She Who Laughs

On Dec 3, three months ago, I weighed 188 pounds.

I couldn't believe it. Well, I could believe it. My husband and I were eating BlueBell on an every-other-day basis and running to San Miguel's for Mexican food every weekend. It was gooo-oood to be back in me ol'Americana where we celebrate the sugar that flows freely & the tortilla chips that are piled high. Plus, I'd put on tons of weight in China (looking back, I know this was an attack of good ol' Hashimoto, making me want to be alone, isolated, in bed, leave me alone, I don't wanna go anywhere, leave me alone, you can't make me, etc - If you know Hash, you get me.)

Anyway, that 188 sent me to the gym. I had no idea I even had a thyroid condition at that point! When I signed up, I told my gym guy that I wanted to lose 30 pounds in three months. He said, "Yeah, you can do that if you're serious about it." I laughed.

She who laughs.

There was no.way.

BUT

I began working out like a big dog & eating clean, and I dropped 16 pounds in my first month and a half!  LIBERATING!  My hypothyroidism diagnosis and thyroid cancer scare came right in the middle of that time - so you'd better believe I was watching what I was shoving in my pie-hole. Um, there were no pies - that's for shizzle!  I am such a firm believer in food being either our medicine (as God intended) or our slow killer (as money-hungry companies intend to make gobs of $ regardless of America's health).

So my surgery time came and I couldn't exercise, but I continued to eat healthy. Well, other than my mom's birthday when we took her to Lambert's Cafe, Home of the Throwed Rolls!  -- full of obese people, by the way. It's interesting to me now, to look at people who frequent certain restaurants and notice their girth. To anyone with discernment, it should be a sort of warning system. Unfortunately, it isn't.  I realize it's 'bad manners' or 'politically incorrrect' to make that sort of conclusion. Guess I'm a horrible person.  I mean, I know we can go places and choose to eat in moderation, but all too often, we don't have the self-control to just say no to the fried foods, the sugary desserts, sugary drinks and sugar-filled alcohol, or even the foods filled with fake sugar that may be as dangerous to our bodies as the real deal.

Woo-wee... I almost jumped up on my soapbox there for a sec!  To be honest, I am one of the people I am talking about, too!!  This is why I have not been eating out or buying processed foods. Sure, our grocery bill is higher than it was before as we are buying tons of organic fruits and vegetables, but we are saving money from not eating out! Plus, my husband and I are getting such huge health benefits because of our choice - We consider it an investment in our future.  In the month of no exercise following my surgery, I lost 3 pounds! And now that I've been back to the gym three times, I've lost 2 more in the past week.

I think I honestly could have lost the thirty pounds as my gym dude claimed had it not been for the unexpected surgery and healing time. As it is, I only lost TWENTY-ONE pounds in three months.  Only!!?!  [Insert happy dance.] No shakes, no diet pills, no gimmicks. Just plain ol' eating healthy/clean and exercise.

My personal healthy weight is between 145 and 150. I am 167.

I will not quit.

My decision to go AutoImmune Paleo combined with the levothyroxine to straighten out my thyroid's issues has helped my body's immune system, and its damning inflammation, get back on track.

I love how God takes us places we don't want to be - in order to show us what we need to do to magnify & glorify His name! To quote Dr Seuss (on this day which happens to be his birthday):  "Oh, the places you'll go...!" 

***Oh, and speaking of birthdays, here's a cute video of my mom catching one of those 'throwed rolls' at Lambert's Cafe on her 68th!  Love you, Mom!***

Welcome!

I know, I know...  Such an alluring title to a blog, right?  I'm ever so glad it reeled you in. Happy to see you!

This title wasn't difficult to come up with, actually. I was, as usual, in my thinking spot (my bed) cozied up with four pillows of different composition (one is fluffy with feathers, two are king size and as plush and mushy as twinkies, and one has that blue gel thingy in it that is meant to keep you cool but only makes me think of the cancerous toxins that might be seeping into my brain if I slept on it. ...So I just let my husband sleep on it. Lol!)

So anyway, I was thinking, thinking, thinking. Waaaay too many thoughts.  Genres of thoughts. Genres and subgenres and little baby subgenres.  Come on, you know you do it, too ~ We love to chase those rabbits, bay-bee! It's not all that fun to run in forty different directions in your mind, and it's definitely preventing my good friend Sleep from paying a visit. I realized that we're all sort of in our own little insane-asylums of our own makings. In the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, each character has his own set of rabbits to chase. We all have our own cuckoo ways.

You know, they say that if you journal, you can have closure. You can tame the rabbits. My rabbit-y thinks have been leading me to blog for a couple of years now. I even made a couple of puny attempts; however, the outcomes were embarrassing, so I made u-turns and eternally vanquished both sites from the internet. Who's to say that I won't do the same to this one? I may. But I may not. Because I'm hoping this one will be different.

I will try ever so hard to allow this to be my thinker-out-louder blog.

See, it's when I worried too much about what others would think about my blog that I would make myself disgusted with the fakiness of my words (yep, I made that word up -See how un-fake I can be?); when I used a thesaurus to fancy up the blog; when I searched for an hour for a perfect flickr photo to add to my post; when I got so poetically gushy that I didn't even recognize the writer of my words - That's when I would say, "OH forget it" and click delete.

So this time, I'm for real. I'm like, Velveteen Rabbit real.

This time, I have some rabbits that must be caught.
Because I've been so tired for a long time now. Do you remember the one character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that was always tired? Always always so tired?

Well, I'm tired.

& I've recently been diagnosed with "suspicion for papillary carcinoma of the thyroid."

So if you'd like to run around with me on this rabbit trail and some others, please please please let me know that you're here with me!  No matter your ailment, your hang-up, your oddity, your sin, your sickness, your personality - no matter how cuckoo you may be! - You are not alone.  And neither am I.