I’m a wreck

I’m starting a plan… tomorrow I hope.  My friend Billy told me about it.

I’m not eager to lose weight.  I’m fine, weight wise.  I mean, sure I could look better in a 2-piece, but I’m sick of being sick. Literally.  I’m sick all the time.  I missed two weeks of work in March.  I was sick again all through April & May.  And I stuck it out too; trying to fight through without going to a doctor for anti-biotics for weeks, but eventually went and got anti-biotics both times.  Ridiculous.

I don’t want to die when I’m 45.  I don’t really think I’m going to, but when I consider that I can no longer have a simple cold without it turning into a weeks-long infection that makes me miss work and affects my energy level, which affects the kind of parent, wife, friend and person I want to be.

So in the process of learning how to get the final bits of hip & leg pain to end (I had hip surgery 5 months ago, after ten years of pain), I went to a doctor , who casually, at the end of my appointment mentioned that I crave sugar because I’m allergic to sugar?  What?????  I had never heard of that.  I was kind of perplexed.

So I called my friend Amber.  I said, “A doctor said that I’m allergic to sugar!  Have you ever HEARD of that?”  I may have just left her a message, but she texted back and said, “Yea, Billy says your adrenals are shot, call him later.”  So I called him.  He’s a fast-talker, and when I called him, I couldn’t really track all he was saying, but it was something about adrenals, hypothalmus, and blah, blah, blah.  The long and sort of it was that he told me to take some orange juice, and add sea salt and cream of tartar drink it that night.

I really trust Billy and Amber.  They’re sharp and funny and aren’t always trying to sell me something, plus I can see how much they care about other people.  So I drank this random-sounding concoction, and for the first time in YEARS, I got tired that night at a normal bedtime!  That’s huge, if you know me.  MY WHOLE LIFE, I’ve never been a sleeper.  Sometimes I only start getting sleepy at 6am!   Lately, after a few nights of getting 3 hours of sleep, I’ll crash and fall asleep with the kids at 7pm, only to wake up at 1am, unable to fall back asleep!  It’s maddening.  So the fact that this random drink somehow helped me fall asleep at a normal time and sleep through the night had me interested!!!!!

I texted Amber “What the heck! I slept all night!  Why did that work?  Tell Billy… I slept all night!”

Amber, Billy and I are all high-energy, high-activity, highly-driven people.   So when Billy suggested I check out this plan he was recommending to his personal training and chiropractic patients, I was totally open.  I’d noticed Billy had leaned up lately, but I attributed it to stress, actually.   But my gut told me that something was so chronically wrong with the way I’ve been living.

IF I eat at all, it’s normally a cup of coffee for breakfast (maybe with one piece of toast with reduced-fat peanut butter) and then maybe a candy-bar for lunch… IF I TAKE A break for lunch (God forbid I get to actually walk out of the office and take 1-2 hours for myself.  I know it sounds ABSOLUTELY RADICAL, to want a lunch break everyday, but not taking one is just the standard in my office), and then dinner is my only real meal.  I get home by 7pm, and when I walk in the door, my kids and husband have already eaten, so normally I jump right in to “interacting” with them and don’t want to take a break to feed myself.  So when all the bed, bath, reading & snuggling is over with the kids, it’s 10:00, and I feel it’s too late to actually eat a meal, so I’ll get one or two bowls of cereal… sweet cereal if we have it, or a handful of cookies & milk.  HEALTHY, huh?

So I’m not sleeping.  I’m barely eating. And when I do eat, it’s junk. My grandfather died of adrenal cancer, and I honestly feel, if I keep up with this lifestyle, I’m heading down the same path.

But the bottom line is… I don’t hate my life; I hate my lifeSTYLE.  Something has to give.  I’m sick of being sick and tired (yet unable to sleep).  I cannot miss two weeks of work, every time I have a cold (that explodes into pneumonia, sinusitis, bronchitis, otitis, laryngitis and whatever else I drag into this weak body).  Doctors just tell me to reduce my stress load.  Yea, between the seven days this week I’ll be working (including a 24-hour-down-and-back-trip to be with my mom as she has her knee replaced, all without missing more than one day of work), I’ll try to figure out how to “reduce my stress.” BA-HAHAHAHAH…ha ha.

If I lose weight, great. Honestly I don’t care.  I just care about feeling good again, not being so anxious all the time and being able to sleep like a human being, not a vampire. It would also be nice to shake this brain fog that makes me seem like a complete airhead everywhere I go.  So here I go: sticking to this mix of Himalayan sea salt, cream of tartar and orange juice.

The plan starts tomorrow.  ”Fat loading” is the first phase … I hope it involves Oreos, but I’m thinking it probably doesn’t. The idea is that it nourishes the hypothalmus and adrenal glands, it’s also supposed to prevent muscle loss.  My husband, I’m worried, will be annoyed with my “special eating” during this plan, and although I won’t be able to explain to him what I’m doing or specifically why, I hope he’ll just be patient with me.  He knows I’m the healthiest-looking sick-girl he’s ever seen.

Oh, this plan is called Pure Proactive, and no, I’m not a paid spokesperson.  :)  Anybody who’d hire ME to promote a diet & lifestyle change would be CRAZY.

I’ll let you know how it goes.