Back in Business

Thanks to Sandy at "New knees- the good, the bad, and the ugly!" for reminding me that I haven't posted for a while. My work crunch has subsided and it was my intention to start reposting on Monday - but it was nice to get the nudge this morning!   First, congratulations to her for reaching her 1-year anniversary.  Anyone who has had a knee replacement, or is considering one, PLEASE bookmark her site!   I, myself just had my 6-month anniversary.

I still have the tightness and swelling, but I knew going in to this that 6 months would only mark the 1/2-way point.  After reading Sandy's blog I realize that might be too over ambitious, and that indeed, six months might only be the 1/3-way point.  That's good to acknowledge, though, because it takes the edge off the disappointment.  Anyway, when going in for my check-up I decided that I was going to feel any way the doctor reacted to my progress.  In other words, although I am miserably disappointed that this is "only" how far I've come, if he's thrilled and happy about my progress I will be too.  Needless to say - he was thrilled and happy.  So I had to let a lot of my expectations and feelings go, and be grateful for being just where I am.

I have started to use the stairs at work instead of the elevator - just tackling one flight at a time up and down, step over step, several times a day.  My inclination is to hold on both sides, but now I'm holding on to just one side, and even at that, I practice not holding on at all.  That's a big deal, believe me!  I let everything else slide (the swimming and the stretching) because of that awful setback I had, but am now going to pick up on walking.  The doctor was absolutely impressed that I could walk 1 - 1.5 miles without resting.  He said to stick with just one mile for a while so as to not have another set-back.  (That old teetering on the line between what is just enough to make progress, and what is too much that will result in a setback.)

In terms of dieting - that has been going well, I am happy to report.  A chat friend and I have started Linda Spangle's "100 Days of Weight Loss" - two of my "followers" here also are doing that - and it's nice to have support with that.  It's not a diet - it's a way to help with any eating plan you are doing.  It's been quite helpful and I haven't missed a day yet (granted I'm only on day 14... lol).

So - back in the saddle!  Exercise and diet. 

Miriam

busy at work....

I am going to suspend my blog at least until Thanksgiving.  We are entering a very busy "crunch time" at work and my only free time will probably be spent vegging out when I get home, waiting for bedtime to arrive.

No worries, though - I will continue my paper journaling and look forward to sharing with you at the end of the month!

Have a great month and everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Miriam

The Morning After

No - don't worry - it's GOOD news.  For two days now I have  been following Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet and it has been SO easy.  (Flo - thank you for the recipe link.) My cravings have already begun to subside, and I feel normal again.  The "morning after" reference isn't that "hangover" mode - quite the opposite!

Last night I was laying in bed and spent close to two hours talking myself out of going to the kitchen to eat BBQ potato chips that I had bought for my guys.  The conversation went like this: One small bowl of chips won't hurt.  ... But you KNOW you won't stop at that.... Yes I will... No you won't... Okay then I will have some fruit... But you committed to Phase 1 to get rid of cravings... Okay, then I'll have potato chips.... Well it's 9PM and the kitchen is closed - that's a great rule.. But if I'm hungry I want to eat - there's no rule that says I have to go to sleep hungry...."  OMG this went back and forth for TWO hours.  But then instead of words I tried to hone in on the feelings - how I would feel in the morning if I gave in to the chips.  How I would hate myself and beat myself up and have to start all over again on day 1. 

But really, I was hungry.  So I made myself a plate of about 5 pieces of very thinly sliced deli turkey.  And this morning I feel great!  Willpower is like a muscle - when you exercise it, it gets stronger.  Maybe tonight the conversation will go on for only an hour!

Meanwhile, I had such a busy day - I started with 2 1/2 hours of teaching my belly dance class.  I was able to join the gals for part of the drills.  It felt so good to dance.  I just couldn't do the steps where I my right leg had to bear the weight.  That will still take a while.  Then I grocery shopped for at least two hours, making a detour to TJMaxx where I bought a new top and some glass Pyrex food storage containers (I'm trying to get away from plastic - it's expensive so I'm just going to get a couple of pieces at a time).  ETC.  So last night my legs (not just my knees) were just aching.  I found one prescription pill from after my surgery (stupid me threw them out because I didn't like them - but one pill escaped) and took that with TWO Advil-PMs and slept really well.  THAT coupled with not hating myself this morning feels just SO good.

I really was SO hungry the minute I woke up I grabbed a piece of chicken that was left from dinner last night!  I'll call that breakfast unless I make some eggs later.  Also having a coffee.
Lunch: Huge salad with olive oil, walnuts, and cut up chicken.
Dinner:  I am making brisket with lima beans.  I'm REALLY looking forward to that!
My new favorite evening treat (more than the Skinny Cow ice creams I've been having) is a small container of fat free Greek yogurt, walnuts and a spoon of splenda.  When I am off Phase 1 I will add 1/2 sliced banana to it.

Moral of the story:  Mornings after CAN be good!
Miriam

A scary glimpse into my truth

I had a very frightening glimpse into the truth of MY addiction.  I had written that I had some candy on Monday night, but then got rid of the rest of it.  OMG - today is the first day that the crawling-up-the-walls cravings have subsided.  I'm talking about the feeling of being a caged animal hurdling myself into the bars, with the desire to get my hands on more candy.  I went down to the office where I had put the candy and had some.  Then had THREE ice creams at night.  THEN yesterday stopped for a Wendy's hamburg and french fries (did you know Wendy's french fries are made with sugar?) on the way home AND that wasn't enough so I bought a container of hot and sour soup.  THEN I went to CVS to get more candy - I put it on the register and if it had been buy one get one (as I thought) I would have bought two full-sized candy bars.  They were buy 2, get 1, and I knew I would eat all three before getting home (and I tried to imagine how sick I would be) so I put them back and walked out.  We are also talking white bread and butter (which I haven't had for months). This wasn't a case of a nose-dive because of the "I blew it" phenomenon.  This was a deep craving that was absolutely making me scream inside.  That is addiction. 

I always gave a half-scoffing laugh at "oh I'm addicted to carbs" - but after this extremely frightening experience, I can say really and truly, I must stay away.  Not all carbs, and not all sugar all the time.  But the pure sugar experience is a path that I cannot go down again.  To rid my body of the cravings, the only thing that works is Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.  I am not "diet hopping" again, but I know this will rid my body of simple-carb cravings.  I plan to do it for the full two weeks; more if I still am dreaming of donuts and candy and white bread with butter.

On the knee front:  My brother started PT for his own knees.  He was in such agony with the exercises, that his therapist cut him back to 1 set of 12 stretches every OTHER day (instead of two sets of 12 every day).  Interesting - now that I heard this from him, I've confirmed that I was overdoing it in the stretching.  That's hard to believe because you would think that it would be the exercises other than stretching that could hurt you if you do too much.  I am looking forward to getting back on some schedule next week.  Maybe a very mild walking and stretching regime - every OTHER day!

Breakfast:   Garden Vegetable egg beaters with fat-free American cheese, sliced cucumbers

Lunch:  HUGE salad with olive oil and vinegar and sliced turkey breast, and walnuts
Snack: Chicken chunks and Trader Joe's red pepper and artichoke tapenade (no sugar)
Dinner: grilled chicken, salad, steamed green beans and broccoli
Snack: Fat Free mocha ricotta 

I am going to do some serious introspection these next two weeks and really reflect upon what happened.

Miriam

Identities...

Last night on Oprah's Life Class she ran clips from an original interview with a woman who had come home from a jog in the morning, only to find that her ex-husband had killed her four children and then himself.   Not only was she suffering the horrible grief from her loss, but she was lost herself, because her identity was that of MOTHER.  She picked a date on the calendar to end her own life, but mothers of her children's friends begged her to reconsider, as their children might follow suit because of their own grief.  Oprah had as a guest another woman who had suffered a similar tragedy yet went on, remarried and had children once again. After the show many people wrote in (and circumstances documented and validated by the production staff) that this was the day they chose for themselves but after seeing the story, they realized that they must go on and find new meaning to their lives.  Fast forward 3 years: This woman had found love, remarried and was blessed with twins.  One of the stories: One can rise from the ashes of their own lives.

I listen to books on CD during my commute and just that very morning one of the lines was: "Until you have visited a pediatric ward at a Shriner's hospital (specializing in burn treatment), you don't know that YOU have no problems."  It was interesting to me that I got a double dose of this message - both on my book and again at night on Oprah's show.  There was some residual upset over what had transpired for me last week, and right there, on the spot, I let it go.  However, that being said, I have a friend who was permanently damaged in a car accident which also killed her fiance.  One day my knees were particularly bothering me and I stopped myself from complaining in front of her.  She said to me -" My pain is my pain, and your pain is your pain.  My pain does not lessen yours."  No, but it puts it in perspective.

 The other lesson I took from last night's show was that you cannot let your past define your future.  So, relating this to dieting (in my life it seems that all roads lead to dieting!), I was thinking about the Halloween candy situation.  I did go and put it all in a shopping bag and bring it out to my car and handed it over to the keeper of the department's candy dish.  Old me?  NEVER.  Another new thing (and a NSV): I had brought salad today for lunch, but they are (now at this moment!) putting out a spread for a staff lunch.  Old me: Eat what I brought AND raid the lunch, taking more up to my office to eat in private.  New me? I ate what I brought and I'm not even going to LOOK at the spread!

Breakfast: Tried something sort of new because I am out of LC cheese, but it was too much work because of the huge hole in the bagel: Bagel pizzas:  (3)  I am going to try it again with a "deli flat" or something with no holes!  Coffee (2)
Lunch:  Salad with oil, 4 oz turkey, popcorn (7)
Snack: apple, cheese stick, almonds  (4)
Dinner: chicken cutlet (5), broccoli and beets, chard soup
Snack: yogurt, banana, walnuts (3)
Total: 24

Please - if you can catch Oprah's Life Class, I haven't been disappointed yet - even when, by the previews of a particular episode, I thought I would be!

Miriam

So much candy... so little control

I was so careful this year.  I didn't buy any candy until coming home at around 6PM.  We hardly ever have trick-or-treaters so I bought one large back of snack-sized M&Ms.  Truth be told, I would have been happy to sit in the dark with the lights out, but I didn't want to embarrass my son, who has, on occasion, bought full sized candy bars to give out. 

So I'm pulling into the driveway and there is my husband pulling in as well.  He took the night off because business was slow, and he, knowing my penchant for not buying Halloween candy, bought tons of it himself.  So here we are with about 150 pieces of candy (and good stuff, too) and only 4 kids who rang the bell. 

Sigh... about 10PM things got the better of me and I picked out a bunch of my favorites.  I figured the damage was minimal because I only ate it for about 15 minutes.  (Don't be impressed - it only took me that long to get through a dozen snack-sized various candies.)  My intention is to bring the rest to work to give to the gal who keeps a candy dish on her desk.  I should have just dumped it all in a shopping bag as I headed out the door - but I was in a rush and didn't give it too much thought until just now.  When I get home tonight I am going to put it all in the trunk of my car so it's out of the house.

On the knee front: I heard from a friend who is 10 months out from her surgery and she had the same experience that I did - she did too much, had a setback but now she's on the mend again.  She admonished me to not push my body because it will just push back.  Well put.  I'm dying to resume my walking, but this has been my first good week in almost a month, so I will see out the week without doing anything.  Maybe Monday I'll start again - but scale way back to what I had been doing.   This is a shout-out to Sandy if she's reading this (another TKR friend who had a setback): I love that you say you are "in training" for your WDW trip - that's just the way *I* feel - but YOU be careful too!

I find that I'm not connected to my tracking when I post it on the computer.  I'll still do it because I don't mind feedback if anyone thinks that changes would be "profitable" but I am going to return to paper tracking.  It's also easier to make changes as the day goes on.  What I enter here is more my INTENTION of what I plan to eat - by the time I go to bed, things may have changed (but hopefully always within Points). 

Breakfast:  WW bagel, LC cheese, coffee (6)
Lunch:  I'm done for now with my foray into sandwiches and am going to go back to putting my protein in my salad - it gives me an extra ounce, too - which is better than the Point spent on the bread:
Salad w/olive oil, 4 oz turkey breast, popcorn (7)
Snack: apple, cheese, almonds (4)
Dinner:  Chicken cutlet (5), broccoli, beets
Snack: yogurt, 1/2 banana, 1 tbs walnuts (3)
Total: 25
Notice: no candy

Have a great day and I hope not too many of you are suffering a candy hangover!

Miriam