Day Four

Well, so far so good, as they say.

One of the things I had decided when I started this "journey" was that I was only going to weigh myself once a week - on Mondays.  I've done that in the past and it has worked well for me because when you weigh daily, or even multiple times a week, you can get a misperception of how you're doing.

For example, one day you may weigh yourself and you have a number to go by.  Let's say you weigh the next day and it shows you've lost 2 pounds.  You feel great and you might feel it's okay to take a little splurge, which defeats your purpose.

Or you may feel like you're starving yourself to death and get on the scale and have gained a pound or two.  You might question why you're torturing yourself like this and decide to binge eat, again, defeating your purpose.

So, for me, it works best if I only weigh once a week.

Only that's not what I've done this week so far.  In fact, I've weighed myself three times already and as of this morning it reflects that I've lost 3.5 pounds.  Maybe I have really lost that weight but maybe it's more water weight than anything else.  I can't lose my focus on the goal here.  So it's kind of encouraging but I don't want to jump ahead of myself here and lose focus.

Speaking of focus, I've done pretty well on eating and exercising.  Today is the first day I haven't gone out and walked the neighborhood yet (although the later it gets the less likely it will happen, just saying).

However, I had said I wanted to create a diet that was sustainable after I lost the weight.  After I wrote that I realized that how I'm approaching this is more of a juicing diet.  I'm eating solid foods too but mainly my diet has consisted of juiced fruits.  We're talking I was up at 3:00 a.m. this morning juicing fruits so that that could be my breakfast.  And it was delicious!

But as a long time sustainable thing, I need to be able to incorporate foods that bring a balance.  I've learned over the last few years that protein is important.  I don't eat meat (or dairy) so it can be challenging to get in the protein my body needs at times.

So I guess in addition to losing the weight, my goal would be to create a balanced diet that gives me everything I need (and even want) while maintaining a healthy weight (once I get there!).

But as I started the post, from the standpoint of how I'm doing - so far so good.  :)

Day One - Take Two

Before you do any scrolling to see what Day One - Take One or just Day One looks like, let me just tell you, that entry doesn't exist.  I'd planned to do a Day One entry but considering I didn't do too well on the first Day One, I feel it's better for all concerned that there be no written documentation that there was such a thing.

But that brings me to the point of this "series" I hope to be documenting. 

Over the last few years I've steadily been putting on weight.  A lot of weight.  I've always known I was a stress eater but I'm finding I eat for other reasons - that don't involve the need for nourishment - as well. 

I had lunch with a friend of mine a month or so ago and I hadn't seen her since I started gaining so much weight (30 pounds in the last two years!!!) and I brought it up.  She asked me why I thought I was eating so much and I mentioned that I was a stress eater but the fact was, there hadn't really been anything I could attach to a recent stress related eating binge and I kind of danced around the answer after that.

A few days later I was sitting in my living room watching TV and I got up to get something to eat.  It wasn't a meal or snack time and I wasn't even hungry, I just felt like eating.  That's when I realized I also eat when I'm bored.  Funny that I'd never considered that but there it was - I eat when I'm bored.

And it's not like I eat healthy stuff during these times either.  I don't buy a lot of junk food because I know I'll eat the bulk of it in one or two days but that doesn't mean all my "healthy snacks" are healthy either.

So, I've been looking at all of that and decided that I need to change things.  I don't want to do a fad diet or any diet that wouldn't be sustainable after I reached my goal weight (which will take some time to get there *sigh*).  I want to incorporate a healthy diet with exercise.  Sounds good, right?

Well, yesterday I got up and had avocado toast, followed by a thirty minute walk around the neighborhood.  I have a treadmill but it's too easy to stop after only a few minutes but if you're walking the neighborhood, you still gotta get back home!  So I decided walking the neighborhood might be the best approach while it's still comfortable enough to walk outside.

Anyway, I won't go into detail but it started falling apart around lunch time.  I have a recipe I make with daikon and brussel sprouts that I love.  It's very light, very few calories.  I had that just before lunch time.  I wasn't hungry after that but it was so early so I had a banana.  I mean, I don't want them to go bad.  I bought them to be snacks, etc.  So where was the harm?

I'll tell you the harm, it's that "I'm bored, I'll eat" habit that I need to break.  As I suggested, it went downhill after that.

So today is officially a second take on Day One.  I had avocado toast again and did my 30 minute walk around the neighborhood.  I just had a sensible lunch (stuffed peppers, yum!) and I just need to stay on course from here on out.

Here's hoping Day Two is next and there's not a "Take Three" to Day One!  :)

Pounds desired to lose:  50
Pounds to go:  50

Just not up to dealing with you today

I recently went on a trip and came home and promptly got sick.  This has happened before and I don't know if it's the difference in the climate, allergens or both or something else altogether.  I do know that when I've ignored it in the past, it evolves into something way worse so I've gotten to where if I see it coming, I go to the doctor to head it off at the pass.  Which is why I went to the doctor the other day.

Here's the thing though, I wanted to beat the crap out of the nurse and if I'd had the energy to do so, I might've done it.  So here's how the interaction with the nurse went:

It started with the nurse asking me to step up on the scale.  I don't do this anymore.  It would be one thing if it was necessary to get a right dosage of a medication that might kill me if the wrong dosage was prescribed.  But given that no diagnosis had been made at this point, I knew this wasn't the case, so I declined.

That resulted in the first smirk I got from the nurse as she said, sarcastically, "Really?!?"

To which I replied, "Really, I'm not going to weigh today."

She looked at me in disbelief as she told me she had to weigh me, it was just what they did!

I repeated, "I'm not going to weigh today."

Then she suggested that I look at her and she wouldn't tell me what the scale said, as if I didn't already know what it would say and that my reluctance to get on the scale was because I didn't want to know what I weighed.

That's when I smirked at her and just repeated that I wouldn't be weighing today, as if maybe she hadn't heard me before.

We went back and forth a couple of more times before she gave up and told me to sit in a chair so she could take my other vitals.

The blood pressure machine was on my right side but due to a medical procedure I had done several years ago it's better if all tests that can be done in the arm are done on my left arm, which is why I started exposing my left arm (I had on a sweater).  Her smirk and sarcasm reappeared as she wondered out loud why I would want it taken from my left arm.  When I told her why, she was less sarcastic and inappropriate.

That is until she asked me if I had any allergies.  I said yes and listed them, including my allergy to tetanus shots.

She said, "Really?  You're allergic to tetanus?"

I said, "Yes."

"Oh?  And you have a reaction?"

"Yes, I do."

"I looked at your chart."

I just looked at her confused because I didn't have any idea what her looking at my chart had anything to do with me being allergic to tetanus shots.  Then she told me I'd had several tetanus shots at this clinic before and I was even more confused because I've never had a tetanus shot at this particular clinic, and I told her so.

That's when she really showed her ignorance and said, "Almost every visit you've ever had here is listed as TB!"

That's when my smirk and sarcasm came back.  "You do realize that TB stands for tuberculosis don't you?  Tetanus and tuberculosis are two very different things.  So yes, I've had TB tests here before but I've NEVER had a tetanus shot here before."

She looked sufficiently embarrassed and had me go wait back in the waiting room for an exam room to be available and I didn't see her again. But I think it's a sad state of affairs when the quality of the medical personnel don't know the difference between a TB test and a tetanus shot!