SHOULD I GO OR SHOULD I STAY?

SHOULD I GO OR SHOULD I STAY?

Ok, here goes.  This is a very hard and embarrassing thing to write.  I hope someone of you will understand how I am feeling.  But I am not going to lie to ya'll.  They say the truth will set you free.  I'm hoping by putting it in the light, it will help me.

I am struggling.  I'm frustrated.  I feel like a failure.  I have gained 10 pounds.   It goes down and comes back.  I admit I'm not eating the healthiest these days but I have gained 10 pounds in the past week.  I wore a pair of pants last Monday and they fit fine.  Saturday I tried them on and I couldn't even button them.

I've had this happen for 54 years.  The path of least resistance is to just give up.  Start overeating and just quit.  I hear those voices from the past over and over:  "What are you trying to do?  Gain 100 pounds?"   "Hurry and eat before she gets to the table."  "You're so pretty but......"   "It's so difficult to sew clothes for you."   "Your waist should be 24.  Your bust should be 36.  Your hips should be 36."  This is the one area of my life that I have consistently failed at.  And I learned at a very early age that for me, if I was fat I was unworthy.   Still fat.  Still unworthy. 

I''ve never stayed on a weight loss program this long, 18 months.  I don't want to fail.  I want to reach my goal of being healthy and lean.  If I don't, I'm gonna die early.  I promised my daughter I wouldn't do that.  I want to see my kids get married and have children. 

I know my body and nutrition better than anyone.  I know that low carb/high protein is what works best for me.  I know I have to exercise 4-5 times a week, every week.  It’s not a matter of IF I want to.  It’s a matter of HAVE to.

My choices are these:  give up, gain the weight back and die from complications of diabetes or get back on what works for me and accept that this is the way I must live.    I wouldn't let anyone pump my body full of penicillin because I know it would kill me.   I have to accept that I can't pump my body full of food, especially unhealthy food and lose weight, even more important, LIVE a long life.

I don't need pity.  I don't need to be told what I need to do.  I need support and encouragement.  If you are struggling on your weight loss journey or even starting one, join me.   Please.  I need your help.  And hopefully, you need mine. 

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

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DO YOU GET OVERWHELMED?

DO YOU GET OVERWHELMED?

Do you get overwhelmed?  I do.  Especially when it comes to my house.

Now I do fine running two companies.  Every day I go in and know exactly what I have to do.  I run down my list and get it all down by quitting time.

At home it is a different story.  I always start with good intentions and end up not getting much accomplished.  And then I feel like a failure. 

Now, my house isn't dirty.  It's cluttered.  Not like a hoarder although I had one living in my house for awhile.  lol  I think the problem is I get overwhelmed.  And when I get overwhelmed, I just don't know where to start.  And that's where I get stuck.

Maybe it's that I just hate housework.  My daughter is a great house cleaner.  She can clean my entire house in a couple of hours.  I wish I was like that.  I have a friend and she is like a tornado cleaning her room and bathroom.  When we go out of town, before we leave she is saying "let me clean my room and bath before I leave."  And she does.  I'm satisfied with making my bed and leaving.  And I make my bed every morning and after taking a nap. 

Once I reach that stage of being overwhelmed, I am just stuck like Chuck.  I feel like a spinning top rolling around on the floor and getting nowhere.  I know I'll never be one of those neat freaks.  That is not even a goal or wish.  What I would like is to just have a neat house where the clutter is minimum and I can find everything. 

I've had this once in my life for 5 years.  That's when I had a cleaning lady come in once a week.  She did everything.  My laundry, my ironing, cleaned the entire house, vacuumed, mopped, cleaned the fridge and stove, cleaned the ceiling fans and blinds, dusted, etc.  I loved those 5 years.  And she did it all in 4 hours. 

I was able to maintain that week to week.  Maybe I just need a cleaning lady or to find my Ana and bring her back.

Am I the only one with this problem?

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Caryncann

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Weight Loss Support Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/CarynsChamps

THE RE-COMING OF AGE

THE RE-COMING OF AGE

1972.  I graduated from High School the year before.  My Daddy died in the fall.  I had spent a semester living at college.  I saved money over the summer and bought my first car.  It was a 1971 Brown Pinto.  Standard of course because only cool people drove standards and very few girls.  I could and I did.

The next couple of years were full of abandonment.   It was a time of sexual freedom.  Women didn’t fear pregnancy anymore.  We had the pill.  I didn’t know anyone who feared getting Venereal Diseases back then.  That’s what we called Sexually Transmitted Diseases.  We just called it VD.  I never knew anyone who caught VD.  I did hear of a few that caught the crabs but those were usually really nasty people. 

I called that time the coming of age.  Yeah, those were some wild and wonderful days.  Then I met Jim, got married, and had a family.  When we divorced I had already gone through menopause.  I noticed occasionally that the hormones would flare up.  “Hey!  We are still here!  Just been sleeping!”

The last few weeks I’ve had that old familiar feeling.  Now when I was married I could just throw Jim down and have him.  Not really but I could at least get an oil change!

This is more intense.  I’m looking at all men finding something cute about each of them.  In person, commercials, online, everywhere.  I’m even seeing older men and thinking, “Not bad.” 

I’m thinking the last two years of weight loss have done a major tune up and engine over-haul on my model.  Yes, I’m still that 1971 Pinto.  I need someone to test drive me.   And be careful!  You know if you hit a Pinto from behind, you might just start a fire.  Be warned!

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Caryncann

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Caryncann

Support Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/CarynsChamps/?ref=bookmarks

My Fan Page:  https://www.facebook.com/mylighterside

STRUGGLING TO LOSE WEIGHT & GET HEALTHY?

STRUGGLING TO LOSE WEIGHT & GET HEALTHY?

Anyone who has battled being overweight knows that for the most part losing weight is a struggle.  We can go for a month, 6 months, even a year and then one morning we wake up and something inside of us is tired of not being able to eat what we want.

It seems so unfair.  Why can't I have breads, sweets, regular Dr. Pepper, or two servings of anything?  And then there is that skinny person who can eat 4000 calories a day, whose only exercise is walking to the kitchen to eat and they want to tell us what we need to do to lose weight.

Justifiable homicide, I tell ya!  Unless you have dealt with being overweight, you just don't understand how difficult the journey is.  And you should keep your helpful comments to yourself.  Encourage us but don’t criticize or try to give advice.  Please.

Think about it like this:  Take an alcoholic or drug addict.   Tell them:  Now, listen, you have to drink alcohol or your drug of choice every day.  BUT you can only have one drink or dose of your drug.  How many alcoholics or drug addicts do you think would be successful?

But that is what is expected and required of people trying to lose weight.  You have to eat to live.  You just can't eat like most everyone else.  I wish I could just never eat again.  That would be so much easier than dealing with my drug of choice every day:  FOOD. 

I know.  I used to fast for 6 days and then eat on the 7th day.  I found that much easier to handle than the daily battle of food.  Of course, your body shuts down after a couple of weeks you go into starvation mode.  That means you aren't eating and you aren't losing.  That sucks worse than facing food every day.  I don’t mind depriving myself if there is a payoff but when there isn’t, well, that just doesn’t work for me!

It's not easy.  It isn't.  And anyone who tells you it is, is a big fat liar!  I struggle more often than I don't.  I fall down as much as I stand firm.  Some days I just want to give up!  Some days I do.  And then the next day or maybe 2 days later, I decide, again, that I don't want to stay fat and unhealthy.

It's ok to give in to the struggle.  We are human.  Take a break and then get back up on the horse.  Just know that there are millions of us out their facing the challenges daily.  We are your fellow warriors in the fight to lose weight and get healthy!  Come join our Weight Loss Support Group (see link below).  We are here to encourage and support one another!

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Caryncann

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Caryncann

Support Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/CarynsChamps/?ref=bookmarks

My Fan Page:  https://www.facebook.com/mylighterside

ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE TO BE TAN?

ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE TO BE TAN?

Are you a sun worshipper?  If you are, you are putting your life in danger.

My father died of melanoma back in 1971.  5 years earlier he had a mole removed which was malignant.  Melanoma.  They removed all the lymph nodes around the affected area.

The end of May 1971 he had his 5 year check-up and was declared cancer free.  He was a survivor.  After 5 years, they say you are cured.  July 3 he got very sick and started throwing up.  He never threw up.  They next morning he saw his personal dr.  He did a chest X-ray and his lungs were metastasized.  He was immediately sent to MD Anderson in Houston.  They also found tumors in his bowels.  They found that the cancer wasn't in his lymph nodes but in his blood stream depositing cancerous cells along the path.

A week or so later, they discovered a brain tumor.  They decided to give him a treatment of chemotherapy, which was a brand new treatment.  And then they sent him home.  Two weeks later he was transported back to MD Anderson by ambulance.  The tumor had grown to the size of one 2 years old.

I took care of him the last month of his life.  I was with him 24/7.  He was a preacher and he lost his ability to communicate.  That's when he stopped talking.  I had to suction him out just so he could breathe.  It always terrified him.  He couldn't eat.  I would make Jello water and squirt it down the back of his throat.  The skin of his gums started to peel away.  I was so glad when the brain tumor grew through the pain center.  He had no control of his bowels.  He couldn't stand to have anything on his skin.  The last week of his life the tumors starting to grow under the top layer of his skin.  Little black dots that became little pointed lumps. 

End of May, he was pronounced "cured" after 5 years cancer free.  July 5th, he was diagnosed again.  September 5, he was dead.  He was 45 years old.   I was only 18.  His weight had dropped from 180 to 120.  He looked like a little boy wearing his daddy’s suit.

He lived his life outside where his fair skin was burned over and over.  Please please please don't spend your time in the sun unprotected.  Just because your skin is dark or tans doesn't mean you are safe from melanoma.   The sun’s rays don't discriminate.  They just damage and destroy.

45 years young and gone.  At my age now I realize just how young he was.  You can prevent melanoma.  Put sunscreen on anytime you are in the sun.  The sun is not your friend unless you are protected.

Melanoma is a terrible way to die.  I can assure you that when you are in the casket not one person will say, "but doesn't she have a pretty tan." 

If you go out in the sun, put on the sunscreen.  Do it in memory of my father, Clyde Ogden Moore.  You were taken way too soon, Daddy. 

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Caryncann

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Caryncann

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MOTHER’S LOVE IS LIKE NOTHING ELSE!

MOTHER’S LOVE IS LIKE NOTHING ELSE!

If you have children you know there are times when you didn't like them much (and they probably liked you less).  When I became a mom, I promised myself that no matter what, I would never let the bond with my child be broken.

No matter how mad or disappointed I was with them, I would never ever close the door and walk away.  I can tell you there were times it was hard but I'm glad I've always kept that cord attached.  There should never ever be a time that a mother's bond to her child is severed.  We are their moms.  No matter what, the door should always be open to our children. 

Now, I'm not saying I'm was always a great mom or even a good one.  There were times (ok, years) that I thought I was the worst mom.  I didn't know what I was doing and I'm sure I did more wrong than right.  But I always loved them and never gave up.  And just like someone reminded me often during the dark times, "you have good kids.  They will be ok.  They will turn out just fine.   It just won't be for a few years."  She was right.  About it all. 

If you don't have a relationship with your child, please consider making an effort.  It just takes a card, a phone call.  Doesn't mean you have to try to be where you once were.  It just means you let them know you love them.  No matter what.

What if your child, the one you loved from the time they were born, died today?  Or you found out they had a very short time to live?  How would you feel?  Life is short and fleeting.  If you haven't told your child you loved them lately, do it today.  If you are close enough to hug them, do it. 

You may think you have a lot of time left because they are so much younger than you.  You never know.  Don't let another day go by. 

Parents shouldn't have to bury their children.  It sucks.  But it happens.  Tell your child or children today that you love them no matter what.  Forgive them for whatever you feel they need to be forgiven for.   Just remember, they are your child.

To my friend who is having to face the reality of her child leaving this world, thank you for reminding me how precious an honor it is to be a mom.  My heart breaks for you but I know your child knows through his whole being that he is loved unconditionally throughout eternity by his mom.

Call your child.  Send that card.  Just three words:  I love you. 

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Caryncann

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Caryncann

Support Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/CarynsChamps/?ref=bookmarks

My Fan Page:  https://www.facebook.com/mylighterside