Riddle Me This

How or why is it...

I can consume 1-2 of these a day...

And eat a lunch like this... (in Paris) with 1-2 dinners nearly FULLY immersed in creamy Perogourdine type sauces, and still manage a TWO POUND WEIGHT LOSS? 

Baffles the mind! Note to self: Of the ten pounds gained while on Cymbalta, I am now 3 pounds away from my pre-Cymbalta weight! :) It's taken a while to shed it, but very glad.

And on another note, both post-vacation doctors visits (one with endocrinologist,

the other with the kidney doctor), all my numbers seem good-to-great.

Blood pressure is normalized for me (roughly 140/80), the proteinuria hasn't

relapsed, and my calcium levels are so good the endocrinologist wants me to

try dosing down from 1200 mg daily to 800.  

Pain is still kicking my ass. To be blunt, it was the perfect storm of combined

pain issues: headaches, migraines, knee pain, IT band pain, sciatica, adenomyosis, plus a bonus slight sprain in my ankle. No real relief in sight, other than the occasional, 

judicious vodka tonic. 

And the pesky-ness in my throat which I thought was related to my 

thyroid nodules? Nope. The prevailing suspicion is that it's reflux. Doc gets halfway

into telling me blah blah blah, and I said, "... and I took an omprezole, and VOILA. Gone." 

Tipping Point & Colonoscopies

(Cross posted from my dysfunction blog.)

Had a goodish session with the psychotherapist this a.m., talked about everything that's been cookin' the last two weeks: Physical therapy, work shit, Audrey, my sister's mass in her lung, pain, fear, depression, all my talking points.

It is hard work trying to go from a fixed mindset to a growth oriented mindset. By and large, at the moment, I find the hardest part just to be consistent. For me to consistently show up at my appointments, be focused, do my homework (for the physical therapy), keeping focus that this is a means to an end, working towards the goal of taking pilates (without seriously hurting myself in the process). 

My first instinct of course is to whine, "It's not fun. It is unpleasant. I hurt afterwards. I'm bored." My first instinct is just to recoil, or as Audrey would do, put the ol' head in the sand. And you'd think that with the seething disgust I have towards her and the train wreck her life has become, you'd THINK the last thing I'd want to do is the very same thing she did (or didn't do). It's easy to take the easy way out. 

As I said to my therapist, the hard part right now isn't the physical. It's the mental heavy lifting. Being present of mind, having some mental fortitude, working towards a goal, having a plan, starting something I finish. Trust me when I say, these are not qualities I inherited from either of my parents. My first impulse is to run away from conflict. Run away from things that are unpleasant. Run away from the possibility of failure. Right now, I'm trying to stay grounded, and take each session of PT on its own merit, on its own day. And as long as I can just SHOW UP, the rest will take care of itself. A good lot of life is just like that.

I make promises to people and work hard at keeping my word. It destroys me, in fact, when I fall short of my word. And yet, for myself, I think nothing of breaking promises I've made. How am I less important than others to whom I give my word? My mantra right now is JUST SHOW UP.

I made a promise to myself that I would go visit my mother tomorrow. She's been in the nursing home for 2.5 months, and I haven't laid eyes on her since before her surgery in January. Snow, sinus infections, adenomyosis pain, migraines, menses, you name it. The valid excuses kept creeping up and here we are, the weekend before Easter. And I need to go. No man's an island and all that crap. 

The older I get, the smaller my family becomes, and as less-than-ideal as my family IS, time is a bitch. Tomorrow isn't promised to any of us. Opportunities are finite. It'd be lovely to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear that my family has become. It simply is what it is, and that's just damaged. 

Mom's in the nursing home. Doubtful she'll come home at all at this point. Sis had a mass on her lung (which I believe was removed yesterday). Unsure if it's bronchial carcinoma or not. One aunt has stage four breast cancer with mets to the bone and liver. One aunt is so damaged from my grandfather's death, here it is nearly 2 years later, and she can't get her head out of her ass to just settle the estate (as if that will bring him back), and of course she's mentally checked out of the family and is uncharacteristically unreliable at this point. Brother still clueless and detached (said totally without judgment). His wife and my mother have made amends somewhat, yet my sis and brother's wife have not. So the whole thing is fractured into these little fragments. 

I told my therapist that I am mentally preparing to visit my mother as if I were mentally preparing to go for a colonoscopy--as both are a pain in the ass. It's a thankless thing. But as unpleasant as a colonoscopy is, there IS an endpoint. With my mother, that endpoint is not so clearly defined. 

So about that promise I made to myself, that THIS WEEKEND IS "THE" WEEKEND I'll go to Jersey to visit family, and get it over with. Of course, I'm about 12 hours out from menses and the distinct possibility of a migraine. Couple that up with just the overall crap at work, tipping point has been met. Today is the day I packed a travel flask of vodka with elderflower liquer in it and a can of sprite. I shall quaff it liberally before eating my lunch today... purely for medicinal purposes.

An Experiment

So what am I to do about that 7-10 lb uptick?

Every once in a while, I revise my eating habits to keep things interesting for me mentally, and hopefully to tweak things back in the direction to re-ignite my weight loss, which has pretty much been stalled for two years (the bulk of my weight I lost post-op was within the first 11 months post-op).

Even after the pitiful bowel movement I had this a.m., I hopped on the scale hoping against hope that it would read what it did at the nephrologist's office last week. No such luck: 4 lb uptick since then (on a completely empty body!). 

Today's reading, ego and efforts be damned: 203. (This is also going to be my "starting weight" to monitor progress from/once I start physical therapy.)

So, between going off Cymbalta, I've decided to forego my usual a.m. "intake" of 2 low fat Baby Bells and about 1.5 oz of Cheez Its (approx: 320-350 calories),  in favor of a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich (english muffin, egg, cheese, w/turkey sausage, weighing in at 250 cal and 17 gm of protein). I toasted the English muffin, nuked the filling to the sandwich, reassembled, then reheated right before leaving the house. I ate it while I waited (in my car) for the clock to strike 9:30 as I don't enter my office until the very last possible moment. 

# Calories reduced by substituting breakfast sammie for the cheese/crackers: 100

Current typing: 10:53 a.m., and I'm  not peckish, actually I still feel full.

In the feedbag today and timings of intake:

11ish: Protein shake blended w/iced coffee 23 gm protein thereabouts
1 p.m.:  1 can Campbells low fat/low cal Light Chicken noodle soup (140 cal and 12 gm protein for the whole can)*
3 pm.:  Small salad of arugala, sliced beets, red onion, blue cheese, 1/2 HB egg, and a few oz of last night's steak (this will be tomorrow's 3 p..m., too)--to be drizzled at the last minute with some low fat/low cal dressing
5 p.m.: Baby carrots and low fat/low cal dressing (for something crunchy instead of my standby pork rinds)
Banana in case I need it while I wait for the husband this evening at the train station.  

# Calories reduced by substituting Campbells soup for the Chinese take out egg-drop/wonton hybrid (I'm rounding up to about 200 calories for a pint of this soup, entirely possible, the soup is more calories), approximately:  60

# Calories reduced by substituting  3-4 oz baby carrots + low cal dressing for the pork rinds, approximately:  140   

Note: It's entirely possible I won't even eat the carrots, there are some days I forego the snack. 

*Now back to the soup in question... Every work day, it is almost imperative I have soup for my 1 p.m. intake. Usually it's egg drop or egg drop wonton mixed. And SURELY, that's gotta weigh in at more calories than the 140 for the can of Campbells, with an undetermined amount of protein and nutrition, too. At least with the canned soup, I know exactly what I am consuming. Let's see if I can get into this habit, and save my egg drop/wonton hybrid for something like Fridays-Only, or if I can eliminate the egg drop entirely from my weekday repertoire, I could just relegate it to the days I pick up/drop off my laundry.  

If anyone reading this is interested in the exact soup I am eating and wants to try my experiment (of just purely cutting calories, that's it. Simple math, cutting down calories), here is the exact soup:

I'm just hoping dropping the Cymbalta will take the edge off my hunger.

A Few Pics!

How my day normally starts... a fistful of supplements, stool softeners, and a hot cup of tea!

Tho on vacation last week (cruise from Seattle to Alaska and British Columbia),
I neglected to show off two things consumed
(tho not in ENTIRETY!) on vacation:

(Gotta love buffets, I can load up, then just pick at it!)

Perhaps in the future, I should snap a before and after pic, so you'll see I don't eat it all. Perhaps. But then again, I'm inherently lazy. Act surprised if/when it happens.
In no particular order...

The pineapple chicken dish the hubby had at Mae Phim Thai, Seattle.
(I had two bites!)

The nommy Yum Talay I had at Mae Phim.
After I had a bowl of tom kha gai, I only
had enough room for four bites of the Yum.
Broke my heart. It was delicious!
I want to move to Seattle JUST to eat
at Mae Phim every week.

For the record: WITHOUT A DOUBT
THE BEST THAI WE HAVE EVER HAD!!

And lastly,
The only photo worthy meal on the cruise itself.
Had this in one of the dining rooms.
Lobster tail w/tilapia, with steamed veggies.
For once, "Nouvelle Cuisine" sized
portions don't annoy me anymore. :)

End notes:
Cruise line: NCL
Ship: Pearl
5th Cruise we've been on; 2nd cruise w/NCL