Tag: Creative

The Journey Does Not Get Easier

Someone said something brilliant the other day: The journey does not get easier, you just get stronger.

I have been blogging a little more lately, especially with my recent health diagnoses of hEDS, (which causes pain in my hands, joints, and which has been impairing my digestive tract for years), mitral valve heart disease, (which, quite frankly, could someday be life limiting), and osteoporosis, (t-score of -3.3).  Did I mention I also have MCAS?  Here is a set of pictures, (day 2, then day 3), of an allergic reaction I had to an insect bite, which is typically an “over” reaction for me, due to mast cell activation.

Yikes!  Written all down like that, I sound worse off at 54 years old, than my 80-year-old mother who is a breast cancer survivor!

Anyhow, I love blogging.  I love getting my words out of my head.  I love sharing my experiences.

What I do not like is “stuffing” myself down.

I grew up in a household where it was easier to stuff myself down, make myself “small” because I was “too much.”  And food was an easily accessible tool, compounding by 80’s diet culture that was practiced in my home telling me that as a girl I should not eat any extras, but my brother could eat whatever he wanted because he was a boy, and naturally skinny on top of it all.

And even though I grew up and moved away from home, the turning to food to stuff-myself-or-my-feelings-down habit stuck.  The habit of stuffing down discomfort instead of feeling it.

Blogging is the opposite of stuffing it down.  I feel heard, even when it’s only myself that reads these words.  I am actually a bit shy in real life, so it almost seems counterintuitive to find such immense comfort in putting my words, any of my words on a variety of subjects, out into the public space.  It’s not exactly about connection, although some connection with others has been a very happy byproduct.  It’s mostly about talking to myself, outside of my own head, and feeling heard in ways I did not consistently (if ever, but I am willing to allow that my memories are not perfect in this regard) feel that I was heard growing up in the household dynamics in which I was raised.

Here’s to another weekend of NOT stuffing it down.  I am fortifying myself with this blog entry to have a far better weekend than 2 weeks ago.  We are going to a Halloween experience tonight, and I may even wear a make-shift costume (and then post a picture) if I don’t get too shy to actually do it.

Turning the Corner

Hiking, October 11, 2025, Halfway Hotsprings, British Columbia.

Today, October 24, 2025 – 122.1 pounds.

We got a new couch yesterday, my first new couch in 18 years.  And I have been purging items from my home that I don’t need anymore, to throw away or donate, in a 21 day challenge.  I feel my house is so much more balanced, and as well, my body has come back into homeostasis after my disastrous Thanksgiving long weekend that I wrote about here.

I was reading an old journal entry of mine from November 26, 2017 (at 162.0 lbs.) that said, “I went from a low for that month (in 2017) of 152.4 lbs. on Apr.7, to 174.0 lbs. on May 1.”

I also said, “21.6 pounds gained in less than one month.  Just crazy.  I literally went from thin to fat overnight.”

I feel like I was close to going down a similar path just two weeks ago, for the first time in 2.5 years.  I used to struggle just to go 2.5 months without that behaviour.

But I feel confident I have turned things around, after hitting stage 4 of the grief cycle, and now moving into stage 5.  Our new couch, the 21 day challenge, it has all changed the feel of my external environment for the better.  In the past, my external environment being chaotic eventually permeated my internal environment, creating chaos within myself.  Not this time.

Motivation Needs a Good Tagline

I just realized, the fact of my hip density being higher than spine is common in connective tissue–related osteoporosis, where trabecular (spine) bone is more affected than cortical (hip) bone, that I wrote about here, could mean I have a problem with bone building, rather than with bone loss.  In that case, a bisphosphonate will not be as effective for me, as it only stops bone loss.  I am not a medical professional, but what feels deeply right for me, is I want to try this first.  Then 8 months from now, I will get another Dexascan, and even if it is “not medically diagnostic,” the one I had done in June 2025 was pretty close to the bone density scan I had done at the hospital, so I will be able to compare apples to apples, Dexa to Dexa, for any improvements. If over the next 8 months I really try to see if I can build bone, (specific to my needs as someone with hEDS), then after my Dexa June 2026, if there are no changes, or a worsening problem, only then will I reconsider going on a prescription.

Old Lady Butt

My self-talk is far more loving these days.  I accept my “shrinkles” from my weight loss of more than 70 pounds (from 2023 to the end of 2024), and technically I am 90 pounds down if you count my absolute highest weight ever (2003).

But I have experienced a certain degree of body shaming, including at a young age.  Some of it was not malicious, it was merely observation, (when puberty hit and I developed “saddle bags”).  But when you are 12 years old, observation can sound like criticism.

And back in November, someone’s observation, in connection with those infamous “saddle bags” of mine, and the shape of my legs now, post-weight loss, was “that’s because you have an old lady butt.”

In the past, this would have bothered me.  Now, I embrace my butt, my shape, everything leg about my legs, because they are incredible.  My legs (thighs and butt included) carry me on hikes up hills.  They carry me while walking a 15K back in March.  They peddled my electric assist bicycle on a nearly 50K bike ride just one week ago.  TMI alert, they allowed me to easily squat in the bush for a pee (twice).

Go me, and my 54-year old lady butt!

Relief Seeking Behavior

Well, I survived last night cravings, despite getting flirtatious with a couple spoonful’s of peanut butter…

Maybe it was not emotional pain specifically last night, (I do NOT stuff down my emotions with food anymore), maybe it was my chronic physical pain that was pushing me into relief seeking behavior.  I am currently dealing with daily arthritis (maybe it’s arthritis, I really don’t know what it is…) pain in my hands that I haven’t had to deal with before.  (At least, I have not had pain that is daily like this is since going grain free).

I am better off petting my pets than grabbing a spoon, lol.

Finding a New Way to Cope with Stress

These are my skinny jeans.

You know, part of me feels like these posts about “Look at me, I am in Maintenance!” come across as a little braggy, but I am just reminding myself lately that I do not want to go back up the scale to the old me. Yes, I have changed my identity that I spoke about here.

But…

I have been thinking (obsessing?) lately about the feelings I used to have when I simply would eat food for fun, for indulgence, the way I still see other people eating food. For example, go to a movie theatre. I will see people sitting all around me just eating—for the pure pleasure of eating. I mean, come on. No one is sitting there in a movie theatre eating, for example, a mixed vegetable dish as a meal to nourish their bodies. They are eating food (popcorn and candy, etc.) for fun. Absolutely, I used to do that too. And this week and last week in particular, I have been missing how it felt to escape into something (anything) to eat for the pure oblivion of a few moments of time while just eating. Because for those few moments of time, real life (with its real stresses) just disappears. Oh, real life comes rushing back in as soon as the food is done, and I must NEVER forget that, but for that little bit of time…

So, the “desire to overeat thoughts” have been hanging around again lately. They have been popping in and out of my head for almost 3 weeks now. This is why I did my last post here about feeling so comfortable in the body I have right this minute, so I don’t give it up. I was trying to remind myself why I say no every day to eating (overeating) foods I did not plan.

It seems that lately, when the same old life stresses (that come and go for everyone, I am not unique) are particularly intense, I notice that it feels the very same as in my past when similar stresses were also very intense, and I would overeat my way through the ebb and flow. It was at first an escape. Then, the misery of regaining weight was a distraction. It’s this old familiar pattern of response. Today, I must respond differently.

So, I’ve got to be willing to be someone for whom the food and the weight loss is solved, (now, in the present tense). Period. No more past patterns of behavior.  Even when it seems hard to have given up that old version of myself, I am instead embracing that I am the new 2.0 version of myself. I remember the old version. I have even given her a big hug.

But now I step back and hold the old me at arms length. I am not her anymore. I don’t stuff down my feelings with food. I do not replace those feelings instead with feelings of misery about regaining weight. I used to know all about how to feel about regaining weight, I was comfortable with that negative place. In that old place, instead of hugging the old me, I’d be slapping her around and hurting her even worse than it felt that real life was hurting me at the time. I was an expert at that behavior.

So, maybe I am not exactly an expert at dealing with my emotions as this new version of myself (which is why suddenly the old me is standing just off stage. I can see her out of the corner of my eye). But what an unproductive and self-destructive state of existing it would be to go backwards at this point. And I do not want to simply exist like that (in emotional pain and trying to stuff it down with food) anymore.

I am the new me, and I am living my life feeling what I need to feel, instead of stuffing it down.

Maintenance is not Glamorous

Maintenance is not glamorous.

However….

Everyday, because I maintain my current weight, I get to wear clothes I love.  In the past, I wore clothes that were sometimes tight and uncomfortable.  Or even if they fit my body perfectly, I never allowed myself to feel “comfortable.”  Instead, many times I found myself hyper-aware of my clothing, and therefore self-conscious of my larger size.  

Even if it is not “good” to label my body as “large,” (we do not have to accept any labels we do not want, and can instead love ourselves at any size), my body was simply larger in the past than it is today.  And good or bad, clothing comes with its own labels as to their size.  I believe there is nothing wrong with any size, 4 or 16, small or large, but if we do not feel “right-sized” for who we want to be, then we may find ourselves moving through life with a feeling of not being comfortable in our current size.  I definitely experienced this in the past.

Now I move through life feeling comfortable in my current size.  

So, maintenance is not glamorous.  It is not as exciting as being in a weight loss phase, with new lower numbers on the scale to track each week, or month, or lower measurements, or new clothing sizes that now fit, (and new clothes to buy!).  But I must never let myself forget that I am comfortable everyday, in all my clothes.  I can go to my own clothes closet and select to wear my own version of the ever elusive—before which would be from the depths of the back of the closet—skinny jeans.  And I get to wear them any day I want, not just in some future picture in my mind, “I’ll wear those when I weigh X.”

Of course, it’s not just clothes.  It’s also the daily exercise and activity I can do each day, while feeling strong, able, and most of all—comfortable.

Living in Brilliant Color

I heard something on YouTube the other day that really resonated with me.  

“I live with my food black and white, so that I can live my life in brilliant color.”  

This is what I do.  My food is black and white.  I simply plan each morning what I will eat today, and then I go about my day eating what I planned.  And I plan good food I will enjoy eating, (which helps a lot!). I measure it all out, and keep track of what I am eating on an app on my phone, so the scale stays exactly the same (within a pound or 2).  This “black and white” behavior keeps my thoughts about food calm and quiet, instead of lit up by variable reward, that I wrote about here.

What a lovely January it has been.

Writing a Better Story For Myself

People just have to live their own lives and do what they need to do.  I see it on social media a lot, people struggling in so many different ways.  And whenever I want to jump in with a comment, even just a “Me too, I know how you feel,” most of the time I instead think to myself, “Don’t try to insert yourself into their story.”

All I can do is just continue to live my own story, and I try to write it better this year than I have written it in the past.  2022 and 2023 (before my accident) were not the best story I could have written for myself.  I am writing a better story this year, for sure, and today I want to remember that.