Category Archives: Health

Blogging Led To A Breakthrough (or I Need To Believe I’m Worthy)

Posted on April 11, 2019 | Comments Off on Blogging Led To A Breakthrough (or I Need To Believe I’m Worthy)

Yesterday I wrote about how I was putting off doing an elimination diet to hopefully discover what triggers flares of one of my autoimmune conditions. I was honest about why I’ve been scared to do it and what I might or might not find out. Writing that all out did help me sort through my feelings a bit, but when I was done writing I wasn’t done thinking.

I kept wondering why I was so scared of something that will lead to answers one way or another. Even if I don’t find any foods that cause flares, I will learn that I don’t have trigger foods. That won’t be the result I want, but it’s more information than I have right now. But I knew that there had to it than just that. I thought maybe I was scared that it would trigger disordered eating behaviors, but I’ve done so many random diet plans and I know how I behave on them.

Then I realized something that I don’t know why I hadn’t connected before. Part of the reason I am hesitant to do this elimination diet that might help me is that I don’t necessarily believe I deserve to find out.

I’ve written about how in my past someone in my life liked to tell me that I wasn’t lovable or worthy of things. I’ve always thought of that in connection to dating and friendships. Whenever I get ghosted by a guy, I have to work through the thought that I was an idiot to think I deserved a guy that great. I was just ghosted by someone recently who I thought was a really great guy and I was looking forward to seeing him again. It sucks to be ghosted, but I know it has nothing to do with me. There are women in my life that look like supermodels that get ghosted. It’s a numbers game and since I put myself out there a lot I have the risk of being ghosted a lot.

But this false narrative I have about not being worthy does go beyond relationships. Maybe I’ve never connected it before or I never had the reason to connect it before. For years, I have said that I was unlucky with health related things because I always have weird stuff. But I never felt like it was my fault those things happened. They usually had a reason I could pinpoint that took the blame off of me somehow. But with an autoimmune condition, there’s nothing I can blame it on. Even if I discover what my triggers are, those didn’t give me this problem. It just makes it worse.

And I know that I didn’t do anything to deserve this issue or anything else health related. I know that it’s just a genetic issue or mutation that I had no control over. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have been putting blame on myself.

Part of it is because I was misdiagnosed for a while and some people believe the skin flares caused by my condition are due to weight or bad hygiene. While weight can make some of the flares worse, weight doesn’t control whether or not I get this or get flares. And hygiene has nothing to do with it, but I do take a lot of care of my skin where I get flares so I don’t have any secondary issues. But when I was told that this was something I could have controlled and it wasn’t getting better, I did blame myself for not doing more. And when I couldn’t make it better, I figured I was doing things wrong and I couldn’t figure out what to do.

Now that I know that this is an autoimmune condition, I don’t have the same blame on myself. But I do wonder why I had to have this bad luck and what I did to deserve this. And the answer is that there’s no explanation for the luck and I didn’t do anything to deserve it. But in the back of my head, there is still the voice that says that I’m not worthy of good things.

And one of the good things that I feel like I don’t deserve is to get answers and to have fewer flares. It’s such a weird back and forth in my head about whether or not I deserve it. I know I do because everyone deserves to have whatever control they can over their body and medical conditions. But that little voice keeps telling me that I’m crazy to think that.

I have been working on quieting that mean voice through therapy and it has gotten better in the past few years. But it seems to pop up every so often and sometimes it’s in very unexpected ways. I never thought that it would be one of the reasons I have been avoiding working on my autoimmune condition. But the more I think about it the more I feel like that makes sense.

I’ve said so many times that writing this blog is like therapy for me. And I think that it always will feel like that because it allows me to get my thoughts out and even though I risk people judging me it is my voice and opinions uncensored. That freedom is so great for me. And having a breakthrough moment because I couldn’t stop thinking about something I wrote is a new way this is therapy for me. I’m so grateful I figured that out because now I have something new to work on and see if I can keep making that negative voice quieter in my head.

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Avoiding Something I Should Be Doing (or Scared Of What I’ll Find Out)

Posted on April 10, 2019 | 1 comment

Usually, if I know something is going to help me or be good for me, I don’t hesitate to do it. There are a few exceptions, but I don’t normally waiver on the idea that something is going to better me. For example, even though I knew going off hormonal birth control would likely be an issue for me, staying on it was going to make my liver tumors continue to grow. I stopped the pill without a second thought. When I knew that I needed to add different supplements to my life to help with recurring medical conditions, I went to the store and bought them after leaving my doctor appointment. Even getting the non-wart/actual tumor off my face was something I didn’t go back and forth on once I found a doctor willing to do it.

But lately, I’ve been avoiding doing something that I know I probably should do. I have a few different autoimmune conditions and for one of them I deal with it flaring up. When I have flares, it causes very painful bumps on my skin and it can affect so many aspects of my life. There’s no cure for it and most treatments have a lot of negative side effects. And my condition is not nearly as bad as it is for many people so a lot of treatment options aren’t even options for me yet since they are for people with much more severe cases.

But something that I could do would be to find what my triggers are for my flares. Most people find that there are certain foods or categories of foods that trigger flares and you can stay almost flare-free if you avoid those foods. And the easiest way to figure out what foods cause flares is to do something called the AIP diet (which stands for autoimmune protocol diet). It’s like an elimination diet where you don’t eat foods that are common triggers for a period of time and then you slowly add the foods back in one by one. That way, when eat something that causes a flare you will know what it is so you can make sure you don’t eat it. This isn’t a diet that is meant to be long-term. You only follow the protocol until you know what your triggers are and then you go back to normal and just avoid the foods you need to.

I’ve known about this diet for a long time, but it was only recently when I decided to do it because I noticed I was having flares more often than normal. I originally planned on doing it after I had my trip last month, but then I got sick. There was no way I could follow the rules while sick and I knew my food habits would be weird then so I had to wait until I was better. And once I was better, I was dealing with pain and nausea so I decided to wait.

But this is just sounding like one excuse after another. And I had to think about why I have been acting like this. It took a few days of me doing some real soul-searching and thinking, but I think I finally realized what it came down to.

I’m terrified of what I will or won’t find out by doing this diet.

First, I’m scared I will find out I can’t eat foods that I love anymore without having flares. I would hate it if I couldn’t have dairy, eggs, or certain fruits and vegetables anymore. But I know that this is very likely because something is most likely one of the triggers for my flares. I don’t want to have to worry about every single thing I eat and if it has something in it that I won’t be able to eat. I’m scared that it will make eating at a restaurant difficult or that I will find it hard to adjust if something I love has to be out of my diet.

But I’m also scared that I won’t find out that any foods are causing flares. If I can’t find something that triggers them, that means I can’t do anything to help myself for now. I either have to see if I can do a treatment option that may be too harsh for me right now or I might have to wait to see if things advance to a more severe stage.

I don’t know which of those two terrify me more. They both sound horrible and I would be upset if they happened. But at the same time, doing nothing isn’t a good option either. I know I want to see if I can do something to help my autoimmune condition so that I don’t have to stress out about when a new flare will happen. I am lucky that the condition I have does tend to have food triggers because not all conditions have that. I have options I can try before I go to medications with lots of side effects and I owe it to myself to try those.

This is something that isn’t just something I should do for myself but what I need to do for myself. I do still need to do a bit more research on the plan so I can do it successfully, but I have a feeling I’ll be doing it soon so that I can try to find out some answers.

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Failing And Succeeding In One Monthly Challenge (or Another Repeat Challenge This Month)

Posted on April 2, 2019 | Comments Off on Failing And Succeeding In One Monthly Challenge (or Another Repeat Challenge This Month)

Last month, I decided my monthly challenge would be all about skin care. While I have been good about taking care of the skin on my face, I knew I could be doing a lot more work with the skin on my body. The idea was to discover some new things that I could do to help my skin, but the main thing I wanted to do was to work on dry brushing.

Well, I totally failed at dry brushing. I did it a few times, but it just didn’t really work for me. So many times when I’m taking a shower it’s right after a workout. My skin is still damp with sweat and I don’t want to have to dry off the sweat before jumping into the shower. I tried to do it the times I shower when it’s not immediately after a workout, but I didn’t see a benefit from it. I’m not giving up on it, but I know that this part of my skincare plan was a total fail.

But I wouldn’t consider this past challenge a fail because I did discover a few amazing things that have been helping me a lot with skincare. And the new things I figured out have been things that I’ve been doing every day.

First, I stopped using a regular loofah. I’ve been using a loofah poof for as long as I can remember for my body wash. I don’t like using a washcloth or my hands for body soap. A loofah was the best option I knew of. But then when I was in Catalina, my aunt was telling me about exfoliating bath sheets. I had never heard of these before but they seemed like a great upgrade. First, they dry so much faster than a loofah poof which helps to make them not as gross. But you can also scrub your back much easier since it’s a long rectangle. As soon as I got home I got one and I’ve been using it ever since! I feel like I’m getting my skin so much cleaner.

Another thing I discovered was wet skin lotion. I’ve tried in-shower lotions before, but I never liked them. You washed them off your skin so I felt like they were just being wasted. And they always made my shower or tub so slippery. But wet skin lotions are different. You do put them on while in the shower, but after the water is turned off. You apply it just like regular lotion but your skin doesn’t have to be dry. I have found this makes my skin feel much more moisturized and I dry off so much faster! I still use my regular lotion other times during the day, but I know putting this one on right after my shower is the best option for keeping my skin feeling soft.

So while I didn’t succeed at what I planned to do with my skincare, I still succeeded. And I want to take the idea into this month’s challenge. This month, I am challenging myself to be much more accurate in tracking various things in my life. And all of those things are things I’ve had as previous monthly challenges.

This is a combination of a few things. As I mentioned recently, I restarted my budget and I’m working on getting everything set up. It’s pretty much there, but I have to get back into my habit of tracking my money the way I used to. I was getting lazy before and I need to be accurate again in order to make budgeting work. I also have been slacking on tracking my weight and food intake. Both of these things can be an act of defiance, but I see them as more avoiding things. And I’m not always avoiding bad things. I wasn’t tracking my weight when I knew it was going down because I was scared how I would react if I lost more or less than I expected. And with food intake, when I have a very low calorie day for whatever reason, I don’t want to see that and get scared that either I need to force myself to eat or that this is going to cause me to binge later.

I’m not as worried about tracking my money because I feel much less emotion with that. But tracking my weight and food intake will be tough challenges for me to do. I already know I failed at being perfect because yesterday I wasn’t accurate (I was having a horrible nausea day and food was more about trying to see what would make me feel better and not thinking about what I’m eating).

But as I learned last month, just because I started as a fail doesn’t mean I can’t end as a success.

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A Bit Of Self-Care Fail (or Maybe I Was Hard On Myself)

Posted on March 15, 2019 | Comments Off on A Bit Of Self-Care Fail (or Maybe I Was Hard On Myself)

As I wrote in some posts earlier this week, recently I was pretty sick. I’m sorry for the short posts those days, but honestly I was really taken down by this bug. It was really hard to do most things, including type. I am so lucky I work from home and it’s not the busy season because I didn’t have to do a ton of work while I was feeling my worst. And I didn’t work my other job while I was very sick because I knew I couldn’t be accurate with checking information online. But that job is flexible with hours so I can make up what I missed over the next few days or weeks.

When I first noticed symptoms that I was probably getting sick, they weren’t too bad. I was hoping I could beat the bug before it got me really sick and I think that mindset stuck with me. When things started getting back, I was still trying to pretend that I wasn’t that sick and that whatever I had last year was actually worse. Now that I’m finally over the hump of this bug, I can say that I probably was actually sicker than last year yet I didn’t take care of myself as if that was true.

I don’t know if I didn’t want to admit that I was as sick as I was or I honestly didn’t think it was as bad, but whatever the reason I think that maybe not thinking this was that bad was the reason why I’m still dealing with this a week later. I’m significantly better than I was a few days ago, but I’m still not 100% and I’m wondering how long it will take me to get there. I’m exhausted every day in the afternoon and I could probably nap multiple times a day if I had the chance. I’m trying to not nap too much because it messes up my sleep schedule, but sometimes I have to cave and just sleep for an hour or so.

I’m usually good at taking care of myself when I’m sick. I know that because I live alone I have to not overdo things. If I’m too tired to get things done that need to be done, there’s nobody else in my house to do it. I could always call a friend to help, but I’m stubborn and like to do things for myself. And I was ok with letting go of some things in order to make sure I had the ability to do others (I did delivery food more than I want to admit because it helped me not need to go to the grocery store). And I don’t think that going to some workouts this week hurt me since I was not working nearly as hard as normal. Just getting some movement in during the day helped since I did the class in the morning when I was feeling my best.

But besides the few little self-care things I did this past week to take care of myself, I really didn’t do as much as normal to be gentle to myself while I was sick. I was getting very frustrated that I couldn’t do things or that I was taking longer to get something done and I wasn’t letting being sick be an excuse. I don’t know why I was so hard on myself but I know it was happening multiple times a day. I would blame so many other reasons for things not working out without considering that while I’m sick that maybe I shouldn’t have the same expectations that I would have when I’m feeling normal.

Even with not feeling totally better I’m still noticing I’m being hard on myself. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m still recovering and I don’t want to do something that will keep me sick longer. I know that I have friends and family that don’t have the luxuries that I do with being gentle on themselves when they are sick. They have jobs they have to go to no matter what or they have to take care of a child or elderly family member. I know that I am lucky that I don’t have to stress about that and I should appreciate it, but it also makes me feel bad when I’m not doing everything like normal when those other friends are able to do that while they are sick.

I’m lucky that I don’t get sick like this that often. I used to deal with multiple bouts of strep throat a year before I had my tonsils out and it was pretty awful. I think on average I get sick like this once a year and it’s not always this bad. And I am getting better at tolerating being sick and making sure that I am not completely bedridden or unable to do anything during that time. But I might have taken that idea a little too far this time and forgot that I should not stress about being normal when I’m sick.

For now, while I finish beating this cold I’m going to work on doing a few extra self-care things that I probably should have been doing all week. I’m hoping that being kind to myself for the next few days that I will finally be over this bug and back to feeling fine. I’m ready to be back to the normal me and to not have to worry about feeling sick and lethargic.

 

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Another Sick Day Post (or Sorry For Two In A Row)

Posted on March 13, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Sick Day Post (or Sorry For Two In A Row)

I’m sorry, this will be another short post. This cold really took me out. I’m surprised about how sick I’ve been because it didn’t feel too horrible when it started. But this is not acting like most colds that I’ve had before. I know I’m getting better, but it’s not the path I thought this cold would take.

I’m seriously so grateful and lucky that I work from home because I haven’t had to miss work because I’m sick. When I need to lay down for a minute, I can do just that. I’ve been working in sweats and go straight to bed right after I’m done. And I’m lucky that I actually feel better in the morning compared to later in the day. So I can work on all the crazy opening work like returning voicemails while I’m feeling better.

By the time you are all reading this, the workout class I usually take will be over. As I’m writing it, I have no clue if I’m going to work out. I hope that I will because I know it’s good for me to do any movement that I can. And I do feel much more like me in the beginning of the day. But I’ll just have to wait and see when I wake up.

I’m sorry again for the short and boring posts. Being sick isn’t fun and I am lucky that I’m not sick like this that often. But when I do get sick, I seem to really get sick and it takes me out. Last time I was this sick, I knew exactly when I was exposed to it so I could predict when I’d be getting better. This time, I have no clue who got me sick and I have to make a guess on when I should be doing better. I keep thinking I’m getting better when I wake up only to find out that I’m  doing just as bad as the day goes on. But I do know that this is a bug that I need to fight and eventually I will be better.

I’m trying to focus on self-care right now and prioritizing myself and my health. It’s a challenge and a good thing to work on, so I guess that is a positive of being sick. But I’m just ready to feel better and be back to normal life again soon.

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A Week Of Struggles (or Just Tolerating Things Sometimes)

Posted on March 11, 2019 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a real struggle for me. I already knew it might be a weird week because of my schedule, but things just were not going my way. I made it to my 4 workouts, but I’ll be honest and say that I really didn’t want to do them all. But I didn’t have a good enough excuse to miss the ones I wanted to miss so I went.

Because I was in Catalina, I missed my usual Monday workout. But a few hours after getting back on Tuesday I made it to an afternoon class to make up for it. I knew it would be a tough class for me for a few reasons. First, this was going to be my first workout since the previous Friday, which is a much longer gap than I usually have between workouts. I was also dealing with my normal hormonal nausea. But I also had the added weirdness of feeling the room swaying from being on the boat earlier. I was not expecting that feeling because I didn’t have it on the boat going to Catalina. For some reason I was more affected on the ride back even though it was a very smooth ride.

The workout was Go Row, which is one of the signature workouts. It did feel a bit funny that I was going to have a big rowing workout while the room felt like it was moving. It was a 2 group class, but the cardio part of class was split between rowing and the treadmill/bike. The first block was a 4 minute row, the second block was a 2 minute row, and the last block was a 1 minute row. I did ok with my row distances, but nothing was super amazing. And the treadmill/bike work was push to all out paces. Because of how I was feeling, I didn’t really do much on the bike. I kept it at my base pace resistance level for the entire time I was on the bike. I knew I had to take it easy and just make sure I was moving.

The floor work was a lot of abs and upper body. The first block was single arm snatches, Spiderman planks, and crunches. The second block was running men, triceps with weights, and alligators on the straps. And the last block was lateral raises with weights and back extensions. I was able to do the plank work normally and not using the bench which was a surprise to me. And I did try to go heavier on the weights to make up for going easier on the cardio work.

Even though I had a Tuesday afternoon workout, I still did my Wednesday morning workout. It’s not easy to have that small of a break between classes, but it’s a good challenge for me. And I was feeling much better and didn’t have the swaying room sensation so the class went much better for me than Tuesday’s did.

The cardio was one long block but it was timed out by us. We started with a 30 second all out pace and a 30 second recovery before completing a distance. After getting to the distance, we had another recovery and continued the pattern. I wasn’t keeping the best track of my distance but I was trying to do my best to do the workout as we were supposed to. But since I was probably only going over the distance before the recovery and not under, I figured that was ok.

The row block was also one long block. We started with 10 strokes for distance and then 15 seconds to recover. Then we rowed until we got to 200 meters. After the row, we had lunges with tricep work using the medicine ball. Every time we went back to the rower we did the same beginning but the row increased by 50 meters. And the lunges/tricep work increased by 2 reps each time. I wasn’t too worried about my row times and I just focused on form. None of my rows were that slow, so it’s good to know that when I’m not focusing on rushing I’m still doing good work.

And the floor was split into 3 short blocks. Every block started with power sit-ups. Then we moved on to the rounds of the different exercises. We had neutral full thrusters and lunges for the first block, strap roll outs and plank jacks for the second block, and squats and calf raises for the last block. Some of the exercises were making me feel a bit more nauseous, but it was manageable with just taking breaks and letting it pass.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day and it was a pretty great endurance day. I was ready to work hard and see what I could do again after having a few odd days earlier in the week. We had two blocks at each station, one long block and one short one, and they were back to back.

For cardio, the first block started with a 3 minute push pace with a base pace after. We then had a 2 minute push pace and a 1 minute push pace before ending with an all out pace. I was using my new resistance levels on the bike and it was hard to do it for the longer push paces. But it felt great to know I could do it and I was able to recover with a base pace after instead of needing a break. The second block was just a 3 minute push pace to an all out and I continued to use the new resistance levels. I was starting to have some nausea issues during that block, but I managed to finish the work before needing to take a break.

The first block on the rower started with a 90 second distance challenge. Then we had medicine ball squat twists before rowing for half the distance we got on the 90 second challenge. We repeated that pattern until that block was done and I made it through 2 rounds of 90 second challenges and 2 rounds of the half distance challenge. The second block was just one more 90 second distance challenge with the squats before rowing for distance until we were done on the rower.

The floor work required a few modifications for me, but I felt really good about what I did. The beginning of the first block was all work using the bench to step on and I can’t do those with my hip. We were supposed to do different types of step down work and I usually do lunges. But I didn’t want to just do 3 rounds of regular lunges. So I did regular lunges, single leg squats using the straps for support, and step back lunges to replace the bench work. We also had bicycle crunches and arm raises with the mini-bands in that first block. The second block was lunge twists using the mini-bands on our wrists and plank work using the mini-bands to step our hands in and out. I did use the bench for my hands for the planks to help with my nausea, but it was still as tough to do the planks that way as I feel like it is on the floor.

I thought everything was going better on Friday, until Friday night. I had been feeling off for a few days but I thought it was just my nausea affecting me a different way. Friday night, I figured out that I caught a cold. When I start feeling sick, it’s usually a few days after I caught it, so I knew that I couldn’t stop it. But I took as many measures as I could on Friday night to keep the cold from getting really bad.

I thought about skipping my workout on Saturday, but my rule is that if I don’t have a fever and my cold is from my neck up (no body aches or anything like that), I should go and try to do what I could. I know that some people might think that it was bad for me to go because I could have gotten someone sick, but the timing of my body showing symptoms is usually a day or so after I stop being contagious. Also, we use antibacterial wipes at Orangetheory and I was careful not to high five anyone or do anything else that might spread germs if there was any chance I was still contagious.

The workout was an endurance, strength, and power day; but for me it was all about just getting through the workout however I could. For the cardio, the first half was incline work and I did work on increasing my resistance on the bike even if that meant my speed and cadence went down. And the second block was just all out paces and recoveries and I used my old resistance levels for that.

On the rower, we had one long block. It started with an 800 meter row and then lunges with twists. The row went down to 400 meters and then more lunges. We were supposed to do 200 meters, lunges, 100 meters, lunges, and then row for distance. But the lunges were making things tough for me so after the second set of them I just stuck with rowing until we were done and moving on the floor.

On the floor, we had two blocks. The first block was push-ups, single arm rows with weights, and crunches with leg lifts. The second block was push-ups to plank jacks, single arm rows on the straps, and side to side crunches. For the exercises that had 2 parts, I had to split them up and do each part separately. I also was taking a lot of breaks just because I was feeling congested. But I made it through the workout and didn’t give up which was all I wanted to do.

I’m hoping that this week will be a bit better. I’m not completely over my cold just yet, but I’m hoping it won’t last through the entire week. I do know how to do workouts when I’m not feeling my best, but I really want to stop having that as an excuse. I feel like I’m in a rut and stuck in my progress because of all my recent struggles and challenges. I just want to have another week where I feel amazing to help me remember how hard I’ve worked so far.

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National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (or Not Talking About It Is Part Of The Problem)

Posted on February 28, 2019 | Comments Off on National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (or Not Talking About It Is Part Of The Problem)

This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. I know the week is almost over, but I decided to write something about this. I wasn’t going to originally, but I realized that even though I am pretty open about my eating disorder it would be wrong not to write about this week.

I don’t know exactly when my eating disorder started, but I honestly feel like I’ve had it my entire life. I remember binge episodes when I was a kid, I just didn’t know that they were anything other than me liking food. I’ve had issues with food as long as I can remember. I used to just think that it was a willpower issue or that I was weak and not able to control myself. It doesn’t help that there was very little information about binge eating disorder when I was growing up and I couldn’t really just go online to research about it. I was very educated in anorexia and bulimia and I knew that I didn’t have either of those. I recognized signs of my issues in bulimia and I actually was frustrated with myself that I couldn’t be strong enough to find a way to get rid of the food I ate.

My eating disorder wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was in my 20’s, but I already knew I had a binge eating disorder before that. I needed the official diagnosis for medical purposes, but it was just a technicality. I already knew what I had and I knew that it wasn’t just about me liking food or being fat. I had an eating disorder and I shouldn’t consider myself weak because of it.

There isn’t a lot of information yet about genetics and eating disorders. I have seen studies that show that people can have a tendency toward an eating disorder because of how they were raised, but I honestly feel like it is a genetic thing for me. If it was about how I was raised, then I don’t think it would have started so early for me. But even if it’s genetic, that doesn’t mean I can’t conquer it one day. There are people with a genetic marker for addiction and they are able to get sober. The difficulty for me is that I cannot be totally sober from food since I still have to eat to live.

These are all things I’ve written about on here before. I was terrified the first time I posted about having an eating disorder because I hadn’t been open about it with many people. I didn’t know what people would think about me once they knew I had an eating disorder. Obviously they knew I struggled with weight, but not everyone struggling with weight has an eating disorder. But I was relieved to discover that once I was open about it I was getting support from my friends. Some of my friends shared with me about their struggles with food or said they had a loved one with a binge eating disorder and didn’t know it had a name.

Being open and honest has been the best thing for me. I have gotten so much support and love from the people in my life and I don’t have to feel like I need to cover up for anything. When I am having a bad day, I can tell a friend about it. When I am out to eat and have obsessive thoughts about food, I don’t have to hide it and I can talk through the thoughts with the person I’m with. While I have been working toward recovery in many different ways, the one that I feel has made the biggest difference is not feeling alone. Finding other people going through the same thing as well as having friends who know what is happening makes me feel like this battle is not just me against the world.

So when I was debating whether or not to write about National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I realized that not writing about it would possibly prevent someone else not feeling alone. While I have written about this multiple times, maybe this is the first post that someone else is reading. Or it could be toward the top of the search results when they are searching for something. I want to allow opportunities for someone to know that this is not their fault and they can get help.

If you are battling an eating disorder of any type or have someone in your life batting one, this does not have to be a solo battle. There are so many ways to get help and support and not being alone in this seems to bring the most success. You don’t have to be strong on your own to get over this. Allow yourself to accept help and know that the more people you have on your side supporting you the better off you will be.

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Another Story About A Tumor (or I Guess I Was Misdiagnosed For Over 15 Years)

Posted on February 21, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Story About A Tumor (or I Guess I Was Misdiagnosed For Over 15 Years)

I wasn’t originally planning on writing about getting my stitches out from the surgery with my dermatologist. I have gotten stitches out before and while they can hurt it’s not a big deal. And I had been able to see for the past few days that the scar was healing really nicely and that it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was so happy that everything was going smoothly and was just ready for the stitches to be out so I could move on.

I knew when my doctor did the procedure, they sent it off to pathology to figure out what was removed. I had been told for over 15 years that this was a wart, but I questioned it since it wasn’t responding to treatment. I knew it was very unlikely to be anything bad like skin cancer since it hasn’t changed much over the years and no other doctors seemed worried about it. But my new dermatologist was sure it wasn’t a wart and he wanted to know what it was. Even though he kept saying it couldn’t be a wart, I was feeling certain that it was but it was some sort of rare one that didn’t respond to treatments. So while I was curious to get the pathology report, I wasn’t expecting much.

I got my stitches out on Tuesday and my doctor was very pleased with how everything was looking. My scar is healing really nicely and it should be almost invisible in a year or so. Even now with it being a fresh scar, it looks so tiny and it’s significantly less noticeable compared to what it was before. I had been told to use Vaseline on my stitches at least twice a day, and I went overboard with that and used it maybe 10 times a day. My doctor said doing that really helped the healing and to make it look as good as it does so far. And he told me to keep doing that for about 3 months to keep the scar from healing weird and being obvious.

After the stitches came out, then it was finally time to hear what pathology said. I thought I’d know before my appointment, but they only finished the results right before I went in. And my doctor was right, I didn’t have a wart.

It turns out, the bump on my face was a trichilemmoma. It sounds scary, but it’s basically a benign tumor of the hair follicle. It’s not common, but it’s not rare either. And while it can be a symptom of some other issues, for me it was just random. And the only way to get rid of them is to have the surgery that I had, so I’m glad that’s what we did instead of just a basic biopsy. Now that it’s gone, my doctor said it’s about a 95% chance it will never occur again there or in another spot. It really was just random and it’s done now.

When I found out that it was a benign tumor, I had to laugh. Until recently, I didn’t have much personal experience with tumors. Since I learned about my liver tumors, my idea of what a tumor is has changed. Even though I knew not all tumors were cancerous, having experience with non-cancerous tumors has made the word much less scary for me. So I wasn’t worried at all when I was told it was a tumor. It just was funny that of course I had yet another random medical issue.

And while I have had multiple dermatologists tell me over the years that it was a wart, I don’t blame any of them for misdiagnosing me. I’ve had other things in my life that were misdiagnosed and it’s never been the doctor’s fault. They can only use the evidence in front of them to figure out what might be the diagnosis. A majority of the time, they are right. Sometimes they are not. And I’ve never thought that they were bad doctors when they were wrong.

What does frustrate me is that I wasn’t a better health advocate for myself. I know what other doctors have done and what things haven’t been working. I could have said more about how often I’ve tried to correct this and the treatments didn’t work. I had one doctor previously offer to do a biopsy, but I didn’t push for it and I wish that I had. We would have figured out right after that was done that it was this benign tumor and I would have saved a few years of things not working. I can’t go back and change what happened, but I can use this as a reminder in the future that I should be less afraid to tell a doctor that I don’t think that enough is being done. That doesn’t guarantee anything would change, but I can make sure they hear me and my concerns.

For now, I’m just glad that this is done. I’m very optimistic about how the scar will look as it fades and I’m so happy that when it’s a bit less red than it is right now that I won’t always be worried if I remembered to put concealer on my face to cover it up (which is something I stressed about when I had the bump). I’m excited to have this as a thing in my past and be just another funny medical story I can share from time to time.

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It’s Been A Weird Food Week (or Trying Not To Think Too Much About This)

Posted on February 20, 2019 | Comments Off on It’s Been A Weird Food Week (or Trying Not To Think Too Much About This)

Since I had the procedure last week, I have been on a weird diet. I was prepared that I might be in a lot of pain the day or so after and that I probably wouldn’t want to have to chew food. I wasn’t expecting to have my jaw hurt for so many days as well as have difficulty opening my mouth all the way because of where the stitches are. I haven’t been able to chew food properly since getting the stitches in and I’ve pretty much been on a liquid diet for a week.

I’ve done different forms of liquid diets in the past. I had the medically supervised one I did over 10 years ago when I lost a ton of weight. I’ve occasionally had to do liquid diets when I have different dental issues or when I was sick. I try to have some sense of variety in it, but I’m usually just having different types of smoothies or protein shakes and soup. It’s not the most ideal thing to do, but when it’s not easy to eat solid food it’s what I have to do.

I know there are a bunch of ways I could make a liquid diet unhealthy or how someone could gain weight from it. That’s not usually the case for me. This past week, the first few days were actually a struggle to eat because of the pain I was in. Once my appetite came back, things were a bit easier for me but I was still limited in what I could have. I still was eating pretty much the same thing I was having before and I was trying to be cautious about the quality of what I was eating.

I know that I was not getting enough calories in each day and because of that I lost weight. Losing weight is a good thing for me, but I don’t want to lose weight this way. This is how I lost it when I was on the medically supervised diet and I know it’s not a sustainable lifestyle. Eating how I’ve been eating for the past week isn’t sustainable either. But it’s hard not to be a little optimistic about losing weight this easily and to be swayed that maybe I should do this.

Even though my eating disorder is not about restriction, I do think that all eating disorders are related and that it might be easy to switch from one to another. I don’t want to get into a restrictive mindset and form a different set of bad habits. It’s hard not to want to keep doing this when I see results, but I know that eventually the results won’t keep happening and that I might think I need to restrict even more to keep going. I can see the slippery slope of how things can get really bad and I’m actively thinking about avoiding that.

But on the other hand, I do want to at least maintain the progress I’ve had this past week. I have had other times where I had to be on restricted food for one reason or another and then when I could eat normally again I gained back everything I had lost. I am currently doing one of the Orangetheory Transformation Challenges and while I’m not doing anything too crazy diet-wise I also don’t want to gain weight during this challenge. I always struggle with finding the balance in my food and I know that balance is also finding the middle between this restricted diet and what I normally eat. I wish that my stomach would shrink super easily and it would be difficult to stretch, but I think I’m the opposite.

I am trying to celebrate the weight loss I had while not putting too much thought into how I got them and putting too much on what I did to see the results. I would love if this time is the time that I am able to make the change, but I’m also realistic. I hate that there is a very high chance that I will gain back what I lost and that I will be back to my old diet and have binges again. One day things will click in my head and will change and maybe that’s now. But I’ve also learned enough from this happening multiple times before that I can’t get too down if that doesn’t happen and I can’t be too focused on the results from this weird food week.

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A Low Key Workout Week (or Working Through The Stitches)

Posted on February 18, 2019 | Comments Off on A Low Key Workout Week (or Working Through The Stitches)

I knew this past week of workouts was going to be a weird one. I knew that 3 of the workouts would be while I had the stitches and I had no idea how it would affect me. But I was prepared for it to be bad and I think that preparation did help. It wasn’t an easy week to work out and it was hard in ways that I wasn’t expecting it to be, but the preparation to make it an easier week helped me not feel too bad about what I could and couldn’t do.

Monday’s workout was a strength based class, and I will be honest that I wasn’t in it 100%. I was still dealing with the end of my nausea, but that was only a little part of my distraction. Even though I have said I was excited to have the surgery with my dermatologist, I was nervous the day of. I knew it would be fine, but I just wasn’t looking forward to needles and potential pain and I know that it made me not focus completely on my workout.

The workout was a switch format so I was at each section of the room for 6 minutes before switching (we did 2 full rounds around the room). For cardio, we started with a 90 second push pace and then we had rounds of 30 second push or all out paces but with added incline/resistance levels. I was able to use my new push and all out resistance levels and even went above that for the hill work. It wasn’t my highest resistance levels I’ve used, but it was up there. Even though my focus wasn’t totally in the workout, I usually do zone out a bit on the bike since I don’t have to focus on it as much as the treadmill. So I wasn’t affected too much for cardio, even though I still know I could have done better.

For the rower, the first block we started with a 250 meter row and then we had lunges with tricep extensions using a medicine ball. Each time we returned to the rower we went down 50 meters but the lunges stayed the same. And for the second block on the rower, we had the same format but the exercise between the rows was a squat twist with the medicine ball. I feel like I struggled the most with my lack of focus on the rower. I wasn’t able to get my wattage up to where it usually is when I’m having an off day and things were just taking me so long to do.

On the floor, the first block was lower body focused with mini-band work. We had forward walks, lateral walks, and toe reaches all with the mini-band on our legs. My hips were starting to get a bit sore with the lateral walks, but I also know that my feet weren’t totally straight (my natural stance is with my feet pointed out) and I think that might have made my hip hurt more than it should have. And the second block was all upper body focuses with shoulder presses, bicep curls, shoulder raises, and upper cuts. I went with medium heavy weights for the weighted work, but they felt like they were heavier than I’ve ever used before. I don’t know what was causing it to be so hard, but I really think the focus issue was the main culprit.

The rest of my workouts this past week were affected by having the skin surgery Monday afternoon. I figured I would be sore after and that would make me need to go a bit easier with the workouts. But there were a few other factors that ended up affecting me too. First, because of where the incisions and stitches are, I can’t really move my face too much. I figured this wouldn’t be an issue in a workout but then I realized when I lift heavy weights I have tension in my face. So I had to go light with the weights. Also, because of the pain in my jaw, I wasn’t eating regular food for the first few days. I was doing all liquids and I know my calorie count was way too low. I didn’t have the same energy I normally do and I had to take breaks when I was feeling lightheaded. I really tried my best, but I also know that everything I did the rest of the week was affected by this.

Wednesday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power and it was the first workout after getting the stitches. I was so paranoid that I was going to do damage to my face somehow and I really was cautious. For the cardio, I did my old resistance levels on the bike but didn’t do any additional resistance levels when we had hill work. I just kept using my old push pace level and not worrying about anything else.

On the rower, the first block we had started with a 150 meter row and squats with front presses with a medicine ball. We repeated that until the block was done and I didn’t do too horribly with it. The second block was 30 second all out rows with the same squats with recovery between. Again, I wasn’t doing too horribly with the rowing and that was probably the part of the workout I was able to work the hardest during.

On the floor, we had one long block. We had lunges with weights, lunges without weights, tricep extensions, plank jacks, and squats. It was during the triceps that I discovered that I had to go easy on the weights to not hurt my face (that is the weirdest thing, but it’s exactly what the situation was). I still feel like I was using decent weights, but I wasn’t working as hard as I am used to.

Friday’s workout was a strength class, and while I was in less pain and more used to having to be easy with the weights this was the workout where the lack of food hit me the hardest. I never thought I would pass out or anything, but it was very strange realizing that my stomach was so empty during class.

The cardio had 2 blocks with hill work. The first block had a 30 second hill, 60 second hill, and 90 second hill and the second block had a 90 second hill and 2 minute hill. I went very easy on the resistance levels for the hills and ended up staying between my base and all out resistance levels. It felt hard because of me being tired, but I probably could have done a bit more if I really tried.

The rower started with a 1000 meter row. This terrified me, but somehow I managed to do it without needing a break in the middle. After that we were supposed to do 100 jumping jacks. I made it through 50 and knew I couldn’t do more. Then we had a 500 meter row and more jumping jacks and some squats. I just did the squats and when I finished those the time was called so I didn’t make it through any other rounds.

The floor was 2 block and it was upper body based. The first block was a chest press, single arm low row with weights, and heel touches. And the second block was hollow hold single arm chest press, double crunches, and plank work. I was prepared to use easier weights this time which helped and I got through 2 rounds of all the exercises each block.

Saturday’s workout was the closest to normal I felt the entire week. I was still dealing with being a bit tired due to not eating enough and I knew I would have to be easy with the weights so I didn’t put stress in my face, but it was still so much closer to normal. It was an endurance workout, but because of how some things were done it felt closer to a power day for me.

For cardio, we had multiple rounds of 2.5 minute distance challenges. The first time, we were supposed to be in a push pace the entire time. Then as we did each round, we had a base pace to start the distance challenge. That would require us to go harder during the push to be able to match the distance each time. I was using my normal base resistance and my old push resistance on the bike to take it easy and I didn’t do any all out resistance levels. I was pedaling hard and was able to match my distance each time, but I wasn’t working as hard as normal.

On the rower, we stared with a 2.5 minute row for distance. After that, we had lunges with tricep work using the medicine ball. Then we went back to the rower and were supposed to go 100 meters less than what we did in 2.5 minutes and keep repeating the pattern. Even though I went further than 500 meters in the 2.5 minute challenge, I decided to use that as the distance to measure from so the math was a bit easier for me. I did much better on the rower than I had done before and didn’t need the breaks I thought I would need. I still wasn’t rowing as hard as I could because I could feel the stitches pulling a bit from me tensing my face, but I just tried to find what was the line between going hard and going too hard.

And on the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was a core blast with mountain climbers, toe reaches, leg lifts, and sit-ups. This block went well because I got to rest a bit from the rowing and it wasn’t hard for me with any of the issues I had been dealing with. The next block was a mini-band block with squats to leg lifts and forward walks using the bands. And the last block was a weight block with skier swings and lunges. I had to go easy on the weights to not have any strain on my face, but I was not that much lower than I normally use.

Considering how worried I was about how this past week would go, I was pretty proud of myself. I did encounter issues I wasn’t expecting, but I quickly figured out what I needed to do and I worked around what I couldn’t work through. The next few weeks are going to be a bit weird for me. This week I will have the stitches in for one workout and I don’t know yet if I will have any issues or restrictions to deal with when the stitches are out but the incision is still healing. And then the 2 weeks after this I will not be doing my normal workout schedule due to some things I have planned. I do think I found a way to still get in my 4 workouts each week, but there is a chance it might only be 3. I just have to play it by ear and see how things go.

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