honesty

since this blog is about my health and wellness im going to delve into my mental health (issues) for a while.

when i was in my mid teens, some time after my mom was killed, i was diagnosed as borderline personality.. some of the symptoms include:

People with BPD are often uncertain about their identity. As a result, their interests and values may change rapidly.

People with BPD also tend to see things in terms of extremes, such as either all good or all bad. Their views of other people may change quickly. A person who is looked up to one day may be looked down on the next day. These suddenly shifting feelings often lead to intense and unstable relationships.

Other symptoms of BPD include:

• Fear of being abandoned
• Feelings of emptiness and boredom
• Frequent displays of inappropriate anger
• Impulsiveness with money, substance abuse, sexual relationships, binge eating, or shoplifting
• Intolerance of being alone
• Repeated crises and acts of self-injury, such as wrist cutting or overdosing

the only part of this thati dont feel like i have is the impulsiveness with money. im cheap as hell. but i often struggle with feeling alone, abandoned, angry, and i have had issues with self harm since i was about 13. in fact i still have issues with cutting myself. 

this has reared its ugly head a lot in my life lately. i KNOW that i have a great life. i am able to stay at home and raise my kids, i have a wonderful husband who does everything he can to support me and works hard so that i am able to stay home. he doesnt have huge issues with the fact that i dont drive.. but yet i push and push at him because i really feel like i am unlovable. I know that i have to keep myself aware that this is a problem. i do not want to get put on meds for this, because i do not like big pharma. i want to take care of this with eating right and exercising, and taking herbal suplaments. everything i have read tells me that daily exercise, and eating right will help me to feel better, and just being mindful of what is going on in my head. i need to stop the negative thoughts before they consume me. i need to talk. i need to dance. i need to cuddle. i need to live. so i am going to find a place to volunteer... like the animal shelter, im going to give love to animals that have been thrown out.. im going to eat better, and dance and do my nails. 

hippy chick

i was recent ally made aware of how many chemicals i come across on a daily basis, everything from bath soap and lotion to the crap i use to clean my house with. because of this i have made the decision to drastically reduce those things. i believe they are having a huge negative effect on my health and my childrens health... and since this is a health and wellness blog i figured i would let the world know how i am going about this...

my first step in the no chemical direction came a while back when i decided to stop using things like lysol and bleach on my counters and floors. one day i had just finished cleaning my counters with some kind of chemical atrocity and i decided to relax with a cup of coffee... i stirred my cream and sat my spoon on the counter. OH CRAP I FORGOT THE SUGAR!! pick up the spoon, into the sugar bag, into the coffee... i then found myself wondering what the chemicals were doing to my body... the amount i ingested with my coffee was minimal i know, but doing that every day for the last 8 years....??? how much lysol have i inhaled and eaten? TOO MUCH.  far far too much.  so now i clean my counters with lemon and vinegar. they are just as clean and safe as they were with the lysol, but now i am not afraid to eat something i sat on the counter. i steam clean my floors as well, so no more swiffer poisons there... which is amazing considering i have 2 children who eat all sorts of things off of the floors. i still have a can of lysol just in case some one comes down with a stomach bug or the flu.. but i will get rid of that soon too

my next step was with my hair and skin care products. before i get into all that let me just say that YES i still dye my hair with chemicals. they do not make teal or purple dyes out of things that are good for you. but other than that i am using burts bees shampoo and conditioner (i found it on sale) it is sulfate free and made out of things i can pronounce. im only washing my hair 3 days a week, which is far more often than normal for me.. the only reason i am washing so often is because i am using coconut oil on my hair to make it grow. in the 2 weeks i have been using it my hair has grown 1/4 of an inch at least and it is so damn silky now i cant believe it.  i am also using coconut oil on my skin as a lotion. and the mixture of it and tea tree oil has reduced the redness of my KP on my arms. 

speaking of Tea tree oil. OMG this stuff is just as amazing as the coconut oil. im using it to deal with a sinus issue my family is having right now.. i mix it with the coconut oil and rub it around my sinus area before bed, it opens things up and while jon is having issues i am breathing peacefully all night long. it is also used as a disinfectant, antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal.... this stuff is a miracle 

my next endeavor is to begin learning what herbs and homeopathic treatments can help my family. i would like to get us as far from our countries deadcare (oops i mean healthcare) system as possible. all our system does is push drugs that have terrible side effects that you then have to take more meds for. its a greedy system that wants to keep people sick so they can get more money. cancer will never be cured because you can make more money treating it than curing it. so i want to know how to take care of myself and my loved ones with out resorting to drugs that are regulated by a corrupt system. i am already using herbs to deal with my insomnia and anxiety, and they are working better than anything i have been prescribed. 

so i will be updating peridodicaly about the steps i am taking to get myself and my family healthy the natural way. obviously eating right and exercising is going to be a huge part of this as well.. time to bring back the after dinner family walks!

until next time :)

well.. i failed. again...

i will admit that i am prone to failure. in fact i am prone to not trying at all for fear of failing, but this time i totally screwed my health up because of my decision to eat terrible food. the week of the super bowl i ate a crap ton of pizza, wings, velveta dip.. all sorts of terrible shit... and i PAID for it. not in pounds, but in stones..

i had my gallbladder taken out in september after several trips to the emergency room and then a 4 day inpatient stint in the hospital to remove a stone from my common bile duct. i was terribly jaundiced and had never been in so much pain. After i had the gallbladder removed the doctor told me i would still be able to create stones, and that i needed to be careful because my stones were so small that they could again get stuck in the bile duct. that being said the monday after the "big game" (wich i know nothing about because i am soo not into sports) i woke up in so much pain i thought i was going to have to have Jon come home from work to take me to the hospital. i assume that all of the shit i ate over the last few days/week haad finally caught up with me and there was a stone in the duct. i felt like i was on fire from the inside.. it went from a stabbing pain where the bile duct it to a fiery, searing pain that wrapped around to my back and up into my chest. i ate a couple of vicodin and called my grandma for some more pain pills. eventually i was able to sit up and be human again.

so for the past 2 days i have been back on track. eating fruit, salads and grilled chicken. trying to undo the damage i have done to my body. yet again. i am so tired of being in pain. my back always hurts, i have migraines, and generally speaking my bile duct/liver/pancreas area usually hurts too. i need a whole health overhaul and i dont even know where to begin. i guess with a few goals..

1. ride my bike at least 30 minutes a day
2. water, 1 cup of coffee and unsweetened tea only
3. yoga, 2 times a day for even just a few minutes.
4. go out side.
5. take my vitamins. every day.
6. DANCE.  

in the beginning

i started this blog ages ago with no idea what i wanted to do with it, for now i am going to use it primarily as a health and fitness blog.

so the journey starts here...

Im overweight, i have been most of my life, except for a time when i was on drugs. (real drugs..) the lowest i ever weighed was 135, when i was doing coke like a fiend in my late teens. my highest was during my pregnancy with my second, when i ended up weighing 240 when i delivered. i got back to 220 and stayed there for about a year until i was hospitalized for issues with my galbladder and forced to go on a very low fat diet. now i am 192 lbs... but i am still terribly out of shape. so here i am, starting over again.

my goal is to get healthy. that's it. to me that means loosing some weight, getting stronger, and feeling better both physically and emotionally. so right now my "work out" routine consists of dancing like an idiot every time i cook for my family, doing a bollywood video, and a circuit that includes squats, lunges, shadow boxing,   and working with my kettle bell.  more will come later in the spring when i can actually take the baby out side in the morning for walks/jogs,  and hiking at the nature park...

oh, i forgot... my long term fitness goals are to run in the color run, and the zombie dash (saint louis... hey, a girl can dream lol) and to feel good enough to join a roller derby team

so thats it for now, off to fix myself some kind of soup for lunch... which means more dancing. ;)

*edit i ended up riding my stationary bike for 30 minutes, and doing a circuit in my basement after dinner... if only i can keep that up every night!