Dieting Should Not Be This Hard!

I am walking around the grocery store and the first area we go to is produce. It started off ok, I didnt get grapes because they were so darn expensive and they didn't have my peaches I needed but I stroll on. Normally I don't eat too much junk like chips and crackers but I do love my sweets, breads, pastas and cheeses. I walk through those aisles and start to feel like my eyes are swelling up about to cry as I am passing by all the food I really enjoy. What the heck is wrong with me? I can't find anything to eat and I am in the grocery store!

Mark is moving right along... he is doing really well on this Paleo diet. He is grabbing things im not too familiar with like coconut milk, coconut oil, some kind of sprouted wheat bread for me to try. Some of these foods he eats seem like so much work to put together even though they are probably not and don't seem as versatile as pasta. For instance, we tried spaghetti squash. It was ok but nothing like the delicious taste of pasta with sauce and cheese all over it and a side of yummy garlic bread! mmm! 

I am not opposed to eating healthy at all. I think my diet was fair to good in that area, but my problem is what I loved to eat, my sweets, breads, pastas etc were messing with my body. These are foods I have always eaten and I really enjoy eating them. I have always been one of those people who could eat anything and never gain a pound. I was always super skinny even after I had my kids. I remember TRYING to GAIN weight in high school. Just recently I started putting on some weight which for me, is a good thing. Like most women though, I have this stomach that I need to work on and tone. I was running for a little while but then started having this pain when running. 

Mark tried to convince me to try this paleo diet and I refused. I am stubborn. Then nothing else was on tv except Dr. Oz so I was watching it and they were talking about the paleo diet so I listened. After watching the show I did learn some interesting things about it. A few days after that I had a Dr. appointment and talked about my stomach problems with her and she confirmed that it could all be a result of my endometriosis. This is when I gave into the idea of trying to diet. 

I recently found out after a while of dealing with symptoms, that I have endometriosis.  I found out after talking with my doctor that the two could be intertwined. I would have intense stomach cramps and feel pretty bloated. I had a lot of heart burn too. Now I feel like the pain is under control for now and plan to start running again soon. 

My body is just getting into this new way of eating. I decided to try my best to avoid as much junky foods as possible, dairy, and processed foods until my body was stable and used to this new way of eating, then slowly reintroduce some foods back into my diet to see what foods are causing me to feel ill. 

I always thought whole wheat was really good for you. Apparently not as much as I had thought; not for me anyways. One thing I just discovered today is that I can not eat my whole wheat english muffins with peanut butter. I think the english muffin and not the peanut butter caused my body to react. I went about a week without having these english muffins then today I had one and I had some problems with my stomach. 

For a few weeks now I have been eating greek yogurt instead of regular dairy yogurt. I have swapped the occasional chip for pita-chips and hummus. Instead of candy I am reaching for my fruit. Instead of crackers im eating seeds, nuts, or granola. I haven't had a cup of milk in about a week and instead I am trying almond milk and drinking more water. All of these changes are making me feel pretty horrible in a sense right now because my body is adjusting. Mark said the same thing happened to him in the beginning also. 

In a nutshell, I don't plan to never have dairy or bread again but I do need to have these things I love in moderation. I do need to find out what foods are ok for me to have without my body feeling like it just got run over. This is a new experience for me and I see now why it is so hard for people to diet. 

Getting Back on Track

I want to do an experiment, so play along if you can. Things you'll need; a pen/pencil and a piece of paper.
I want you to draw a long "S" like shape on a piece of paper. Make as many "S" curves as you want. Now, in a different color pen/pencil, I want you to close your eyes, and try your best to trace the shape you just drew.




This is mine

The purpose of this exercise? To show you that in life, our relationships, marriages, careers etc we have this path we envision for ourselves (mine is the black line) then, we have reality (mine is the red line) throughout our lives, sometimes we are RIGHT on track, and other times we are close, but not on the path, and other times we are just WAY off, but we do come back again. We are basically going through life with an idea of what we want, but really, we can not see where we are going. Do not be discouraged if life takes you somewhere you didn't imagine you would be. Just go with the flow, get yourself back on track, and move forward!


My inspiration for this blog comes from a recent time in my marriage. I never imagined I would be married to a military man, live 3,000 miles away from family, STILL be in college after not wanting to really go anyways and it lasting for 10 years give or take a few semesters... but this is my marriage, and Mark is who I fell in love with. What can I say? the guy has charm!


We have been married for 9 years. In the beginning, it is really not that difficult to be pleased in the marriage and have your needs met. It is new and fresh and you are so in love and happy. For us it was this way anyways. Eventually, you learn that marriage takes more investing into as time goes on than maybe it did in the beginning. If you don't give it nourishment, it will die.

photo credit: bobfranklin via photopin cc

These last 2 years we have been pretty busy. First, Mark made chief and went through some pretty intense training. The first year of being a chief is said to be the toughest. He was getting used to a new role amongst his peers and also a new roll in general. This was his dream and he was finally living it. Soon after, I started nursing school. It was now my turn to move on with my dream. I was doing some intense studying some nights, and really needed to focus on my school work. Any little slip up could be disastrous in the nursing school world, and I am a bit of a perfectionist. School is now complete, Mark has now been a chief for over a year, and we look around and it has come to both of our conclusions that we really haven't been investing as much into each other as we both needed to be. It happened by mistake, we just got so used to our hectic schedules, taking care of the kids, the house, spending time with friends (awesome ones btw) that alone time just got less and less. I missed my friend. Since being out of nursing school, his schedule has changed a few times. Usually he works an odd shift and doesn't come home until early morning and sleeps a good part of the day away.


Sure we would spend time "together" with friends on the weekend sometimes, or "together" with the kids, we had an occasional dinner out in town for an hour or so, but we really needed to spend time TOGETHER, one on one, having fun, talking, playing, laughing etc. We had fallen off our path without even realizing it for a little while. Mark is just as serious and committed to his work as I am about mine. As the wife of a chief, I learned very early on when he was going through induction not to rely too heavy on a set schedule. He could leave a 2pm and not be home until 4am and this actually does happen sometimes. I learned to go with the flow and not really expect him to be home at a certain time. They are also pulled away when you least expect it, like ON the day of my graduation. That day I was heart broken because I didn't think he would make it and that was SO important to me, but he worked it out and made it!



Once we did realize We had been off track for a bit, we made a plan. Well actually, I told Mark about an event in Pismo beach and we decided it would be cool to go to together if we could get a sitter, and then Mark made the plans. I have to say it felt incredible for him to plan the entire day, and it really gave us that refreshing feeling to our relationship. It was exactly what we needed. I feel like I have my friend back.

photo credit: digitaldefection via photopin cc

Military Spouse

"As a navy wife, I have learned to be my own advocate. Any woman really, but here's why military. We hold so many titles, we are dragged around moving here and there, having to uproot ourselves and our kids, we learn to adjust, sacrifice, have plans A,B,C down to Z... we have to network and learn to play well with others, step out of our comfort zone.. we are really a special breed of people. unless you lived the life, you just really don't know."

I decided to begin and end this blog with the same quote because it is very true. Have you ever sat back for 5 minutes to think about this? The sacrifices YOU have made... some of us may be house wives, others lawyers... it does not matter. We make some pretty incredible sacrifices. I know I have and I can promise you it does not ever change you just get used to it, and after 9 years of being a military spouse i can promise you that even that is a bit inaccurate.

Tonight I am writing a special blog. I went back, looked through all my old blogs over the last few years, and tried to grab some good quotes. This blog is aimed at the military spouses. I feel SO many can relate to my experiences, and following the quotes below are the dates that I wrote the blogs containing them. Forgive the poor grammar :) Usually when I am itching to blog, I am in the middle of doing something else and I just wanted to get my thoughts down!

There are a few things I wanted for myself and the way i envisioned it before I met my husband was very different from how it turned out, BUT it DID (and is) turning out. This is something that has taken me time to learn because I can be impatient and I do like things to go my way. I have been a navy wife for 9 years and have lived away from my family for 6 years. It was very difficult to get used to especially since life moved very fast in the beginning of my relationship. I was very young, had 2 kids, was married, a first time home owner, and wanted to go to RN school. YIKES! RN school I have to say has been my biggest struggle. I would like to talk about that for a minute in relation to the military.

Speaking from experience, you either settle for a degree in something that may not be your passion, or bust your hump trying to make your career come true while moving from location to location, and you pray that you can finish in time before you have to move. Being a mother of 2 children and trying to complete nursing school was no joke. We had paid daycare off with loans. We had one income and made it work. it seemed we always made just a little too much to have any financial help. eventually, by the time i was able to get help, i ended up having to withdraw from the program because my grades were not high enough. I tried to test back into the program... passed my clinicals but my test on paper I did not... supposedly... we were not aloud to see our grades and I seriously am suspicious of that school considering the first time I took that exam I did phenomenal. (It was an equivalency of the final exam for fundamentals nursing). It would have been 3 years before I could reapply again. Any other school I could go to I would never finish in time because we were moving the following year. So, I decided to take a psychology and pharmacology class because any other nursing program would need those classes.

Before we moved to SC, I found pretty much the only school I could go to for nursing in our area. I drove miles to take a certain test in order to get into the program. I had to jump hoops (again) to get all my transcripts from all the colleges i've attended. The first week of school was good. I was not receiving emails from the school for some reason and they also had my old address on file still despite me updating it numerous times. They should have caught onto this because I was considered an in state student.. I had to have a local address. Well they did not. There was miss-communication with that school all over the place with my address and email so I missed my first clinical day and had no way to make it up. I cried in that office and felt like such a failure. I had no way to prove it, and despite me telling them to check their "sent" folder to prove I had nothing, they did not. There was hope though, I could start the following semester. Then that door closed when not long after my husband tells me the entire squadron is moving to California. GREAT! Everything felt like it was falling in on me. I just wanted to get on with my schooling and I had no one I could talk to who could help me with this.

I decided the day i withdrew from the second school, to look into colleges and boy did i look! in the end, I learned there was a horrible waiting list for nursing schools in cali, and they also did what is called a lottery system. I also learned that we would only be in Cali for 2 years, so it was getting more and more impossible to find a school that fit my needs. While I was looking, I decided to take some online classes and get my associates degree. Eventually, I stumbled upon a college for an LVN/LPN program. It was not what I wanted, but its what I was going to take. Long story short, I went with this school and when we got to Cali, I started my classes about 4 months later. There was a TON of issues with how much coverage I would get from the GI bill, and financial aid. Every time we had a new class, I swear I was in financial aids office and signing new papers because there was some sort of mix up in prices. Right up until my graduation this was an issue. Also with this school, was the issue of trying to get classes approved. For instance, pharmacology in florida was not worth the same amount of hours as the class here in cali (semester vs quarter hours). It was the same exact class, I actually learned more in that class, but yet not the same hours. I also had to try to get my mental health class and my pharmacology class approved several times. Bring my huge binder full of class descriptions, information about my nursing program in florida, syllabuses etc... several times. It didnt help either that while I was there, we had several people quit, so every time someone new came in like a director or counselor, I had to retell what felt like a very lengthy story as to why I am not taking a particular class.

FINALLY! finally finally FINALLY! I GRADUATED! I finished my LVN program February 2, 2012. I was class president and a part of the graduation committee, I did really well in school. I am waiting to take my state boards and JUST in time before we head to TN! (HOPEFULLY!) once I get my license in my hand, I will start my bridge program to become an RN! (again) :)

In the meantime, before and after LVN school, I have done things to bulk up my resume. I have tons of volunteer work on there. I am also going to have 2 associates degrees. I have 1 class right now that is pending. We are trying to get them to accept one class for another (story of my life lol) total, I have been to 6 collages. (I think!) and every time I start a new school, its the same process of sending all these transcripts (which most of them cost money to send) class descriptions and whatever else they may need. Pain in the butt indeed, but, I am making my dream come true.

I wanted to share this lengthy story with you all because no one should be discouraged from doing what they want to do. Sometimes you have to let go of expectations and just go with the flow. It will not be easy trying to get all your college out of the way if that is what you choose to do, but once you finish, it will mean that much more! Some people may say "well, you are ONLY an LVN".. no...I AM AN LVN, and PROUDLY so! I am a nurse... do you know all the struggles I have gone through to get to this point? It is so much more than just a piece of paper to me. It signifies when I felt my worse how I picked myself up and got moving, it shows my boys how if you really want something, do not stop until you get it.

And now, I would like to share some quotes. Most are not school related, but quoteS you may be able to relate to, or at least enjoy or find inspiring.

"...45 minutes later, since the tantrum began, Ethie says he wants to close the door, so I tell him ill allow him to do it and he has to be a good boy.. so I did it...and he was just fine... he grabbed his juice, and is now watching sesame street lol." (1-15-10)

"I discovered loyalty... the word that defines what I have been striving to work towards without putting a word to it until now. I have good days and bad days, and days where i have so much built up inside of me I just want to explode on some people... my way to redirect that explosion is to frankly.. bitch about it to my best friend, or write about it." (2-4-10)

"Sometimes people need space to grow or figure out who they are, or to figure out what they want, who is family to them and who they want to invite into their personal lives..." (2-8-10) "So then i started to think about my schooling, and replacing the word 'loser' with 'failure' i am not a failure until i give up, before all other options were tried. and im certainly not ready to do that. I haven't tried everything yet. With everything i do i try to do it with all of me...all that is inside of me." (2-9-10) "... with mark having to do training, and a few other things, we have to leave earlier. this means everyone else in brodys class talks about graduation and many of the kids will go to kindergarten together, and they get to celebrate. Brody isnt going to be able to do those things, and he is a little sad about it. ive been feeling lately like i just want to give him stuff to make him feel better...military is bitter sweet.. a piece of the bitter end of it is for some kids the ones that like having a best friend (like i did) who they do everything with and grow together and then look back and say 'ive known so and so since i was 4' (like i can) isnt going to happen for brody." (3-8-10)

"mark is getting ready to leave bright and early tomorrow. He will be gone for about 6 weeks. There is no one that can tell me 'thats the life style' i hate that.. yes, it is, yes i knew these things would happen, but no matter how many notifications you get about a loved one leaving for any length of time or how well you think you have prepared, you cant tell your feelings and mind to shut up... (8-2-10)

"today i feel pretty good about our move. There's several things i am worried about with this move though. i am worried about my grandfather. he was diagnosed with bone cancer and was told he doesn't have long to live. he is feeling ok about this i hear, but it makes me worry a lot about my grandmother when he is gone." (6-6-11)

"over the years i've managed to realize that this is my life. for a while i kept saying this is marks life. all we are doing is centered around the military and marks career etc. its pretty much not my turn for anything. well, its our life and part of my success will be his success. i don't want to sit around doing nothing watching life pass by and look back and regret not having fun while we are moving and traveling. I'm trying my hardest to make the best of this." (6-6-11)

"my grammy as i said always tells me 'let go and let god...jesus is your best friend.' so the more i did let go and let god, things started happening for me. ok ok i didn't want to go to florida.. but i did. i didn't have a choice if i wanted to be with my husband and raise our family together. it was one of the highlights in my life that i would say was the toughest decision. i just had this baby (Ethan) and i left behind a good job, all my friends and family, i had anxiety, i felt like i was not ready and i never imagined if leave new england. but i did and i made new friends. i learned how to get by on my own.. things i had always done for myself but with protection around me 'just in-case'...i had my safety net of friends, family, and things i knew.. so i was still doing the same things in FL but without my safety net and it scared me." (8-30-11)

"Today i cleaned off our desk for like oh i don't know.. the millionth time since marks been training! a few weeks ago i created folders to help us keep our papers organized and mark still cant manage to get his paper work in his folder.. properly labeled 'MARKS WORK' lol! i guess we balance each other out though because i need organization and he throws things everywhere...so he gives me something to do and i give him something to mess up." (9-7-11)

"I like knowing that i have at least 1-3 people i can depend on to joke with, vent to, or ask for a favor and i can be the same kind of friend for them. we need that. its a part of being human. Sometimes we have to weed out the people who seem to have a pattern of trouble. even if the person is not intentionally doing things to make things difficult, there comes a time when either there is going to be a change or its time to move on from the friendship, and there is nothing wrong with that." (10-5-11)

"as time goes on, I feel myself detaching a bit from my old life and settling ok into this life now and almost at a loss for what it will be like when we are done with this career. it is becoming all ive known as an adult, and raising my kids, and i kind of don't mind it, aside from missing on the stuff back home." (2-2-12)

"surprisingly, one thing I have NOT done since being here, was CRIED about being here. I thought i would fall apart. I felt physically ill at the thought of being away from the east coast or the gulf. i tend to be somewhat dramatic sometimes. i'm not oblivious to this. I try to be tough but truth is, i miss my family and if I could be anywhere in the world it'd be Italy. I mean.. with my family in new england :D seriously.. it'd be with my family." (3-19-12) "So i am very close to completing part of my dream. i never knew that i really wanted to go to school to be a nurse.. mostly because of time. i didn't want to invest years of school. The older I get, the more I wish I did this much sooner." (12-2-12) "As a navy wife, I have learned to be my own advocate. Any woman really, but here's why military. We hold so many titles, we are dragged around moving here and there, having to uproot ourselves and our kids, we learn to adjust, sacrifice, have plans A,B,C down to Z... we have to network and learn to play well with others, step out of our comfort zone.. we are really a special breed of people. unless you lived the life, you just really don't know." (2-7-13)