Fat Girl Friday Birthday Slim Down - Week 4 - 05/19/23

Fat Girl Friday Update:

Starting Weight: 312 (April 28th weight in)

Last Week's Weight: 308.5

This Week's Weight Goal: 296

Thie Week's Actual Weight: 303.7

Week's Weight Difference: 4.8 lbs

Birthday Slim Down Weight Difference: 8.3 Lbs

Mental Health: This week was really great for the most part. I've been working really hard to keep myself from the dark side of the brain and it's been exhausting but I'm doing it.

NSV (Non-Scale Victory):

• Tuesday I had my work visit cancel so I decided to take Zabrina to fill a couple of our unused water bottles with ice water and give them to people on the street holding signs. I explained to Zabrina (who previously this week had a complete meltdown and voiced very loudly how I'm such a mean mom and I NEVER do anything nice for her because the Ice Cream truck passed our house at 8:05 PM and bedtime is 8:00 PM so she was told no) that not everyone has the luxuries in life that I work so hard to provide her. It was a great learning opportunity for her and a very humbling moment for myself. Like I explained to Zabrina after we met the first lady who had a rather compelling story about toxic abuse and having no one left to help her literally dropped tears when she realized we were giving her the cute time marked 64 ounce water bottle, if it wasn't for our family and friends who have helped me while I was really down.. that could be us.

• After our ice water adventure I realized that Mother's day passed (see in the oopsies part for a great story about a BIG mistake I made this week) and I hadn't made it to see Deshaun (my son) or My Grandmas' graves so I took Zabrina to the cemetery. There is usually quite the anxiety with me about the cemetery because there is so much walking on uneven ground, and it always hurts. But this time.. the hurt was great. Zabrina had so much fun looking at the different statues, headstones, and scenery at the cemetery and I got the opportunity to capture some really good pictures AND teach her an introduction to life/death and why she should take advantage of every day she can. At what I thought was the end of our cemetery trip, we realized that Zabrina had lost track of her favorite green dinosaur water bottle and spent another hour (we'd been there for almost 2) looking for her bottle, thank goodness we finally found it! I was terrified that I was going to hurt SO bad, but Zabrina asked to go to Panda and eat at a park because "she just didn't want this super fun day to be over" How could I say no?

• We ended up at Manito Park. I explained to Zabrina that my back was starting to be a problem and I couldn't promise her we'd make it farther than the tables that were about 150 feet away from the parking spot. But after we sat and ate we decided to venture out a little.. and ended up going ALL the way around the duck pond! This was HUGE to me, and that night when I got home and took the pain meds, I was resting at a pain level of 4!! That used to be the magic number that I would be at when I hadn't done anything more than get up to use the bathroom and was on 2 other muscle relaxers/pain relievers.

New Habits Started (Update):

• I am now more vocal about situations that bring me negative feelings, cause me to feel guilty or obligated to do things just to make sure people are happy with me, or downright just irritate me. I've come to realize that a majority of my life I've always handled situations with aggression and explosions because I didn't know how to process and handle all the racket in my head, so when emotions got involved I'd simply lose my shit, or shut down completely, there was no inbetween. A really great example of this is a disagreement I had with my Mom the other night regarding a behavioral situation with one of my nieces. I didn't think my Mom was handling it in a very productive way and when I made a statement my Mom instantly got defensive. I don't blame her though, the old me would do dumb shit like point out I thought something was wrong and literally go back and forth with people trying to convince them WHY I was right, instead of even hearing out their mind map of why they were making certain decisions. But this particular night when my mom got defensive, I stopped, I took a deep breath and I asked my Mom why she handled the situation the way she did, she hesitantly explained and after I listened I still didn't agree, so I said "Well Mom I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree but I respect your decision" and instead of spending the night getting worked up, getting into a yelling match with my Mom and creating a situation that we both had to defend ourselves, which would be followed by me storming off and then secretly bawling all night because the bully brain would start the death spiral and remind me that one day my Mom won't be here and I'll regret moments like this, I went and made Zabrina popcorn, myself a veggie bowl to snack on, hugged my Mom and told her I loved her and went upstairs with Zabrina to begin winding down before bedtime. Which in turn led to me sleeping that night, and waking up feeling amazing and ready for the day instead of dreading seeing my own Mother because the guilt would have me in a chokehold.

• With the new habit of being vocal it has also had a negative effect that I wasn't quite anticipating. I fully believed that the people I had on my team would be understanding of the fact that I'm trying to make major lifestyle changes and change my mindset from always being toxically negative to seeing the brighter side of life and that right now I'm so focused on saving my own life that I don't have time to go back and forth, however there have been quite a few people who have chosen to hear me open up and be vulnerable and tell them their actions hurt or make me feel a negative way, and immediately turn around and do the same actions. After the 1st time of me risking taking the time out of my newly found peaceful mindset, I simply won't risk it again. And that has already cut SO many people out of my inboxes it's really hard to digest. But I guess growing pains typically hurt *shrug*

• I drink Ketones every morning! - As soon as I wake up I mix 1 pruvit ketone packet in 16 ounces of water and typically down it before I really do anything else (one day this week it went with me on the go because I hit snooze and had a visit to go to) - I stopped drinking Ketones for now because I wanted to see how the nutricleanse and TLS diet effected my system. Now that I have that under control I ran into the problem of the pack of ketones I paid over $100 for doesn't have enough to last an entire month. After evaluating my finances I have made the commitment to work it out so next month I can order an extra shipment to resolve this in upcoming months. The energy I get from the Ketones is so crazy, and now that I've been without them I can really tell the difference between properly hydrated/fueled vs Ketones.

• I don't sleep in - the latest I slept in this week was 9:00 am and this has allowed me so much more time to get things done. - 9:00 am is still the latest I've slept in, even when a couple of nights I couldn't fall asleep until after 2 am, my body is waking up naturally around 6:30/7:00 most days. This has left me so much time in the mornings to prepare an actual breakfast for Zabrina, handle my responsibilities (like making the bed daily) AND being on time to all of my appointments. With getting up earlier... there is SO MUCH TIME FOR ACTIVITIES!! (Sorry lame Stepbrothers reference LOL)

• I've been productive every day, even if I didn't feel like it I forced myself out of bed, to push past the back pain (average of about a 4 this week) and the bully brain and the depression and I accomplish at least one thing on my to do list. - Every day is like a constant loop of repeating the same habits, but with using extra time pockets I'm blessed with to do more things with Zabrina, and that has been absolutely a game changer. I LOVE spending so much time with her and getting that opportunity to really bond with her. On the mornings I wake up and instantly think "Oh God not again" or feel like I have a headache or feel sluggish... I initiate Mel Robbins' 5..4..3..2..1..GO method and YEET myself out of bed. I tell myself that if I make breakfast and make the bed, everything else I accomplish is a bonus.

• I use the Me+ App to track everything I need to do daily (I haven't added my work schedule in there yet but I intend to since it changes so frequently) - Now that I have my dayplanner set up for the rest of May and the start of June I intend to delete all of my Me+ tasks and enter all of my new habits and routines. It's really nice how easy it is to see what all I have and haven't done in a day, plus let's be real.. I miss getting the little "WooHoo you did it" messages :D

Old Habits Ended:

• I've had 1 20 oz bottle of 7- UP on Wednesday night, besides that I've had 0 soda.

• I haven't had any 5 hour energy shots - I've had 2 this week, one just to see if I could feel the difference (I did not) and the other because I didn't want to take a Ketone packet at 5 pm, I know the 5 hours wouldn't keep me up past bedtime.

Mishaps and Oopsies:

• I thought I was more prepared for the 7 day Nutricleanse program than I was. The first day was GREAT, I hit every time marked task, ate and drank everything that was recommended and felt pretty good with only a couple pretty irritating stomach cramps, a whole bunch of shit (literally) and a few times of feeling nauseas. Then day 2 (Mother's Day! EEK) I woke up feeling great, got ready for the day and even took a bath, gave Zabrina a bath and had hit every task again. However, around 11:00 AM I got the unstoppable urge to throw up, and I mean UNSTOPPABLE. It was like a fire hydrant of throw up EVERYWHERE. And I couldn't stop throwing up. It scared the living shit out of me, and quite honestly made me feel like I failed because I knew I wouldn't be able to continue the program for another day, let alone 5 more. So I babied myself, I sipped ice water until I was able to hold it down, added some broth, and as I laid in my bed, clung to a bucket, on Mother's Day while everyone else was out to dinner with the family, I couldn't stop the self destructive thoughts. I was so stupid, I couldn't even do a fucking cleanse.. everyone can do a cleanse.. what the fuck? What's the point? I'm a horrible mother, sister, daughter, friend, employee, etc etc and all of the "toxic" people and situations are all my fault because everything is always about me... and then like a fucking train.. it hit me... I just brought an unfueled moped to the Daytona 500! Those diets and cleanses are typically designed for people who are looking to lose 10-20 lbs... I'm looking to lose 150. Being morbidly obese with a horrible bad food addiction, lack of self discipline, self enabling when I don't eat because "I'm fat anyway and can miss a meal or two", and a secret habit of binge eating more calories in an hour at 2 am than I do all day is a complete different monster than being a little out of shape. Of course the doctors would clear it, I won't DIE, but I also am not in a position that I can just ride it out while my system cleanses itself, and let's face it I don't want to miss more memories with Zabrina while she's so young, I can't afford to take time off work to detox, AND I don't have a tap out partner when I am throwing up so hard just from the smell but can't muster up the energy to clean it. And if I want this to work for me, and possibly other women who have found themselves in the same extended seat belt section of this life that I'm in, I need to find a way to make it balance. So this week.. I focused on eating.. ironically. I focused on making sure my body had fuel before the fuel light came on and even though I wasn't SUPER strict on what I ate, I did start to incorporate less add ons (less ketchup, cream cheese, etc), choose healthier foods (instead of eating out, eat a small moderation of what we have available where I live). This week I intend to add the TLS protein shakes to my diet and keep my activity level up (while remembering I'm still healing and listening to my bodies warning signs and taking them seriously).

However it's late. I spent a significant amount of time typing this up earlier and hit the back button to go add a picture (thinking auto save would work) and deleted everything so now I'm rushing to get this out while it's still Fat Girl Friday! So until next time... Stay hydrated, Stay humble.