Vacation woes

We got back late last night. Over all vacation was good except for my pain, fibro and diet. The fibro kept me tired all day so I had to have my usual nap in the afternoon - precious wasted time. And walking the boardwalk, one of my favorite things was nearly impossible because of the arthritis. I remember only a couple years ago walking the boards end to end for exercise since I was missing my usual workouts. Now, just walking one mile took about 45 minutes and I had to ride back because my knees hurt so bad I wanted to scream. So I spent most of my days relaxing on the balcony looking down on the boardwalk or sitting on one of the benches on it. Evenings, I went down to the beach when the sun went down enough that I didn't need my umbrella. I wanted to carry as little with me as possible so I opted to go later in the day and just take my chair. I am pretty excited that I only got a very little bit of sun poisoning on top of my feet as opposed to all over my legs and feet every other year.

As for my diet... it went all to pot. I guess I should start in the beginning or at least the beginning of the current chapter of my weight struggles since I haven't really mentioned this aspect here yet. In 2003, I joined Weight Watchers and Curves For Women. I followed the WW plan to a T and went to the gym 3-4 times every week faithfully. At the end of nine months, I had lost a whopping 15 lbs. which was my 10% WW goal. I got my keychain and never went back. I was 127 lbs., about 30 lbs. from my goal weight. After that I tried The South Beach Diet and didn't loose anything in a month. Next came Atkins. I did Atkins for seven months and did not loose any weight. But I also did not gain any either. I maintained my previous loss but was not happy with it. That summer about a week after we got home from the beach, I had an episode that landed me in the hospital. It was a combination of dehydration, anxiety and who knows what else but that started me on a downslide. I went off Atkins and started gaining two lbs. a month. I continued on this trend and ended up at my maximum weight of 179 lbs. I am only 4'10" so of course I look just awful. And the more weight I put on the worse I felt inside. According to my doctor there is no physical reason for the gain and I am not in the habit of over-eating - really I know how to eat healthy and for the most part do so. I have been trying every eating plan, diet or drug I can afford during this time to stop this terrible trend to no avail. So a few months ago I started thinking about Atkins and how I felt when I did it before. I remember my nails and skin looked great, I had energy and generally felt great. Now my nails and skin are a mess along with the rest of my body, I am so tired all the time and have absolutely no energy - I pretty much feel like crap all the time. I do have health problems now that I didn't have before - arthritis in my knees, neck and back, and fibromyalgia. So any way, I decided to give Atkins another shot. Also I believe that some problems with weight are heriditary. My mom was morbidly obease and finally had to have gastric bypass. My battle is very similar to hers, she also tried everything and could not loose the weight. I am so afraid that it will get that bad for me some day too.

I started doing Atkins on June 1, 2007 eight weeks ago. I lost eight lbs. the first four weeks and not an ounce since then. I didn't have any more energy than usual either. Pretty crappy huh. Well, I don't give up easily so I kept trudging along until last week... vacation.

I was going to stick to Atkins on vacation. But on Saturday morning at breakfast I thought why am I doing this? I decided to eat what I wanted and now I am paying the piper - I gained back the eight lbs. I had lost. Not that I didn't fully expect to but I had hoped in the back of my mind that it wouldn't happen. So here I am trying to decide what to do next.

Do I start over again with Atkins or try something else??? What???? I've tried just about everything I've ever heard of and failed. I am so tired of trying so hard only to fail over and over again. And I do consider my loss while on Atkins this time to be a failure. After all, I did not loose at all the second month. I am going to have to give this some further thought. I probably won't even begin to try again until next month.

I probably won't be able to do any stamping or scrapping until later in the week. But, I am excited because I got a new storage system for my stamp pads and want to get that set up soon. I also got some new stamps and papers to play with too. The new Idea Book will be arriving at my door soon and I can hardly wait to see it. It doesn't go public until September 1 so I won't be able to share any details until then but like I said there are some great new products in there.

Well I guess I've rambled more than enough for today. Until next time - God bless!