WEGO Health Award

Somebody nominated me for a WEGO Health Award. Me. Like I deserve a nomination for any sort of award. Nevertheless, I want to thank the person who took time out of their life to throw my hat in the ring. I have some strong opinions about myself when it comes to this blog, not to mention my basically nonexistent fibromyalgia awareness efforts. Flaky and not dependable are two terms that come to mind. I disappear for months at a time. Half of my blog is spent ranting and raving over what is. Life is an overwhelming experience for me. Sometimes getting up each day takes more than I have. As a result, consistency is not my strong suit.

Yet somebody still cares. It's a marvel. I don't feel worthy of having people care. Every time I stop blogging for an extended amount of time, I start up again with the fantasy that everyone has written me off as an unstable drama queen and I can kinda use this blog as a journal nobody will read. Albeit one published on the net, but a personal accounting of my twists and turns nonetheless. It doesn't take long for the hit counter to start rolling, letting me know people are indeed reading. Who are you? And why are you still with me? I honestly want to know.

I have a bad history with comments. There was a lot of hate exchanged in the comments section of this blog back in the early days. Reading the comments people left me used to inspire a freak out. Before I'd even open the darn thing, I'd prepare for the worst. My heart would start racing. My vision would tunnel in. Blood flow whooshing in my ears, I'd close my eyes and press the button with all the trepidation of a person nuking the world. And if the comment was mean, well, I'd most immediately, quite certainly come undone. Is it any wonder I shut comments off for a while?

It's a new day over here in Leahland. Comments don't scare me. Trolls and cyber bullies don't scare me. Quite frankly, I don't think there are all that many pointed in my direction anymore. And if there are, I don't care. I've got stuff to do. I've got a life to live, health to reclaim, and success to achieve. Perhaps I'm armoring myself up in preparation for the YouTube channel I decided to start with my husband. We're vlogging our experience with intermittent fasting. I can only imagine how rude those comments are going to get...

The thing is, in spite of my fear and paranoia over being made aware of the general public's opinion of me, I've encountered some amazing people along the way. Like the person who cared enough to take the time to nominate me for the WEGO Heath Award. Thank you, whoever you are. Finding the motivation to put myself and my sorry little existence out there year after year can wane. It means a lot to know somebody still cares.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

Nominate Leah for the WEGO Health Award: Best Kept Secret

The Little Loser

Three pounds. Last Monday revealed, after completing two weeks of intermittent fasting, that I lost three pounds. Thank God. It was a paltry relief, though, if that makes sense. I'm not gonna say I expected that simply narrowing the window of time I spend eating each day was going to quickly morph me into a perfect version of myself but...it would've been oh-so nice.

Last week I lost three pounds. This morning, none, bringing the total of my three-week weight loss to three pounds. Not exactly stellar. Also, in the same amount of time my husband has lost like ten pounds. Yay him. Now he weighs himself every day. That seems excessive to me. My moods are already questionable when I first wake up, and it's entirely plausible that a pound or two fluctuation could take a somewhat grouchy mood that burns off like the morning fog and make it stick around all darn day. But there's no denying he's experiencing more success than I am.

Intermittent fasting is certainly doing other things besides not help me lose much weight. Stirring up flares, for one. The flare I had the first week was epic. I got a big boil on my right cheek. I was a woman on the verge for like four days, which is a really long time to be ready to snap. Suddenly my tolerance for subjugating my own needs for the sake of another's convenience was nonexistent. I was on a mission to reclaim my lost life. Fueled by that special kind of amped-up anger only my worst flares can trigger, I decided no one was going to stop me and turned into a psycho bitch.

Week two was a huge improvement. I didn't have a flare. I drank a bunch of water so wasn't really hungry. I realized not eating for sixteen hours at a time wasn't going to send me into starvation mode. No, it was actually helping me feel much better. I seemed to have found a path of accountability and control. I went to the gym once and did yoga once.

Last week, not a good week. Another flare. The kind where I don't want to brush my teeth or take my vitamins, like the fundamental need to take care of myself didn't matter. I didn't exercise once, haven't done that since February. I even skipped my weekly writer's group. Now I live for my writer's group. It's the one thing I do in the outside world that makes me feel like I'm moving my life forward. But it's also the kind of thing I can't attend in an overly sensitive and irrational state. Having people rip apart my work is hard on a good day, but necessary for the betterment of my craft. But if I know I'm already sensitive and irrational, well, can somebody say powder keg?

Now every time I start exercising after an extended break, I go into terrible flare cycles for a while. I assume flexing my muscles releases the toxicity that's stored inside of me. Eventually if I stick with it, my flares go away and I wind up far better off than I was to start. Honestly, it's the only way I've been able to get out of pain. An absurd reality, I know, but one that I own all the same. Maybe that's what's happening with intermittent fasting? I've heard there's a whole cellular die-off and detox benefit to this lifestyle. That could be contributing to my uptick in flares.

Who knows what this week will bring. I'm certainly changing my weigh-in day. Deciding to step on the scale after my weekends of binging was a stupid idea. I feel too good overall to stop, even though I'm not seeing pound-or-inches results. I still need to exercise more, I still need to drink less, and no magic wand has been waved over my life. But ultimately I'm more in control of myself and moving in the right direction.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

Nothing Lost, Nothing Gained

So my first week of intermittent fasting is under my belt. Do we really wanna talk about my first week of intermittent fasting? I don't. It was a mess. I was a mess. What's new? Where to start...

Let's just say I thought I was a person who already kinda intermittent fasted. I wake up late because I go to sleep late. I have no desire to eat until hours after I've been awake. In fact, I view food and my need to consume it as a nuisance.

Don't get me wrong. I'm the perfect gal to take out to a fancy dinner with a sumptuous wine paring. I'll eat that plate up and drink you out of house and home, relishing every moment. But when it comes to taking time out of my day to prepare a nutritious meal and consume it for the sake of my health...well...there's so much other stuff I need to be doing.

With that attitude, one would think I'd be skinny. Or at the very least still really sick. Yet I'm neither.

One week of intermittent fasting showed me I was in no way, shape, or form already practicing intermittent fasting. Last week I was HUNGRY. Every morning I woke with food on the brain. Cutting myself off from food and drink by eight PM proved torturous. By the time I was ready to break my fast around noon, my mouth was watering. I was lightheaded. Spots were floating around the room. My body didn't look an ounce skinnier, but how on Earth could it not?

My weigh-in last Monday morning yielded not one single pound of weight loss. It was a bit of a shock. Then I remembered that's kinda how my life goes.

I didn't gain any weight either, but whatever. Considering how many hours I spent hungry, that's no consolation. Every morning I literally salivated while watching my clock as I waited for those "non-fasting" hours to arrive. When they finally did, I ate. Man did I eat. I was so afraid of being hungry once my eight-hour eating window ended, while I was in it--I ate. And I did yoga once.

This week was different. I broke my fast with coffee instead of plowing through a meal and didn't eat food until an hour afterward. I exercised twice and one of those was a weight-lifting session at the gym. Still not great but an improvement. The biggest thing I did was drink a lot of water. Like all the time. Every time I was hungry or thirsty during my sixteen-hour daily fast, I drank eight sips of water.

My husband told me eight sips makes me an obsessive freak, but what's new. It killed my hunger pains. I experienced no periods of light-headedness. My mouth didn't water once. I felt so much better as a human being, it's not even funny.

Having some control back in my life feels golden. Tomorrow I weigh in. Goodness gracious, for the love of all things holy, please let me have lost one pound.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

Adrift

I've been a lost little ship at sea over here. While my health has improved dramatically since last year, my life has not. I no longer have that nightmare of a chronic-fatigue-syndrome relapse to blame. No, this is much worse. I only have my lack of discipline.

Lacking discipline is far too simple a phrase to convey how far I've let my life go. I was furious that I'd relapsed so hard. I had to quit my job. I had to quit lifting weights. I had to quit socializing. I had to quit bathing daily and putting on makeup before I left the house, that's how pathetic I became. I couldn't walk my dogs on the main drag, the traffic too overwhelming for my sensory capabilities. My depression threatened to swallow me whole.

As a way to cope, I checked out. I drank to much. I ate too much. I stopped caring that I couldn't exercise. I watched TV for twelve hours a day. Cell-phone solitaire became my best friend. It's embarrassing and sad when I think about how poorly I treated myself as punishment for getting sick again.

But today I'm not that sick anymore. I still have flares, of course. Which is a far cry from life being one giant, two-year, never-ending, ever-present flare. I can complete a workout at the gym. I can suffer from a poor night's sleep and still fulfill light obligations the next day. Usually. Getting my period doesn't induce so much pain I race to hurl myself off the nearest bridge. The greatest gift I've been given is I'm no longer yanked to the ground by dips of extreme anger, let alone anguish. Most of the time.

Yet I still drink too much. I'm not eating all that great. Exercise is something I am trying to find the discipline to do more than twice a week. I've gained forty pounds and am displaying no urgency to change the evil ways that put me here. While I've abandoned TV for the most part and have devoted myself more than full-time to writing, I'm still trapped in a motivationless cesspool of shit I'm too unmotivated to drag myself out of!

Last week I committed to intermittent fasting. It's been one hell of an experience thus far. My first weigh in is Monday morning. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for joining,

Leah