Pathetic and Apathy

I'm still struggling to maintain my weight. Right now I really don't care too much about losing - I just want to stop gaining! I go for follow-up blood work next week and see the doc the week after, and I'm sure he's going to need to increase my thyroid med again.

Besides the weight gain I'm still very, very tired. I fall asleep during the early evening (during Jeopardy, some times!), go to bed for the night by 8:30pm the latest, and when I wake up to hit the bathroom around 2am just can't get back to sleep most mornings.

I ache. My sciatica that affects my also arthritic right hip makes most even low impact aerobics painful, and a few weeks ago I hurt my left leg doing a T-Tapp exercise known as a Hoe-Down.



The human leg was NOT made to move in extreme side directions, especially not the leg of post-menopausal women with osteoarthritis in her spine and various other joints! I still can't move my left leg/hip in certain positions and it's been about a month now.

The 2 above problems also contribute to my lack of restful sleep every night. Who can sleep when her hip is in pain?

As for the weight, I gave up trying to lose anything eating the McDougall way and for the past week have been sticking to strict Phase 1 of the Rice Diet program, the plan people who actually attend the Rice House get put on for the duration of their stay, the original plan devised by Dr. Kempner back in the 1940's. By starving myself on less than 1000 calories a day (I was already keeping sodium low since childhood) I'm now back down to the weight I was at for one day in November, about 2 weeks in March before that. But I'm starving morning, noon and night. I have increased brain fog, worse than on a bad CFS day. I have less energy than ever. I need to follow The Spoon Theory even closer than usual if I want to continue to eat this way.

That said, I would probably spend every day just lying in bed, but I do have responsibilities. I do have to shop, hit the laundromat, do the cooking and bare minimum of housework. Right now I don't even have the energy to get away from this computer and go refill my water glass.

I'm in a Catch-22 situation regarding next week's bloodwork. In order to have a great lipid profile (Cholesterol) I have to continue to eat a no-fat-added, no sugar, no animal products food plan and get a minimum of an hour a day of cardio/aerobic exercise. But if I eat enough to have enough strength to do that much exercise I'll gain weight, making my cholesterol and triglycerides go back up, making my doctor very disappointed in me.

What the heck, he's disappointed already because near starvation levels of calories aren't making my weight go down. He's been after me for over 27 years now to lose weight. Why can't either one of us accept the fact that it's just not gonna happen in this lifetime?

To assist me in accepting this, I'm first going to have a decent breakfast, once I finally peel myself off this seat. I'm going to re-read Dr. Linda Bacon's book, Health At Every Size. Last week I finally got to order Beyond A Shadow of A Diet, another book that promotes the same philosophy as Overcoming Overeating.

I already planned the labwork for before Christmas so this year I can have some indulgence for the holiday without feeling guilt. That's a start, I guess. Hopefully the TSH will prove to the doc that my thyroid med needs to be increased yet again, and my lipids will be as perfect as they were back in March so he'll leave me alone about the weight for a while.

I know, I sound like a broken record, writing the same things over and over again, year after freaking year. Does it ever stop? Will I ever not care? I was there summer 2009, then had the stress-related heart event that has me now labeled as a cardiac patient and sent me back to square one. I would love to get back there again.

TMNT

For anyone who has a child born in the early 1980's like I do, you KNOW what those letters mean - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

To this day my son still owns every Turtle action figure (including the elusive April one) and video (Yes, he still has his VHS tapes) he ever purchased or got as a gift. In fact, this year for Christmas he's getting the DVD set of the 3 original TMNT movies plus the newer one from 2007.

I've got to email him the url for this video, though. It'll make his day.