Heart Stuff

Sooooo, I was really cooking along on the couch to 5k. Like, doing great. I was just starting on my second iteration of week 4, I was running outside three times a week, I was getting it done. I was even able to run for the entire time each interval! And, I was starting to feel super ready and excited for three races that I'm running in the next few months.

Then I had a couple of weird things that I started noticing again that have always kind of been these problems when I run: my heart beats fast. Like, up over 190 beats a minute and sometimes dry-heaving kind of fast. My face gets SUPER red, almost purple. Also, my heart rate will stay over 100 for the rest of the day after I run, and I don't quite feel fully recovered from it until the next day. If you think that this isn't alarming, let me put it into context for you by telling you that I had just started to consistently hit the 2-mile mark in my running when these shenanigans started happening full force.

This has always happened, but it has gotten markedly worse over the years. So, while I was on vacation last week, I took advantage of some of my time off and went to the doctor. Then I proceeded to get a bunch of tests - an EKG, a chest x-ray, an echocardiogram, and a stress test.

There are a few things about all of this stuff that I have noticed:

1. In the waiting rooms of cardiac wards in medical centers, I was the youngest person by two or three decades.

2. Electrodes leave marks on me for days. Like, my echo happened on Wednesday and I still have marks.

3. WATCHING YOUR HEART BEAT ON A SONOGRAM IS THE COOLEST THING EVER.

I'm not sure what's going to come out of all of this testing. Aside from the echo, which I don't know the results of yet, all the rest of it has come back normal. So, maybe I'm just perpetually out of shape. To learn that after all of this would suck a lot, but at least I'd know.

Therapy Shenanigans

Friends, I am the worst therapy client ever.

Like, literally the worst. I even no-showed an appointment once inadvertently. My therapist also once texted me a time that she was available, and I didn't get back to her for seven months. If that were me, I would have dropped that person like a bad effing habit. Not her, though. She's a game-day player, my therapist. Also, shit that makes me frustrated because my clients do it? I have NO problem doing those things whatsoever.

The biggest example of this is catastrophizing. BOY, do I do this.ALL.THE.TIME.

As a result, I don't talk about my feelings to people because I'm afraid that if I do, I'm going to blow up my whole life.

In my head, I KNOW this is crazy-pants.

But I can't help it anyway.

Also, whenever I'm in therapy and I just start out either in the beginning or after a long break, things that were acceptable, possibly forever, suddenly become unbearable. I can't take it. I have to tinker. I have to do something to throw the pattern off kilter, because all of a sudden it's bugging me and I can't tolerate it. The clinician inside of me KNOWS this is normal.

The 14-year-old child inside of me that got chided and shamed for expressing her feelings and other utterly normal teenage behavior does not know this is normal and wants the status quo back even though it means sitting in the corner and shutting the hell up, and starts to all-out panic because suddenly people are getting angry and this kid doesn't know what to do. Like, legit panic. Like, caged animal kind of panic.

The long and short of it is that two relationships in my life have been imploding for a while, and it's coming to a head right about now on both fronts. Intellectually, I know that this is not bad or unnecessary, but it's happening. And, it's stressful on top of the huge professional transition that I am currently making. (Of course that's going swimmingly, because it's rarely, if ever, the other way around.)

I was raised to never express my feelings. I was taught that if I do express my feelings or opinions and it makes someone else not feel so great, even for a hot second, then I did something wrong. I would need to explain myself somehow. Don't be too loud. Don't express your feelings. Don't be too much for other people. Apologize when you make someone else feel bad by expressing your feelings, even if you were right. Your feelings are not valid if they make someone else feel bad or uncomfortable. Your feelings are only valid if they serve to stroke the ego of another person.

Yeah, fuck that noise. Guess what? Other people sometimes feel angry or bad about my feelings or what I say when I set boundaries. This does not create a need for me to explain myself in any way, shape, or form. I create that all on my own when I panic. Then I back-pedal. Then I obsess about how I could have approached it differently. Then I give others room to invalidate my feelings, and then I invalidate my own feelings by saying to myself that the other person must be right. UGH WHAT AN EXHAUSTING CYCLE NOW THAT I RECOGNIZE IT.

THIS is the piece of work that I've needed to do for my whole life. I am a person who feels things. This is both healthy and valid. Intellectually, I know this. Shit, I preach it every day of my life lately. Yet I don't practice it. THIS is what doesn't quite line up for me in terms of my actions and my feelings. I consistently push my feelings into a corner to not piss off too many people, and to not make waves. Being invisible is easier, even if it's at the expense of my feelings.

Or rather, it was. Not anymore.

Oh, Family.

So, my dad is moving to Kentucky in a week and a half. I'm super excited for him, and even though I am also sad that he's going, I also know that much isn't going to change between us as a result of this move.

Right.

So there's this whole side of my family that I don't ever mention. Like, to anyone. It's because I usually get weird looks from people who didn't realize that I actually had these people in my life. At first it was because I felt pretty deep resentment toward them. Now, i just feel nothing because they are such a small factor in my life that they don't even enter my radar. They're all on my dad's side, and I'm pretty sure those friends closest to me learned of their existence at my wedding festivities. I remember my in-laws asking why they were so isolated and didn't talk to me or anyone else at my bridal shower, and feeling weird about it, but also knowing that this is just how they are and I didn't really have a choice in inviting them. If I had, I would not have invited them.

My sister's wedding celebration 2 years ago and her baby shower back in February was pretty much the last time I saw any of them, and before that, the last time was my wedding in 2009, and I'm totally ok with that. Historically, these people have treated me like shit for what appears to be sport my entire life, no matter how hard I cared or tried to make them a part of my life. When I told one of them that I had just gotten my masters degree in something other than music, they were disappointed because now they wouldn't hear from their friends about how talented I am and what I was up to with flute playing. That was their response to this huge and positive life event and accomplishment that I had just told them about.

Right.

Now that I'm an adult and can make my own choices, my choice is to keep these people as far away from me as I can. They are the very definition of venomous, in my opinion, and I have done a lot of work in taking away the guilt behind cutting people like this entirely out of my life. They didn't know that I went to grad school, they didn't know that rob and I bought a house - they had no involvement in The Big Stuff or the little stuff, and that is totally fine with me. This is actually the huge positive byproduct of having a whole side of the family that doesn't communicate with each other - it's safer because there is no access to emotional ammunition.

Anywho. Why am I telling you this, readers?

I finally had the choice to decline going to a family event because these people would be there and I took it. I TOOK IT. Do you know how weird that is? And huge and freeing and awesome?

The original plan for next weekend was that my dad, stepmom, sister, nephie, brother in law, me, and Rob were all going to hang at my sister's place on Sunday, also known as The Day Before My Dad Closes On The Sale of His House and Moves to Kentucky. 

Right.

I got a voicemail from my sister yesterday saying that plans had changed, and they were moving the festivities to Saturday so that a whole bunch of people could also come up and also say their goodbyes.

All of these are people I just told you about.

Right.

I said thanks but we can't make it.

HAVING THAT KIND OF POWER FEELS AWESOME.

Do I feel guilty? Historically I have, but this time, No. If things other than geography were changing drastically, maybe. But they're not. Also, I already have a day at my dad's planned for Vacation Extravaganza 2017. We'll wish them safe travels then. And, I like the idea of getting out of dodge for the holidays sometimes, so maybe this is our reason this year or next.

This invitation decline is stuck in my craw for the moment, and I'm sure I'll figure out why, but the overwhelming sense I feel at the moment is sweet, sweet relief. So I'll just focus on that. :) this is a form of self-care that I consistently neglect, but it's what I need the most - to practice shedding that sense of obligation to people who only hurt me is the best feeling ever, and I need to do it way more often than I do so that I can finally tune into that side of me who needs nurturing and give that little kid inside of me what she actually needs instead of what she got. (Yeah, I've been doing a lot a lot a lot of inner child work in therapy. Totally ok with it.)

Three Stages of Invisalign Tightening

Friends, I got my Invisalign tightened last Friday, and in my very short time of having it so far, I have discovered three stages. Keep in mind that I went through these stages ON STEROIDS with my first set of trays and it lasted at least the first week and a half, if not a little longer:

Stage 1: The Holy Shit Is This Tight Stage: This is characterized by feeling like I have a vice grip in my mouth. The trays are tight and loose at the same time, which is pretty confusing, but that's literally the only way I can describe it. Also, it is uncomfortable. In the first two weeks though, this HURT. A LOT. For this second set, though, it mercifully both hurt less and lasted a much shorter length of time - about a day and a half. I don't really want to take the trays out because it hurts, but also it will hurt worse if I take them out because that means putting them back in, which hurts like a BITCH. Like, I have intense, almost blinding pain for about five seconds while I snap the aligners back into my mouth, so I rarely want to touch them or take them out. This takes us to...

Stage Two: The It Hurts Worse When The Trays Aren't In My Mouth Stage: this is actually kind of perpetual, I think. I'm generally very, very careful when I'm eating - the 10 Invisalign buttons pretty much guarantee that. But the other piece of this is that it's uncomfortable to eat, especially if it's anything crunchy. My teeth just low-key hurt all the time whenever I bite down on anything that is harder than the consistency of fresh mozzarella. Also, my bite has already drastically changed, so my teeth hit other teeth when I chew now and when it's unexpected, it hurts. A LOT. Luckily, this does eventually go away, but even brushing my teeth (which happens about four times a day) can get uncomfortable. The best time, interestingly, is in the morning - my trays have been in all night and some kind of wizard voodoo or something makes it so that my mouth is entirely discomfort-free for about two hours every morning. It's pretty nice! The aligners also feel like they fit right eventually in this stage, so that's nice too.

Stage Three: The Rage Stage: So, I haven't hit this one yet for this set, but it will probably happen within the next few days, especially since I'm off to a conference this weekend and that will put a HUGE dent in my dental regimen, and I won't be able to snack as much as I usually do at this particular conference place. (Which is all the time because THE FOOD IS AMAZEBALLS.) What happens is that I just get sick of it. I look at my wear indicators and they are faded enough for me to be like "...I could, y'know, not wear them for a little bit longer today..." and it is SO HARD TO RESIST. Then I remember how much I'm paying to get this done AND the progress I'm already seeing and I pull it together and click the trays back in.

I'm sure there are other nuances, and I have been taking pictures, but I want to wait a few more weeks so there is more progress. I wish I had a copy of that super neat video that my dentist showed me about exactly how my teeth are going to straighten, but alas, I do not. It's a pretty fascinating process, all told.

Seventeen months, one week, and two days until I can snack again. (Yes, I'm still counting.)

BYE, SNACKS.

It has been a rough couple of days teeth-wise. Invisalign HURTS. It wasn't an unexpected pain, but holy shit. I'm finally getting to a place where I feel like my teeth almost don't hurt. It's also hard to stay ahead of the pain, but I think I have it figured out at this point, as well as what to do every two weeks when I have to change trays.

However, I have also discovered that the most significant pain is actually mental.

I can't really snack anymore.

Yeah.

I knew this was coming on some level, but I didn't realize how much I mindlessly snacked throughout the day until this past Friday - my first workday with my trays in.

Dentist's orders, I'm to wear my trays 24/7, except when I'm eating. That first full day was so rough pain-wise that I had my smoothie sitting on my desk and was like "it will hurt too much, so I'm not going to have it." I made the conscious choice to not have breakfast in favor of just leaving my trays out. When lunchtime came, I had to psych myself up for it. My morning routine is going to have to change a little bit, I think. I'm still figuring it out.

But the whole day, I also had a bag of snapea crisps sitting on the edge of my desk, taunting me. I wanted literally nothing more than to bust that bag open and eat them, but I couldn't.

I had looked at this bag for probably the thousandth time in the hour after lunch and came to an alarming realization: this is my reality for the next 18 months. I have to get rid of my snack drawer at work. I can't keep snacky stuff at home. If I'm going to snack, I have to be mindful and planful about it.

In the long run, this is actually healthier. My dentist also told me to not be surprised if I lose a little weight because my calorie intake will be lower. This will regulate my eating patterns in a way that has been necessary for years, and with these diet shenanigans that I'm going through, it will actually probably dovetail nicely. I get it. Truly, I do. But, getting it and liking it are two VERY different things. I'm in the "I really don't like this at all and what do you mean that I have to brush my teeth every time I eat, that sucks a lot especially because NOW I HAVE TO CARRY A PURSE" phase.

These are good changes. I know they are. I'm acting as if I like it and then it will be so. Hopefully.

If not, it's going to be a long 18 months.

17 months, 27 days until I can snack again.

New Fun Things

"So, gluten and soy are out, you say? How are you feeling?"

"GREAT! I just know that I need to exercise more, but it was hard on the diet."

"Yeah, that's really common. Now's a good time to reincorporate exercise, so you should try it."

I should try it.

Snort.

I'm a really sedentary person. Like, really sedentary. It's like this black hole in my self-care. I try running for a bit because that's what I know, but I eventually give up the ghost because who wants to exercise and almost shit their pants running every day?

Not me.

So I'm trying to do it differently this time. The only thing I have ever really, really stuck to was yoga, so I'm going to try to go back to that that regularly sometime soon. BUT, Rob went by a yard sale about a week and a half ago, and found this pretty sweet bike. It was super low-priced, so he picked it up. It's got some wonkiness in the gears, but it's nothing that I can't manage.

Friends, that was the first time I had been on a bike in 20 years. Literally. I got a concussion when I was 13 from falling off of my bike and hitting my head, and I've been kind of scared off from it ever since. I tried for a couple more years, but to no avail. I was done.

We rode for about a half hour, and I went about a mile and a half, and then I almost barfed because I'm so out of shape and it was so hot and I felt so gross from the anxiety of it all. I have never been so close to barfing without actually doing it. It was probably the pile of nachos that I ate before going, so I'm going to have to nix that in the future.

Look at me. Belly full of nachos and anxiety. Yummy combo.

Anywho, after I rested a bit, I tried to get up and it felt like I had vice grips on my ass. Rob calls it a new definition of butthurt, and he's right. I still hurt today and tried to bike around again, but I only lasted about 10 minutes. Frustrating, but I'm trying to look at the bigger gain from this, which is that I am overcoming a BIG piece of my anxiety about being on a bike. HUGE victory. Even if I only last 10 minutes, I'm going to try to bike every day. It turns out that I still really enjoy it and love feeling the wind in my hair! (Through a helmet, of course! If I could have worn wrist guards and knee pads and basically wrapped myself in bubble wrap without smothering myself, I probably would have.)

Also, in equally exciting news, I got the call and made the appointment today - I get fitted for invisalign on Thursday! I'm SO STOKED! I go in that day and get my first set of trays, as well as a shitload of buttons and other shit that anchor my teeth in a way that facilitates them being straighter. Oh, also, he's basically going to sand between my teeth and grind the enamel down enough where I don't have to have any teeth pulled, so that's a totally ideal situation. I didn't even realize that losing any more teeth was a dealbreaker for me until I was walking into the office last Monday to approve my treatment plan and watch a really cool video showing exactly how my teeth are going to be straightened. It's going to take about 18 months. Get prepped for embarrassing pictures that get progressively more awesome over the next 18 months.

Also, I turn 37 in two days. This has been quite a year, and I think about my goals for the next year on my birthday WAY more than the new year. It just seems more achievable that way. I think this is going to be my year to finally get physically fit, and in ways that fully heal my arm that I broke a couple of years ago, which still hasn't fully happened. I'm talking yoga, strength training, and some good, intense cardio, including some possible road races.

Also, today started Amazon Prime Day, and I used it as a PERFECT opportunity to get this:

YES I BOUGHT A UNICORN OUTFIT FOR MYSELF FOR
MY BIRTHDAY BECAUSE IT WAS ALMOST HALF OFF
DON'T JUDGE ME

Happy birthday to me, indeed!

Things I have learned from the Elimination Diet

1. I cannot eat soy.
2. I can probably eat peanuts sometimes.
3. I CANNOT EAT GLUTEN. DEAR GOD, I CANNOT DO IT.
4. Dairy is still my friend!
5. Red meat is on the nice list.
6. So is corn.
7. White sugar is a sometimes.
8. Eggs are great! Fantastic, even!

I also had a big worry that once I started to reincorporate foods, I would start to gain the weight back. It's like I have this fear that I'm going to magically put back on the 15 pounds that I've lost, or the 4 inches around that I have lost. Of course, neither is the case. I was able to maintain both, which felt nice.

The biggest thing, though, is that my relationship with food has completely changed. I mean, completely. Do I still love ice cream? Of course I do. But it was really funny - the day came to incorporate dairy, and I was super excited about it, but when I had the plate of food in front of me and I started eating, I was like "meh." It was DELICIOUS, don't get me wrong, but I could have taken or left it. I suddenly had neutral feelings about dairy. ABOUT CHEESE. DO YOU KNOW HOW WEIRD THAT IS?

I FELT NEUTRAL ABOUT THIS AMAZING BROCCOLI SALAD.

AND, the other day I was at a crossroads - I was out of non-dairy ice cream. I had the option to go dairy-based, AND I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. There has been NOTHING more that I have wanted than to stuff my face with some coffee oreo ice cream. Of course, I couldn't at that point, because oreos have gluten in them, but I had other options, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to take them or stick with what I was used to in that moment!

WHAT THE SHIT IS HAPPENING TO ME.

I also can't eat as much in a sitting, which I think is normal given that I have lost weight and that my gut inflammation has gone down, so I'm assuming pretty safely that my stomach has shrunk back down to its normal size.

Except today, of course. The day after the end of my love affair with gluten.

Sigh.

I had high hopes, friends, even though I knew somewhere deep inside myself that it was going to go badly. After the allergy med incident like three weeks ago and the time or two I'm pretty sure I accidentally ate gluten, I was actually not even sure if I wanted to reincorporate at all, but if I was going to follow the rules of this diet, I had to see what was going to happen.

So, go big or go home, right?

We went to this great pizza place for rob's birthday, and it was delicious.

I got this:

That's right. Mac and Cheese Pizza, baby.

I started having a reaction before we even left the restaurant. My stomach got all wonky, I started to get a headache, and I just went from feeling pretty damn good to feeling pretty damn awful in the span of about two hours. I woke up after a pretty bad night of sleep to the same. Just wonky all over. And swollen. HOLY SHIT am I swollen.

There is a silver lining to this, though - actually several! The first is that I have foods from the elimination diet that I grew to LOVE LOVE LOVE that I can still eat. (I'm looking at you, snapea crisps.) That's the super positive side of it - I think that if I were just told to go gluten free without something like the elimination diet and having to go through that learning curve, I would have been royally screwed. And, it's not entirely that I can't eat gluten - I can, but now I know that this is how I'm going to feel if I do. Is the cost worth the momentary whatever good feelings I might get from eating it? I'll have to weigh that on a case-by-case basis, but I have a feeling that 99 times out of 100, that answer is going to be no. That's how I know that my relationship with food has changed to a healthy one, which was 100% what needed to happen. Through all the frustration and the aimless gazing at the grocery store and being hungry when I didn't know what to pick so I picked something healthy, a positive internal feedback loop has been created that I think has real staying power. I needed more mental change than physical change, and they needed to go together in order for me to feel successful, and I do.

The other big positive is that now I know. I'm not just guessing anymore. I'm pretty sure that this dietary stuff has been an issue for a while, and I'm really glad it's finally getting addressed. I'm now almost positive that gluten was my main migraine trigger, and that it was making my allergies ten times worse (case in point? I can also barely breathe today.). Peanuts sometimes were a trigger also, but gluten is the big problem. I also now know that I'm not actually allergic to rice. I also now know that the thyroid symptoms that I was experiencing were being made considerably worse by soy. This makes sense! Phytoestrogens and GMO shit are actual things that do bad things to your body. Does this mean no more salad dressing? Not necessarily, but I got some scoop from a friend about homemade salad dressings that I'm going to try. Also, friends with thyroid issues, soy bad. Soy very very bad. Like, it's bad in general, but for people with thyroid stuff, it's SUPER bad. I have known this for a longer time than being on this diet, I just never realized how bad until I actually cut it out.

Now that I no longer need to eliminate foods other than the ones that I had a reaction to, I'm ready to have fun with what I can eat on a gluten-free, soy-free diet. There's a bunch of stuff that I want to try (like chocolate quinoa cake!), and I can't wait to figure this out. I am ready to keep feeling amazing. This diet definitely had its frustrations, but I never thought I'd feel this way. I'm kind of bursting at the seams with gratitude about it, actually.