Smelling the Roses

I've been extraordinarily good to myself since my last post a few days ago.  As promised, I stuck to my plan to eat right and I'm losing weight again and hope to see myself under 400 pounds by the end of next week.  This isn't an unreasonable goal.

Today my husband and I were going to take the little one to the beach, but because it ended up being overcast and only about 72F outside, we decided on a trip to the park instead.  I posted a picture on my twitter account, if you want to check it out over here.  The base recently built it and not only is it beautiful, but the ground is made out of this strange cork looking material and when you walk on it, it is spongy and bounces.  I love it!

We were there for an hour, I couldn't believe it when we got in the car.  Not only that, but I stood almost the entire time we were there.  Not something I could have done months ago.  I wanted to stay longer, but my son came over when I was on the phone with my mother for a moment and had heavy eyelids so I knew it was time to go home.  Brought my camera with me, too, but sadly I hadn't charged my battery in a while so after four pictures and a minute and a half of video it died.  I wont let that happen again.

My doctor appointment on Friday bothered me.  Turns out my cholesterol level jumped 30 points since my last blood work in April.  I asked her how this was possible, since my diet has vastly improved since February and she said it could be hereditary.  Concerned, I asked if it could be because of one of my new medications that I take for my mood disorder, but she said no.  I was not convinced, however.

When I returned home, I looked up the side effects.  Sure enough, two of the side effects are elevated sugar levels and elevated cholesterol!  Disturbing, to say the least, but now I have a prescription for the cholesterol problem.  However, I have to go for another test for my blood sugar though I can't recall the name of it.  It's the one where you have to drink the orange soda-like liquid and they take your blood three times over three hours.  I'll be doing that sometime over the next two weeks once I work out the car arrangement with my husband.

In the meantime, I have left messages with both the physician that prescribed the medication with the side effects to ask if it's possible that this medication caused the jump since I started it in June considering my diet change and left a message with my primary doctor indicating that this was indeed a side effect.  This is two times now that my primary care attending RN has let me down when it has come to my health and I think that it is time to write a letter of concern to my health insurance company and request a change in physicians.

Once I get this other test done, the results of all my blood work will be forwarded along with my request to see an Endocrinologist to make sure there aren't any additional issues with my thyroid, since I have issues with thinning hair and no family history of this problem.  I'll also take care of the possible onset of Type II Diabetes and my polycystic ovary syndrome which I was diagnosed with in NY before moving here to NC.

To be honest, I'm not stressing out about all of this, which I would have months ago and which probably would have led to me binge eating.  I have to thank my one doctor for the best combination of mood disorder medication I have ever had in my life.  I've spent more than 15 years trying to find a combination that not only keeps me from feeling depressed, but allows me to function and think clearly.  I can do that now and this is the first time in my life that I feel really normal.  What an amazing feeling.

In addition to being able to take care of myself, I can take care of my house and my family!  So this is what it feels like to be able to get things done?  I never understood how people accomplished so much in one day and still managed to have a life at the same time.  Incredible!

So in addition to getting my life in order, I plan on doing many things I have thought about wanting to do for many years.  Throughout middle and high school, I played the drums.  I had always wished I continued on with it and gone into music in some way.  Sadly, I did not.  One of the big reasons I did not was because of my mood disorder and my lack of being on a medication that allowed me to be stable.  Now that I am doing so well, I am going to really get back into music, just for me.

I don't plan to run out and join a band or anything, that would be a little silly I think.  However, I would like to buy a guitar and get some lessons just to enjoy playing.  A friend of mine plays a little bass and I think it would be fun to hang out with her and play if I could learn a bit.  Having already discussed this with my husband, the purchase has been approved and I am looking to do this within the next month or two.  I am very excited.

That's about it for now.  This post was less about weight loss today and more about being good to myself and taking care of myself.  All of that though contributes to me not binging or overeating.  I feel great and I'm looking forward to continuing to feel this way.

Putting Myself First

I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that I actually told myself I wouldn't talk about on this blog; my mood disorder.  I had been avoiding it, because I wanted this journal to be about my binge eating disorder, my weight loss and how I was dealing with all of it. 

I have, in past posts, briefly mentioned my mood disorder without going into any detail, but as time went on it's been increasingly more difficult not to mention it when talking about my binging episodes and how my mood disorder might be affected by it.  What I didn't really consider is that my mood disorder really does play a big part in all of this.

Having spent some time thinking about it over the weekend, I decided it probably wasn't a rare thing that people with eating disorders have some other underlying emotional issues to deal with.  It could be just something from the past that they might have to work out or, in my case, an actual chemical imbalance.  Whatever the case might be for them, or myself, it's there and it needs to be dealt with and addressed as part of the process to fix the overall problem.

So, while I'm maintaining my journal for my binge eating, I might occasionally mention something about my mood disorder.  I'm not going to go on and on about it, or make a big deal out of it because that's still not the point me maintaining this site, but it is a part of who I am so I'm not going to ignore it and pretend like it's not there and it's not a part of the problem.  Plus, I sometimes forget that I'm suppose to be doing this for myself above anyone else and I shouldn't leave anything out.

What I do want to say is that I don't whine about having a chemical imbalance any more than I do about having a binging problem or being obese.  I actively do something about my issues and take care of myself, even if sometimes it takes me a while to get my act together to do it.  I save all my whining for my therapist, because sometimes I need her to help me figure out which direction I'm suppose to be going in.  Though, damnit, she still makes me figure it out on my own most of the time. 

Anyway, my point is, I'm not going to neglect that part of me anymore, so feel free to skip those parts of my posts or just stop reading.  I'm not going to forget that this is for me and my benefit most of all.  I honestly don't even know what possessed me to exclude it in the beginning anyway or why I thought that it might be unrelated to what I was going through.