Thanksgiving (back) Slide

Oops. Gained 2 lbs. I choose to spin this as a positive, as that means I have still lost 1 lb since I started weighing myself again. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Not only did Thanksgiving happen, wherein I actually ate so much that I couldn't find a comfortable position, sitting, standing or laying down for about 45 min after I packed the last mouthful into my throat with a jackhammer. (Not literally, but...... oink oink.) I also took a 4-day weekend from work, and didn't fall off the wagon, I was like, "Stop this shitty wagon, I'm getting off."

Admittedly, I semi-planned this. I knew I would do my favorite thing to do when I have a mini-vaca: go into Hobbit Mode, i.e.: stay home in my comfy clothes, eat 6 meals a day of super yummy comfort food, smoke the halfling leaf, and drink a gallon of beer or ten.

I didn't drink that much truly -- the St. John's Wort does seem to have the unexpected side effect of lessening to outright killing my taste for booze. I like this development, although I have also had a couple disappointing attempts to party like it's 1999 and ended up watching TV with an early-onset hangover, eating Ibuprofen and guzzling water.

I knew I was not going to see the same results as last week is my point. And, I am giving myself a pass. A conditional pass. The condition is: as long as I am right back on the wagon tomorrow (Monday) and I stay on the wagon all week, meaning next weekend, too, I am preemptively forgiving myself for this past week. I'm disappointed to see the number go up on the scale, but not surprised as I consciously (pretty much) gave permission for it to happen.

Here's the real issue: I need to look into finding some different self care / hide-at-home tactics. It's so ingrained in me that unsupervised free time = monkey brain stuff (i.e.: eat, drink, binge porn) that I truly don't even know what an alternative Perfect Weekend At Home Alone would look like. So there's a goal: find new things to picture when I hear the lyric, "...working for the weekend." And no one say fucking coloring. No, I'm not gonna fucking color. I hated coloring when I was a kid, and it is just fucking stupid. There, I feel better now that I said that. (And if you love coloring, great -- you do you, I'll do me.) But really, I gotta come up with some other things I find awesomely soul-feeding and immersive all weekend fun time.

So, today is my last day of the 4-day mini-vaca. I have another one in December. (Xmas is a Tue so I am taking Mon & Tue off that week.) While I cram myself full of fried food with one hand and spank it with the other one while I guzzle down whiskey (not really, at least not whiskey, not on a work night...) I will also contemplate other things that I might enjoy doing instead. Maybe I'll develop an obsessive fascination with fitness. Or stabbing my eyeballs with needles.

Anyway. You already know about me that I have to mock myself to be forthcoming about my true self sometimes. And that is just fine. I'm going to formulate a trial game plan for my December 4-day weekend that involves healthier pursuits. And jerking off, it's the most exercise I've gotten all weekend.

Lettuce for the win...

Well, good news I lost 3 lbs.

Also noted that pretty much the minute I started eating a salad every day and trying to get 50% or more of my calories from vegetable two things happened:

1. I have not even thought of eating a Tums, let alone the 3-5 a day I was taking before.
2. I have been sleeping much better.

I attribute this entirely to my diet. It is the only change I made last week. Who knew? Lettuce is a sleep med.

I was pretty sure I was going to like what I saw when I got on the scale. I noted about mid-week doing up my pants in the bathroom at work that I didn't have to cinch my belt tight to get to the first hole on my belt (I was down to the 4th hole....) It has been getting to the point I was considering buying a bigger belt. So I was very pleased when I yanked on my belt to get it to go to the 1st hole and it went past there. That's a win, I'll take it.

I did fall off the wagon a little on Friday. I ate a whole Walmart pepperoni pizza, which is 56 points on WW. (More than a whole day's points...) and I drank quite a bit of beer, like..... almost a 12 pack. However, that was the only time I drank all week, and I did it consciously -- I knew I was going to, I planned it, including my own little dance party, and I enjoyed it. (Rather than suffering both a hangover and crushing guilt the next day, I was like, "Hm. Yeah, I'm a little shitty this morning, but that was fun.")

I'm 10 days out from the 6-week mark on the St. John's Wort and I can definitely tell I am starting to level out. I'm not having the side effects that much any more, although taking it on an empty stomach is still pretty ugly afterward in terms of yucky stomach feeling. Once I hit the 6-week mark I am going to probably start taking 450 mg 2x/day instead of 300 3x. I find taking a pill mid-day is inconvenient and I have to carry a sketchy looking ziplock bag in my pocket with an unmarked pill in it -- I work in a healthcare facility, that is just not good. 

I have also increased my Valerian to 1500 mg (from 1000) at bedtime, and it is working much better. I don't really like Sleepytime Tea, and it wasn't doing that much for me. I'd rather drink a cup of tea whose taste I actually enjoy for the relaxation / psychic benefits, and also, I like a cup of tea in the late afternoon (tea time...) rather than at bedtime. I like the idea of drinking tea to help me relax and refocus my attention on my well-being. It's just that the Sleepytime was not effective as a treatment for me. And the taste is merely tolerable, not that enjoyable.

I started using an activity tracker last week and saw the actual hard data that I am not getting enough physical activity by about half or more. Gotta raise the bar on that. More activity will be this week's #1 point to work on.

Overall, I am happy with the direction things are going. My weight is going down and the quality of my sleep and my moods is going up. I got this.

OMG I'm so fat

OK, so this happened on FB which makes it real.

I'm not just being dramatic, either. I'm so fat that my office chair wheels don't roll when I scoot the chair, they just drag because they're flattened to the floor. And I went for a 2 mile walk yesterday and today my "bad hip" is "acting up" for the first time in months. The last time was when I climbed Acadia Mountain, which is a hard trail. So strolling down the street with my headphones on and my hip is sore like after I climbed a mountain just a few months ago. Also while I was on that walk, my knee on my "good side" gave that little warning twinge. I'm getting too fat for my skeleton to carry me.

Yes, I am making mockery of it a little. It's part of how I deal with stuff. I'm sarcastic, even toward myself. And also, seriously those things all happened.

Here's the good parts though:

I did go for a walk.

And today I made sure to walk a whole mile outdoors, which is four times around the building, done in 2 laps before and 2 laps after lunch. My office walking buddy went with me.

And I renewed my membership to WW, the re-branded Weight Watchers. It worked really well for me before -- it is what I was doing back in '11-'12 when I got really skinny for a while. I re-remembered that the Points system activates my competitiveness. It's nice to see they let you have carry-over points, that is a new part of the program. It's Scientology for fat people, but it works.

I dug out my exercise clothes. No one wants to see that, not even me, so don't ask. But I did YouTube some yoga videos and used my free weights for like 5 minutes. I picture how I plan to look in them, and do not look in the mirror while I do yoga.

So, I'm feeling pretty enthusiastic about stuff. I do know how to eat clean and get my exercise. I know I can do it. I've done it before, and that was mostly by accident, like the first 40 lbs anyway. So on purpose, I'm sure I can do it.

I have re-resolved my vow to put my silverware down between bites. I've actually been doing that one at home for a couple weeks, and I'll start it at work, too. People already think I'm weird.

This guy is still in there somewhere:

I'm printing these out and putting them on the fridge and in the bathroom and by my desk. In addition to being that vain for real, they are going to motivate me. You know what's fucked up -- I thought I was fat in these pics. (In 2012 and 2011.)(I was 40.)

St. John's Wort surprisingly effective

I guess I'm having some side effects from the St. John's Wort, but they are minor. Dry mouth is the most annoying of them. Although I do experience some mild upset stomach from them as well, but that is manageable with food and water. I try to take them on top of food, not under it.

Regardless of the side effects, the effects are really stunning to me. I attribute these effects to St. John's because it is the only thing I am doing that I have never done before, and I have never had any of these effects before:

• Almost totally lost interest in alcohol: now this one is just amazing to me. I used to be an every day drinker, and in the last few years I was still drinking (i.e.: getting drunk) 3-4 nights a week. I didn't realize that I was using alcohol as a medication. The only thing I can attribute it to is that because I am feeling better, and sleeping better, and being more able to manage my moods, I'm not counting the hours until I can get home to my bottle. Additionally, even when I do drink, I end up drinking one or two and actually feel grossed out by it, and I end up chugging down water and a couple Advil to make sure I don't suffer from it. This past Fri night, I did end up drinking quite a lot, got nice and drunk and ..... omg, Saturday I felt like I had literally poisoned myself. 

• The house is clean: Ok, so I didn't realize how much of a trigger dirty dishes were for me. So it goes like this: dishes start to pile up; the more they accumulate the less I am able to deal with them; it gets to the point where I am washing things as I need them, leaving the rest to rot in the sink; eventually I wash them all and put them away, but it has to reach catastrophe level first. So..... since I started the St. John's I have been washing my dishes pretty much every day. And I feel a sense like an actual weight was lifted off me. Is that weird? Why the hell couldn't I make that connection in my head before? That dirty dishes piling up were triggering depressive episodes? And, even better: with the dishes being clean, I also have been keeping the house in general more picked up. 

• I'm not paralyzed by decision making: I can make choices and act on them, another thing I didn't really see as that much of a problem. But it really was (an still is in some ways) a big problem. It was affecting me at every level of my life, down to the annoying shit where I will scroll through Netflix for so long that I use up my TV time trying to CHOOSE a show. Also, i have been feeling relief from this pressure I always feel like every single decision has to lead to the most perfect, most exactly right, excellent choice that will leave me feeling completely fulfilled and every experience has to be the pinnacle of perfection. Again, I'll use TV as the example: like I have to pick the exact perfect show to watch -- like I can't turn off a show if it isn't what I am in the mood for, or I shouldn't re-watch things I've seen before, even if that is the thing I keep coming back to over and over -- duh, watch it. I don't mean my whole problem is about TV, it's a metaphor for everything. 
  

• I'm losing my obsessive focus on the future: Yes, I can buy just enough of something to get to my next payday. And if I de-prioritize something today, I can pick it up again in 3 days or 3 weeks. I can work on things incrementally, I don't have to have instant results (which is how I never do anything.) I can put $50 in my savings account -- just because it's not $500... well, it will never be that much if I never put any in. Also, if I put that $50 in my savings, it's still my money, it's not like I've lost access to it. And if I try out something new, that's all it is -- something new. If I don't like it, I can stop and it's not a failure. It was a try. 

• I am feeling more outgoing and open: I have been feeling more like I can be up front with my feelings and opinions on things. I know that sounds weird coming from someone who seems to forthright on the Internet. But in person, out loud with my voice, I often feel like I have to protect myself, keep my opinions to myself, even to the point of participating in things I don't want to, or letting someone else's opinions supersede mine when there is no real need for that. I also have been feeling more friendly toward people, my coworkers specifically. All I do is work and go home, so if I want any friends, I need to make some friends at work. I've worked there 2 years and I have only done something away from work with 2 people 2 times. There are people there I like, as in would be friends with outside of work, and although I have to be somewhat mindful of that -- because I am a member of sr. management -- I know I am capable of keeping that balance. First of all, I only like people who are capable of understanding that. And, it's not like I want to party and go throw myself into situations that are going to look bad on Monday at morning meeting. I just need some friends, and I have come to the realization that probably most people derive their in-practice social circle from their coworkers, and that is ok for me too. 

Well, I guess that's the update. I am still about 2 weeks out from the 6-week mark where I should start to level out on the supplement. But I am feeling really good about it, and i have noticed that I am starting to level out a little, it terms of getting used to the side effects. And the benefits are starting to seem like actual changes in my patterns more than just a med working on me. It's good.