Weight Loss and the Disorder

Losing weight when you have depression, anxiety, or both is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the disorder is strong in your system, begging you to not do anything that would help you become healthy. It is luring you into thinking that you can rest and do what you want all the time and not to watch silly things like the food you eat and the exercise you get because you want to eat what tastes good and not exert too much energy. There is also that feeling that there is so much more going on in life that energy must be saved for so the workout goes on the way side and the food is much easier to get if it is to go and can be eaten on the run. Sometimes it's just good to eat on the run because that means that you don't have to sit alone and eat, worry about the mess, or interact with the other people eating with you. It is time to be sequestered and quiet. Those times are good and necessary, except when they become the norm rather than the exception. That is the prime time to put on those extra pounds.

Now is also the time that you hear about all the ways you can lose weight after the typical New Year's resolution is made with most Americans. We want to lose weight, be healthy, and be more fit for the New Year. This goal is noble in and of itself, but it has one major flaw: most of the people who make that resolution don't want to actually have to do the work involved. They look for the quick fix: the OTC weight loss pill, the fad diet, the promise of losing weight quickly and painlessly. There are always ads on the TV for this miracle pill that will allow you to burn fat while you sleep or this special equipment that allows you to do as much work in five minutes as you would for an hour at the gym. However, most people don't need that stuff. Sure, it sounds like a quick easy fix, but if it doesn't work for our disorders, why would it work for losing weight? Disorders take time to control, to understand, and to learn to live with. Sometimes it is a combination of the right medication, counseling, good decent spiritual guidance from a Father Confessor in the church, and unconditional love from family and friends that helps tame the beast within. However, this isn't a process we expect to be fixed in a month, or even six months in some cases. It's a lifetime process. That's how one should approach weight loss.

If you decide to give up certain foods, be sure you can do it for life. Don't say, "I won't eat any more sweets" if you still want a birthday cake, Christmas cookies next year, or a sweetened soda pop for that extra afternoon caffeine buzz. This isn't to say that you should stick to the diet that helped you gain extra pounds, but look instead to moderation. "I am not going to have seconds. This is what I get and the rest will be for tomorrow." "Sure, I'll get a birthday cake, but do I really need the one that feeds 24 when only five people are going to be celebrating with me?" Reflecting before filling your plate is key. Eat sensibly but don't starve yourself. Starving will only lead to binge eating, which leads to guilt, which leads to starving. This cycle helps you add more pounds, not take them off. Discover new foods that you love but don't give up the old favorites. Just know that you can enjoy them without going overboard.

Set up a workout plan that you can live with. If your mornings are busy, try the evening. If you don't want to do something formal, go out for a walk. If you want to be indoors or outdoors, it's up to you. Don't boggle yourself down by what you think you should do to optimize weight loss. Do what you enjoy. The weight loss will come naturally after this. Set a schedule that you can stay with. Personally, I prefer the mornings. It gets me ready for the day with energy and helps wake me up after I am feeling particularly groggy. It's also something that I can easily stick with. I get up, work out, take a shower, and finish my morning routine. This keeps me from having to take two showers a day or take one at night which I don't prefer. An added bonus is that symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other disorders tend to lessen naturally from the burned calories. As much as it might seem like work, will make you sore, and perhaps more tired at first, it is just as much medicine for your disorder as your prescription and counseling sessions. It's good for you all around and an added benefit is that it will make you look better too!

Know that you are not in for a quick fix. This is going to take a while. It might be six months, it might be a year. The goal is not to lose weight directly. The goal is to help with the disorder. The weight loss is just a wonderful added bonus. Enjoy the ride. This will also allow you to continue to exercise and help your disorder long after you hit your goal of how many pounds to shed. This is a lifestyle change not a diet.

Good luck if you try lose weight. Like working with a disorder, there are going to be ups and downs, successes and failures. There will be times when you want to give up and times that you are so proud you'd burst your britches if you weren't missing those extra inches. Personally, I'm down a pants size and still going! If you ever need encouragement, drop me a line! I don't have all the answers, but I can at least listen!

I Made It...

I wasn't sure I was going to. But I did. It was actually a little rough and a little easy at the same time. Christmas was always a big thing for me in my family of origin. It was hard to be away this year. Probably harder than it has been any other year because there is no way I know when I am going to be home. I love my husband. I love being here with him. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong in our marriage. I just want to be able to see my folks every once in a while. I think they know how hard it is for me, too. They are sympathetic and understanding. I cried on Christmas Eve. I couldn't help it. The tears flowed during Silent Night. It's never easy to be away from family, especially during a time when everyone talks about getting together for the big family celebrations. Being away is hard but it is also a gift.

A gift of new things. A gift of a husband and someday (hopefully) children. A gift to make new traditions and to bring old ones to my new family. A gift to help me rely on my husband more and my family of origin less. A gift to help me learn that I can do this thing called life and not be afraid of it because things are changing.

A gift to show me that no matter how life changes, my God will stay the same. My baptism is still valid. I am baptized into Christ! I am clothed with Christ and that is how God sees me. I am a child of God who receives Christ's body and blood in with and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion for the forgiveness of my sins. When I think that I cannot go on, I am supplied by God with the medicine of immortality; the medicine that cures me of my anxiety in my new self.

I made it through this year! By God's grace, I'll make it through the next.

Thoughts on Christmas Day. . .

My little guys at the daycare are sometimes great faith illustrations in action. Tuesday was one of those days. For Christmas, my co-teacher got them all little toy airplanes. They were wooden ones, like the ones you'd get forty years ago. There were no nails keeping them together, just glue. The kids loved them. They flew them around the room with big smiles on their faces. Those little airplanes were great gifts. But, it didn't last. It wasn't long before those little airplanes were used as drums on the table. The airplane crashed to pieces. There were tears and some confusion as to why the toy was broken. There was no way for these little guys to fix them, either. I mean, sure, they could hold them together, but even that didn't work so well, and it didn't fix the problem. It merely covered it up. This great and wonderful gift given to them was gone and there was no way for them to get it back. My co-teacher, picked up the pieces and the two of us worked on putting it back together during their nap time. By the end of nap, the toys were as good as new. The gift was whole again.

This is much like Christmas. God gave Adam and Eve in the garden a wonderful gift. They loved it. They enjoyed it. But it didn't take long for them to break it. They tried to cover it up but that didn't work. The damage was done and there was nothing they could do to fix it. They could try to hold it together and act like they were being good, but that merely covered up the problem. This great and wonderful gift that God had given them was gone and there was nothing they could do to get it back. However, God in His mercy sent His Son to be born in a stable and laid in a feed trough on Christmas day. His Son was sent to die on the cross for the forgiveness of sins- our sins- so that what we broke would be made new again. Our gift, life eternal with God, is whole again in Christ Jesus.

Merry Christmas!

Getting Healthy and Detoxing

I decided about two months ago that I was going to lose weight and get healthy again. I let very few people know what I was doing at first. If I fell off the wagon, I didn't need everyone knowing about my failure. I have kept it up now for almost two months. It's something worth bragging about. It is steady but slow progress. I have been doing step aerobics daily to help burn calories and some of that excess energy that I naturally have from having an anxiety disorder. So far, it has been working great! I feel like I have more energy, but the good kind. The kind that isn't so nervous that I can't stop shaking. It's the kind that helps me get the things done that I need to get done and then it shuts off, allowing me to rest, relax, and eventually sleep.

Ah, that's heavenly, too! I am beginning to fall asleep without the aid of medication. This was a scary road at first. It was full of good intentions and failed attempts. I tried many times to go without the meds and found myself tossing and turning and keeping my dh awake. For a while, I was resigned to the fact that I was going to be stuck on that stuff forever. However, with this new positive energy my workouts seem to be giving me, I am able to relax and I even start to get tired in the evening now. I also seem to be craving healthier foods. I find myself thinking of food choices in terms of protien, vitamins, fiber, and the like. I am not just eating to fill up anymore either. My choices are based on what I am doing in the day and what I could benefit from the most. For example, I tend to enjoy a heavy protein, light carbohydrate breakfast in the morning because I work out before I go to work because I know that I am going to need to support my muscles after my workout. I have also increased my water intake, which seems to have helped keep me healthy (until tonight- I lost my voice!) and allowed me to lessen up on the headache medicines I seem to need about once a week (motrin, tylenol, etc).

I have also killed the caffiene pretty much out of my diet. This has also gone a long way in helping me get rid of the sleep medication. The energy in me is the right kind. I know my dh has noticed. He comments that he gets a little worried that I am not more worried! Odd as that sounds, I think it's a good thing!

Why is it so easy for me to have anxiety?

I can tell you that I really don't get it. There are days that I wake up and I can just feel it welling inside of me, waiting for the opportune moment to pop out and ruin my day. There are days I wake up and I am already anxious, laying there in bed, not wanting the day to start because I know that the medication to calm me cannot be taken when I am at work. That only makes the situation worse. I try, as hard as I can on these days, to keep my head out of that anxious spot and in my work, but honestly it doesn't usually work. By the end of the day, I have had two or three anxiety pangs that keep me in that "fight or flight" mode for a couple of hours. I hate that. I can look at the face of the sweet children that I am there to take care of and only sometimes does it distract me enough to stop the anxiety. The other times I just end up changing eight diapers in fifteen minutes.

Sometimes I wish I could just cork the monster until I am off of work, but that does me no good, either. I end up not doing anything when I get home because my fears intensify after dark. I have been trying my best to work though this, to do things despite the anxiety I feel. It is hard when your gut instinct is telling you to get into bed and stay there where it is safe, or don't go to the store because it isn't safe, or go anywhere for that matter, when you know that God protects and takes care of you and your fate is in His hands, where it should be. I wish I could have my heart know what my head already does.

It is during these moments I get reminded exactly how helpless we really are in the light of saving ourselves from our sins. Praise be to God that Christ won me on the cross because I can't save myself from my sins, let alone the little monster in my life known as anxiety.

If you weren't sure there was a stigma attatched...

While waiting in line at Wal*Mart, I found my eyes wandering to those magazines that remind you of a car wreck. You know that they are something you shouldn't waste your time with, but at the same time, you can't help but gawk at it. Afterward, you always wonder why you looked and feel a little disgusted. There were magazines about which stars are pregnant and which are suspected to be. There were headlines advising how to have the greatest love life, how to lose the most weight, how dress and look like the stars, and the latest gossip involving people's lives who have little to no impact on the average person. I think we might all get more out of the Weekly World News or whatever fake magazine might be on the racks today. However, one caught my eye (isn't there always one that does that!) This was about Britney Spears. It supposedly chronicled her "brave battle with mental illness". Honestly, I don't care about her "brave battle". What bothered me was how this was written to catch the eye. On the same magazine, the word "cancer" appeared, but the words with the biggest font and the most prominent place on the magazine were the "mental illness" words describing Ms. Spears.

The most prominent feature is usually what the magazines rely on to sell their magazines. So the average Joe walks up, looks at this, and gawks at how mental illness destroyed this star's life. Writing about the bizarre behavior, the magazine attempts to look as if it is showing the star rising from the depths of whatever her affliction is but instead it is another gossip column selling magazines at the expense of this star and quite possibly of all people suffering from some sort of mental illness. Disgusting doesn't quite cover it in my book. Regardless of how you feel about the star, her choices in life, and how she lives her life, there is no need to make the main point of the article about the horrors of mental illness, virtually scaring anyone from coming in contact with those who have a mental illness because they might all have a breakdown and act like she did. Granted, the right people got involved in her life to help her straighten it out, but she has been branded as a fragile, mentally ill person who probably will never be able to take care of herself. Although this is sometimes the case, it is by no means the prevailing prognosis.

Those of us who have a mental "illness" are no different than those who have heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and a multitude of other health issues. It all goes back to the fall of mankind in Genesis 3. Unfortunately, because people don't understand and are scared of the things that cannot be tested for by a blood or urine test combined with the fact that for centuries those with a mental illness obvious enough to need drastic help were locked up, it seems as if those who have any sort of mental disorder are looked upon with a strange combination of fear and distrust. In all likelihood, in your family you have a brother, sister, mother, father, cousin, child, spouse, aunt, uncle, or grandparent who had a mental disorder. Things like depression, anxiety, OCD, and a multitude of others are more common than you think. Think you are untouched? Think again. Most people are pretty good at hiding what is going on with them. Others chalk it up to personality. At any rate, instead of looking to sell more magazines, it might be prudent just to talk about how a star got their life back together and present the mental illness as one component, not THE component.

Odd Teaching Tip

A very wise teacher once told me, "If you are frustrated with a trouble- maker student, the first thing you need to do is change your attitude towards the student." This is a very wise saying, especially in the daycare industry. I have a child in my room who is very high maintenance. He needs so much attention and so many hugs. This in and of itself isn't a bad thing, however, it can get hard when diapers need to be changed, snacks and lunches need to be put out, general cleaning of the room needs to happen, and the other children need attention as well. It can be very frustrating when the innocent behavior turns mischievous and the priorities of what needs to happen *now* are drastically changed.

It is equally hard to take a deep breath, take a step back, and see how you can incorporate what you are doing into something that the child can do with you to fill the need of attention the child has. It's so easy to punish and assume the situation is over instead of discipline followed by a change in action for the adult as well as the child. Granted, there are some things that cannot use a "helper". It's impossible to have a child help change another child's diaper, but by the same token, I can't expect the child to sit through fifteen minutes of diaper changes, either. Changes and compromises must be made to meet the needs of everyone in the room.

As I have started to do this, both change how I feel towards the child and how I deal with the child, I have found my days to be better and happier. The child is also happier and better when it comes to learning how to act in a social setting. Improvements have been made on both sides! It's been amazing to watch.

In our society, compromise isn't a word we like to use all that much. We would rather have others work to our wants and needs, compromising what they need first. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but this should not be a the prominent attitude in our dealings with others.

So, this reflection causes me to ask myself, is there anyone else in my life I need to have a change of attitude towards?