Please Help Me!

[cob]

Okay, so I am having a serious mental crisis about myself right now and, Las Vegas isn't exactly a good place for motivation. So, I'm coming here! yes, it's going to be a bit of a whine-fest but, I'm looking for real, tangible advice for improving, not just here to cry.

Let me give you the short version. 2 weeks ago, I finally had time enough to start working out and last friday, i made the time to sit down and plan out a new life, with a solid workout plan (Thanks nerd fitness!) diet (thanks again!) academic plan, and several mental and physical goals (both long and short term). i wrote all of this up on a white board in my room with July goals, long term goals, etc.

Now, I have some pretty serious financial constraints and still live with my family. For some reason they don't buy into the paleo diet although with the amount of grain they consume and their physical shape, the proof is in the pudding to me. Anyway, last Friday - within two hours of making the decision to turn myself into a mega-hoss - I had a very serious headphone-related shoulder injury and one week later, I'm still in a sling with potentially permanent damage. Aside from the utter embarassment, it's causing me some serious self-image problems.

Partly due to finances and partly because they don't really buy into my diet, my family refuses to buy any groceries, despite the fact that all we have is bread, rice, and JIF (and generic cereal, and processed crap). Everything anyone cooks, anything there is for me to make myself, contains a LOT of things that are not allowed on the diet. Now I know it's a long haul game but, in the last week, I haven't been able to do more than walk without extreme pain (even typing this, I'm taking serious breaks between sentences)..

add to that the only available food to me and I went from being okay with my body - trying to improve it significantly but, i considered my build average - to being ashamed to look in a mirror. I've still been working on my academic goals but, my attitude towards the rest of it keeps slipping in and holding me back. I know it's only been a week but, it just immediately felt like the second I had committed to change, God took away my means. With a lack of familiar support and the constant reminders (shoulder pain, everything in my fridge and pantry), I've just dramatically lost the feeling that I can possibly succeed.

I know there is no excuse for this kind of weakness but, I just don't know what I can do! I had so much will and it was immediately stomped out and slowly stripped away. When I get paid, I will certainly be buying my own groceries as best i can but, on a good month, I pull in about 200-250 so, I just... I don't know. Right now I'm feeling very defeated by the universe. I'm just looking for any sort of advice at this point

[krj]

Hey there. I personally think that a diet that consists mostly of whole, fairly unprocessed food is going to be the healthiest. BUT, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good! Plenty of people have lost a lot of weight and dramatically turned their lives around by eating a lot of processed stuff. You can still work on portion control even if your options are primarily a bunch of refined foods.

I'm sorry to hear about the shoulder injury and the pain. Pain like that can be a real downer in and of itself. Don't underestimate just how depressing physical pain is. Can you still go for walks or something low impact?

[Raincloak]

The New Agers and self-help books say that as soon as you decide to change, the universe (or God if you like) will throw every possible obstacle in your way. This is its way of testing to see if you're really serious about the change. Of course, those same people often say that as soon as you really truly decide to change, the universe will cooperate and start dumping opportunities in your lap.

I don't think either one is strictly accurate, but I know that as soon as you make a major mental shift, your attention changes, and suddenly stuff you never noticed before is at the front of your mind. For example, if you decided to start a flower business, you'd suddenly find the world was full of gardens. Those gardens were always there; you just never noticed them before. It's the same with exercise and fitness. The cereals and peanut butter you happily lived on for years are now, suddenly, offensive to you... but the rest of your family has not had the same revelation. They are just the same as before, only you have changed the way you see them.

Don't give up. And please don't call your anxieties "weakness." It is perfectly natural to feel bad sometimes, especially when you're in pain (and I sympathize; hurting your shoulder is a nasty thing to have happen your very first week). This is probably the worst setback you're going to have for a while, so from now on, things are likely to get better.

Make sure to obey your doctor's recommendations about the shoulder, baby her for a few weeks, and if it doesn't start to mend by the end of August, bug the doctor to tell you why. In the meantime, do what you can; you said you can walk without pain, so by all means walk. Las Vegas has got plenty of air-conditioned malls that are miles long, so go for walks there. If you can do some lower-body work (squats, lunges, wall sits), do that. If you can lift light weights with your good arm, give that a try. You needn't sit around feeling miserable until your beginner's zeal dissipates. Ride the rush! Work out! I know you can find a way.

As for the food situation ... paleo is expensive and not for everyone. It's also not an either-or thing. The paleo folks like to go on about how toxic and poisonous grains are, but remember vegans say the same about meat. They all exaggerate. You don't have to swear off grains, legumes and dairy altogether to improve your diet; just add some animal protein and veggies, and cut back the grains and sugars a little at a time. Make little substitutions.

[Raincloak]

p.s. I'd recommend you start swapping pure butter (check the label) and extra virgin olive oil for vegetable oils, use eggs/chicken/ground meat for protein, and start switching your carbs from bread and pastries to whole rolled oats (oatmeal!), potatoes (yes even russets are okay, yams are better), and maybe a little brown rice. If you're really concerned about the effects of grains on your digestion, soak or sprout them. And veggies, LOTS of veggies. You can never, ever have too many veggies. Don't limit yourself to fresh, frozen is good too. That will take you 60% of the way to paleo, and learning to cook is going to be the biggest, most important step of them all. (Don't overheat the olive oil or it loses its virginity. Hur hur hur.)

If you have a few dollars to spare, spend it first on pastured or farm-raised eggs, and second on a wider variety of veggies. If you have even more money than that, you could splurge on a bit of wild caught fish or grass-fed meat, but at my house those are special occasion treats. Don't bother with organic butter or oil until your food budget is no longer a problem (possibly never). You may want to start saving up for new cooking equipment as well. At some point you are going to have to get your own residence, and you'll need a small but decent set of cookware. Hopefully by then you will be an experienced cook, and you'll know what you need to buy.

Also consider getting yerself a big jar of "natural" peanut butter -- the kind that's just naked nuts and a little bit of salt. As fresh as possible. (Yes, I just said "naked nuts.") I know the paleo people are all like "oh no, legumes," but I'm less convinced of the aflatoxin business, and you need cheap fat and protein. Since it's not all sugary and hydrogenated, your family will probably leave it alone and you'll have the whole jar to yourself. It's great with fruit if you can't afford whole nuts, and you probably can't since nuts are like $8/lb these days. A lot of fitness people are huge fans of milk; I can't drink the stuff anymore (I eat yogurt instead), but if you can, cheap protein there. Forget snobby raw milk, just get whole milk if you can, or "reduced fat" (2%) if you can't.

Ditch the refined carbs and sugar, and you might not even need to go whole-hog paleo in the future. But if you do want to, it can wait until you have the money for things like grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish, and coconut cream. (Sheesh.) I know the hardcore cavemen don't approve of dairy and legumes, but frankly I think the dangers are exaggerated, just like vegans exaggerate the dangers of eating meat. You've got to eat something, and whole foods are much less likely to kill you than the processed junk anyway.

[spezzy]

Until your shoulder is better, just walk. As much as you can.

I would personally choose to do it first thing in the morning before I had eaten anything, but that's just me.

And then if you can't always eat the right kinds of food, just keep track and count calories. It works. It may not be the healthiest option, but it may be the right option for you right now. I lived off of hot dogs,white rice, and frozen veggies (when I could afford them) for an entire semester in college.

Do the best that you can with what you're given. Don't look at it as God taking away your means to change, look at it as a challenge you can overcome.

[vintageenvy]

One of the best recommendations I can give for getting your diet on track despite your family's aversion to a new diet is to pay attention to sales. Fresh fruit and veggies will always go on sale when they are in season and can be surprisingly inexpensive when purchased correctly. And don't forget about frozen veggies too! I know periodically (at least twice a month) my store brand frozen veggies go on sale for 10/$10.00 and at two servings a bag that with some good solid proteins can be a great way to start on the paleo track. If you frequent your grocery store enough, and make friends with the people behind the butcher's counter you can start to notice what day all the meat goes on sale. Most grocery stores stock meat once or twice a week, and the day before everything is going to "go bad" they'll cut the prices and you can get some good stuff for super cheap. Cook what makes you hungry first and freeze the rest for later!

I know how frustrating it is to deal with an injury when you're so motivated. I broke my wrist in the middle of a marching season and was in a hard cast for 6 weeks and every minute of it was torture. DON'T PUSH YOURSELF TOO HARD. Your body will tell you what you can and can't do so just listen to it. Take the recovery time to plan more, you can never have too detailed of a plan IMHO, and rather than trying to convince your family that they might want to consider changing their diets, just show them by example. I just cut grains and refined sugars out of my diet two weeks ago and people are already commenting on the change.

Celebrate the little victories (Yay I woke up without pain! Yay I made a full paleo dinner! Yay I can move my arm more!) and be stubborn and you'll get there in the end. It might just take you longer than you originally planned, but NF will always be here to cheer you on.

[Sloth the Enduring]

I have to ask, how do you permanently injure yourself with headphones?

Aside from the injury and feeling defeated, what's keeping you from getting a better job and taking care of yourself? Once you heal up that might be the first step that you should take.

[caponerd48]

Dear Cob, I am just some n00b, but if I may offer my two cents, I think the most important thing for you to do is take some time to address your mental state. Make time to meditate on your situation. Allow yourself to experience your frustrations and your emotions, but then push yourself to look past them to see your situation from a more distant perspective. After that, consider what things you can change. Also, great advice from the rest of you folks, I'll have to look into some of those money saving tips for myself!