This is counting toward my daily writing total

I don’t have enough time or energy to work on my project and blog in the same day. Today… the blog wins. I’m in sort of a weird space right now.

On one hand I joined SparkPeople last year to try to lose some weight because I am unhappy with the way I look.

On the other hand I have some wonderful friends who are open and passionate about fat acceptance.

On one hand I completely love and accept their fat and the fat of others. On the other hand, I hate my own fat and will do what it takes to get rid of it.

What it takes to get rid of it does NOT include crash diets, pills, potions, powders, enemas, "cleanses" or hocus pocus.

What it does take is being mindful of the fuel I put in my body and taking the time and spending the energy to move that body.

I am NEVER going to be 115 lbs because I would look and feel sick if I was. I am, however, going to be 135 - 140 lbs and be strong. I hate my fat because it means, right now, that I have not been taking care of my body. But I am trying to change that.

I was talking with the MS nurse today and told her about doing cardio and weight training. She agreed that it was good for me. She told me that building lean muscle mass can help me recover from a relapse. Deconditioning, rather than nerve damage, can be the cause of many symptoms of weakness and instability. If you’re in good condition before the relapse it takes a lot longer to decondition and makes getting back in condition easier. Muscles have memory and triggering that memory can make recovery happen in half the time.

So, I’m trying to get in shape because I want a strong, fit body, not a skinny, helpless one. I am trying to get in shape because I’m watching my grandmother lose her mind slowly because she did not take care of her body. I’m trying to get into shape because my three dead grandparents didn’t take care of their hearts. I’m trying to get into shape because I love me enough to not want to be trapped in a body that doesn’t work. If MS takes my body, it’s not going to do it without a fight.

And when I manage to get my body back to where I feel sexy and together again, I hope you won’t sneer that I’m buying into some gender –normative social construct beauty myth.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

RESOLUTION OF THE SOLE SHAREHOLDER
OF
LVK VENTURES INC.
WHEREAS LVK VENTURES INC. is a fictional extra-provincially registered corporation headquartered in British Columbia, Canada;

AND WHEREAS the sole shareholder, LVK, acting as the only legally recognized adult that resides in her head has declared that she is “sick of this shit”;

AND WHEREAS sometimes the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the sole shareholder establishes the following guidelines for the year 2011:

1. The sole shareholder will make and keep all personal appointments, either health or mental health related, in a timely and proactive basis. These appointments include and not limited to:

a) Doctors, and other health care professionals;
b) Hair stylists; and
c) Estheticians.

2. Complete one hour of visual art practice each day, which will almost always be limited to the completion of counted cross-stitch works, usually including profanity.

3. Ride the stationary bike for 20 minutes each day, 7 days a week and preferably in the morning, and walk for 20 minutes each lunch hour on scheduled work day when a one hour lunch break is in place.

4. Practice mindful eating, realizing that when the mind says “mass produced take out” what it is really saying is “You’ve lost the will to live, because that ain’t food.”

5. Write a minimum two hundred-fifty (250) words a day, even if that means typing, scribbling, writing in flowing long-hand, or printing with the left hand the words “I have to write 250 words today” over and over and over again.

6. This resolution of the sole shareholder does not count toward that total. Though her lazy brain thinks that it should because it’s now well over 275 words.

7. To irritate lazy brain, the amount is not cumulative. That is, the overage in a daily word count one day does not allow that overage to be counted toward the 250 word count of the next day. So take that, bitchy lazy brain.

8. The sole shareholder is to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.

9. This resolution shall be revisited daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually to ensure that adjustments are made for the health and capacity of the sole shareholder to act upon them.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered
on this 1st day of January,
2011 in the presence of: (original signed)
LVK
The people on the internet
reading this. Love you all.

Silence

I've been trying to stay quiet these days.

I'm still working, still doing my physio too. My symptoms are mostly stable, but I've found that my numb fingers change to numb hands when I am tired or angry.

My hands, I don't like them when they are angry.

I've taken on a few hours a week doing administrative/research tasks for a friend with a small but growing business.

I'm trying to write a lot and failing.
I'm trying to stitch a lot and failing.
I'm trying to get my house back to the level of organization that it was before I got sick and failing.

I've lost three pounds since I started eating more than once a day.

I've started lifting light weights and walking for 30 minutes on my lunch hour.

I will lose 15 lbs before my cousin's wedding if it drives me crazy to do it.

I was called a "cripple" on the bus for walking too well with a cane. There was more to it than that, and I showed incredible restraint by not beating the woman senseless with my cane.

"When Life is Hard, You've Got to Change"

I am really bad at having mercy on myself.

I am also the first one to make excuses for myself and then hate myself to doing it.

I have been unable to look in the mirror without cringing for about two years and a week or two ago started figuring out what it was going to take to get myself back. I've consulted with my neurologist, physiotherapist and next month I will have further conversations with my family doctor and psychiatrist.

I've been cleared to lift weights absolutely no heavier than 5 lbs with strict instructions to stop, even mid set, if I start losing control of the movement.

I'm still struggling with depression, anxiety and food disinterest. Since I don't eat convenient junk anymore and still have my pathological fear of grocery stores I often have difficulty meeting the minimum caloric, fat, carbohydrate and protein amounts every day.

I pushed myself over the 1,200 calories a day minimum with a vodka tonic two days last week.

I joined SparkPeople. I'm not really good at "group hug" forms of support but it's pretty easy to avoid the evangelists of the program.

It is so hot upstairs I've got only a minute or two to grab my laundry and get out without becoming nauseous.

I am really sick of MS taking my life away. I have to find the will to fight even harder to keep what I have. If I am strong when my next relapse takes things away I will have less reconditioning and rebuilding what has atrophied when it lets go.

I am suddenly struck with tiredness, which is strange and unsettling for me. Caffeine time.

Fail

I hopped on the scale this morning and 15 minutes later walked to the bus stop completely devastated.

I am now 11 stone 13 lbs. or 74.75 kg (Yes, I know only that isn't in pounds, a weight we'll all understand. It's just that old school Imperial measurements and metric make it sound better than it actually is.)

Now I know that I am supposed to have high self esteem and it's not feminist-ly correct to judge about body size and type, but you know what - I do not give a fuck about that right now. My body and I are at war and it is not to be trusted under any fucking circumstances until appearance and action improves.

You see today I crossed a threshold that I swore to myself I never would. I now weigh 167 lbs. This is the most I have ever weighed in my entire life. I have never been this fat in the entire history of my 36 years on earth.

In my previous lives, every time I would put on winter weight I had one of two responses.

1. Cigarettes, diet shakes, full fat lattes and more cigarettes.

2. Join a gym, lift weights and do cardio until my lungs could take no more, cigarettes and eating whatever the hell I wanted in reasonable portions.

In two months I would be back down to my 130 to 135 monthly fluctuation and everything would be fine until the next winter.

When I moved out to BC I didn't put on winter weight anymore and since I walked pretty much everywhere the SkyTrain couldn't take me I didn't get fat until I started getting sick with MS.

Now its completely out of control and after a talk with my physiotherapist I have been given two choices for exercise - yoga or pilates.

I am leaning toward pilates at this moment because the pelvic floor exercises might help with the most unpleasant of my MS symptoms, but yoga is much easier to come by if I can find a school/instructor who will let me do it with my shoes on.

I don't know what the point of this post is other than to say, "I really hate myself for letting myself go".

And with that I'm going to walk around the block and then ride my stationary bike, because I am freaked right the fuck out.

Strength

Today I broke a sweat at work. I was looking for a particular box in the office storage area but ended up having to move about 80% of the boxes to make sure that the one I was looking for wasn't there. It wasn't.

These boxes were heavy, but not irresponsible to lift heavy and I moved them all around with little difficulty. It was hot in the room as well, and other than a little pause to catch my breath because I'm woefully out of shape I did it all without getting exhausted.

Then I went up to my boss' office and purged the top of his desk of every useless printed email from 2009 and earlier (I found spam emails dating back to 2006). I have almost 1000 sheets of paper that can be printed on the other side, 3/4 full blue box and a full trash can of stuff that cannot be recycled or reused.

The cleaning makes me mentally feel better about my surroundings but the physical work from today makes me feel more confident in my body's ability to do its jobs. Sure I am not counting on it working well every minute of every day, but I have a little more confidence in my ability to do things that will help make me stronger and help me lose the 30 lbs I've put on since my legs started failing a year ago.

I've had Christina Aguilera singing in my head all day.

"Don't talk at me that way
Cos I ain't never gonna change
And if you're talking about my life
You're only wasting your own time"



I'm sassy today.

It feels a-MAY-Zing!