Weight

I seem to have leveled out at about 183. Which is about 11 pounds over a weight that I'm comfortable with. I know that in the past I've leveled out at around 185 and it usually takes some exceptionally bad eating to push it over that or some hard core exercises to drop it. I'm still out walking a few times a week and I am fairly conscientious about the quality of what I eat. However, I haven't been gauging the quantity at all, and my work outs are not 5 days a week and are usually more about getting air than pushing myself past my limits.
I find this whole thing unfortunate.

I see myself in the mirror and I'm a bit disgusted. (you see, unlike all those news articles or forum posts where people say that overweight people see themselves as thinner than they are, I do not suffer from that affliction. I see every roll of fat, every pimple, every spot, ever celulite dimple in HD clarity). At my lowest weight, 163, I was working out for an hour or two (cardio and weights) 6 days a week and watching what I ate. I was still overweight.

What is it worth? I gain no attention either way; it doesn't benefit me.
If I have no children and no loving husband why live a long healthy life? I'd rather die in a hospital a few years after my parents pass than alone in a nursing facility after decades of being alone.

Do it for yourself? For what? So I can get a better job? Oh, I was in pretty good shape (working out 5 days a week for an hour or more, running 3.5 miles) during my first few interviews, and I'd only been out of work for a month or two. Did it help? Nope!

Do it so I'll feel better? Uh, not really. Every time I loose weight I become obsessed with my body and food. It's like loosing weight is an active every hour of every day admitance that I find myself unacceptable and it takes a massive toll on my emotional strength and stability. My body may feel better, but I cry at the drop of a pin.

No, we work out for other people. Without other people, it's a wasted effort, a sweeping of the ocean.

Well, I have the flu

That's right, four hours of sleep last night and a long day later I have a temperature of 100F, nausea, a headache, and sore skin. And this while my brother is recovering from surgery and I'm supposed to be looking out for him. Lucky me (but not really). Why does illness have such poor timing?

Guess I won't be excercising for the next couple days.

On a lighter note, I went to end my membership to Urban Active (a second time, in all the pre-surgery crazyness I lost the info she they handed me the first time). This time I went to the offices and when I told them I had no job and they would soon be charging an empty bank account they were suprisingly willing to end my membership with only minimal cancelation fees. I was expecting them to charge an extra month and a cancelation fee. Apparently I can also continue to go through October. Sweet.

Salt and Me

Salt is clearly my nemisis. I need to eat less of it. A lot less. Blaaahhhh. Boo, salt, why do you taste so delicious?
Salt may actually account for weight gain as much as sugar, as more often obesity is seen as long term inflamation. ( I got that from some article I read ages ago)

Having a Gallbladder Sucks or Why I Will Never be on Man Vs. Food

Yesterday I ate potato chips. Have I mentioned that I hate potato chips? Not only are they fake, but they're high in calories and non-existent in nutrients. It was the first time I had more than a single serving of potato chips in over...5 months? I also had a piece of fried chicken (I can't even remember the last time I ate that), a serving of Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream, two candy canes, and six blueberry muffins. It's not even like I like muffins that much, or chips, and fried things make me want to gag. I'm fairly certain it's the most junk  food I've had in a singe sitting in over a year. I woke up and my stomach was hurting a big, ate an apple and a blueberry muffin and that was it.

Gallbladder attack. The first in over a year. I hate American food.

It started out like heart burn, but the pain spread out into my back and crawled down my spine. I noticed my stomach was swollen as well and I couldn't see any definition (I may not be a skinny chick but I can probably kick your butt in the Captain's Chair). As the pain went my sides and stomach started to swell more and my intestines hurt. It didn't start like the last gallbladder attack I had (or it may have but I was asleep). Luckily I'm staying at my mother's house today with my sister and she had some gallbladder meds. I took them right away and only had to deal with about 15 minutes of that pain that freezes your spine and turns your breath into short little pants.

Now, I'm in fairly good shape. I usually eat very very well. My family considers me a food and exercise example (my brother might be more of an exercise example but he eats what he wants when he wants, and doesn't have a bad gallbladder).

Why haven't you gotten yours out?" You might ask. Well, firstly my sister got hers out and she has explosive diarrhea every time she eats anything with fat. I like not pooping all over myself, thanks. Also, I don't normally have problems with my gallbladder and considering the stressers from this week I think they contributed to it significantly. Third, do you have the money to get my gallbladder out? Because I'm a girl without a job and that means any insurance I technically have is only there because I haven't tried to use it. But, hey, you want to drop some $5000 dollars for me to get that pesky gallbladder out? Feel free.

Anyway, after that I went to sleep and woke up with a migraine. The light's felt like strobe lights or spot lights or something really harsh and blinding and I was crazy dizzy. I went back to sleep; it was the only reasonable thing to do when my stomach, while not feeling like it was about to spill open and drop my bleeding guts on the floor, still hurt. Now I'm alright, but tender, and my spine feels like the joints are stiff.

So, I see this as a wake up call. I need to drop back down to my 1300 calories a day thing, because I can't do 1500, it ends up being 1800 or 2000 (or like yesterday, gosh, 2000+, ick)

Yep, and that's why I'll never be on Man Vs. Food. Oh, but what fun would that be.

Hooha Health: or Eat for your Vagina

Until recently I never knew that our girly bits needed nutrients too. I mean, how would I? No one talks about it. It's private. And private means no one talks. So, how would I know? 

In addition I'm a virgin, which clearly excludes me from most conversations centered around the nethers. I was under the distinct impression that my vajayjay was supposed to be in stasis until "used". Like the hymen as a zip-lock seal. So, every time I got a yeast infection or felt uncomfortable down there it would send me into a spiral of confused panic. How could this happen? I'm a virgin. Virgins don't have vagina problems. Sex makes vagina problems. I don't have sex! I was also concerned that there was something deficient about me. Apparently, naturally and without information, a virgin is expected to know how to take care of and keep up her vagina, but I didn't. I was really afraid I might have accidentally ruined it, or broken it, and then when it came time to use it it wouldn't work, like a machine that rusted because you didn't care for it properly. An episode of Private Practice where a virgin gets married but basically she broke her vagina by having untreated infections and has to get horrible painful shots before she can have sex did not help my fear.

Unfortunately I've had itchiness down there almost non-stop since my period started when I was, oh, about 12 years old. 

Lately, mostly since the Korean health insurance I had decided to label a yeast infection as an STD I've been particularly paranoid.  

I finally came to the conclusion that I get some kind of nonspecific vaginitis, and/or I'm super sensitive down there, since yeast infection meds didn't seem to be working. Heck, I could be wrong, but who's going to tell me? Not you. Of course not you. And since we're on the subject of things not specified, what is a "fish odor" that is supposed to be the indicator of an infection? There are a lot of different fish and they smell differently. Raw fish or cooked? Shellfish or vertebrates? Fried or grilled? What if it smells kind of coppery or just strongly? And the three times I've been to the GYN they didn't really have anything to say. Though, granted, I was terrified, and fairly traumatized by the whole experience (really, years of "only the man you marry should touch you there, you shouldn't even masturbate or take too much fun in washing yourself," and I'm supposed to be okay with someone feeling around, painfully, inside my lady parts?), so maybe they thought I was exaggerating. 

In my research (because I'm good at researching, it's something I do) I ran across this website: Beautiful Cervix Project 

image from Beautiful Cervix Project. Go look at their site

I was very impressed. I'd never seen that before and even in all my thinking and over-thinking I'd never thought that systematically or in depth about that part of my body. 

My gosh, I was even in the Vagina Monologues and we never discussed anything like this (frankly, the vagina monologues could be summed up in "period, period, vagina, touchy, rape, sex, vagina, vagina, vagina, ha." Not a lot of in depth helpful info in it). I didn't realize that it was ok for the look/color/texture of what came out of me to change. When it did I always worried there was something wrong. They didn't cover this in sex ed. I can't remember them covering much of anything in sex-ed.

poster from the Vagina Monologues. No, no one gets nekkid.

After that it got the gears and cogs in my head turning. Maybe there was more to this than I thought. And, frankly, I didn't want to go to the GYN unless I thought I might be dying (you know, since going makes me want to die that would really be the only fitting time). 

I discovered that the vagina benefits from what you eat.

For example Apple Cider Vinegar and yogurt (it's not just your digestion that is helped). 

Folic acid can also help. 

As can eating garlic and drinking thyme tea, which both have antibiotic abilities. 

Also, eating probiotics especially for the vagina can help

As can vitamin E and Boric acid. 

Apparently tea tree oil can help too.

Since learning this I've started drinking a bit of apple cider vinegar every day as well as taking a folic acid dietary supplement, eating a half cup of plain yogurt, drinking thyme tea and rinsing my girly-bits with a diluted mixture of water and vinegar in the shower. 

My girly-parts have never felt better. 

Now, if only someone had told me this years ago.