Weight, well what can I say? I was slim all of my life until I hit middle age and became pre-menopausal. I watched myself go from a size 14 to a size 18 in one year. All this was happening while my thyroid was out of whack. One day I was hypo and sleeping ten hours a day and waking up feeling as if I slept only one hour. I was lethargic, my thyroid swelled up and was obstructing my wind pipe and my throat felt like something was in there constantly. (Sounds fun)
Then I would go to Hyper-active, and lost a lot of weight. I became really skinny. Almost waif thin, and at the same time, I would have diarrhea one half the day, running to the toilet every two seconds, then it would stop all of the sudden, and I was fine the rest of the day. I lost a few jobs and a boyfriend through all of this. I tried to explain what was happening but my bosses, and boyfriend, at the time apparently didn’t care, or didn't realize how sick I really was.
I would wake up not feeling good either way. It was a crazy way to exist. My doctor finally figured out what was happening and I was diagnosed with a very rare thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I started on the appropriate medications and eventually had my thyroid removed. Now I take thyroid replacement every day. (And I have a scar on my neck, ooh fun)
Maybe five years later, I started noticing other things. Like I couldn’t breathe easy, I felt tired all the time. My limbs were going numb. etc.
I knew I needed to exercise but everything I ate, weather good or bad, went directly to my stomach, hips and butt, so why even bother. (It was heartbreaking to gain that much weight in one year. My confidence level went way down, as did the quality of my life.)
A few things happened. I felt that I wasn’t eating the correct food for my body, but how do I find out what was good for my body? I did a lot of research, and I tried a few things but it was nothing that I could keep up.
Then a breakthrough, a girlfriend told me about a diet based on my astrological sign. It"s called “The Sun Sign Diet" by Gayle Black. You can purchase the book on Amazon.com. I was so excited I embraced the diet. But before I could really get into it, I had to slowly start eating correctly, and introduce the food in my everyday eating, and over a period of time I was able to do the diet as it should. And then 6 weeks later I lost thirty pounds.
Around that time, by shear luck, I found Zumba exercise classes at the local recreation center near my home. For those that don’t know Zumba, it is Salsa and Belly dance moves. As it turns out, I love Zumba and have a great time with the work out and the girls in the class. (Now it is a social thing, we have Zumba parties during the weekend and promote the classes and do Zumba exercises, we have a great time)
Now the problem, Of course life happens, as you know, and I made a choice to take a Creative Writing Class. At the same time I was doing Zumba, two times a week, Creative Writing Class once a week and in some weeks I had another Writing Group I was attending. At times I made the choice not to go to Zumba, and of course the weight started creeping back up. Not to mention what happened to me during the Creative Writing class. (Which you can read about in previous blogs.) As you can guess I started eating incorrectly again to offset my emotions.
Now come the epiphany, since I started to write, I found a way to channel my frustrations. This is good news, because when I had emotions I could not deal with I would just eat, instead now I write. (When I was younger I used to clean, but turned to food to fill me, like I said food is my drug of choice.)
I notice yesterday when I bought groceries, as usual through habit, bought a few things that aren’t on the Sun Sign Diet. Normally I would have eaten at least one of those things completely. (And in one gulp! ha ha) But this time I didn’t. Since I realized I can write my frustrations out, maybe I don’t need the food anymore. This is the experiment stage right now, but it seems to be working. I will keep you updated.
Now the update on the writing. Since I printed all 90 pages of my manuscript, by accident, I have been thinking about where to start. I noticed when I worked on the manuscript on the computer, I would get overwhelmed and wondered where I should start. It was as I said overwhelming. (I will be working on the overwhelming aspect and dealing with where my manuscript left off in the outline next.)
I would like you to understand that I have written a lot of the ending of the story. Even though there are still parts of it that need to be addressed in the storyline, most of it is already written. When thinking about an outcome in the story the writer needs to do a final outcome and then work backwards to complete the story, and all the hero or heroin need to overcome.
(Most writers do not write straight though a story. (linear). We take parts and write them out as we develop them and cut and paste them into the manuscript. Hence, the overwhelming feeling I get. I have to go into the middle of the manuscript and find where I need to continue the outline, but after reading 7 or 8 chapters to find out where and what I need to work on, I get tired and don’t want to write anymore. But if I have the chapters in my hands, I can read them ahead of time, and then know exactly where to go in my online document that needs work. (Yeah I figured it out. * Hand wiping forehead*)
In conclusion: I will work on the story this weekend and give you an update in a few days, using my new found epiphany.
Let me know if you agree with what I am doing or if you have had an epiphany of your own in a similar situation, or just want to comment. I would love to hear from you. Share, grow, learn, laugh, cry, and bond with other women. We deserve to be uplifted by positive reinforcement from each other. Your life is worth living to the fullest, embrace it. Till next time.
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