Series of misfortunate events

Sometimes people have very down days let me tell you about the downward spiral of a day that I had yesterday and today. Well yesterday I make it back to Norman way later than I had anticipated which had already put me in a slight state of stress. I had some things that I needed to get done and had planned on going to bed early because I had to leave my house at 5:30 this morning to make it to my surgery on time. Thhis is where it all began...follow me on my journey shall we...

First things first I got mad about some selfeshness that occured by a family member. Instead of worrying about putting me out this person was more worried about themself and threw some stuff at me that was unnecessary ( I have a theory that the reason people gain weight during the holiday season is not necessarily because of all the food, but more so because of the stress that family puts on people). Then I went to my friends house to borrow her phone charger because I forgot mine at my mothers and did not want to have to be without one.

My mom dropped me off at my friends so that she could run to Wal-mart and get some things while she's staying with me during my recovery period. My mom had to use my car because she was recently in a car accident so she just rode back down here with me. Once she was done at Wal-mart my mom and my neice came to pick me up from my friends house. Here's where it starts to get worse...

About a mile or so down the road from my friends on my way back to my house, my car locks up and stops working. Luckily I was near a gas station so I pulled into it. It was a ghetto gas station and crack heads and a Greyhound bus rolls up (you always know you're hanging in the 'hood when there's a Greyhound...FYI). I would have in no way have been so worried about it, but my four year-old niece hadn't have been in the car. This was around  10:30 last night.

I was forced to call my roommate who I assumed was already in bed because she is the only person I know who has jumper cables, sadly I was on the other side of town. She came and we tried to jump my car and guess what to no avail. I assumed it was the battery because A.) I knew I was going to be needing a new one soon and B.) when the car started to stall the battery light came on.

So my mother and my niece went home with my roomie and I stayed to try to figure out what I was going to do. This was at 11 p.m. of course when you have surgery you can't do anything after midnight so my plan was to drink as many fluids (ie., water) as possible before midnight. This did not happen. My friend whom I had gone to see earlier came and got me and I was thankful.

She and I ran to Wal-mart and got a battery for my car. We went back to my car and guys let me tell you how proud I was  of myself I have never done anything under the hood of a car except check my oil and between my friend and I we successfully changed my battery (which magically fixed my formerly broken CD player/radio). But that was not the problem, the car still wouldn't start.

We ended up leaving my car there overnight and my dear friend gave me her car to take to the hospital this morning. I got home and it was around 2:30 a.m. and I could not sleep. The last time I remember looking at the clock it was 3:45 a.m. and my alarm went off at 4 a.m. I was scared that because my evening had been so bad that my day was going to be as well and that scared me  because I was going under the knife.

It's like in the movie "Due Date" the character says well since the day has starated off so bad "it is only uphill from here, that's what my dad always said" and Robert Downey Jr.'s character quickly corrects Zach (Hangover guy)'s character saying, "you're dad was wrong the saying goes it's only downhill from here". Well this was my fear.

I was then sitting in the waiting room at the hospital and the news came on to tell me that my favorite funny man in Hollywood Leslie Nielsen died at the age of 84. It broke my heart and made me sad. I then thought about it and it would be good to not go into surgery with a negative attitude. What if I died? What if something went wrong?

The point in this post was not to just have a beotch fest, but instead to point out that no matter how bad things get it is always better to have a positive attitude because a positive and healthy mind means a healthy body. Maybe we should all think more along the lines of the Hangover guy and think that, "it is all up hill from here". On the plus side I was so vervous about jumping on that scale in fear that I had gained massive ammounts of weight back, but I had not. I gained back a pound, which makes me sad, but I truly feared it would have been more like 5 if not all of it back. Looks like we all just need to be more positive and not be Negative Nancy's.

I'm going to take some pain pills and do nothing because at this point that is all I have the strength to do.

My Life's Biggest Project: Scary Scales

My Life's Biggest Project: Scary Scales: "Today will be an interesting day. I have not been home since Tuesday which means I haven't been on a scale since then. That makes me nervous..."

Scary Scales

Today will be an interesting day. I have not been home since Tuesday which means I haven't been on a scale since then. That makes me nervous. I should make it home by around 3 today and I'm actually scared to step on the scale. I think by far, the hardest thing about dieting is not being able to be at your home. When you are staying with someone you don't seem to have as much control over what you are eating and when. At least I can say that is a problem that I am faced with. I don't want to hurt people's feelings or make them feel put out by my diet, but I also realize that this is probably one of the reason's that I have put on so much weight over the years.

Unlike many overweight people I was not always a big person. In fact when I was younger I was so thin that the doctors had my mother put me on an eat diet. Most larger people that I've spoken to say that this is something that they have dealt with since childhood, that just wasn't me. Puberty is definitely when weight became an issue for me (or so I thought). I remember freaking out because I was a size 7 (which I would kill to be now). I started getting curves and filling out in places I never had before. Funny thing people (boys particularly) liked these curves because I was getting them in the right places, but I was not happy about them. I thought boobs made me look fat and hips and a J.LO booty were not going to get me into a size 0.

This is one of the points in my life where the weight became an issue. As disscussed in a previous blog there were some things that occured in my life that were unwarented which assisted in my lead to demise, but that wasn't the only problem. I screwed my metabolism up like crazy. I wanted to be anorexic. What kind of mindset is that. Crazy right? I know now and even knew then that it is a disease, but I didn't care. I wanted to be skinny. I would go days without eating and weeks with eating a very small ammount then I would splurge and eat tons of food. Then throw it all up. It was a vicious cycle, but all of my friends were thin and beautiful and I wanted to look like them.

Then I moved and food became a reward almost to myself. I would splurge on junk food because I was alone and nobody was there to tell me otherwise. I hated the way I looked, but really and truly I hated myself. For many reasons. Middle school is when weight became a problem. I would fluctate from a size 10 to a size 14 and trust me it is no fun trying to shop at junior stores when you are a 14. I went back and forth between these sizes from 7th grade all the way until my freshmen year of college.

Something crazy happened my freshmen year and I dropped a whopping 50 pounds. Everyone else was packing on that freshmen 15 and I had found a way to lose weight. I was happy and that was probably part of the transition but for the first time in my life I had control. I controled what I ate and when I ate it and being a control freak I liked having that kind of power. I kept most of that weight off until the end of my sophmore year.

That was a crazy year. I went through a heart-wrenching break up and thought I would never live again (you know the type, very dramatic).  My best friend wasn't my best friend anymore and she didn't want to have anything to do with me (sure we had problems, but childish people who had nothing going on in their lives only further perpetuated these problems by making up stories that never happened and basically lying about everything). One of my other best friends and I really drifted apart and I felt very alone. The weight slowly started to creep back on, but by no means had I blown up to what I had been.

My junior year I started eating out more and that was not kind to my waiste line. I also had my big kid birthday....21st. Which is when I found Ned's my favorite watering hole (not just in Tahlequah, but in the world). Not that I went and got sloshed everytime I went, there were lots of water and or Dr. Pepper nights, but I did enjoy being there. That's where everyone else was and I wanted to be there with my friends and all of the cute boys...lol (at that time there was one in particular that hung out there often and I just knew that if he saw me there we would have more of a chance of talking and then he would find out that he liked me and then he would want to date me). Sad story, but a true one. I thought that this guy was "it", you know what I mean and for the first time in a long time I liked someone who I thought had a future. He was not only gorgeous he was smart, a hard worker and extremely driven. No I didn't just go to the bar to be seen by him, I also went to be social. I wasn't one of those girls who's only incentive for having a night on the town was to meet guys, mine was to be social.

In fact the summer that I interned in Tulsa, I would drive straight from my internship to Ned's just to hang out with my friends. Then I found the 57 T-bird, which I'm sure can be blamed for a few pounds that I put on my body, but really the weight gain didn't really become noticeable to me until my senior year of college, which was by far the most stressful year of my life (at that time). I was working a couple of jobs and trying to plan for my future. I drank more my senior year than before and I was drinking beer because it was cheap, I also was sleeping the bare minimum of what any one person should sleep. My newspaper job was high stress and there was mass ammounts of imbalance in my life. I started going to the gym with one of my friends and instead of gaining weight (which I would have) I lost some weight and at the very least stayed consistant instead of gaining.

Then grad school happened and this is where it all went downhill. I was alone all the time, stressed out and depressed and I woke up one day looked at my body and felt truly uncomfortable in my own skin. I had pooches where I never had before. In a very short ammount of time I had become fatter than I had ever been in my entire life. Again I hated myself. This is one of the reasons I decided I needed the change. I'm a positive person who's full of life and EXTREMELY Social. I need and love to be around people. I got to the point last year where I was so disgusted with myself that I didn't want to get out of bed because I was embarassed. I didn't want people to see what I had become. I didn't know who I was anymore. Obviously change was needed.

I am mad at myself for not speaking up and drawing some lines this week, but I didn't want to make anyone else uncomfortable. I just have to keep reminding myself that I can be thin, I can like the skin I live in and most importantly I can do this. I fear the scale, but if I step on it and don't like what I see I'm just going to have to be that much more hardcore. I also am very nervous because my surgery is in the morning and I know that I won't be able to be very active for a couple of weeks so I'm going to brainstorm about what I can do to keep on track, once I've come up with some things I will tell you...if you have any ideas please throw them my way.

My Life's Biggest Project: From bashing to beautifying

My Life's Biggest Project: From bashing to beautifying: "For those of you who enjoy trashy television as much as I do you know who Perez Hilton is. The gay trash talker is known for being ridiculou..."

From bashing to beautifying

For those of you who enjoy trashy television as much as I do you know who Perez Hilton is. The gay trash talker is known for being ridiculously crude and rude, but one thing he is also known for is the extreme body transformation that he has gone through himself. When Hilton first launched his blog that resembled some kind of tabloid on crack (in terms of the multitude of his offensive opinions) he himself was overweight. He would often comment on unhealthy lifestyle choices made by the rich and famous (things like smoking and having intense party habits). Hilton himself has certainly slimmed up and why you may love or hate him fact is he has found a way to have a healthier life.

Perez before

Hilton realized that he no longer could be excluded from being the butt of the joke when he himself weighed 248 pounds about two years ago. Hilton was ashamed of his body and then promised himself that he was going to make a change. He has kept the weight off by staying active seven days a week and maintaining a healthy diet.

Naturally being a blogger and being someone who found his fame on the Internet it only made sense that Hilton's next career move would be to create a fit Web site. On this site Hilton says he will not only disclose information about how he himself has lost so much weight, but also much more than that. Hilton says that the site is going to be created to encourage a happier and healthier lifestyle to his followers. It will include recipes, pictures of celebrities showing off their hot bods (could this be thinspiration like on pro-ana sites? Who knows.), celebrities workout tips and interviews with the celebrities and their personal trainers. The Web site will also include food and fitness trends and stories having to do with one's overall health. These stories would include things like mood issues, fertility and other health concerns.

Perez now!

I'm really glad that I came across this article and I am sure I will use his Web site in the future to tell you guys things that I have learned. I personally love having many different outlets to learn from. According to Hilton himself his Web site will be chalk full of real health information that will be presented to its readers in a "fun and sassy way," said Hilton.

My Life's Biggest Project: Heart Conscious Technology

My Life's Biggest Project: Heart Conscious Technology: "You know how some say that technology is taking over every aspect of the world, well there just may be something to that. While researching ..."

Heart Conscious Technology

You know how some say that technology is taking over every aspect of the world, well there just may be something to that. While researching today I came across this article. Several companies are making heart rate monitors that help people keep track of their fitness level. It tells the person how many calories they have burned, gives one their heart rate and even gives "motivation-bossting messages, displayed on the watch face."

Lack of exercise is a major risk factor for developing coronary artery disease, (according to the American Health Association as well as common knowledge). Keeping with a regular exercise program is good for one's health as we all know, we also know that finding the motivation and or time to keep on track is really where the issue is for most people. This is where the product comes in. The article says, "instead of fretting about it, let technology come to your rescue and give you that extra push you need."

So that one can keep up with their weight-loss goals, WIThings (a French company) makes an electronic scale with a built-in Wi-Fi connection that can automatically record one's weight and send it to the individuals home computer, iPhone or iPad instantly. The Haier American Trainer makes a portable MP3 player which also has a heart rate monitor, pedometer, calorie counter and stopwatch and it is tiny enough to clip onto whatever attire you have chosen to jog or workout in.

Not all of us have the economic benefit of being ablet to purchase nice things like this, but for those who can these may be just the things to ask for from Santa this year. It's neat that they exist and further shows one more way that our world can depend on technology. The iPhone for example is the only way I can function. Without that map I would never know where I was. My friends fear that I may be too co-dependent on my phone and that may be true, but with health conscious technology will it be a bad thing to be co-dependent on that kind of technology? Food for thought, and that kind of food won't add any lbs to your booty...lol. Tomorrow I'll tell you all about what I stumble upon then.

As far as Thanksgiving went. I can honestly say that I did not consume nearly as much this year as I have in the past and I didn't put any gravy on  my turkey at all. I did eat the dressing (which is loaded in carbs and completely bad for you), but it's my favorite part. I did not walk away from the table feeling like I was going to burst so all and all I would say food wise it was not as big of an epic fail as I feared it may have been. I hope that you all had a great time with your friends and family. I also hope that everyone was safe during the hustle and bustle of today's shopping. I stayed at my Aunt and Uncle's and played some guitar hero with my cousin. Now I'm going to go jump on his trampoline with him :)

To help you maintain your weight-loss goals, the French company WIThings makes an electronic scale with a built-in Wi-Fi connection that automatically records your weight and instantly transmits it to you home computer, iPhone, or iPad. And to make those early morning jogs less boring, Haier America Trainer makes a portable MP3 player that also includes a heart rate monitor, pedometer, calorie counter, and stopwatch and is small enough to clip to your workout gear.