This is me this morning after my half hour on the stationary bike. I’m exhausted. I’m so out of shape it’s surprising I can get up the stairs to bed.
Mmmmm, bed. The question at this point isn’t WILL I take a nap, it’s WHERE WILL I? The kids are in daycare today, which means I should get some things done – although as any mother will tell you, sleeping is doing. It might be the ultimate example of productivity as a parent.
The diet continues to go well. Having wheat back in makes things a million times easier, although I’m astounded at how much I want to eat it. I’m already wondering how I went 9 days without it – was I given some sort of super power I just don’t remember?
I threw my scale into the back of my closet last night. I’d gone out for breakfast with Greg, and we were talking about how exercise is the one thing that has made me feel great in the past, but that I have a lot of trouble sticking to. I began realizing over the course of the conversation that the way it’s set up in my brain is that exercise will lead me to weight loss.
Exercise —> weight loss.
Easy enough, right? Most people seem to think this way. Okay, most overweight women seem to think this way.
Except that I don’t think that’s motivation enough for me. Certainly I want to lose weight, if for nothing else than to get my cycles back on track. But a number just isn’t a motivator.
Instead, I’m reading a book called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
So while we were sitting at breakfast, mulling all this over, I said suddenly, and pardon my language but I promise there were no kids present: “Fuck the scale! Fuck the numbers!”
“That’s right!”, Greg said. “It’s never done you any good. Throw the damn thing away, or stick it somewhere you won’t find it.”
And I did. I stuck it in my closet, wedged it between a dresser and the wall. It felt like giving up a crutch. How will I know if I’m doing well? How will I know if I’m getting thinner?
Isn’t it funny how different those two questions are?
I’ll know I’m “doing well” if:
- I’m having less anxiety, better anxiety recovery, and fewer attacks.
- I do more in my life independently – driving, going out, going farther, being away from home.
- I have more energy to chase after the kids, to go for walks, to live.
- I sleep better and don’t feel so worn out all the time.
- I get stronger, which is easy to notice – I buff out nicely.
I’ll know if I’m “getting thinner” if:
- I need to buy new clothes.
There. That doesn’t seem too hard, does it? And I can attest to the fact that today it felt good to get up and not weigh myself. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel differently. I guess we’ll see.
Elimination Diet | Day #9
In fact I have gone off the diet in the last few days, but it’s actually been okay. I don’t feel like I’ve ruined anything.
Here’s my original list of things I was going to chuck, just so’s you remember:
Here’s what that list has shortened to, as of today:
As you can see, I’m adding back wheat, and I’m eating small amounts of unprocessed soy (miso soup, soy sauce).
On Friday, Jason came out to spend the weekend, and the six of us (Me, Greg, Jason, Sonja, Bethie, Miles), went into “Weekend Mode”, where we tend to be busy going on little trips and doing a lot of eating out. It became intensely difficult to figure out what to eat as we were traveling around, especially considering I wasn’t able to figure out what to eat much at home. So I faltered a little bit. I began eating wheat in a a few things, and some soy (mostly in the form of soy sauce).
At first, after I had that first bite of Something With Wheat, my mind wanted to go into Dieter Failure mentality, and chuck the whole entire thing out the window. After all, I FAILED, what’s the point of going on? Fortunately my inner drama queen calmed down, and once I got past the failure mentality, I realized I was learning a lot, and I could continue to learn, even if I wasn’t following the diet in the exact same way I’d planned to.
Some things I’ve observed over the last few days:
1) Dairy continues to be a problem.
On Friday night we went out to a restaurant specifically because we though it would have a Hollie-friendly menu. I got some delicious salmon with “apple butter”, which to me means a dairy-free jam-like toast topping made from apples, cinnamon, and sugar. I wasn’t really sure how this would taste on salmon, but hey, I’ll try anything once. Instead, the apple butter was literally a monster pat of butter, with apparent apple flavorings.
The intestinal pyrotechnics that resulted from this one small serving of dairy was pretty impressive. I believe that dairy is something I’ll need to phase out of my life almost completely (I’m willing to suffer these pyrotechnics for very special occasions, like, say, this cake. Overall, though, I think I’m beginning to see the real possibility of a truly dairy-free life.
2) I’m recovering from episodes of anxiety much quicker than usual.
This change is simply incredible to me. Two good examples happened this weekend.
On Saturday night, Greg and Jason and I went to a movie (The Proposal with Sandra Bullock — anyone else get While You Were Sleeping flashbacks? Sandy in a white dress, apologizing to a family at the altar for why she can’t go through with the wedding, an orphan who misses the feelings of being in a family?), and over the last couple years movies have become incredibly difficult for me. I usually need at least one, sometimes two doses of anxiety medication to make it through, and when it’s done (if I’ve made it – I’ve left at least six movies over the last few years after a bad attack), I’m wiped out. I’m so drained from trying to hold it together that I need to take a nap afterward. This isn’t just action movies or thrillers; I could barely get through Pixar’s UP. Also, due to both the anxiety and the meds, I usually don’t remember much of the movie anyway; thus you can understand why I frequently just don’t go, even though before all this got bad, going to the movies was a favorite hobby of mine.
For some reason, during the movie on Saturday night, I was happy. I was having a good time. I didn’t need any meds, and I didn’t need my earplugs, and I didn’t need to leave partway through. After it was over, I was still doing great! We got in the car and I wanted to GO somewhere, like a cafe or or a restaurant, just to hang out and talk. I couldn’t believe how stable and good I felt! I wanted to take advantage of it while it lasted! Unfortunately we live in Ellensburg, and there wasn’t anything to do at 11:20pm on a Saturday night, so we headed home, but I was giddy.
Me hiding behind Llyra, grabbing onto her for dear life (do you see how high we are?)
On Sunday afternoon, Sonja had rounded up a bunch of us to go to the Salmon La Sac campground, which I thought wasn’t that far away from town. I was wrong, it was pretty far out, and by the time we got there I was so anxious I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was examining my options; do I make one of the guys drive me home? Do I take a whole lot of meds and just hole up in the car and sleep? How am I going to cope with this?
I grabbed a camp chair and plopped down into it. I opened up a bag of sunflower seeds and started munching. I put on my sunglasses. I grabbed a magazine. I endeavored to sit there until I felt calmer. To my complete shock, that only took about half an hour. Not an hour, not several hours, not here-let’s-take-some-meds-and-wait-all-afternoon-for-things-to-improve; I just felt good. Again. Quickly. And I continued to feel good the whole rest of the day. And to top it off? I drove us all home. Here, let me continue to italicize things to impress upon you the amazing-ness of this event.
I even ended up playing in the river, and climbing up onto a big pile of rocks. Llyra followed me, at which point we screamed in triumph, and then I realized how high we were – at that point I think I started holding on to her a little too tightly. Thanks to Jason for the photo!
3) Wheat doesn’t appear to be a problem.
So far, the small amounts of wheat I’ve been having (croutons on salad, in soy sauce), don’t seem to be causing me any issues. I don’t feel any more sore in the morning (in fact I continue to feel better, in very small degrees). I’m trying not to overdo it.
4) Soy in small amounts, so far, doesn’t seem to be causing any issues either.
I’m not eating a ton of it, and I’m not eating any processed stuff (like tofurkey or tofu dogs or soy ice cream).
5) I really need to learn how to cook and eat vegetables.
During the salmon dinner Saturday night, Jason endeavored to instruct me on how to eat broccoli with my salmon; by eating a piece of salmon, and then slipping a small piece of broccoli in, unnoticed. I tried it once, and was chewing, and he began saying, “You need more salmon! MORE SALMON!” I began waving my hand at him. “You’re making a face!”, he said. When I was done swallowing, I think I was still making a face, but to my great shock, the broccoli was not putrid. I ended up eating several pieces of broccoli. Miracle.
Clearly this means I need to continue trying to figure out how to get more veggies into my diet.
GEE, MAYBE I COULD WRITE A BLOG TO THAT EFFECT?
Going forward, I’ll be eating small amounts of wheat and soy, attempting to cook more veggies, and trying desperately to stay away from dairy and sugar, which are the two hardest exclusions. Corn and beans, which I’m leaving out for awhile as all this settles down (I’ll re-introduce in a trial in a few weeks), aren’t too hard to stay away from (the exception being corn syrup – but avoiding that also means avoiding most chocolate and candy, so it works out).