The setbacks of November

I created my own misery in November. I did not take my own advice and ease into this new adventure. I did not take the time to listen to my body and give it what it needs. I did not allow my mind to slow down and let my body catch up. Everything fell apart on me.

When I first started feeling better I wanted to change everything overnight. I have this idea of the woman I want to be. A woman who is confident and crafty, who loves to road bike and be active. They are not hard things to achieve, you just do them right?! Well the more I pushed myself to be this woman the more I failed. I became very stressed out and mad. Eventually I got very emotional and just gave up. This was just harder than I had anticipated and the fibro was not helping. I thought since I had change so many things already, this was going to be the easy part. The set backs were not all from the fibro challenges, it was personality too. I have never had sustained energy for days on end. I have never had to prepare meals everyday. Even in the past year of slowing becoming "veganish" I still did not plan very well. I just ate a lot of sandwiches and salads. Now I was trying to change it all overnight. The fibro aspect as you can image intensified everything, so by the end of November, being medicated again was looking good. The problem is most fibro meds are anti-depressants and I know I am not depressed. I have to try harder to get back to that good place where my mind, body and spirit are in perfect harmony. I have felt this and know that it is possible.  

I have stated before that one of my treatments of choice is acupuncture. I highly recommend this for everyone. The treatment is not just for the fibro, it helps to calm my brain so I can relax. It helps to reset my energy and get things flowing again. For me twice a month is perfect and really helps. 

The past month and half has really open my eyes to the reality of Fibromyalgia and necessity of making lasting changes. Not just to compete in events, but to be able to compete in life. I am now taking a different approach by slowing down to enjoy the ride. Really focus on my goals and take each day as it comes. Life throws curves at us all the time and we need to be able to adjust and respond to them in a positive way. The goal is not to control every aspect of life, but to take the ups with the downs. The more positive we are the more we can achieve.

Thank you for reading.
Tabitha 

The Ups and Downs of October

I would love to say this has been the best month ever! Sadly it was more of a 50/50 month. I started off a little shaky with the workouts and meal planning. After a day or two I got into my groove and went strong for two weeks straight. I was working out noticing I was gradually getting stronger and had tons of energy. I was was even cooking, and enjoying it! I bought the Oh She Glows cookbook and was making a few meals. They were amazing!!

Naturally I hit my wall. I was impressed however because it had been a full 2 weeks and I was just now starting to get tired. I knew I needed to let me body reload so I took a few extra rest days. By day 4 I knew this was going to bad. I was extremely tired, sleeping an average of 12 hours a day, I was in a lot of pain and I just felt horrible. I was becoming very frustrated, but I know the routine. I needed rest. The problem was trying to get back. My body and mind were at war. My mind was spinning with all the things it wanted to get up a do, but my body was viciously fighting back. It has been a very rough two weeks.

I hate that I don't have anything else to report for you. I am slowly getting back to a good point. I hope to start working out again next week, of course altering the schedule a little. I think I will need to ease into it a little more and maybe take 2 rest days a time. I will say however I am not giving up! I am still very excited about doing this Sprint Triathlon. I just need to keep make the proper adjustments.

There are so many people suffering every day and trying to do everything they can to get better. I am inspired by those individuals and I will keep moving forward, as I hope each of you do too.

Until next month

Have a Safe & Happy Halloween!!

Not off to the best start - Week 1

I promised to be open and honest about my progress, so here it goes. The first week was not as great as I was expecting. The exercise were great, the food planning/cooking, not so much. I know it's going to take some time for me to really get the hang of being in the kitchen. I am up for the challenge though. I know how important it is and how much I need to rely on my food intake in order to not have as many "fibro flares". I have to be so careful what I eat so I don't get sick. In an effort to do that, I have to make sure I am getting the right mixture of nutrients. Of course this helps so when I do workout I am not in pain and sleeping for days. As I have mentioned before I love to eat out. I know this is a very bad habit and I am working on it; however when I do eat out, I make sure I am eating according to my dietary needs. Most companies have their ingredients on their website and you can substitute most things. I have limited this to once a week as a treat! Which is what going out to eat should be!! Brandon is very good at reminding me of this.

I did have a bad day on Tuesday, which started to come on Monday night. I can usually tell the signs. I start to get really tired to where my body will not move no matter how much I want it too. Than I am out! I just fall asleep for about 45 to 75 minutes. I have done this to Brandon a few times, right in the middle of a conversation. He has gotten to the point where he just puts a blanket on me and waits. I would get so mad when I would wake from a 45 minute knock out, because I was doing everything right and still having bad symptoms. However, the more mad I got, the more stressed out I got and the more pain I got too. I had to learn when to fight through and say OK, I have not had enough iron today, that's why I am so tired. Or, I just did a long bike ride and I need to rest. Knowing the difference between normal tired and fibro tired can make a big difference. You don't want to assume just because you are tired it's the fibro, because than you will not do anything. You have to know when to fight and when to let your body rest. This is true for anyone. Listen to your body and give it what it needs.

In a positive light, the strength training has been going awesome! I love that I can start lifting weights again and do cardio in the same week. I plan to start swimming next week. I am very much looking forward to it.

Until next time my friend.....

Nutrition, Nutrition, Nutrition

First step in training, nutrition! We need to fuel our bodies so we can reach our max potential. Even when not training this is a good rule to follow. Tomorrow I start my official tri-training, so over the past few days I have cleaned out my pantry and stocked it with some basics. I am not a good cook, I usually just throw stuff together. Actually "I hate to cook" is a more accurate statement. Planning meals, cooking the meals, cleaning the dishes always sounded like way to much work!! Now a days it is more work to try and find somewhere to eat that will not make me sick for days afterward. 

In the spirit of moving forward with my lifestyle I took to the internet to find some recipes. I stumbled upon this amazing website that has actually made me excited to start cooking. Angela Liddon at Oh She Glows (http://ohsheglows.com/) has some of the best vegan recipes out there. The great thing with her recipes are you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars at an organic food store, or try to find an ingredient that you have never heard of. She is pretty funny too so I enjoy reading her site.

Over the past few days I have been preparing my pantry for a true effort at my nutrition. Even though I limit what I eat, I was not putting proper nutrition together everyday. Brandon and I spent last Saturday afternoon at Sprouts market and found some great deals. The more foods I found that I could use in my recipes the more excited I got. This was great!! 

Everyone is different in what their nutritional needs are. I suggest talking with a nutritionist if you can or consulting with your doctor. I have an appointment with my physician soon. I would like to get some labs done and just make sure I am doing it right. I also log my food at http://www.myfitnesspal.com to help be accountable for what I am eating. Many physical trainers state that it is very important for you to log everything you eat. This way you can see what areas you need more or less of, such as more protein, less carbs (usually my problem). You can also log your workouts and make notes on how you felt that day. The more you log the better you can track and revise what you need to. 

Working out is another area where you want to be careful. There is so much research on nutrition and exercise, but you have to make sure you are doing things correctly. Going into all of this blind is a very bad idea! I am training with a friend who has extensive knowledge in bodybuilding. She is also someone I trust to do things the right way and not over push me. Plus it is fun to have someone to workout with who will plan your workouts for you. I wonder if I could get her to do my meal planning too!! 

Ok, now I am ready. I have my meal planning started and my workouts scheduled. I will check back with you in a week to tell you all about it. I would love to hear any feedback of anyone who is working to make some lifestyle changes or training for events of their own. 

Wish me luck!!

First blog ever

So here is my attempt to blog. I am excited to share my journey with you as I attempt to train and complete a mini triathlon. I will try to be as open and honest as I can with you about my past struggles with Fibromyalgia and how it has brought me into the now. I am very amateur at this so please forgive me.

 It all began on cold winter day....oh wait I was born in September. It all began one beautiful September day. Ok, maybe we don't need to go that far back.

I will start my story by saying I have been miserable my whole life. I am not saying all these years were miserable because of my life in general, I have an amazing family and awesome friends that I have shared many great times with. My misery came in the form of what some may say is depression, even though I knew I was not depressed. It was something different. I just did not feel good most of the time. The best way I can describe this is to say I felt like I had the flu with my whole body feeling like it was a big bruise. Very tender to the touch, couldn't move for the first while after waking, sleeping all time, being in a horrible mood and I was dehydrated most of the time. This lead to many unhappy days in which I missed events with friends and family and well was a b*tch most of the time. In order to be happy and not feel the pain I masked it with a lot of candy, fast food and adult beverages. This of course lead to more problems, more pain and certainly more b*tchiness. (if that's even a word). It wasn't until I finally got the one thing in life I had always wanted, my soulmate Brandon. I was 32 at the time, but I will leave that story for another time, cause it's a good one! I will just say it was the event that made me realize I had to figure what was really wrong with me.

In November of 2011, I was finally diagnosed as having Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a condition that causes widespread pain through the body. It is an inflammatory auto immune disease. I knew I had an auto immune disease but until now there was never a name for it. I was put on anti-depressants for about a year, but they just made me feel worse. I know anti-depressants are not bad and I agree they can be very effective. I just did not like them. I was desperate to get off the medication but knew I had to find another way to manage my symptoms. My sister had encouraged me to try acupuncture. I found a great place called QiWorks Community Acupuncture in Holladay and it changed my life!! I started working with Chris Rogers in January 2013. I was going twice a week for about 3 months and I was off my medication within 4 months. (Please remember this was my result, your result may be different. I am not encouraging anyone to get off medication without the support of your physician). The acupuncture got the change in motion. I am still going today, but once a month now.

By June of 2013 I was finally ready to start making major changes in life. I wanted to be smart about this and not change overnight. I wanted to do this gradually so I would keep at it. I started to do a lot of research and realized I needed to stop eating inflammatory foods and foods that cause dehydration and fatigue. During the summer I had cut out meat and started exercising. I was so amazed at the energy and strength I had. I could actually workout without sleeping for days after. This made me very happy, and motivated to keep changing. I had lost a little bit of weight and was ready to cut out more inflammatory foods aka caffeine and processed sugar. This meant I had to stop my beloved lunch of Dr. Pepper and Snickers. I will admit the Snickers was easy, but I did have a few DP re-lap's. By the end of October 2013 I was meat free, caffeine and process sugar free. As I mentioned before a major symptom of Fibro is dehydration. I drink about 100 oz of water a day, most days, and I still feel thirsty when I go to bed.  One of the major causes of dehydration for me was alcohol (which is true for most people but the Fibro intensified it). My wonderful love hate relationship with it was being challenged. I had to give it up no question. For most of us alcohol is a social thing, we love to have a few drinks with friends or over dinner. Well for me it was much more than that. I would pound my drinks because I was so thirsty and the next thing you know I am overboard. Then comes along the anxiety and mental instability that comes with dehydration, and well being drunk really. It was time to say good bye to that relationship. It was hard to be in a social situation and I admit I walked away from friends and events, only because I was not strong enough to say NO. I have amazing friends and I know they love and support me, but selfishly this seemed easier. However this is one great thing about feeling so much better, you have finally have the strength and confidence to be in those situations and say NO MORE, and reconnect with your life.

We are now going into 2014 and I was well on my way to feeling better. I was having acupuncture about once a week, but I was still not feeling 100% so I knew there was something else I could, but what could it be?? In April 2014 the bombshell called DAIRY went off. For those of you who know me pretty well, know that I am a huge milk drinker! So you could imagine my shock when I realized dairy is an inflammatory! WTF?! Guess my research was not as great as it should have been, or I was in complete denial. I am sure it was the latter. Thankfully I got over my shock and since I had given up so much by this point, the dairy was not as hard as I thought it would be. This was the major change that put everything in it's place. In August 2014 I was a changed woman! My amazing husband had bought me a road bike and I was hooked. I was able to complete a 50 mile road bike ride and month later did another 40 mile ride in Moab.

Ok, so now I am finally feeling 100% and this where the real journey begins. Now that you know the past lets focus on the future. October 1, 2014 I will begin training for a mini triathlon. I will do my best to give you a real account of how it progresses. I am doing this mostly for me to keep track of myself and to be able to look back at how far I have come, but I also want to share with others who are suffering from illnesses and looking some stories of others who are struggling. Even in writing this to you I am feeling very motivated! Please join me in my next phase Fibro to Triathlete.

Sincerely,
Tabitha

http://www.qiworkscommunityacupuncture.com/QiWorks Community Acupuncture