Mamarati

Where is it? I want to go there. I want to see pictures. How long do animals typically live there? What about the animals who have been adopted out after research… I want to hear from humans who have done this.

I think I’ll write a letter of course, but these are the things I’m wondering tonight.

I’ve always been pretty good about buying things that don’t get tested on animals, but after having this corneal erosion and knowing how severe the pain is involving the eye… It makes it that much more important to me.

In other news, I’ve lost a shed load of weight in two weeks. I think I’m down something like 11 pounds. I am also dying for a cookie. Dying is probably an exaggeration, but I would really enjoy a cookie. I also have this vision of me eating a cookie… and then eating about 10 more cookies. Because that is what I would do. And I know it. I would not stop at just one. Not my nature.

Last night when I wanted a cookie and was bitching and moaning, I decided to have some bacon instead. Boyfriend came in and said he didn’t think he’d ever seen someone sitting on the couch eating bacon as a snack. Bacon is the new cookie in my low-carb world.

So, I’m on day 4 and I’m already down 6 pounds. Very nice. Although it kinda sucks because it’s the 6 pounds I gained last week. I am still shocked that I gained that much damn weight in a week. I haven’t done that since I was pregnant.

Whatever. I’m doing good on the diet and am not craving sugar, although I’m craving milk pretty badly. Really just any beverage besides water, because I hate drinking water. But I will get over it. I’m trying to stay away from the artificial sweeteners and even stuff like Stevia for a while until I get all this carbiness out of my system. I tend to have bad luck with those… they stall my weight loss and make me crave sweets even more.

I’m doing OK without the caffeine but am still getting a little bit of headache. Last night it didn’t hit me until late and it occurs to me that I should have just gone to sleep.

Sleep. Yes. I see myself doing less of that in the future. This week I’ve had 4 corneal erosions. Two of them were last night. I woke up at like 8am with one and then an hour later it was stuck again. That’s a first. I truly don’t know what I’m going to do about this. Boyfriend is thinking I should tape my eyes shut and I know that is a solution for folks who can’t keep their eyes shut at night, but what I don’t know is if the pressure between eyelid and eyeball will be worsened with tape and cause the sticking to be more severe.

This morning when I got the first erosion I could feel the anxiety and depression setting in over me. But I still decided to face my fear and go back to bed. And then it happened again. And now it’s something more than just anxiety. I feel … something like despair. I want to cry. I want my eye to be normal again. I want to stop using all these drops nonstop all day, all night. I want to sleep without goggles on. I want to just go to sleep and not worry… like I used to be able to do.

But that is not to be. So, I imagine I’m going to spend less time sleeping for a while until I can talk myself back into being comfortable and sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time. This is no way of life, I will tell you that. It is severely affecting my overall well-being.

Meanwhile, the VP debates are tonight. And it occurs to me that no matter how Palin does, there will be people who spin her as some kind of political genius. And that makes my stomach churn. I’m so tired of all the crap and all the mangled lies and distortions, I’m just not watching the news too much. I had to stop watching the Twitter election coverage completely, it’s just so filled with hate and lies. It’s one thing to poke some fun at your opposition or to have a good-spirited debate with someone or to use humor to throw some light on the situation… but what’s going on there is just a lot of hate, racism, extremism, closed minds, rocky hearts, venom.

It’s like there’s this other America or something… or something beneath the surface of people that I don’t get to see very often face to face and it really disgusts me. So, I just have to be done with that and listen to the news on the radio on the way to pick Jacob, where it’s not all about politics and it’s just reporting and no spin / commentators / pundits, etc. I’m going to watch the debates, but I’m not going to watch the analysis, which is just a lot of biased crap. I can analyze all by myself, thanks, and I’ll be in a lot better mood if I do just that.

Wow. I forgot about this part of starting Atkins. The part where I go through sugar withdrawal and caffeine withdrawal and withdrawal from whatever other crap my body had such a good time with.

I have the mother of all headaches right now and I feel like I’m carrying a ton of bricks, I’m so weighed down and tired. It doesn’t help much that I woke up at 6am with my eyeball stuck to my eyelid. The pain from that does not get any better… I put in a numbing drop and switched to a brand new contact. I’m thinking that maybe 3 weeks is going to be my limit on these rather than the 30 days it says I can wear them nonstop. That’s probably on a person with a much wetter eye… I think what’s been happening lately is that the contact gets a bit dried out and sticks to another part of my eyeball, thus leaving my cornea exposed and ripe for stickage.

Either way, it’s no fun. I did take a monumental step, however, and I didn’t stay up freaking out paranoid. I actually went back to bed. I don’t know if I was just feeling particularly brave, if I was relying on the newness / wetness of the new contact to save me, or if I have just given up and realized that if it’s going to stick it’s going to stick and what can I do about it?

I feel like shit right now. But I know this will pass. I remember it… Once I got over the hump I felt great. It sucks, but an hour ago I had my first nearly purple ketostix, so that’s all the evidence I need to tell me I’m on the right track. Yay. So I’m going to go indulge in an advil and a nap and hope this bout is going to be a short one. Seems like last time the worst of it was over in a few days but I was really tired for like 2 weeks… Hopefully not this time.

Or rather, not. I have gained like 6 pounds this last week. And that was before I went to Bubba’s and ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and a giant roll.

I have been eating a ton. Stuffing myself. I don’t know what the deal is, either. It’s like I’m doing some emotional eating except that I have nothing emotional going on. I’m just eating till I’m beyond full. I think part of it has been that I’ve been eating really late in the day, and then boyfriend comes home and I eat again soon after.

At any rate, I have to get this under control. I think I need a kick start and a change from this sugar / bread / pasta love affair that I have going. I started Atkins induction this morning. When I got on the scale and saw how much weight I’d gained, I immediately knew it’s what I have to do. And no more excuses about being so busy or being on campus all day and unable to make the food. I’m home all day. I can do this.

I guess I took myself seriously, because usually when I say I’m going to do something like this I have to take some time and plot it all out and then have a blowout of sugar. Not this time. I started first thing this morning and spent a good part of the day cleaning stuff out of my pantry and rearranging things so that it will be easy for me to follow.

I needed to do that anyway, since it’s been a while since we found out about all of J’s food allergies… Some of the stuff that didn’t quite work for us (like quinoa flakes and kamut flour) has since expired, so they needed to go anyway. I put all the oils and vinegars together, all the snacks J can have, all the grains, so they are away from my area and all the canned meats and things I can have together. I kept all the baking stuff together so I can make stuff for J and boyfriend.

The good thing about this is that I’ve done it before with great success, even though it was a bajillion years ago (or like… eight) and it’s not incompatible with what I need to cook for J and his allergies. Basically it’s fresh food and not processed crap. Everyone will survive. I make them brownies and don’t eat those anyway.

God I’m just tired of being fat. I feel like I’m at my rock bottom here. But at least something is REALLY motivating me now.

I finally got Wii Fit. Cashed in a bunch of old games. Amazing what those little buggers are worth…

I didn’t know if I was going to like it all that much, but figured it would hold its resale value so why not give it a try? But, wow, I am really loving this thing. If you’re anything like me (you work on the Internet, never leave the house, don’t live in the safest neighborhood for walking, live somewhere where it’s 80 bajillion degrees all the time, hate walking at the mall, can’t afford a gym membership or Yoga / Pilates / Other classes or don’t have those options close to home, have an injury which prevents you from getting the most out of a gym membership anyway, basically lazy, procrastinate, did I mention you’re a complete homebody?) then this will really be your cup of tea.

At first, I was really screwing up on all the games and such, but I’m steadily getting better with about an hour a day of practice. I love the yoga and strength exercises quite a bit, although there are still some that I cannot do because of my arm. I am finding that I can modify them, however, so perhaps this will add to my range of motion over time. The balance games are fun and I think it’s all helping my back. My spine just seems more cooperative and … ? not as compressed maybe? Something is definitely more comfortable in that area. And it’s popping like it used to when I was younger and would twist in a chair or on the couch. That hasn’t happened for years.

I think this is just what I need to work me back into a regular routine and prepare me for some more strenuous exercise.

Something else I found that is nice… Alicia King wrote a few articles about the yoga poses, including other poses that you can incorporate that aren’t included in Wii Fit (like doing Crescent Pose or Reverse Warrior on the Warrior setting). (More: Seven additional poses, More advanced poses, Is Yoga on the Wii good or bad).

Biggs came over the other day and he loved it, too. His mom was wanting something like this so he went and got it this weekend. That brings me to some things that I wish Wii Fit had or that I hope they program into Wii Fit II if there is to be something like that…

A way to run through multiple exercises / yoga poses without using the Wiimote. I find that it’s too clicky, kind of like Windows or a poorly designed Web site. Click, click, click. I’d love the option of picking five exercises and just running through them one after the other and maybe using my body balance to hit a “Yes” or “No” square. (Next exercise? “Yes” or “No”)

On Ski Jump, especially, I want to fast forward to my results and not wait for the crowd applause and whatnot. But all games should give me the option of not watching the beginning / end cinema.

More song choice and more routines on the step games. I really enjoy this and had no idea it would be so fun. I’d love to have a lot more of these routines. I think a whole new game spin-off could be made from this. I guess it’d be sort of like Dance, Dance Revolution, except for the less coordinated. (Like me, my kid, my boyfriend or the very elderly. Haha. We are a houseful of clumsy.)

Well, since I know a lot of moms online who have it and now Biggs has it and I know a lot of my kid’s friends have it, I wish it worked with the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. It would be fun to do side-by-side exercises, compete against friends or even strangers in the balance games or even do turn-based exercises and competing. I think if they added a component like this, they’d see the formation of support groups and perhaps they could even have it where groups of friends could meet in a room (kind of like on MarioKart) and they could add some way to send each other notes of support and motivation, cards, gifts, trophies, etc.

Speaking of trophies and such, I wish there was more unlockable stuff or rewards… When boyfriend saw that it had “unlockables” he joked that I would be dripping with sweat and collapsed on the floor when he got home from work the next day. Except it’s no joke. I get completely obsessed with unlocking and earning things in video games. I like to collect stuff. Not in real life, only in video games… you ought to see how crazy I get with stuff like Animal Crossing. I have to have EVERYTHING. Other people like Super Paper Mario, but I have to get every combination of items so that I can cook every recipe and I have to have every single badge, even the worthless ones I will never use. On Smash Brothers and Brawl, I have to have every single event completed, sticker and trophy collected.

My kid drives me crazy how he can run through levels completely ignoring all the hidden goodies. He just hauls ass to the finish or uses continuous brute force to beat the boss. I’m like, OK, if I have all these items and I’m wearing these badges and I do this move at just this right time… then I will end with exactly this many coins and I will obtain these items and level up here. It’s total micromanagement, but it’s fun and somehow very soothing to me.

So I would like to see more of this in Wii Fit… maybe more rankings or challenges. I like when it tells me, for example, that I can combine a strength exercise and a yoga pose and when I’ve done both it will say I’ve completed that workout. I would like feedback on that. Give me a little trophy or something and chart that information. Tell me how many times I’ve paired those particular exercises.

Or send gifts from Nintendo, like the winter hat and such… you could sign on to Wi-Fi on Animal Crossing and then you’d get a letter with a gift hat from Nintendo. That’s just fun. So, how about send me a little something now and again. Or reward me for signing on 100 consecutive days or whatnot. I don’t know why that stuff works for me, but it does, and I know I’m not alone. I know some people get confused about that stuff or find too much tracking to be a distracting pain in the ass, but I like it. They could make the most obvious tracking and charts up front and then hide another settings area for the more anal, like myself. A super-neurotic setting, if you will.

A Stage Builder for step might be fun… Kind of like building a level on Elebits or the Stage Builder on Brawl, it would be fun to drag and drop the different elements (side steps, kicks, etc.) to make your own routine… and be able to choose from different songs (kind of like on Brawl, old school Nintendo songs would be fun to do the routines to, no?)

There was something else I was going on about the other night, but now I can’t remember. I’m sure it will come to me, though.

Oh, I remember… the Lotus Focus level… I would love to see that or some other mediation level be unlockable to have an unlimited amount of time or see something like the iTunes visualizer with some soothing meditation sounds or just quiet. I know I can do this on my own (duh) but I would like it to show me how much I move around, shift my balance, get antsy, etc. and I would like it to chart my progress for me.

In other news, another program I’m liking a lot is My Word Coach. I’ll have to write about that one later…

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.