Kindness

I'd like to start today's post by extending a big "Thank you!", to Lynn from Lynn's Weigh and her very kind readers for all the advice and reassurance they have given me regarding my trip to the States. I'm not sure why I got myself so stressed about the whole thing. Ladies, your kindness has helped me take a breath, calm down :), and relax about my trip. That's how it should be really. Your descriptions of roadside food stalls, farmers markets and the like have made me quite excited. It sounds rather lovely. I grew up in and live in a farming community and love the stalls that nestle by our roadsides. After briefly looking at hiring a camper, we are mostly decided on just hiring a car and heading off to the store for a cooler. Your suggestions for eating out were valuable as well. We don't eat out often and I'd not thought about asking for changes to what the menu offers. I shall try that.

At weigh in this week I had a loss of 0.7kgs which I'm happy with. That's a total loss of 1.9kgs over two weeks. That's about 4 pounds for those of you who prefer pounds. After a tired beginning of the week my activity levels were down and I had a special dinner with a friend on Saturday which got my points up a bit. We had roast chicken and veg and Donna supplied little chocolate mousse muffins. It was just lovely. I did 2, 20 minute walks on Saturday to at least earn some of the meal and then made sure I ate lightly and upped my exercise again on Sunday. I can't tell you how good it feels to have been able to do something as normal as a longer walk and to not crash in a screaming heap for days or weeks afterwards. Woohoo! It is also very empowering to enjoy a treat, good company and still lose.

In my efforts to heal on all levels, I have just started to read the 'Stress Eater Diet'. I have experienced a number of quite stressful circumstances in the time that I've gained weight. Let's be realistic, chronic health issues are stressful too, so I need to look at how that muddle has all helped lead me to this point. My goal is to develop a greater understanding of how my body and mind respond to stress and to develop good strategies to help me out in future. Hopefully along the way I'll discover that I'm already doing some things 'right'. It has been my habit to take action rather late in the game when I find myself stressed. I tell myself I can put up with it, or I don't want to upset anyone so I bite my tongue, or I procrastinate and do nothing because I can't think of the 'best' way to deal with something. Crappy, inhibiting perfectionism. I need to develop the awareness and skills to take action early on to minimise the effects of stress on me and to address or resolve the situation earlier rather than later (if possible). Will review the book for you when I've finished. I think Lynn may have one on her blog if you are interested.

How do you deal with stress? Do you let it build up by dealing with it too late as I do? Who has problems saying 'no'? Nobody! I don't believe you. :) Let me know, I'd love to hear how you cope.

Until next time, take care everyone and thank you for your kindness.

Where my head's at

This week has been a busy week for both my head and my emotions. Monday's weigh in sent me into a negative spiral after I weighed in after 2 ladies who had both lost 2kg and I lost less. Crazy as my goal is to lose 500grams to 1kg weekly and I exceeded that. Anyway, I managed to journal that particular monkey off my back. We also had news that our exchange student from Denmark had been pulled out of the programme because her parents won't let her stay with us. Why? Because we have no children. That's been a bit of a blow as it's not by choice that we are childless. It's brought up all the crappy feelings of loss, rejection and failure that we have felt through infertility, being unable to adopt because of health issues, and now being rejected again. It has definitely brought some difficult emotions to the surface, springing them on me at unexpected moments throughout the week. Jeff, however is severely gutted and I think perhaps it's making him feel things he has managed to dodge so far on this awkward and often unpleasant journey. I understand her families decision but can't help but think I could do without the emotional fallout at this time.

I've also been a bit tired this week. Shades of the not-so-long-ago days of fatigue. While not full blown fatigue, it's been different to normal tired and has ramped up my anxiety metre. I listened to my body and rested immediately, adjusted my plans and I think it has worked. I'm not so tired today and was even able to have a pretty full on day yesterday. I wonder how long it will take me to get over being afraid of falling back into that insidious, debilitating fatigue that I've lived with for years. I don't trust that it's gone. I don't trust my body not to fall back into this state again, after all it's not been 2 months since I started to climb out of it. All I can do is care for myself as best I can, listen to my body and care for it accordingly and trust that one day I will be well again.

Although I've been anxious and emotional this week, I've stayed within my points allowance and made my selections from the usual healthy foods I eat. Exercise has been inconsistent due to fatigue and just loss of focus. Planning of my meals has been non-existent too and this had added to my stress. I don't feel confident enough with the point system as yet to wing-it. So I need to get back into planning my meals, planning my exercise and then putting these plans into action.

In the spirit of Self-care week, I reached out for help in an area that I'm having trouble with. We are heading off to the States in a few months time, the land of excess and ginormous portion sizes. I've been becoming increasingly anxious about how I'm going to maintain my healthy lifestyle while on a 3 1/2 week driving holiday where we'll be mostly reliant on eating out in some form or another. I'll buy fruit, nuts, carrots and water for the car but don't know whether to buy an esky so that I can carry salad ingredients, yoghurt etc. Still to decide whether to take my collapsible tupperware bowl or go for the convenience of paper plates and cutlery for the duration. Babble, babble, babble. Anyway, I reached out for help with this dilemma by emailing a lady whose weight loss and maintenance blog I read. She's based in the States so may have some ideas. I think it gives you a good picture of my where my head's at that I am worried about this now. By the time we go I'll have 12 weeks or so of counting points, making changes and losing weight under my belt. I expect I'll be more confident about my ability to lose weight, make good choices and better able to trust my body.

Time to get out of my head. Off to notch up some steps on the treadmill then I'm going to treat myself to a long hot soak in the bath on this cool and rainy afternoon.

Learning to care for myself.

My first week of this next stage of my journey to health is drawing to a close and I feel as though I managed to fit a lot in. I had an hour long consultation with a new endocrinologist and I'm really happy with how it went. He was knowledgeable, listened and took the time to answer my questions. My latest blood tests were sent to his office and they confirmed that in the past 5 weeks I've had an overactive thryoid, been euthyroid and am now underactive again. Gotta love the roller coaster - not. I'm off all medication for the next 12 weeks to see where my thyroid naturally settles so it will be interesting to see where my body will end up this time.

Today was weigh in day at Weight Watchers and I lost 1.2kgs. Was I happy? No, I must confess that I was a little disappointed. Does this makes sense? No of course not, it's just my mind and my false expectations for myself playing with me. I am a master of flaying myself and holding myself up to standards and expectations I'd never dream of holding other people up to. Why is that? Do you do the same? Intellectually I know I've done well to lose that amount and to do it with a bungying thyroid and while still healing is great. Reflecting now, it was only 6 weeks ago that I was still experiencing debilitating exhaustion and sleeping for 12 plus hours per day (in sessions, not all at once) and physically unable to cope with much at all. It is only just over 12 weeks since I was on 5 weeks of bed rest. Perhaps all these years of illness and now my weight loss journey have occurred to teach me how to treat myself more kindly. To nurture and care for myself as I would others.

So with this in mind I declare this "Be kind to yourself week". I will work on treating myself with the same compassion and loving kindness I would show towards others. I will stomp on that mean, nasty voice in my head that tells me I'm a failure or not good enough and will replace it with healthier thoughts that are based in reality. I will perform one act of self care for myself everyday. How do you care for yourself? Take some time to notice your thoughts as well. Do you treat yourself as well as you do others? Be kind to yourself this week.

Edited to add.....I realise now that my scales weigh 1kg lighter than the weight watchers one causing me to think I'd lost more than I had and prompting the above mentioned disappointment and self-chastisement. Will remember that discrepancy in future.

A new beginning

For many years now I've been living with and juggling some serious health issues. They range from autoimmune disease to cancer and have not only had a huge physical effect on my life, they've impacted my spirit in a big way too. I've had lots of beginnings in the past 12 years or so. Being able to climb stairs again. Getting enough strength back in my hands to be able to open a milk bottle on my own. Being diagnosed with another 'something new' and beginning the path to either healing or learning how to live with yet another condition. In the process relationships have faltered and failed, some quite painfully. Others have grown and adjusted, becoming richer. New, wonderful friends have entered my life too and for this I am truly grateful.

I've stacked on the weight as a combined result of health issues, treatments, inability to exercise for long periods, changed eating habits and I suppose feeding my flayed emotions. Recently, I was once again diagnosed with another 'something new' and while feeling raw and emotional I said, "Enough!". I may not be able to control the fact that I have disease x or y; I have no control over the poor behaviour or choices of others, but I can control my weight. It may not be easy but I need to be in control of something in my life other than my attitude!

I have decided to follow a number of paths to lose weight and gain back the best health available to me. I've joined Weight Watchers with a friend and have been on the programme for 4 days now. I have decided to really deal with the emotional baggage of the past decade with lots of journal writing. Journal writing has been my companion for 20 years or more now and it is the most extraordinary gift to give oneself. Now it's time to write deeper and I've hunted down some resources to guide me in this. I'll discuss these in future posts. A BIG, HUGE thing I also need to do is to declutter my life. I've held onto everything from my teaching career, a career I'll not be going back to. I think I'm done grieving it's loss so it's time to empty my physical environment of constant reminders of a part of my life that no longer serves me. I'll keep a small number of special things and items I can use with the little people in my life, the rest can go. Hopefully shedding weight and physical clutter will create some extra room for healing to flow into my life.

So,here I am in Belladonna's garden where the dark and light of life live in perfect balance to make something beautiful. A place where it is possible to weed out the things that no longer serve you or create new and wonderful things for yourself out of your growth, heart's wishes and the toil of your own two hands. I plan to create something wonderful and worthy of my heart.