Results!

Well I have completed my 5 weeks of boot camp (including the make-up session!), and am feeling good. I’m not entirely where I would like to be, but in a short month I took of 6” from my overall measurements, and lost about 7 lbs – I am proud!! I wish that I could afford to been continuing on with Booty Camp, but alas I cannot right now. Hopefully in the new year I will be able to commit to and afford a full 8 week session.

I do feel stronger – certainly in the core, and legs as well. While I have not been eating perfectly, I am eating ‘more aware’, and that certainly makes a difference. I am drinking more water, and eating less ‘junk’. I am looking forward to continuing to use my at home DVD provided, and enjoying my yoga practice. Thanks for giving me the butt-kicking I needed, Booty Camp! It truly was a great environment to work out it – guided by a personable instructor, surrounded by supportive women working towards their goals, and challenging in an ongoing manner.

I am still tired – for me this is the hardest part. I can remember what it was like when I was younger and had much more energy, but I have always been a ‘tired’ person, especially since I started experiencing Meniere’s symptoms. Just the other day I felt so wiped out – I could have gently closed my eyes at my desk and nodded off. This despite the fact that I had gotten 9 hours of sleep the night before, was well fed and started by day with a cup of caffeinated tea. I am fairly certain that I do not have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, as I don’t seem to have many of the other symptoms, or if I do they are things that I attribute to MD (That being said, I did have mono when I was 19 and did not know until 6 months later. I just thought I was really tired. Am I a masochist?). I maintain that it is an effect of my MD that makes me so very tired at times, and I have yet to find anything that helps with this. I take vitamins, eat fairly well and follow all of the ‘rules’ for sleep, including going to bed around the same time every night, sleeping in a dark room etc etc.

For some reason this particular symptom, this agonizing fatigue, is at times more challenging to me than the dizziness, nausea, or tinnitus.  Perhaps that is because it really impairs my ability to feel ‘normal’, to feel like myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. There is no way that these feelings can be normal – I am quite sure that if everyone was walking around feeling this tired and this foggy all of the time, nothing would ever get accomplished in our world. This is not to say that I do not have drive, ambition and even, at times, energy, but that this heavy, weighty fatigue seems to overshadow that a great deal of the time. It can hinder my concentration, and really push the limits of my day. I greatly appreciate when I have good days when I am not particularity tired, or when I am able to push through the heavy eye lids and brain fog. I am working on accepting those days that I am just too tired to be myself – I have to tell myself that I am not failing, slacking or being lazy. I have a medical condition… but even when my brain will accept that, my heart just does not want to sometimes.