March is here, and even though the snow is not quite gone yet, there have been plenty of hopeful signs that Spring is just around the corner. Michigan winters can be pretty rough, and this winter has been no exception. I can handle the snow and the ice, and I can even put up with the cold. The one thing about winter that is the hardest for me is that we rarely get to see the sun. It’s always so cloudy and the sky is just so gray. Well, the other day I was sitting at work when (more…)
Finding the Pieces
The story of how a lost boy found home
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I am a list maker. If I am going to do anything, I am probably going to make some kind of check list or schedule that I need to follow in order to get something done. So when I started trying to lose weight and live healthier I found it that it was very helpful to sit down and write out some of my goals. Sometimes setting goals can be a tricky task: you don’t want to set a goal that is impossible to reach, but you also don’t want to set a goal that is not challenging enough. So what I ended up doing was (more…)
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I sat down to my computer today and realized that it has been a little while since I’ve made a post on here, so I thought I should at least try to write something even though my brain is virtually fried from the wonderful thing that is midterm exams. It’s crazy to think that it is already that time of the semester again, so if you know any college students and they seem to be running on auto pilot right about now (more…)
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It has been a while since I’ve ventured into a more-than-3-ingredient recipe, so I thought I would try something new: rice and veggie stir fry! I found this recipe over at Heavenly Homemakers’ blog, so after you’re done reading this, go on over there and discover some amazing recipes that I’m too afraid to try at the moment (their link is at the end of this post). (more…)
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For the last few days I’ve been fighting a cold. My throat hurts, my sinuses are throbbing, and all I really want to do is sleep. It’s been a long time since I’ve been sick like this, and I started thinking about this journey that I’ve embarked on. Yes, I want to lose weight, but there is so much more to this journey than that. One year ago I was probably sicker than I am now, hooked up to a nebulizer every four hours and making biweekly trips to the doctors office. (more…)
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One thing that I have found in eating healthy is that soda and coffee are not really the best choice of beverages. I used to be a caffeine addict, and I still find myself having cravings for some kind of drink that is a bit fancier than water. When I was first starting this weight-loss journey, I was talking to my aunt at a family gathering about how I wanted to get a juicer, but they are kind of expensive. She suggested that instead of juicing (more…)
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Is me. I know I’m not the only person who feels that way. There are so many things that I want to do, so many things that I want to share with the world…until that little voice inside my brain starts chiming in and says “who cares?” or “that’s just stupid.” Starting this blog was one of those things that I wrestled with for a long time. I’ve wanted to share my story, because it’s through other people sharing their own struggles similar to mine that (more…)
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I thought it would be fun to do some blog posts on different recipes that I have tried or want to try. For the record, I am not what you might consider a “good cook.” My skills as a chef, until maybe the last six months, have been limited to following the directions on a box of mac and cheese. Well, I don’t eat cheesy noodles of the boxed variety anymore, and salads are getting kind of old, so I figured I might as well learn to cook. That, and I am 20 years old, so I might want to start learning how to fend for myself. (more…)
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As soon as we are able to talk in full sentences, one of the first questions we hear is “what do you want to be when you grow up?” When we’re 4 or 5, our answers normally range from princesses and fairies to dinosaurs and ninjas. As we grow a little bit older, our answers change about every other week. I remember I used to want to be a doctor, a teacher, a police officer, a singer, and who knows what else. Though this may seem like a simple enough question to a child, it becomes much more important as we grow older. For me, it became an ongoing search for an answer I thought was supposed to define me. In middle school I told everyone I was going to be a musician. Well, that’s what I said until I was told that my chances of making it was next to none. So I moved on. I wanted to find something that I could fall in love with, make some kind of a difference, and be able to make a living on. That shouldn’t be so complicated, right?
I spent a lot of time searching for the perfect career path. Writing has always been my passion, so I thought I could be a writer. But what if no one liked what I wrote? In an attempt to find a “practical” career in writing, I chose to major in journalism my first semester of college. Though I have a newfound respect for media and reporting, I can’t see myself writing for a newspaper for the rest of my life. After transferring to a new school, I was able to discuss my frustration in finding a career path with a couple of my professors. They helped me realize that it’s okay if I don’t have a clear-cut image of what my life is going to be. We can’t know our future, we can only try to plan for it.
I’m obviously not going to go into the work force blind, spinning in circles while covering my eyes and waiting to see where my pointing finger lands on. I ended up switching my major to English Professional Studies with a minor in Communication. What do I plan to do with it? I’m not sure yet. Not knowing used to scare me to death, but I’m starting to realize that it’s okay not knowing for the moment. I know I want to write, and that can lead to a multitude of career paths. Instead of looking at my future as dark and unsure, I can now look to into it with a sense of mystery and excitement.
What about you? Have you always known what you want to do with your life? Or are you like me, someone who kind of has an idea but can’t find a definite path quite yet? Or do you have no idea and are feeling pressured by time to make a choice? This is a question that we are called to wrestle with as individuals, so how can we handle it appropriately and in a way that allows us to do what we are passionate about while being able to live off of what we love?
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I thought it would be appropriate to have my first post be something of an introduction that goes deeper than the “about me’ section on this site. Sometimes I like to think of my life as a story: It has some earlier chapters that I can look back on and learn from, but the rest has yet to be written. That used to scare me, but I’m learning to love the unknown part of who I am and who I will be. For now, I want to focus on one of the bigger pieces that have played an important role in my story: my health.
I am currently on a journey to lose weight and live a healthier life. I’ve struggled with my weight since I was in middle school, and I can’t tell you how many crazy diets I have tried and failed at. After so many failed attempts at losing weight I started to give up. I tried telling myself that I was fine just the way I was; truth is, I was not fine. My body ached, I could barely walk up a flight of stairs, I had heartburn all of the time, and I felt trapped in the only body I have. You would think being that miserable would have been enough to push me to make a change, but it wasn’t. At least not for a while.
In addition to being overweight, I also have asthma. I’ve had asthma since I was a kid, but it hadn’t been a problem for five or six years, until I got sick during my first semester of college in 2010. For some reason what I thought was just a cold was not going away. It turned out that it wasn’t a cold: it was my asthma, back with a roaring vengeance. In the year 2011 I made almost two dozen trips to the hospital because of asthma attacks. I felt like I lived at the doctor’s office, having to go in almost every week as they tried to get my asthma under control. It was then that my doctor started stressing even more the importance of losing weight to hopefully relieve some of my symptoms. I asked her how I should lose weight. Her answer was “diet and exercise.” I asked her what I could do for exercise while not triggering an asthma attach. Her answer: “nothing right now.” That was the answer I heard at every appointment for the next year. Losing the weight had finally become a matter of life or death, and I had no idea how to do it. I kept saying I would try, but in reality I was scared to make a change. I don’t think it was because I didn’t want to lose weight, but because I was afraid I would only fail again.
It wasn’t until about seven months ago that I found the answer to being healthy. You see, I wasn’t just worried about my health – If I was to be honest with myself, I was more worried about how I looked. I needed to stop focusing on being thin and getting fast results, and instead focus on being healthy and feeling good! In order to do that I also needed to come to the realization that I did not get to be obese overnight, so I’m not going to lose all of that weight in an instant. I was sick and tired of my doctors telling me that I couldn’t exercise, so I decided to do it anyway. And guess what? I didn’t die. I may have been out of breath after that first workout, and the next 30 after that one, but something in me changed. I saw that I could make a change. I needed to stop leaning on my health as an excuse and just start making changes.
So what is different about this time, compared to all of my other failed attempts? This time I see that losing weight and eating healthy is not a quick fix. It takes time and a whole lot of effort. There is a saying that I’ve heard before by Tony Robins that started to make a lot of sense once I came to see this: “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of making a change.” Exercising is not easy. Counting calories is not easy. Completely revising the way you live your life is definitely not easy. Losing weight is hard. Being obese is much harder. I decided to make that change, and it has been the best decision I have ever made. Since June or 2012, I have lost almost 80 pounds. It has not been easy at all. But guess what? I feel amazing! I still have a long way to go, but I’m looking forward to the rest of this amazing journey. I have an amazing support system full of some amazing people who have helped me get to this point. My goal is to continue to lose weight while learning how to live a life that is healthy and free from a body that is overburdened.
06/12/2012 – 15 pounds lost
This is only the beginning
Finding the Pieces 