Thursday, March 31, 2011

where to begin?

OKay well,  here is a picture of me now at 352 pounds:
And here is a picture of me at 418 pounds

I didn't take any start pictures and I know, I know I should, but I'm certainly not going to put the weight back on so you can see the real difference.
So I went to the doctor yesterday.  I got a bit dehydrated because there was 2 days I wasn't completely focused on drinking water and I got symptoms consistent with a bladder infection.  Yaya happened to have a couple few leftover chew-able amoxacillin and so I took those to get me through the weekend.  By the time I got to the doctor, I was all better.  Figures.  This is relevant because I started talking about my antidepressants and how I wanted back on my normal dose, which led to me spilling my guts about my feelings and what I had read on the internet about addiction transference and my theory about food addiction and how in the hell am I supposed to get through all this on my own because insurance companies don't seem to care if you have any therapeutic support after surgery and they won't cover it.  No one has been to group from my circle of people, mostly because insurance will not cover postoperative maintenance. 
I know Dr. S is not supportive of my decision to do this surgery.  He feels the weight loss is dangerous and hard on my body, but when it comes to my tearful breakdowns, he tends to be very supportive and has me set up to see a therapist on Wednesday of next week.  he said sometimes insurance companies just need a different word to make the "thing" coverable.  Like instead of post surgical group therapy, he calls it depression.  Not a lie by any means, but covered.  Go figure.  Also, and this is for you, my group people, Were you at all motivated by your psychology visits preop?  I was more motivated by the people in our group than by the counselors and while I think reuniting with our peers is helpful, I think I will benefit by this therapy session I have scheduled outside of the GB program.  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Also, and of course I forgot my graft, my plateau isn't really a plateau at all, since according to the graft, I have a pretty steady and steep downhill trend as far as my weight loss goes.  Fine, fine.  I just think its slowing down and I only have 30 days to get rid of this last 35 pounds before my birthday to reach goal.  Again, Dr. S thinks I'm setting my expectations to high, especially since I am starving myself as it is and my weight loss is huge even compared with regular, motivated-as-hell dieters. Whatever.  This is why I need to see someone. I'm not happy, nor am I excited about the strides I've taken or the weight I have lost.  All I want is the final result and I want it right the hell now and I hate what I have to go through to have it.  I have a hate myself moment that is far beyond the self hate I had before surgery. 

Case in point.  I bought some new clothes and bought them a size 24, so I can wear them when I go to Madison in May.  Size 24 is giant in my eyes, so I figured that I should be able to almost get them on now.  Guess what?  I can't.  Not even close.  Will I be able to get them on 35 pounds from now?  I hope so, but I'm starting to think I won't. I know I will loose it and can keep the stuff for when it does fit, my point is that I expected to be a 24 by now and I'm more like a 26-28, which is better than where I started at a 32-34-36, but not what I expect of myself, which evidently, it not realistic.  Sigh.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Wednesday

Another wasted day off.  Well, I did get my dishes done...

I took my mom to go swim with me tonight.  Mom can't swim a lick, so I figured Emma could come along to entertain mom while she stood on the 3-foot end of the pool.  It was all about mom and I didn't get any exercise at all, but Emma had a blast and Mom got out of the house away from Dad for a while.  Hopefully it did her some good.  The hot tub felt so good today.  For some reason, I am awfully chilled.

Curt just complained about not having his slippers downstairs where he could easily put them on.  They were up here and I just slipped them on quickly so I could run out onto the balcony and barf over the rail. I hope my neighbors don't see me when I do that.  I do it a lot.  Anyway, Curt should be really super mad when he sees his slippers are covered with snow.  On the other hand, if it wasn't for those slippers, I would be standing in the snow barefoot...

OKay, so I bought me some bras to replace the holy church ones I have been safety pinning together, 2 new shirts and a pair of jeans.  I bought them to fit in May.  In May, my goal is 100 pounds lost.  I have 35 pounds to go and I will be there.  318 pounds, which is a little less than what I weighed 6 years ago and I was wearing 24W.  I know, still huge, but I'll take what I can get.  I need to exercise EVERY day no matter what, no excuses and stop eating until I puke.  I friggin' hate that and its so easy to do.  This time, I think I swallowed a bunch of air or something.  Drank too soon...ate too much.  If it was friggin consisconsistenttant I might not have such a problem.  Damn it.

I've been making myself jewelry.  Its fun to look through magazines and be able to say, "hey, I can make that" for 12 dollars instead of 200.  I even made an anklet, something I NEVER was able to wear store bought.  I remember when my mom and sisters would get dressed up to go out in the early 80's.  You knew they were going to get fancy when they broke out the gold anklet.  Oooooo Well, mine is a little more boho with turquoise glass beads and black spacers, but still pretty.  I usually make earrings to match.  A pen friend sent me a whole flat rate envelope full of goodies, including some new glass beads.  *overwhelmed* I'm playing right now...

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A few facts

I know this blog is for day-to-day musings and all things related to GB, but I haven't really gone into detail that mental struggles with myself as much as I have gone over the struggles I have had with other people. 

Yes, I had a lot of disapproval when I first decided to start "studying" for the GB lifestyle, but since the weight is visibly coming off, I have lost friends.  My sister said the other day that I am not the right kind of mother figure to deal with myself and my kids.  She is making up stories about my husband not loving me the way I am.  She does not like to see that I have to work hard to attain my goal.  She would rather be under the impression that it all just magically happens and I have it easy. 
Things she says regularly while at the gym with me:
Stop.
Slow down.
Are you trying to kill yourself?
What is the point of having the surgery if you are going to work so hard?
You are moving, thats enough.  You don't have to race.
She will walk slow to make me slow down.  She gets angry when I don't slow down for her.
When we are done, all she talks about is going to go eat.

My aunt says, "I'm jealous, but happy for you."  Jealous of what?  That I had to have my stomach surgically altered to force me to eat right? Jealous because I manage to make myself sick 5 + times a week?  Jealous because I feel like I'm starving to death even when I feel like I'm going to puke? 

My friend Mark won't talk to me.  The last time we spoke was September of last year.  Before we said our goodbyes, his last words to me was, "well, I'm going to go have supper and get fatter now."

My friend Kari, who I grew up with, has cut me out of her life unless she has no one else to visit with.  When we are together, all she talks about is so and so died because of GB surgery.  or we pass someone on the street and its, "see her?  shes thin because of surgery."  There is never any credit given for hard work and dedication.  Its because of surgery.

Food was my addiction.  No different than drugs or alcohol.  I never allowed myself to get hungry.  if I was ever in a situation where I was allowed to get hungry, I was pissed off, irritable, mean, insulting.  My husband is the same way when he is out of tobacco.  Grocery shopping was the best chore in the world.  I was always happy buying food.  When I cooked food, I would sing, dance, get excited.  It was like sex and I would eat until I was stuffed, sit for an hour and then eat again until all the food was gone.  I never put food away-ever.  If I got something super good-like my favorite chocolate-I would hide it and eat it when I was all alone.  I would eat every single bit.  I had to. I HAD to. 
Any time I was in a social situation, there had to be food and lots of it.   No one sits in a bar and drinks water. I never hosted a get together without food.  When we went out, it was to dinner.  When I visited my friends, it was over dinner.  When I cleaned the house, I got a treat.  If I paid a bill, I got ice cream.  If I had a hard day, I would go and spend 40 dollars in garbage at the convenience store and eat every chip, every chocolate bar and drink gallons of soda to sedate my bad feelings, lift up and enhance my good feeling, get over my boredom, enjoy my activity.  Was it good food?  Sometimes.  Sometimes it wasn't.  Either way, there was a ton of it and nothing was left when I was done.

Working out is embarrassing.  You know your a fatty and you know everyone else knows your a fatty.  you may or may not hear a snide and hurtful comment, but you know its there.  You don't want to leave your house, you don't want to do it in front of your family, you are embarrassed and you are convinced that all eyes are on you and every one disapproves.  Even when someone tries to encourage you, you hear it as a sarcastic comment.  You are only truly safe when you are in your bed, locked away and safe in your computer chair.  Sure, you will have a moment when you think you don;'t care and you try to work anyway, but you hurt, you feel sick, you get a stitch in your side, you breathe hard and your chest feels like there is 1000 pounds on it.  You finish, take 2 days to get over being stiff and sore and you don't do it again because it was horrible.  If you eat though, you feel much happier.

One day you really see what you have done with yourself.  I never looked in the mirror.  I would glance to make sure I didn't have a huge zit and my hair was decent enough for public, but I was depressed and had no use for make up or curling irons.  I didn't care.  Then one day, your friend sends you a packet of pictures and you see yourself, for the first time in years and say oh my god.  That's me.  Am I really THAT big?  Yeah.  Yeah you are really, really that big.  Did you consciously see it happening?  Not really.  Did you care to look?  No.  Did you care at all?  Yeah.  I would never volunteer to stand in front of a camera, or leave my house, or put on a swim suit, or do anything that would make someone judge me.  Did it make the addiction and want for something to eat less?  No.  And as you sit there eating cream-filled donuts and drinking soda, you hate yourself for ever being born and you eat some more.

I made the decision to do the gastric bypass about 5 years before I actually resigned to do it.  Just like a true addict, I needed to hit my rock bottom and want to do it.  At this point, I was 438 pounds.  I could barely get out of a chair.  I was breaking every office chair I had.  My hubby would take my chair down to the barn periodically and re weld it where it broke or heat it up and bend it back where my weight made it sit crooked.  I could not walk and there were times I would stand up on my feet and my legs would not work to propel me to the bathroom.  My feet were horribly sore and my ankles would swell up to the point they would have big fat rolls.  Nothing fit, nothing new, nothing old.  I have not bought shoes or a winter coat for 5 years because they don't make affordable ones my size.  This next winter will be my first coat for 5 years.  My first boots since Junior high school.  When I had gotten to that point, I went to the doctor and told him I was ready to do the bypass again.  I spent 12 months going to classes, meetings, dietitians, psychologists.  During this time I was supposed to be losing weight.   When I finally got my date for surgery, I had everyone fooled, except the scale.  I had gained 12 pounds.  Dr. Hower told me, I had to go on a liquid diet and I had to lose weight or he would not do the surgery.  I cried a lot.  I cried because I wanted an easy fix and I knew I wasn't about to get one.  I cried because I failed again and again.  I cried because I wasn't even strong enough to stop what I was doing for this one thing.  So, for the next 4 weeks I lived off of Jello and beef broth.  I cheated enough so that I only lost 20 pounds.  I should have lost 40.  40 was preferred.

After surgery I felt horrible.  I thought I was going to die.  I was horribly nauseated and thirsty.  Hunger was a completely different sensation than what I was used to.  I was famished, starving, ravenous.  Chewing my fingernails made my mouth water uncontrollably.  Try to eat and the pain was horrible.  There was pain and nausea with ravenous insatiable hunger.  More times than I can count I would sit there, so hungry, looking down at this wonderful satisfying food, but unable to eat even one bite of it without getting sick.  The headaches, the stomach aches, every swallow of water was too much and always, always there was hunger.

It was hard to get going with the exercise.   It hurt, I was tired quickly, sick, weak from the lack of food.  The first time I stepped on the scale after my first real exercise I lost 4 pounds.  At the end of the week, it was 8.  I exercised again and lost another 4.  The weight was coming off, but came off faster when I moved.  The more weight that came off the easier it was to move.  I could not see it, but I could feel it.  It didn't start feeling good to exercise until this past 3 or 4 weeks.  My motivator was the fact that I had nothing else to do, I had cabin fever, and every time I worked out, the weight would come off faster.  My advantage was that I was unable to eat anymore.  It came off fast enough that I could see it and feel it before I had the chance to give up on myself.  I still hurt. 

My one foot hurts when I walk a long distance, but its funny, I don't hear the comments anymore.  I don't care if someone sees me in my swimsuit.  I'm still that fat lady.  If I'm in a sauna every once in a while someone will come to the door, see me sitting there and decide to walk away.  I don't even care anymore.  I know they have no idea where I started.  I also know I have no problem what so ever telling them all about it.  I don't crave food as much anymore.  The hunger is more tolerable and unless I string myself out with no food all day, I can handle myself without eating too much and getting sick.  On the other hand I'm at a crucial point in my addiction.  I realize I can't drown myself in food anymore, but wine goes down nice and just a little bit will get me drunk.  A cigarette will give me a nice buzz and its not food...I'm facing addiction transference and it scares me.  A large percent of Gastric bypass patients fall victim to their own addictions by making new ones to replace the one they lost.  I can easily see this happening to me.  I am going to participate in as much therapy as I'm allowed to help me through this.  I wish there were more options, but I take what I can get.

Until then, I want to acknowledge that there is no way I would have come this far without this surgery.  I would have never been able to take control of myself without drastic measures.  There was no "just" doing anything.  I needed to see the results immediately in order for me to be motivated to continue.  I needed to be forced into my food decisions in order for me to succeed.  This was a problem for me on so many levels; mentally and physically.  There is danger of it being a problem again some day.  Some day my stomach will be able to handle more food, someday I won't get sick anymore.  Unlike an alcoholic, I can't put the food away and never look at it again.  It is always going to be crucial to my survival.  I need the support, I may always need it.  I don't know if this was such a good choice because I may always need it.  A good choice in terms of me living longer and feeling good.  But what about those people that put me down for having medical assistance, that won't talk to me because they think I'm a braggart, that won't be my friend anymore because our only common denominator is gone?  I bring it up a lot, because it hurts me the most.  To see people want to see me fail, to try to sabotage my success, and to cut me completely out for being someone I am absolutely not...its horrible.

judgment call

Well, I think I got over my plateau and the weight is coming off again.  I finally managed to get down to 353 pounds (65 pounds lost) and keep it that way for 2 days.

When I saw Dr. Hower on Friday, Dwayne told me that I was bound to level off soon, which is why my weight loss was a pitiful 12 pounds over the course of 4 weeks.  He says my body is getting wise to the fact that I did something drastic to it and like a kid in a candy store, it is grabbing onto to everything and holding it close until it realizes it can't hold onto it anymore and the weight will drop off fast again for a while.  Evidently the 12 pounds I lost in this analogy is the stray gum balls that slipped through the little kids fingers onto the floor :)
I bought a new pair of jeans.  My old pair (I don't have many clothes-only 1 pair of jeans) are so baggy I look like a hommie and the crotch is hanging down in between my knees even with the waistband pulled up the way it should be.  I bought a size 24 no less (the old pair were 32-34W).   They should come in the mail soon along with 2 new bras.  My old bras are really destined for the trash with holes all over.  Absolutely not salvageable and the lace is so wadded up and worn out, it looks like I'm hiding something monstrous in my shirt.  Not a smooth silhouette by any means.  Anyway, knowing that it probably isn't worth spending the money on new stuff, I only bought the 3 things.  The bras were on major sale and not exactly my cup size, but my mom showed me years ago how to make a strategically placed pin tuck when needed.  I know what your saying, why the hell do you buy bras that don't fit?  Well, because they are on sale.  I have never been able to buy a bra for less than 40 dollars since I was in high school and these were only 9.00 a piece (originally 45.00).  I figure I can afford to put in a little tailoring effort for the sake of such a discount. Anyway, marking my first downsizing clothing purchase.

So my instigator friend called me yesterday.  We have drifted apart over the years pretty major, mostly because she only calls me when no one else will answer their phone.  I have turned into her last-resort friend.  She called me because her man is in the hospital for some diabetic sepsis.  She wanted me to go to the hospital and wait out his surgery with her.  I really was unable to do it, since I had just taken off work on Friday to see my own doctors.  Having been through this scenario many times with my dad, I was certain Bubba would be fine and gave her as much encouragement as I could.  Just as I suspected, she had exhausted all her other choices before me and had to go alone.  The conversation then turned to a mutual acquaintance of ours that works in the hospital as a laboratory tech.  She is a nosy and gossipy lady and I never gave her much information other than a few yes and no answers when she took blood from me or the kids on occasion.  Kari, evidently, talks to her a lot.   Now, I am aware that Kari is an instigator.  She loves the drama and she loves making the drama.  If she can't rile you up with a story about hr man's swollen and sickly leg, she will throw in something that will get your goat.  I know this and for the most part, I am fairly prepared for it, but for some reason this one got to me.

I struggle with this decision of having the surgery done.  Not because I never wanted it, but more because of what people say now.  As you know, my sister is very jealous and makes it really hard for me to be happy for myself.  She is the worst, but there are others.  I had never once thought about how I paid for the surgery until I talked to Kari.  Kari said our mutual friend was angry that I used, and evidently abused, Badger Care to have this frivolous surgery done. She told me that it was mentioned that this was "just one more thing for the taxpayers to pay for."  To Kari, I said, "Hm.  Uh huh."  But inside my head I was screaming.  I don't deserve to be healthy and live longer because I'm poor now? I pay taxes too you know and have since I was 16 years old, does my tax dollars count for nothing because I use Badger Care!?  I would think that I have paid in enough over the course of 25 years to pay for a little friggin bypass surgery. If she was laid off tomorrow I'm so sure she would refuse unemployment because she is just too good to abuse taxpayers dollars like that.  Bitch.
 I refuse to let Kari know she got me pissed off by telling me this.  I know she just said it to get my goat.  I vent in my blog, far away from her satisfaction.  What I know about Tammy that Kari does not know is that Tammy went through all the BS I went through to have the surgery, only to be told that she had some kind of nocturnal reflux issue that would only be exacerbated by the surgery instead of helped. She went through all the work and then was turned down to have it.  Maybe she is one of the gazillion misinformed, narrow-minded republicans that populate this area, but I think her angst lies a little deeper than flipping the bill for my bypass surgery.
I really, really need to go talk to someone.  All this hate I get from all around me is really getting to me.  It makes me wish I never had this done.  People liked me when I was fat and destined to be fat forever.  In school I would go home crying after hearing people whisper about me behind my back.  I used to think that would all go away if I could just be thin.  Now I'm working my ass off to achieve this goal and I still have people talking negatively about me.  Except, not only am I eating everyone out of house and home, but now I'm a lazy, low-life tax burden too.  I need to go see my bypass coaches and I need to get my head straight.  From what the medical documents state, this is the point where I am most susceptible to addiction transference, alcohol, drugs and tobacco are easy and not food.  As much as I love a good beer buzz, I know I will get one after 1/2 a glass of wine.  A little bit of long lost pleasure in just a couple of minutes.  I need to go see my people.  I need to get my head straight before I fuck it all up with something else and my Badger Care is going to pay for it too.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

update 6 weeks postop

On the day of surgery (January 18) I was 418 pounds. Now I am at 358 pounds and melting fast. I work out really hard, which is attributing to the rapidness. I'm starting to get control of when to stop now, but still drink too soon after sometimes. Yesterday was my first day out and my friends all said they can see a huge difference in me. It was nice to hear so many positives. I've still been having some trouble with my sister's jealousy. It seems she is trying to be supportive by occasionally going to the gym with me, but the whole time telling me to slow down and, "are you TRYING to kill yourself?" Constantly lecturing me on how I'm all wrong and she's all right. Whining because she doesn't want to sweat. It gets to me. A good friend of mine, whose wife is a nurse and travels to all the different hospitals, ran into my sister a couple of weeks ago and my sister proceeded to tell her that the only reason I'm doing all of this is because my husband is not happy with me physically and he is making me. WHAT? Anyone who knows my husband knows that my weight was never an issue. I feel like my sister is trying to sabotage my conviction and self esteem. It makes me cry and I have allowed myself many tears. Yes, I could tell her to piss off, but I don't want to sabotage her conviction and self esteem. As much whining as she does, she is trying to move and get healthy. She needs to desperately. I can only shut up and take it and foster her desire to walk the treadmill for her 10 minutes. It isn't long before she gets tired and leaves me to finish my workout in peace.




My parents are awesome, my aunties, my husband, some of my friends. I only have a couple of friends that stopped talking to me. I leave messages once in a while, hoping they will call, but I haven't gotten any returns yet.



It's amazing to me how many people found my fatness a comfort to them more than offensive. I kind of feel like I was being used as a big fat buffer to everyone around me. I was an excuse. Well, I can have these donuts because I'm not as fat as Jess. Jess isn't the fattest anymore and everyone around me has to be accountable for their own actions. Does that sound self centered? That's how I feel about it. Especially since I have been making myself accountable, everyone around me either cut me off or is trying to improve themselves to various degrees, which is bittersweet.
When I let myself cry it out the other day, it wasn't just because of my people. It was all my frustrations. My desire for a certain something once in a while that I know will make me puke and the frustration when I eat something I know I can eat and it makes me puke.
 
The lump in my throat does not mean I am full.  The lump in my throat means I've eaten too much.  I can't just go from there and throw up, it sits and rolls around feeling horrible for 45 minutes before the refreshing and long-awaited wave of nausia sweeps over me so I can finally throw it all up and start over.  I'm a rotten bulimic.
 
I'm so fucking tired of that "one bite too many." I'm so full of angst over so many things that I can't allow myself to enjoy the fact that I've lost 60 pounds. 60 pounds you guys! Its like a 4 year old! If I keep working hard, in another week it will be 70. My eye is on the prize. I'm not going to stop because of all my negatives. This sucks too much to stop. I don't pay 100$ for a pair of running shoes to let them sit there, so I'm not going to permanently alter my insides to sit on my ass and whine either.
 
I can eat cheese for my protien.  It goes over really well and is good for me.  I still miss soda, mostly for the bubbles.  Unfortunately, its the bubbles that I can't have, so even charged water is out of the question.  Tropicana makes Trop50, a calcium and vitamin D enhanced, 50% less sugar and alories than regular orange juice that I can drink the heck out of with no reprocussions.  Its my new soda.  I'm not really having too much trouble with hair loss.  I have vitamines now and I take those twice a day. I switch between a bottle of Trop50 and an empty bottle of the same filled with water.  I am getting plenty of water.  I graze now.  No more meals, but I will have a taste of cheese, 30 minutes later Ill have a taste of rice, a dumpling, a mini egroll, spoonful of peanut butter.  Going in that way is so much better than trying to sit down and eat 1/2 cup of anything.
I miss my friends.  Why did they abandon me?  Why is my sister so angry with me? This isn't fun.  Its not easy.  It sucks.  It hurts. I have my tight group that I expect to support me and they do, like my husband and my parents.  But I miss my friends.  My aunt said she was jealous, but happy for me.  Why did she have to say that?  Why is she jealous?  Why can no one hear me when I say, THIS IS NOT FUN-THIS IS NOT EASY-THIS SUCKS BEANS!
I am struggling with being happy that I'm here and hating myself for being here.  I want to laugh, but I'm busy crying. 
Don't tell me they dont deserve me.  I need them just as much now as I did then.  It depresses me that I even have to think about it.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Quasi Espy, etc.

CRAP!  I have too many blogs.  I just posted this to Quasi Hippie, had to delete it because it has GB stuff in it and post it here.  JA HEEZ!   It does have lots of good Quasi-type stuff in it though...

So I am looking at alternatives to sugar as a canning additive in fruit and I've come up nil. Since sugar is not a preservative, it is not necessary to put it in with your fruit when canning; however, the end result is soggy nasty-flavored mush. I good replacement is SPLENDA for a low cal alternative, but I'm allergic, so its out. I was thinking raw honey would be a flavorful alternative and it can be done, even giving your fruit a earthy flavor, kind of like tea, but it really doesn't help you in terms of calories. So, I guess when canning, its best to just use the least amount of sugar as you can. for fruit in syrup, go with the directions for light syrup and you can cut the calories down to 77 calories per serving. For jams and jellies, you can buy pectin that is made for low sugar recipes at the heath food store, but I warn you, each box of pectin only does 1 batch-not 3 like the box says and each box is 5.00 as opposed to the 1.00 old fashioned, fatty pectin. Meh. Remember though, apples have their own pectin, so you can make some pretty fun apple butter with just enough sweetener to take the edge off. Like I said last post, make your apple butter with bee balm blossoms and let it sit. The bee balm is kind of spicy/minty and adds a little something to the butter. You can also add it to smoothies with apples or peaches. If you happen to have it growing wild and you want to use it fresh, it does juice and is kind of good that way too. Play with it and keep the sugar to a minimum.
Today I bought some ginger root and will be making smoothies out of peaches with the ginger. Ginger, FYI, is really good for digestion and stomach ailments. I consider my stomach sliced and sutured a slight ailment, so maybe ginger would be soothing. My little magic bullet happened to come with these little cups for relish or something, but they seem to be the perfect size for post surgery smoothies. You can throw a cube of soft tofu in for added protein, or if you have your own hens, a raw egg too. Don't do raw eggs from a store. You don't know where they have been.
Anyway, since canning may be a big fail, I think I'm going to focus on freezing my fruit and veggies to stick with the organic and no added sugar. Maybe I can make some fruit leather for when I can advance my diet a little bit, but I have a really big chest freezer with LOTS of room for fruit and veggies. Anyhoo, thats what I'm doing today. Tasting smoothies.
I noticed there was quite the crop of red clover on the side of a back road on the way home today and I picked the nicest heads in hopes of drying 1 more quart jar full. I discovered steeping a tea from the blossom heads can ease irritability, regulate your cycle and also helps with menopausal symptoms. I am hooking my intra-menopausal/endometriotic sister UP! I do this for you Nobby, because I love you and because you make me want to eat my own toenails. I should hope you would go out and discover similar natural miracles for me when I'm pushing the downhill button at your age. Muah.

Next year, I am talking you all into nettle smoothies. You will love them.

Lastly,

On the GB movie from the hospital, they say they will be feeding me Crystal Light. At first I wasn't really worried about it, but I have cut diet Pepsi out of my diet completely and have not drank anything but water as a beverage for a few weeks and my complexion has cleared up considerably. My husband, ever the enabler, brought me home a can of diet Pepsi as a treat the other day. I drank it and my arms are covered with red itchy splotches. All this time, I thought only Splenda was my enemy. When I get into that, I get HIVES and my ears swell up. I thought the psoriasis on my arms was inevitable, but now I wonder, Aspertime might be bad too. That being said-I don't want Crystal Light! Rut roh. I am bringing my Crystal Light collection to group. Anyone interested can have it.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Back.

I'm BAAAAAACK.  I know...oh and as promised, Krystal, this post is for you my homie.

This is what I did today.  Down the road from me about a mile is this fantastic Winchestershire apple tree.  wait, is Winchestershire a real apple name or something my dad made up?  Hold on.  I'll ask the Google gods...

*time lapse*

Yeah.  He was just naming them something romantic so we would eat them.  Okay...I'll call them Heirloom apples, since they are most likely a leftover from a homestead  located there at some point in time.  Anyhow, its fantastic and since my own apple trees are a bit manic depressive this year (my greening had an unfortunate suicide attempt last summer and is still in ICU), I'm needing to shop in the ditches for my apples.  Okay, so I go to pick these fantastic apples (did I mention how fantastic they were?) and came home, peeled 2 and put them in the blender with some bee balm and a tablespoon of honey.  YAY! It was good and aside from the honey (my hippie princess friend lost all her honey bees to mice last winter), it was free and organic!!!

1 Tablespoon honey = 64 calories
2 small wild apples = 120 calories
1 bee balm blossom = 0 calories
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 My carnivore hubby will be having pork chops slow cooked in this apple sauce.  We will see how well it goes over with him.  He tolerates my ditch cuisine pretty well.  If its good, maybe he won't freak out too much when I tell him I REALLY want to take that online holistic healing class this winter...its ONLY $1600.00.  That is less than the roof is going to cost. If things get too ugly, I can bring up the air conditioning reclaim machine thing he spent most of last year paying for. 

I owe my soul to the Snap-On guy by the way.  It was the only way I could keep my first born without having to guess his name.

So, as discussed in group-omg I'm almost done!!!-I need to focus on eating little tiny bits several times a day instead of waiting until I am hypoglycemic before I eat something.  Also, my water intake is pitiful.  While I can honestly say I have thrown soda out the virtual window of my uber-healthy temple, coffee is my love. Oh I love coffee.  My only saving grace is the fact that I am a hard-core coffee snob that will only partake in 1 or 2 cups per day IF it is decent.  I am not an off-the-wal-mart-shelf coffee drinker.  If I wanted to drink pissy mud, I would harvest it for free from the cow yard.  No, I pay for super fresh coffee that has never seen the inside of a freezer or the inside of a supermarket for that matter.  It is not marred by thick, over pasteurized cream or flavored with synthetic waxy chocolates and high-fructose corn syrup.  Its just really good, flavorful, fresh coffee.  Every once in a while I will throw some mulling spice or some organic chai in the basket for flavor...mmmmm.  I friggin' love coffee.   I do have a coffee pot that can brew 1 cup at a time, so I can limit myself that way and I can make a point to only partake once a week.  It's not something I can't say no to, its just something I really enjoy and I don't want to say no until I absolutely have to. 

So, I made my excuse.  I'm aware of it and today I focused on hydration and nibbling.  Aside from having to pee allot...Nope.  That's it.  I pee alot.

Another concern.  My Strattera gives me instant heartburn.  When my stomach is tiny, I'm afraid I will just burst into flame because there will be no room for heartburn.  I will skip heartburn and spontaneously combust.  Wow.  What a grease fire that will be...I may need to discuss this with my doctor.  The Strattera problem--not so much the grease fire.  I wonder if he will suggest living retarded for a few months to give my stomach a chance to heal before swallowing pills again. Hmmmmm.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.