I decided to hold off on this one since it was close to the one year mark on when I started this journey to become comfortable in my body again, both physically and mentally. Which happened recently! 🎉🥳 And it has been about 4 months since the last update (Struggling Through Spring: My Journal to Better Health and Wellness), so this is covering my progress what I’ve done this summer and the start of fall along with reflecting on everything that I’ve done in the last year overall. This may be the last update that I’ll be sharing on my blog as I think overall, I’ve achieved the major goals I had. But I’ll get more into that towards the end of this post.

As with the previous posts for this journey, I’m going to break it down into sections and include a table of contents in the beginning.

Warning: In the mental health section, I am going to be talking about potentially triggering topics: attempted suicide (past), abusive relationship, PSTD, and anxiety. If those are at all triggering to you, please skip that section. Your mental health is important.

Before, I jump into things, I wanted to make a note that most of summer was largely spent indoors due to the air quality in Minnesota with the wildfires to the north. And then, when the air quality wasn’t terrible, we had either massive storms or insane humidity. So while the beginning of this time period wasn’t the strongest in terms of reaching my goals, once summer was over I was able to get back into the string of things with the humidity and air quality returning to normal.

Goals for This Time Period

This is going to be a repeat of the end of my previous entry since it had the goals of what I was hoping to accomplish by this time. I’ll get more into details after this.

• Start using my stepper at least 2-3 times a week in addition to daily 30-50 minutes walks.
• Average 60k steps a week.
• Figure out my moods.

What Did I Achieve?

Fitness Updates

My goal was to average 60K steps a week.

As mentioned, during the summer months that didn’t exactly happen due to the reasons I stated earlier. Not to mention, I was moving so a lot of my energy went into that rather than going for long walks with Pixie. Not that we didn’t do that a few times when the air quality wasn’t as bad and there weren’t storms happening. Since there’s no way in hell to get Pixie to even consider going outside. She has to be desperate before she’ll step outside when there’s any thunder. Though that’s not to say I didn’t have weeks during the beginning half of this time period where I have 64k steps, while other weeks were around 52k. It just really depended on the weather and if I could stand to be outside with the air quality.

However, once the air quality lifted, I was averaging 60K if not more every week. So, I’m happy to say this goal was achieved!

However, I did not achieve my goal to start using the stepper that I have, so that’s going to be a goal going forward.

Mental Health Updates

The move did not help my mental health by any means. For an entire month straight, I was stressed beyond belief to the point where I couldn’t tell if I was dealing with my PSTD (specifically with memories related to my father), depression, or anxiety. Honestly, it was likely a mixture of them all. Especially since they were feeding off of each other.

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this in one of my previous updates, though I’ve posted about it before. I don’t have a great relationship, or really any relationship at this point, with my father. He’s an alcoholic. has been since I was nine (possibly earlier than that but that’s when it really started becoming noticeable). He wasn’t physically abusive, but that’s not to say he wasn’t terrible in other ways: mentally, emotionally, and verbally. I won’t rehash everything, but one of the key things that he said to me before I left for college was that I was “the money pit of the entire family” and blaming me for being the reason we had no food or hot water for months. And shortly afterwards saying that: “it was better off for the world if I was dead.” I had already had three failed suicide attempts prior to this. Not that I ever told my parents that, but still. It really didn’t help my mental state at the time.

While I know those two things aren’t true by any means, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t affected by this. Or that on some level, I didn’t believe this. Even though logically, I knew it wasn’t true. At the time, I wasn’t in any activity or sport that cost money. I paid for everything I did or bought. And short of needing them to sign for my student loans, I wasn’t asking or needing money until months later while I was in college. Since I was out of state and a lot of things weren’t coverage by insurance. So no, I wasn’t the cause of us being broke.

The reason I’m mentioning this is that during the course of moving, I had originally planned on moving a week I knew I would have my paychecks to cover all the cost. But the apartment I ended up moving to had a move-in date a day before that paycheck came in. Which is already earlier than the pay schedule, so it’s not like I could’ve requested it sooner. And I couldn’t push it back a day because they had already been holding the place a month after it was available meaning it was sitting empty that entire time. Needless to say, this resulted in my mom and me having to play musical money around the time her house payment was also due. Which, of course, since we went back and forth for a month trying to figure out how we were affording the move, brought back the memories of my father telling me I was a money pit… and that I was better off dead. Can’t remember one without the other.

However, after my move it’s been getting a lot better. I feel more relaxed in my new place. I somehow managed to get unpacked in a weekend and pretty much everything is done. There’s a few smaller things I’d like to do, but they aren’t important things by any means. Mainly just decorating things that I would like to add or adjust. I’ll slowly work up to getting all of that done, but I am really enjoying my new place.

Women’s Health

I finally decided that I’ve had it with my periods. While getting the IUD allowed me to finally lose weight instead of gaining it, it didn’t entirely fix the original issue. I’m putting that in spoilers purely because it borderlines on too much information but we’re already at this point so I might as well state it. But you don’t have to read it, if you’d rather not.

I had an ultrasound in the past (about 2.5 years ago) but they found nothing on it. Everything looked perfect. This is what led to the implant as they said they could only manage the symptoms but there was nothing that could be done otherwise. Which of course led to the IUD after gaining so much weight in a short period of time. However, this time when I got a new provider they decided that wasn’t the solution. It’s a bandaid. So, they had several blood tests done along with another ultrasound. This time they found two things:

1. My IUD was sitting too low, which did not helping things by any means when it comes to the pain.
2. Superior Intramural Fibroids. In other words, a benign growth located in the upper muscular wall of my uterus. Why it didn’t come up on the ultrasound 2.5 years ago? I have no idea.

However, after going to the gynecologist it was determined the fibroid was not really a concern at this time due to its size. The IUD being too low was. Basically it was doing nothing but getting in the way so I wasn’t getting the full benefits. They removed the old one (after having to go fishing as the string was not visible 😭) and inserted a new one. While my immediate reaction/thoughts to the process have not changed, see Beginning My Journey to Better Health and Wellness for that, within the next day I could already tell the difference. I wasn’t feeling it constantly and the pain/pressure wasn’t nearly the same. Last time, I felt like my body was rebelling it and was constantly cramping. While I had some of that the first day, I really didn’t have that any day afterwards. So, the first version likely had never been in the right place. Or my body is just used to something being there and didn’t rebel this time around. I’ll take the win either way.

For the most part, I haven’t had the intense cycles I used to struggle with. That said, during one of the more recent ones, I woke up with severe lower back pain that shifted into my uterus and pelvis whenever I tried to roll over. It took four hours—and a scalding hot bath—before things finally eased up. To make matters worse, instead of wrapping up, my period immediately picked up again afterward. I can’t say for certain if the two were connected, but since nothing else seemed to be going on, I’m leaning toward it was. But that could’ve been a weird one off occurrence. If it’s not, then I have no idea and will have to go back in ’cause that was hell.

Reflection

Since it has been a year since I started this journey, I figured it would be a good idea to reflect on everything that’s happened as it’s been a good journey overall since I started this. There may have been some hiccups, but for the most part I achieved almost all of my goals.

• My mental health is in a state where I’m not cycling (at least not to the extremes). And that’s not to say everything has been perfect, but it’s way better than it used to be. It’s something I can handle now and I’ve reached a point where things that used to send me over the edge, for the most part, no longer do. I can talk about things without feeling myself shutting down emotionally or trying to logic away my feelings. I’m letting myself acknowledge them and the pain those things caused, so I can move forward. I know it’s never going to be “fixed” but I’ve been working on acknowledging that healing is not some checklist or destination that once you get there it’s done. It’s learning how to navigate your thoughts and feelings, so they don’t control your life. Which is easier said than done (clique, I know) and “picking yourself up by the bootstraps” is a load of shit. Therapy has helped a lot. I know I have a long way to go, but I know I’m heading in the right direction now.
• Weight-wise I’m back to where I was before I got the implant that caused me to gain around forty pounds. I’ve lost all that weight. I still want to lose some more, but I don’t hate myself looking in a mirror anymore as I did a year ago. And maybe I’ll start body painting again, since I’ve regained some of my confidence through this journey. But I may wait a little longer, we’ll see.
• I’m a lot more active than I used to be. I may have gone for walks with my dog, but they weren’t nearly as long (something I know Pixie appreciates now). And I’m sure if I had a FitBit then compared to know, I would not have had 5 days of exercise a week. Granted, I think my FitBit is slightly haunted. Sometimes it claims I was swimming or biking when I was walking. No idea how it came to those conclusions but the time frame is still correct at least on when I was doing things.
• My cardio fitness score, according to my FitBit, has gone from Poor/Fair to Average.
• I’ve been cooking for myself more. Not everything has been the healthiest, but I’ve still cut back on a lot of things that weren’t good for me. I also still go to McDonalds more than I should, but it’s significantly cut back from what it used to be. At times, I miss regular Dr Pepper at times as the Zero version is not nearly the same. But it’s something I’ve kept consistent since starting this journey, I don’t have multiple cans of Dr Pepper a day. I still have Coke Zero or Dr Pepper Zero for the caffeine but it doesn’t have the sugar or calories anymore.
• For the most part, my periods are manageable without the extreme side effects (if that one situation I mentioned before was a one-time thing). That was all I was looking for back in 2023 when I got that implant. If I could go back and tell myself to great any other option, I would. But I’m happy that it’s at least figured out now. May have cost over $1000 to figure out 😭but at least it’s sorted out now, which is all you can really ask for at the end of the day.

Please let me know if you would like me to continue these; otherwise, I think I’m going to call it here (at least for my blog). It’s been a year and I’m happy with the progress that I’ve made. Sure, there are things I would still like to accomplish, but the major things have been done or figured out at this point. I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made. Thank you all for sticking with me and letting me share this on my blog as I know it’s not the usual thing I post about. With that being said, I’m going to end it here. If you’re doing your own fitness and wellness journey, I hope it is going smoothly. If not, I still hope everything is going well in your life, especially with how unpredictable and chaotic the world currently feels.

Love ya,

Mae Polzine

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