Focusing on Healthy Goals & My Story

Song I Listened To While Writing This Post:
"Hindsight" by Lifehouse, Out of the Wasteland (Bonus Track)

Goals

I already know I won't do everything everyday.  That's okay.  I think these goals will point me in the right direction:

* Morning meditation (New year start with Jon Gabriel, or other.) 

* Walk 3-5 miles

* Tap or Highland Dance

* Strength Training

* Abs Challenge (Blogilates 30 day challenge)

* Do HIIT (Forgot to put this on my list.  Mainly high and low impact on the elliptical.)

* Journal

* CBT Workbook

* Be Organized (I always feel better when my personal spaces are clean, I'm just really good at organized chaos, but it's not good for my psyche so I need to be better.)

* Eat Energizing Food (I want to incorporate more Mediterranean eating.)

* One or Less Treats a day. (If there's a birthday, I'm eating cake.  But more often than not I won't eat sugary treats).

* Have a Meaningful Work Day. (Work with purpose.  Also good for the psyche.)

* Learn Something New

* Relearn Something Old

* Create Something Wonderful

* Night Meditation (Jon Gabriel right before bed meditation.)

There's a lot here.  Seems a little overwhelming.  Maybe I'm setting myself up for failure?  But these seem reasonable and doable.  I'm focusing on positive habits.

My Story

We all have our struggles.

Everyone has their hidden, silent battles.

And all these battles affects us differently.  Some physical.  Some mental.  Some both.  Some in ways that are a mystery even to ourselves.  Some silent.

Heh, I think I made that long to avoid what I'm trying to say.  It all started on January 11th, 2012.  I know that because I was attempting a 365 photo challenge, and I took a photo of a bike rack right outside of the city recreation center where I exercised.  The post, Starting a 5k Running Program, is the day I first felt the pain.  Didn't mention it in that post.  Just thought it was a fluke.  But it wasn't.  To shorten this story down, because this is uncomfortable to talk about, the bladder pain got worse.  Constantly running to the bathroom is far from fun.  I couldn't sleep. Went to two doctors, out of pocket, paid for UTI tests, came back negative, second doctor shrugged his shoulders as he walked out of the room saying the super strong antibiotic should have taken care of it.  I then went to my Grandmothers home, sat in her chair, which I never do, and was prompted to take out a magazine from her stack, Ladies Home Journal with Miranda Lambert on the cover.  The magazine opened right up to an article about bladder problems in woman.  And there I found the answer.  Interstitial Cystitis.  IC.  Painful bladder syndrome.

It was one of those moments where God led me to the answer, but wanted me to endure and figure things out.  For over three years the pain was unbearable at times.  I feared drinking water before bedtime, because I wanted to sleep.  I developed a fear of food.  Once I ate a grape and within 30 minutes I was running to the bathroom in pain.  Depression, isolation, always making sure I knew where a bathroom was when I traveled, etc.  

With IC anything can cause pain and frequency: food, stress, and exercise.  What makes it frustrating is that it's different for everyone, and what helps or irritates one person is different for the next person. The IC Network is a miracle of a site.  It's come a long way since 2012, but it helped me narrow things down and with self care.  IC is incurable, so the only thing a doctor can really do is give me pain meds.  I decided to go the experimenting with food, holistic route.

It was May 2015 I started really improving.  A message on my birthday.  The week that followed was the most normal I had ever been in a long time.  

Good news is that I feel nearly normal pain wise now.  I have a considerable amount of normal days.  Many, many normal days.  Sometimes food, stress, anxiety will cause flares, but within 24 hours I can calm it down.  Going full blown again scares me, but now that I don't have pain threatening me I travel and experience life more.

But now I'm ready to start getting healthy in other ways.  Some food I still avoid.  I'm not going to run a 5k, instead walking.  But in the course of dealing with IC I gained around 50 pounds.  I'm down 10 pounds from my high, but I'm ready to do more.

In order to take the stress off I don't have a goal date for weight loss.  I want to do things naturally, at a healthy rate.  

There's so much information out there.  Conflicting opinions.  Success stories ranging from one extreme method to the next, and everything in between.  It's hard to know where to start.  I've watched many programs.  Read many books.  But it comes down to this: I want to be healthy.  I want to live reasonably.

I want to develop healthy habits.

This is all one day at a time.