Much Needed Update!

So...  It's been a while since I last posted.  What's funny about that is that one of the last things I posted was a resolution to try to write and post more authentic stuff.  But I think the truth is that I just got bored of writing, and it was starting to feel like work rather than something I did because I enjoyed it.  I'm funny that way; I have many hobbies, because after a while the one I'm doing begins to bore me and I move on to something else.  I'm currently making earrings.  Last week I was sketching.  And next week I'm going to be quilting.  Who knows what August will bring.

I felt like I should write something though, because 2014 has brought a lot of change to our household as far as food goes.  I guess I'll start from the beginning, and hope I don't put you to sleep!

In November of 2013, I decided I should allow myself to make cookies.  Lots and lots of cookies.  For friends and family!  I'd make a batch of cookies every week and freeze them so I would have lots of cookies to give away at Christmas time.  I made everything.  I think I ended up making maybe 10 kinds of cookies, and had at least two gross of cookies in my freezer. 

Except I couldn't just make the cookies and put them away.  I started to eat them, secretly.  Every time I'd make cookies, I'd eat cookies.  And sometimes I'd sneak some out of the freezer.  I figured I had more than enough for all my friends and family, and I didn't think one or two cookies would hurt. 

Well, I'm here to tell you that two months of one or two cookies lead to 10 pounds of weight gain.  I was pretty upset at myself.  I swore that, come the new year, I'd get right back on the low carb wagon and lose that weight lickety-split. 

The only problem with this theory was that, shortly into January, Chad and I embarked on a pretty epic remodeling project.  I get overly excited about stuff, and started wanting to do everything and right now. It started as a project to fix the texture that was peeling off our 100 year old plaster walls, but quickly turned into repainting the whole downstairs and replacing the carpet while we're at it.  Like a fool, I ordered to have the carpet put in three weeks from when we started this thing, which means we had three weeks to scrape, retexture, and paint most of our downstairs.  Since Chad has to work, that meant that the majority of the work fell on me.  It was an intense three weeks. 

We managed to just pull it off in time.  I told Chad that the only thing keeping me going at the end was sugar, caffeine, and pain pills.  I was beat up pretty badly.  And two days after the new carpet was installed, I found out exactly how badly I'd hurt myself.

I started to develop a really curious problem.  When I sat down after being up and moving around for a while, the right side of my face would hurt.  At first it was mild and could be remedied by getting back up and  moving around some more.  The next day, the pain was worse and I had to get up and do really vigorous exercise to make the pain go away.  That night, when I had to lay down to go to sleep, was torture.  Eventually the pain went away, though, and I finally got to sleep. 

The next day was the worst day of my life.  The pain was endless.  If I moved around, the pain was bad, but if I sat down, it felt like my face was being stabbed by red hot knives.  The pain went down to my jaw and neck and ran up to my ear and eye.  I cried uncontrollably.  I had my mom take me to the urgent care place; unfortunately, I totally stumped everyone there.  The doctor finally told me that the only thing she could think it was was a condition where the nerve in the face is damaged and there's nothing that can be done for it.  I asked her if she could at least give me a strong pain medication, because ibuprofen and Tylenol weren't doing anything for me.  She sent me off with a prescription for a strong antibiotic and hydrocodone.  I hated taking both of them, but I was desperate. 

I kept crying and telling Chad that I just couldn't live like this.  I was terrified that the problem was what the doctor thought it was, though I really doubted it.  She told me to make an appointment with my regular doctor, but I decided to get into my dentist instead on the suspicion that it had something to do with my teeth.  At this point, I had realized that the pain was being caused by changes in temperature, and that's why sitting down after moving around made it hurt.  It's also why, at this point, I couldn't eat anything at all.  The hydrocodone seemed to help a little bit, but it took about an hour to kick in.

The next day, I started to feel a little tiny bit better, though I was still in a lot of pain, crying, and generally miserable.  I couldn't move without bringing on a wave of pain.  I knew I had to eat, but I couldn't eat anything cold or warm or anything I had to chew.  I ended up having Chad blend up room temperature soup so I could suck it through a straw, plus I drank room temperature milk.  I was just glad I could get something in my stomach.

The visit to the dentist was extremely interesting.  She took some x-rays and examined my mouth.  She said my teeth looked fine, though the gums were swollen.  The x-rays revealed something really curious.  I had a huge pocket of fluid right above one of my top molars (at this point it had even gone down a little).  There was nothing wrong with the tooth at all.  She asked me if I had sinusitis, but I wasn't having any issues with my sinuses.  She thought it was probably brought on by the flu or a bad cold and told me to just rest and continue taking the antibiotics the doctor had given me. 

It took me about a week to fully recover from the pain, and another week to start feeling normal again.  It actually took me a month or more to get my strength back.  And unfortunately, the infection had slightly damaged the sight in my right eye so now it's a little near sighted, and occasionally the difference between the vision in my two eyes makes me feel disoriented.  I got some glasses to help with the problem, but I'll never have my perfect vision back.

After that incidence, I was pretty sick with myself.  I knew the infection was caused by the sugar, caffeine, pain pills, and excessive amounts of hard physical work.  How could I have done that to myself?  I knew sugar was toxic, but I shoveled it in anyway because it gave me quick energy when I had nothing left to give.  I decided to go completely sugar and wheat free, for real.  No cheating.  No treats.  Just good low carb food.  I decided to give myself a reward if I made it to 30 days of being sugar and wheat free; I let myself buy $60 worth of spring bulbs to be planted in the fall.  I figured going back to being low carb, sugar free, wheat free would help me to drop those 10 pounds I'd gained, too.

And I made it to 30 days.  Then 60 days.  But the weight wasn't doing anything.  I may have even gained a couple of pounds.  I felt better, but not as good as I felt when I first switched to low carb.  I was feeling really desperate to move the scale and make myself feel better, to the point where I was starting to experiment with low carb calorie counting.  I tried to cut my calories back to 1600 a day, but that made me feel even worse.  At that point, Chad gently reminded me that it's probably not healthy to cut back on my intake if I'm trying to support a baby (which we're still trying to conceive). 

I think we'll stop this post there since it's already pretty long.  The rest of the story is much happier, and even though I can't say for sure that it ends well because life doesn't have neat little endings the way movies do, I can say that Chad and I are doing much better and feeling wonderful.  So then, see you next time!

Chasing Down the Wagon

It's been a crazy ride since I left for vacation in late August.  It feels like my life hasn't really gotten back to normal since then!  Along with my daily routine being disrupted, my healthy eating habits have taken a back seat as well, and I can really feel it affecting me.

I haven't given up my low carb diet exactly.  It's like I'm eating the way I used to, only with junk food thrown in.  So I'll have eggs and bacon in the morning, but I might add in cheesecake sometime mid morning, or after a healthy dinner of taco salad, I'll go out and have ice cream. 

To be honest, since having the bad experience with my family on my birthday, I haven't really felt right.  I've been mopey and depressed, and I can't justify eating properly because I'm so down in the dumps.  I think to myself, if life sucks so hard, why bother eating well?  Of course I know that eating badly also makes me depressed, so it's a vicious cycle. 

So today I decided enough is enough.  No more junky foods.  I had a cup of caffeinated coffee (a rarity for me) to help get me perked up so I won't be tempted to make myself feel better with sugar, and my goal is to eat no sugar or wheat just for today.  If I can get through today, then I can get through tomorrow, and then the day after.  But it starts with one day. 

I don't like living in a dark funk like this.  I mean, I used to be this way all the time, depressed, lonely, feeling like there was no reason to treat myself right.  When I started eating low carb last year, I came out of that funk and I really haven't been that depressed until recently.  I hate this feeling of being useless and hopeless, and I want to get out of it as soon as possible, and I know I can't do that until I start eating right and giving my body the care it deserves. 

So I have to chase down that wagon, but I'm going to get back on it. 

Misbehaving

Ahh, Monday again.  I actually like Monday, which probably puts me in the minority.  I like the potential it has.  Monday means that another week has started, with a brand new chance to learn and better myself.

It's a good thing I think that way about Mondays, because my weekend was a little bit of a disaster.  Since the 4th of July was on Thursday, Chad also got Friday off from work, which means he had a four day weekend, woo!  Of course, weekends are when we loosen our low carb/paleo rules about food and tend to eat a little more junky food.

On Thursday, we ended up getting huge ice creams.  On Friday, we had potato salad.  And don't even get me started on Saturday (hint: Aunt Flow showed up and the chocolate was calling my name). 

It always makes me feel guilty when I'm bad like that.  I feel like I've wrecked all the work I've done in the past year to improve my health and well being.  It also makes me feel like I'm weak willed and have no control over my actions.

But I try to remember to look at these situations with clear eyes.  Ice cream, potato salad, a bar of chocolate?  Those may be bad to me now, and we may only eat those things once in a long while, but it's not the end of the world.  It's not like we wrecked our whole diet the entire four day weekend.  We still ate real, whole food the rest of the time.  Life is too short to worry about small indulgences, especially when they're only once in a while.

As for being weak willed, I don't know.  I don't think I'm being fair with myself.  Back when Chad and I were first living together, we ate those types of food every day, multiple times a day.  Chad had a voracious appetite for candy, and I still like to tell the story of when he sat down and ate a whole bag of jelly beans in one sitting.  I was no better.  I had to have sweets in the house all the time.  When about half of them were gone, I'd tell myself that I had to eat these because I didn't want them in the house, and I'd try to eat them quickly.  But then once they were gone, I'd either bake more or buy more junk because I just needed to have it, and the cycle would start again. 

So the fact that we're willing to eat clean, wholesome food 90% of the time?  That's pretty awesome.  If you really think about it, that's not weak willed.  That's actually pretty strong willed.  That's knowing what we want and sticking with it.  And when we do eat junk food, it's not because we have no control over ourselves.  The ice cream was a careful decision, and we actually walked about three miles to get it.  The potato salad was also a decision, because we wanted to have a somewhat traditional cookout.  And we resisted getting baked beans along with the potato salad because we knew that would be over doing it.

As for the chocolate?   I decided a long time ago to let myself have whatever I want the first day AF shows up, since it's such an emotional craptastic day for me.  The fact that I was able to get by eating only 2/3 of a chocolate bar and three rice crispy treats is actually pretty good.  I used to eat 3/4 of a pan of brownies!

I suppose the lesson here is to give yourself a little slack.  Don't beat up on yourself just because you slipped up a little.  Try to see the situation for exactly what it is, and then learn from it.  And remember that life is about enjoying every moment.  If you're constantly denying yourself some of life's pleasures (and that includes food), that's not really living, is it? 

I Survived!

It's been about a week since my last post, and I have to apologize for taking so long to update.  Spending so much time with Chad's family was exhausting, partially because we were doing so much, and partially because I was eating so badly.  There was at least one day where I had a sugar buzz all day long, which leaves you feeling pretty grouchy the next day, by the way.

By Saturday, the last day his brother was in town, I was pretty much done with it.  I told Chad that I had to avoid sugar at all costs, because it was making me feel terrible.  I was also done with bread and potatoes.  Bleck!

So Sunday, Chad and I returned to our regularly scheduled eating plan.  Eggs and bacon for breakfast, lunch meat and cheese for lunch, and some locally raised goat kabobs for dinner (which were surprisingly good), with lots of veggies and some fruit thrown in.

I have lots to write about, but it's 7:30 and I need to get downstairs and pack Chad his lunch.

The Bumpy Road

Life doesn't always go the way you plan it.  I know this pretty well by now, but nevertheless, it always throws me for a loop when something unexpected happens in my life. 

Like, for instance, having someone turn left in front of our car at high speed, totaling our car and leaving us scrambling to buy a new one.  I think I was more dead weight than anything for my poor husband the whole week.  The accident left me mildly traumatized, and I found it hard to do even the most basic chores. 

Needless to say, the first part of my life that suffered was my diet.  I'm a stress eater.  When I'm under pressure of any kind, I try to ease my anxiety with food.  At first I tried to eat healthy foods, because I knew I didn't want to eat junk when my body and mind were already having problems.  But I couldn't stop myself.  Pretty soon, I found the sugar, and the rest is just a sweet blur. 

(Admittedly, I indulged in much smaller amounts of sugar than I would have back in my calorie counting days.  Today, I consider indulging as eating one or two servings of sweets a day, whereas in the past I've been known to inhale a whole bag of candy in an attempt to make myself feel better.)

I really hate when I lose control of my eating habits.  My brain is saying "hey, don't eat that", but my mouth is saying "shut up, you goody-two-shoes!  Can't you see I need this?".  The sad part is that it's never as good as I think it's going to be. 

And now that I've been eating junk foods for about a week, I've been finding it hard to get back into the swing of eating real food.  My sugar cravings are killing me, and I'm having trouble resisting food between meals.  Sigh.  I think for now I'll focus mostly on just staying away from sugar, and once the cravings go away, I'll cut out in between meal snacking again. 

The next time something like this happens, I'm going to try harder to be good to myself.