Happy Sunday to you! Here in the Midwest, we have awoken to some light snow. It is incredibly beautiful, and it makes me forget for a moment – just how much I hate the winter.
Today is the close of week 1 of documenting this journey. I will weigh myself tomorrow morning but no matter what the scale says, I am pleased with my efforts. Today will look a little different than the first six days. My knees are killing me. I cannot remember the last time they caused this much pain. Through today I hit my commitment of being active for at least 30 minutes a day, hitting over 10,000 steps each day in the process. I missed one day on the plank challenge but doubled up another day in order to meet my goal. I will be one day short of my commitment to lift light weights 3x this week, but I did shovel wet snow and break up ice yesterday. I still have a major mental block on lifting weights. I will get through this, though. My body has been kind to me and am happy with what I have done – pushing myself further with my upper body this week than I have – since maybe pre-surgery. Even the snow and ice shoveling was a big breakthrough for me.
I feel good about my diet this week and will end up within my WW points, but it was not easy. There are times when I am on point and it doesn’t matter what anyone around me is eating. Lately, I hear every crunch of a chip, I see the cookies. I see the soda. I want what everyone in the house is eating. Sometimes I give in, eating just a little. I count the points and I pay the price. Those are empty calories and do nothing to satisfy hunger. In the moment though, I take my time and enjoy it. If I am going to waste 6 of my 26 points of the day on four Oreo thins, I mouth fuck those cookies. With time, being around food will get easier.
I have been on an antidepressant for the past six months. I see the benefits but also feel the side effects. I know it helps around my cycle. I still go through a little hell, but it is leaps and bounds better than with the antidepressant. I think it also keeps me more even, overall. I still struggle at times. I am on a low dosage. A good friend gave me some good advice recently, telling me to feel the feels of what I was going through. She is right and I quit trying to fight off sadness when it comes to visit. The biggest issue I have with the antidepressant is the nightmares I get. I also get night sweats, but those have gotten less intense with time. The nightmares came immediately when I started on this pill. I am often afraid to go to sleep. People die in my nightmares. People I love. I have had recurring nightmares about the same people and am always afraid for them. Earlier this week, there was a massacre in my dream. It is not the first time this has happened. I gave the whole antidepressant thing more thought. I have done a lot of work on myself. I am better than I have been. I am eating well and active. The voice of Glennon Doyle (from the book Untamed) kept going through my head, saying this is not when you get off them. This means, they are working. Still, because of the nightmares, I decided to wean off. The second day, I went through the ringer. My head went all over the place. This is not how I would be off antidepressants; this is the brain going crazy over the change. This is scary in itself – my brain reacting to the change so fiercely. I wanted to be through the worst of it before I started my new job next week, but I am not in a place to go through this right now. I will wait until the weather is better and try again. I feel defeated in this, but I also know it is best for me to stay the course right now.
This week has been great in a lot of ways, despite those few days. I am building on the confidence my first editor has shown me and am working through another edit on the book. When I am done with this, I will have it professionally edited again – hopefully for the last time. I hate that I have ideas for other books in my head, because this process is excruciating. I acknowledge that I am not a “real” writer. I do not know a lot of the writing rules, but I do know that I am a gifted storyteller. Okay, that felt really weird to write….I do not talk about myself with such confidence, but I am proud of the way this book came out. I am blessed beyond measure, to have started the journey of this book with this editor. Without Lesley, I would never have gotten to the place I have with this book. She has believed in me, when I have not believed in myself, or the story.
I did not eat meat this week (except for eggs). I feel better when I do not eat meat. We all know what our body reacts best to, and not eating meat, makes me feel mentally and physically better. I am still eating too much cheese but have cut down. I do not have plans to be a lifelong vegetarian right now, but I do plan to eat a lot less meat moving forward than I have been these past years. I did not drink alcohol this week. I have not quit, but I have cut down quite a bit over these past several months. I needed to and feel better for it.
I have spent a lot of my life believing I needed to do something grand to be loved or appreciated. I think it started when I was young and was part of my drive to be a good athlete. In all honesty, it might even be why I wrote the book. I wanted to be a published author. I wanted to prove to myself and others, that I could be something. My dear friend Lynn is the first person who read it. I admire her greatly, so her opinion meant a lot to me. She read this really rough draft of a story and could not have been more supportive. When the bff read one of the later drafts, she said, “It’s a goddamned novel!” I reveled in her opinion. When another person I really cared about and wanted to impress, read it and gave me a simple thumbs up after they finished it, it killed me. I took that to mean, they had no words so there was just an emoji. I have hated the mother fucking thumbs up ever since. It took me a long time to learn the lessons from all of this. Other people’s opinions of my work, mattered more than my own. In fact, I probably loved those people, more than I was able to love myself at the time.
The awesome Mr. Roger’s once said, “I hope you never feel like you have to achieve something amazing in order to feel love.” I can honestly say, I no longer feel this way. The book will have cost me a lot of money. I will not make anything on it. I will feel weird putting it into the world and asking people to buy it. Still, I am proud of myself. I am happy. This is what matters most.
I do this blog for another reason. I have not done this to achieve something grand. I started it to help myself. In its infancy, I tried to shame myself into losing weight – by putting my stuff out there. It quickly turned into something that fed my soul in a different way. I gained stronger friendships through this. I learned I was not alone in a lot of the things I go through. This blog also costs me money. It is a labor of love. Each time I publish an entry, I go through terrible anxiety and feel all of the vulnerability (and immediately want to drink). If you are still reading this, I know it is because you care about me or you are on your own journey and looking for inspiration. I do hope to inspire, even when I am failing, because I am out there – I am trying. I hope you will take this ride with me. Together, we can triumph, we can stumble, we can laugh at ourselves, and most of all – we will know that we are not alone.
I am not someone who asks people for things, but if you do read this, please go to the home page of the site and subscribe. You will not get spam or anything, only an email telling you when there is a new post. You can also like and follow the blog on this site. This helps me to build the site. Really, it helps me to build a dream. A huge thank you to those of you who have already done so!
Alright, you may have read this and thought, Girl, up those antidepressants, don’t get off of them. Who knows, you may be right, I may be crazy, but it just might be a lunatic you’re looking for, as the amazing Billy Joel once sang. Still, I hope you will stay around through all of the crazy. We all feel this way sometimes.
Have a wonderful day,
Jenn
diaryofherjourney 