Enough

*SPOILER ALERT* This post is a bit of a downer... a bit hohum and not much fun. But it is where life is right now... and I want to be honest and just let it out.

To say I'm frustrated is a bit of an understatement. exhausted, let down, sad, and spent, just to name a few.... But I can't just throw my hands up and be done with it. Life doesn't work that way. Life gets up and moves on.

I had my follow up appointment with the cardiologist yesterday. I did a stress test (i.e. just short of hell, thank you very much) and I had a ultrasound done on my heart. He confirmed what he had thought before. (read my previous post, if you missed this) That my rapid heart beating spells were ... in medical terms.... sinus tachycardia. Basically, my heart beats too fast due to any number of reasons, but its not serious as long as its monitored and controlled with medication. It could go away in a few years. who knows... So its not great news, but its not bad either. I got a green light from him and go back in 3 months to followup again.

The part of the heart that is affected from sinus tachycardia is the upper region. It controls that 'fight or flight response'. Someone jumps out from behind a corner and yells "boo!" you jump back and your heart is racing.... thats the region that is going a little crazy with my heart. It responds to stress or stressful situations to keep your body working properly.

It was brought up in the doctor's visit allllll about my past with Cushing's disease: The prolonged symptoms, the diagnosis, the surgery, the lingering effects 8 years later.... (still over weight). We all kind of made the connection.... Cushings is caused by an over production of cortisol hormone in the body. Cortisol is a stress hormone. The sinus tachycardia (being the area that responds to stress) could (but also maybe not) be a result of the damage the cushings disease did to my body. I'm so sorry if I just totally confused everyone with that link train............ stay with me here. Body is used to excess cortisol (stress hormone) struggles to work properly without it. <--- thats a very lame way of explaining it, but you get the point?

You know what my brain heard through all that? ... YOU'RE STILL NOT CURED. :( You're still dealing with the pieces of a broken body and oh yeah... guess what? your dream of ever being 'healthy' just got on a bus and went a little bit further away down your life path! Best of luck catching up!

I'm usually a pretty positive person. Glass half full and always a rainbow after the rain, kind of talk... I've come so far. I mean, I'm not near the same person I was so 8 years ago when I was diagnosed. I don't even look the same..... (still!) Love the pink hair I had back then..... and isn't my honey so cute? ;)

I have improved in every area of the areas of my body that the disease destroyed... my muscles, my stamina, my mind is clear, I've lost over 100 pounds etc etc.... I just can't shake the rest of the weight and health issues, the high blood pressure and the diabetes that resulted from the weight gain. 

I've always felt like after all this time had passed that I was better and while I had a harder time losing with than most other people, it was all under my control and I just had to buckle down and just do it....

If you had told me 8 years ago when I was going through the surgery and everything that was prior and would follow that I'd still be dealing with it all these years later.... I'd have been so heart broken, kind of like I feel now. I literally thought by this point in my life I'd have conquered it by now. "I'll lose the weight by the time I'm 30! It'll be a brand new decade of my life filled with skinny clothes and a healthy body, better than what I had in my 20s!" It was my biggest achievable goal set and I've had my eye on it for years. Hope. So much determination and hope... While I'm tons tons better than I was, it is really been hard having to adjust my thinking that maybe I won't reach that goal (I have less than 5 months) and I'm just going to have to quit moping around and being mad about it and accept that its ok. :( no matter how frustrating it is... Its giving up a dream that I have had for so long, and really learning that I never really had control over it in the first place :( 

*Told you this was kind of a downer*

My body isn't perfect, its not working the way it should. It may never work the way it should. I was sick for so long before I was diagnosed... who knows what is possible. The formula for weight loss doesn't work on me. eat ___ calories - exercise ____ = weight loss. My fat stores work differently somehow. I don't know all the medical terminology or the scientific facts, but I do know I'm different and believing that I'm not different is only going to lead to more disappointment.

I do know that I can control what I eat. I still continue to eat healthy and exercise and darn-it... SOMETHING has got to give one day! ... right? It seems logical to me. I have to believe its true.

So... I'm going to just give myself a break and quit focusing calories and on weight loss for a while. I don't know how long. But its going to be for a while........ I can't keep subjecting myself to the feeling of failure day after day... week after week when I've realized now that I never really had any control over it in the first place. 

I have all kinds of blog posts planned about how I live and eat healthy, plus tips and tricks to help stay on track... I'm pretty good at the motivation part of losing weight. My focus is going to be on keeping active and nourishing my body with healthy vitamin enriched foods that will provide fuel for my body to focus on healing itself.... and maybe someday... it will. <3

Stress and Heart Issues :(

Sorry I've been MIA for a while. Life gets busy and you do what you gotta do to get through it!

Every time I sit down to write, I go over in my head the reason I actually started writing this blog in the first place. Because I wanted to be honest with myself and my family and friends as I travel through this journey towards health. I also want to be encouraging as well as educational to anyone who happens to stumble upon my blog in search of their own answers.

So, here is the thing. The honest truth. I struggle with anxiety. a lot of it. Sometimes seriously bad, sometimes not so bad. Its been off and on for a good part of my life. I have serious OCD tendencies in areas of my life (in other areas, not so much. weird, right?). When my 4 year old gets mad because she can't do something PERFECT, I can't get upset with her because I know exactly which side of the gene pool that character trait falls from. Yep, yours truly here! :/

This past week I had a few spells where my heart rate spiked up to 145 beats per minute. Most people stay around 100 bpm and only go up with exercise. Mine happened when I was doing nothing. I felt my heart beating out of my chest and got really weak, shortness of breath and shakey hands. It was horrible and left me drained for a good several hours afterwards.

Of course I called my doctor and I was actually able to get into a cardiologist yesterday. He put me on a monitor device for 48 hours. I have to return it Monday and then he'll get the results off it. He changed up my current medications. I still have some testing to do after we get the results from this device I'm wearing, but it doesn't look like it is anything serious right now.(Thank you, Jesus) He said the episodes could be due mostly to stress and it just sometimes happens to people. I could grow out of it in a few years. *fingers crossed it actually is nothing*

Anyways, through all this I've had a pretty severe wake-up call that I need to chill-the-heck-out. Over the last few days, I've tried to keep my mood mellow and relaxed. One of the areas that is getting nixed in my stress list is my scale. I know I weigh on it too often (sometimes 3 times a day, just out of curiosity) but I was under the belief that it helped keep me accountable. 'obviously if I do A + B = I should get C, right?' (FYI, In weight loss, this theory can be totally bogus sometimes) When I don't get the results I'm hoping for, I over analyze and it becomes an obsession down to every single detail of my day... Its been recently pointed out that this behavior/ me... is.... "crazy". (um thanks... mom) 

So, being determined to lessen the stress, I tucked my scale away for a while. NO more weighing and no real way (numbers) to track my progress by. I don't plan on weighing for a whole month. My Disney World weight loss goals are going to wait. Right now, I need to focus on eating healthy, clean meals and NOT obsessing over every detail. The doctor said I could keep exercising because it actually helps to strengthen the heart. (This was the one time in my life I thought I would have a legit excuse to NOT exercise lol) I plan on continuing my alternating days of treadmill and strength training. If nothing else, my endurance and muscles should progress over the next month whether my weight changes or not. And with that, I may not be skinnier for Disney, but I won't die walking the parks all day for a week either.

I'll keep updating as I learn more on my heart and trying to transition into a less stress/OCD lifestyle. 

God please help me... I'm not sure that I know how to NOT stress.