Winning my battle against anxiety!

[Shadowhawk]

Enough is enough damnit. Today is the day I stop losing, and start winning.

For months, many of you know I have been kicking my own butt with anxiety and depression. I am fat, and have health worries, on top of suddenly being left to become a single father. And to say I have been handling it less than gracefully is an understatement. I have no doubt that this year of worry has cut off years of my life.

But today, I am putting my foot down.
No more of this.
No more being a coward.
No more living in shame.
I am not going to let my health worries rule my life any longer. I am not going to let my fear steal any more of the joy in my life.

I have health worries. My heart is slightly enlarged from my blood pressure. My liver has fat thanks to my lifestyle. This all still scares the hell out of me, and will for some time. But being scared isn't going to fix me. Taking action will fix me.

This morning my scale said 291.8. That is alot, and I have a long way to go. But when I started this, my scale said 330, so I am celebrating this. I am a week into Keto, and plan on making it my new lifestyle.

In December 2017, I couldn't walk more than a block before I had crippling back pain. As of this week, I can walk 2.5 miles straight, or do a mile walking and a mile and a half on the elliptical. I plan on challenging myself to ramp up those numbers (they are rookie numbers!!)

No more will I be a coward. I may well be dying, but I have decided that I will go down fighting tooth and nail, and not go out like a pussy. People with cancer fight. People with terminal illness fight. I too will fight, and I will show my daughter a fighting spirit right to my bloody end. People have beaten worse, and I will too by gosh. I will use my fear as a motivator. I will channel that nervous energy as fuel to never give up.

Retreat, Hell!

[Fishmanpa]

Brilliant post Shadowhawk! Sometimes a good swift kick in the butt from yourself is the catalyst you need.

I'm dealing with some personal issues and feeling a bit knocked down and reading this reminded me of what I've done time and again in my life when the adversary seemed overwhelming. Thank you for this!

Positive thoughts

[Shadowhawk]

Genuinely happy to help!


If you need to talk or even just vent, please do so! Happy to listen and help in any way i can.

You are very right.. a good swift kick really is needed sometimes. And if we fall down.. shake it off, and pick yourself up again. This is a journey, not a race, and what matters is that we keep going; a fall is not the end of the world. :)

[Sparky16]

Awesome, Shadowhawk! :yahoo:

I too need to get back on the exercise train and lose weight. I need to drop about 50 pounds or it's going to cause me real health problems, not just imaginary ones! Your story has me revved up to start fresh again tomorrow.

[Shadowhawk]

Awesome, Shadowhawk! :yahoo:

I too need to get back on the exercise train and lose weight. I need to drop about 50 pounds or it's going to cause me real health problems, not just imaginary ones! Your story has me revved up to start fresh again tomorrow.

Until we are dead, its never to late to make a positive change, and it can always make a world of difference. Like you, sustaining this weight will cause me further problems, so I still have a way to go. But as long as we are alive, we have a fighting chance to start over and turn things around.

One thing that happens to us HA people, is that a small setback can lead to a train wreck, creating a cascade of worry. We all must focus on taking things one day at a time, and not letting a bad day could a week, month, or year of positive progress. That bad day soon becomes the past, and we have a new chance at the start of the next to get back on track.

Never give up, never surrender!

[Shadowhawk]

So, I just learned an interesting lesson.. Medial test devices do have finite lifespans.

With me getting into the keto diet, I thought I would use some 10 panel pee test strips that I have (bought in panic 5 months ago). So, I do me thing, but the results manage to come back and freak me out for a while. Things were just all over the chart, and didn't make sense. It was saying my liver might be cirrhotic, I was peeing white cells like mad, etc. Now, I have my fatty liver problem, but this test didn't make sense. Happily, I was able to apply some rational thinking before I lost it in panic, and well, the results (seen in the attachments) speak for themselves.

As you can see, it appears that my house also has off the chart white blood cells (the first one), urobilinogen (3rd from the top, the first brown one), and ketones (at the bottom, the other brown one). So, either my house and I have identical problems, or... the strips have gone bad. I took a look, and they rate them for 3 months following opening, less in humid climates. Well, I opened them in May, and live in Florida...

And thus to be sure I cant antagonize over them anymore, and wonder and wonder, I have filled the bottle with water, ruined the rest of the strips, and threw them away. I am sure many can appreciate how hard this is, as throwing away something like this is not easy. But I know this is the right thing to do, knowing I can't trust the test anymore, but at times of worry, would still be tempted to use it..