Sabotage (part 2)

One of my worst habits I have is engaging in self sabotage. I have a tendency to do things that are going to be harmful in the long-run. For example, every night I go to bed with the intention of getting up early in the morning-doing my yoga, eating healthy and working out. Usually by the time I’ve hit the snooze button for the sixth or seventh time, its too late to do anything and I am zombified. Then, since I didn’t have time for a healthy breakfast at home, I grab something on the run-either at the deli in my building or the hospital cafeteria (hey at least I get some exercise walking over there!) To compound a bad situation, its not like I am going to be buying healthy fare. Nope, I go for the artery clogging stuff like bacon, sausage and a bagel with cream cheese. Gee, wonder why I can’t lose weight.

To add to it, with all the junk that I’ve been eating lately (and believe me there is a lot of it), I’ve been suffering from some sort of flare. I’ve got swollen joints, chronic pain and migraines. On top of it all, my energy level is non-existent, I have difficulty with the grip in my left hand (luckily it’s the non-dominant one) , trouble sleeping and my sinuses are constantly clogged. I feel like I have a chronic hangover, only I don’t drink. I’ve been here several times before, and its not pretty. Basically, my body is rebelling against myself and I need to do something about it soon, because the older I get, the more severe things are. In my 20’s, I would just detox by eating healthier and drinking more water and all was well. In my 30’s, it took longer and less junk to cause a flare. Now that I’m 40, I don’t know what lays ahead of me in terms of bounce back time. I’ve actually been flaring a few weeks now, and that is directly related to not eating right, exercising and getting enough rest. What started all of this, actually, was my bout of strep throat and double ear infections back in May.

When I get sick, I wind up on Prednisone, and I get pumped full of steroids. Long-term steroid use for me is pretty common, and pretty miserable. It makes me very hungry all the time, so I eat. But I don’t crave fruit or veggies. Instead I crave total junk. I swear that I am hyper-sensitive to by-products in certain processed foods-and the more that I eat them, the worse I feel. Add to it some of the other side effects of prednisone and I wind up not getting a good night’s rest.

In 1999, I had some major issues with my asthma and wound up on steroids pretty consistently for several months. After all of that, I was able to breathe but I was swollen like a puffer fish. I had gone from working out 6 days a week to barely being able to get up off the couch. I felt awful and was really depressed, for a variety of reasons. I went from doctor to doctor, because I had the swollen joints, the horrific pain and all of the issues that I am currently dealing with. I had been tested for everything from fibromyalgia to MS to lupus to RA. I finally saw a rheumatologist who did a bunch of tests and basically told me that I was suffering from a major allergic type of reaction from all that was going on in my body.

And he gave me a plan to get over it. So here I am, 11 years later and feeling the same way right now. I have to do something, because right now being this miserable is, well, miserable. I am completely lacking a positive quality of life right now, and I don’t want to exist, I want to LIVE.

Basically, I need to eat clean. I need to eliminate as much as possible the processed junk as possible, and to eat as little factory farmed meat as possible (they are loaded with steroids and other growth factors). I needed to eat more fish-especially salmon-and more fruits and veggies. I needed to have at least two servings of yogurt a day, due to the probiotics in there to help restore the positive balance in my GI tract. I needed to drink half my body weight in water every day. I needed to eliminate foods whose ingredients I could not pronounce. To relieve the muscle tension and aches, I had to soak in a mineral bath of Epsom salts at least twice a week for about 20-30 minutes. To help alleviate tension, rub peppermint oil on the aching muscles. Massage and heat also helped, as did guided visualization (visualizing that my body was relaxing and that the pain and swelling were gone). He suggested that I meditate or spend time in deep, contemplative prayer every day. (I chose to pray the Rosary) The other big thing was the encouragement of doing yoga daily to help with the muscle pain. It really did work, and it made such a huge difference in my life overall. To help kick start my mood, he had me taking St. John’s Wort. Also I was introduced to Airborne, which I was told was the best thing to take before bed and in the morning if I knew I was going to have a night out (read: food binge) or if I was going to go off my usual sleep cycle. I took 1 mg of melatonin every night before bed, and used lavender oil on my feet and hands before bed to help relax me.

I thought this guy was nuts. All this homeopathic, herbal medicine, aromatherapy was voodoo medicine, a leftover of some sort of hippie mentality. But, at that point I was beginning to think that I was nuts and that all my symptoms were in my head. I was willing to give it a shot, and you know what it really worked. I felt rather silly doing most of this stuff because it wasn’t “me”. However, the transformation was unbelievable. In about a month, I went from feeling like I was 100 to being able to keep up with my then 9 year old sister. I was able to start working out again, and was able to do stuff that I had been able to do several months earlier.

The problem is over time, I felt like I didn’t need to do this stuff and I had convinced myself that whatever the problem was, it had cleared up. Add to it, despite my husband being a really great guy, he’s a really great guy and loves me no matter what I look like. So, I stopped really doing some of the stuff that I needed to do to be my best. I began to start slacking off on taking care of myself, and now I am staring at the end result in the mirror.

So, I have a 3 day weekend coming up and I am going to start the detox process all over again. First and foremost, I am going to start with drinking my water. I need to walk away from the soda and the high fructose corn syrup. Secondly, I need to work on making better food choices that are going to support my health (and consequently, my family’s health as well). I’ve gradually been adding yogurt back into my diet, topping it with fresh fruits and milled flax seeds or putting it in a smoothie. I just need to be more conscious of food choices-and what the consequences will be. I can eat junk, I just need to plan it more. If I am going to have, say fast food, I need to make sure that for breakfast and lunch I eat as healthy as possible. I also need to make sure that I drink extra water and maybe work out a little extra to counteract the bad stuff. I also need to not make it a habit. Its ok for me to have homemade baked goods-because I control what’s going in there. Even when I make something from a mix, I use applesauce instead of oil and add some other healthy stuff (like pureed raspberries-yum) to boost the nutritional value.

The biggest thing for me is the sleep side of things. I need to make sure that I get enough sleep every night-not just in terms of the number of hours, but the quality of sleep too. I don’t really sleep well-I haven’t for a very long time. I have melatonin, and I have lavender oil so tonight before bed, I am going to do a whole relaxation routine and see if that makes a difference. Before I lay me down to sleep, I am going to make sure that I have taken my melatonin, rub lavender oil on my feet especially and do some gentle yoga stretches. Hopefully, this will help. The answer will come tomorrow, when I determine if it was a good night’s sleep or not.

But its not just the sleeping that I need to work on-my whole life needs an overhaul. The eating, the drinking, the exercise, the relaxation-it all needs work. I need to work on stress relief and management. However, everything is interconnected and dependent on each other. When I eat better and exercise, I feel better and have more energy. When I have more energy, I can get more things done (like clean my house or play with my son). When I get more done, I am less cranky because I like what I see and have more time to do the fun stuff. I just generally lead a happier, healthier life-all because I take care of myself.

It expands to lots of other things in my life too. When I eat well, exercise, drink my water and get enough sleep, my skin looks great. I have this happy, healthy glow about me. And then because of that, I wear make up and do my hair to add to that glow. It makes me want to dress well, because I have a glow about me. It makes me want to stand up straighter and taller and be smile more. It makes me want to get my nails done and get my hair cut every six weeks. For some people, it might not seem like a big deal, but in my world this is huge.

When my life is in harmony, all is well in my world. Unfortunately, I will let things hum along ever so wonderfully, and then I will crash into a wall going 100 miles an hour. For whatever reason, I decide to not work out one morning or go on a fast food binge. Or I decide that I am tired of tweezing my eyebrows, and then I go on a spending spree or something else that is not so very good for me. I just decide one day to not clean the house or cook dinner. And then it all comes tumbling down, and it just grinds to a halt. I sabotage myself, over and over. Instead of just admitting, ok you made a mistake, lets move on…I chalk it up to me being a failure and completely incapable of living a great, normal happy life. The fatalistic thoughts spiral out of control-because I am so incredibly hard on myself and I treat myself worse than I would treat my worst enemy. Its not the end of the world, but I certainly act that way.

So, I am planning out our meals for next week, and how am I ever going to pull all of this off? For one thing, I need to make sure that I am eating healthfully. No more binges of bacon and sausage. For breakfasts-lots of fruit salad, melon, egg whites and veggies, whole wheat toast (that was another eye opener for me-limiting my exposure to white flour) and a soy milk latte (extra protein, better for me). AM snack needs to be protein packed-apples with peanut butter, tuna salad roll up-to get me to lunch time. Lunch needs to be something light that is not going to cause me to want to crawl under my desk at 3 pm and take a nap. I’ve had tremendous luck with my super salad (lettuce, spinach, onions, broccoli, hard boiled eggs, beans, and fake chicken strips) or salmon and a baked potato and a side of veggies. Its not very exciting, but it fills me up. For dessert, I love a cup of sugar free chocolate pudding and raspberries. For an afternoon snack, I crave sugar and salt, so grapes or fruit with crackers and cheese are an awesome and light snack. Dinner is a different story. I need something that at least 2/3 of the family will eat. The Big Man does not eat fish, only likes certain meats prepared certain ways and does not care for vegetables. He especially does not like trying new foods, so unless I want to make a different meal for everyone, I let him do the cooking. As in all else, there is good and bad with this arrangement. Good, because I can unwind after work. Bad, because I don’t usually make another vegetable for me and then I am stuck with either peas, carrots or corn. And no salad. So, I either make an effort in advance or just suck it up and deal.