How do You Eat an Elephant?

One bite at a time.



So, I suppose a lot had happened since my last post. Work has been extra hectic and when you partner that with school--yikes. So, on May 25 David and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary, which I have to say feels more like 10 years by now (in a good way, of course!). Also on that day I got a second opinion about my PCOS.

Basically, this new doctor isn't fully convinced either way about my diagnosis. While he has more experience with "andorgenized" women--those with PCOS-related hormonal imbalances, etc. he isn't 100% convinced that I have it based on a number of things. His recommendation: stop taking all those awful pills. HALLELUJAH! Its a pretty good thing, too, because I had already stopped about a week ahead of time because they all made me feel so awful. I'd rather be overweight than to go through life feeling horrible, nauseous, and constantly having a headache and worrying about eating every 2 hours on the dot. The results: I feel AWESOME! I do still have to eat regularly because of the insulin resistance, but overall I feel SO good! I'm sure the locally grown, hormone free foods help too! POSITIVE, in fact.

In other good news, I had only gained 1 pound. Singular. ONE. Since January. Now, that in itself is a HUGE milestone because I had basically been gaining about 5 pounds a months (I think) while TRYING to lose weight. The drawback? I'm STILL the heaviest I've ever been in my life...which makes me sad...I don't feel guilty, I feel sad.

So, this leads me to my topic: How to you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

According to all those awful websites, I'm supposed to weigh 135 pounds max. MAX? Are they crazy?! No thank you. I'd be perfectly happy in the 150s, 160s or even 175s right now, let's just be honest. I'm lucky though, because unlike millions of young women, I seek to be realistic: I love my curves, I love my figure, I love MYSELF. Who I am as a person is someone I absolutely adore. And I don't mean that to sound conceited, I just wish there were more people promoting "healthy" not "size ___" or "____lbs" as a definition of beauty. Because I firmly believe that "beauty" is just not physical. It doesn't even START with the physical...it starts with the heart. Cliches are used so often because they're TRUE. So it goes...

So, since I don't have to making taking ALL of my 14 pills a goal anymore, I created two new weekly goals and one monthly goal: drink my water and walk each day; and to lose 3 lbs by 7/15 when I go back to the doctor. I know the latter sounds very low, but you have to understand that to a potentially PCOS woman with known insulin resistance, weight loss is harder on the body than a non-PCOS/IR woman. I'm so proud of myself to be able to say that today, I drank ALL my water and walked a nice, moderately intense, route at lunch with two ladies from my office. Again, I feel GREAT. It isn't just the physical, but also the emotional. The simple fact that I know I'm doing something good for my body and my health makes me feel happy, positive and relaxed. I'm working on my elephant one bite at a time.

I think that's a lesson I need to remember as I work on reaping my harvest: one bite at a time. I'm so tempted to do a million things at once and place all these unrealistic expectations on myself: keep a 4.0, keep all my work flowing smoothly, get the promotion, exercise non-stop, eat right 100%--none of those are realistic or sustainable. One bite at a time is, so that is how I'm choosing to try and live my life from here on out.