One Week Round Up!

Apparently, friends and family, and perfect strangers know just what to say when  I am having  a rough patch, and want to give up.

The company I am a health coach for, is launching a new 6 weeks to summer slim down competition, with monetary rewards at the end. I thought I would follow directions that were presented on our secret facebook group and see how much interest I would get from my friends and family, before I decided to start up a team..... So I began following directions.

I posted my "before" and "in progress" photo on facebook.... it's supposed to be an after photo, but there will be no "after" photos.... I am doing this program for the rest of my life.... Hence the reason it's called Take Shape for Life.... it doesn't say, "take shape for your summer body," or anything of the like. I suppose the after pictures are after you lose all the weight you wanted to..... but since I am not there yet, an "in progress" photo is as close as it gets.

Well, people have been offering up plenty of positive, supportive comments. It's been awesome, welcomed, and needed when I have gotten discouraged. Well on Thursday (4/10/14)  the institute director stopped me and asked me if I was still doing the program (He, like a like of people, did the program, and found success as well) and stated that it looked like I too, was having success. I told him I had hit my 55 pound mark (from my highest.... I did lose a few pounds before I started the program).... he went around the institute, boasting about me. He went to Brother S. and bragged about the success I have had so far.... then Brother S. stopped me, and I showed him the "before and "in progress" photos, he said it was astonishing (his wife or daughter, is also a health coach for the same program) he then took me aside and said that I would be greatly blessed for becoming healthy. I would be able to live a healthier, happier, enriched, more blessed life.  Somehow he knew just what I needed to hear, to find more encouragement.

Also, at the institute, some one has been mean... someone keeps making fresh, homemade bread. This becomes free food for us  "poor starving college students"  I'm often asked how I can withstand the peer pressure of free, yummy food, or if I feel deprived.  The answer is: I look at the unhealthy food items as if it's a green, ugly monster, coming to kidnap my health away.  And the answer to if I feel deprived of food: the answer is no. I'm not depriving myself of anything, instead, I am releasing myself from being unhealthy. I am eating food that is the very best for me, at this stage in my life.

I do have a funny thing to brag about: I went to a local craft fair this weekend, they had plenty of food venders as well.... I became the crazy lady who read every single nutritional fact label on the display bottles before sampling anything.... I only found one item that was no carb, no sugar, low calories, so I decided to try that one. You can imagine my shock and feelings of defeat when it was handed to me, on a tortilla chip. I ate this sample, but it was not good in the least.... then Dean went back to the shower on Sunday, and Dean continued to tell me that small samples weren't going to throw me out of fat burn more, so I did try a few items, some were terrific, especially root beer popcorn!  I left feeling very, very, fat, and full. But I am excited to get right back on plan!

Also, we need to issue a public service announcement with a title called "SHUT UP, IT AIN'T NONE OF YOUR EVER LOVING FREAKING BUSINESS!!! Since I have been losing weight, annoying, asinine people who think they are God have come out of the wood works... There have been a rash of people who have issued us statements such as "now that you're skinny, you will get pregnant."  "I know you'll get pregnant now, just watch" And a host of other asinine, rude "I'm God now, I know everything, you'll get pregnant when I say so" comments..... to those of you have done this, and continue to do this.... SHUT THE HECK UP!!!! I am not doing this program to "get pregnant" I am doing it to GET HEALTHY!!! This program DOES NOT cause someone to get pregnant. Only intimacy does. It is listed that it MAY increase fertility, but that is NO GUARANTEE!!! I have never been tested for answers regarding fertility, my husband was, and we were issued with private answers regarding our struggle. Here's the deal.... if you don't stop with the asinine comments,  we will no longer entertain your thoughts or words, by no longer speaking to you. You will be rejected from our lives for a significant period of time. Your comments have done nothing but provide substantial harm, opening incredibly sore wounds that were once healed. We demand to be treated with love, dignity and respect, regarding our situation with our most hellish struggle, called infertility.  If you can't show us the upward most love, dignity, respect, and support, we don't want anything to do with you, please go back to being a 4 year old sunbeam and learn what the love of Christ is,  and how to project that, before you talk to another human, ever again.  You are doing nothing but causing extreme pain to rise from the ashes again. If we do get pregnant on the program, that's great! If not, that is just fine as well.  You all have two choices: accept our struggles as ours and leave us alone regarding our "required six babies" that you think we should have by now, or pay for us to have fertility treatments, so that you may "fix" us... (although I have given it substantial thought to set up a gofundme fundraiser for every pound I lose that will go for treatments, but have not entertained that thought very far. )

I know some of you that have issued these statements are just plain psychotic, some of you are "Utah Mormons" and demand that everyone else lives as you want them to. And some of you are just ignorant, and the only way to cure ignorance is my issuing information. So, I have issued you information regarding pregnancy talk and suggestions, to cure you from your ignorance. Please learn to understand that pregnancy "intuition" and suggestions from you people (and that's multiple) does nothing but cause intense harm.  I have tried, for months and months to be nice to you people, I can't take it anymore. I need to watch out for my own mental health, as well as my husband's, and by issuing your statements, you cause nothing but mental health to escape from us.  A group which I am a part of, amazing women who are all childless Mormons are going to be featured in an upcoming LDS Living article, I strongly encourage each and every one of you to read that article a hundred times, until you "get it". It will be on what NOT to say to us, who struggle every day to just breathe and live "normal lives."  Ignorance isn't bliss, it's hurtful. Educate yourselves on what NOT to say, including insinuating that weight loss is the magic pill to getting pregnant. Also, did you know that if you weigh too little, for your build, it can adversely effect fertility just the same as obesity can?! I know and I understand that,  I guess that's why I was smart enough to go through my transition with doctors. Here is the deal, I have wasted a lot of tears, energy, and money trying to fix our infertility. I have put a lot of money towards investing in my transition of being healthier, and consequently happier. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be left alone regarding the hell of our infertility. I deserve to not have to deal with baby predictions, they are harmful, and I am sick and tired of being harmed by the people this is directed at, who are our family and friends who are supposed to love and support us regardless of what we have, or don't have. You may think that these comments are offering support, but  I guarantee that all these pregnancy comments and "intuition" do not provide joy or support in the fact that I have found a truly miraculous weight loss program, instead they continue to focus on what we don't have,  which does nothing more for us then insinuating that we STILL are not good enough.  We, on the other hand think we are pretty strong, courageous, awesome people, and its unfortunate that you refuse to see past the scarlet letters, that you have placed upon us. We are not going to apologize for issuing our statements, as we have done nothing wrong other then fall prey to obesity, and fall prey to a disease called infertility that we have no control over, and we are not going to apologize for the behavior and actions of the ones who are the perpetrators of this.

Most of you have remained supportive and have stayed clear of the pregnancy talk, and we are still so very grateful for you.  We need the love , respect, dignity and support, as we break away from a disease that can destroy our lives.

Now we will move on to my weight loss check in for this week.... The scale clocked me in at a large lump sum of 187.2. I will admit I wish I was skinnier then this, but I will take a two pound weight loss over nothing! Also, I have decided, that setting short term goals for myself, is probably not the best idea, because if it does not happen, I am faced with bitter disappointment. So, I will just take what I can get! Tomorrow will mark my one year burn anniversary, and I will then be cleared to go swimming! I am hoping that this cardio exercise will aid in more significant weekly weight loss.

 I decided to take a look at the BMI chart that is put out by the program (not any of the internet ones) and, I am just eight pounds of escaping from the "Obese" category,  and sliding safely into the "unhealthy" category!