Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick

I am starting to really understand the meaning of “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” 
I feel like my heart is gasping for air.
I feel like I am unraveling.
My heart feels bruised, weak, and lethargic.

A very small few of you know what I am about to write about and some of you don’t.
Because I am a writer, I work through things best by writing it out – venting it all.
So just tread lightly, if you will, with your quick comments and well-meaning one liners.
Let me explain.

Chad and I have been trying to have a baby since August.
Not exactly trying as long as some couples, so it goes without saying that others have been “waiting” longer with no results.
But that is not my heartache.

All last Fall with one exception shortly after getting off birth control, I became very regular.
Literally, my periods started on the 28th of every month for4 months like clockwork.
30 day long cycles.
I was mostly fine every month I didn’t conceive and got my period instead because deep down I just logically knew that this would be a process.
I was determined to enjoy the process and just keep going at it, so to speak.

After my period on December 28th, I did have another period until February 4th.
Eight days late.
Naturally, I got my hopes up.
However, I did not have any weird side effects or symptoms – just a missed period.
A few negative Home Pregnancy Tests (HPTs) after Jan. 28th and I was just stuck waiting.
When my period started on February 4th, I was sad.
I was sure I was pregnant even though I didn’t have any other symptoms.
I just assumed I was too early in my potential pregnancy to have symptoms yet.

I went to my OBGYN for my annual exam and she told me to begin Ovulation Testing Kits that month.

So for 20 days in the month of February I got up in the morning, peed on a stick, and waited 5 minutes to see if it would say I was about to ovulate.
I got 2-3 different days where it seemed like it was a positive result on the test (those things are way too hard to interpret!) and so Chad and I made good use of those days (and a few days after even) trying to make a baby.

Because my period was late and came on February 4th, I wasn’t due to start my next period until March 7th.

March 7th came and went.

Mark 10th came and went.

No period.

I started feeling somewhat hopeful and excited.
At this point I started having certain symptoms.
I will spare the personal details because some male gender’d friends of mine read this blog, but the important factor is that I didn’t know that some of these symptoms could even occur in an early pregnancy. I had the symptom first and then had to Google it to see what caused it. The most common result was always early pregnancy.
So then I REALLY started getting my hopes up.

(If you want to know what they were, message me.)

Let’s fast forward to today.

Today I am 15 days late for my period.
I have taken 4 HPTs and they were all negative.
I had my doctor’s office to a urine test – it was negative.
Yesterday they did a Quantitative HCG Blood Test. This is a blood lab test that checks your blood for even the smallest minuscule amounts of HCG (the pregnancy hormone) to determine if you’re indeed pregnant. It is considered very accurate.

They rushed this lab work, so I could know by the end of the day my results. This was largely due to how anxious I had been feeling about my missed period + all my symptoms + the negative urine tests. When I told the doctor my symptoms as she prepared to draw my blood, even she said it sounded very promising that I was in fact pregnant. She assured me that some women just do not have positive HPTs for unknown reasons.

They called me about 2 hours later. My HCG levels were less than 2.

“You’re not pregnant.” the nurse sadly told me.

So herein lies my heartache.
I am not nearly as sad that it is “taking a while to get pregnant” – I am sad because my body is tricking me! Like some kind of sociopatheic, twisted joke!
I would so much rather NOT be pregnant, get my period, and be able to move on in hopes of trying again next month than to think for WEEKS that I am pregnant with no way to confirm it through tests!
I have never skipped a period.
I have never been so irregular!
I don’t know how to cope with the grief of the roller-coaster ride that gets my hopes up and then brings them down crashing and burning.
It may sound dramatic to you, but maybe you just can’t relate.
Most of my friends got pregnant easily or had “surprises”
Most of my friends who had a harder time trying to conceive never went this long with a missed period only to get “negative” test results.
I need to know that this can happen and has happened to other people, so I don’t feel so isolated by all of this!

I have not been able to stop crying after I got that phone call.
I left my friend’s house and cried the entire 45 minute drive home.
I hugged Chad when I got home and cried.
We lay in bed together talking through it and I continued to cry.
We fell asleep at 7:30pm or so and slept until 11:30pm.
I woke up sad.
I wanted to cry.
I felt a little better talking through it with him, but here is the real issue:

I STILL FEEL PREGNANT.

I still have ALL my symptoms.
The biggest two that are drastically affecting my day to day functioning are the fact that I am ALWAYS tired.
ALWAYS.

Last week during Spring break I would sleep until NOON, need a nap by 4pm, and want to be in bed by 8 or 9!
I am exhausted.

The other thing is that I am supposed to be on this weight loss program, but I have lost any and all desire to eat.
Food just sounds disgusting.
I can barely make myself drink water or eat a bowl of cereal.
I am not vomiting or anything, but I have no appetite and the thought or smell of certain foods makes me nauseous.
So I will go way too long without eating just because I don’t even want to think about it, and then hours later my stomach is growling and I have to make myself eat something that doesn’t sound good.

My symptoms don’t stop there, but like I said I will spare you the personal details.

My question is this:

Can a person get negative urine tests and a negative blood test and still be pregnant?!?!
I read online about hundreds of women it has happened to, but it doesn’t seem like doctors acknowledge that it’s possible?

If you are a woman, has this ever happened to you?!

How can I feel all these symptoms and not be pregnant?
If I am indeed not pregnant, what is WRONG with my body?

- – And please, PLEASE don’t comment and say all the things I already know. Say you wish you could be here. Say you wish you could relate and that you’re praying for me. Say you love me and that is all. But please don’t tell me cliche’s and one-liner like you’re handing me a 99 cent greeting card to magically make all my sorrow go away. It just doesn’t work that way. I am sorry if that sounds harsh, but I already know God has a plan. I do trust Him implicitly. I know God’d timing is best and I know God has His hand on my life. I just already know all these things. I just don’t feel happy about it at the moment because I am still coming to terms with the sense of loss and anxiety I feel. I am allowed to feel sad. I just need to know that someone out there sees me, hears me, and is including me in their prayers. And maybe, just maybe somebody reading this can relate and let me know that I am not the only one whose body is tricking them into false hope and the dark realm of delayed fertility. – -

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Side note:
I have a doctor’s appointment on the 29th to try and determine what is wrong with my body. I will eventually get answers. It is just that the wait between then and now is what has me so sad, heart sick, and anxious.

My Weight Loss Program: The Science Behind It

Some of you have been asking what my program consists of and why it seems to work so well for me over other diets/programs out there.

Well, I already spoke about what specifically I am eating and the supplements I am taking here.
I wanted to also throw out quickly the science behind the program I am on, and why the science of my program makes it so successful.
(This is not to say that other programs are not successful, but the science behind this particular one seems to work best for me.)

First off, every time I go to weigh in at Metabolic, my Ketone Bodies are checked.
As soon as I go in, I pee on a little stick that measure the amounts of stored fat my bodies is metabolizing and, therefore, secreting through my urine. Sounds kind of gross when you say it like that, but basically if I am burning off my stored fat then trace amounts of it will show up in my urine.
The ideal results are that Trace – Small amounts of Ketone Bodies are present in my urine. If there are no Ketone Bodies present, then I am not doing my diet program properly. If the amounts  of Ketone Bodies are too high, then I won’t continue to burn my stored fat because my body will detect the high amounts of stored fat being burned and initiate a protective mechanism that holds onto my stored fat to protect me from dying in a famine or some kind of weird Apocalypse scenario. This is bad because my body will begin to shut down the metabolism of stored fat in an attempt to save my life from starvation and, therefore, my weight loss will completely stop. This often happens when girl’s attempt to get skinny by starving themselves. They will eventually continue to lose the weight, but only through a constant state of starvation during this “shut down mode” which causes severe damage to their bodies.

I love that Metabolic is constantly monitoring my Ketone Bodies because they are checking to make sure I am not only eating the right foods, but also that I am eating ENOUGH in order to maintain a consistent burning metabolism. It is also very encouraging to see that my results are always within the optimal range!

-

Another thing is the consumption of essential fats.
Good fats are the kind found in healthy foods that are crucial for your brain, body, and overall health.
I have been taking them in the form of Fish Oil supplements, but they can also be found in foods.  

These are also essential for weight loss and here is why…

The stored fat on your body is a sticky, gooey, yucky substance that stubbornly attached itself to the bones, muscles, and ligaments around it.
Even with copious amounts of exercise, your body’s stored fat will stubbornly hold on as long as it can making it difficult to lose the stored fat on your body – especially in certain areas.

Essential fats come to these areas of the body with stored fat and literally slick them up. Like any good dose of WD40 on a rusty hinge or like oil in your car, essential fats lubricate the sticky gooey stored fat on your body. This allows the stored fat to break up more easily and detach itself from the bones, muscle, and ligaments around it. It always makes me think of Dawn dish soap going into a sticky pan that was used to cook something like lasagna. Washing it with just water is difficult and takes forever, but as soon as you add Dawn dish soap the cheeses and greasy sauces break apart and wash away easily!

SO, if you are wanting to lose weight AND inches faster, take a daily fish oil or flax-seed oil supplement.

Even if you don’t need to lose weight, these essential fats are sooooo good for you and provide a wide array of health benefits!

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WATER WATER WATER.

Drinks lots of water!
How else would I be flushing away all that stored fat I am now metabolizing?
How else would my body stay hydrated and energized with this new active constantly running metabolism?

Metabolic says a TYPICAL person should get 640z of water daily.
For every 25 lbs you’re overweight, add another 8 oz to that!
For every 30 minutes you exercise add another 8 oz!
Don’t over-water yourself because that can be bad too, but most people don’t even come close to getting enough water, so over watering isn’t  a concern for many people.

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The most important thing that makes a huge difference in my weight loss is the way my meals are structured. The point of this Metabolic plan is to reprogram my metabolism to be more efficient. The typical American diet does the exact opposite, so it is a huge lifestyle change in the way I eat.

This is how it works:

Whenever you eat proteins your body is unable to break them down for digestion without an aid. Usually this aid is a carb. These helpful carbs can come from grain, veggies, fruits, etc.
Carbs are sugar, but complex carbs from whole grains tend to burn stronger and slower for longer burning energy and metabolism.

If you eat exactly the same amount of carbs and proteins, your body will use the carbs to help break down and digest the proteins. A few hours later you’ll probably be hungry again. It is also very unlikely that you will eat the exact amount of carbs and proteins to the gram, especially since carbs and proteins burn calories at different rates per gram.

The typical American diet eats twice as many carbs as proteins, and usually these carbs are the bad, quick burning, short-lived, sugary kind.
When you eat this way your body will still use the amount of carbs it needs to break down and digest the protein you just ate, but now you have an excess of carbs left and no more protein to attach them to. Your body takes these extra carbs and unless you’re about to go exercise your body STORES THEM ON YOUR FRAME AS FAT.

Disgusting, right?!

With the Metabolic Program I am on, the idea is to only eat the carbs required by my body for the digestion of proteins, and THEN eat extra proteins.

What does this do?

Well… it is amazing. Your body digest the carbs with equal amounts of proteins. THEN you have extra proteins, but your body cannot digest them properly without an aid. SO guess what your body does? IT PULLS FROM YOUR STORED EXCESS BODY FAT to help digest the extra proteins you ate!!
Amazing!

Here is a picture I drew to try to help you visualize this:

SO basically, a diet high in lean protein with veggies and fruits and a few complex whole grains will begin to digest stored fat for energy leading to weight and inches lost.
A diet high in carbs will do nothing but add-on the pounds, unless you’re an Olympic swimmer or something.

- – -

Hope you enjoyed reading about the science behind my weight loss!

Misunderstood Identity

I can’t tell you how many times I hear someone say or imply that people who are shy, awkward, or socially inept are introverts.
It makes me want to punch a small animal.

Okay, maybe not that bad… but it seriously gets under my skin.

To me, introversion is one of the most misunderstood labels.
I understand that it can be hard to pinpoint in someone, but the blanket stereotype that connotates social malfunction or people phobias is just taking it way too far.

About 10 years ago or so is when this all started for me.
I remember being “diagnosed” as an ENFP at Teen Mania through the Myers Briggs Type Assessment (ENFJ at first, but that was later amended).

Looking back, I think I chose some answers that leaned more towards Extroversion because being an Extrovert in our society is deemed more acceptable, and I so badly wanted to be accepted. If a question on the test asked if I preferred “going to a large party” vs. “staying home alone or with one friend” I probably falsely chose “going to a large party” because I wanted to make friends in this new season of my life.

I struggled constantly with this tension between loving my friends and being around people vs. all those people and friends driving me crazy after about 4+ hours of their company. I wondered why I was so difficult? Everyone else was fine if we hung out ALL DAY doing loud and crazy things. Everyone else was fine if the chaos never ended and people never went home to their own beds. Why was I so cranky all of a sudden? Why did it make me so tired to have to fight for a word in a conversation, or to be constantly interrupted?

After too much social effort I would become withdrawn, irritable, and snarky.
And I didn’t know why.

Fast forward 3 years …

I was literally browsing the self-help section of the Barnes and Noble in Tyler, TX for answers to my problem.

The first book I picked up was about HSP syndrome.
HSP = Highly Sensitive Person
I felt like I fit some of the criteria, but not all of it.
I put the book back on the shelf and kept looking.

The next book I picked up was called “The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World” and was written by a bunch of doctors.
I didn’t think I was an Introvert because of the stigmas attached to that title, but as I browsed the Table of Contents (always a good indicator of a book’s relevance!) Chapter 6 caught my eye… Chapter 6 was titled: “Socializing: Party Pooper or Pooped from the Party?”

As I began reading it my life was LITERALLY changed.
I quickly realized I was a closet Introvert.
I quickly knew I wanted to read and buy this book.
I knew I had to re-take that Myers Briggs test again. (I did, by the way, and I was a full blown INFP!)
I finally had answers to my questions.

The point of all this is this:

I had to know myself to figure out how to thrive.
Introversion was not a shyness or social phobia, but a way of coping with stimulus.
I did love my friends.
I did love a good party.
I did not have a social malfunction.
I simply became emotionally and mentally and physically drained from a certain degree of activity or commotion.

I learned that some people in my life did not drain me at all.
Some people I can be around all the time for as many days as you can count and I am totally fine.
Other people I can only be around for about 30 minutes and I need to get away.
I love quieter environments and non-obnoxious people.

I watched this video tonight that talks about the way our society has oriented itself around an Extroverted audience.
This video is what prompted me to write this post and share my story.
It is worth watching, though kind of long.
I highly recommend it.

I also highly recommend getting to know who your friends, significant other, co-workers, etc really are.
Don’t assume that just because they didn’t want to go to that loud bar or concert with you that they don’t like you and don’t want to be your friend.
Chances are they do, but the thought of such an event leaves them exhausted.
Don’t assume that because they are quiet or non-charismatic that they are awkward or insecure.
Chances are they so confident and secure that they don’t need to fill the silence all the time.

- – -

p.s. – If you’re an Introvert, use the comments to give a little  shout out for yourself. (It doesn’t have to be a loud shout.)

Holes in Their Hubris

This was a fun poem we had to write for my Creative Writing class.
We had to write a poem where we put 3 restraints (or limitations) on our format.

When I started writing it, it was very late at night and I was exhausted from trying to create deep, meaningful poetry.
I decided to write something more peppy and fun for once.

The 3 restraints I put on myself were:
1. To try and steer away from a serious tone
2. Every line has to rhyme with cheese.
3. The poem itself must be shaped like swiss cheese (<– this was the hardest one to adhere to!)

The result was this:

Holes in Their Hubris
By: Tasha Cardwell

Some states just can’t be appeased
There are some who are hard to please
They          claim to have all the expertise
This             topic desires yet more emphases
Unchecked it festers:              a terminal disease
This state boasting                   its arrogant decrees
Although we all like                to eat plenty of these
Most commonly shaped like obtuse and an isosceles.
For these, other         Cheddar or Brie will cause unease
They require a            Gouda and Swiss fit for dignitaries
Anywhere else            it’s manufactured would displease
Their superiority for their product knows no degrees
If you visit within their borders then you will see
These haughty Wisconsinites and their cheese!

The Song of the Fall

The Song of the Fall
By: Tasha Cardwell

The wind blew high and then blew low,
a million dancing leaves cascade.
Except for one with sweat on brow
fought with all his might to remain.

“Come fly with us!” they sang aloud,
catching sun rays on all facets.
They twirled and they spun throughout
the wind: reds, and golds, and oranges.

They freely sang limb after limb;
their journey from home was thrilling.
Then begged and pleaded for him
to join in their carefree living.

Still he hung on, wouldn’t let go.
He could see they were not flying.
Though the breeze flung them to and fro,
Twas clear to him they were dying.

My Weight Loss: The Details

This post is specifically for those who asked for the details of what I am doing to lose weight and be healthier.
If you are someone who doesn’t care about the nitty-gritty details and is just happy for me, then you can stop reading with post without any guilt or fear of reprisal.
If you are a hater, then hate somewhere else. Haha

Okay.

So the first detail that I previously mentioned was that I am doing a program with the Metabolic Research Center – specifically the one in Liberty.
They guarantee their results and TAILOR a plan SPECIFIC to you.
This is an important detail that cannot be stressed enough.
Please do not follow what I am doing exactly because it could be damaging to your body.
With the diet I am on, someone else might actually need fewer calories, or more, or more protein, whatever…
Feel free to utilize the general idea of healthy living/eating, but trust me when I say the foods I have been allowed to eat were based on criteria specific to me. (i.e. How much I weigh, how much I need to lose, where on my body I gain weight, my hormones levels, my age, previous eating habits, etc.)

So…

Basically there were only a few requirements for guaranteed results, then optional thing to better those results.

The requirements:

- follow unique eating plan/menu
- take a multi-vitamin every day (a good one!)
- take ____ amount of essential oils everyday. (I have to take 9000mg, and I chose Fish Oil capsules to start)
- Metabolic’s High Nutrient Supplement (HNS) drinks as scheduled into my menu plan.
Optional:

- Exercise (Very healthy and highly encouraged, but not necessary for results until I begin getting closer to my goal weight)
-  Additional supplements
- Weight in 2x a week
- Record and show to Metabolic a daily food diary
- Classes provided by Metabolic (Cooking, Exercise, Health, Emotional wellness, etc…)

- – -

My menu plan consists of the following:

Allowed Fruits:
Apple, Apricots, Blackberries, Blueberries, Boysenberries, Cantaloupe, Cranberries, Peaches, Pineapple, Grapefruit, Honeydew, Orange, Raspberries, Strawberries, Tangerine, Watermelon.
(Each of these fruits has a specific serving size, but typically anywhere from 1/2 cup to 1 cup depending on the fruit.)

Allowed Vegetables:
Artichokes, Asparagus, Bamboo Shoots, Bean Sprouts, Beet Greens, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Celery, Chard, Chicory, Chinese Cabbage, Collard Greens, Cucumber, Eggplant, Endive, Escarole, Green Beans, Green Onion, Green Peppers (Bell or Jalapeno type),  Kohlrabi, Lettuce (Iceberg, Romaine, Leafy, Kale), Mushrooms, Okra, Pimentos, Radishes, Raw Tomato, Sauerkraut, Spaghetti Squash, Snow Peas, Spinach, Summer Squash, Turnip Greens, Zucchini.
(Serving sizes for veggies is always EITHER 8 oz of raw, or 4 oz of cooked.)

Allowed Bread/Starches:
1 slice wheat bread (45 calories or less per slice!)
1 serving of Melba Toast
1/4 cup cooked:
quinoa, edamame,  green peas, black-eyed peas,
OR legumes such as: black, garbanzo, kidney, pinto, or navy beans.
1/2 corn OR flour tortilla

Allowed Proteins:

Group 1:
3oz hard cheese
OR
2 Eggs
OR
1oz hard cheese, 1 egg
OR
1 egg, 2 egg whites
OR
6oz of Cottage Cheese (but I don’t like this one!)

Group 2: (6 oz serving size)
Choice Beef Round, Choice Beef Sirloin, Flank Steak, Fresh Crab, Fresh Lobster, Fresh Shrimp, Fresh Scallops, Salmon, Gator, Lamb Loin, Pork Loin, Rump Roast, Veal Loin, Liver

Group 3: (6 oz serving size)
 Buffalo, Chicken Breast, Cod, Elk, Flounder or Sole, Haddock, Halibit, Rabbit, Red Snapper, Squirrel, White Tuna (water packed), Turkey Breast (or ground Turkey ONLY if it’s the 99% fat free version), Venison

- – -

So those are my approved foods. I am also allowed to cook with olive oil, Pam, this type of spray butter, and any seasonings I want except for salt. I can also have yellow mustard and (surprisingly!) Dijonaise.

Various Rules:
- No caffeine! (This was the hardest for me, but after about 10 days of this menu I found I did not even need it anymore! I wake up refreshed most days…. I now just miss the taste of coffee….)
- No sugar of any sort.
- No refined white starches
- No Fried Foods
- No Fast Foods
- I am allowed to have 1 cup of decaf coffee a day, with no cream and only artificial sweeteners if needed.
- I am allowed to have up to 24 oz of Caffeine Free, Diet Soda with very very very little sodium. (Like Diet Ginger ale…)
- I am allowed to have one “Creamy” HNS supplement a day. (Hot Chocolate, Pudding, Creamy Chicken Soup, etc….)
- I can only have the 3oz of Hard Cheese protein at one meal per day. This keeps me from eating cheese all day. Haha
- Salad dressing MUST be less than 4g of fat per serving, and less than 3 carbs.

- – -

How My Meals Work: (told you this was going to get detailed!!)

Every morning when I wake up I need to eat breakfast no later than 1 hour after rising.
Breakfast can consist of one Protein choice from Group 1, and 1 Bread/Starch choice.
Along with this I must take 1 HNS supplement and drink lots of water.

Very typical breakfast for me as I am running out the door to school:
1 hard boiled egg, 1 oz of cheese folded inside a slice of wheat bread, 1 grape HNS drink (tastes like grape juice!)
(Along with this I take: 1 multi-vitamin, 2 fish oil pills, 2 MRC-6 pills, and 1 Corti-trim pill!)

Lunch must be eaten no later than 4 hours after breakfast ended.
If I have to go longer than that, I need to have a between meal HNS supplement.
Lunch can consist of 1 Protein choice from either Group 1 or Group 3, along with 1 Vegetable choice, and 1 fruit choice.

Very typical lunch for me:
80z salad consisting of Baby Spinach, Raw Tomato, English Cucumber, and Trader Joes Cilantro Dressing + 6 oz of either Chicken Breast cooked the night before or a packet of Tuna with Dijonaise mixed in + either Cantaloupe or Pineapple or Strawberries. Also, another HNS supplement drink.
(I also have another 2 fish oil pills, 2 more MRC-6 pills, and 1 more Corti-trim)

Dinner has the same between meal hourly rules as lunch and breakfast.
Dinner can consist of 1 Protein choice from either Group 3 or Group 2. (Beef cannot be every night)
In addition to this, I can have 1 Vegetable choice and 1 Bread/Starch choice.

Very typical dinner for me:
4 oz of either steamed broccoli or steamed green beans.
6 oz of either chicken breast, or ground turkey cooked and then added to a HNS Chicken Broth supplement to be a soup!
1 slice of garlic toast.
If I don’t do the HNS Chicken Broth thing, I must have another regular HNS drink.
(I also my last 2 MRC-6 pills, and 3 more fish oils pills)

- – -

And that folks, is how I am losing so much weight.
There is a science behind it, but this post got soooo long you’re probably not even reading this anymore.
So I will post a science-behind-it post soon.

Photo Challenge

Life passes by way too quickly these days.
I have been easily stressed and, therefore, forget to slow down and remember my blessings.

One way I will challenge life’s busyness is to do a Photo Challenge over the next month.
I am a bit late in getting started, so it will be less of a “February” challenge and more of an Early 2012 Photo Challenge.

Want to do this with me?
I’d love to see what pictures you create out of these topics!

Let the everyday moment capturing begin!

Quagmire

My Creative Writing teacher was talking to us about over-used metaphors, or cliches.

THEN he gave us the assignment to take a cliche and write a poem about it where we take it literally.
(i.e. – “raining cats and dogs” could be a poem about a day when it literally rained cats and dogs and what that might be like.)

Here is mine. Can you guess the cliche I used?

- – -

Quagmire
By: Tasha Cardwell 

It’s wretchedly crowded in here, though no one’s admitting
His stench suffocating the air: old peanuts and droppings
He has many names, but is often ignored
No one confesses: he doesn’t match the décor

His mammoth frame eating hay: offensive and broad
Still we engage in more shallow dialogue
It’s gnawing at me! I wish someone would say something!
But not me – someone else! It’s quite unbecoming.

So we sip our tea and engage in more pleasantries.
While Quagmire bellows and drops more feces

- – -

For a clue on which cliche I am writing about – click here!

- – -

P.s. – “Quagmire” - a situation from which extrication is very difficult.

The Night Owl

It is just fitting that I write this post on the very threshold of a new morning – though I have not gone to bed yet.

Starting this new program with Metabolic has basically made my life VERY busy.
More to come on this in a very soon future post.

For now, I leave you with another piece of fruit from my labors in Creative Writing class.

The Night Owl
By: Tasha Cardwell 

Darkness stirs a beckoning in
The place where self becomes awake
Nighttime dreams for the sunlight-spent
While I to my purpose wake

Not fit for sun, nor fresh and bright
Mistakenly not to play foul
Fertile wordsmith amid the night
Identified pilferous fowl.

Changing My Life

The following post contains a rare and unprecedented bout of honesty and vulnerability. I ask that you tread lightly with my heart, and that you only offer up to me the kindest of words during my recently begun journey to change my life.

I have had a problem for a while now.
I haven’t wanted to admit it, take responsibility for it, and look it in the eye – but it’s been there all along.

I have a serious food addiction.
I have become the epitome of  everything I never wanted to become.
I have cravings so strong they move me to tears and anger if I can’t satisfy them.
I don’t drink enough water.
I have a caffeine addiction.
I have a sugar addiction.
I usually think twice before eating fast food, and then I do it anyway.

I have become significantly overweight.
More than I ever imagined I would allow.

People tell me all the time that I am pretty… that they love me just the way I am. I appreciate ALL of you. I can’t say enough how rare it is to find friends and family who will love you just the way you are. But the hard truth of it is this: I don’t love myself the way I am. I really stopped loving myself altogether about 50 pounds ago. I can barely look in the mirror most times. Trying on clothes sends me spiraling into a depression. Exercise injures me because I am so overweight it hurts my body to exercise. I see all the things I want to do and cry because I can’t. I see all the fashion styles that are SO ME, but I am too fat to dress like that. I have had people not want to be my friend because of my size. I noticed. It’s obvious and it hurts.

This is extremely hard for me to admit.
This is painful to share, but I need to be honest with you and with myself.
If I don’t come out and say this, then I can continue to hide behind the plastic smile that masquerades my pain.
If I don’t expose my faults, then I have no outside motivation to fix them.

SO -

I decided to change my life.

Call it New Years.
Call it being finally fed up.
Call it whatever you want, but I am DOING THIS.

I recently joined a program that I had a TON of success with several years ago.
I originally thought they were only in Tyler, TX – but it turns out they have 3 offices here in Kansas City (and more around the country!).

I joined the Metabolic Research Center.
If you want to know about them, you should check out their website.
(If you want a free consultation, let me give you my free coupon for one!)

The basics are that all their products are holistic, plant based ingredients (safe to use even when breastfeeding for those wanting to lose baby weight).
They have me on a VERY strict diet with the goal of CHANGING my metabolism. Not helping it or boosting it – changing it.
It is not an easy program and it is not cheap.
But I never thought it would be.
It took a long time for me to allow my body to get this bad, so I knew it would cost me a lot to fix it.

Feel free to ask me how it’s going, though if you live near me you might start SEEING for yourself.
Feel free to pray for me, encourage me, and offer yourself as a walking/hiking buddy.

But most importantly, please do not try and feed me anything you feel I am being deprived of.
I want to be deprived from the foods that have been killing me.
I am going to be working hard at this.
I am going to have to be more disciplined and organized.
I am going to get healthy.
I am going to lose weight.
I am going to feel like myself again.
With God’s help, I am going to love myself again.

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