I've been avoiding Steemit for a while now because my posts took so long to write and I didn't feel like they really mattered to anyone except my parents! My dad is the reason I joined and he's the reason I'm getting back into it. He suggested last night, during my weekly "parents" night, that I should document my quest to change my life. Since October 2nd is my designated D-Day, if you will, to begin anew, it seemed fitting to start posting again right now.
It all started exactly 364 days ago. I had just turned 27. It was October 1st, and my boyfriend broke up with me. This was only the third relationship I've had in my entire life, none of which have survived longer than six months.
Do you ever feel like the clock is ticking?
Well, having a twin brother who is literally living the life that my child-self imagined my adult-self would live, it's hard not to feel like all the deadlines for all the life-events are about to blow up in front of you. I was supposed to be married to a hunk who wears plaid shirts; have had at least one baby by now (a little boy named Jonathan who would get a little sister at the age of four); and have an amazing job, that allowed me to make full use of the well-stocked library I would have in my own house; I was also going to be very fairy-like, with beautiful Disney-princess hair, who made roast beef for supper every night.
Instead, at 27, I had been steadily gaining weight for years; had been living with my parents for the last 3 years, since moving home from school completely bankrupt; was working a job I hated; was taking anit-depressants and still felt depressed. Worse, I couldn't wake up to a smoke alarm, let alone an alarm clock, and there was no plaid-wearing hunk in sight. I felt like such a bitter failure. Every solution I could come up with sounded exhausting, and seemed like a dead-end.
In February of this year, I finally went to the doctor because I not only found it next to impossible to wake up, I was also falling asleep on the way to work in the mornings. She did some bloodwork, which came back with diabetic levels of high blood sugar, as well as high cholesterol, low iron, and low thyroid. She didn't want to put me on medicine and officially diagnose me with anything so serious as diabetes because of my age, so she prescribed me a healthier diet and exercise. I wrote her instructions on an envelope in my purse, then I went straight to the grocery store and bought myself some raisins and almonds instead of the cream cheese bagel I had been planning to buy before returning to work.
In the last seven months, I've lost about 20lbs; begun eating leafy greens, super food smoothies, and actual dinners; increased my exercise from 'running around the office like a chicken with her head cut off' to an actual 'get your heart rate up' walk at least a few times a week, if not daily. I've been researching frantically to learn more about my health and my diet and the best foods to eat to control blood sugar and thyroid. I’ve also had weeks where I felt like a total failure and just couldn’t stick to my health food. Comfort eating is a serious set-back; once you’ve had that one mouthful of blissful chocolate, or that one soothing handful of chips…it’s a precipice that’s hard to pull away from! It seems like every other week, my good intentions crash and burn--and every other weekend, I clean my house and reset my food goals and make plans expecting a surge in energy levels. It’s been a roller coaster in learning to encourage myself, but also be strict, without falling prey to the condemning self-talk I’m so prone to, which makes me want to just curl up in a ball and never leave my bed.
This is one of my reset weekends, and I'm trying to pack a lot into it. That always stresses me out, so here I am on Steemit, avoiding the pile of dishes, the dust bunnies I need to tame, and the food I need to prep for my "D-Day" (aka, Detox Day. I'll explain later). I just wrote down the minimum that I wanted to say in a Word program, and it was four pages long! So I guess I’ll make a bit of a series out of this experience, rather than forcing anyone to read a novel. Basically, I want to talk about the very clichéd but oh-so essential quest to take back control of my life. In all my research, I’ve found that articles with personal, practical experience were the most helpful/encouraging, so hopefully others will find a few useful nuggets in my writing. I’m also very open to advice, so if you’re a health guru, or you've been through this before, get your comments on!
(Also, you may have noticed, Disney movies kind of resonate with me...obviously none of the images I've used are mine! The first one is a Dali painting, very un-Disney.)
Welcome to steemit
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Welcome to Steem Community @allyoop! As a gentle reminder, please keep your master password safe. The best practise is to use your private posting key to login to Steemit when posting; and the private active key for wallet related transactions.
In the New Steemians project, we help new members of steem by education and resteeeming their articles. Get your articles resteemed too for maximum exposure. You can learn more about it here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@gaman/new-steemians-project-launch
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Good job Squeeshie; made me cry
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Aw, thanks dad!
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Kudos to you for your love and support. /salute
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He IS kind of the best dad. :)
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Welcome to the community!
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@allyoop I know you'll be successful. Sorry to hear of your recent issues. At least you were able to get good advice from your doctor! It's important to try diet and exercise before meds. Good luck and look forward to your posts! Followed and upvoted :)
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Yes, I felt pretty lucky too! So many meds have so many side effects, and it just snowballs ffom there. That was a big part of my determination! Thanks for the upvote and follow!
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Welcome to Steemet
follow me @lomidze
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Nice to meet you @allyoop ! :)
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Hi @allyoop welcome to Steemit the platform where you are free to express yourself. It would be great to see a pic of, I also have some health issues which I am tackling daily so wishing you the best of luck on your health journey and don't be so hard on yourself love n light.
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Thanks! And good luck to you!
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Good Introduction Men..
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So proud of you! You will succeed, I can just feel it! Try to realize that everyone has issues and looking at their lives from the outside doesn't give you a view of the reality they are living. Comparison kills joy. (Just a little tip for you-lol)xoxo
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Thanks mama! Thats so hard to remember!!
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Good luck in your new journey! Healthy will lead to happy. Upvoted, re-steemed, and followed.
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Thanks so much! Healthy to happy is certainly my goal!
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Great post ! I have actually felt the same way aboit steemit. Probably most of the community right now are just writing for themselves anda coulle of friends. But maybe it will literally pay off one day.
I wish you the best on your journey. From persoanl experience I can tell you that it will get better if yo7 stick with the heallthier choices. Fore that handful of chips is now actually not very appealing anymore.
I'll follow your updates :)
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There have been a few times when I actually craved an APPLE instead! That was weird! Haha
I'm hoping that at the very least my writing will be cathartic, and help me stay on track, since people are watching!
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Hello and welcome to Steemit. Kudos to your dad for his support and wisdom. Are we allowed to know who he is on here? It's okay if you want to keep it a secret. Please source your images. Some folks will flag you for not doing it. If you need help with the coding, I'll gladly help you on steemit.chat. Look me up there please. The official chat site is nice for meeting new friends too!
Sugar was the hardest addiction for me to break. I know how you feel. Really, I do. It took me almost three years to break the habit completely. The stuff is like heroin. You're fighting it though and taking a lot of positive steps. You're winning! That's great. Just take it one day at a time, and slowly things will improve. You knew that already though. I don't call eating well "health food" however.
It's the food we were meant to eat. We were meant to eat mostly fruit, vegetables, and nuts. If you were in the wilderness and didn't have factories and machines, what would you eat? That's what you should still be eating today. ;-) I eat mostly berries, veges, beans, and occasionally lean meats (fish mostly). My circulation is good, I have no risk of sudden death from strokes or heart attacks, and I'll live a long and healthy life.
You will too. Keep it up! Stay strong, warrior. The best part about changing your diet for the better is that you'll feel a million times better emotionally. That's worth it just by itself, right?! Here's my normal intro info for new people who's accounts show promise...
There are a ton of other webpages to help you with Steemit. Here are some of the best for beginners:
https://steemd.com/ (This site is used to keep track of your voting power and other stats. You do not want to run out of voting power, and you only get so much per day. I keep my voting power around 80% for example.)
https://steem.makerwannabe.com/ (This site will tell you who follows you, who unfollows you, and who mutes you. It is great for meeting new people too. I regularly check it to see who has followed me to see if I should follow them back.)
https://steemit.chat/ (This site is the official chat webpage for Steemit. There are Discord channels too, but I usually stick to the official site. Come in to network and meet new friends. You can directly message people there too, so it makes it easier to communicate with your closest friends.)
Oh yeah, there are a lot of bots on here. If you see a cookie cutter reply, especially to your intro post, it is almost certainly a bot. Check the account's reputation. If it is low, I would recommend just ignoring them. Everything is public on Steemit, so you can go look at an account's comments and replies. Are they all the same? It's a bot.
Adding photos to your account as a new Steemian may be confusing at first too. The easiest way it to click to "Submit a Story." Once in there, use the built in Steemit tool to upload an image from your computer. Below the posting window, you will see "Insert images by dragging & dropping, pasting from the clipboard, or by selecting them." Click on the blue text. Once the image is uploaded, you can copy and paste the link into your account settings.
Verifying your identity is very important because it will get you more support and people will trust you more. The best way to verify is to link back to your Steemit account by using another public social media account. For example, I posted my Steemit articles from here through my Twitter account. Another person posted their Steemit information on their Facebook account. Some people will even post a video of themselves writing out their account information since that cannot be Photoshopped. The more famous a person is or the more valuable their content is, the more important it is that they verify. If a new account falls within those two categories and fails to verify, it may get blacklisted.
Again, welcome, and I've followed you! If you have any questions about getting started, look me up on the chat site.
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Wow, thanks for all the information! When you say you posted your articles from Steemit to social media, do you mean just literally sharing the url on Facebook? Does that mean that anyone who follows me on Steemit can see my Facebook after that? Just checking to make sure I understand.
And you're right, I do need to source my images! I was quite lost on how to do that, so I resorted to the little disclaimer at the end, which is obviously not really cutting it. I'll have to get onto the chat site eventually, but I so want to hide behind my computer! Not for any nefarious reasons, but because meeting new people in real time is much scarier then meeting them at my own pace!
Thanks for the support and the advice!!
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Yes, share your intro post on your facebook account. That is an easy way to verify. Then people here can go there to see for sure that you're the same person. Sharing the code to teach you how to source is difficult. Hmmm...
Does this work?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NlAoGnP8q7ZAxGsEnvza-qotUGkoaae4SwXdubAhi2g/edit?usp=sharing
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Nice to meet you, @allyoop! Welcome to the Steemit Community, wish you good luck and a good start, ive send you a small tip and followed you, hope you have an amazing day! :)
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Thank you!!
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I'm glad you decided to come back to write. Your post is very encouraging. I have a few tips to burning calories if you need them. Drink ice-cold water, your body will burn calories warming your body back to the regular temperature. Eat unbuttered popcorn, your body burns more calories chewing the snack, than the snack itself. And a cheat day once a week is actually good for you, because your body stores calories, and if you do not have enough calories, your body thinks you are starving. A cheat day assures your body that you are not going to starve, and it will release the stored fat. :D Wishing you the best on your journey!
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