pojr posted...
you can do this man, dont forget.
you're already almost there. you've made great changes to your diet and have lost weight. it's not like you haven't worked hard to change yourself.
are the injuries due to your previous weight? not sure if you're still considered overweight or not. is it possible to change your physical therapist? she seems kinda shitty, and its frustrating as hell that you lost your previous one. also, what kind of cheesecakes are we talking? fucking love cheesecake so that sounds awesome.
oh, and as far as the girl goes. i get where you're coming from. just make sure to work on improving your life as well. don't put all your eggs in one basket. start that cheesecake company, get better whether the girl is on board or not.
thank you for reading my wall of text and responding with such a genuine response. you're a really awesome dude. if i did the whole friends' list thing here, i would send you a follow, but i dunno, i've never really gone in for that sort of thing.
it doesn't feel like i'm almost there. it feels like no matter what i do, it's one step forward, two steps back. my back pain was getting under control, now it's worse again. my new weightlifting routine was making me feel good and be confident in how i am able to present myself, then it gave me a hernia. my diet and weight loss was going great for awhile, but then no matter what i did i couldn't get any lower than 190, and now i'm back up to 210. and my family is struggling financially so much right now that we've been having to go to multiple food banks, and they don't always give the healthiest stuff, and with having to rely on them to get by, my meal planning and prepping has been spotty at best. i have worked hard, but it seems like it's never enough, and sometimes i question what it has all been for.
my physical difficulties aren't really "injuries" per se, cuz there was no single instance of trauma or anything that caused them. i have hereditary idiopathic scoliosis, which means my spine is curved, and that i was born with it, and there was no known cause besides genetics, my grandfather had it, and it gets worse as you go through regular skeletal growth. i have two curvatures, a lumbar one that is more pronounced and a thoracic one which is less pronounced. i had to wear a Boston Brace around my entire torso for 22 hours every day from when i was diagnosed in 5th grade up until i was 18, to try and limit how much the curves could progress. they told me back then that scoliosis isn't necessarily going to cause back pain later in life, and that once my skeletal growth was complete, the curvatures shouldn't get any worse, but both of those turned out to be false, because an MRI i had done a couple years back showed that the curvatures had indeed progressed by about 10 degrees each since what they were when i was 18 (enough to rob me of about an inch and a half of height btw, fml), and because i definitely have the most pain in the areas where my skeleton and musculature are most affected by the scoliosis.
that being said, the excess weight is definitely a compounding factor, as was the deconditioning i inflicted on myself after i quit my job and let myself be so sedentary. i shot all the way up to about 290 then. before i got back on Obamacare, i knew the weight was just making everything worse, and i knew that was one of the only things under my control that i could work toward changing, so my weight loss journey began then. i was already down to about 250 when i started physical therapy.
i am thinking about going back to my primary care physician and asking for a referral to a different physical therapist. i don't like how things are starting with this new person. i am willing to give it at least a few visits though to see how things progress, and to question her about why she thinks my pelvic tilt doesn't have anything to do with my scoliosis, despite that being a well-known effect of having scoliosis.
thank you for asking me about my cheesecakes! my recipe is adapted from a recipe that was passed down to me by my grandfather, who unfortunately died from COVID back in August. the way i do it is a little different, and i do a bunch of different flavors with it that he never did, but i still consider it his recipe. it is Italian style instead of the more common New York style, so it uses ricotta cheese instead of cream cheese, but people do generally prefer the creaminess and richness of New York style, so i also incorporate an Italian cream cheese in the recipe to make it more familiar to the typical American palate. awhile back i was gifted a set of 4" mini springform pans, and recently i have realized that those are the perfect size to sell at a trendy farmer's market in the upscale downtown area of a wealthy college town, because college girls tend to go wild over miniaturized anything in trendy flavors like pumpkin spice and brownie bottom and Oreo, etc. so there is definitely a market there ready to exploit lol. i just have to get back to the point where i am confident that i will be physically able to make dozens or even hundreds of mini-cheesecakes every week.
i even have what i believe should be enough funding to get it started, since i never did anything with the money i had elected to be taken out of all my paychecks i earned at Walmart and put into a 401k. and i never even looked to see exactly how much was in there until earlier this year, and even with the taxes and fees and penalties i would have to pay to withdraw it early, i think it will be enough to get started. at least, it was back when i was pricing things at the beginning of this year. though the price of the 150 count eggs at Smart and Final for instance has gone up from 20 bucks to 60 bucks since then, so i'm definitely gonna have to do some recalculating when it comes time.
the funny thing is, as shitty as i am feeling in general today, as i was typing up the paragraphs about the cheesecakes just now, i realized that in my mind i was feeling optimistic about it. i guess i just need to focus on that feeling, and focus on the things that give me that feeling. thinking about as far as the girl situation goes though definitely does not give me that feeling. i know i shouldn't, but i still really wish i could have gotten to know her better outside of the PT place, and it pains me to know i never will. i know i shouldn't still be hung up on her, i know that's ridiculous and pathetic, and is a severe case of oneitis in the worst way, but i can't help how i feel. sometimes i imagine what my life would be like if she were in it. the experiences we would share together. i haven't really met anyone or even been in a position to try and meet anyone in the time since i last saw her, so it's hard to shake those feelings. i know if i can get this cheesecake thing off the ground that that might be a potential avenue to put myself out there and meet new people, but it still seems so far off. it doesn't do a whole lot to help my loneliness right now. and i can't help but think that whoever i may meet, they won't be her. i know i have to stop thinking like that, but it's hard.
anyway, sorry for the second wall of text lol, and i am grateful for your words of encouragement and support.