I woke up this moring to the news that a former coworker had passed away this morning. His 12 year old son called the cab stand early this morning and said his dad wasn’t breathing and he didn’t know what to do. The dispatcher told him to call 911 and a couple of drivers who were close went to the house. He was dead when they got there. In January I had been at Toby’s house and found him in crisis. His legs were horribly swollen and almost black with water leaking from them. I thought he had become diabetic and I was afraid he was about to lose at least one of his legs. I talked him into letting me call a ambulance for him. After that he spent nearly a month in ICU. He had congestive heart failure, he almost died. He got out of the hospital and came back to work. He talked about how he was going to eat right and not smoke. He was going to change his life for the better. I really hoped he would. He didn’t. Within a couple months he was back to his same eating habits and started smoking again. I was worried for his son. His 12 year old picked up his habits. They would both eat a whole large pizza at one sitting. I’d seen this before. With my x husband. The day my x husband had his gastric bypass he weighed 618 lbs at 5’10. I’d left him by then. I couldn’t stand to watch him die and I refused to die with him. Even though I couldn’t get a handle on my own problems at least I recognized the problems were there. I still don’t have a handle on my issues but I’m working on them. I refuse to die quietly. With both of these men they were hell bent on killing themselves slowly. Even after every chance in the world my x husband is still close to 400lbs. He refused to follow Dr’s orders and take the medication and follow the regimen. I refuse to be that tragic story of the girl who just died because the pizza was to good or she didn’t love herself enough to at least fight back. I may not have had control of getting fat but the last 20 years is all on me. I got fat, then I got fatter, now I’m at a point that I’m lucky enough to not have any severe medical problems. I don’t have high blood pressure or diabetes but I’m sick in other ways. I’ve created a toxic landfill inside myself and the poison is boiling over. I refuse to die. I refuse to continue to give in. Even if I slip I will still keep fighting. Obviously I know that at some point I will die, it’s the cycle but if I die tomorrow I don’t want anyone to say … she just gave in. I want to end this with reminding us all that it’s never to late to fight, even if you take your last breath fighting , at least you were fighting!
Cookies Are Cheaper Than Therapy
September 21, 2012
Nearing the final days of the fast I’m starting to eat a little bit of food while I continue with the juicing and smoothies. I have been able to tell a huge difference in my body as I went through the detox and took some things out of my diet. I’ve also noticed a difference as I reintroduced certain products to my system, dairy being the main one. I think I will definitely be making a more conscious effort to remove or at least limit dairy in my diet. Overall I feel much better. I don’t know if the mental clarity is coming from the move , the time I’ve had to reflect or the juice. Maybe all of the above. What I do know is yesterday I had a really awesome day just kind of hanging out and talking with my sister. We talked about somethings that had been troubling both of us. We talked about mama, we talked about some of her problems and how it affected our own choices in life. This morning on facebook a friend of mine shared a article on the “fuck these hoes” mentality of men. The article pointed out how modern day music lends itself to the emotional unavailability of black men. This article struck a chord with me. Thinking between yesterdays conversation and the online article I reevaluated somethings I had taken a look at before. See we are taught from a young age to connect food with feelings. At holidays we lay out a feast to share with our loved ones and close friends. There is laughter and catching up and reminiscing, sometimes those holiday dinners forge a bond within the family that will have to last until the next year. When someone is sick or a new baby arrives, people bring food. When our loved ones pass, friends and community members bring food. We are taught from the beginning to associate food with strong emotions. Happiness, love, grief, the food is always there. I remember as a little girl always being fat. My mama was always trying to put me on diet of some sort. I don’t remember the name of the pills but in the mid eighties these meal replacement pills were the rage. Basically these things were big chalky vanilla or orange flavored pills, ok pills might be the wrong word since they were about the size of a quarter machine bouncy ball, and you would eat 2 or 3 of them in place of a meal. Mama decided these things would be the best way to slim me down so for a few weeks instead of dinner she would feed me these chalk balls. As I got older the diets kept coming. Shine would make fun of me being fat, he would tell me that nobody would ever want or love me if I didn’t lose weight. Mama kept pressuring me to lose weight. I knew I needed to lose weight. How was I supposed to give up the one thing in my house that was there for me, without question or judgment? On the days that Shine was violent and would hit me or was just being particularly mean mama would come into my bedroom late at night and give me a couple of snack cakes or even a whole box and tell me to hide them. Food became that source of comfort. In my home where there was no love or safety, little debbie became that holiday with the family that loved me. After I left home and married Ray, food was still that one constant in my life. When things were bad and this husband of mine who took a oath before God to love, honor and cherish me was doing everything but, there was food. When we would have a really bad fight and he thought I was on the verge of running, we would go out to eat. Eventually I left, food was still there but for a short time I didn’t need it as much. Then I met Anthony, the emotionally unavailable man who was way too good for me. Our “relationship” was founded on food and sex. We would have dinner together almost every night. The good thing about that was that he was really into fitness and being healthy, so every night we’d have fish or chicken and steamed veggies. I lost a bit of weight with him. This was before I realized I loved a man who would never give himself to me. I became depressed, I heard Shines voice telling me that no man would ever want me. I heard mama saying, Oh he’s nice but he’s just using you, he’ll never marry you. I began to eat. I gained weight. Over the next 10 years of on and off with this man, the pain was more than I could possibly eat away, but I sure did try. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t him that was too good for me. I didn’t see that my weight had nothing to do with his failure to commit. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that even if I was a perfect size 6 with a masters degree and a successful career this man wouldn’t have been able to commit or to be the husband that I desired. This man had his own demons, this man had his own hurt to deal with and those demons had nothing to do with me or my weight. So this morning as I have all this going through my head, what does it all boil down to? It boils down to this, food is just food, and love cannot be replaced by anything other than more love. Sometimes the people we love won’t love us back, sometimes they will but the food will never love us only nourish us if we use it right.
Juicing Adventurously
September 16, 2012
Sooooo …… this evening I decided I would be adventurous and make the MOST vegetabliest vegetable juice ever! I put in tomatoes and celery and spinach and carrots and bell peppers and just to give it a little spice I thought we should add just a little bit of a habenero and some garlic!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO Jesus! Can you say nasty? That juice would probably have made a great all natural weed killer had we decided to spray the lawn with it. Hmmm on 2nd thought maybe I could have put it in a spray bottle and squirted barky dog every time he wakes me up. Anyway, I digress! So what happened? I got over confident and thought I was ready for something not as sweet and simple or plain as the juice I’d been making. Rookie mistake, you might be thinking of trying some stuff out …. DON’T DO IT! Naw seriously, if you’re juicing and you feel adventurous or creative, then by all means go for it cuz you never know. For myself a lesson was learned today, my palette hasn’t evolved enough to be creative. I prefer the fruity or sweetish or even the more mellow plain juices and smoothies. Though I really do try to mix it up a little bit my morning smoothie seems to be the banana, watermelon or strawberry mix I posted previously. My favorite juice is a beet, cucumber, apple combo. I can add or subtract a ingredient or 2 but so far I like it best when it’s simple. In the smoothie I did add a little spinach and parsley, but just a small handful. I don’t really care for kale when juiced but I love it just lightly sauteed with onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil. So what changes am I seeing in my body? Today I’ve notice a lot of bumps and blemishes but I can’t tell ya how many are bug bites and how many are toxins leaving the body. I also notice I’m not peeing nearly as much so that tells me that most of the water weight I was carrying is gone so from here on out the weight loss I see is most likely going to be actual weight. I do need to up the water intake again though. Do I still think when this is over that I’ll juice? I’ll probably do more smoothies than juicing but I do plan to do one or the other at least once daily. There will be a increase of veggie intake and a decrease in meat, dairy and wheat in my regular post fast diet. I’m feeling good, I want to feel better.f
Self Sabotage and Other Deep Thoughts
September 14,2012
So here I am, da y 4. It’s been a good day, lots of energy. I got out and about town for just a while today. I’ve noticed some other things today. I have nearly no swelling in my legs and feet, I don’t seem to be “creaking” as much when I move. The usual grinding in my damaged knee even seems to have gone. I feel like I’m moving better all around. My usual stuffiness and congestion is lessened. I’m also having some other thoughts about my situation. It seems as if I have a long standing habit of self sabotaging anything good in my life. I’ve missed out on some really great guys because I felt they were too good for me and so I purposely showed them how messed up I could be. Same with my weight. I don’t know how to have a normal relationship with food. I don’t know how to allow myself to be healthy and happy. I never thought I deserved it and I never had anyone who loved themselves enough to show me how it was done. So what do you do when you don’t know how to love yourself and it never crossed your mind that you deserved better than you could have ever dreamed for yourself. You go to therapy, intense therapy for a really long time. 🙂 Seriously, at some point you have to just decide you’re fed up. You decide that you’d rather live and be happy and healthy. After you make that decision you have to make a plan, you can’t just wake up and say, “Oh, I think I’ll be happy and get my shit straight.”, then go about your normal everyday life and just hope things fall into place. Be realistic, what changes can you realistically make in your life. For instance, can you really commit to working out for a hour everyday at a gym? If you can’t walk more than 15 minutes at a time then that’s not a immediate change you can make and you’re going to set yourself up for failure. Let’s face it, if you’re anything like me, then you don’t need another single thing to make you feel worse about yourself. So instead of spending money to go to a gym and work out for a hour for 2 or 3 days before giving up completely, commit to walking that 15 min each day, and if you can twice a day, and when that gets a little easier make it 20 minutes. Make a small change, then make another small change, then expand those small changes and make them big changes. The thing here is to keep telling yourself that every change you make everyday is a GOOD thing. If you have a set back one day, it’s OK, none of us got to where we are in one day and we can’t change it in one day. So everyday I wake up, I’m going to look myself in the mirror and say, YOU deserve to be happy. YOU are beautiful, inside and out. When I see I’m falling back into a old pattern, I’m going to stop and ask myself what’s going on with me. I’m going to remember that I do deserve to be happy and healthy. I hope, if you’re going through the same thing that you will remember that too. So here and now, let’s decide we’re going to be F.L.Y (First Love Yourself) LOL yeah I know that was cheesy! Much love!
Day 3
Day 3! Yesterday was rough! I had a horrible headache all day long that aleeve wouldn’t touch and my allergies or something messed up my eye. I had no energy, I was grumpy and I was hungry! I didn’t want juice, I didn’t want to think about juice, my head hurt so bad I didn’t think I could stand running a blender or juicer either one. So what did I do? Well I took a lot of aleeve and drank a lot of water and stayed in bed pretty much most of the day! I did drink a couple smoothies but for dinner I decided to make some lentil soup and a avacado salad. I felt like I just needed something hot. It was good but I wasn’t nearly as hungry as I thought. This morning when I got up I felt pretty decent, I had a smoothie that was one of the best I’ve had. For lunch I just had watermelon. I blended some, I ate some. For dinner we had a veggie smoothie that wasn’t great but wasn’t horrible. Just kind of bland. Now for the stuff you really want to know, today was the day of poop. Lots of it but I feel about 5 lbs lighter. I’ve noticed the infections are healing a little faster and different than usual with just a couple days. Do I really think at this point I’m going to make it 14 days? I think so. I may occasionally eat a vegan meal, something warm or more filling than juice. I may get hungry and like today nosh on watermelon or other fruit while I”m juicing it. The main thing is that I keep going. Even if on day 5 I have a grilled cheese or a bag of chips or even one of my beloved Mtn. Dew’s. It’s not about perfection it’s about me changing the way I eat and the way I look at food and not being so hard on myself. So long as each day I wake up and make a good choice for my health then I’m winning. If I eat that junk food, as long as I keep the good stuff ahead of the bad stuff then that’s a step in the right direction. Here is the recipe for the smoothie I had this morning, I’m not going to bother posting the juice for tonight since it wasn’t that great. 1 small banana 1 cup strawberries 1 med apple 10 raw walnuts Tblsp raw sunflower seeds 2 spoons of coconut oil 1 spoon of raw honey I didn’t , but my friend says with that combo you could throw in a handful of destemmed spinach and not notice it was there. I’ll let you know when I do.
Day 1
September 11, 2012
Day 1 down! How do I feel? Honestly just a little tired and a little hungry. Nothing unbearable. I think I mostly just want to eat because I’m used to eating. The smoothies and juice are really filly but it’s not what I’m used to. I know the days coming up will be worse because to feel better you have to survive getting the built up gunk from your system. I know this, I’m prepared for this. I still think a plate of fried chicken would be hard to pass up 🙂 Everybody tells you about the poop, you’re going to poop a lot. Even when you think nothing should be left you will still be pooping. There wasn’t massive pooping today but I have pee’d a LOT and I haven’t drank the amount of water I’d planned. Lately I’ve been drinking close to 64 oz of water, today I didn’t even finish my 32 oz bottle. What did I juice today? Here is my menu: Breakfast: Cup of blueberries Small Bananna Mint Leaf 2 sprigs parsley stemmed Handful of raw almonds soaked overnight Filtered water Lunch: 1/4 of a small cantaloupe 2 leaves of kale 1 small beet with greens 1 small green apple 1 med red apple 1 lg cucumber *This one was really good
Dinner: 1/2 bunch of kale 1/2 bunch of parsley 1 &1/2 head of romaine lettuce 1& 1/2 large cucumber 4 stalks celery 4 carrots 1 peeled lemon 1 inch of ginger 4 red apples This was for 2 people, it was pretty good. Just a little less lemon and a little more cucumber next time.
The Beginning
September 10, 2012
<g_vml_:shape><g_vml_:fill><g_vml_:shape><g_vml_:stroke><g_vml_:shape><g_vml_:stroke><g_vml_:shape><g_vml_:stroke><g_vml_:shape><g_vml_:stroke>
Getting Ready
This evening was spent getting ready for the juice! A trip to earth fare for the stuff I knew I couldn’t pick up at Aldi’s. I would have liked to get everything there but just financially that’s not something I can afford. So even though it would be better to get everything organic it’s better to have the juice even with chemicals than not at all. So at EarthFare we grabbed 2 bunches of kale, 2 bunches of parsley, mint, carrots, ginger, 2 bunches of beets with greens, raw nuts and seeds for the smoothies. At Aldi’s we picked up the rest of what we needed for the next few days, a watermelon, 2 cantaloupes, 2 bags of lemons, 2 bags of apples, 2 bunches of celery, 2 bunches of bananas, 11 english cucumbers, 2 bags of spinach, 6 heads romaine lettuce, bell peppers, and lots of frozen berries for smoothies. It felt awesome and a little scary to invest that much money in just a few days worth of food. It was good just knowing that I’m taking that first big step and making that big commitment. I feel like it’s ok. I need to spend that little bit of money now to get my life on track, I’m worth it! So tomorrow I’ll wake up early to make our morning smoothies so I will know my nephew will go on his way to work with a good healthy start.
The Beginning
September 9, 2012
To begin with, let me tell you my story. Let me let you inside. I want you to know exactly how I got where I am at this very moment in my life. What lead me to sit here at nearly midnight on a Sunday night starting a blog telling anybody in the world with a internet connection and the time on their hands all about me. I expect most of anybody reading this will know me and be familiar with my background but just in case you’re brand new and just happened to run across me in a random run of bored out of your mind blog surfing….. My name is Kim. I’m 37, not married, no children, emotionally scarred and nearly dead. At this point in my life I’m morbidly obese at almost 500lbs and the last year and a half I have been fighting illness. First it was a severe kidney and urinary tract infection that lasted for about 6 months. Then about 6 months later I began having bacterial and staph infections that cause me to have large painful absesses. I’m currently still fighting that infection and this fight is what has lead me to make the decision to start a 14 day (maybe longer, we’ll see) juice fast and then to transistion into a more healthy lifestyle.
You may be wondering how I got fat to start with. It started with bad eating habits set at a young age. When I was 2 I stayed with a babysitter who would beat me and starve me. So basically at that point I learned to eat all I could when I could. I knew I wouldn’t eat again for another 24 hours. Nobody thought to question why a 2 year old would eat adult size portions and when my parents found out what was going on nobody knew to teach me that I was going to be able to eat and to “reprogram” my eating habits. So everytime food was available I’d eat more than I needed because I still was afraid of being starved again. When I was 3 my dad died, 2 years later my mom married the man who would emotionally and physically rape and torture me. Like a large percentage of children who are molested I began to emotionally eat. My fat was a shield. It still is. Only now after almost 2 years of intensive therapy, heartache, the death of my mama, and finally being at the end of my rope with being sick and tired and fat …. I’m ready to let it go. I’m ready to let my guard down and let ME come out. I’m ready to NOT be the cute fat girl anymore. My first change was to move out of the toxic enviornment I was in. That 10 days ago. Now that I’m here and somewhat settled in I’m ready for the 2nd step. After watching the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” I decided I too would do a juice fast and reboot my system. While he did a 60 day reboot, I’m aiming for 14 days. For me that is a more realistic goal. With recipes and information from the Wonderful Cassidy Barbeau at The Pura Vida Pantry day after tomorrow I will start my juicing with the main goal of healing and flushing out the infection in my body. Hopefully the bonus will be weight loss. As I go day by day I will post the juices and smoothies I’m drinking and discuss what’s going on with me physically and emotionally that day. I have done detox diets before so I know to expect the withdrawls and the headaches and feeling sick as the toxins leave my body. I haven’t done one long term so I can’t speak on the emotional effects. If you’ve stuck with me this long, thank you for starting this journey with me. I’d like to invite you back. If you want to follow me or even join me, I’d be more than happy to have you along.
Taking the FAT out of the CuteLiLfatCHICK 