Mamarati

Remember when I made that formal declaration about losing weight? You know, in the last entry and all. And I said, ummm… IT’S ON!

Yeah, well… see… what ha-happened was I had these things called good intentions.

I’ve since learned that the path to hell is paved with these friggin’ things.

I have been struggling with things. It stems from this relationship that I have with food. It stems from all that childhood stuff. You know, not having food when I was with my mother. Literally starving most of the time. And then having all that weird stuff at my dad’s… his literal fear of eggs and anything that comes out of them. Getting my chocolate rationed out to me at the children’s home. (”Here’s your 5 M&Ms. Come back tomorrow for another 5.”)

It’s just really hard to restrict myself. I think that’s why Atkins worked for me. I was like, “What? Eat all the meat I want? And still lose weight? Hell, Yeah!”

It occurs to me that it should be the opposite. I should be able to look back on the times when I was starving and KNOW that that is not what’s happening right now. I should not panic like an animal trapped in a cage when I start to calculate calories.

But I kind of do. It’s weird and hard to explain. It’s just one more of those times when I am cognizant of how I’m supposed to feel, and I’m completely aware of the reality of the situation… but my actual feelings seem to be governed by something else… something very deep that I can’t reach to change.

I told boyfriend the other night after struggling with it all day that it’s going to take some serious therapy for me to get to a point where I can really mess with the food part of losing weight.

So, I need to tackle this from another angle, which is the physical part. I mean, the truth is, even when I decided I was going to eat the damn cookies this week, I still came in under the 1550 calories that will get me to lose weight. It’s just that I can go a long time without eating a cookie when I’m not on a diet. I don’t even think about it. I eat pretty good, really. I eat fruits. I eat veggies. I cook almost everything from scratch — including bread, and I use whole wheat flour. I eat brown rice. I’m not that bad unless I know I HAVE to be good.

So yes, I have to attack this from the physical side of things. Except then there’s that whole injury thing… I have to figure this out. I think I’m on the verge of buying a treadmill, because at least I know that is something I’ve always enjoyed and that isn’t limited in any way by my arm being jacked up.

All in all, I expect to weight tomorrow and maybe have lost and maybe have stayed the same. I am betting on about half a pound. Which is still fine if I get my strategy worked out and then stay with it. I set the goal of 1 pound per week knowing that I didn’t want to try and do anything crazy, too hard, unrealistic or anything that would make me give up too easily… so half a pound would not be a disappointment at all. Even no loss at all (this week) would not be a disappointment because I feel like I’m getting the most important thing taken care of at the outset — my mental fitness.

I decided to join a weight loss challenge on Twitter. Because if I learned anything in middle school, it’s that there’s nothing like peer pressure to help you succeed and feel good about yourself.

Ha. Kidding. Seriously, though, unlike middle school, it seems as I’ve been matched up with a pretty awesome set of folks… folks with similar issues like injuries that have helped pack on the pounds or have impeded exercise efforts… pregnancy weight… too busy / tired from chasing kids around all day… sweet tooth… body image issues…

And then folks with issues outside my own, too, which always helps to broaden the persepective and make you look at your own challenges in a whole different way.

And the one thing we all have in common seems not just to be that we want to drop some pounds but that we want to move toward better health. I think that’s my biggest deal right now. I’ve made lots of changes to my lifestyle in the last 5 years or so (and not just with food)… cut out trans fat and high fructose corn syrup, stopped eating out so much, stopped eating as much processed foods, moved toward more whole grains, stopped using anything that contains fragrance, etc. etc.

But I still need to go further. Because I’m still carrying a lot of weight around and I’m not feeling as good as I know I could. Because I think that some issues are starting to crop up that could have something to do with my weight. Because my birthmother has been having issues with arthritis and her heart and it worries me that if I don’t get control of some of my health issues, I might be setting the stage for those problems as well. I mean, I still might have some of those things in my future, but if I can make them any less difficult, I need to go on and do that.

Right now I’m shooting for 1 pound a week. My ideal weight range is 101 - 136 pounds. I’m going to shoot for the upper end of that and re-evaluate my goals at that time. It should take me, best case scenario, 38 weeks to get to that, so some time in May. I think that’s a more reasonable goal than I usually set for myself…

Anyway, this is my formal declaration that… well… IT’S ON! Let the weight loss begin and the health kick in.

So, I forgot to mention in my last post… so far, I’ve had luck drinking a gigantic glass of water right before I go to bed. Then I wake up naturally in this gentle way about 3 hours after I fall asleep because I need to go to the bathroom. I realize then that my eyelid is stuck to my eyeball and I keep a bunch of vials of the Bion Tears by my bed. I fumble around for those and it usually takes a full vial between both eyes. I gently spread it around my lids and put the slightest pressure on my eyes to open until they come open without tearing anything.

Then I go to the bathroom and drink another big glass of water and repeat the process again 3 hours later. It helps me stay hydrated, too, which is just one contributing factor with the dry eyes.

I’m waking up about every 3 hours, but since I’m just getting my eyes to open and then going to the bathroom it doesn’t seem that disruptive to my sleep and I’m still having plenty of dream time.

I’m also taking 1mg of melatonin before bed to help conquer the anxiety / insomnia cycle I’ve got going. It helps a lot. I find I’m not laying in bed in a panic, fighting sleep.

I read over my words in these eye-related posts and find it’s just so strange that something can come along and have such an impact… turn your every day and night into something it wasn’t before.

I was thinking about this and how much my arm injury changed my life for a while. I was trying to remember what my life was like right after it happened… I was trying to remember dinner, what did I eat? How did my boyfriend manage everything? We (mostly he) did some pretty major cleaning this weekend. It’s not like I’m the best housekeeper, because I’m not. I think I’m missing the gene that sees things like dust… But after the arm incident I couldn’t even open the toothpaste, much less operate a vacuum or a broom. Still, more than a year later, using the vacuum tires me quickly and makes my arm hurt for days.

So, I was trying to remember cleaning during that time. Cooking. Anything that I did. I couldn’t even dress myself. I couldn’t dry myself when I got out of the tub. Hell, I couldn’t even bathe for the longest time. More than a month, I guess it was. Jacob stayed with his dad most of that time. I was taking so much pain medication. I slept day and night. I guess I was really only awake a few hours a day. Mostly what I remember about that time is the cat. She never left me. Ever present, curled up on my chest or right on top of my injured arm… she was there with me almost every hour. Crazy cat.

I wanted to write more about everything going on then, but I couldn’t type for so long and any energy I had I used to do the handwriting recognition so I could do what I needed at work. Then I was zapped and would just crash again. I had so much to say about what was going on, though. The frustration and uncertainty of it all. I had so many fears about how much use I was going to get out of my hand and arm. At the time, the nerves in my hand were completely shot and I could hardly move or feel my fingers… It was really scary.

But now… even though there are still lots of problems and I can’t sleep the way I once did and there is pain and all those things… I have an arm and hand that both work. And all that fear and anxiety were for nothing. Even if I didn’t have working bits, what good would all the fear and anxiety have done?

I wish I could keep that in mind now. That yes, this thing is turning my life upside-down right now and I’m having to take lots of measures all day and all night long and it’s a pain in the ass and it’s painful and it’s affecting me greatly… And it could affect my vision and change things even more… Still, what good does it do me to have all this worry?

I go to the doctor tomorrow. I really just want to relax between now and then. I’m worried he’s going to tell me that it’s not healing well and who knows what the next course of action will be… I’m worried he’s going to be upset that two other doctors have stepped in and maybe have done things that he wouldn’t have done. I can’t really help that, however, since he wasn’t available and I wasn’t in a position to wait for treatment. I’m also concerned that while my cornea issues are being addressed, the underlying problem (in my opinion) has not been addressed at all beyond “drops.” The dry eye problem needs more aggressive treatment, I feel. There’s no end to that and I just have this feeling that no matter how many times they scrape or zap my cornea, it’s going to happen again because my eyes are so dry and they resist hydration so completely.

But, you know, who am I to say?

(Yeah, right. I’ll be saying plenty.)

In other news, I am not eating beef any more. I keep saying I’m going to swear it off… each and every recall just adds to that resolve. I just can’t take the thought of it any longer.

The cat is circling my chair… guess she needs a lap / nap.

Email from rep regarding the powdered sugar in Newman O’s (doesn’t break the ingredients down):

Stephanie,
There are some corn ingredients in the NewmanO’s. the vanilla is grain
distilled (probably corn), but you are correct about the powdered sugar-
there is about 2% cornstarch in the powdered sugar.

Newman’s Own Organics pretzels (all varieties), Soy Crisps (4 varieties)
and 3 varieties of Hermit cookies are corn free. There is corn present
in the manufacturing facility.
I hope this is helpful.

Peggy Westenhofer
Director of Customer Relations
Newman’s Own Organics
831-685-2866

—–Original Message—–

Posted At: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:44 PM
Posted To: Web Inquiries
Conversation: ‘Talk To Us’ Information Sent!
Subject: ‘Talk To Us’ Information Sent!

This was sent from the ‘Talk To Us’ page of the Newman’s Own Organics
website.

Name: Stephanie Brown

Do your Newman Os have any corn ingredients? My son is allergic to corn
and it\’s in everything. I\’d love to find a safe cookie for him. I\’m
thinking if it\’s in anything it\’s in the powdered sugar (sometimes
contains corn starch) unless you process your own from straight sugar.
Thanks a bunch!

Corn-free according to rep I talked to yesterday. No ingredients derived from corn.

No reaction from the kiddo thus far in brownies that contain said chips.

Well, something has gone wrong in the date keeping area of my brain. And it’s been going wrong since I gave up the use of my DayRunner. Actually, when I was using my Mac exclusively, I had iCal and there’s this thing about a Mac… it’s much like opening a book. When you open it, everything is visible and working in just seconds, so it’s like having a paper calendar. That worked for me.

On Windows, not so much. Back in the 90s, I tried to get used to using the Outlook calendar and others. But when you want a quick reminder of what’s on your To Do list and your computer is asleep, it’s a much bigger fiasco. There’s more chugging and churning and time passes so slowly. Like a watched pot that never boils, so were those systems on Windows trying to awake from sleep and open programs without giving a blue screen of death.

So, I ditched any Windows-based calendars and stuck to the devil I knew, which was my DayRunner, classic edition, one page per day.

When I got my iBook a few years ago, iCal took the place of my DayRunner quite nicely.

Then I fell off the roof and had to get the Windows Vista so I could do accurate speech recognition / handwriting recognition. Since I was functioning at a bare minimum anyway during the months and months of recovery, a calendar really didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t making any appointments, going to any meetings, driving. I had to depend on everyone else around me for my scheduling needs.

Now that things are back to normalish and I’m needing to be more productive (I’m back in school full time and working as full time as possible, doing the normal mom things) I’m finding that I can’t seem to get my ducks in a row. My system has been all jacked up and all my habits broken (both good and bad) by the time I spent on bedrest.

In writing all this out, I’m wondering why I feel the need to justify or rationalize my decision to buy a DayRunner refill. Do I feel guilty because I like paper? Do I feel like it’s an oddity since I’m such a computer nerd and yet I crave hard copies of parts of my life? I’m not sure, but I just know that this is not the year for me to be unproductive. This is the year I get it all done.

On top of that, after some hemming and hawing and much complaining about the way Vista behaves and after counting in my head all the hours that are wasted on extra clicks, clicks, clicks, clicks… After realizing that my system is loaded with more RAM than Vista can even handle and has way fast processors and still it is just so slow and clunky… After thinking about all the ways Vista is not intuitive and after way too many times thinking in my head, “If I were on my Mac, I would just do x, y or z and this whole thing would be overwith, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO here I am still waiting on Vista,” or, “Why did Vista just do that? I did not tell it to do that. I did not tell it to reorganize my desktop icons or save that file there.” I decided to just break down and buy a MacBook.

So, I look forward to joining the ranks of the productive again. Some time around the 14th, I will be there. Until then, I will continue to curse, throw my hands in the air, bang my head on the keyboard and sigh exasperatedly at this piece of crap machine.

In other news, I did not take many pictures at Camp Baby. I was too busy talking and well, I was just tired the whole time I was there. I did manage to snap this shot, confirming that I am the master of Wii Bowling and that Heather is a looooooser. Actually, I’m not that great at bowling on the Wii. Jacob is way better and beats me all the time. Somehow on this night, however, I managed to get like 5 or 6 strikes in a row. Odd.

Also, the lasagna of last night… I really love the food saver machine. I really am contemplating doing more bulk cooking. This will probably be doubleplusgood when the new computer gets here since nightly cooking tends to break into my most productive work hours. I’m on a roll between 4 and 6 — in that hyperfocused zone, you know?

Or whatever I said in the last entry…

It’s Teeccino.

It’s for people who like coffee but want to stop with the caffeine nightmare that is a headache as soon as you wake up, aching back / neck /shoulders every friggin’ day, inability to prioritize while the rest of your mind runs away from you like it’s on crack, sitting on the toilet all day from all the acid… you know, that sort of thing. If you’re not having a problem with coffee, I envy you. I used to be that person.

Now it’s like a monster or something, screaming “Feed me!!!!”

From sunrise to bedtime. It’s evil.

I broke my habit a while back and was doing good… but this stuff from Costco smells incredible. And I can smell it everytime I walk by the kitchen door. And more than anything about coffee, I love the taste and the warmth of it. I like warm fluids.

(That’s what she said?)

But my dairy strike has cocoa out of the question and tea leaves me with the same headache problem.

So, Teeccino. I went to Whole Foods and got two varieties. Maya Caffe and Mocha.

I’m drinking the Maya Caffe right now.

It’s like… If you’ve ever had soy milk or rice milk, you might remember the first time you tried it. You might have been expecting it to taste like cow’s milk. And yet, it didn’t. Soy milk tastes like soy milk. And rice milk tastes like rice milk. Same with all the other “milks.” Nothing tastes like cow’s milk except cow’s milk.

The same with this stuff. It’s not coffee. It’s like I had that expectation of coffee taste because it’s brown and looks just like it. But then it hits your mouth and you realize… this is not coffee.

Now, that’s not to say it’s bad or anything. I like soy milk and rice milk because I like them. But not because they’re cow’s milk. I don’t drink any of the alternate milks with the same devotion that I once had for cow’s milk. Not even close.

But this could be a good, warm fluid to make up for the habit I have when I’m working and reading. I really like that part of it. I kind of feel lost in space when I don’t have it. It doesn’t taste bad at all, in fact it’s pretty good.

Anyway, we’ll see. Expect more bitchy until my caffeine habit is completely broken. I’ll call my mood “beeccino.”

So, I’m hungry. I decide I’ve got enough leftover bits of stuff in the fridge to make an omelet. Yum.

But then I’m sitting here and it starts to taste… like a memory. I have really strong taste / smell / memory association. It’s as if those things are directly tied to my emotion, as well… like, smells can make me cry and feel weepy.

Anyway, I realize then that the last time I made an omelet was on the day I fell off the ladder and the memory I’m getting is of throwing up omelet in the hospital. How odd is that? I don’t know what the logic is there, but I’d been in the hospital for like 3 days before I threw up perfectly preserved, undigested chunks of ham, onion and egg. How is that even possible? Is that some reflex, where your body says hey, we don’t really need to be focused on digestion right now. How about we just make more blood and heal and stuff.

? I don’t know.

Now I’m sitting here thinking that something bad is about to happen to me.

And do you know that now, almost a year later, I still have visions of it in my head? The fall, specifically. When I’m going to sleep and I get that sensation of falling, I jolt awake and it’s as if I were right there. I don’t know how to get rid of it. It’s kind of disturbing.

At any rate, I’m not working in the yard this weekend, and I don’t care what the temperature is.

Sometimes I look at my blog drafts and I just laugh my ass off.

I have no idea what I am thinking some days when a topic catches my eye.

Anyway… did I mention that I’m feeling more normal these days? I mean, with my arm and whatnot. I guess I’m going to be all right. I say this and yet I’m not sure I fully believe it. I still recoil at the slightest touch to my arm and am as protective of it as ever. I do realize that it could blow out at some point, but I guess I’m feeling more and more like nothing I do is going to make that happen. I know what it is capable of now. I’m aware of its limits. I think I’m still afraid what someone else might accidentally do to it, however.

The scar is fading a bit, which is nice, I guess. I don’t really care, I suppose. Once in a while I get a reaction out of someone who sees it, not expecting it.

You look at giant scars quite differently after you get one of your own.

I’m busy as ever with school about to start, parenting, work, etc. I started another blog (food related) because I need that like I need another whole in my head. In some way, though, it’s what is consuming my life right now. Food. So I figured I better harness that energy and maybe use it to propel me back into the habit of doing a better job on my other blogs. I fell out of the habit of daily blogging here and at work after the fall and now that I’m feeling better I haven’t had the discipline to get the habit established again. I know part of that has to do with Jacob and everything that’s been going on with him in the last year… but now that he’s starting to see some relief from the surgeries and the allergy shots and the diet… I feel like I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Plus it’s made such a difference in his behavior and his ability to focus at school (meaning no more hours and hours of prodding him to do his homework every single night) so I am finding I have more time to work on “me” things.

It feels kind of awesome, really… if I could just get a groove going again.

–

In other news, I think the orange stray that comes around our house is in heat. She’s running around making all this racket and it has the grey stray (which by the way, I found out isn’t a stray, he actually has a home) and other cats hanging around the house and fighting. Last night at about 2am they started up in the driveway next door and that woke SO up. He was yelling out the window and threw a pitcher of water their way but they still went on and on. We ended up moving Jacob’s air purifier in here so the noise would drown them out.

They were at it again this morning.

I’ve got to catch her and get her to the SPCA.

They probably think I’m nuts, bringing them cats all the time. It makes me feel so bad, but at least they’re going to homes where they will get taken care of instead of depending on the random kindness of the neighborhood. That may or may not be there depending on the day… I told SO that this time he’s going to have to handle it.

A good idea at highway rest stops where the summer temperatures are high or the winter temps are low, I suppose.

I’ve been out of town for the last 9 days. It was a good time, but as I’m reflecting on it today I’m finding it is eye opening.

I gained 15 pounds while I was gone. I consumed more food than one person should be allowed considering that a large number of people on this planet are starving.

I blame sugar and meat.

Oh, yeah, and me, since I was the one guzzling all that crap.

More on it later. I’ve got to go to the store and the post office and get the boy from school.

So I’m doin’ real nice with this writing every day thing, huh?

Noooooooo.

Let’s see what my excuses are…

On 11/5, which was what? Monday? I was working on school stuff and then I had to make crazy allergy jelly (recipe) and then I had to make a roast (recipe) and then I had to make bread (recipe) and collard greens (recipe) which take forever to clean and remove the stems and such.

And then I was tired, but I started watching this show about children in India who are born to mothers in brothels and I couldn’t stop watching that…

But my boyfriend went to bed early and so I couldn’t get to my computer to write…

And… yeah. All that.

Then on 11/6, which was yesterday. I was working on more school stuff and researching how to dry fruit when you don’t have a dehydrator and then I was cold so I went to take a bath and after that I started watching this documentary about Scrabble nerds and fell asleep during that.

Which brings me to today.

Oh, but look, I’ve written today. How nice.

See you tomorrow.

So, I’ve been trying to figure out culprits in my diet that are making me feel like shit. I have already figured out coffee which was a very sad realization, but now that I’ve eliminated that, I’m still having problems with something. I think it’s chocolate or milk.

I eliminated chocolate the last two go arounds. I was completely off the diet when I went back to Oklahoma, so that was nearly a full cycle. But this is what I ate when I was away:

• 3 pieces of cantaloupe
• 1 piece of lettuce that tasted odd so I spit it out
• Some chicken noodle thing
• tea
• peanut butter cookies (about 5)
• 2 bloody marys
• King’s Hawaiian Rolls (3)
• Izze Blackberry drink

That was over like 3 1/2 days. It was very odd. Because I was surrounded by food. You know how it is when someone dies. You just get inundated with food. Well, people know how big our family is, so there was just tons of food. Every day, more and more of it.

So it was strange to be in the midst of that, and yet nothing looked appealing to me. It was like my mind was just tainted against all of it. Everything all mixed up together and in big aluminum trays or casserole dishes… I had no idea what was in anything. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay completely on the rotation, but I was going to try to stay as close as I could. Once I got there, I had no idea that my body and mind would align and do it for me. It wasn’t like I even had to put up any will to not eat things because nothing looked good.

I’m sure emotion had something to do with it as well. When I’m uncomfortable emotionally or having sad kind of stress I never want to eat. Everything loses its luster.

At any rate, I avoided both chocolate and milk. Dinner last night started Day 1 on the diet, which is milk day. I had a glass and a half and made alfredo. About 30 minutes after dinner and after I’d been feeling fine all day I came down with what was nearly a migraine. Today I woke up feeling better, but then had a little bit of milk with oatmeal and as I was driving Jacob to school another migraine set in.

I came home and got in bed and didn’t get out till nearly 11am. What the hell?

So, it may be both milk and chocolate, but I know that it’s milk for sure now.

And I’m so sad about that. But it’s just like the allergist was saying… too much of a good thing. I’ve had milk every day since I was probably about 15 years old. I guess my body has decided that enough is enough.

I really wish I’d known, being the allergy-prone person that I am, that this is how these food allergies get started. I would have made some major changes years ago. I would have started the world of food for Jacob in a completely different way…

Speaking of which, it’s time to pick him up at school and take him to get his weekly allergy shot. Bleh.

Mmmm…

Seriously, though, it’s days like this that make me glad I don’t eat this crap any more.

So, I need to write about this more, because it’s been pretty consuming for a long time. And off and on throughout my life since the first time I heard about dolphins swimming into six-pack rings as a child or watched the commercial of the Native American dude crying about the litter. I grew up in Oklahoma… Trail of Tears, y’all. Making Indians cry is not farkin’ cool.

Living more green. And stuff. Not just green, because that’s the fun, crazy buzzword of the day. But other stuff, too. Stuff that may or may not be green or good for the planet, depending on how you look at it. Stuff that people who know me say is just part of me being a hippie. But I was born in the ’70s, so technically no. But yeah, OK, a little bit. Read the rest of this entry »