I’m sure you’ve heard the term “fallen off the wagon” to describe someone who’s relapsed into bad habits. When they start back on the right path, we say they’re “back on the wagon.”

So you can guess what it means that I’m sitting here in the dust, between the wagon ruts, looking around the grassy plains and wondering where the heck my wagon went?

After a gung-ho start (aren’t they all gung-ho starts?) I’m finding myself once again battling the reality of my life versus the way I want it to be.

I have a couple of dear, well-meaning friends who say I fell off the wagon because I just haven’t found the right program yet…that if I try this particular diet, I’ll be good to go.

It isn’t that. It SO isn’t that.

It’s not the program. It’s me. The problem always has been me…and my lack of organizational skills. My inability to keep a dozen balls juggling in the air at once. Something always has to go, and almost always, what gets dropped is…

You guessed it: me.

There are other problems, and I’ve mentioned them before. But I’m realizing the main one is consistently letting everything else in life get in the way of my fitness goals. Like the funny picture above, how do you then substitute one consistency for another? (i.e. lapsing into old habits instead of plugging along with the new ones) How do you stop being a screw-up?

I’m thinking it has to be a minute-by-minute mind-change, where I stop seeing all this as optional. I have never given up tooth-brushing or showering. I keep telling myself that exercising and eating well should be in the same category as those two items—non-negotiable.

But then life makes me negotiate, and I cave.

Mind you, I haven’t fully given up. I’ve embraced some of my low-calorie favorites and am doing better at portion control and intuitive eating. I’m still enjoying my fruits and veggies,  using stevia in my coffee, drinking lots of water, refusing most desserts. But, that’s about it.

The problem with having PCOS is that even little slip-ups add up to no weight loss. If I don’t do everything right–nothing happens. I can’t drift along half-dieting and exercising once a week and expect to lose an ounce or two. I gain. It’s the nature of the PCOS beast. You can’t half-tame it—it’s all or nothing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m secure enough in who I am to be fine with the fact that I’ll never be skinny. I don’t really care what people think about how I look. This journey is about health, about being healthy enough to see my grandchildren grow up.

So, please join me in praying for strength to follow those wagon ruts til I catch up with mine and hop back on.

Visit Alicia for more Weight Loss Wednesday posts.

Because dieting and me? We don’t get along — a fact that is blatantly obvious, is it not?

Actually, I’m afraid she’ll delete my entry because when I think about dieting, my first thought is not anywhere near “Rah, rah, rah! GO team!”

Rather, it’s more like, “Well…gotta do something. Even though I’ll hate it. Bye-bye, sweet chocolate. I’ll miss you….”

I quite remind myself of Garfield, actually, when it comes to how I feel about dieting. Because my results have been about this stellar:

I know, I know, they say don’t use the word “diet.” Call it a healthy lifestyle change, a pursuit of fitness, a new way of eating! Something positive!

And I say, you can paint it paisley, glue roses around the edge and hang a smiley face over it, but at the end of the day, it’s still a litterbox.

Just like how counting points, eating prepackaged instant food or drinking Slim-Fast are all just various ways of limiting food intake. It’s all the same painful self-sacrifice no matter how you color it (at least, that has been my experience on the dozen or so weight loss programs I’ve tried in the past.)

But…

Even a dolled-up litterbox serves a necessary purpose, and as much as I am loathe to admit it, so does eating less and exercising more in the life of a 40-something year-old who’s always been a big girl.

Especially a big girl with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). (I appreciate that this website mentions how PCOS’ers can gain weight even while dieting and exercising…I know I have relatives who do not believe that truth and honestly seem to think that I sit around gorging on bon-bons dipped in cheesecake all day.)

The scary thing about being big with PCOS is that it potentially puts me on a fast track to diabetes and heart disease. And because I also have an unspecified autoimmune disorder that comes with its own complications, seriously — it’s time to stop playing with my health. So, this week, I decided to do something about it.

Granted, I’ve “decided to do something about it” countless times in the past. But I think I might’ve figured out a way to make weight loss doable. I’m not joining Weight Watchers for the seventh or eighth time. Nutrisystem can keep their dehydrated scrambled “egg” cups. Basically, I’m counting calories strictly Monday through Friday, exercising 5 days a week, and on the weekends, eating whatever I want but with more of an intuitive eating approach.

Why the odd-sounding combination? Well…I’ve gone through the processes described on the above-linked intuitive eating website, but through different programs. It helped a lot — I rarely ever succumb to emotional eating anymore, and never binge like I did 25 years ago. But because of PCOS, it isn’t enough. And because of my hectic lifestyle, it isn’t enough. I don’t always take the time to check in with myself constantly as you basically need to for I.E. to be successful. I’ve definitely slowed my rate of weight gain through these principles, but my body works too hard against me for it alone to be enough.

Women with PCOS usually have to follow a much lower-calorie, lower glycemic-index diet than women without the disorder who have an equal amount of weight to lose (it has to do with the endocrine imbalances, insulin resistance, and other factors associated with the disease). I think that’s why Weight Watchers never worked for me; they simply allowed me too much food to lose weight. So I have to try calorie restriction until I find a magic number that allows me to lose at least 2 pounds a week.

But trying to stick to strict calorie counting for…well, for what feels like forever…doesn’t feel very doable. I need that little break each week to look forward to something different. Plus, I’ve heard that mixing things up is a good way to keep your metabolism burning, that eating a little more a day or two a week can help keep you going. So…that is why I’m adding the intuitive eating weekends.

We’ll see how it goes. It’s an approach I’ve not tried yet and I’m hoping it’ll be a best-of-both-worlds scenario. I won’t lie — the past two days I have been HUNGRY. My stomach thinks my throat has been cut. But it does feel good to take positive steps toward getting healthier. And that is where my focus lies.

Because barring some horrible, emaciating illness, I will never be thin. It’s just not in my gene pool, PCOS or not. And I don’t even care about being skinny, or fitting into a certain size. I’m not one of those miserable fat people you see on TV, who are so consumed with self-loathing that no one wants to be around them. I live my life. I enjoy my life. I do things I love, with people I love. I even think I’m beautiful despite the weight. I’m happy, even if the world doesn’t think anyone as fat as me has a right to happiness, or deserves to love themselves like I do.

God thinks I’m lovable, and that is good enough for me.

One last thought on my reluctance to join up with Weight Loss Wednesday: in the past, announcing to the world that I was starting a diet was the equivalent of writing my own diet death certificate. There’s just something about people checking up on me, expecting results, that makes me want to quit. (Yeah, I could use a good therapist, I know…) Especially when those people are skinny-minnies who think the world is ending if they gain two pounds.

But maybe that’s why I want to jump in with WLW now…I know that we’re all in the same boat. It’s that three-strand cord Alicia was talking about. I need to go through this with people who understand the struggle but won’t press me for more than I’m ready to share. Weight is such a personal issue, even for those of us who’ve healed from some of the emotional issues attached to it.  If I want to share about it, let me…but don’t ask me about it. Does that make sense?

Well, I’ve rambled on enough and it’s time for my date with a cup of sugar-free Jello. So I’ll sign off for now. Blessings to everyone who is pursuing health, whatever that might look like for you!

For previously, I have left too many resolutions, unresolved, resulting in an inclination not to make resolutions. But what is January without a few goals thrown out there for good measure? Here are my top ten intentions, inclinations, wishes, pipe-dreams — whatever you want to call them — for 2011.

(I will try not to use them to pave the road to Hades.)

10. Lose 50 pounds. It always starts with weight loss, doesn’t it? Seriously, I need to do this. I need to lose more than 50 pounds, but 50 is  a start. So far, the best results I’ve had is with The Lord’s Table. My weight issues stem from two reasons: PCOS and a boat-load of food issues that started early in childhood. I’m on medication to help with the first issue. The Lord’s Table truly helps me give the rest over to God.

9. Exercise. I’m trying to see exercise as something my body was created to do, something as necessary as sleeping or bathing, instead of this dreaded, impotent tool in the weight loss game as it’s been for most of my life. (Exercise does help PCOS, to a degree, for some women, but like many other women with the disorder, it never, ever helped me lose weight in the past, no matter how seriously I kept to a routine.) So I’m really trying to separate weight loss from exercising, focusing on the other health benefits of moving and not expecting to lose any weight because of it. And can I just say that mentally, that’s kind of hard to do, when all you hear is that if you eat less and move more, you’ll be thin! OH if it were only that simple for everyone…

8. Re-embrace the FlyLady’s routines to keep this house in order. Heaven knows I could elaborate on this one all day long, but I’ll spare you.

7. At least start the manuscripts for a couple of book ideas that have been brewing in my mind for a while now.

6. Do what my friend Brian keeps suggesting, and just outright contact the editor of a favorite women’s magazine (you know, one of the publications that say they will not accept work from authors not already nationally published on a regular basis), attach my best excerpt and see what happens. This is how he has gotten his best writing gigs — and that encourages me!

5. Give my husband the attention he deserves. Since Jonah’s been born, I feel like I’ve been totally consumed with the kids. Our marriage — and dates, meaningful conversations, time alone — have been on the back burner for far too long. God blessed me with a great guy — he deserves a heck of a lot more  than I give him.

4. Plan monthly menus and stick to them when grocery shopping. I saved us a bundle this payday by doing just that, and planning meals to include items that have been in the pantry or freezer a while.

3. Be a more patient teacher with my young students.

2. Work on the kids’ scrapbooks at least once a month. If I don’t start doing this now, I will never catch up!

And the number one good intention for 2011?

1. Spend more time in prayer, be more faithful in my church attendance, and just overall be more mindful of God and appreciative of his blessings.

For more Top Ten Tuesday lists, visit Amanda.

“They’re cutting me WHERE?!?”

Just look at that little face…

Before I write anything more, please remember my sweet baby Jonah in your prayers today, as he is having hernia surgery. Maybe remember me, too, because Mommy is fresh out of Xanax. Not that I ever had any, but I hear it’s nice stuff to have on hand when you’re letting someone anesthetize and cut into your precious little baby. Thanks!

Now on to the questions…

1. Where are my sunglasses and my cell phone?? (I am always, always misplacing these…)

2. If wishes were horses they’d be little sparkly pink ponies with wings!

3. I’d like to see the movie “The Blind Side”. Everyone’s seen it but me, and they all said it’s great!

4. When I was a teen, I thought I’d never be as heavy as I am now. Whenever I see a teenager making fun of an overweight person, I want to say, “Just wait, kiddo. That absolutely could be you one day. And I never thought it would be me, either.” (Thanks, PCOS!)

5. One of my mother’s favorite sayings was “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk free?”

6. I’d have a hard time doing without my family. Holy cow, I love my crazy bunch of boys!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to cuddling my sweet baby after his surgery, tomorrow my plans include making a lasagna if Jonah feels well enough for me to put him down, and Sunday, I want to chill out with my family at home!

For more Friday Fill-ins, please click HERE!

When I went to my doctor’s appointment yesterday, I discovered that I’d lost two more pounds. The midwife was like, “Have you been sick? Are you eating?”

Which, as an overweight person, was absolutely HILARIOUS to hear! No one ever asks me that question!

So that means I’m back to the weight I was when I conceived, and my total gain is a big, fat zero. (I’d lost five pounds from morning sickness, then regained it, and over the past month or so have lost it again.)

I’m eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’ve had enough, making healthy choices most of the time, but giving in to cravings when they hit. The baby is perfect, actually measuring one week ahead on ultrasound. So I don’t see that it’s an issue.

I gained 25 pounds in my first pregnancy, and a whopping 60 the second—so I’m glad if I don’t pick up anything extra to lose this time around. I have PCOS and ordinarily it is SO hard to lose even a pound because of how it screws everything up. So as long as the baby looks good, I am thinking it is waaaay cool to not gain anything.

On May 6th, in a tiny caption adjacent to a photo of my sons, my nice editor Jenny casually mentioned that my boys would be getting a big surprise later this year.

Nope, it’s not a new puppy. But it’s all about puppy dog tails, snakes and snails and other things that little boys are made of. If all continues to go well, by October, they’ll be getting a new baby brother.

I haven’t written about it yet because I haven’t had the best of luck when it comes to pregnancy. I have a condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, one of the most common causes of infertility and miscarriage. I tend to wait a long time before announcing pregnancies because unfortunately, many of them have ended in loss. I’ve learned the hard way that miscarriage is easier to endure when fewer people know about it. Additionally, I’m 40 now, which is positively geriatric when it comes to childbearing.

But I think we’re safe now. I hope so. I’m about halfway there and all my ultrasounds are looking good so far. Thankfully there are no signs of chromosomal disorders or any other serious problems. Now that we know the sex of the baby, it’s beginning to feel more real—even if I am still reeling over the fact that it’s a third son.

Y’all know I love my boys. I mean, crazy-love those little critters. If I wasn’t afraid of embarrassing him, I’d share the amazing message my eldest wrote in my Mother’s Day card. Sometimes kids his age get so contrary, you wonder if they even care that you exist. But then you read something so heartfelt, and you know that it’s worth it to allow them to live long enough to move out and go to college.

It’s true what they say, that boys really love their mamas. Mine went out of their way to make me feel like a queen on Mother’s Day. And my little guy, Eli, insists on doing things such as turning on lamps for me, “Because you’re pregnant, Mom!” They are so good to me. Having another little testosterone machine around is going to be great fun.

Still, there was a rather large, flowery, sparkly pink place in my heart that longed to have a daughter, and I’m rather embarrassed to admit that it still aches a little knowing that is not something that will be fulfilled.

It’s funny how life often turns out like that. Things that you just “know” are going to happen—like having a daughter—sometimes don’t come to pass. Sometimes you’re given a Plan B with no idea why Plan A didn’t happen.

My ultrasound technician knew that we were hoping for team pink this time, but the baby had its little legs tightly crossed for most of the scan. Just at the last minute, when the tech tried a different angle between the legs, I saw something.

My eyes widened. “Are those boy parts?”

“Yep,” she said. “I was waiting to see if you saw it first before I pointed it out to you.”

My husband just sat there and laughed and laughed. It’s all his fault, you know.

My mother, who might’ve wanted a granddaughter even more than I wanted a daughter, keeps asking me if they could be wrong. If the tech was the only one who had seen what they like to call “the turtle”, I might’ve thought there was a chance. But I saw the turtle. And I think it waved at me.

One person who is positively tickled “blue” is my dad. After having three daughters, he’s finally getting three boys to make up for all that estrogen he had to put up with. He and I, we understand each other now. He was the one who was outnumbered in his house, and I’m the one outnumbered in mine.

Everyone keeps telling me that I’m going to have my hands full, and they’re right. But boy or girl—what an incredible blessing that they’re no longer empty.

For seven long, heartbreaking years, I watched them from a distance, longing more than anything to join them. Mothers knew things I didn’t. They had a quiet confidence, a mysterious, comfortable bond that I never quite understood and doubted that I ever would. My empty womb, my empty arms, my hollow heart wanted to be one of them.

Finally, when the time was right, after countless doctors’ visits and treatments, it happened. I joined the club on a cold January afternoon, bewildered and amazed by the tiny babe in my arms. I had my official Mommy Club membership, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I actually felt quite alone—and scared.

I loved my baby desperately, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the hang of my new role in life.

Recently, someone referred to me as an “old pro” at mothering. I had to laugh. Me, an expert? But when I reflect on the past 11 years, on what I’ve learned and how much I’ve changed, it’s significant. Motherhood has made me more—more of everything good and bad that I’ve ever been. Parenting magnifies it all.

I know how weak I am. When my child is writhing in pain from an earache and all I do isn’t enough to take his agony away, when some obnoxious brat hurts my son, crushing his little spirit and all I can do is hug and wipe away the tears, in those moments I feel utterly helpless.

Yet I am strong. I have endured hours of unmedicated, induced labor—pain indescribable—and was brave enough to do it again. I’ve held down a fighting infant and still managed to get the medicine inside the clamped-shut mouth. I’ve carried a heavy, sleeping toddler through malls and carnivals, for hours. I’ve stood up for my kids when no one else would, not caring one whit about what anyone thought of me.

I’ve had to face the ugliness of my selfishness. When I crave time alone, when I pout because my plans are always last on the agenda, when it feels like my whole life is nothing but cleaning and shuffling grumbling children from one activity or another, I don’t like who I am. Sometimes I long to be someone other than just mom.

But I have never been more selfless. I continued breastfeeding even when the physical pain of it brought me to tears, even when I’d only had 3 hours of sleep over three days, because the baby was hungry and needed me. I gladly take the broken roll and the squashed cupcake so that the kids get the best, and cook macaroni & cheese for the millionth time when I’d kill for a bowl of spicy Pad Thai.

I am impatient, losing my cool when the kids don’t listen, yelling at them like I always swore I wouldn’t. I have to count to ten when I send my son to look for his shoes, and he just stares into the closet, declaring that he can’t find them. I spend far too much time sounding like a crazy lady, barking at them with exasperated refrains of “Hurry up!” and “Let’s go!” and “Did you hear me?”

But they’ve taught me patience. Walks with toddlers were always punctuated with long breaks to pick dandelions and watch the ladybugs crawl. And who knew how hard it would be to sit quietly beside a child learning to read or tie his shoes, and allow them all the time they need to work it out on their own? My kids make me slow down and just be.

I feel poor when it’s hard to pay the bills because softball, soccer, and summer camp fees all hit at the same time. I’ve worn the same clothes for years because the entire clothing budget goes to growing children who eat more with each passing year. I look like a pauper when my roots are showing, and I lack the time or the money to get my hair done.

But oh, I am rich. I am richer than I’ve ever been. These children are a treasure and I still marvel over the fact that they’re mine. They give me more joy than I ever thought possible, and now all that was once empty is full to overflowing.