Trying Again

Well hello to my old friends. I bet you forgot I existed.  It has been so long that I couldn’t remember my password!  I fail to understand why, as much as I love to write, I cannot blog on a regular basis.  I guess it goes hand in hand with my inability to stick with anything!  Diet, exercise, resolutions, etc.  My weight yoyos like crazy.  When I exercise, it is down, when I am highly stressed, it is down.  Anything in between and I begin to look like a hippopotamus!  I don’t seem to be able to find a happy medium.  And so, I am starting to work on a new me all over again!  Is that a collective groan that I hear from my readers?  I don’t blame you in the slightest.  Nonetheless, I am going to give it a shot.  And since it is spring, this is an apt time for Springcleanedmom to do some spring cleaning!

What exactly are you doing, I hear you ask?  I don’t usually do things in half measures so I am throwing myself into a Whole30.  Yes, me, the anti-high protein, -low carb girl. Yes me, the anti-paleo girl.  I couldn’t care less what my cave-person ancestors ate and I don’t believe that today’s diet should reflect what they ate.  I know, I know, this doesn’t make sense at all.  Well, here is what I like about Whole30.  They are not advocating for a caveman diet.  They are advocating for a healthy diet.  A good deal of what they say makes sense to the scientist in me.   And a part of it is plain desperation.

It all started when I was a wee-little lass.  The “sick headaches”, the fatigue, the anxiety, the depression, and the insomnia.  And it only got worse through my college years, partially because I discovered alcohol (actually, that discovery was a little earlier than college).  My 20s were the worst years for depression, my 30s for migraine.  My 40s haven’t seen much in the way of depression, but pain has been my companion for a very long time now, as has insomnia.  I started running in my 30s and although this new-found love went hand-in-hand with a healthier lifestyle and weight, it also went hand-in-hand with chronic hip pain.  While surgery fixed some of the hip problems, it hasn’t been the complete answer to my troubles.   Every so often I have major flare ups which require steroids.  And in the past two weeks I have had shingles and debilitating back pain.  Out of shear desperation, I have turned to the internet and as luck (or misfortune) would have it, I stumbled across the Whole30 program!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love to eat.  I am addicted to food.  While I am fortunate enough to enjoy healthy foods, I am a potato chip addict.  If it wasn’t so bad for me, I’d live on a diet of dips, chips, and red wine 🙂  Who wouldn’t want to do that?  As you can imagine, I don’t feel so good when my diet consists largely of fat and sugars.  It is time to detoxify.  I am also treating this as a migraine elimination diet. I have started many of these over the years but have a hard time sticking with them.  Why do I think Whole30 will be different? Because it has an end date.  They even have a plan to add foods back in to the diet after the 30 days.  The one problem for me is that I am scheduled to have surgery mid-way through.  I thought about starting the “eating plan” after my surgery, but why wait?  If I cannot stick to the diet during my overnight stay in the hospital, so be it!  Technically, the folks who developed the 30 day plan would require I start over.  I will wait and see.  I am highly unlikely to beat myself up about eating something “off-plan) while in the hospital.  The two weeks of healthy eating prior to my hospital stay can only be of benefit.

Today is Day 2 for me!  Day 1 was a breeze.  Today I am lacking energy but given that I am on pain killers and muscle relaxants, I don’t think the diet is soley to blame!  I am looking forward to the morning when I wake up with the “extraordinary energy” that so many Whole30 and Paleo folk describe.   I am not hungry.  That is a good thing.  I do want something sweet but I can handle that.  I am feeling rather positive about this new journey even though I have never experienced a diet-induced change in how I feel.

How about you?  Who has made a significant dietary change and reaped benefits?  I’d love to hear your stories!

The Old New Me

I was doing so well.  I was off the booze, off the Lortabs, off the Ambien.   Life was starting to look better, feel fresher and I was sleeping OK. My semester ended on a high note.  So what, you may ask, is the problem?

Put simply, I do not do injuries well.  When you take away my exercise, you also take away my mental health therapy.  Add to this the fact that the weight stacks on quickly when I am not exercising.  I have gained about 10 lbs in the last couple of months.  Fortunately, I have a consult with the orthopedic surgeon on Monday.  I want resolution.  I don’t want months more of conservative treatment.  Clearly, conservative treatment isn’t working.  I am ready to confront this thing head-on.  My MRA shows a labral tear and detachment.  Again, no mention of osteoarthritis.  I will be interested to find out from the OS if he thinks I have any OA.

So here I go again, time to spring clean myself.  Actually, if I am honest with myself, the booze hasn’t been much of a problem, and neither has the Lortab.  I take it because I am in pain.  The problem is that I am on a narc contract and taking it for the hip (which is not why it is prescribed) makes me feel like a junkie.  After Monday, I will be able to contact my neurologist and perhaps do away with the narcs for the time being.  If I am given a cortisone shot in the hip, I shouldn’t need pain meds for a while.  This would be good because if I need surgery, I don’t want to have any degree of tolerance to any of these drugs.

I really feel for those who are worse off than me.  This is the first time that I have ever been totally restricted due to mechanical failure!  And I am proving to be a great big baby.  Yes, there are other forms of exercise I could do, but I have a 3 and a 5 year old and most other forms of exercise take a lot more time than going for a jog or lifting weights in the basement.  Somehow, I need to find a happy medium.  I am still searching.

Savor the Moment

So many things lead to this point in time. Tonight/tomorrow we are expecting snow.  Yes, snow in April.  Not only are we expecting snow, but we are expecting accumulation of several inches.  Last weekend we were outside spraying each other with the garden hose!  Last weekend I rode my bike on the trail.  Monday just past, it was in the 90s for the Boston Marathon.  Tomorrow, parts of PA and NY are going to get over a foot of snow.  I am thankful I spent most of last weekend outdoors.  Just as my title says, savor the moment.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Exercise.  Many of us take it for granted.   Many of us don’t do it.  We always say we will.  But we never seem to start or if we do, we don’t continue. There is always tomorrow, or is there?  My hip is continuing to get worse.  I am still able to get about and I could still probably run or cycle but the payback pain isn’t worth it.  We walked for 3 hours with the kids at the mall on Saturday.  Today I struggled to walk around the supermarket.  For those who keep saying they will start tomorrow, my advice to you is start today and enjoy every moment of it.  I had hoped to train for my third marathon this summer and perhaps get a couple of short distance triathlons in.  Now I am wondering if I will be spending my summer recovering from surgery.  For those who can, savor the moment.

And how am I doing with the spring cleaning?  I devoured a bottle of wine on Friday night.  Not very pleased with myself for doing this but one slip up in about 3 weeks is pretty good.  I fought the temptation to refill my Ambien prescription today.  I have no reason to do this.  I don’t seem to need it right now and it wreaks havoc with my short-term memory.  It makes me sleep like a baby though!  Migraines/headaches have been responding well to Zomig and nothing has escalated to the point of requiring intervention from a health care provider.  This is good news.  Perhaps I am finally outgrowing my migraines!

Tomorrow it is back into the battle zone at work, but I do actually practice what I preach.  We had a fabulous weekend with the kids, even though the weather was miserable.  Littlest one fell asleep before 10 PM tonight which is a miracle!  Now I am going to savor some moments of responsibility-free time.

Recent Travels

As the school year winds down, I find myself dreaming of vacations.  Of course, I cannot take any real vacations this summer since I well and truly overdrew the vacation purse over the past 6 months.  Fortunately, my last trip home was for a happy event.  This is where I witnessed someone close to me get married:

Only my husband and I went on this trip.  It is difficult to make the decision to travel without the children.  However, when each child costs over $1000 to fly to my homeland, it is difficult to justify.  We did take them late last year and my older son has been twice now.  It is unfortunate that it is so expensive to travel, but at least there are many things for us to see and do in the US.

Today is Saturday and although cold, it is a beautiful sunny morning.  Makes the ever so glad that I did not succumb to the desire to buy a bottle of wine last night.  This reduced alcohol thing is working out ok, even if I do have some fairly strong cravings at times.  I have had a dull headache for the past few days but that too is bearable.  We took the kids to see The Lorax last night and it was delightful.  Tonight, hubby and I will go to The Hunger Games.  We are not big movie buffs.  In fact, the only movie my husband and I have seen together at a cinema since we have been married is Race Across the Sky (I think that is what it was called – the Leadville Mountain Bike race?).  With two kids and no family to watch them, movie nights become expensive.  We have found a great sitter, which is lucky, be every time we need a sitter, we are spending at least $100 for the whole evening.  I guess one might argue that you cannot put a price on sanity, but sometimes I find it hard to justify paying a sitter.

And somehow I am back to the balancing of family and life again.  I keep hearing how important “me” time is or “couples time”.  And I totally agree.  My husband and I have quite a strained relationship and kids haven’t made it easier.  But stressing about money also puts strain on a relationship so where is the balance here?  Add to the fact that the kids are at daycare all day, and you might come to the correct conclusion that we don’t want to spend time away from them in the evenings.

I know you are hearing lots of complaints from me, but keep in mind that this is my outlet.  It is healthier to vent here than at home.  I tend to fall into a vicious circle – get stressed, drink too much, take too much migraine medicine and cannot sleep.  Take sleeping pills, brain gets foggy, coping abilities decline, stress increases…  and so on.  It has been nice to have a less clouded brain as of late.  The stress is still there and sleep doesn’t come as easily as I’d like, but I feel more motivated to do things well when I am a little more “sharp”.  For me, these things come in cycles.  With one month of the academic year left, I know I have three months of down time ahead of me.  While I will be expected to work, work takes on a different meaning over the summer.  The boys will still be in daycare, which sounds cruel but they get to do all sorts of fun stuff in the summer – like go to the local pool every week.  They get to do more stuff than they would if they were home with me (because technically, I am still working – gotta love a 12 month contract at a teaching institution).  But I will have the luxury of taking them late and picking them up early.  They can have the day off if I want to stay home with them for the day.  Yes, summers are my saving grace, my mental health care. I cannot wait!

Day 3, The Irritables

If I could get any more irritable, I could be mistaken for a woman on Clomid (at least that is what my friends tell me about that awful, yet wonderful fertility drug). Combine PMS with perimenopause with low-grade detox with lack of sleep and that gives you an idea of what my poor husband has to live with at the moment. Today I was so irritable that had we stayed in for the evening, I’d have chewed through everyone! To disguise my infliction as best possible, I cleaned out our fish tank (all the Neon Tetras died) and dragged the family first to CiCi’s for dinner and then next door to PetCo for new fish. This time I got smart and read up on fish before buying them. Turns out the perfect fish for my 5 year old is the Zebra Danio. We how have 5 very robust-looking zebras swimming around a very clean tank. I am proud of myself!

I know you are all wondering how I did with the drugs today and I will tell you. Day three of no booze and day three of no Ambien. However, have I mentioned the arthritis to you yet? I am sure I have as my husband tells me that I repeat myself all the time. Anyway, here it is again. I have recently diagnosed osteoarthritis in my hips and possibly my knees. I suspect spinal involvement too but that is just me guessing. My sports doc told me to keep running. He’d prefer I did lower volume running than cycling or swimming. So I did my little 2 mile run yesterday and today my hip sucks. Since I am already maxed out on NSAIDs, the only pain meds I can take for it are the Lortabs. So I did succumb to the pain and took two of my precious migraine meds for my hip. The smart thing to do would be to have my neurologist and sports medicine team talk to each other so they can figure out a way for me to treat all of my pain. Instead I am struggling to make what I have work for everything. I am not feeling guilty for taking the Lortab. But it does only leave me with 6 pills until mid-April. Despite the setback, I plan to do another 2 mile jog in the morning. If exercising is what I am supposed to be doing, then that is what I will do. Let’s face it, the best prophylaxis for my migraines is running.

Let’s talk about my weight. I feel as though I need to start thinking about taking some very positive steps towards losing some. I don’t like my current weight (which is up 2 lbs since I first started this blog a few days ago). If I go public, perhaps I will find the strength to stop eating a pro-diabetes and obesity diet. So, the alcohol is mostly gone. Now I need to work on cutting out unhealthy snacks. I have been pretty good with this but I usually blow it on the weekends. I while back I joined Weight Watchers online. I was amazed at how good their current plan is. The free fruit and vegetables were such a clever thing to do. For those of you not in the know, this means that you can eat as many fruit and vegetables as you want and they don’t count towards your daily food allowance. As someone who would rather not eat fruit, this was revolutionary for me. I could snack all I wanted, as long as it was fruit! And, not being a fruit person, I didn’t over do it. So this is where I have to go.

I also decided not too long ago that if I actually paid extra to buy organic food, perhaps I would waste less and eat less. I am going to stick with this theory for a while because I think I might be on to something! I have just come off a bad weekend and this week isn’t looking too good so far so I will have to re-initiate this latest of my bright ideas. Since I already plan to have a breakfast casserole for dinner tomorrow (home-grown eggs by the way- or is that home laid?) so I will begin again tomorrow. I really need to see my weight go down. I am outgrowing my closet and before long, I will not even have my “fat clothes” to choose from. Sigh. Need I say it? YO YO!

Day 2: Make Me or Break Me Day

Usually on day two of a detox, I have convinced myself that I am not a problem drinker and that one beer after work isn’t going to hurt. And so, I have that one beer! Today I didn’t do it! I almost did because let’s face it, I felt like one. Just one. And I probably would have had just one. I don’t seem to need to keep going with beer like I do with wine. But, for two reasons, I didn’t reach for the beer. The first being that I am determined to do this. The second being, there is no beer in the house LOL. There is however, Black Cherry Lemonade which is very, very good. I don’t even like cherry flavored stuff but this stuff is gooooood!

Also on day two is the no unnecessary ingestion of Lortab. This was a pretty big battle today for two reasons. First, I had a headache. Wasn’t bad, but was annoying, and like all headaches, it had the potential to transform into a migraine. But I was feeling as though it probably wouldn’t, and I was correct. Second, I went for a 2 mile run this morning. Finally decided to check out the hip to see if any of my exercises were working. Turns out that 8 days of strengthening exercises and stretches do not help at all. By late afternoon, my hip was considerably painful. Now, instead of taking Lortab (I only have 8 left until sometime next month), I took Panadeine. This is an over-the-counter medicine available in Australia that contains acetaminophen and codeine. The codeine is in ridiculously miniscule doses which I doubt have any greater effect than the acetaminophen alone, but I took it just the same. I needed to at least try for a placebo effect. At least the pain got me on the phone making all sorts of appointments around town to try to sort this out.

Tonight I would like to introduce a third addiction of mine – Ambien. I have had sleep-onset insomnia all my life. This was a real problem as a kid and now it is just a real nuisance. Ambien changed my life. I could finally sleep again. I don’t even care if I am addicted to the stuff. There is just one problem with it, it DESTROYS my short term memory and probably has other more subtle effects on cognitive function. So, it is best for me not to keep it in the house. I have prescription refills that will give me enough for 1 a months for the next 3 months but for now, I am not filling it. I want to, but unless I can limit myself to using it only once or twice a week, I refuse to keep it in the house. Tonight will be night 2 without Ambien. In its place I have lorazepam (Ativan). This drug is OK. I use it sometimes. I believe that while I am detoxing from alcohol, Ambien and probably hydrocodone, popping a couple of lorazepams a night is probably a very sound thing to do. I don’t really notice its anxiolytic effects but I think I sleep better with it onboard. Eventually, my goal is to be drug-free except for when needed for the migraines and the arthritis.

I was the crankiest mom you could ever imagine tonight. I knew I was going to be. What with the premenstrual stuff going on which is probably also perimenopausal stuff AND detox, what can you expect? I feel a little sorry for my adorable little boys and a lot sorry for my lovely husband. They get the raw end of the deal when mommy/wifey is like this. But I can promise you all that I do not neglect my children or my husband. They are well taken care of both physically and emotionally. I am also the major breadwinner in this household and have managed to raise us to the social status of “soccer mom family”. Big house, big cars, big vacations, too many toys, a dog, a cat, a hamster and fish. Three fish at the moment. Just put 5 neon tetras into a 10 gal tank and two died right away. The other three look great so hears to hoping that they remain that way.

Ah, but blogging is therapeutic. Every time I thought about a drink or medicine today, I thought about my blog. Heck, no one has even read it yet but just the thought that it is public makes me want to stick to my guns. Now I just need some followers who can encourage or flame me. Tomorrow is going to be a great day!

Day 1, And So Begins the Spring Cleaning

Other than a rip-roaring hangover, which I might add, is very rare for a Monday, the day was perfectly OK. Even with all of my new resolutions, I’d have been hungover today. Yesterday was a retirement party for one of my favorite colleagues. I had to be there and I had to be sociable 🙂

No booze today. Not a drop. Of course, that isn’t uncommon for a Monday because I am usually at work all day and then doing karate in the evening. I have not yet been invited into the inner sanctum where I understand, beer is a favorite sustenance! No karate today either. Since injuring my hip several months ago, I have been very cautious about exercising. In fact, one might go so far as to suggest that I am using the injury as an excuse not to exercise. However, to prove the naysayers wrong, tomorrow morning I am scheduled to meet a friend to run at 8:30 AM. And tonight, it is supposed to reach a low of 25 F. WTF?

Another small feat today – no migraine or pain medicine other than my NSAID for my hip. This is great news for I tend to find a headache pops up whenever I think about my stash of Lortab. Another addiction? I surely hope not. I have to think seriously about this one. I don’t take it daily but I totally freak out if I don’t have any. It is my “emotional” crutch for when I have a migraine. Sure, my zolmitriptan works most of the time, but it doesn’t make me feel better emotionally! Today I hardly gave it a thought. This is a great sign.

Tomorrow I will be feeling less enthusiastic about my no alcohol, no drugs diet. I am yet to have added in the reduction of food-derived calories. That will come when I appear to no longer be losing weight from cutting out the booze. Hopefully, by adding some running back into the mix, this will be a few more weeks. Remember, 1 lb per week is the big goal.

I have been wondering a lot about menopause as of late. I have had some symptoms ever since my second child was born when I was 40. Now I am thinking more about it. I guess that until I stop cycling regularly, I can assume I am not yet there. However, I am a whole week early this week – and heavy. TMI? Too bad, this blog isn’t supposed to be for the faint of heart. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ALL WOMEN GO THROUGH MENOPAUSE eventually. Yep, it is true. Even little old me. However, I wasn’t expecting it until later. After all, I had my babies at 37 yrs and 11 months, and 40 years and 5 months. Heck, I could keep popping them out for years to come, right? Hmm, maybe not. Ah well. If I could survive the hot flashes that I had a year or so ago, I can survive anything!

Bring on tomorrow…

New Beginnings

How many people start their blogs in exactly this way? Who am I to stray from the crowd? “Spring Cleaning” is a nice name for it. Perhaps “Dexoxing Mom” might be more appropriate. Makes me sound like a horrible drug addict or alcoholic, yet I am really neither of these. However, I am very impulsive and I do what I want when I want. This usually involves food or alcohol, and often, both. Long story short, tomorrow, this changes. Tomorrow, I get back on the proverbial wagon, although I have never intended, and still don’t, intend to remain on it permanently.

Who doesn’t love food? Well, to be honest, nearly every man who has ever been in my life (except for ones who I share various genes with), don’t really care less about food! I hear you gasping with disbelief, yet it is true. My very own husband eats to sustain himself, not for enjoyment. This is as foreign a concept to me as jumping out of a plane. I will never jump out of a plane and I will never be someone who doesn’t eat for pleasure. However, I have heard it said that even “foodies” can lose weight. Although I hardly qualify “Biggest Loser”, weighing in at a grand total of 134 lbs (my guess is that tonight, I would be closer to 140 if I dared get on a scale), my 5 ft 1 frame is not very forgiving when it comes to over-eating. Even the various height-weight scales put me at the high end of the “large frame” range. This never makes me feel good about myself. The second link I checked out after googling “height weight charts” told me that my ideal weight is 106-119 lbs. The last time I weighed that little was 3 months into a nasty bout of mono (glandular fever) at a time when my body was acidotic and showing signs of starvation! Oh, and I was only 119 lbs at that point! I cannot imagine weighing 106 lbs. I doubt that I have ever weighed that little, except sometime during my teens on my way up to where I am now (at a ripe old age of 43).

One pound a week. That is my usual goal. And it is realistic. I can usually achieve this for several weeks by making only one change – cutting out alcohol! I don’t consider myself to be an alcoholic, although I recently heard the term “functioning alcoholic” and wondered if I fit that definition. I have two little kids (5 and 3) and I work full time (as a college professor to boot!). I have never skipped a day of school due to a hangover, nor have I ever not looked after my kids because I am too ill from over-indulging. However, and yes, there is definitely a “however”, I have used LOTS of migraine medicine which one might argue was unnecessary, had I not lost count of the number of drinks that I had.

My migraine safe limit is 2 glasses of wine. Three is like playing Russian Roulette, but I feel the odds are in my favor. Four definitely tips the odds from me. I tried to implement a rule for 2012 – no wine in the house except on special occasions. It is now the end of March and I think I have only bought 3 bottles of wine since the new year. But, wine can be bought at restaurants and beer can be brought into the house. So I think a better policy might be “NO ALCOHOL DURING THE WEEK” and “NO EXCEEDING THE MIGRAINE-TRIGGER LIMIT (2)” on weekends, weekends being Friday and Saturday nights. Special occasions may be exempt if I submit an application for exemption to myself in advance. I will figure out the fine details later.

Being that it is late on a Sunday night, I need to go to bed and think about the new, spring-cleaned me.