Kathleen— I'll go post at the end of the February thread and tell everyone to get their act together, the thread is for March. I hope you are feeling as upbeat as you can be. Your faith should be helping you: if you haven't done so already, maybe you should set aside half an hour every day for Bible reading and spiritual reflection. A long time ago I read a study comparing surgery outcomes for people in Group A, with strong religious convictions, and Group B, for those without. The Group A folks scored better on almost everything you can think of having to do with a major operation: pre-surgery anxiety, tolerance of anesthesia, length of recovery time, post-op swelling, post-op bleeding, and on and on.

Vanessa— Welcome to the Ups and Downs support group. We may be a little flakier than other threads, but this is the place where anyone with even just a trace of mental illness will get support. Post as often as you can: it really helps! I'm bipolar, by the way, and lately I've beem feeling the full force of that diagnosis, flipping back and forth between moderate to severe depression (which I experience as physical pain, in my chest) and mild dysphoric (i.e., unpleasant) mania. I keep a chart of my moods, not my calories or carbo grams. I wish I could settle into a long period of 0/0/0 days (0 for no depression or mania, divided into three time periods: morning, afternoon, evening) and focus more on my weight loss, but if wishes were fishes...

Nicolas (or should that be Nicola?)— Have you got a copy of Kathryn Hansen's Brain Over Binge? I don't just recommend it: I'm telling you, I found it to be essential. If you want to know more about Hansen's technique before buying the book, put "brain over binge blog" into a search field and go read her blog. I wrote to her with a short piece that was too long for the comments section, so she made it into a blog posting and appended it to the one for beginners. =smile= My posting is the one about the yappy dog: that should pique your curiosity!

Quote:
Originally Posted by nicolas89
Hey Everyone! I have been working through my purging and binging challenges day by day... this past weekend was really rough though- I got close to my mini goal of being in ONEderland, and for some reason (gotta do some soul searching to find that one) I ate nothing but bad foods all weekend. It was like I couldn't fill my stomach fast enough with all the things I had been craving. My intense cravings take control of my life. At this point, I think the struggle I face is with the loss of routine on the weekends. DUring the week I pack lunches and work out in the evenings as well as taking my puppy for hikes, but on the weekend I sleep in and wake up ravenous for junk! I am hoping I get to ONEderland later this week (the healthy way... no starving for this girl). I am trying my best to stay positive!


nicolas89: I pulled this quote over from the February 2015 thread so I can reply to you in the March 2015 thread. It is good to hear from you again! So sorry you had a rough weekend. Congratulations on being SO CLOSE to ONEderland! Do you think you were (consciously or subconsciously) sabotaging yourself by overeating because you were so close to your mini goal? Good for you for exploring the reason(s) for this. Some questions you might consider are: Do you feel as though you are worthy to lose the weight and feel good? What is it that you really need ~ other than food? What are you trying to get from the food ~ comfort, love, distraction, numbness? Keep trying your best to stay positive and not beat yourself up for any mistakes or slip-ups with food. Try to just be curious (in a non-judgmental way) and learn from them. And keep exploring the reasons you are eating ~ other than physical hunger. It will shed a lot of light on things that you need to deal with as you move forward in your weight loss journey. Good luck! We are here for you!

Vanessa: to the Ups & Downs support group! Congratulations on being so close to your ideal weight! That is awesome! Just wondering if you are dealing with depression and/or on meds for it, since that is the category this support forum is listed under. If so, you would really be an inspiration to all of us in the group who are dealing with these issues and would LOVE to be only 10 pounds from our goal weight!
Please share a little more about yourself when you get a chance. We are here to support you in any way that we can.

Fi: Great to hear from you! Thanks for attempting to get the other folks over to the March thread. I am feeling as upbeat as possible given the situation, I think. Oh, yes, my faith is making all the difference! And, while I have been reading lots of Christian devotionals and surrounding myself with positive messages, I love your idea of setting aside a specific time each day for scripture reading and spiritual reflection. I really intended to do that from the beginning, but I have been bogged down with too many details while trying to learn as much as possible about breast cancer and my diagnosis, going for appointments prior to surgery, attempting to keep up with my to do list, making tons of phone calls, and setting up a website for keeping family and close friends updated throughout this journey ~ along with plain old LIFE ~ that I have somewhat lost my focus the past week. I will make a conscious effort to carve out some time each day until the surgery to refocus on getting my mind prepared for the journey ahead. While I remain faith-filled and positive, I am scared to death of the actual surgery and those first few days of recovery! I am realizing from talking with others who have gone through this that my arms and upper body will be out of commission for some time. I don't know exactly how I am going to manage that ~ with all of the running around I usually do ~ but I will just have to rely on my hubby (who can literally "do it all") and family and friends to help me with the things I need to do. The rest can wait!

How have you been feeling? I hope all is well in your little corner of the world!

Pause here for a moment to send healing thoughts to Kathleen...

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The main thing that's going on in my life is that I fell down and hit concrete with my knees. On the 21st of February. And I'm still having trouble with my legs and my knees giving me pain when I use them, plus my balance is shot, so it could happen again if I'm not super-careful. But my mood is good: I know my knees will recover, if I'm patient.

My diet is mostly on plan, so I have time to to lose the little bit I put on during my period of off-plan eating right around my 60th birthday. It was dumb to do that, to eat some cookies and some donuts, but it's over now.

Gratitude Check-In: I feel grateful that my mood has been very good for a few days now: 0/0/0 is the way to go! Hurrah!

Oh Lisa, so sorry to hear about your kitty having stones. Are those as painful for kitty cats as they are for humans? Do they know? And to add the cone of shame on top of that... Leo's needing lots of attention from his mom, I would expect.

Good luck with your weigh-in!

I don't want to hear you say that you "can't draw a lick." Everybody can draw. It's just a matter of how much practice you've had. Now if you hadn't written any English since first grade, wouldn't your writing have lots of misspellings and grammar errors? Right! Same deal with drawing: you need to pick up where you left off in learning to draw, and get better at it. Get yourself a sketchbook and take it to a local park. Or draw things around your house. Make a still life out of whatever objects appeal to you, and draw that. Or take a photo and draw from that. 'Sounds doable, right? Here's the catch: you have to do it every day, at least 20-30 minutes. You don't have to aim to get really good at drawing: just get better at it, and that will lift your spirits. Drawing is fun!

If it would help you to get a book, I highly recommend Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. If that paperback is too pricey for you, explore the different editions: I think I saw the 2nd edition available for $4.50.

Pause here for thinking about Kathleen. That's great you had a loss, Lisa!

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Just checkin' in and givin' y'all a new picture: Nénu on Bob's shoulder. I wanted cats who would be shoulder cats, but I didn't anticipate the fact that they would spontaneously climb us whenever we are standing next to something—like the bookcase you can see there—they want to jump over to. Neither of our previous pairs did that!

Very snowy here today, so my get-together w/ Grace will be early: her street has not been plowed yet, so Bob will go get her in his Toyota Land Cruiser. 'Talk to you again later, probably tomorrow. I hope y'all are having a good day, snowy or otherwise. =smile=

Hi Guys... sorry I didn't mean to disappear completely. I hit a bump on my happiness road.... I got laid off. Since then it's been a bit of a struggle, most days I'm ok but there are days when I am quite down. Today is probably one of them as it's 11:30 and I'm still in my PJ's. Usually I'm up, showered and presentable by now but the thought of staying in bed all day keeps crossing my mind. Earlier this week I didn't leave the house for 3 days straight. But, I am trying to talk myself into going for a short run on the treadmill.. it would be my third one this week so that's one win. And I've had my dogs out to the off leash area a lot so they're nice and tired.

Holly - Nice to hear from you sweetie, winter up here has been odd... not as cold as some we've had previously, we've actually had a lot of issues with freezing rain and ice from melting this year. Right now it's unseasonably warm, no one is complaining. We still have snow, but not nearly as much as we usually do. How are things in your world?