Spanx Leaves Me Breathless…

…no, really. It’s hard to breathe in. It is pretty wonderful, but very tight. I guess if it felt okay, it wouldn’t work as well.

When I first got it – I got the tank top one, I’m not a onesie kind of person – I was trying to put it on, and I thought I’d ordered the wrong size! I checked the tag, which said “Yes, our sizes really do go that high,” so it was the correct size. I put it on over my head, and it just was not working because it was choking me…

Hey, maybe that’s how it makes you look thinner – it crushes your throat so eating is painful? Genius!

Anyway, as I was trying to put it on –  and thinking of how awkward it would look if paramedics found me like that – I turn my head a little and realize that the box says to step into it…and I think that won’t work because IT’S A TANK TOP!! Who steps into a tank top, really?! If it were a onesie or a skirt, I’d understand. Besides, if it’s not going over my boobs, how in the world will it go over my rear end?

So I keep struggling, hoping that I don’t somehow rip the seams out of it with an extra pointy elbow, and I finally get it over my boobs. I figure that it’s time to rest for a bit because that was exercise – another added bonus? – but then I realize that it’s really tight around my ribcage, so I’d better pull it all the way down.

It’s completely on, and the result was nice, but is it really worth the literal pain and effort to put it on? Tell me what you think.

Sorry…

I haven’t written on here in awhile. Been rather busy with websites and such!

Interesting development: For the past couple of weeks, I have been drinking real creme soda without knowing it!

Let me start this the right way. Picture it: Murrieta, September 2010. My boyfriend buys diet creme soda, wanting to try it. He takes a can, and doesn’t like it, so he asks me if I want it. I never thought about diet creme soda before, because I thought it would taste like “diet” things do. I decided to try one anyway, and lo and behold, it tasted great! So I slowly drank the rest of the soda in the box.

A couple days later, I ask my boyfriend to pick up more. He only can find the 6-packs, so he brings one home. I drink it, mmm! Still tastes great, right? Never once did I really look at the label, I mean he only drinks diet soda and has for the past 10 years, so he should know what’s diet and not, right?!

Well, today I went with him to the store and I picked up two cases of it – I don’t drink it much, kinda a treat for me, so it will last awhile – however, I picked up the regular creme soda by accident and did not notice until we were further down the aisle near where the diet drinks are. I look over, and I see diet creme soda. I think, “Why do they have the same soda in two pla- Wait a minute!” I look at the cases in my cart, and there are no diet designations on them. They are regular creme soda! I’m thinking again, and I notice that both the diet and regular cases are ridiculously similar, both white packaging, only the diet package’s colors are more of a golden brown than the regular drink’s. Unless you were really looking out for it, you’d never know. Very shady, Shasta!

So here I am, standing in the middle of the aisle. I ask my boyfriend if he noticed that both varieties look almost the same. He did not notice, so I said, “Wouldn’t it really suck if I’ve been drinking regular this whole time, claiming that it’s diet that tastes amazing?!” We both kinda laughed about it, and I put back the regular and got the diet.

I’m home, and it’s 1AM. Doing design work and drinking oil – grapeseed oil, that is – and I decide to get a drink. I open a can of the diet soda, take one taste, and…it’s disgusting! So yes, I was drinking regular this whole time, thinking that it was the best diet drink EVER! GAH!

Well, Tina, I guess I figured out why I’ve only been losing one pound recently, hmm?! And I’ll go back to water only, seeing as how my first deviation from the norm has ended in disaster. So frustrating because I was so excited that I’d FINALLY found a diet drink I like… 😦

Oh, well. Back to coding websites!

My Busy Weekend!

I’ve been full of energy for the past couple of days…not sure why, but who am I to question these things? I’m just glad I don’t hurt!

Sunday, my boyfriend and I FINALLY fixed the treadmill. It took four hours! One of those hours was spent on a single screw that wouldn’t go through a piece of plastic and into the metal hole correctly. We would have just left it alone, but the screw holds the rear foot onto the treadmill, so it’s required 😦

Monday, I spent 1.5 hours in the grocery store an Big Lots! I haven’t been able to stay in a store for longer than 15 minutes for the past year because my back would get all stiff  and my right leg would hurt (see “Medical Background” post for the reasons why). Somehow, I had the strength to get through yesterday, and I wasn’t even sweating with overexertion – I usually start to sweat as soon as I stand up because it takes a lot of effort to stand straight! I stated to feel a little stiff near the end, but I was able to put groceries up and do my laundry until 3AM! Woo-hoo!

I guess that’s it for now. Don’t hesitate to comment, it makes my blog worth writing 😉

A Not-So-Brief Medical Background

Before age 20, I was healthy – okay, I was fat, but not in pain because of it. I was living in an apartment by myself. One day, I was taking a shower, and I fell out of the shower backwards. My left side hit the toilet, my right side hit the floor, and my legs we dangling over the lip of the tub. About six months later, when I moved out of the apartment, my sides were hurting pretty badly. The apartment was upstairs, too 😦

Anyway, I go back home, and things slowly start getting worse. I think that I was exercising less because I wasn’t running around a campus all of the time. My right leg had a numb spot running down the back where the IT band is, and it was always warmer than the rest of my leg. Then, my back started getting stiff, and I had shooting pains down the back of my right leg. I didn’t go to the doctor because I couldn’t afford it, and I’d rather suffer than spend 12+ hours waiting in the free hospital. By the time I get to California in 2009, things calm down a little. Then, it got worse than ever. I couldn’t sit, stand, walk, bend over, or lay down without being in constant pain. I went to a women’s health clinic November 2009, and told the NP about my back and leg pain. She sends me to get an x-ray of my lower back only.

The results come back, and I am told I have multi-level degenerative disc disease, or spondylosis. Basically, it’s arthritis in my lower spine. Moderate to severe cases of rheumatoid arthritis run in my family, but mostly in the hands and knees.

Most people acquire spondylosis between age 30-50. I was 22.

The NP just gave me painkillers like Vicodin, which did not work at all. I just felt weird. I kept telling her I don’t think it’s the muscle that’s causing shooting pains, I think it’s the nerves. I guess she didn’t believe me or something, so I stopped going to her. Also, she NEVER told me that it could be helped if I lost weight; I knew that already, but I thought it strange that a primary care specialist concerned about overall health wouldn’t mention it at all.

In April 2010, the pain was so unbearable, I wanted to die. I couldn’t do anything for myself. Just taking a shower made me extremely tired. The effort of holding myself up while standing made me sweat with effort. I knew that I had to try something, so I found the best chiropractic office ever! The office manager who made my appointment said that I sounded like I was in so much pain, she had to get me in there the next day. So there I was. Sitting in the chair, I could hardly concentrate on filling out the forms, the pain was so bad. I got them filled out, and the doctor’s technician put me on this machine that stimulates muscles. It felt really weird, but after it was done I felt a bit better.

Then, I met my chiropractor. The first thing he did was take an x-ray of my WHOLE back AND my hip area. He asked me to go sit in his office so he could get the film and talk to me about it. He said that I do have spondylosis, but I also have scoliosis AND a leg length discrepancy! He said that he figured that I had scoliosis because he saw that it took so much effort to stand straight, and even when I did, I was still leaning to the left side. The giveaway for the short leg issue was that I couldn’t stand with both feet on the ground. My left foot is always on tiptoe, like I’m wearing a high heel on only one foot. While we were sitting in the office, he looked at my legs – fully clothed – and said that it was obvious when I was sitting down as well. I’d actually thought for some time that I had a short leg because my best friend pointed out that one day that I limped…I had absolutely no idea, but after she told me, I began to notice it.

He also told me that everything would stop causing me so many problems if I lost weight! My leg length discrepancy was causing a chain reaction in my body:

1. Because my left leg was too short, my left side muscles were overcompensating by becoming short and weak, which caused the scoliotic bend to the left.

2. The constant fight between my left and right side to keep me upright meant that the vertebrae in my lower back were essentially grinding against each other, causing the shooting pain down my legs (every time I sat and stood, I consciously shifted my lower back to realign it).

3. My right side had to work twice as hard to hold me upright because it was the “correct” side, which caused inflammation in my IT band and stiffness in that side.

Also, scoliosis and leg length discrepancy are based on genetics, spondylosis is not (thanks, parents!).

The cure: There isn’t one, but a heel lift and being less fat would definitely help – and it has!

New Weight Loss Total…

13 pounds lost last month!

1. I lost the 10 pounds the first week,
2. 1 pound the next,
3. Gained 4 pounds week 3 (grr…), and
4. Lost 6 pounds this last week!