I’m in my usual countdown panic as I try to tie up things in the UK and think ahead to what I’m going to need for the next 6 weeks in Canada.

And I’m still reflecting on this past week of “stepping back”.

All in all it’s been a good thing.  I’ve been chilled out about food and have lost the weight I gained due to stupid eating.  I’ve done a bit of running and a bit of walking and have enjoyed not writing it all down.

In my “counting unhatched chickens” way, I was thinking that I would have a relaxed week, get a final diagnosis from the senior consultant and then get on with life in whatever direction it was going to go.

But instead, as is normal in these “pre-hatched chicken counting” situations, I didn’t get any news at all from the appointment. Instead,and I quote the consultant, “we are back at square one”, which means that I know nothing more than I knew 6 months ago. I feel knocked back and maybe not quite as reslilant as I thought I was feeling.

But one good thing came out of a not very good appointment.  Firstly, I decided to take the husband into the room just so he could witness what I’ve been up against.  The senior doc was NOT pleased that I was seeing him rather than the other guy but – and this is the new thing for me – I just didn’t care. I think maybe I’m getting to the point where I’m not feeling awkward about being a pain.

Anyway, after telling me that there was no news, he leaned back in his chair and said, “Would you like me to refer you to the specialist liver unit for a second opinion even if it is a bit early for that?”

Old me might have given the decision back to him, asked him if I should wait until his team had had another chance.   New me just said, “Yes, I would.”

New me was also still too polite to ask how I could possibly get a second opinion when I hadn’t had a first one yet. But never mind.  I figure, God willing, I can be rude when I’m an old lady.

The slightly humourous thing about hospital appointments is that, when you step on the scales, everyone is hoping that you haven’t lost any weight. The nurse who weighs you smiles and commends you for not being much lighter than you were 3 months ago, and the doctor comments on how well you’re not losing.  I didn’t dare tell them how bloody hard I’d been working to lose it.  And I was truly glad to know that I could sit there and not worry that the pounds were falling off for the worst possible reason.

Funny old world.

I get frequent emails from RealAge – you know, health news for people with no attention span, which suits me just fine most days.  Usually I read and delete but yesterday I got fed up with the words “a new study” or “recent research” that they throw out there all the time.

One of yesterday’s tidbits interested/annoyed me enough to go looking for the original research.

According to the abstract, the researchers’ hypotheses were:

that dieting, or the restriction of caloric intake, is ineffective because it increases chronic psychological stress and cortisol production—two factors that are known to cause weight gain; and to examine the respective roles of the two main behaviors that comprise dieting—monitoring one’s caloric intake and restricting one’s caloric intake—on psychological and biological stress indicators.

Basically they wanted to prove that dieting fails because both reducing calories and tracking calories increase stress levels.

121 women were split into four groups:

• monitoring & restricting – ate 1200 calories/day and tracked their caloric intake
• monitoring only – tracked their calories but ate normally
• restricting only – were given 1200 calories per day in prepared food so not tracking was needed
• control – ate normally and did not track calories

The results?

Restricting calories increased the total output of cortisol, and monitoring calories increased perceived stress.

The RealAge advice based on this one study?

So while it’s good to think about what you’re putting in your mouth, don’t obsess about it. Watch portion sizes, choose healthy foods, be aware of how many times you visit the snack cupboard, but don’t make things too difficult.

I do get the point about stress and obsessing and fully accept that starvation is bad, but I think the overall advice is pretty poor. And I’m especially pissed off that they make it sound like “eating more” and “winging it” are going to help you reduce belly fat!  BELLY FAT: every woman’s enemy.  I can’t believe that an editor didn’t stand back from both the headline and the advice and think, “Oh no – that could do more harm than good to overweight people who are completely out of touch with how much food they really need.  And using the belly fat thing is probably a little too emotive.”  You’d think. You really would.

Pamela Peeke has come up with a much more reasoned response. And yes, I think it’s reasoned because I’ve had similar thoughts myself.

I hadn’t realised quite how angry that one little email made me.  Maybe we should do some research into the effect of poorly thought out health advice on cortisol levels then we could follow it up with a really helpful headline and a “tip of the week”.

Flatten your belly with this reading habit.

If you want to lose belly fat, don’t read snippets of health advice on the internet.

After four months of appointments, blood tests and scans of the expensive kind, I’m no closer to understanding what I’ve got than when my GP sent me my ultrasound report.  So on Tuesday I decided to take more control of my situation.   I wrote a letter with all my unanswered questions to the consultant and took a copy to my GP.

The GP thing was the best move ever as she was appalled that I didn’t have any answers to fairly straightforward questions.

Then the specialist phoned me at home to ask about the letter and STILL didn’t answer any of the questions. He really doesn’t get it and I think I’ve run into a huge cultural wall.  I’m just not sure which one.

Is it just that he’s a medical specialist and I’m a medical nothing?

Is it that he’s a man who doesn’t like to be questioned by women?

Is it more that he’s a man from a very male dominated Asian culture and I’m a woman?

At first I was blaming the “Canadian in Britain” thing but I’ve worked with a few specialists over the years and not one has been anything other than polite, respectful of my questions and informative.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had such a positive experience of all things NHS (National Health Service) that this has really stunned me.

Anyway, after having told me that my case would go to a committee of other specialists, it now seems that he’s going to have a chat with the radiologist.  Not good enough.

I’m off to Canada for a month but will be in touch with my GP and insist on seeing a real liver specialist when I get back.  I was almost ready to collapse into a depressed heap over this until the husband reminded me that I need to fight for my own health and peace of mind.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

I’m also going to hold steady on the weight thing.  I’m still around 144lbs – pretty much where I wanted to be.  I don’t want weight loss confusing health issues right now.   I am, however, going to get as much fresh air as possible and just walk all I can in daily life until I’m back.

In the mean time, there’s SO MUCH to do before I go.

My very best Lent was back in the early 90s when I gave up guilt.  I decided to be conscious about how many times a day/week/month I felt bad because I was letting down my kids/husband/friends/neighbours/community/the world in general and it was a lot.  So I quit for Lent and have never been that guilt-ridden again.

This Lent is going to take me right up to my next appointment with the specialist.  Tests will have been done, MRI results in.  This is a big ask, but I’m going to stop worrying about it for 40 days and spend that normal worry time working on my spiritual life. If any of my symptoms change I’ll just go to my gp.

Simple?  No.  But that’s why it’s a good thing to do for Lent.  It will require a little faith, a little hope and a lot of discipline.  I will have to interrupt my own thoughts regularly.  I will practice deep breathing and pray as best I can.

What does this have to do with food/body sanity? Everything insofar as stress leads to out of control eating and fear of illness leads to a “who cares” attitude about caring for my body.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

By the way, if the best Lent was when I gave up guilt, the toughest was the one when I gave up coffee.  I don’t think it made me a better human being or drew me any closer to God.

My long awaited specialist appointment can be summed up in the following conversation:

Me: Can you explain the ultrasound results?  My gp said they were unusual.

Doc – with many many years of training:  No. We can explain the usual but not the unusual.  That’s why it’s unusual.

Ok, thanks.  He was actually a good, non-patronising human being but he also wasn’t going to tell me there was nothing to worry about.  Instead, and I quote again, he said, “There is both worry and no worry”, which I’m pretty sure translates to, “It could be something; it could be nothing”.

SO. ……my big challenge is to live as though it is nothing,  even though that not-so-little-voice is BOOMING in my ear that it bloody well could be fatal.  You see my challenge.

So now I’ve said it, I’m going to write as though everything is fine and I will keep doing that until I know something to the contrary.  That’s called “Faking It” and it’s not one of my born talents.  I prefer blabbing out the truth of the matter even if it’s not warranted in that situation.  But this time I’m going to hold it in – or at least express it sparingly and in the right arena.

In the process, I’ve got to get over the feeling that I’m an idiot to concentrate on losing weight if I’ve actually got something seriously wrong.  I actually had a conversation with myself at the gym yesterday and came to the conclusion that I should lose weight and get fit ESPECIALLY if I’ve got some physical thing to fight.

Well, another “duh” moment on this journey.

Tomorrow – WW weight loss cards: the story of my life.

A mildly depressive personality is the flip side of some great blessings in life. I don’t want to stop being creative or visionary. Therefore, I have to put up with the fact that sometimes my mood will dip below “fed up” and into a place that I’d rather not be.

I’m also very very lucky that the dips rarely last more than a few days and I can wake up one morning feeling absolutely fine. Today I feel almost absolutely fine. Don’t know why and I don’t want to put too much energy into figuring it out. Generally, life is exactly as it was yesterday and the day before so I’ll accept the brighter day as a gift and get on with it.

The one thing I do want to talk about is weight and depression. Many people (ie doctors) feel that weight loss is a “normal” sign of depression. Well let me tell you (and them), sometimes it’s the opposite.

As soon as I start sleeping nine hours a night and finding that simply I must feel full all the time, I know it’s time to pay attention, pull back, draw in and take the pressure off – whatever that pressure is at the time.

There was a time when I’d have said that weight gain is a symptom of depression but now I realise that it’s a result of not paying attention when things are sliding. Usually, when I start feeling low, I don’t go near a scale or give a thought to what or how much I’m eating. The result is that I am thrown way off the healthy and sane path and right onto the crazyiness of the gaining and losing pendulum. hmmmmm.

Of course, depression is only one of many many life situations that have caused that in my life. So what’s going to be different this time, now that I refuse to get on the pendulum? I guess, no matter how I’m feeling, I’ve got to figure out how to get of the house, walk to do errands, eat to full but not crazy full. I may not be able to lose weight during a darker time but I can do everything in my power not to make weight gain a “symptom of depression”.

This is different. Thinking new thoughts is like trying on a style of clothes that you’ve seen in the shops but thought could never work for you. I’ve just tired on something and I think it fits.

I’ll walk around in it for a while and see how it goes.

PS/Edit

I realised I felt brighter even before I stepped on the scale and saw the loss. So maybe there’s a connection between water retention and depression?

Well.
It turns out that feeling a bit depressed is, in fact, the same as being a bit depressed.

What a bizarre day I had yesterday.

I spent all day with my brain in two places at once.  Sane brain was thinking about all the things I could be doing to take care of myself in a positive way.  Crazy brain was demanding that food be stuffed down in the largest quantities and at the fastest speed possible.

Two brains – and one certainly out-shouted the other.

But why?  If I don’t ask that question and come up with a good answer, I will stumble into that kind of day again.

So why?

• It was the first anniversary of my dad’s death and I was alone all day.  The people I needed most were, at absolutely no fault of their own, in time zones eight hours either side of me.

• In the bigger picture of life, I am living in the wrong place.  Frustratingly, I love what I do here and I love so much about living here – but my heart is somewhere else and I need to figure out how to deal with that emotionally.  Being able to live on two continents is a huge privilege.  But the way it works in practice means that, no matter where I am, I’m missing someone or something significant. That gaping hole is perfect for filling with food.

So….the question isn’t really “Why?” but “What am I going to do about the gaping hole?”

Answer:  Trust – Love – Pray – Move – Look outward rather than inward…..maybe I’m not in the place for that one.

But what I really want to do is make plans.  I’m a person who hates the unresolved.  I like solutions, answers – knowing where I’m going next.  This is one time in my life where every solution raises more unresolved issues and that makes me stressed in the biggest possible way.

So I’ve established that life is not what I want it to be – but every time I start thinking like that, I have a chorus of positive voices in my head singing out the good things in my life.  There are so many that I can’t see how I can feel low – that’s what makes me think that “feeling depressed” may include an element of “being depressed”.

OK – I’m going to leave it there.  I’m ok.  Really.  I live with this “edge of reason” stuff all the time and I always get through it and come out feeling just fine, thanks.

For today I’m going to eat little, drink lots and get some stuff done around the house.  There is nothing in life that isn’t made a little better by having a clean and orderly house.  Laundry first.

Thanks for listening.

Oh – last thought:  there is nothing in life that can’t be made a little worse by eating till you feel sick.  Amen and out.

I rarely get sick. My viral history for 2009 was a three day cold in January.

But I get things. Things that require prodding and poking and scanning and sometimes slicing and dicing. And when I get these things I find it hard to think of anything else.

I guess you’ve guessed that I’ve got a thing.

I was great with the GP telling me that I had an ulcer. And fine when she suggested an ultrasound to rule out gallstones.

But the words “cystic” and “lesion” in the same sentence have sent my anxiety levels into the stratosphere. DO NOT GOOGLE THEM. In fact, I haven’t given you enough information to make googling a worthwhile adventure.

Last year I started with – “let’s just have this checked” and was under a general anaesthetic within the month. It seems to be happening again. And it makes Christmas a very stressy time.

So what does this all do to the eating?
Part of me can’t eat because I feel kind of sick.
Part of me wants to stuff down the carbs to quell the anxiety.
Part of me wants to eat a tub of ice-cream to prove that I’m not losing weight as a symptom of a fatal disease.
But all of me really wants to be sane.
Sadly, it being Christmas, and me being all alone in this house until the end of the week, this may not be a possibility. (Thank God for the arrival of the husband on Friday – he knows me.)

My GP is not worried and told me three times in one conversation not to let it spoil my Christmas. She did point out that, if they were really worried, I would have been rushed in on the 2 week plan for people with suspected cancer.

(It’s an extraordinary policy of the UK government and it works – at least in our area. The downside, of course, was the time I got rushed to the breast cancer clinic within 10 days of seeing my GP about one-sided breast pain and I was a messy mess – dead and gone – until the findings came back negative for anything. Again, DO NOT GOOGLE)

So I’m still weighing myself every morning to prove that I’m not wasting away.
I don’t think I’m yellow – but the lighting in this house does give everything an amber hue…….
I only started to itch all over when I read that it’s a symptom of liver cancer and I try not to count symptoms with such timing.

And I’ve tried to ignore the articles that say the worst cases have no symptoms at all. Bother!

I’m going to try to write more this week and worry less. However, you may hear a tiny whisper of anxiety behind everything I say. Or maybe a giant shout. But I need to keep this project going. The one thing I don’t want to do is gain ten pounds out of groundless fear. It just ends up being a pain and a disappointment when I’m all healed up and healthy again. And I should be healed up and healthy but the end of January. Be positive with me!

Today is moving day at my office. My department is moving about 40 miles away, which means a commute where there didn’t used to be one. There are both positive and negative aspects to this. Negative is the time and cost of the commute. We’re talking 90 minutes to 2 hours a day, depending on traffic, and $150-$200 a month, depending on mileage. Positive is a new work atmosphere and spending time with co-workers I previously only got to see at occasional staff meetings,  working in the “big city” (Milwaukee) where there are more opportunities for just about everything, and shaking things up a bit. It’s the “shaking things up” part that I’ve been thinking about this morning. The powers-that-be are treating us to pizza today for lunch. Not the kind of pizza that is worth getting sick over (lactose intolerance), or getting fat(ter) over, but crappy, bring-on-the-Imodium, I-think-I’m-gonna-be-sick, chain restaurant (think “hut”…) pizza. I’m not having that. I figure my first day at my new office is a good time to go public as being a non-pizza/non-dessert kind of girl. Then co-workers will be accustomed to the fact that I have different needs when it comes to food–not weight loss needs (people don’t take those seriously), but health needs. That will make it easier to do this. 

 This means being strong today. If I cave, and eat crappy, makes-me-sick pizza, my health issues will take a back seat to my ability to be swayed when others want someone to “play” with. “Come on, PLEASE go for pizza with me? Pleeeaaassseee?” No. Pizza doesn’t agree with me, even if I take Lactaid. No. Ice cream isn’t worth how awful I’ll feel later. I’m lactoce intolerant. No. I choose to stay away from sweets because I am pre-diabetic. I choose health. I choose to be fit and healthy and vital. I choose to be active and engaged in life, rather than fat and sick.

I wonder if balancing my health needs with being social and friendly will be a challenge? I don’t think it will be too bad. Many of the people at my new office are younger than I am–parents of elementary school or middle school kids. They seem to be healthy, vital, gym-going kinds of people. They will understand. Those that I can picture as trying to persuade me to join them in the “eat-fest” behavior are people I can see being potential binge buddies. I REALLY don’t need to encourage close friendships with people like that. I don’t have any binge buddies right now (except one of my daughters, but that’s a whole other post), and that’s a good thing. I don’t need any!

I continue to work on my attitude. Today’s post is part of that work. It’s not only my feelings about food and exercise that are directing my behavior, but also feelings about the commute I’ll be undertaking. I am feeling resentful that someone other than myself can make a decision that impacts my circumstances in ways that will have a large negative impact on my life (money, time). I am sad because it will cost me so much to keep my job, especially after I have taken on a fairly expensive hobby (motorcycling). I am not willing to give up that hobby, so I will have to work hard to fit it in around the reduced resources. It is important enough to me to make this work. It is also important to be perceived as the kind of employee who is willing to go the extra mile at work. That will (or should) result in increased income. That will help me maintain my hobby more easily. (And after a suitable period of intense practice riding said hobby, I can use it as transportation to work!)

Lots of work to be done here. I’m up to the challenge. I’m strong, smart, capable, and willing to work hard to accomplish ALL my goals, despite the increased challenge in getting to work, and in educating my co-workers in how I need to take care of myself.

That’s what it feels like I’m doing since my blood sugar issue began–saying goodbye. But it’s turning into a much longer goodbye that it ought to be. I really believed that I would take responsibility for my health when the chips (no pun intended) were down. But it’s turning out to be harder than I thought to take care of myself. This needs to be a “pull off the bandaid quickly” kind of thing, not a long drawn out process. How do I make that happen?