Weight issues

Anyone who knows me knows I have had issues with my weight since about 9 or 10 years old.  I am no stranger to being made fun of or getting bullied because of my weight.  Thanks to my family I was still able to come through public schools with a pretty high sense of self worth.  I am who I am and I know that whether I am overweight or not I will not change the way I treat people.  I want to learn better ways to treat and relate to food.  For a long time I used food as my escape.  I'm not saying I don't fall into that pattern now, but I'm happy to say it's now more the exception than the rule.  You readers may have noticed I pledged weight on the pound for pound challenge for The Biggest Loser.  I have pledged 50 pounds.  This is probably only a fourth of the weight I need to lose.  It is discouraging to realize that, but I think much of the process to losing weight is being aware of your body and habits. 

I'm no expert at any of this, but I know some things that are/are not working for me.  The first thing is to decide what you want to work on first: improving eating, or improving exercise.  Thinking about changing everything in my life all at once overwhelms me and makes me want to give up.  So I started small.  I started by decreasing my portion sizes.  Being able to do this helps if you increase the amount of water you drink during the whole day, and especially during your meal.  Slow down, chew thoroughly, and take frequent drinks. 

Next I found an exercise that worked for me.  I chose walking outside because i don't have the money for a gym membership and I wanted to get to the point where i could run.  I have suffered a mild ankle injury, but before that I was doing interval walking/running for 30 minutes 3-4 days a week.  Though I do this by myself, it has helped to have my wonderful sister as my accountability partner.  We both have an ultimate goal of running several races throughout the year. 

So these were just my first steps in a long journey.  I have made other steps, and I hope I will continue to reach my goals.  The point I wanted to make in this post is to make small goals, choose things that work for you, and keep plugging along.  Even if you have a set back, the fact that you are trying and not giving up is what matters.

I didn't really mean for this post to be a self help blog, but I guess I just want others to know that even if you are not on The Biggest Loser and losing 5-10 pounds per week, weight loss is still possible and important.  I must say that I used to refuse to watch shows about weight loss because it would depress and discourage me, and I would go get more chocolate or ice cream or chips and gorge myself.  Now I see it as uplifting and inspiring.  I like listening to the tips they give and enjoy when those tips are ones that work well for me. 

Living with depression

Depression is a highly misunderstood disease. It is often made fun of, dismissed, or seen as a weak excuse. Being someone who has lived with it for 2/3 of my life, I would say to those attitudes: "screw you". =) I know there are always those who will never understand what those of us with crippling diseases go through on a day to day basis, but it would be nice to not be judged by them. They can keep their opinions to themselves. What I don't think they realize is that their judgemental attitudes only make my depression worse, adding guilt to the cocktail of feelings I have.

All of us feel depressed at one time or another. It is a part of life. It is something everyone should be able to understand. Having to fight with the feelings everyday is tiring and discouraging. Somedays it takes everything in my soul to get myself out of that bed or off the couch and make myself do something as simple as getting myself a drink. On those days the thought of picking up a room or playing with my children makes me want to cry. This fact makes me feel worthless, which adds to my depression. It is a vicious cycle and some days it takes help from friends and family as a supplement to my medication to keep me from going over the edge and crawling back into my bed to ignore the world.

I know my family is affected by my depression, and it seems to have gotten worse in the past couple of months, though why that is i have no idea. I know depression is kind of a taboo subject in today's society, but I feel it is one that needs to be discussed and better understood. Just like with any disease, with knowledge comes understanding, and with understanding comes acceptance and the ability to help those with the disease. It is not easy for me to say to just anybody, but I have depression and I work every day to overcome the challenges that come with it and be the best person I can be.