The last 10 plus years have been insane with my fluctuating weight.
I have been struggling between finding the energy to consistently work out and veering away from depression.
I haven’t been depressed recently, but when it comes, it’s not good at all.
There’s something about my dark filled thoughts, evaluating what my life means to me, what have I accomplished and what I haven’t done. Then my focus goes to what I haven’t accomplished.
Then it goes deeper, as I think about my friends who don’t care or don’t support me when it comes to my content, my blogs, everything I do from day to day, it’s as if I get nothing in return. There are people who I don’t personally know, support my content, yet I still wonder why my friends don’t.
It goes even darker when I think why am I doing all this? Who’s going to care? What if I stay stuck in the same place, never having been recognized for my accomplishments.
We all want to be recognized for our accomplishments, there’s nothing egotistical about that.
When we are recognized and acknowledged, it means we have successfully reached out to others who understand and identify with our journeys. This is how we help each other.
Of course, you have the others who beg to differ and want to poke fun at people who are overweight, or we don’t look like the “ideal” of what social media is feeding them because we are the ones with issues and not them. These are the people we need not worry about, as they will continue to be stuck in a fantasy, for which will never be fulfilled.
I don’t normally share too much about my deep inner thoughts when I’m doing my videos, just because I try to keep everything on general terms, but the one secret I don’t keep is having lived with a narcissist shitshow I met, after moving out to Arizona.
At some point I will get into that phase in my life, as there are some parts, I’m not ready to talk about yet.
I will say there are some relevant parts of that story, because of my weight gain, played so much on my own self-esteem, when I looked at shitshow, I felt all I deserved, was a loser little man who didn’t care to work or be a partner in a relationship. It was easy for him to have his hand out, but it was not easy for me to be broke all the time.
Food became a source of comfort.
It was always that way for me. It didn’t just happen when he came into my life, but the situation didn’t drive my self-esteem upward either.
I didn’t want to address I made a big mistake, inviting a shitshow into my life which would make things far worse than I ever imagine not just for me but for my parents. We purchased a dream home together and shitshow made their lives a living hell for the remaining months he was here.
Our home didn’t feel like a home. It felt like a hostile takeover by someone who lived rent free.
I’m not saying I made great choices when it came to my past relationships, to be fair, there are guys I would go back to if I had a choice between them and shitshow.
It was a lot to bear, and I just wanted the arguments between me and my parents to stop. I had major safety concerns when it came to shitshow and my parents.
There are many different forms of narcissism and while my parents are primary examples of their own narcissism (they just don’t see it), my main concern was to get rid of him and being safe in the process.
Never underestimate a person’s anger, especially with a narcissist, who has a lot of issues and blames others for their own character flaws and their never-ending failures. Especially when their mindset is using violence to get rid of their problems.
Hopefully he got eaten by a bear.
Enough said.
With all that in mind, I think about the first time I really made a commitment to lose weight. I was in my late twenties. My boyfriend at the time, we had been together for six years, but it seemed we had grown apart tremendously towards the last three years of our relationship.
Looking back now, it’s not a surprise. I think the Universe has a way of pairing people together for the time being, until we found what we really wanted for our lives. Granted, our relationship did not have a good ending, but we were able to find our way through friendship, that was until January 6th. Oh well.
When we first got together, I was 125 pounds. The weight loss happened after a very close friend of mine passed away, and the stress of that loss caused me not to eat as much.
Throughout the six years of our relationship, my weight began to climb. A lot of it was due to depression and things I didn’t really want to deal with. I was early in my sobriety when we met, I had just made more than a year clean and he was fairly new, which is supposed to be a “no no” when you’re participating in 12 step meetings, “90 meetings and 90 days and stay out of relationships so you can focus on yourself”, they would say.
I didn’t have much self-esteem for the most part of my life and there were times, I would just go to the hair salon, get a horrible short haircut, but the shock value reaction of cutting it off is what I was looking for in others, which was also a very short-lived attention grab.
My weight would sit on my stomach, so all of my wardrobe was the color black, and all of my blouses had to be long enough to cover my mid-section.
It had gotten so bad and out of control, whenever I would get on the train, coming out of work, if the train was crowded a man would offer me a seat because he thought I was pregnant. Anyone would think, hey a man giving up his seat on a crowded NYC train is a plus.
But it didn’t make me feel better.
As the years went on, a lot of people would think I was pregnant, I mean being in a relationship and all, why not.
That was not my goal.
I was not financially nor emotionally prepared to have a child because I didn’t even see myself in this relationship for the long term.
In 1999, I made a decision, I was going to stop the madness and finally make a real commitment to myself to lose weight. I joined weight watchers and a woman’s only gym, and I took the membership where I can work out in Manhattan after work.
I worked out every day, I followed all my food points, and the weight came off and at the end of 1999, I was down to 120 pounds.
And after all that hard work and commitment, I was still not happy.
My relationship ended a few months later and even having lost weight, being able to wear whatever I wanted, going out on multiple dates, I was even more depressed than before.
I literally had to start my life over – the only thing I felt I had control over was my weight.
But it wasn’t going to happen by osmosis.
From the late 2000’s to this current day, I haven’t seen myself in the 120 numbers. Clothes I’ve been holding on to for years, waiting for the day I will finally lose this weight and wear them, has been this incredible fantasy in my head I just can’t seem to attain in real life.
When I moved to Arizona in 2016, I felt this was a fresh start. I got back into my writing, I was working out at the gym in the apartment complex I was living at, and I felt I made the right choice for me and for my pet babies, that is until shitshow scammed along.
Life after shitshow has been the 180-degree turnaround I’ve been searching for. Our house is in order and serene. I’m grateful to be in a good financial place where my parents can live their lives, as much as they can, considering the burden of my mom having to take care of my grandmother (sorry not sorry to put it in those words).
And while everything is going great, there’s still my weight.
I look at myself in the mirror and I hate my body. I describe it as the most disgusting thing staring back from my reflection. I have two video channels and I can tell you, I have recorded plenty of content but when I’m editing, the self-loathing rears in and I begin criticizing the way I look.
I have tried regrouping mentally and working out but that literally last for a week sometimes less.
Coming from a family of diabetes, I never thought I would have the same diagnosis. I haven’t really openly talked about it, as if, I didn’t come out and make a video announcement, since this isn’t the type of content, I normally discuss on my coaching channel.
When I first found out, my doctor prescribes me Mounjaro, but…my health insurance doesn’t cover it. On top of that, even if I wanted to pay for it, without medical coverage, it was $1200 a week. And I don’t have that kind of Oprah money.
As we all know in the USA, health insurance companies, the ones we pay into, seem to know better for our health than an actual doctor, who went to medical school.
They come back to my doctor denying the meds, informing him to prescribe a lower cost medication, Metformin.
I thought, okay. Because the side effects are far worse, not only did they make me sick, they also gave me unpleasant migraines and I don’t need extra help in that department.
It became a back and forth game as my insurance continued to deny any medication celebrities were getting not for diabetes.
As you know, Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy has been the topic of all weight loss from celebrities.
Of course, they can get these medications, they have the $1200 to $1500 a week cash to splurge, whereas the ones who need it like myself, who’s a real diabetic gets shit from a lame ass insurance company who doesn’t know shit about anyone’s health.
If you’re paying out of pocket to the pharmacy, their job is to cover the cost of the prescription and keep it moving.
Not everyone in the world has it like that.
Andrew Hewitt, has been on my Coaching Life Realities show several times, sharing his Mounjaro journey. He too, did not have good experiences with previous medications. Thankfully, I was able to join their weight management program through Caliper Wellness.
His wife Jenn has been super helpful as well. The process of filling out the paperwork was easy and flawless. And within a few weeks all was set and I received my medication. Did I freak out when I saw it wasn’t a prefilled pen but an actual needle. Yes.
I took my first injection on Sunday and so far, no side effects that was until Tuesday, when I had a small bowl of Lucky Charms. It wasn’t so much the cereal, but the milk itself (even at 2%). I was up all night long and was out for two days from work, as I did not want to risk those unpleasant “sharting” accidents. Not to self, diary may not be my friend for the time being.
As far as the appetite goes….Does it curb your appetite?
Yes, it does curb the appetite as I feel I haven’t been eating as much. I do drink a lot of water, but this was a habit I incorporated years ago when I first lost my initial weight.
I listen to my body and when I feel stiff, I stretch and move around, since sitting for too long isn’t a good thing.
I am trying not to place any unrealistic expectations on myself, incorporating when I first began my journey to sobriety, one day at a time.
Keep in mind, this blog is not to be taken as medical advice, this is me sharing my own personal experience with diabetics and weight issues. I am not a medical doctor and for health issues, weight loss journeys, you should always consult your doctor.
I’ll be posting week to week and sharing my journey with you.
Until then. Take care of you.
