Real Gone

June 18, 2009 - Today is the beginning of my ramblings. This blog is meant mostly a way to motivate myself towards becoming a more healthy, thinner and confident me which will then result in a better wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, leader and teacher. But I also can say what I want, put on it whatever I want and even be boldly candid. Since I started my stamp blog, it's been slowly whittled down to what is acceptable among a home business and stamp blogs. I have to be careful what I say as, YES, I'm quite opinionated and have to bite my tongue - A LOT!! It's all good since it is a business but sometimes I just need a place where I can be ME! If I want to write and write or not post for awhile, put on music, videos and tons of photos, I'm not worrying if it's deferring traffic.




I've decided the song "Real Gone" from Cars is currently my theme song. (Yes, my life is relative to all things kids right now which I still am beyond thrilled that it is - post for another day if you don't already know why). The line that would describe above: "Sometimes I have a big mouth when I see something I don't like...I've gotta say it!" ....Yep.

So to begin, I've been carrying A LOT of extra weight for MIGHTY too long! And as most fat people (and yes, let's be real, it's FAT so why try to disguise it with some cutesy distracting name), I have all the excuses:

Depression - I was diagnosed and have been treated for chronic depression since I was 15 (1989). Depression runs deep on both sides of my parents lines. Over 20 years, I've taken anti-depressants such as Wellbutrin, Paxil, Prozac, and Lexapro and for the most part have worked well enough that most people would have no idea. In the back of my mind, I think I knew most of these caused weight gain but back then the goal was to treat the depression. The Wellbutrin was taken for the longest duration until my husband and I had been married for nearly 5 years and hadn't been successful in conceiving. Then the others were prescribed as we battled...

Infertility - Huge shock especially since my mom had 6 pregnancies in 6 years - (yeah, think that one through). She lost one a few months preterm but I am the 2nd of 5 and the only girl. Scott and I used birth control for a few years then stopped it and thought nature would run it's course. Nature was a NO SHOW. We worked with a fertility specialist for about a year (2000) but that proved not only ineffective but turned me into a massive emotional wreck. During that year of temperature readings, ultrasounds, samples and tests and a Dr telling you when and when not to have sex, I had a pelvic laproscopy which revealed...

Stage 3 Endometriosis (you mean not every girl has periods that feel like daggers thrust in the abdomen and out for days on end? News to me - remember I was the only girl and never mentioned "such things" to a very private mom) and a very insensitive call from the nurse telling me I had...

PCOS - poly cystic ovarian syndrome. The fertility Dr had me on so many med's that altered my hormones which in turn messed with my mental health to the point I wasn't sleeping and was seeing hallucinations. Yeah, ever gone without sleep for over 3 days? That's when you start seeing people who look like Gandolf the White from Lord of the Rings. (Ask my hubby about that, funny story). At one point, I was taking Clomid, Progesterone, Estrogen, nasty huge prenatals, whatever antidepressant was being prescribed that month, 2 birth control pills a day (for the months I was trying to get rid of the cysts that had formed from a mix of Clomid and my PCOS) AND because of the intense sleeplessness, Ambien for the...

Insomnia - which I had been battling since my teenage years. Could have been a side effect from the anti-depressants or the fact that my bedroom was across from my parents room. From the time I was 16, I woke up for early morning seminary at 5:30 AM, promptly to high school and then directly to my nearly full time job at good ole' Kmart. Not sure when I did my homework but was able to keep up a 3.8 GPA despite the fact that my parents were in a very unhappy marriage. Their arguing would go late into the night and my anxiety rose between the fighting and getting up the nerve to interrupt and ask them to keep it down. (They had a TV in their room and the show M.A.S.H. was always on, can't stomach that sitcom to this day). Well, near the end of the fertility circus, my parents decided to...

Divorce - Now if you're just reading the headings of each paragraph, no, it wasn't my husband and I. (We just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary, June 14, 1995 and looking forward to many, many more). But my parents divorce was painfully heartbreaking. I think I had always hoped they would be able to make it work. And I don't care how old you are or what the circumstances may be, divorce is tragic. Having been born and raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), even at age 30, I was questioning my Sunbeam days of the importance of families and being together for eternity. Here my parents are no longer married, my dad remarries a women who I never met and I find out I can't have children. You better believe I had suicide on the brain.

I always thought I was a healthy person. I didn't get sick hardly at all as a child, my attendance records for school, church and work were near perfect and besides the depression, had no other ailments. I get extremely annoyed by hypochondriacs and was horrified of the huge laundry list of problems my health records were showing. Well, it was a hard decision but I was a few steps away from the psychiatric ward, so we decided to stop the fertility treatments. I was sooo relieved to stop taking all those pills and did all but the antidepressants cold turkey. I think I try to convince myself that if I'm not taking med's for those problems, they no longer exist. Yeah, doesn't work that way. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, right?

And the weight started packing on............ About 10 pounds a year.

It's been about 9 years since then. Even though still painful to think back on, I've been able to come to peaceful terms about my family being broken apart and my infertility. So much of that has to do with the fact that on December 19, 2004; Scott and I were amazingly blessed with a baby born to a birth mom who chose us to be his parents. On days like today when Jackson has been a little 4 year old monster, it's very sweet to remember how the news of his arrival eased so much of that pain. (Wow, the denial thing is hitting again. I'm sure I've convinced myself that I was completely over all that but writing this down really for the first time has caused my eyes to spring a leak. I guess some heartbreaks will always hurt). But we are ever so grateful and love our Jackson more than words can say. He has brought a tenderness back into my life that has allowed those wounds to heal. That kind of happiness today will always over shadow those hurts of yesterday.

OK, I digress. Back to why I'm doing this blog...

Back to "Real Gone" from Cars (you have to sing it for real effect):

Well, we've been driving this road for a mighty long time
Paying no mind to the signs
Well, this neighborhood's changed
It's all been rearranged
We left that team somewhere behind

Ok, cheee-zee, I know. (MY blog, r'member?!) It seems everyone gets to a point in their life when enough is enough, or at least I hope they do. We all have these things we hang onto among them tough emotional trauma or our weight or in my case, both. I've used that huge laundry list above as a crutch and prohibited myself to become healthy. I have tried many weight loss pills and programs over the years; Metabolife (before they removed the Ephedera), Green Tea, Phentermine, Liv Skinny, Jenny Craig, and many more, some I can't even remember. Some worked for a little while, some would seem to work but I just couldn't keep it going and some were just a bunch of gimmick's.

One of my brothers had gastric bypass several months ago. I'm not going to condone that practice especially for him as he was very overweight and was heading for even worse conditions. The surgery has proved to help him and he is now running marathons. (No kidding, he just went through an ugly divorce and I'm so proud of him and how he is now choosing to live his life.)

As I will also not condone the proper use and treatment of conditions with prescriptions and medications. Depression is a real thing. (My baby brother once explained to me how mental conditions are the only ones where someone may decide not to treat it even though the condition itself is altering their decision making skills. Of course, I wouldn't leave addictions out of this category but I think the relation is very close) I have a former bishop who speaks on this topic a lot and he says that Heavenly Father has a hand in modern technology these days and why would we turn down something that could improve our lives?! But the extremely difficult part is finding the one that works for you. I just didn't pop out of my deep depression immediately after getting Jackson. It didn't help that I don't like to go within 100 feet of a Dr but I did when my meds just didn't seem to help at all, usually.

Then this spring, a chain of events just came together. The miraculous part is that they happened through completely different people who have no relation to each other other than they are my amazing friends and family who may not know how much their small acts are changing my life.

My depression had seem to hit another long low and of course, I wasn't about to pick up the phone and make an appointment with the Dr. My incredibly amazing friend, Lara, who also battles depression, came over one day after I had been hiding for weeks. She actually stood at the door and knocked for what seemed like 10 minutes until I realized she wasn't going to leave. As soon as I opened the door, she promptly asked for the phone book, looked up her psychiatrist's office number, dialed it, asked me what kind of Dr. I would click better with, told the receptionist she needed to make an appointment and handed the phone to me. I would imagine many people would not be too happy with this approach but I love this lady too much and understood that it was time to make a change.

Over a few months I worked with Jason Andersen, psychiatrist, making very small changes. He is good, real good. What I was taking before does cause weight gain, fatigue and insomnia, which all just intensifies the depression more! I had full panel blood work done before I started working with him and brought that to him. Even though my thyroid was still within the normal limits, it was close to the margin and with my other problems, he started me on Synthroid. I am now ovulating!!! What, was it really just that easy? He was hoping that would help with my mood but I didn't see any big changes. Then he decided to throw caution to the wind and treat me for problems I had with focusing, staying on task and concentration. What I found amazing was that my depression could very well be a side effect of another condition and currently he is treating that and I'm on NO anti-depressants and feeling better than I have in years!! The constant tiredness is gone and I no longer feel like I need to eat everything in the house. My energy has picked up immensely and I can now focus on small projects instead of seeing my never ending to-do lists as one huge task. And the tasks piled in as...My mom moved in with us. She made a hard decision to leave her best friend in New Mexico and start a new job in Salt Lake and be closer to her kids. At first, the adjustment was hard on all of us. Just new energy in the house and getting used to the way we all did things. But I am so happy to have her here. I've never had a sister to do girly things with and it's been so fun to have that outlet. And I never had the time, energy or desire to fix up our home that we have lived in for nearly 10 years. But we've been scraping ceilings, taping, painting and picking out new decor and it's starting to look great! We still have a way to go but it's coming. (The pict above is cracks me up because Jackson loves to watch Nana put on her makeup and do it with her. I guess I turned out to be a big tomboy in so many ways as I still hate to wear makeup, I dress for comfort and get ready in the morning in no time flat. Mom was a former beauty queen takes a loooong time to get ready but always looks gorgeous and tailored. Her only daughter wanted nothing to do with it!) My desire to really start again with trying to lose weight sprung from my coworkers. I started working for an accounting firm, Squire, in the fall of 2002 as an assistant to the business advisory and audit partners. It was a big change from my previous employer, Lowe's, where I served many jobs over 8 years but mostly as the buyer for the plants in the nursery. I was more than thrilled to get out of retail and was so grateful for a workplace who cared about their employees. Plus, I loved my job! It was stressful but really educated me in so many ways! Once Jackson came, I cut my hours down until he was about 2 and then was given an opportunity to work with the technology department and snatched that up immediately. But because I'm now very part time and mostly work in the evenings, I miss out a lot on all the happenings. And this past year was noticing my desk dweller coworkers shrinking, and so many of them! I miss staff meetings and found out they had a fitness/training company come in and talk with the employees about nutrition and exercise. Cool, huh?! Some of them signed up with that company and others found other programs and trainers, but they were losing weight! In talking with one of my coworkers, she had found a gym and trainer for a much smaller fee than the company that Squire had brought in. I was so close to seeking them out when...

My mom and I went to a Women's Expo at Utah Valley University. I've gone to several others in the past, but by myself. It was so great to have my mom there and made it more fun to goof around and try out new things. It was fortunate that she had the day off due to a training she had been at with her job because we were ready to leave when I noticed a former Lowe's coworker.. Steve. He had a booth there promoting the start up of his new business, Shift Fitness and Nutrition. OK, usually when I see people I once knew, I will immediately make a detour so they won't see me. (I even dodged having to get my picture taken for the Squire bios, go look and see.) I was putting on about 10 pounds a year and I think the last time I saw him was in 2000 when I was about 130 pounds and hadn't yet started fertility. (I have a really bad memory so a lot of back then is just a blur. His wife, Stephanie, and I worked together for some time in purchasing -before Lowe's bought out Eagle Hardware, boooooo!). From what I remember, Steve may have to correct me, he was just starting in the fitness training while he was was at Eagle. Regardless, both he and Steph were very fit and health conscious.

Anywhoo, he was giving out water and we were thirsty. And I was curious what he was up to as I had heard he and he wife were finally able to conceive. (Two gorgeous kids, so happy for you Steph and Steve!) After a bit of chit chat, he told us a bit about his training and I was telling him how I was looking into it. And then a huge shocker, my mom expressed she always wanted to do that and we walked away with our first session that Monday.

Okay...., yeah, scary. Why will this effort be different than the others? I'm a jump-in-head-first type of person, go like a wild woman and then get burned out and quit.

Except, my attitude this time IS different. This is the philosophy according to Amy, your head has to be in the game. My previous attempts were a battle as I was trying to fix physical problems and still dealing with an unhealthy emotional mind. I was (here goes, scary number) 232 pounds before Dr. Andersen started treating me. I was feeling well enough and already taking care of myself better that by the time we ran into Steve, I was already down to about 225. And counting....

And, I have these plus's: I was a SKINNY KID - even when I started taking anti-depressants, my weight fluctuated a little but managable.

I was an ACTIVE KID - I loved to be outside, played soccer, rode my bike, swim, do gymnastics and in high school was on the diving team. When I was in my 20's, before and after I was married, my hubby and I had a boat and water skiied, played racquetball, biked and hiked, a lot! I enjoy these things still.

Well here I come and I'm so not scared,
Got my pedal to the metal, got my hands in the air
Look out, you take your blinders off
Everybody's looking for a way to get real gone
Real gone.