It’s taken the gift of a snow day, which gives me an unexpected day off work and the perfect excuse to not leave the house for anything or anybody today, to give me some breathing room. I will use some of that to reflect here about my LWTD existence—while I also cook a month’s worth of pork side for my (boring, lol) breakfasts and catch up on the laundry.
Looking back over things for the last couple of years, it’s still clear that I am in the midst of some major but normal life shifts, many of which I have talked about before on this thread. But as I continue down the path, I think continuing to glance backwards to see where I’ve been and where (and how) I’m going, helps me come to helpful little insights and inner reconciliations. For me anyway, the diet-life lessons seem neverending.
My husband and I have become empty nesters, not with total grace or gratification I would add. At the same time we have taken over a lot of the care of my nearly blind, 90-year-old father, a job I am finding akin to taking care of a toddler. I often joke and say the only difference is that when I take him shopping, at least I don’t have to look for him hiding under the clothes racks.
As of November my only sibling, my sister and her husband, have begun (slowly) moving their newly-empty nest to the same town where we live and I am thrilled by that, but it is also a new diet-life challenge/change for me to be a part of much more frequent family gatherings. It’s essentially been a “Thanksgiving Weekend” here every weekend since Thanksgiving. This is challenging my ability to be “serene” (for lack of a better word) about leading with an abstinent diet. In my previous LWTD life eating challenges were not nearly so frequent. I can handle this without falling apart and cheating—there’s truly no way I’d go back now—but it’s taking more effort (including emotional) right now.
An interesting sidenote on this is that at a recent family party at a restaurant where our extended family gathered to celebrate my dad’s 90th birthday, a male cousin remarked to me when my food arrived, “Oh Del, you are always so good about staying on your diet! How do you DO that?” Before I had a chance to reply, my (registered dietician) sister snapped: “That’s because she is OCD!” I didn’t challenge that #1, because I was a little stunned and #2, because we were not gathered to discuss diets or weight loss. But there was an uncomfortable silence (for her, might I hope?) afterwards. No one laughed. I would say, she said it sharply, perhaps wanting to make it joke-like, but it didn’t come out that way. I’m glad I let it drop, I think silence was the best “defense” in the situation. But it did once again bring up to me how although my sister has come to tolerate my unusual food behavior, even in a situation such as this where it has absolutely no impact on what she chooses to eat, it still irks her. While I know that’s not my problem, it’s not a pleasant experience for me, I don’t enjoy irking anyone.
Which brings me to another, really nice conversation I had about this with my hairdresser, who I’ve gone to for more than 20 years. Saturday I spent several hours there getting my hair highlighted. My appointment spanned lunchtime, so I packed myself a big salad. I was the only one in the salon, so while I was “cooking” (bleaching) she sat down and we ate together. She offered me some of her chocolate chip muffin and I said, no thanks, and she said oh that’s right, you’re always so good on your diet. And I said well yes, I don’t eat sugar ever, but it’s not because I’m good. It’s because I’m an addict. And she puzzled at that (I could almost see stick-thin her thinking “am I an addict?”) and I said Linda I’m like an alcoholic with sugar. I know a lot of people don’t understand or agree that some of us can be that kind of addicted to sugar, but you can eat your muffin and go to have a normal day and not think again about having more muffins until you’ve eaten all the muffins in the place and have to go out to buy more to replace the ones you’ve eaten, then buy a few more to secretly eat in addition to replacing the ones you ate. And she agreed that no, she could never eat more than one. And then she said well you are very strong, and I said no, I am very weak, that’s exactly why I don’t even start…just like the alcoholic. We don’t label abstaining alcoholics weak or strong (or OCD for that matter, wink!) And I really think then that she got it. Again, not that she needed to. But it sure felt better than the moment with my sister—I’m pretty sure I don’t irk her. But then again, I don’t eat a big meal with her every weekend…
Since last fall, as I have mentioned here before, I have been sharing my job. That certainly brought challenges, especially at first as it took more time to explain what I do and why, than it did to just DO it myself, but the extra time spent with that is paying off now, things are running more and more smoothly, and now I’m enjoying her as a work-mate and the peace of mind while away from there is great. February is one of our two busiest months. So the working change part of my life is settling down and that feels good.
On the physical/health side I’ve had about a 2-month long spell of serious knee problems, from early December to about 2 weeks ago when it began to resolve—just in the last few days I have had absolutely no knee pain. I feel pretty certain what brought this on was me spending about a month “forgetting” that my body doesn’t do very well with nightshade family foods—potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. (Potatoes, of course, are a no-brainer for a paleo-style lowcarber.) But late this fall I sort of fell in love with a new way of preparing tilapia cooked with multi-colored peppers and onions and I overdid it, big-time, especially when I didn’t get any “warning” joint pains from the first few times. I really knew better, but even as far down this path as I am, I am not immune from thinking/hoping that an intolerance, especially to a natural, healthy paleo vegetable, might eventually disappear. Since becoming aware of this intolerance (which was long before my lowcarb days, especially with tomatoes), I have always been okay with an occasional small serving of nightshades, I just knew I had to keep it small and very occasional. Let’s just say I did some (hopeful) denying and paid the price. A few days were so bad I could barely walk, stairs were a tremendous challenge (and we live in a split level house!) I haven’t had a bite of nightshade since that began, and I believe that that, plus help from my alternative chiropractor, slowly got me back to this no pain place. I’ll not be playing with nightshades anytime soon.
The knee problems, plus the busyness of Christmas gave me ample reasons not to exercise and I haven’t gone back yet (today it’s too cold—hear the excuse?) My old gym has reopened under new management, I’m pondering going back there because the new one doesn’t have an indoor track, I used to walk 3 miles every morning at the old gym in the winters before work and I am missing that now. I hate treadmills.
Another issue that has been occupying us recently is the search for a different house to live in for the next 20-30 years. The knee problems especially, plus the fact that my father has much difficulty visiting here because of the multi-levels, have moved this to front-burner status. While the thought of moving (even a few blocks away) overwhelms me and there will be much sadness leaving our terrific neighbors and the house that we have made so many improvements to, we’ve certainly learned through the experience of our elders that old age and many stair-steps don’t mesh too well. The way to stay independent longer is to at least be ABLE to live on one level of your home for extended periods. Our house, nice as we’ve made it, won’t work for that, so it’s time for one last move before we hit the old-age home.
That plus the fact that I am in my normal/usual/ultra-comfortable pattern of eating just a little more food than I really need is what I believe has me at the top of my 139-144 “normal” range. I can gain weight on gold standard eating, it merely makes it a lot more difficult for me to gain—and I know it would be impossible for me to gain 10 pounds in a month eating like this, more like 1-2. Anyway, I need to be watching portions again I guess, darn it.
The message board on this site is in a lull, I know that’s partly because I can’t get to it nearly as often as I would like right now nor can I spend the time it takes to post thoughtful things for the people with threads to contemplate and discuss. That isn’t going to change until this summer. Connie, with two jobs (three if you count a bi-weekly contract job she does for her city council) and a young family, is probably even busier than I am. Yeesh, I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of weeks.
I also realize that the kind of help I think I am best at providing is the kind that is one-on-one with individual lowcarbers (via instant-message “coaching” sessions). It’s straightforward and direct, and because it’s private vs. public, it eliminates most of the embarrassing/humiliating aspects of helping someone come face to face with her own inconsistencies and demons. But it’s time-consuming and only helps one person at a time, and it only helps when the person is truly ready for real change. I’d hoped a more focused website might help more with less time commitment than a regular message board.
I’m pondering what, if anything to do about that.
Anyway there’s a big catch up for me. I’ve told you about my LWTD challenges, now tell me about yours.
Adele (144 this morning)