2%

My life in the Fall of 2007 is the perfect example of my 2% lifestyle. Due to abdomen pain caused by a McDonalds’ double cheeseburger, I was found on the floor of a conference center in Dallas, TX. I was living in Houston at the time, so we rushed back to Memorial Herman Hospital in The Woodlands to get some answers. They sent me to a specialist where I learned my Gaul Bladder was functioning at less than 10%. My parents flew me back to Montana to have the surgery in October. Ten days later I was back to school in Houston, only to wake up AGAIN with the pain. Unfortunately, my Gaul Bladder was causing only a small amount of the original pain. I was so sick, and no one had the answer to my problems. On November 12th, my dad flew down to Houston. We packed the car, and we moved me back to Bozeman in just a couple of days. Once here, the doctors did their best but decided to send me to a specialist in Seattle, WA, where I was scheduled for a Sphincter of Oddi procedure at Virginia Mason Hospital. To keep a really long story short, the 20-minute procedure turned into two hours, and in the process, my bile ducts were punctured. This happened because mine are looped and not straight. How many people have looped bile ducts? Two percent. I was then under critical watch but eventually made it back to Bozeman just fine.

I can guarantee you that if there is a two percent chance of something going wrong, it goes wrong with me. Whatever strange medical case is happening for the year, I will catch it, somehow change it enough to send it back around and get it again. I’m not sick all the time, but when I get sick,  all different types of medical professionals have to be involved in some way or another.  

I have been dreading this blog post since before the start of my journey. When most people hit their first major roadblock, everything falls apart. Not this time, and not for me! A week ago, I fell victim to the dreaded spring-time illness. The “fever-cough-sore throat-weakness” train hit me last Wednesday night, and I have been down for the count since then. The good news is that I stuck to my no sugar and no eating out! That should say something. But, I must admit that I did have a little bit of white flour. I was trying so hard not to eat anything white this week, but what can I say, chicken noodle soup is a requirement when sick. I tried to return to the gym this morning, but I was a little premature. I road the bike about a mile before I realized it wasn’t the best idea.

I’m now hitting the antibiotics hard, and forgive me as I continue to catch up on some much needed rest. I will be back to boot camp tomorrow and if not, definitely on Friday. I PROMISE a really wonderful blog post later this week. Also, are any of you interested in an outdoor Boot Camp? It starts the week of my birthday, and I would love to give you all the details. I hope you will join me!

One Less Day

One Hot Mess

In the beginning of April, I traveled with some of my family to Portland, OR to visit my brother. Luke was turning 30 years old, and it’s hard for us Cusack’s to miss a party that big! Before I could leave for Portland in the morning, I had to write two papers, study for one exam, submit a reading response, do laundry (surprise surprise), and pack. School work was most important so that was done first. About halfway through washing my clothes, I decided to set an early alarm to finish packing. At 1:30 am I fell asleep with every intention to wake up before 5 am to finish packing so we could leave by 6. Well needless to say, at 5:45 my mom woke me up ready to load the car. I was frantic. I had nothing ready to go, and some of my clothes were still soaking wet. I was not prepared at all for my trip to Portland.

When I was living in Texas, we called a frantic/unprepared person a “Hot Mess”.  I’m not really sure where that saying originates, but not packing for Portland was definitely not the first time I have been a Hot Mess. In fact I had one of these moments the other day when I was headed to the pool at the Ridge for a water workout. My hair was all over the place, only one of my legs was shaved, I left my heart monitor at home and my water bottle had leaked all over my gym bag. It was almost hilarious.  My Hot Mess days are 100% avoidable if I take the time to prepare.  If only I would have given myself longer than five minutes to shave, attended fewer meetings and went to bed earlier, my day at the pool would have been a little less messy.

Taking on my day requires me to plan ahead and has become my hidden lesson of the week.  Not only do I need to know what I am doing in the next hour, but I also need to know where my day will take me.  Because I am not eating out, I have to be fully aware of what my day holds.  Currently, I find myself waking up with just enough time to jump in my gym clothes and speed off to the Ridge. Well not speed, but you get the picture. If I remember, I grab a piece of fruit, and that is my “pre-breakfast”. I then eat a big, but late, normal breakfast and head to work at 2 pm. As a result of not preparing for my day, I start to feel hungry and have nothing to eat! I try to scrape together pocket snacks or something to keep me satisfied until I arrive home for dinner.  

My foolishness and lack of preparation leaves me hungry and unbalanced in my meal choices. My Hot Mess days are totally avoidable if I can learn to take the time to prepare. If I had a list of healthy snacks (that are NOT veggies, because I know how to eat those) or even have packed snacks for my day ahead of time, I could avoid being a Hot Mess. I am realizing that in order for my journey to be a success, I need to have less unplanned days and more structure to my eating.

One Less Day

The End of the World

I never thought I would say this, but this “end of the world” talk has really got me thinking about what I’m doing with myself. I was pondering the fact that I was working out the day before it all “ends”. Why not just eat ice cream and 24 honey BBQ wings, sit around at home and watch the Cosby Show and wait for it all to be over. Believe me, I in no way, shape, or form believe that it’s going to happen, but if it does, I wasted my last 24 hours on earth caring about getting healthy. It would be ironic that for 22 years I haven’t really cared, and then for the last three weeks, I have been doing my best, and then it’s all over.

For anyone, life can end at any point. It doesn’t have to be May 21,2011 at 6:00 in Pittsburgh, PA. I can guarantee that sometime every one of us will die. For some young and for some old, but life always comes to an end. Steve Prefontaine was a famous middle and long distance runner. He held records in seven distance track events and inspired all types of people to run. He was from a small town in Oregon, and one leg was shorter than the other. When Prefontaine was preparing for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, after finishing his running career in college,he flipped his convertible and was killed. At 24 years old, about to peak as a running sensation, his life was instantly taken.

One of Steve Prefontaine’s quotes is painted in the Spinning room at the Ridge. It reads, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” Every time I read that quote, it inspires me to press on and to not waste the gift of life that I was given but to cherish it and respect myself. It is one thing to sit around waiting for the end, filling myself up with crap and doing nothing versus understanding every day is a gift, treating myself with respect, and doing my best to be my very best.

Today starts week four of Summer Slim Down. Being completely frank with you, this week has been tough. Adding veggies into my diet has been challenging, but I have started to make the life change. I had a tough workout on Thursday, causing my hip to be pretty inflamed. Also, on Thursday I cheated. I got on the scale early because I’m starting to become obsessive about losing mass amounts of pounds. After coming clean to Lana, and being frustrated with myself about losing no weight, the scale was taken away from me. “It’s a marathon Serene”, Lana said, “You cannot expect to be losing seven pounds every week. You are on a mission to be healthy, and with that, comes the weight loss. You are not striving to be skinny for a month. You are changing your entire life.”

As I reevaluate my attitude, my life choices, and the gift of life, I remember how incredibly blessed I am. I am thankful for the people who have invested in me for four weeks, and the people that continue to encourage me. Although I have lost my privileges at the scale, I still celebrate the small victories of 22 days sugar free and not eating out for 14! Thank you for your support and for believing in me through the good days and bad. Here is to celebrating life, not sacrificing it.

One Less Day

Rabbit Food

Karma is coming back to kill. I would like to publicly take back all of the times that I ever said salad should not be eaten as a meal. I apologize; I really do. For some strange reason the entire concept of consuming vegetables as an entire meal is foreign to me. As a child we ate them… kind of. Occasionally at dinner we would have some type of steamed veggie on the side of our meat or pasta. We ate well, as you can tell from my size, but I never took a liking to vegetables.

I’m four days into my third week at the Ridge Athletic Club. Sugar is still hard some days.  I’m doing well not going out to eat, but this week’s challenge may be the most difficult so far. I am not taking anything out of my day, in fact I am adding to my “options for success”. This week Lana challenged me to eat FIVE (5) servings of veggies a day. I used to see the consumption of rabbit food for an entire meal as a form of torture. If I did have salad, it was always a small side covered in ranch. I would force myself to eat it after loving the twice-baked potato and medium rare steak. 

Yesterday and today I must say I have started to eat (not enjoy) salads for lunch. Today I put some chicken in my salad, which helped a lot! Yesterday I skipped the protein, and I think I burned more calories eating the salad than what was actually in the salad. So for me, protein is key. But, what else can I do to my salad for it to be slightly enjoyable? Do you eat 5 servings of veggies a day? How do you do it?! I need some major help. Any tips and tricks would be much appreciated!

One Less Day

Drive-Thrus and Dine-Ins

Some college kids choose to spend their spring breaks participating in wet t-shirt contests or traveling the world. In 2009, I spent my spring break a little bit different. My parents and I headed to Salt Lake City so that I could take my shot at being casted for NBC’s hit show Biggest Loser. We left the hotel very early and made our way downtown to stand in a line with thousands of people. My dad and I were a little different than most people in line in the sense that we were going to enjoy ourselves. You may find it strange, but when you stand next to the same people for 8 hours, you inevitably end up talking to them. I must say that standing amongst that group of people trying out, I have never felt so good about the way I looked. Because it was spring break, I had a very obvious goggle tan.  People were shocked that I skied. They could hardly stand the fact that I was even active. When it comes to skiing, I love it. What other large people don’t understand is that gravity pulls you down the hill, and the chair lift takes you back up the hill.  And, when you are as big as me, you go a lot faster than the skinny people! At one point in the afternoon, in Salt Lake, a car drove by slowly. I noticed that inside it was a mom and her three children looking at all the people standing in line. Jokingly I said, “Look! That mom is giving her children health lessons about why their family doesn’t eat at McDonalds.” No one said a thing. Later on in the casting room, the directors asked us what our biggest food weakness was. Out of twenty people auditioning for the show, four said they did not have a food weakness.

Not only were they irritated about the health lesson of which I joked, a few of them couldn’t even admit they had a food problem. You have to live under a rock to not know McDonalds is bad for you. With most fast food restaurants, I’m not really sure exactly where the food comes from, and only recently, they started releasing the calorie count on food. In the past few years I decided I didn’t need fast food. Well, on some occasions I still ate it, but I mostly had a problem with eating out. Pita Pit, La Pa, Pickle Barrel, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc. Not only do these places offer the same high calorie/high fat options, they also killed my wallet. At least when I was eating from McDonalds, everything was only a dollar. 

My weekly challenge from Lana for this week was to steer clear from the drive-thru and dine-ins. Not only did I accomplish this, but I also went another week without sugar! This week at the Ridge I was pushed to my limits more than once, but what I noticed is that my body is moving better every day. And at Saturday weigh in, I lost 7 pounds. That brings my total weight loss to TEN pounds! Thank you Ridge Athletic Club and Lana for the life style changes you are helping me make in my life. I am truly grateful!

One Less Day

When All The Pieces Fit

I could argue, and win, that I have the best family ever. I am the only sane sibling in the family. The rest are a tad bit crazy and wild (I hope you can sense the little bit of sarcasm in my voice). Although we all have the same mom and dad, we are very different from one another. My oldest sister and I are ten years apart, which is a whole generation of difference between us. Terra is very into things that bring peace and quiet to her day. She loves to paint, listen to calm music, and be outside by herself enjoying nature. I on the other hand can’t get enough of people and love high energy and fast moving sports. I’m loud, and I don’t ever stop talking, even in my sleep. Terra and I understand that we are very different from each other, but we still do our best to spend time together. But, there is one activity Terra does that I just cannot bring myself to do with her: jig saw puzzles.

Jig saw puzzles make my skin crawl, and my brain hurt. The idea that 1,000 little pieces come together perfectly to create an image baffles me. Each piece has only one place that it fits perfectly in the entire puzzle. I can be as much help as to set the four corners and pull the edge pieces out when it comes to puzzles. But, today I had an epiphany. Whenever I start to think about maybe wanting to lose some weight, I can only think of the end result. The ideal Serene, at 170 pounds or so, is what I see. A picture of me skinnier and healthier is in the distance, and I always fail to see what pieces come together to create it. I get so frustrated and overwhelmed thinking about all of the things I have to do to get there that I quit. All I think about is that I have to eat less, move more, work harder, sleep often, drink less of this, don’t think about eating that and on and on.

If losing weight is my jig saw puzzle, I start by finding my four corner pieces, separate out the edge, and set up the box to see what I’m working towards. My problem has always been that I try to start from the middle, and that is when it all becomes too overwhelming. When it comes to losing weight, each of us must start one piece at a time. It is 1,000 different things that make up the final picture of weight loss. So, for my weight loss, I have to remember everything will fall into place with all the little pieces. One day at a time...one jig saw puzzle piece at a time!

One Less Day

One Sweet Week

Tomorrow is Mothers Day, and I’m kind of in a bind. I’m not hung up on how much I love my mom or even how much I want to celebrate her. It’s the fact that I have to break a family tradition. Since I was little, every year on Mothers Day, we would pile into the fam van and head down to DQ. My mom would get a banana split, and the four of us kids could get anything on a stick. This is more than just something fun. Getting my mom a banana split would be her gift from me. I would make a card and then “buy” her the sweet treat from DQ. We celebrated every “important” holiday with ice cream: first day of school, bad day at school, summer time heat, winter blues, and every other day, I solved and celebrated with ice cream. This year I’m strapped for a gift. You see I gave up sugar last weekend. For the next 19 weeks I am going to instate self control and restrain from any kind of sugar filled goodness. Also, my mom is so amazing and encouraging; she too is steering clear from sugar. The option isn’t even there for me to get her a gift card for banana splits. So, on a holiday that is traditionally all about food and eating, I am struggling to overcome tomorrow with a different alternative.

Today marks one week on this journey of “Summer Slim Down with Serene”. One week ago I waltzed into the Ridge Athletic Club with absolutely no idea of the changes that were ahead of me. After that first day I did not waltz out, in fact I could barely walk out of the gym. Now it’s been seven days, and I’m still pretty sore, but something in me has started to change. The fact that I have not had any sweets this week is something of which to be proud. Celebrating mile markers along the way will be important for me, and today is one of them. Sweet free for 7 days!

I would like to extend a little invite to each one of you to also go a week without sweets. See what it does for your body and how it feels to be “cleansed of the devil”. Sugar is still hard for me to deny. Even tonight I found peanut butter M&M’s in my co-workers desk and drooled a little bit. To see the effect of whatever I did different for the week, on Saturdays I’ll be marking my progress in pounds. I totally understand that losing weight is ideal, but it’s not the only way to measure progress. So with confidence and gratefulness I say to you, this week I lost 3 pounds!

One Less Day

Should-a Could-a Would-a

Have you ever run out of gas? It always happens to be when you’re running late or miles away from the closest gas station. If it’s a really bad day the cell phone has been left at home. Personally, I have only ran out of gas twice in my driving career. Each time I pounded my fist on the steering wheel and muttered aloud that I should have filled up. There was no one to blame; I never took the chance to fill up the car. Everything always was causing me to rush forgetting about the gas tank and leaving it to run on fumes.

There are other times in my life where I have “Should-a Could-a Would-a” moments. Truth of the matter is, I’m living in a “Could-a” moment right now. Today is May 5th, the day I was scheduled to have major surgery in Colorado. The surgery was canceled a week ago when I received a call from the nurse at the Steadman Clinic. She said that after reviewing my case one last time (mind you they had reviewed the case THREE times already), there were two major concerns about the procedure. First was the fact that I have an auto-immune disease that causes my body to attack my muscles. Although it’s a major health concern, they would have continued pursuing surgery if it weren’t for one thing: my weight. The conversation I had with the nurse Thursday April 28 at 7:40 in the morning forever changed my life. She said to me, “I hope you understand that we want to help your hip heal. The problem is that with the amount of weight you carry around, it never will. You need to get serious about losing weight or forever live in pain.”

It wasn’t the first time in my life that my weight was holding me back. But, that moment was a huge “Should-a Could-a Would-a” shock. To be reconsidered for the surgery in September I need to lose at least 50 pounds. I am committed to doing it, one day at a time. Eight days ago I thought I was headed into surgery, addicted to food and obese. Today I Should-a been laying in a hospital bed, I Could-a been healing from a two year old injury, and I Would-a been starting physical therapy tomorrow. But instead, I walked out of the gym for the sixth day in a row with an entire new plan for the summer and for my life.

One Less Day

Dirty Laundry

I hate doing laundry. If my income was disposable, I would donate yesterday’s clothes and purchase all new ones. Ask anyone I have lived with and they will tell you. At 22 you would think that keeping your laundry caught up on would be simple. No. Not for me. I’m not sure what it is, but doing my laundry falls to the bottom of the list every day. I would rather clean the bathroom, mop the kitchen floor, or pick up dog poop. Well maybe not pick up after the dog, but I think you get the picture. In the life of Serene, laundry sucks. But it has to get done, doesn’t it? My room is knee deep in laundry and this afternoon I decided that was enough. I got a wild hair and decided it was time to give in (for the sake of my roommate’s sense of smell) and do some laundry.

As I started to put the first load into the basket my body reminded me of my morning. I’m not really sure how I did it, but I convinced four friends to join me on my workout today. My trainer, Lana, at The Ridge in Bozeman was teaching a class called “Cycle Pump” and was expecting me. The name “Cycle Pump” is missing a few key descriptive words that I’m not going to include them either because if I did, none of you would ever go. I’m pretty sure my friend wearing the bright pink spandex thought it was going to equivalent to Sit and Be Fit and boy was she shocked! A mixture of loud fast music and Lana’s voice is still beating in my head. “Faster, harder, off the bike, on the bike, lift the weights, set them down. Is your heart rate up?” Yes Lana, my heart rate was up within the first five minutes on the bike before we even started class.

Although class this morning was a few miles above difficult it was so much fun to have four of my closest friends to work out with. As far as my dirty laundry? Well it was pretty difficult to pick up the basket and walk down the stairs to the laundry room without every muscle in my body screaming the name of Lana. Does anyone know where I can take a bath of Icy Hot?

One Less Day

The Old Shark

Finding Nemo is one of my favorite movies ever made. I was in high school when it came out on the big screen, but I still thought it was hilarious. If you have ever seen it you will probably remember the part when the sharks are gathered around having a meeting. The sharks start to recite a pledge to each other that goes like this, “I am a nice shark. Not a mindless eatin' machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends. Not food.” Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I feel just like the sharks. I have to say to myself, “I am a nice human. Not a mindless eatin’ machine. If I am to change, I must first start with myself today.” This saying is easier said then done. In fact, I say it when I’m brushing my teeth but by the time I get to the breakfast table the old shark in me takes over.

My entire life I have struggled with my weight. I was born big and never grew out of it. As a kid I was really active. I played soccer, skied, road my bike and loved to swim. But it wasn’t until recently that I realized my problem. Just like the sharks on Finding Nemo, I am a “mindless eatin’ machine”. So the first step to changing is admitting I’m an addict.

My name is Serene, I’m 22 years old and I’m addicted to food. I realize I cannot fight this battle alone, and I need all the support I can get. Follow me this summer as I take on the challenge to change the rest of my life!

One Less Day