I noticed I was feeling a bit of anxiety and woke up with a thumping heart this morning.  Not sure if it is diet related since I tend toward that anyway.  I did buy some new cal/mag to start taking and think I need to be better about my water today.  I also was thirsty when I woke up and dehydration can make my heartbeat more noticeable.

Diet for Yesterday:

1 egg with 2 sausage, bell peppers and onion

2 celery with cream cheese

2 sf jello with cream cheese, splenda and cream

a couple sips of coffee with splenda and cream….gross!

pork with pico de gallo and canned peppers

diet Pepsi

hamburger patty, pepper jack cheese, grilled onion, salad with ranch (made with mayo and cream+water)

cinnamon gum sf

I noticed I really struggled to eat enough yesterday, but as I said, I had forgotten that I could eat more veggies.  I think I might start adding in some carbs a little early.  I know it will slow down weight loss but I’m fine with that.  I ate 5 grapes this morning : )  I am also going to get some salt this morning and up my water….I think that is why I don’t feel so great.

Yesterday I drank a diet Pepsi and I don’t think that sat well with me.  Plus, I woke up in the night with a stomach ache.  Of course, I did take my cal/mag just before bed.  Think I will take it earlier  and throughout the day (4) today.

Breakfast-2 eggs scrambled with 1 Tb butter, some diced bell peppers and onions (about 4 Tb total) and covered with a slice of pepper jack cheese

Morning snack-2 pieces beef jerky

Lunch-baked chicken breast, 2 sticks celery with cream cheese

Afternoon snack-1/2 slice pepper jack cheese and one dill pickle

It’s 2:00 and I am about to leave to get the kids from school.  I don’t feel hungry and neither am I craving carbs at this time.  I have been trying to drink my water and drinking too much coffee : )  I am not ready to cut the coffee out yet although I will be staying away from diet pop for my stomachs sake.

I feel settled about this diet.  I don’t feel particularly jazzed nor discouraged…..just quiet.  I’m not excited about it but I’m not excited to be a diabetic and at risk for a heart attack by the time I’m 50 either!  It’s just something I have to do…..for life?  Yes, for  life.  I do plan on working through all the steps so that I end up on a diet that includes healthier carbs but I have to say good-bye to the sugar overloads for life.  Either that or I have to say goodby to life itself.  Food is Fuel.  I may be a foodie but I can get excited about healthier options.

I wonder if I will have to go through the stages of grief while saying good-bye to sugar.  What to expect?

I am Strong, Sensual, Sexy and Sassy!  I can do this!  I want to do this!

edited*

another afternoon snack-boiled egg, 2 tb prepared tuna in a half a stick of celery

dinner-pork loin cooked in crock pot with pico de gallo on top, weight watchers vegetable soup and water with lime

Evening snack-mozarella cheese stick and mini dill pickle

Today- keep up with the water all day, make sure I eat a lot of salt
I wanted to jot down my physical feelings for the past year to remind myself how far I’ve come when things get hard.
• I’ve been suffering with severe acid reflux for over a year. I am currently taking prilosec and sometimes throw in another acid reducer at night. I feel bloated, burpy and have frequent stomach pains in the center of my gut right under my sternum. I also get a small, dull pain under my right ribcage. I had a scope done and they found mostly healed erosions in my esophagus (i had been on meds for a few months already.) I had a barium swallow done and they found my swallow reflex slow and I frequently feel like bready things especially are getting stuck in my esophagus and I need to drink water to push is down.
• I’m tired a lot and have a hard time motivating myself to be physical. I have a hard time finding the energy to get my work done. I feel lazy.
• I have heart palpitations and sometimes an accelerated heart rate. My blood pressure is border line and the dr. put me on metoporal but I think it is still on the border of high and he said I could go up to two……..I will try this diet instead.
• I have a lot of aches and pains. My wrist sometimes hurts, my knees are currently achy, my hips sometimes bother me especially when walking. My neck and shoulder/collar bone always ache.
• I get a lot of phantom pains in my pelvic area. The dr.s have no explanation for them but sometimes they are almost crippling in the fact that when I try to sit up , laugh or sneeze I will have to freeze doubled over until it passes.

• My period is a mess! I have a tipped uteras and huge fibroids. My period is very heavy and has huge clots. I try not to have to leave my house on the heaviest day. My dr. wants to do a hysterectomy but I passed.
• I have severe varicose veins on my legs. They have been achy and rather painful while flying. I would like to get them fixed but not if they are going to come back because of weight.
• I have self diagnosed myself with IBS. I sometimes am constipated and sometimes have diarrhea. My bowel movements are a mess also. I get cramps with gas or loose stools. I get cramps with the need to go but can’t….and it’s not from hard stools because when I finally do go (usually the next day) they are not hard but almost rather overly soft and gummy…..like they were sticking to the sides of my intestinal wall.

• I feel closer to 60 but barely turned 40!! My cloths are too tight (again!) My stomach looks huge…I feel unsexy, unattractive and gross.
I have been tested, prodded, poked and scraped. I’ve been put out and scoped, put out and cut open, put out and scraped and biopsied. I am doctored out! yet, I still feel as if there is something wrong…..or could it all be because of my diet and weight? I will try this low carb diet for 2 months and hope to see significant improvement. If not, I guess I will return to the doctor for more expensive test……I’m thinking I will see a lot of improvement!

Hi, my name is T-kay and I am addicted to sugar!

I am a Type 2 diabetic….no more messing around with pre-diabetic, or insulin resistance.  The last time I tested my fasting sugars I was at 99 and that was about 6 months ago.  I am sure by now I am a diabetic but do not have strips and have been avoiding getting them….I know, dumb!!

I was lying in my sons bed, waiting for him to fall asleep so I could sneak out and thinking about my lifelong struggle with food.  I thought I was fat before but now my young fat weight is my new goal weight.

I had a few things that came into play with my weight gain.  One, I was raised in a very legalistic fire and damnation church.  We were taught to believe in an angry God who was waiting to condemn people to hell.  In order to prevent that, a one time repentance was not enough. We were expected to “repent” or confess our sins on a regular basis.  If we had no sins to confess, we were either encouraged to come up with some or just make an overall confession of being a sinner in need of grace.

The next thing was that I was a very sexual person very young.  Although looking back I wonder if I didn’t start out pretty normal but the guilt of my feelings just magnified them.  Anyway, I started my period at 11, was exposed to my older brothers pornography around 10 and started reading romance novels shortly thereafter.  A lot of shameful masturbation and secret confessions and worry about hell followed.

I was kind of chunky through my teen years(highest weight 150).  When I was 20 I got serious about losing weight and got down to 135.  Shortly after that I met my current husband.  Ours was not a tranquil affair.  We had different religious beliefs with his being free to indulge in sexual dalliances and mine forbidding them.  On top of this, by the time I was 21 I was very ready sexually.  I think we dated one month before I lost my virginity.  I felt guilty!  but, of course I didn’t stop.  We continued this ongoing battle of me trying to resist the sexual temptation (plus a lot of other baggage I was carrying from my upbringing having to do with my church plus an angry but most of the time tuned out dad and 10 siblings and no money) and then feeling guilty for about 3 years before I ended up pregnant.  By this time I had gained about 65 pounds.  At first I was such a nervous wreck that I lost more weight, until my size 6 pants hung on me, and then I shot up to 195 lbs.

I don’t know why my husband didn’t cut and run.  I was a mess.  I was on the verge of being suicidal, I couldn’t sleep much, I alternated being a church going skirt wearer with sneaking out to meet him for sex.  I cried and demanded he marry me. I refused to use birth control because it was against church teaching.  I finally ended up pregnant and knew I had to get my shit together so we split up.  He was a great dad and I calmed down and got out of the panic mode.  One year after the baby was born we got married.

It’s been a crazy journey trying to work thru the crap.  It actually took me many years to admit that my upbringing was not normal and our church was a little screwy.  I suffered a couple of other depressive episodes and going on prescription meds before I finally saw the light and got into some therapy to start working through it.  I’m still working on it!

Now here I am: 40 years old, 205 pounds and ready to tackle the weight issue.  My sexuality is still a problem because whenever I start to lose weight and start feeling more attractive I panic and binge.  When I open up to my husband and try to be a little freer (as I would like to) sexually I panic and binge.  If he compliments me I panic, If another guy shows any sort of attention I worry I will cheat, If I find another guy attractive I immediately start chowing…..

I am a sexual, sensual woman and that is ok.

That’s all I have today….Day one of Induction and I did ok.  It was the superbowl and there was plenty of food around but there was Atkins friendly food available so I stuck to the plan.  I want to lose 50 pounds and seduce my husband on the beach in Belize.  I already know what I will be wearing; a two piece suit with a sarong and a big hat.  We will go for a moonlit stroll in the warm breeze, carrying a blanket in a bag.  I will suggest we sit for a while in a private spot and I’m sure he will know what to do (my husband loved the church’s rule about skirts while we were dating…..they thought it was for modesty but he thought it was easy access!)

I drew in a deep breath thru my nose and relaxed my eyes letting my vision soften.  Suddenly I noticed that the line of trees in front of me got progressively smaller as they moved to the left.

I opened my ears and heard the wind rustling thru the trees.  I heard the crunch of the gold-colored leaves under my feet.  I could hear the panting of kids and the swish of their bike tires as they came up behind and passed me.  I noticed they all turned around to look back at me!  I could hear the shouts of the soccer coaches and the thump of balls being kicked.

As I approached the corner, I heard first, and then observed a flock of ducks swoop over my head.  They came in for a landing just feet away.

My mind kept wanting to stray.  My mind kept wanting to fix the problems in my marriage, make up stories of what I should be doing, and fixate on fear.  I quietly kept accepting my straying thoughts and refocusing on my senses.  In one particularly bad patch I closed my eyes and walked and became in tune with the feel of my feet hitting the pavement or grass, the sounds and even the smells.

I did one complete lap of mindfulness (10 minutes) before relaxing my focus.  I noticed my anxieties had eased and I simply enjoyed a  peaceful walk around the park.  I no longer felt the worries, the anger or the stuck feeling I had felt at the beginning of my walk.

This morning (Saturday) my sons soccer game was cancelled so I slept in and then read a book in bed for awhile.  I am exhausted with the new school/soccer/tutoring routine and having my teenager having anxiety related insomnia is not helping.   Anyway….I came downstairs and found my husband slumped over in the chair watching tv.  Not a big deal until he says, “about time….what about breakfast?”  Really??? you can’t make your own toast?

When bedtime comes I don’t even feel like going to bed because I don’t want him to touch me.  I leave the tv on later and later hoping to avoid him snuggling up to me.  That is causing me to get more and more tired so I feel even less able to handle crap.  If he starts being slow at work, I am not sure how I will handle him being home all the time.

It’s not that I don’t like him.  It’s not that i don’t like sex.  I just wish that I could get some romance too.  I wish he would act like he enjoyed my company not just the fact that I make him food, pick up his socks and get him off occasionally. 

I’m dying inside with no mental stimulation.  We have nothing to talk about but work, work, work…..He is not interested in my stuff and claims he has no stuff to share.  He can get off the phone after a laughing, hour-long conversation with his brothers, “So, what did your brother have to say?” “Uh, nothing.”

I feel so stuck.  Stuck in a boring marriage.  Stuck in a religion that gives me a lot of doubts.  Stuck in my family.  Stuck in my house.  Stuck in my work.

If my husband was not here……but I still had the same financial freedom (I’m not dumb.  I know if I left it wouldn’t be the magic happiness pill and our finances would be strained)…..what would I do?  I would go around other people a lot more.  I would visit my family more, make new friends and invite people over.  I would get rid of the tv and read more.  I would get more sleep.  i would dress for me with a little flashier style or a little more comfortable, depending on how i feel.  I would talk a lot and laugh loud.  I would play more music and sing out loud (when did I quit singing out loud?) 

 Why does he have to make those little comments?  “Are you wearing that shirt?”  “Aren’t you going to change?”  “Sh-sh, talk quieter”  Is he a jerk and I have just been living in denial?  Does he really think it’s ok to dictate what I wear, talk like, laugh about so I don’t embarrass him?  Why would he even care what others think?

The thing is….he is not a jerk.  He can be insensitive and even do jerky things but inside he is your typical, slightly boring, nice guy.  He works hard and always has so our marriage has fallen into a pattern.  He works too much and never has extra time and energy for me, I feel guilty about being grumpy about his working too much and serve him, I feel neglected and taken for granted so I get grumpy about his working too much and not having time or energy for his family.  I’m grumpy so he wants to work more…..on and on and on.

Why can’t I have a normal conversation with him?  He acts like a hormonal, immature teenage boy.  dumb jokes, crude humor, crude come ons….hello?!  I’m almost forty, I want a man not a boy.

Wow! Change is so difficult that I feel like giving up at times but I plod along; 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

I joined Weight Watchers and the local gym last week.  I weighed in all excited on Thursday and binged on Sunday, yuck!  But…I was up and at it again this morning.  I just can’t give up.  My life is quickly passing and I want to be the best me that I can be.  Right?

Not doing so well on the soul-searching and meditation.  It’s scary to look inside at what you really believe and how your inner child wants to live life.  If I really grab my own life I will have a lot of really upset people in my family…..is it worth it?  I guess that is the question.  Or can I live my life without somehow offending the others?  Or would that be compromise?

I’m wrestling it out with God.  What do I believe?  How do I believe?

I did take a couple of days off of my Yoga series but, but, but….I had a good excuse!  No, I actually just felt too bored to do it and my neck, shoulders, arms and wrist were really aching with suppressed tension.  My dads scan came back better than we thought it would so that was a relief.

I actually didn’t take days off and do nothing.  I switched to doing a body scan CD instead for a couple of days to help with all the tension.  I’m also wearing a wrist brace on my left wrist to see if that will help in the area I have that cyst.

So…back to today!  Today I realized how much I feel anxious about my body.  I question every ache and pain imagining it to be something serious like cancer, or MRSA or whatnot.  I have started forcing myself to stay away from googling health problems!!  Today I meditated with mantras such as, “may you be at peace with your body”, “I’m thankful for lungs that have never failed me, for bones that have never broke, for a mind that is still strong and uninjured (my 12-year-old nephew just suffered his 3rd concussion!)”, “My you show grace to yourself and to others around you” and “May you learn to love and accept yourself so that you may learn to love and accept those around you.”

My kids are adjusting well in school.  My kids are all healthy, both physically and mentally.  My husband is a great guy.  We have food, shelter and clothing plus some.  We have never missed a paycheck.  We are blessed beyond measure.

In Yoga and meditation we are often instructed to approach things with a beginners mind.  I think that is because when we are a beginning learner we really have to focus and attend to the task (think driving!)

I bought two new books to help with my yoga and meditation.  I am hoping that I can learn to better deal with the stress in my life, learn to accept that bad things happen and hopefully begin to feel better physically.  The first book I am going through is Turn Stress into Bliss The Proven 8-week Program for Health, Relaxation, and Stress Relief.

I am not going to walk you through each lesson and exercise but rather share any insights I might gain while doing them.  Today I did day/lesson 1 week 1.  One thing I noticed was my habit of making up totally fictional stories in my head when I am “supposed” to be meditating.  Suddenly I will come back to my body with a vague recollection of some guy swimming in the river with a stocking cap on, or making a child a peanut butter and fluff sandwich at school.  I cannot see the connection to these stories or why I do that .  I do remember making up stories in my head as a child to escape uncomfortable situations (parents fighting, school stress…..)

*It does seem odd that I am learning meditation to “get out of my head” when I often think of meditation as going into my head.  Hopefully I can learn to observe my thoughts and change them while learning to be in the present.

I also had another insight about my body while doing the Knees to Chest exercise.  The book prompts you to tell yourself “I love You” (if your comfortable with that.)  I had to prod myself but did it and also added, “I’m sorry I let you down but you let my down to.”

My immediate follow-up thought was, “No, my body didn’t let me down.  It is separate from me (not my Self) but it is more like a car.  If you don’t care for it, fuel it, do maintenance on it, it won’t run as well as it should.”  ”I’m sorry I let you down and in the process let myself down.”

It just clicked; this idea that my body is separate from my Self.  The fact that my body is a gift that I should be caring for so that it will last me well into old age. It isn’t something to hate for being what it is, it just is and only I can change the way I treat it therefore changing my relationship to it.  Does that even make sense?

My life today:  My dad is in his final stages of his fight against colon cancer and possibly has only 6 months, our rental house is being sold, our business is in a slump with the recession, my MIL lives in a different country and we just found out she is very sick, my kids are integrating into public school after years of homeschooling, soccer, tutoring, family weddings, family feuds : ) and all the other daily stressors.  My body always aches, I have constant stomach issues the doctors can’t resolve and I can’t afford countless test, my left wrist, thumb, shoulder, and elbow hurt!  I am 202.4 pounds as of this morning and have a head cold.

I am also in a happy marriage though it could use some work, have no debt, my kids are average and healthy, I have a good support network of sisters, I am close to my mom and think my life is better then average.

I think the thing that has helped a lot is the reminder to keep the present day problems in the present day.  Don’t remember past problems, or push it into tomorrow with “What ifs.”  When I find myself worrying I tell myself, “That is just a story.  RIGHT NOW everyone is healthy and happy.”

Last night my son had another bad bloody nose, and for some reason it makes me feel panicky.  I had to keep telling myself, “It’s just a small bloody nose.  We have had plenty of practice.  He will be fine.”  My mind kept wanting to play the “What if” game but I kept bringing it back to the present, “We are all fine Now!”

I just finished reading the book, “Eat, Pray, and Love.”  I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was although I found it distracting that I kept imaging the writer as Julia Roberts.  In the book she talks about trying to tame her monkey mind and developing the mantra that goes something like this: I will not longer let unhealthy thoughts have a safe harbour in my mind.

My kids think I’m crazy but sometimes I even say it out loud.  I really helps!

I am also trying to develop a habit of acceptance of mine and other people’s shortcomings.  Sometimes it helps to verbally remind myself of this too.

I would love to practice a Zen life without all the religious trappings.  I’ve had enough of that, thank you!  Besides, I think if I got close enough, I would see too much humanity and become discouraged in my practice.  I would like to take some classes of work under a teacher with meditation.  I will keep my eyes open for some local possibilities.