here we go again

I have been on Keto now for about a month.  I have had some cheats I guess, i have had two bananas, three yams split up between two of us, a few potato chips, three twizzlers, two carrots split between two people, a handful of croutons, and a bean dish once a week (lentils, black beans and white beans one can each (cup of lentils) split two ways.

And every Saturday we have been getting like cheese sticks and fried mushrooms and jalepeno poppers for dinner.  Tommy eats wings.

He has lost so much weight it startles me everytime I look at him.

I think I have gained weight.

I kid you not.

What the fuck.

What the actual….sorry i am so mad.

Also I have been working out in a hot water therapy pool twice a week for an hour.

I am depressed.  Seasonal Effective Disorder, forgetting my low level dose of antidepressant a couple days a week, chronic headaches, disgusting Keto mouth, dizziness, and not losing any damn weight.  Why not eat bread and pasta?

Please explain this to me.

I am getting gastric bypass.  I will talk to my doctor about it this week at my physical.

I am sooo upset.

I have been thinking about a bunch of things lately and I need to write them down.  I have another blog I like but unfortunately some of the people I need to write about are followers so I need to work this out in a safe place.

One I can be very intense sometimes.  Loud, maybe obnoxious, and melodramatic.  But in my life people have wanted me to quash my boisterousness.  I am very introverted, even more so in the last 5-6 years than ever before, in part because I have felt that I am judged negatively for boisterousness.  In the past I have been labeled as melodramatic, weird and opinionated.  These labels are kind of mean.  The other day my SO said I was unique, which I read as weird.  He thought it was a compliment.  I thought it was hearkening back to being voted weirdest in my class.  I didn’t like it.  Which brings me to love languages.  I think part of my current wallow is that my needs are not being met.  I need cuddling, not getting cuddled.  I need compliments, not getting compliments, I need recognition, not getting it.  I know I need to stop needing anything.  But these are my love languages and the longer I go without these things, the worse I feel.

I need also to stop tamping down my true self, to start expressing my feelings as I express them, and to stop being challenged to change to suit someone elses idea of how a person should act.  This is a long long long life process.  I act the following positive ways, I am loving and caring, I am honest and forthright, I am creative and productive, I am passionate and invested.

But I am loud, and not always as organized as I want to be.  I am not detail oriented, and I am not ……. the list goes on right?  The thing is do I have to be all of these things?  Why is perfection the goal, when I am just fine as I am?  Even with these so called imperfections.

I mean seriously.  I spent all these years looking at my relationship with my ex husband as MY failures.  But here he is with a little girl younger than my daughter, looking like her dad, and dumping the woman he dumped me for for her.  Its gross and not my business, but in the end, these are his failure to maintain a commitment to one woman, to toss aside the people he commits to for his own benefit.  He doesn’t speak to me, because he cannot live with his own failings as a man, not because of anything I have done.

And my mom, with her verbally abusive behavior, her criticisms, her putting downs, her anxiety with my sister, her selfishness, these are her problems.  Frankly her telling me to be ashamed of who I am is her issue, not mine.  Its because her needs were not being met that I am somehow a failure.  But I have needs too, and I shouldn’t have to put aside, wanting a few minutes to myself, wanting a present spouse, wanting fidelity and honesty, wanting love and affection, and wanting to be praised for the job well done, and wanting my creative products to be recognized.  These are not asking too much.

I am not asking for more than I deserve.

head of lettuce

It occurs to me that all these issues with inflammation occurred when I was living there in that place with the pirate.  Was it a tick bite that went undetected?  There were certainly enough excursions in the brush, enough ticks seen, enough prescriptions for antibiotics for the dog.  I stopped walking in the park the last time I ran into the ex husbands stalker girlfriend.  I stopped going to yoga, I don’t even know why.  It was like I was suddenly shut down.  Locked up.  I started to drink pretty heavily too, at least for me.  More than a six pack a month.  More than a six pack a week.

My body hurts.  Once a staunch advocate of the firm handshake, my hands cannot even take that anymore.  Assists to get up by my man’s giant bear paws and I tell him just let me hold your hand don’t squeeze.  I pay for monthly massages.  I don’t exercise as much.

I have also been in dormancy. This place where I shut down, I have not been able to be confident enough to spend time, even with people I love dearly.  I am sure they secretly hate me, make fun of me, gossip behind my back.  I find it difficult to follow the conversations and attempted interactions with others.  I zone out.  Its partially the addiction o the internet.  My mind is being coddled and cocooned.  And curdled.

And pickled too.

I stopped eating wholesome whole foods too.  when did that happen?  I don’t even know.

but lately, I find I don’t want meat as much.  foregoing pulled pork for an eggplant cutlet sandwich with coleslaw.  Foregoing a hard roll and a sausage patty for onions, garlic, peppers and mushrooms, no seasonings, over pasta sprinkled with romano cheese. Favoring with explicit delight in my daily banana, spinach, avocado and whole unsweetened yogurt shake.  I have tried sweet potatoes, butternut squash and even beets, but I always go back to that. The beets are okay, i mean they are, but its a texture thing.

And tea, I am trying to make tea with dinner, so that I drink that instead of wine.

Chamomile, Lavender and lemongrass.

 

Still Losing?

After a few days of vacation several large glasses of craft beers of multiple varieties and at least two dinners of wood fired pizza in Burlington VT, I am back to where I was two weeks ago.

Here are some of the important changes I have made.

1. When you drink, you should drink wine, my best friend drinks vodka with crystal light.
2. Replace all sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages with water or seltzer or tea.
3. No more than one small carb per day (couscous about two tablespoons, a small handful of baked light crackers, five or six bow tie pasta pieces, two tablespoons of macaroni salad etc)
4. Dessert once or twice a week in pre-set serving sizes. (ie ice cream sandwiches are a great example as opposed to a half gallon of ice cream – take one sandwich)
5. No peanut butter or nut butters at all.
6. If you are going to eat nuts, and you should from time to time, they are really good for you, I recommend dark chocolate covered ones, this counts as your dessert.
7. Sleep, sleep, sleep – get an RX for flexeril aka cyclobenzeprene, take it at 7pm every night.
8. Play with your grandchild, children, dog, students, play!
9. Appetite suppressants are essential to the process *said the girl who hates medication. I take one in the am, before work, I cannot eat unless I bring in the food at my job.  We don’t have time to go out for lunch. I take two before I head for home.  On weekends I take two in the am and two in the afternoon.
10. B12 supplements help you feel energetic.
11. Pizza is my splurge item.  I am allowed pizza once a week, reduce your normal portion.  *Choose your splurge item.  Allow it once a week, aka if you love pasta, have a small portion one a week.  If you love and don’t want to give up tortilla chips and guacamole, eat a small portion once a week. etc. Only one item can be a splurge item.
12. Allow yourself a day every other week or so, where you don’t think about food.  Eat what you want throughout the day.  And don’t feel guilty for it.

Keep going.  Just keep going.  Do not give up.

 

 

 

I feel pretty, oh so pretty

Several months ago I bought a pair of pants one size larger than the other pants I had from the same designer, but man they were so tight, and I hated wearing them because I was yanking on the waistband all day.

Today they feel awesome, and I have had to pull them up a couple of times.

And earlier this week, I had my secondhand store, second hand black leather jacket, that I could not button two months ago, and I was able to button it.

I am so happy for this.

But more than that I am happy for this diet.  The all bars and all shakes diet was not good for me, because it did not teach me to eat properly and I felt like crap physically the whole time I was on it.  Perhaps the constant loss of potassium was not helping.

I still indulge in pizza once a week, I have to, and dark chocolate chips for dessert each night.  These are indulgences I do not wish to live without.  At the beginning I said, ugh I have to give up coffee, craft beer, pizza, snacking, potatoes, bread, pasta, beans….But I have realized that I can live without most of it.  Especially now that I am eating healthier and not having the joint pain and the bloated feeling.  Although I am sleeping like I haven’t slept in years, literally; I fall asleep at 830-9 and sleep like the dead til 6 and am still tired.

I returned to the coffee, I drink it black so what is the big deal.  I replaced the craft beer with seltzer for now.  And am drinking about 1/4 of a beer when the fiance shares with me.  (He is the best guy!)  And white wine on the weekends.  Once a week I am eating regular pizza, but only a couple slices and no wings.  I had sauteed zucchini, mushrooms and scallions earlier this week instead of mashed potatoes.  I only miss homemade bread and biscuits a little.  I have begun eating beans again, because without them I was not getting enough to go to the bathroom, and now that I am pooping again, I am losing weight more quickly.

The appetite suppressants are a godsend.  Honestly, I hate taking drugs and I hate that I have to use pills, but it helps to get through this difficult phase of LOSING weight if you don’t feel hungry all the time.  I am on my second bottle, and at some point I will cut out the suppressant in the morning and just do evenings and weekends, which is my hardest times for wanting to stuff my face.

And to help with my pizza love, I am making cauliflower crust, and to help with my Mexican food love, I made a delicious sweet potato and oat crust and put beans and homemade salsa on top and a small amount of soy cheese.  Cut it into multiple servings and mmm.  So tasty.  The diet says NO sweet potatoes, but they are so healthy and so filling and so tasty that I decided that it is okay.  as long as I am not eating a whole one every day.  I just used two and shredded them and made basically eight servings worth.

Today I feel pretty.  I mean, I am half a century old, and fat and short and a little crazy, but today, I feel good.

Connection

The geese fly in a long line across the sunny spring sky.  In a city where the grey is pervasive and constant, a suggested city for vampires to live in due to our plethora of dark and gloomy days.

I sometimes find myself connecting more to service providers than I do to the people that I call friends.  I get along better with my weight coach than I do with my co workers.  Get along better with my hair dresser than I do with my friends, see her more too.  I like my massage therapist so much I want to invite her to  parties that I plan but never have.  Who would want to come to my stupid “tea” anyway?  I don’t even have enough tea cups.

Why can I talk to these women, but not my friends?  What is the difference?  There is certainly a connection, a weekly or monthly visit for an hour or so.  When I have just openly admitted I would rather be reading.  Or playing my game.

Last night I danced with the baby, while we all played percussion instruments.  I was laughing and playing and singing like a crazy woman.  But I felt happier in that moment than I had all day.  I said to the big guy,  “Its like this is real life and the rest is just pretending.”

 

Inauthentic

I sometimes, maybe all the time, feel like I am not authentic.  Oddly most people would tell you I am deep, that I over share, that I truthful and trustworthy and that I am a genuine person.  So why do I feel inauthentic?

Whenever I would go to the Zen Center, and it was Dokusan, I hated how the bell would ring and everyone would jump up and run as fast as they could.  I hated the bowing and walking backwards out of the room with Roko Osho.  Who the hell does she think she is that I have to bow to her and not turn my back to her.  I hated being told I couldn’t stretch in front of a statue of the Buddha, and that my knee length shorts had to be covered by an ill fitting robe.

When my ex husband and I would go out to a fancy restaurant, I would hear my parents saying “you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”. Surely I didn’t belong.  And this absence of belonging is pervasive in every area of my life.

At work/school, I feel like I have to be a test loving super teacher, when really I hate testing and I am a good teacher, but I hate the confines of the teacher evaluation system.  I want to wear leggings and baggy shirts so I can crawl around on the floor and get paint on my clothes without being worried.

Why do I wear make up anyway?  Who am I trying to impress at this point.  No one even notices.  Least of all my fiance.  And frankly I hated my ex husband for wanting me to dress differently than I did, and my ex boyfriend for calling me stupid fat and ugly, and a lazy slob.  Of which only fat and maybe lazy is true.

I remember my grandparents calling me lazy as a small child.  Presumably because they had a disaster in the basement and I said I was on vacation and went to read my Hardy Boys book or maybe it was Nancy Drew.  And I seriously would rather have my nose in a book, or be painting, or maybe writing than doing just about anything else.  And every time I do housework, it isn’t five minutes before the thing I cleaned is either cluttered or filthy anyway.  (Teen-aged men, dogs, cats, babies, and working man, then me often throwing my belongings when I come in and running to the bathroom, and then recovering from my work persona for the remainder of the day.

When I had my own house, and lived alone, the house was pretty much always clean and tidy though.

But the lawn wasn’t always mowed.  And the garden wasn’t always weeded, and I had this incorrigible habit of sweeping the hair and dirt up and leaving it in a pile because I didn’t want to search for a dustpan.

I would rather have my nose in a book, you see, even when a disaster, like dust bunnies, is waiting to be handled

 

What is your worth?

This is my desk at work, no matter how many times a day I clean it, it is always a mess. This is one thing I dislike about myself. Why can’t I keep it tidy, basically ever?

I struggle with my feelings of self worth.  This has been an especially bad year for me with this struggle.  My weight, living last spring and summer with my Mom who told me a number of times that I should be ashamed of myself, for being an introvert, for needing time to myself, for getting grumpy when I was sick, and now her being east and her games with my sister and putting me in the middle, and her game with offering money to everyone, but making me pay.  Its all so wearing.  I know first world problems.  I don’t want to be sitting here, fat and on the verge of tears, having nightmares of my ex husband all night and not making it to work on time, and not being prepared, showering in a room instead of a tub, and not having clothes to wear and not being prepared.

I ask on social media, what am I doing right?  What am I doing wrong?  The first step, they tell me is in asking the question, in self reflection.

They tell me I have a good soul, that I am a beautiful person, that I am strong and giving.  And I think of who I am.

I need to start examining these things, and I want to use this blog to do it.  Will you join me on this journey?

What is your self worth?  What is it about yourself that you love?

 

 

 

Week Four

I have been on the Vitamin Med diet for four weeks, I have lost ten pounds.  I am good with that so far, but would love to lose more.

I had a rough week and ate alot of stuff I was not supposed to eat, a loaded baked potato at a church fundraiser on Friday, pizza and beer on Saturday, fried catfish and sweet potato fries on Monday, and a whole box of thin mint Girl Scout cookies from Monday thru Wednesday.  Somehow, I still managed to lose a half a pound.

I am still horribly constipated from this diet, but last night after talking to my coach we discussed returning my beloved breakfast shake.  When I woke up this morning I felt invigorated and ready to hit it hard again.  I know the beans will be the fiber my body needs.

My shake, with 1/4 cup of kidney beans, a huge handful of spinach and 1/2 a banana with a cup of unsweetened almond milk was FUCKING phenomenal.  It tasted so delicious.  I missed it so much.

With the weather warming up, and the general constant feeling of pain in my body all but gone, I am going to start walking again.

I cannot wait, too bad its 10 degrees F. outside.

Short and a little less fat

Wow, so this diet is really working.  I am in shock.  Also I feel so much better.

This diet is the VitaminMed diet.  I have an appetite suppressant twice a day, B12 spray twice a day, and some drops of something (who knows what) before bed.  Yesterday was my second full week on the program so I was given a Lipo something B12 shot.  I know really concerned about what is entering my body here. (NOT)

I have lost 7 pounds!  What?  yeah.

I have cut way back on caffeine and coffee.  I thought it would be hard, but I bought these awesome tea cups and infusers from Tea Forte and some of their pre-made teas.  My favorite is the Cherry, it replaces an evening dessett.  I also am having a selzer at night too to replace beer or wine.  I have had a couple of beers, I will admit and two slices of pizza but for the most part I have remained on the very strict diet.

I eat two servings of fruit a day.  Two or three servings of lean protein and veggies upon veggies.  They provide you with a good recipe book, but since I am a decent cook to begin with I have been okay.

I have had several boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my drawer at work for the duration of the diet and I haven’t even cracked one open!  What?  I know!

I feel amazing.  I have been telling myself for YEARS to drink more herbal tea, and eat more veggies.  And here I am doing it.  Finally.

I also had a thing with pork recently where I had this overwhelming feeling that eating that chunk of pork roast was akin to eating human flesh.  It gagged me horribly.  Even raw chicken has begun to bother me.  My friend who is an advocate against over fished oceans would be upset, but I am eating shrimp a couple times a week and fish one other day.  And so much of this wonderful marinated tofu and tempeh or a boiled egg for most of my proteins.

I am in less pain.  I feel and see that the fat is melting off of me.  I am sleeping better too!  And since this diet is dairy free, no gas and no urgency to use the bathroom.  Although I am not going nearly as often as I would like to be.

I will add more and update as this goes along.