I just spent the last hour or so wasting time on the internet and even bought a goddamn living social deal for someone to fuck with my hair. Sorry Michael! And I'm especially sorry to your Mr. Erik, I'm not cheating. Well maybe a little but my hair needs it and I needed the distraction. So now I'm trying to sit down and think without over thinking and failing miserably at even beginning my assignment. This friends, is not it! So far I've been able to distract myself with the television and facebook stalking. And now I'm back to you!f
It's been a lot of this and a lot of that. Mostly chaos and depression and all things in the way of awful since right around my birthday. Next year I'm picking a new day and celebrating like I've earned this shit! Cause I totally have.
So anyway... without further a do the clift notes of the last month:
Family drama caused me to go off the deep end. It really shook me to my core. It shook lose a lot of pent up anger and frustrations that I have held in for my entire life about one of my sisters. I felt like I lost the rest of my family and because my mom was my best friend growing up it felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my heart each time we spoke. My irrational reaction to their irrational reaction made everything so muddled and it felt like it was me against the world. The feeling of loss felt insurmountable. The sadness in my soul was dragging me deeper and deeper and drinking more and more than I should have. I know very damn well that drinking is bad for me and it doesn't fix depression it aids it... in dragging you down deeper. I reached a breaking point when I was having multiple anxiety attacks and eventually started crying at work. Lucky for my darling coworkers I was able to do it outside their presence. So I called our doc and he couldn't see me until February. For real doc? His receptionist said this is their busiest time of year. I wonder how many of their patients end up as residents at the Johnson unit?
So to keep myself from being one of those I did something I wouldn't usually do, I sought out a new doctor. It's a temporary gig for her. She works as part of an employee program so I only see her a few times. It's been interesting. I went into it thinking she was gonna throw her hands up after the first 5 minutes and tell me that I am too much drama for her. But she stuck through it with me. On our second visit she told me that although she's been doing this a long time and has seen a lot of family drama she had never run across this situation and a tough one indeed.
So where are we now? At our second session we came up with a temporary game plan. It is helping me to survive the in between time. Meaning I'll have to revisit this when I am ready to go to Cali again. Basically I am spending way too much time, effort, energy and suffering too much because of someone who doesn't give a fuck about me. And while it is easy to say just ignore them or just don't think about them in practice it isn't. There is nothing easy about it. Because you wish you had the love of someone who is supposed to love you but you never have and really never will. So what do you do? You have to cut them out of your life. For the safety of your sanity and all of the other relationships in your life you have to make hard choices. Because even though you have come from the same lineage, the same DNA... it isn't what makes you family. I wouldn't let "friends" do me that way, I would have told them to fuck off and die long long before they could do more damage.
So for now we are practicing avoidance therapy. I guess that's not really what a professional might call it and that's probably not exactly what I'm doing. I dunno, this is all pretty vague to you all only because the details are ugly and painful. I really don't want to rehash it all AGAIN. The assignment that I've been avoiding is to rehash all my memories and then let them go. I am to write down all the painful memories that have been coming to the surface and then in as ceremoniously as I care to do so set them on fire, bury them, flush them whatever I want but destroying them none the less. Will it make everything better? Of course not but it is the beginning of the healing process.
Thursday
Wednesday
Beggars can be choosers
Beggars can't be choosers. Where did that silly expression begin? Who says a beggar has lost the right to choose? Last night I watched a woman walk out into the cold night because of her own convictions. Because she was offended by one of the people that were there to give her a warm and safe place to sleep.
It broke the remaining solid pieces of my heart into tiny crumples. I spent all evening with her just chatting, she never intended to stay. She wouldn't take a cup of coffee that was provided by food for lane county. She never said why but she said she didn't accept anything from them. She wasn't a drug user, or a drunk. She was a mother to 3 adult children, a grandmother to 8 and a great-grandmother to 2. Life has a funny way of taking you to places you never expect. She didn't want to talk about her family much, only to say she loves them very, very much and it is painful to talk about them sometimes.
From the moment she sat down to chat with us she made it clear she wasn't staying, only came in to warm up. As the bitterly cold night dragged on she finally said what I was hoping to say. "Take my info, I'll stay tonight." It warmed me up to know she wouldn't be spending the night outside alone in some dark and cold place. At least for this night when I had come to care she would have somewhere safe to be. Then just as unexpectedly a side conversation began, some maybe not so light hearted banter took place and she said never mind. Please stay I asked her, please. No, she couldn't do that. It wasn't pride that kept her from staying, it was her conviction that no man could take a stand as was taken in the house of the lord. It was crushing to see her walk out into the cold, get on her bicycle and ride into the night.
My shift ended almost immediately after and I walked out determined that if I should see her I would take her home with me to give her a warm safe place to stay. But I didn't find her... I went there last night hoping to find something my soul was crying out for. To soothe my aches or to simply distract myself from my fears, pains and struggles. And I found something in her. She listened to me make no sense as I tried to get things off my chest without falling apart to tears. She reminded me that God is bigger than all my worries and will never steer me wrong. That sometimes we have to go back into the cold and trust that HE will see us through.
It broke the remaining solid pieces of my heart into tiny crumples. I spent all evening with her just chatting, she never intended to stay. She wouldn't take a cup of coffee that was provided by food for lane county. She never said why but she said she didn't accept anything from them. She wasn't a drug user, or a drunk. She was a mother to 3 adult children, a grandmother to 8 and a great-grandmother to 2. Life has a funny way of taking you to places you never expect. She didn't want to talk about her family much, only to say she loves them very, very much and it is painful to talk about them sometimes.
From the moment she sat down to chat with us she made it clear she wasn't staying, only came in to warm up. As the bitterly cold night dragged on she finally said what I was hoping to say. "Take my info, I'll stay tonight." It warmed me up to know she wouldn't be spending the night outside alone in some dark and cold place. At least for this night when I had come to care she would have somewhere safe to be. Then just as unexpectedly a side conversation began, some maybe not so light hearted banter took place and she said never mind. Please stay I asked her, please. No, she couldn't do that. It wasn't pride that kept her from staying, it was her conviction that no man could take a stand as was taken in the house of the lord. It was crushing to see her walk out into the cold, get on her bicycle and ride into the night.
My shift ended almost immediately after and I walked out determined that if I should see her I would take her home with me to give her a warm safe place to stay. But I didn't find her... I went there last night hoping to find something my soul was crying out for. To soothe my aches or to simply distract myself from my fears, pains and struggles. And I found something in her. She listened to me make no sense as I tried to get things off my chest without falling apart to tears. She reminded me that God is bigger than all my worries and will never steer me wrong. That sometimes we have to go back into the cold and trust that HE will see us through.
11/23/11
Someday's you just have to smile through the pain and know that there is a higher power that is watching over you. There is a plan greater than all of us and regardless of how things may seem to you, you really don't know what the greater good is.
With the holiday's approaching, I think we find ourselves contemplating on the year. Our successes and our failures, our blessings and our losses. It becomes a period of remembering what we have and tossing an extra dollar in that donation bucket or buying a can of food to put in a collection bin. As warm and fuzzy as we all feel when we do this it always leaves me with a feeling of guilt. Because I can and should be doing more. I should be doing something everyday, not only because some holiday is upon us. That I should be thankful everyday for every breath I take, for every smile I see, for every meal I have, for every morning I wake up to, for every time I hear my mothers voice. And I am... most days. I've spent a lot of time reflecting this year. Trying to figure out who I am and who I am supposed to be; realizing that I am more than the sum of my own parts. I am a complete person because of those around me, the people who love me and even those who hate me. I am made up of the personalities of my beautiful friends who know when to hug me and are glad to tell me I need my meds. I have learned from the amazing strength and courage of a stranger how to choose joy and from his beautiful wife, how to accept that the master plan doesn't mean it won't hurt. I watched my friend suffer through one of the most painful losses she will ever experience with such grace, strength and courage that she was there supporting others that have suffered the same loss and grief only days after her own. I have been privileged to be part of my sisters life has she grows into a completely different, stronger, smarter and braver woman than she was. I take no pleasure in the pain and struggles she has faced but feel overjoyed to be part of her life as she overcomes them so triumphantly coming out on the other side stronger and like a brighter star. I get a sense of pride watching her grow, none of it is my doing of course but I feel validated. For so long I've wanted someone to understand what I've felt when I've served someone a hot meal or given someone a hot cup of coffee as they come in from the cold. I've always feared that others might think I'm tooting my own horn or that I have some other agenda for wanting to spend my time this way. But I do it because I owe it to others. I owe it to them because for some reason I have been given more than I deserve. One smile or one thank you are more than enough payment for my time.There are no words in any language that can truly define that feeling. It is something you can only experience, it is heart breaking and it is uplifting and it is humbling. I want to share with you what my sister wrote on facebook today because I can't do justice to her feelings either, I can tell you it brought tears to my eyes. You get it sissy, you really really get it. "I appreciate & thank you all for your support - times get tough & when it rains it sure does pour. Seems like one bad thing right after another bad thing..when you think it couldn't get any worse, something else happens. As luck would have it, or I should say as God willed it, I was lucky enough to have the chance to help out my dear friend, Erik the Busy Little Queen. He asked for my help and I wholeheartedly said yes. He asked if I could deliver all the blankets & food he has collected so far. Natty & I drove to a church in Temecula that runs Project Touch which helps out homeless men, women & children. I explained why I was there & all Heaven broke loose. The joy that these blankets and cans of food brought these people was exhilarating. This is what I needed, what my heart needed. To be there, to talk to some of these people, to see and feel the happiness in a little girl when Natty handpicked a blanket that had a babydoll attached to it was unimaginable. Thank you Erik and thank you God for helping me see a light that I was looking for. For helping me remember that it can always be worse, but that people are good. So tonight I will lay my little head on my pillow and say my prayers with a whole lot of extra love, extra thankfulness, and extra joy. I learned my Thanksgiving lesson today. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. May you all be lucky enough to find that extra little something we all need. Love you all"
It's those beautiful moments that can haunt you the most. They start you on this trip down the rabbit hole wanting to fix the world. To feed every hungry person and to clothe every naked person. To bring peace to every troubled soul and a warm bed to every homeless person. It's not the worst thing in the world right? It's just something to reflect on. You might not change the world but you can help someone change their world. Lets all make a resolution today, to carry the euphoria from the holiday season throughout the year. To reflect and adjust our outlook and our attitudes every day not once a year. To choose joy in all our circumstances and to lead our lives as an example to others so that they too will learn how to choose joy.
With the holiday's approaching, I think we find ourselves contemplating on the year. Our successes and our failures, our blessings and our losses. It becomes a period of remembering what we have and tossing an extra dollar in that donation bucket or buying a can of food to put in a collection bin. As warm and fuzzy as we all feel when we do this it always leaves me with a feeling of guilt. Because I can and should be doing more. I should be doing something everyday, not only because some holiday is upon us. That I should be thankful everyday for every breath I take, for every smile I see, for every meal I have, for every morning I wake up to, for every time I hear my mothers voice. And I am... most days. I've spent a lot of time reflecting this year. Trying to figure out who I am and who I am supposed to be; realizing that I am more than the sum of my own parts. I am a complete person because of those around me, the people who love me and even those who hate me. I am made up of the personalities of my beautiful friends who know when to hug me and are glad to tell me I need my meds. I have learned from the amazing strength and courage of a stranger how to choose joy and from his beautiful wife, how to accept that the master plan doesn't mean it won't hurt. I watched my friend suffer through one of the most painful losses she will ever experience with such grace, strength and courage that she was there supporting others that have suffered the same loss and grief only days after her own. I have been privileged to be part of my sisters life has she grows into a completely different, stronger, smarter and braver woman than she was. I take no pleasure in the pain and struggles she has faced but feel overjoyed to be part of her life as she overcomes them so triumphantly coming out on the other side stronger and like a brighter star. I get a sense of pride watching her grow, none of it is my doing of course but I feel validated. For so long I've wanted someone to understand what I've felt when I've served someone a hot meal or given someone a hot cup of coffee as they come in from the cold. I've always feared that others might think I'm tooting my own horn or that I have some other agenda for wanting to spend my time this way. But I do it because I owe it to others. I owe it to them because for some reason I have been given more than I deserve. One smile or one thank you are more than enough payment for my time.There are no words in any language that can truly define that feeling. It is something you can only experience, it is heart breaking and it is uplifting and it is humbling. I want to share with you what my sister wrote on facebook today because I can't do justice to her feelings either, I can tell you it brought tears to my eyes. You get it sissy, you really really get it. "I appreciate & thank you all for your support - times get tough & when it rains it sure does pour. Seems like one bad thing right after another bad thing..when you think it couldn't get any worse, something else happens. As luck would have it, or I should say as God willed it, I was lucky enough to have the chance to help out my dear friend, Erik the Busy Little Queen. He asked for my help and I wholeheartedly said yes. He asked if I could deliver all the blankets & food he has collected so far. Natty & I drove to a church in Temecula that runs Project Touch which helps out homeless men, women & children. I explained why I was there & all Heaven broke loose. The joy that these blankets and cans of food brought these people was exhilarating. This is what I needed, what my heart needed. To be there, to talk to some of these people, to see and feel the happiness in a little girl when Natty handpicked a blanket that had a babydoll attached to it was unimaginable. Thank you Erik and thank you God for helping me see a light that I was looking for. For helping me remember that it can always be worse, but that people are good. So tonight I will lay my little head on my pillow and say my prayers with a whole lot of extra love, extra thankfulness, and extra joy. I learned my Thanksgiving lesson today. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. May you all be lucky enough to find that extra little something we all need. Love you all"
It's those beautiful moments that can haunt you the most. They start you on this trip down the rabbit hole wanting to fix the world. To feed every hungry person and to clothe every naked person. To bring peace to every troubled soul and a warm bed to every homeless person. It's not the worst thing in the world right? It's just something to reflect on. You might not change the world but you can help someone change their world. Lets all make a resolution today, to carry the euphoria from the holiday season throughout the year. To reflect and adjust our outlook and our attitudes every day not once a year. To choose joy in all our circumstances and to lead our lives as an example to others so that they too will learn how to choose joy.
Saturday
thanks giving
I was driving home this morning recognizing every face I drove past. The ones that are usually invisible to me and probably you too. The unclean, scruffy men and women that live on the streets of Anycity, USA. Not long ago I was talking to them, spending time with them, interacting with them. But now I was in my warm car groaning under my breath about running out of gas and my achy back and they were back on the streets.
The steps up to my condo seemed to go on forever. I felt heavy with guilt. I just came from the basement of a church downtown where 50 men and women and some pets all spent the night like a giant slumber party. At 5:30 we had the changing of the guards. New volunteers streamed in and a few night watchmen got relieved of their posts to go home. 6 am was the wake up call. Folks started stirring awake and prepping for their day. A group of lovely old ladies and a few good men were already started in the kitchen. Coffee and breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast, a little cheese. When I got in I was told I was on clean up crew and I could have stayed in bed a while longer. I thought boy I wish I'd known that! What a jerk I am.
I sat around for a few minutes, the guests were still getting up. A few were sitting in the foyer with us and we chit chatted til people got moving. I made a job for myself helping retrieve peoples belongings and giving away bus passes. I collected blankets and packed stuff away. People kept thanking me for being there and I had to stop myself from saying thank you for coming. Cause really Zu, I don't think they would be there if there was anywhere else for them to be. They were all so friendly. I don't know why I expected anything else but I was just surprised at how kind they all were. One man came out of the sleeping room with a huge grin on his face. He said he came in and got dinner which he totally wasn't expecting and went to bed. He said he got up to pee and then right back to his mat and slept like a baby. It's terrible that these places can't be open all the time...
Last night I worked at a church near our place. I did intakes, something like 18 people during the time I was there. Once everyone was checked in they were free to hang around until dinner or they could go to bed. I spent the next few hours chatting with people watched others put together puzzles and read books or their bibles. It was so humbling to spend time with them.
I spent time with 3 men they were all older men, kind and happy with a little sadness in their eyes. When I was doing their intake one of them stopped and said to me "do you know how many lives you're saving tonight?"
I walked in the door a while ago, exhausted and sad. I climbed into my king size bed where my husband slept while cartoons played on the tv that we keep on all night for his sleeping comfort. And I sobbed. I sobbed as quietly as I could so as to not wake him. I got out of bed and came to my living room, turned on our 40 something or 50 something inch tv and pulled my lap top off the floor. My brand new lap top connected to my over priced wireless network. And I think, why do I deserve any of this?
The steps up to my condo seemed to go on forever. I felt heavy with guilt. I just came from the basement of a church downtown where 50 men and women and some pets all spent the night like a giant slumber party. At 5:30 we had the changing of the guards. New volunteers streamed in and a few night watchmen got relieved of their posts to go home. 6 am was the wake up call. Folks started stirring awake and prepping for their day. A group of lovely old ladies and a few good men were already started in the kitchen. Coffee and breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast, a little cheese. When I got in I was told I was on clean up crew and I could have stayed in bed a while longer. I thought boy I wish I'd known that! What a jerk I am.
I sat around for a few minutes, the guests were still getting up. A few were sitting in the foyer with us and we chit chatted til people got moving. I made a job for myself helping retrieve peoples belongings and giving away bus passes. I collected blankets and packed stuff away. People kept thanking me for being there and I had to stop myself from saying thank you for coming. Cause really Zu, I don't think they would be there if there was anywhere else for them to be. They were all so friendly. I don't know why I expected anything else but I was just surprised at how kind they all were. One man came out of the sleeping room with a huge grin on his face. He said he came in and got dinner which he totally wasn't expecting and went to bed. He said he got up to pee and then right back to his mat and slept like a baby. It's terrible that these places can't be open all the time...
Last night I worked at a church near our place. I did intakes, something like 18 people during the time I was there. Once everyone was checked in they were free to hang around until dinner or they could go to bed. I spent the next few hours chatting with people watched others put together puzzles and read books or their bibles. It was so humbling to spend time with them.
I spent time with 3 men they were all older men, kind and happy with a little sadness in their eyes. When I was doing their intake one of them stopped and said to me "do you know how many lives you're saving tonight?"
I walked in the door a while ago, exhausted and sad. I climbed into my king size bed where my husband slept while cartoons played on the tv that we keep on all night for his sleeping comfort. And I sobbed. I sobbed as quietly as I could so as to not wake him. I got out of bed and came to my living room, turned on our 40 something or 50 something inch tv and pulled my lap top off the floor. My brand new lap top connected to my over priced wireless network. And I think, why do I deserve any of this?
Tuesday
Where oh where have I been? Well going batty over on the facebook of course! Really though, I owe you all a blog entry. I finished the reboot and stayed all mum about it. Aren't you all just burning with anticipation at what the end was like? What is life like after the reboot? No? Yeah, me either.
Well it ended pretty low key. By the last few weeks it was getting tiresome. Not because we wanted steak and lots of it, but because I don't know... It just was. I was just tired of washing bottles, and making juice and washing the juicer. But we did it, we finished. I don't have official numbers to give you all besides my weight. In the 60 days I lost 26lbs and my blood sugar average was approximately 107. Unlike Mike, I didn't go get all my starting numbers checked cause I had done them like a month before we started. I have an appointment to get my A1C checked on November 1st and sometime in the near future I'll get my cholesterol checked. See this is how envision that going... I'm going to get up really early one morning. The lab opens at 7:30, so I'll jump on my bike around 7 ride the 4 miles to the lab, let them draw my blood and then I'll jump back on my bike and start riding to work. Somewhere along the trek, say about 1.5 miles down the road I'll pull over at Carl's Jr. and scarf down a double famous star with cheese, extra onion, extra pickles and a milk shake. Then I will stare out the window at my bike thinking "shit what did I just do..." As I learned recently I don't puke on command, so I will roll down the street very very slowly. I will stumble in the door and into my desk sweating like crazy and Georgia will think I am in the midst of a heart attack. Yup that is exactly how it will happen. Ok maybe not the milk shake cause I really don't like them, and it probably won't be a double but chances are good that something horrendous will enter via my face. BUT! Did y'all catch the part about me riding my bike there? If you didn't well then you suck and you need to go back and read it again!
Anyway something similar will happen around my A1C appointment. Though it's closer to my office than the lab and I don't think there is anything on the way that I could stop and shove down my gullet. The point I'm making is that we have changed our habits. The first weekend off the fast we were in Seattle where plenty of poor choices were made, however, they were less destructive than the kind of choices we made in our previous life. I instigated a trip minus Mike to Red Robin where I couldn't choke down a full 1/2 of a burger. I didn't have but 1 french fry and yes I did have a few pieces of appetizer and a salad. In days gone by I could eat the entire appetizer by myself, follow it up with a dinner salad, then a Red Robin cheeseburger, all the fries in my basket and a second helping of bottomless fries. Jesus Christ writing that out made me kind of sick! So the new me had a dinner salad, a few pieces of an appetizer and a few bites of a burger and a french fry. It was a substantial difference let me tell you! Also when I was done I was 1. incredibly regretful and 2. full to the point of physical pain. I wanted to throw it all up and boy did I try. If I had tried any harder my hand would have been INSIDE my esophagus. Nothing would come back up, it was like my body was like IT'S MINE NOW HEIFER!! So since being home we've been sticking to mostly salad, soups and the like. We went to our first post fast bbq and ate steak. We each had a small piece of meat the size of our palms. The entire weight of both our steaks was less than the weight of 1 steak we previously would have happily ingested. I fell victim to the bag of potato chips that Liz brought but again I'd say I did pretty good considering my history. For the most part I have been biking with Mike on an almost daily basis. There are some days when I tell him to eat my shorts, especially on those days when the rain is pouring down. After the incident with his phone and his waterproof suit I decided to stand my ground against riding in the rain until I have better rain gear. Ok really that's just an excuse. I told him I would do it if I had a good pair of goggles and a zip lock bag. Frankly when the rain is pouring down and you can't see where you're going and your bike light is no longer enough light to cut through the dark, it really makes it hard to look outside and say "sure let's go for a ride". I'm getting better though, at this point I can do the 11 mile loop without stoping. I can also now finish the 14 mile loop. That still requires a break but unlike the first time, I no longer faint when I get to the top of the nasty hill. Yeah nothing funnier to watch than 3 goofballs on the side of the road and one of them flat on her chunky back. I couldn't believe it you guys! Everytime I got back up I was like oh no I'm going back down. It was funny in retrospect and mostly annoying in the moment. I was ready to call a cab. You know they have them with bike racks around here!
So how do I feel otherwise? Well I've been taking my meds, that's good right? I have my good days, I have my bad days. I've been dipping into a slump though. My boss used to say we can't have peaks and valleys, zu! She said it a lot and it pissed me off because of the context of the conversation. I think of that statement cause it's how I feel lately. But I suppose that is what I can expect suffering from Bi-Polar. Recognizing when it's coming on is the only thing I can control. Sleeping 12 hours straight without disturbances was probably the most glaring sign that somethings coming on. I mean sure I was tired from working 4x10's to make up some time which means being up and at work at 7. But I was doing that for a few months, and sure now it's dark and cold but it is generally dark and cold in this state. Still I don't generally sleep for 12 hours straight. Hell I can't usually sleep for 5 hours without waking up for something or because of nothing. So there I was waking up and thinking Jesus did I just really sleep that long? It was a bad Saturday from there and I hate that I took it out on Mike but he's there and sometimes it will be something he said or did that sets me off. I don't know how many times I can say sorry cause I know it's going to happen again. I'm not a miserable ass who just wants to make everyone else just as miserable, especially not Mike. It's just the hand I was delt and I am trying to make it less shitty for the poor man who has chosen to stand by me.
They say you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family and I think that's a fallacy. Look at Mike, he stands by me even if he's mostly cowering in the corner through my episodes. And for those of you who were unfortunate enough to watch the destruction of my relationship with one of my sisters on facebook, you know that you can choose what family isn't worth keeping in your life. Life is painful enough without letting the toxic energy of other people make things more difficult. Believe me it hurts. It hurts probably as much as the pain of cutting off a limb without anesthetic. It crushes me to think that I might never see my baby Tori again. I was there the day she was born, I was there through my sisters pregnancy entire pregnancy. I love my sister, I always have and will. It's very hard to say what I want to say about it in such a public forum. Not because I'm worried someone will tell her what I say, by all means do! And I'm also not worried about what she might say because as we've all seen she has no trouble coming up with something extremely nasty and hurtful to say. I'm not her doormat to walk all over, sorry sis. Really what it boils down to is that it's painful for me. We have had our ups and downs but for a while there we were really close. I enjoyed being her friend as much as her sister. I don't think she's ever truly given two shits about me as a person or much less as a sister and that realization is crushing. As a family we have had such a tumultuous relationship with her. I don't know what was different about her than the rest of the kids, but somewhere along the way it was like she made every one of us the enemy. She might say that it's just my parents and I that are the enemy but we all know she only backs down to certain people because she will be completely fucked if she sets her final bridge afire. So it is what it is. I'm glad to have so many people in my corner who see me through my crazy episodes, through my depressed episodes and are there to celebrate when I'm in a great manic episode. I have a great party in my corner and I am thankful for every single one of you. I might not say it often enough, but I am glad you're in my life guys.
So let us all just keep taking our meds and drinking our juice and eating our veggies and riding our bikes. And lets laugh cause if we don't have laughter what do we have?
Well it ended pretty low key. By the last few weeks it was getting tiresome. Not because we wanted steak and lots of it, but because I don't know... It just was. I was just tired of washing bottles, and making juice and washing the juicer. But we did it, we finished. I don't have official numbers to give you all besides my weight. In the 60 days I lost 26lbs and my blood sugar average was approximately 107. Unlike Mike, I didn't go get all my starting numbers checked cause I had done them like a month before we started. I have an appointment to get my A1C checked on November 1st and sometime in the near future I'll get my cholesterol checked. See this is how envision that going... I'm going to get up really early one morning. The lab opens at 7:30, so I'll jump on my bike around 7 ride the 4 miles to the lab, let them draw my blood and then I'll jump back on my bike and start riding to work. Somewhere along the trek, say about 1.5 miles down the road I'll pull over at Carl's Jr. and scarf down a double famous star with cheese, extra onion, extra pickles and a milk shake. Then I will stare out the window at my bike thinking "shit what did I just do..." As I learned recently I don't puke on command, so I will roll down the street very very slowly. I will stumble in the door and into my desk sweating like crazy and Georgia will think I am in the midst of a heart attack. Yup that is exactly how it will happen. Ok maybe not the milk shake cause I really don't like them, and it probably won't be a double but chances are good that something horrendous will enter via my face. BUT! Did y'all catch the part about me riding my bike there? If you didn't well then you suck and you need to go back and read it again!
Anyway something similar will happen around my A1C appointment. Though it's closer to my office than the lab and I don't think there is anything on the way that I could stop and shove down my gullet. The point I'm making is that we have changed our habits. The first weekend off the fast we were in Seattle where plenty of poor choices were made, however, they were less destructive than the kind of choices we made in our previous life. I instigated a trip minus Mike to Red Robin where I couldn't choke down a full 1/2 of a burger. I didn't have but 1 french fry and yes I did have a few pieces of appetizer and a salad. In days gone by I could eat the entire appetizer by myself, follow it up with a dinner salad, then a Red Robin cheeseburger, all the fries in my basket and a second helping of bottomless fries. Jesus Christ writing that out made me kind of sick! So the new me had a dinner salad, a few pieces of an appetizer and a few bites of a burger and a french fry. It was a substantial difference let me tell you! Also when I was done I was 1. incredibly regretful and 2. full to the point of physical pain. I wanted to throw it all up and boy did I try. If I had tried any harder my hand would have been INSIDE my esophagus. Nothing would come back up, it was like my body was like IT'S MINE NOW HEIFER!! So since being home we've been sticking to mostly salad, soups and the like. We went to our first post fast bbq and ate steak. We each had a small piece of meat the size of our palms. The entire weight of both our steaks was less than the weight of 1 steak we previously would have happily ingested. I fell victim to the bag of potato chips that Liz brought but again I'd say I did pretty good considering my history. For the most part I have been biking with Mike on an almost daily basis. There are some days when I tell him to eat my shorts, especially on those days when the rain is pouring down. After the incident with his phone and his waterproof suit I decided to stand my ground against riding in the rain until I have better rain gear. Ok really that's just an excuse. I told him I would do it if I had a good pair of goggles and a zip lock bag. Frankly when the rain is pouring down and you can't see where you're going and your bike light is no longer enough light to cut through the dark, it really makes it hard to look outside and say "sure let's go for a ride". I'm getting better though, at this point I can do the 11 mile loop without stoping. I can also now finish the 14 mile loop. That still requires a break but unlike the first time, I no longer faint when I get to the top of the nasty hill. Yeah nothing funnier to watch than 3 goofballs on the side of the road and one of them flat on her chunky back. I couldn't believe it you guys! Everytime I got back up I was like oh no I'm going back down. It was funny in retrospect and mostly annoying in the moment. I was ready to call a cab. You know they have them with bike racks around here!
So how do I feel otherwise? Well I've been taking my meds, that's good right? I have my good days, I have my bad days. I've been dipping into a slump though. My boss used to say we can't have peaks and valleys, zu! She said it a lot and it pissed me off because of the context of the conversation. I think of that statement cause it's how I feel lately. But I suppose that is what I can expect suffering from Bi-Polar. Recognizing when it's coming on is the only thing I can control. Sleeping 12 hours straight without disturbances was probably the most glaring sign that somethings coming on. I mean sure I was tired from working 4x10's to make up some time which means being up and at work at 7. But I was doing that for a few months, and sure now it's dark and cold but it is generally dark and cold in this state. Still I don't generally sleep for 12 hours straight. Hell I can't usually sleep for 5 hours without waking up for something or because of nothing. So there I was waking up and thinking Jesus did I just really sleep that long? It was a bad Saturday from there and I hate that I took it out on Mike but he's there and sometimes it will be something he said or did that sets me off. I don't know how many times I can say sorry cause I know it's going to happen again. I'm not a miserable ass who just wants to make everyone else just as miserable, especially not Mike. It's just the hand I was delt and I am trying to make it less shitty for the poor man who has chosen to stand by me.
They say you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family and I think that's a fallacy. Look at Mike, he stands by me even if he's mostly cowering in the corner through my episodes. And for those of you who were unfortunate enough to watch the destruction of my relationship with one of my sisters on facebook, you know that you can choose what family isn't worth keeping in your life. Life is painful enough without letting the toxic energy of other people make things more difficult. Believe me it hurts. It hurts probably as much as the pain of cutting off a limb without anesthetic. It crushes me to think that I might never see my baby Tori again. I was there the day she was born, I was there through my sisters pregnancy entire pregnancy. I love my sister, I always have and will. It's very hard to say what I want to say about it in such a public forum. Not because I'm worried someone will tell her what I say, by all means do! And I'm also not worried about what she might say because as we've all seen she has no trouble coming up with something extremely nasty and hurtful to say. I'm not her doormat to walk all over, sorry sis. Really what it boils down to is that it's painful for me. We have had our ups and downs but for a while there we were really close. I enjoyed being her friend as much as her sister. I don't think she's ever truly given two shits about me as a person or much less as a sister and that realization is crushing. As a family we have had such a tumultuous relationship with her. I don't know what was different about her than the rest of the kids, but somewhere along the way it was like she made every one of us the enemy. She might say that it's just my parents and I that are the enemy but we all know she only backs down to certain people because she will be completely fucked if she sets her final bridge afire. So it is what it is. I'm glad to have so many people in my corner who see me through my crazy episodes, through my depressed episodes and are there to celebrate when I'm in a great manic episode. I have a great party in my corner and I am thankful for every single one of you. I might not say it often enough, but I am glad you're in my life guys.
So let us all just keep taking our meds and drinking our juice and eating our veggies and riding our bikes. And lets laugh cause if we don't have laughter what do we have?
Friday
The Dirty "D" Word
Depression… It is such a stigmatized illness which is so incredibly treatable. Did you know depression is one of the most treatable of psychiatric illnesses? But really, why do we continue to suffer in silence? Many times it is because of the reactions received from those we know and love. Depression isn’t just about being in a bad mood or being sad because someone ate the last cookie in the jar. You can’t just “snap out of it” and people who ask you to do just that don’t say it because they don’t care about your feelings but because they don’t understand.
I have suffered from depression for the better part of my short life. It came and it went and it came back. Some days I didn’t understand why I was so sad, why I felt so empty or why I was so irritable, I just was. I didn’t dress in all black; I didn’t walk around sighing constantly, I was simply me. Quiet around a lot of people, scathingly sarcastic at times and ready for a good time most days. I don’t blame my parents for not recognizing it. Hell it took them 18 years to realize that I had been diabetic for a good chunk of my childhood. Unless you were bleeding to death, stopped breathing or had an irritating cough that didn’t let them sleep through the night; chances were you weren’t seeing a doctor. And some of the aforementioned were questionable (see sister impaling her thigh with a sharp stick, and got a bunch of butterfly bandages). It wasn’t that my parents didn’t care about our well being. I would never doubt for a second that we mean more than the world to them. It was just a different time… my parents didn’t speak English very well so they depended on us to advocate for ourselves in a way. We were always running around without shoes on much to my parents chagrin and getting hurt but we would pick ourselves back up and patch stuff together with the first aid kit. We were always getting into something… always. In kindergarten we had a class project where we made peg boards. You could put rubber bands on it and make different shapes by stretching them from peg to peg. Whose brilliant idea that was is beyond me. So it went like this: said brilliant parent supplied all the kids with a board, their own hammer (yes 4 and 5 year olds got sent home with a hammer in their back packs) and a bunch of nails. Under the close supervision of teachers and aides we hammered a bunch of nails into our boards. Surprisingly there weren’t any injuries in class; at least not any that I can remember. So once the day was over we all went home with our board’s nails and all. I used to sit on the potty and play with my board, set it on the floor, wipe and carry on (you’re welcome for the details). One day I jumped off the toilet and landed on the board. I remember I was wearing some pink thick foam like flip flops but one of the nails managed to go all the way through and get stuck in my foot. Oh the wailing that came next must have been enough to drive someone nutty, but not my parents cause they weren’t home. Instead my sister yanked the board off my foot and stuck a band-aid on the bottom of my foot and life went on. Then when we were like 10 or so my sister came down with something that made her face huge. Her face and neck looked like she tried to swallow her butt. My parents claimed it was the mumps but I think they just made it up. Lucky for us we were visiting with my uncle who decided we needed shots. Why me since she was the fat faced one?! I remember this pretty clearly cause he says stuff as a physician that would make one question seeing him professionally but hey free medical care? Who’s gonna turn that down? Anyway my sister was freaking out and he said don’t worry it won’t hurt. Seconds later she was freaking out even more loudly because it did in fact hurt and he had lied. His professional response was “I said it wouldn’t hurt but I didn’t say who it wouldn’t hurt and I didn’t feel a thing!”
See my childhood was great; I had everything I wanted and needed. Two parents who were married, I can’t speak to the status of their marriage although I can say that if there were problems we rarely saw the cracks. There were a couple of big fights I remember but I think I remember them because they were so few so they stood out. So here they are almost 40 years later still together, I’d say they have a good marriage. My dad was pretty strict, like stick up his butt strict for a number of years. When I was 8 my little brother was born and it really changed him. He softened up a lot. But even before that it wasn’t like he was a neglectful dad or anything like that. He would try and teach us to play softball and catch with him. Seriously do dads still do that? I wasn’t bullied in school, I was bullied by my sister which some might say would have been worse but I can’t say cause I don’t know the other side of it. It wasn’t a constant tormenting. I guess she was just mean. But I don’t by any means blame my depression on that.
As you all know I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder earlier this year. That is simply the fact, you don’t get bullied or teased into becoming bipolar but it doesn’t help. I was in high school when I really started to feel and recognize that I was depressed. Sure most kids will go through some mild form of depression or teenage angst but I felt more than that. I didn’t sleep much at night and spent most of that time on the internet talking to random kids who were probably going through something similar. Oh the days of dial up… My sister hated me… can you guys remember picking up the handset and hearing that awful fax machine sound? Anyway, I remember one day I was in class my junior year and I got called out of class. I wasn’t a trouble maker so I was a little freaked out. I was being summoned to the school counselor. She sat me down and told me that someone was worried about me. They were worried that I was depressed and could possibly consider hurting myself. I was kind of blown away. Sure I was depressed I thought I was hiding it pretty well, but I hadn’t considered harming myself. At that time I didn’t want to be in that office staring at that woman who probably thought I was insane. The last thing I wanted was a parent/teacher conference to discuss with my parents who I would need to translate for, why I was suicidal (I wasn’t). I told her I was fine and I didn’t know why anyone would have said that. Silly lady, who’s depressed? Not this girl!
Fast forward a few years and I’m sitting at work having a rage fit while on the phone with a customer. I’m furiously pounding my fists into my desk while trying to make this asshole understand that I can’t make a room open up just because he’s a new sucker that just purchased this time share. It was overwhelming, the anger not the customer. This wasn’t the first meltdown I had experienced not by a long shot. I remember an incident in the parking lot at the Wal-Mart where I was working. It was one of those moments that really shames me. I can’t remember the details but I remember I was screaming at poor Mike who was trying desperately to understand me. I was screaming angrily with that kind of rage that makes you sick. Mike was crying, I might have cried. In retrospect I wonder why Mike didn’t just pack it in. He didn’t owe me anything, he could have walked away right then. It would be a long time until I finally sat down with my doctor and asked for help. It would be an even longer series of doctors and medications and meltdowns and ups and downs, tears and tantrums, going on and off meds because I felt better then felt like shit again. All of it led me to my doctors’ office where we discussed the history of meds that I had tried. Doc, the Lexapro isn’t doing it anymore. I don’t feel any better, sometimes I feel worse. We had a very honest conversation that day. He asked me not to be offended or upset by what he was about to tell me he thought was going on.
I think in the years since I moved away I was able to become more honest with myself. Honest to a degree that many people don’t reach. Not only that but I have been able to put on my big girl pants and speak up. I’ve advocated for myself and my health. I am not shy about yelling from the mountain tops that I am a weak person, I suffer from a mental health disorder and I need help. It isn’t easy and you know sometimes it is easier to tell every stranger on the street than it is to tell your own family. Family can be the biggest critics. My family was quick to criticize my choice to go on antidepressants. Oh I heard it all. You just need to calm down, just calm down. You’re too tightly wound but you don’t need pills. You’re not depressed, what are you depressed about? You don’t have anything to be depressed about. You’re such an attention whore; you just want everyone to worry about you. You freak out about everything, you’re so dramatic. So why do you want to kill yourself?
Crimeny with the kind of support I got over the whole thing it was hard to keep going. But I felt better. I felt in control, I felt happy. Mike had a totally new girlfriend and he was happy. But as depression goes it’s all about the peaks and valleys. Then there’s the health insurance gods, they’re not very kind gods and try to dictate your health care for you. I was taken off this wonder drug Lexapro and put on Celexa. I promptly stopped that because it wasn’t the same. I didn’t feel like it was doing anything. I tried Zoloft for a while, then Welbutrin. None of it was the same and I stopped taking them all. I was working under Daniel by this point and I was a holy mess. If I wasn’t at work sleeping on my desk cause I felt sick I was yelling at a customer. Oh and that disgusting sunflower seed habit. I wish I could apologize to the cleaning crew for that gross mess I had going every single day. It was addicting and it soothed my nerves which in turn made Daniels job easier. I bet it was hard to explain to other supervisors why his team was always such a mess. He said once that compared to us the other teams were like a Communist dream. We were like the monkeys hanging off the chandeliers.
I wish I had known that under the calm exterior there was a serious storm brewing inside him. I wish I could have telepathically told him it would get better. I wish I had hugged him more and told him that this world would never be the same again without him. That he would have stuck around and tried a med or two and talked to a doctor or two so that we could have seen him at the end of an isle waiting for a beautiful bride. So that one day we could have cooed over pictures of newborns and joked about what a great job he was doing screwing up a kid like the rest of us. I wish I could have loaned him my loud mouth to yell from the mountain tops about his own pain. Because it does get better…
There are so many people silently suffering. Today suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. I wish each of those persons knew they weren’t alone. I wish they knew that the pain they left behind is immeasurable and unnecessary. I wish they had been able to wait another minute. Maybe another minute longer contemplating it and they would have talked themselves off of the edge or given someone else the chance to do so. It is becoming far too frequent an occurrence. I want to spend my life celebrating with friends, not celebrating who they were. I want to visit my friends and have drinks and food and fun.
I spent some time with my wonderful friend this week as she started the grieving process and I was truly lost. There was a very present feeling of loss in the air and the silence was deafening. I know there is nothing I could have done to ease her pain much less, make it disappear. As we have learned through the loss of our friend before, grief doesn’t end it only changes. Her pain will take longer to heal and I can’t hope to ever understand what she’s feeling. All I can do is pray that they are able to move from pain to a different place where they can smile when they think of him. I don’t know if that’s possible but I hope it is.
I wish there was more I could do to remind people that there is help. I want to tell everyone everywhere that they don’t have to be stuck. There is another way out; there is a light at the end. Life gets better. Life is worth living.
Thursday
Today's blog brought to you by the letter Q
Q for Queen or quickie which is what this is! Today I just want to wish a wonderful birthday to my wonderful busy little queen!! Erik Velasco has been the #1 man in my life right after my dad for the last 14 years of our lives. Sorry Mike but ya'll share the spot cause he was here first! Thought thick and less thick Erik has been there supporting me and loving me even at my ugliest and especially through my ugliest hair.
I met this wonderful man in freshman year of high school. With his funky sketchers and his ponytail and that gorgeous smile of his. (I got the biggest crush on him but he would always flirt with another friend of ours and I was like fine whatever.) He is my soul mate and I don't know what I'd ever do without him. He understands my humor and he understands my antics and he tells me when I deserve a good backhand upside the head. He's seen me cry, I've seen him cry and at the end of it we just reminded each other that it's ok to be fatties! We've only fought once in our relationship and it broke my heart when I realized we weren't talking. After weeks of relentless calls he finally took me back. I tell ya, I was going nuts without my bestie. I was like that woman in Sweeden that called her ex something like 67,000 times? Thank you for taking me back Erik! You are the love of my life!!
I met this wonderful man in freshman year of high school. With his funky sketchers and his ponytail and that gorgeous smile of his. (I got the biggest crush on him but he would always flirt with another friend of ours and I was like fine whatever.) He is my soul mate and I don't know what I'd ever do without him. He understands my humor and he understands my antics and he tells me when I deserve a good backhand upside the head. He's seen me cry, I've seen him cry and at the end of it we just reminded each other that it's ok to be fatties! We've only fought once in our relationship and it broke my heart when I realized we weren't talking. After weeks of relentless calls he finally took me back. I tell ya, I was going nuts without my bestie. I was like that woman in Sweeden that called her ex something like 67,000 times? Thank you for taking me back Erik! You are the love of my life!!
Wednesday
She can has do Salsa?!
She can has not do salsa. Zuzu does not dance. Zuzu seizes and flaps and flops like some sort of injured animal or fish out of water gasping for its last breath. But what Zuzu does do is fall off the wagon. Zuzu fell face first into a salsa bar. Which wouldn't have been so bad if there were no chips involved. But you know what else Zuzu does? She keeps it real. And now I will end this 3rd person speak.
The office had its anual salsa contest and it all started when a sweet well intentioned coworker brought some of her salsa to the back office for everyone to enjoy. Along with a bag of chips. Well I have been having a morning full of self inflicted stress which I really should just let go of until I have something to worry or panic about or something like that. But I'm totally neurotic and think worst case scenario and blah blah blah. Ok so I have to ride my bike in the rain so what? Some people do that on purpose cause they're green like that! I should be doing it on purpose cause I'm fat! Yeah I said it. Get on that bike you damn fatty! Pedal, pedal! I feel like I should be cracking a whip at my own fat ass. I know I'm sounding a bit harsh, but whatever works. I need to keep riding into the winter cause that bike won't pay for itself, gotta make it worth the cost. Mike's talking accessories like a basket that doesn't scratch my paint and saddle bags. That sounds too fancy for me. I just need something to carry some groceries in if I'm gonna ride 5 miles each way to get them. Keep in mind I totally exaggerate, I could easily make it to Safeway in like 20 minutes but I choose to torment myself and immagine that it is some insane distance that could never possibly be measured just so I can say yeah forget it I'll just continue to warm this here spot on the couch...
If you hadn't caught on yet, I have been forgetting a dose or two here and there. There is always a reason and not a method to my madness. Somewhere up there, and if you were here I would wave my hands around for you, there was a point. But that point is lost, the ship has sailed, the train left the station all cause I saw something shinny. Oh right, salsa and chips. So I was having a rough morning and there was salsa, which at first I thought was only for the enjoyment of a select group of tasters and I was like oh well that's not fair but whatever I don't need to be eating that anyway. Then one of the girls came in with her salsa and was all like have at some of this yall and I was like oh hell to the yes! I'd been talking about eating a pie all morning so when salsa appeared it was like the skies opened up with a ray of light pointing right at the chips. So I had some salsa and only like 4 or 5 chips cause then I remembered I had a cucumber at my desk that I swipped earlier. Well swipped makes me sound like the swipper from Dora, it was a community offering so I partook in said offering. So anyway I grabbed the cucumer and I sliced it up and enjoyed it with the salsa. I had been tasked (really I offered) with picking up the remaining salsa for my cohort after the tasting was over and I said to G, can I just go get it now?! She laughed and said I should go have some. What?! I can has some?! I was out of my desk so fast you might have seen puffs of smoke trailing me. So there it was a giant spread of like 12 salsas and chips and I went to town. I didn't want to seem like a pig so I tasted each once then went back for one or two. But by the time I came back to my desk I was full of chips and shame. So much so that I had to confess to Mike. Ever the enabler and by that I mean encouraging husband, he told me it was okay but I should just lay off them. Ok I think that can be done.
I always have this urge to out myself when I've done something bad. At least on this juice fast. Mike assures me that the world isn't going to end because I had some chips and that all hell has not yet broken lose and that I need to wait until there is something trully worth worrying about before I start going into hyperdrive and that by george I need to take my damn pills.
The office had its anual salsa contest and it all started when a sweet well intentioned coworker brought some of her salsa to the back office for everyone to enjoy. Along with a bag of chips. Well I have been having a morning full of self inflicted stress which I really should just let go of until I have something to worry or panic about or something like that. But I'm totally neurotic and think worst case scenario and blah blah blah. Ok so I have to ride my bike in the rain so what? Some people do that on purpose cause they're green like that! I should be doing it on purpose cause I'm fat! Yeah I said it. Get on that bike you damn fatty! Pedal, pedal! I feel like I should be cracking a whip at my own fat ass. I know I'm sounding a bit harsh, but whatever works. I need to keep riding into the winter cause that bike won't pay for itself, gotta make it worth the cost. Mike's talking accessories like a basket that doesn't scratch my paint and saddle bags. That sounds too fancy for me. I just need something to carry some groceries in if I'm gonna ride 5 miles each way to get them. Keep in mind I totally exaggerate, I could easily make it to Safeway in like 20 minutes but I choose to torment myself and immagine that it is some insane distance that could never possibly be measured just so I can say yeah forget it I'll just continue to warm this here spot on the couch...
If you hadn't caught on yet, I have been forgetting a dose or two here and there. There is always a reason and not a method to my madness. Somewhere up there, and if you were here I would wave my hands around for you, there was a point. But that point is lost, the ship has sailed, the train left the station all cause I saw something shinny. Oh right, salsa and chips. So I was having a rough morning and there was salsa, which at first I thought was only for the enjoyment of a select group of tasters and I was like oh well that's not fair but whatever I don't need to be eating that anyway. Then one of the girls came in with her salsa and was all like have at some of this yall and I was like oh hell to the yes! I'd been talking about eating a pie all morning so when salsa appeared it was like the skies opened up with a ray of light pointing right at the chips. So I had some salsa and only like 4 or 5 chips cause then I remembered I had a cucumber at my desk that I swipped earlier. Well swipped makes me sound like the swipper from Dora, it was a community offering so I partook in said offering. So anyway I grabbed the cucumer and I sliced it up and enjoyed it with the salsa. I had been tasked (really I offered) with picking up the remaining salsa for my cohort after the tasting was over and I said to G, can I just go get it now?! She laughed and said I should go have some. What?! I can has some?! I was out of my desk so fast you might have seen puffs of smoke trailing me. So there it was a giant spread of like 12 salsas and chips and I went to town. I didn't want to seem like a pig so I tasted each once then went back for one or two. But by the time I came back to my desk I was full of chips and shame. So much so that I had to confess to Mike. Ever the enabler and by that I mean encouraging husband, he told me it was okay but I should just lay off them. Ok I think that can be done.
I always have this urge to out myself when I've done something bad. At least on this juice fast. Mike assures me that the world isn't going to end because I had some chips and that all hell has not yet broken lose and that I need to wait until there is something trully worth worrying about before I start going into hyperdrive and that by george I need to take my damn pills.
Monday
Holy chaffing batman!
I took the day off from biking today. Yesterday was plenty as was the day before. All in all this weekend I put in about 44 miles on the bike. Yesterday was exhausting. It was a fun ride out to the alpaca farm, but well no it wasn't fun. We rode 13 miles in some incredibly strong headwinds. It was like pedaling against an invisible wall. I had to shift down to 2nd gear to get anywhere. Where normally 2nd gear is useless to me, like pedaling on a stationary bike that has 0 resistance, yesterday it was like pedaling on 7th gear. My legs ached and when we finally stopped for a moment I asked how much longer before we got there. Surely we were only 10 minutes out right? Yeah... we had only gone close to half way. Seriously?! Where are we going? These goddamn alpacas better do circus tricks and wear bows and i don't know what else but damn it I better not be disappointed. Big hill seriously? Long long ride. The alpacas were worth the ride, they didn't do circus tricks but it was fantastic. Up until now the closest I've come to them was climbing around peoples properties and photographing them through peoples yards. I know kind of creepy right? What can I say I'm just a bit of a weirdo but if you didn't know that already then do you really know me? Hmmmm? Anyway. I got to go into a pen with the alpacas and feed them apples and carrots and pet them although they weren't so keen on petting. They don't like their heads touched, but if you catch them off guard you can pet them on their backs. Then there was the gorgeous white alpaca that grew on me from the second I laid eyes on her. She was the friendliest on the farm. She gave kisses without having to be bribed with food lol. It was fun, the people that hosted it were so friendly it was great. We were getting ready to ride back and I was dreading it. It was cold, it was getting dark and I was ready to tele-port home. Lucky for us the farm owners insisted on driving us home. Mike was all like boohooing about it cause he wanted to keep riding. Well I accepted the ride. We got home and decided to ride a while longer so we did. We did another 8 miles and called it a night. So yes today I said screw that. Tomorrow I'll be riding to work. Which really means I should be in bed but I'm not. Should have made juice but I didn't. Should have taken a shower but I didn't. What have I been doing all afternoon you ask? Oh just playing farmville and watching Wilfred on hulu.Yeah I've been a loser all day. There's also a load of socks and towels that need to go into the dryer.
One day I will hire someone to do my laundry for me. Oh right that's what I have a husband for. Well that's going to get me far. You know I read the other day that the son of the marriot hotel chain owner won the lottery. How messed up is that?! I guess it would help up my odds if I purchased a lottery ticket one of these days. Ok my head is going in like 10 different directions so I should stop this nonsensical blog and go to bed. Good night all!
One day I will hire someone to do my laundry for me. Oh right that's what I have a husband for. Well that's going to get me far. You know I read the other day that the son of the marriot hotel chain owner won the lottery. How messed up is that?! I guess it would help up my odds if I purchased a lottery ticket one of these days. Ok my head is going in like 10 different directions so I should stop this nonsensical blog and go to bed. Good night all!
Thursday
And Zuzu said let there be poop!
<p>Everybody poops. Its the name of a great book, or so I hear. It is day 32 and I am feeling good. I'm a little sad to think that summer is coming to an end. The amazing variety of fresh fruits and veggies will soon be gone. I try to remain hopeful for winter and think of the new discoveries I will make.
Being in Seattle really drove home the longing for an extended summer. Walking through the farmers market I was in awe. The colors, the smells, textures and just the variety! I wanted to move into the market and never leave. But while I might not leave I know a lot of those beautiful crops are days from the end of the season. How depressing! It feels like I *just* discovered so much of this world of veggies. It feels like only yesterday that I discovered a love for beets and turnips. Then again wasn't that last summer? I think it was... lol I just don't want to wait for them to come back! I wish I could travel the world chasing summer and the amazing produce. So what does fall bring? Different types of squash and stuff... I found a website that shows what's in season during the different months by state. It says Oregon has apples and cucumbers and other goodies. The nice man we made our last purchase from in Seattle said apples and pears are the next in season. Oh the possibilities! So we will be cruising to the end of our fast as the season wraps up and the next one makes its appearance.
I should be juicing before bed... im lazy so sue me. It always bites me in the ass but I haven't gotten 7hrs of sleep all week. Today was rough, I got a headache that lasted the entire day. I was freezing, holy shit I was cold! I read an explanation for why I get so cold but Tracy said it best when she said my fat reserves are scared!
What else did I do today? Oh yes, I tried out bikes. Mike has an awesome bike, you pedal out not down so its like you're leaning back a bit. Its really comfortable but the handle bars are really far. I tried one out in my size and I think it might be the one. Its a really cool orange color. We're going back this weekend and I'm gonna take it for a long ride and see how it works out before we buy it. Woohoo exciting! Oh and I pooped. Haha great way to end the day bet you're glad you read to the end!
Wednesday
The good, the bad and the crazy ugly!
Well folks today is day 24. My back is feeling significantly better thank you Dr. Evans! Nothing like pulling you pelvis out of place to put a kink in your week! How is the juicing going you ask? Well thank you for asking and it is going pretty darn tooting well. I was previously worried about Seattle, but you know what? Screw it! I'm going to have fun, I'm going to drink juice and I'm not going to eat anything that Henry cooks and I am A-Ok with that! And if I were to fall off the wagon I'm not going to punish myself. One juice at a time folks, one juice at a time!
So the bad and the crazy ugly...
So I try it out and it felt a little weird but I thought I'd get used to it and we took off on our ride. It just didn't feel right. I was having a hard time pedaling and getting really frustrated. By the time we made it near REI I was near a full on melt down. We stopped Mike bought a tool to raise my seat and we kept going. It felt a little better but I just couldn't figure out how to sit on this damn seat! We made it to the gym, did our back breaking work out and tried to pedal home for dinner. I was so tired and so uncomfortable and so goddamn demented that I just had had enough! I got off the bike in the middle of the bike path and started walking the bike all the while cursing the damn thing. Mike tried to get me to swap bikes with him but I was beyond listening to reason. I just wanted to destroy the bike. I wanted to take a mallet to it and some explosives and run it over a few times and then finally only after being thoroughly satisfied with my destructiveness would I push its remains into the river. See, I told you I was beyond reason. Mike refused to leave and ride ahead of me which was really just aggravating me more. I wanted to be left alone and while I understand his obvious concern, me alone in a dark park where we have at times heard loud arguments between transients, I didn't care. There have been times when we're riding and he is blocks ahead of me with Joel so why was that night so special? I got back on my bike and pedaled as angrily as I could. Once over the bridge I kept trying to pedal but I was tired, my butt hurt, I wasn't getting anywhere and my blood was boiling. I kept stopping and walking my bike and begging Mike to ride ahead just to get himself home. He wouldn't budge. About a mile and a half from home I stopped got off my bike and started to walk again. That was it that's where I was done and there was Mike hovering around and I just lost it. I threw my bike against the pavement as hard as I could and started yelling for him to just go home. He might have asked what the eff was my problem but he got on his bike and rode off ahead of me. I realized I had his keys which just upset me more so I got on and made my way home as quickly as I could. I pushed my bike up the stairs and went inside throwing myself into my bed and broke down. A big mess of sobs and snot. It feels pretty awful to be so angry especially when it is no ones fault and under normal circumstances I would have just riden home and complained about the damn thing. I fell asleep and woke up to Mike saying there was food behind me and not to roll over on it. He had gone out of his way to get me a fresh salad with ranch dressing no less! It's a no no but I know he wanted to make me feel better and he heated up some soup that he carefully prettied up with a few sprigs of basil. I felt like such a low piece of crap. I ate my food quietly and walked out to say I was sorry and thank you. But it turned into an enourmous mess of snot and tears. That man deserves to be named a saint. He is the only person who has seen me at my absolute worst and still held me and kissed my forehead instead of walking out like any normal person should have.
Mental illness is awful. Awful for those who deal with it and sometimes worse for those to are tasked with the job caring for that person. It is such a struggle to keep any sort of balance, to stay calm and be understanding. I'm sure Mike has wanted to lock me in a room until I come to my senses. I'm sure he's wanted to walk out and just be done with it. I couldn't blame him one bit. Somedays I want to run away from me. Those are the days when I realize it's been a while since I had my meds. Those are the days when I want to kick my own ass because I know better. I know my body and the warning signs and I just ignore them because I'm too lazy to walk in the kitchen and pour a glass of anything to take my pills with. Depression sucks, being manic is worse if you ask me. I'd be more pleasant if I just moped around. I lash out angrily against the people I love more often than towards those I could give a damn less about.
So to all of you out there who are reading this I'm sorry! I love you dearly and if I've been mean to you, it's only cause I love you! (and I'm crazy) Oh and Mike Jones, don't try to run cause I'll find you and then cut you.
So the bad and the crazy ugly...
Nothing terrible really. Just frustrated with myself. I have become a very self aware person and I get so mad at myself when I do shit I know I shouldn't do or don't do shit I know I should. So what has it been like 4 months since I was officially labeled certifiable nutty? I was doing awesome, the pills make the world okay, everything is pretty even. Nothing superbly awesome except spending time with my family and nothing superbly awful except the fight with my sister while I was down there. Just steady life going at a smooth pace. So what do I do? I stopped taking my meds. I always do this and I'm sure most crazies (sorry if the term offends you) out there agree that they too have done this before. We're doing well everything is fine nothing major no deep lingering depression, life isn't horrible, life is liveable and so we stop taking our meds. Because why? Because we're better! Isn't that what you do when you're better from something that is ailing you? You have a cough, you take cough medicine til it's gone. You have a headache you take aspirin and it goes away so you stop. So that's what I did. I felt better, I didn't feel like a homicidal maniac, I didn't feel like a depressed shlub, I wasn't manic at all so I would skip a dose here skip a dose there. Until I realized that more days than not I wasn't taking my meds. And for a while it's been ok. Then I hurt my back and I was glad for the excuse that kept me from having to go biking cause honestly it felt like a terrible chore. And then I decided maybe if I changed my bike seat I'll like it better, so I did, and I didn't. It started with this awful feeling like I was just going to have a tantrum. I was uncomfortable, it was hard to ride and I was also feeling a little panicky. So I bowed out and rode home. Yesterday Mike and I had planned to go to the gym. We ride, we work out, we go home. And as a matter of fact last time we did that I had a similar reaction. Streets were a mess because of Eugene Celebration. I was tired and hungry and seconds from having a tantrum. Mike suggested we get soup at Cornucopia and that put me at ease. How awful of me! Yesterday was the worst. I behaved like a spoiled, bratty, obnoxious brat and had I been a child I would have surely deserved a good spanking. Mike graciously changed the seat on my bike and decided to give me a different one. It is one of those seats that has just the butt pads, it's supposed to be good to keep pressure off the groin.
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Mental illness is awful. Awful for those who deal with it and sometimes worse for those to are tasked with the job caring for that person. It is such a struggle to keep any sort of balance, to stay calm and be understanding. I'm sure Mike has wanted to lock me in a room until I come to my senses. I'm sure he's wanted to walk out and just be done with it. I couldn't blame him one bit. Somedays I want to run away from me. Those are the days when I realize it's been a while since I had my meds. Those are the days when I want to kick my own ass because I know better. I know my body and the warning signs and I just ignore them because I'm too lazy to walk in the kitchen and pour a glass of anything to take my pills with. Depression sucks, being manic is worse if you ask me. I'd be more pleasant if I just moped around. I lash out angrily against the people I love more often than towards those I could give a damn less about.
So to all of you out there who are reading this I'm sorry! I love you dearly and if I've been mean to you, it's only cause I love you! (and I'm crazy) Oh and Mike Jones, don't try to run cause I'll find you and then cut you.
Monday
So what's new?
Here's a good one; did you hear about the Jones' who have lost nearly 40lbs combined? Ha bet you didn't ever think you'd hear that! Mike has lost a total of 22lbs and I am currently 16.2lbs lighter! I had to put in that .2 just for myself so suck it. Today is also the first day of our 4th week!! I didn't think I would ever be typing that. Hell I wasn't sure I'd make it past the 15 day mark. You know the one where we agreed to assess our progress and decide if we wanted to continue or not? Yeah I really wanted to say how's about we have a nice steak dinner, maybe even make it a salad with a nice piece of grilled steak on top then go back to what we were doing? Of course that isn't even an option at this point even if we had chosen to stop. We have to ease back into real food to avoid stomach trouble. We decided to try really hard and buckle down and stop with the occasional salad eating. We might get better results if we stopped that, so maybe next time I want raw veggies again I'll just toss them down the chute of the juicer instead of placing them on a dish.
Overall I'm feeling good, my back has been acting up but with the help of my handy chiropractor I know all will be well again. I think we're just sort of cruising along on this strange journey of ours. This weekend will be a serious test. We're traveling up to Seattle, will be there approximately 4 days. The juicer will definitely be making the journey with us. I'm excited to hit the Pikes Place Market first thing in the morning. I may have to make a special super early trip down and try to avoid as many of the tourists as possible. There is also a juice shop there and makes fresh juices so maybe I will have breakfast while I shop. Oh the possibilities!! Oh the temptation... It's all give and take in this world that's for sure. I am sticking to my resolve. I hope that if I am able to keep the pace of weight loss I could be under the 200 mark by the end of this leg of the journey. I am not delusional enough to imagine that this will all stay off. I'm expecting at least 5lbs to come back simply because at this point we are taking in roughly 1200 calories a day, maybe more on the days that we swap soup for juice. Still I have come to realize that this is a new lifestyle for me not a diet. My goal when we sit down the night of day 60 is to look in my fridge and still see it stocked with vegetables and fruits. Wake up the morning of day 61 and pack juice for breakfasts and lunch and make something out of veggies for dinner. I really think I have become accustomed to the idea of eating a primarily vegetarian diet. How bizarre is that? Coming from a person who once told her husband that soup is not a meal simply a course preceding dinner, who also pouted when presented with the idea of navy bean soup because there wouldn't be a slab of steak to eat after it. Meat was just part of what made me (fat) it was ingrained in me that dinner meant some sort of meat except when I was a small child who would protest soup by dumping the entire bowl over my head and placing the bowl on top as a show of protest. Instead today I find myself perusing vegan websites and looking at things that I could make with the veggies in my fridge! It is interesting what life can do to you isn't it.
Mike presented me with a cockamamie idea last week to participate in an insane bike ride. We're talking 200+ miles in 2 days. What? Are you out of your fricken gore? People don't go from being obese, walking time bombs to biking 200 miles over night! Ok maybe we're not doing it over night but still. I am sure I will be like Thomas the train going "I think I can, I think I can, Oh fuck this!!". I told him the only way I will do it is if one of our friends agrees to drive the route with a vehicle equipped with a bike rack. Because I am not sure I would survive all 100 miles on day one, or two for that matter. Either way I need to know there will be a fail proof plan in place that will allow me to crash and die in the comfort of a vehicle moving faster than my 5 miles an hour, which by the way is 1/2 of the speed that I will actually need to achieve for a good solid 10 hours. So what do you think, has mike lost his goddamn mind? Cause I kinda think he has.
Overall I'm feeling good, my back has been acting up but with the help of my handy chiropractor I know all will be well again. I think we're just sort of cruising along on this strange journey of ours. This weekend will be a serious test. We're traveling up to Seattle, will be there approximately 4 days. The juicer will definitely be making the journey with us. I'm excited to hit the Pikes Place Market first thing in the morning. I may have to make a special super early trip down and try to avoid as many of the tourists as possible. There is also a juice shop there and makes fresh juices so maybe I will have breakfast while I shop. Oh the possibilities!! Oh the temptation... It's all give and take in this world that's for sure. I am sticking to my resolve. I hope that if I am able to keep the pace of weight loss I could be under the 200 mark by the end of this leg of the journey. I am not delusional enough to imagine that this will all stay off. I'm expecting at least 5lbs to come back simply because at this point we are taking in roughly 1200 calories a day, maybe more on the days that we swap soup for juice. Still I have come to realize that this is a new lifestyle for me not a diet. My goal when we sit down the night of day 60 is to look in my fridge and still see it stocked with vegetables and fruits. Wake up the morning of day 61 and pack juice for breakfasts and lunch and make something out of veggies for dinner. I really think I have become accustomed to the idea of eating a primarily vegetarian diet. How bizarre is that? Coming from a person who once told her husband that soup is not a meal simply a course preceding dinner, who also pouted when presented with the idea of navy bean soup because there wouldn't be a slab of steak to eat after it. Meat was just part of what made me (fat) it was ingrained in me that dinner meant some sort of meat except when I was a small child who would protest soup by dumping the entire bowl over my head and placing the bowl on top as a show of protest. Instead today I find myself perusing vegan websites and looking at things that I could make with the veggies in my fridge! It is interesting what life can do to you isn't it.
Mike presented me with a cockamamie idea last week to participate in an insane bike ride. We're talking 200+ miles in 2 days. What? Are you out of your fricken gore? People don't go from being obese, walking time bombs to biking 200 miles over night! Ok maybe we're not doing it over night but still. I am sure I will be like Thomas the train going "I think I can, I think I can, Oh fuck this!!". I told him the only way I will do it is if one of our friends agrees to drive the route with a vehicle equipped with a bike rack. Because I am not sure I would survive all 100 miles on day one, or two for that matter. Either way I need to know there will be a fail proof plan in place that will allow me to crash and die in the comfort of a vehicle moving faster than my 5 miles an hour, which by the way is 1/2 of the speed that I will actually need to achieve for a good solid 10 hours. So what do you think, has mike lost his goddamn mind? Cause I kinda think he has.
Thursday
Letting it all go
One pound of pee at a time! Or is it 16oz of pee at a time? Whatever. I need to pee something fierce but I'm too lazy to go. Mike wants to go to the gym tonight. It's cruel to make me ride my bike there only to do more strenuous stuff and then have to bike home. He freaked out a tiny bit earlier when he realized I took all the mean green juice. I have to say none of it tasted like mean green and the two bottles didn't taste the same. One had a weird fuzz taste like when you eat a pineapple that is going bad and it makes your tongue weird. The other one didn't do that. I guess it's mind over matter cause that shit tasted different even though it came from the same batch. Poor dude had the same kind of drink all day. Too bad he couldn't use his imagination and pretend it wasn't.
I've been feeling bloated today. I can hear gas rumbling about in my innards but I've been kind enough not to fart up a storm for my team. It's the least I could do as a thank you for today's cookie pot luck. Seriously, all week there has been food on that back counter. You would think these people have never seen food before! How the hell am I so fat and the rest of them aren't? Whatever. Tomorrow is one of our peoples last day before she saunters off into the sunset of retirement. I might have mentioned this but the company is buying pizza for all of customer service. I hate them. I don't really but I do. I can say without fear of being struck by lightning for being a big fat liar that I did NOT eat a single cookie. Yeah I looked at them, I even inhaled the sweet smells but I prevailed. One of the gals told me I was shrinking before her eyes. I could have kissed her! And darling Carol told me to stop my bitching cause I am looking fantastic. Well okay then! I'm still gonna bitch about bike riding so don't tell her. All in all not a bad day #18. Except for letting Mike make my juice everything is rolling by smoothly. Since I turned my insulin down to 75% I haven't been hitting lows. I started boulusing for my carb intake and didn't go too high or too low so we are right on track for success!
I've been feeling bloated today. I can hear gas rumbling about in my innards but I've been kind enough not to fart up a storm for my team. It's the least I could do as a thank you for today's cookie pot luck. Seriously, all week there has been food on that back counter. You would think these people have never seen food before! How the hell am I so fat and the rest of them aren't? Whatever. Tomorrow is one of our peoples last day before she saunters off into the sunset of retirement. I might have mentioned this but the company is buying pizza for all of customer service. I hate them. I don't really but I do. I can say without fear of being struck by lightning for being a big fat liar that I did NOT eat a single cookie. Yeah I looked at them, I even inhaled the sweet smells but I prevailed. One of the gals told me I was shrinking before her eyes. I could have kissed her! And darling Carol told me to stop my bitching cause I am looking fantastic. Well okay then! I'm still gonna bitch about bike riding so don't tell her. All in all not a bad day #18. Except for letting Mike make my juice everything is rolling by smoothly. Since I turned my insulin down to 75% I haven't been hitting lows. I started boulusing for my carb intake and didn't go too high or too low so we are right on track for success!
Tuesday
Day 16
Feeling extremely tired today. I had to take a nap for lunch otherwise I might not survive. I guess it was all just downhill from the moment I work up at 2 am. Blood sugar plummeted into the pits of hell and I had to drag myself up and check before I tried to correct. 51. Holy smokes, I don't think I've ever hit that low! Mike has gone as low as like 32 and I don't know how he's survived. There was no way I was going to pull out the juicer at 2 in the morning. I didn't have the strength I was shaking and barely able to stay upright. I went for my safety ice cream instead. I swear I have stayed away from it with the exception of the very early lows. If I start to go low during the day I throw some fruit in the blender as quickly as I can and go to town on that. So a few spoonfuls of ice cream and 2 gram crackers later I decided I needed to be in bed if I was going to collapse. I was livid that I had only 3 more hours of sleep before I had to be up and juicing. What a waste of perfectly good sleep!
I managed to make 1 giant juice and out of the kindness of my heart left Mike the larger portion. Why would I do that? Geez, I'm the one that is in the office all day long! So I had a total of 3 juice servings with me and and a cup of soup. Oh my delicious soup... I couldn't get it down. The flavor is incredible especially with a hint of lime juice but the coconut has a bit of a gritty feeling because my blender can only do so much. I, like many people I know have huge issues with textures of food and unfortunately my soup turned out to be one of those fails. Incredibly disappointing! I considered going out for soup but I just couldn't justify spending the extra money on soup when I have a bowl of delicious stuff in the fridge... if only I could choke it down...
Shortly here Mike and I are going blackberry picking. Our lovely friend Laura has offered to let us pick off her bushes which is awesome. Mike has been thinking of picking them for a few weeks now. He's wanted to send some off to his mom but last time we tried it, well it didn't work out so well. Let's just say she thought we sent her some bloodied severed parts. So lets try again maybe freeze and package this stuff correctly haha! I'm totally drained today and really I would rather do some picking and head straight to bed but always the slave driver (is it ok to call this ironic?) Mike is forcing me to ride my bike. I am dragging horribly and had no intention on riding today.
My tummy is really unhappy. It could be the lack of nutrition today. There are no chips or crackers or anything to snack on in the office, can you believe it?! Ok that's kind of a lie, there were donuts or bagels or something in the common area earlier. I chose not to leave my desk until lunch time by that point anything edible had been decimated. This week is going to be really difficult, it's retirement week for one of our lovely employees and we are celebrating her all week. Tomorrow is coffee/pastry day, Thursday is favorite cookie day and Friday the company is paying for pizza for all. Meanwhile I'll be locked in the nursing mothers room with a bottle of juice rocking back and forth trying not to inhale the odors of food. Next Friday will take the cake by far. In order to celebrate the first Ducks game the management has sanctioned an employee cook out. One of folks is bringing in his world famous BBQ pork. I'm salivating here people!
I managed to make 1 giant juice and out of the kindness of my heart left Mike the larger portion. Why would I do that? Geez, I'm the one that is in the office all day long! So I had a total of 3 juice servings with me and and a cup of soup. Oh my delicious soup... I couldn't get it down. The flavor is incredible especially with a hint of lime juice but the coconut has a bit of a gritty feeling because my blender can only do so much. I, like many people I know have huge issues with textures of food and unfortunately my soup turned out to be one of those fails. Incredibly disappointing! I considered going out for soup but I just couldn't justify spending the extra money on soup when I have a bowl of delicious stuff in the fridge... if only I could choke it down...
Shortly here Mike and I are going blackberry picking. Our lovely friend Laura has offered to let us pick off her bushes which is awesome. Mike has been thinking of picking them for a few weeks now. He's wanted to send some off to his mom but last time we tried it, well it didn't work out so well. Let's just say she thought we sent her some bloodied severed parts. So lets try again maybe freeze and package this stuff correctly haha! I'm totally drained today and really I would rather do some picking and head straight to bed but always the slave driver (is it ok to call this ironic?) Mike is forcing me to ride my bike. I am dragging horribly and had no intention on riding today.
My tummy is really unhappy. It could be the lack of nutrition today. There are no chips or crackers or anything to snack on in the office, can you believe it?! Ok that's kind of a lie, there were donuts or bagels or something in the common area earlier. I chose not to leave my desk until lunch time by that point anything edible had been decimated. This week is going to be really difficult, it's retirement week for one of our lovely employees and we are celebrating her all week. Tomorrow is coffee/pastry day, Thursday is favorite cookie day and Friday the company is paying for pizza for all. Meanwhile I'll be locked in the nursing mothers room with a bottle of juice rocking back and forth trying not to inhale the odors of food. Next Friday will take the cake by far. In order to celebrate the first Ducks game the management has sanctioned an employee cook out. One of folks is bringing in his world famous BBQ pork. I'm salivating here people!
Monday
Quitting is not an option
We survived day 14 yesterday with few casualties. We went on the river for the first time this summer truly shameful summer it has been! As we were packing ourselves together I had 6 bottles of juice, 4 of water and ourselves. Mike insisted I take a glucometer in case blood sugars dropped too low. I was like oh hell to the no! I had already double zip lock bagged my insulin pump then duct tapped it to ensure no water would get it even though I had no plans of going in the water. Maybe about 20 minutes on the water and all was smooth sailing. Until we came across a group of college kids in the middle of the river. But they weren't moving! What the hell?! I paddled desperately to avoid them but there was no hope for me. I slammed right into them and my kayak went tumbling over me as I struggled to stand up in the river current. The little bastards managed to rescue my juice bottles and one of my water bottles but it wasn't until I was back moving on the water that I realized the goddamn glucometer and Mike's inhaler were in the bag that got away. I was so pissed! Lucky for us I had the foresight to take an old glucometer that we only used as back up in case one of us couldn't find theirs. Oh well it could have turned out worse... my pump could have gotten water in it! I would have murdered all of those little fuckers if something had happened to the pump. Are you kidding me?! $5k piece of equipment! As soon as we stopped I took it off and stuffed it in someones dry bag. I would rather go the next 4 hours without insulin than risk injury to my precious. Beyond that it was a slow, relaxing trip.
Once back on dry land we had to decide what to do about getting nutrition into ourselves. More juice? Soup? Perhaps a salad? We decided to go out for a salad and soup as a way to incorporate our bike ride. It sounded like a good idea, but I was DYING! I didn't think I could continue pedaling. I wanted to stop, I wanted to push my bicycle in the river and call a cab. I wanted to call 911 and tell them I was moments from death on the bike path! This isn't worth it Mike! That's what I kept saying to myself. If I could have found a way to funnel that whining energy into pedaling it would have been amazing but I was pissed and I was aching and I just wanted the end to come. Meanwhile Mike was blocks ahead of me without a care in the world. Meanwhile I'm here relaying my tales to you only through an act of God. I am aching from head to toe. I am completely sun burnt and sore.
It's amazing what your body will let you do when you let it. I could honestly not have expected to continue going after these 14 days. When we started our goal was 60 days with the contingency plan of re-evaluating every 15 days. Today is day 15 and we both weighed in. We have lost 13 and 16lbs respectively and feel great! Mike was showing off last night and crossing his legs. I know it sounds like what the hell why couldn't he cross his legs? But Mike is making some serious progress his back feels better, he can walk easier he can swim and bike and put his own damn socks on! I'm bursting with pride for him. So are we going to stop now that we reached 15 days? Hell no! Shut yo mouth fool!
The last few years my new years resolution has consistently been to be a better healthier me. To lose weight to take care of me and every year I go strong and lose steam sometimes back slide and demotivate myself. But do you know what I get from it? I haven't stopped. I haven't given up, I haven't quit. I've re-evaluated what I'm doing and I've tried a different approach. I started using my insulin pump nearly a year ago and have made insane strides in maintaining a better level of control. Sure I put on 20+ lbs since I started but I haven't had full control of that. I'm not making the excuse that it was all my meds. My meds didn't tell me to eat that 16oz rib eye, or drive me to McDonnald's for a Big Mac. I take full responsibility for my role in my terrible actions. But I have also been the first to tell myself that I can do it. To get my ass in that kitchen and make a glass of juice when my blood sugar has gotten low instead of heading straight for the freezer in search of a long forgotten pint of ice cream.
Mike asked me the other night why we have to be the ones that are so fat. All I could do was shrug. But I also had to remind him that while we are fat science has proved that we could very easily outlive some our smaller counter parts. There are many folks in our lives who are smaller framed but eat just as bad and if not worse than we did but probably felt ok doing it because, well they aren't as fat as the Jones'. I don't think I will ever be a small person, I will be smaller I can guarantee you that but I am okay not being a size 2 or 4 or 6. I will be okay if I only ever got down to a size 16. But you know what? While in those size 16's I'm going to be the healthiest I have ever been. I am going to live a happy bright life, I am going to have energy and love life. You can keep your size 8's and your clogged arteries thank you very much. I'm not giving up any time soon, I see how fantastic I feel and there may be a time when I slow down but I don't plan on quitting any time soon believe it.
Once back on dry land we had to decide what to do about getting nutrition into ourselves. More juice? Soup? Perhaps a salad? We decided to go out for a salad and soup as a way to incorporate our bike ride. It sounded like a good idea, but I was DYING! I didn't think I could continue pedaling. I wanted to stop, I wanted to push my bicycle in the river and call a cab. I wanted to call 911 and tell them I was moments from death on the bike path! This isn't worth it Mike! That's what I kept saying to myself. If I could have found a way to funnel that whining energy into pedaling it would have been amazing but I was pissed and I was aching and I just wanted the end to come. Meanwhile Mike was blocks ahead of me without a care in the world. Meanwhile I'm here relaying my tales to you only through an act of God. I am aching from head to toe. I am completely sun burnt and sore.
It's amazing what your body will let you do when you let it. I could honestly not have expected to continue going after these 14 days. When we started our goal was 60 days with the contingency plan of re-evaluating every 15 days. Today is day 15 and we both weighed in. We have lost 13 and 16lbs respectively and feel great! Mike was showing off last night and crossing his legs. I know it sounds like what the hell why couldn't he cross his legs? But Mike is making some serious progress his back feels better, he can walk easier he can swim and bike and put his own damn socks on! I'm bursting with pride for him. So are we going to stop now that we reached 15 days? Hell no! Shut yo mouth fool!
The last few years my new years resolution has consistently been to be a better healthier me. To lose weight to take care of me and every year I go strong and lose steam sometimes back slide and demotivate myself. But do you know what I get from it? I haven't stopped. I haven't given up, I haven't quit. I've re-evaluated what I'm doing and I've tried a different approach. I started using my insulin pump nearly a year ago and have made insane strides in maintaining a better level of control. Sure I put on 20+ lbs since I started but I haven't had full control of that. I'm not making the excuse that it was all my meds. My meds didn't tell me to eat that 16oz rib eye, or drive me to McDonnald's for a Big Mac. I take full responsibility for my role in my terrible actions. But I have also been the first to tell myself that I can do it. To get my ass in that kitchen and make a glass of juice when my blood sugar has gotten low instead of heading straight for the freezer in search of a long forgotten pint of ice cream.
Mike asked me the other night why we have to be the ones that are so fat. All I could do was shrug. But I also had to remind him that while we are fat science has proved that we could very easily outlive some our smaller counter parts. There are many folks in our lives who are smaller framed but eat just as bad and if not worse than we did but probably felt ok doing it because, well they aren't as fat as the Jones'. I don't think I will ever be a small person, I will be smaller I can guarantee you that but I am okay not being a size 2 or 4 or 6. I will be okay if I only ever got down to a size 16. But you know what? While in those size 16's I'm going to be the healthiest I have ever been. I am going to live a happy bright life, I am going to have energy and love life. You can keep your size 8's and your clogged arteries thank you very much. I'm not giving up any time soon, I see how fantastic I feel and there may be a time when I slow down but I don't plan on quitting any time soon believe it.
Thursday
Rocking and rolling along day 11
I thought today was going to suck. Like major, Dyson style suck. I woke up way way way late. Like 20 minutes to get dressed in anything not involving pj's, late. I looked in the fridge amongst the bags of fruits and veggies, past the cheeses sitting there taunting me... to where my juice sat. All 3 servings of juice. Then it hit me like a pile of rocks. GODDAMN IT! That's not enough juice!! I considered stealing the juice I had prepped for Mike (sorry hon, desprate times...) but reconsidered it when I realized I didn't have any more cucumbers in the house for him to make some mean green with. I was just tired and the world was looking bleek. I made juice before bed, before that I was standing in Market of Choice wondering what on earth I was out of. I prefer to do my shopping at the farm but because I work all week I can't get out there except weekends and Mondays. I managed to get enough veggies last weekend to last me until last night. So that was what like 5 days. I had been cautious in buying too much of some stuff over the weekend cause I knew I still had some, such as cucumbers. So before leaving the house I made mental notes of what is still there, tons of apples and tomatoes cucumbers... I got home and unloaded and started prepping juice for today. Then I hit my major snag. I only had 2 cucumbers left. Just enough to make mean green but not enough to make anything else that wasn't primarily fruit based. I had 2 choices: 1 go back to the damn grocery store or 2 suck it up and think of something else to juice. So I just started tossing stuff in the juicer. I made enough juice for 3 "meals" but I drink about 4 a day while at work. I figured I would get up early and make a super quick run to the grocery store and pick up some naked juice or some veggies and juice before I left whichever was quicker. Given that I woke up with 20 minutes before work I bet you know how that worked out! What is one to do when left without juice? One invites their husband to lunch. Soup to be exact! There is a little place in town called Soup Nation. If you haven't seen them before they are located on 5th and High and you should go there. They have 8 types of soup daily and they are amazing. I don't mind cheating on my juice diet with veggie soup! And that my friends is exactly what I did, thereby salvaging my day.
Last night I went blueberry picking. It was a lot of work but damn worth it. Thanks to my wonderful friend Jenny, who invited us along to her friends farm. They have close to 200 blueberry bushes, I might be lying but I swear that's what he said. Anywhoo, yes we went and picked and picked for like 2 hours. What was awesome was watching Mike do it. You know why? Cause he could! Thinking back I realize that if I take anything away from this 60 day experience is that we are giving ourselves the life we deserve. 11 days ago Mike was struggling to even sit at some points cause his back made him uncomfortable. Walking through Pike Place Market was slow going and made me feel terrible to see him wince in pain. But yesterday, he was picking like the best of any Mexican field workers!
God knows we have half assed just about everything in our lives except eating. But I feel so alive these days. It's been a struggle, I am not sugar coating it at all. But the last 10 days have given me a reason to keep doing it. Just showing myself that I can do it. I can finish an 11 mile bike ride, sure I will piss and moan, I'll be the last one trailing behind on the path, I'll ask if I can turn back at the 4 mile mark but then I keep going. I keep pedaling and 7 miles later I'm thinking that wasn't so bad! The same is true of the juicing. When I started I thought forget it. I can't do it. I want steak. I want fish. I want chicken. I want rice. I want I want I want. But I don't need! Mike is by far doing so much better than I am. I fell flat on my face on day 2, I tore open a bag of crackers on day 6 when my blood sugar got too low, I assaulted a container of ice cream that was left in the freezer on day 3 again when the low blood sugar hit, and on day 9 when the same happened. Are you noticing a trend there? My blood sugar is too low! What? That's not possible! Little miss beetus, who less than a year ago today had her blood sugar sitting in the high 200's, who went home for her sisters wedding a year ago and was running numbers so high that the glucometer couldn't read them. Yes that little miss beetus who was running out of insulin in less than 2 days, she is now going almost 3 days without changing out the pump. I have been monitoring my blood sugars really closely because I haven't been pumping extra insulin to cover my juice so I was worried I would start to spike but I am more than happy to report that I am hanging steady. Where I was once averaging 160-180 after meals, I am now under 130. Where I would once wake up and be sitting over 120, I am now waking up between 60 and 80. It is just so refreshing and encouraging. I thank my wonderful portable pancreas for doing most of the work but thank god for the veggies that I am taking in.
I continue to do this back and forth with myself. Scolding myself when I eat stuff though it is usually due to the low blood sugar so what am I to do? But I also remind myself that it is okay. I am adjusting my insulin levels and I am juicing more frequently and what the hell, so I messed up a little bit but you know what? I have another 49 days to go. I worry that the snacking will reflect on the scale but ultimately what I care about is the numbers that will come out of my blood work. I want to proudly say I am kicking the shit out of the beetus. That's right beetus you don't control me, ya heard?!
Last night I went blueberry picking. It was a lot of work but damn worth it. Thanks to my wonderful friend Jenny, who invited us along to her friends farm. They have close to 200 blueberry bushes, I might be lying but I swear that's what he said. Anywhoo, yes we went and picked and picked for like 2 hours. What was awesome was watching Mike do it. You know why? Cause he could! Thinking back I realize that if I take anything away from this 60 day experience is that we are giving ourselves the life we deserve. 11 days ago Mike was struggling to even sit at some points cause his back made him uncomfortable. Walking through Pike Place Market was slow going and made me feel terrible to see him wince in pain. But yesterday, he was picking like the best of any Mexican field workers!
God knows we have half assed just about everything in our lives except eating. But I feel so alive these days. It's been a struggle, I am not sugar coating it at all. But the last 10 days have given me a reason to keep doing it. Just showing myself that I can do it. I can finish an 11 mile bike ride, sure I will piss and moan, I'll be the last one trailing behind on the path, I'll ask if I can turn back at the 4 mile mark but then I keep going. I keep pedaling and 7 miles later I'm thinking that wasn't so bad! The same is true of the juicing. When I started I thought forget it. I can't do it. I want steak. I want fish. I want chicken. I want rice. I want I want I want. But I don't need! Mike is by far doing so much better than I am. I fell flat on my face on day 2, I tore open a bag of crackers on day 6 when my blood sugar got too low, I assaulted a container of ice cream that was left in the freezer on day 3 again when the low blood sugar hit, and on day 9 when the same happened. Are you noticing a trend there? My blood sugar is too low! What? That's not possible! Little miss beetus, who less than a year ago today had her blood sugar sitting in the high 200's, who went home for her sisters wedding a year ago and was running numbers so high that the glucometer couldn't read them. Yes that little miss beetus who was running out of insulin in less than 2 days, she is now going almost 3 days without changing out the pump. I have been monitoring my blood sugars really closely because I haven't been pumping extra insulin to cover my juice so I was worried I would start to spike but I am more than happy to report that I am hanging steady. Where I was once averaging 160-180 after meals, I am now under 130. Where I would once wake up and be sitting over 120, I am now waking up between 60 and 80. It is just so refreshing and encouraging. I thank my wonderful portable pancreas for doing most of the work but thank god for the veggies that I am taking in.
I continue to do this back and forth with myself. Scolding myself when I eat stuff though it is usually due to the low blood sugar so what am I to do? But I also remind myself that it is okay. I am adjusting my insulin levels and I am juicing more frequently and what the hell, so I messed up a little bit but you know what? I have another 49 days to go. I worry that the snacking will reflect on the scale but ultimately what I care about is the numbers that will come out of my blood work. I want to proudly say I am kicking the shit out of the beetus. That's right beetus you don't control me, ya heard?!
Monday
Day 8
For a moment I forgot what day we are on. Ooops! But yes day 8 is coming to a close, we had a pretty decent day. We came to a mutual agreement that eating solid food is ok so long as it is food we would juice otherwise and obviously not doing it all day long. It gets hard towards the end of the day. That is really when I struggle with it. My resolve is nearly non existent by about 8pm. My blood sugar hasn't been above 130 since we started and that is awesome cause my optimal range is 90-120 but holy shit it seems to have been a struggle today just keeping it above 80!
We went out to see a movie and had juice with us, the movie ended and I was famished so we ran to OrangeJulius for something. They had a dairy free fruit only thing so we both had that. I was sure my blood sugar would be through the roof after that. We went home, I did some dishes then we went for a bike ride. 11 miles later I walked in the door absolutely pooped. Blood sugar reading: 70. My first instinct was to reach for ice cream. Instead I took a glucose tablet. I knew that wasn't going to be enough to keep me from dying so I rummaged through the kitchen trying to decide what damage to make. I opted for a sliced tomato while my dinner heated up on the stove. We had soup by the way. So a sliced tomato it sounds weird but it sounded good to me at the time. Mike walked in the door after ridding to Subway with Joel and returned with a salad. Oh sweet fresh un-juiced veggies! I told Mike that I would marry him if I hadn't already. So we had a fresh salad with fat free italian dressing and Caribbean Yam soup. To die for!! So now I should be in bed but I am debating juicing something cause my blood sugar was exactly 90 about 5 minutes ago and if I go to sleep without something I might wake up with a low and then I can guarantee you I would assault the ice cream or anything else that crosses my path in that kitchen. So I guess that answers that, I'm gonna go make some juice. This has been day 8, see yall on the other side of 9!
We went out to see a movie and had juice with us, the movie ended and I was famished so we ran to OrangeJulius for something. They had a dairy free fruit only thing so we both had that. I was sure my blood sugar would be through the roof after that. We went home, I did some dishes then we went for a bike ride. 11 miles later I walked in the door absolutely pooped. Blood sugar reading: 70. My first instinct was to reach for ice cream. Instead I took a glucose tablet. I knew that wasn't going to be enough to keep me from dying so I rummaged through the kitchen trying to decide what damage to make. I opted for a sliced tomato while my dinner heated up on the stove. We had soup by the way. So a sliced tomato it sounds weird but it sounded good to me at the time. Mike walked in the door after ridding to Subway with Joel and returned with a salad. Oh sweet fresh un-juiced veggies! I told Mike that I would marry him if I hadn't already. So we had a fresh salad with fat free italian dressing and Caribbean Yam soup. To die for!! So now I should be in bed but I am debating juicing something cause my blood sugar was exactly 90 about 5 minutes ago and if I go to sleep without something I might wake up with a low and then I can guarantee you I would assault the ice cream or anything else that crosses my path in that kitchen. So I guess that answers that, I'm gonna go make some juice. This has been day 8, see yall on the other side of 9!
Sunday
Day 6 wrap up
So technically I'm starting day 7. But I wanted to check in. Day 6 went pretty well, got myself to the farmers market and came home with more pounds of fruit than anyone else there! I made some soup which yall might have seen on FB. Yeah it looks kind of gross but it wasn't. Also the shot I put on FB was pre-final mix. It just looked cool, once it was finished it was bright beet red. I made far too much of it but hey that just means I can have some for a few days.
I've come to a conclusion, if I NEED to eat something, I'm going to do it. I had a side salad today and a side of soup. I didn't feel one bit bad about it damn it! If I'm going to cheat at least I'm doing it with the same veggies I'd otherwise be juicing. It's not like the "plan" is against it. It's basically up to us how strict we want to be with it. Plus Mike and I seriously made up for it. After dinner we planned to watch a movie but Mike really wanted to take a bike ride. So we did. We rode 11 miles around the river and finished at the mall. We watched a movie and rode another 3 miles home.
It was fun! I'm tired, I know I'm gonna ache like crazy tomorrow err later today. I was sure I was facing certain death on that ride. I have an unnatural fear of walking around in dark places. So here we are riding on the trail and I'm like uh... Mike it's getting dark. How's about we head back? Mike was like no we can do it, it's not that dark! Plus you're with me!! Oh yeah real comforting dude. It freaks me out to know there can be folks just wondering around in the dark on those paths. I really don't want to be murdered or mugged. Lucky for him I didn't get murdered or mugged. I would have been really fricken pissed! So yeah, I would say I worked off a side salad and a bowl of soup.
I've come to a conclusion, if I NEED to eat something, I'm going to do it. I had a side salad today and a side of soup. I didn't feel one bit bad about it damn it! If I'm going to cheat at least I'm doing it with the same veggies I'd otherwise be juicing. It's not like the "plan" is against it. It's basically up to us how strict we want to be with it. Plus Mike and I seriously made up for it. After dinner we planned to watch a movie but Mike really wanted to take a bike ride. So we did. We rode 11 miles around the river and finished at the mall. We watched a movie and rode another 3 miles home.
It was fun! I'm tired, I know I'm gonna ache like crazy tomorrow err later today. I was sure I was facing certain death on that ride. I have an unnatural fear of walking around in dark places. So here we are riding on the trail and I'm like uh... Mike it's getting dark. How's about we head back? Mike was like no we can do it, it's not that dark! Plus you're with me!! Oh yeah real comforting dude. It freaks me out to know there can be folks just wondering around in the dark on those paths. I really don't want to be murdered or mugged. Lucky for him I didn't get murdered or mugged. I would have been really fricken pissed! So yeah, I would say I worked off a side salad and a bowl of soup.
Thursday
Day 4
I didn't finish the last post before I published it but I published it on purpose. I'm hoping to be consistent with my posts as I am with the reboot. I guess I'm somewhat a day behind as I'm posting or a day ahead, well really a little of both. Day 3 went okay, I didn't have the will to pull myself off the couch most of the day. I went to the farm for a few more veggies and to Walmart for some prescriptions but besides that it was a constant struggle to get up and moving. The kitchen is a mess, the dishes were in despair and the laundry, well the laundry is gonna just sit there. It's all clean, although there is a strange odor being emitted from there kind of like wet moldy clothes. You know when you forget to put the clothes from the wash into the dryer, that kind of smell. But everything is clean so what's going on? I won't know for a while, until I run out of underwear or Mike runs out of socks. I bought Mike new socks when we went to Cali and I did some laundry sometime in the not too distant past so I will simply choose to ignore it all until I am damn well ready to deal with it.
I haven't been very hungry thank goodness but I do miss food. I don't want a burger or fries. I want a salad. A big fat juicy bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and a tart vinegar and olive oil topping and if Mike would permit it maybe 2 croutons. I would be lying if I didn't mention I also want to sink my teeth into a juicy medium rare (a tiny bit more on the rare than the medium) steak. Hot from the grill, seasoned to perfection the way Mike makes them. But alas, I have to move my thoughts onto other stuff cause I'm making myself hungry now.
I need a new scale, one that works would be nice. Although the scale continues to praise me, I know they're lies. I hate to go to the DAC for the sole purpose of weighing in but Mike has gotten into biking like every day and I fear if I ask him to go to the gym he might just die. He's been doing around 10 miles a day maybe a bit more but he's struggling to keep his blood sugars up. We have been slowly backing down his insulin intake and hopefully today will go better than the last 3 days. So the gym seems a bit excessive for him right now. I would love to just bike with him but for 1 he does it while I'm at work and for 2 I don't want to continue paying our dues if we're not going to use the damn thing. We need to use it though! Cardio is awesome but we have flab to bust too! So I'm thinking of calling those fine folks and maybe placing our membership on a freeze or something. And then I think, well how will I weigh in properly? Maybe it is time to invest more than $25 in a scale. I mean seriously; we're fat. It is rude to ask a cheap scale to be realistic with us when we aren't being realistic.
Moving right along, or maybe backtracking to yesterday. It took all of a full day but I managed to make us some juice, some smoothies and eventually some soup. The soup truly was the highlight of my day. I wasn't 100% sure how my endeavor would turn out but I figured it couldn't go very wrong. I purchased 2 yellow zucchini's, tomatoes, onion and I already have 25lbs of carrots in the fridge so I thought I'd toss some of those in too. I sauteed some carrots and onion and tossed in some garlic and a little water while the zucchini roasted in the oven. Then tossed the tomatoes in with the onion and carrots and let them all soften a bit. Once everything looked tender I tossed it in the blender and let it do its thing for a few minutes. The result was a smooth sweet and savory puree, a pinch of salt, dry basil and Cajun seasonings and we were in business! I had a second serving of soup for dinner and bolused too much insulin for it. I really have to start looking at that stuff! I figured squash would be really starchy and the tomatoes and what not but I used 3 large tomatoes and 2 good sized zucchini's. The tomatoes totaled about 70 carbs (they were some hunky tomatoes!) and the zucchini I've found out since dinner only accounts for 1.5 carbs per 1/2 cup. There was about 4 cups between the 2 zucchini's and it yielded about 80oz of soup. So even being conservative there wasn't more than 100 carbs in the entire pot of soup of which mike and I had half each between our two meals. I didn't bolus when I had my first serving cause I was so excited to eat that damn soup I just forgot. So when I had my second serving I bolused for approximately 80 carbs. Big oopsie right there. I was fine for a long while and then I realized it was getting late and I needed to prep juice for the following day. I was in the middle of fighting the juicer over a bunch of collard greens, feeling flushed and sweating like crazy. I decided to check where my blood sugar was sitting just for kicks, couldn't be that low after all the soup I had! It was reading 63! Oops! My pump was going nuts thinking I might die at any given moment. I will admit I panicked just a bit, I was only halfway through the first batch of mean green and I know that doesn't have enough starch to up my blood sugar and I had just given Mike the last of the soup which if you're following along doesn't have that many carbs anyway. So I'm standing in the kitchen with all these useless veggies and wondering what's in the pantry but feeling stupid guilty about putting anything else that is solid in my face but I had to do something! I opened the cupboard and to my extreme joyful surprise there was still pineapple juice in there from a month ago when Mike went nuts drinking rum and pineapple juice. So that saved the night along with some of Mike's soup which he was so kind to share. I ended the night making a big batch of mean green. Enough for 2 servings each, as well as 2 servings of tabbouleh juice and 1 serving of breakfast stuff. The breakfast stuff is grapefruit, apple and grapes. Last time I made it it was super bitter but sans skin and the grapefruit is palatable. I didn't have a problem with it but I think it was a bit on the bitter side for the Mr.
Thus far today I haven't had the urge to jump face first into any pots of dip, although I hear yesterday there was artichoke and Parmesan dip in the back room which might have been enough for me to call this whole thing off. I don't feel starved and was even able to sit with some coworkers while they had lunch. Subway and meatloaf. What really had my attention were the cucumber slices one of the gals had. I would have gone to town on those! You know what worries me though, is the idea that I might get sick of the same juices day after day. I don't know how much you can change up the mean green to make it taste different. I don't want to hit a wall with this where I'm just staring up wondering why I can't just go around.
I haven't been very hungry thank goodness but I do miss food. I don't want a burger or fries. I want a salad. A big fat juicy bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and a tart vinegar and olive oil topping and if Mike would permit it maybe 2 croutons. I would be lying if I didn't mention I also want to sink my teeth into a juicy medium rare (a tiny bit more on the rare than the medium) steak. Hot from the grill, seasoned to perfection the way Mike makes them. But alas, I have to move my thoughts onto other stuff cause I'm making myself hungry now.
I need a new scale, one that works would be nice. Although the scale continues to praise me, I know they're lies. I hate to go to the DAC for the sole purpose of weighing in but Mike has gotten into biking like every day and I fear if I ask him to go to the gym he might just die. He's been doing around 10 miles a day maybe a bit more but he's struggling to keep his blood sugars up. We have been slowly backing down his insulin intake and hopefully today will go better than the last 3 days. So the gym seems a bit excessive for him right now. I would love to just bike with him but for 1 he does it while I'm at work and for 2 I don't want to continue paying our dues if we're not going to use the damn thing. We need to use it though! Cardio is awesome but we have flab to bust too! So I'm thinking of calling those fine folks and maybe placing our membership on a freeze or something. And then I think, well how will I weigh in properly? Maybe it is time to invest more than $25 in a scale. I mean seriously; we're fat. It is rude to ask a cheap scale to be realistic with us when we aren't being realistic.
Moving right along, or maybe backtracking to yesterday. It took all of a full day but I managed to make us some juice, some smoothies and eventually some soup. The soup truly was the highlight of my day. I wasn't 100% sure how my endeavor would turn out but I figured it couldn't go very wrong. I purchased 2 yellow zucchini's, tomatoes, onion and I already have 25lbs of carrots in the fridge so I thought I'd toss some of those in too. I sauteed some carrots and onion and tossed in some garlic and a little water while the zucchini roasted in the oven. Then tossed the tomatoes in with the onion and carrots and let them all soften a bit. Once everything looked tender I tossed it in the blender and let it do its thing for a few minutes. The result was a smooth sweet and savory puree, a pinch of salt, dry basil and Cajun seasonings and we were in business! I had a second serving of soup for dinner and bolused too much insulin for it. I really have to start looking at that stuff! I figured squash would be really starchy and the tomatoes and what not but I used 3 large tomatoes and 2 good sized zucchini's. The tomatoes totaled about 70 carbs (they were some hunky tomatoes!) and the zucchini I've found out since dinner only accounts for 1.5 carbs per 1/2 cup. There was about 4 cups between the 2 zucchini's and it yielded about 80oz of soup. So even being conservative there wasn't more than 100 carbs in the entire pot of soup of which mike and I had half each between our two meals. I didn't bolus when I had my first serving cause I was so excited to eat that damn soup I just forgot. So when I had my second serving I bolused for approximately 80 carbs. Big oopsie right there. I was fine for a long while and then I realized it was getting late and I needed to prep juice for the following day. I was in the middle of fighting the juicer over a bunch of collard greens, feeling flushed and sweating like crazy. I decided to check where my blood sugar was sitting just for kicks, couldn't be that low after all the soup I had! It was reading 63! Oops! My pump was going nuts thinking I might die at any given moment. I will admit I panicked just a bit, I was only halfway through the first batch of mean green and I know that doesn't have enough starch to up my blood sugar and I had just given Mike the last of the soup which if you're following along doesn't have that many carbs anyway. So I'm standing in the kitchen with all these useless veggies and wondering what's in the pantry but feeling stupid guilty about putting anything else that is solid in my face but I had to do something! I opened the cupboard and to my extreme joyful surprise there was still pineapple juice in there from a month ago when Mike went nuts drinking rum and pineapple juice. So that saved the night along with some of Mike's soup which he was so kind to share. I ended the night making a big batch of mean green. Enough for 2 servings each, as well as 2 servings of tabbouleh juice and 1 serving of breakfast stuff. The breakfast stuff is grapefruit, apple and grapes. Last time I made it it was super bitter but sans skin and the grapefruit is palatable. I didn't have a problem with it but I think it was a bit on the bitter side for the Mr.
Thus far today I haven't had the urge to jump face first into any pots of dip, although I hear yesterday there was artichoke and Parmesan dip in the back room which might have been enough for me to call this whole thing off. I don't feel starved and was even able to sit with some coworkers while they had lunch. Subway and meatloaf. What really had my attention were the cucumber slices one of the gals had. I would have gone to town on those! You know what worries me though, is the idea that I might get sick of the same juices day after day. I don't know how much you can change up the mean green to make it taste different. I don't want to hit a wall with this where I'm just staring up wondering why I can't just go around.
Day 3 and we're still here!
And still going! So yesterday was rough, the office is the devil. The gals put together a potluck for yesterday, why you might ask? Well because it was Tuesday, duh! Only thing worse than a potluck; a dip potluck. Holy shit it's like crack to a fat girl with a food addiction! I was doing ok for the first 4 hours. Granted I get into the office at 7 and by noon I was sure I would do okay cause I wasn't hungry. I had drank about 50 oz of liquid between my juice and water so it all came tumbling down when I had to pee. I had been in and out of my office all morning but when I went to pee I found myself blocked in by some dude on a ladder. What that meant was that I had to go around to the other door which put me right in front of the buffet of stuff. I got half way back before a handful of ruffles manhandled their way into my mouth.
Monday
Day 1, Let the fun begin!
Oh what can one say about a day like today? It hasn't been exceptional, it hasn't been painful. It has been a regular run of the mill Monday. With the exception of the lack of food. Last night I made a batch of mean green. I love Mondays off cause I didn't entertain the idea of getting out of bed before 9. Mike was already working on his juice which was not the best batch I had made to date. Maybe a little too green. I used collard greens for this batch cause it was what I found at the grocery store last night. Can you imagine a grocery store that says they carry kale but only stuffs mustard greens in its place?! Poo on them! Today I picked up about 6 bunches of kale, a watermelon, a melon, a few pounds of celery, 12 cucumbers, some peaches, lemons, tomatoes, parsley, granny smith apples and some onions. All good stuff! I need to start juicing more and stuffing it in the fridge, but I don't have a lot of room what with the 25lbs of carrots I purchased yesterday. I'm a little nervous of how this will work once I'm in the office all day. Mike needs lots of variety, here I am thinking mean green and lots of it will keep me going.
So far my blood sugars are keeping steady. By lunchtime I was sitting at 127 which is pretty good. My optimal range according to the pump and my Dr is between 90-120 so 127 is right up my alley. I just need to keep drinking water, water water water.
I think the hardest part of today was shopping was all the crap in the isles. Technically I would have been okay if it wasn't for the few items I needed from other parts of the store. By the time I left I would have gladly stuffed my fat little fingers in a jar of bbq sauce and went to town licking them. Instead I got home and drank some juice that was waiting for me in the fridge. Right now I believe I will be off to juice some other stuff. This sounded good:
Hunger Pain Be Gone
4 medium carrots
2 stalks of celery, leaves and all
1 handful of parsley
4 leaves of baby spinach
1 dash of tobasco
So far my blood sugars are keeping steady. By lunchtime I was sitting at 127 which is pretty good. My optimal range according to the pump and my Dr is between 90-120 so 127 is right up my alley. I just need to keep drinking water, water water water.
I think the hardest part of today was shopping was all the crap in the isles. Technically I would have been okay if it wasn't for the few items I needed from other parts of the store. By the time I left I would have gladly stuffed my fat little fingers in a jar of bbq sauce and went to town licking them. Instead I got home and drank some juice that was waiting for me in the fridge. Right now I believe I will be off to juice some other stuff. This sounded good:
Hunger Pain Be Gone
4 medium carrots
2 stalks of celery, leaves and all
1 handful of parsley
4 leaves of baby spinach
1 dash of tobasco
Thursday
Juicy Fruit
I was thinking of the theme song for the bubble gum Juicy Fruit this morning. I don't know why but I was humming it in my head with the wrong words of course. In my head it was something like "juicy fruit dum de dum dum juicy fruit... uh yeah... juicy juice?" I was intermittently taking swigs of my mean green while doing so; I suppose that was what brought it up. You don’t taste as sweet this morning my friend… I ran out of apples. We were down to two one was about to turn the other had a few days left. I thought about using the better one or both even but I thought better of that decision and left the better one for Mike. So there I was being nice to the big lug and then I got a text saying “thanks for leaving me some apples…” Can you taste the sarcasm dripping off that apple?! Asshat, I left you the better apple! So is this what it’s gonna be? We’re gonna be fighting over apples now? Pssssh better not!
So how am I feeling these days…? Well I’ve been sleeping pretty well. Haven’t been waking up most nights which is just fabulous, but I also overslept yesterday. I woke up to the sound of my alarm, thought 5 more minutes and woke up nearly an hour later. This would in fact be a problem because I carpool to work and my ride would be at my place in about 10 minutes. I called her and told her I’d be late. Skipped the shower (I know I’m sorry coworkers, aren’t you glad I sit down far away from everyone?!) but made some juice. Priorities man! The night before I fell asleep at like 8pm with a headache but when I woke up yesterday the same headache was still looming around. You dirty little bastard! It wasn’t bad enough to keep me from work but it was bad enough that I lacked any sense and was pretty much worthless in the office. I rode Mike’s bike home after work, a dumb story about why it ended up at my office. But anyway, I rode the damn thing home. So tired, that bike wore me out. It sits odd and I had some serious exhaustion going on in my legs. Nothing like riding a cruiser I’ll tell you! So I got home then had to climb the stairs with the bike on my shoulder. Propped that sucker against the railing and went inside where I proceeded to throw myself on the bed. I swear I was seconds from puking and fainting. Blood sugar was running high (thank you pad thai) and my head, well it was still pounding. Other than that I felt fantastic! Ha ha…
So once Mike was showered and feeling fabulous we were off to Armando’s for dinner. BYOM is typical around there so we stopped for some steaks. Mike ever adorable picked up a package of filet mignon that contained 2 small steaks. I was like ok that looks good, where’s yours? He pulled that POS bite of knowledge about the palm of your hand sized serving. I asked if I could at least have a “his palm sized serving”. Also filet mignon wasn’t wrapped in bacon thank you very much! He caved and grabbed 2 rib eyes, though significantly smaller than anything I’d have previously agreed to. Nearly half the size of what I usually eat. I eat a lot of red meat.
Dinner was filling. I was surprised, I didn’t eat more sides than I usually do and I had half my usual portion of steak. I was sure I’d be looking around at the plates around me to see who I could pick off of.
My headache went away and I enjoyed the evening all around. It’s always so nice when you don’t feel like you have a rock growing inside of your skull. I was really worried about getting enough sleep cause we were out til almost 11 and I wasn’t asleep til nearly midnight. Not enough sleep makes Zu-zu a mean mean person, and also a worthless employee. This morning I got up when the alarm went off. I was kind of traumatized by yesterday’s antics. I got moving pretty quickly, got myself dressed, juice made and juicer cleaned. Just in time to meet my carpool buddy. Not a bad start to the day, let’s keep this rolling!
So I was thinking good and hard about this juice thing and the logistics of it and whatnot. I need to have a plan in place before I start otherwise things will go downhill very rapidly. Today I’m craving a big greasy burger. For one I’m gonna have to ease myself off that red meat. But I know it isn’t going to happen. I’m going to eat myself into oblivion and will just go cold turkey when the time comes. Tuesday August 9th will be day 1 of this holistic, veggie crack, possibly psychotic undertaking. In the meantime we continue replacing breakfast with veggie juice. I like it, normally for breakfast I’d be chomping down on some sort of 90 calorie fiber bar (usually 2) with chocolate and nuts, following that up with some random nuts from my desk or the half bag of potato chips that I’ve been stashing for a rainy day. In a real emergency there is also a bag of beef jerky which has been there well past its use within __ days of opening. It won’t kill me, I’m sure, but it sure tastes funky!
So we (and by we I mean I), started looking at the quantity of produce that will be required for said undertaking. Math this early in the day should be illegal along with working. So I busted the mean green recipe out of my head. It didn’t want to come out but after some serious cajoling and threats of imminent death it came out. It shouldn’t be so hard considering I just made it! But my early onset of sometimers aside, I got it and then I tried math. Mean green consists of:
So how am I feeling these days…? Well I’ve been sleeping pretty well. Haven’t been waking up most nights which is just fabulous, but I also overslept yesterday. I woke up to the sound of my alarm, thought 5 more minutes and woke up nearly an hour later. This would in fact be a problem because I carpool to work and my ride would be at my place in about 10 minutes. I called her and told her I’d be late. Skipped the shower (I know I’m sorry coworkers, aren’t you glad I sit down far away from everyone?!) but made some juice. Priorities man! The night before I fell asleep at like 8pm with a headache but when I woke up yesterday the same headache was still looming around. You dirty little bastard! It wasn’t bad enough to keep me from work but it was bad enough that I lacked any sense and was pretty much worthless in the office. I rode Mike’s bike home after work, a dumb story about why it ended up at my office. But anyway, I rode the damn thing home. So tired, that bike wore me out. It sits odd and I had some serious exhaustion going on in my legs. Nothing like riding a cruiser I’ll tell you! So I got home then had to climb the stairs with the bike on my shoulder. Propped that sucker against the railing and went inside where I proceeded to throw myself on the bed. I swear I was seconds from puking and fainting. Blood sugar was running high (thank you pad thai) and my head, well it was still pounding. Other than that I felt fantastic! Ha ha…
So once Mike was showered and feeling fabulous we were off to Armando’s for dinner. BYOM is typical around there so we stopped for some steaks. Mike ever adorable picked up a package of filet mignon that contained 2 small steaks. I was like ok that looks good, where’s yours? He pulled that POS bite of knowledge about the palm of your hand sized serving. I asked if I could at least have a “his palm sized serving”. Also filet mignon wasn’t wrapped in bacon thank you very much! He caved and grabbed 2 rib eyes, though significantly smaller than anything I’d have previously agreed to. Nearly half the size of what I usually eat. I eat a lot of red meat.
Dinner was filling. I was surprised, I didn’t eat more sides than I usually do and I had half my usual portion of steak. I was sure I’d be looking around at the plates around me to see who I could pick off of.
My headache went away and I enjoyed the evening all around. It’s always so nice when you don’t feel like you have a rock growing inside of your skull. I was really worried about getting enough sleep cause we were out til almost 11 and I wasn’t asleep til nearly midnight. Not enough sleep makes Zu-zu a mean mean person, and also a worthless employee. This morning I got up when the alarm went off. I was kind of traumatized by yesterday’s antics. I got moving pretty quickly, got myself dressed, juice made and juicer cleaned. Just in time to meet my carpool buddy. Not a bad start to the day, let’s keep this rolling!
So I was thinking good and hard about this juice thing and the logistics of it and whatnot. I need to have a plan in place before I start otherwise things will go downhill very rapidly. Today I’m craving a big greasy burger. For one I’m gonna have to ease myself off that red meat. But I know it isn’t going to happen. I’m going to eat myself into oblivion and will just go cold turkey when the time comes. Tuesday August 9th will be day 1 of this holistic, veggie crack, possibly psychotic undertaking. In the meantime we continue replacing breakfast with veggie juice. I like it, normally for breakfast I’d be chomping down on some sort of 90 calorie fiber bar (usually 2) with chocolate and nuts, following that up with some random nuts from my desk or the half bag of potato chips that I’ve been stashing for a rainy day. In a real emergency there is also a bag of beef jerky which has been there well past its use within __ days of opening. It won’t kill me, I’m sure, but it sure tastes funky!
So we (and by we I mean I), started looking at the quantity of produce that will be required for said undertaking. Math this early in the day should be illegal along with working. So I busted the mean green recipe out of my head. It didn’t want to come out but after some serious cajoling and threats of imminent death it came out. It shouldn’t be so hard considering I just made it! But my early onset of sometimers aside, I got it and then I tried math. Mean green consists of:
· 1 cucumber
· 4 stalks of celery
· 2 apples
· 1 bunch of greens (I’ve been using dandelion and chard) or kale
· ½ lemon
· 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
So each time you make this recipe you get about 32 oz of liquid. The reboot calls for 16-32 oz of juice 6 times a day. So if you do the math, rather I do the math because I already did… One would need 3 cucumbers, 12 stalks of celery, 3 bunches of greens and 1 ½ lemons for a day’s worth of Mean Green. Multiply that by 2 for both of us and I’m starting to wonder how to fit that many veggies in my fridge for one day let alone a week at a time! Of course there are other juices we will make, some days we will drink more than 16 oz at once. The variants are endless! Ok well not endless but you get my drift.
Won’t you be starving, you ask? Hunger my friends, is a state of mind. I had my first drink at about 8am and by 10:15 I thought I was going to chew off a limb. Hunger pains willing me to open that drawer and eat some of those wonderful smoked almonds. Do it Zu-zu, feed us… Chew, chew, chew, swallow… oh sweet filling feeling in the pit of my stomach. But you just gotta keep on trucking! 20 minutes later I had forgotten about the hunger I was experiencing. That’s right! The hunger pangs went away. They always do you just have to wait. I’m not being starved I’m getting plenty of nutrients they’re just not dense like my fat belly would hope for. And as a reward, I got round two of juice, the last for today since I only juice once in the a.m.
That presented another small challenge that I will need to figure out. All these small things, luckily they are just small, but they add up. I have estimated that I am awake for approximately 16-17 hours of the day. I try my damndest to sleep 8 hours a night. So I’m awake 17 hours a day and have 6 juices to make up my entire day. That means that I will be drinking a bottle every 2.5-3 hours. I work a 10 hour shift 4 days a week so I’m in the office 10.5 hours on those days. So I’ll be having 5 of my 6 drinks in the office. How am I going to cart around that much juice on a daily basis? I suppose I can use a gallon sized jug and measure out my portions. Ok I can handle that. Or I can carry 5 16oz water bottles or I can pick up few more bpa free bottles that hold like 32oz. Although the gallon jug will be the cheapest and easiest method, it’s just not fashionable! Yes please laugh at me! Oh the complicated shenanigans we find ourselves in.
Am I getting scared that when the moment comes I will cave like the house of straw the first little piggy built? I really don’t think so. I’m feeling very confident in this. I have a plan and a goal and a support system and I have Mike. I especially have Mike. Through THICK or THIN, we’re gonna stick it through together. Let’s just hope for thin down the road!
Juicy Fruit is gonna move ya!
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