Health Plan

I hesitate to write this, because I might jinx it, but I feel like I'm starting to climb out of a hole in terms of my physical health.

The last month I've been depressed.  There are several factors but the largest one is the situation with BB.

I'd call this a mild functional depression.  I had truly deep depression only once in my life, when I was 19. It lasted about a month and was something I don't think I could ever handle again.  When I dragged myself out of bed in the morning, I just had one thought: how I could ration and kill time until I went back to sleep. I could only talk in monosyllables and was constantly on the verge of crying. At the time, I was feeling terrible isolation staying in Tokyo that summer... I'd flown there soon after sitting for a month at my grandmother's deathbed in Florida, waiting for her to die slowly of emphysema. She weighed about 60 pounds at the end. I held up well during the time, because I was supporting my mother, but fell apart shortly afterwards when I was on my own and didn't have an emotional "job" anymore.

If something that bad ever happened to me again, I'd go to a doctor and get some kind of antidepressant. My only experience with medication has been the time I tried Wellbutrin to quit smoking. I couldn't take the side effects and stopped taking the pills after a week.  I ended up quitting a year later on the patch.  The Wellbutrin gave me dry mouth, I needed to pee all the time because I had to drink so much to get rid of the dry mouth, I couldn't get to sleep at night, and I kept looking over my shoulder all day because I had a low-level paranoia that people were sneaking up behind me. But at least I was getting stuff done!  Being miserable with side effects while getting stuff done would be my preference over being miserable while vegetating.

Anyway, because I've been depressed recently, and very inactive, I'm about 15-20 pounds overweight.  This is turning into a disaster.  I'm not healthy at this weight.  My bra size has gone from 36A to 38B, which freaks me out.  Even though a lot of boys and girls made fun of me when I was younger for having small breasts, I've never felt bad about them, and I love the freedom of almost never having to wear a bra.  Now I've had to buy a bunch of new ones, and wear one every moment I'm upright, or else I'm in pain. I HATE IT.  Second, the weight might be aggravating my scoliosis.  I have rib pain that comes and goes because the 36-degree sideways curve of my spine squeezes some ribs together and spreads the other ones apart too much, and it's been getting worse recently. 

I'm adding different things to a regimen of trying to get healthier and get to my optimum weight.

- Going back to taking the supplements that I had unwisely started to skip.  I also have mild anemia and need a multivitamin with extra iron.  Of course, the extra iron gives me (ahem) digestive issues and I have to take fiber powder to counteract that.  So I've got to take 1) SAM-E in the morning for mood 2) multivitamin, fish oil and primrose oil capsules, plus fiber, in the evening.
- Going back on the South Beach diet.  I'm doing a modified Phase I. My only problem with the South Beach Phase I food guidelines is that they don't include a lot of Asian dishes... I'm sticking with 90% of the guidelines, but substituting in fairly low-carb things like miso soup and curried lentils. The main part is cutting out all bread, all rice, and all added sugar.  I've been making sure to cook dinners where there are still rice and potatoes and pasta for Guy and Sunny, but I can be full eating everything else.  And also remembering to eat 5 times a day and not let myself get hungry.
- Starting an exercise program.  I've started the "Slim in 6" home program and did the first set last night. I felt great afterwards!  I'm going to try add in a gym session once a week, on the weekend, for weight training, which I think is a realistic goal.  Three times a week is setting myself up for failure.  I was going to buy a rowing machine, but I realized that would be murder on my back because of scoliosis, so I'm going to stick with fairly low impact fitness videos like Slim in 6, and yoga.

Beyond just getting back to normal, here's my extra motivation! I have a naturally blocky build - broad shoulders, wide hips but not much waist - here are some actresses (Michelle Rodriguez and Katee Sackoff) rocking the body shape I'd like to achieve after some major fitness work:

I've hardly seen any Asian women with a body type like mine.  Although I have the typical long Asian torso/short legs (I have to buy petite-size pants even though I'm 5'8"), it seems like I'm a lot wider from shoulder to shoulder than any East Asian woman of my comparable size.

Anyway, here goes.  I hope to be in pretty good shape by the end of this year.

I fondly remember the best shape I was ever in... when I spent several weeks in a small beach town in Mexico in my early 20s.  I ate lots of awesome seafood, street tacos, fresh fruit and French pastries.  I spent all day bodyboarding and snorkeling, which builds the upper arms, and all night dancing to reggae, which is like doing a gazillion squat exercises.  Sigh... I wish being fit nowadays could be that fun.  Atlanta right now seems rather cold and grim.