Thirty

|Thirty| Over the span of my life, I have decided on a trillion occasions that I would attempt to lose weight.  This time a couple of years ago my husband (then boyfriend) and I set out on our weight loss journey together which ended abruptly with a 40 lb loss for each of us in July 2014. I'd never felt so great in my life.  I had so much more energy, and I really enjoyed meal prep.  I began healthy eating challenges at work, joined Planet Fitness, and was well on my way to that goal to lose 100+ lbs.  Fast forward to June 2015...We had gotten off track and decided that we were going to get back at it.  We hired a personal trainer (Off work at midnight and up at 4 a.m. to train), and ate a LITTLE better; I started to see a dietitian who was wonderful and encouraging.  I seemed to just maintain my weight even when our eating habits where great.  In August, our personal trainer's schedule changed, he's a military officer, so his only availability was during a time when we worked.  I was so lost!  Today, I went to see my internist, who is also wonderful and encouraging.  He said one word that stuck out to me today, and I had an epiphany.  The word?  Drum roll, please? (Inserts drumroll sound here) CONSISTENCY!  It hit me like a sack of rocks!  Not only am I inconsistent with this journey, but so is everything around me:  my work schedule, my husband's work schedule, the personal trainer's schedule.  I am usually very adaptive to life's changes (especially when I want or feel I really need to be).  I really hate working out though I love how it gives me energy, but I can eat healthy foods consistently.

Let's rewind about 6 years.  In July of 2010, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), and hormonal endocrine disorder that causes excessive facial hair growth, male-pattern balding, acne, and obesity (or weight gain) among other symptoms.  It also increases the risks of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, high cholesterol, and miscarriage.  While your chances of miscarriage increase, the likelihood of you conceiving in the first place is incredibly low.  PCOS makes it incredibly difficult to lose weight because your body is working against you, but with diet and exercise reversing the symptoms is possible.  I should say if the proper diet and exercise result in weight loss it's possible; even pregnancy is possible. To find out more check out this website.  

So... Next year I, as well as many of my friends, will turn 30.  I plan to set a goal to reach by that time.  So by January 30, 2017, I WILL BE AT LEAST 50 LBS LIGHTER, AND A WHOLE LOT HEALTHIER!  So keep up with my bi-weekly post here. First post will be on February 7, 2016 on my blog, Weight Loss Journey to Thirty, since that's our next weigh-in date!  My husband and I weigh ourselves every other Sunday morning before breakfast.  I will make an introduction post some time before then.  Hopefully, it will inspire someone who's going through a similar situation.

Change

So...I'm back.  I know it's been a few months, but at least it hasn't been years.  So just to update you on life.  I am now married and have been for a couple of months.  I decided not to post consistently throughout the planning process because I was pretty overwhelmed, but in hindsight there are a few roller coasters that no on mentions.  The biggest culprit--- post wedding planning.  My husband and I decided not to do a honeymoon and to save our funds for something more important and valuable like a home. The most difficult hurdle to jump after our nuptials was changing my last name the entire process (which began way before wedding day) was an emotional one to say the least.  Deciding IF I was going to change my name, was like nothing I'd ever done before.  I'd ask myself: Am I betraying my family/my father?  The man whose last name I carried for the first 28 years of my life.  My Aunt Phyllis, who named me at birth and who reminds me that I called myself TyShantay for many of my little girl years.  Am I relinquishing my identity?  Everyone who knows me knows Tychier Young and all my life's experiences and accomplishments have been attached to that name because, well, simply put, it's who I am.

After spending long nights talking to my husband about my hesitance, he reassured me that my last doesn't determine his love for me, (though he did make it a point to let me that his preference is for me to carry his last name in some way).  After considering all things, I answered "no" to all those questions.  The next step was deciding to what and when to change my name.  Would I prefer to be drop my maiden name completely and keep my middle name? Change my middle name to my maiden name? Or, keep my full name and hyphenate my last name?  Everyone I spoke with had something different to say about what they would do or did.  My ultra feminist friends were like keep your last name.  Some were suggested that the reverse hyphenation sounded best. Most were like do whatever the hell you want! Who knew it would be so challenging? So, finally after a week of deliberating, I went online and filled out and printed paperwork for the three options I'd given myself to take to the Social Security Administration (SSA), placed them into a manila envelope where I carried them for another full week.  We established a day to drive over, Monday, October 26th.  During that week of processing it all, I decided that my name doesn't change the person I am and that I would like my husband randomly select my new name from the forms I'd prepared.  After an hour-long wait, I heard the representative call my number (one that I thought had been reassigned to someone else after speaking with the first person), so I sat there.  Then, I hear Mrs. Young, and we approached the desk, handed him my materials and told Tyrell to make a selection, and there it was.  Simple, right? Wrong.  Everything at the SSA went well, and I received my new card in less than a week.  The next obstacle is figuring out all other business and organization where an information update is required: DMV, human resources, everyone service you purchase, the insurance companies, etc. By the way, insurance company gave me a discount for being married! :)  I am still adjusting to my username change: from youngts to nickenty (my boss says every time she sees it she thinks "persnickety") Lol!

The name change makes me reminisce about when I was always last to do everything in school because my last name was at the end of the alphabet.  Then, I think of how things would have been different if I'd grown up with my new last name.  <----Random!

On the brighter side, we have been discussing relocating, home buying, growing our family, and retirement a heap more than usual.  I had baby fever for about a month after we wed.  My goodness I was a mess, oooing and aaaahing at every little person I saw, watching videos of them, researching names and their meanings, and reading pregnancy blogs every chance I could.  I eventually ventured more toward preparing for a family financially and emotionally then to just enjoying us in the process.  I found out some great news in the process!  Two of my bridesmaids are expecting a couple of weeks apart actually!  The kicker is they both were pregnant during the wedding and didn't know.  I can't express my excitement for them enough.  One of them (Ciera) just began a blog about her life and pregnancy, and I am too thrilled!

Well, I've started to ramble a little and this post has gotten a little out of hand, so I'm going to call it.  'Til next time!  Pics from the wedding to come!

I've Figured it Out...Kinda!

Wow...Here I am again.  Almost two years later, and I have figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life.  Well... sort of.  As of today, I have completed my final graduate school course before graduation!  Phew!  So, to reflect on my last post from 2013, I decided to apply for one program to see if I would get in, and... I did! I went with "what may be my passion," and pursued my M.S.Ed. in Educational Foundations & Leadership, informally known as, Higher Education.  I have learned so much about the woman that I am that I never knew before.  I am courageous, resilient, and my might is unyielding, but most of all I am here!  Initially, adjusting to the realm of higher education as a student who hadn't opened a textbook in a short few years was terribly difficult; I was a different person than I had been four years prior.  I was more intrinsically motivated this time around, but my priorities needed attention.  I had journeyed from the home I know and love to tackle this huge beast with no armor and no weapon, just a hope and a dream to be a better me.  I resigned from my job, moved into my apartment, started my new job and my first week of graduate school all in one week plus a few days.  I sure did.  I didn't know what to expect, but I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I had faith, determination, and zeal.  I worked full time, studied full time, and "lived" full time with a man that was my boyfriend of four years at the time.  I didn't know how interesting the journey would be, but let's just say that today I am a better woman, a stronger woman because of it.  Oh...and that man is now my fiancé!  Yup!  I'm marrying him this October.  What a way to end the year, huh?  He has been my biggest supporter and encouraged me to look at my healing scars when I thought I couldn't go on.  Packing lunches, rubbing feet, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, kissing and wiping my tears, reassuring me that it would all be worth it; he has done it ALL.  We struggled together, worried together, and turned that worry into prayer and faith together, we transformed together. Can't you tell I could write about him all day.  All I can say is...Wow!  What we've become is amazing.  I am because I did and he was!

Let no one every tell you that I #firstgen college student can't learn and grow.  Let us detach the negative stigmas associated with who we are; we should be proud of our attempts and even more so our successes.  And I leave you with this from Jodi Picoult...

"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo - far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance."

'Til next time!

Figuring it out???

Well...it's been some time since I last wrote a blog, so I here I am again.  There are no promises that I will continue from here with this or if this will be the last post to this blog.  This will be considered an attempt for me to compose some things that I am dealing with at the moment in hopes to receive some insight from someone...maybe?

At this stage in my life the two biggest issue (I'm going to call them situations) that I have to make are about graduate school and the rest of my life.  I've decided to appy to four universities, and I am super late at requesting the services of my references, I think I will send out formal emails tomorrow.  I am pondering re-taking the GRE since my scores weren't great, they weren't terrible either.  I guess we will just see where I get in with the assets I have because since I am applying to them I really don't care which I get into, the programs I'm interested in are all awesome.  The next step is completing the application by contacting possible references and writing the letters of interest.  OMG!  When I write them out it just sounds so simple, uh...maybe because it is!  I will shoot emails out tonight, begin my letters tomorrow at work, and just submit the applications!

Now...on to LIFE.  I am a 26-year old young woman, who hasn't really figured out what my aspirations are.  I remember telling an employee and a professor that I wish there was a degree title (The Everything Degree) where a student such as myself, who wasn't sure what they really loved to do and preferred to do with the rest of his/her life could just choose whatever classes they felt fit his/her life and as long as it amounted to the number of credits for degree completion then you could name your degree and graduate with a legit degree...I know, crazy huh?  Well, that's pretty much how I have been with life.  All over the place!  The only full time job I've ever held was temporary, an internship with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and I still couldn't get my foot back in the door once that was over- not even part-time.  I've done everything from working at Pizza Hut and YMCA to working for the state and federal governments, and this is where the rut begins.  I have narrowed my grad school program choice to Speech-Language Pathology (what I studied as an undergrad), Higher Education Administration/Adult Education(maybe my true passion), and Library Sciences (extended from my current occupation which I have also grown to love).  I will apply to the three programs and see how it goes, and I have set up plans for each case.  Well at least I've gotten that far!