Tag depression

Grey Day? No … it’s Blue Monday!

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

I doubt it’s really true that the 3rd Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year for everyone. But it sure felt like it when I went outside for my predawn coffee & saw the ridge of icebergs that the snowplough left at the end of my driveway!

Blue Monday … Grey or Great?

I was aching from the shovelling activities of the previous day & I made the mistake of “treating” myself to some starch selections for dinner last night. Followed by sugary choices for dessert! I love cramming that junk into my face but there is always a price attached to it. Indigestion, poor sleep &, for me, some sugars & starches are mind altering substances. They bring my weight up & my mood down.

Since that terrible week of eating on the road at the beginning of the year, I’ve been doing reasonably well. I wouldn’t pretend that my head has been 100% in the game, but I’ve probably been around the 80% mark. I’m not checking in with my scale, that thing is heartless, merciless, so I’m going to leave that ’til the first of the month to come.

A little later, I went for predawn coffee number two. Taking my cigarettes with me, not even a sliver of guilt attached to it, I went out to soak up some additional angst. I was trying to perk myself up with the thought of those lucky folk living in the southern hemisphere at this time of year. I bet they are enjoying the January temperatures at that end of the planet.

Imagine my elation at seeing the end of driveway clear! Good neighbours can be mind-altering too. Thank you, kind neighbour.

Bring it on Blue Monday, there are people that have my back. And I’m betting that’s true for you too.

Happy Blue Monday!

Oops!

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The Things I Sometimes Shouldn’t Do!

Oh boy, where do I begin!

Probably with an apology for being absent for the past couple or so months. I just lost my way & really, I have no idea why. I was working hard, doing what I normally do every day, & behaving normally for the most part. I made half a dozen attempts to quit smoking (all unsuccessful) during those months, something which generally hurts my dietary efforts, but that’s no excuse. Whatever the reasons, I just couldn’t hang in there this past little while.

I lost all interest in losing weight, I didn’t want to see a scale, I wanted to eat bread & cookies, I didn’t want to eat meat & fat, I certainly didn’t want to eat salad & veggies, & on it goes. I didn’t feel good about this state of mind. I was occasionally guilty, dejected, downtrodden & depressed but I couldn’t bring myself to do the right things when it came to eating well. Was it a mental thing? A physical thing? No clue!

I was at sea, without a motor, & couldn’t figure out where the paddles were. I abandoned all pretense of trying to lose weight, I gave up looking at the latest posts on forums, avoided chatting with my weight-loss friends, I stopped hunting down that latest bit of research. I just didn’t want to know.

And, of course, I gave up blogging!

But I’m back. The first post in a while. I hope this is an anchoring point for me to push forward from. And as I do, I’ll share some of the insanity of the past few months. I hope there’s something there I can learn from, as I do my rear-view mirror analysis of what might have happened along the way.

Now I’ve just got that leftover Chinese food to eat today. And that one last slice of cake. And there are those last few soft & chewy double chocolate chip cookies that nobody else likes. And was there an ice-cream sandwich in the freezer!?!

Then I’ll be back! 🙂

PS … I’d like to find the fortitude to jump on the scale come November 1st. I’m not going to like the result but … sometimes … I need a little stick along with all the carrots!

Back to Normal?

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My Drugs of Choice!

Is it possible that only a week of fentanyl and hydromorphone use, prescribed & while in hospital, could result in withdrawal symptoms?

I’m scared of drugs. I mostly choose to put up with a headache, rather than take an over-the-counter medication. I prefer to let a fever run its course, over taking something that might reduce my temperature. I generally try to avoid antibiotics. Don’t get me wrong, I will take prescription drugs if my doctor tells me it’s essential. I just don’t want to mindlessly, nor needlessly, take them. I figure that my body, despite how poorly I treat it, will know best how to handle most minor afflictions. That philosophy went out the window with my recent attack of pancreatitis. I couldn’t wait for the medical professionals to stuff a fire-hose into my vein. The pain was excruciating and I didn’t care what they had to do to make it go away!

After two or three days, I passed on a refill. I wanted to see if the pain was manageable without drugs. The logic being that pain serves a purpose. If I move, and I feel pain, then perhaps I shouldn’t be moving in that particular way. The test worked. I still hurt. Stick that thing back in my arm again, please!

Next day, I skipped another dose. It hurt, but not so much. I was switched to the oral versions. Overnight, inadvertent turns triggered pain and disrupted my sleep. I wanted to be oblivious, so I took the overnight doses too. When I finally came out of hospital, I was depressed. I was missing my gallbladder. I felt sure that if I’d had time, I could have figured out a dietary solution. I regretted not having had a chance to do that. But I couldn’t risk another attack. Imagine if that happened while travelling. I thought the, potentially unnecessary, loss of my gallbladder was the cause of my melancholia.

While I had to get back to grinding through my work days, I wasn’t enthused about much else. It is only a few days ago that I started to feel like my usual self. Notice too, the length of time between this post and my last. That’s just not me. With the return to my “normal”, I can’t help but wonder if, as much as I missed my gallbladder, was I missing those drugs more?

Scary stuff, those drugs. I think I’ll carry on steering clear of them. And, I hope, hospitals.

Now if I could just develop a similar attitude towards cigarettes!

Results … Month #9

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Results … Month #9

Results Month 9

I changed this month’s animated pic. Typically it would have proclaimed that I was “Down 32 lbs“, since I started the program. Instead, this month’s says that I “Gained 8 lbs“. I am keeping the Results post heading consistent but I didn’t want to hide the fact that this month’s efforts resulted in a pretty big weight gain. The first time that’s happened.

Of course, what I really wanted to do was scream out …

What a total loser! Or maybe it should be … What a total gainer!

What I said, after stepping on the scale this morning, was a tad worse. I won’t repeat it here. But you might be surprised to hear that I deliberately brought this all upon myself.

I had scheduled June for a bread test month. A couple of opportunities for some good bread eating turned up at the beginning of last month, so I flipped it to March. I have managed to work a lot of things back into my diet & I really wanted to see if I could integrate bread again. Why?

Because I love bread, of course!

For an entire month, I ate bread. Sometimes in controlled doses, at other times with abandon. And that wasn’t quite what my original intention was. It got so messy, so quickly, that I really haven’t learned anything new from what should have been a month of measured bread eating. I was so out of control that I was blaming eating bread for the slice of chocolate cake that followed. And for the bag of chips I scarfed while watching the big game on Saturday morning. For most of the month, bread was being blamed for everything. It was a total fiasco. I was, all at once, stressed, depressed, anxious & furious. And stuffed. It was all bread’s fault. It certainly wasn’t mine!

Was I anxious & depressed because I was eating all that bread? Or was it the anxiety that had me eating more bread than I intended? The whole month was so out of control that I didn’t know which came first … the chicken or the egg?

In fact, I didn’t care if it was the chicken or the egg, so long as they were between two slices of well-buttered bread!

Not only have I gained 8 lbs over the past month, but I’ve learned little to nothing from the experience. So I’ll have to do the bread month again. Properly this time. Just not anytime soon!

Now, a new month, a new start. It’s April. Maybe I’ll quit bread & smoking at the same time for the day that’s in it!?!

Happy Fool’s Day to all.

Unfortunately, I’m not foolin’ about the weight gain for March. It’s real.

Mood Altering Foods

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Mood Altering Foods

Sourdough Bread

I’m being lazy, sorry. I am recycling this bread pic because I wolfed down the tomato sandwiches too quickly!

I generally don’t eat candies so I have no idea if that red food dye still gets kids going crazy in the classroom. What does seem to have an impact on me is bread. Though I’ll admit sugar might also be making a contribution. Whenever I fall off the wagon and eat bread, I’ve usually fallen so far off the wagon that I’m devouring cookies, candies, and who knows what else. None of which aid weight loss. And some of which may be playing with my head.

I’m generally an optimistic person. On a bad day, I’m probably just a realist. It takes a really bad day for me to feel depressed. Though on any given day, regardless of mood, I can certainly be anxious about uncertainty. Or about something that matters to me. Whatever my mood, I can make the situation feel worse by eating bread. I was feeling a little anxious the other day. My diet was off the rails and I simply couldn’t get it back on track. I have no idea why but, in the midst of this, I was inspired to test the bread theory. Again!

Growing up, I absolutely loved bread. There is probably no better way to eat food than stuffing it between two, heavily buttered, slices of a crusty loaf, is there!?! Bacon and eggs, ham and cheese, cheese and onion, French fries (the amazing Chip Buttie!), cold cuts, hot meats, even potato chips! Fresh bread, toasted, it doesn’t matter, all are simply great. Just on its own, there’s nothing like oodles of melting butter on an oven-fresh hot loaf. My mouth is watering as I write, though I only had a couple of almost-boring tomato sandwiches for lunch the other day. Even they were delicious. I couldn’t help myself, I ate more bread with dinner that evening. That evening I felt great. No indigestion. No feelings of malaise. No depression. Had I overcome the effect? Could I safely eat bread again?

Unfortunately, the physical and mental challenges caught up with me through the night. Disturbing my sleep and leaving me to lie there worrying about how I might ever get back to losing weight again. The next day was challenging, I couldn’t stick with the low-carb regimen I had planned during those sleepless hours. I felt quite miserable about it all.

Yesterday, I thought I’d try fighting one kind of starch with another and I committed to a predominantly potato day. I had hash browns for lunch. And a ludicrously large bowl of home-fried potatoes for dinner. Okay, I admit it: I went back and had a second bowl.  I started out with at least a cup of olive oil (it’s a really big pan!), along with six or 8 cloves of garlic, one medium onion, and some hot peppers for added flavour. And then that huge pot of cooked-and-cooled potatoes hit the pan with a sizzle. I did sneak in a chocolate-nut mix dessert too, drenched in heavy cream.

While my stomach was a little distended as I trudged up the stairs at bedtime, the noise in my head had abated. After a good night’s sleep, imagine how elated I was to find myself down 0.8 lbs the following morning!

Had I banished the bread banshees? Was it the feel-good butyrate produced by my tummy bugs from all that resistant starch in the cooked and cooled potato? Who cares! Feeling good is feeling good.

I’m not sure that I’m back on track yet. But I am cautiously optimistic!

Let’s see if I can make it through the rest of the week without making any more silly dietary decisions. Even if I have to force myself to eat more of those amazingly delicious absolutely awful potatoes! 🙂