Ouch

Ugh.

I know that this whole chiropractor thing is necessary, but man am I sore.  Even though my hips/lower back were out of wack, they never actually hurt.  Now that they're being re-adjusted, they're freakin sore. 

I know that things will have to get (briefly) worse before they get better, but I don't have to be happy about it.


Anyway.  Posts without pictures are boring, so here's your daily dose of cuteness. 

Murph with his new favorite toy.

Boo gimpy Katie

You know, I'm not sure why so many people (and GP doctors actually) look down on chiropractic.  The science is sound, and it just makes sense.  If you have neck pain a GP will give you drugs to treat the pain.  A chiropractor will adjust your neck and potentially eliminate the cause, and consequently the pain.  Why wouldn't you just fix the issues straight from the beginning?

I've been debating going for awhile.  I know that gimpy leg affects how I walk, and I can only imagine that it's having an affect on my spine.  I kept putting it off though, since I wasn't having any pain.

Well.  Funny story. George and I were at a home show and the local chiropractors had a booth.  Turns out my shoulders and hip are out of line, and I don't carry my weight evenly.  According to Dr. Alyssa, anything more than a 3lb difference in distribution is potentially problematic.  I had a twenty pound difference.  That was enough to make me schedule an appointment.

I'm really glad I did.  We took X-rays, and let me just say, it isn't pretty.  Dr A keeps asking me if I'm sure I didn't have some sort of trauma that would throw my spine out of whack.  For the record, no, I did not.

The ironic part is that while my back/hips aren't perfect, it's my neck that is the main issue.

It's supposed to look something like this:

My Xray was somewhere between the two stages of disalignment below-

The black line is where the bones are supposed to be, red it where they actually are.

 Instead of a forward curve, my neck is mostly straight, with the bottom two vertebrae having a slightly backward curvature.  Not so awesome.  Apparently I'm "far too young to have a curvature like that".  But you know, I've always been advanced for my age.

So now I get to go get adjusted multiple times a week for the foreseeable future.  Kind of a time and money suck, but I guess it's better to start fixing it now while we still can, right?  It's better than starting 15 years from now when I'm even more messed up.

Katie gets healthy

I mentioned my attempt at healthy living in my very first post, and then haven't said a thing about it since.  It's something that's become really important to me, and recently been a huge struggle, so this post is probably long overdue.

I've struggled with my weight all of my life.  I was usually the biggest out of my friends, I didn't exercise, and the thought of really participating in sports scared me.  I used to play softball, but seriously, how much exertion does little league require?  I was much happier in the school plays and musicals, pretending to be someone else while forgetting about my own awkwardness.

My senior year of college was my breaking point.  I was miserable in my own skin and hated the person I saw everytime I looked in the mirror.  So I joined Weight Watchers and successfully lost the 34lbs that were making me unhappy.  The problem was, I didn't bother to do it the right way.  I stayed within my points, but I didn't bother paying attention to what I was eating.  My diet consisted of a lot of processed foods and frozen dinners.  I didn't learn anything.  So what happened?  I started gaining it back.  Of course. 

I was so obsessed with the number on the scale that I forgot that skinny isn't always healthy.  There is so much more to being healthy than how much you weight.

At that point, I promised myself that I was going to focus on health, not "skinny".

First off, I quit Weight Watchers.  WW is a fantastic tool, and I know many people that are really successful with that program.  But for me, it was too vague.  I can eat 7 points of junk, or I can eat 7 points of health food, and it still goes into my tracker as 7 points.  There was no accountability for me to use those daily points wisely.  So I decided to use MyFitnessPal to track instead.  That way, I could still keep track of what I was eating, but I could also see the nutritional breakdown, not just a generic point value.

Secondly, I added exercise.  Something that I've always said I wanted to do, but never actually followed through with.  Since April, I've gone from absolutely nothing, to running various 5Ks, one 5 miler, a Warrior Dash, and am working my way through a pretty badass lifting program.

My arms look just like that.  Or not.  But they're getting there.  People always tell you how good exercise makes them feel, but I never believed them.  I have to say it- I was wrong, they were right.

If you've gotten this far, bless you.  I need to get this out and you guys are taking the hit.  This is where those "struggles" I mentioned in my first paragraph are coming in.

Despite eating healthy, exercising, doing this the right way, I'm not losing.  In fact I'm gaining.  A lot. I'm trying not to obsess over numbers, and I'm perfectly OK never being a size 2, but weight loss should be a perk to all this healthy living I'm doing.  And the fact that it's not, is frustrating and concerning.  I've gone to my PCP, a nutritionist, and an endocrinologist- all who've given me a gold star and a pat on the back for my newly developed healthy habits. 

My only ideas at this point is that I need some combination of exercise and diet that I've not yet tried.  It's FRUSTRATING guys.  I bust my butt, and just keep getting further away from that goal.  But I'm going to keep plugging along.  I'm nothing if not stubborn determined.



See?  Determination.  Also, shameless fishing for compliments.



Anyway, thats enough word vomit for today.  Hopefully my next healthy living post will have a better update.