Project Start Again: Lose 50 Pounds

Ok, so here we go again... Wheeeeee!

I tried to hit this really hard last year, and many obstacles fell into my path to trip me up...my kids getting older and mouthier, the photography business practice, Mike's work schedule among things...but honestly it was most notably - me! I do have an insane habit of being overly ambitious at times...and starting this blog, I really had high hopes to change many parts of my life all in the course of a year. Silly rabbit.

A year seems like so much time at the start of it...and then all of a sudden, it's gone! And you wonder, "what the heck did I do with all that time?" :)

I do have a teeny confession to make that seems appropriate right about now...my wonderful, friendly hometown doc seems to think I have a case of the bi-polars. Just a mild, minor case, he assures me - and even though it's not an official diagnosis, the symptoms do kinda fit. In a normal full blown bi-polar patient, there are two phases - two "poles" - depression and mania. Depending on the person, they spend their time cycling between the two, and may spend some time in the middle, feeling healthy and good. For someone with a severe case, that "middle" is usually only accomplished with the help of medication.

In my case, what we think is happening is a mild version of the mood disorder. Researchers are starting to find out that similar to autism, bipolar has a spectrum. It's not just black and white anymore. Bipolar I, II, III and IV - with differing symptoms and different expressions of mania. I have been depressed on and off since I was an adolescent - my whole family has a history of hormone imbalances - so this should come as no shock to me! :) Depression was always there, even though last year it came to a pinnacle. Open, blue skies seemed so empty and gaping to me - so hopeless and awful. I just wanted to curl up into bed and stare at the wall. Nothing held any true and deep happiness for me - and my emotions were always at the surface. Just telling the doc my symptoms, I was choking back tears the entire visit...yeah, embarrassing! Awkward! And I was always like that - with Mike, my parents, the grocery store clerk...sad. I mean the situation. A sad state of affairs. :) It honestly felt like the post-partum depression I had 2 years earlier, exactly the same - and that had me wondering. Why did it hit me one morning when I woke up? Why wasn't it gradual. The post partum actually woke me out of a sound sleep three days after the kids were born...and stuck with me for three freaking months. This arrived as I woke up one morning, not as severe...but it stayed for months and months.

But that was just one side of it for me. When I felt good - it was this need to finish a project, to feel productive...I wanted nothing else but to work on whatever the project was, and it frustrated me not to be able to do so. Mania? Hmm. In any case, it looks like my mania (or hypomania), if it is truly that, may manifest in bursts of either anger (which is awful) or ambitious streaks...and then cycles with depression. The depression lasts longer for me, and is affected by outside influences..such as the death of our dog.

But also, by exercise. Surprisingly, last year, the three times I tried to go gung-ho and exercise every day, after a week, I would feel this sapping of energy - I always described it as feeling like I got hit by a truck - a little melodramatic, but hey! I'm hormonal. But it really felt like I had the whole body aches. I couldn't get out of bed. Didn't want to! And it inevitably derailed my progress. I'm guessing it has something to do with the exercise messing with my hormone levels, and my body was trying to compensate and level it out. I just need to get past that slump by exercising less, but pulling through it when the hormone crash happens.

I thought you were talking about losing weight here? Why all the melodrama-mama-crazy-woman-bipolar talk? :)

The reason I put this all in here is because it is a crucial piece of info to my hopeful success. I need to take everything I am learning into account and roll with it. With this new little gold nugget, my plan of attack has changed - to be more aware of the mania. Even though I knew it seemed ridiculous to accomplish all of my projects in one year, I still honestly thought I could get it all done! C'est la vie. No more obsessions or a crazed need to finish now (even though I have to repress that every.single.day.), just a slow and steady progression to fix what is broken in my life. Which on days like today it seems like everything is broken. :( I have to realize that I have no consistent help with Mike working cah-ray-zee hours, so anything I do has to come from me, with occasional leaning on him or my dad, or even his dad maybe... but these are my projects, and everyone else has lives to live too! They aren't just sitting there, waiting for me to utilize their crazy talented selves for a design project - we'll see what the year(s) bring! Again, we'll see. I'm gonna stop rambling now. :)

And even though some days I feel like I can do it all over again, finishing things in a year, I am practicing some restraint and taking it easy, in stride. It will all take time if I am to stay the course and not fizzle out like I did last year. Learn from mistakes, move on. Thus the renaming of the blog! I am giving myself as much time as I need to do what I want - no more time frames, just a start...and hopefully an eventual finish.

But the start - the start is what is most important. :)

So, I am restarting this one - on my way to losing 50 pounds...but I will start with 1...then 5...then 10...and so on! Exercise when I can fit it in, eating right when I am able to do so...healthy choices, but not feeling restricted. Comfort food sometimes, laziness whenever I can get it! haha! But always on the lookout to sneak in some exercise into my day. More water! More healthy tea! More healthy additives and nutritionally dense foods - hopefully this whole picture look and hopefully easy and forgiving and flexible approach will be the key for me to make it stick. I so want to be svelte again. That's my new word. Svelte. Love it. It sounds Swedish.