Tag: diets

Fat Fridays: New Esther versus Old Esther

Yesterday was a really rough day. Like, envision a bloody battle with swords and shields and everyone is wounded and bleeding. That was my day with food. 

Yesterday I hit that place where I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about my diet. I didn’t care about eating healthy. I didn’t care. I’m too tired. Too stressed. I found myself hunting the house for sugar. I just needed something sweet. Anything. There was some cereal and I grabbed several handfuls of frosted flakes and stuffed them in my mouth. I just didn’t care. One of the kids had a leftover ham and cheese sandwich they didn’t want. I ate it. Cause the thought of fixing myself a salad or cooking up vegetables just sounded horrible. And there’s nothing wrong with a sandwich right? Except, it wasn’t even really that great of a sandwich. Something I would usually deem not worth wasting my calories on. But I just didn’t care. 

I had to drop my teenagers off at youth group and then I needed to go Walmart to get some things for my kids. And I started thinking about what I could buy as a special treat at Walmart since I would be out by myself. That is, after all, my old pattern. Go out by myself, get something yummy to eat as a treat. I thought about all the things I haven’t eaten in a long time. Chocolate cake. Debbie cakes. Donuts. Ice cream. A big bag of Chips. Which one should I get? And at the same time there was this sinking feeling going on. I’m doing it again. I’m falling off the wagon. I’m blowing my diet. I’m returning to all my bad habits. And I felt kind of hopeless. Like, I’m never going to win this battle. I will always be overweight. 

I was in the car, still driving, and I had the thought, What are you hoping that food is going to do for you? (Which seems to be a theme this week. I mentioned in a previous blog about asking the question, What am I looking for? when I turn to mindless distractions.) And this is a good question. Why am I wanting to eat all this food and what am I hoping to accomplish? And I had to remind myself that eating food was NOT going to make me feel better about my life. In fact, I was going to feel a LOT worse if I turned to food. But, if I made good choices, I would feel better about myself. This is the place where you imagine two warriors hammering away at each other with their swords. Old Esther verses New Esther. Flesh verses Spirit. 

I sat in the parking lot. Staring at the store. Ok. Make a plan. I will buy some blueberries and some carrots and hummus. And then I will stay away from the food section. 

Walmart is a dangerous place when you are trying to resist temptation. I felt like a nun at a nudist colony. AVERT THE EYES! Dont look there! No! Don’t look over there either! Keep walking! Get away from the food!! 

I needed to get some things for an upcoming car trip and I contemplated getting my kids some yummy snacks, but quickly decided against it. Nope. Can’t do it. If I buy that stuff, I will eat it too. So I bought them some gummy snacks (which they love, and I think are disgusting) and determined that on THIS trip, they will be eating fruits and vegetables right alongside me. 

I finally got out of the store, got in my car, slammed the door, and did some deep breathing for a minute. I made it. I did it. I didn’t binge, splurge, over-do or anything. I bought some healthy food and walked out. Whoosh. 

And I do feel better about myself today. A lot better than if I had just given in. But man, that was hard. And just a quick note. I think what has put me in a bad place was my two weeks when I went low-carb. My personal dysfunction with food cannot handle diets where entire food groups are eliminated. It stirs up a lot of unhealthy emotions like feeling deprived which then makes me want to binge. So, moving forward, I’m going to continue my LowER carb diet where I just try to eat grains in small portions and with moderation. 

New Esther won the battle this time. But I anticipate a lot more skirmishes in the future. 

Fat Fridays: Fixing the Roadblocks

Today (Thursday) has not been a great day for the diet. In fact, the last three days haven’t been great. A lot of fast food. This morning I had run out of my lite greek yogurt cups. I ate the last of my blueberries and then looked in the fridge again. There was not much there and none of it looked good. I poured myself a bowl of cereal. My first cereal in a really long time. Last night someone dropped off pizza at our house. I thought I would go and cook myself some lentils and rice. Didn’t happen. I was really busy and then I was super hungry so I grabbed some pizza. 

That has kind of been how the days have been going. I’m super busy and there is not-so-healthy food available and so I eat it. 

I’ve been feeling pretty bad about it today. But, as I tried to explain what was going on to my trainer, I got some clarity on what’s going on….

This week has been crazy. It’s the first full week of having all my kids home from school, and that’s following a vacation and then immediately having all my big kids head off to camp which meant I was managing all the little kids on my own for five days. I have written down a new family schedule, but now, by sheer force of will, I have to get all my kids onto this new schedule. And that takes a lot of will power. At the same time I am trying to get my house in order after the vacation and having a week with no older children home to help. And also get my house summer-proofed (organizing my activity drawer for rainy days, organizing books and math puzzles and workbooks for keeping our school skills honed during the summer, organizing all our legos and building blocks and art supplies for bored kids). 

You would think I would have already been prepared for summer to come. After all, it’s no surprise. But, alas, I was so focused on just finishing up this crazy school year that I did not give a lot of thought to summer. Also, we have a foster child who does not handle a “go-with-the-flow” lifestyle, which my other kids are more adept at. We are finding out, loud and clear, that our house needs a strong routine/schedule NOW in order to help her function better. And so this week has seen me extremely busy and slightly panicked as I have been trying to establish order as quickly as possible. 

Grocery shopping and meal prep and cooking healthy dinners have been low on the priority list. 

So, I’ve learned something important about myself. I have to have a routine/schedule or I can’t function as a mom of many kids . 

I have been working hard on fixing that and I’m actually pretty hopeful that by this coming Monday morning, I’ll have the most important things in place and I can be back on schedule. 

It was really helpful to talk to my trainer and put things in perspective. Ok. There is a roadblock. Let’s make a plan to fix the problem and then move on. 

Fat Fridays: Vacations and Diets

I went on a vacation last week. We were gone for five days. I talked to my trainer ahead of time and we talked about things I could do to stay on track with my diet and exercise, but in the end I told her that my main goal was to simply not gain weight while I was gone. And I am happy to say that I accomplished that goal. But it was hard. 

One of the problems was that all the grownups on the trip were tired and weary and cooking was not a top priority. We did a lot of pizza, hotdogs and sandwiches. Cereal. It was a vacation after all. Cooking healthy meals is not exactly what you feel like doing when you are relaxing. I think the other problem is that our family, and the other family we were vacationing with, had all just finished a very long, hard school year. So we were especially tired. 

In order to make up for not eating super healthy I decided I would get more movement in. I made sure I was getting my 10,000 steps a day. I went on walks, bike rides, went swimming…In fact, on the day we went to the beach I got over 20,000 steps! Three miles of that was walking barefoot in a wet swimsuit down the beach. Not something I recommend for overweight people. I’m still recovering from rub burns. I think I was a little obsessive about getting exercise. I got up early (not on purpose, my inner clock was still set to “gettting-kids-to-school” time) and then I would find a private place and do the workout my trainer had set for me. Then I would take a walk in the neighborhood where we were staying. If I didn’t have all my steps at the end of the day, I took another walk. But it worked. Five days of eating pizza and hotdogs and sandwiches and one trip to an icecream place where I indulged in chocolate icecream with all kinds of chocolatey toppings, and I managed to not gain any weight. 

Of course, I didn’t lose any weight either. But the good news is, since I’ve come home, I’ve doubled down on the healthy eating and exercise and have already dropped two pounds in three days. And, after all the indulgence, the healthy food tastes really good. 

I keep having to remind myself that my diet and exercise are not a short-term thing that I’ll just do until I reach my goal. This has to be a complete lifestyle change. Which means that it has to fit with all areas of my life, including vacations. So, I am feeling a bit more confident about the future as I have now tackled staying-healthy-while-on-vacation and have passed the test. 

You Have Not Yet Resisted

This week and last, I have been reading a chapter a day in Hebrews. It has been more of an academic/discipline type of reading than reading to gain deep insights. I have been trying to be faithful to read every day, and think about what I have read, but it has been more a gathering of interesting information than anything spiritual. Until… Yesterday morning. I have been struggling with a feeling of unease and lack of peace for a couple weeks now and I have been skirting around the reason why. Not wanting to face it head on. But knowing that I needed to. And then I opened the Bible yesterday morning and I felt like I had opened a room and unexpectedly found Jesus sitting in a chair, waiting for me, and his face was a bit stern and he said, We need to talk. 

And this is what he said:

Hebrews 12: 4-11

12  4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

    nor be weary when reproved by him.

6 

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

    and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

I have been struggling for a long time with my health. My body simply can’t handle sugar and lots of carbs. I am prediabetic. And whenever I hit periods of stress, I throw health out the window: 

I don’t care if this is bad for me. It’s going to help me unwind. It’s going to make me feel happy for a minute. Fighting my cravings is too much to handle right now. I deserve a treat. 

And this past week I have not been feeling well. My bad habits are quickly catching up with me. And I have been whining about it. It’s not fair. I can’t do everything. How am I supposed to homeschool and also go on a diet? It’s a psychological thing, I’ve got to figure out how to deal with that part first before I try to abstain. Etc etc. Lots of excuses. 

The verse that struck me the hardest from Hebrews 12 was verse four,  “ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

For the record, I do not think that being overweight or having diabetes or any other sickness is a sin. But for myself, I know that refusing to take care of the body that God gave me is a sin. When I know the right thing to do and refuse to do it, that’s sin. And all of my excuses looked pretty pathetic when I read verse four. I have not tried to resist to the point of shedding blood. I have actually offered up very little resistance when it comes to temptation and my eating habits. 

After my morning devotions, I went and found a black sharpie pen. I wrote on my wrist, “You have not yet resisted” so that every time I went to reach for the cookie or popsicle or whatever temptation was waiting for me I would see it on my wrist. It’s been a good reminder. 

All that to say, reading a chapter of the Bible every day is always a good idea. My kids ask me often, How do you know what God wants you to do? How do you hear Jesus speaking to you? And I always tell them, the best way to hear God’s voice is to read his word. The Holy Spirit will lead you to the right places, he’ll open your eyes to see what you need to see and understand what you need to understand. 

And I’m thankful that he did that for me this week.

Fat Fridays: You’ve Got to do Something

Hey everyone. I’m back. Kind of. This past Sunday at our church, our pastor gave a short video message from his home. He is currently recovering from a very serious medical ailment. In the video he was explaining what had happened to him, and lessons that God was teaching him through the experience. He related how he took a serious downturn, an ambulance was called, but he was still wavering on whether he should go to the hospital or not. He asked his grown daughter what he should do, and she said, “Well, you’ve got to do something!” 

 

That statement, along with a couple other things he said, really resonated with me. 

I’ve got to do something. 

 

I’m at a place where I no longer believe in my ability to overcome this weight once and for all. I no longer think that I can just find the right plan, get myself revved up enough, and then, Voila! I will lose all my weight. That fantasy has died. I have a horrible feeling that this is going to be a life-long struggle. 

 

But at the same time, I can’t give up. I’ve got some serious health problems. I’ve got to do something. 

 

And so, I try once again. One small step at a time. This week I have been working on cutting out sugar. I’m hoping to tackle eliminating wheat next week. One small step at a time. Heading towards a low-carb diet. I got on my elliptical a couple times too. It’s something. 

 

Approaching a diet without hope and energy is a different experience. I’m just feeling realistic. I need to make these changes for the sake of my health. I don’t know if it will produce dramatic weight loss. I’ll probably cheat on occasion. But, it’s something. Right now that’s all I can do. 

 

 

Fat Fridays: Confessions

Confession.

I am addicted to food. Not in the good way that everyone is, where you need food to keep you alive. No, I have a dependency on food to help me feel better when I’m stressed, or angry, or fidgety, or worried, or bored. I do not use food to keep me alive. I use food to alter my mood. In fact, the foods that I choose to alter my mood are slowly killing me. And I know this. And then life gets really stressful and I reach for the junk, the sugar and highly processed foods because, for a couple minutes, they make me feel better.

 

Confession.

 

I am not superwoman. I read all these accounts of men and women who have struggled with weight for years, and then one day, they just decide to stop. They exert their willpower and inner strength and somehow manage to completely alter their course in life. I keep thinking that I can be one of those people. I will exert my amazing will power. I will summon up my inner strength. I will take amazing Before and After pictures and wow the world with my amazing feat of weight loss. Look at me, I’m so amazing….Except that, I’m not. Amazing. The longest I’ve been able to exert my will power is about 9 months and then I give in to the old cravings and the old lifestyle and I’m back to square one. 

 

Confession.

 

I am not really smart and wise when it comes to health and nutrition. I keep thinking that I will just do enough research, read enough books, and then, Voila! I will know exactly what I should and shouldn’t eat. When I should and shouldn’t eat. What supplements I should take every day. I’ll figure out the exact perfect exercise plan and system. I’m smart. I just need to do a little research. In fact, I actually am as gullible as the next person, just as susceptible to the current trends as everyone else. I have read and heard so many different diets and health plans that my head is literally spinning. I have NO idea who is right. Keto, low-carb, vegan, calorie counting, low-fat, carb counting, portion control. Who knows? Gentle walking, brisk walking, interval training, yoga, pilates, weight lifting, all of the above. Who knows? 

 

Confession.

 

I am at the end of myself. I need to change. My weight keeps getting worse. My health is getting worse. My quality of life is getting worse. I do not want to stay in this place. And I don’t know how to get out of this place. I am thoroughly stuck. 

 

Conclusion.

 

I just went and read through the 12 Steps for AA. I don’t think I knew how wrapped up in God those steps are. 

 

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 
  4. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 
  5. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 
  6. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 
  7. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 
  8. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 
  9. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 
  10. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 
  11. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. 

 

Copyright  1952, 1953, 1981 by Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing (now known as Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.) All rights reserved. Rev. 8/16 

 

I think what I need is a meeting for food addicts. Do they exist? If they don’t, they should. 

 

Fat Fridays: Week 22 How To Encourage People in Their Weight Loss

Hey Everyone. How’s your week been? Mine was busy but it looks like we are finally slowing down. My kids had their last day of school today. I’ve got a thing at my house Saturday night and then my schedule is wide open. Now I just have to focus on keeping a house full of children busy all summer.

The past couple days I’ve been thinking about how encouraging my husband has been on my weight loss journey. It wasn’t always that way. At the beginning of our marriage I put on weight with my first pregnancy and he really didn’t know what to do. He made a lot of mistakes. But over the years we’ve talked a lot and he has evolved into this amazing man who makes me feel loved and beautiful no matter what weight I am. And I genuinely feel like he’s ready to support me in whatever efforts I make at improving my health.

I’ll give you some examples. I am not a super active person. In fact, that’s an understatement. I know I used to run around as a kid, but somewhere around puberty I discovered the joys of curling up on a couch with a good book, and that became my default activity. There is one thing I do enjoy though, which I’ve mentioned over the years to my husband. I love badminton. It is so fun! So satisfying when you can keep the birdie in the air. I also like ping pong. Something about smacking an object back and forth appeals to me. 🙂 So, over the years,  we have occasionally bought a little yard badminton set. Flimsy poles. Flimsy net. The kids destroy it within a couple weeks.

Well, this summer my husband went all out. He bought a professional net, set up a sturdy pole system, marked out a court with yellow rope, bought me some fancy rackets..We are all set for badminton. But even better, in the evenings when it’s cool, he comes and asks me if I want to play, and we go out and play badminton together. How cool is that? I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t have a great passion for the game. But he has a passion for me. To see me happy, see me healthy.

We also figured out that I like canoeing. Our 20th anniversary is coming up in a couple months and he is currently building us a wood strip canoe for two so we can get out in nature together. He’s kind of handy that way.

He helps me keep on track with my diet too. We were at a party this past weekend. One of my kids ran up to me and handed me a cookie and then ran off. Well. I really wanted that cookie. It looked so good. I took a bite. Andy was watching me. (He wanted the cookie too.) Hey! That’s not on your diet! Give that to me! Now. let me make something clear. I hate being bossed around. He knows that. I handed him the cookie, because the truth is, I really did want to stick to my diet. Then he said, If you don’t want to stick to your diet, just let me know and I’ll leave you alone. And that’s what makes him great. Because I’ve done that before. I’ve said, listen, I’m sick of this diet, I just want an ice cream cone. And then he takes me out for ice cream.

I’m sure a lot of you have someone important in your life who is struggling with weight issues. I can tell you from experience that the best support for me has been my husband’s unconditional love for me. Knowing that he he is willing to take me like I am actually helps me feel empowered enough to want to make changes to become healthier.

Goals for this week: look into Chiropractic Neurology at the recommendation of my brother. Get out and play badminton. Write a meal plan for the next week, as our eating has gotten a little haphazard.

See you all next week!

 

Fat Fridays: Week 6 Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

I’m on Week 6. You would think that by now I’d be able to report some magnificent number of pounds that I have lost. Except that wasn’t my goal. When I first started thinking of losing weight I started clicking around on the internet and found all kinds of weight loss programs that promised wonderful things like, “LOSE 20 POUNDS IN 10 DAYS!” or “LOSE 60 POUNDS WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR DIET!” or “JUST TAKE THIS LITTLE PILL AND YOU WILL INSTANTLY LOSE 5 POUNDS!” Kind of like Get Rich Quick schemes. One particularly well-written advertisement promised I’d lose 20 pounds in one month just by following their very simple meal plan. I went and checked out the meal plan. It had charts and stars and complex computing systems. And the recipes had exotic ingredients and were the type of food that my family would never eat. Good grief.

These lose-weight-fast programs have a lot of appeal. You look at yourself in the mirror and you feel almost panicky. Like, I’ve got to lose this weight RIGHT NOW. Also, if you are going through all the sacrifice to start exercising and stop eating all the food that you like, you feel like you need some compensation. By Golly, if I’m going to suffer I better see some results, RIGHT NOW!

Well, I’ve tried those diets before. I never stuck them out very long. I think the most dramatic weight loss I ever had was 10 pounds in one week. I didn’t keep it off though. I eventually found the diet plan to be very burdensome and irritating and gave it up and gained back 10 pounds shortly afterwards.

So, I’m trying something different. I’m trying to get to the root of why I’m overweight and start addressing those issues and start making small daily choices that will put me on the road to better health.

It’s hard to track progress when you’re doing this, but I’m going to try. First thing is that I’ve started exercising. Instead of sitting in a chair reading my book I have made myself read my book while doing my elliptical machine. I am now doing 30 minutes to an hour every day on my elliptical and lots of stretching  afterwards. I am starting to get addicted to it. I feel grumpy and irritated and so I get on the elliptical and 30 minutes later I feel relaxed and happy. I’ve been doing this for close to 2 weeks now and it’s starting to become a habit.

As far as eating is concerned, I’ve started getting more organized with meal planning. My husband gets paid every 2 weeks and so I started planning out 2 week menus and doing one big 2 week grocery shopping.  I still have to go back to the store to restock fruit and bread and milk, but everything else is bought. This has helped reduce greatly the number of times I run out for pizza or McDonalds simply because I’m not prepared to cook a meal. I just wrote out my next 2 week menu and this time I made sure that all the meals had lots of vegetables and lean meat and healthier carbs. Of course, I’m still going to have to learn how to eat the right portions and how to stop the excessive snacking, and not eating my kid’s cereal…But, it’s progress.

Last night my husband and I had a date night. My husband loves ice cream and so we stopped at the store on the way home and each bought ourselves a pint of ice cream. We got home and it was late and we collapsed on the couch by the fire. I had stuck the ice cream in the freezer when we got home, uncertain if all my littles were asleep yet and not wanting to be caught red-handed holding ice cream if they came downstairs to find Mama. As we sat on the couch I thought about the ice cream in the freezer. I thought about how I felt and realized that I was still full from supper and really didn’t need to eat anything. And so I didn’t. I just left the ice cream in the freezer. For me, that’s really big progress.

Gradual progress. One small change at a time. One good decision at a time. The hope is that one day, I’ll look in the mirror and realize that I look I different. I feel different. And it all came about one small step at a time.

Fat Fridays: Week 5 It’s All A Mind Game

I’ve been thinking about rules and diet plans and cheating on those rules and diet plans. I am feeling ready to move forward…I feel like I’ve been learning a lot about how I think, figuring out why I eat, but I want to make some changes now. The problem is, when I think about diet plans I start feeling panicky. Let’s see, if I do this diet plan, it means I can no longer ever eat sugar. Ok, well, before I start this diet plan, I need to go buy a box of chocolates, and maybe eat a bit more ice cream and maybe have some cake and pie one more time, because, I really love desserts and if I’m going to have to give them up, then I better have one last fling! Oh wait, I could do this other diet plan instead, it says no animal products. Ok, well, first I need to have one more cheeseburger and some bacon and maybe a really good piece of grilled BBQ chicken, cause if I’m giving up meat, I need to have one last fling! And on and on it goes. Someone tells me that I can’t have something ever again and I instantly want to have it.

I’ve been trying to think how I can circumnavigate this tendency of mine. What if I decide to go on a certain diet and I just go in with the idea that I can cheat whenever I want to? Or what if I just give up on diet all together and just make small healthy changes, one at a time? Here’s the problem. My baseline behavior is to crave food that isn’t good for me and eat it in quantities that I don’t need. I need structure. I need a system. I need a chance to wean myself off of some of the more addicting foods like sugar and excess salt and fat. Processed foods that excite my taste buds, but give me a stomach ache. I need to get off of all that stuff so that I can re-learn how to enjoy the taste of fruit and vegetables. I need to restrict myself so that I re-learn how to be satisfied with a much smaller serving. I need a diet plan. I even have a diet plan. One of my own making that is simply based on what my body seems to like and not like: unlimited fruits and vegetables, limited grain, limited fat, lean meat, no dairy except maybe the occasional sprinkle of cheese, no sugar. Over years of dieting and “lifestyle changes” I’ve discovered that this particular way of eating makes me feel good and I drop weight when I do this.

What I’m trying to figure out is how to deal with things like birthdays and holidays and potlucks with friends. I find that when I severely restrict myself I do good for months and then suddenly something snaps and I just get tired of depriving myself of dessert and so I cheat and then that cheat just seems to open up the floodgates and suddenly I am no longer eating healthy any more and am instead bingeing on all of my favorite unhealthy foods. This is what I’m trying to figure out how to avoid.

Maybe if I go into the diet telling myself, you are going to eat healthy, but if temptation should rear it’s head on a special occasion, then you can just go ahead and have a small helping of the bad stuff. And maybe, if I know that I can cheat whenever I want, it won’t be so hard to resist or go back to the healthy eating after I’ve cheated. It’s a mind game. All of this is a mind game.

Well, I think that’s going to be the plan. I hope to start when I do my next grocery shopping. Here’s to healthy eating and here’s to winning the mind game.

Keep It Simple Stupid

My life motto has been, for quite some time now, KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid. In a world that is full of mixed up complicated advice, I am looking for that one simple instruction that is doable, attainable, simple. I don’t do well with complicated. When I make decisions, you can bet money that one of the top priorities for me is which solution is going to be simple. As I have recently been struggling with a problem and needing some simple advice, I found myself remembering the birth of my last child.

The part about the birth that I remember the most was the very end. Everything had gone in a rush. I had shown up at the labor and delivery floor at 7:30, contractions coming every 2 minutes. The baby was 3 weeks early and so I hadn’t even had time to preregister. I made my way to the nurse’s station and started talking quickly, trying to say as much as I could in between contractions. Hi, I’m Esther Heneise, this is my 10th pregnancy, all natural births, Contractions started at 5 pm……pant breathe pant breathe………..Ok, I have gestational diabetes, I’m taking insulin, the baby is really big……pant breathe pant breathe……..umm. Last ultrasound said the baby was 13 pounds, doctors wanted to induce early, they’re worried about shoulder dystocia……pant breathe pant breathe…………………The doctors suggested a C-section but we want to try natural first……….pant breathe pant breathe…………………..My labors are really fast so you don’t have much time……….

The nurse jumped into action, asking a bunch of questions that I could barely answer. Some important, when did you last take insulin? Others not so important, do you have a working refrigerator and stove at your house? (huh?) There was a flurry of getting into a gown, getting blood work drawn, and in the meantime they were still trying to get an idea of how big the baby was and how important was it for me to get a C-section? They did an ultrasound while I sat on the bed almost delirious with pain. I asked if I could get an epidural and they said, sure, as soon as the blood work comes back. I was doomed. I knew there was no way I would still be in labor by the time the blood work came back. I was already at the end of this process. No one else seemed to understand. They checked me and told me I was dilated to 7. I told them that the baby was going to be born within the next half hour. They all nodded and smiled and patted me reassuringly, don’t worry, as soon as that blood work comes back we’ll get you your epidural. By this time I was in transition and basically retreated from the world, just trying to focus on not dying from the pain.  At one point in time they came up to me and asked if I just wanted to go ahead and get a C-section. All I could think was, If I get a C-section will they knock me out so I don’t feel this any more? At least one logical part of my brain spoke up and said, I’m in so much pain I can’t make any decisions, ask my husband. Andy looked up, startled, but fortunately we had talked about this beforehand and so he gave our agreed upon answer which was that we were going to try natural first. I groaned. I had really hoped that I could just get knocked out. Suddenly, I knew, it was time to push. I started pushing. The nurse looked startled and asked if I was pushing. Yes. Stop pushing! You can’t push till the doctor checks you, it might not be time! I looked at her, felt the urge to push, and pushed again. She shook her head, announced to the room at large that I was no longer listening to her and I had started pushing. Total chaos broke out. The room was suddenly filled with people, the bed was being taken apart and 2 nurses came up and pushed me flat on my back, grabbing my legs. I was in a fog and was not tracking with anything but the pain. Suddenly a man’s voice broke through all the commotion. Ok, breathe! Breathe it out, contraction is coming, get ready,, Ok Push! I turned my focus on him, a big tall guy in scrubs and a mask. I have no idea who he was. He might have been a doctor, a nurse, an aide, or some random observer off the street. All I knew was that finally someone was actually helping me. He became my focal point as he coached me through a couple more pushes and then, without any complications, the baby was there. No problems, only weighing 9 pounds 12 ounces instead of the predicted 13. (pretty much 30 mins after they told me I was dilated to 7!) Everyone was healthy and well.People started leaving the room till I was left with just a couple nurses. I survived my last birth.

Looking back, I don’t know if I can emphasize enough how important the man in the scrubs was in the whole process. I was so caught up in my pain and the confusion that I could no longer help myself. I desperately needed one person to break through and just give me some simple instructions. Something I could handle and latch on to. He was a life saver.

I had this happen another time. When I was pregnant with my fourth child, that summer I had a real struggle with panic attacks and anxiety. I didn’t want to leave my house and I felt like I was barely holding my sanity together. Life was so overwhelming and I hadn’t learned yet some of the basics of self-care. I was pouring everything in to my 3 children, expecting another child, and felt like I wasn’t succeeding at anything.  My husband finally asked if I’d be willing to go and speak to our pastor. I made an appointment and we met and talked. I can’t really remember much of what we said but I do remember that he wrote down on a piece of paper 3 things to do. They were very simple. One was to establish a quiet time every day where all my kids were in their beds either napping or looking at books and I could have an hour to myself. The next one was to make it a priority to have a time to just talk to my husband every day with no interruptions, adult conversation. I can’t remember what the third was, but I do know it was equally as simple. It was a voice speaking through the fog of my anxiety, just giving me a couple basic instructions to help me establish some good practices of self-care. Even though it was simple, it really helped.

Sometimes I’ve had an actual person who shows up to speak some life into my situations. Other times, it’s the Holy Spirit just speaking a simple idea into my mind. I have been dithering around for a couple days now. I want/need to start eating healthier. I’m ready to do it. But how to go about it? I’ve read so many books and heard about so many different methods that now I’m completely stalled out and I don’t know what to do. This plan says no animal products, this other says, mostly only animal products. This plan says no fat, this other plans says all the fat you want, just don’t eat it at the same time as Carbs. This plan says one cup of grain a day, this other plan says all the grain you want as long as you don’t eat fat. ACCKK!!! What do I do? I finally made it a matter of prayer, Ok Lord, I need some guidance here. And an idea came to me. No sugar. Every single plan agrees on that one, no sugar. Just keep it simple. Tackle one bad habit at a time.  A still, small voice breaking through the confusion, giving me some simple advice. It’s exactly what I needed. Just keeping it simple….stupid.