It’s all up to me

I know it sounds silly but I forgot how hard it is to lose weight.  After my first son was born I lost 60 pounds and although it wasn’t a walk in the park it wasn’t overly difficult.  My schedule was set up so that I could work out 90 minutes a day during the week and I would try to squeeze in at least one workout on the weekend.  I was doing the South Beach Diet and had great success.  I think the fact that I was able to lose weight fairly easily the first time made me less worried when I gained a lot of weight during my 2nd pregnancy.  I figured, “Oh well, what’s 5 more pounds?  I’ll just lose them like I lost the last time.” 

 For some reason, though, things aren’t working as easily as they did the first time.  I’m sure being older has something to do with it, as does the addition of another child.  It is much more difficult to schedule a time to exercise.  My husband helps any way he can but he’s a full-time student so he needs time to study.

 I think the biggest obstacle, though, is the fact that our younger son is disabled.  He has a neurological disease and requires nearly constant attention.  He also is very fussy at times and only me, my mom and my brother-in -law can really make him happy.  So if I go to workout when he’s awake it often results in him crying for the duration.  It has definitely added a level of stress to our household.  And I know for sure that I am eating to compensate for my sadness.  Since he was diagnosed in December I have gained 25-30 pounds, all of that food was used to try to take away the pain.

 Even though it isn’t fair that he is sick and that our life is hard I have finally come to the conclusion that it’s still my responsibility to be healthy.  We just came back from a physical therapy session and all I want to do is eat something because I get so sad that we have to work so hard with him just to get him to hold his head up.  But eating that cookie isn’t going to make him healthy so what’s the point?  I need to keep reminding myself that me staying fat isn’t going to make his disease go away.

 He’s starting to wake up so I need to quit writing but I will write more another day.