Hi! Just wanted to post this to ask people to please sign the petition to the President and Congress to increase funding for research related to finding cures for mental illness. It only takes a minute! Please share with your friends too!
https://www.change.org/petitions/to-the-president-and-congress-fund-research-to-cure-mental-illness
I thought I’d do a little mental health update, since it has been quite some time since I’ve blogged about my overall mental health. As some of you dear readers may know, I have schizophrenia. I first had issues with it when I was about 15. My first hospitalization was when I was 16. Towards the end of 2000 I got mostly stabilized with my Haldol injections and Zoloft. I haven’t been in the hospital since then! Yay! Quite a long run I’ve had and I hope it continues! For quite some time I had problems getting things done, being motivated and feeling down…that sort of thing, even though I was mostly fine. I think it was last year that I started taking Abilify and it has made a HUGE difference! I’m still taking Zoloft, Buspar, Haldol and some non-psychiatric meds in addition to the Abilify, but the addition of the Abilify was great. I’m doing really pretty well these days. Sometimes I have anxiety, although I think it might generally be related to performance issues with school. I also tried taking Topamax to help with weight loss, but I thought it might be making me stupid and giving me more anxiety, so I quit taking it. I think overall, the Topamax was not helping. It seemed like I was becoming less motivated and more sad with it. I also had that bad anxiety day that I wrote about recently.
So, I think I was just hoping for a magic weightloss bullet with the Topamax. It didn’t work. Boo. I have lost about 90-100 pounds though which is good, but I still need to be less sedentary. I’m also a believer in fat acceptance, but of course it is hard to say that I never want to try to lose weight. I would be an even bigger believer in fat acceptance if I wasn’t actually fat I think!!! hahaha. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is kind of true. I can accept the hell out of everyone’s fatness, but my own! lol.
Anyway, enough about fatness for now. What I want to say is that I’m doing well on the whole. My sleep patterns have improved with my sleep apnea machine, and while I’m not sleeping on any kind of normal schedule yet, I’m getting sleep every day and mostly at the same time! I still tend to be somewhat paranoid, but I’ve found that opening up with people over the years on the internet has really helped me to realize that I don’t need to be afraid of everyone in the world. I still have some delusional thoughts that blow through my brain now and then, but I consider them to be more of a slight annoyance than a big deal right now. But seriously, it is because of the medicine. If I wasn’t taking my meds, and doing so faithfully, I would be in and out of hospitals and massively psychotic. Some people don’t believe me, because I “seem so normal,” but I have to wonder what THAT means anyway? And, I don’t know, it seems like I should be insulted when people say that to me, but I’m not sure why I find it so insulting! I don’t necessarily want to be abnormal, even though I pretty much am, but I think it just bothers me that people attach a kind of value judgement to the term “normal” as if “normal” is superior. It is definitely easier to live in the world if you are “normal,” but it isn’t the only way to be in the world, that’s for sure. Normal is just such a peculiar word, no?
So, I’m doing fine. Some anxiety here and there, some weird thoughts here and there…a depressed mood now and then, but mostly just good. Which is nice. Thank you meds and thank you lucky stars! So, that’s my update after living with schizophrenia for 24 years. Wow! 24 years! Man am I getting old!!! LOL.
So, the thing is, I hate cooking and I don’t like to eat healthy food! What a great combo, right? LOL Probably one of the reasons why I’m so fat. But, I’ve been trying to eat a bit better and lose some of the pounds. I went to Starbucks one day and decided to try their Roma Tomato and Mozzarella Sandwich. It is completely delicious! But then I’m like “I can’t afford to eat this delicious sandwich every day. What should I do?!?” So, I adapted the sandwich to make it at home and I’m here to share my results with you.
The skill level for making this sandwich is like super-beginner. You need NO skills whatsoever. If you can buy the food at the store, open the packages and turn on the microwave you are golden! This sandwich can be adapted with changes to make it however you like, but here is the general idea.
What you need: bread, roasted tomatoes (they come in a can), pesto (generally sold in the cheese/fresh pasta area), baby spinach, gardenburgers, and mozzarella cheese.
The whole sandwich is less than 450 calories depending on how you make it.
Here are what the ingredients look like that I used:
1) Bagel Thins, because they are only 110 calories and I like bagels.
2) Mozzarella cheese slices. I got the pre-sliced ones that are 80 calories per slice, but you can slice your own if you like. It is probably cheaper that way.
3) The *Original* Gardenburger. You could use whatever you like, but I like the Original kind. It is 150 calories. Also, you could have the sandwich without any garden burger at all or you could even use a regular burger, but that would involve cooking, which I don’t do! haha
4) Pesto. You can make it yourself I suppose, but I didn’t. I bought it in a container. Less than 1 tablespoon, so approx. 50 calories.
5) Roasted tomatoes. These are very low in calories and come in a can already cooked.
6) Baby spinach. Also very low in calories. Bought it already washed and ready to go!
Now all you have to do is:
1) Toast your bagel.
2) Cook your Gardenburger for about 45 seconds on high in the microwave for each side.
3) Put a bit of pesto on the bagel. Here is what mine looked like:
4) Put a bit of the roasted tomatoes on one side. Here is an example:
5) Add the pre-cooked Gardenburger, put on the slice of mozzarella and top with the baby spinach. Don’t forget to put the lid on! Here is what it looks like before it is cooked, and I suppose you could eat it without cooking it anymore if you like.
6) I like to have it nice and warm with the cheese melted, so I put the whole thing in the microwave for about 30-35 seconds on high to melt everything together. Here is the finished sandwich!
It has been a long while since I’ve written about body acceptance. I sort of ran out of “steps” that I could think of. For me, it really is a process. I told my therapist that when it comes to weight, weightloss and size acceptance, I feel like I am walking on a balance beam. Not quite a tightrope, but still balancing nonetheless.
Over this past year quite a lot has changed. My blood sugar levels were elevated with an A1C level of 6.3, so my nurse practitioner qualified me as diabetic. She also did other blood work and discovered that I was really low in Vitamin D and that my thyroid was off (hypothyroidism ), so I started meds for those too. I decided that I was sick of people suggesting that I get a gastric bypass, and I felt like I really could be in better shape, so with the combo of meds for my thyroid and blood sugar, watching what I eat a little more, and getting a bit of exercise, I have lost some weight.
However, I still want to maintain my outlook as one of size-acceptance. I know it seems kind of weird to say I am for size-acceptance and still be trying to lose some weight. There really is no manual for this kind of thing, so I’m just working on it as best I can. I am taking steps to improve my health. I got my A1C level down to 5.3 (non-diabetic) so far and my other labs are looking better. I’m still taking meds, but I’m TRYING to take a bit better care of my body. I know that at my size I am not quite as healthy as I could be, but I also know that I am not going to starve myself and turn into a raging bulimic again to try to maintain and lose weight (well, I really hope not at any rate!!!).
But, it is hard in some respects, because when I do make some attempt to pay attention to what I am eating, all of those negative thoughts tend to come back to haunt me. Thoughts like if I eat something “bad” I am being a “bad” person. My therapist calls thoughts like that ANTS (automatic negative thoughts). You know, some months I might gain some weight or not lose weight, and I have to be okay with that.
As a person who has struggled with weight issues all of my life, it isn’t like losing weight is just a matter of calories in and calories out. It is a whole quilt of past experiences, thoughts and feelings related to weight and how I have dealt with things throughout my life as a fat person.
So, I feel like I’m in a process of understanding how to accept myself and my body while trying to take some steps to improve my health. For me, it is important to remember that at the end of the day, the whole world drifts away and what matters is how *I* feel and how *I* can function and accept my body in this life. So, maybe I want to lose some more weight, but I still eat. I still eat “bad” stuff and I’m not ever going to live on a diet of celery, that is for sure. I don’t want to give up my life and I don’t want to give up eating. I just want to live my life the best I can!
P.S. And just so you know I am not anywhere near skinny, I have posted a picture of myself that was taken a couple of days ago! lol
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So, we arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. They took blood samples from
kristinbell.org 