I have been thinking a lot about my New Year's Resolutions and have made quite a few decisions about them. I have also been seriously considering some advice I got from one of my doctor's this year, and that advice is playing a large role in my "resolutions" for lack of a better word. This post is going to get into some medical stuff I've been dealing with for a while and everything is pointing to the need for some sweeping lifestyle changes.
I have had some serious hormonal issues since I was in college. It was in college when my cycles changed and started being less and less predictable. I think I was about 21 the first time I missed what had always been an exactly 28 day cycle and to say I FREAKED OUT might be an understatement. Up to that point the only reason I had ever known for missing a cycle was pregnancy and my boyfriend at the time already had a little girl that was not quite 2 and he had told me he wanted to have a vasectomy and no more children. Then there was that pesky issue of what to tell my parents who had always made it very clear that pregnancy outside of marriage wouldn't have been acceptable, and I was entering my junior year of college. I was completely mortified when the doctor said to me, "You've gained a bit of weight, that is probably the issue." I was maybe 185 or 190 at the time, but I had gained about 20 or 25 pounds since graduating high school. Well, I had never given any consideration that what I was eating could have caused this, and no physician had certainly ever eluded to this beyond, "you need to go on a diet."
Ever since the day the first kid called me fat in middle school, I have wanted that to not be the case, but I didn't know how in the hell to make that happen. As a kid, I didn't know what to tell my parents, and honestly, I tried everything bad and dangerous to make that happen. I was anorexic, I've had binge eating issues, I've been an emotional eater, I've basically done everything but purge and take medications.
This summer my hormonal issues too a nasty turn and I had one of my very unpredictable cycles and it lasted 3 months, until I Had to go have a D & C to stop it. The issues still haven't resolved themselves, but the doctor who did my D&C asked me about my eating habits. Well, I laughed and said, "Really? I'm sitting in your office at 5'2" tall and weighing in at 265, you cannot be serious." At that point he went on a VERY passionate tangent about eating primal and all the benefits of it, etc. The thing is, I met a girl in my dance class last year and she had told me that she lost her weight by eating primal, but I had never heard of it before and I blew it off as yet another fad diet. Dr. Brannon told me about the book, "The Primal Blueprint" so I downloaded it to my Nook, but I've yet to finish reading it. I've started it, but it is very overwhelming! From what Dr. Brannon tells me, women with PCOS suffer the worst of the syndrome but that cutting out grains, wheat, etc. as is required from a Primal diet. He believes that my following a primal diet will not only help me lose weight, it will reduce my PCOS symptoms and possibly get me back into a regular cycle, without additional surgery.
So, now, for my resolutions, They have to be measurable to have any way of saying whether I have been successful or not, so I have a few, which I will report here, they are as follows:
I will run 3 days/week until the Princess Half Marathon on February 24
I will CrossFit 3 days/week until the Princess Half marathon
After the Princess I will Crossfit 5 days/week
I will eat Primal, giving myself 1 day per month as a cheat day
This last one is not measurable, but it is vital to my success:
I will show myself the same love, support and encouragement as I give to my friends and family.
I saw a post on FB not too long ago that said "you wouldn't tolerate it if someone else emotionally abused a family member of yours, why do you accept it from yourself." It was like a kick in the gut to me. I don't treat others with the hateful disrespect that I treat myself with. I wouldn't tolerate someone talking to my sister the way I talk to myself. I would absolutely defend her and demand that someone else treat her with respect, so why do I let me about me? That needs to stop. I need to stop allowing behavior out of myself that I would never accept from anyone else.
You will notice that I haven't made a resolution about weight. The fact of the matter is, all I can control is what I put in my mouth, and how much I move my body. I cannot control how much weight comes off or when it comes off. The reality is, If I do all of this, I will likely lose the weight I want to lose, but i can't afford to tie my success or failure to a scale. I need to focus on healthy habits, and the weight loss is just a convenient and exciting side-effect to making healthy choices.
So, these are my New Year's resolutions. and I can't wait to embark on a New Year's Resolution with a different focus than any other New Year in forever. I need to control what I can control, and the scale isn't one of those things.
Until next time......
Krista
No comments:
Post a Comment