A Brief Freedom From Fat And Other Stuff

Yeah, I know. I haven't been here in a while. We'll skip the obligatory "This is why I wasn't here" stuff because I'm here now and that's what counts.


So sometimes I forget I'm fat.

No, no. Not in the "Hell yeah, everyone's looking at me because I look damn good with my four foot wide ass in these booty shorts." Trust me. I'll never be THAT girl.

Some mornings in that little dreamy spot between asleep and awake, I'm not fat. I make plans to leap out of bed, dance around the bedroom, paint my toenails, go for a run, do some shopping therapy for new dresses at Old Navy, bounce around the house and clean it... all of those things.

But when you're very overweight, those are just plans you have most of the time. You don't bounce or leap. Your knees and ankles wouldn't have it. You don't always dance around because you're tired. Cheap shopping therapy is out unless you want accessories because nothing really fits. You drag yourself out of bed and do the minimum of what you need to do because doing more can make you more tired, or hurt you.

I'm not looking for pity. Oh believe me, I realize that I've mostly done this to myself. Yeah, I do have some issues that makes weight loss really hard [let's face it, I worked out at the gym, had weekly personal training sessions, and ate right for a year and only lost 10 pounds in the altogether], but I'm not dumb enough to put all of the responsibility on a few health issues when I know very well that I sit too much and eat crap sometimes.

Today, though, I didn't think about being fat. Not really.

A few days ago, one of my Facebook friends posted a little article about magnesium deficiency. She's a registered nurse, but is "medium crunchy" in that she posts things about how to make yourself feel better naturally if possible rather than immediately going the pharmaceutical route.

I read the article. Then I read it again. A lot of it clicked with me. The insomnia, the irritability, the depression. I hadn't told anyone, but I honestly haven't been doing so great in the past few months. I haven't been sad all of the time, but I haven't been happy iether. I've mostly just been numb when I'm not angry. Then I headed to Google and on Wellness Mama's blog, she discussed it more in depth.

And I was shocked.

Out of the list of 26 symptoms that you might have if you are magnesium deficient, I had 19.

On her page, she mentioned the product Natural Calm. I skipped over to Amazon and took a look at the reviews. Out of just over 800 reviews, 600+ people gave five stars! I looked up several other review sites online for the product and the reviews were all just glowing. I really really wanted to get some! Luckily for me, our local Sprouts carries it and for $5 less than on Amazon.

I'll admit, though. I was a skeptic. I didn't think it would work. I mean, c'mon. I have all these issues! They can't be just related to me needing magnesium. A simple fix like this? No way. Nuh uh. Maybe it works for other people but it won't work for me.

But I tried it anyway. After all, why not? Then I would be able to say that I tried and it wasn't that so something else is making me crazy and sick.

I followed some of what other reviewers said to do. Just 1/4 of a teaspoon in some warm water at night. Magnesium is a laxative if taken in a bigger amount [think Milk of Magnesia] so I didn't want a big blow out or anything.

The first night I did it, I slept like a baby. I woke up and I didn't feel like I wanted to kill someone right away.

That night, I made my little mixture and went to bed. When I woke up, I didn't actively feel like death.

Last night, I took my little mixture. I had trouble falling asleep because of the coffee I'd had at 8pm but still, when I got to sleep, I slept well.

Today I was able to forget about my fat for a while. I cleaned the kitchen a bit, and the living room. I vacuumed. I cleaned out my cat's litter box and scrubbed her water dispenser and her food dish. I sang and danced all afternoon in the house. I opened all the curtains to let the sunshine in. I didn't even think about food. I felt good. I felt happy. I didn't feel like this massive, depressed, overly anxious, superfat person that I've felt like for months. I mostly felt like me again.

Of course, tonight I'm paying a bit for my little "Fat freedom." My feet hurt and my body is tired. But it's good, you know? It feels good.

I'll keep taking my Natural Calm. I'll keep seeing if there's some kind of improvement. If this was one of the fixes that I needed in my life, $20 is an awfully small price to pay for it.

And it hasn't given me the runs. So you know...there's that.

Day 8 - I'm not a doctor but I've watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy

So I'm super medication sensitive. I can't take many things. I get side effects to pretty much everything, which is about as fun as it sounds.

This morning I tried a little packet of Amazing Grass Green Superfood. You add it to water, milk, smoothies, etc, and it has a bunch of vitamins and herbs and grass. Surprisingly, it tasted pretty much okay. I got it in the Orange Dreamsicle flavor. I drank it with breakfast this morning, and then a couple of hours later, I headed to the gym.

Now today was the first time I've been to the gym since getting my House Targaryen t-shirt. I wanted to be all kick-ass and Mother of Dragons at the gym! But well, Daenerys would have been ashamed of me because what happened next was stupid.

I thought that I'd do a strength training workout and then finish with some cardio on the treadmill. So I got in there and started out with a workout that Seth had me do back when I first started. 30 minutes in, and I thought, "Well, I'll do some step ups and squats with the weights." Things were going fine and then BAM! DIZZY SPELL.

Luckily I was standing right next to a bench when it happened, so I sat down quickly. But as scary as it should have been, my main thought was, "Oh HELLLLLL no. I'm not going to be the fat girl who dies in the gym and then my story is told to high school girls about not killing yourself working out if you're already superfat."

So I sat for about 5 minutes until the dizziness passed, got my stuff, and drove home.

My first thought was that maybe my blood sugar got too low. Usually when I go to the gym, I go within an hour of eating but this time I went later. As soon as I got home, I drank some juice and got a protein shake. Then I thought, well, I must not have been breathing correctly throughout my workout. That does tend to happen when I'm lifting just because I'm so focused on my form and what I'm doing, I forget to breathe.

But throughout the day, I've felt "off." A little dizzy still, a little bit not right. I sat here thinking about what I ate and what it might be. The only thing different that I had today was the Green Superfood. Since Google is my friend, I looked up if there were any side effects.

Two things popped out at me. One was maca. Now a lot of people, TONS of people, take maca supplements with no problem. But in some people, it causes dizziness and nausea. Hey, bingo!!

The second thing was stevia. I'm not really familiar with stevia because since I tend to be a little sensitive to artificial sweeteners, I don't use them a lot. I tend to use regular sugar, or honey, or nothing at all. I decided to look up side effects to stevia.

WELL WELL WELL.

From 3 Fat Chicks, some side effects of stevia are: Dizziness, bloating and nausea, low blood sugar, and low blood pressure. Also, stevia comes from the ragweed family, and guess who is allergic to ragweed? This girl!

So I am going to assume that these effects are not long lasting and I'll feel better tomorrow. But unfortunately, I can't use the other two packets of Superfood I bought. This is definitely NOTHING against the product or the Amazing Grass company at ALL. But this does bring me to a big realization: I need to stop just taking supplements without doing a LOT of research first so that I know exactly what it is I'm taking.

I think that eating regular meals with real food will do me a ton better than all these supplements and drinks I insist on buying just because they claim health and good benefits. Real food, real exercise. That's the prescription I'm giving myself.