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!

And This is Why Resolutions Are Silly!

How about it?  It is May 29, 2013 and the last time I blogged was January 1, 2013.  So much for good intentions!  I’d love to tell you all that this mom has been spring cleaned in the many, many days since her last post.  That too would be silly!  It hasn’t been such a bad year so far though.  After hitting the 20 lb post-surgery mark, I joined Weight Watchers and lost half of those pounds.  The switching of doctors to one who has me on a better pain-control regimen has resulted in more exercise.  The acceptance of the fact that full-time employment and mothering are just barely compatible has also helped reduce my stress levels.  I think I am finally heading towards a better place for me!

So what’s next on the agenda?  More weight loss would be great.  I have been enjoying a great book called “The Blue Zone” by Dan Buettner.  It is an interesting look at some small communities which have an unusual number of centenarians amongst them.  I haven’t quite finished yet, but the overwhelming thing that jumps out at me is that most of these folks are vegetarians, or rarely eat meat.  I have often wondered what the data tells us about the health of vegetarians vs. meat eaters.  I am not sure that “The Blue Zone” is exactly a scientific thesis, but it is interesting just the same.  A meatless diet is also very conducive to weight loss.  Do you see where I am going with this?  There is just one major obstacle for me – I LOVE MEAT.  And so does my family.  I am definitely not a slab of steak kind of girl and prefer smaller pieces of meat to great chunks of it, but I do enjoy meat.  On the upside, I also love vegetables and if I was on my own, I don’t think I’d have much trouble at all to convert to a meatless diet.  Instead, I am trying to formulate a plan to reduce the amount of meat that my whole family eats. To be honest, we aren’t huge meat eaters so we won’t have to make big adjustments, but there isn’t much easier than grilling a hotdog when there are not enough hours in the day!

So in my first attempt to substitute meat, I decided to buy various products and try them out on me.  I have discovered some wonderfully delicious veggie burgers in the frozen section of my supermarket. I actually think my husband and boys will like them.  These will be a great substitute for those nights when we do the horribly unhealthy processed chicken patties and oven fries.  When I joined Weight Watchers, I cut out potatoes. I have added back a tiny bit, but I need to find a substitute for fries. I don’t even like oven-baked fries unless they are made from potatoes that I cut up.  But alas, my husband and one of the kids, love them.

Snacking is my downfall.  I get the 4 PM munchies every single day.  So far, I have found nothing that works to curb them.  Sure, I ignore them at times, but if I reach for something salty at that time of day, I am in big trouble. I cannot bring myself to eat fruit at this time of day. It doesn’t do it for me.  So I need ideas – lots of them.  Added to my fruit woes is the fact that I have some fairly severe tooth sensitivity going on.  So if you add fruit plus cold together, I cannot eat it comfortably.  Since we are heading in to summer, fruit doesn’t do well on the kitchen counter, and if any of you know me well by now, you know I am not organized enough to take fruit out of the fridge so that it warms up by an appropriate time for me to eat it!

So there you have it.  I am a meat-loving, veggie-eating, salt-craving, fruit-hating mom.

So Much for Good Intentions

Why is it so hard to blog regularly?  I love talking and I love writing.  Yet, blogging is a chore. It isn’t as though I have nothing to blog about either.  Heck, no one needs to have material other than day to day life!  But here I am.  Perhaps one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging is because all of my good intentions to change my lifestyle have not come to fruition.  My recovery from hip surgery was a lot longer than I anticipated and as a consequence, I have gained 20 pounds since my last marathon.  I also had a very busy semester so time was not on my side.  The upside is that I feel as though my hip is 99% recovered and I can run again.  I joined Weight Watchers online on Monday and plan to use it to help me through the silly season.

The easiest way for me to lose weight would be to give up my wine in the evenings.  During the semester breaks, this is easy, but during the academic school year, I have made a habit of unwinding with a glass of wine while cooking dinner and then usually another one with dinner.  And my glasses are no 5 oz!  What can I do instead?  That is really what I need –  way to unwind in the evenings that doesn’t involve alcohol.  Having two young children means that I am not free to just disappear and do whatever.  I have the Tony Horton Power90 DVDs and they have been instrumental in getting me back into some form of shape but the kids hate it when I do it.  They want my attention.  I even try to get them to do it with me, but they last through one set of exercises and then they’ve had enough.  So today I have two questions:

How do you maintain and not gain weight during the holidays?

How do you unwind after work?

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!

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.