miracles
I have decided to weigh myself every morning and night. Now, before you tell me this is an AWFUL IDEA, LORI, ARE YOU NUTS?, let me explain something.
I know how weight loss works. I know that I cannot possibly gain five, or even one, pound of fat overnight, unless I ate an entire box of Krispy Kremes or something (and for those of you who love Krispy Kremes, I am sorry, but EW to a whole box, retch vomit ralph et cetera). I need to get an idea of water weight fluctuations so I can get a better idea of what's going on in my body. I tend to get discouraged and quit when it doesn't seem like anything is getting any better, and weighing once a week doesn't do it for me. My menstrual cycles (apologies to any men reading) have become extremely touchy over the past three years or so, and I can go two and a half months, easily, without a period. I can't count on extra weight being water weight if I weigh myself only once a week, or even once a day or every few days. Morning and night will give me more clarity, and when I go to see my shrink, he weighs me on a REAL scale, so I have an idea from that, as well as seeing my regular doctor, who also weighs me on a real scale.
And y'all? There is no way I am not going to lose weight this time. I don't know how much or how fast, but seeing as how I am much more active than I have been since I was a teenager, coupled with the fact that this ADD medicine makes food and eating practically repellent (seriously. I could not possibly care less about eating right now. Gag)? It is a sure thing. There's no way it's not going to work. I am active, doing things and WANTING to do things, and I'm eating so much less it's amazing. NOTHING sounds good. I eat when I cannot stand being hungry for one more second, and when I'm not hungry anymore I can stop! Miracles!
Day before yesterday, I went to Michaels to buy canvases. I was already starving, I had just gotten out of therapy and it was a really good session, and I felt like rewarding myself. Also, Kath has been selling things on ebay and making really good profits, and I thought, I can paint and give the paintings to her to sell, and give her a cut. I decided to make the Nikon D50 (and all the extra stuff to go with it) my six-month reward, and frankly, the only way I am going to be able to afford it is to make more money or put it on my credit card, which I do not want to do. (Same with the new laptop I want.) And I want to paint. I want to make art. I NEED to make art. I am so rusty! I do not like the painting I did for Katherine's Christmas present, of the hibiscus. I'm glad she likes it, I really am, but it was my first attempt after about a three-year hiatus, and it showed. Bleh. Anyway, digressing. After I spent a good seventy bucks at Michaels (by the way, does anyone know what mylar paper is? I know mylar is what those fancy balloons are made out of, but while I was looking at canvases, a mother came up to me with her approximately 10-year-old daughter and asked me if I knew where she could find it. She said she'd asked a couple of Michaels employees and they'd never heard of it either), I went to Schlotzsky's, which is right there in the same strip mall, and got a small original, sour cream and onion chips, and what was supposed to be a diet coke, but the kid at the window forgot the drink and when I knocked on the window because he was studiously ignoring me, he was all "whoops!" and got it real fast and handed it to me through the window, stammering, "A coke, right? I'm sorry, I forgot" and there was a line of cars behind me and I was all "that's okay, no problem" but it WAS a problem because it was a REAL COKE, with SUGAR, and I don't drink those. Can't drink those, since I'm borderline diabetic--plus they are way too sweet for me. I am all about aspartame. (And yes, I know that potato chips turn straight to sugar, thank you, as well as the white bread in the sandwich, but that's food, and I was ordered by my doctor not to drink my calories, so neener.) Anyway, I ate the sandwich, which was delicious even if I was eating the intellectual equivalent of a three year old child, Katherine, you vegetarian, you, and I started on the chips, wolfing them down and barely even tasting them.
Here's the good part. Let us remember that I? Am a food addict.
About a third of the way through the bag, I thought to myself, I thought, Self, are you really still hungry or are you eating these because they are here and you've already paid for them? You are not drinking the sugary Coke, because of the non-dietness of it, even though you paid for it and are thirsty. Are you hungry? Are you really?
I put the chips back in the bag, and I thought about them on the way home. (Any addict will understand what I'm about to say; just replace my potato chips with the object of your addiction and you'll get it.) I thought about how to keep myself from eating them later. I thought, well, I will just leave them in the bag and throw them in the garage trash can when I get home. Then I thought, it is very possible that I will get up tomorrow and think about them and get them out of the trash can (ADDICT).
So what to do?
There are many ways one can make food unpalatable. I already salt my food way too much, but even I have a salt limit, so I could salt them so much they are inedible. I could pour diswashing liquid all over them in the trash can, but my mother tends to freak out over wasting things, so I certainly don't want to waste her dishwashing soap. And then, I thought, I live in a tiny little hamlet with lots of wild animals. I will just empty the bag out on the ground when I pour out the Coke.
And so I did.
What's really interesting here is that the longer I'm on the Adderall, the less I want to eat. I was disappointed at first, because it really didn't seem to make much of a difference, but it's gotten to the point where I will stop in the middle of something I'm eating because I am struck out of the blue with nausea at the thought of eating another bite of it.
I cleaned out my car the other day, vacuumed and everything. Today I'm going to take out the front floormats and scrub them. Last night I cleaned out the closet in my bedroom, which used to be my brother's, and took out three tons of clothes that haven't seen the light of day since he graduated from high school in 1996. I put my bookshelf in the closet and freed up some more space in the actual room. I'm keeping medical receipts this year so I can write them off on my taxes for next year, and so far, that's organized. God, I am finally getting my shit straight. I got rid of a bunch more of my clothes, too--teaching clothes that I would wear again only if hell froze over as monkeys simultaneously flew out of my butt. Kath gave me an awesome hatbox for Christmas that she had decoupaged all by her damn self especially for me, and I'm now using it as a keepsake box for things that I never, ever want to lose and would be horribly sad if I did. I put it with my other keepsake box that is filled to the damn brim with my high school diary.
All this must be terribly interesting to y'all. For me, it's miracles. A bunch of miracles that I'm finally getting to live instead of just exist through. The way I feel now is pretty much 180° away from the way I felt 8 months ago during my suicidal episode.
It's amazing, this wanting-to-live thing. Miracles.
I know how weight loss works. I know that I cannot possibly gain five, or even one, pound of fat overnight, unless I ate an entire box of Krispy Kremes or something (and for those of you who love Krispy Kremes, I am sorry, but EW to a whole box, retch vomit ralph et cetera). I need to get an idea of water weight fluctuations so I can get a better idea of what's going on in my body. I tend to get discouraged and quit when it doesn't seem like anything is getting any better, and weighing once a week doesn't do it for me. My menstrual cycles (apologies to any men reading) have become extremely touchy over the past three years or so, and I can go two and a half months, easily, without a period. I can't count on extra weight being water weight if I weigh myself only once a week, or even once a day or every few days. Morning and night will give me more clarity, and when I go to see my shrink, he weighs me on a REAL scale, so I have an idea from that, as well as seeing my regular doctor, who also weighs me on a real scale.
And y'all? There is no way I am not going to lose weight this time. I don't know how much or how fast, but seeing as how I am much more active than I have been since I was a teenager, coupled with the fact that this ADD medicine makes food and eating practically repellent (seriously. I could not possibly care less about eating right now. Gag)? It is a sure thing. There's no way it's not going to work. I am active, doing things and WANTING to do things, and I'm eating so much less it's amazing. NOTHING sounds good. I eat when I cannot stand being hungry for one more second, and when I'm not hungry anymore I can stop! Miracles!
Day before yesterday, I went to Michaels to buy canvases. I was already starving, I had just gotten out of therapy and it was a really good session, and I felt like rewarding myself. Also, Kath has been selling things on ebay and making really good profits, and I thought, I can paint and give the paintings to her to sell, and give her a cut. I decided to make the Nikon D50 (and all the extra stuff to go with it) my six-month reward, and frankly, the only way I am going to be able to afford it is to make more money or put it on my credit card, which I do not want to do. (Same with the new laptop I want.) And I want to paint. I want to make art. I NEED to make art. I am so rusty! I do not like the painting I did for Katherine's Christmas present, of the hibiscus. I'm glad she likes it, I really am, but it was my first attempt after about a three-year hiatus, and it showed. Bleh. Anyway, digressing. After I spent a good seventy bucks at Michaels (by the way, does anyone know what mylar paper is? I know mylar is what those fancy balloons are made out of, but while I was looking at canvases, a mother came up to me with her approximately 10-year-old daughter and asked me if I knew where she could find it. She said she'd asked a couple of Michaels employees and they'd never heard of it either), I went to Schlotzsky's, which is right there in the same strip mall, and got a small original, sour cream and onion chips, and what was supposed to be a diet coke, but the kid at the window forgot the drink and when I knocked on the window because he was studiously ignoring me, he was all "whoops!" and got it real fast and handed it to me through the window, stammering, "A coke, right? I'm sorry, I forgot" and there was a line of cars behind me and I was all "that's okay, no problem" but it WAS a problem because it was a REAL COKE, with SUGAR, and I don't drink those. Can't drink those, since I'm borderline diabetic--plus they are way too sweet for me. I am all about aspartame. (And yes, I know that potato chips turn straight to sugar, thank you, as well as the white bread in the sandwich, but that's food, and I was ordered by my doctor not to drink my calories, so neener.) Anyway, I ate the sandwich, which was delicious even if I was eating the intellectual equivalent of a three year old child, Katherine, you vegetarian, you, and I started on the chips, wolfing them down and barely even tasting them.
Here's the good part. Let us remember that I? Am a food addict.
About a third of the way through the bag, I thought to myself, I thought, Self, are you really still hungry or are you eating these because they are here and you've already paid for them? You are not drinking the sugary Coke, because of the non-dietness of it, even though you paid for it and are thirsty. Are you hungry? Are you really?
I put the chips back in the bag, and I thought about them on the way home. (Any addict will understand what I'm about to say; just replace my potato chips with the object of your addiction and you'll get it.) I thought about how to keep myself from eating them later. I thought, well, I will just leave them in the bag and throw them in the garage trash can when I get home. Then I thought, it is very possible that I will get up tomorrow and think about them and get them out of the trash can (ADDICT).
So what to do?
There are many ways one can make food unpalatable. I already salt my food way too much, but even I have a salt limit, so I could salt them so much they are inedible. I could pour diswashing liquid all over them in the trash can, but my mother tends to freak out over wasting things, so I certainly don't want to waste her dishwashing soap. And then, I thought, I live in a tiny little hamlet with lots of wild animals. I will just empty the bag out on the ground when I pour out the Coke.
And so I did.
What's really interesting here is that the longer I'm on the Adderall, the less I want to eat. I was disappointed at first, because it really didn't seem to make much of a difference, but it's gotten to the point where I will stop in the middle of something I'm eating because I am struck out of the blue with nausea at the thought of eating another bite of it.
I cleaned out my car the other day, vacuumed and everything. Today I'm going to take out the front floormats and scrub them. Last night I cleaned out the closet in my bedroom, which used to be my brother's, and took out three tons of clothes that haven't seen the light of day since he graduated from high school in 1996. I put my bookshelf in the closet and freed up some more space in the actual room. I'm keeping medical receipts this year so I can write them off on my taxes for next year, and so far, that's organized. God, I am finally getting my shit straight. I got rid of a bunch more of my clothes, too--teaching clothes that I would wear again only if hell froze over as monkeys simultaneously flew out of my butt. Kath gave me an awesome hatbox for Christmas that she had decoupaged all by her damn self especially for me, and I'm now using it as a keepsake box for things that I never, ever want to lose and would be horribly sad if I did. I put it with my other keepsake box that is filled to the damn brim with my high school diary.
All this must be terribly interesting to y'all. For me, it's miracles. A bunch of miracles that I'm finally getting to live instead of just exist through. The way I feel now is pretty much 180° away from the way I felt 8 months ago during my suicidal episode.
It's amazing, this wanting-to-live thing. Miracles.
posted by Lori at
2:42 PM
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