Oprah-isms

Lately, I DVR Oprah and I just erase it unless something jumps out at me. Is it me, or is it harder to relate to her shows in the last year or so? I remember watching it religiously while in nursing school, but now it's only the occasional show that I watch.

I've been seeing on the Weight Watchers message boards that a lot of people were tuning in this week for "Oprah's Best Life Week". I watched Monday's episode today (Topic: Weight Loss, Bob Greene) and I have to say it made me think. First of all, Oprah did something very big. She admitted to all of her viewers that she'd lost control of her weight. Of course it was something the whole world had noticed, but she went into great detail about just why she lost control.

I have spoken several times on my very own blog about how I must have order in my life to be able to be successful on Weight Watchers. Oprah validated some of these feelings I've been having lately by speaking about how her life had become out of balance, and that was the reason, she believed, that she had gained weight again. This really makes me feel good to hear someone else make the statement that when their life is out of balance, it throws off the whole healthy eating and exercise thing too. I've been feeling this way for a while now, and noticing that when my schedule is out of control, I stop caring about the things around me. I stop keeping my house tidy, I cannot find time to work out, and then, naturally, giving a damn about what goes into my body goes right out the window too! I'll give you an example. Monday night I was scheduled to work my regular 12 hours. This means that I was to go into work at 6:45pm and leave at 7:15am. This is my normal routine. But, I'd also scheduled myself for a 4 hour class on Tuesday morning from 8am-12pm. Yes, I thought it was totally fine to do this to myself. I thought it was healthy and normal to be at the hospital for 16-17 hours. That is, until it happened. By noon, I was scared to drive home. I was falling asleep in class. My dreams were delirious ones. I slept from 1pm-6pm, waking up feeling groggy and basically like a knot on a log. I used this as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted at a point in my week when I had very little WPA left (approx 14 points left). For breakfast that morning, I ate a bagel with light cream cheese, chips and a diet soda. After my weird day of sleep, I didn't' want to cook anything, nor did I want to go inside anywhere to get anything healthy. So I ended up in the drive-thru at Burger King- somewhere I NEVER go. Fortunately, I was able to remember some sage advice given to me by another Weight Watcher, who said, "If you spill a glass of wine, do you take the entire bottle and dump it on the floor?" Of course the answer is NO! I was able to pull myself together and have a decent week in terms of eating. I didn't get to the gym as much as I'd planned, and that was mainly a product of over-extending myself this week and trying to work a full schedule, plus pack in 2 days worth of classes.

Obviously, if I gain or maintain this week, I have my answer as to why. If I lose, it will of course be a blessing. And my lesson learned is that on weeks like this (though I will try to avoid them in the future), I will plan even harder and even more steadfastly than on normal weeks so that I do not react to the disorder around me. I also know that whenever I can take steps to prevent this kind of unnecessary stress, I need to do it. I've been a go-to girl at work ever since I started. I work a lot of extra hours when needed and I go above and beyond a lot of my coworkers in terms of extracurriculars like unit committees, classes, etc. Looking back, I think it's some of the reason why my weight has not gone down any since I initially gained in nursing school. In fact, it's even a few pounds higher. I'm over-extending myself in order to gain approval. But, it's backfiring. Not only has it caused me to hold on to extra weight, but it's also as of late, caused me to feel very burnt out. I cannot give proper attention to my patients because I hate being in the hospital. This is a result of feeling like I am truly ALWAYS there. Over the holidays, I had a few nights where I wasn't as busy as usual and had maybe one less patient on my assignment that night. It was amazing the things I was able to do for them, and in turn, I realized that in some of my busier moments of 2008, I became very task-oriented and time-oriented, sometimes forgetting that these were actual humans that I was dealing with.

Well you can imagine that if I was doing that to other people I came into contact with, what the effect was on my very own body. Not good. At the end of Oprah's show, her buddy Bob Greene asked the following questions, which I plan to blog about in the coming days:

1) What are you hungry for?

2) Why are you overweight?

3) Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past?

4) What in your life is not working?

5) Why do you want to lose weight?

I'll be thinking about question #1 tonight, and hopefully blogging about it tomorrow. I'll have time to blog tomorrow because I have designated it as a "me day". I already turned down working an extra shift in the oncology clinic tomorrow and after my stupid little charge nurse meeting is over with at 8:00am, I plan on continuing to get my house in order, hopefully purchasing my Lush bath bombs (assuming the scale shows a loss in the AM), and maybe getting in dinner and a movie with a friend. It's all about relaxation and taking care of ME.