Just me redo

So earlier I made a blog about my past. I deleted it because it's just that the past. I do not live in the past anymore. So instead of telling about my child hood. I am just going to tell you about me. What I have done in my life that has lead me to who I am today. It may be in more than one post. It may all come out in this one. I really don't know yet. But I am not going to talk about my childhood. I do not want to hurt anyone by dredging up shit that can't be changed and that is over. I am a grown ass woman and I am a bad ass through and through.

  So I suffer from depression and anxiety pretty bad. Right now I have it under control for the most part.  I take meds and I am working on a healthier me. I do an amazing program called Golo that has also helped with my depression.

 I have been told I was a depressed child. I can see why. I know I was a depressed teenager but most teens are depressed. I did  not handle mine very well back then. I was very defiant. I drank a lot of beer. I ran around all hours of the night and did whatever I wanted. At the time I lived with my grandma Rush. She babied me so bad.

  When I turned 20 my grandma who I lived with Died 2 days after my birthday. I couldn't handle it. I was holding her hand when she took her last breath. That sent me into a downward spiral that no one could help me get out of. I was so weak minded. I literally wanted to die. I wanted to be laid right next to her. I felt like I had no one. No one that loved me. No one I could turn to. I did have people I just didn't see them. I felt so alone for so long. That year was one of the  worst years of my life.

 It was 1999. In January a good fiend of mine had been killed in a house fire. He was a volunteer fire fighter. Frog. He was like a big brother. Then in February my grandma dies from cancer. And I had another major loss in August that year my Uncle Jimmy Lee was also killed in a house fire. He had went to sleep and his air conditioner shorted out setting his house on fire. He had burns over 80% of his body. He died of smoke inhalation.  So for my young mind I totally lost it.

 So after all the heartache I endured that year I just kind lived in a fog. I worked, partied, worked, partied. I pushed away friends. Family. Everyone really. Even my very best friend Breah. I never should have because she was always there for me. She was more a friend we became soul sisters. And will be for life!!

  I moved from the town I lived in to the town I live in now about 4 years after my grandma passed. I actually moved above a bar. Imagine that. Easy access to the party and didn't have to worry about drinking and driving home. But something amazing happened while I lived there. I met my soul mate. Troy.  I immediately moved from that place in with a friend who introduced us.

  I became pregnant with our first child. While pregnant I gained a lot of weight. I never got that off. After we had our first child we got pregnant 2 more times but miscarried. That piled on more heartache and depression. That lead to eating and feeling sorry for myself.  Then the worst thing possible happened. My son was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. But we found out I was not a carrier so we had another child. My baby Brodie. I was happy. My life was good besides the paralyzing diagnosis of my oldest.

   When Brodie was about 3 I started working out. I was doing a program called Idealshape. I did great I lost 40 pounds quick. Then The shit hit the fan. I got a call from one of my cousins. The CPS was going taking their kids away and wanted to know if I would take them. Of course I said yes. Family takes care of family. Plus I figured it would be like a 3 month stint. Boy was I wrong. Over the past 5 years I have had some severe depression and anxiety. My now daughter was horribly behaved. So that set my anxiety and depression through the roof.

 And all that weight I had lost came back and then some. I was so miserable. I know there were days I just sat on my couch and would eat an entire box of swiss cake rolls. It was awful. I had days when I would go to the doctor crying I told him I knew why people killed themselves now. Boy he didn't waste any time getting me fixed up. He helped me get my depression under control. We ended up adopting the 2 children. and I continued to be fat.

 To some my life seems like a soap opera. And well shit it is. Everyone has family drama. But over the last 7 months I have learned so much. I have learned to stop and breath and don't let everyone Else's shit drag you down. I heave learned to take care of my own shit. I have learned to take control of myself again. When I was young I had all kinds of attitude. I would walk into a room like I owned it. I had no fear. It may have been the alcohol I don't know.

 But today I feel like I am me. The real me. I am feeling more confident. I am eating healthy. I am working out. I am down 55 pounds. I am taking control of issues that need to be taken control of. I am not living in the past I am not letting my depression win!! This post may be kind of all over the place. It is supposed to be about how I became heavy and how I am taking care of it now. It is supposed to show how much depression can control your life.

 If anyone gets anything out of this post. I want it to be. Don't let your brain take over your life. If you do you will fall in that hole and let me tell you it took me so many years to get out of it.  Now that I have the right tools to do what needs to be done I will never look back!! I will continue to be the bad ass I was born to be. I will kick this weights ass. I will kick depression and anxiety to the curb. I will succeed.

 

Sometime's kids can be cruel

 Today I am going to discuss bullying. there was an incident yesterday and it really has my head spinning. I almost lost my shit. My child was being bullied and said he was going to kill himself he had a plan and it absolutely terrified me!!

    I will start at the beginning. It all started when my son Jude was in third grade. He had horrible anxiety and would pick his skin and leave sores on his arms. I would buy sleeves to cover his arms so he wouldn't pick but it didn't work. Anyway, kids would corner him and call him scab boy. Because of his DMD he wasn't as fast as they were so they would make fun of him for that. He would have behaviour outburst because of the bullying. Cussing spells so he would be the one to get into trouble at school. I asked him why he did that and he said I am not strong enough to fight back so I use words. I do not know how many trips I made to the school that year. The teacher at the time was not helpful at all. He basically let things happen. It was just horrible.

  There was 3 kids that were doing this to Jude. One of the kids mom's called me she had caught the kids being cruel to Jude and she wanted to make it stop. She had talked to her son and told him your bullying a kid because of his disability. This child has High Functioning autism. After realizing this he changed. He quit. He became a very good friend to Jude. He is a good kid and we love him to death now.   The other 2 kids one was actually a distant relative of ours and had a troubled home life. The other kid also had a troubled home life. But that is no excuse to hurt another kid. Bring that kid down. At the end of the school year we had had enough. The school was not doing anything about these other kids so I told Jude to take it in his own hands. So he did. The main kid was bothering Jude the last day of school so Jude dumped his food tray on him and called him a bad name. Of course he got into trouble. I went to pick him up and I said to him right in front of the principal. You did good. No one else was going to help you so you did what you had to do. I also looked at the principal and told her he is not in trouble you should have stopped this sooner!!

  So moving forward to the next couple years. Jude had more behavior problems which a lot was  from the bullying but also because kids with DMD have issues.. The brain is a muscle and it causes different behaviors. Jude was also still bullied a little in 4th grade but in 5th and 6th the bullies had moved to another school and he had some relief. But those issues were still going on in his head. He became very depressed. One teacher in 5th grade told me at a school meeting that he was the most depressed kid she had seen. It broke my heart. I do everything I can to make his life easy. But I know now it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with his past and his struggles.

 Now lets move to yesterday. It started at lunch. His friends which by the way are all girls. Were sitting at a table he couldn't get to with his wheelchair. So he started feeling sorry for himself. He went to the lunch detention room and sat for the remainder of lunch by himself. After lunch he went to 4th period and because he was already depressed and feeling sorry for himself he started acting annoying. Another kid started threatening Jude saying I want to hit him. I would hit him but his mom would sue the school and me. So since he couldn't hit Jude the kid decided to think it was ok to start making fun of him for being in a wheelchair. He was saying why are you in a chair when you can walk why do you need a $6,000 chair when you could use a Cain. Why do you need shoes if your in a chair. and saying some really cruel things. So Jude said I am just going to slit my own throat.

  Come to find out Jude had a plan. His plan was to make it look like someone pushed him out of his chair by some stairs so his neck would be broke and he would die. I was sick after hearing this. I already worry every single day my baby will lose his life early because of his DMD. It is my worst fear. This morning I was terrified to send him to school. I was so scared someone would say something bad to him and he would just say screw it and drive his chair down the stairs himself. The school counselor called this morning and I told her all that had happened after I picked Jude up and asked if I could come one day and talk with the kids about Jude's disease. I am hoping they are old enough to hear the ugly terrifying truth of his disease. I am hoping they will hear and not be so cruel. I am hoping that they will all love one another.

    Kids can be cruel. Sometimes it is the parents fault. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes kids just don't  understand how words can be deadly. Kids are not like they were in my day they are weak minded.
We as the older generation need to start teaching our children to be strong and kind. I as a parent need to teach my kids to be stronger and kinder. We need to teach our kids about how ugly and scary real life is. We want to protect them from the big bad world when we need to be making them ready for the big bad world. I am just as guilty.  And as of today I will be teaching my kids life is not fun and games. Life is hard. But we have to be strong pull our pants up and hit that day like it is our last. Make it count. Make something of ourselves. Make our life great.

 So my words of advice today go for all parents and adults. And mostly to myself. Teach your kids to not be so cruel. Teach them to love one another. Once day that person you made fun of may not be there the next day because of something you may have said to them that hurt them.

     And to parents who's children are the bullied. Teach them to love themselves. Teach them to be strong and get them help ASAP!!

Sunday Fun Day!!

  Happy Sunday everyone!!

 For me Sunday is meal prep day. So today I have made Cheesy Chicken Penne for my lunch this week. It is a GOLO recipe and one of my favorites at that. 

I am going to tell you a little about how GOLO has changed my life! I mean changed it for the better. I have literally tried everything from eating nothing but salad to fasting to when I was younger (this was very dumb) but I ate nothing but M&M's and drink water for a few weeks. That was tough. HAHA But I was young and dumb and had no clue what I was doing,

 Now I have been heavy my entire life. I started getting fat when I was in third grade. I was made fun of on a daily basis. That just made me depressed and eat more so I gained more and more over the years. When I was 16 years old I weighed in at 225 pounds. By the time I was 25 and met my husband I weighed 270. We have been together for 14 years and right before I found GOLO I was my heaviest at 320. I was miserable. I was depressed worse than ever. Anxiety through the roof. Wouldn't go out hardly in public. I just wanted to stay home I was worried what people said about me. I didn't want kids to look at me I had a time when some kids laughed at me when I was walking between cars. It really bothered me.

  When I started Golo back in March I was really discouraged at first because I was afraid I wouldn't like the food and I didn't want to prepare for the week. I was lazy. So I just took the pills and ate a lot of Birdseye frozen meals. I know I probably shouldn't have eaten that but I did. I still lost weight. About mid may I decided it was time to try some golo recipes. So my first time making one was the Cheesy Chicken Penne. I didn't like spinach so I was really really afraid to try it but I did anyway and OMG it was the best!! I loved it.. I still love it!! I will make a batch of that and just eat it for lunch all week. I am one of those that can eat the same thing just about every day.
 
 After trying the cheesy chicken penne I decided I was game for trying other. I made the coffee rubbed steak, then the meatloaf cupcakes and so on and so on.  I absolutely fell in love with so many recipes. I also do not mind meal prepping anymore. It actually makes my life way easier. I meal prep usually for 4 days at a time for myself. Like I said I can eat the same thing just about every day it does not bother me at all. Now for dinner I only prep for 2 days at a time because my husband has gotten to where he would rather have my golo food than what I cook for everyone else. HA!!

  The way meal prep has made my life easier is instead of standing over the stove every day I can do other things. Like on Mondays Wednesday and Fridays I clean my entire house. Yes my entire house!!   Now I have so much more time to do things I want and need to do. I don't have to worry about what I am going to cook for dinner or what I was going to have my husband bring home to eat. It is already done. I even meal prep for the rest of the family. It is just so freeing.

 Some examples of what I do now is exercise. I try to walk at least 2 days a week I do 4 miles each day. Also 2 day's a week I do aerobics. I love my aerobics class. I do not feel rushed. I can take my grandma or son to the doctors office and not worry about what I am going to eat for lunch. I already have it done. I just warm it up before I leave my house and when it is time to eat I eat. Yes sometimes people look at me but I don't care anymore. I am getting healthy. Also a lot of the time when people see what I am eating they ask what it is because it looks so yummy!!

 The Title of this blog is probably deceiving to some. Sunday Fun Day!! But meal prepping is fun to me. I look forward to it every week. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these recipes I LOVE the way I feel after eating them (full) and I love what I am becoming and I love my GOLO life!! Sunday Fun day has a new meaning to this family. To us it is a day that starts our week out healthy. The healthier I get the more fun my family can have.

  My advice to anyone reading this today is. Take one day out of the week to cook. It makes life so much easier to deal with. It makes getting healthy easier than a lot of other programs and diets make it look like. With Golo I don't have to count calories or fat or anything. I follow the recipe put the servings in containers and eat. How easy is that!!? 

Have a great day. Till next time!


 

One day at a time

10-25-2019



              The day I found out I was pregnant with my first child is the day my life changed forever. I have had several days that changed my life forever in different way but this was the start of something different. Something I wanted very much something at that moment I loved more than anything I had ever loved.

       October 8, 2005 was the day I found out I was having a baby. I had only been with Troy for a little over a month and I was terrified he was going to not want to stay with me or not want the baby. Obviously he did even though we were very new in the relationship and honestly I didn't know for 100% if he was the father until we did our first ultrasound it all added up thank god.  I was wild party girl before I met Troy.

      Skip to the day Jude was born he was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. He just looked around the room, he didn't cry at first he was just so calm until they started cleaning him that made him mad. After Jude was born our life couldn't be more perfect. We got married had our healthy sweet baby boy then something changed. Something wasn't right with our baby. He was almost 14 months old and couldn't walk. He could stand up to things but couldn't take a step. We got first steps to come in and they got him walking. He was still slow though. My nephew is a year older than Jude and my little cousin was 2 years older and they were jumping around running. Normal 2 and 3 year old behavior. I didn't think anything of it at first we just thought oh he is just being careful. Mommy babies him to much ect.

      When the time came to potty train Jude it just did not happen. I took him to the doctor and he blew it off until I told him to run some blood work and see if there might be something wrong. The blood work came back as his liver enzymes were elevated so they ran the test again every 2 weeks for 8 weeks. Each time same results no answers. I finally threw a big fit because my 3 year old son was terrified of the doctor from all the pokes and we had no answers. I was so scared. So they sent him to Riley Hospital to a gastronologist. While in with her she told us in her years of being a doctor she had had 8 children come to her with the same symptoms and they had muscular dystrohy. She ordered the blood work and there is was. Now to find what kind.


      After we get the confirmation he has a type of muscular dystrophy we start going to a neurologist. Dr. Hamati. She is an amazing pediatric neurologist. She tells us he needs some genetic testing done to figure out what type of MD he has so we do that. It doesn't take but a few weeks for the results to come in. I can remember sitting in that doctors off to this day. It was January 11, 2011. I had my grandma with me and Jude. I was a nervous wreck. She walks in and says the words no parent wants to ever here. Your child has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I sat there and said ok. I didn't know what DMD was. She gave me some information and set up another appointment and we left.

  When I get home I start reading up on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and my heart falls into the ultimate depths of hell. My son only had a life expectancy of 25 years. My sweet baby boy!!! Then I read it is passed down from the mother that made me lose my mind. Thinking I gave this to my baby. What have I done I can't live with myself if he dies knowing it was my fault. I had so many emotions. So many thoughts of how could this be happening to us.

    I ended up also having some genetic testing done to see if I was a carrier for DMD. I was not a carrier so the guilt I had felt was mostly gone. Then the anger of why hit. Why did my son have this horrible disease? What did I do for god to make my child sick? So many questions no answers!!

  I will tell you I fell into the biggest hole ever. Some days it was hard to even get out of bed but I knew I had to to take care of my son. He needed me more than ever and I needed him. Jude saved my life. I tell him this all the time. When I found out I was pregnant with him I was in such a deep depression and felt so alone. I partied a lot and was going down a downward spiral. After Jude's diagnosis I had those feelings of despair and depression coming back. 

  Jude is now 13. we have had a roller coaster ride since his diagnosis. On top of his DMD he has behavior issues. He has to take lots of medicine for that for his DMD and also for his heart.We have been very lucky with Jude on the most part. He is still mobile. His heart is stable with meds and the only breathing equipment he needs is a bi-pap. 


     To tell you a little about DMD it is the most common type of MD in children. Mostly boys it does affect girls but that is rare. DMD is passed down by the mother usually but there are cases where they are just born with it. Usually by the age of 12 the child loses their ability to walk and has to be in a power chair. It affects their heart and lungs. Several children a year pass away from complications from just getting a cold. A common cold is deadly to our children. Our children go into heart failure at young ages. The list goes on and on.

   So this was just a little bit about some of the things going on. Just a smidge. There is much much more. This diagnosis was a huge life changer to us. It was not planned it was not something we wanted but it is something we live with. Something we have to deal with on a daily basis. Something that has contributed to my depression and weight gain. Something I pray every day we will get a cure for. We can only take this life one day at a time.

       

October 24, 2019

  So I woke up this morning and thought to myself. I am going to actually do this. I am going to start a blog. I have been thinking about how to do this whether I wanted to Vlog or Blog and well I say UM to much to I decided to just Blog. I want to track my journey on weightloss and my struggle with everyday life. I am going to share how I actually get through each day juggling kids, doctors, homework, housework, and exercise. All while struggling with Depression, Anxiety, and obesity.

 Since today is my first day of this I will start with how I got to where I am today. I was born in February 1979. My parents were young and dumb haha. They got married in 1978 at the time of the big blizzard here in Indiana. That should have been a sign it was going to fail. But they had me a year later. I will get into some of the things that has happened back then in different posts. Today is just an overview. 

   So I am 40 years old. I have 4 kids I am married to the love of my life and I help my grandma with doctors and stuff. My oldest son is 13 years old and has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I have 3 other children ages 9, 7, and 7. My 9 year old son and 7 year old daughter are adopted and I also have a 7 year old son which I will also talk about all that later.

  I started my new journey March 16, 2019. I had been watching tv with my daughter and we saw a commercial and she said you should get that so I did. I will tell you what I could not be happier today!! It has been such a life changer for me. That day I got my first kit of GOLO I weighed 320 pounds. That is the heaviest I have ever been. I was at my all time low. My nerves were shot my depression was horrible but manageable.

  Over the last 6 months I have lost 50 pounds and 7 inches. I have learned how to eat healthy food that is not "diet" food. I have energy like never before. I work out 3 to 4 days a week on top of running errands like doctor appointments cleaning my house and being a full time mom. I feel better than I have ever felt in my entire life.

  I am looking forward to sharing my story . I may hurt some peoples feelings in some of my posts. I am sorry if that happens. I am speaking my truth how I see and saw things all through my history. Things are water under the bridge now. I am sharing because it has a lot to do with why I am how I am.