Jadxia

There is an old fitness saying, "Exercise is 90% diet." This pretty much sums up how my plans have been going of late. I was doing fairly well on the 3-part program, until a week of hormonal PMS set off one of the longest running chocolate binges I've ever experienced. I'm talking a large chocolate bar (about 700 calories) every day for 8-9 days. I just couldn't stop; I NEEDED chocolate. Thankfully that's over, but when I finally ventured near the scale again I was aghast to have finally tipped the fat percentage over thirty. Anything over 30% body fat is considered overweight. 20-30% is normal/average for a woman. Under 20% is fit.

Crud, officially overweight. So much for the diet and exercise.

Actually, I'm really happy with the program because it is very easy to jump back without feeling too bad about it. So even if I cheat here and there, I don't feel like I have to start over. I am going to have to adjust and ramp up the fitness level and, of course, stop eating all the junk. The past few days I have been concentrating on getting all my water (3 pints), taking my vitamins, and eating a good amount of fiber. I've managed to limit the fatty and junk foods and have since watched three pounds melt away in a matter of days. I'm thinking water weight might have accounted for some of the weight gain, so I also cut my salt. I started the diet at 28% body fat, fought down to 26%, rocketed up to 30% with an all-day, all week chocolate binge, and am now sliding back down the scale. Currently I'm at 29% body fat.

Even though I didn't lose weight or get skinnier after a month on the program, I certainly feel more fit. I think the light exercise has prepped me for the next stage of the program, where I really start to workout. Exercise and proper vitamins, etc, have certainly helped my condition (which may or may not be fibromyalgia).

So the officially three-part program goes as follows:

Day 1: A long walk (I'm hoping to start walking with my group again soon, which is 4 miles on Saturday).
Day 2: Sprints or some kind of intense cardio (I am adding an upper body workout to this day).
Day 3: Abs Workout -- I may start substituting indoor rock climbing on this day
Day 4 (repeat day 1): Will be restarting the 5K 'donut run/walk' I used to do.
Day 5 (repeat day 2): Intense cardio & upper body workout.
Day 6 (repeat day 3): Abs Workout
Day 7: REST, I may also use this day to 'clease' my diet with lots of fruits, veggies, and fiber -- basically eating vegetarian one day a week.

There is no easy solution to fitness, just diet and exercise. If you want to lose weight, you have to make permanent changes to what you eat. If you want to get into shape, you have to move your butt. To get fit, you have to do both of those things, and it won't happen quickly. So make choices you know you can live with and DON'T GIVE UP!

"All the people in my family are good at anger management. At least, we manage alot of anger." -- JoL

I’ve been in a sort of retreat lately, although the first thing realized during this process was how ridiculous a misnomer is that term. How does one retreat from life and yet continue to live it? Is not the very step back and the evaluation of life a very integral and present part of living? At most, I have performed a regrouping, although I prefer to think I have simply inhaled -- and prepared to speak.

I have been ill since September, and while I am becoming adapted to the idea of yet another ailment from which there may be no escape, words of unflagging optimism never cease to annoy me. You don’t know if I will get better ever, so please stop putting your hopes and wishes on me. I am sick enough as it is without carrying around all of your optimistic deadweight. You people know who you are.

If I do get better, wonderful. If not then I must accept as I am today, illness and all. I have discovered I am unable to do this if I am constantly being told that things will get better soon, or someday, or whenever. The future is a vague and nebulous supposition and I am a creature of Immediates and Nows. While I cannot carry on as if not ill, neither can living be put on hold until wellness finds me. Life is now; live it with me at your choosing but do not torture me with your visions unless you are truly prescient.

Respect me for my wants and my views. That means what I decide about my own life goes. I will attempt to do my best to respect your right to live as you see fit in return.

I am not broken.
If I am broken, I do not want to be fixed.
If I do decide I am broken, fixable, and worth fixing, then I will do the repairs myself.
If I need help I will ask for it.
Only I can change me. You are powerless to do so. Deal with it.

The correct answer to “if only you would listen” is “if only you would shut up”. I am guilty of being a busy-body. This one thing I might attempt to change in myself. I might not. I am allowed to be a hypocrite. You do not have to enjoy it.

When you step in and attempt to fix me, you disrespect me severely. You tell me I am broken. You presume to know my worth better than I do, thereby discrediting my own powers of observation. You then infer I am a bad repairman and that my powers of communication are so low I am unable to cry out for help. You second guess my own judgment about the one thing I know best, myself.

Not only will your attempts fail, they are likely to backfire. You damage me. You encourage me to damage myself. To fixers I appear broken. To broken people I resemble a fixer. The hammer you carry does not magically transform me into a nail. Stop whacking me already.

There is nothing wrong with me besides my particular quirky mental and physical illnesses which make up the sum difference of me. If you fix them you may very well delete me. And I have chosen to be the only soul with the power of my erasure.

For those who wish to see me settled down, tough luck. I am not happy unless I have my spirit pitted against the wheel. I enjoy the brief touch of mayhem, the success of pulling a thread of order from total chaos and weaving a complicated tapestry from the snarled ball of yarn. I am sometimes a sadist and sometimes a masochist and sometimes a nihilist plagued with ennui. Or maybe art.

The correct end to the phrase “you would be happier if” is generally “people would leave me alone.”

I want to live the remainder of my life in as little pain as possible; with the exception of anguish and trials I inflict myself. Right now I am in a great deal of pain, both physical and mental. If any of it becomes too much to bear, I reserve the right to end my life in as painless a way as I can muster. You don’t have to agree with my decision. It is still mine to make. I refuse to listen to such arguments as ‘all life is sacred’. In my view, all life is only sacred when it doesn’t involve hurting and the inability to sleep. Death is my right, my open option. Please do not degrade that option by forcing me to beg for it when the time is past.

Until that time has come, allow me to live as I see fit, even if I see fit to live in a way you think is wrong.. even if I see fit to live in a way I know is wrong. If I want to pit myself against myself, what godlike power in your possession can stop me?

I cannot learn to enjoy your company unless you enjoy mine. Shut up.

Silence.

Image linked from MindBodyFocused.com

So the doctor says I may have fibromyalgia, and I certainly do fit all the classic symptoms. There's only one problem in my mind.

Fibromyalgia is not a disease. It's a syndrome, meaning a group of symptoms, and can have different causes. In my case, it was a nasty gastrointestinal virus that had me bedridden for weeks. Now my neurologist just calls it "post-viral syndrome" and I've been reading everything from the Merck manual to crazy quacks on the internet and I have only discovered one key difference between fibromyalgia caused by a virus and post-viral syndrome. Post-viral syndrome goes away. It seems to me like I have a choice of habits, and I can make this illness temporary or permanent. Jade does not back down from a fight, especially not one for my life.

A little background on this illness. Looks like it is primarily caused by lack of good sleep. Specifically, alpha waves disrupt delta sleep, and it is during this stage of sleep that your body heals neurons. If the neurons can't heal, they become super-sensitive to pain signals, and can even create pain out of nothing. This pain, in turn, makes the quality of your sleep even worse, and you suddenly hit a downward spiral. Many things can cause this initial sleep disruption, general poor sleep habits, pain or injury, stress, a virus or any kind of infection. Producing growth hormone as a child compensates when you are young because it keeps your muscles and tendons loose for growing purposes. However, when you age you don't grow anymore and, if you also don't stretch regularly, those muscles and tendons start to tighten up. This also contributes to pain. I've slept poorly all my life. It's just unfortunate I waited so long to start changing my ways. Most chronic illnesses are formed from a lifetime of bad habits, and the longer you let the illness continue, the harder it will be to reverse.

For smoking, when is the best time to quit? After your first cigarette or after you smoke four packs a day for ten years?
For eating, when is the best time to watch your diet? Before your first heart attack or after your quadruple bypass from a lifetime of Baconators?
I have had bad sleep for so long now that only medical intervention (i.e. doctors and probably medicine) is going to help me to change. But one has to remember that these are tools to change and not quick fixes. If I want to get better, I have to adjust my underlying habits and that is a hard thing to do.

This morning I made a daily checklist on my road to self-recovery. It includes everything I need to do to promote general health in all aspects of my life. Some key fibromyalgia points include a morning joint warmup and nightly stretch, plus a daily 30-minute walk and vitamins. I can beat this thing; I know I can.

And it all started with my 'happy place', that state of being which is neither happy nor a place. It's when I tell myself, Jade, you may be stuck with this thing forever, so you'd better start dealing with it right now. Seems fatalistic, but it is only when I think this that I stop avoiding the problem in the hopes it will go away on its own, and start dealing with the messy habits which led up to the issue in the first place.

Oh, and then I solved world peace. Seriously. I just haven't figured out a way to start implementing it yet.

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