Stagnating

Teasaidh

(Don't know that anyone will really be able to help, but I need to vent somewhere)

So, I've done really well up to this point. I'm not regressing, but I'm just not moving forward. This has been a good year but also a very difficult year. Mainly just a year of changes. Zora Neale Hurston said, 'there are years that ask questions and years that answer.' This has definitely been a year of asking for me, and I don't have many answers yet. I feel like everything is just wearing me down right now. The changes to my mindset, diet, exercise habits, and body are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm also getting divorced, filing for bankruptcy, trying to sell my house, and planning a complete career change (that will also greatly reduce my income).

I was pushing through and channeling my stress into gym time until two weeks ago when I found out I have the start of a stress fracture in my foot and was placed on activity restrictions. No running, no zumba, and, because of the location of the fracture, no activities that would have me putting weight on the balls of my feet - yoga, pilates, irish dancing. Essentially, 90% of my workout routine has been banned until the middle of December. I'm still sneaking in a zumba class here and there, depending on how my foot tolerates it. I'm using the elliptical at the gym, but I don't really like it. I feel so happy and elated after running and zumba, and I get nothing like that feeling from the elliptical. I don't even feel like I'm getting much of a workout.

It is very frustrating, even more so because I am coming off of a hip injury this summer that sidelined my activity level for eight weeks. I was finally getting into a good routine, and now I feel like I'm adrift and floundering. I'm trying to do more weight lifting, and I need to get more intense with my diet (because of all the activity I was doing, I wasn't watching my diet as closely as I had been in the beginning). But, I'm broke and working overtime to make ends meet, so finding the time and energy to shop, cook, workout is just difficult at the moment. I keep forcing myself to get to the gym a few times a week, but, until a couple of weeks ago, I was there 5-6 days a week, and you couldn't have dragged me out.

I've struggled a lot with depression in my life and was last year diagnosed with bipolar disorder (which is a big part of what started this whole existential crisis). I'm worried about slipping back into a depression and keep trying to fight my way back to feeling stable, but all the stress in my life is just grinding me down. I hit a point in September when I started having bouts of feeling like this, but now it is just lingering, and I'm having a harder and harder time fighting it. This past week, I was so tired that I slept for hours and hours on my days off and didn't accomplish hardly anything. I went to the gym twice, and instead of cooking meals, I'm buying food that is more portable and that I can just grab from the fridge.

I'm going to stay with my brother and sister-in-law for the holiday in a couple of weeks, so I'm hoping that a few days away from everything and some time spent with them will maybe help, but I'm scared of having another depressive episode. I've wasted too much of my life trapped in a depression I couldn't overcome. I don't want to go back.

Thread with current before and after pics:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1335945/70-lb-down-65-lb-to-go#latest

CariJean64

That's a lot of stress all at once!

Exercise is great for that, of course, but on your current restriction, you'll need to find another way to take care of yourself. Your body demanded extra sleep to help you cope, but there may be other (non-food) things you can do, such as listening to an audiobook while taking a long bath.

As for your weight loss goals... maybe look at things differently until things settle into place. Losing weight is great, and staying within your calorie range is helpful, but for a while, maybe look at your eating as something you're doing to take care of yourself. Feed yourself healthy food just because you want to give yourself the gift of health. Stress does your immune system no favors, so do what you can to relax and eat healthfully.

Monitor your depression. If you sense it getting worse, get professional help as soon as possible, before it gets really bad.

Please, just do whatever you can to take care of YOU.

Teasaidh

I take medication and see my therapist once a month (seeing her on Monday), so we've been keeping an eye on it. There is the option of adding another medication to help give me a boost for a little while, but I can't take very many kinds of medications because I tend to have very strong and strange reactions ("unusual brain chemistry" according to my psychiatrist). Stress is one of my biggest triggers for depression, and prolonged stress is really just the worst.

middlehaitch

Hi, I am sorry life is not the best right now. You have a lot going on and eating well will help see you through.
Do you swim? You could substitute some of your cardio with swimming, or you could try aqua fit - it may help compensate for having to give up Zunba until your foot recovers
With regards to your bipolar; have you tried sitting under one of the specialised lamps? My OH uses one and it really helps keep his mood etc on an even keel. He used to be 2 different people- a sloth in winter and happy go lucky in the summer. Now he is closer to summer all the time.
Hope everything comes right for you.
Cheers, h

Teasaidh

I would love to swim (the podiatrist recommended it), but I don't have access to a pool.

I haven't tried one of those lamps, but I've never had trouble with seasonal depression. I don't tolerate heat well and being in the sun too much makes me ill, so I actually prefer fall and winter because of the cooler temperatures. I usually spend the summer hiding in my house with the air conditioning not wanting to do anything because the heat makes me nauseous. I don't know that a lamp would help much, and I don't have any extra money to spend on something like that right now.

yoovie

the good news is that the other side of the deep dark valley is a beautiful hike UP into the sunshine.