Cough, Cough, Wheeeeeeeeeeeze!

Yeah... so I am having a bit of a... a... not a crisis, but whatever you want to call it, it is frustrating the hell out of me! As we know, I am attempting to lose about 100 pounds, hopefully by Halloween 2011. So far, the only thing I am able to do is adjust my eating, and that isn't going to get me very far for long. Why is it just the food, you ask? Well, I am going to tell you, even if you really didn't ask.

Asthma.

Damned, frustrating, irritating, haha-you-THOUGHT-you-would-work-out-but-I-have-other-ideas ASTHMA!
{back story time} When I was age 4, I believe, I was diagnosed with asthma. Woohoo, I didn't care then. Yes, I had to have a couple nebulizer treatments a day, but oh well. Then, it disappeared. It never flared up unless I was breathing straight dust {which I didn't do often, so...}

Then last year I was "lucky" enough to come down with the dreaded H1N1. It is now almost exactly a year later, and I am STILL suffering complications from it, one of which being this ridiculous asthma flare-up.* Friday evening, I speed-walked {is that proper verbage?} home - which, mind you, is literally only about half a block - and I proceeded to have a minor asthma attack that lasted for about 30 minutes. It ended with me in a foggy bathroom, breathing in the humidity. This led me to the knowledge that I am unable to exercise.

What does this mean for my goal? The loss from eating better is only going to last so long, as I mentioned, so what happens then?

{in the best comic book narrator voice} Is this the end of the Fantabulous B? Will she EVER meet her goal? Or will she be forced by her imperfect lungs to hover in the limbo of overweightness?

Stay tuned for our next episode...

Success {However Small} is So Sweet!

WOOHOO! Yes, since my innagural post, I have manged to lose 2 pounds. :D Now, the BIGGEST question is: Can I maintain, but preferably keep losing, over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend? With my mother-in-law at the stove, that will prove to be a challenge indeed. However, I feel I am up to it!

I have been at work for almost four hours now, and that whole time there has been a Diet Dr. Pepper shining at me. I haven't even opened it. Aside from the wheezing and coughing from my exaserbated asthma, I feel GREAT! So far, my food intake has been pretty good, too:
1 Gala apple
2 pcs Whole Wheat Toast w/ Spray Butter
12 grape tomatoes with a tiny bit of salt & pepper
1 serv. Cheez-It crackers
1/2 serv. Rold Gold Classic Style Tiny Twists
about 2 8oz. glasses water

Me thinks the leaves, they are a turning!

The Screams of the Silent

So here I am. I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to blogging... nor life, when I stop and think about it. Where to begin? Perhaps it is best to just dive right in...

I am a full-figured, 30-year old wife and mother of two amazing children. I work two full-time jobs and go to school full-time. The same question comes up often when I tell people of all I do: When do you sleep? Or another one I like is: How do you do it? How does one even answer that question without sounding like a smart-ass? I joke and say I'm like Nike, I Just Do It. Mind you, and this is only a recent epiphany on my part, to Just Do It there are things that get sacrificed - whether knowingly or unknowingly I am unsure. But the fact remains that sacrifices are made, and generally it seems to be at the expense of my own health and well-being.

I think this is the easiest to do. To fall into a mind-set of "I don't matter as much as the ones I love do". Okay, that's great and selfless (in appearance) and all... but what happens when you have sacrificed once too many and suddenly you are not able - or even on this plane of existence - to take care of the ones you sacrifice for? I have noticed over the last three years and four months that the line of balance is a fine one to dance.

I was recently told by a medical professional that my glucose numbers are getting too close for comfort to those of pre-diabetic people. To hear that, it froze me in my seat. My mother - may she rest in peace - was a diabetic (among other ailments from the age of 50 until the day she passed one month and 8 days after her 58th birthday) and she had some serious complications that arose from it. She was my everything, but I do NOT want to end up just like her in this sense. But it is so damned hard!

THAT is where the fury comes in to this full figured existence. Why the HELL does it have to be so hard to be healthy? Shouldn't that be just about the easiest thing on this planet? Perhaps I wear these rose-colored glasses a bit too often, but it sure seems like it should be that way. Preservative-filled meat and fatty fries should NOT be cheaper than apples and avocados. It also really shouldn't be that hard for a person to wake up, stretch, and do 30 minutes of cardio and/or weight resistance training. But it is. At least for a lot of us, it is. It's all about habit, really. The getting there part is the craggy mountain climb, though.

So why blog about it? What makes me feel my story is so damned important that I have to fill up virtual space with it? Well, I don't really. But I can't help but wonder if there are others out there who might somehow stumble upon these posts, read a little (or a lot), and really identify with them. If I can help even ONE other person indirectly or otherwise, that is all I can hope for. I also can't help but wonder if spilling it out like this will help me to put things in a bit of perspective.

So stay and read if you will, go if you must, but I offer up these words as a pillar to grasp on to and know in the cockles of your soul that you are NOT alone in this battle of health and wellness and we WILL get through it if we try. The only thing is we can't be screaming silently. We have to get up and get mad at ourselves, or whatever it takes to light that fire under our bums. We have to get okay with doing it for ourselves, because if we don't, we may not be here to do it for those that we love.