Gotta be more to life than salads

Week of July 19, 2011:

Once again, I am up past midnight. I took a nap from 4-6:45 p.m. so I figured  that I wouldn’t be very sleepy. I was right. It’s not the best pattern that I’ve gotten myself in but I am sure that once I set a few other things in place I will feel more like going to bed earlier than what I have been doing. I decided earlier tonight that I was going to make my yearly birthday goal “big and bold”. I would like to lose the remainder of the weight I have by my 59th birthday, exactly one year from now. That averages 2.7 lbs per week though! It is doable provided that I really get down to business. Between the information and help available on BLC site and the Beck Diet strategies; I can do it.

7/21/11:

My 58th birthday really ended up being quite “lovely”. It was quiet but I was okay with that. I ended up ordering pizza from PJ’s and I even managed to stay within 500 calories of my recommended range. I don’t feel that was a bad “celebration” at all! We watched AGT and I was able to talk with T for over an hour. However, yesterday just plain sucked! We went to bed around midnight. I awoke around 2 a.m. P redid his resume so it was reflecting his past experience in music. He checked with both the office at our church and with our current Music Director about the position. Our current Music Director even said he would put a good word in for P but he told P to not wait on applying. Well, I was thinking about that when I awoke so I came in here and drafted both a resume and cover letter on Word. I wasn’t sure on a couple of the dates (I was only off by one year) so since it was getting closer to when I “thought” P would get up I pushed myself to stay up a little while longer so I could do some “fact checking” with him. Well, after he proofed the resume/cover letter I sent it via-email to our church’s office.

As I told P, I feel like these kinds of opportunities don’t come along very often and since this has only been advertised internally (that we are aware of) I felt the pressure to get on this and not delay. In fact, I was very tense about getting this done and sent right away. I awoke thinking about it. This would really put P “front row center” if he got a position like this in our church. It would also mean a steady paycheck and an opportunity for Pl to step outside of what he has been doing. I also feel that should he get something like this it would also mean that I would need to be there to show my support if not even be in the choir itself which would mean an every week commitment. Although S did say that they would be calling him this fall, who knows how busy P could be? Maybe, that is all he will need to start bringing in more money but fall is about six weeks away and until then we have to think of every possible way he can bring in more money. This seemed like a genuine opportunity.

So, pushing past when I “should” have gone to bed I ended up sleeping poorly when I did and I awoke very irritable. After having something to eat, I decided I couldn’t stay up any longer and I went to back to bed for a couple of hours. It was a really good nap. I tried to stay up but I just couldn’t. I was so tired I felt nauseous. I slept for a couple of hours. Well, I did awake in a much better mood. We watched some of our summer programs and then P went to bed. I decided to come in here and play some online games before I return to bed. Besides my sleeping suffering today so did my food plan! I am just going to have to say “No!” to having any kind of nuts around here. I thought that I could try again but I can’t seem to leave them alone. Although they are high in monounsaturated fats, they are also high in calories and I just can’t seem to stop at one small handful. I had already eaten close to 1600 calories before I returned to bed. Not exactly how I wanted to start the first day of my year long countdown to a “New Me!”. Not at all!!

I have always handled these kinds of problems when they arise since I am the one who makes the majority of our financial decisions. It is an arrangement that has worked well for us as a couple although there are times when I am concerned that should something happen to me, P would really be lost as how to go about handling our finances. In fact, I have been thinking about making a record of account numbers, passwords, etc. to keep in our safe so if I were unable to deal with this for any length of time, he would be able to make sense of it. That is a good thing that I should consider working on asap.In the meantime, I always share with him what is going on and how it has been resolved.

[I also see the "irony" of this as well since I am a self-professed "recovering" compulsive spender. I used to say that I had a tri-core addiction: bad relationships, food and money. Well, I have a very good relationship and marriage right now, which I am very grateful for, but the other two areas are "works in progress". We are still snowed under in $65K in debt from some unwise decisions we made six years ago, that we are currently paying back. I still have over 125 lbs to lose before I see a "normal" weight.  There is such a long road ahead for me/us. I get so weary from it all sometimes.]

Although BD, who recently had the heart attack, invited both of us over for dinner, I reneged at the last minute. I am self-treating my back again, which seems to be an ongoing problem that is not really going away as I would have thought it would have,  and that, at the moment, I was in no mood to “be social”. I always feel so bad about doing this because I do it a lot.  I realize that things like this happen in life so I “should” be able to just “let them go” and move on. I am getting better about it but I still balk at switching gears a lot of the time. I guess there is a part of me that is wanting to feel sorry for myself that life has to be so damn difficult at times. I want to just pout and make a scene rather than shrug it off and actually turn to something like a nice dinner with another couple and “forget about it”. [P returned and told me that BD has done a complete 180 degrees. He now walks 3 miles every day. He has become a vegan and he doesn't eat any sugar. Wow! For someone who had a mild heart attack, he really took things quite seriously]

This is the first time that I have identified my thought processes on this so I consider that a “breakthrough” of sorts. Now, to just put an alternative way of handling it into place from now on. Tonight would be a good start but, again, I’m not in the mood. Which Dr. Beck would say “do it anyway” whether you are in the mood or not. She would be correct in saying that too. So, for now, I see the root of my reaction(s) to these kinds of upsets and that is progress. Maybe, I will get to a place where I can shrug it off, clean myself up and move past it. Today probably isn’t it but that is only because I have chosen not to take this one step further. That is my weakness at this moment.

I love having revelations like this because they also show the work that is happening beneath the surface while I am working on my physical self. It is moments like this that really test an emotional eater “in recovery”. I didn’t turn to food to “comfort” me or ease the tension I felt. In fact, I was relatively calm during the whole conversation(s) I had with different reps. I take notes while I am talking because invariably I will have to repeat what I said several times because once I am transferred the previous person doesn’t fill in the following person as to why I am calling. That alone escalates my frustration.

I just got a phone call from the W.I.A. person. I am not even sure if it was my career counselor. I can’t remember what her voice sounded like. She sounded nervous though. I just told her that I had some health concerns this past spring that didn’t “allow” me to finish the final exams.  I also told her about my future plans to return to a college degree program (none of the “free money” government retraining programs won’t cover those). She sounded nervous when she asked me if I had found a job or whether I wanted her to close my file. I told her to go ahead since my plans now include taking out a student loan and returning to school so I really won’t be needing their assistance any more. I also don’t want that “over my head” either.

I also told her that when I pass the final exams for the MOS program (I have until late this fall) I would send her a certificate of completion. I feel that is only fair since it was paid for through the program. I think their concern is the fact that I haven’t found a job as a result of that training. They have to show that their program is effective when requesting government agencies’ funds. I guess, since I haven’t completed the final exams nor gone out and sought work with that upgraded job skill, I can’t really say if it was worth it or not. I wasn’t sure if it was something that I really wanted to do or not. I knew that it was a “time filler” for me. The one person that I feel that I have “let down” through this whole process is P since he has shouldered the entire responsibility of working and paying the bills. I feel some “guilt” regarding that. He has been incredibly sweet during this whole time. He is amazing.

That is why I try to really help him when it comes to looking for work like using my writing skills to draft a more powerful cover letter, deal with the headaches of our finances, stretch our food budget and provide moral support when he is feeling down himself. I know that those are my strengths right now. He also recognizes them as such, acknowledges it to me and that makes all the difference in how I see our “situation” and how I feel about myself. I think if he were critical of how I have conducted myself this past year or so I am not so sure how “good” our relationship would be. I am sure that I would feel a lot worse than I do already. It really brings home to me just how we do bear each others’ shortcomings at different times during our marriage and how fortunate we are that how we have handled the aggravations of life have spoke as much as each of us as individuals and how well we work together as a couple.

7/23/11:

Well, in spite of the fact that I ate/drank over 3000 calories yesterday, including eating 800+ calories in finishing off a large bag of potato chips, I weighed 264.6 lbs this morning!!  I was half expecting an increase because my food plan has included delivery pizza, regular soda, potato chips, chocolate covered almonds, etc. the past 4 days or so!! IF ONLY I could eat 1800 calories a day, I do believe I could break the 260s before the end of this month. If I could weigh 259 lbs on August 1st, I would be a “happy camper”. What do I attribute this to? My “educated” guess: is that I am eating lots of fiber along with these foods that are high in fat (foods like whole wheat bread, cheerios, whole fruits, popcorn and nuts); I am starting to gain some “serious” muscle and therefore, burning more calories; I am drinking lots of non caloric liquids and chewing a lot of ice; I am logging everything I eat so I am aware of what, when and how much I am eating; I am really trying to reduce the amount of sodium that I have.

[Note: I have been keeping a ongoing private journal separately from this diet blog which I am now incorporating some of that material into this blog. Dates written are actual although published at a much later date.]