The physical part of the struggle... (part 2 of 3)

If you missed part one, click here and catch up.  It's a doozy.

When we were planning our trip, we were so in the right mindset as far as how we were going to try to keep up with some kind of exercise ritual while we were there.  We made a playlist of our favorite YouTube workouts, had some of our favorites on the tablet, we had practiced eating slow, chewing thoroughly and a drink of water after each bite to get fuller faster, had the resistance bands packed and told ourselves how important drinking a buttload of water was.  We were psyched because we weren't going to fall into the same traps as some previous vacations.

See, here's the problem.

Our work schedule was pretty jam packed full for the first 16 days.  I'm talking we were up at 6am every day hiking, walking all over or just being all over the place and by 8-9pm we were passed out on the couch or went to bed.  The thought of coming home and doing an additional workout in addition to all of the activity just wasn't going to happen.  Honestly it didn't need to then, we were active though certainly not active enough to outdo crappy food choices.

I felt like I had the usual gains but nothing that was really changing my body or that made me want to pull back from the horrible habits I was forming.  Donut shops?  We tried 'em.  Sometimes multiple times.  Pie shops?  Visited those too.  We basically ate like they said "you have one month to store salt and sugar for the next year before we switch you to pepitas and water."  I would say it was a 50/50 split on the "worth it" scale.  For the 50% that wasn't worth it, it makes the gains all the more regrettable.  You add the stress we were under throughout the trip and the ol' stress eating monster that I thought I beat was more than happy to nudge me toward the things I didn't need.

Our water intake was basically zero.  Whatever water we drank at restaurants and a couple of swigs from the water bottle was it.  Nowhere near our regular intake.  The Mr got into a nasty root beer habit and I got the occasional passion orange juice because its not available here so you suck in what you can.  I'm not a fan of drinking calories at all but we did on occasion.

Then there was Kauai.  We were active the first day at the same pace as the other islands.  But the couple times I wore flip flops and walked on hard tile floors at the Kona house had seriously screwed up my feet.  They're actually still screwed up and so are the Mr's.  Now we were in a condo with people below us so jumping around wasn't going to be very neighborly.  The weather pattern was holding up so the only way you could get to a sunny locale was to get up and start driving and hope you got an hour or two of sunshine before clouds rolled in.  The rain meant most of the trails were muddy messes so no hiking.  Well what about paddling like we did 3 years ago?   Didn't happen.  The few times we went up that way it was raining and when it wasn't, we just felt too fat and uncomfortable to do it.  Thing is, neither of us cared as much because we paddled at home all last summer even in December so we didn't really feel like we were missing out on something.

Pufferfish syndrome had set in.

It was truly scary how my body put my new motto "if you don't care, I don't care" into action.  All of my clothes fit relatively the same most of the trip until day two of Kauai.  Then everything was tight, I was standing differently to accommodate my newly expanded gut, my arms which I now called my "malasada bags" because they are now big, fluffy but unfortunately not light were just too much to ignore.  I was determined that we would jump right back into things as soon as we got home.

We buy first class seats because the masses are put off that fat people like to travel and if they do, they should pay more for it.  That's fine, we have the means, so we do.  There's nothing I love more than sashaying past some asshole that gave us the look of "please God, don't put her next to me" when they call first class.  I can cross my long legs, the seatbelt is never a problem because they don't cut and shorten the belts for repairs like they do in coach and I don't have to worry about my lard pushing into the recline button uncontrollably.

Then they cancelled our flight...and knocked us out of our comfy first class seats and didn't sit us together.

Full blown panic set in.  The only thing that comforted me once we'd mentally checked out of vacation after turning in the rental car was that we could relax a bit up there and maybe catch some zzz's on the red eye.  Now they took that away and not only that, they took away my man so that I would get the sighs and potentially kicked off the flight depending on who was next to us and how much of a stink they could make.  I was nowhere near the weight of the guy in that article and was pretty sure I could still buckle my seat belt back there but I didn't want to find out I couldn't in front of a stranger.  I was melting down on the inside while blank and pale on the outside waiting in line for hotel vouchers with the Mr.  When he gave me the phone to make a call, I literally couldn't comprehend anything I was reading.  My brain had checked out and I felt horrible putting it all back on him but it actually scared me that the words I was looking at on the phone were not being computed by my brain.  Two hours spent in the hotel voucher line and of course we were given what was left because people kept ditching or going into the other line.  You could feel a fight was going to break out if anyone said anything about it to the ditchers so no one really did except for some old guy who ended up doing the same thing.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 3:30am.  Did I mention the hotel was right next to the condo we were still paying for that night but had already turned in the keys to the agency drop box because you know, we thought we were flying out that night?  In looking back, there were many signs we weren't going to leave that night.  I heard that flight leave like clockwork every night and mentioned it in my journal so of course, OURS wouldn't.  I bought more snacks than usual including breakfast so we could have it in Phoenix.  We ended up having it in our hotel room because there were no restaurants close by.  I've NEVER done that in 20 trips.  Just little things like that that in hindsight make you cringe or be thankful you did something you'd never done before.

The next day was not spent enjoying the extra full day like people think when they learn we got an "extra day" but fighting with two airlines to get seated together.   Because now we were dealing with Hawaiian to get us to Honolulu for more options and American.  Someone would tell you one thing and you'd check online and it didn't match or a change was made and it would kick out assignments on another leg.  I have never seen the Mr so defeated.  I think if one of us suggested walking into the ocean hand in hand and disappearing in that very second, there wouldn't have been much resistance.  It was a day full of anxiety, defeat and growing depression...plus the weather was crap so it's not like we were missing much.  (The nice day came the day we left which was true every island we left that trip.)  It took an actual trip to the airport in the same line we checked in the night before and some nice AA employee (a few do exist!  Not many though) assigning us seats.  But instead of assigning the two we'd asked for which were just the two of us on the side, they put us in a three seater in the middle with someone on the Mr's right.  Looking back it was probably a weight balance thing but still.  Thankfully we ended up with a wonderful woman next to him that actually retired from the same company in another location.

The longest leg was spent in coach and while I was thankful my seatbelt clicked without an extender (we have our own) my long legs were already touching the seat in front of me.  Once the guy in front of me reclined, it was over.  I was moving every 10 minutes to keep from my legs going numb or getting stuck with the arm on the left side.  My legs, already very prone to getting uber effed by the smallest thing, were now in the worst possible position.  I silently cried as I watched movies to make the time pass.  This is where the depression started swallowing me.  Even being in first class the last leg from Dallas wasn't overly comfortable because it was an old plane and basically only an inch bigger than coach, nothing like the ones we had on the way out.  I didn't care, just get me the hell home.  When we did, it was SHEETING rain.  Welcome home, suckers!  We dove into our usual pizza because I'm not cooking after a travel day, much less one I've been up for 35 hours for.  We went through the mail (note to self, hold mail an extra day...never assume you're coming home when you're scheduled to...when you finally get the gumption to fly again) and just vented about Hawaii being the butt and us being the toilet paper that trip.

We refilled groceries and the first week was like a half assed attempt at just getting back into normalcy while fighting the worst case of jetlag we've ever had.  We'd eat decent most of the day and then have some kind of crap because we were sinking into depression having to get together all of our receipts and deal with airlines for reimbursements.  I did make us go to the park and walk the trail so we'd get in some kind of activity.  You know, the trail we walked with ease before we left?  Well now, I had to stop for a second at the top of the stairs and I haven't had to do that for years.  Some parts with inclines made me breathe a little harder than I did before and I knew my endurance was shot.  Instead of motivating me, it sunk me further.  I was emotionally drowning.  Oh yeah, my new gynie also called to reschedule my appointment and could I come that Friday?  I knew I would have to weigh in before that appointment because if I waited, depending on how bad the number was, I could just fall into a puddle and cry uncontrollably.  We did weigh in and were greeted with a 20 lb gain.  Honestly, given how much my body had 'reconfigured' I figured I was up 30.  Who knows, a few days prior when we first got off the plane and my legs doubled in size after being crammed in coach for 7 1/2 hours it could've been 30.  We knew weighing in would've been devastating in our mental state at the time so it wasn't a priority.  Now that I was forced to I just kind of felt ambivalent about it and figured more would come off like before.  The Mr said to weigh in on that Saturday (2 days later) and I almost didn't but we were both down 3 lbs.   So now we were 17 lbs up.  If we were going to get more weight off like we had in the past, we needed to get on it.

Did we?  Nope.

Instead we went insane that Saturday where sweets were concerned because I was still heavy in depression.  We did get the patio together and gardened a bit which left me so sore I could barely move a few days.  (I also think I pulled my shoulder lifting a bag of mulch.  Aces.)  To try to just throw ourselves back into "formal" exercise, we did walk away the pounds with 5 lb weights Thursday and T25 Friday.  I somehow equated that activity with being more than I did the week before and we weren't randomly picking up a candy bar so that should help.  Nope.  Weighed in and we were exactly the same spot.  That insanity day wiped any chance we had of losing anything.  Now it stuck.  Now we truly effed ourselves.  We let the depression swallow us and set us back at a point where a good chunk of weight is usually off.  We made it that much harder on ourselves.

In that moment, I felt "why bother?"   I just didn't have it in me to care.  I was happy the Mr lost a pound but I was kind of expecting 2-3 lbs each.  I saw physical changes in my stomach and thought it would register on the scale and when it didn't, it was just another kick to the face and this time with my own steel toed boot instead of someone else's.

I went through waves of depression over the weekend and I had to decide if I was going to drown or learn to surf.

Come back tomorrow to see if there's a life preserver or if I'm at the bottom of my ocean.

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