Balance

Like many people one of my biggest struggles is finding balance between my family, my work, and myself. Something that is super important for me to be doing is exercising on a daily basis. Finding the time to do so is a challenge for me.

My daughter, "S" has autism. She is 12 and while she is pretty high functioning, she struggles with communication. She has a modified school schedule, and does therapy four days a week for four hours, and then also has another program two nights a week. She sees a counselor twice a month for past trauma with her biological parents. She needs extensive help with understanding her homework, especially math, and reading. Reading which trickles down to every other area of her life.

Besides that she competes on a cheerleading team, and is involved with Special Olympics. Both of which I volunteer within different roles. Both are a lot of fun, but another thing she needs transport to.

Recently, we had a five year old girl "T" placed with us in an emergency situation. She also has a schedule, and fitting the two of their schedules, into my work schedule, and my husband's schedule, and trying to figure out times to exercise is extremely hard. The classes I love and that motivate me the most are in the mornings, while my daughter is in therapy, and I am driving "T" to school then racing to work.

Its hard to find balance in the chaos and I would be lying if I said I found it. I have not. So despite my plans, thoughts, goals, the last two months I have not lost anything. Which means I have not yet lost the required weight to be approved for my surgery. What this means is from now until January I need to be in constant beast mode and lose 30 pounds. I need to stop letting myself not work out at night when I am utterly exhausted. I need to reach down deep and do the work. I need to stop breaking the promises I made to myself.

This is huge, I am big on promises. I never break one.... unless its a promise to myself. This year I am going to lose weight, become rich, move into my dream home, learn guitar, how to knit, and travel to Scotland all while I write the world's greatest novel and be the world's best mom. I say this every single year. And every year I find myself breaking that promise to myself. I find myself justifying breaking the promises to myself so I can do for others.

So this next month I CAN NOT break this promise. I have to keep this promise to do my best, to try my best, to every day put good fuel into my body and not junk. To drink 150 oz of water each day. To work out every day. to get my steps in.

If I don't what will happen? If I don't meet this goal, I will lose out on surgery. I will have to leave the program and start over in another six months. No big deal right?  Wrong! I always put it off, I say "I will start my diet tomorrow.." "Next year I will lose the weight.." Meanwhile I am miserable in my own skin, I am sick, and tired, physically exhausted, I have no energy. I have Type 2 diabetes. The same disease that a good friend of my husband's just lost his foot for. Another friend lost their sight to. Yeah I am kind of attached to my feet, and to my eye sight. So I need to fix this now, and stop procrastinating.

I do not have a plan at this time, or a road map of how to achieve this thirty pound weight loss... I am kind of shell shocked that it has come to this, that I am this close to losing something I have worked so hard for the last 12 months. While I have already lost 30 pounds, I did so before starting this program officially with the Weight Loss Team, so I have another 30 to lose.

I am also feeling like sh*t tonight. I have a massive headache and I feel like if I could projectile vomit all over the room circa "The Exorcist" I would feel so much better.  So planning that road map to success is gruesome for me right now when every heartbeat my head feels like its going to explode. Counter to that rhythm, is the thought drumming away at me " I need to figure this out. I need to plan it out, map it out, write it out, and post it EVERYWHERE.

One thing I know... is it has to be one step at a time. One meal at a time. One cardio session at a time, one squat at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Today for breakfast I had a half cup of green beans, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, and six slices of hard salami washed down with 24 oz of water.  (Not shown is the hard salami) I put this on a small six inch plate, so that it looked like a ton of food, and tricked my mind into believing I was eating more than I was.

Lunch was 1/2 cup green beans. 4 hard boiled eggs, and six slices of hard salami. At this point in the day I had 124 oz of water. I was floating to the bathroom every 30-45 minutes.

As of 7:10 pm tonight, as I write this blog, I have not had supper. Around 2:30 pm this after I started feeling ishy. It has gotten worst since then, with the general feeling of if I could just do that vomit thing I would feel better...

I have 164 oz of water in at this point.


5000 steps, 100 squats, and 20 crunches. I am doing a 30 day "Butt and Gut" challenge that officially starts January 1st, but I started a little early.

So I sign off of the blog today with no plan, but a promise to myself that the next 30 days I am going to work the hardest I have ever worked in my life on me, myself and I. Fitting I believe because in 30 days is mine and Greg's 17th anniversary.  I plan on celebrating by getting my date with the surgeon.