Here's What I Could Never Admit: 65 Pounds Gained of Sadness

As a silent caregiver, I've often talked about how no one sees me, recognizes my pain, cares.

What I have come to realize is that I haven't been seeing myself. Recognizing my own pain. 

How can I focus on weight loss or wellness when I am not even really looking at my situation? I am not beating myself up, I"m just taking notice. 

I had to stop - journal- cry a bit and realize: This weight is really sadness, loneliness, and isolation.

This hurts more than realizing just how out of shape and how much weight I've gained. I sat still (something I'm working on doing more of) and just felt it all. Goodness, that hurt.

Here's What I Know:

1. 65 pounds gained in 4 years is no small feat to accomplish
2. Losing it will be beyond tough unless I make a holistic plan
3. Caregiving is horrendously difficult and yet there's nowhere you can go to say that
4. Sleep is as important as protein
5. Exercise is medicine for my mental health
6. If I don't start today now it will be another 4 years and another 65 pounds

Hard realities, but realities nonetheless.

Everyone wants to talk about weight loss (plant based or otherwise), but I want to talk about the mindset behind why some of us need to even lose weight or become healthy.

These things are hard to deal with. To face. If I look at them squarely on, I have to admit how alone I am, and how that came to be. There are layers upon layers of this stuff here and it hurts to look at.

I thought I could bypass it all and just make a nice weight loss plan and keep going with it. Guess what? That worked for all of 4 weeks and BAM.

Reality hit. Hospital appointments. Home caregiving. School from home. No sleep. 

Then came homemade brownies, lack of water, skipping supplements, late night tv binging shows I don't even like and more weight gain.

I'm sick of this cycle. This is new and specific to this perimenopause, caregiving, lonely phase of my life, but I can do something about it.

Enter June: One month experiment. I feel like I can really try this because while there isn't a break in medical appointments, there is a break in other responsibilities for just this month. 

I feel like I need a running start. Have you ever felt that way? Like if you just could get started things could cruise along? I 

Instead of looking out and seeing how no one calls or seems to care, I am taking all the locus of control and realizing what I need to do for myself. How I can be my own best friend through this and how I can extend self-compassion to myself AND cheer myself on.

I'll be posting all the truth of this process here in hopes that it helps even one person. It has taken me so long, so much effort to get to this starting place.

Literally it took me years. I realize now more than ever if someone is dealing with actual burnout- clinical levels of burnout- the start has to be sooooooo slowly. 

Please come back and read the journey and hopefully participate in or start one for yourself. This is a low key site so no worries, but I'm hoping someone can get started long before how long it took me to do it.

Rooting you on.