what could have been

Here on this late Wednesday night, I am contemplating the life that could have been.  Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this because I’m 22, but because the Friends episode titled “The One that Could Have Been” is on Nick at Nite, it is making me think, which isn’t always good.  

I keep trying not to think about what could have been because that seems to always lead to bad things.  When I was seventeen I was dating a guy who was eight years older.  He was very controlling and emotionally abusive.  He never physically hurt me, but mentally and emotionally, it was a very tough time.  He didn’t like my family and several times even tried to turn me against my own mother, who was and still remains to be my best friend.  Up until this relationship I had always had plans of going to a four year university and “finding myself” and meeting lots and lots of new people.  However, after job shadowing at a local hospital, I decided on the career path of radiology technologist, which only required an Associate’s Degree at a community college.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do, but I can never help but wonder if he had an impact on my decision.  And then I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different had I gone to four year university.  What major would I have had?  Would I have met a guy and fell in love? What kind of person would I be?

And then, after a long, thoughtful stare at the starlit sky walking by the ocean, I jump back to reality.  And I realize I’m not some depressed psycho, but rather just PMS-ing and this is a normal phase of the cycle.  Although these thoughts do actually cross my mind from time to time. Then I can’t help but wonder about that one girl that turned down the opportunity to go to St. Andrews at the same time Prince William did, you know the one.  Would he have chose her over Kate?  Would he have ended up heart-broken and wife-less because of this unknown girl?  Just like my own questions, these remain unanswered for some unforeseen power to only know.  I think the “what could have been” thoughts are part of what keeps up on track to keep being a better person. They help us to live a life we will be proud of.  Do things we wouldn’t normally do and end up regretting not doing.  

 But at least there are a few things I know for sure.  1) I’m not looking forward to work this week, even though I love what I do. 2) I don’t like my co-workers. 3) I’m right where I am supposed to be in life, regardless of all the contemplation.  4) Prince William only married Kate because he hadn’t met me. And 5) Had I not moved an hour away from my hometown when I turned 19, I would still be with my ex and completely miserable.  

There are a lot of things in life that change, in fact, everything changes at some point.  So we have to go out and make things for ourselves, because ultimately the things that happen to us in our life are our decisions.  At some point, it was what we wanted for ourselves.  So this week, I’m encouraging you to not feel bad about your decisions and do something you wouldn’t normally do.  Just live life for you.

It’s true that things might change, but it’s also true that things might not change.  And when you wait around for things that might change, you always miss the opportunities that could have been.

soul searching

Over the last few weeks I’ve been thrown off my schedule.  I’ve been working odd shifts and doing this that and the other watching friends get married and picking out dresses with another.  I’ve gone out to a lot of parties and participated in some rather risque activities.  Don’t judge, we all do it.  Over these last few weeks, I’ve learned a lot about others, and more importantly, a lot about myself.

One big thing I’ve learned is that I really don’t care for my co-workers.  Don’t get my wrong, as people, they are lovely.  As co-workers, they are completely awful.  Lazy and incompetent most of the time is how I view them and these past few weeks I have only verified these thoughts.  And then they get mad when I’m there and I actually do work.  None of it makes sense.  But oh well, next week it’s back to my regular schedule.

Lesson number two, I don’t like to dance.  Scratch that, I can’t dance.  On a recent outing with friends, alcohol, and fun, I determined dancing is only appropriate for myself when extremely drunk and even then it’s probably not pretty.  It’s especially not fun after you’ve been drinking and then your friends want to walk to bars and clubs that are, what seemed like, two or three miles from each other.  When you walk, you lose your buzz.  And then you get mad.  Because a bunch of drunk people and one sober person don’t mix very well.  That’s exactly why you get a cab so everyone can drink and let loose and have fun.

Lesson number three, there’s a difference between high school whores and real life whores.  At almost 23 years old, I feel like I do know more than I did when I was in high school.  And who you thought were whores then, were actually just doing what people in their 20’s do.  And when you’re in your 20’s it’s not seemingly as bad as when you’re in high school.  Young kids should realize that they need to get an education first and then learn who they are when they are older.  Believe it or not, high school does not define who you are and it’s not necessarily going to be the best years of your life.  I hated high school, absolutely hated it.  It might have been different if my mom hadn’t been a teacher there or if I hadn’t been “Alex’s little sister” I might have been able to be more of my own person then.  But it’s not a big deal, because where I am now, I am having the time of my life and learning exactly who I am and who I want to be.

The last lesson I’ve learned is that I am no where near ready to be married and start a family.  It seems like this is the year for weddings.  I know probably about twenty different couples that are getting married between May and October of this year.  And they’re all really young.  And in the southern culture of being married and starting a family by 24 or 25, without a boyfriend at 22, I’m a little behind schedule.  But I’m definitely not ready to get married.  And I’m more than okay with that.

The fact of the matter is, I’m still learning who I am and what I want.  My point is that you shouldn’t rush life.  Take time to enjoy it, and don’t get too worked up about little unimportant things that don’t matter.  Know yourself before you let someone else in, be it your soul mate, new best friend, or just an acquaintance.  As one of my lazy coworkers once told me, “Sometimes, happiness has no rhythm.”

without lungs, you can’t live…duh

Where on earth have I been?  Apparently not busy enough to fit anything into my schedule of nothingness.  Literally, I have not done anything productive in the last two weeks.  I recently rekindled my love for Leonardo DiCaprio by watching Titanic in 3D and yes, it was awesome!  However, the ship still sank.  Other than that, I’ve made a trip to the beach and multiple trips to the yard to catch some rays on this Irish pale skin.  How tan am I now?  I am as tan as a regular person normally is.  I love being pale nine months out of the year.  Nope, that’s a lie.  Just like  a lot of the things my older brother told me when I was younger.  

Let’s start with the funniest, and most obviously stupid one.  About the age of 5, my brother made up the truth about a paper cut, only at the age of 5 I had no knowledge of what your body required to live or how paper cuts actually worked.  He once told me that if you get a paper cut and you don’t have any lungs, you’re going to die.  For the next five to seven years, I was terrified of paper cuts.  Other than the fact that they hurt like hell, I was terrified that one of those times I wasn’t going to have any lungs, and that I would cease to live.  I don’t remember exactly when I realized that if you didn’t have any lungs, you wouldn’t be living anyway, paper cut or not.  I know I confronted him about it and he claimed to have no knowledge of ever telling me this, but got a good laugh at it anyway.  Looking back, it is quite funny.  

The next lie, and this was actually a lie (I think), came when I was seven or so.  During a thunderstorm one evening, while listening to my portable CD player, with headphones I might add, I must have been getting on his nerves doing something.  He came into my room and told me I needed to cut it off because if not I would get struck by lightening.   Apparently lightening was attracted to music.  Now there may be some truth to the face that lightening is attracted to sound but it sounds a bit absurd to me.  There was no way it would be remotely attracted to my headphones.  However, being seven and extremely gullible made me prone to believe that I would be struck by lightening.  So from that point on, I never listened to music during a thunderstorm again.

“What is wrong with this stupid girl?” is what I know you’re thinking, but let’s face it, unless you are the older sibling, or an only child, you’re older siblings have done crap like that just because they can.  To this day, at 22, he can still get to me with that kind of stupid information.  We get along much better now.  

But that’s the way life goes and without family, quite frankly, I would definitely be lost.  So here’s to all the lying siblings, pot-smoking fathers, over questioning mothers, and grandparents who are so far in the dark, they think they’re back in the Great Depression.  Wait, that’s not my family.  🙂 

it’s official

this is the first time I have ever said this about a book turned into a movie!  The Hunger Games book and movie are equally great, although I still want to give the book a slight edge over the movie.  However, I agree with a post I read last week about the main advantage the book has over the movie and that’s that we get to see things through other perspectives, rather than Katniss’ alone.  And the fact that it left out a few parts, that weren’t necessarily key parts is made up for by getting to see what was going on outside the arena makes up for that in full.  If you saw the movie and didn’t read the book, I strongly suggest going back and reading the book.  You’ll realize more of what was going through the main character’s head throughout various aspects of the plot.  You’ll understand everything in general just a little better. If you can’t tell by now, The Hunger Games is my new obsession.  I plan on being at midnight premiers of all the sequels. This must be the first time I haven’t been disappointed by the movie version of a book.  But I’ll let you read and watch and decide for yourself.  

In exercise news! I’m still at a plateau with my weight loss, however, I believe I am coming to that point of exercise where I believe it may be becoming a habit.  I always feel better when I do it (duh!), and now it’s getting to the point where if I don’t do it then I can start to feel my body become weak and tired before it even happens.  I can especially feel it on my last night of work when it’s been a day or more since I’ve done my last session.  My body is finally craving a workout, which in the long run, will work out great for me!  

Now, I’ve incorporated in muscle toning and building by using some free weights, working on my abs, and doing squats, lunges, and several other forms of torture.  My legs are about to fall off or turn into jello one, I’m not sure which will actually happen first.  I know that I can’t give up though.  I can see a change in myself and other people can also see a change in me and those two things make all the tiring hours and hard work worth it.  As they say: No pain, no gain.

…lowering expectations

I’ve always thought that I was a good person.  I went to church, I was nice to people, I love and obeyed my parents, I went out of my way to do good things and be nice to people I didn’t necessarily want to do things for.  Somewhere along the way it made my skin not grow quite as “thick” as others.  When I was young this wasn’t an issue except with my brother, who still to this day, knows exactly which buttons to push to get me all worked up and upset.  As I’ve grown older, my expectations of those around me soared to unobtainable heights.  I thought that since I had been a good person, so should everyone else and if I was willing to do for them, then there was the big possibility that they would be willing to do for me as well.

The last two years have changed that drastically.  I can see it now in old friends from high school who just use you for their own happiness.  I see it in my coworkers who ask favors of me but are unwilling to return the favor at another given point in time.  I see it in the way the guy I thought was going to be different, proved to me that they really are all the same.

These instances have made my skin grow thicker even though I am far from a tough exterior and the “I don’t give a shit” attitude that so many people tell me I should have.  Don’t get me wrong, I still care about the people who mean things to me, who I love, but I’m finding it much harder to even like those people who I once thought were the good ones.  To be quite honest, it’s not easy for me to just not care.  I’m that person.  I care what people are thinking and feeling about me and the things I do.  Until I learn to stop caring what people think, then I will always be this person.  I have to stop pleasing others and start learning to please myself and make myself happy.

Being a perfectionist my entire life hasn’t helped that case any at all.  I’ve set my own standards to unreachable distances.  I never wanted to let my parents down in school, so I pushed myself to get good grades.  I’ve always wanted people to like me so I did whatever I could to get them to do just that.  I’ve always had a problem with letting people down and I’ve learned now that sometimes you have to do that.  You can’t live your life expecting to make everyone else happy.  You must always put yourself first!

So starting now, I am making a lifelong resolution to put myself first, to make myself happy before others.  Don’t let other people, who typically only bring you down, be the source of your happiness.

With that said, I leave you with this:

There are far, far better things ahead, than any we leave behind. -C.S. Lewis

Day 107

Current Weight: 177.8

I’ve recently found out that a small part of losing weight are what you consider your friends.  I’ve found that protein and water and your two biggest allies.  And while I’ve actually gained a little weight this week, which is probably in part to half a large bag of M&Ms I finished off last night, I’m not letting it set me back.  Weight fluctuates and you have off weeks and that’s okay, you just can’t let it get to you.   

But back to my original topic.  I’ve found that replacing a lot of my drinks that I normally crave with water actually help give me more energy and cut out my craving for an ice cold, delicious Dr. Pepper.  *Cue mouth watering drool and Homer Simpson face*  And now it even seems when I drink one, even if I really seem to be craving it, it just doesn’t taste quite as good as I feel it should.  And that disappoints me to an extent which I cannot explain.  Because really I shouldn’t be craving them at all, right? If you say so.  

And it’s true what they say about big breakfast, filled with protein.  If you eat a big breakfast filled with protein, you’ll be less hungry throughout the rest of the day.  So, on the days I don’t work, I try to cook a breakfast of two scrambled eggs, a whole wheat English muffin, and some type of fruit to round out the meal.  Unfortunately my body still wants to eat somewhere around four in the afternoon and that in itself can prove to be difficult.  Being a broke kid, it’s hard to store “snack” food so what food I do have in the cabinet is usually something that needs to be eaten at a meal.  Until tonight,  I went to the store and now have both snack foods and what will soon be ice cold, delicious Dr. Peppers.  Ahhhh, can’t wait!

On a completely unrelated note, I have recently started reading the Hunger Games books, and I have to say, Wow!  I’ve always loved to read, and I was one of the original Harry Potter fans.  I skipped the Twilight series thinking I just didn’t want to get into that again.  Plus the whole idea of vampires scared me slightly.  I originally intended on skipping this series as well, even after seeing the previews on television for the movies.  It wasn’t until my brother had almost finished the first book and was planning on going to see the movie this weekend, that I was interested.  My brother is not one to pick up a book and read it, so the fact that he bought it on his Kindle made me think.  If he’s THAT into it, then I probably would be too.  Shortly after he gave me the rundown on the premise of the book, I also bought a copy.  And now it’s literally all I can do to put it down.  I finished the first book in just three days, and immediately bought the second and third books and will probably be finished by Sunday with those.  These books have all the components that books need.  Love, drama, slight comedy, rebellion, a tale of triumph, a journey, and that one character that you WANT to be.  So if you’re bored and want a new adventure, pick it up and get to reading. After you finish reading this, of course!  🙂

day 101

Current weight: 177 lbs.

I’m starting this on day 101 because I’m not exactly sure what day it would be at this point that I started my weight loss.  I know it was roughly one year ago so for this purpose, one year equals one hundred days.  I’ll tell you now, if math skills are important to you, turn away now, because I am terrible at math.  

As with most successful weight loss stories, mine begins with a turning point.  Several, actually.  At 21, I was 205 lbs. and at my heaviest.  I had always promised myself that I wouldn’t get above 200 lbs., but here I was.  That was my first turning point.  The second came after my first visit to my gynecologist around the same time.  I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS.  Mostly this was genetic but my weight was also affecting this.  My doctor told me that it could cause infertility later in in life, when and if I decided to have kids.  

Now, being 21 and single, I wasn’t exactly ready for kids but I have always seen them in my future.  So the fact that they might not be a possibility hit my fairly hard.  I started taking birth control and given a long list of other things I could do to help this diagnosis get better.  Losing weight was, of course, at the top of that life.  Like any fertility doctor will tell you, being in top shape is a plus one for fertility.  So I knew I had to do something, and soon.

So naturally, I did nothing. 

The birth control helped at first.  I had heard that birth control could cause weight gain, but the opposite had happened for me.  By May, 2 months later, I had lost 7 lbs.  No effort at all was made to lose those 7 lbs.  Slowly, over the next few months, the pounds came off more.  By September, I was up to a total of 12 lbs. lost.  I know this is no big feat, but for me it was like striking gold.  I knew that it wouldn’t last forever.  

My weight continued to fluctuate at that point for the remainder of the year.  I got to one point where I was unable to eat large amounts of food without becoming nauseated and in a lot of pain.  I put up with that for two months before finally going to see my primary care doctor and turns out it was acid reflex.  Who knew that was so painful?

By January 2012, I had that under control and as every new year brings, I had made a new resolution.  It was not weight loss, but rather a resolution to make a better me and take control of my life.  Losing weight was automatically included in that resolution.  I signed up for Weight Watchers on January 4, 2012, and I will be the first to say that if you follow the plan, you WILL  lose the weight.

When February 1st rolled around, I was down to 185 lbs. and, while far from my goal, I felt more confident then ever.  I also moved into my first big girl apartment.  I was finally taking control of my life.  I felt great and I was finally independent.  

I took an elliptical from my parents house, and while it took some time, I am consistently using it three to four times a week and I have never felt better.

Having now moved out on my own, I also had my very own expenses and unfortunately that meant cutting out “extra” things, like Weight Watchers.  Although I only used it for two months, I did learn a lot about what I was eating and where my extra calories and food intake was coming from.  It did teach me to not only eat smaller portions but to eat healthier as well.  

My third and final turning point came with a recent blood work check up.  My overall cholesterol was fine, however, my LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides were elevated and I was told I needed to get those down, seeing as how heart disease runs in my family.  I really don’t want to have a heart attack when I’m 45.  So, with all that said, it is now mid-March and roughly one year later and I have lost almost a total of 30 lbs.  I feel great and the best part is that people actually notice!!

the way i was…

So let me start off by saying “Hi!”  Corny, I know.  My name is Katie.  I’m starting this to mostly share my journey with weight loss and how it affects my life.  Maybe to even give inspiration to others to make their lives better.  Along the way, I will also be sharing my musings on life and experiences.  Some are good, some might be bad, some might make you laugh, and some might make you cry.  Because let’s face it, that’s what life does to us.

Now, on the topic of weight loss, I am not fitness or nutrition expert but I have had those few turning points in my life that have caused me to think twice about the decisions I make and the way I handle my health.  Hopefully I can share this experience of life and at least make one person laugh or inspire another to make their life better, and if I can do that then the journey will be 100 times better.

So read along if you want.  Share your stories, thoughts, successes and failures.  Ask questions and share answers.  For after all, isn’t life a little better with an audience?