A Year Of Ups And Downs

Happy New Year! Hope you all did something fun to ring in 2011. This New Year's Eve, we actually did something rather unusual: we stayed in. We almost always go to a party or out to dinner with friends, but after the year I've had, it felt appropriate to relax. So we settled down and watched the annual Twilight Zone marathon and hung out. When midnight hit, the cat jumped up on Jon's lap, so all three of us rang in 2011 together.

I can't say that 2010 was a BAD year because there were some highs, but there were also some pretty significant lows. It's been a terrible year for me health-wise. Aside from breaking my leg, I contracted a horrible bronchial infection this fall, which lasted about a month. That's why I haven't blogged much since November. I'm feeling a lot better now, but the illness wiped me out. I seriously didn't feel like doing anything, even meeting up with friends, and that was depressing. Happily, I began to come back to life in December. This is why this entry is so long; I have a lot to say!

Of course, there were many good things about 2010, as well. Breaking my leg could've been so, so much worse, but it wasn't and truth be told, I enjoyed having a long break from work. During that time, I became close to a friend of a friend, Karen, who's also my neighbor, and who helped me out a lot while I was temporarily disabled. Jon and I also celebrated our 10th anniversary with a lovely party and we took a few small trips this year.

And then, I began my jewelry making venture. I unfortunately haven't put a store together (that's one of my resolutions), but I have learned a lot about making jewerlry. It's something that I really love to do. I've made necklaces and bracelets for friends' birthdays and for holiday gifts, and it's great to see people getting so happy over receiving my handmade presents. I've also received compliments when I've worn my own pieces. But what I really like about making jewelry is the challenge and creativity involved. I'm always so excited when I pick up a new skill. I used to feel this way about music, but I've been playing the flute for so long that I feel as if I've reached the pinnacle of what I'll ever achieve with it. I still love music and hope to eventually record another album, but right now, creating beautiful jewelry is the thing that's making me happiest.

As for my weight loss efforts, well, I think you can guess that they haven't been going so well. I started this blog about a year ago (on January 3), so I'm disappointed in myself for not taking better care of myself. I don't really know how to get up the motivation, which is a bad thing, because it's reached a point where I can't live the way I want to. We had a blizzard here this past week and the snow affected me so much, more so than it did a lot of other people -- and I know that it's because of my weight.

For instance, when I go to the bus stop in the morning, I always sit on these steps as I wait for the bus to arrive. However, with the snow, the steps were covered and I had to stand in the street for about 15 minutes. This probably doesn't sound like such a big deal, but without having anything to sit on or even lean against, I was in PAIN. My husband came with me that day and let me try to lean against him, but it just wasn't working for me and I was crying. Finally, the bus came and I could sit and get the weight off of my knees and back.

It's also been difficult just to walk in the snow because of my leg. I'm nervous about slipping on the wet sidewalks, so I've been taking little, baby shuffling steps ... which are murder on my back and knees, and my ankle. With the snowy residue present, I could barely walk about 50 feet without having to stop. I met up with Scott for dinner the other day and I had to hold onto him as I shuffled my way to a nearby bus stop. I felt like I was an 80 year old. It was very frustrating.

Because I can't even stand for long periods of time, there's a lot I can't do. Obviously, I can't take long walks or dance at a club, but even just doing things like walking around the supermarket -- or looking at an exhibit at a museum -- are hard for me. I miss shopping, hiking and well, even just being able to stand at a bus stop without it being a big deal. At a friend's holiday party, a bunch of people were talking about their upcoming ski trip. Jon and I felt a little left out of the conversation because they were all going and we weren't invited, but realistically, I know that even the idea of me considering something like that is a joke because there's no way I'd be able to do anything active.

That said, I'm beginning to feel a bit trapped -- both in my apartment and my body -- but I am trying to make changes. After that holiday party, Jon and I walked to the train, which is over a mile away (this was before the blizzard). It felt great to be outdoors and to walk for fun, even though it took me over an hour to get there. I've also been taking fewer cabs in the city and have been walking to meet friends at restaurants and bars. Again, I have to stop at like every corner, but I'm making the effort.

Plus, I've been trying to eat better. There's this restaurant downstairs from my office called Pump Energy Food that serves healthy cuisine, so I've been ordering in from them every day. They have this great menu where you can choose fresh veggies and lean fats/meats, and have them in either a wrap, salad or platter. I've been getting the salad with spinach, Brussel sprouts, mushrooms, sweet potatoes and bison meatballs. I then get a cup of carrot soup. The Pump has a ticker going that lists all of the calories and nutritional info in your order, so I've been keeping it to about 500 calories. That's a nice, hearty lunch and I'm getting several servings of veggies in.

In other news, I am no longer doing Weight Watchers. I've been on and off that program -- with some success -- for about seven years, but they recently decided to revamp their entire system. I'm not pleased with the new changes. They changed up their whole POINTS system so that I'm now supposed to be eating twice as many points as I was before. I figured that they'd just recalculated the points for foods, but the numbers seemed to be the same. It's all very confusing. Then when I tried to use the old grid for my food journal, it would no longer let me do that; my only choice now is to use the new version of their program. Needless to say, I'm annoyed with the whole thing and want to find a simpler and easier to understand program. I think I'm just going to go with the old-fashioned, "Eat 1500-1800 calories, making most of it from veggies and lean meats," system. I'd like to find another place where I can calculate my food and keep a journal, so if anyone has ideas, let me know. I'm not doing anything like Jenny Craig or Nutri-System or MediFast, etc. I know that these programs work for many people, but a big part of my problem is that I tend to treat weight loss like a "project" and stop trying when I reach a particular goal in a program. I liked WW because it wasn't set up to be a temporary thing and am disappointed that they decided to make all of these unncessary changes. I sort of wish I'd printed out the entire old points list so I could continue to use that, but I had no idea that they were suddenly going to switch things up. I'm getting pissed thinking about it, but it's not like I'd lost this great deal of weight, anyway.

I don't understand why losing weight is SO difficult for me. I don't even want to be thin anymore; I just want to be functional and normal. It's easy to say, "Oh, don't eat that," or "do this," or "drink water," but I seriously think that there's something wrong in my brain that makes me not know how to handle food. I'm not kidding. I'm a hard-working person who likes to chase goals and yet I just can't seem to do this. I know I'm the only one. I have a relative, who's also a hard-working person and is obese; she's gone on millions of diets, too, and she hasn't found success either. Some overweight people probably are lazy and do nothing but eat, but many of us aren't. I wish that more research would be done and they can just find a pill for me that makes me not think about food altogether.

I'm really going to try to lose in 2011, but honestly, I don't have a lot of hope anymore. I'm not being negative; I'm just being realistic. I think maybe I just need to accept that I'm going to be overweight and just try to do what I can with that.