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Each day that I go to the physical therapy clinic to workout with my trainer, I start out by hopping on the treadmill. Or rather, I carefully step up onto it. It looks out over the cottonwood trees, which line the Animas River and partially cover the Aztec Ruins National Monument. As I lift my legs, step by step with great concentration so that my left toes clear the belt, I watch the thunderheads forming and shifting in the sky. If I’m lucky, I get the privilege of seeing several deer wandering in and out of the trees.

Directly to the right of the treadmill and in direct line of sight is a small sign that reads:

Unless you fell off the treadmill, nobody wants to hear about your workout

The fact that you’ve been reading my posts would tell me that this just isn’t the case. Or maybe it is, but I’ll still go ahead and tell you about my progress on my health journey, and that includes writing about my workouts.

Sometime around the end of April or the beginning of May, something happened, only nothing actually happened. Over the course of a couple weeks, My left foot started dropping when I tried to walk. It was like I just couldn’t lift my foot anymore. I fell at the end of May and then again in June because of it.

I didn’t understand why, after making such amazing progress, that I would seemingly go backwards and have so much more difficulty walking again. The pain has changed, my legs are weaker, my balance and stability are way off. I’m having to learn to walk all over again.

How many times in my life am I going to have to learn how to walk all over again?

I think this makes at least 8 times at this point, if not more. Between originally learning to walk as a toddler, all of the physical therapy I had as a pre-teen and teen, the torn MCL, the broken patella and torn meniscus, two major falls, a year ago when I started physical therapy, and now, yet again.

I’m an expert at learning to walk at this point, although not an expert at walking. I guess I really am a life long learner.

The past four months have been very frustrating and discouraging. At the beginning, i had no strength in my entire body, even my upper body felt weak and useless. When I was working out, overnight, all of my achievements disappeared and I had to reduce my weights by 40-60%. I was using my cane 24/7 and was being told to start using the walker again so that I wouldn’t break anymore bones when I fell the next time. This was all without a clear reason why. I had two new lumbar MRIs, one after each of the recent falls. No real changes.

It’s such a dichotomy. I feel successful when I’m working out at the clinic where everything is adapted for me to do my best at every opportunity, but when I try to walk outside on uneven surfaces, stand up from sitting, or attempt to do just about all of the normal activities of daily living, I am in excruciating pain and constantly feel like I’m going to fall. Like my legs are just going to give out on me. Like my toes are going to trip me at every step.

I put my heart and soul into my workouts at the clinic. I’m there for 3-3.5 hours, twice a week. Every so often I will miss a day, but this is a rare occurrence. I go either Monday or Tuesday, and then, typically, Fridays. This summer has been scorching, so I’ve shifted my workouts to the early morning instead of my preferred mid afternoon times. But the days are cooling down now, so I’ll be back to afternoons soon.

Back in March when I saw the neurosurgeon for the first time, he wanted me to start walking. I tried walking on my street, but it hurt so much and I felt like I was going to fall constantly, a common issue for me. Because I would go out alone, I didn’t feel safe and by the time I would walk for 5 minutes, I’d literally be crying.

So I decided that I would learn how to walk on the treadmill. My trainer wanted me to start working, not on the speed and distance, but on increasing the incline. So, first I set my goal at just 20 minutes, regardless of speed and at 0% incline. I worked up to .67 miles, so 2 mph for 20 minutes. Once I got there, I started working on the incline.

I set my sights on getting to the highest incline that the treadmill goes to, 15%.

I had wanted to get there by my next appointment with the neurosurgeon in September. By the end of April, I had gotten to about a 7% incline, at 1 mph.

But then something happened and I had to switch back to the the recumbent cross trainer because I couldn’t stand long enough to use the treadmill anymore.

I was so frustrated and upset. I had come so far. But my feet, both of them, were dragging on the belt, and I was almost falling with every step.

I slowly got back on the treadmill. I have had to learn to lift my left leg at the hip using my thigh since I can no longer rely on my toes easily clearing the belt.

I have to tell myself with every step to lift my leg so that I don’t hear my shoe scraping the belt. The instant feedback of my frustrations.

Eventually, I started raising the incline once more. Tuesday of this past week, I had gotten to a 10% incline. I was joking with my trainer on Friday that I was going to jump to 12%. He joked back that he knew that I could do the 15%.

So, I told him “Fine! I’ll do 15%.”

And what do you know? I walked for 20 minutes at 15% incline a full month before my goal date and I only scraped my left foot on the belt a couple of times.

As I was trudging up the hill of the treadmill, I was imagining that I was hiking, which is why I started doing all of this to begin with. I want to hike again, but my body won’t cooperate right now. So, I let the movie in my mind replay the times that I’ve climbed out of canyons and up mountains. Maybe today I’ll hike out of Bryce Canyon National Park again.

My hiking is happening in my mind right now.

But, I met my goal. I hit 15% incline.

This was a huge non-scale victory for me and I really needed that.

My weight loss has plateaued again, right around 30 pounds down. I’m still only down .4 pounds of muscle mass, so about a 1% loss when 30-40% muscle loss is expected on a GLP-1. I am now down 5 sizes though. So, I’m still making progress.

My body is changing in so many ways. Some positive and some not so positive.

One of my favorite activities when I’m working out is pushing the sled around the clinic. I love it and I’m kicking butt and taking names with it. I think that the reason for this is that it’s honestly the only time that I feel completely steady on my feet and that I’m not going to fall. It’s like using a very heavy walker and I can now do more on the sled than I weigh. I think that there’s only one person who does more than me right now, and he’s this big, muscular guy. I’m at 240 pounds and he’s at 250 pounds.

I’m so close that I can taste it.

I never realized how competitive I am.

I watch what others are doing. When I see something that looks really difficult, I set my mind to doing it. I can now do squats balancing on a Bosu ball (a half of a ball on a board that you can do lunges on the squishy side and squats on the board side). I had seen one of the women doing it months ago and now I can do them.

And I can do planks!

The last time I had tried doing a plank was back in 2014 and I could barely hold a modified plank for 10 seconds.

My longest plank that I’ve done recently was 1 minute and 45 seconds long, with 30 seconds of that time being a 1 armed plank. I can do a total of 5 minutes of planks, with 1 minute and 10 seconds of that being done on 1 arm.

So, now I’m working on making the planks harder.

I can do alphabet planks on a ball, 1 armed planks, 1 leg planks, balancing on my forearms on a yoga ball planks while doing pushups, crossing my feet over each other planks.

Planks, planks, and more planks.

The only thing that is hard about the planks at this point is that they make my shoulders hurt when I go too long in a singular plank, but if I take breaks, I’m fine.

There are many things that I see others doing that I can’t even come close to, but my trainer is really good at adapting the things that I can do in such a way that I’m successful.

The nice thing about going to the physical therapy clinic is that everything can be adapted and there is all of the equipment there to make it a safe environment for me to challenge myself and build up my skills to the best of my abilities.

I really need to feel successful right now so I don’t get discouraged at how difficult the daily life activities have gotten.

I try to stay positive. Some days are easier than others.

But, I do my best every day even if my best looks different every day.

So although I haven’t fallen off the treadmill, I’m still going to talk about my workouts because, well, they are part of my health journey after all.

How do you deal with your challenges and frustrations? What do you do to adapt the things that are difficult for you so that you can be successful?

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Because I’ve been doing so much physical activity the past year, I’ve been finding that my body craves protein. It’s pretty difficult to get 100-120g of protein every day unless it’s all meat, all day. Finding vegan protein bars that actually taste good, aren’t just glorified candy bars, have a high amount of protein compared to calories and fat, and cost less than $2 each is almost impossible. I’ve been on the quest of figuring out how to make just about anything that tastes good that is also high in protein. I’ve tried using pea protein, pumpkin seed protein, and almond flour in many attempts just to find out that they really don’t increase the protein all that much and still keep the body of the baked goods together. I also am NOT a fan of protein powders, although I have found that I like Ripple protein shakes, particularly the vanilla, but the chocolate is pretty decent too.

So I was trying to figure out what else is high in protein, and the only thing I could think of was powdered peanut butter. This is basically defatted peanut flour. Because it doesn’t have all of the fat like peanut butter does, the calories and macros are pretty favorable. So, I decided that I would try to figure out protein balls that taste great, are a little sweet, but not too sweet, aren’t powdery, don’t cost an arm and a leg, and just plain taste good. I came up with this idea because when I was young, we would make peanut butter logs from peanut butter, non-fat dried milk, and powdered sugar, but that obvious isn’t an option anymore. But I loved them!

And I found the answer! These peanut butter protein balls are incredible! Probably my favorite recipe that I’ve created yet, in all honesty.

You can use any of the powdered peanut butters. I used PB Fit Organic, but next time will try it with PB Fit Pure, which doesn’t have the small amount of salt and sugar that the organic one has. If you do use the Pure, you might need to add a dash of salt or a bit of extra maple syrup. Because this is a powder, you need to weigh the PB Fit (or you can use PB2 as well) because, if you don’t, the amount you use will vary based on how packed the measuring cup is, which will not give you consistent results. I did also measure it by volume and it was approximately 100g per 1 cup of loosely filled powder.

For the applesauce, I used two of the Mott’s unsweetened applesauce individual cups. They are measured by weight and not volume. So again, you’ll need to weigh out the applesauce to get the moisture content correct. Next time, I’m going to try an unsweetened peach apple sauce to see how it changes the flavor.

For the maple syrup, be sure to use 100% pure maple syrup and not pancake syrup. You could also probably use date syrup but it will darken the dough and you may need to adjust the amount of peanut butter powder that you use.

For the chocolate chips, I used the Enjoy Life Rice Milk Chocolate Chips. These are my favorite as I love milk chocolate but regular milk chocolate is not an option for me. Any chocolate chips that you like should work just fine, even a vegan white chocolate chip. You need 120 chocolate chips, which is 4 chips per ball. You can adjust this, or leave them out, depending on your preference.

These are super easy to make. Just mix everything together in a medium bowl. The consistency of the dough will be rough and shaggy, but will stick together when squeezed and not stick to your hands. You can add a bit of extra peanut butter powder or maple syrup to get this consistency.

You’ll take approximately a rounded tablespoon of dough, or use a small cookie scoop, to form 30 balls by rolling the dough into a ball in your hands. I scooped all of the dough first, placed them on a lined baking sheet, and then rolled them once that I got all 30 of the scoops ready to roll. Roll the dough into a ball, then add the chips around the ball. Roll the balls again, pressing the chips into the dough so that they are secure but can still be seen. Once they are all rolled and the chips are added, you’ll need to freeze them. You don’t want them to be touching while they are room temperature or they will stick together. You can either freeze them on the baking sheet, or I evenly placed 3 balls into a snack sized zipper bag and carefully placed all 10 of those in a gallon bag, then in the freezer. This worked great, stayed separated, and did not stick together.

When you’re ready to eat them, take as many as you want out of the freezer and allow them to thaw for just 1-2 minutes. They will still be firm but you’ll be able to bite into them. The chips will still be quite hard though.

For 3 balls, they come out to 158 calories, 13g of protein, 16g carbs, and 5g fat. These are better numbers than most commercial protein bars and since they make 10 servings, they are a fraction of the price and only 4 ingredients.

I hope you enjoy!

Easy Vegan Peanut Butter Protein Balls

-2 individual containers of unsweetened apple sauce (3.9oz each by weight, 222g total)

-300g PB Fit or PB2 (approximately 3 cups, loose and spooned in)

-2 tbsp maple syrup (40g)

-120 chocolate chips (54g, 4 chips per ball)

Mix everything together. It will seem dry and crumbly, but it needs to be, so it isn’t sticky. It may stick a bit to the bowl and fork/spoon, but you should be able to form it into balls with very little sticking to your palms, even as it warms up. Using a 1 tbsp cookie scoop, create 30 balls by rolling them in your hands. Once they are smooth and shiny, push 4 chocolate chips around the ball and roll in your hands again. Freeze on a cookie sheet before placing into a zipper bag in the freezer to store until ready to eat.

How much protein do you eat in a day? Do you like protein bars, shakes, or powders? On a scale of 10 to 10 (lol) how much do you like peanut butter?

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Chronic pain is a really interesting thing and becomes all consuming. It’s isolating because it just feels like nobody understands. When people say, “I hope you start feeling better!” they just don’t understand that it doesn’t work that way. Yes, I have good days and bad days, but over time, even if I have good stretches of time, they get progressively worse.

Even though I know that people mean well, it’s hard to feel unseen.

All of that said, I try to keep a positive attitude.

I show up for myself every day in the best ways that my body is able to each and every day. I make sure that I eat healthy, well balanced meals and snacks and I move my body just as much as I can. I’m losing weight. I try my best to sleep as much as possible. I’m learning to ask for help without asking for too much help.

I never give up.

It’s been a year, this month, since I started physical therapy. I did five and a half months of PT and then I switched over to working with their personal trainer at the PT clinic. Everyone there is wonderful. They truly care about their clients. Everyone has seen the progress that I’ve made this past year and they encourage me every day I’m there. It’s a very safe space for me. Everything can be adapted for me to be successful. That feels really good.

I have had many ups and downs during the past year.

My spine is a true mess. That was actually how the ER doctor described it with a smile on his face on the 4th of July. He made me laugh. No clinical terms, just real, honest communication about the reality that has been my life since November of 2020 when I had my first major fall and had the first two compression fractures in my lumbar spine.

In my last post, It’s Been a Year!, I wrote about the weight loss side of my journey for the past year, but that wasn’t really the whole story.

Last July 4th, I started falling pretty regularly. I fell twice last July, and then once again each in September, October, November, March, May, and June. These last two falls on May 30th and June 24th were particularly difficult for me. Not just physically but emotionally, too.

Last July I got my two walkers and started to use them. I first got the one from my insurance. I almost had to get the bariatric walker due to my weight back then. But I couldn’t lift it into my car. It was really heavy. But the medical supply company found one that I could lift, that met my weight requirements, and I could get it in and out of my car. It’s a rollator, so it has a seat and a basket. It’s blue and I covered it in stickers of rainbows, spirals, and smiley faces. Not to mention the twinkle lights.

It’s blue and it’s really lightweight. Her name is BlueBurye, because my last name is pronounced like “berry.” But I didn’t really feel very stable with it. It’s almost too light for rough surfaces. For work, I’ll sometimes go to parks or playgrounds, so I needed something a bit more. Somewhere in between the too heavy bariatric walker and the regular walker that the insurance gave me.

So I got Bug. She’s my green, all-terrain rollator walker. She’s a bit heavier, but she’s sturdy and I don’t feel like I’m going to fall when I’m on uneven surfaces. I can get her in and out of the car and the seat is higher, so it’s easier to use.

The last time that I used either walker was in mid-March.

It was hard enough emotionally to accept that I needed the assistance of a walker, but I knew that things had progressed to that point because I just wasn’t stable on my feet while I was walking.

All of that said, once I started with the physical therapy, and my strength and balance improved over the months, I was able to eventually transition to using a cane, starting in about October. My cane doesn’t have a name, but it certainly has a personality. It’s purple with orange and yellow stars and suns. It goes everywhere with me. We’re joined at the left hip, so to speak.

As the months progressed and I continued to show up for myself twice a week, every week at the PT clinic, I got stronger and stronger despite the worsening condition of my spine.

Let me back up though.

As I mentioned, the first big fall was in November of 2020 just after Thanksgiving. I slipped on a piece of dog food and down I went. I heard my spine fracture before I felt it. That fall resulted in compression fractures of L1 and L2. The MRI didn’t show much else of significance at that time.

I had a few more falls between 2020 and July of 2025, including one where I ended up fracturing my patella and tore the meniscus in my left knee. But they weren’t that frequent, only 4 of them between November, 2020 and April of 2024.

The fall in April of 2024 was pretty significant. I took a trip to the hot springs for my birthday. I stayed at an AirBnB that has a 5 star restaurant. I had dinner on the Friday after I arrived, went to the nearby hot springs on my birthday, which was the Saturday, and then I fell on the Sunday morning as I was getting ready to check out of the room so that I could have lunch before heading home.

I ended up seeing my doctor the next morning and she sent me to the ER because of the pain and weakness in my legs. The ER at our local hospital is not known to be particularly effective. They might keep you alive after a gunshot wound, but when I fell in 2020 they told me the wrong vertebrae that were fractured and when I fractured my patella and tore my meniscus, they told me that I had just sprained my knee and not to worry about it. Apparently they never looked at the radiology reports because, well, those clearly stated what had happened. So in April 2024, they sent me away without anything other than an X-ray and the smallest dose of toradol, which did absolutely nothing.

I went to PT after this fall. I opted to go to the clinic that I currently go to even though it’s a 25 minute drive from my house. My doctor recommended them because the clinic that I had gone to previously in my town, for my back and knee, had closed and, with this one, I would be able to get seen more quickly. I did 12 sessions of PT and had reduced the pain pretty decently by the end, but still couldn’t walk much afterwards.

By January of 2025 I remember mentioning to one of my doctors that I had really been hurting again and progressively getting worse. The pain was also starting to radiate down my right leg and both feet had worsening pins and needles and numbness. I had decided I would ask for a PT referral the next time I saw my primary care doctor.

By May of 2025, I woke up one morning and I could hardly stand up or move. I went to see my doctor and the only way that I could explain the pain was that it felt the same as when I had the original compression fractures in 2020. So she sent me for X-rays with the understanding that she would only call if there was something going on.

Well, it hadn’t been more than 15 minutes after I left from having the X-rays done and she was calling to let me know that I did indeed have a compression fracture of L3. She ordered a stat MRI, which was done a few days later and we learned that this fracture was at least 3 months old.

So that meant that I had had a spontaneous compression fracture at some point between April of 2024 and around January or February of 2025 and I didn’t even know it.

If that doesn’t tell you that I have a high pain tolerance, I don’t know what does. I broke a bone, barely noticed, and it didn’t stop me.

The MRI in May 2025 showed significant damage to my lumbar spine. I’ll spare you the details, but my back is truly a huge mess.

Next came the referrals and all of the waiting in between these appointments.

I was sent to the interventional spine doctor in June and was given the PT referral as well. The interventional spine doctor sent me to the local neurosurgeon. In August, I was told by the PA at that clinic that I weighed too much and that the surgeon wouldn’t touch me. I was referred to the neurosurgery clinic in Albuquerque at UNM. In September I had the bone density scan. I tried to get seen by the surgeons an hour away in Colorado, but they wouldn’t even see me because of my weight. I saw another interventional spine doctor in Colorado and he recommended getting an EMG of my right leg, as that was the leg I had the most trouble with. I had that done in January of 2026. I then had my first appointment with a NP at the UNM neurosurgery clinic and she put in orders for a scoliosis series of X-rays, functional lumbar X-rays, and diagnostic injections. In February, I started at the osteoporosis clinic up in Colorado. In March, I did the two diagnostic injections, saw the neurosurgeon at UNM, and I also started a daily injectable osteoporosis medication.

I really like the neurosurgeon at UNM and he is willing to help me. I still needed to lose weight, but he didn’t just say no after seeing my BMI. The X-rays showed that I have a pretty significant left curving lumbar scoliosis that is also twisted, and that I also have a bunch of stuff wrong in my cervical spine as well as all of the other things going on in my lumbar spine. I’m looking at a spinal fusion from somewhere in the lower thoracic vertebrae to the pelvis with a scoliosis correction, but that won’t happen for another year or more as it stands now. I’ll need to have a nuclear stress test and pulmonary function tests.

I’ve been working so hard at the PT clinic this past year. I give it my all. I’ve shown so much progress and I’ve written about it in past posts.

But something changed somewhere around the end of April to mid-May.

It had always been my right leg that was the weakest, had the most numbness, and caused me to fall. It was always the right leg that felt like it couldn’t support my weight and would start going out on me.

But I started noticing that my left leg wasn’t quite working right either. My left foot started dropping and catching on the treadmill belt when I tried walking. It would sort of give out on me and my right leg would cross over to try to balance me out while I was walking. The PT tech and I decided that I’m just curtsying when this happens.

I have to keep a sense of humor at this point.

I noticed that both legs now felt like they were going to give out on me every time I stood up. The pain in my back and leg were worsening. I also had noticed more numbness in my right leg. We had to start lowering my leg weights. I was having worsening bladder issues.

I got sick with colitis near the end of May and ended up in the ER. Then, I fell on May 30th because my left foot gave out on me and slipped when I tried to stand. I figured that I was just tired from having been so sick and it was not a big deal.

But when I did my ER follow up with my primary care doctor and told her about the worsening leg weakness, left foot drop, and bladder issues, she put me in for a stat MRI which was done at 9:30pm that evening. The main concern for those symptoms is something called cauda equina syndrome. It’s considered a neurological emergency and requires immediate surgery because the spinal nerves are being squeezed so tightly that if not treated can lead to permanent paralysis. The MRI showed some worsening since the previous May, but nothing that needed to be dealt with right away.

But then I fell again on June 24th.

This fall has really affected me. And I don’t mean just physically but emotionally as well. I’m still looking at over a year for surgery and another year or more of recovery after that.

I’m exhausted at this point as I rarely sleep anymore because of the pain. I might get a few hours here and there, but the major concern is that lack of sleep is one of my bipolar triggers. I really don’t need a massive bipolar episode right now.

We’ve tried various different approaches for pain control. I take a prescription strength NSAID three times a day. I take a medication that doesn’t allow me to take opioids, although in about April I did try going off of it to try out an opioid and I felt absolutely horrific. There are only two opioids that have ever helped me with pain in the past, but they’re hard core. And I couldn’t function on them. I live alone. I have to work to pay the bills. I have to drive. I have stuff to do.

So it’s a balancing act.

I do massages with a massage therapist twice a month. I have an upgraded membership at Planet Fitness so I have access to the massage chairs and hydromassage beds. I go there about 5 days each week and do three, 10 minutes rounds, two on the chairs and one on the hydro bed. I feel better when I keep active, so I move as much as my body will tolerate. I have an electrical stimulation device similar to what they use at PT. Think a TENS unit, but it goes deep into the tissue to not just reduce the pain but to heal and soothe the tissue. I have my extra large fuzzy purple heating pad and 3 extra large fuzzy purple ice packs. I was using the heating pad through the winter but have now mostly switched to the ice packs. I’m not a candidate for steroid injections for two reasons. First, with the bipolar we’re afraid that it could trigger a mania and second, they can contribute to osteoporosis, and goodness knows that I don’t need either of those at this point. The diagnostic injections that I had were just lidocaine and they lasted for about 90 minutes, so not really a long term solution.

When the pain is really bad, I scream and curse, if I’m being honest, especially when I’m shifting in bed trying to get back to sleep.

When I fell June 24th, it was my left foot again that gave out. I did something I’d done 1000 times and when I went to steady myself with my left foot, it didn’t hold and down I went.

I’m getting really good at falling.

I’ve learned how to pull my arms in and roll into the fall so as to avoid breaking my arms. I most certainly don’t need that on top of everything else. I’m annoyed though because one of the reasons that I wear my Apple Watch is for the fall detection feature, but it never goes off. I asked my brother and he did some reading and we discovered that it’s probably since I typically fall when I’m trying to stand so I’m closer to the ground and my arms don’t quickly drop. But as my brother put it, let’s just be grateful that I haven’t had a fall that is bad enough to set it off. I think that’s a great way of looking at things.

By June 30th, I could barely walk and constantly felt like I was going to fall. That day was the first time since March that I had even considered using my walker again.

I felt like I was going backwards. I wasn’t emotionally ready to use the walker again.

On July 1st, I had my appointment with the PA at the osteoporosis clinic to check my bloodwork to see if the medication is working. Yes, it’s working, but not nearly as well as it’s supposed to. I was telling him about the recent falls and that I was really struggling with my walking and that I was afraid that I’d end up in a wheelchair by the time I was going to be able to have the surgery.

He told me that I needed to call the neurosurgery clinic at UNM because I was having more symptoms of caudal equina syndrome…again. I knew this and I knew that I would call the next day as it was too late by the time I got home.

On the 2nd, in the morning, I went to the clinic to work out with my trainer. Both of my feet were dragging so bad on the treadmill that I stopped early. They were dragging trying to push the sled with only less than half of the weight I had done previously. We had to drop all of my weights, not just for my legs but for my arms as well, some of them by more than half.

I told the PTA I had worked with and my trainer that “my legs just aren’t behaving themselves.” I had to use my cane in the clinic, which I typically don’t do anymore.

Something was wrong.

When I got home, I called down to the clinic and described what was going on. I didn’t know what I wanted, just that something was wrong and I didn’t know what to do. The person told me that they’d put in an urgent message to the surgeon’s team. I placed that call about 11am and by 1pm, I received a call back from someone at the clinic.

I described what was going on and she told me to go the ER at UNM and that I needed to be checked out yet again for cauda equina syndrome. She also said that with everything that was going on that there was a chance that I would need emergency surgery. So we decided that I would figure out about boarding the cats in the morning and then I would head down to the ER on the 3rd.

I arrived at the UNM ER at about 2:30pm on July 3rd and didn’t leave there until about 3:30am July 4th.

Between the drive down, which took me 4.5 hours (an hour longer than normal because I had to keep stopping), and sitting for 13 hours at the ER, I could barely stand let alone walk. I had a new MRI and I finally saw the doctor around 1am.

The good news was that I didn’t have cauda equina syndrome and would not need immediate surgery. The bad news was that there really wasn’t anything that he could do for me. He did give me a prescription for lidocaine patches but that’s it, and my insurance doesn’t want to approve them. He did say though that he was going to send my neurosurgeon a message telling him about my visit, the changes, and see if he couldn’t get things sped up as far as a surgery date.

Then I had to get home. I needed to get at least a couple of hours of sleep so I was able to get a room at the hotel I usually stay at. Because I’m a rewards member they gave me a free late check out, which was much appreciated. I got there around 4:30am and I finally fell asleep around 5am.

Keep in mind that I hadn’t really slept much for a week at this point. What tends to happen is that I’ll get 2-4 hours a sleep for several days running and then my body just crashes and I completely pass out and will get some good sleep, maybe 7-8 hours. I can’t really walk in the morning afterwards, but I feel slightly better after those nights.

My next appointment at the neurosurgery clinic is in September. It was supposed to be with the PA but I got a text saying that it is going to actually be with the surgeon, so maybe the ER visit might have speed things up. I’m not getting my hopes up, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

I did an ER follow up appointment with my primary care doctor and finally asked for a handicap parking placard. She was shocked that I didn’t already have one. I just hadn’t been emotionally ready for it. But I just couldn’t handle another Albuquerque trip without one. I’ve even started using it locally and I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to get it.

I’m learning that there are tools at my disposal that I am not always emotionally ready for, but once I get them or use them, I’m so grateful that they exist.

As it relates to my health journey, I started with the GLP-1 medication. I was so opposed to it for the longest time. I just wasn’t ready for it. But the Zepbound has been truly life changing for me. Then there was using the walker. It kept me safer when I was out and about, but took about a month of knowing I needed one before I asked for it. Next has been the cane. And now is the handicap placard.

Even though society may place moral value on the use of these tools, I’m going to use them if they make my life easier.

A while back, I had started developing big calluses on the palms of my hands from the weights and pulleys from when I was working out. My trainer let me borrow a pair of weightlifting gloves that were ragged and falling apart. I really liked them so I got myself a pair of pink and black ones.

The other day while I was having a particularly difficult day at the clinic, I looked down at the gloves and realized there was a saying on the palms.

Do It Any Way Possible

I truly believe in the power of synchronicity. I needed to see those words at that exact time on that exact day. I’d been using them for a couple of months but had never noticed the words.

I do this. By keeping as positive as I can remain, despite everything that has been going on, I’m doing it.

I’m losing weight. I’m improving my health, both physically and mentally. I’m strengthening not just my body and mind, but my spirit and my soul as well. I’m using the tools that I have at my disposal and making the best life that I can possible lead, even with everything that has been going on the past 6 years since that first really bad fall.

I am living my best life, just by doing it any way possible.

What do you do in any way possible? How do you make your life worth living despite the difficulties that we all have?

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Last year on the solstice I took my first injection of Zepbound. I chose that day specifically for the significance of it being the height of the year, the longest day of the year, and then the beginning of the shrinking towards winter. Instead of taking my most recent dose on Saturday, the 20th, like I usually do, I decided to take it again on the solstice this year as a symbolic way to bring a boost of the energy with me that I began at the solstice last year. Just as the sunlight shrinks slowly after the solstice, so too have I, but it’s been at exactly the right pace for me and my body and my natural cycles through the year.

In the past year, I truly have learned that there is no secret. I have learned that taking a GLP-1 is not a magic bullet for losing weight and getting healthier. The “secret” that influencers don’t tell you, is that I still have to expend more energy than I consume. The medication just makes it easier and calms the food noise enough so that I can make the better choices. The non existent secret is that it’s a slow process for lasting change and that fast weight loss is not necessarily better.

And then there’s consistency. I always said that I was incapable of being consistent. It just wasn’t in me. But I changed that self concept when I did my creativity challenge for over 1200 days in a row a few years back, never missing a single one of those days. That consistency, and being proud of that consistency, is what has gotten me where I am on my health journey. It’s a very rare thing since the end of last July that I have missed a day of, first, physical therapy, and now working out with my trainer at the same clinic. For PT, it was every Monday and Thursday afternoons for 5 months, with a few exceptions for holidays and when my PTA was out for the day. Now, it’s every Tuesday and Friday that I work out with my trainer. I have learned, that I do need to take a day off here and there if I’m sick and my body needs to rest, but otherwise, I’ve been showing up twice a week since January 6th, so just about 6 months with the trainer on top of 5 months of PT. Even on the days that I don’t want to show up, I show up (unless I’m sick). I consistently show up for myself. I told my trainer that my goal is that after I have back surgery next year, that I will get back to working with him again as soon as I graduate from PT, with whatever limitations I have in place as a result of the fusion.

By letting go of my old perfectionistic ways, I have made so much progress in the past 11 months. I went from hardly being able to walk, to somehow doing 20 minutes on the treadmill now at an 8.0% incline. I have to say that I was holding on for dear life and it was really really hard! When I started the sled in PT, I was at 45 pounds and could barely push it. Now, I can do 4 laps with 205 pounds on that thing. On the cables, I’m now up to 130 pounds for the seated rows after starting at maybe 20-30 pounds, 90 pounds for tricep pull downs after starting at maybe 20 pounds, and 70 pounds for lat pull downs, starting at maybe 5 pounds. The other day, I told my trainer that I wanted to do things that there’s no way he believes that I could do them, but that I really can. I am having so much fun! I let go of being perfect when I sit to rest a little longer in front of the fan when I get hot and tired, or when I have to sit to do exercises that others can stand for. I let go of perfectionism and celebrate my progress that I can now eat 1-2 cookies instead of an entire package, or an ounce of chips instead of a full bag. I see my progress in the small things like I now completely fit into the massage chairs at Planet Fitness, including fitting my arms comfortably into the slots for the airbags to compress my full arms, shoulders, hips, and legs now. I’m making progress in that the clothes that I bought a few months ago that were tight, now fit perfectly or are getting too big again. The other day, I tried on old clothes, that last time I tried them on, there was no way I could fit into them, but I now have 7 “new” pairs of pants and a pair of skorts. I’ve increased my average daily steps from about 500-1000 last year to 2200 this past month. I’m making progress daily with the 1% changes that James Clear writes about in Atomic Habits, and on days I’m not feeling good, I just do my best that day, and accept that my best is always changing.

I had let go of the fads and am following what is working for my body. I’m learning to trust my body and my brain to both fuel myself properly and exert myself safely and with guidance from professionals, and know when to say that I’ve had enough and when it’s okay to do or have more. I’ve let go of comparing my slower progress on the weight loss than what I had wanted and what I’ve seen online in fad videos and crash, unrealistic diets, and just go with the basic, whole, nutritious foods, with occasional treats alongside a safe and effective set of movements. I don’t get my information from the latest fads and influencers, and instead I rely on trusted professionals whom I have hand picked and whom align with my values and priorities.

Eating healthy does not have to be boring. I have always loved flavor, and a lot of it. I also like a variety of textures in my food. It’s really easy to bring flavor to healthy foods in a variety of ways. Fruit and vegetables have intrinsic flavors of a great variety as do all of the herbs, spices, and oils. The combination of flavors and textures brings about such a creative variety of good, healthy foods. I’ve learned new ways of cooking this past year. I learned that a bit of oil isn’t going to kill me because it’s “unhealthy.” It can help crisp up veggies and make herbs and spices stick to the food without drying out. It gives texture to things like veggie burgers or fritters that are pan fried with a bit of oil instead of dry frying. Toasted sesame oil has a rich and delightful flavor to it that adds so much to a recipe with such a small amount. I have about 70 herbs and spices in my pantry that I use frequently in a variety of combinations. I have my favorite flavor profiles, but I like to experiment with others.

I have learned this year that the scale will stall even if there are plenty of non-scale victories happening every day. I went for about five months without losing any weight at all, but during that time, I was losing size, getting stronger, and retaining my original muscle mass. At times I would get very frustrated when the scale wasn’t budging. I was struggling with some emotional eating and some disordered eating thoughts which made it difficult to always make the on target choices. I was still eating within a calorie deficit that whole time, I was still working out twice a week with the trainer and going to Planet Fitness one other day a week. And yet, that number wound’t change. I’ve already been struggling with blood glucose that is too low, so I couldn’t raise the Zepbound dosage, so I learned that I just needed to have patience and allow my body to work through whatever it was working through.

I wish that I would have taken a Day 1 photo and starting body measurements. I rarely took photos of myself prior to a year ago. I didn’t like what I saw, so I didn’t take them. The closest photo that I have was back in April of 2025 and I have no idea what my measurements were or currently are. I didn’t want to get stuck on the numbers back then when I started, which I knew that I would have. I do know what sizes I wore back in June last year compared to now. A year ago, my shirts were a 4X and just starting into a 5X and the 26/28 shirts I had were too small. I really needed to buy bigger shirts but didn’t want to spend the money. I currently can buy XL or 14/16 shirts from a regular store or online. The shoulders and arms are getting a bit tight just from building up my muscles, but they otherwise fit just fine. Back a year ago, I was in a 26/28 pants, but they were getting too tight and I really needed to size up, but again, I didn’t want to spend the money, so I just squeezed into the pants and pretended that I could breathe. Now, depending on the cut, I’m in either a 20 or 22. I still have a few smaller 24s in the mix, but it’s time to weed through the closet again and remove those too big clothes. I’m down 2 underwear and 2 bra sizes at this point as well. Those are the closest numbers that I have to starting measurements. And I’ve started taking more selfies.

I’ve also learned that it’s important to have a set of people who support me on my journey, both the highs and the lows. I am very grateful to have a really good set of friends who encourage me whether I’m doing well or I’m struggling. They help me in that I know that when I have a bad day, I have someone to whine to, but also that I have people to remind me of how grateful I am for all of the little things that happen every day of my journey.

Some days, I just have to show up for myself and not rely on any sort of motivation. I used to wait until I was motivated and inspired to do just about everything. I have learned that life really doesn’t work that way. I just have to show up, put one foot in front of the other, and the motivation will come afterwards sometimes. On the days that I need to work out first thing in the morning, I can guarantee you that I am not motivated at 4:30am when I have to get up and out of bed to make sure that I eat a good meal before I go workout. I have a 30 minute drive to get to the clinic, which means I have to leave at 5:30am. I much prefer 5:30pm in all honesty.

I used to have an all or nothing mindset. If I had a binge, which I’ve not done in about 3 years now, I would spiral into a pit of despair and just keep going in the unhealthy behaviors. The shame would trap me and take me into the eating disorder thoughts and behaviors. I’ve learned that just because I have a day that is definitely not a calorie deficit day doesn’t derail my progress. I’ve learned that I can have a soda and I don’t have to have one the next day or the next week or the month. I just need to have more on track days than I have off track days. I’ve learned that it’s okay to lose weight slowly as long as I’m making progress, and that progress can look like many different things. If I miss a day of working out, I just show up to my next session and move on. If I over indulge in a meal or dessert, I just enjoy it, and move on because I know that most days, I’m on track now. And I don’t punish myself with exercise to make up for the calories that I’ve eaten.

I used to think I knew what I was eating and what an appropriate serving size was. I had always gotten triggered by the idea of using a scale and measuring spoons or cups to record what I was eating. But when I was in that plateau, one of the changes that I made was that I started weighing and measuring just about everything. I had been tracking on Cronometer for a few years, but it was all guesses on how much I was eating. A serving size of peanut butter is 2 tablespoons. Have you ever measured out 2 tbsp of peanut butter? It’s not very much but it’s approximately 190-200 calories. I still eat peanut butter, because I love it, but I’ve actually bought individual packets of peanut butter that are prefilled with the 2 tbsp serving size. It’s not a big deal if I have 50g or 100g of radishes, but the difference between 50g and 100g of peanut butter is massive! I’ve also learned that it would be okay if I did want 4 tbsp of peanut butter; I just need to account for it accurately.

One thing that has really helped me is that I haven’t tried to change everything all at once. I’ve taken super small baby steps to get where I am today. I didn’t reduce my daily calories from 3500 to 1800 calories overnight. I took it step by step. First I got to about 2500 calories, then to an average of 2200 calories, and now I average about 1900 calories a day over a 4 week period. I have days at 1600 calories and days at 2500 calories or more. The first days after the Zepbound injection on Saturdays, I usually eat around 1600 calories and by the end of the week, I’m up to about 2500 calories. My target, which I get to about 4 days a week now, is 1800 calories or lower. Same with my movement targets. I went from unable to hardly walk a year ago, to slowly being able to tolerate over 3 hours of modified movement at this point. I started using a rollator walker on July 8th and now I just use a cane to get around while I’m out and about. I still struggle with daily activities, high levels of pain, and I fall often, I think 9 times in the past year, but I’m stronger day by day.

Losing weight can be a hard and scary journey. I can’t tell you the amount of emotions that have come up throughout the past year. Thank goodness I have a therapist who understands how to work with people with eating disorders. I’ve had 21 years of different types of therapies and each has given me new skills and growth, but in this season of my life, I needed a therapist who knows how to help me on this journey.

A lot of emotion has come up for me around my body changing and the attention that comes with that. I don’t really mind to much when certain people comment on my weight loss, but when weird men hit on me at the gym, for instance, I could do without that, for sure. I have one hard and fast rule that I don’t comment on other people’s bodies. I might give someone a compliment about an article of clothing such as a cool pair of shoes or maybe a new haircut that I like, but never about someone losing weight or changes in their body shape or size. I never know why or how someone is losing weight. They could be in the throws of an eating disorder, or have cancer, or there are a million reasons that someone might choose to lose or gain weight and honestly, it’s just none of my business. But then, you might ask, why am I sharing my stories with you? Well, I think there is a lot to be said for open and honest communication about something that I used to have a great deal of shame about. Sharing my story and allowing myself to be seen, truly seen by others, is important to me and is a very important piece in healing my relationship with food, body image, and dealing with the emotions that come up during this journey.

I think part of what I’ve learned has been about setting boundaries, which is really hard for me. I’ve always struggled with the concept of boundaries. I’m not just talking about boundaries with other people, but mostly the boundaries I set with myself. I have to know when to say that I’ve had enough. To stop eating when I’m full, and to make sure to eat even if I’m not hungry but my blood glucose is dropping. I have to make sure that I don’t fall back into my old behavior of over exercising or simply refocusing my eating disorder into older patterns of disordered eating. I have had discussions with my therapist about whether or not I’m over exercising since I am doing 3+ hour workouts. The one dietitian I was seeing, but am no longer for a variety of reasons, told me in no uncertain terms that I was, but I didn’t agree. After talking to my therapist, I know that I’ve set boundaries for myself about knowing when I need to take it easy, when I can do more movement, and when I need to stop even if I’ve only been there for 5 minutes. I used to over exercise in the past, and I know the difference between that, and what I do now. I also need to make sure that I don’t use the ideals of perfect vegan eating to the pinnacle of “healthy” eating, AKA orthorexia. There’s merits to healthy eating but not when it changes into or shifts from one eating disorder to another.

I’ve also learned the true importance of staying hydrated. I hate plain water, but who says that you have to drink plain water to stay hydrated? I drink purified water that I get from the health food store to fill up my reusable jugs. But I add things like Stur flavor enhancers, True Lemon/Lime/Orange, or Nutricost BCAAs+ electrolytes. I drink ICE sparkling water and ICE Caffeine to get my daily boost of energy. I drink Hint Water and Spindrift sparkling waters. I drink Silk soy milk, both chocolate and unsweetened. I even occasionally drink a regular soda, a specialty soda as a treat, or a boba soy milk tea. And I don’t feel bad about it. I drink about 100oz of fluids every day and that seems to keep me well hydrated, and it doesn’t have to be plain tap water. Yuck!

I have learned all of this and more in the past year. I’ve learned a lot of skills, too, intertwined in everything that I’ve written. I do, and keep in mind, all of this day after day after day. And sometimes, simply minute after minute. And I’m learning that there isn’t an end point, this is a new way of life. A way of life that I choose every day when I wake up and make the next right decision to get me to be a healthy person who can go hiking again in nature, and not just get to a final endpoint of a number or event. It’s about becoming a different person who I can be proud of for showing up for myself in ways that I never knew were possibilities for me before.

How have you changed in the past year? What lessons have you learned?

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I’ve been more than a little bit overwhelmed lately.

It’s been slightly over a year since my decision to go on the Zepbound and truly put my health first. I had been reluctant for years since my primary care doctor had first suggested going on a GLP-1 med.

Back then, because I get my healthcare through Medicare, I couldn’t afford to be on brand name medications, unless I got them through a Canadian pharmacy. There was what was known as a “donut hole” in the Medicare drug programs and I would have had to have paid thousands and thousands of dollars out of pocket in order to take an expensive, brand name medication.

My health was simply out of financial reach and taking a GLP-1 just wasn’t an option.

But starting in January 2025, the Medicare drug plans now have an out of pocket maximum for medications each year, and that is what made it possible for me to go on brand name medications like the Zepbound and now Tymlos, the osteoporosis medication that I started in March.

Because I have bipolar, I’ve had a long history of being on prescription medications.

I absolutely hate the idea that I will be on medication for the rest of my life!

But that same medication is what keeps me alive.

Years ago, I was on so much medication that, looking back on it, I don’t know how I was functioning without being a complete zombie. But over the past 14 years that I’ve been working with my psychiatrist, we’ve slowly honed and reduced the amount of medication that I take. The bipolar has worsened as I’ve gotten older, but the medication combo that we’ve found helps make things manageable with constraints.

It took years for me to even agree to that reduction, but it was one of the best decisions of my life.

At the same time that I was reducing my psych meds, the idea of going on yet another lifelong medication, just wasn’t in my world. I could not conceive of being on yet another med. I was trying to get off of them, not go on more of them.

As I’ve written about, I have a very long history of having a variety of eating disorders over the years, in particular bulimia, orthorexia, and binge eating disorder. I’ve also lived in a larger body almost my entire life.

It’s not like I hadn’t thought about the possibility of having bariatric surgery as a way of losing weight, but I’ve always known that wouldn’t be a good option for me.

I also just simply wasn’t ready to go on a GLP-1 and I didn’t have a good motivation for going on one.

I hadn’t been emotionally ready to let go of the weight that my body has held. I wasn’t ready to let go of the habits, the comfort, the control. And it’s not like I hadn’t tried.

I’ve lost and regained more weight in my adult life than I can even conceive of.

I tried a medically supervised liquid diet, Weight Watchers, eating disorders, and going vegan. I never had had trouble losing weight, but I just couldn’t keep it off. The consistency of maintenance, in the past, was just beyond my ability.

And then I took my first dose of Zepbound on June 21st, 2025. It completely changed the way that my mind processes the concepts of food and eating.

I’ve never known such freedom to make healthier choices.

As I come up on the one year mark of starting the Zepbound, I have to reflect on all of the ways that my life has changed over the past year.

Yes, my numbers on the scale have changed. I’ve written about my progress concerning the numbers. I’ve written about my joys and my frustrations. I didn’t write about my May appointment at the the metabolic clinic, but basically, it was really good news.

At 50 weeks into my Zepbound journey, I had lost 27.3 pounds. I’m still averaging about .5 pounds every week. Of that 27.3 pounds of weight loss, I’ve lost 18.7 pounds of fat. That translates into just about 75 sticks of butter worth of fat that my body has shed. That’s a lot of cookies!

The coolest number change is that I’ve only lost .4 pounds of muscle mass in 50 weeks. That’s only a 1.45% loss in muscle mass when the expectation when someone is on a GLP-1 is approximately 40-45% muscle loss.

I’m literally working my butt off.

I’m down to a BMI of 40.0, which is a 4.7 point loss. We all know that BMI measurements are problematic, but that’s the measure that is being used to determine when I’ll be able to have back surgery. I just need to get to a BMI of 37 to be approved.

Another way that my life has changed this past year is that I’m starting to feel better about my body on an emotional level. I’ve pulled out 15 trash bags of clothing out of my bedroom and coat closets. I did have some clothes from my smaller years left, but a lot of them don’t fit my new body shape.

I’ve had to buy almost an entirely new wardrobe.

I’m down four sizes at this point. My shirt size went from a 26/28, 4X, or even a 5X all of the way down to either an XL, 1X, or 14/16. My pants have gone from just barely fitting into a 26/28, down to a 20 or 22, depending on the cut. I have new shirts, pants, shorts, and even a dress. I bought my first pair of leggings for working out.

I’ve also started to wear jewelry again. Part of the reason that I had stopped wearing my jewelry is that none of my rings or necklaces fit anymore. I also didn’t want to attract attention to myself in a larger body. I didn’t want to be seen.

I’m still working on wanting to be seen, but I’m loving wearing my jewelry again and coordinating it with my new clothes.

A huge change for me is that I’ve found a new hobby. A new love of working out.

I really love working out. The only types of movement I’ve ever felt comfortable with in the past were hiking and swimming. Everything else were just abominations.

It all started 10 months ago when I started with physical therapy. When I started at the end of July 2025, I could barely walk and was using a walker so I wouldn’t keep falling. Well, I’m still falling, I’m up to 8 falls in the past 11 months as of Saturday, but I’m a lot stronger than I was 11 months ago. My balance is better, and now, I just use my purple celestial cane instead of my green walker, Bug. I guess my cane needs a cool name, too. Any suggestions?

I started out slowly in physical therapy. I couldn’t balance for even a short moment on one foot. In order to just put my foot onto a small step stool, the PT had to hold my hands during my initial evaluation. I could barely raise my legs or do any of the exercises.

But I worked my butt off.

I went to physical therapy twice a week, building up to two hours each session, for 5 months. At some point in there, I stopped using the walker, although I do still keep it in the car just in case. The last time I used it was in March, 2026, so about two and a half months ago. When it came to the end of December, I decided that I would start working with the personal trainer at the physical therapy clinic.

This was one of the best decisions that I could have made.

The cool thing about continuing at the clinic instead of working with a trainer at a regular gym, is that they have all of the different adaptive equipment available for me to safely work out given my limitations.

I workout with my trainer twice a week. Tuesdays are my big day and I typically go for 2.5-3.5 hours and on Fridays, I usually go for 2-3 hours. Fridays are my easy days, I say with a laugh. Tuesdays and Fridays I do a combination of cardio, strength, resistance, and endurance training. If I’m not feeling well, I’ll reduce the time or will miss a session. I’m okay with that. I also will go to Planet Fitness on Sundays for some cardio, or on Tuesdays and Fridays just to use the massage chairs and beds on my way home from the clinic. On Thursday or Friday, I also do a bit of walking for all of my errands. That’s about all that my body can handle each week.

My pain still varies. The lowest I get on the 10 point pain scale is about a 4/10 on my best days and the highest is about a 9.8/10 on the really bad days. Typically, I cruise at about a 7-8/10. But I think I have a pretty skewed pain scale at this point. Just yesterday I told my psychiatrist that I hadn’t had a bad pain day on Thursday until I remembered that, in the evening, I had marked down that it was an 8/10 pain day.

In order to make it through the days, I just have to minimize what I’m going through to make it day to day.

Even on the good days though, I can’t really stand or walk more than a few minutes without being in excruciating pain. I’m almost always crying by the time that I finish getting my groceries back to the car and then put in the trunk. Getting my groceries is one of the last independent things that I still do as far as major errands.

There’s just something about picking out my own produce so I know I am getting the best quality and getting my money’s worth.

I have started doing drive up pickup at stores that don’t involve picking out produce. I just can’t make it through stores like Target any longer. I’ve also started ordering most things online so that they just come straight to my door. That removes a few steps from the process of getting what I need to get.

I have had to make so many accommodations in my life just to make it through the days.

Being disabled costs so much money. Adaptive equipment, medications, hiring people to help with things like yard word and housekeeping, insurance copays and premiums, the gym membership, working with the trainer, food adaptations, etc. So. Many. Expenses. But it keeps me functioning.

The reason that I’m writing about this is that I have had to pivot how I prep my food each week, the types of food, the methods, and the ease of prepping food. The days of really complex recipes that require standing at the stove for longer periods of time are over. The big, multi course meal preps aren’t happening anymore.

There are several reasons for this. With being on the Zepbound, I just don’t have the appetite to eat as much food as I used to. I used to eat about 3600 calories a day, and now I’m down to 2000 calories each day on average. I don’t have all of the food noise and constant thoughts of food, day and night, any longer. I also have changed the types of food that I’m eating. Because of all of the movement that I do, my body needs more protein than I used to eat. I typically feel best at right around 100g of protein every day, particularly on the days that I workout. So the composition of my meals have changed so that I can get to the calorie, macro, and micro targets that I need to be at in order to lose weight and feel my best.

Some weeks, when I hurt really bad, I might just make a bunch of bento boxes or snacks instead of full meals. Other weeks, when I’m not hurting as much, I will still cook a full meal prep. Still other weeks, I’m just prepping the fruits and veggies to throw together into easy things during the week. And other weeks, I’m just winging it day by day.

I’m using a lot more convenience foods now. I buy things like boxed rice mixes, salad bags and bowls, precut fruit and veggies, frozen meals, canned soups and chilis, etc. I’m not making every single thing from scratch anymore like I used to. Thank goodness for Amy’s frozen dinners and canned foods. They truly save my life during the high pain weeks.

My body just won’t cooperate anymore and this is a big frustration for me.

I am trying to figure out how to make my life easier each day. Which things absolutely need to get done and which things can just be let go of. I often feel so overwhelmed with all of the tasks of trying to keep myself healthy, fed, and clothed, as well as working enough to keep myself and my cats well taken care of.

I used to be a perfectionist. Now I’m a realist.

There are 168 hours in each week. I work about 5-10 hours a week on average. I spend about 15 hours a week either working out or driving back and forth to workout. There’s the simple adulting tasks and errands that have to be done, maybe another 15 hours a week. Then there’s all of the doctor’s appointments or appointments with other providers, which is around another 5 hours each week. I have to sleep (56 hours), manage my meds and pick them up from the pharmacy (4 hours), eat and prep food (25 hours), do laundry (3 hours), and attempt to keep the house livable (5 hours). That’s about 138 hours of the 168 hours each week. That other 30 hours, during the week is time to rest, deal with the bipolar symptoms and pain control, socialize, play with the cats, etc. And that doesn’t even include the time I’d need to read, paint, write, or create, which are the things that make life worth living.

No wonder I have been feeling overwhelmed lately. No wonder I feel like I’m struggling to keep my head above water. No wonder I’m tired. No wonder no matter how much I sleep each week, I’m still tired.

So, this morning is Saturday. It’s time to make my ToDo list. It’s time to figure out how many things I can get done today between working, and resting to be able to do more work. It’s time to figure out what type of a meal prep I will be doing tomorrow. It’s time to figure out what are the top 3 things that I have to get done today and what are the others that would just be nice to get done today.

I worked out yesterday with my trainer. I haven’t been feeling great after getting sick last week with a bout of bacterial colitis that ended me up in the ER, not to mention that I fell again on Saturday. When I got to the clinic, I told my trainer that it would probably be a shorter than normal workout, just like Tuesday had been. I was really tippy yesterday, meaning my balance wasn’t that great. But as I got going, I started feeling really good and was back to my normal weights after having to lower them on Tuesday. But I did poop out at just under 2 hours plus some stretching at the end put me at just over 2 hours yesterday.

As I’ve been doing increasingly difficult workouts, I’ve come to realize that it’s all about the mindset.

On Tuesday, I tried, what I thought was an impossible feat of pushing 270 pounds on the sled because one of the guys was going to do it. I honestly didn’t think that I’d be able to even move it an inch, but I thought, heck, why not at least try? Earlier in the workout, I had struggled with my 4 laps around the gym at 160 pounds, so there was no way I should have even tried, let alone been able to do it. But I just wanted to try. And you know what?

I pushed that sled with 270 pounds about 12 feet across the gym and those 12 feet back again.

I did it by just putting one foot in front of the other, slow step by slow step. I figured that if I could push it an inch, I could push it those 25 feet. And everyone cheered me on. One person even told me to remember that just 10 months ago that I couldn’t walk, and there I was, pushing a sled with 270 pounds.

My life is full of juxtapositions. I learned that I can push a sled with 270 pounds or walk on the treadmill at a 5.5% incline for 20 minutes (just barely) and at the same time, I can’t make it through the grocery store and back to my car without crying from the pain. I can do these specific movements, but the day to day tasks like cleaning the house or simply pulling weeds, I just can’t do.

I’ve come to realize that my trainer is right, that it’s on the hard days, where at least I showed up no matter how much I hurt or didn’t want to be there, or even if I have to drop my weights way down, those are the days that count the most.

It’s when I think I can’t, and do it anyways, despite how incredibly hard it is, that mindset it what gets me through my days at this point. My psychiatrist and I were talking yesterday about how, when looking at my newest MRI results from Wednesday, that I should be in a wheelchair at this point, and without those 10 months of PT, I’m sure that I would have been.

And next year when I have my spinal fusion done, my recovery is going to be hard. I want to say that it will be like starting all over again, but not really.

One of the biggest lessons that I have learned in this past year is that if I think I can do it, or at least if I try to do it, that I might just surprise myself and accomplish my dreams.

What dreams to you want to accomplish? Do you think that your mindset is just as important as your skills and natural abilities? How has your life changed in the past year?

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I have finally started losing weight again!

I think it’s been since October that I’ve lost any weight prior to the past four weeks. It’s been frustrating to be trying so hard and to have hit a plateau. And a lengthy plateau at that.

BUT…it seems that I have finally broken through and the numbers are moving again.

My first appointment at the metabolic clinic, through our local hospital, was at the end of May, 2025, so just about 11 months ago. I had an appointment today and got the newest numbers in.

In those 11 months, I’ve lost 24.5 pounds, which is roughly .5 pounds per week of weight loss.

A healthy rate of weight loss is .5-1.0 pounds, so, although I’m at the low end of that range, I’m still within the desired range.

And, it’s important to note that I know plateaus are a normal part of the process.

Plateaus are frustrating, but they are normal.

In the past 11 months, I’ve lost 14.2 pounds of fat. The last time that I made this comparison a few months ago, it was just 11 pounds of fat.

I have now lost 57 sticks of butter worth of fat alone!

This visual just cracks me up and is worth quite a few cakes, cookies, and buttered pieces of bread.

Next time you go to the grocery store, take a look in the butter section and look at just how much space 57 sticks of butter takes up. It’s pretty amazing.

Now, let’s look at my muscle mass. When losing weight, particularly on a GLP-1 like Zepbound, it is expected that you will not only lose fat, but that you’ll also lose muscle mass, sometimes as high as 30-40% of the weight you lose being muscle.

Even though I’ve lost 24.5 pounds, I have only lost 1.5 pounds of muscle mass, which is only about a 6% loss.

Amazing! All of my hard work is paying off.

Now, let’s look at the change in my BMI. There are so many issues of why to use or why not to use BMI numbers as a gauge of health, but it’s used for many things, so it is still important.

So, let me tell you a bit about why my BMI is going to be very important.

I’ve written about some of my chronic pain issues in past posts. Back in August, I had an appointment with the PA for the local neurosurgeon. I was told that based on my MRI, I would need a fusion of L5/S1, but that they wouldn’t even consider fixing the stenosis at L2/L3 because they both have compression fractures. I was also told that I needed to reduce my BMI to 30-35. At that time it was approximately 43. That difference seemed insurmountable to me. A 35 BMI would take me to a weight that I had never been as an adult. I felt defeated and like there was no hope of ever getting any pain relief.

But I asked for a referral to the University of New Mexico Neurosurgery clinic in Albuquerque. I finally had my first appointment with them in January. That appointment was with a nurse practitioner who took a detailed history, had me create pain logs so that they could get some information about descriptions and ratings of my pain, as well as what helps and what makes it worse. She ordered X-rays for both a functional lumbar series and a scoliosis series. The she put in orders for diagnostic injections at L5/S1 and L2/L3 on the right side. I was also scheduled for an appointment at the end of March, which was with the neurosurgeon who I will be working with.

The injections had their pluses and minuses. Because of the bipolar, my psychiatrist did not want me to have a steroid in the injections as they can cause mania. So basically, I was just having lidocaine injections, which meant that they wouldn’t last more than an hour at most. But, what they would provide is the information as to whether surgery in those locations would help or not.

I had the injections on March 5th and 19th. I was really nervous for the first one, but the second one was easy as I knew what to expect. They took away the pain completely for approximately 90 minutes and partially for about four hours.

Those were the best 90 minutes of my life in my recent memory!

One of the most painful activities for me is taking a shower. Even with bars in the shower that I can lean on and a shower chair that I’ll use sometimes, it doesn’t matter. It just hurts and I avoid showers like the plague.

All that I wanted to do with those 90 minutes each time was to take a pain free shower.

Those showers were heaven!

On the negative side of things, the rebound pain was intense! I could barely walk by those evenings and the following days. I don’t even remember them, I hurt so bad.

I had my appointment with the neurosurgeon on March 24th. I really like him. He was kind and compassionate. He listened to me and my concerns. He told me that I was just too young to be in this much pain.

He pulled up my MRI images and went through them and talked about his concerns about what is going to need to be fixed. He pulled up the X-rays that I had done that morning.

When he put up the full spine from the front, my jaw almost hit the floor when I saw that I apparently have scoliosis, and pretty severe scoliosis at that.

He said that this is why I’m having so much trouble with my right leg in particular. He then went back to the MRI and we talked about the surgery that I’m going to need. It’s not just going to be a “simple” fusion of L5/S1 like I had been told.

I’m going to need a fusion from, I believe, T10-S2. That’s 10 vertebrae! Plus a scoliosis correction.

I asked him about the recovery and what help I would need afterwards. He told me that I’d be in the hospital 7-10 days and in rehab as long as he can get my insurance to pay for it, hopefully at least 3 weeks. I’ll need someone staying with me for minimum of an additional month, and then even more help through the next number of months. Physical therapy starts at about 3 months after surgery. Full recovery is about 6-12 months.

My mind went blank. I didn’t even know what questions to ask at that point. I was in shock.

One of the complications with surgery and my back is that I have osteoporosis and have had compression fractures of L1, L2, and L3. L1 and L2 were from a fall in 2020, and L3 was spontaneous and I didn’t even know it when it happened.

I have been seen twice at the bone clinic in Durango, Colorado and have now started a medication called Tymlos. It’s a daily injection, for two years, that is used to rebuild up to 80% of bone structure and strength as well as prevent bone reabsorption.

I have to be on the Tymlos for a year before I can have the surgery.

This is okay though because the surgeon is booking out 12 months in advance so this works out perfectly. By being on this medication before and afterwards, it will allow for my bones to fuse to and around the hardware that will be put in my spine.

The other condition for me having surgery is that I have to get my BMI to 37, and preferable about 35. Because I carry almost all of my weight in the abdomen, it pulls on my spine and will increase the likelihood of hardware failure if I am at a higher weight.

The surgeon also wants me to increase my movement even more than I already do. In addition to working out twice a week with the trainer on Tuesdays and Fridays, and going to Planet Fitness on Sundays, he wants me to start walking every single day.

My next appointment at UNM will be in September with the PA. I have to get some tests done to make sure there aren’t any issues that need to be addressed prior to scheduling surgery, including pulmonary function tests and a nuclear stress test. The surgery date will be set after that appointment. So, I’m looking at 18 months to get my BMI to 35-37 or lower.

I can’t tell you how much of a relief it has been to know that I have 17 more months to get my BMI down.

I don’t do well with pressure when it comes to eating and my relationship with food. I need a relaxed and positive atmosphere.

I now have a very realistic goal to work towards. And I know that I can do it!

So this gets back to my appointment today at the metabolic clinic. Eleven months ago, my BMI was 44.7 and today, it was down to 40.5. That’s a 4.2 point decrease in 11 months and I only need to go down another 2.5-4.5 more points and I have 17 months.

I can do hard things! And I can meet this target!

Maybe, just maybe, there’s an end in sight for the high levels of chronic pain that I’m in.

I see a future where I will, once again, be a hiker who can spend time out in nature with all of the sights, sounds, scents, and physical sensations that I have missed so much.

I was recently watching a video of an America’s Got Talent audition by Nightbirde. The original song that she sang was just beautiful, but what she said during the interview after she received the golden buzzer was even better. The words she said that hit me to hardest were:

“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”

I feel this in my soul.

Monday was my birthday. I was describing my day to my friends in a Facebook post. I was having a 9.5/10 pain day from Sunday late afternoon until Monday night. I essentially cried for about 30 hours with only short breaks when I was around other people. Even through the tears, I had a really good birthday.

I went up to Durango after work. I went to a local restaurant called Grassburger to get a black bean burger, sweet potato fries, and a vegan milkshake. I told the cashier that it was my birthday and asked if I could get both strawberry and chocolate in my milkshake. He told me absolutely, as long as I didn’t tell his boss.

That strawberry chocolate milkshake was so delicious and absolutely made my day.

Then I went to a park that has a pathway to walk along the Animas River.

Being in so much pain on Monday, I didn’t know if I would even be able to get from the parking lot to the walkway, but you better believe that I was at least going to try.

I walked about 100-150 feet and made it to the walkway, which is where this picture was taken from. I sat for a bit on a rock because I knew I couldn’t get back to the car without doing so. I watched the river, looked at the few flowers that were already peaking their heads out, and let the cool air envelope me.

Not every hike has to be miles and miles long.

Even though I was hurting on Monday, even though I cried while I sat on the rock enjoying the view, I decided to be happy without waiting for my life not to be hard anymore.

Being happy is a choice.

I’m not talking about toxic positivity. But what I am talking about is that I would rather laugh than cry. Yes, some days I cry. But I laugh every day. Some days the bipolar gets the best of me. Okay, most days it gets the best in a variety of ways. But I laugh every day. I smile every day. I write my affirmations. I know that tomorrow will be a better day.

It’s okay to have those hard days, but it’s more important to focus on the good in every day.

Do you believe that being happy is a choice? What can you do today to laugh or at least smile? What do you want to add into your life to bring more happiness and joy to your days?

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I’ve written previously about my musings on becoming a gym rat in this post. Okay, I’m not really a gym rat, but I am enjoying working out 3 times a week, both with the trainer and on my own at Planet Fitness.

Tuesdays are my long days.

I’m averaging about 3-3.5 hour long workouts with the trainer. And I handle them really well at this point. Of course I feel it afterwards, but I’m not like so sore that I can’t function, and I’m fine by the morning.

I’m learning how to fuel my body throughout the day so that, Tuesday night and Wednesday day, my blood glucose doesn’t drop too low like it has been. It’s a work in progress, and I see the dietitian again Thursday and I’ll be checking in with her about this in particular, among other things.

Fridays and Sundays are easier days.

Fridays last about 2-2.5 hours with the trainer, and Sundays are roughly an hour at Planet Fitness with a massage chair session when I get there and again before I leave. Sometimes I’ll go in just for the massage chair on other days though.

Tuesdays and Fridays are a mix of cardio, resistance, strength, and endurance training.

The cool thing about working out with my trainer, at the PT clinic, is that he modifies everything for me so that I can be successful with every activity. For instance, there’s always a chair next to my starting/ending point. For some of the arms, I sit on a yoga ball so that, since I really can’t stand that long, I can still work on my core, while I work on my arms. I have the balance bars, to be close to or in, as I do certain exercises to make sure I don’t fall.

I think I push myself more than he does sometimes and everyone there knows me at this point and is always so encouraging.

The PT who did my eval back at the end of July, sat down with me today to tell me how impressed he is with how hard I work and how much progress I have made. That he had been watching me the whole time I had been there today, about 2 hours at that point, and could see that the weights I can do now are no small feat.

It felt good coming from someone who saw me when he had to hold my hands just to put one foot up onto a short step stool just so I wouldn’t fall over.

Today, the trainer first gave me a huge compliment by telling me how impressed he is that all that he has to do is show me something once and I’ve got it down, once I do the first couple of reps.

The other thing he told me today is that my Tuesdays are more like professional game days, while my Fridays and Sundays are just workouts.

That was really cool to hear too.

We were joking because I was telling him that by the time I get home and have dinner on Tuesdays, I am starving! This is even though I have to force myself to eat my mid-workout snack. And then, I’m starving all day on Wednesdays as well.

This is why I’m learning to fuel my body in a completely different way than I’ve ever know how to in the past.

It’s really cool though, because I compare how, typically just getting groceries, leaves me crying from the pain by the time I get back to the car, but with the right modifications, I can kick butt for over 3 hours at a time.

I am really proud of myself for that.

I’m really proud of myself for showing up, becoming a lot stronger, and persevering despite the sometimes all consuming pain.

And something else that’s really cool that I’m also really, really proud about is, on Sunday at Planet Fitness, I did 5 minutes on the treadmill. I was shaky at first and not quite sure that could do it.

But now, I know that I can do both the treadmill and the rowing machine, which we also started working on as well.

Two years ago I was averaging just about 700 steps each day. As of right now, today, I’m at 4727 steps and counting for the day at dinner time. My weekly average ranges from about 1800-2700 at this point.

And it can only go up from there.

That’s a huge difference considering the levels of pain that I’m in.

I’ve always said that my WHY for wanting to do all of this, is that I want to be a hiker again, and every step I take now, gets me closer and closer to that goal.

What have you done lately that you’re proud of? Brag about your accomplishments too!

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I really love fresh, raw corn straight off the cob. This is best in the summer, at the height of the growing season with the sweetest corn that you can find. I can find corn on the cob year round at my grocery store even though it’s not in season. Yes, it’s pricier, and yes, I could make this with frozen or canned corn, but to me, it’s just so so much better with fresh, raw corn. But you do you, and go with what you’re able to find or afford all year round. This has been a staple in my house for months now. I serve it with my Vegan Roasted Veggie Tacos and if I have leftovers, I’ll just eat it straight like a salad.

This truly couldn’t be an easier recipe. The hardest part is dicing all of the veggies and cutting the corn off the cob without making a huge mess. For the corn, just take a really sharp butcher knife and slide the blade down the base of the kernels, rotating with each slice, about 7-8 times to get the whole way around the cob. Be sure to pick out any silk that you may have missed when you were cleaning the cobs. For the jalapeño, cut off the stem and slice lengthwise. Use a spoon to scrape out the pith and seeds. If you want this to be really spicy, just leave them in. Be sure to either wear gloves when preparing the jalapeño or wash your hands really well afterwards. And don’t touch any sensitive parts! I like using red onion to add to the rainbow of colors, but I’ve also made this with sweet onion and I liked it just as much. For the bell peppers, you can use any color that you want, but I use the tri-colored mini peppers because they’re sweeter than the bigger ones and, again, they add to the rainbow. The dressing for this is simple, it’s just lime juice and vegan parmesan, with a bit of salt. I just add it all separately in with the veggies and then mix everything together. You want it to have a bit of juice at the bottom so it’s not too dry and crumbly. I like to let this sit overnight before I use it. It lets the flavors mix together. Just mix again before using.

I hope you enjoy!

Vegan Elote Salsa

-4 ears of corn, shucked and kernels cut off

-1 large Jalapeño, pith and seeds removed and diced very small

-1/3 medium red onion, diced very small

-1/2 cup diced, tri-colored mini bell peppers

-Vegan Parmesan

-1/4 cup almond flour

-1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes

-1/4 cup lime juice

-1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Refrigerate overnight to allow the flavors to combine.

How do you like your corn? Raw? Frozen? Canned? Have you ever tried elote before? How would you use this salsa?

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I’ve always truly hated ranch dressing, but this one, is absolutely amazing! And, it is so simple to make. Just combine all of the ingredients, leave it sit overnight so that the dehydrated onions soften up, and you’re done. Couldn’t get much easier than that, right? It’s made with vegan mayonnaise. So, that’s not oil free if you get a store bought version. I know that there are plenty of oil free recipes out there for vegan mayo with a base of silken tofu, so you could try using that and let us know in the comments if it tastes okay. These proportions are more like a dip than a dressing because it’s pretty thick, but you should be able to thin it out with either extra apple cider vinegar, or maybe some water. If you do, I’d test just a small amount first to make sure you like the end result. I’ve been using it to dip celery sticks in and it’s amazing. It would also probably be great with things like cauliflower wings, or salads. Pretty much where ever you’d typically use ranch dressing.

I hope you enjoy!

Vegan Smoky Ranch Dressing

-1/2 cup vegan mayonnaise

-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

-2 tbsp Dijon

-1 1/2 tbsp dried dill

-1 tsp celery seed

-1/2 tsp salt

-1 tsp dried parsley

-1 tsp garlic powder

-1 tsp onion powder

-1 tsp smoked paprika

-1 tsp dried minced onion

Mix everything together in a small bowl. Makes approximately 12 tbsp. Let sit overnight.

Do you like ranch dressing? If not, what other dressings or dips do you like that I should try to make in a new and exciting way?

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There’s a funny thing happening right now as I move along in my health journey.

I’m actually really enjoying working out at the gym and with my trainer. I’m as shocked as probably anyone else is who really knows me.

I have never liked to “exercise” and there have only been a couple forms of movement that I have actually liked to do. My favorites as a kid were to swim, dive, ride my bike, roller skate, and ice skate. I did like playing sports with the neighborhood kids, but at school, I was always picked last for teams. At recess in the later elementary years, my friends and I convened in the gutter and talked about life and supported each other.

As I went through junior high and started into actual PE classes, it was horrible. I had true physical limitations with chronic knee and ankle pain. I was very overweight by that point, was bullied for my size, and had a truly spiteful PE teacher with a power trip. I was an otherwise straight A student, but because I couldn’t run a mile in a specific time, she was trying to give me a failing grade in PE even though I was trying my hardest to succeed. The only saving grace was that we had a student teacher with a heart who worked with me. She set it up in such a way that she tracked my progress and as long as I was improving my times, that was what she would base my grade on.

Still, junior high PE classes and “exercise” were very traumatic experiences for me.

By high school, my parents petitioned for me to be in an adaptive PE class for my freshman year. I was allowed to swim in the diving pool, where I had taken diving lessons as a child. And I had been really good at diving. I should have followed my coach’s advice and started to compete but I was so self-conscious of my body at that point, that instead of switching to a competitive tract, I stopped all together. For my sophomore year of high school, I was able to get excused completely from PE in favor of an extra academic class and that was the end of that.

I’m not sure how many years or the timing, but I remember doing multiple rounds of physical therapy as a teenager because I had so much knee and ankle pain and my gait was off. I remember it because where I went was right across the way from Jack Murphy Stadium where the Padres and the Chargers played back then, so I got to meet several professional athletes as well as multiple professional wrestlers. Pretty cool for a teenager.

When I was 17, I went on a liquid diet in a medically supervised program. I lost weight because of it, and was able to start walking and hiking without high levels of pain.

I remember my first hikes at Yosemite and Zion National Parks when I went on camping trips with my church youth group.

The experiences of hiking from Glacier Point to the Valley in Yosemite or hiking up the Narrows in Zion were truly life changing and helped me develop my love of hiking!

The amazing things that I saw through the years on all of the hikes that I have been on is beyond my ability to describe. Mountains, streams, rivers, wildflowers, canyons, rock formations, hikes by the light of a full moon, the crunching of my boots in fresh snow, the feel of sand and mud between my toes. The surprise visits from the animals.

And having had the experience of being part of three ladybug saturnalias.

What do I mean by a ladybug saturnalia, you might ask? It’s the convergence of thousands and thousands of ladybugs in one space to breed and then feast. The first time I saw one was in the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico on St Peter’s Dome. The second time was at the Capulin Volcano National Monument, also in New Mexico. And the third time was in Zion National Park in Utah. Each time, I sat down to write in my journal and pretty soon, I felt the beautiful ladybugs crawling all over me and I realized that I was surrounded by thousands and thousands of ladybugs.

I have yet to met another person who even knew about ladybug saturnalias, let alone experienced three of them!

I’ve written before about some of what has been going on with my physical health aside from my weight loss journey. I have multiple physical issues wrong with my back that causes chronic pain and makes it very difficult for me to walk and perform every day tasks.

I worked my butt off in physical therapy for five full months, going twice a week almost every single week from the end of July to the end of December, 2025.

When I started PT, I was using a walker, could barely take a few unaided steps without feeling like I was going to fall. I had a total of six falls in 2025, five of those happening from the beginning of July to the end of November. By the time I finished PT at the end of December, I was mostly using just a cane to get around outside of the house. I now only use the walker occasionally for work when I’d otherwise have to walk or stand for an hour at a time or I have to carry something heavy into the office.

But I still couldn’t truly hike when I finished PT, although I did have those experiences that I wrote about here. It is still difficult to walk, let alone get out onto a trail on my own like I used to feel confident doing.

So I started working with the personal trainer at the PT clinic who specializes in transitioning patients from PT to a regular movement and exercise program.

I’m one of those people who do really well showing up when I have an appointment but I’m really bad at just making myself go and do something on my own. I never missed a single day of PT, but I also know that I wasn’t going to continue to do the exercises once I stopped without having someone to help me out.

I had been wanting to find a personal trainer before I started PT anyways, but the least expensive place I could find was $47 per hour which was more than a bit out of my price range. I also was concerned about finding someone who would be able to work with my physical differences and chronic pain issues and the fact that I can’t stand still for more than a few minutes at a time.

So, I started working with my trainer at the beginning of January 2026, and I am absolutely loving it!

I was just going to go every Tuesday and every other Friday, but I’ve now been going twice a week every week because I love it so much.

And these aren’t just 60 minute workouts, these are 2-3 hour workouts!

And yes, I’m tired at the end and sometimes can barely walk out of there the short distance to my car, but I’m feeling great and love the way I feel in my body afterwards.

I can feel that my body is getting stronger. I’m able to stand a little longer and walk just a bit farther.

My every day pain is starting to get better; however, the pain when I move still gets up to an 8-9 out of 10 at times. My functionality is still pretty limited, but I’m hopeful. It’s only $30 for a session no matter how long it is, and if you pay ahead for nine sessions, you get the 10th for free. So it comes out to $27/session, which is only about $10/hour. Granted, there are several of us there at the same time, and we share the clinic with the PT clients, but it’s never been anything other than an incredibly supportive experience and I feel at home already.

And it’s funny because my smaller shirts are still getting too big around my belly, and are starting to get tight around my shoulders and upper arms.

I’m also going to Planet Fitness at least once a week as well. I like it there and definitely feel their whole “no judgement zone” commitment. Everyone is very nice and I love the fact that I get to end my workouts with the water massage chair. Oh man, that positive reinforcement makes it so worth it on top of the natural endorphins from the workout itself.

I never thought that I’d truly like going to the gym. I’ve had mostly unused gym memberships in the past because the road to failure is paved in good intentions. But now I have an appointment twice a week and a schedule for Planet Fitness, and I’m following through and going.

I could get on the cardio machines, go for a swim, or walk on a track, but I didn’t even know what “resistance exercises” were let alone how to implement a well thought out practice. But I do know that I need to be doing the resistance training since I’m on the Zepbound and I don’t want to lose too much muscle mass.

I never felt comfortable doing any of the free weights or the weight machines. I don’t know how to move between the muscle groups, how to sequence things, when to increase weights, reps, and sets. I don’t know how the machines work. I’ve never felt successful at the gym because I just didn’t know what I was doing.

I’m starting to find my comfort zone now with the help and encouragement of my trainer and the others at the clinic. I’ve come a long way on this journey.

I’ve said since one of my first posts here is that my WHY for wanting to go on this health journey is that I want to be able to hike again.

And I can’t wait to experience my fourth ladybug saturnalia when I am able to get back out on the trails and experience the sights, smells, and sounds of being in nature once more. This will bring me great joy and is part of why I have been working so hard to be able to move my body in a variety of different ways.

What is your WHY for your health journey? What motivates you to get up every day and show up for yourself? What type of movement do you like? What’s next on your health journey?

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These tofu chunks are my new hyper fixation for sure! These are so good and they taste great both for snacking as well as for a salad topping. They are super easy to make as well. And, these taste exactly how I remember fried chicken or chicken nuggets tasting.

You’ll start with a block of tofu that has been pressed at least overnight. There are various methods of pressing tofu, but I prefer using a device called the Tofu Bud, because I can easily fit two of them in the fridge overnight to squeeze as much water out of the block of tofu as possible. It really allows the marinade to soak up into the tofu for extra flavor.

A lot of recipes call for cubes of tofu, but this recipe is best with pulled chunks of tofu. It allows for the coating to cover better and the rough edges will get crispier when baked or air fried than if you use cubes. I went with 14 chunks so that they were each about an ounce in weight.

It’s pretty simple after that. Mix the tamari with the garlic and onion powders in a medium bowl and add the tofu chunks. Mix well until all off the liquid is absorbed and the tofu is completely covered. Sprinkle on the dry ingredients and mix well.

I used a rimmed, quarter sheet pan for one block of tofu. Prepare the baking sheet lined with either parchment paper or a silicone mat. Spread out the tofu on the baking sheet, being sure to leave space between the chunks which will allow for the chunks to crisp up. I used some spray canola oil just to help them crisp up but it’s optional if you are oil free. Bake at 425º for 20-22 minutes until golden brown. I’m sure these can be air fried as well but I’ve not tried them this way. But if you experiment with it, tell me about it in the comments.

Hope you enjoy!

Chicken-less Tofu Chunks

-14oz extra firm tofu, pressed over night

-2 tbsp tamari

-1 tsp garlic powder

-1 tsp onion powder

-1 tbsp nutritional yeast

-1 tsp dehydrated minced onion

-1 tsp dried parsley flakes

-oil spray (optional)

After pressing the tofu over night, pat dry. Tear the tofu into 14 bite sized pieces. By tearing it, the flavor will get into the crevices better than sliced cubes. In a small bowl, mix the tamari, onion powder, and garlic powder. Add the tofu. Stir well until the tofu is fully coated and the liquid has been completely absorbed. Add the nutritional yeast, minced onion, and parsley flakes to the tofu and mix to coat. Arrange on a rimmed baking sheet lined with either parchment or a silicone mat. If desired, spray lightly with oil. Bake at 425° for 20-22 minutes.

What’s your favorite way to prepare tofu? What would you use these tofu chunks for? Any other ideas than snacking or salads? Do you remember the first time you ever tried tofu?

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So, it’s been 35 weeks since I started taking the weekly injections of Zepbound, and 3 weeks before that when I had my first appointment at our hospital’s metabolic clinic. I had my monthly visit today.

And I’m frustrated.

I haven’t lost any weight in the past 3 months. In fact, I’ve now even gained 2 pounds in that time. Five weeks ago, I even increased my Zepbound dose from 5mg to 7.5mg.

And still nothing.

But I still had a really good appointment and I felt very well supported as we brainstormed and problem solved just how we’re going to get me back on track and losing again.

My appointments typically last about 30 minutes, but today we spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out next steps. It pays to show up early to appointments.

I use Cronometer to track my food, liquid, supplements, and movement on a daily basis. It calculates my intake and output and when I compile the report, it gives me averages of all sorts of information: calories, macros, micros, etc. We spent time comparing my averages against my calculated basal metabolic rate and the macro and micro targets that we have set. We looked at what my daily calorie needs are based on my activity level. We discussed how my Apple Watch tracks my movement calories and whether that is accurate or not. We talked about whether my activity level is light or moderate based on the amount of movement I do each week. Our intuition was to call it light but when we looked at the number of calories I’m maintaining my weight at, it actually puts me at a moderate level. We discussed what would be a new calorie target based on the fact that I have heavy movement days and very light movement days. We discussed that the dietitian has set a calorie goal for me at 1400 calories and how I just can’t seem to make that work for the life of me.

We crunched all of the numbers.

We looked back to me first visit in May, 2025 vs today’s visit in February, 2026. I’ve lost 20 pounds and that includes losing 11.5 pounds of fat, and only losing 1.4 pounds of muscle mass. We already know that I’m frustrated with the weight loss, but when you look at it, I’m actually in the target range for expected and preferred weight loss, which is .5-1 pound per week. I’m at just a smidge above .5 pounds per week.

So, these are actually very positive aspects of my journey.

Do you know how much volume 11.5 pounds of fat takes up? That’s 46 sticks of butter! 46! That’s a lot of space. With 20 pounds of weight loss, the expectation is a decent loss of muscle mass, and that’s just not happening for me, which can be attributed to all of the resistance training and cardio that I have been doing.

But we didn’t just crunch numbers today. We also discussed my emotional struggles and, more importantly, a whole host of non-scale victories.

But I’ll get back to that in a moment.

I’ve written previously that my WHY for losing weight and getting healthier is that I want to be able to go hiking again. I want to be a hiker. I want to change my identity back to being a healthy, strong, independent woman who travels and hikes with ease. I want to be a guest again at a ladybug saturnalia. I want to walk again without pain so that I can get back out into nature. You can read about my first hike in my post Oh Where, Oh Where, Have I Been?

Since writing that post, I had my first appointment at the UNM Neurosciences Center to set up care looking at the possibility of fixing the issues in my back. I also had an appointment at the Common Spirit Bone Clinic to begin to address the osteoporosis since I had a spontaneous compression fracture in L3 at some point about this time last year. This was my third lumbar compression fracture which complicates any prospect of having surgery on my back to reduce the pain.

Both appointments went really well. I felt heard and respected. The issue of my weight wasn’t mentioned at either appointment. Both providers were looking for solutions and not barriers. I return to both clinics in March.

Losing those 46 sticks of butter is helping to reduce my chronic pain levels. Instead of running at a typical 6 to 7 out of 10, I’m now running at a 5 to 6 out of 10. Granted, I still have my 7, 8, and 9 days, but most days, even on the bad days, I have good periods of time. Saying this, you have to understand that just simply getting groceries today left me in tears, so maybe my 5 or 6 out of 10 pain levels would be someone without chronic pain’s 9 or 10.

I don’t know. I truly have nothing to compare it to as I’ve always had pain my entire life. I mean I was in physical therapy starting in junior high, so…ya.

None of us know how someone else experiences pain.

Both physical and emotional.

So, back to my appointment today.

We talked a lot about the emotional aspect of eating and how the eating disorder has complicated this journey to get me back to being a hiker.

I have a lot of rituals and ingrained thought patterns related to foods and eating. When we started talking about what goals that I want to work on for the next 4 weeks until my next appointment, we talked about one thought pattern that I’ve been working on for a year and a half to figure out.

I know a lot of my readers are whole food, plant based no oil and/or gluten free eaters. That’s where I was a year and a half ago when I started my Substack.

But I was struggling with it. I had so much inner turmoil trying to act on the information that I had been taught by all of the plant based doctors all the years back to when I used to listen to Dr John McDougall on the radio in the mid-90s.

I know and understand the research that has been done about a whole food, plant based, no oil way of eating. I get it.

But I wasn’t included in that research.

What I mean by that, is that being a unique individual, with all of my complicating factors, I do not fit into a neat control group that is used in a research study.

I am on psychiatric medication, I have PCOS, I have had an eating disorder since I was very young. And on and on and on.

I don’t fit nicely into a single category.

I was told for years that I needed to begin to include more protein and some healthy fats in my diet. I rejected it outright as that’s what I had been taught.

But the past year, I’ve been experimenting with changing the way that I eat in many ways because what I was doing wasn’t working for me and I am noticing a difference in how I feel.

I was never able to sustain weight loss or any amount of time on a strict no oil way of eating. I just couldn’t do it. Even with high levels of therapeutic support working on the eating disorder, I couldn’t do it.

Even though it may be right for others, it is not right for me.

It’s sort of like comparing one person’s pain to another.

I can’t compare my ability to adhere to a strict whole foods, plant based no oil way of eating to someone else’s ability to do the same thing given their life circumstances, which are different from mine.

So today we talked about how hard it has been emotionally for me to start using oil and healthy fats in my cooking. I had been taught that it was so wrong that I had become fearful of it. Same with the increased protein.

But what I’m finding, is that it has actually helped me to feel fuller longer and more satisfied after eating and between meals.

This is huge for me to realize that the world didn’t end when I ate oil and that I didn’t have to shame myself every time I “failed” and had a processed food with oil, let alone eating a processed food to begin with.

We also discussed another really cool non-scale victory.

When I was working with my trainer a few sessions ago, I was in the middle of my end of session stretches, and I realized that instead of having to spread my legs apart to raise them toward my chest, I’m now able to keep my knees together! Then later, I realized that I can now sit on the yoga ball with my knees together straight in front of me instead of having to spread my legs apart, not only my belly being too big, but also just because I needed the extra stability because my core was weak.

Today we set two goals for the next four weeks.

My first goal is to increase my daily step count to 2000 steps. A year and a half ago, I was averaging about 1000 or fewer steps per day and now I’m averaging about 1750 steps per day and sometimes I’m getting into the high 3000s to low 4000s. So that’s goal one. This means adding a true daily walk even if it’s just 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening.

The second goal is that I’ve been working on being more intentional in my meal planning and how I build the meals and snacks for the week. Typically, I’d just select what sounded good on the prior Thursday before getting my groceries for the next week. I didn’t think about my calories for the week or how the calories for the individual meals and snacks would add up for the day. Not to mention meeting my protein goal for the days. I just created new recipes that sounded fun and delicious and figured it would all work out in the end. But it’s not working out in the end. So my goal is to be more intentional in my meal planning and prepping.

My third goal, which has nothing to do with the appointment today, is that I want to get caught up on posting all of the delicious recipes that I have been creating the past year or more. They are still all vegan, can all be made oil free, although some have oil in the ingredients, and almost everything is gluten free or can be made gluten free with substitutions.

So look for more recipes coming soon!

Do you have any frustrations on your health journey? In what ways do you take care of yourself on your hard days?

Cotton and Princess Spitfire keep me grounded on my hard days.

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It’s been a minute since I last wrote a post. I could say that I had nothing to share, but in reality, I had too much to share.

I’ve been struggling. And I have been thriving. All at the same time.

I’ll start with my struggling to get it out of the way so that I can end on the positive.

I started at the local hospital’s metabolic and bariatric clinic at the end of May and decided to start on the GLP-1 medication Zepbound. I wrote about this in my post, I Broke up with my Scale, My first injection was on June 21st, 2025, the summer solstice. I could say that it just happened to be that day, but really, I chose it as a way to symbolize the shrinking of the days to correspond to the shrinking of my body size.

I thought that I would rapidly lose weight. When I didn’t, I thought that I was doing something wrong, that I was just broken, until the nurse practitioner that I work with explained that healthy weight loss, even on a GLP-1 medication, is still only .5-1 pound per week.

But those slow loses added up, until they didn’t anymore. So we increased the dose from 2.5mg to 5mg after a couple of months. And the weight loss continued.

I didn’t lose a lot of weight by most people’s standards, just 22 pounds, but man was my body shape changing. When I started in May, I was wearing mostly 4x shirts or larger 3x at the smallest. Im now at a consistent 1x shirt. My pants were a solid 26/28 with the exception of one set of capris that were larger cut 22/24 but they were very tight on me. I’m now down to an easy 22 or 24 depending on the cut, and by the end of the day, the 24s just slide right off of me.

There is a problem though.

I struggle, just in general, with having every weird side effect possible, it seems, to the meds that I take. The really rare ones. I had to stop taking the metformin because it was dropping my blood glucose too low, and once I raised the Zepbound to 5mg, it started happening again. We’re talking as low as in the 50s, particularly at night around 12-4am, which is apparently the time when blood glucose is typically the lowest, before it rises just before waking up.

Because of this, I’ve had to relearn how to eat again.

But at the end of October, I stopped losing weight and as the weeks progressed, the food noise came back. I was having a harder and harder time controlling my eating and buying of food.

I just couldn’t stop buying food! Hundreds and hundreds of dollars of food each month.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about food and soon enough, despite doing about 5-6 hours of medium to high intensity movement each week, including resistance training, I stopped losing weight and even started to regain a few pounds. I became very frustrated.

At my last appointment with my nurse practitioner at the metabolic clinic, we decided that we would try to increase the Zepbound to 7.5mg, but were unsure if I would be able to handle it in terms of the low blood glucose events that were happening almost daily, now at all times of the day, not just in the early mornings.

When I went to discuss it with my pharmacist, who I really trust, she told me that given my reaction that she wouldn’t fill the new prescription for me until I could go three weeks without a symptomatic low blood glucose event.

Now I really had to relearn how to eat again.

I made several changes as best as I could with the added food noise. I am sure to check my blood glucose before bed. If it is even in the 90s, I have a snack that includes a better mix of complex carbs, protein, and fat. I started working on sequencing the food during my meals so that I would have fewer peaks and valleys. This is where being able to wear a continuous glucose monitor comes in handy as I can watch what the foods are doing for me and to me. I’m making sure to eat all three meals and some snacks in a timely manner. I finally found some protein shakes that I actually like and am willing to drink, after all of these months of being told to increase my protein intake.

And I was able to go three and a half weeks without a symptomatic low.

I took my first injection of the 7.5mg of the Zepbound this past Saturday, four days ago, and by Saturday evening, the food noise was all but gone and I was able to start eating in a calorie deficit again the past few days.

What a relief! Is this what neurotypical people feel like? Is this what it feels like to use food as fuel and not as a way to squash emotions down?

I have my next appointment at the metabolic clinic in just a few hours and I’m interested to see just how much weight I’ve gained in the past four weeks. I know I have based on my scale, but I’m not sure how much. It will be interesting, though, to see how my body composition has changed even if I haven’t lost weight as my clothes are still getting looser.

Now for the thriving. At my last post, I had just been seen at the local neurosurgery office in town and was told that my BMI was too high to have the back surgery that I needed. It spurred me into action after I stopped crying.

I continued to attend physical therapy twice a week, every week, unless either my PTA was out sick or the clinic was closed. I went from using the walker almost 100% of the time, to mostly just using the cane, to now only using the cane. In fact, I haven’t used the walker in about one and a half to two months or so at this point and the last two times I did use it, I ended up using the seat to carry items that were too heavy for me to otherwise carry myself instead of using to to sit down.

My cane and I have become best friends. I decided when I bought it, that I didn’t want just an ordinary silver or black cane. I searched and searched and found a deep purple one with yellow and orange suns and stars on it. It suits my personality perfectly. I’ve learned how to walk with it and even walk up and down stairs with it, alternating feet even! I can use the cane to help me get up from the floor without getting on all fours. Wait! Did you read that? I can get up and down off of the floor again! It’s really hard to do so, but I CAN do it.

If you remember in my last post, How the Indigo Girls Became the Soundtrack of My Life, I wrote about how important being out in nature and hiking is to me. I wrote about becoming a hiker again is my WHY for wanting to get healthier.

I went on a hike on December 31st, 2025!

Was it a long hike? No. Would most people consider it a hike? Again, no. But to me, it was the first step in getting me back into the world as a hiker.

My brother and his family came to visit me the week of New Year’s recently. I got to show them around to some of my favorite sights and we had a great time laughing, talking, eating Christmas cookies, playing games, and just spending quality time together.

New Year’s Eve was a big day for me. We decided not only to head to the nearby Aztec Ruins National Monument but we also decided to head up to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

One of my favorite things to do in the fall is to watch the leaves change. I make sure to go to the river near my house and to Aztec Ruins at least once while the cottonwood leaves are turning a vibrant yellow. I love to take pictures to capture the colors and the angles of the sunlight. At the ruins, I love the contrast of the ancient structures and the current day colors.

But with the government shut down this past fall, I was unable to go to ruins to see the leaves there, although I did make it to the river nearby my house to capture the colors there.

When I tried to walk to the river, a walk that used to take me 3 minutes from where I would park to my favorite bench right on the river’s edge, I barely made it back to the car.

Just to get to the river bank, I had to stop multiple times and then rest for quite a while on the bench before attempting to make it back to the car. I honestly didn’t know if I would be able to make it back to the car. I could see my car, but the last 100 feet to get there was like running a marathon. I hurt so bad, my right leg didn’t want to work any longer. I couldn’t sit down for a rest at that point, but there was no other way to get back to my car and no other people around to help. I eventually did make it back to the car, but I was crying actual tears by the time I got in my seat. Instead of a slow 3 minutes each direction, it had taken me about 10 minutes just to make it from the bench back to my car.

I had to sit in my car for another 10 minutes before I could even make the five minute drive home.

Although I had done it, I was very sad about how truly difficult it was to walk such a short distance.

Big sigh.

But, I figured by New Year’s Eve that, since I had just completed five months of physical therapy, I would just try my best and bring my walker as a back up just in case it was too much for me.

I never had to use my walker and I had a great time!

At Aztec Ruins, my goal had been to walk to the overlook. It used to take about three minutes for me to get from the parking lot, through the picnic area, and up the stairs. When I had tried it in maybe June or July, I struggled to make it both up and back to the car after a rest at the top. But this trip, I whipped right up there, although I was very careful on the uneven steps using the railing to make sure I had my footing, and going slowly on the slope to the top that doesn’t have a railing. I watched my family from above as they did the rest of the trail and they met me at the top. It was lovely to sit in the sun, but I longed to be walking with them, but I wanted to conserve my energy for Mesa Verde.

We took the drive up to Colorado using the scenic backroad up La Plata Hwy, with gorgeous views of the snow capped mountains, beautiful blue skies, and even a sighting of a bald eagle. When we arrived, we stopped at the visitor center and of course the gift shop. I decided that I wanted to remember this day with a shirt. I was going to get the XXL shirt even though I’ve been wearing a 1X shirt typically, but I wanted to be sure that it would fit. The cashier saw me trying to decide and she told me that I could take it out of the packaging to see if the XL would fit, and it did!

The XL shirts fit me!!

That, in and of itself, was reason to celebrate.

I couldn’t decide between the short sleeved one and the long sleeved one so I decided to get both. I just knew this was going to be a special day that I was going to want to remember.

Our next stop was the Cliff Palace overlook. I was thinking it was the Spruce Tree House walk, which we did afterwards, so I was surprised when it wasn’t. I didn’t know what the trail looked like but my brother went down first and when he came back up, he said that it wasn’t that long of a trail and just had a few steps to the overlook.

So I decided to try.

I debated about taking the walker, but figured that I could always have someone go back to the car to get it for me if I needed it. So off we went!

One of the many cool things about my sister-in-law is that she’s been involved with the Girl Scouts since my nieces were young and remains active with hiking groups and teaching hiking and backpacking classes for leaders. One of the things that they teach is to never leave someone alone on the trail. So my family made sure that there was always someone in front of me and behind me just in case I ran into trouble. That gave me the extra bit of security that I needed to at least try this path with just my trusty purple cane.

So, off we went. The path was slightly uneven with gravely stones and dirt, so I didn’t get the best traction even though I was wearing my good pair of Keen hiking sandals. I took my steps deliberately and paused so that people could pass me by and I didn’t have to worry about them accidentally bumping into me. After just a bit, the trail got decently steep in places. There was a loose chain that lined the path, but often went out past the walking area. I started holding onto it to give myself just a little extra balance point as my legs were getting tired.

Then I got to the stairs.

There were metal, grated steps, but at least there was a railing. I took them one by one, carefully placing the rubber end of my cane on the cross hatch so it wouldn’t tip in the holes causing me to fall. There were only about 6-7 steps, but those were the scariest steps I’ve ever gone down in my life!

I had made it to the overlook and man was it worth it!

The ruins at Mesa Verde are called cliff dwellings because they were literally built into to cliffs and canyons in various areas of the southwest but particularly in this area. They are stunning. During the summer, you can take guided tours to reach the ruins. The first time that I had visited the park in the 1990s, you didn’t need a guide and I had made it down the trail on my own.

This time, I was grateful to just be able to see them from the overlook.

We took our pictures and I decided that since there wasn’t a bench at the overlook, and I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to walk before my right leg gave out on me, I would head back up before the rest of my family, knowing that if I needed anything that they would be coming up behind me to help.

As I struggled to get back up the trail, literally pulling myself at times up the chain, I was questioning my decision to try this trail without the walker. I paused, and I thought about how I could just wait for my brother or SIL to meet up with me and ask them to get the walker for me.

I decided that I wanted to make it back to the car and darn it, I was going to do it without the walker even if I died trying.

By the time that my family caught up with me, they were cheering me on and I knew that I was almost there and that there where a ton of benches at the top.

I knew that I could do it. I knew that I would do it. I knew that there was no stopping me now. I was almost there.

Getting up to the top of that trail was one of the best moments that I have had in a long time. I had tried and I had succeeded.

I had to take another break before making it all of the way to the car, which I could literally see from that first bench, but I did make it.

But then I needed to go to the bathroom and the toilets were on the other end of the parking lot. But if I had just done that trail, you’d better believe that I could make it to the toilet. So off I went. When I came out, they offered to bring the car closer, but I said no, that I wanted to walk it.

So I did.

I had taken my first hike. And this was just the beginning.

On January 1st, 2026, we went to the river near my house, that I mentioned previously, to feed the ducks and so that everyone could take a walk. It had rained overnight so the trails were a bit muddy and slippery in areas, but I decided to see how I would do.

There are two areas that I enjoy. One is by the nature center where the ducks are and the other I mentioned earlier with the bench over looking the river that I struggled so much walking back and forth to in the fall.

We started by going to the nature center to feed the ducks. Last time I had been to the nature center for work, I had to use the walker but this day, I just used the cane. I was pretty sore from our day at the ruins, but I wanted to just use the cane.

When I was a kid, we’d go to a nice seafood restaurant near where I lived. They had a small lake there with ducks. While we waited to be seated, we would feed the ducks the bag of popcorn that my mom always brought. I have found memories of these times.

When my nieces and nephew were young, I had taken them to a lake and I thought it would be fun to feed the ducks. The ducks swarmed us aggressively and the kids were all but crying as we ran back to the car, petrified. So when I suggested going to the river to feed the ducks, I figured that they’d say no, but I was pleasantly surprised when they were all in to do so.

I had a huge jar of popcorn kernels just for the occasion. While my nephew and SIL went off to walk, my nieces, brother, and I fed the ducks. That is until the geese came at us. But they didn’t cause too much trouble thankfully.

It was funny because every time that I tried to throw a handful of popcorn, I’d lose my center of gravity, however, because of the five months of physical therapy, I was able to to hold my balance even on the muddy trail.

Next we headed over to the other parking area so they could walk along that part of the river while I sat on my favorite bench.

I was really tired at this point, hoping that I would just be able to make it home. I was starting to hurt pretty bad and considered staying in the car with my one niece.

But I wanted to prove to myself that it would be easier this time than it had been in the fall. And it was.

It felt like a 26.2 mile marathon, but it was easier!

By the time I made it back to the car, I was spent. I was done. I was tired. And I was in so much pain.

But I did it. I did it not only once, not twice, not three times, but four different times I made it to a favorite locations.

I had taken four short hikes in two days.

The next week, I decided to try again at Aztec Ruins to reach the overlook again, to see if it would be even easier than on New Year’s Eve.

As I sat up on the overlook, watching others walking along the trail, I realized just how close I was to my favorite part of the ruins. A kiva is a round structure that was built as a spiritual area, not a living or storage area. When Aztec Ruins was “discovered,” back in the days where they would still do this sort of thing (around the 1930s), they reconstructed the top of the kiva so that you could walk inside down a set of steep stairs. They’ve since realized that it was incorrectly reconstructed, that they ceiling is too high and such, but it’s my favorite place to meditate in the area where I live. Because it’s built into the ground, it’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I like to go in the off season when I can have it all to myself to just sit, often being able to listen to the birds outside and feel connected to the ancient spirits. I just love it there.

So I decided that I would try to get inside. Mind you, it had snowed 5” the day before and there was still snow on the ground, but the paved walkways appeared to be all melted off.

And off I went, hopeful but unsure.

I took it slowly when I hit my first patch of ice in the shade of the rabbit brush, but I made it through to the other side. I had to stop several times in the short distance to the entrance to the kiva.

Those rickety, uneven steps into the kiva were even more terrifying than the ones I mentioned at Mesa Verde.

I held onto the railing for dear life. Halfway down, I questioned every decision that I had made leading up to trying to get into this kiva on this day.

I was honestly petrified and almost turned around. But it was going to be scarier to turn around on those steps than it would be to climb out the easier steps on the other side.

So I went down the steps.

And I survived.

And I sat on the stone seating area that rings the inside of the kiva and I connected to not just the spirit of the ancients, but to my spirit and what makes me the badass woman warrior that I have become.

Now the tricky part was getting out of there because it was really icy and snowy in the shade in back of the kiva. So I slowly made my way through the snowy areas where I knew I would get traction with my trusty purple cane at my side. When I cleared the snow and ice, it was an easy walk back to the bench outside of the visitor center.

And I bought myself a new hoodie to mark the next achievement of me becoming a hiker again.

What is your WHY for getting healthier? How have you been struggling or thriving lately? What non-scale victories have you had lately?

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Music has a special way of invoking memories of my younger, more adventure filled years.

Growing up, it was the 70s folk music that we listened to. I grew up in Southern California and visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park often. It’s now called the Safari Park, but it will always be the Wild Animal Park to me. Back in the 70s, it was the time of music festivals with a large stage and open air seating on a grass covered field, and The Wild Animal Park was no different.

Every summer back, they held weekend concerts out in the large field that is now the Heart of Africa, I believe. Imagine hearing and seeing the animals by continent in the background, watching the monorail give the park tours, and listening to amazing music in a large crowd of people. The concerts I remember the most included Peter, Paul, and Mary, Glenn Yarbough and the LImelighters, the Smother’s Brothers, the Mamas and the Papas, and so many more that I was too young to recall their names. These concerts were the highlight of my summers.

As I grew older, I listened through the various top bands and performers. Everyone from Michael Jackson, to WHAM!, to NightRanger, to Huey Lewis, to Elvis, to Queen, to Pink Floyd, to….You name it, I listened to it.

But my life changed when I discovered the Indigo Girls. Something about their lyrics spoke to me. And I also started listening to other female singer/songwriters as well, such as Rebecca Riots, Melissa Etheridge, Melissa Ferrick, Sinéad O’Conner, Lisa Loeb, Joan Armatrading, Janis Ian, and so many more. I knew all of the lyrics to all of the songs and could belt them out as I was driving all around North America.

So, how on earth do the Indigo Girls relate to my health journey, you ask? Well, let me answer that.

In 1997, I replaced my trusty Toyota Corolla with a Red Jeep Cherokee. I loved that Jeep. I also loved to travel. And I loved to hike. If you remember back to one of my first posts, Discovering My Why, I wrote about how my WHY for going on this health journey is that I want to be a hiker again. I want to be able to spend time in nature again. I want to feel the dirt under my bare feet and feel the river water between my toes. I want to get my body back to a place where I can travel the world again and not be constrained by a failing body.

So, let’s back up again. When I started really hiking as an adult, I was in graduate school getting my MS in Speech and Hearing Sciences to become a Speech Language Pathologist. But my real degree was in adventure.

My Jeep took me about 200,000 miles before it finally threw in the towel in 2007, after 10 years of adventure.

I loved to take extended vacations during the summers, while I wasn’t working in the schools. Those for 4 years out of grad school, I worked up to three jobs in order to travel as much as possible. I had been to a point of counting change to pay for my gas when I was finishing my last internship to working my butt off to have enough to take time off to kick back and just explore. I was, and still am, located in New Mexico, and my trusty Jeep took me through almost every state in the US and several provinces of Canada.

And that whole time, music played in the background.

I had this game, I would visit places mentioned in songs or as I would visit a town, I’d find a song that would be perfect for the name of the area. So the Beatles with Back in the USSR when I went through Moscow, Idaho, the song Bitterroot by the Indigo Girls when I was in the Bitterroot mountains, listening to Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles when watching sunrise over Uluru in the Australian Outback, listening to the song Cemetery by Rebecca Riots every time I visited an old cemetery, or playing the song Ghost, by the Indigo Girls when I went to walk across the headwaters of the Mississippi River. You get the idea. I’d use music to commemorate the locations. I’d intertwine my adventures to the lyrics.

My Jeep originally just came equipped with a tape deck, but I had a 6 disc CD changer put into it so that I could listen to more music at a time without stopping. Then, later when I had my iPod, I would use that. I, typically though, was listening to the Indigo Girls a lot. And I mean, a lot. I’d be wandering the Utah backroads belting out the lyrics to Closer to Fine, Hammer and Nail, Prince of Darkness, Get Out the Map, and so many others. I’d round a bend, singing my heart out and see some of the most awe inspiring scenes that I could never have imagined even existed. The album Rites of Passage was truly a rite of passage for me and my adventures.

I hiked all over the world, in every state and country I went to. I loved to see animals in nature, and the full moon, and the stars during a new moon, the meteor showers, the butterflies, and listening to the sound of running waters. I stepped my feet into almost every ocean, a number of seas, and tons of rivers. I watched a small herd of buffalo in North Dakota romp and play in a fork of the Little Missouri River.

Because I was on a quest to see as much as I could see and experience, I usually moved to a different campground or BLM area every night. So I stopped setting up my tent and instead set up a bed in the back of the Jeep. It was very comfortable and I felt safe and secure in there, especially because I was traveling alone.

I followed my intuition as to what road to turn down, often getting lost, but at the same time, I was finding my way in the world.

I have always been in a larger body, but I didn’t let that keep me from a life of adventure. Others would look at me and assume based on my size that I wouldn’t be able to complete a hike. Yes, I would be slower than others and maybe I couldn’t hike more than 8-10 miles in a day, but I never let it hold me back. I just listened to my music and blazed my own path.

And I took my able body for granted.

I never foresaw a time when I wouldn’t be able to hike and see the world. I never could have imagined that my body would betray me in the ways that it has.

It started with the mental health issues. And although the bipolar wasn’t diagnosed until 2006, I had been having symptoms my whole life. But I didn’t let it hold me back until I couldn’t work anymore.

I had to reimagine what my life would look like as someone with a disability. As someone who wasn’t able to support herself by working full time.

And with the psych meds, the falls started happening, the first being in 2008. And each fall made my back issues worse and worse, beginning to put limits on my physical abilities. And with the metabolic changes from the psych meds as well as the decreased physical activity, I slowly started to lose the ability to do the hiking that I had always loved.

My adventures turned mostly to sightseeing versus sight exploring.

I replaced my Jeep with my first Subaru in 2007. I loved that car and put another 200,000 miles on it by the time time I got a new one in 2020. I finished visiting all 50 states in the first Subaru. And I was accompanied by my iPod or, later, my iPhone, playing the music of my adventures.

So let’s come to the present and why I’m writing this today.

In November, 2020, I took a very bad fall and had two spinal compression fractures and my ability to simply walk, let alone hike, has never been the same. Then in March of 2022, I fell and broke my patella and tore my meniscus in my left leg. Then, in April of 2024, on my birthday trip to my favorite hot springs, I took another really bad fall. X-rays after that fall did not show any new fractures, but my baseline pain had changed once again.

I have been in almost constant pain since November of 2020.

Chronic pain begets chronic pain and once my mobility was impaired, the falls are becoming more and more frequent.

I fell in February of this year. By mid May, we discovered that I had had a spontaneous spinal compression fracture, which made that number three. Also in May, I had another MRI done and it was discovered that my entire lumbar spine is a mess. Finally, there was proof, in images, that the pain was not just all in my head and that with everything that is going on, that I have a really high pain threshold and somehow am still walking even if it’s difficult.

By June I had the appointment with the interventional spine and pain specialist. He referred me to neurosurgery for a series of possibly four different back surgeries that I needed.

In July, after a fall on the 4th, I made the difficult decision to start using a walker after becoming more and more unsteady. I fell again the 16th. I started going to physical therapy at the end of July to see about reducing the pain and regaining my balance.

And I’m kicking but in physical therapy! Enough so that I had started to occasionally use a cane instead of the walker.

At the end of August, I had my appointment with the neurosurgery. I met with a PA and the appointment went like this: an interview about symptoms and history, a neurological exam, watching me walk, going through the x-rays and MRI from May, and describing to me which surgery was the most important and needed to be done first.

Then it came. The neurosurgeon in refusing to do needed surgery simply because my BMI is too high. And even the upper range of the BMI that he wants puts me at a weight that I have never been at my entire adult life. When I asked the PA what do I do until I can get to that weight, her only response was to lose weight and go to physical therapy. I told her that I’m already doing that, and what else could I do. Her response remained the same and she just said that she could refer me to UNM in Albuquerque for a second opinion.

And I cried. I cried for 2 days straight. Not like sobbing tears, but those tears of utter hopelessness and disbelief. I understand that there are concerns with being in a larger body and having surgery, but the doctor never even met me and only went off my BMI and rejected me for needed surgery because of my size.

So I cried. I even woke up crying.

Then I got pissed.

Then I went into action.

I got adaptive equipment. I got handheld shower heads as taking a shower has become difficult. I got a shower chair. I got a toilet railing. I got an electric skillet so I can cook at the table, where I was already preparing all of my produce. As a treat, I got a really good set of headphones to make listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks more enjoyable while I’m meal prepping.

I had already started the Zepbound. I had already started the physical therapy.

And I listened to the Indigo Girls.

My insurance approved more sessions of physical therapy. I just completed my 15th session yesterday. My core is stronger, my legs are stronger, my balance is better.

But I fell again at the end of September and then again this past Sunday, the 5th of October.

And I started crying again.

And I listened to the Indigo Girls again.

And I started remembering all of my adventures when the Indigo Girls were the soundtrack to my life.

And then as a huge non-scale victory yesterday, I tried on a t-shirt, now two sizes smaller than where I started in May, and it fit. It actually fit.

And not only did it fit, it held great meaning to me.

I bought this shirt the day I hiked in and out of Bryce Canyon at the national park. It was something that I never thought that I could do. It was a very pivotal day in my life, the day that my marriage ended, and the day that my new life began. Back then, the national park gift shops only sold clothing up to a size 2x, but I really loved this shirt and I bought it even though it didn’t even come close to fitting. Yesterday was the first day that I remember wearing it since I bought it in 1998.

And next week I see another neurosurgeon an hour away.

And you better believe that I’ll be listening to the Indigo Girls in the hope of a better future.

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I really love a good sandwich! I mean, who doesn’t? I can find gluten free vegan bread, but finding a healthy gluten free and vegan lunch meat (or should I say, “deli slices”), that actually tastes good and doesn’t require a bank loan to buy, is a completely impossible task. But fear not! This is the recipe for you for your next sandwich.

I’ve been looking for different ways of increasing my protein intake. I tend to hyper fixate on particular foods for awhile and then I never want to see them again in my life time. Well, I had pretty much had that happen with tofu, which is unfortunate when one is trying to increase their protein. So, I’ve been trying to figure out different ways to make tofu that is a bit out of the ordinary.

I have seen a few videos about slicing tofu with a vegetable peeler and then making a dish out of it, so I thought that I would try my hand at it and see what the result would be. Well, this is my new favorite way to eat tofu.

You’re going to start with a block of extra firm tofu. You’ll want to press it at least overnight if not for a few days. I like to use the Tofu Bud tofu press as I can put it in the fridge and don’t have to worry about stacking heavy weights on the tofu in the fridge overnight. You may be able to use super firm tofu, however, I have not tried it.

For this recipe, you want the tofu really thin. I used a wide vegetable peeler that is really sharp. I held the block with the short side of the tofu away from my left hand and with my right hand, I used the peeler to make the slices. You’ll need to flip the tofu top to bottom a few times to keep the slices even while you’re slicing it. Don’t worry if the slices aren’t exact or if the block looks wavy. You’ll still get nice, thin strips of tofu. When pieces crumble off or get stuck in the peeler, just make sure that the crumbles are small and they’ll work just fine. When you get to the end of the block of tofu and can no longer slice it with the peeler, simply slice it thinly with a knife on a cutting board. You may be able to use a mandolin instead of the vegetable peeler, however, you want the strips to be extremely thin and the mandolin may not allow for this without crumbling the tofu. When you’re done slicing the tofu, gently place it in a medium bowl.

For the marinade, you will combine all of the other ingredients into a small bowl. The oil is completely optional but will help to crisp the tofu without it drying out. Once the marinade is completely mixed, pour it over the tofu and, with a spoon, gently toss the tofu in the marinade until it is completely coated. Allow to marinate for 15-20 minutes, stirring periodically. You’ll want to be as gentle as possible, however, the tofu will inevitably break here and there.

To bake the tofu, you’ll want to use a rimmed quarter sheet baking pan lined with a silicone mat. The quarter sheet size (or a 9”x13” pan) will allow for the tofu to be spread out but still be slightly overlapping. This will give the tofu different textures of being crispy in some places while softer in others. You’ll want to bake the tofu at 425º for 25 minutes or until nicely browned. Allow to cool.

There are countless ways to use this tofu. I have used it to make sandwiches with my homemade pesto recipe, cut up artichoke hearts and roasted red bell peppers, as well as my recipe for pickled red onions. For the gluten free bread, I use the Schar multi-grain bread.

I hope you enjoy!

Vegan Gluten Free Tofu Lunch Meat

-14oz block extra firm tofu, pressed at least overnight

-4tbsp tamari

-2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

-1 tsp garlic powder

-1 tsp onion powder

-1 tsp ground coriander

-1 tsp olive oil (optional)

Press the block of tofu at least overnight. Using a wide vegetable peeler, slice long strips of tofu off of the short side of the block. When there are crumbles or chunks that come off, simply break them into small pieces. When you come to the end of the block, cut the remaining tofu into thin slices. Place the tofu into a medium bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients in a small bowl until combined. Add the marinade to the tofu. Gently stir the tofu in the marinade with a spoon trying not to break the strips as you go. Allow the tofu to marinate for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Gently place the tofu onto a silicone lined quarter sheet pan and bake at 425° for 25 minutes or until golden brown. It’s okay if the tofu overlaps in some places. Can be served on your favorite bread with veggies such as roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, pickled red onions, and homemade pesto.

Do you like to make sandwiches? What are your favorite sandwich toppings? Do you ever get hyper fixated on a food and then never want to eat it again ever in your life? How do you think that you will use this tofu?

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I always ask myself if there will ever be enough food to make me safe and secure.

I consider myself a food hoarder. Not like you see on TV where the kitchen is so full of food that the counters, floor, and even the stove top are covered in food. That the fridge and pantry are literally bursting with rotting food.

But I have way more food in this house than a single person could ever eat in the next six months, if not more.

I have two refrigerators and a chest freezer. I have a really large pantry in the kitchen and several shelving units in the garage that are all filled with food.

But I always feel like there’s never enough food to make me feel safe and secure.

What if there comes a time where the food supply gets cut off? Or I lose my job and other income sources? Or I have a craving and it’s not in the house and readily available?

Even when I have the food, it never feels like I have enough.

But, let’s back up.

When I was growing up, I was overweight. Maybe technically obese, but really, at first, I was just overweight. When I was 10, it got pointed out by two family friends one day that I was overweight and that maybe something should be done about it. They were well meaning, but really, it’s had a lasting impact on my relationship with food.

What resulted was a well intentioned attempt to restrict my food intake, but what it created, was me sneaking food because there really wasn’t enough for me, when the house had plenty of food for everyone else around me.

There was never enough food to fill the emotional void that I felt.

But I haven’t always been a food hoarder over the years, or really, it’s ebbed and flowed.

I think the defining moment though, was when I really was in a place of food insecurity. I truly was without enough food and the food I had, although nutritious, wasn’t exactly what I would have chosen to eat had I been given another option.

When I was in my graduate school, I had to end the program by doing a full-time externship to gain my clinical hours to complete the first stage of my national certification process to be a speech language pathologist. I was going through a divorce and my financial support was cut off. I already had taken out the maximum amount of student loans for the last semester of the program, but I was told that I could get an emergency dispersement of $5000 to make sure that I could graduate. Since that was my only option, that’s what I did.

I had to use that money to move to the city where I did my externship, the same city that I live in now. I had to find an apartment, get my belongings moved up here, and then face the prospect of working full time, not getting paid, and not having a job lined up when I was finished. Talk about a leap of faith.

Once I found an apartment that May, I paid my rent, car payments, and car insurance until that September to make sure that I at least had a place to live and a way to get to and from work, plus a month to figure out what my next steps would be. My apartment was 30 minutes away from the hospital where I worked at, so the expense of the gas to get there and back had to be included into the equation.

Money was so tight, that I was paying for my gas from the gallon-sized pickle jar that I had been saving change in for years. I would apologize to the gas station cashier every time that I had to pay in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Thankfully, back in 1999, gas wasn’t nearly as expensive as it is now and the kind clerk always told me that they always needed change so there was no problem whatsoever with me paying in change.

I still collect change in that pickle jar. One brave day last year, I took it to the bank and ran it through the coin machine and received the ticket for well over $300. This is how I survived in 1999. But I couldn’t handle it emptied out and am in the process of filling it back up again.

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to pay for my groceries that summer. But then I found out that because I was doing my externship at the hospital, they gave their students one meal ticket a day to eat at the cafeteria. Plus, I was doing an additional multidisciplinary internship at the hospital as well, so I got two meal tickets every day, five days a week.

Each ticket was worth $5 of food, so I had $50 of cafeteria food to get me through each week.

The way that I fed myself that summer was strategic. I would get each meal at the cafeteria for either breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner, and whatever was left from that $5, I would get extra food that would then make up the 3rd meal of the day, so either dinner that night, or breakfast the next morning, plus it might, depending on what they had, feed me for the weekend too.

On Fridays after work, I would drive up into the mountain town in Colorado, an hour away, and go to the health food store for my weekly treat. They had what they called a three salad plate at the in-store deli, where they would load up this container with three massive scoops of a protein and two sides. I was vegan back then already, so I would get their tofu of the day, often green chile tofu, and usually the vegan potato salad, and then some sort of vegetable salad. I would buy a specific big vegan cookie and a drink, and head up to the nearby dam to eat dinner. This splurge of a meal cost about $7 or $8 and was such a treat for me.

I would sit on my favorite rock overlooking the water, listening to the birds, watching the ripples of the water from the breeze, savoring my food, and watching for ladybugs. The only day in the week where I actually had enough food to eat, and it was food that I picked out myself, not just what was available that day in the cafeteria.

It was only on Fridays that summer, that I felt that I had enough. And I still love that brand of cookie and the three salad plate, although I don’t get them that often anymore.

As the summer was coming to a close, I ended up having $197 to my name. I had made it through the summer externship and graduated. Although I got hired on by both the school district, for my main job, and the hospital, where I had done my externship, for my late afternoon/evening job, I had almost a month before I was to receive my first check as well as some money from the divorce settlement.

I had to make that $197 stretch for a month. And I just barely squeaked by.

Although I had just enough to make it to payday, this developed in me the immense fear that I would be back in this situation again at some point in the future.

I never wanted to be without the choice of what I wanted to eat ever again. And boy did this mess with my eating disordered brain.

As I built up my savings accounts the feelings that I didn’t have enough would come and go at times, but they never truly left me.

And years later, I found myself in a downward spiral as my life was falling apart and the fear that I would run out of money and then run out of food returned with a vengeance.

And the hoarding really started back up, right in line with my other eating disorder behaviors. I was scrambling to achieve some form of external control of my life while my inner life was completely out of control.

So I started spending all of my extra money on food. So.much.money. I would go out to eat, buy the most expensive foods at the most expensive stores. I started buying the highest quality food I could find. I never wanted to be without food again.

After a number of years of therapy and getting the bipolar 1 disorder calmed slightly, I was getting to the point that I was starting to see empty spaces in my pantry. The fear was lessening. I started believing that yes, there was enough. That the universe would provide for me at all times. And I stopped most of the unnecessary food buying.

And then Covid hit. And I was at the store that Friday afternoon that I saw the grocery store shelves empty out, I suddenly knew with every ounce of my being that I would run out of food.

And from that day forward, every chance that I could get food, you’d better believe that I was buying it.

I didn’t feel safe. I was afraid of getting Covid and getting sick. In 2013, I had gone into respiratory failure and almost died. I was scared to death that I would die if I caught Covid since I had been so sick just 7 years beforehand.

The more that I lost control of my external world, the less safe I felt. And as I lost that control, I held on tight to everything that I could get my hands on.

That’s when I started stockpiling.

I filled my pantry. When that was full, I bought a shelving unit for the garage to hold the excess food. And then another set of shelves and yet a third set of shelves and even an extra refrigerator to hold the excess produce and drinks. I justified the purchases because there were truly supply chain issues.

But really it was about fear and control of the uncontrollable.

So come back to the present. I noticed the other day that they are empty spaces in my pantry again. There’s still way too much food for one person, but when I noticed the empty spaces, I didn’t get scared, instead, I saw it as progress. I felt some self-confidence.

I saw those empty spaces as me starting to know that I do have enough food to sustain me and that even if I were to lose my job or if there were more supply chain issues, that I now know that I will have enough.

That the universe will provide for me.

And not only do I have enough for me, but I have enough to share. I have enough to pass parts of my bountiful pantry and shelves onto those who need the food more than me.

I’m not sure exactly how this has come about recently. But I think it has to do with starting on the Zepbound and the fact that it’s been over two and a half years that I have been working with a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. Plus, I wrote affirmations and posted them to social media every day for well over a year if not two years.

Both of these supports are allowing me to see that I have enough. That I can let go of the control that has previously run my life. That I can look at the world in a different way.

That as the food noise lessens, and I don’t hear the messages running through my head constantly telling me that I need more, more, more, that I can accept the fact, I learned in 1999, that the universe really will provide for me if I just get out of the way and let it happen.

The more that I can trust myself to take care of me and my health, the more that I can trust myself to make the next healthy decision, the more that I can trust the universe and that I will always be taken care of.

The more that I can trust that there really is enough for me, and not only that, but that I am enough just how I am right now, the more that I let go of trying to control the world around me to calm my inner storms. And as I start to know this deep into my psyche, I am grateful for the life that is starting to unfold in front of me.

How is your relationship with the amount of food that you keep in the house? Are you afraid that you will run out even if you have the money to take care of your basic needs? Have you ever been in a place of food insecurity? Did that affect your relationship with food?

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This is officially my favorite summer salad right now!

The cool thing about getting my summer produce from our local CSA is that we get amazing farm fresh produce and we never know exactly what we’re going to get each week until we pick it up on Thursday afternoon. Last week, we received a very large head of celery. Now, there’s a difference between celery that you can get at the supermarket and the celery that comes from a local farm in my experience. The celery from the store is often pale green, full of water and strings, and the flavor is really mild. The stalks are uniform and, if there are leaves, they’re there by accident. But the celery that we get from our local farmers is the exact opposite. It dark, vivid green, full of flavor, the stalks go every which way, and it’s full of leaves. I typically dehydrate the leaves for soups later in the year to add flavor and nutrition and I make soup or snack on the stalks.

But for this head of celery, I got the idea to combine it with sweet, red apples and a dressing, but I couldn’t figure out the flavors of the dressing right away and I had to let it gel for a few days. Then this combination came to me, and let me tell you that I will be using this dressing for other salads in the future as it easy and absolutely brings out the flavors in this salad.

I used the entire head of celery, trimmed it, and chopped it into bite-sized pieces. It turned into approximately 4 or so cups. Just use whatever head of celery you can find. It doesn’t have to be exact. When I went to choose the apples, I knew that I wanted a sweet, red apple. I couldn’t believe the price of apples at the store. They were $3.99/lb. That wasn’t going to happen, but it just so happened that the Cosmic Crisp apples were only $1.99/lb. So that cinched the deal for this salad. They have both a wonderful texture as well as a sweet taste that complements the slightly bitter celery perfectly. To cut them up, I sliced the apple into 8 sections and removed the core. Then I cut those slices into bite-sized chunks. For the dressing, I simply added the vinegar, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, tamari, dill, ground coriander, and the garlic and onion powders to a small bowl to ensure that they were mixed well. I added the dressing to the celery and apples, mixed it up and put it in the fridge overnight to allow for the flavors to mingle. Perfection!

I hope you enjoy!

Vegan Celery Apple Salad

-1 bunch celery, chopped into bite-sized pieces (roughly 4 cups)

-2 large red sweet apples, such as Cosmic Crisp, sliced into bite-sized pieces

-1/3 cup red wine vinegar

-1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard

-2 tbsp maple syrup

-1 tsp tamari

-1 tsp dried dill

-1 tsp ground coriander

-1/2 tsp onion powder

-1/2 tsp garlic powder

Cut celery and apples and put them in a large bowl. Mix the next 8 ingredients in a small bowl and add to the celery and apples. Mix well and chill.

Have you ever had farm fresh celery? What is your favorite red apple? What do you do with celery leaves when you’re lucky enough to get them? What other ways can you think of to use this dressing?

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I cheated tonight.

But let me back up. You deserve the full story.

Numbers have always fascinated me. I love math, number and logic puzzles, sorting things by numbers, counting money, decks of cards. I chart my life in numbers to track my bipolar 1 disorder. I rate my moods on a 10 point scale every evening at dinner, along with rating the severity of symptoms such as anxiety, difficulty concentrating, eating disorder symptoms, etc. plus how many hours I slept and if I had nightmares. I track the times that I take my meds and how much medication that I take. I record my fasting glucose and my blood pressure every morning. I know how many ounces of fluids I drink in a day along with my fruit and veggie servings. I track two pages of numbers and tally marks every evening.

I use numbers to make sense of the world.

Numbers calm me when my manic mind zooms through the early hours of the morning. They help me look for patterns with my bipolar and help me catch an episode early to lessen the severity. I know that when the number of hours of sleep that I get starts to decrease that I’m starting to get sick. I know when my fasting glucose gets too high or too low on a consistent basis that my eating disorder is starting to get out of hand.

Numbers have saved my life on more than one occasion.

When I was young, I remember staying up all night long at times. I can now look back at this as the first signs of the mania that ruled my later life before the bipolar was diagnosed and medicated. It was hard to contain my energy but my mom had the rule that she couldn’t make me go to sleep but she could make me close my bedroom door and not wake anyone else up. As an adult, I now understand why this was the rule, but as a child, this left a gifted, young, manic child awake all night, by herself, trying to find something to do.

I would listen to books on records. I had my colorful, plastic record player that played the records that went along with the books I had. I remember one of the books was Peter Pan. The story would be read then when it was time to turn the page, a twinkling sound would play and the story would resume.

Once I had listened to my books, I switched over to the numbers. I would play Uno by myself. I would take on the imaginary players that I played the game against. I would sort the cards by colors and numbers and then work out the best plays with each opponent having a different strategy and trying to win in a different way. I played hours of solitaire. I did math problems, played with my calculators and battery operated games. I played puzzles and sorted things.

I was fascinated by categories, numbers, and order.

But there’s a down side to being fascinated by these numbers, these categories, and this order.

When my mind starts running, either with mania or anxiety, or many emotions for that matter, I search out the order and control that numbers give me. I mean, after all, they have saved my life. Numbers are my friends. Numbers are always there for me.

I’ve written about my health journey for over a year now. Recently, I wrote about how I started taking Zepbound, a GLP-1 agonist medication to help me lose weight. About how every time I have tried to lose weight, that the eating disorder behaviors have reared their ugly heads and I lose control of my behaviors or thoughts, which results in sabotaging my weight loss efforts.

I wrote a month ago about how I broke up with my scale because I was beginning to get obsessed with the numbers and weighing myself multiple times a day. So, I put the scale in the garage a month ago, and it hasn’t been used since.

I started working with a dietitian almost a year ago now. I really liked working with her because she rarely spoke about numbers. She didn’t set a calorie target. The only target that she gave me was one for protein, but it was a huge range of 50-90g, which I was easily able to achieve with just a few little changes. But really, we talked about overarching goals. Things that I could do to help level out my blood glucose throughout the day. She helped me come up with ways to incorporate more greens, or working with the GI upset caused by my meds. We worked on alternatives to sugared soda and drinks.

We worked on strategies and not numbers, which, for a change, was really helpful.

After I started going to the metabolic clinic, I switched to their dietitian. She gave me calorie targets, protein targets, wanted me to reduce my carbs. She put so much focus on the numbers. And being the dutiful rule follower that I am, someone who wants to be the best perfectionist possible, I started working towards those targets like there was no tomorrow.

And once again, the numbers were driving me crazy!

I struggled to stay within the calorie target. I struggled to achieve the protein target. I had been told that the only way that I was going to hit the protein target was that I would have to start using protein powders. I tried it and hated the flavor and textures. It made me gag. It reminded me of when I was in the grips of the bulimia and almost purging again because I hated it so much. I’m still going to try a few more brands of protein powders, but I feel like I’ve come too far in my eating disorder recovery to eat or drink something that I don’t like.

I was putting all of my energy into trying to hit these targets so I could lose weight instead of trying to fuel my body, mind, and spirit, that I was literally driving myself crazy.

Long ago, my psychiatrist told me that I had quite a few obsessive characteristics but not enough to have the diagnosis of OCD. I smiled knowingly. She saw me once again. And over the years, I’ve worked really hard on letting go of my obsessions because I found with the help of therapists, that I didn’t need to externally control the world. That the idea of control was just a way of avoiding my inner feelings and emotions.

But a funny thing happened.

The more I started trying to hit these new number targets and I just couldn’t do it, the more other external obsessions were cropping back up.

I accidentally had left my front door unlocked somehow one night. When I realized it in the morning, from then on, my mind would not rest until I had checked it several times a day. Years ago, I had once left my garage door opened when I left the house and was gone for 5 hours. Because of that, I now don’t leave my driveway until the door hits the ground. But suddenly, I was having to go back to the house after I was a few streets, or more, away to check and make sure that the garage door had actually closed even though I knew that I wouldn’t have left the driveway without it being closed. It didn’t matter.

I couldn’t trust my mind. It started playing tricks on me.

I would make sure that the I could always find the cats and had to touch them when I found them because I was afraid that they had somehow gotten out of the house if I didn’t see them right away. I’d make sure that the stove and oven were off. The ceiling fan. The lights. Having to check that the garage door was closed before I went to bed even though I had already stopped and watched it close before I finished going into the house. I would check to make sure that the fridges and freezer were still working.

So many, many things.

And just like I was getting upset if the scale wasn’t showing me what I wanted to see, I was getting even more upset when I couldn’t make my nutrition targets.

I was talking to my therapist two weeks ago about how I was frustrated with what I just shared and she gave me the task and challenge to, instead of focussing on the numbers, which are completely external, to instead focus on how my body feels when I fuel it in different ways.

I had no idea how to do this. How do I let go of the numbers that comfort me so? How do I let go of the emotion tied up in doing this right enough? Doing things perfect enough?

How would I let go of what was now hurting me?

So just like stopping weighing myself, I stopped paying as much attention to the numbers. And a funny thing happened after a bit.

I stopped checking the garage and front doors all of the time. I suddenly knew that my cats were safe and sound even if I didn’t see them right away. I stopped checking the knobs on the stove. Not completely, but just back to a safe level of awareness.

The less that I’ve been looking at the numbers, the more my mind calmed. The more I’m coming up with different ways of looking at food and eating.

I started paying attention to my inner workings instead of trying to control all of the external factors that, in all honesty, I have absolutely no way of controlling.

I’ve always struggled with feeling outside of my body. I describe it like I have a floating head and my body doesn’t exist. The technical term for it is dissociation.

I’ve worked really hard in therapy to address this as well, but this is a whole new level of being in my body.

I have treated my body like the enemy, but it’s time to befriend my body. To make peace and connect my floating head to my neck, to my chest and shoulders, to my arms, to my abdomen, to my hips, to my legs, and all of the way down to the tips of my toes.

For the first time, to feel completely comfortable in my body. And to learn how to fuel my body in a healthy way to last a lifetime and not a season.

So back to the opening of this post. I cheated tonight. But what do I mean by that?

I had my latest appointment at the metabolic clinic today. And it went really well. I am so glad that I allowed a provider that I was working with to gently guide me in that direction. My PCP had offered for years to prescribe me a GLP-1 agonist med. That wasn’t the problem. But first, I knew I wasn’t ready, and second, I knew I needed more help than just taking a med to get me to lose weight.

At my last appointment, we set two goals. The first was to increase my steps to 1000-2000 steps per day. I know that some people easily get 10,000 steps a day, but I’m not there. Maybe that might be a goal at some point, but for the past month it was set at 1000-2000 steps. And guess what? I did it. Imperfectly, yes, but overall, I only missed a couple days when my pain levels were really high and I just couldn’t physically move even that much, or even hardly get out of bed. My other goal was to decrease my intake of sugared drinks from twice a week to once a week. And I did that, too!

We set two goals and I met both of them!

Today we talked about how I’m doing with the side effects from the Zepbound, my struggles, my joys. We talked about how I’m down a shirt size and that my pants are about to fall off of me, but that I can’t quite fit into the next size down yet. We talked about some research about timing of the protein and my workouts. We talked about how I’ve increased my movement, by quite a bit, since I started physical therapy a few weeks ago, and that I want to figure out how to afford to work with a personal trainer after I’m done with the physical therapy.

When we were talking about how I’m struggling to hit the protein target, and I told him that I was starting to get gout symptoms again, which I hadn’t had for years, on the days that I did hit the target. So we discussed the research about when is the best timing of the protein so that it’s the most beneficial and that if I can make a few switches, that I may not need as much overall if I get the timing right.

And then I asked about the numbers. Well, not the numbers really, but the trends. What I wanted to know, really, was if my percentage of muscle mass was okay since I hadn’t been meeting my protein target. He told me that the percentage is holding steady, which is great because it’s expected that your muscle mass will go down as you lose weight but that’s not happening!

Then I asked the key question that everyone wants to know, but I wasn’t ready for. But how I phrased it was, “without telling me the number, have I lost weight?” The answer was that I have lost weight and that it’s at a good rate, that he would expect, and that given everything that we talked about today that I will stay on the lowest dose of the Zepbound for now.

We set two new goals that went along with what we had spoken about. The first one is that I’m going to work on getting to 1500-2500 steps a day. This will honestly be hard for me. But I’m up for the challenge even if it means that I’m walking laps, so to speak, in my house every evening to get myself into that range.

The next goal was more nebulous in my mind but he helped me figure out what I wanted to work on. The gist of what I wanted to work on was that, because I wanted to focus less on the numbers and more on fueling my body, that I want to start composing my plate for dinner differently. I typically meal prep an all-in-one entree. It has the veggies, protein, and starch all combined into one dish. But what I want to try this month is to have a smaller entree portion, and some fresh veggies, some separate protein, some separate starch, and some fruit. So after talking about it for a bit, we decided that we would have me focus on the My Plate construction for meals which it the concept of separating your plate into 1/2 non-starchy veggies, 1/4 of the plate being protein, and the remaining 1/4 being a starch of some sort. Plus I want to add a fruit, and I do still want an entree. So, I’m going to start using this idea for dinner when I think of constructing my meals.

So, “Carol, how did you cheat tonight?” you might be asking. This all sounds great.

I got online tonight and went into the patient portal for the hospital system and I looked at my weight from today’s appointment.

I already knew that my body was changing. I already knew that I was feeling better. I already knew that I’ve made immense changes in my eating and movement habits. I already knew that I am doing well, and I was even told that I was today, but it wasn’t enough in that moment when I logged on.

But something really cool happened.

I was able to look back on my weight readings for the past 13 months. I get weighed every month for my psychiatrist appointments anyways, but then lately I’ve been getting weighed two, three, sometimes four times a month with all of the appointments that I’m having.

I looked at when I got the referral for the metabolic clinic, May 16th, to today, August 22nd, and I’ve lost 15 pounds in just three months.

But that’s not the really cool part, although it is really cool, don’t get me wrong.

The cool part, is that I already knew I was feeling better and just knowing the number tonight didn’t change how I felt about myself. Not in a positive way, nor a negative way. That number was just a data point. I didn’t need it to make sense of the world anymore like I used to need that number.

It honestly didn’t change a thing, and that, by itself, was the biggest change that could have possibly happened for me tonight. And for this, I am grateful.

What changes have happened to you on your health journey to feel more connected to your body, mind, and spirit? What gets in your way to making changes to make you your healthiest self? What joys have you had on your health journey lately?

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Yup, I put away the scale. So I have no idea what my weight is anymore. I don’t know if I’m gaining or losing weight. But I do know that I’m seeing changes in my mind and in my body.

I’ll hang onto these non scale victories any day rather than obsessing on the scale.

The first one that I noticed happened right away. My underwear, which were always a bit tight, but too expensive to replace, have become looser. My pants are looser as well. I’ve gone from a comfortable 4x shirt to being able to fit nicely into all of the 3x shirts that I have tried on. I’m drowning in the 4x shirts at this point. The overalls that I wear pretty much daily in the summer, with their rainbow straps, are getting a little baggy on me, but do still fit. They’re just more comfortable at this point, even straight after being washed. My bras are also more comfortable. Thankfully, I have clothes all of the way down to 18w for pants and 1x for a few shirts, so I shouldn’t have to buy clothes for a while.

Now, on to my jewelry. For starters, I’ve cared enough to put jewelry on, which I haven’t done in a long time, even though I love my jewelry. I typically only wear three sets of earrings on a regular basis, changing them out every so often and my moonstone bracelet. I went ahead and changed the earrings out, plus found a favorite ring and and additional bracelet that I wanted to wear. When I first put the ring on about 6 weeks ago, the only finger that it fit on was the left ring finger. Last week, when I was on my overnight trip to Albuquerque, I almost lost it as it almost flew off my finger it was so loose. I’ve had to switch it over to my left middle finger, where it’s fitting nicely. I would have been heartbroken had I lost this ring as it was the one real item that I got when I spent 6 weeks in Alaska in 2001, I think it was. I also almost lost one of my favorite cuff bracelets as it did go flying off my wrist. Luckily, I was in the hotel room and felt it go on the adventure of it’s life time. This is a uniquely designed cuff with a beautiful rhodochrosite and a triangular design. So, that had to be tightened. I also have a purple iolite one that I love even more, so I’ll need to adjust that one as well. Every day, I wear a moonstone bracelet with a clasp that is typically, not tight, but firmly on my wrist. I can now slide it off with just a little tug. My watch, now has to be one notch tighter as well.

At the gym, there have been tons of changes. I do two machines while I’m there: the recumbent cross trainer (think seated stepper with arms) and the seated elliptical. I recently have hit personal records for each of them. When I started on the cross trainer about this time last year, I was averaging about 55 steps per minute. When I started the Zepbound 7 weeks ago, I was at about 65-75 steps per minute. Yesterday, I was able to sustain the majority of my 30 minutes in the 95-108 range with multiple peaks at 116 steps per minute. That’s double this time last year! When I added on the seat elliptical, I could only do about 2 minutes. I can now do 15 minutes (after the 30 minutes on the cross trainer) and two times ago, I was able to get up to 2.54 miles in those 15 minutes. Yay me! Not only that, this time last year when I originally tried the elliptical, I had to have the seat in position 13 because, although only my tip toes hit the pedals, my thighs would bump into my stomach and prevent me pedaling if I were any lower. When I started the elliptical again about 4 weeks ago, I was able to start on seat position 11, and have since been able to go to position 10. My feet are now able to hit the pedals completely, and although my thighs do still hit my stomach, it doesn’t make the time on the machine any less comfortable. As I’ve been increasing my ability to perform at the gym, I’m becoming slightly less reliant on my walker, especially at home.

A little thing that stood out to me yesterday was that I noticed that my seatbelt is looser when I’m in the car and that my stomach is no longer touching the steering wheel.

It’s the little things that are making the difference.

I will have to say that although I know that I’ve made the right decision not to weigh myself anymore, I’m struggling with it. But my victory is that I’ve not gotten the scale out from the garage even when it’s calling my name in the early hours of the morning.

A huge non scale victory for me is that I’m sharing my struggles and my joys. I tend to be a very private person when it concerns my eating disorder history and my recovery, believe it or not. I agonized for weeks whether to share with anyone except my closest friends that I was going to start the Zepbound. I know that there’s a lot of judgment in the world about people thinking that taking the GLP-1 medications is cheating and that “fat people” just need to eat less and exercise more. While that may be true to an extent, there are so many reasons that complicate matters, many of which I experience. I think this mindset is especially true in the plant-based world. Just even the decision to start my journey at the metabolic clinic and considering taking the Zepbound was a huge accomplishment for me.

Yet another non scale victory is that I am truly realizing the importance of meal prepping and how vital it is to keeping me on track. I’ve been tending not to eat enough or not making the healthier choices when I don’t have food prepped and ready to take out of the fridge. One of the side effects of the Zepbound is that because the food noise is mostly gone, I’ve not even wanted to think about eating and prepping food. But I’m realizing that it’s even more important than ever to reach my macronutrient goals while staying nourished, both mentally and physically, and in a calorie deficit.

Finally, I’ve been wanting to create recipes again, which I hadn’t wanted to do for the first 6 weeks on Zepbound. Just this weekend alone, I created 3 new recipes. Granted, the CSA has started back up for the summer and I always get more creative when I get surprised by the produce each week, but I wasn’t even caring about food, let alone getting creative in my cooking.

I think I’ve had some massive non scale victories, and these are just the ones that are coming to mind as I sit down to write this, that have happened over the past six and a half weeks.

These non scale victories keep me going on the days when I’m doubting my journey. And you’d better believe that those doubts come in, especially since the food noise is so much quieter.

Have you had any non scale victories recently? What’s the one that you’re most proud of? What are the things that keep you motivated on your health journey?

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I broke up with my scale last week.

I have a long history with weighing myself through the years and it links directly with my eating disorder history.

When I first went vegan back in 1994, I weighed more than my scale could go to. That scale stopped at 320 pounds and I was a lot bigger than the last time that I was under that. When I started losing weight after eating only plant based foods, I went down a full clothing size before my weight started to register again. My best guess was that I was somewhere around 350 pounds as my highest weight.

I remember the first time that the number on the scale was brought to my attention. I was 10 years old and I weighed 150 pounds. Two family friends made a comment to my mother, while I was present, about being concerned about my weight. I knew at the time that I weighed the same as my mom. I didn’t understand. I knew I was bigger than my friends. I knew I got teased about my weight. But I also knew that I was extremely active. I swam for hours at a time, rode my bike, ran and played sports with my friends. I went ice skating and roller skating. I took diving lessons. I was more active than a lot of my friends and yet I was the large one.

I remember hopping on the scale multiple times a day to see if it would have changed since the last time that I had gotten on it. The only changes were up, even though I had already developed bulimia by the age of 9.

As my weight steadily increased, so did my frequency of weighing myself. At 17, when I went on the medically supervised liquid diet, that was the first time that the numbers on the scale had ever gone down in my life at that point. But this was not through healthy eating and lifestyle. Yes, my activity increased, but since I wasn’t eating, the weight loss was easy. I learned that the only way to make the scale go down wasn’t in a sustainable way.

And of course, I gained the weight back and then some.

Over the years, as the bulimia worsened, sometimes after every bite of food, no matter how small, I’d hop on the scale and make sure that I hadn’t gained any more weight.

Each time that my weight yo-yoed up and down, the scale played a large part in the journey. As I was going up, I didn’t want to see the number because I’d feel shame and frustration. Then, each time I tried to lose weight, I’d get obsessed with the numbers, and if I hit a plateau, which, I now know, is a normal part of weight loss, the frustration was astronomical and I would often give up.

Every single time.

And when I did try to lose weight, you’d better believe that it wasn’t in a healthy way.

By the time that the bulimia was completely out of control in 2005 and I ended up in the residential treatment center, I was back to weighing myself so many times a day, and my mood would lift and fall with the numbers.

So, I stopped weighing myself after being in treatment. It was literally driving me crazy.

And all that happened was I gained and gained and gained until I got back up to 315 pounds in 2013 when I almost died from a medication reaction.

So, it was time to get serious about losing weight and the numbers on the scale became my obsession again.

I based my self worth on a stupid number.

And I wasn’t even eating in a healthy manner to reduce my weight. I was still restricting and overeating. I was still emotionally eating. And even though I wasn’t bingeing and purging anymore, my eating disorder was still very present.

I got to the point where I lost 100 pounds. I even threw a big party for it.

Again, I was stuck on the numbers and only allowing myself to see my worth based on the numbers on the scale.

And of course, I gained the weight back once again, just not the full amount this time.

In 2015, I started bingeing again. That’s how the weight came back on. I was full blown back into the eating disorder after 10 years. I helplessly watched the numbers on the scale go up and up, while my self worth went down and down. The amount of shame that I felt as the number raised was unreal.

I knew I needed to get back to working with a therapist who specializes in eating disorders.

I started with her in January of 2023 after spending 11 months on her waiting list. One of the first things that she wanted me to do was to stop weighing myself multiple times a day. I wasn’t ready for that, but I was ready to start making a lot of the other changes that she suggested. Over the two and a half years that I’ve been working with her, I’ve made a ton of progress. Even when I stopped bingeing again, I wasn’t losing weight. But I was still weighing myself about 5-7 days every week.

Earlier this year, I decided that I wanted to try to lose weight again, but I wanted to do it in a healthy way. And by healthy, I mean both physically and emotionally healthy ways.

I’d been working really hard on eating a whole food, plant based diet, and I just wasn’t losing weight. Regardless of how “perfect” I ate, The weight wasn’t budging.

I’ve previously written about how the medications that I’m on for the bipolar 1 disorder that I have, alter my metabolism. I hadn’t gained weight in 5 years, but I just couldn’t lose anything more no matter how well I ate. The stricter I got with the whole food, plant based eating, the worse the eating disorder thoughts and behaviors were getting. I couldn’t find a balance.

So, I decided to get a referral from my primary care provider to the metabolic and bariatric clinic that our hospital system has. I have no desire to have bariatric surgery, but I wanted to see what they could offer me that I wasn’t already doing.

My first appointment was at the end of May. I was very nervous. Every time that I’ve “tried” to lose weight, I go right back into my eating disorder behaviors. I was doing so well without bingeing for about 14 months at that point, that I felt that I was ready to at least see what they could me with.

I had my first appointment at the clinic. I was so nervous, but I needed help, so I went into it with an open mind.

After talking to the nurse practitioner about my current eating habits, he basically told me that the fact that I’ve not been steadily gaining weight with the medications that I have to take for the bipolar, is a testament to how well I already eat and the fact that I was doing daily movement.

He said that my only options were to have bariatric surgery or go on a GLP-1 medication.

Bariatric surgery was a hard pass for me. I don’t feel that I have enough recovery from the long term bulimia and binge eating disorder, nor I’m I confident that I ever will, that I could be safe after having bariatric surgery.

My PCP and psychiatrist have wanted me to go on a GLP-1 medication for years. I strongly resisted this suggestion. First, because of the cost, and second, because I was convinced that if I just ate “perfect” enough with the whole food, plant based eating that I would lose weight on my own without it.

With the help of one of my providers, and the reading that I was doing and listening to podcasts and videos with researchers and not just “influencers” who think that they know what they’re talking about, in terms of the evils of taking medications, even for legitimate medical issues, I decided that I would be open to the idea of taking a GLP-1 medication.

The only problem is that by the time of my first appointment with the nurse practitioner at the metabolic clinic, I had reduced my HgA1c to 6.3%, which is back in the pre diabetic range, so I didn’t think that I would qualify for my insurance to pay for any of them. This was accurate. You have to have an HgA1c higher than 7.0% to qualify due to the diabetes and the type of insurance that I have doesn’t cover them for just weight loss.

But in asking me questions about my medical history, it turns out that Zepbound is approved for moderate to severe sleep apnea, which is something that I do have. My insurance approved it the next day.

The only problem is that my copay was $512 each month.

So, after the sticker shock wore off and a call to my insurance to confirm my coverage, it turns out that because of the cost of my other medications, I was almost to the halfway point of my yearly out of pocket limit for prescriptions. So, I’d only have to pay for it less than twice at that cost and then it will be a $0 copay for the rest of the year.

So, I decided to start taking the Zepbound on June 21st, 2025.

Everything that I read about being on a GLP-1 medication couldn’t prepare me for what this has been like.

I do my injections on Saturdays. The first 20 hours after the first injection, I itched head to toe, particularly around my face. So my thought at that point, was that, great, I wasn’t going to be able to take it because I’m allergic to it. Turns out that’s not the case. After the first injection, the itching became less and less and by the 4th week, I was no longer itching at all after the injection. Thank goodness. That’s one hurdle out of the way.

The first Saturday night/Sunday morning, I woke up at 3am thinking I was going to vomit. The nausea was so bad, but the dietitian that I had been seeing had told me that the reason people get the nausea is that they’re not eating often enough, so I had some peanut butter graham crackers. It settled my stomach a bit and I made it back to sleep, just sort of dozing for a few more hours. I felt awful though all day Sunday.

Then came breakfast.

Absolutely nothing sounded appealing but I knew that I had to eat to take my medication. The only thing that sounded semi-decent was to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but when I tried to eat it, I burst into uncontrollable sobbing. We’re not talking just a few tears, but full on sobbing. Snot and hiccups, and huge amounts of tears pouring down my face. I forced myself to eat. This repeated for lunch.

Then came dinner. I absolutely have to eat for my dinner medication. It’s not optional or I will throw up even with taking an anti-nausea medication. But I had no appetite or desire to even think about eating. But I had to force myself. I was sobbing, gagging, and thinking to myself that if this was how it was going to be for the rest of my life that I just didn’t want to take the Zepbound. I took my anti-nausea medication and was trying to figure out what I was going to do. After about 30 minutes of sobbing, my stomach calmed down enough to force myself to eat and I was able to take my medication and go to sleep early.

By Monday, although I didn’t feel great, I could eat without crying and gagging. Still, nothing sounded appealing, but I could force myself to eat.

The first week, was the most bizarre week of my life. I wasn’t thinking about food all of the time. When I woke up, I wasn’t planning, not only breakfast, but lunch and dinner, as well as snacks. I wasn’t having cravings.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t care about food.

But a funny thing happened. My brain got fixed on the scale. I was almost immediately back to weighing multiple times a day to check and see if I was losing weight. And I was, just a couple pounds the first few weeks, but I was losing.

But not fast enough for my eating disordered brain.

Hopping on and off the scale every morning. Right after I woke up, after going to the bathroom, waiting to eat breakfast to go to the bathroom again so I could weight yet, at least, a third time.

I was back to driving myself crazy!

At the clinic, they not only weigh you, but they have a scale that gives you the percentages of body fat, muscle mass, and water weight. I had already told the nurse practitioner that I didn’t want to know the numbers because I didn’t want to obsess over them as I was already starting to have trouble with weighing myself. They want patients to weigh once a week, but I couldn’t just do that.

At my appointment last week, I told the nurse practitioner that I didn’t want to have to weigh myself anymore because it was making me too focused on the numbers and I was obsessing over them and not understanding why I wasn’t losing enough weight.

He told me not to worry. That I could stop weighing at home and that they would just track me at the clinic. He said it was completely fine, and not to worry about it. I told him that as far as the calculations that their scale makes and my weight, that I just want to know trends but without telling me the numbers.

He shared that my weight is down exactly what he would expect, that my muscle mass and water weight have remained the same, and that my body fat is going down. Perfect. That is all that I need to know.

When I got home, I took the giant step of putting my scale in the garage.

I’m not quite emotionally ready to give it away, but I feel so much freer with it out of my bathroom and I haven’t weighed myself in 9 days. I feel so much better!

I do have to make some choices. When I have my other doctor appointments, they always weigh me. But, I honestly don’t want to know at this point. So, I’ve decided that I will step on the scale backwards and tell the medical assistant not to tell me the number.

For now at least, I’ll let others deal with the numbers while I continue to heal my relationship with the eating disorder behaviors through working with my therapist.

I had my 6th injection this past Saturday. I’m no longer having the GI side effects that I had had for the first 5 weeks. I’m not crying when I eat. The nausea is basically gone. I’m not itching after the injection any longer.

And for the first time since starting the Zepbound, I’ve actually felt like cooking and baking again and creating new recipes. I’ve felt creative around food again, while at the same time, the food noise has been greatly reduced. The full day cravings have basically stopped. I do still have a bit of emotional eating, but it’s greatly reduced.

I’m also seeing non-scale victories every day. And those are what gets me through the ups and downs. I’ll write more about those soon. And all without knowing what the number on the scale says anymore.

I’m at peace like I haven’t felt in ages.

What kind of a relationship do you have with the scale? Have you ever felt that your self-worth is connected to the number on the scale and whether it has gone up or down?