10.16.18 learning lessons the hard way… again

So I forgot to eat breakfast. No big deal.

Except I left the house before six, have worked out, and it’s noon now. I’m shaking. (This will be necessarily short.) Usually I have snacks in my bag, but I have a different bag today. It’s fine.

So…. checking in.

Weight is up a couple pounds. Don’t know what’s up with that. Don’t actually care. My eating goals are more or less on track, and that’s the part I can control. Exercise is also good. It’s the sixteenth day of the month and I think I’m up to 22 workouts, which sounds crazy, but it’s just been what feels nice. Also, nearly half of those are 15-minute restorative yoga workouts, winding down from something more intense. Hydration needs to pick up, but it’s early yet.

Anyway. That’s all. Eat food. It’s a good idea. I’m going to go see what I can do for my poor blood sugar.

10.8… learning lessons.

Welp. This weekend, I thought I’d let some of my dietary boundaries slip just a smidge.

Poor idea. My body was SUPER unhappy. Also, I gained four pounds, which is just quantitative proof that my body was FREAKING OUT. (When I eat foods that it doesn’t like, I retain water. In that case, about half a gallon one day. It felt just as great as you imagine.)

Today, I’m back on track, and grateful for it. I feel way better.

Movement- I did half an hour of yoga while holding small weights. I actually don’t remember the last time I didn’t do some form of legitimate exercise. It’s been a few weeks.

Hydration: poor.

Snacks, etc: good (today).

Sleep: solid.

Carrying on.

*ahem* two months later on the “daily” blog…

Hi there!

You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?

You were right. Basically since the last post, I’ve started homeschooling the 6- and 7-year-old (that’d be two first-and-a-half graders to you) and I’ve been completely killing fitness.

I signed up for fit2b (aff link because I kinda love them) and there are more than two hundred (!!!) workouts of varying difficulties and targeting various problems and Beth, the main instructor, is a.) super endearing and b.) deceptively badass. She comes off as a really sweet kindergarten teacher, so when I’m done and I have literal streams of sweat dripping off my exhausted and collapsed body, I have no idea what happened.**

Anyway. Eating has gone back to something like normal. I avoid dairy. I mostly avoid sugar and wheat and eggs. It’s actually fine. There are a few meals my family has that I avoid, but mostly, I can modify or pick around stuff to make it safe for me. I need to cut back on snacking because that’s gone up in the last month or two. It’s been a stressful couple of months here (all the things around me seem to be exploding—my little nuclear family is fine, but everything outside of that is in some kind of upheaval) so salty carbs have been calling my name.

I’m chilling at about 245, which is roughly 20 lbs down from both January and July. We’ll take it.

Sleep is still reasonable (I’m doing pretty well averaging 8 hours) and hydration is hit-or-miss. (Today, it’s hit!)

So… that’s how it’s going here. And I’ll try to be a little more faithful to post. Action point for me is to limit snackage.

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**A few extra words about fit2b– it’s primarily targeted toward women recovering from diastasis after pregnancy or pelvic floor weakness, so all the workouts are done with safety and strengthening of those muscles. I actually don’t have any birth-related injuries (a miracle, given the 33 lbs of baby I’ve birthed), so, for me, it’s just a fantastic variety of core-aware workouts. Also, everything, including the memberships that give you access to all the things, is 25% off right now, because it’s their anniversary.

8.8.18. That’s a lot of EIGHTS! (Long overdue update.)

Hey! Remember that time last month I promised an actual weekly check-in?

Yeah, I pretty much don’t, either. It was a while ago.

Here it is:

I’ve been hovering between 248 and 250 for weeks now. When I started the elimination diet, I lost weight at the alarming rate of a pound and a half a day… for a bit. And then it settled. And here I stay. Which is fine, because a pound and a half every day means that I would straight up disappear before I turn 37.

I’m learning to eat. I’ve added in enough food that I can sorta manage normal food with my family. I’m still avoiding wheat and dairy. I haven’t formally introduced either, but I’ve cheated with them, and that usually goes poorly. There are lots of foods (soy, eggs, nightshades, grains) that I’m minimizing. But overall, I seem to be doing okay. I introduced coffee last week after a month, and that was MAGICAL. (It’s still a treat, not an everyday thing.)

I’m getting strong again. I joined an online fitness site called Fit2b on the recommendation of a friend. Its primarily focused on providing safe exercises for women who have diastasis recti (usually from pregnancy), which I’ve never had to deal with, but the approach to fitness is basically, “we want your muscles strong and safe.” they hit lots of muscles that don’t usually get a lot of attention because they don’t burn a lot of calories. there are 200+ workouts for various fitness and recovery levels, targeting different muscles. It’s been super helpful. I usually do two workouts a day (the Fit2b routines are 10-20 minutes, generally, so I do two of those or one plus a run or yoga).

I’m still sleeping a lot. I’m functioning well on 8-9 hours of sleep, which is a number I can live with. I can’t handle my life on 4-5 like I used to do regularly, but I’m okay with it. That kind of nonsense is what knocked me down.

Hydration is happening. Mostly because of the diet. The doctor recommends I drink the number of pounds I weigh, divided by two, in ounces. Which turns out to be a gallon or so. And, because I’m a compliant patient, I do. Usually.

7.18- the ongoing saga of the elimination diet

I’m so far behind. Here are the things that I have learned by eating food without ingredients for half a month:

• I am way better at self-control than I previously imagined.
• I can apparently drop a lot of weight pretty fast and the doctor says it’s… fine???
• Eggs and nightshades are both questionable in my diet. (Bummer.)
• I equate “full’ with “safe and okay.”

Wait, what now?

I equate “full” with “safe and okay.”

This makes TOTAL sense, based on my history, but I don’t know how to untangle it.

The first few days of this were HELL. I couldn’t eat much. The food was so-so. Then the night of the second day, I had the planned “coconut bowl” which is basically on-plan curry. It was AMAZING. I ate and ate and ate some more. When I got done, I felt my slightly overfilled belly and the words that spilled out my mouth were, “WOW! That’s a RELIEF!”

Full (or just past) feels like safety. Also, hunger (or just “not full) feels like danger. Which explains both my difficulties eating and probably plays into my adrenal issues. If my body dumps stress hormones EVERY DAMN TIME I’M HUNGRY, it makes sense to me that my adrenal glands might be a little overworked.

Ugh.

I’m having conversations with Jesus and with my body about this. But I don’t have any answers… just a bunch of irritation that it’s apparently a hard-wired issue. My hope is that I can teach my body to trust that I will feed it, much like I teach my children that hunger is not the end of the world because food is on the way.

It’s fine.

I’ll try to do a real check-in with weight and stuff this weekend. (Spoiler: I’ve lost almost 10 lbs. ?!?)

7.4.18- more weird crap going on here

So last time, we talked about how I can’t eat dairy and it’s pissing me off.

Then I had a conversation with my doctor, who told me that, in addition to skipping all the dairy, I should probably do a reset/elimination diet.

Bottom line? I have fewer than 18 ingredients to work with.

On the upside, I’m suddenly meeting ALL OF MY GOALS. Well, except the protein goal. I miss protein. (All of mine right now comes from chia, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds. So… definitely NOT 30g within an hour of waking.) Anyway…

Healthy meals and snacks? Yes.

Single servings? Also yes.

Hydration? Um. “Divide your weight in pounds by 2, and drink that many ounces of water.” I don’t think they realize how many pounds I weigh. So now I am drinking approximately one billion ounces of water because I weigh approximately two billion pounds. This means a lot of trips to the bathroom, which means my kids wreak all kinds of havoc. Whatever. It’s fine.

But also, as of this morning, I’ve lost three pounds SINCE MONDAY (That’s 48 hours of weirdo diet) so my body is doing SOMETHING. Hopefully that SOMETHING won’t be killing anybody over regular food.

6.23.18- normal Saturday

I didn’t weigh in this morning, but I am down a couple pounds- 258.8, so that’s… good, I suppose. It’s hard to take it as progress.

Basically, I’m just plugging along. Dairy-free for three whole days now, and it’s fine. I think licking my fingers is going to be the death of me, though. Dairy is a huge part of the kids’ diet, so I forever have yogurt or cream cheese on my fingers. Eventually, it won’t be reflex, I guess?

I went for another run today. This time, I took my second-born, who is full of energy and spunk and words. I wasn’t sure how it would go- was she going to make me crazy and turn a self-care run into a draining one? It went great, actually. We held hands during the walking parts and she ran without complaint when we ran. Again, I surprised myself with the amount of running I managed and how I feel after. I’m hoping to strengthen my glutes and my core a little more in the upcoming weeks so I can keep running without injury.

So that’s my goal: a sit-up and a squat per day. I hope to do a good deal more than that, but right now I just need to make it habit.

6.19.18 running and dairy

Two significant things happened today.

First, I got some lab results back. Turns out I have a dairy intolerance.

I’m so excited.

Just kidding. I’m mad as hell that I have to give away the brie that’s in my fridge, even though I know my sister will be very happy to have it. Dairy is a staple here and it’s an easy source of protein and I’m not quite sure how to work around it. I guess I’ll figure it out?

Secondly, I watched Kristen Bell’s Instagram story and she mentioned sweating out her rage over current events. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?!? Between immigration and dairy intolerance (how first world is that?) I just couldn’t deal today. So I went for a run after my husband got home.

It wasn’t very far or very fast (it never is) but it was the first run I’ve had in a long time because I don’t want to set myself back. I was surprised and encouraged by how much I ran (proportionately to my walking) and by how fine I feel now. Maybe I can do this again. Also, my brain feels better. Running is an excellent way to burn off the crazy.

6.11.18 a bowl of ice cream.

I made some bad choices this morning.

Rather, a combination of “doing my best” and “not prepared” led to bad circumstances. I skipped breakfast because I took one of the kids to a day camp way earlier than I usually have to be anywhere. “I’ll get something when I get back. I’ll be past my hour mark, but it’s okay.” But then I remembered that my license expired two weekends ago. I have an hour between now and when a friend comes over to my house for the first time ever. So that should be fine, yes?

No.

Missed breakfast AND arrived home after we were supposed to meet. (She is also a mom and she’s incredibly cool and she was a little late, too, so it wasn’t a big deal. But anyway, there was no breakfast.) The hangout was incredibly fun and life-giving, and I regret nothing.

I fortified my coffee with protein (which sounds gross but is fine and was totally a good choice) but by this time it was 11. By the time I got any actual food (eggs and spinach and avocado- another good choice) it was 1.

I was starving within an hour.

I had some nuts. Because that’s on the approved list.

I was still starving. I was a freaking bottomless pit all afternoon. I was starting to feel frantic as I was warding off cravings for the chips that I still have from a barbecue and sixteen bowls of ice cream.

For dinner, I fed my KIDS the chips (good job, me!) (except they totally fought over who got which snack-size bag of chips) and shared my big-ass salad with them. (Good job, again!) If you’re worried, they also got hot dogs. Hot dogs plus chips plus salad is totally legit. I mean, there was that time that K cut L’s hot dog in half and it was suddenly POISON, but otherwise, the meal was acceptable.

And right now, I want ice cream. I actually want ALL the ice cream, but I’m settling on a small bowl. I feel like I’ve earned it for not eating sixteen bowls of it earlier. Please do not examine my logic too closely. I’ll save you the effort: it’s horrible.

I have no brilliant take-aways from this. Just I’m trying really hard, and I’m still pretty bad at it, and salvaging a bad situation is good even if it ends in a small bowl of chocolate ice cream. It’s fine.

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You know what else is friggin’ FINE???

The fact that I actually posted this on my for reals blog. The one where I talk about all the Deep Things and Grace and Goodness and not usually the minutia of the things I put in my mouth. It’s like the old days of facebook. “So-and-so is… EATING CEREAL!” I pulled it down, but it got sent to the people who said they’d like to get my posts in their inboxes.

So… three cheers for humility. And facepalms. ALL the facepalms.

6.9.18 disappointment

Hey, y’all.

So check-in. I’m up around 261, which means I’ve basically given up any progress I’ve made. I’ve been doing all the things. I did yoga several mornings this week and other intentional movement other days. My breakfasts have been huge and packed with protein and good fats. My lunches have been suitably large. I’ve been de-emphasizing dinner. Water intake is good. Sleep is mostly good (says the gal staring at a screen at 10pm.)

I am so catastrophically disappointed in my body right now. I mean, I get it. I overdrew my accounts for a long, long time. I’m trying to do better. And in my head, I realize that AF is frequently a year-long recovery. But the rest of me is freaking out. Body, you have ONE JOB. You have to carry me around in my life. It’s not a small job, but I’m trying to treat you right. I’m doing the things. So get it together and start helping me do my life again, please and thank you.

I’m feeling really powerless and somewhat betrayed. I know what I’m responsible for and I’m FREAKING DOING IT. And it’s getting better- my energy is improving- but I used to be strong and have endurance, and now it’s all gone. And then there’s the weight. I know it’s a biochemical thing and my endocrine system needs to be set right (or closer to it) before my body’s going to stop freaking out and hoarding all the calories rather than letting them be energy. But that doesn’t make me feel a lot better right now. I’m at the worst body-image place I’ve been in a long time. I think it’s mostly discouragement.

So, on that cheery note… Night!