29Jan10 What to do with a Grumpy Day?
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I’m grumpy.

Broadband has stopped working at home.  I think it’s because I told the telephone woman that I don’t need my name on that line because we don’t use it any more.  Well, we don’t use the phone but it’s our broadband line.  Oops.  The fact that it’s my own fault makes me grumpier.

So I’m sitting in McDonald’s – whose door I haven’t darkened since around the turn of the century.  I hate McD’s.  Even more than I hate Starbucks.  My hatred for Starbucks is all about principles – I don’t always hate their products.  But McD’s?  Oh I hate everything……except their new free wifi apparently.  I like that.  So I bought a cup of coffee that rivals the badness of airplane coffee (and that’s saying something) and am sitting here listening to bad music and generally being grumpy.

This morning, to no one except God, I actually said out loud, “I’m overwhelmed.”

So I guess I am because, even though I talk to myself quite a lot, I don’t often make statements like that out loud.

So where’s the positive thinking? (Oh Lord, it’s Michael Jackson now….) Positive positive.

I think, once I’m done here, I’m going to tackle the following issues – in no order at all.  If fact, I will probably do them all at once, a little here and a little there.

Home environment.  I’ve got half way through the big clear-out which means it’s worse than when I started. I am going to file everything.  Ask me.

Laundry. Clean bedding makes everything a little better.

Food.  I got irritated with the staff who left me waiting forever (5 mins is FOREVER at McD’s) so I didn’t order the plain toasted bagel with jam on the side. So now I’m very hungry and that makes me even grumpier.  Lunch will probably be soup.  I have lots of fruit to eat up in the afternoon and a friend is coming for dinner which is all prepared (thanks to  M&S) and ready to go – crab stuffed trout.  All I have to do is boil a few new potatoes and fine green beans.

Exercise.  I hurt.  I’m going to limit my exercise to running up and down stairs. Oh.  I don’t think I mentioned that I ran out my front door on Wednesday thinking that I’d make it to the end of the block.  Instead, I made it 1.2 miles before I had to walk.  I was thrilled after 2 months with no aerobic exercise at all.  None.  Yesterday I managed a 4k row and a good sweat on the TreadClimber.  It is a huge relief to know that I’m not as out of shape as I thought I’d be.

Once the house is clean and lovely and smelling fresh and generally happy, I’m going to sit down and write a couple of letters.  Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we have no broadband.

Many years ago when I was feeling equally overwhelmed I had a picture of myself with a huge pile of rocks.  I was tugging and tugging trying to move the big boulders on the bottom of the pile – instead of removing the little light ones from the top.  I’ve never forgotten that.  Every rock I take away lessens the overall burden. The boulders are beyond my control so I might as well leave them alone.

1 Comment Posted by Millie in Keeping Going
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28Jan10 Positive Thinking
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I’m descended, on my father’s side, from a long line of cynics. I’m pretty sure that somewhere I could find a family plaque with the motto, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

It’s not that I can’t see that the glass is half-full. I see it – I can even say it. But I’m secretly looking for the crack that going to leak out all that life-giving water. Let’s call it cynical optimism.

I truly love the research from last year that said positive thinking was bad for people with low self-esteem. However, I also know that, despite the fact hat negative is funnier, I need to concentrate on the positive a little more – not because I believe in any wacky “law of attraction” (don’t get me started) but because I know that thinking positively about your achievable goals makes you more likely to achieve them.

In this case – I will never keep the weight off if I keep thinking that I’ll never keep the weight off. period.

So I’m going to get back to some good old fashioned positive thinking – and put away the “buts” for a while.
I’ve had a tough year. I will no doubt have another one. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be a healthy weight and continue to cultivate a good relationship with food and my body. It just means that I need to learn some new skills and to put away some old behaviours.

The positive thinking comes in here. I CAN put away old behaviours. I CAN develop new skills.
More positive: I AM putting away old behaviours. I AM developing new skills. (Not so hard…..)

OK – in reality – this kind of talk only works for me when it’s true. The above is true in a straight forward way and I don’t need to argue it out with myself. It will never work for me if I don’t believe it or if it’s too vague.

“I deserve to be happy and successful” begs WAY too many questions and theological discussions. (I lifted that from a real website called more self esteem or something.)

“A quick row will lift my mood” works just fine and it’s a great substitute for “I hate the gym”.

So here’s to a new day with my kind of positive thinking.

Later…..
OH! Wait! I’ve just found the best article on that research.  And, yes, it’s the best because I agree with her.

No Comments Posted by Millie in Things to try, Thoughts on the Process
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27Jan10 Paying Attention
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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? :)

No Comments Posted by Millie in Health, Thoughts on the Process
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25Jan10 Two Minds
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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.

1 Comment Posted by Millie in Health, Thoughts on the Process
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24Jan10 Rookie Mistakes
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I made a couple yesterday – but I also made a couple of good decisions too.

Mistake: I knew I was going out so ate only a little breakfast, thinking that would afford me a relaxing lunch. But then the lunch place didn’t have any soup I loved the look of so I decided to try miso. Turns out its a cup of watered down soy sauce with two or three pieces of seaweed on the bottom – not the nourishment my body needed after walking around for 3 hours. Rather than get something else and go through the palaver of reading all the labels or making a bad choice, I decided to wait until I got home. MISTAKE

Of course, I ended up overcompensating for all those missed calories.

What I Know: My body needs three good meals and a couple of snacks in the day.

Good decision: I grabbed a bottle of Perrier to take to friends’ for dinner.

Mistake: I helped drink a bottle of red wine when I only wanted “a taste”. Yeah right. I would have been better off asking for once good sized glass and making it last the evening. Instead, I did that, “Just a little” thing so many times and I had two good sized glasses.

Mistake: I drank my Perrier out of my wine glass. I should have got another glass so that I could ignore the wine when I wanted. Instead, I drained the wine glass before I drank water. Not smart.

Good decision: I waited until dinner was served before I had any wine.

What I know: I like wine with a meal. I like wine without a meal. One of those situations requires more self-control than the other.

And some more about freedom.

My ultimate end goal of this blogging exercise is to not have to do it any more -not have to think about food, reflect on food, be so careful about my diet. I really do want the dual freedoms of a slim healthy body and a carefree eating style.

So far it’s not happening – but maybe someday. In the meantime, I’ll keep working it out in words.

No Comments Posted by Millie in Thoughts on the Process
23Jan10 The Cost of Freedom
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Why does it take me so long to get to the point of actually going beyond good intentions to good practice?

Why does it take weeks to go from wanting to do the right thing to actually doing it?

That’s the same question but it baffles me so much that I wanted to ask it twice.

The word that keeps flashing in my brain is FREEDOM – a concept that comes up again and again for me in this battle to gain food/body sanity.  When I get my thinking twisted around, I find myself looking for freedom in all the wrong places.

I can have the freedom to eat and drink whatever and whenever I want.  This includes the freedom to sit around and do nothing whenever I want.

OR

I can have the freedom to feel comfortable in my own skin, the freedom to look good in clothes, the freedom to run up stairs and not collapse at the top.

So two sets of freedoms which each cost the other.

Each cost the other – I’d never thought of it like that before.  I don’t expect to be able to smoke and have healthy lungs. I don’t expect to spend all my money and have it in the bank.  Everything costs – good stuff and bad stuff in my life – it all costs something.

OK – So I what will food and body sanity cost me today?  This week?

Today it will cost me being thoughtful while I’m shopping in the city.  It will cost me the effort to say “small” and “skinny” when ordering a coffee.  It will cost me reading some labels when I order lunch.  It will cost me asking if we can eat somewhere with nutritional info – which costs me my delightful freedom of eating in my favourite Italian cafe.

OR  I can eat in my favourite Italian cafe and commit to a long walk later this afternoon.  Or it might cost me a short walk and water rather than a g&t before dinner and carrot sticks for a snack later on.

Freedom costs – but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  I get that for now.  I wonder how long it will be before I need to write about his again?

But in the meantime – I’m going shopping.

No Comments Posted by Millie in Thoughts on the Process
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22Jan10 Day 1 or Just Keeping On?
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In life in general I love the idea of new beginnings, blank slates, amnesties, jubilee years – grace and forgiveness .

When I decide to give myself one of those in my food/body struggles, it’s hard not to think of it as a whole new beginning.  Over on BCB I’ve re-invented myself a few times, changing my board name and starting from scratch.

But this time I’m going to prize the accumulated wisdom of this past year.  I’m going to view the next phase as just that: one leg of a long journey.

I’ve made a new daily weight page to see how long it takes to get from where I am now to where I want to go.  I’m not guessing how long that’s going to be – I’m just going to set out and accept that I’ll get there when I get there.  I’ll keep track of my behaviour and my weight and notice the connections.  In fact, I think I might go a bit Bridget Jonesish and put my weight and other pertinent information at the top of each post.  Maybe not.

My first priority is to fight my natural inclination and to plan meals ahead for a couple of days.

Oh this is boring.  I feel so incredibly uninspired. And yet.  And yet there is a solid core of WILL inside me that won’t rest until I have kept that promise to myself.  I will give myself a chance to be slim and fit for a whole year.  I will do it.

I may not feel like going through the process of getting there.  I may not feel like going through the process of staying there.  But I will do it with no rush of enthusiasm because I know how important it is that I do it.

Self-talk.  What blogging is really all about.

Apologies to anyone else reading this today.

But if you want to join me on this leg please step in and keep me company on this enthusiasm-free, wisdom and (hopefully) humour filled process.  I’ll make you a weight page of your very own if you are craving a little public accountability.

1 Comment Posted by Millie in Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process
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21Jan10 Looking for Motivation
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I’m feeling a bit depressed which is not the same as being a bit depressed.  I’m just feeling low and needing motivation and energy.  I’m getting through my days like a very slow pinball wandering from task to task doing a little at each place but lacking the focus to get down to anything for very long. So I’m giving into it and declaring it Pinball Day today.

One of the things I’ve been doing is reading through all the posts on here and I found this:

It’s not too often in life that we get to WANT something and simply go get it because it doesn’t involve negotiating with loved-ones, market conditions or budgets. This requires negotiating with my self, my history, my emotions and anxieties and so the Talking It Off continues.

I need to re-state that for today:

  • It’s not often in life that we get to WANT something and simply Go GET IT.
  • This thing we want doesn’t require negotiating with loved ones.
  • It doesn’t require money.
  • It does require negotiating with my self,
    • my history
    • my emotions
    • my anxieties
    • my everyday life
  • So I’m going to keep on coming here to do just that.  Talking It Off.

So what do I want?
What are those things that I can go out and get just by negotiating with my self?

OK. Name them.  In no specific order:

~I want to step in the scale one morning in the next couple of months and weigh under 140 pounds.

~I want to stay around that weight for a whole year despite the ups and downs of my bizarre transcontinental life.

~I want to rejoice and be thankful no matter where I’m living.

~I want to improve my fitness.

~I want to live life lightly.

It’s a start.

2 Comments Posted by Millie in Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process
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20Jan10 Now what?
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This year, even the traditional first day of the new year diet didn’t work for me. I skated right past that milestone without so much as a pound lost since then. That is a bad sign…

1 Comment Posted by Gracie in Thoughts on the Process
20Jan10 Excuses Excuses Excuses
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Yesterday, on BCB I wrote:

I got jumped in a dark alley by hormones.

I’ll be back when I can think straight.

Millie

And Donna gave me a brilliant response:

…your post raised some questions that I’ve had before but never had a chance to ask. How can a person (meaning me) tell the difference between wanting to eat because of hormones, wanting to eat because of stress and just plain looking for an excuse to eat. Or does it really matter? Does one deal with all 3 issues in the same way, or would there be a different way to deal with hormonal cravings than there is for inner brat cravings?

So, yesterday, did I succumb to hormones, stress, or my greedy-piggy self?  May I also add that I was coming down with my first virus for a year and now have a nasty head cold?  And that it was the first January 19th of my life when my dad wasn’t here for his birthday?

So we’ve got a whole wide range of reasons/excuses now!

hormones

stress

inner brat/greed

a cold

grief

On reflection……..I ate because I wanted too.  Even as I was preparing a highly calorific treat or shoveling in overly large portions of otherwise healthy food, I was thinking how good it will feel to be eating right and moving.

Is that just me?  Can everybody else fantasize about going to the gym while eating home baking?

Well – at least I know how far I still have to go:  a LONG way.

As the husband is now away for 10 days, I’m going to take this time to reduce my options by eating the same things for breakfast and lunch and get back into the groove of smaller portions.  When the exploding head recovers a little, I’ll get back into walking and rowing.

As for the hormones:  I DID feel as though I were standing beside myself for a couple of days.  It was very odd and something I’ve only experienced once before.  I didn’t feel as though my body was my own.  But did I respond by eating well and exercising?  Did I bother to do the very thing that I know will help restore balance to my life?  No. I poured a glass of wine, ate bread at every meal and finished it all off with sugar.  I did the very thing that I know will make everything worse.

OK -It’s clean slate day.  And clean fridge day since I ate everything in it yesterday.

And I will do my taxes and banking today so that they’re not hanging over my head.

And to answer Donna’s question, in my experience, hormones, stress and inner brat all need to be handled with the same positive eating and moving behaviour.

Ditto a cold and grief.

Next time I will come here and write about it before the eating gets out of hand.

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