My Past, So you can see my future.

Happy Monday!

No one may read this and that is ok.  I'm not doing it for you, I'm doing it for me.  This blog is an accountability to myself to stay on the road to thin.

Where to start...

When I was playing junior high sports my 8th grade year I began having some health issues which caused me to leave the track season early.  Turns out my spleen was swollen from all the running I was doing and I was told I wouldn't be able to work out like kids my age. I would need to have it removed or learn to do less.  I also started experiencing cysts on my ovaries which made it painful to do anything.

I then decided not to participate in high school sports but as well all know you can't get out of high school with out a Physical Education class so here I am sittin gin P.E. wondering how in the world this is all going to go.  I pushed the class off till my Junior year so I knew this would be interesting.

After learning that my semester exam would be to run for 20 minutes without stopping, stopping would cause a doc in my grade, I knew I was in for it.  I thought, "I've never failed and class and of all of them to fail it's going to be P.E.  What a loser!"  Fortunately a friend was in the class with me and we began running just in class along with the coach and as it looked like we weren't improving I decided we needed to run again after school.  So here we go out to the track at 7:00pm every night running the same time we are running in class and NOTHING more.  By mid semester we were able to keep up with the coach and I didn't fail.  YAY!!  I wasn't sure how much weight I has lost but it wasn't enough to warrant a clothes shopping trip.

When I was a freshman I remember my mom telling me that my stomach was poking out and I asked what she meant and she told me that I was gaining weight.  She explained it wasn't a lot of weigh but it was noticeable by her and my friends.  Some friends, huh!  Couldn't tell me themselves, had to tell my mom.  Well, when you grow up in a house where no one is working out other than your younger sibling and you "can't" because your body won't allow it what do you expect to happen?  I didn't take charge of my health and neither did my parents so we're all at fault.  Not one of us is any more guilty than the other.  Between my freshman and junior year I shot out from a size 14 to a size 24 by my junior year.  I remained at a size 24 until my senior year.  In March I broke up with my boyfriend and my best friend and at that point I lost enough weight to make me a size 16 but it wasn't done in a heathy manner.  Mostly I couldn't eat.  Food made me nauseated or if I smelt either on of them I dry heaved and who want to eat when you think you're not going to be able to keep it down? 

Moving along, I was able to keep the weight off for about 1 year and then I gained weight to put me at a size 20.  I didn't go to college right out of high school.  I really had no desire to leave my little home town.  Once I finally did go to college the next year is when I went up to a 20, The Freshman 15 is what they call it.  While I was in school I took kick boxing and had a marine as one of the instructors and he made sure I didn't slack off in class which was nice even though I was totally exhausted afterwards.

I've never understood people who said they felt energized and ready to conquor the world after a work out because all I wanted to do was fall into my bed and forget about the world.  Anyone out there know that feeling?

After 4 semesters of college I moved back to my home town and became a Youth Minister at a church about an hour away.  Working out was not in my life anymore.  Driving two hour a day just to get from home to work to home and counsling kids 6th-12th grades and we all know how they eat which meant I was eating all the junk also.  I'm not sure when but I woke up one morning and I was a size 24 again.  I remained a size 24 until February 2009.

I'm not sure what got into me but by this time I has been living in New Mexico working for a fortue 500 company (will remain nameless) for a little over a year.  I went down and joined the newest gym in town and decided I would start out swimming laps with a paddle board and just see how well I did.  Remembering the "spleen" was still in my body I wanted a workout that would burn a lot of calories and be low impact.  Later that first day I googled calories counters, not remembering where I heard to count calories, and that's how I found Sparkpeople.  They provided me with a free website to offer help when I needed it and place to log my meals and exercises.  I fell in love with the site and did as much as possible.  I weighed myself the next morning as well as took measurements of my neck, upper arms, waist, hips, thighs and calves.  Yup, talk about feeling F-A-T!!  As if pictures weren't proof enough now I had it documented with measurements.  Yikes!

From that day on I tracked every piece of food I put in my mouth along with my water intake.  I allowed myself one "free" meal a week so I wouldn't over indulge if I was caught in a situation where I couldn't eat "my food."  I swam for about 3 months, 1 hour a day 5-6 days a week.  At the end of those 3 months I had lost 30 pounds.  All I did was swim with the paddly board and do some underwater weights (resistance), for an hour.

I then had a friend from church that wanted my to try spinning so I said sure.  What could hurt, right?  Oh My Gosh!!  I've never hurt so much in my saddle before in my entire life.  I lost 5 pounds after one class though so I knew I wanted to do it again.  I went out and bought some padded short liners from a cycling shop (they carry play sizes so no excuses) and I wore those under some shorts and I was able to bike 26 miles in an hour after about a month of classes.  I then combined the spinning with swimming and I would spinn 2 days a week and swim 3-4 days a week.  I also got into a class after work that was weights and I would that 2 days a week.  So, to summarize I was working out once a day 3 days a week and twice a day two days a week and this kept going for about 2-3 months. 

I noticed one day while I was in spinning class that I was getting dizzy so I increased my water intake during class hoping that would help and it didn't.  This kept happening from about July-November of 2009.  I stayed in NM for Thanksgiving that year hoping that the rest would help me get over whatever was going on and I would be back to normal.  Of course nothing is as easy as it sounds or as you want it to be.  After numerous visits to my general practioner, and no tests, I was send to a Cardiologist.  I have a heart murmur that I never grew out of and since no one has ever looked it they wanted me to have it checked out to rule it out.  My heart is perfect, other than the small hole.  It's not the culprit causing me to become ligh headed and neauseated.  I was told by my gneral practioner to stop working out till they could figure out what was happening with my body.  Dec 1=No more working out! 

A friend of mine that works with doctors advised me to ask to have certain tests run so I did and of course they just ran the basics and not everything I requested.  After not get any answers and not being able to get past my general practioner's nurse I switched doctor's.  My new GP ran all the tests I requested and they ALL came back normal but they still did not want me working out.  During this process I learned I had Endometrosis but it wasn't causing the symptoms I was experiecing so back to the drawing board.  *cue heavy sarcasm*  2010 was Fan-freaking-tastic!!!

I then got a transfer with my company, Oct. 2010, back to my home state (TX).  Now I'm settled in and I don't have a new GP but according to my "Woman" doctor I'm find to work out.  She's reviews ALL my records just in case cleared me.

I joined Gold's Gym last week and TODAY will be my first day back in the gym.  I'm a little nervous but ready at the same time.  SparkPeople now offers an app for my phone to help me track my meals and look up recipes while I'm shopping so I don't have to carry a food journal around with me anymore.  I started tracking all my food Saturday while I had time to think about it and I did well Saturday and Sunday and so far today I'm doing great.

Stay tuned for what the future holds!