We all fall down...

I have a friend who is amazing. She is a fantastic writer and has a super funny blog, where she writes about the dealings of being a stay at home mom, with a little spice, a lot of humor and some 80's song references thrown into the mix. Amidst all the funny stories about her son embarrassing her with unnaturally large "treasures" he's found in his nose, she's got a great message to other moms--it's ok to admit that sometimes its too much and it's ok to ask for help (although she of course puts it way more eloquently than I do.) I've been thinking about this a lot lately. You see, I'm a competitive person. I know a lot of people say that they are competitive, but I'm obsessively competitive, and as a result of my competition, I have a certain drive for perfectionism. This equates to, I have to do everything, do it all myself, and do it better than anyone else has ever done it before and at a certain point...it kinda falls apart.

Let me start by saying this, I love what I do. I love being a mom. I love talking about fitness. I especially love when I can help other people get on track with their health and fitness and they come to me excitedly telling me that they've lost 5 pounds and I know that I've had some part in that! It makes me feel validated, it makes me feel like I've done something right. Especially when considering the role as mom, and the end results of success or failure are so far removed, it's nice to be able to see success in the short term. Of course in my quest for perfection there are certain self-imposed standards that I *must* live up to. Afterall, how can I motivate, inspire and coach others in their health and fitness if I'm not living it? There is a point when at least for a time it might extend beyond your control.

I use caution with statements like that, because I loathe making excuses. I'm not one to ever say to myself, "It's ok to eat that chocolate sundae, you're under a lot of stress right now" rather I will eat the sundae and then berate myself for days over the inherent failure that I am. It's a warped mentality, I know. I was so proud of myself, though. I was less than 10lbs from hitting my ULTIMATE goal weight, 8 lbs to be exact. Things were going well. I had my regular workout regime, I was happy to "push play" every day and push myself to my physical limits. I had my fridge stocked with healthy foods, and the snacks that Alex and the girls kept were no temptation for me, and then the worst possible thing could have happened...steroids!

Almost 2 years ago now, I was told that I had MS, after losing all feeling on the left side of my body. At the time I was still nursing our youngest daughter and so had to allow my body to recover on it's own, as much as it would. Eventually the numbness scaled back to just my left arm, but has remained since, and according to my neuro will remain forever. In spring of last year, as I was begrudgingly anticipating starting my daily injections of beta blockers, I was told that the diagnosis was incorrect, with having only one lesion on my cervical spine the diagnosis was now Clinically Isolated Syndrome and not MULTIPLE sclerosis. This was good news. This meant that I didn't have to take the daily injections, that I might never have another episode, that I might not ever even have to think about this again, except for the necessary coping of having a permanently numb arm. Unfortunately, in my mind, those "mights" became "woulds" and I was convinced that I was fine.

About 2 months ago now, it became glaringly apparent that wasn't the case. As I was taking off my socks one evening and my nail scrapped the bottom of my foot, I noticed that the feeling was gone. Immediately I was gripped with fear and started to tear up. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. By the next morning all of the feeling on my left side was gone again, and so it was off to the neuro to start the s word...steroids. For 2 weeks, every morning I took the awful pills, at ridiculously high doses with out any relief of the numbness. While I didn't get relief, I did get increased appetite, weight gain, irritability, inability to sleep and overall being miserable. After 2 weeks my weight was UP 15lbs. I was less than 8 lbs from my goal, and now here I was a full 23 away now! How could this happen?! Since that time, it's been a huge struggle. I'll lose a little, and gain it right back. I'll put reminders all over my kitchen, threatening messages on my refrigerator and pantry touting, "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO EAT THAT?" And apparently even though I don't want the weight gain, and I'll beat myself up over it for days, I eat it anyway.

So a few days ago, I made a resolution. I had 60 days until an important event, and at that point, I was just a little over 15 lbs from my ultimate goal weight...you see where I'm going with this...so I had 60 days to lose 15lbs, that was just 1 lb every 4 days...I could do that. The first day went well, so did the 2nd, and most of the 3rd. Sunday is always a struggle for me. It's my "rest" day where I don't work out, and usually struggle the most with bad food choices. I thought I had done well. I had only a few M&Ms outside of my rigid meal plan, but apparently I had too much salt, because yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale and saw another gain, it was too much to bear, and so I self sabotaged, because that of course is the logical thing to do, and loaded up on carbs. I literally felt like I ate everything I saw, all the while feeling guilty and hearing that voice inside scream out "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!" Though I was able to shut her up with the batch of Bailey's cupcakes that I made, eating 2 giant ones... and then I went to bed with the personal promise to wake up early and work out, to get in an extra one today and to monitor my intake perfectly.

The alarm went off, and in the very literal sense I rolled over pulled the blanket of depression up over my face, and when I finally did get out of bed in response to the prodding of hungry toddlers, what did I consume for breakfast, but another Bailey's cupcake...because, just like the lyrics of the favorite kids song, "Ring Around the Rosie," we all fall down...now the key is just to get back up.