as they can, but I would encourage exercise and a diet high in fruits and vegetables. I ate big macs, drank Diet Coke like it was water, sat on the couch knitting, stayed up until 3 a.m. sewing. Not the best combination, apparently.

2011 started with a list of high hopes and resolutions. The hernia surgery in January and so was the end of breast feeding. It seriously only took about a week and a half of no breast feeding for my depressed fog to lift. I also decided not to run my business of cloth diaper sewing until all hours of the night. I took a break from sewing for people that I didn't know. It felt wonderful. What didn't I change? I still didn't excersize. I have paid for a gym membership the entire year and used it maybe a 1/2 dozen times in 2011. Fast food. Fast Food. Fast Food. Cookies. M&Ms. Diet coke. Lots of diet coke. I did read Jillian Michael's book Master Your Metabolism. That book taught me the dangers of toxicity in our foods caused by modern life and the importance of organic foods. The book had an extreme, no excuse change now approach. I tried. I wasn't ready. I continued the year with toxic food, but had that book in the back of my mind. I was eating crack in the form of a burger and fries.

In the spring of 2011 I began work again at Chilis as a server. My attitude was completely different from how it was when I worked there before. I was negative. I hated working. My tips reflected. I blamed it on the guests coming in and the economy. I hated going to work. I missed out on opportunities with my family, but when I had a free day off I tried to hide from my family to sew instead. Why did I do that? For some unbalanced hormonal reason, I felt that my Internet friends took priority over my family. I spent countless hours making items for people I never met and spent all of the money gained of fabric, fabric, cloth diapers and anything that helped feed the obsession of my hobby.

Working at Chilis was a miserable experience for the family. In October, my husband and me decided I quit after having a glass of wine and yummy Thai food at Thai 9 in Dayton. That night was one of the very few date nights we had in 2011. We had lost each other and missed each other. Things started looking up after that. I had great weeks of organization and clarity, then a week of frustration from being a step behind and lagging in what I needed to accomplish. It seemed to correlate well with my cycle to where I could pin point when it was going to happen and be proactive to not over indulge myself in emotional or food related woe to make the moment worse. It is still a work in progress, but it is coming along.

A Disney World trip was planned. Christmas was planned. 2011 ended with an amazing family vacation the week before Christmas and an amazing Christmas! New Years eve was shared with new and old friends that I hope to have in my life for a very long time.

December 28th is the last time I've had fast food or Diet Coke. I know it won't be the last time ever. I am a great believer in moderation. Today marks 11 days of no fast food or diet coke. 3 days was the longest I've gone in all of 2011. It wasn't until the 4th day that I started feeling more energetic and more alive. Why did I poison myself for so long!?