Tuesday, October 25, 2011: A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Hi all. Here are the highlights of this past week:

Saturday, 10/22/11: Lost 1.4 pounds at my Weight Watchers weigh in. I finally start dreaming of reaching my first 10-pound weight loss goal. Didn't exercise because it was the weekend.

Sunday, 10/23/11: After Saturday's success, I made the decision to try working with the "normal" 29 points instead of adding in my Points Plus values every day. It's become a game for me to see if I can stay within my food budget AND make my daily macronutrient goals. Guess what? I did it (for most of the week). Didn't exercise because it was the weekend. Had an awesome speaker for the recovery Bible study, our first speaker on our 4-week anniversary date :-)

Monday, 10/24/11: Thought of how losing my excess poundage will actually be like returning home to myself. Just as recovery and therapy have helped me get back a large bit of who I used to be, my body is tagging along to fit the rest of the new "old" me. Swam for 50 minutes!

Tuesday, 10/25/11: Worked on getting stuff together for the new Al-Anon meeting starting this Friday night. Otherwise nothing special. No exercise today.

Wednesday, 10/26/11: Went totally off plan with Peeps pumpkins and ghosts as well as a Reese's pumpkin. Think about ending my white sugar-and-flour (Fiber One brownie bars) binge. No exercise :-( Had my second Benlysta infusion.

Thursday, 10/27/11: Work begins on installing a new air-conditioning system in our house. Because the floors are all draped with drop cloths, which I can't walk on at all, I'm pretty much trapped inside. Too many ladders and working men around to do my physical therapy floor exercises, so no exercise again today.

Friday, 10/28/11: Trapped in the house again but happy that we will have more efficient airco next year and a new programmable heat thermostat for this winter :-)

Today, Tuesday, November 1, 2011: This morning (it actually started last night; I like to get a head start, LOL), I had an anxiety melt-down about the recent slow down in my editorial work as well as the new Al-Anon meeting: thinking I was going about it all wrong, that no one would show up, and that it would close within the month. Since the Al-Anon meeting was more immediate than finding a solution to the lack-of-work problem, I decided to put my focus there. It was challenging to "therapy" myself through something like this, but today I did it. I made extra time to spend with God; used a cool concordance my pastor gave us recently, in which I looked up helps for anxiety and read them; journaled about my thoughts and feelings; told my sponsor what was going on; and made the decision to go to my Tuesday Al-Anon meeting and share my thoughts and feelings, which was very helpful. I ended up getting a lot of encouragement, which felt great. Also lined up my first and second speakers for the month. 

I'm trying to exercise my faith muscles, and my Higher Power helped me talk myself down off the ledge today :-) See you this weekend.

October 22, 2011: I Will Not Beat Myself Up!

Hi all,

No food today, not because I haven't been tracking but just because I just plain don't feel like it. I've been struggling with not wanting to continue this blog versus wanting to keep my promise to myself at the beginning of the year. It reminds me of getting caught up in love, not legalism. Also, up until rather recently, I was doing very well with not eating white flour and sugar, but in the past month I've been seduced by Peep pumpkins and Fiber One brownie bars, which are great for my digestion but not so much for the joints. I've definitely notice an increased pain level in my body, and it seemed to show up after I had my first Benlysta infusion. I was probably being hyper-vigilant for early changes (it could take up to 6 months before I know if it's helping or not), but the timing also coincided with a few weeks of increased sugar and flour consumption. I have been allowing myself "binges," but just on the weekend, but it escalated to at least once during the week, too. So, although I feel as if keeping this blog has helped me to increase my conscious contact with God and carry out His will (the Bible study will be four weeks old tomorrow, and the new Al-Anon meeting launches November 4th), I feel like I'm slipping in the mechanics of abstinence, so I think it would be better for me to keep going with it even though I've been resisting. I really don't want to fall down the rabbit hole again!

On the weight loss front, I must be doing something right because I lost 1.4 pounds today per my weekly Weight Watchers weigh-in. That would be awesome if I didn't have the symptom of increased pain. So, it really just shows that although I'm within my points range, I'm eating the wrong types of food. My addiction has been reactivated simply through my laziness and perhaps complacency, and I feel sad for that. Maybe if I admit this at the recovery Bible meeting tomorrow night, it will help. I can give it a try. I have nothing to lose.

Here are some of the options I have considered for keeping this blog on reasonable (i.e., it works with my increasingly busy life) long-term basis:

1. Blog but eliminate logging the food

2. Keep logging the food but blog only once a week

3. Close the blog

The last one feels "drastic" to me and offers me no closure. The first one feels superfluous. It eliminates an important element of the experimental equation, no matter how dreary it is to do. The middle option seems to be the best to me right now, so I'm going to go with it. Publishing one blog post once a week (most probably on the weekend) feel doable to me. However, I have to think of a way to log the highlights (and lowlights) of my week, perhaps by coding them somehow in my tracker and then transposing them here. I like to work with colored markers and highlighters, so this might work for me :-)

I'll give it a try, OK? Look for my posts on a Saturday or Sunday (if anyone is actually reading) :-)

October 1, 2011: Tooth Extraction = Ouch!

Yesterday's food:


God time? No

Exercise? Yes (housecleaning)

Points: 38/36

[P]

[P]

[V]

[V]

[V or F]

[F]

[F]

[St]

[St]

[D] Wawa F'Real chocolate milkshake

[D] Chobani yogurt
[D] Chobani yogurt
[D] Edy's milkshake
[D] Edy's milkshake

[Sn]

[Sn]

[Nightfood bar] No

[W] Two cups

Oy-freakin'-vey. I had four teeth extracted yesterday (and, yes, I opted for "twilight" anesthesia). I wasn't allowed to eat anything but cold, soft food yesterday; hence, all the bolded food categories (even though I didn't have a choice in this situation). I'm actually pretty amazed that I could eat all that sugar and just go over by 2 points on my eating plan.

The surgery went pretty well, and afterward my roommate took photos of me with gauze stuffed in my cheeks and sticking out of my mouth like fangs. We sent a photo to my brother, and he texted back, "Does she have rabies?" which gave all of us, including the dentist, a good laugh. I came home smiling despite the pain I was feeling, and that is truly a gift of my being closer with my Higher Power. In general, I've been noticing an increased capacity to laugh at my life situations instead of taking everything with dreaded seriousity [sic], and I know that's a fruit of the spirit even if it's not actually in the Bible, LOL.

Speaking of the Bible, the recovery Bible study I'm co-leading starts tomorrow night, and I'm feeling nervous despite having prayed on it. A wise person once told me that nervousness becomes excitement if you breathe into it, so that's what I'm going to work on tonight. There's a certain amount of "getting ready" that hasn't been accomplished yet, and might not get done before tomorrow night, so this is also a chance for me to just answer God's calling in my life by suiting up and showing up, doing the best I can, and then letting go and letting God take care of the rest. Good thing I don't mind flying by the seat of my pants once in a while :-)

I found the culprit to my stalled weight loss over the past 8 weeks or so: I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray. I love that stuff as much as sugar. On the nutrition label it says one serving has no calories, no fat, and 1% of the daily value for sodium . . . when you use only 5 sprays, which is one serving. Five sprays amounts to about a quarter of a teaspoon (yes, I tested it). Doesn't work so well when I pour, not spray, it on by the quarter-cupful. In my mind and stomach, vegetables are merely a vehicle for butter (or something like it). Problem was, I was consuming about 1.5 times the RDA for sodium (1500 mg) several times each day (I have to eat a certain amount of veggies daily on the Weight Watchers plan). Simply put, I was retaining water. I cut my use of ICBITB spray way down and lost 1.5 pounds last week. I wish I had asked my group leader about my problem earlier, but as usual I had to think at first that I could solve my plateau on my on. Just goes to show you that two heads are sometimes better than one, LOL.

So, that's all for now. I'm sure I'll be blogging about tomorrow night's experience of the Bible study. Until then, take care.