Liz

As I said in an earlier post there is a stereotype in weight loss blogging – if someone stops blogging they are gaining weight.  Likewise there is a stereotype in mommy blogging as well – if someone stops blogging they are likely pregnant.

So as a mommy weight loss blogger who has stopped blogging regularly….

It is true.  I have been gaining weight, but the other part is too.

I am pregnant.

It feels good to be able to announce this because now I can get to the real thoughts that have been swimming in my head.   I have a host of thoughts about weight gain and pregnancy, my eating pendulum, and a host of other exciting and anxiety producing things.  But there will be time for that.

So for now let’s leave it at this.  I am excited.  I am tired all the time.  I am excited.  I manage to feel ok if I eat constantly, mostly carbs.  I am excited.  I am anxious.  I am tired.  I am excited.

I am 13 weeks along, due in Nov, but I’d just settle for anything considered “full term” thanks to my previous pregnancy experience.  We’ve seen a baby on the ultrasound and all looks good so far.

(There might be something in the water that Jen and Elle want to watch out for…the PFGs are breeding like bunnies)

So that is the news around here.  It is good news, even if it does have a lot of my plans shifting around.

More on everything soon!

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When are we going to stand up and declare that fat shaming helps nothing.  It doesn’t give us the courage to become healthy.  It isn’t about health at all in fact.  It is about making yourself feel better by putting down others.  I will work my butt off (hopefully literally) but I still see and witness a message that size matters in the world around me.  Witness where girls are told that they are no good because of their size.  Witness where we are told not to dream of love because we are not a Barbie doll.  I read this comic today by Paige Hall and I cried.  I cried because I know what it is like to not want to be who you are for fear of ridicule.  It needs to stop.  Whether I lose 100+ pounds or never lose another one, no one deserves the messages of our society.

Is this what respect feels like?  It has to stop.  Will you help me make it stop?

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Did I tell you guys that I recently got glasses for the first time in my life?  It’s true.  And ironically, I have perfect “vision” so to speak.  At least my eyes see at 20/20, but that is exactly the rub.  Over the last decade in particular I have had issues with my eyes starting to cross.  At first it was when I read for more than an hour straight, or when I was really tired.  And this increased little by little until it was nearly all the time.  Since it happened so slowly I didn’t necessarily “see” what was happening because it was so gradual.  But the fact was that I had nearly constant double vision.  My brain worked very hard to synthesize the images as best it could, so I wasn’t always aware of there being too images, just of something being “off.”  As time passed I realized I was driving everyday with one eye squinted shut so that my brain could process the speed of driving images well.

So I went to the eye doctor.  After several appointments I learned that my strabismus was likely there since childhood (dad and sister both have it) but it was undetected.  Either way, something needed to be done.  The options were glasses with big ‘ol prism lenses or surgery.  I decided to try glasses.

Without glasses, eyes crossed, double vision

With glasses, eyes straighter, one image

I have been wearing glasses now for about three weeks and my experience where glasses for the first time has been “eye-opening” (pun intended).  Consider what I was seeing before.  I saw two images and my brain was constantly fight to reconcile the images.   Most often I knew something was wrong but until I focused on what I was actually seeing I couldn’t identify it.  My vision was impacting my life – my driving, my reading, etc.  Once I noticed my double vision, I couldn’t un-notice it. But it was also “normal” since it had come on so gradually over such a long period of time.  When I began to wear my glasses it was exhausting.  I had a headache and everything seemed wrong even though now there was just one image and not two!  It was wrong because it was not what I was accustomed too.

I stuck with it and now three weeks later I can honestly say that it now feels wrong not to have my glasses on.  I am immediately impacted with the full confusion of double vision if I try to go without them.  What seemed off when I began, wearing my glasses, is not the normal and my brain has adjusted back to the one image that it should see.  The prisms in my glasses force my eyes to work together by physically moving the two images back to one.  Now putting on my glasses is one of the first things I do in the morning.

I have realized that weight loss and getting glasses are sort of the same.  Often someone gains weight slowly, over years.  The bad eating creeps in gradually so you don’t really realize how bad it has become.  Suddenly one day you realize that your life is suddenly affected by your weight.  And once you notice the elephant in the room (namely that you are the size of an elephant) you can’t un-notice it.  But the fact remains that it has become your normal.  Making the changes you need seems wrong because it is contrary to your normal, even if your normal was unhealthy.  You were accustomed to unhealthy.

And so you try to change and at first everything is a struggle.  Your body and brain want to rebel.  It isn’t until you stick with it for some time that you realize how much better you feel:  How much clearer things are.  It is only by making the changes that you realize the depth of your unhealthy lifestyle before.

You all know I have been struggling with my eating and weight lately.  Circumstances aligned and I slipped back into my old unhealthy normal.  Now I am in the stage of fighting my body and brain again to remind myself that the unhealthy “normal” is not what I want.  So I am fighting back, day by day, decision by decision.  It is not a perfect road, but I am trying again all the time.  Every moment.  Every day.

Sometimes you have to realize how blurry things have gotten in order to give yourself the courage to seek clarity.

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