Oh, ow…portion size, stupid!

Today was a painful lesson in portion size. I took my scheduled SLD dose a little late due to running around in the morning (I woke up EARLY…on a SATURDAY…ack!). Had lunch later with Husband and tried to order small (one taco, not three!) but still, cleaned the plate. And within 30 minutes I was so full, I thought I would burst. I took a nap but woke up still stuffed, then went for a long walk which helped a bit. Ate a small bowl of left over Chinese (tofu broccli with garlic sauce…mmmmMmmmMmmmMMMMmmm) but really, I could have skipped that.

Getting used to the idea that I can FEEL FULL is a real change. A good change, a GREAT change, but still not something I’m used to. Old habits are definitely hard to break.

Tomorrow I’ll be dealing with grocery shopping and food planning and all that stuff I’m usually pretty irresponsible about. And probably a messed up schedule, as we are going clubbing tonight so that means I’ll be sleeping in.

Added a new page *points right*

Today I wrote an overview of why I dropped out of doing SLD (and updating this blog) for a year. It’s the SLD Crash & Burn page. I made it a page so it is permanently linked in the side bar there, because it is an important story.

Overall, today went really well, on schedule and everything! I ate Chinese food for dinner with a small dish of grapes for dessert. I did not feel any strong hunger urges until right before dinner, which makes sense as I got it sort of later than I normally eat. I think I ate too much Chinese food out of habit, and now I’m so stuffed…ugh. Will definitely start paying attention to portion sizes from now on.

Plan, plan, *fail*

I have not failed to plan, and today things will go as I want them too, but what happened this morning is an excellent example of how simple things can get off track.

Right now my schedule is to finish coffee/breakfast by 10am, drink my sugar water SLD dose at 11am, and then have lunch/snacks post-noon. I do not drink coffee at home. I generally get up between five and six am, write, work out, make ‘breakfast’ (which, when I bother with it, is juice or a fruit smoothie; I generally do not eat solid foods in the morning, it does not set well with me). I drink the coffee when I get to work. Ah, but today, the coffee was not ready when I got in, so I did not make my cup-per-usual. Then I got distracted by “office emergency!!!” so it was an hour before I made coffee. Now it is 9:45am and I am just now sitting down to drink my coffee. No way will I be done with it before 10:30am (I am a sipper, not a gulper). And if I get distracted again, as I am prone to do, I won’t finish my cuppa until 11am, and now everything is an hour behind.

This is not a problem today, thankfully, but what if I had lunch with co-workers on the schedule? Well, I could skip the coffee (nooooooooooo!!!), gulp it down (owwww, hot hot hot), or skip the lunch date (bad politics).

I don’t think people ‘fall off’ the SLD wagon because it is complicated but because they simply get sabotagued by life’s pratfalls. Of course the answer is to plan ahead, and that does help; now, I KNOW I’m already behind, and can make adjustments. My first run-through last year? I was floating along, not paying attention, thinking “Oh SLD is so SIMPLE I can’t screw it up!” but I screwed it up BECAUSE it is simple. Easy to overlook, take for granted, and not account for. That is the dangerous part.

This weekend I plan to weigh in for the first time in about a year. Give me strength.

On Failure, and starting again

Is anyone still reading this? Whoa, I’m sorry!

The thing is, SLD works. It really, really WORKS. But it also takes work, at least a little. Yes, really.

You have to plan. There needs to be an apporximately three hour stretch at an optimal time of day for you to not eat or drink for an hour, drink your SLD dose, and then not eat or drink anything (other than water) again for another hour. This doesn’t sound hard, but I found out: it IS.

Sure, willpower counts. I salute everyone who can navigate their work/life environments without crumbling. Other factors can come into play, though, and for me, they hit like a Mack truck.

First, I’m the adult child of an alcoholic, and food is a huge trigger for me. Second, I suffer from a mild form of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and post-traumatic stress syndrom (PTSD). Why yes, my head is messed up, pleased to meet you! Fortunately, it is not necessary for me to be on perscription drugs to live my life, and I am not addicted to alcohol or any other substance. I’ve got a leg up, and believe me, I’m thankful.

I’ll spare you the long, drawn out story about the Year of Breaking Apart and get to the nitty gritty: I’m in therapy, I’m doing good, and I’m starting back on the SLD program again. Today was my third day and I’m keeping to the schedule. That was where I fell apart before, as my own issues led me to constantly undermining myself.

I’ll be going into more detail about that, but mainly I wanted to say: it is OKAY to start over. Life happens, whatever the issues might be. I feel foolish “failing” at something so simple as SLD, but I think that not going back to what I know works just because I’m embarassed would be a bigger failure.

More tomorrow. <3

Day 53: Emotions, emotions, emotions

Today was a battle with emotional eating; I wanted food but I was not hungry. I wanted the soft comfort of salty and sweet and creamy and crunch…all those things that make me feel “okay” with the world, even if it is falling apart. I am actually doing very well these days, but I think that the fall out of last week is that I am still wound up and emotionally vulnerable. Solution? Food coma.

NOT!

But it is hard to fight those urges, because they are not about hunger. They are about needing and wanting and desiring and looking for comfort. Nervous eating, comfort food, call it what you will: it fills a void that nothing else quite touches. Unfortunately.

Of course the bonus here is that on SLD, it is only about the emotions. Before the craving came from both a deep emotional need and an unstoppable physical force, which together were undefeatable. Which is to say:
Today I drank my ACV/fruit juice mix all day until I got home; then I ate 10 trisket crackers and two ounces of cheese; and then I ate a “burrito salad” with beans and rice and veggies, along with some chips. About 2/3 of a can of hard cider when I got home.

That was the complete tally of what felt like an uncontrolled binge, so I suppose I can only say: Thank goodness for SLD!

I think it does not help that I am drinking at night; I suspect this is also affecting my huger impulse, which seems over the last week to be coming up much stronger in the morning. While I drink an startlingly small amount, I really need to cut it out. I do it to relax enough to fall asleep, otherwise I toss and turn for hours, so I need to look at an alternative sleep aid. Once I fall asleep, I’m good to snore, but the tipping point has been elusive for the these last few weeks. Stress’ll do it to ya every time!

Day 52: The “Lost Week” of KimBoo

My emotional crisis of the week before did not settle like I thought it would. It took off and dragged me behind it like a ripped parachute. I did not update my journals, go anywhere, play racquetball, or do my homework, and I even skipped class on Wednesday. I am usually the retentive type who normally would NEVER in a million years skip class short of being held hostage by a secret government agency. But I did. I also drank too much.

But somehow: It’s all good. I’m okay. It was not a “crash and burn,” it was a “turn left you damn idiot! Turn left! Before you crash! Left! Left! Left!” It was a life lesson that, for me, was about ten years overdue. It was not easy to swallow. I am mad that I put myself through this at all. :::whack head on desk; repeat ::::

And I am ecstatic that I finally got the message.

I did manage to stay on SLD, but not in a regimented way. My schedule got tossed to crackers and I took my SW when I remembered it, which was often late in the day. The success here is not that I did not melt down – ohhhh yes I did! – but that I did not run back to sink my emotions in food. I drank too much beer, but that amounted to about one a night (what can I say? I’m a cheap date…just ask my husband…). My system still hit “full” when I ate and there were a lot of “take home” boxes piled in the fridge from our meals out at night. I also managed to get up and jog every morning and even make it to my crappy job during the day. As far as emotional breakdowns go, this was a “save.”

I have not weighed, though. I’m not that brave!

But today I am back on schedule. I’m writing journal posts, emailing some worried friends, and taking my SW at about 10:30am as per usual. I’ve made this a juice-fast day as I think my body needs a day off from excess. I went for a long trail run yesterday and this morning I jogged as usual. I’m confidant about my life choices and I know that I will lose weight, get healthy, and follow my dreams. What more can you ask for?

Day 46: Totally, Completely, NOT Hungry

Today I went for my hour long run in the morning, got to work, drank some coffee, ate about 1/2 of an apple, and then…nothing. I was supposed to drink my SW at around 10am, as usual, but was so NOT hungry that I forgot even that. At lunch my stomach was growling up a storm and I did not bring any food to work so I went wandering, thinking, “oh, fast food today for the first time in months!”

But no.

Nothing sounded good. What I wanted was a nice salad and some pilaf maybe but that was not going to happen on my short lunch break. So I went to the grocery and grabbed cheese cuts and Triskets and ate…three. Three Triskets with cheese. I could not take another. It is SO weird, because I did not even drink the SW as I was supposed to do. Not to mention that Triskets are like crack to me, they are so addictive! I’ve been known to finish a whole box in one sitting. Yes, with cheese too! A whole box! Compared to: three. Wild.

I had a protein shake after the crackers and did my SW dose at 3pm, kind of mixed up for me but what a mixed up day, food-wise. Perhaps the blunt force emotional trauma of this week is hindering my appetite as well. I don’t know but…well, just weird.

Day 45: Tension Break + Weigh In

Today was a better day than the rest of the week. I am still on a ragged edge but cleaning up the pieces (you want cryptic? I’ll give you cryptic!).

I was back on the SLD dosage plan of mine and also did a “down day” on food intake; not very much of a down day, but enough to feel better: juice/ACV drink all day, and a small mix of stir-fried tofu and veggies for dinner. Actually that was pretty amazing, compared to how I used to eat tofu-veggies mix: on top of four cups of rice! LOL! Seriously, I love rice. But with SLD it just isn’t a craving any more. I had the tofu with veggies and no rice on it at all, which in the past would have been heretical.

After class I got home and MiKE fed me a slice of cheese. I guess that was dessert?

Anyway things are doing okay. I did weigh in this morning at 199 and that is exciting, but given the emotional issues of this past week I can’t say I’m convinced it is a legitimate loss. Well when am I ever convinced of that, right? But we’ll see. I know it would be FABULOUS to permanently break out of the 200s!!!!

Day 44: Crisis Continues

I have been through something of an emotional wreck this week, and it shows (if you want the full gory details, head over the LiveJournal and friend me; I will not go into the whole pathetic rant here for fear of boring the tar out of you). Anyway I can barely eat even without SLD, as my stomach has been twisting in knots. Today all I had was a slice of quiche for breakfast and one cheese sandwich for dinner, with a beer (great mix, eh? So healthy!…jeeze…).

All I did for SLD today was the fish caps in the afternoon, before racquetball. I am still getting the racquetball and jogging in, so that is good. Good for me mentally, too, I know.

Right now I’m on a wait-and-see program, to see how far I might crack and what might come out of these internal riots. I don’t think I’m in a serious depression or anything — eh, been there, done that — but these are tumultuous times for me, emotionally.

I am sincerely glad to have SLD going into this, though, as it has kept me from eating my weight in junk food, which is my usual reaction to stress.

Day 42: Weigh In

Wow, I went down AGAIN! Will I never ceased to be amazed by this? No, probably not…

Anyway, I am down to 201.4!! As I posted at the SLD Forum, this represents about one pound per week loss for me. I’m so impatient, I want it faster pussycat more more more! But I know that slow and steady is healthier, and will be more permanent.

Amazing how easy SLD makes this!

In other news, I’m tearing up my emotional batteries. What a frackin’ terrible week, emotionally. And that is all I have to say about that for now.