Checking in and Catching up

OK, I totally forgot to weigh in on Sunday or today. I think I’ll just scratch it for the week and get back on schedule next Sunday.

Last week, though, was a good week for New Body Experiences. I went to the gym twice to work out, which makes me feel like a rock star, if a rotund and easily winded one. The first time I used the elliptical machine for 27 minutes and the second time I lasted for an even 30. I have a ton of questions about things, like how to cool down afterward, what kind of stretches are good, etc. So I think it’s time to use my complimentary personal trainer sessions, which perhaps I’ll do in the coming week. Here’s the weird thing for me about this whole experience: while I’m actually exercising, I HATE it. I feel icky and clumsy and puffy. But afterward I kind of look forward to going again. Crazy! Some of it is just the novelty of the experience, the fact that the gym I chose is kind of swanky, etc. But I’m hoping to get to a point where I actually crave the exercise itself and miss it when I don’t do it. I’ve been at that point at other times in my life, and it’s great. Well, we’ll see.

The other thing I got to do was try Tai Chi. In my new job, I’ll be co-facilitating a relaxation group for vets recently back from Iraq, and my co-facilitator is a nurse who does a lot of meditation and martial arts. I sat in on one of his groups last week, and he was teaching Tai Chi. It was interesting and made me think that I might like to take a class in it. I’m finding that it’s kind of fun to experiment with moving my body in different ways, even if those ways feel odd and ungainly.

And in other, non-body related news, I am finishing up my post-doc this week, with many sad goodbyes, even though I’ll just be in another part of the hospital. I had my final Monday night dinner at the halfway house tonight, and they bought me a card and fixed lasagna in honor of my ethnicity. Cute, and kinda sad. I’ll miss those guys. I said goodbye this morning to a patient I’ve worked with for about a year now. She’s a 75 year old lady that has been processing some very difficult stuff from early in her life, and it’s been an intense working relationship. She said this morning that our parting was “like losing a little sister,” which just broke my heart. This is the hardest part of what I do. Even when there’s great satisfaction in what you’ve helped someone accomplish, the ending can be so, so hard. It’s going to be an emotional week, and a food-laden week, too. I just don’t feel like watching myself and worrying about what I consume, and I’m not sure I’d have the resources for it if I did. I’m just going to be in the moment and see what comes this week. After that…we’ll just have to see.

Luna Joins Up

Woo-hoo! Get ready to be proud of me…I joined a gym tonight. I agreed to go with my friend who is already a member, just so I could check it out a little bit. She assured me that it’s a friendly, low-key place, with lots of awkward and un-fit people of all ages and sizes, and that I’d feel perfectly comfortable. I was skeptical.

But you know, she was right. The membership woman who showed us around was young and friendly, and she had hips and thighs big enough to make me feel sort of happy and un-judged. My friend went and got down to business on an elliptical machine, and I just decided to get over myself and join. My fee includes most classes, including pilates and water aerobics (Thanks, *S*!), which are two classes I’m particularly interested in. It also includes three sessions with a personal trainer, which I definitely plan to use. But for tonight, I got signed up, got my complimentary newbie bottle of water and went over to join my friend on the elliptical next to hers. I didn’t know how to set it, so I just hit the ‘fat burning’ button and keyed in my age, and it told me my target heart rate and then kept track of it for me while I was using the machine. Each machine has its own little TV screen, complete with cable TV, but I quickly found out that I do better with music than TV. So I got to trudging away, and I’m surprised to say that I was able to do 27 minutes on it! Now, I at many points had to go so slowly that I got a message saying “workout paused,” but whatever. It’s a start, and yay me for taking my supa-brave self out for something new and different.

I was a little intimidated by the personal trainers I saw wandering around, particularly the guys. Some of them were huge and muscular and scary looking, but they have a couple of women as well. So, when I book my three sessions, I’ll have to ask for someone that does not look like an Olympian.

I find myself surprised that I’m a little excited and optimistic about this. It feels like a nice way to start reclaiming my life and my body after the multi-year avalanche of poor health-habits that was graduate school. I spent a long time getting my brain all fit, and now it’s time to work on the stuff from the ears down. I just have to remember to be patient with myself when it takes just as long.

Fitness Comes a-Callin'

The world is telling me it’s time to stop avoiding exercise.

First, there’s my new job, which comes complete with a fitness-fanatic partner named Andy. Andy’s a nurse and Army vet, and he’s very much into yoga, meditation, hiking, etc. He’s also a devoted stair-climber. My office, which I will be sharing with Active Andy, is on the 8^th floor. Andy has promised me that he will turn me into a stair climber yet…and I told him that I would give it my best shot. Now, you may remember that one of my mini-goals was to start taking the stairs at work, and I’m kinda proud to say that I’ve been doing that. However, I never have to go higher than the 3^rd floor, so it’s not really that big an accomplishment. But I do it. I have to admit, the thought of climbing to the 8^th floor has me most intimidated, but I’m thinking that maybe Andy will help me come up with some kind of training program. Seriously, if I try to climb to the 8^th floor now, my heart will burst and I’ll keel over dead on a landing somewhere between 3 and 5.

The second thing is my very good friend J, whose life has been full of stress in the last several months. I got an email from her this weekend (I was out of town—normally we just talk on the phone or in person), and she said that she’d been sitting on her couch all weekend, eating cookies and watching movies, and she felt crappy. She said that it was time for a change, and she invited me to join a gym with her. J has been a fit and active person in the past, but she broke her wrist badly late this winter, and it has not been healing well, despite surgery and lots of PT. She loves biking, but her wrist can no longer support her weight on a bike, so she hasn’t been doing much exercise at all. This injury, coupled with a lot of work stress, has gotten her to a point of feeling pretty depressed. Her invitation to work out together is great for me: I get to feel like I’m supporting her, and she gets to support me in my goal of learning to exercise too.

And that’s what it feels like: learning to exercise. I have always felt like the biggest, lamest loser when it comes to anything that involves moving my body around. I feel clumsy, sweaty, wheezy…just icky in every way. I’ve never learned to experience fatigue as a good thing; to me, it just reminds me that I’m fat, I’m asthmatic and I’m unfit. The asthma has definitely been a big influence here. I’ve had it since I was three, and it’s induced by allergies as well as by exercise. So all throughout my childhood, when I would run or bike or otherwise exert myself, I would have an asthma attack. We had to run every day in gym class, and I never seemed to get any fitter, though I’d run like the other kids did (though slower). Over time, I began to believe that I just couldn’t do it, especially when I didn’t perceive any improvement, and exercise made me feel sick.

So now I need to remind myself that it’s OK to huff and puff. Breathing hard is not the same as having an asthma attack. It’s OK to get sweaty and tired, because that means I’m doing something good for myself. Feeling weak and clumsy is OK, because everyone has to start somewhere, and this is where I’m starting.

Wish me luck!

(Oh, and I know…I didn’t weigh in this week. I was out of town visiting with family, and I didn’t get back until late Sunday night. I ate like a big, hungry pig all weekend, so I doubt the news is good, anyway. Next week, though. Promise.)

Weekly Weigh-In, and More Cuteness Concerns

Starting weight: 240
Current weight: 230.5
Change this week: -1.5
Total change: -9.5

So I’m talking this week to the guy who is vacating the job that I’ll be taking in a few weeks. This job, which I don’t think I’ve described in any detail thus far, involves doing outreach for and therapy with soldiers who have recently returned from the war in Iraq. Quite a bit of it will involve representing my organization to them and trying to get them to come in for treatment when they need it.

Anyway, this guy—the one currently holding my new job. As we talk, he’s going on and on about having to meet with congresspeople and the media and stuff in the course of doing this job, and I get a sudden, big pit in my stomach about how visible I’m going to have to be. How polished I’ll have to be, how articulate, how in-the-know…all things that will come with time, I know, once I’ve gotten myself familiar with the drill. But of course, the biggest worry for me is the appearance thing. It’s silly. I know it’s silly. It’s not like anyone’s going to walk out of a meeting with me, thinking “Well, gosh. That big ol’ gal sure knew her stuff, but it’s a pity that she’s just so darn BIG.” So I do some talking to myself and (sort of) get a handle on the anxiety. Then, the next day, one of my new supervisors calls and asks me to make an appointment to get some headshots made for the posters that are going to go up around the hospital of the team that I’m on.

Headshots, people.

For posters that are GOING UP AROUND THE HOSPITAL.

Shit. This feels like some kind of high school anxiety dream.

OK, at least this is a poster that will have a bunch of folks on it, so my mug is not the only one that you’ll see. Nobody will be zeroing in on my cheery, chubby smiling face. I get that. But this is such an adjustment to make in terms of how public or private my day-to-day life is going to be. One of the things I’ve always liked about doing psychotherapy for a living is that it’s pretty private. You generally sit in your office all day and talk to people one-on-one. Plenty of therapists do group therapy or give educational presentations, and I have done both of those things from time to time and like them just fine.

It’s just that I’ve never felt this much pressure to be presentable before. I don’t know what to wear for my picture, and I’m afraid it’ll be like getting a drivers’ license, where you look like you’re suffering from a nasty case of untreated malaria, and then when you went to get help the doctors beat you up. And that’s what you have to live with for the next ten years every time you open your wallet.

I mean, I’m sure if I call the folks who do the picture-taking, they’ll have some suggestions about what to wear and what colors look good, etc. They can’t help me lose 100 lbs and get plastic surgery and somehow have fabulous hair in time for my sitting, though, and that’s what I find myself dreaming of. This writing about it, though…this is helping. I sound so nutty, even to myself, that I seem to be magically gaining a little perspective as I type.

I’m just anxious about this change in my life, and about going from being a trainee to being someone who is expected to have her shit together. There’s such comfort in being able to plead ignorance or inexperience, which is always an out for you when you’re a trainee. The thing is that I never used that out. I don’t need it, and I know that. But it’s much more fun to be the intern or the post-doc who’s so advanced for her training, and gosh isn’t she talented, than the staff psychologist who is simply expected not to make a fool of herself or the institution she represents.

Here is Adult Luna speaking: I know it’ll be OK. I am so thankful for this job, and for the chance to stretch myself by learning to do something new and different. The anxiety is appropriate to the newness of the experience, and it signals the opportunity for growth and development.

Here’s Perpetual Adolescent Luna, who also wants her turn to speak: Holy shit. I’m scared. I want to be left alone, I want to just keep doing what I know how to do. These people will hate me. What people? I don’t even know, but I’m sure that they’re going to think I’m a total dumbass with rumply hair and no fashion sense.

I think for the next few months, it’s going to be anybody’s guess who’s in charge at any given time.

And while they duke it out inside my head, if anyone has any advice about how not to be crushingly, tragically fugly for the camera when I go to get my pic snapped, I’d be more than happy to hear it.

Weekly Weigh-In, and Cuteness Concerns

Starting weight: 240
Current weight: 232
Change this week: -1
Total change: -8

Whoo-hoo! I lost a pound despite having eaten out all week and not watched my intake at all. I ate loads (crabcakes, anyone?—when you’re on the East Coast, how can you not?), but I also walked all over the place. It was crazy hot, and humid enough that I think I was a bit dehydrated the whole time I was there. The walking made me super-crabby, but I can’t complain, as I came back slightly less lardy than I went.

The conference was interesting, I guess…I work for a governmental agency, and this was the first national mental health conference I’d ever been to. Lots of talking about big new programs and things getting rolled out across the country, but it all just seemed so heavy on words and light on action.

There were a few people from my particular hospital there, but I traveled and stayed with a friend and fellow post-doc. We were together the whole time, and we did lots of exploring and shopping during our off hours. She is much younger than I am, and tiny, and GORGEOUS. We wandered in to one little boutique during our wandering, and she tried on a dress that was just impossibly lovely. She glowed like the moon in it—it set off her hair, her big blue-green eyes and her skin tone in a way that was just amazing. I was so, so jealous. She was debating about buying it, and I told her that if I looked that good in anything, I’d pay whatever it cost to have it. And I wasn’t kidding.

I thought a lot about appearance this week. Being in a room with 600 mental health people, you realize that we’re not generally the most gorgeous group of folks around. I was remembering feeling nervous about starting graduate school, and I had nerves about everything from not being smart enough to not being cute enough. I confessed this last fear to my then-therapist, who started to laugh and said “Have you ever been in a room full of psychologists??” So, yeah, the bar is not that high.

But something about my new job is making me feel like I have to get it together a little, appearance-wise. My organization is generally not especially formal, but the psychologists do dress up a little more than others. I’m having that old feeling of not being polished enough, or cute enough…and I so wish that I could find an outfit that makes me jaw-droppingly, glowingly gorgeous like my friend did. I wish to just be that gorgeous, outfit or no.

I mean, realistically, I’m OK. I do a fine job at work, and my size/appearance is no barrier to doing the work that I do. I’m aware of this. I’m just wistful, I guess, about wanting to be the pretty girl I really never have been. Having a new job, and one that’s a little higher-profile than your average therapist gig, heightens those feelings for me.

While I'm thinking about it, let me say thank you to you guys who left sweet messages of congratulations for me. I'm so happy about landing a job that allows me to stay where I am, and I was excited to let you all know. Thanks for sharing it with me!

Weekly Weigh-In, and The 11th Hour Job Offer

Starting weight: 240
Current weight: 233
Change this week: -1
Total change: -7

This will be a quickie, as I’m trying to get myself packed to go to a conference for the rest of the week. So, I lost a pound, which is probably due to some combination of my period being over and having done my pilates video a few times this week.

Oh, and here’s some Really Good News: I got hired permanently today! It’s a great position at the hospital where I currently work and where my postdoc is getting ready to end. I could not be happier. The process was unbelievably fast, particularly for this institution, where progress is usually glacial. I was summoned to our mental health director’s office today, interviewed with him at 1pm, with another manager at 4pm and had an offer by 4:30. This was all for a position that I didn’t even know was available until last Friday. Unbelievable. I feel so, so relieved.

Well, I’ll post more over the weekend. For anyone who’s emailed me in the last week or so, I apologize for the delay in responding…I’m up to my ears in stuff.

Happy week, all!

Rainy Days and Mondays

What a wonderful day it turned out to be. I had a visit from a long-ago client, who popped in for a tune-up and some comfort. He was one of my all-time favorite clients, a sweet, sweet man who nearly wrecked his life with his addiction but who decided at the ripe old age of 50 to put down the heroin and crack and pick up his life again. He has done so very well, and he is now facing some terrible pain and loss in his life, but he’s handling it. I sat with him today and watched him cry, watched the tears run down his face and drip off his chin, and I ached for him and for my inability to do much for him. But I also felt so inspired by his strength and by the fact that he is facing some of the worst emotional pain a person can feel, and he’s living through it.

And then, Monday evening is the night I have dinner at the halfway house. Residents usually take turns cooking for the whole group, but today it was the staff’s turn to make dinner. The case manager and I decided to take the guys out for a surprise picnic, despite the fact that it rained most of the afternoon. We got all the stuff, stowed it in the vans we checked out and then showed up at the house as if we had forgotten it was our turn to cook and we were just expecting to be fed, like any other Monday night. Then we hustled them all into the vans and down to the lakefront for a picnic and walk by the lake. Fun! These are men who have mostly been alcoholics or drug addicts for their adult lives, and they don’t always have the best social skills, having spent most of their time drunk or high. It’s wonderful to watch them come out of their shells and start figuring that it can be fun to socialize.

I do so love my job. And as I wrote about here a few weeks ago, there continues to be a bit of uncertainty as to where I’ll be come the end of my postdoctoral year. It seems most likely that I’ll end up at a clinic a couple of hours north of here, which will necessitate a move away from my beloved current worksite, my friends, etc. I remain grateful for good days like today, but it makes saying goodbye all the harder.