Life can be so frustrating. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I want so badly to talk about and let out all the issues I have with my Husband but I don’t know how or where to start or how to word it.
I’ve written and erased at least 6 or 7 paragraphs several times. I feel like I’m going to pull my hair out because it’s become more stressful to write this rather than it unburdening me by letting it out.
Ah, ok, I’m trying this one last time without going into all the small(est) details for now.
So, I found out about my Husband’s emotional betrayal on New Year’s Eve evening by accidentally tripping across a recorded conversation on my digital recorder. I use it for my writing because I tend to be most creative very late at night but I loaned it to him for a few months because I was taking a break. So, the recorded conversation took place in August of 2007. Well, I guess when he threw his bag onto the backseat of the car, it hit the record button and boy did I hear an ear full. About 20 minutes worth before he picked up his bag to get out of the car and the recorder cut out; my guess is whatever was holding the record button down shifted when he moved the bag.
Anyway. I have not been able to trust him since, though, I honestly really do try. It feels like it’s all on me to fix it and build that trust back up. Or in his words, “it will come with time”. He apologized when I first confronted him with it (about 10 minutes before midnight, Happy stinking New Year) and then once more when I brought it up a few weeks later telling him I didn’t think he really understood just how severely this has/is affecting our relationship and that I do not trust him anymore and am deeply hurt. But other than that, he acts as if everything is business as usual and nothing has changed.
All the things that bothered me before I found the tape, is now magnified times 10. When I moved in with him I gave up and put off a lot. I told him that I never wanted to live in this Province for the rest of my life, my plan was to eventually move out West and be with my family, which he said he’d look into doing/going with me. A little over a year later he tells me he never wants to leave Montreal; he never even bothered looking into work opportunities, he just said that all his family was here and he was settled in his job. (He’ll have been working as a tester for this company for 10 years now, come January or February.) I can understand him wanting to stay where he is settled but I was honest from the get go that I didn’t even want to move here and the only reason why I did was because it was going to be for “maybe a year” until he found a suitable job out West. If I knew in advance he never had any intentions of leaving this city, I never would have moved in in the first place and would have cut my losses with our relationship (since we’d not even been together a year when he asked me to move in) because I needed/wanted to be near my family for once.
I have never lived near my Grandmother and Great Aunt and they’re not doing too well health wise or financially, so I wanted to be close and likely help them out as best as I could, be it financially or mowing their lawn in the summer or shoveling their drive in the winter. My Husband has never been away longer than a one 6 month stint from his family. He’s been with them for every Thanksgiving, Christmas and quite likely birthdays too. I think our house is the furthest he’s lived from his siblings or his mother, which is a 10 to 30 minute drive from any of them. Meanwhile the closest my Grandmother and Great Aunt have been to me is a 2 hour drive away (and a 4 ½ hour plane ride for the last 5 years now) and I only got to see them once every few months if I was lucky.
I have become so resentful now because over the years it’s become all about his family, as if the whole world revolves around him and them. Everything is their business as far as they are concerned, everyone should do what they want, when they want it, as it’s expected. There is no respect for me, my feelings or my traditions. My Husband expects me to bend to what they want and since I’m not always willing to do that, I just stay home and stay out of it because he doesn’t want me to say anything to them in case it offends or insults them. Like when they start pushing about my personal life with things I am not comfortable discussing, my Husband does not want me to tell them that it’s none of their concern or business if I don’t want to discuss it. Plus, they have a tilted perception of me, as he uses me as an excuse to not do something with them when he doesn’t feel like it. I’ve asked him to stop but he still does it.
He can be such a hypocrite. We discuss things that we are unhappy about and how we can fix them. He likes to tell me not to ‘try’ and to ‘just do it’, where as when I ask him to do something, he says he’s trying and then does nothing!
I really didn’t mean for this to be a rant about my Husband, I do love him, despite his flaws but I’m reaching a point of enough is enough.
I’m not trying to imply that I’m a peach and am perfect. I am no where near perfect by any means but I’ve never disrespected my Husband the way he has me over the years, I have never betrayed his trust or confidence, like his has mine. I’m just so tired. I can only do so much and I am trying so hard!
My Grandmother told me that I am loyal to a fault and most would have had the sense to get up and leave a long time ago. But I want to make this work. My Husband is the only man I’ve ever been with physically and in a long term relationship (where as I am the last of many or so I assume, for him) and I made a promise of always and forever. I do still love him, even though it can be so hard sometimes.
To be honest, I do feel that there’s a part of me, a very small part, that wants to leave so I can start over fresh and that makes me feel horrible. But what makes me feel worse than horrible is knowing that if I decided I wanted to leave, I couldn’t. I have drained all of money out of my accounts over the last 2-3 years that I haven’t been working (because of complications with my Thyroid) that I am literally down to only having $200 to my name. I’ve looked at prices of apartments out West because I like to be prepared just in case and I wouldn’t be able to afford living out there or possibly anywhere. Prices for apartments have sky-rocketed, add in the cost of living, like electricity, food and clothing and then on top of that, the costs for my cat and I’m screwed 10 ways from Sunday. My cat costs $400 a month for his food, insulin and syringes alone, not including vet visits which happen once to twice a month or sometimes more and those visits range anywhere from $20 to $300, if not more.
I am so so thankful and appreciative that my Husband helps me out with the cost and has recently taken over for all of it. But if I were to leave, I couldn’t do it on my own, even if I made $2000 to $5000 more a year than what I made before I stopped working. (I know I wouldn’t be able to convince any company to give me more than that given how many years experience I have under my belt and how long I have been out of work.) I don’t want to put him down or let him go. My cat has been the only constant in my life for the last 10 ½ years and is likely the closest I will ever get to having children. (Unless I decide to adopt one day but I resigned myself to not having children a long time ago, so who knows.)
It makes me feel sick to my stomach because that 0.1% of me that stays because I can’t afford to leave feels like I am using and abusing my Husband. Which, to a degree, I suppose I am by feeling and thinking that way. Does this make me a horrible person? In all honesty please.
My Grandmother has offered for me to stay with her and my Great Aunt but the only way I could do that would be to let go of my cat, since they have one of their own. And as you can probably tell from the previous paragraph, I’m not willing to do that.
So here I sit between a rock and a hard place. Trying to hold onto and fix my marriage with a somewhat unwilling partner. I feel lost, alone and unsure of what to honestly do.
Anyways, enough of my uber long post, here are my stats for the day.
So, I did my first HHA FBC set today, took it really slow and easy because my neck still hurts and it went pretty well. I'm hoping to kick it up one more notch on Friday but if today is any indication, the next two weeks of doing my HHA series 3 times a week, should go pretty well. I reserve the right to have no say about after the next two weeks, as I'll be transitioning into doing a set every day but I'm hopeful to say the least. :)
Anyway, I feel the urge to spew out all my problems/worries that I am having with/about my marriage right now but don't know if I should given that this is a "weight loss" blog. I just don't know where else to let this out and possibly get any advice/suggestions in return. I have no one that I can talk to and use as a sounding board and I'm starting to have a really hard time dealing with this 'by myself'. Would anyone mind if I did post about it from time to time?
Exercise:
30 mins HHA FBC - 120 calories (Took it really easy.)
Can I just say that cat toys are evil. I mean E-VIL.
I was walking around the living/dining room to make sure everything was turned off last night and in its place before going to bed. Well, everything was as it should have been, so I decided to check to make sure the side entry door was locked because sometimes my Husband forgets to lock it when he comes home. Just as I'm crossing through the kitchen and heading towards the door, a cat toy falls off of the table and on to the shoe box we've left out for my baby to play/snuggle in because he likes it. It off course knocks over the lid that's being propped up by the leg of the table to make a loud bang.
What's one's natural reaction to this sort of thing? To whip the neck around in the general direction of the noise. Well, that was a very bad move on my part. I think I yelped so loud that I woke the neighbours dog. lol.
I spent all day today trying to keep my neck warm and not move it around too much. And I think I did a pretty good job, since it's not throbbing as badly as it was this morning when I woke up. So, fingers crossed that it will be much better tomorrow because I really want to do my FBC HHA set.
Other than that, it was a pretty good day. I got some good time in on the bike, although my butt hurts. I think I'm going to have to start looking for a cushion to put on it, as the "padding" that's there already feels like a rock and makes my bum go numb. lol! Oh gosh, I made it rhyme. My apologies.
First day of my new challenge! (My ticker seems to be reading ahead even though the dates are right. I think EP needs to adjust the trackers to be in sync with the individuals time zone still.)
Anyway.
This challenge is not going to be so different from my last one, except obviously shorter. lol. The plan is to exercise every single day, whether it be going for a walk, time on the recumbent bike, pilates or my weights/cardio routines. I must absolutely do something!
My eating habits will continue from my last challenge, as this is a life style change. I will monitor my daily caloric consumption and keep it as close to 1100-1200 calories as possible, after deducting calories burned from my exercises.
The schedule for my exercises is a little rough right now. I started having neck pains yesterday and this morning it was full on throbbing all day long; so this could possibly affect what I decide to do for exercises this week, depending on how quickly it clears up.
Also, because of my stomach injury almost two months ago, I need to re-enter my HHA series very carefully and slowly. At the moment, the plan is to do a 30 min FBC set on Wednesday and Friday and stick to the recumbent bike throughout the rest of the days this week. Then next Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I will do a 40 min TBB set to see how my body responds. If all is good, then I want to return to doing a set a day (Monday through Friday, recumbent bike on weekends) for 2 weeks.
If all is still well and I don't re-injure myself, then I will bring it up to where I am hoping to keep it, right through to the end of my challenge. Monday's and Friday's will be a 40 min TBB set, Tuesday's and Thurday's will be a 23 min AS set and a 25 min HBT set. Leaving Wednesday's for a 30 min FBC set and 20 mins Pilates. With the recumbent bike scheduled for the weekends.
Except for the days that I am on my period. Those will automatically be recumbent bike days, as it's the only thing my body seems to be able to handle during that time.
I really hope to continue the HHA series,as it made a noticeable difference to my mid-section, hips, buns and thighs on my last challenge. (Which I posted the results for a few days ago.) Plus they're lots of fun and I have a hard time doing exercises when they feel like chores. So, they've been the best purchase I have made to date, concerning exericse equipment.
Onto today's statistics...
Exercise:
10 mins Recumbent Bike - 130 calories
Meals:
Breakfast - 400 calories
Lunch - 300 calories
Snack - 85 calories
Dinner - 250 calories
Snack - 100 calories
Total Calorie Intake - 1135
Monday's Weigh In:
153 lbs. (I was afraid it would be more after those 4 free days! Thank goodness I'm only up a pound.)
Whoooow. I have no idea how many calories I have consumed today but I certainly biked my butt off.
New challenge starts tomorrow! I'll post all about it tomorrow evening when my first day is over. Also, my first weigh in for the challenge is tomorrow morning, so fingers crossed I haven't gained too much because of my free days! :)
Exercise:
80 mins Recumbent Bike - 940 calories
Meals:
Breakfast -
Last of the Chinese food. :( It was sssooo good, I want(ed) more. Oh well. I satisfied the craving now, so I should be good for another few months at least.
Lunch -
Strawberries, 1/2 cup Angel Hair Pasta, a few bites of cheesy garlic bread, 1 milk chocolate chip cookie and milk.
Dinner -
Kashi peanut-peanut butter bar and milk. Wasn't that hungry.
Not much to say today. The Chinese was delicious and I wasn't able to finish it all, so I'll have to make sure I take care of the rest of it tomorrow for breakfast. Yummy, lol. That way I have the day to work it off, without it making too big of a dent on Monday morning's weigh in.
Also, I biked my butt off again today. I'm going to guestimate that I consumed 2000 calories today, possibly more. So, I don't want that just sitting on me and turning into fat and more weight that I have to lose.
Oh, I have to share what my Fortune Cookie said! "Your perseverance will pay off soon." I had a good laugh when I read it. Couldn't help but think of my weight loss journey/goals.
Exercise:
70 mins Recumbent Bike - 830 calories
Meals:
Breakfast -
1 cup Strawberries, a 4x3 slice of garlic bread and milk. lol!
Lunch -
All the Chinese food my stomach could handle. (Which in all honesty wasn't that much but it was gooood.) 2 Milk chocolate chip cookies from the cookie shop my Husband loves. (He had 3 and said it was hard to hold himself back. lol.) And lots of milk.
Dinner -
The last 3x3 slice of garlic bread. I couldn't handle anymore more food than that. Well, I had a bit more milk too.
I have absolutely no idea how many calories I've consumed today and that does bother me slightly but I did plan this. So, I decided to get on the recumbent bike and just bike my little heart out to make myself feel better about it. Although I am not obligating myself to exercise until Monday when my next challenge begins, I don't want to sit around eating all this yummy food and gain 10 pounds that I'd have to re-lose later.
When my Husband picked up dinner for our anniversary, he also got me an order of Angel Hair Pasta and Garlic Bread since I've been craving it for weeks. The idea is; these next few days I'll get all of my cravings out of the way and then I should be good for another 6 months or so. That's generally how long it is in between my cravings. So tomorrow we are getting Chinese from my favourite restaurant and that will be it for big treat meals like this till January at least.
I do believe in treating oneself but in moderation. That however is not the case for these 4 days in between my challenges. I feel the need to go a little crazy now, so that I can prevent a binge later from depriving myself (to a degree) of such goodies during my challenges.
Exercise:
85 mins Recumbent Bike - 905 calories
Meals:
Breakfast -
1 cup Angel Hair Pasta with tomatoe sauce, 1 slice (2 inches x 3 inches) Garlic Bread and Milk.
Lunch -
1/4 Bronx Burger, 1/2 Salad with vinaigrette and parmesan cheese shavings, 1/4 Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake and Milk.
Dinner -
Last 1/4 Bronx Burger, last 1/2 Salad with vinaigrette and parmesan cheese shavings, Jello cup 5 calories, 2 square pieces milk chocolate 45 calories and Milk.
I have to say that although I ended this challenge 7 pounds short of my goal, I am very proud of how far I’ve come and how committed I was/ am to achieving the best for my health, despite the bumps in the road.
I set a very ambitious goal to lose 31 pounds in 150 days. In my mind when I first thought of this challenge, I figured losing 1.5 pounds per week would be easy, given how I was on a roll with it last time, making it all the way down to 158.5 pounds. Looking back now, I should have realized this might not have been possible. Since reaching 158.5 pounds, I went through the loss of a very dear and precious loved one and received a change in my dosage for my Hypothyroidism medication.
Two more bumps in the road of trying to straighten things out with my health, my Thyroid medication and a few others, like blood pressure and so forth, before finally settling down and deciding this was going to be it. I was going to make it this time, no matter what the obstacles.
Well, I’ve lost 30 pounds from my heaviest weight of 182 pounds and I have officially lost 24 pounds since starting this challenge on April 28th. That’s roughly 1.1 pounds per week average. And I pushed through despite my physical injury and kept going even though the last 6 weeks of my Challenge I was unable to do any weight training and was basically restricted to the recumbent bike while I healed.
I still have days that I find it hard to believe I’ve lost this much weight, I don’t see it when I look at myself in the mirror, although I do see/feel it in how my clothing fits. I’ve become so use to seeing/being the fat invisible girl that it’s hard to see and accept my slimmer self coming back out. I feel my confidence growing with every pound lost, which I find sad in a way because in all honesty, weight should never have any barring on one’s confidence in them selves.
Losing this weight, to be perfectly honest, scares the living daylights out of me. I’ve become so use to and comforted in the invisibility my weight has given me. I’ve become a shell of who I use to be and some where down the line I accepted this and made it my way of life. I don’t know how to go back to who I was and I don’t even know if I want to. Do I want to be confident again? Yes, who doesn’t honestly? But for some reason, now it scares me. Like it means I need to man up and start making real decisions and stick to them, instead of sitting on the side lines and coasting like I have been these past 2 ½ years.
I feel like Peter Pan, not quite ready to grow up. People act and treat you differently when you are thinner. I hate all of that bull crap. I have people in my own family and in-laws who do that. As if I only have value when I weigh a certain weight and look a certain way. I like a child’s perspective, of everyone being equals and having worth no matter their gender, size or race.
This world has become, excuse my language to those who might take offense, so god damn superficial that it makes me sick.
I feel myself recreating who I am as I lose this extra weight and I just hope that I am able to retain all of which I’ve learned and gone through while being overweight. Life is about learning and I’ve learned a lot on this journey, about myself and others. And I still have a ways to go before it’s over.
Ok, so moving on to measurement results, no more ranting. lol. Unfortunately I was unable to find my beginning measurements weighing in at 176, so I had to base my loss results on my 169.5 weigh in measurements.
Also, my final measurements today for my waist are slightly off. I started my period yesterday and I am already very bloated, so unfortunately it’s not accurate. I’ll take another measurement of my waist on Tuesday or Wednesday and post an update then.
Here we go, on to the fun stuff!
BodyLeftRight
Chest=- 2 inches
Upper Arms=- 1/2 inch- 7/8 inch
Waist=- 2 inches (Bloated)
Hips=- 4 ½ inches
Butt=- 3 inches
Thighs=- 1 1/4 inches - 1 5/8 inches
Calves=- 1/4 inch- 1/4 inch
Total Inches Lost = 15 7/8
Thank you to all of you who took the time to stop by and read or comment. I really do appreciate it. I hope that you decide to continue with me onto my next challenge.
The Results for my 150 Day Challenge are coming a little later this evening, I just need to find my starting measurements before I can post.
So... moving on.
Today and the rest of the week are going to be considered my "Free Days" as my next Challenge doesn't start until Monday. I will post and expand upon that on Monday.
So, yesterday was my 6th anniversary with my Husband but we decided to celebrate tonight since it worked better for us. We didn't do anything special, since things are still strained, as I explained in a past post on Day 128. (I think it's 128.) But at least we still did something. We got some take out from East Side Mario's and then watched P.S. I Love You. I really love that movie. Just made me want to go visit Ireland all the more.
Anyways. I don't even want to think about how many calories I consumed for dinner and dessert. I certainly don't want to think about how much is left in the fridge, given how stuffed, bloated and sick I feel! I didn't really eat that much but with how I've been eating much healthier and in smaller portions for the last 150 days, my body was not ready for tonight! It felt like and still feels like my gut is going to bust open because it's being stretched to the max!
Even though I am not obligating myself to record what I consume or whether or not I exercise for the next few days, I did it anyway.
So, here is most of today's stats:
Exercise:
15 mins Recumbent Bike - 160 calories
Meals:
Breakfast - 400 calories
Whole wheat english muffin, tablespoon peanut butter, tablespoon strawberry jam and 1 cup of skim milk.
Lunch - 265 calories
1 peanut - peanut butter Kashi bar, 1 cup mandarins in light syrup and 2 squares (45 calories total) of milk chocolate.
Dinner - Who knows and who cares how many calories! :D *lol*
1/2 Bronx Burger (bacon, cheese ketchup toppings only), french fries, 1/2 a peanut butter chocolate cake and a whole lotta milk!
