Had a riding lesson on Sunday, followed by a 4-hour yoga workshop. It was such a good day. I wore my legs out riding the horse, and at the workshop only did 1 hour of yoga, but both were great workouts and I am sore today. But it's a good sore. I was really tired last night, and fell asleep while watching Arrested Development on Netflix, but I felt SO GOOD.

Horses are amazing. There's something about sitting on that saddle, swaying back and forth as they take their steps, communicating with them by just pulling the reins a little bit, or looking down, or squeezing certain muscles. It's amazing that you can communicate with an animal by making very subtle changes to the way you are sitting on them. They read every muscle twitch, squeeze, or release. They can tell when you are gripping the reins and when you're relaxing your grip. They know which way to move when squeezing your legs a certain way. They know to slow down when you look down because they're trying to be careful. No wonder people rode horses as their primary mode of transportation for a long time. Hell, I'd do it now...If it didn't take so long...And weren't so dangerous.

In my lessons, we've just been walking and trotting, nothing major. But my instructor yesterday had me trot in circles, literally. It's hard to actually keep the horse trotting while going in a circle, oddly enough. He would slow down and get lazy, or sometimes he'd think what I was doing with my body meant he should slow down. You have to be careful about what you're doing, because as I said before, they interpret certain things as commands. But when you do finally have that synchronicity with the horse, you're doing all the right things, and they're responding in the way they're supposed to, it's smooth, and magical. I just love it!

Also, because you are using so many muscles to guide the horse, you are working every part of your body at once. I think swimming is the only other activity that will do that. So my stomach is sore, my legs are super sore, my arms are sore, my shoulders are sore...And doing yoga after riding a horse doesn't help with the soreness factor either. Yesterday evening my legs were shaky, but when I got home, I lounged around and watched shows on Netflix. I felt I had deserved it.

So in case you can't tell, I've been feeling better. I wish I could do that much exercise every day, but I don't know how I would make that work. I also wish I could take riding lessons every week, but I just can't afford it right now, so I go every other week. Being on a horse just clears your mind, even though you are thinking about lots of things at once. It's hard to get carried away thinking about your everyday life when you're on a horse, at least, at first, when you're learning (or re-learning in my case). But I think I could use mind-clearing activities a lot more. Yoga and riding are the perfect combination, it seems.

This article on xoJane has restored my faith in what I am doing with my life.

You should read it, even if you don't read the rest of my post here. It's about fat shaming, not judging a book by its cover, all that good stuff.

The basic gist is summed up really well in the following:

"To paraphrase Marilyn Wann: The only thing you can tell for sure by looking at a fat person is the degree of your own bias against fat people."

"A stance against fat-shaming is not a matter of trying to make anyone feel bad for enjoying exercise/being vegan/wanting to lose weight. After all, there are lots of fat people who enjoy exercise immensely. There are lots of fat people who are vegan. There are fat people who do all kinds of things, because fat people exist in a dizzying variety of perspectives, experiences and lifestyles. Just like not-fat people."

"I choose not to diet, not to try to lose weight...my body’s dramatic response to starvation (and really, that’s what a diet is) makes it impossible for me to lose weight and still have a life that is at all worth living. My priorities are different..."

"Even for those few who manage to beat the odds and maintain a significant weight loss long-term, the price is constant vigilance, and I can’t live with that degree of food obsession and also be at all mentally stable...You may not understand this. That’s cool. We don’t have to fully get each other; we just need to mutually respect one another."

I don't think I'm fat. Sometimes I think I LOOK fat, but I don't think I am fat. I have decided to do what Lesley (the author of the above article) is doing - shifting my priorities to what is healthy, regardless of how it will make me look, and enjoying things in life instead of obsessing over things that distract me from the things in life that I should be paying attention to, like time with friends, or a really awesome piece of cheesecake, or even doing yoga (or writing run-on sentences, apparently).

The one thing that I ask myself is, "Will my body let me do things like yoga, take walks, jog, or hike?" If I am sitting around a lot eating fries and hamburgers every day, it's going to be harder to do the physical things I want to. That is one thing that bothers me about having a desk job; it's like I can feel my arteries withering up from too much sitting.

But in reality, I can do those things, and while I'm still trying to get back into things like jogging and hiking, and it's going slowly, I know I will get there again. And I may not lose a ton of weight in the process, and that's fine. As long as I'm feeling well enough to do those things, I don't really care. I can have a huge pudge and a round ass, as long as I can climb a mountainside without feeling like I'm going to die!

I want to feel comfortable in my skin, regardless of what people think. There have been times in my life when my family members have made comments about my weight (fat-shaming, even if they meant well), which was always really hurtful, because I feel like I gained weight very quickly and it just has been a huge struggle to lose it since then. It's like I was a skinny kid one day, then I hit puberty and the next day I gained a bunch of weight. But I'm trying to put those comments behind me and focus on feeling good, whether that means I have curves and or I don't. I also know that my boyfriend would be really sad if I didn't have my curves anymore. But I'm not doing any of this for him or for anyone else, I'm doing it for me. (By "doing it" I mean focusing on my health and what makes me feel good.) I'm not doing it for the media who think I'm not toned enough, I'm not doing it for my mother, I'm not doing it for my sister, I'm not doing it for my father, I'm not doing it for my friends...I'm doing it for me. Trying to find the happy medium where I feel good and balanced, healthy and lively and alive and strong.

Damn girl! That's hot! (Though it makes me sad that the website it was on had an ad for losing weight with Slimband...Totally not the point. By the way, this model is Tara Lynn, and she's like "I don't care what the scale says, yo!" OK, maybe she didn't say "yo," but that was basically what she said.)

I don't know if I can do this anymore. Life, that is. Not when I'm feeling so tired all the time. It was better for a few days, and now it's back.

I think there are a few possibilities here:

1. My medication. I started taking Celexa in 2006, then stopped in 2011 and started Cymbalta. I took that for a year, but I was tired all the time, so I started Celexa again because I never had major fatigue problems with Celexa. I started it again in February 2011, and in March, suddenly started feeling tired and have felt that way since Maybe in the year I wasn't taking Celexa, my body changed somehow so I now have a different reaction to it.

2. I'm understimulated at work. Well, this is something I know already. There are times when I have things to do and I'm engaged all day. There are more times that I am bored, staring at my computer screen, falling asleep. So maybe sitting here so long is what is making me so tired. My body isn't moving enough, my brain isn't working enough, and I'm turning into a puddle of jelly in business casual clothes.

3. I'm not exercising enough outside of work. Yeah, I was doing yoga every day and feeling better. But one thing happens that takes you out of the routine, and it snowballs and soon you find you haven't done yoga in a month. Ok that's not true. I've gone to some classes. But between money problems and being busy, yoga has taken a backseat. Not good. I need to schedule it somehow, just like I would any other activity in my life. If someone asks if I want to get together on Thursday at 6, I say "no, I can't," because I have a date with my yoga mat. I've been thinking about getting a monthly pass at a yoga studio. They offer tons of classes and it's cheaper to do that than it is to keep dropping in at different places. But, then I realized I could pay around $60 for a YMCA or YWCA membership, where they offer lots of classes, and not just yoga, and I could even go there on my lunch break and use the yoga studio when it's not being used. Booya. So that's the plan now.

Sorry this post isn't very controversial or thought-provoking. It's just me whining and moaning about how hard my life is. I saw a video today that was a white, middle aged, middle class guy talking about how white guys should stop complaining so much. He said something along the lines of, "When women are taking all your job and getting paid more than you are, I'll complain with you, I'll be in the front of the line at the protest. But until then, shut up." And it got me thinking about how I struggle almost every day with this fatigue stuff, and other things, and I wonder if I can really justify complaining. I have it so much better than so many people. I have a roof over my head, an income, a great family, great friends, a hot boyfriend, I'm not dying of cancer (that I know of), I have food in my fridge, clean running water, and I can wear whatever I want every day (within reason). But...when you're not feeling well most of the time, it's really hard to be grateful. You just don't have the energy. It's hard to say "I have it so much better than all those starving kids in [INSERT COUNTRY HERE]," because when you don't feel well, it's hard to enjoy what you have. And you may have a roof over your head, but you don't feel well enough to acknowledge it.

Yeah, yeah, I know everyone admires those cancer survivors who are like, "I survived cancer, I can do anything, I'm thankful for every second I have!" And that's great. Good for them. But the reality is that most of us who are struggling can't summon up that much positivity. I feel like my body is breaking down, people. I'm so sorry if I can't be happy sunny shiny all the time. I'm so sorry if that pisses you off or makes you uncomfortable. I'm so sorry that the way I deal with this doesn't match what you think I should do. I'M SO SORRY THIS IS MY LIFE AND NOT YOURS.

People don't get it. They don't understand what it's like to be in someone else's body. They can give all the suggestions they want, they can say they understand, they can claim they have some answers, but most of the time, they don't.

I know what I have to do. I know I have to get back into my yoga routine and do more exercise. I know I shouldn't let anything stop me. I just have to keep telling myself that. So please, just let me be frustrated about this in my own way. Understand that I have to sometimes back out of plans we've made. Understand that I can't be as social as I want to be right now. Understand that I'm in a unique situation and that it frustrates me just as much as it probably frustrates you.

I have decided that every time I write or do yoga, I will put anything higher than a penny in a jar. Then I will reward myself with something when I have enough money saved up. This might take a while, but it's a good motivator, I think. I started reading a book called "Change Anything" a while back, and it says that when you have a goal, make it into a game. So, this is my way of making it into a game and rewarding myself. We'll see how it goes!

So, my topic today: Slut shaming.

I love Upworthy. They always have the BEST videos. So, this is a 13 year old talking about slut shaming, and it is worth 3 minutes of your time:

This makes me think about how when I was 13, I was so immature. I was still reading the Baby Sitters Club and worrying about my weight, not thinking about slut shaming and how it's a horrible thing. Geez. Was that something exclusive to me, or are kids just getting mature a lot faster now?

Well, anyway, she so has a point. She has many points. I feel like it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Which came first, the patriarchy or the slutty clothing? Let's face it, prostitutes have been around FOREVER. Ever since trading began, I'm sure. Prostitution is the oldest occupation, and I see nothing wrong with it, as long as they're being safe (using protection, able to protect themselves from scary clients, etc.). In fact, I think it should be legal.

I digress.

I love how she says: "Slut shaming is the unfortunate phenomenon in which people degrade or mock a woman because she dresses in tight or revealing clothing, enjoys sex, has sex a lot, or may even just be rumoured to participate in sexual activity. The message that slut shaming sends to women is that sex is bad, having sex with more than one person is horrible, and everyone will hate you for having sex at all."

A bit later she says, "It is nobody's business but your own how many people you're having sex with."

Amen, sista.

It's this kind of thing that gives polyamory such a bad name. For some reason, people think they should be involved in peoples' private lives, which is just stupid. If a conservative person were like "don't have sex with more than one person!" how would they like it if I pried into their private life and said "don't pray before bed!"...Ok, that's the only one I can come up with. Conservative people are boring.

Anyway, this culture of slut shaming we have has really paved the way for some screwy notions about sex. If we keep this up, girls are going to grow up feeling horrible about themselves, horrible about their natural sex drive, horrible about their bodies, they are going to feel like they're owned by other people because they think what other people say matters so much, some of them won't be able to even enjoy sex because the whole thing has been twisted into this evil thing...Oh wait, this is already happening.

I'm not sure how we can change this for the betterment of all women out there who want to enjoy sex, and for the girls who should grow up knowing sex is natural and enjoyable. I guess spreading this video and this message is one way. Things spread like wildfire on teh interwebs.

So go forth, link to the video, link to my blog!

Please?

And remember, kids: "If you've given your consent, if you're emotionally and physically ready for it, if you're using proper protection, and if you feel safe and comfortable with your partner, then sex is good. It is nobody's business but your own how many people you're having sex with or how much sex you have. And you don't deserve to be hated on for being sexually active with more than one partner."

Bam. Most mature 13 year old ever.

I was going to post this picture as a visual of being insecure:

But then I realized they're like "Embrace your shape! Love yourself! But here's a picture of a skinny woman with long legs!" So, you can only embrace your shape if you're THAT shape? Or what?

So I found this instead:

Yeah, that's more like it.

So, the point of this post today is...I am feeling insecure today.

And I know why.

I haven't been doing yoga every day, and I really think that is the reason. When I was doing it every day, my confidence level was HIGH. I also slept like crap last night, and didn't eat the healthiest food yesterday. Insecurity all comes down to how you treat your body, I swear.

The lesson here (for me) is: Even if I'm busy, I have to squeeze yoga in somehow!!! Not to mention good food and good sleep. I have no idea why I slept like crap last night, but the crappy food and the stressful day might have had something to do with it...

I keep waking up in the morning with the intention of doing yoga when I get up. And it just doesn't happen. I wonder what the best way to train yourself to do this is.

Love yourselves, kids. 

(Sorry about the ugly lines...I think it's because I'm using a custom template and Blogger doesn't like it.)

Something strange is going on...

I look in the mirror today and I like what I see.

I don't know if this is because something has changed, or because my views have changed. Possibly a little bit of both. I feel like I'm getting more toned doing yoga so much, and I've really been working to change my perception of myself. So I think they are going hand in hand. I also really like what I'm wearing today and I think it accentuates all the good parts of me. (See, I'm not quite at the point of saying that every part is good...But someday. Someday.)

I somehow started getting these E-mails from some website called "Upworthy," and I have no idea how I started getting them, but I'm glad I do. They had a video today, which is the following:

I love how she points out that you can't just judge someone by looking at them. After I posted this on Facebook, a friend of mine commented: "I weigh over 260 lbs and I: can run over 11 km non-stop, can do one handed push-ups, can fireman carry a full grown man the length of a gym floor... at a run, have thighs dubbed 'Zeus' and 'Thor' on account of the thunderous power of my kicks, and have seen thin people have to lay down gasping for breath trying to keep up with the workouts I do on a regular basis. You wouldn't know any of this just by looking at me (or maybe 
you would; nobody ever calls me 'fat' to my face)."


Exactly. Way to go!


I also love how she mentions that fat is just a descriptor, it's what you attach to the word that is hurtful or destructive. Sometimes, fat is good. It's Halloween, you want to get a pumpkin, you find the perfect one, you say, "This is the biggest, fattest pumpkin I have ever seen!" But then you say it about a person and it's not a good thing anymore. Interesting.


Anyway. I'm looking at some of the comments on YouTube that people left. This is one that kind of made me angry: "in a time/place that is not suffering from shortage in food and most people are well fed, being over-weight will never be the standard for attractiveness and will be generally 
seen as un-attractive as it shows poor physical health."


OK, that is true, there are people who don't take care of themselves and as a result have gained lots of weight. Guess what, there are people who don't take care of themselves who are rail thin. String beans.


It's too complicated of an issue for us to just see it as a black and white subject. There are so many factors involved: Genetics, health issues, metabolism, etc. etc. Just looking at someone who may be fat and saying you know everything about them is just ridonk. RI-DONK!


So, meghantonjes as you are called on YouTube, you keep rocking it! You're fat, you are an inspiration, and awesome, and as you say, none of those things necessarily negate or make the 
others true, amirite?


Oh, and follow it up with this awesome video, which is a lot longer at almost 10 minutes, but totally worth it: 

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I have to remember that I am important, that I am a priority in my life, that I have a responsibility to be good to myself and take care of myself.

This is something that for my whole life, I have forgotten, or ignored. No wonder I have so many health problems now (seriously).

First and foremost, I have to focus on self care that makes me feel good. I have to keep doing yoga, I have to keep writing, I have to keep going to bed early, I have to keep eating well. Some of these things have been slipping lately, and I can see what a difference it makes. I have been tired and sore for the past week and a half. There could be other factors at play here, but it seems that because I haven't been eating that well the past week and a half or so, I've been going to bed later than I should be, etc., my body is now mad at me.

And I think I need to cut coffee out again. I started feeling really good after I quit coffee. And I think that includes decaf, unfortunately. Argh, it's so hard. Not that I have been drinking caffeinated coffee all that much (ok, I've been doing half decaf, half regular quite a bit), but I hope it hasn't been enough to cut it out again with no major problems (read: HEADACHES). I think I'll go back to just decaf for now and see how that goes.

At least we have a long weekend coming up. I am so looking forward to that. I'm going to get some much needed stuff on my to do list done, I'm going to relax and recharge, and it's gonna be great.

Maybe I'll go to a spa this weekend or something...

I've written about my fatigue and health problems before, and I was just walking through my office trying to keep this posture that the physiotherapist I've been seeing wants me to maintain, and I realized I felt totally silly, and it would be fun to write about on here.

Let me back up.

Earlier this year, I guess in March, I started feeling really super fatigued and didn't know why. I had sleep tests done, and they thought I might have sleep apnea, but the home oximetry tests they did didn't really confirm that. My GP was honestly really not helpful, so I switched doctors. My new doctor said "I want you to see a physiotherapist. I think you are hyperventilating and blowing off too much CO2."

This wasn't a totally new concept, because the tech at the sleep clinic said it could be a possibility that I was hyperventilating while I was sleeping, but I didn't think that I was doing it during the day.

So I went to the physiotherapist and he was like "this is classic hyperventilation syndrome." So he was asking me all these questions and looking in my mouth and feeling my neck and my back and looking at my posture and he measured my chest to see how much it expands when I breathe, etc.

Basically, his conclusions are thus:

• My tongue is in the wrong position in my mouth. I know, it sounds crazy. I didn't know there was a "right" position. Apparently my tongue has been resting down by my bottom teeth, and I was getting literally tooth imprints on the edge of my tongue. I had always wondered why that was, and now I know. So, he has been working with me to bring my tongue up so that it actually rests on the palate. My tongue muscles were totally weak, so he is having me do tongue exercises.  Not even joking. I stick the handle of a spoon or something on my tongue, push down with the spoon, and push up with my tongue. Tongue push ups.
• Because my tongue is in the wrong position, I don't swallow correctly, I don't breathe correctly, and my neck and jaw muscles are tense because by letting my tongue drop, I'm actually putting too much strain on the muscles. Doesn't sound logical, but apparently it's true. I was breathing through my mouth too much, and I am still doing that, because my allergies have been pretty bad and my nose has been stuffed. But I've had issues with that my whole life, and now it seems that some of it might be because of my tongue/nose situation.
• About the nose - my nostrils don't dilate when I breathe in quickly through my nose. They are supposed to dilate to let air in. Mine literally collapse so they close up. The muscles around my nose aren't working correctly to stop that from happening, so I have exercises for that, too.
• My posture is horrible. And I knew that already. But the physiotherapist is not even worried so much about being hunched over a computer at work, which is what most chiropractors and massage therapists and even doctors have said I do too much of. He's worried more about my lower back, and how I arch it so that I stick my butt out. I knew I was doing this, but I didn't realize it was a problem. I guess because I do that, my stomach muscles are weaker than they should be because they're not working to keep my tailbone tucked under (and I always wondered why I had a pudge that was kind of...stretched out. Hard to explain, but it makes sense to me now - you can see it in the image below, second from the left). And with my stomach muscles being weak, my diaphragm is weak, so I don't breathe into my diaphragm and stomach, I breathe into my chest too much. Etc. etc.

So this all kind of snowballs into these problems I've been having. I don't know why they suddenly got worse a few months ago, but maybe my body was finally like "wake up! You're not holding me correctly and you're not breathing right!" It just kind of gave out on me, I suppose.

Back to the beginning of my post - my physiotherapist showed me how I should be standing so my posture is correct. Knees bent and out a little, tailbone tucked under, but using stomach muscles, not butt muscles to do that. So I was just doing that in the washroom (no one was around), then trying to keep that as I was walking (which is really hard), and I realized it felt totally strange and foreign. I felt like I probably looked like I was hunched over and walking all funny with my back rounded like Quasimoto or something...But then I saw my reflection in a window and it looked normal. It just *feels* strange, because I'm not used to my back being straight.

There you have it. My misadventures in physiotherapy. 

Apparently I do that second one...

I'm trying to strike a truce with my body. It has been feeling a lot better lately from doing yoga every day. I feel stronger, mentally more "with it," my muscles are getting toned, I'm getting more flexible even in just very small ways, and it's been really good. But today I feel like I've been run over by a truck. My back is sore, my abs are sore, I'm tired, my vision seems all fuzzy, my brain feels like a giant ball of fluff, and I can't concentrate or actually really think at all. I guess everyone has bad days, but this was how I was feeling every day before I started feeling better, and I don't want it to come back!

I get paranoid that my body issues are going to come back all the time. Two summers ago, I started getting extremely bad pain in my knees, my shoulders, fingers, toes, ankles, wrists...But mostly fingers, knees, and shoulders. And it would migrate between those places. I had days where I couldn't walk right and was limping. I had days I couldn't lift my arm over my head. I had days I couldn't lift even moderately heavy things because my fingers or my wrist would hurt too much (or I couldn't turn a doorknob, pull a door open, put weight on my wrist/hand, lift even a glass of water, etc.). I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and I sometimes feel like that was because they couldn't figure out what else it could be.

I get so afraid that is going to come back, and after my first riding lesson here, it did come back for a couple of days. For some reason my knee was in so much pain, and I was limping for a couple of days. It hasn't happen since then. But I get so afraid it will.

Today I don't feel like that kind of pain is happening, but it does remind me that I have this constant struggle with my body. There are days that are better than others, and lately I've been feeling pretty damn good, and I really do attribute it to doing yoga every day. But I feel like this struggle might never end. And it makes me think that it'll just put me on the fast track for being a crippled old lady in a wheelchair. People say "it's all in the mind, you have to will yourself to feel better, erase the negativity and you will feel better." And I think that's true to a certain extent, but a) We can't live without negativity, at least not all the time, that's just not how life works, and b) It's just not that simple. All I can do is just treat my body with "esteem" as my therapist says, and treat it well, and be healthy, and feed it good, healthy food, and on days when I'm really tired at the end of it all, just acknowledge that my body got me through the day and I'm still alive.

So that's what I'm trying to do...Even though I feel like crawling under my desk and taking a nap.

I realized, I haven't written much about yoga.

Yoga is something I love, love, love. (Did I mention that I love it?) It's a moving meditation, it makes us face things we usually ignore, it puts us in touch with our bodies and every aspect of them, it makes us stronger and is a great workout.

I've always had a bit of a problem with the "westernization" of yoga. I took a class about eastern religions in university, and we talked a bit about yoga. Traditional yoga is not soccer moms wearing Lulu Lemon and spouting "namaste" at every chance they get. Traditional yoga has many goals and takes a few different forms, but in general, the yogi is trying to attain spiritual insight while meditating on the concept of divinity. It's also a way to achieve moksha ("release" from this world of suffering and being free of the birth/rebirth cycle). I think there are some yoga classes that touch that in our western culture, but I don't think it's anything like it would be in say, India.

(I don't do this) -

I remember hearing about certain yogis in India who believe the body mirrors the constellations in the sky when doing yoga, so doing certain poses brings you closer to that. I love that imagery, that concept. I also know there are yogis who practice yoga all day long, and they are quite hard on their bodies. But it's all part of the practices I mentioned above.

What I do love about the "westernization" of yoga is that we have made it to be whatever want it to. And I don't see a huge problem with that. I think we should be careful when saying that the yoga we practice is what they practiced in ancient India. We're not practicing that, we're practicing a western version. But, there is so much you can do with it. I have this wonderful teacher who is also a writer, and I adore her class. We do 45 minutes of "yang" yoga (that's "male" energy, getting the heart rate up, flowing through asanas, using our voices to release tension and stress, etc.), then we do half an hour of "yin" yoga ("female" energy) where we hold poses for quite a long time and relax into them to release tension in the body. It's a really great class, and it gets me in touch with my emotions, what's going on inside of me, things I might have been ignoring, and it forces me to face my ego...On Tuesday we did some Qigong with it, and that was really great, and made me feel so powerful.

My dietitian is telling me that I need to exercise more, and I have been trying to go on jogs and walks. But the fatigue I've been feeling is making jogging almost impossible. I feel so tired, so discouraged, and like my body is going to collapse when I do it. It's not normal fatigue from exercising. Even when I do yoga, I feel this fatigue, and it is different from 2 months ago, when my yoga classes were starting to feel too easy. Suddenly, something changed, and now even yoga exhausts me.

But, I think I am going to do a 30 day yoga challenge. Every day, I will do at least 15 minutes on my yoga mat (on the days I'm taking a class anyway, it will of course be longer). No matter if I'm hungover, tired, angry, sad, sleep deprived, whatever. I am going to do it every day. Maybe it will help me with my help esteem, and I'm sure it will help me mentally in other ways. And of course, I'm going to blog about it.

Stay tuned for more on my yoga adventures!

(My yoga looks more like this) -

I know I wrote recently about hating ourselves just a little less, but I gotta be honest...I hate my body tonight.

I hate how it looks in the mirror. I hate how I eat, and I feel hungry again right away. I hate how I have gained weight, how I feel in my body, my rolls and my bulges. Tonight, they are not curves, they are not "womanly," they are not sexy, they are ugly. I hate how I can't see my feet without bending over significantly, as if I were pregnant or something. I hate my double chin, my flabby arms, how my inner thighs touch, and my love handles, and I hate that name for them, because there is nothing to love about them, and I don't want anyone handling them.

I have struggled with feeling hungry all the time for so long, and I am trying to work on it, with a dietitian no less. And it just will not go away. No wonder I have always had weight issues, I'm constantly trying to make the hunger go away by eating more.

Everyone always has ideas, and sympathy, and that's great, but it's just not helping anymore. It's like the doctors and my dietitian telling me to just exercise, because I'll feel better. Well, I don't. I am tired, and hungry, and I want to scream and throw something and run and get that stomach stapling surgery. Or go start taking an appetite suppressant. I feel gross, and this gnawing hunger is going to make me go nuts. I'm starting to think there's something medically wrong with me, but doctors are stumped.

I'm also sick of people telling me it's in my mind. If I could take control of this, I would have already done it. I wouldn't have let myself get to the weight I am today (I was shocked when I was weighed at the doctor's office yesterday).

Another one I really like - "be kind to your body." Well, I would be, if it would stop being so annoying and aggravating!

Can I please just have a body that doesn't need to struggle every day? Can I just have a normal hunger pattern? A good energy level? A body I can be happy living in? Please?

Had to get blood drawn this morning. I saw a new doctor yesterday and he wanted to get some things tested. So I had to leave earlier than normal and didn't get a chance to write today.

I have a feeling this is going to be a pretty boring post.

I've been: Really tired, really hungry (even though I eat healthy food all day long instead of 3 big meals), busy, and bored (at work). That pretty much sums it up.

I don't have any special insights or deep thoughts today. I did a yoga class on my lunch break, which was great. It's 3:30 and I just want to go home.

How are you all doing?

I had a dream that "Tom" and I were back together, and that everything was really good.

I also had a dream that I was back in university and didn't want to be and was sobbing my eyes out.

Totally weird dreams. I wonder if they had anything to do with each other.

About the "Tom" one - I miss him. And I know he's probably going to look at my blog at some point, but he already knows that I miss him. I know where we went wrong, and the biggest problem is not being able to go back in time to fix it. Le sigh.

One part of our problem was my self esteem, my ability to NOT see my relationship as my identity and to NOT have my self esteem based on what kind of relationship I'm in. Whatever I'm doing about my self esteem, it seems to be working, somewhat. I mean, it's a long row to hoe, but I'm working on it. I think it's eating better and seeing results from that (though yesterday, for some reason, I was starving all day, and woke up with my stomach feeling totally empty this morning...don't know what's going on there). My pants are feeling looser, which is a nice bonus, but I also just feel healthier. The fatigue is still there, but not as pronounced.

That could also be because I have been going on short walk/jogs, and doing only as much as I feel I can without overdoing it. I should be hearing from the sleep specialist this week...Hope hope hope.

Anyway, about dreams...I realized that I don't really have any anymore. How depressing is that? Doesn't everyone have dreams? The only thing I can think of now is that in the next 5 years, I'd like to work on owning a place, a condo or townhouse maybe. The (North) American dream...I don't even have dreams of writing a screenplay, or making a movie, or publishing a novel, or any of that stuff. I feel like I'm finding the joy in writing again (it was gone for a while), so maybe I just need some time.

(The cow jumped over the moon...Way to go, cow!)

What are your dreams? Silly, serious, whatever...What are they, if you don't mind sharing?

My therapist gave me this "assignment" a while back for body acceptance. She said she read an article where a woman started with a body part and for days would stare at it in the mirror until she had accepted what it looked like, then she would move on to another part. My therapist said the point is not to love your body overnight, but to start hating it a little less.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my body. I mean, I get frustrated with it when it decides to be too tired for life. Or when it decides to start randomly hurting for seemingly no reason. And there are things I am not so fond of aesthetically. Sometimes it's my arms, sometimes it's my legs, sometimes my stomach (usually my stomach, actually), sometimes my nose. Other days, those things look totally fine to me (except my stomach, usually).

So today, I was just looking at my feet. I have times where I really don't like them. I feel like my big toenails are shaped funny (they also don't look the same), and my big toes have a gap between them and the rest when I stand, which I always thought was weird. I notice that my big toes curve up so the nails point up to the sky, whereas the rest of my toes curve towards the ground. And my second toe is shorter than my big toe, which I've actually never really minded because - no offense people with longer second toes - I always thought it was kind of strange to have a longer second toe. (My dad told me they're actually both Native American traits, that the big toe separating from the rest makes it easier to walk in sand...Who knew? My dad, being a doctor, finds this kind of thing fascinating.)

In any case, I was looking at my feet and realized they're not actually all that bad. Feet take a beating throughout our lifetimes. We walk on them, we stomp on them, we do things like squeeze them into high heels, which are narrow and unnaturally raise our heels; many of us when we were kids stood on them in ballet class while cursing ourselves for wanting to torture ourselves in that way (or cursing our parents for making us), and while I know that most people in North American culture don't move enough, we still have probably walked the equivalent of many, many miles in our lifetimes. At the very least, I should appreciate them for carrying me this long, even if I can't appreciate the way they look. If I didn't have feet, well, I'd probably be in a wheelchair, and I am very grateful that I am not. But, I can still strive to accept their shape, their texture, their colour, their uniqueness.

To sum this up...If we can't accept our bodies fully, if we can't love every inch of our bodies, maybe, just maybe, we can work on accepting them the way they are, and hating them just a little less.

"Thank you for calling Your Relationship, please hold..."

Tom, formerly known as my boyfriend, and I have decided to put our relationship "on hold." That basically means we are broken up until further notice. He was going through some issues, and I am going through some issues. He and I are on different pages in terms of what we want out of a relationship. He wants to date around, and I've gotten that out of my system. It's not that I don't want to date around, but I'd be ok with developing a more serious relationship with someone, and that's not where he is at this point on his life's path.

Maybe we'll get back together in the future. Maybe we won't. It could take him years to get to the point where he wants to be more serious with someone. By that time, I might not be even in the picture anymore. I may have found someone else, or there are a whole myriad of other things that could happen. (Though, I do have to say, if we did come to a point where we thought we could be in a relationship again...Thank the universe for polyamory, right? That is, if that's where I am at that time...) There may be no possibility of having that kind of relationship with each other.

And strangely, I'm at peace with that. Normally I would be freaking out, really depressed that this didn't work out, I would wonder what's wrong with me. I'm not doing that, not right now, at least.

We talked about still keeping in touch, because we do really care about each other and want to see the other get better. (Without giving away too many details, an event in his life triggered some emotional hardships and kind of shook him up; I am dealing with health problems of various sorts, depression, anxiety, and self esteem issues that go back really far and are very deep rooted). At this point, I think we could even get together in between and just be friends and check in with each other. That thought actually makes me happy.

I have to admit, though, there is a little bit of hope inside of me that this could work out someday. He said last night that he thinks hope always has an expectation. I don't actually agree. I think hope is leaning more towards the possible positive outcome, but knowing that there is an equal chance of it not happening that way. I mean, we say, "I hope I don't miss my bus," but we know there's an equal chance that we will. Or, "I hope we can get back together in the future," but there's an equal chance that we won't. Or maybe I'm just pessimistic and seeing this in a pessimistic way, but it makes sense to me.

Either way, it's time for me to focus on my life and the things I need to change and work on. It's time to see my friends, meet new friends, write (every day!), work on my crafts with a friend of mine, meet with my pagan group, get healthy, exercise, raise my self esteem (or at least learn to treat myself with esteem, as my therapist says), lose weight, and be in the friggin moment.

That's right. The friggin' moment. Booyah.

Good morning. Or afternoon or evening as the case may be.

This is day #2 of getting up earlier than usual before work and going to a cafe to write before work (hopefully this will become the usual). I'm sitting in the cafe on the ground floor of an office building across from my office building. In the midst of office buildings. So many office buildings. The only way we get sun in here is when it is directly above or when it reflects on the windows of the buildings. And that's when it's not raining.

Around me sit businessmen, in their suits, and their pressed shirts, and their ties. They chatter on their cell phones, their smartphones. (As a friend of mine once said: "Smart water, Smart cars, smartphones...Dumb people." She's so right.) As if the whole world depends on whatever business transactions they are doing today. There is a particularly round one who is trying to look down my shirt from across the room. Ugh.

Sometimes you can clearly see gender stereotypes in the office and business world. Because men aren't out hunting and gathering, they now have to be aggressive in their sales tactics and their negotiations. Though sometimes it can get downright out of control. I overheard someone in my company who will remain nameless on a conference call with two of my colleagues. Mr. No One, on the phone with another colleague with whom my company has nothing to do, was screaming at the top of his lungs, using a plethora of choice words. Something about stock, something something something. It was just nuts. But, crazy people aside...

I notice women in the business world really use their gender to get along. They tease their hair, they pile on make-up, they try to make themselves taller with their three inch heels. They wear low cut blouses. Of course, not all women are like this. Many women really are getting by on their talents and their expertise and their smarts. But I see a higher percentage (at least, in my mind) who try to use their looks to impress. Sometimes there are those who use their looks AND their smarts. They seem to be a rare breed. I'm not one of those people who uses their looks, but I do try to look nice at work, because that's what the culture calls for. It's all about culture. I sometimes I have to remember who I really am, what I really believe in, and stick to my guns.

I love my job. I really do. But for years, I had jobs that were fairly out of the norm. Retail, working on campus, etc. I seem to have forgotten about the rat race, the daily grind, the grindstone rubbing your nose raw. Sometimes I do feel like all that is left of my nose is blood and cartilage. (Too much?) I'm trying to figure out how to have a life, stay healthy, get exercise, write, and stay sane while getting up early every morning and not having any time to myself. I've also forgotten about competition, about impressing the boss more, about getting ahead by kissing ass so you can get a raise. That is not me, and unfortunately, that fact is not getting me ahead. Apparently having virtue and morals while trying to make a living isn't possible. But I try.

I've been really exhausted lately. I suspect I have a sleep problem, but it could just be that I'm exhausted. I'm waiting to hear back from a sleep specialist. But maybe it's just the repetitive schedule, sitting at a desk all day, staring at a computer all day until I feel like my brain is dripping out of my ears. I try to take walks on my breaks to get my blood flowing, but it doesn't always work. Then again, sometimes I walk up slight inclines and feel like I'm going to fall over and my heart is going to explode. That can't be normal. Bring on more doctors and specialists. I have been a pincushion for years now. The vampires and I are tight.

Anyone else having issues with the daily grind? How do you get through it? What do you do to stay sane? Be honest - do you find yourself putting a mask on to get through the day and get ahead?