Runs with scissors discussion
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Hard decision, lots of help needed
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Maybe this is karmic payback for almost drowning that guy....I don't know. All I know is that I have been in tears since yesterday thinking I may have to leave...sorry I can't finish this thought, I'm tearing up again.
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Kim it will be tough but it will be worse if you leave it any longer....Please try to enjoy your swim'let is know how you get on?
Thumbs Up....
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I have a question to all of you who work out/exercise, no matter what level you are. Do you find yourself STARVING when you get home? Or is it just me being the class weirdo again?
Kim, you'll always be the weirdo, that's why we love you! :)Seriously, it depends on the person. I don't get like that, just tired, but a GOOD, satisfied tired. And by the way, you have inspired us! We went to the pool yesterday and was in the water for two hours. No, not exercising the whole time, but it was a start at least. THANKS, Kim!
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I know I already said this in person, but you rock!
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With out the scholarship, my journey will end. Maybe that is the best thing for me. While I have been able to be proud of myself, I have begun to think that this maybe the best for me, to walk away, say I tried, and just go off and be quiet. I am used to not getting what I want. It goes with the plus-sized territory I have lived in all of my life. When you are a larger person, you get used to not being able to do or have many things.
I do not think I have lost much, if any weight, since there are no scales that can accomodate me nearby. Physically, I feel no different. Emotionaly and mentaly, I have improved. I want to stay. I actually look forward to exercise for crying out loud! That's a first. I have decided that if I get to stay, I am going to swim 1 mile by the end of the year.....but I may have to give that up.
I want to stay...but what I want and what I am prepared to have happen are 2 vastly different things.
This may be one of my last posts on this subject. I hope it's not and that I can continue to have your support and hopefully keep inspiring those who need it. Please keep my scholarship in your prayers. Who knows, you might help make a miracle.
Kim please don't hink That I. Haven't been paying attention and keeping my fingers crossed for you on this journey.I have been and hope to continue to be proud of you on this journey that you are on.I just wasn't in a place to comment.I think you will understand.Please do not give up on your scholarship yet...Possibly they are taking longer due to being inundated with applications.
Please try to continue to exercise as the main thing is that you had started to look forward to it...Even just walking on a pleasant day to lift the spirits can make you feel better(speaking from experience)and sometimes that is a lot of the battle.....
Whatever you do don't give up!
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I will hopefully find out more today....
Yah!Good Luck and keeping fingers crossed .....
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YES!!!HUGE HUGS FROM ACROSS THE POND...xxxxxx
Wonder if the staff put in a good word?
Who Cares,you got it!!!
OH MY GODDESS!!!!! CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MAJOR huge HUGGIES!!!!!!!!!!!
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I am restricted to only Tai Chi this week since the Summer Camp kids are being allowed to use the poo during the normal adult lap. Next week, the pursuit of a mile begins.
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I know that the program ending should not really affect me now that I have the membership, but it is. I am not sad that it is ending, but I guess I am a little gratefull for it all the same. This program, of which I was terrified to sign up for, has allowed me to find out what I am made of, what I am capeable of, and that I am not what I thought I was. I have learned that I can succeed when I thougt I was destined to fail. I have learned that I am better than the sum of my parts, and that I am better than any gym class I survived in school.
I was terrified of this program, not because I thought I would fail (I am always prepared for that) but because of old nightmares from gym classes past, where I did my best, but was always the slow fat kid, several paces behind everyone else. I dreaded exercise because I feel tired and worn out when I'm done, not exhillarated like others get. Thanks to my Aqua Tai Chi class and lap swim, I do feel better after than when I walked in the door.
I am not done on this journey, and I plan on keeping up this blog about how I am doing. I still plan on at least 3 days per week like I have been doing, and I still hope to swim a mile before Christmas. Thank you all for being there for me these last 3 months. Your support and encouragement helped me keep my chin up and my head up high. For those of you who are starting out, start slow, keep a steady pace, and know that I am rooting for you.
Hey Kim just to say that I can understand your emotion about the end of the programmer and delighted that you are going to continue to keep us all up to date on your progress.....:-)
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Good Going....Glad you decided not to overdo it before Tai Chi though. :-)
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THE SCALE WORKED! IT WORKED FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN THE 7 YEARS I HAVE BEEN GOING THERE! I NOW WEIGH: DRUMROLL PLEASE...........
334!
I don't know my starting weight,but the scale only goes up to 350, so even with room for error, I have still lost weight!
(I also have tennis elbow (!) and I don't play tennis, but I have a wrap brace and it will go away on it's own.)
WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:):):):):):):)
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I am feeling much better today and hope to do at least a 1/2 mile tomorrow.
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On Friday, I swam a 1/2 mile (that makes 1 mile for the week, a first) and then left to go help some friends of mine who were getting ready for their vaction. Since their apartment does not have A/C, some of their electronics would be ruined when they come home, so I agreed to "babysit" them at my house. So, the 17 year old son packed my car with the tote and I didn't unpack it until Saturday morning. I had no idea how heavy it was until I went to unload it.
By Saturday evening, while at the boyfriends,I was in pain. Now,I come by this next thing honestly. My family has never been ones to pop a pill over a little discomfort, and my mother has a high pain tollerance. (Example, after having a hysterectomy to remove her cancer, she tried her best not to take the pain pills she was given on the principle that she would be fine. She eneded up taking them anyway, because we made her.) So, I was reluctant to take anything even though I was in tears due to the pain. I do not use the phrases "I want to go to the ER" or "Take me to Urgent Care". Keep this in mind.
I got up early Sunday morning to pee, and I came back to bed, and said to the boyfriend, "I want to go to the emergency room." He was ready to take me there and then, but I said, "Not now, in the morning." By 7 o'clock, we were in a debate of whether or not this was an emergency room worthy visit or if I should wait it out (I wanted to wait, because I didn't want to bother the nice people in the emergency room.) We agreed to the Urgent Care and if they said ER, then I would go.
Now mind you, I have no job and no insurance. The no/low cost clinic I go to has an agreement with 2 hosptitals that if I have to go to the ER, I must pay $60, and the rest may be "forgiven" under the agreement. (Any hospital that gets state and or federal funding, must help you, regardless of financial situation. They get money from the government to cover patients like this. If they refuse you, they can lose funding.)
So, Urgent Care it was. Run by another hospital group, this one has a self-pay option,and was willing to see me. My mom told me to put it on a credit card and she would pay the bill when it came, so I wasn't sweating that part. Fine.
I was quickly seen and a pee-in-the-cup test said that I did not have a UTI. The doctors best guess is that I pulled a groin muscle,an ovarian cyst may have burst, or a combination of the 2. A hernia was also considered, but my mom has had 2 of those and I did not show any symptoms of those.
So, all of this resulted in a doctors educated guess, a recomendation that if it did get worse to go the ER,and her telling me that they would tear up my bill since they didn't do anything.
I am feeling a little better,and it will be slow, but I also know that swimming or my class will only make it hurt worse.
*Sigh*
My friends know nothing of this and won't for 2 weeks when they come home. I will be having them come to my house with the 17 year old to pick up the stuff.
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I am going with the combination of the two problems since I have gone trough the cyst before and I think the muscle was a side casualty. To top off my week, I get to go for my T-dap tomorrow. This is the new combination shot for adults. It combines your tetanus booster with adult pertussis vaccine (that's Whooping Cough by the way.) I am deathly afraid of needles. My veins collapse easily,and it takes 6-8 sticks per arm to get a little sample, even when I was a kid this was the norm. (Understandable fear, wouldn't you say?) I'm a better off at the lab where they do this all day and can use a pediatric needle in the top of my hand to get what they need. [They once called a psych consult on me at my old doctors when I flipped out over a blood sample. ( I told them to give me the paperwork and let me go to the lab, but they wouldn't listen....):]
So, not one of my fave things here. Thankfully, the boyfriend can work a half day (his boss loves me,not to mention the cookies I send with him to work [she's his boss from his old job, so she's known me for a while now:] and is more than happy to let him be able to come with me tomorrow to hold me down. Literally.
I am so freaked about this, I would rather not do it, but I know getting the treatment for tetanus is worse than what I will go through tomorrow. I am so scared right now, I'm shaking.
Think of me at around 11:15 a.m. when you hear the scream echoing around the world.....
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I did 100 ab crunches yesterday,pressing 112.5 lb. and 80 leg presses at 100 lb. and 20 at 120 lb. That last one was a little too much. My knees are hurting today.
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a 1/2 mile! The kid's still got it!
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This weekend I read the best self-help type of book EVER! It is: "Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body"
by Kate Harding, Marianne Kirby.
Everyone who has ever had body image issues, is fat (and that is NOT a bad thing to be), or who is working through both, NEEDS to read this book.. The authors are fat acceptance bloggers who back up every thing in the book with hard science. I did not find this book to be overly eye-opening or shocking, but I did find it to be an affirmation of how I am trying to live my life and the philosophy behind my advocacy group, Perspective Plus (found here on goodreads only so far).
Did you know about HAES? It is a recognized idea that many doctors believe in. It simply states that you can be Healthy At Every Size. All you have to do is find a form of exercise activity that you like, and eat intuitively, which basically means eating when hungry and eating what your body is telling you it needs. NO calorie restrictions, NO forbidden foods (since food is morally ambiguous that makes sense), NO starving yourself, NO shame.
How simple is that? The book includes a list of on-line resourses as well as some books that may provide even more support.
I read this book, crying through most of it, because it hit home, especially Chapter 12, which is on dating.
So, STOP DIETING (they don't work anyway) THROW OUT THE SCALE and REMEMBER YOU ARE WORTH WHILE AND HAVE VALUE!
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Well.......
I DID A 3/4 MILE YESTERDAY! I am so proud of myself, I could explode (which would be pretty gross)!
I started swimming at 1:10 p.m. and finished by 2:00! Not bad for my first time!
1 mile, here I come!
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But, on Saturday, I found out just how much this stuff is helping, and I didn't even know it. One of my best friends, Connie, had her brother end up at the Cleveland Clinic. (Long story short, he thought he was experiencing something he had 3 years ago that almost killed him. It has something to do with fluids building up in his stomach.) So, Connie's mom doesn't drive and Connie and her fiance (whose birthday it was) were supposed to go camping. Enter the favor of asking me to take her mom downtown to see her brother.
Now, most of you know, this is the same place that the boyfriend works in the gift shop of, so the plan was that if I dropped her mom off, he could bring her home. So, I drove her down, got her into the place (all on the first try, and I have only been there one time, and that was the day the boyfriend and I went down to see if this was where he wanted to work), got her up the brother's room, went back down to the gift shop where I got a bottle of water and a granola bar, only sat down long enough to eat the bar and have some water, found my way back to the car, still had free parking time on my garage ticket, and was on my way home before it hit me.
I did not HAVE to sit down once, did not feel any knee or back pain, and had not been short of breath during my entire journey around the clinic. The boyfriend and I figure I covered between a 1/4 and a 1/2 mile in all of walking.
How cool is that?
Whoo to the hoo!
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I DID A MILE TODAY! Yes, you read that correctly. I SWAM 1 MILE TODAY! That is 88 lengths or 44 laps. I did it in a little under and hour and 20 minutes. That is with rest breaks and stopping to stretch upon occasion.
I am VERY proud of myself. I did it 2 months ahead of schedule.
Now my goal is to swim have a 3/4 mile be my norm.
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I know I've said it to you already, but I want it on record: I am very, very proud of you.
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However,my doctor's appointment on Friday went well. I was in the exam room with the "cranky scale" scale as the nurse put it, so I don't know if I have lost any more weight, but I have other progress. My LDL numbers are down, my HDL are good, and my 3 month averaged blood sugar went down from 6.2 to 5.3! I am very proud of myself.
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The WestPark YMCA that I go to is getting rid of it due to lack of participants. New rules have come down from on high to cut corners. Now, you need a minimum of 8 people per class instead of 6. We average 4-5 on a regular basis, although there are in theory 12 people in the class.
I am not out of options, it is just that it will mean a minor adjustment to my schedule for now. My instructor does teach the same class at the same time on 2 different days at another nearby facility in Lakewood. This is the same distance as the Y I go to now, but it is not as easy to get to as mine. (Mine is a straight shot from my house, and Lakewood will be more twists and turns.)
I am willing to give it a try as Lakewood and WestPark are/were the only Y's that offer the class nearby. I will still continue my swimming each week on the same days and may have to push Tai Chi to 1 day instead of 2 if I have to go to 2 different places.
*Sigh*
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I am still going to try the other Y as and see how it goes.
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I own quite a bit of Yoga/meditation/relaxation music that I believe will work for us. I was playing potential discs in my car yesterday I believe that I may have found at least 1 to start with and I found 2 more in my collection later in the afternoon yesterday. (I had miss filed a few).
Today we will try again.
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The previous sound is me hitting my head against the wall. I guess that there was quite a loud pitching of fits and people falling in them last Friday after I had already left the Y. I know that Mary and Carlene has been snarking at each other (not something new) but I guess it came to a head Friday. I am not completely sure as to exactly what transpired, and Carlene was crying too hard for me to understand her yesterday in the locker room as she was trying to tell me.
All I know is that she brings Mary who does not drive and that due to her car trouble last week, there was a mis-communication somewhere along the line that caused hurt feelings. I know it was not class that did caused this and these 2 have been angry with each other before when Vince was teaching because he even said that this was nothing new the last time.
I just feel frustrated by the timing. They say everything happens for a reason, and I am left wondering if the class being canceled was for the best. I know the fight would have happened no matter what, that something would have set them off along the line, it is just the timing of it all.
Well, we shall see what we shall see.
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Today, I will try to swim before class, but since I am in the middle of an allergy relapse, I am not sure if I will be able to breathe enough. I will lead class however, so I know I will be able to do that.
Proud of myself does not begin to cover it.