Sometimes....

I am not in a good place right now. Sometimes I really just want to give up. I try very hard and don't seem to make progress. Am I perfect, no. Do I make mistakes, yes. I am trying, I truly am.  It is not easy being an overweight person. I am tired of being overweight. I am sick of the stigma that comes with it and the ridicule. Just last week one of my students told me that when I lift my arms, they laugh about how it looks like I have bean bags hanging from my arms. Nice right? Just what a person wants to hear about themselves.

I have decided that I am going to have to try harder in my life. If I have to run myself into the ground, I will in order to succeed. I am not going to fail at this.

Inspirations

I have made no secret that one of my personal heroes is Eleanor Roosevelt.  I think I like her so much, because she pretty much defined herself.  I have always wanted to define myself and never really had the faith or courage to do so.  I found this site, 31 Days of Daily Inspiration for women.  As I was looking at it, I was struck by how true many of these saying are and how they apply to me and my struggle and journey.

"We gain strength, courage and confidence every time we look fear in the face. We must do that which we think we cannot do."  Eleanor Roosevelt.  A couple of years ago, they sent a flyer around school for a free trial boot camp, not Camp Gladiator.  Some coworkers said I should try it.  I told them I was going to die if I did that.  I was so out of shape that I could not possibly be able to take on something like that.  While part of that was true, the real truth was that I was terrified of trying anything like that.  I was afraid of what I would look like trying to do it and embarrassing myself.  Funny, because these days, you cannot keep me away from camp.

"Don't give up the search for happiness because you're afraid of getting hurt."  Martha Raye Where was this quote when I was younger?  I lived in constant fear of getting hurt or rejected, so I just gave up trying.  I was also brought up to believe that I was not good enough to be happy.  Nothing I did was good enough or just "enough."  I have since learned that was all a big lie.  I can honestly say that I am happy.  I have a great job, friends, family and support system around me.  I am making myself a better person.  Do I have down and sad days?  Of course, but they are lessening and not nearly as severe as they used to be.

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."  Ayn Rand  Amen, amen, amen!  If you know me, I mean truly know me, you know that once my mind is set, there is no going back.  I did however spend a great deal of time in my life, hiding my true self because I let people influence and stop me.  I was afraid of making them mad or disappointing them, so I just because a little robot and did whatever they told me too.  To compensate for that, I was eating like crazy.  I figured that was the one thing I could control.  The funny thing was, it ended up controlling me.  When I finally realized, in my early 30's, that I was my own person and could use my voice, I did.  No longer do I let people tell me what to do.  If I do not want to do it, I am not going too.  Since my mind is set on this journey, you are not going to be able to stop me.  I will have setbacks, but no stopping now.

So I guess, I have reached the end of this post for today.  I am not finished by any means, but for today I am.  I will leave you with this bit of inspiration.  "You are your best thing."  Toni Morrison.  Remember peeps, and self, that you are beautiful, worthy, loved and capable and you are the best thing about you.

Peace out peeps.  I got some inspiring to do.

What a last two weeks.

Ok, ok, I admit it.  I am a stress eater.  I try really hard to keep it under control, but the beginning of school always gets me.  First, I have to sit in days worth of meetings and trainings.  I am not used to this, I need to be active.  I hate having to sit there and listen to other people tell me things that I may already know.  Also, teachers are the worst students.  They act in a way that you would never accept from a student.  Second, these meeting make me tense and I just want to crawl inside my little turtle shell.  Lastly, although I am fairly flexible and will go with the flow, I work with people who are not.  The complaining really gets to me.

All of these things together, stress me out and I shove food down my mouth as quickly as I can.  I always feel guilty about it afterward.  It really makes me dislike myself when I do it.  I feel as though I have failed somehow.  I will even eat things that I don't like, with the exception of green beans, just to satisfy my need to eat.  The sad thing is, if I was a drinker, I could hide that.  If I was on drugs, I could hide that.  As an eater, that I cannot hide.  You can see it.  People look down on you for that.  It is sad that those vices are perceived as more acceptable than being heavy.

I was not able to work out as much as I would have liked this last week.  I had work responsibilities that kept me from working out.  I hated it.  I miss my friends, I missed my trainer, and I missed the release of stress that comes over me when I work out.  I will have to find someway to replace that when I cannot get to camp.

Lastly, sometimes I really don't like how people see me.  I went on Saturday to two different sporting goods stores to buy new weights for camp.  When a fluffy woman walks in , they don't want to help you and look at you like why are you here?  I walked in and one guy said, they are over there.  As I was walking over there, another employee acted shocked to see me in a store.  What?!?  Not everybody is a size 2.  I cannot wait to go back there and have a Pretty Woman scene to all that wouldn't help me.

Okay enough venting.  I am having a great first week of school.  I am still trying to get back into the routine and learn all the kids names.  I think some of them think I am a bit crazy, but that is a good thing right?

So I am going to try to stay as stress free as possible and keep from stress eating.  I hope you will help to keep me accountable.

Peace out peeps.  I hope you all have a great week.  Me, I am going to keep moving forward and not looking back.

My struggle with depression.

First, let me say that although I never knew Robin Williams personally, I thought he was a great actor.  He made me laugh when I was a kid watching Mork and Mindy, and made me cry like a baby with Dead Poet's Society.  Like Mr. Williams, I am a sufferer of depression.  I have suffered with it since the age of 13.  This blog is from my point of view and my experiences.  I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  I can only speak for myself. Not everyone with depression is the same, nor do they all exhibit in the same way. this is just my way.

When I turned about the age of 13, I really became a different person on the inside.  I started having my feelings of worthlessness.  I have felt this way almost everyday of my life since.  I know in my heart that I am not worthless, but sometimes it is hard to convince the brain.  When people compliment me, it makes me uncomfortable.  I will smile, nod, say thank you, or deflect by saying something else.  The reason I do this is because I feel unworthy of having the compliment.  I am working on this and trying to become better at accepting the compliment, but again it is hard to convince the brain.

One thing that I think people should know is that just because you are depressed, it does not mean that you are sad all the time.  Yes there are MANY times when I am upset and cry.  There are MANY times when I just want to crawl into a ball and stay under the covers.  I have been working out and started crying while working out.  I have been at work and started crying.  With that said, I love to laugh and have fun. I can be the life of the party on occasion.  My friends have made me laugh so hard I have turned purple.  There is always that part of me behind the laughter and fun though that wants to stop it.  I have to work very hard to put that in the back of my mind.

A major thing that happened to me as I got older is that I tried to combat the depression by overeating.  It was how I tried to cope.  Since I was spinning out of control on the inside, this was the one thing I thought I could control.  The crazy thing was that the more I ate, the more out of control I got.  This also made me more depressed.  Vicious cycle I know.  Because I have started my getting fitter, healthier and sexier journey, I cannot use food anymore.  I now exercise.  Maybe I have become addicted to exercise, but it is better for me than eating.

I also suffer from insomnia.  While some who are depressed sleep all the time, I am the opposite.  I have to sleep with the TV on in order for my brain to shut off.  Even with that, I have not slept through the night in over 20 years.  I will wake up several times and then have to go back to sleep.  There are times when I am exhausted and cannot fall asleep for hours.  Also there are times when I will fall asleep then wake up two hours later and be up the rest of the night.  Everybody is different and how I show signs, may not be how you do it.

When I was younger I did have thoughts of suicide.  I felt worthless, unloved and unlovable.  I thought it would be much easier to just end it all.  I truly thought nobody would miss me if I left the earth.  I planned it out and knew how I was going to do it, but something stopped me.  It could be God. It could be that I am a big coward.  I don't know.  I do know that at my deepest, darkest point, had I been determined, nothing would have stopped me.

A couple of things always bother me when talking to people about this.  1. They look me in the eye and tell me to get over it.  Don't you think I would if I could?  Do you really think that I want to have these thoughts and feelings?  2.  If you prayed harder, God will take this from you.  Really?!?  I have prayed and I have a relationship with God.  I do not think he has done this to me as a punishment that I need to ask forgiveness for.  I am certain he is using this for some greater purpose. 3.  It will get better.  When you are in the very bottom of the pit, you see no way out.  Telling me it will get better is like cutting my finger off and putting a band aid on it.  It will not help.

I wear a mask everyday.  I put on the mask that is happy and smiling.  Sometimes that is a true mask and represents exactly how I am.  Other times, it is a facade and I am just trying to hide the darkness that if brimming over the top.  I have been told that I wear my emotions on my face, and that is probably true.  If you see me and I seem down, ask me how I am.  I will tell you how I am doing, probably.  I don't need you to try and fix me, I just need you to be there to hold me up.  I take medication to help combat my thoughts and it has helped tremendously.  It does not stop the feelings from happening though.  Understand that I am not a bad, crazy or sick person.  I am just a person.  I am a teacher, friend, sister, daughter, aunt and Gladiator.  I will survive.

Peace out peeps.

That bear crawl and what it taught me.

Let me start by saying I hate bear crawls.  Oh I don't mind one or two, but to bear crawl the entire length of the football field is something else all together. A week ago I did one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.  I bear crawled the length of a football field dragging a 50 pound weight behind me and I learned somethings while doing it.

1. I am stronger than I ever thought I was.  I am not just talking physically, but also mentally.  I really had to get out of my head and push through.  It was not easy and I hated every minute of it, but I did it.  My arms, legs, hips and shoulders were hurting pretty bad.  I could not breathe, sweat was dripping down into my eyes making it hard to see, but I did it.  They may not have been the prettiest bear crawls but I did them.

2.  I have a great support system around me. My trainer, Carrie Monroe, was the person timing me.  Did I forget to mention that we were being timed?  I am not sure that I could have done it for any other trainer but her.  She knows exactly how to push me to my limits.  She had me go for 15 seconds then rest for 5 seconds.  When I felt like giving up, she told me to keep going.  I had many friends who surrounded me and gave me encouragement to keep on crawling.  I could hear them telling me I could do it and I did it.  Truly without my support system, I would not be where I am now.  I was sure though that Rick was standing on the weight at the end.

3. I have come a long way baby.  If a year ago you had told me that I would be willingly doing this, I would have laughed in your face.  You see I hated how I was before and I wanted to be better, but I did not have the strength to do it.  I found the right people to help me and guide me to the place I need to be.  I am not there yet, but I am farther than I was before.  Next year when I do this again, I will murder that bear crawl.

4. I used to carry that weight all the time.  When you start dragging that weight, you can feel it pulling you down.  I have lost 50 pounds, so I used to carry that weight with me all the time.  The way that I felt while doing the bear crawl was how I used to feel all the time.  I hurt, couldn't breathe and struggled just to move.  I hated that I would walk from my classroom to the office and be so out of breath that I couldn't talk.  I could not climb stairs without having to stop. If I dropped anything on the floor, it was a struggle to pick it up and sometimes I just left it where it was.  As I crossed that finish line, dragging my past behind me, I decided to leave that 50 pounds on the field.  I am not picking it back up.  I have another 50 to go and I will get there.  Who knows next year maybe I will try to drag 100 pounds behind me.

Peace out peeps, I have some great things "weighting" for me.

It used to and I guess sometimes still does bother me.

I have always been what I considered fluffy.  Even when I was at my thinnest, size 8, I felt like I was an enormous cow.  I know it is completely ridiculous, but it is the truth.  Now, I would kill to be a size 8.  You see even though I was athletic, active, smart and popular in high school, I always wanted something that I could not attain, perfection.  This led to some of my self esteem issues.  Even with friends who adored me, I always felt alone.  When I got to college, I had to work full time and go to school full time.  This did not leave much time to be active and so I gained lots of weight.

If I am being completely honest though, I think one reason that I gained so much weight is that I used it as a shield to protect me from people.  It worked in a good and bad way.  You see I am an introvert.  This does not mean that I do not like people, or do not talk to people, I just feel better being inside my hamster ball.  I love my friends and I love to laugh and have a great time, the problem lies when I have to go alone into groups of people.  That is when I become a turtle so to speak.  With the weight piling on, I felt secure that people could not get to me.  It was like my armor in a way.

The thing is that it worked too well sometimes.  Sad to say when some people see a fluffy person, they ignore, avoid, or disregard them.  I am a person, I have feelings.  I also have a wicked sense of humor once you get to know me.  But if all you see is the outside, then you never get to know me.  This led me to be alone for most of my adult life.

Up until last year, I did not wear bright colors.  I did not want to draw attention to myself.  I tried to blend into the background and be unseen.  You see I was uncomfortable with myself.  I did not like myself very much because of the weight I had piled on.  It is hard to realize what it limits you to doing when you are big.  Getting down in the floor takes effort, climbing anything scares me, and you get winded just walking in the store.  I reached a point where I could not do it any more.

I used to never show my arms in public.  They are flabby and covered in stretch marks.  This used to really bother me.  I guess I thought that if people saw my arms, they would think I was fat.  Well I guess the rest of me did not say that just the arms.  Since I have been on my journey to wellness, I let the arms fly.  I have worked out in tank tops, worn sleeveless shirts, and my sundresses without a shrug.  My arms are still flabby and they are still covered in stretch marks, but they are shrinking and I am developing muscles in them.  Now I look at them as a badge of pride.  Yes they are not going to be on the cover of any magazine, but they are mine.  You either like them or you don't.  Funny and true story.  I had a student in the 6th grade that I really enjoyed, it was like we had the same sense of humor.  Anyway when he was in the 8th grade, I was wearing a dress with a shrug on top.  "Ms. Strickland, that is a lovely ensemble you have on."  "Thanks, I wear the sweater because I have fat arms.  I am trying to hide them."  "You have lovely arms.  Some people even like fat arms, they find them attractive."  Nothing like a kid to change your view on something.

I guess my point is this, I am starting to become comfortable with myself.  I am who I am and you can like it or not.

Peace out peeps.  I am getting ready to take my arms to workout and let them feel the fresh air.

Keep on trucking.

Hello Peeps, I am sorry I have been away so long.  The end of school was crazy for me and I have taken time to just relax.  Now down to business.

How have you spend your summer?  Well I have been working out in the heat and the sun.  I have also been walking with my buddies.  If you had told me a year ago, that I would WILLINGLY workout for an hour in the heat everyday, I would have said you are nuts.  I am doing it though and I love every minute of it.  I have a great support system and cheerleaders who keep me accountable and keep me motivated.

One problem I have with summer is that I get bored.  Don't get me wrong, I look forward to the end of school just like the kids, but I like and need the routine.  What happens is that when I am not in my routine, I get bored.  When I get bored I want to do one of two things: spend money or eat.  I am working very hard on both.  Since this blog is about my journey, I will talk about the food part.

Over the past year, I have learned new ways to eat.  It is not always easy and sometimes I go off the rails and cheat.  I feel pretty bad when I cheat while I am doing it and then after.  You see food has always been my friend.  It is hard to let go of that friendship. I am finding though that for the most part the foods that I used to crave, I don't anymore.  Also, I think about how hard I will have to work to get rid of what I have eaten.

When I get bored, I eat.  To help me with that part, I have started keeping fruit, yogurt, and healthier snacks in the house.  If I don't have the junk, I can't eat the junk.  I also drink lots and lots and lots of water.  You cannot snack doing that unless you want to snack in the bathroom. lol.

When I get bored, I exercise.  I know it is a shocker for those that know me, but I love to exercise now.  I still hate running, I have not gone crazy.  If it were not for exercise, I am not sure I could have made it this far.  I love CG!  I also love to go on walks with buddies.  It is great to be with a friend and walk and talk about your day.  I have seen ducks, snacks, scorpions, etc....  It is like a mini adventure each time.

Now I know you may be thinking that you are not fit enough to exercise.  HELLO!!!!!  That is how you get fit by exercising.  I cannot do everything.  I am slower than most in my group, but I AM OUT THERE!  I am doing it and getting faster, better, stronger, and sexier everyday.  You don't have to be great or in great shape, just start.

If you ever need someone to walk with, talk with or ask questions to, I am here.  I have been there, I am still there, and I will finish this race.

Peace out Peeps.  I have to get to bed early, I have great things to do tomorrow.