Things have certainly turned around for me. I'm doing great. I've lost a few pounds and I'm only a pound and a half away from my next goal. My stomach is totally fine now and I've been done with the antibiotics for over a week.

Mentally I'm feeling OK (today) about my weight loss. It is a day to day battle though. I wish I didn't have this insane need to step on the scale every morning. It dictates how I do that day and that's not a good way to live. I know there are many other ways to measure success when losing weight, but I need that validation from the scale. The problem is, when I'm not losing like I think I should, I tend to eat badly that day.

I will not hit my goal for my vacation next month. At this point, it's physically impossible, but I'm OK with that too. I did my best and was sidelined for a month with that stomach bug. I will get as close as I can and be happy with that.

I was at a party last weekend and was talking to someone who is getting her Masters degree to be a dietician. I had a very interesting conversation with her about being overweight and why it's so hard for me to lose weight. She suggested I try going gluten free. She said she knows it's a fad right now, but there actually is something to it. I've decided to look into it. I'm not going to start anything like that before my vacation or even before the holidays.  I know it will be hard to do and I just don't want to deal with that and those emotions during the holidays. I think I'm going to continue doing my carb cycling until January and then I'll try it. That gives me about 2 months to research it and find recipes to make. I'm just curious to find out exactly what gluten is and if my body needs it. From the limited knowledge I have, I don't think it has any vitamins or nutrients a body needs, but I just don't know for sure.

I'm tired of writing only when I'm having bad days. I think it's time to celebrate the days that I'm doing well too. This is such a roller coaster and I'm so ready to just be done, get to my goal weight, and figure out how to maintain. I am not getting any younger and each year it's harder and harder to lose weight. I have a feeling maintenance is going to be harder then actually losing weight, but I'm ready to find out.

Sidelined by sickness

I was doing great for a couple of weeks there. Working out 3-4 times a week, doing better with my eating. I was on a roll. Until an awful stomach virus hit me. I have never been so sick in my life. I was in bed for 2 days which I can never do because I have small kids. My husband had to take off work to take care of them while I was sick. I was really sick for a solid week and then just feeling icky the second week. I finally went to the doctor where it was determined that I have an infection in my gut causing all the issues I had.

My doctor started me on antibiotics which have their own fun side effects. I feel thirsty all the time and I'm coughing most of the night because my throat is so dry. I still have 4 days of these pills after today and then hopefully I will be back to good health.

That first week I was sick I lost 6 pounds because I just couldn't eat. I haven't lost anything since then because I think my body is just so screwed up it's holding onto every calorie I consume. Most days I wasn't eating more then 1000 calories but not losing any weight, so something was definitely off in my body.

What struck me as odd when I was sick was the comments I was getting from people on my Facebook page. I posted how sick I was and that I couldn't eat and there was a few people who said "Hey, at least your losing weight right?" I was kind of insulted by that. So, it's ok for me to violently ill because I'm fat? I felt like they were saying it was a good thing for me to be sick because I'm fat and only skinny people get sympathy when they are sick? At the time I was not happy in any way that I was sick and losing weight. I don't think anyone would be happy that they can't eat anything and feeling weak and in bed for days. I was just shocked that it was somehow ok for me to be sick because I so obviously need to lose weight. I guess it kind of hurt my feelings that people would say that to me. I don't see anyone saying that to a skinny person who's sick and can't eat.

Today I am having a good day so I have my work out clothes on and I'm heading to the gym. Without getting too graphic, most days I have to be close to a toilet or something really bad might happen. I have better days then others but today so far had been a good day. I will really be happy when this is all behind me.

If anything, this whole experience has made me appreciate my body for what it is. I'm healthy enough to not be so sick all the time.  Everything just kind of stops because you are unable to do much when you are sick. I started to realize that things aren't as important as I thought they were. And I also have a huge amount of sympathy for people who get sick while on chemotherapy. I just had a few days of not being able to hold down food or eat, I can't imagine having to do rounds of chemo and being that sick time and time again. It just feels good to actually appreciate my body and not see all the flaws all the time.

I'm ready to take these last few weeks I have before leaving for vacation and start kicking some butt. I have a goal in mind and I'm still reaching for it, even though I'm behind by a couple of weeks.