I'll Do it Tomorrow

I have a confession to make. I’m a liar. I lie to myself a lot. The biggest lie that I tell myself is that I will do it tomorrow. I’m going to do a lot of things tomorrow, you see, that’s how I ended up writing this blog at the last minute because I thrive on procrastination. I can plan and plan and plan to do things, but it always comes down to the last minute – especially when it comes to my personal life.

The lie, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. There are many things that I plan on doing tomorrow that I’ve been telling myself for twenty or more years in favor of doing things that are more pleasant such as relaxing, watching television, or playing on my phone.

This week on the podcast we are discussing the book “Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be” by Rachel Hollis. In the book, Hollis discusses the different lies that we tell ourselves. In the end, Hollis says, there is one truth and that is “you, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.” This is probably my favorite statement in the whole book and it’s right on the first page. As someone that chased “happiness” for years, not realizing that I was chasing the wrong thing, I would often put the blame on external factors and not on myself. “I would be happy if…” or, “I can’t get this done until I accomplish this” and so on and so forth.

So, the takeaway is: take responsibility for…everything! I’m still working on this. The “if” and “can’t” factor is a huge hurdle that I am constantly jumping over, but personal growth doesn’t happen overnight. The message is that we are always a work in progress and we will always make mistakes, but we just have to get up, wash our faces, and live our lives to the fullest.

Here are some of the major lies that I’ve told myself over the years:

• The lie: I’ll publish tomorrow. In high school, I completed my first novel. I wrote it for a school assignment and then decided to expand it. In college, I decided to look into getting it published, and the publisher told me I needed more pages to make it truly a full-length novel. So, I began the editing and expanding process and I have been doing it for twenty years now. I keep telling myself that I will look into self-publishing my novel when I have time to sit down and write. Every year, I try to push myself to complete the process, but I continue to hold myself back. I could give a bunch of excuses why I haven’t published one of my novels or stories such as “time” or “work,” but it’s a lie. I have been holding myself back from publishing my work.
• The lie: I’ll diet tomorrow. This is a big one. I struggle a lot with my weight to the point that I have to be vigilant about what I put in my mouth. My biggest struggle lately is that due to depression and other external factors, I have been off the rails with my diet for the last year. It seems that I will take one step forward to lowering my cholesterol and eating healthier, and one huge step back if I give in to temptation and eat something fried or sweet. I tell myself that yes, I messed up today, but I will start dieting tomorrow. So far, I am only kidding myself.
• The lie: I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. This lie piggybacks onto the dieting lie. I recently went to the doctor after months of putting it off. I don’t like visiting doctors much, and it always seems like as soon as I find a doctor I like, they move or they quit practicing. Back in August, my insurance company sent word that I would have to find another primary care doctor and, of course, I put it off in favor of doing something else. This was something that my parents struggled with as well – going to the doctor and getting checked out. I can make a list of all the things I hate about visiting the doctor, but I won’t because those are just excuses, action is the only thing that will benefit me in the long run.
• The lie: I’ll deal with my grief tomorrow. My father died in 2017, and my mother died fifteen months later. Since then, I have been running from dealing with my grief and the storage units containing my parents’ belongings. In the back of my mind, I thought that if I put off dealing with their things and my grief that it would go away, but here I am, almost six years later, trying to get up enough courage to open my storage lockers and begin the process of cataloging everything. Many times I have been told that I should be “over it” by now – the death of my parents. This has mostly been told to me by people that still have living parents. I don’t think you ever get over a loss that heavy, but I do know that I can deal with it better than I have been, such as seeking help or talking to someone. I just have to stop telling myself that I will set up an appointment “tomorrow.”
• The lie: I’ll clean the house tomorrow. I have a junk table in my house. It’s a table sitting by the door that I set stuff on as I walk in the front door with the intention of coming back and taking it to its proper place. Most of the time I set stuff on that table and forget about it. Months will go by, and it will still be sitting on that table by the door. Dust will start to collect on that object until, suddenly, it has been there for a year and I pick it up and wonder why it even exists. Most recently, I picked up an unopened envelope from that very table and realized that it was sent to me in mid-November and it is now March. I have lived in my apartment for almost two years, and I guarantee you that I have only cleaned the floors twice in my kitchen. So, I make these grand plans to clean one little thing when I come home from work and then tell myself that I will do it tomorrow because I am too tired today. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to end.

One of my favorite Shakespeare speeches from the play “Macbeth” began with the repetition of the word “tomorrow” and talks about how men put things off until tomorrow until they have no more tomorrows left, only the memory of broken promises. As I write this blog I am reminded that tomorrow is not guaranteed, so we need to start today, and that is the point of getting past the lies we’ve been told (or tell ourselves), so we can become who we are meant to be.

I want to hear from our readers. What lies do you tell yourself? Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below! 

Making Your Bed: A Metaphor for Life

We’ve all been there. We just can’t get it together. We wake up late, throw some clothes on, and leave the house without making our beds.  As the school year nears its end, I confess that I find it harder and harder to wake up in the morning, which makes it challenging to complete my morning routine, including making my bed. Making your bed can be so much more than the act of physically making your bed. 

 

Last September, we podcasted about our daily choices, including “brushing your teeth or taking a shower.” I find that among the choices that I have to make in the morning to avoid running late for work is the choice of making my bed or not. Do I make that choice? I admit, not always. Some days, I just throw the top sheet over the bed and call it “made.” On other days, I take my time to make all the sheets straight, fix my pillows, and smooth out all the wrinkles in the bed. Those are the good days. The days I wake up and have time to do everything I want to accomplish in the mornings, which includes relaxing and having a cup of coffee (rarely happens). As I sleep later and later, I’m lucky even to get fully dressed as I run out the door. Sometimes, the act of physically making my bed is daunting.

Aside from physically making your bed, the concept itself can apply to the consequences of life choices. If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it,” this may be due to the fact that you made some sort of choice that didn’t have the best consequence.

Think of your life as a bed. What kind of bed do you have? The type of bed you currently sleep in says a lot about you, and not just how the bed looks and feels, but the appearance. What color comforter do you have? Do you even have one? I currently don’t. I find that it’s easier to wash a quilt over a comforter. Do you decorate your bed? Do you make your bed every day? What kind of pillows do you like? I personally like backrest pillows, but I most recently discovered the most amazing pillows, Memory Foam Cluster pillows, from Walmart that haven’t gone flat since I bought my first one two years ago. I have since replaced all my pillows with that particular pillow.

I have slept on many different types of beds in my life, and they often reflected the different financial situations I was experiencing at the time. For example:

• The first real bed (not a crib) I ever had was a bed that was purchased by my parents. We went to Golden’s Furniture (a place that doesn’t exist anymore), and I looked at all the beds. Eventually, I chose a canopy bed of princess-like quality. The bed was white with pink flowers and a pink canopy. I slept in that same bed and never asked to change it until I moved out of my parent’s house at 18. That bed represented the comfort I had at home and my childhood as an only child and youngest grandchild – the “princess” of the family. As I grew up, the bed didn’t grow with me, and I never asked for a bigger or less-youthful bed.
• After living in a series of dorm rooms, Christen and I moved into our first real apartment, and I chose not to bring the “princess” bed from my room at my parents’ house. Instead, I opted for the cheaper, cooler, college-like futon that I could easily move from bed to couch depending on how much room I wanted in my small apartment bedroom. That bed represented freedom to choose. I bought the bed myself with money from my job at Braum’s, an ice cream shop I worked at while I attended college. That bed also represented the financial instability of a college student on their own. After six months, the bed broke, and I started sleeping on the floor on top of the mattress. I named the bed my “magic carpet” and it was actually quite comfortable after I stacked layers of blankets and comforters on top.
• When I moved to my very own apartment, my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday/Christmas and I told them I wanted a real bed because I was finally tired of sleeping on the floor. I didn’t want my childhood bed, but a real, comfortable bed. My parents and I went bed shopping. We ended up at a place that also doesn’t exist anymore called Mattress Outfitters. The salesman didn’t see my mom coming that day. After a couple of hours of my dad and meI laying on every bed in the store, we left with a brand-new bed about half the price that it was originally priced for, a mattress protector, and a bed frame my mom talked the salesman into giving us for free. I had never slept on anything so comfortable. The bed felt amazing and I felt like I had upgraded in life (with the help of my parents, of course). The bed represented coming back into the fold. At that point in my life, I had dropped out of college for a couple of years and was working at Dillard’s, selling shoes. My grandmother talked me into going back to college, so I moved to a tiny two-room apartment across the street from the University of North Texas and started taking classes that fall. I kept that bed through the rest of college and my first teaching job.
• The next bed I slept on was the most uncomfortable couch in my grandmother’s living room. A few years after I graduated college, my mother had a series of strokes and became very ill. I was substitute teaching and living in the most expensive apartment I’d ever lived in, struggling to pay the bills. I quit my job and put everything I owned in storage to move in with my grandmother and take care of my mom. I spent two and a half months sleeping in hospital chairs, hospital couches, and, sometimes, my car, driving back and forth from the hospital to my grandmother's house (an hour away). I slept on the couch for about six months before my cousins helped me clean out my grandmother’s sewing room enough to take my bed out of storage. The couch represented a disruption in my life that eventually was overcome. After I was able to move into my grandmother’s sewing room and my mom was able to somewhat take care of herself, I found a local teaching job.
• When my ex-husband and I got our first house, we bought a used king-sized bed that wasn’t very comfortable. I had always thought that you finally made it in life if you could afford a king-size bed. I traded in my comfortable, small bed, for an uncomfortable king-size one. This bed represented my first marriage. It was something that I thought I wanted, but I sacrificed my comfort and peace for it. The bed was difficult to maintain and move during the many moves I endured in that marriage. When I moved after my divorce, I left that bed on the side of the road. That also meant I didn’t have a bed moving into my post-divorce apartment, the first apartment I had lived in since my mom had her strokes eight years before.
• This brings me to my current bed. It’s not the most comfortable bed that I’ve slept in, but it represents the uncomfortable moments that I went through to get to this bed. It also represents freedom from the struggles I had gone through to get to this bed. I had finally made a bed that I was comfortable lying in. After my divorce, I had no credit. It took me months to find an apartment that would accept me for who I was and the money that I independently made. I had barely any furniture to place in that apartment (I still don’t) and I was driving my grandmother’s car. My uncle offered me the brand new bed that he bought to place in my mom’s old room. My grandmother had recently moved to the nursing home and didn’t have a use for the bed. I jumped at this opportunity because I could barely afford to move into a new place much less buy a new bed.

What does all of this say about me? My current bed is pretty basic, but I have spent almost two years making it into the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in. After my divorce, I decluttered my existence where only the basics of who I am exist and that includes my bed. I opt for a simple quilt in aesthetically pleasing colors. Underneath, I alternate between a micro plush blanket and a sherpa blanket, depending on the temperatures outside. I cover my bed with the most comfortable and colorful pillows of various shapes and sizes. Do I always make my bed? It depends on my time and mood, but I can tell you that I feel better when I get into a freshly made bed at night. My cats even prefer a freshly made bed with clean sheets. So, I do like to take that time in the morning.

Making your bed and lying in it has meant many different things to me over the years. I love my current bed and have no problem lying in it. Can that bed be improved? I work on improving it every day, little by little. 

I want to hear from our readers. Do you make your bed every day? Are you comfortable with the bed you are lying in? What are some things you can do to improve your current situation? Comment below!

Motivation Tips for the Start of the School Year

School Time

Hey everyone! It is August and what does that mean? The start of school here in Texas! It is the time when teachers, students, and parents get out of the summertime mindset and back to the hustle of classrooms and school activities. I was so busy this summer that I swear I blinked and I missed it. I had a list of things I wanted to do (as usual), but I didn’t have time to do them. By the time August arrives, I’m usually ready to get back to school. That’s not the case this year because I feel like I needed at least one more month. So, how do we get out of the summer mindset and back to the hustle?

Last school year was tough for me, as it was for many other teachers. I felt like I needed extra motivation to go back to the classroom for the 2022-23 school year after a few of my coworkers quit teaching altogether over the summer. It is an uncertain time for education, but I am here for it and ready to embody my “Balancing Home and Work” blog. 

Here are some motivation tips for teachers this school year. I promise this will help with burnout and these tips can also be adapted for non-teachers:

Vision Board for this Coming School

1. Visualize how you want this year to go. Towards the end of the summer, I always start thinking about school so much that I have dreams about it. What do I want my classroom to look like? How do I want my classroom to be? What am I going to wear in the first week of school? What are we going to read this year? One of the best tips I can give someone is to make a vision board or make a vision list. Since my year runs August-July, this is the time of year that I start to make a vision board. If you are a visual person, a classroom vision board is a great motivator. We Are Teachers has some great ideas for your vision board.
2. Set goals for the year. This can go hand-in-hand with making a vision board. Ask yourself what the big picture is. What do you want your students to learn this year? What do you want to learn this year? Also, ask yourself how you can accomplish these goals. I like to set goals in two ways: I set them for the year as a whole, and I set them for each unit/lesson I will be teaching. I promise that being this organized will make your year go smoother. Check out my blog on SMART Goals for more ideas.
3. Set daily intentions. Now that you have a long-term idea of what you want to do, it’s time to look at the day-to-day. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish, and go into the day with an open mindset.
4. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Okay, your lesson plan went terribly. Don’t let it ruin your day. My mentor teacher in college told me that the first period is always the “practice period” because anything that would happen to off-put your lesson will usually happen during the first period. You have to shake it off and move on to the next class period. Your first-period students will be back and ready to learn tomorrow. Tomorrow is a new day.
5. Take time out for yourself. One of my past mistakes has been to work through lunch. Most teachers have just thirty minutes for lunch. Take that thirty minutes and get out of the classroom. If students know you are in your classroom at lunch, they will want to be in there with you. Take some alone time. Walk around. Go outside. Your classroom will still be there when you return.
6. Don’t be afraid to try something new. I am not one of those teachers that teaches the exact same thing every year. I may have a set of novels that I teach, but I am always researching and finding new ways to teach those novels, which keeps my job interesting. If I am bored with a novel or a lesson, I like to try something new. The same can be said with any aspect of teaching. If your class rules aren’t exactly working, try something new. Don’t get set in ways that don’t work. Be flexible.
7. Have fun. This one is big. If you are not having fun and enjoying yourself (at least a little), you are in the wrong job. Make friends. Do something creative. Turn your lesson into a game to get the kids motivated. Go somewhere after work to relax. Remember to have fun. As Eckhart Tolle would say, “live in the now.”

I want to hear from our readers. What motivates you? What are some tips you have for motivation? Let’s continue the conversation below or in our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.

Keeping Your Priorities Straight

In yesterday’s podcast, Amber, Christen, and I discussed the challenges of balancing work and home life. It’s been an age-old problem, and not just for women. In the past, I’ve been a helpless bystander as I watched my husband work himself to death at a very demanding job that left him exhausted at the end of the day with no energy or time for his family. It was brutal, and it was damaging, both physically and mentally. I am no different. There are times when my job demands that I finish certain projects on a deadline, and I find myself working alone in the wee hours of the morning, trying to get it all done. At the time, it felt like it was my biggest priority, but was it?

Today is the 6th anniversary of the day I learned that I had breast cancer, which started an onslaught of doctors appointments, surgeries, radiation treatments, and medications that had unpleasant side effects. Around that same time, I also found out I was a Type 2 diabetic (more medicine, more doctors, more yuk). I also wound up with injuries to both my knees, requiring two surgeries, countless sessions of physical therapy, and chronic pain.

At a recent therapy session, I was chatting with my counselor about how busy I was and how I didn’t have time for this or that task that was weighing on me. I was bemoaning the fact that I have so many doctor's appointments all the time, often two or three in the same week, and how it felt like an imposition on my time. Time I should be using to further my business or clean my house. Time to do that bookkeeping that’s overdue. Time to tend to my own self-care by crafting or reading or watching a movie. How was I supposed to get all these things done if I had to spend two or three of my work days every week at doctor’s appointments? I felt inconvenienced and I resented it, but she helped me see it in a different light.

I can’t remember exactly how she worded it, but the essence of her point was, “Your health is the most important thing, right?” I had to admit that she was right. My immediate health was of primary concern, even though I often put that concern aside to take care of everyone else – a habit that many women have passed down from generation to generation. Women tend to take care of everyone but themselves and only tend to their own needs once everyone else’s needs have been met. My mother-in-law was one of those moms, and in the end, that was what killed her. She spent her whole life taking care of everyone but herself, and by the time she got the wake-up call to address her own issues, it was too late. It breaks my heart, because she was a beautiful and vibrant woman whom I admired very much.

Women aren’t the only ones who do it; men have a frustrating tendency to downplay their illness and injuries because they don’t want to admit their vulnerabilities and because they value their ability to be the provider for their families above all else. 

So why do we do this? Why do we ignore the pain in our back, the signs of high blood pressure, or our growing waistline? The thought goes that taking time to care for ourselves is taking away from our “priorities,” and so those “very important tasks” won't get done.  We assume (you know where that gets us) that our work and taking care of our family are our biggest priorities. But what if we looked at it another way?

Our health, both mental and physical, works in a sort of snowball effect. When we ignore the signs and symptoms of illness or injury, those signs and symptoms usually get worse, progressing into bigger and bigger problems. Problems that may become so big that we are unable to work. It may even threaten our life. By addressing the issues as they occur, by making our health a priority (which it should be), we can spend a little time now to avoid a bigger problem later. We can’t earn that paycheck if we are laid up in bed after a heart attack. The first and foremost priority is always to protect your own health so you can continue to provide for the people who depend on you. That’s why the tedious demonstration at the beginning of your flight reminds you to put on your own mask first before helping your child or anyone else – you can’t save your baby if you’ve already passed out.

When my therapist put it to me that way (and believe me, she didn’t use that many words; I came up with all that by myself), it really struck a nerve. All this time I had been resenting my doctor appointments because they diverted my time from things I’d rather be doing, when all the while, I should have been grateful to have this opportunity to figure out what was wrong and to correct it. I should have been grateful for the doctors, the insurance that pays for them, and the medicines we use to make me better. I should be grateful that the doctors were so thorough and so concerned about getting it just right. I shouldn’t begrudge this time; I should embrace it. And when I thought of it that way, everything changed.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that all those other things aren’t important. We still have to get up and go to work, wash the laundry, and get the kids off to school or whatever, but if the laundry is a day or two late because I had an appointment to get an x-ray on the thumb I jammed the day before, or if I have to go back to my doctor for a follow-up on the new medication I started, then I should just appreciate my doc’s due diligence. The laundry can wait, and my boss doesn’t want me to pass out at work because my medication is the wrong dosage. If I hadn’t gone to that mammogram appointment 6 years ago, if I hadn’t followed up with the biopsy or the thorough physical with my primary care physician, I might never have known I had cancer or diabetes until it was too late. Those simple acts of taking time to do what was right for my health saved me from much bigger problems down the road; it probably saved my life. So remember, you can’t look only at the issues that are burning right now. You have to consider the long-term effects of the things you don’t take care of now, too. 

Here are some tips my therapist suggested to help me prioritize, and don’t forget, you can use that handy Eisenhower Matrix we talked about!

• Make your health a priority:  You can’t help others unless you take care of yourself. A broken wheel will upset the whole cart.

• Assess and reassess your tasks and priorities:  What is really important and what can wait. Is the world going to fall apart if you stop and take 5 minutes to schedule an appointment? Keep adjusting the list of priorities as the day or week goes on. Just because you set something as a priority on Monday does not mean it is still the most important thing on Wednesday.

• Do what would help most right now:  If you’re short on time because you need to take a little self-care time, then look at that list of priorities and decide what would be most helpful right now.  Sometimes getting a little win, crossing something quick and easy off your list, or alleviating the burden of a bigger project will help take the weight off your shoulders. And what you choose as “helpful right now” may not be the same thing you would choose as “helpful” tomorrow, so really take a hard look at that list of tasks and do what you can.

• Make the most of what you are doing:  This goes back to Eckhart Tolle and his lessons about being fully present. Don’t go into that doctor’s office thinking about what you should be doing – use that time to focus on your health. Accept the fact that you are there. Be focussed on the reason you are there, and make the most of it. Enjoy the opportunity to take care of yourself. Have enthusiasm for the process of working with your doctor to make you healthy. It is amazingly empowering.

If you are like me and my husband, and you tend to put off your own self-care to take care of your home, your work, or your loved ones, I hope this article has helped you see things in a different light. You can’t build a house with a broken hammer. Fix your hammer, then you can figure out how to build your house. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll comment below or join us in the Facebook chat group to continue the conversation.

 

 

Coffee Versus Water: A Taste Buds Journey

Coffee Love

This week on the podcast we talked about tips to drink more water. I will be the first to admit that I don’t drink enough water, especially in the summertime. In fact, last week, I got really sick because I hadn’t been drinking enough water. More than a few times in my life I have been to the hospital due to dehydration. Now that my stomach is smaller, it makes it even harder to consume water. What I do consume a lot of, is coffee.

I’ve been called out a few times in the last year (by people who don’t drink coffee) that I drink too much coffee. I agree with them, it’s true. I even wrote in my blog about Powersheets® that coffee, especially coffee influencing on my Instagram reviews blog @ravenreviews_tx, is one of my motivations. One might even go as far as to say that I am obsessed with coffee. That wasn’t always the case. Unlike children today – case in point, my students come to class with Venti Starbucks™ Lattes – if I wanted coffee, I had to go to my grandma’s house or go to the local coffee shop with my grandpa on Saturday mornings. 

My parents didn’t even own a coffee maker (my mom was a tea drinker), so, I didn’t drink as much coffee as kids do today. My grandma only kept powdered creamer to put in her Folgers® and I thought it tasted disgusting. Starbucks™ was something you only saw in the movies – for example, Cher and her friends in the movie Clueless, drinking the fancy coffee brand. I didn’t even see a Starbucks™ in person until I went to Las Vegas for my high school senior trip and one of my friends pointed it out. Sure, the coffee chain had stores in Texas, but nowhere near where I lived.

I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was in college. Christen and I spent our first two years at South Plains College in a small town in West Texas called Levelland, which was not far from the somewhat big town of Lubbock. Levelland was about the size of the town I grew up in (so, not very big) but, unlike the town I grew up in, it had not just a coffee shop but a Cafe that served fancy coffee concoctions unlike any I ever tried. It was called Rhinobear and they served Day Break Coffee. Christen and I went all the time to get the frappe, and I was hooked. I was still just a casual coffee drinker. I was a poor college kid that worked in the financial aid office for $5.25 an hour. Fancy coffee was just a treat, and I certainly didn’t drink coffee every day. If I wanted caffeine, I usually drank Diet Coke, but only occasionally (I gave up soda with sugar in it when I was a junior in high school).

As I grew older and became a teacher, I started drinking more coffee mainly because free coffee existed in the teacher’s lounge. At the same time, I began treatments for my chronic migraines (a topic I will explore in a future blog) and the preventative medication that was given to me made all carbonated drinks taste terrible, so I turned more toward coffee and tea for a caffeine fix. When I moved back to Vernon a few years later, my grandma received a Keurig® for her birthday, and I began experimenting with different flavors and styles of coffee through their k-cup subscription program. Thus, my taste became more refined. I realized the taste difference between brands, flavors, and roasts and I started drinking coffee for the flavor aspect, but I usually only had a cup a day unless it was a tough day at work. Still, if I was ever in a town with a Starbucks™ or other fancy coffee shop, I would stop and try a new type of drink. 

After surgery, everything changed. I wrote in my last blog about my struggles before and after bariatric surgery. That was only a part of it. My taste buds completely changed after surgery. For example, I only occasionally ate eggs before surgery, and now eggs are a regular part of my diet. I could eat dairy without getting sick before surgery, and now I can't drink a glass of milk or eat yogurt without getting sick. In the weeks prior to surgery, I had to stop all caffeine and I couldn’t drink it again until three months after my surgery – I was fine with it. However, the first cup of coffee post-surgery was an experience that I will never forget. I went to Starbucks™ and ordered a grande cold brew for the first time. I drank it as I still drink it – with one pump of sugar-free vanilla and a splash of heavy cream – and it was heavenly. Aside from my first coffee in four months, I had never tasted a cold brew before. I thought it was amazing, and it tasted strong. Before surgery, I didn’t crave dark or strong coffee, and now I can’t drink it any other way. In fact, I don’t want to drink anything else but coffee. I crave coffee all the time.

Therein lies my problem. Before surgery, I was never one to chug water, and now that I can’t chug water, it’s hard to get enough water in my body. Now I’m always dehydrated because the first thing I reach for in the morning is coffee and not water. I’ve studied nutrition and taken nutrition classes, so I know the right thing to do is immediately start drinking water when you get up in the morning. My life would be so much better if I wasn’t chronically dehydrated, but I’d rather drink coffee, and if I’m being honest, I’d rather drink coffee over eating food. That’s why I have to mix protein in my coffee now to get enough protein post-surgery. It really is a daily struggle.

How have I tried to combat this craving? Well, psychologically, I’ve figured out that it’s not the caffeine that I crave. I am perfectly fine with drinking decaf coffee. It’s the flavor that I crave. Unfortunately, they don’t make coffee flavor water enhancements that I could use to trick myself into thinking I’m drinking coffee when in reality, I’m drinking water. The closest thing that I’ve found is a vanilla-flavored additive–which helps but it is not a perfect solution. As a goal for my summer, I’ve decided to cut back on my coffee consumption and make an effort to track the water I drink daily as well as keep water readily available to grab when I need it. Maybe this will help me get my 64 ounces of water in daily.

I want to hear from our readers. What are some tips and tricks you use to drink more water? If you have a hard time drinking water, what are some tips to stay hydrated? Let’s continue the conversation on our Facebook Page and Facebook Group MMC Chat.

The Ongoing Battle I Fight

Let me get one thing straight before I begin: I LOVE FOOD. My whole life I have been a foodie. I know this may sound weird because I grew up in a small town and the opportunities to try new things were limited. But I collected cookbooks and watched food shows dreaming of food adventures. We would eat at a “fancy” restaurant twice a year for my mom’s birthday and again on Mother’s Day, and I was always adventurous. Nowadays, eating adventurously is the norm for me, especially since my boyfriend of nine months is a chef. However, there’s one problem… I love food, but food does not love me.

Let’s talk genetics. Can we fight genetics? It’s similar to fate, right? I talked about my genetics in a previous blog and how unfortunate they were. For many years, being fat has been equated with being lazy or unhealthy. I can imagine people thinking “all she probably does is sit around and eat.” Until about 20 years ago, genetics wasn’t considered a reason some people were obese, especially healthy and athletic people. According to the article “Obesity and Genetics: Nature and Nurture,” about 43% of the population have the FTO gene that “predisposes them to gain excess weight.” In other words, if you are not careful to balance your life choices, you could easily gain weight. I used to joke that if I even looked at food, I would gain weight. If you looked at my family, you would see that many of them have fought the battle and lost.

These days, it is all about female empowerment and fat acceptance. Women are freer with their bodies, and they no longer feel like they need to cover up or wear a wardrobe that hides their curves. Growing up in small-town Texas, that wasn’t always the case. My grandmother saw early on that I had the predisposition to be a bigger child and she tried her hardest to steer me in the right direction. By the time I hit middle school, I had been through so many fad diets, and it grew worse as I got older. Aside from my weight gain, it was always a struggle to find nice outfits for a large female that weren’t geared toward an older woman. When I hit high school, I had no fashion sense. I wore “big and tall” t-shirts and bike shorts from the men’s section or oversized shirts with outdated flowers from the women’s department. The closest plus-size store for women was three hours away from where I lived, and we could only afford to drive that far once a year. A single shirt there usually cost around $50 and my family struggled financially, so, I made do.

Despite being overweight and bullied for it growing up, I was a pretty athletic child. The only sport I didn’t play (because it wasn’t offered) was soccer. I was even part of a running club in school called the “Elite Fleet.” None of this athleticism helped me lose weight. Aside from genetics, my family was poor, so we didn’t have the healthiest diet. My mom worked two jobs and oftentimes chose McDonald’s or cup noodles over cooking meals at home. If my mom worked late, I usually had cereal for dinner. Needless to say, my childhood was carb-heavy.

Because I was athletic and healthy, I maintained my weight throughout high school and continued to be pushed through fad diets by my grandma. For example, I was taken to weight-loss seminars, and hypnotherapists, and I was even taken to get my ear stapled once because it was said that the ear staple curbs hunger. According to the Mayo Clinic, “proponents of ear stapling claim that the staples stimulate a pressure point that controls appetite, leading to weight loss.” However, the Mayo Clinic says that ear stapling probably won’t work and it may cause ear infections. As I grew older, I developed a sense of body dysmorphia and depression that led to secret binge eating. I began to feel ashamed of my body, which worsened my depression and binge eating.

Throughout my life, I tried a few diets that did work, but they were never long-term solutions. For example, I tried Weight Watchers twice in my life, and both times it worked well. Weight Watchers is all about accountability and fellowship. If you are not familiar with the concept, you track your food using a point system. You go to weekly meetings and have weekly weigh-ins. The meetings and the weigh-ins held me accountable, and I lost weight doing the program. Unfortunately, programs like Weight Watchers can be costly, and after a time on the program, I wasn’t able to afford it anymore. I tried to keep up with the principles after I left the program, but the accountability was what originally kept me on the diet, and once on my own, I eventually lost my way.

Other diets/weight loss tricks I have tried unsuccessfully:

• Am 300
• Garcinia Cambogia
• Stacker 3000
• Adkins Diet
• Genesis Diet
• Juice Diet
• Herbalife
• Levell

 

In 2018, I started a low carbohydrate diet. The bane of my existence has always been sweets. Both of my parents were diabetic, and I knew I was headed toward that path. A low carbohydrate diet has been the most successful diet that I have been on to date. I don’t consider it a diet but more of a lifestyle change. I cut back drastically on eating sweets and added sugars, I focus mostly on getting protein in my diet and leafy green vegetables but that was only the stepping stone on my path to better health. I was slowly losing weight but not quick enough to better my health. 

 

My doctor suggested I have bariatric surgery and it was the hardest thing a binge eater could do, both emotionally and psychologically, which I will talk about in a future blog. Post-surgery I have consistently kept a low-carbohydrate diet and I have been successful at losing and maintaining since surgery, but every day is a constant struggle to go back to my comfort zone.

Things I do to try and maintain and continue to lose weight:

• Meal replacement shakes: This is mainly to keep my protein up, but a high protein shake in the morning helps me have a great start to my day.
• Small meals instead of large ones: Before surgery, I preferred to eat this way as well. If I eat small meals, I can maintain my energy and stay more alert.
• Limit what I drink to mostly water: I try to drink as much water as I can throughout the day. If I drink something besides water, it will be coffee or tea. Getting enough water is important to me because I feel crappy if I don’t drink enough of it.
• Cheat days are okay: One thing I’ve learned over the years is that an extremely strict diet will only backfire. So, I reward myself occasionally.
• If you fall off the wagon, pick yourself up: Every day is a new day! Don’t beat yourself up for gaining a pound or giving in and eating that slice of cake. You can start again tomorrow.
• Stay active even for a little bit: As a teacher, I move around a lot at work, which keeps me active. When I worked from home during quarantine, it was hard to stay active while sitting at a desk all day. Even if you just walk a little bit, staying active is important.

In conclusion, I am still learning the ins and outs of my body as I gain, lose, or maintain. There is never an exact science to weight loss that I have found. There also isn’t a quick fix. My best advice is to stay positive and always leave room for self-care. One of the biggest things I’ve learned throughout this journey is to love myself and the mess my body is and to strive for inner peace and not perfection.

I want to hear from our readers. What diets have you tried and failed at? Do you have any tips and tricks you would like to share? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments and on our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.