Don’t Get Rid of All Your Fat Pants

I’m going to give you some advice that goes against all other advice you’ve probably heard before. Advice that health-minded people will totally poo-poo (because I totally would have been one of those poo-pooing people before). If you’ve lost weight enough to change pant sizes, don’t get rid of all your fat pants! Save one. Save one pair. One comfy pair. Or, two.

A newer acquisition of desperate proportions. And, I found them for under 25 bucks!

Now, this advice is really only a backup plan. A contingency plan of sorts. If you’re healthy, it isn’t a reason for you to wimp out and gain that weight back because it’s the holidays or Valentine’s Day or Easter, or summer barbeque season or whatever food-eating holiday excuse comes up. If you’ve worked hard and conquered your weight-loss goals and got yourself fit…never give up on that.

That’s where I felt I was just last spring. Healthy and fit. Quite a few years ago now, I had lost extra weight that had slowly crept on. I had finally felt like I was getting in the best shape I had been in since my early 20s. I had kept that weight off because I made a lifestyle change. I was eating healthy and I was exercising regularly. I was getting that six pack on my abs and feeling so great about myself and then…I had my head injury.

I love this meme. Not sure I'm ready for stretchy pants, though.

Every day for the last 9 months, I’ve had to deal with the effects of this concussion. Even small amounts of physical activity cause my head to pound, cause an increase in intensity of my now-constant headaches, and cause nausea or dizziness. I’m having a hard time not looking back at what I used to be able to do. I’m not supposed to compare my hiking ten hours in the White Mountains of New Hampshire or going out for a fun 15 or 20 mile bike ride to what I can do now. On a good day, on a really good day, I can walk about a mile. On flat ground. With lots of breaks. Forget about activity that requires balance or positional changes like biking or yoga.

So, without physical activity, what happens to your body? Um, as we all know from shows like The Biggest Loser, we gain weight. I’m lucky that I haven’t turned to emotional eating on top of all this. I still try to eat as healthy as I can. Part of that is from the lifestyle change I made. I still do yogurt and flax meal most mornings for breakfast. I watch my carbs. I watch my fats. But, without that cardio exercise I had before my injury, I’m finding it difficult to keep the weight off.

Darned comfy GAP jeans. Unfortunately, they are covered in paint.
Most of my jeans have worn out in the right knee. I'm okay with that.

I’m looking at a new twenty extra pounds. Most people look at me and say I look great (I look fine, remember?) But, for me, I don’t feel as great. My abs are losing their definition. My thighs are bigger. My butt is bigger. My boobs are bigger. Okay, so the bigger boobs are fine. My pants are snuggly. Some are way snuggly.

I had made a promise to myself to never gain that weight back that I lost. I promised myself to always be as active as I could. I thought I was invincible in that thinking. I thought I’d maintain that level of fitness that I had achieved and then some. And, if I lost that level, it would be slowly as I got (much) older. Little did I know that something would happen where I had no control and that it would change in an instant.

I’ve made a new plan with my doctor to try to help. It involves setting very small goals of physicality and putting smiley stickers on my calendar when I meet those goals. I’ll have a happy visual that works well in my fluffy bunnies and happy rainbows sort of world.

These are clipped to my calendar. As I meet an exercise goal,
one of these happy little faces gets a new home!

So, here I find myself digging through my closet trying to find pants that give me just a little more room. Especially on those bloaty days when women just need that extra room. But, I don’t have any. Well, except for one pair of “painting pants” that I don’t want to wear out of the ‘hood. So, don’t be like me and give away all your fat pants. And, Jillian Michaels, please don’t kill me for saying that. I just might need to borrow them.

@Ybbeige

http://facebook.com/barbarabeige

www.barbarabeige.com

My Chick Read

But, You Look Fine…

One of the hardest parts of having this head injury has been fighting what others say. I wrote about it once and I’m still dealing with it. Since day one, I’ve heard, “But, you look fine.” For the most part, yea, I look in the mirror and see that same person that had been there before (minus a little spark in my eyes). I like to joke and say that I can’t help being so adorable…I was born that way. I guess if I had ended up splitting my head open and having some sort of disfiguring injury, I might elicit a bit more sympathy.

I may look fine on the outside. Inside...not so much.

It’s hard for friends, and even family, to look at me and think that I’ve got something wrong going on. “You look fine,” they say. What no one sees is the extreme thought and energy that I need to use now to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. When I have to focus and concentrate on doing something, I end up absolutely exhausted. Like I ran a marathon. I’ll have to take a nap that may be longer than the amount of time it took to do the task. Seems stupid, I know, especially when I used to be the Queen of Multi-Tasking. The previous me would think it was stupid too. But, to those with post-concussive syndrome, or PCS, this is normal.

Being able to take a short walk a few times a week is a success. I’m trying to work my way up to a mile. For me, that seems crazy. Especially when it’s on relatively flat ground, too. Like the beach. I miss my days of hiking. Doing the 4,000+ footers in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Going out on those trails that say they are only for the most experienced of hikers. The ones where if you fall in a crevice, you’ll need rope to climb out. The ones where if you fall, you have to do everything in your power to grab hold of a root or something to stop your sliding descent. The ones where you bring survival gear just because you never know what situation you’ll run into or what weather may blow in. Now, I walk a hundred feet or so and rest a few moments. You can’t tell me that isn’t frustrating.

This is a goal of mine...to be able to stand on top of a mountain again.

Admitting your limitations to yourself is hard. Knowing what you used to be capable of doing and comparing it to what you can do now is hard. I look like I should be able to walk any distance or even go for a run. I look like I should be able to work. I look like I could mow my own lawn. I look like I could go out in a noisy restaurant or bar and meet up with people. I look like I could be in a store for more than 40 minutes. I look like I could ride a bike. I look like I could vacuum my house without earplugs. I look like… I look like I could do a lot of things. But, right now still, I can’t.

A friend of mine, who is also a psychologist, has been a wonderful support in this whole, ‘But, you look fine’ thing. He has Lyme Disease. I’ll call him Jim. To the average person, Jim is a good-looking, normal guy. No spots, no bulls-eyes on his face. He’s smart and funny. He’s a normal Joe. Or, Jim. Because of the Lyme, he has fare-ups where he is absolutely exhausted, where his clothes feel like they’re made out of sandpaper, where he has excruciating headaches. But, he looks fine. People with cancer can also look fine, another friend pointed out. Ask them how fine they feel.

This isn’t a case of mind-over-matter either. It’s just a brain injury. A real, honest-to-goodness invisible injury that is just taking its own sweet time to heal. I know that I’m better off than a lot of people who have had concussions. And, I’m worse off than others. I’m thanking my lucky stars that I can still write and spell (though, I do actually mess that up often these days and as a writer and Boggle and Scrabble psycho, that’s tough). I can function on my own for most daily tasks. Thanks to all my friends who have helped me with the tasks I just can’t do. I can still drive. I can still laugh and smile, though I don’t always understand things like I used to. Especially if I wasn’t fully concentrating on what someone was saying.

So, if you see me, or someone else with a silent illness, give that person a little slack, or maybe a little help. Just because we may look fine, it doesn’t mean we really are.

Do you or someone you know “look fine” but aren’t and are going through a similar situation? Please share below.

@Ybbeige

http://facebook.com/barbarabeige

www.barbarabeige.com

http://www.amazon.com/Unexpectations-Barbara-Beige/dp/1457504162