26 days of hCG

Last week after 26 days of hCG, I decided it was time to quit and start the maintenance of mostly lean meats/fish, and fruits and vegetables.  I am not very hungry, but I am well aware of how easily the weight can come back.  My plan is to maintain until December 25, 26, when I will start again.  My doctor and I are pleased that my health is much improved.  I have lost 19 pounds, which is a good start.  Even better is that my blood pressure is improved, and my digestion is better.  I'm not out of breath with the slightest exertion.  And I'm sleeping, probably more because of taking melatonin as per my new doctor. 

Now I know, for me, what the pros and cons are of the hCG protocol.  The difficult parts, but doable, for me were 1) not a drop of oil in diet or life.  No make-up except for Bare Minerals or one of the similar ones 2) no lotions...just a little baby oil.  That was interesting.  Baby oil doesn't make skin feel one bit better. 3) no manicures/pedicures or hair coloring.  None of that was a hardship for me until last week, when I was tired of it all.   I am thankful that I did it and glad that I am started on this weight loss journey.  I was still losing weight when I stopped, but my body knew when it was best to stop.  

hCG report - October 30

hCG check-in: 
October 10 - 199.98
October 18 - 189.64
October 30 - 182.82

Total Loss - 17.16
     This is the most positive that I have felt in months.  I am rather sedentary, although I intend daily to start treadmill walking.  It will happen by the time I go on maintenance on November 18.   I'm free of food cravings and am rarely hungry.  If I awaken during the night I will feel hungry, but that has been my pattern for a long time...the night bingeing.  I'm able to avoid that, and I am not asking my husband to chain and lock the garage freezer.   That is a major celebration.  I have a great picture of the chained and locked freezer, but it's on Harry Patootie Laptop.  Presently I'm limping along with poor little elderly Daisy Dell.  She has been on life-support for a year.  She is a trooper and deserves more appreciation than she receives.  I would not want to leave the impression that hCG has turned me into a sweet old lady.  My capacity for patience is being stretched.   

Update on Near-Drowning of Toddler

Reported by Miss Skinny-Minny-Sleeveless-Dress Reporter from Lox News AP
     Late on the evening of Saturday, October 23, Harry Patootie Laptop was taken to Best Buy Memorial Hospital.  He is reported to have complications from the accident suffered earlier in the week.  The mother, Miss Jenny, was incoherent, but Mr. Jenny said that the baby would remain at BB Memorial in the ICU unit until he is stabilized.  The staff at the hospital said that Harry Patootie will be air-lifted to a larger facility on Monday.  The spokesman refused to disclose the location.  It is possible that the child will require organ transplants.  If organs are not available immediately, it could be weeks before Miss Jenny is reunited with her child.  She was heard muttering that the doctors at BB looked more like geeks than real doctors. 

hCG - Day 14

I keep thinking this hCG is going to be a dream, and it won't work for me.  This morning my total loss since October 10 is 14 pounds.  I've lost the last 10 pounds that happened after June when I had the digestive problems.  Now I'm 4 pounds into the weight I gained in February when my body went into shock from going off pain meds cold turkey.  Then the 10 pounds gained after the first of the year when our things were in storage, and we were living with our daughter until we could find a house.  At 170 was when I was wanting to throw myself on the floor, kicking and screaming, over my weight.  Things can change quickly.  There seems to be a one-to-one ratio between extreme stress and my weight gain.  I don't suppose that is a brilliant deduction, but I do need to keep it in my consciousness.

Near-Drowing Accident

Reported by Miss Skinny-Minny-Sleeveless-Dress Reporter from Lox News  AP

     In the early morning hours there was a near drowning at the home of Miss Jenny. She reports that she drifted to sleep in her recliner, holding her baby, Harry Patootie Laptop. She jerked awake when her large glass of water spilled all over her jammies and Harry Patootie’s keyboard.
     Mr. Jenny complained that he was rudely awakened by Miss Jenny yelling that she had just drowned Harry Patootie. Miss Jenny is credited with fast thinking and quick CPR on little year-old toddler, H.P. Laptop. She says that she flipped him over, and water ran out of all of his orifices. She gave him up for dead when she heard terrible sizzling noises coming from his poor little body and his face turned black.  A little later, Miss Jenny found a big, fluffy bath towel and lay Harry Patootie over on her best wool rug, with his body, face down, resting on the towel.
     Miss Jenny grieved greatly, weeping into her pillow, knowing that she would have to plan a funeral. It did not relieve her spirits to know that there was a $300 life insurance policy on little Harry P. She says she googled similar drowning accidents, and the reports were grim.
     At 8:30 a.m., Monday, Miss Jenny’s son insisted on plugging little Harry Patootie’s body into his life source. There was much rejoicing when, without coughing or sputtering, the toddler awoke, singing. Miss Jenny and her family agree that a real miracle happened this morning. When the Lox reporter left the home, Miss Jenny was sitting in her recliner, tears rolling down her face, cradling little Harry Patootie Laptop.

Day 9, hCG

Day 9, 10/18, Monday 189.64 (-1.32)

I’ve now lost -10.64. This from the girl who couldn’t lose weight. Every day I feel better with more energy. How strange. Today I was shocked when I realized that I haven’t taken Prevacid or had acid reflux since last Tuesday! I’ve acid reflux since chemo in 1996. Also my blood pressure is lower than in several years. I didn’t intend to report my weight today, but I have to share it. This morning I started watching more YouTube videos about the hCG protocol. So far I have read of no person who didn’t lose weight on hCG, and there’s been nothing I can find about anyone who has had a bad reaction. There are times of some aches and pains, but it’s when my body is releasing toxins. 

One week on hCG

Day 8, 10/17
I have lost -1.1 pound since yesterday.  After a week on hCG I have lost 9 pounds.  I don't have the digestive distress that has been my constant companion for so many months.  The foods I eat are right in line with an anti-inflammatory diet.  There is no hunger, and I have lost my cravings.  The night raids on the fridge and freezer are in my past.  My husband is happy not to have to pad lock the freezer every night!   I have very little fluid retention.  The only bad thing for me is the regret that I didn't do this a lot sooner.  But what a difference a week has made!

First Week on hCG Diet

This is what happened my first week on hCG.


Day 1, October 10, 2010, Sunday 199.98
Gorge Day. I didn’t eat nearly as much as I intended, because I was so distended and miserable. I couldn’t continue with gorging. Boo hoo…I couldn’t eat the 6-pack of Snickers, doughnuts, cheesecake, avocadoes, sour cream, Blue Bell ice cream, and Mexican food. I decided tomorrow to be miserably hungry and not miserable from stuffing my face and gut.

Day 2, 10/11/ Monday 199.1 ( -.88 lb)
I started my low cal eating today. Heartburn today. Hoping with only 500 calories a day, my digestion will improve. On the bright side, I have felt better with more energy today than in a very long time. I’m not talking running around the block…just getting out of bed, making my bed, cleaning up a bit. A cup of Peppermint tea took away the heart burn.

Day 3, 10/12, Tuesday, 196.45 (-2.65)
A loss of -3.56 since starting. I was retaining a lot of fluid on Day 1. Ankles and feet were very swollen. It's better today, but I'm still retaining fluid. Digestion is better. I'm still enjoying the euphoria that is mentioned in the literature about hCG.
Day 4, 10/13, Wednesday, 193.38 (-3.08)
Happy about the weight loss. No sense of euphoria today. After shot (every morning at 8 a.m.) I was headachy, a little depressed, not much energy. My doctor explained that these times will happen. Not uncommon for a person like me who has an a lot of illness and medications, and especially the chemo and Boniva. Those toxins live on in our fat cells... Fluid retention is much improved. Toward evening I felt better with no pain and more energy. The best news is that after all this time (since June) I don't have indigestion, heart burn, and my gut isn't distended as it has been. I can feel under my ribcage! I am SO thankful that I found this hCG!

Day 5, 10/14, Thursday, 192.5
Neck is stiff again, and I'm headachy. I should mention that I've suffered from a severe neck injury at age 19, so pain in my neck is the first place problems will show up for me. I am now sleeping! My new doctor told me to take melatonin to my tolerance...when I could sleep through the night. I'm taking 5 pills, which he says is fine, and it's unbelievable to finally sleep. I'm so thankful! I was out and about this afternoon, for the 1st time all week. I have to wear Bare Minerals, as make-up with oil isn't allowed on the diet. It's tedious to apply, but I lived through it. It's never suited my need for very little time spent on putting on make-up. Maybe I'll get faster during the 40 days.

Day 6, 10/15, Friday, 192.28
A tad more energy. I don't mind the very low cal food. I spread some of my lunch and dinner over several hours. I'm not at all hungry. The gut pain has completely passed. Thank you, Lord! I will get a little gassy when I eat, but it passes as I'm eating so little. My body is burning and using 2000+ pure fat calories to live. This is amazing. I did a lot of research on the internet, but the best information is from the downloadable, free book, Pounds and Inches, by Dr. Simeon, who developed the diet in the 1950's. My doctor had me buy HCG Weight Loss Cure Guide, A Supplemental Guide to Dr. Simeons' Pounds and Inches, Supporting All Types of HCG, Practitioner Guided. By Linda Prinster. There are many places where a person can buy the drops or shots and do the diet without the help of a doctor. I don't happen to know anyone who has been successful doing this on their own. I was afraid it would be very expensive. My insurance pays for my doctor appointments and blood work, and he gave me a prescription for the hCG for the shots. It cost me $160 for a 40-day supply. So I consider this the deal of my lifetime, after one week. I wish I had posted this daily, and then it wouldn't have been so long. But I wasn't at all certain that I would be this happy with the results. The hormone helps the hypothalmus to kick in. The science behind hCG is explained in the literature and online much better than I could do.

Day 7, 10/16, Saturday 192.06
No fluid retention. No hunger. Loss for the week is -7.92. Almost 8 pounds. My doctor said that when I go back for my next appointment on the 22nd I will have probably lost at least 10 pounds. What a difference a week has made in my life!

The website in my entry below...

Clarificatiion:  When I read my post, I didn't think it looked apparent that "Few Minute Wonders: Quinoa Salad Made Indian Style" is a clickable website.  Otherwise, what I wrote wouldn't be understandable without going to the website.

Few Minute Wonders: Quinoa Salad Made Indian Style

Few Minute Wonders: Quinoa Salad Made Indian Style

This site is a good description and history of quinoa and also a good recipe.

Kelly's post about quinoa (keen-wah)  reminded me of how much I've learned to like it in the last year, but how I need to find good recipes.  My California nutritionist, Rose Cole, recommended that I use quinoa.  BTW, she has an excellent website, http://www.RoseCole.com. She is an excellent nutritionist and is the one who saved me after the destruction to my digestive tract by Boniva.   She especially liked the red quinoa, so that is all I've bought so far.  It was difficult for me to find, and I ended up buying it on Amazon.  Now that I'm in the Dallas area, I am hoping I can buy it locally.  It is chock full of wonderful nutrients and is high in protein.  It's interesting to me that it is an antique seed that was grown by native Americans, and it's now grown in South America. 

My favorite way to eat quinoa is as a chilled salad.  I add chopped tomoatoes, onions, and a little olive oil.  Sometimes a little lemon or lime juice...sometimes not.  I'm a very basic girl when it comes to food preparation.  The salad in the website has more ingredients, but I can't believe it would be better than my basic dish.  I have failed miserably at any other way to eat quinoa.  It's flat and bland, if I try to eat it plain like rice.

I'm Back...Really I'm Back

On October 11, deep in the night,  I wrote a pathetic entry in the way I sometimes write my entries.  I wrote it on a Word document so that I could read it when I wasn't so upset.  I've just read it and am glad that it wasn't put out to live forever on the internet.  To summarize, that day I had the most demoralizing day in my memory.  On my scale I weighed 199.98.  That's the highest I've ever weighed.  And even worse, it was 19 pounds up from my weight in July. I understand that the gain was caused by the extreme problems I've had with my digestion, but it still feels that I've been bad.

 That day my lean, handsome husband was in Wal-mart, shopping for the week.  I can't even drag myself to Wal-mart.  For months I have felt so exhausted.  Almost everything I have eaten since June has made me extremely bloated.  My comfortable uniform for several years  is an XL men's denim shirt.  I would be embarrassed to count how many I own.  I buy decorated denims from my favorite little ebay seller.   For one year, I wore size L.  Then I had to go up a size.  In the last few weeks my XL wouldn't accomodate my tummy when I sat down.  On the 11th, I was beyond misrable.  I called my husband while he was shopping at Wal-mart and asked him to buy me an XXL men's denim shirt.  That, added to the new numbers on the scale, sent me into a tailspin.

The next thing that I explained in detail on that Word document was my journey for the last 2 months in deciding to do the hCG diet. I'm not going to rehearse that tonight.   I had to wait a month for an appointment with the doctor.  The first good news is that I finally found a doctor in this city that I love!  He listened, and he gave me some common sense answers to the digestion problems that have plagued me.  I wanted to start the diet the next day, but he insisted on a large battery of blood tests first.  I waited 2 weeks for the result.  Nothing was too bad (no cholesterol as I wasn't fasting) except for the news that one kidney is damaged and is only working at about 50% capacity.  I agreed with the doctor that it has been caused by the last 2 years of uncontrolled high blood pressure.  As I've mentioned, I have bad side effects to all the high blood pressure meds that I've tried, except for 2.  To be able to live, I must lose the weight.  I started the diet last Sunday, Oct. 10th.  This is Day 5, and I am pleased with my results so far.  I will report in my next entry about how that's going for me.     

Easy Great Veggies

I read so many impressive blogs of great, creative cooks who write their wonderful recipes and take the time to post pictures of their creations.  Someone was thinking of me when she said, "I only have a kitchen because it came with the house."  I think my little band of followers are all good cooks, which makes me a little embarrassed to even think about posting a recipe.  But here it is:   

I wish I could be one of those people who love veggies.  They are so beautiful.  I do love my veggies Barefoot Contessa style.  It works for just about any vegetable you like.  I cut them in bite-sized pieces, place on a cookie sheet and drizzle or spritz with a little olive oil.  Season with your favorite herbs and spices.  I'm such a minimalist when it comes to the kitchen that I usually rely on salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and toss with my hands.  Roast them at 425 degrees for about 20 or 25 minutes (give or take). 

Little Man Meets Baby Doll

I wanted to share this wonderful sequence of pictures of our Little Man.  This was the first time he had ever seen a baby doll.  When I need to smile, these pictures always do it for me.

#1


Whooaa! Now what do I do?

#2

Hmmm.

#3

Yer sorta' cute!

#4

Who ARE you??

#5

Cat got yer tongue??

#6

Somene to play with! And she's little'ern me!

Memories

I love reading blogs. It's fun to get to peek into other people's lives.  It feels like having permission to be a fly on their wall .   Everytime I read a post, it makes me think of something I want to say.  You know...more than a comment.  Maybe I've lived so long that everything in every place reminds me of a moment.  Kelly, of Kelly's Thoughts & Ramblings, often does that to me.  Today I read a post of hers with a picture of a scorpion.  They always give me the heebie jeebies.  And there went my mind into memories of long ago.  My first encounter with one of the boogers was when I was 16.  We had just moved into a new house.  On the first night in my new bedroom when I climbed between my sheets, I thought I had been stabbed by a needle.  I jumped up, turned on the light, threw back the covers...and screamed.  My mother came running, and tried to calm hysterical me.  It wasn't working.  In  her wisdom, which rarely failed,  she got out the World Book so that we could read about scorpions.  I never thought to ask her, but I assume she was looking for something to show me that people do not die from scopion stings.  She read, I sobbed.  I was SUCH a hypochondriac.  I'll never forget the last sentence:  "Scorpion stings are rarely deadly."   That obviously meant that some of the time, some people died.  My mother stayed up the rest of the night with me.  I didn't want to be alone in case I died. 

My next visit from a scorpion was 8 years later when I was the mother of an infant.  I stepped on one that time.  It stung me, and I had another crying fit, but no mother to comfort me. My "then" husband probably had his head in a Greek book.  I don't remember that he gave me any comfort.   Sometime during those 8 years, I had read that bleach applied to a scorpion sting helps greatly.  I splashed bleach all over myself and the floor, hopping on one foot and screaming.  The pain went away quickly.  My next memory is of drying off the bleach, and rocking my little baby girl.  Someone was already more important to me than myself. 

Me and My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

The good thing about today is that it reminds me of one of my most favorite books , Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Oh, I know. It could be worse. Mercy! I know it could be worse, because there were two days in the past decade when my parents died. That was so bad that it scares me to say this is a bad day.  One thing that makes today so bad is that I can't call either one of my parents to whine.. they would have listened as long as I wanted to whine. When I wrung myself dry of words and tears, my mother would say all of the right things, and my daddy would have a solution. Well, I did get to hear Michael Grimm a few minutes ago sing When a Man Loves a Woman on the finals of America's Got Talent. Be still my heart!  Love the song, love the guy. As I typed, I was thinking how happy I was that I didn't forget tonight was the finals and that I remembered to record it. Next to sing is the darling Jackie Evancho, whom I've watched and loved on YouTube for as long as she's been on it. You know what is happening? A silent screen and the loathsome words "searching for signal on Satellite.." Sure enough there is a gentle soft rain...which is a good thing. Most of the time.  But I didn't hear Jackie sing.  I intended to tell about my day, but rehearsing it would surely be an agony, and although it's not a call to my parents, it feels good to have had my Whine du Jour.

Alert! Freezer Taken Into Custody! Armed and Dangerous!

It's serious!   Miss Jenny's GE freezer has been arrested because of it's  unlawful content!  At the time of arrest it was considered to be armed and dangerous.  There was a stash of 8 large cartons of Blue Bell Ice Cream.  Blue Bell and Ben and Jerry's are two brands that are expected to be banned by Michelle Obama's White House task force.  After that goes into effect, Miss Jenny's offense will be a felony offense.

 Both Jenny and the freezer were  cited  and taken into custody. 

While unlocked during the night of September 12, 2010, there was a situation of illegal entry.  An "older" (ahem) lady, after violating her parole from prior convictions was discovered after a Breaking and Entry into the freezer.

After alledgedly taking Ambien CR, (the suspect stated that she is a "sleep binger" when taking the drug,)  Miss Jenny is believed to have gone to sleep at the wheel, crashed her late model recliner wrapping it around an end table, which caused a full bowl of melted Rocky Road ice cream to  slip through the foot rest of her recliner and land on the wood floor. 

She says the noise awoke her and her husband   But first he called  911 for disturbance of his peace.  He had no other comments, even after Miss Jenny yelled at him that it was his fault for buying the ice cream.  The distraught woman was then cited for domestic abuse.  Miss Jenny has been ordered to wear her BodyBugg, a calories monitoring system. 

 There seemed to have been an attempt to hide evidence.  Diet Detective Skinny Minnie told Lox News that she found a pair of pajamas soaking in the bathroom, stained with what appears to be chocolate, with miniature marshmallows floating in the water. The evidence will be turned over to the Nurtrition Czar in Washington D.C.

The perp had a blood sugar level of 600. She claims that she was not aware of filling a cereal bowl with Rocky Road. She refused to admit that she had eaten 2 other bowls of ice cream earlier in the night.


The Diet Detective told Mr Jenny to chain and lock the freezer, as a condition  of bail.  The two perps were remanded into his custody.  Miss Jenny could be heard grumbling that it was like the fox guarding the hen house. 

After exiting the Michelle Obama Shame on You Courthouse,  Miss Jenny could be heard screaming that she didn't even LIKE Blue Bell's Groom's Cake Ice Cream.  She was seen sticking her tongue out at a large group of Next Top Models and Marie Osmond  who were also exiting the new 10 billion dollar court house.  This is the same court house that has been the subject of much pride and also criticism from  Lox News, as it is said to have created 15 new jobs besides giving law enforcement an upscale place to bring good role models to the obese of the USA.  There are 14 job openings for Size 2 Female Guards.  The First Lady would like to see these jobs filled ASAP.

The skinny women, subjected to the tacky and tasteless taunts of Miss Jenny, had earlier received the Michelle Obama Gold Medals of Honor for being skinny with 2% body fat. 

Is this tacky behavior of Miss Jenny's  what we can expect in the next 35 years from Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton?

On Being a Perfectionist

Last night, I was digging in amazon.com, looking for lists of free Kindle books. I found a list of the top 100 free Kindle books. I was surprised to find a free book, Overcoming Perfectionism: the Key to a Balanced Recovery by Ann W. Smith. That was a jolt to me, and I can’t get it out of my mind.


Is being a perfectionist considered something “wrong”? Is it something we should fix? I think it is not learned behavior or environmental. My brother is the classic example of a slob. He is certainly the opposite of a perfectionist. I’m a classic example of a perfectionist, and we were reared in the same home, same environment. Neither of us has ever wanted to be like the other.

I do understand the importance of doing things in moderation and not becoming obsessive. I have been thinking about the problems of being a perfectionist when I felt I wanted to stop this blog. In my mind it was going to be a joyous celebration of my success losing weight. I saw it as a journey that would be downhill all the way to the finish line of 124 pounds. Maybe I would stumble over a few little holes in the road, and some days it might be a tad uphill. I never imagined a MOUNTAIN.  A crisis the first week and certainly not one that took the whole summer to live through. I do believe I’m on the other side of the crisis, but I am feeling mighty bruised and bloody. It’s taking me awhile to find my way back to getting on a diet/exercise wagon.  I did work through my little tantrum about closing down my blog. Why would I think that I needed even less to write and vent about my life when things were going very wrong or at least rocky? So I think I’ve dusted myself off, and I see that it was wrong thinking. I need to do this and keep finding ways to be successful and achieve my goals.

Being a perfectionist is the way I am. I don’t want to change that. I wouldn’t consider changing from being a girl. Or a mother. Wife. Christian. Friend. Why would I want to change and be a slob like my brother? Then I would have candy wrappers, Little Debbie wrappers, Golden Arch sacks and packing…maybe some old French fries from the week before, littering up my car. And I Would.Not.Care!!! He surely wouldn’t want to be like me. My brother is happy. Being disheveled, untidy and messy just doesn’t cause a blip on his screen. He is a good and kind man, and people love him. He doesn’t want to change that.  By the way, I adore him just the way he is.  But again...I don't want to be him.

It occurred to me that the term slob is offensive, but I couldn’t think of a nice term for the opposite of perfectionist. I went searching and found one word in Wiki answers: under achiever. I suppose that is kinder, but I spent my teaching career working with under achievers, children who weren’t working up to their potential.

I can understand why the book is selling for $0.00. I do not know a perfectionist who is trying to be a slob or an under achiever. The thesaurus gives these words for a perfectionist: stickler, purist, somebody who likes to do things properly, obsessive, thorough person, and uncompromising worker. Except for obsessive, that looks like a list of admirable attributes. There are those great reality TV shows about “The Messiest House in the Country” and “Hoarders.” I don’t think there will be much call for shows about perfectionists. I would like to hear what other people think about being or not being a perfectionist.

Blog picture of deer

I get a happy feeling between my arms when I see my blog picture.  Not the one of me.  The one at the top with the deer.  I couldn't believe when one of my dearest friends from Troy, Michigan, sent that in an e-mail to show me what she sees when she looks into her back yard.  I'll tell you...for a girl who lived in west Texas at the time, I was awestruck.  I used it on my blog, but then I wrote and asked her permission, which she granted so graciously.  The bad thing, I haven't invited her to read my blog.  I could have lots of followers if I invited all of my friends and family to read my blog.  That would be such a loss of privacy to me.  For my Michigan friend, I'll probably invite her one day.  We refer to ourselves as "sisters" and sometimes "sister/friends."  We forget that we've never met in person.  Health issues are the only things so far that has kept one of us from flying to see the other.  In 2004 I first dipped my toe into the ebay waters.  hahaha...now I swim in there with the sharks!  My friend was one of my first sellers.  She always has great buys on Coach handbags as she is also a Coach fiend.  I never have to worry is one is fake.  She is downsizing and has an endless supply of beautiful things that she has collected since the 50's.  After 6 years, I have treasures in every room that came from her collections.  But the best treasure is that I have a sister in Michigan who loves me as much as any blood sister.  I have enormous blessings from God that He heaps upon me daily.  It's amazing to realize the huge blessings I receive through the internet!  Case in point...my little band of followers on my blog!

I LOVE quotes!

My blog is still not pretty, and I don't have a thing to say about losing weight.  Now I'm "following" my own self which is embarrassing.  I was trying to send a message to Sam, and in the process I clicked something that caused me to follow my own blog.  Sure enough, there's my picture.   Sam wrote a lovely comment which caused me to cry a bit.  And Kelly is my lifter-upper as is Sandy who even sent me a comment from somewhere in the states where they are traveling.

I've stayed up much too late mostly digging through Amazon looking for free books for my Kindle.  Before I shut down my computer, I was looking at my cluttered desktop and reading some of my cyber stickies.  I love cyber stickies too!  I lose the real ones.  One of my new, favorite quotes was right there in my face.  I suddenly realized that it fits right in with the moaning that I am doing about losing/gaining weight.  It's so good I wanted to get it on my blog.  Well, I suppose I do have something to say about losing weight:

Because a thing seems difficult

for you,

do not think it impossible.

            

                     --Marcus Aurelius

 

I am a kind girl, only not to ME!

I read a good passage in the new book I’m reading, Beautiful Lies, by Lisa Unger. She had just met the new guy in her apartment building and was very attracted to him. She was most attracted to him because of his kindness and that surprised her. I liked the passage so much that I underlined it. During the day I kept thinking about how being kind makes people attractive and memorable. That’s the best sort of reading, isn’t it? When it bumps into us and causes us to expand our thinking.


I have thought about how kindness from another has changed my life. And how it’s one of the characteristics a person has or doesn’t have that makes me remember them after they are gone. Gone, either from my life, or from losing them in death. Meanness in people can make them just as memorable. Memories of my daddy always seem to be centered in some kindness he did me or someone else. He was so graced with kindness…in every word, look and deed.

I’ve not spent much time being kind to me. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. It is a trait that comes easily for me with other people. But why do I find being kind to me is such a chore?  I’ve certainly not been kind to me since June when I could not stay on my diet, losing weight. I have no patience, no love for the person I have been in the last three months. I’ve been so disappointed that I haven’t wanted to post to my shiny new blog, because I had the notion that it was going to be all about how successful I was. How skinny I was becoming. It didn’t turn out that way, so far. Never would I treat another person with the disgust and disappointment I have felt toward myself. I haven’t solved it, but I have evolved enough to consider it.  I've fallen, and I need to pick myself up.

Here are scriptures I like:

Ephesians 4:32

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

I Corinthians 13:4

“Love is patient, love is kind,…..”

Here’s that passage I like so much from Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger:


“I’ll tell you something about myself. I can get my head turned by a good-looking guy as much as the next girl. But sexy doesn’t impress me; strength of character impresses me. But most of all I’m impressed by kindness. Kindness, I think, comes from learning hard lessons well, from falling and picking yourself up. It comes from surviving failure and loss. It implies an understanding of the human condition, forgives its many flaws and quirks. When I see that in someone, it fills me with admiration. I saw it in him. His eyes, a deep brown, almost black, heavily lidded with dark lashes, made me want to confess all my sins and secrets and do penance in his arms.”

Stalled diet

I certainly veered off my diet.   But as I have moaned and complained, life happens.  The thing I have most wanted to learn is how not to let these difficult times derail me.   But that's exactly what has happened.  The thing now is for the derailment not to last for several more months.

 I started my blog on such a high note of enthusiasm.  Then when the bottom fell out, I didn't want to post and talk about failure.  As I work to pull my mind and body out of this pit, I'm thinking I need to stop with words like "failure."  It has been several weeks of recovery from the colonoscopy and endoscopy.  I have no blockage or tumor, but I did have inflammation.  A lot of the problems I was having are much improved since the tests.  If I had merely done the prep, as loathsome as it is, back in June, I think I might have been okay.  Although I still have a lot of gas and bloating,  I am trying through trial and error to find the healthy foods that I can eat.  In the process I have regained every pound that I lost.

The struggle continues with new doctors.  I assume that the doctor who did the tests was competent.  I don't think he communicates well with women.  His name is Muhammed and I cannot pronounce nor remember his last name.  I had one appointment with him, and he never made eye contact with me.  Then when I saw him at the hospital before the tests, he stated that he would give the results to my husband, because I would still be asleep after it was over.  All I know of my results is what my half-deaf husband has reported to me.  The short sentence above is exactly what he remembers from Muhammed.   He is my love, but he's not who I would choose to receive medical reports.   I thought my new internal specialist might explain the results to me, but he reports that it will be a month before he receives anything. I'm going to let this paragraph stand as my explanation.  I am not going to have myself a rant over the medical profession.  This is making me feel like the little red hen.  I will do it myself.

Last week I had a nasty flu/virus.  I spent a lot of the week in bed.  My husband gifted me with a Kindle last month, so the time hasn't all been spent feeling sorry for myself. 

Here's what I have read:

 The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.    I have the 3rd book but haven't read it yet.  These are a great read!

Redeeming Love  by Francine Rivers   It's a beautiful story, but I expect no less from Rivers.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett  I didn't want it to end.  It tugs at the heart strings, and I found it to be what I remember of the early 60's in the south.

The Passage by Justin Cronin   I almost missed this book because it was described as having vampires in it.  It's an ambitious (long) book, but I was completely engaged and never felt I had read about vampires.  I'm looking forward to the sequel in a year.  His writing would take a year or more to produce a good book.

The Goddess of Fried Okra by Jean Brashear  What a treat this book is!  And I was ready for something a little lighter with lots of laughs.  For a short time, it was offered free on Kindle which was the reason I bought it.  Now I would gladly pay to buy a Brashear book.  Highly recommend!

A mystery series by Karin Slaughter.  She is a new author for me.  She has a new book, Broken.  After considering downloading it to my Kindle, I realized that it is the 8th book in the series.  I have to read series in order.  So I dug through Amazon and made myself a list, in order.  I have read the first 3 books in the last week.  Blindsighted,  Kisscut, and A Faint Cold Fear.  I think I would consider these good beach books.  Or books to read when you have the flu and don't want to be challenged.  I like finding good, new authors.  I'm not a huge fan of mystery, thrillers, but I like these.  I like her character development.  The first book was obviously by a new author, albeit a promising one.  She improves by the 2nd, and greatly improves by the 3rd.  There are some shocking crimes, but she does them well even for a squeamish reader such as I.  It may work for me, because often she gives the description after the fact.  Not always, but enough.

Confessions of a Carb Queen by Susan Blech This is one of the best stories of weight-loss that I have read. I have bought enough to buy a Kindle. I’m glad they are on my shelf, because I need the visual of seeing them there. I also highly recommend Blech’s book. There were only 2 pictures on my Kindle, but I googled and brought up several articles featuring Susan Blech with nice, pictures of her in color.


Now that I look back at that list, I’m seeing another reason why I wasn’t blogging. All of that luscious time spent reading!

Two of my Bright Lights

Two of my brightest lights...my son Scott and his nephew (my grandson, my Little Man). In the winter of my days, it is healing to think on the joys of my life. Scott is living with us for a few months. He's one of the statistics who is on unemployment. We are making lemonade of them economic lemons! Obviously, he and Little Man are great buddies.

I started this blog for my weight loss journey and as a support when and if my life breaks down. I just didn't expect it to start breaking down at the very time I started my once-again diet. What I'm trying to do as I write, is to remember my goal of getting through dark days without giving up my weight loss.

I have treasured the special ladies who are my small group of followers. It's been so difficult to get back to my blog. I wonder if I've lost them? I hope not. Sorry for the bugs in this blog. I set-up the little dealie to put favorite products, but I've never figured out how to finish it, so I'm advertising all sorts of things. :(

The gastric troubles I mentioned earlier have developed into a full-blown, serious condition. Nothing has improved. Several weeks ago I was scheduled for a colonoscopy/endoscopy on August 10. Out the window went my good foods: fruits, veggies, grains, and lean meats. Eating throws me into tremendous distress. So I drink juices for a few days, until I have to eat something solid. I have made the brilliant deduction that if what I put in doesn't come out, I'd better rely mostly on liquids. Even though I've had several doctor appointments, I have received no suggestions for what foods to eat. When I do eat, I chew every bite until it disappears in my mouth. There is one food that immediately soothes my stomach and causes no gas, bloating or pain. Ice cream. Geez-Louise! That must be some sort of clue to whatever is wrong with me. I try to keep it at a minimum, but tonight was ridiculous. I had one of those Ambien-induced night binges on ice cream. It didn't help that I hadn't consumed enough calories during the day.

So....I start on my clear liquid diet on Monday. I think I'm not going to worry about any of that until I have Tuesday behind me, and hopefully have some answers. We are supposed to know after Tuesday if I need hietal hernia surgery. Or some other kind of surgery. This is difficult, living in a new city with all new doctors. I feel frightened and adrift. It doesn't do a lot to soothe my feelings that my strange new gastrointologist has a first name of Muhammed. I've seen him once. He sat across the room from me, typing on his computer, taking my history, and muttering to himself. He never examined me. This seems to be the way with the new and latest wave of doctors.

I did do my weigh-in every week. I've done well, considering, although the past week is a wash. And I intend to post my losses/gains soon. I pray that my problems can be solved, and I can have my life back. I shall return!

First Adventure of His Day

Little Man sees me at the back door taking his picture. I'm pleased to see that there are no tears over the fall.

My Little Man Rocked off the Porch!

Here is Little Man, right after breakfast. We have to have eyes on him at all times, because he loves life and looks for adventures at every turn. He doesn't know that I found him when I took this picture. He obviously did that big rocking that he does on the porch, and he and the rocker took a flying leap into the Asian Jasmine.

Weigh-in for July 5, Week 4

Everyday I thought of things I wanted to post, but everyday I kept feeling so much worse. I've lost -2.42 pounds the last week. As much as I love seeing the numbers go down, I am not doing a victory dance in the streets. I've now lost 9 pounds, although my goal is to lose 5 pounds a month. I've not been able to eat the last 2 weeks after lunch. When I eat later I think I'm dying!.


I don't think I mentioned that when I went to the hospital about 10 days ago, after I had the CT scan the doctor said I have a hietal hernia. The doctor pronounced that from the door of the ER room at 4 a.m. as he was turning to leave. He never came to my bedside. It took me a day or so to process the information. It answers a lot of questions for me about why I am so miserable. Mr. Doctor didn't explain it, but I googled it. What's a girl to do? Google, of course! My dad suffered from a hietal hernia for years, so I knew to factor in the misery. But the description of what happens to the stomach and esophagus as per Google is a mental picture I wish I didn't have! I'm certain that surgery is in my future. But I really wanted to lose some more weight first.

All week I have assumed that my misery after eating was from the hernia. That "little" problem I mentioned of constipation isn't solved in spite of continuing to do everything I can with only the best fiber from fruits and vegetables and grains. Lots of salads, and lean protein. Lots of water. It's turned into a different problem now. (I know that because I Googled!) All of that high fiber food has made a nice little home in my tummy, and I am poochier than after my pregnancies. It's called a fecal impaction. I figure my "baby" weighs at least 20 pounds. I would like some maternity tops, but not the kind the young girls wear now. I don't want my naughty baby to show. I had a very nice lunch, and I suffered greatly the rest of the day and all the way up until now at 11:30 pm. I've gotten down 2 oz of white grape juice with 2 oz. of water in the last hours and 2 saltines that I chewed until they melted in my mouth. It feels like it's all coming up the wrong way.

I'm mad that I didn't have a good medical team 10 days ago, because I did know I had a very serious problem. The fecal impaction had been that way for a long time. I started my diet on June 6, because I knew it was a priority for me to get on healthy eating. I explained to the nurse that there had been *nothing* for more than 3 weeks. When they sent me home the uppity nurse told me to see my gastrointologist (I don't have one since we moved) and she outlined the diet that I had been eating and had explained all of that. But she didn't do anything to relieve the situation. I DO love nurses! My darling daughter is a nurse. It was this particular nurse in ER who wasn't kind. But I don't know her. Maybe she had a bad day...a sick child. Whatever, she neglected my needs, and now I'm much worse and scared.

I know I will have to have surgery for the hietal hernia, but this other matter has to be taken care of first. And after googling, I'm certain that I made the diagnosis that I was thinking from 2 weeks back. There's every reason to believe that I have a fecal impaction. The prognosis is grim if not taken care of by professionals. I've waited way to long now. I'll call my doctor in the morning and hope that he sends me directly to the hospital. Maybe I'll be back home tomorrow night, but I do pray that I will not return until those 2 problems are solved.

If my new buddies read this, you probably notice that I have some public service announcements in my blog. I spent one whole night trying to figure that on my own. It started because Sandy asked about my Bodybugg. I wanted to insert a picture of it, and I also wanted to insert 2 books that have helped me. They I stumbled upon Monetizing, and AdSense. I filled out the pages, and the messages are in my inbox. I'm not well enough to do anything else until my other 2 problems are solved.

It's going to make me sad and upset if I'm not up for our grandsons this week. We are daycare while our daughter works at a day surgery clinic in Ft. Worth. I think I found out how to put in a picutre. I'm going to try. I need to post some happiness today!

Here are my stats: (Kelly is trying to explain how I can put them permanently on the side bar. Maybe next week I will work on that.)

Start of diet, June 7 - 191.19
Last week, June 28 - 184.58
Today, July 5 - 182.16
Pounds lost Month 1 - 9.03

Thank you sweet ladies who have sort of adopted me and give me good advice and support. 









Today, July 5 182.14



Pounds lost -9.02 pounds

Weigh-in for June 28

Today is my weigh-in day. I haven’t posted my weights yet. I am so glad to have the first three weeks of my diet behind me. The beginning of a diet is always difficult for me. It’s a time of learning to eat a lot less, and there is no weight loss to spur me on. This has been a good start for me. It helps me tremendously to have my Bodybugg. Losing weight becomes a mathematical equation, removing the guess work, every week wondering: Will I lose weight or will I stay the same or gain?


6/07/2010     191.19

6/14              189.42 -1.77

6/21              186.78 -2.64

6/28              184.58 -2.2

Total lost 1st month   -6.61

Looking For a Better Day

I have had a no good very bad week. After weeks of not sleeping, I started taking Ambien again. It has helped to get some good sleep, and I’m not waking up to binge eat yet. I’ve had terrible bloating and gas, and dare I say serious “irregularity?” And my blood pressure has been extremely high. I felt so bad Thursday night, I went to the ER. My blood pressure was 220/117. The doctor and nurse were sure that I would need surgery. After a CT scan and sonogram proved normal, the diagnosis was a urinary tract infection. Two days of Cipro, and I’m feeling better. No help was given for irregularity. It’s a bad problem to have at anytime, but it’s really bad when trying to drop pounds. My diet is full of veggies, fruits, nuts and whole grains…lots of fiber. I had the juice of a lemon in hot water this morning. That is one of the home remedies that I’ve googled. I’m not sure that I’ve read anyone else blogging about this agony. Oh, well, I have just a few nice girls as followers. I doubt that I have a corner on this problem.


Do any of you reward yourself as you reach your smaller goals? I am designing a Pandora bracelet. I’m planning to give myself the bracelet and one charm when I lose the first 10 pounds. Then another charm for every 10 pounds. Maybe I’ll decide on a spacer after 5 pounds. One time, 8 years ago, when I reached goal, my husband gave me a diamond heart pendant and a gold chain. After I gained weight I was ashamed to wear the heart. Now I wear it all the time. Silly to miss wearing it and it’s a reminder of my promise to myself to reach that goal again. It’s a good thing, because the heart pendant is a great reminder that I need to learn to maintain this time.

Apple Pie and Learning to Cook!

In Kelly's blog yesterday she gave a yummy recipe for Peach Cobbler and a great picture.  It reminded me of being 20-years old and newly wed (not all of my memories are bad) and learning to cook.  My first project was to learn to bake an apple pie.  Until then I only knew how to make toast and cook an egg.  I practiced piano 3 hours a day when I was growing up,  which left no time for cooking lessons. There was a little grocery store near campus, and the owner was the sweetest little lady.  I always went to her with my cooking questions.  As I had only seen my mother bake meringue pies where she baked the crust first, I didn't have a clue how to do a fruit pie.  I went into the grocery and asked the little lady how I could bake a top crust and a bottom crust and then get the pie in between the crusts.  The cookbook left out that part!  Without missing a beat or cracking a smile she explained:  roll out the crust, put the bottom crust in first, then put the fruit filling in, put the uncooked top crust on and bake it all at the same time.  I asked, "You mean put the crust in RAW?"  That memory has served me well in remembering that 20-year olds are very young and still have a lot to learn.

Monday Moaning!

I am so exhausted. I’m trying not to cry. If I cry then I will get a migraine. My blood pressure is already 169/87. I have not slept during the night since I went off Ambien on June 1. After 8 days, I took a 2 hour nap on June 9. I have had a few 1 hour naps on some of the days until June 12, Saturday. That day I slept almost all day. It was so healing, but it still wasn’t enough to heal my body. I didn’t sleep at all last night, but I took a nap this afternoon.

Maybe if I write about it, I can stop feeling like a victim. I have no one to talk with. I don’t suppose I have enough followers to help me, but maybe my two new buds will read this. My husband is my only confidante, and he’s been hearing this and living it for 30 years. Bless his heart (we say that in the south a lot!), he hurts for me, but doesn’t know how to help me. This blog is purposely as anonymous as possible so that my name can’t be googled and someone will read what I write. There are too many children and grandchildren whom I love dearly, and I don’t want them to read this.

I’m at such an impasse. I don’t sleep without a sleeping pill. Even with it, my sleep at night is troubled and sporadic. I’ve mentioned in my blog that I had to quit Ambien in order to lose weight. I have the curious side effect with Ambien of getting up in the wee hours and bingeing. Serious bingeing. I never do that during the day or when I’m off Ambien. My precious husband, probably to keep himself from being a Perfect Man, won’t/can’t abstain from having sweets in the house. Gourmet ice creams, (slurp), several different kinds of delish cookies, and bags of chocolate candy. When I wake up in an Ambien haze, I am into the stuff like a little child with no restraint. What I knew was that I had to stop Ambien to be able to lose weight. He does lock his goodies up at times, but then he’ll forget and I zero in on them.

I have post- traumatic stress syndrome. My first husband was paranoid schizophrenic. The last year of our marriage he turned into a monster. He never hit me, but he was verbally abusive beyond imagination. For a full calendar year he kept me awake every night. Our children were 13, 10, and 3. I was determined to go to any lengths to keep his rage on me and not my children. He would scream, yell, or talk loudly and disagreeably. It started as soon as I got in the bed. He had a litany that he followed every night. When I would refuse to answer him, he would get up and slam the door of the closet, and scoot all of the clothes down to one end.

We shared a long closet, my clothes on one end, his on the other. He knew what a perfectionist I was about my clothes. The closet would get his attention all during the night. Sliding with force the hangers, first to one end, then the other, bellowing his rage the whole time. I couldn’t leave the bedroom, because he would follow me and awaken the children. Later in the night, when I was so exhausted I faked sleep, he would go to the double dresser and pull out each drawer, banging it back as loudly as possible. (Checking for my reaction.) Then back in bed, when he thought I was asleep, he would bang his wedding ring against the headboard and continue to harangue me. Usually something about how I thought my dad was the only good man in the world. He was nasty about both my parents. That hurt me, because all during our marriage, they were the ones who would pick up the pieces for him after he had spent all of our money and then gone to a psychiatric hospital for several weeks or months. I was afraid to let myself go to sleep, because I was afraid he would kill me.

The short end to this part of the story is that I packed the car full on a June day, and took my girls and drove 12 hours (yeah, without sleep for a year) to get to my parents’ house. He wouldn’t let me bring our son, so I left and was able to rescue him before school started. The terrible, wrenching thing was finding out that when I was safe, I still could not sleep. I was 5'6" and weighed 105 pounds.  There would follow 30 years of struggling to regain my health.  On another time I will tell the rest of this part of the story, and how I’ve struggled to cope in the 30 years since. Obviously, it’s still a bleeding wound. I rarely think of what happened to me, unless I’m telling someone (mostly doctors, who are always horrified). I live a life of resignation when it comes to sleep. Except that now every pore in my body is screaming for sleep. I’ve done the warm bath. I’ll meditate, read, listen to music. Those things help if I also have the medication. Now I’m adrift.

Musings on Diets Past

This has been a good day. Thank you, Lord! I have never started a diet, changed my eating plan, and had such peace, happiness, and fullness. Except for the first night, I have not been hungry. And I’ve not obsessed about food or what I would eat for the next meal. After struggling for 14 years, I am wondering why this time feels so different. Is it because I spent several weeks thinking, reading, meditating and planning? I have read a stack of books written by people who have lost weight. I have wanted to know how they dealt with the yo-yoing, the frustration and pain, and what caused them to finally succeed. In each book, I have read things that mirrored my experiences or feelings.


Strangely, this time I haven’t looked for the perfect new diet that included revelations of the “good” foods allowed and the “bad” foods to avoid. It’s a relief to know that I will lose weight if the calories I burn are more than the calories I consume. And if I have an average deficit of 500 calories each day for a week, I will lose one pound that week. All I have to do is move more and eat less. One of my goals is to eat healthy, whole foods with no preservatives. I don’t want to take medicines for high blood pressure. I don’t want to worry about having a stroke, heart disease, or diabetes. Although I also want to look cute in small jeans with my shirt tucked in and wearing a belt.

The first step toward those goals is to lose the weight. And I like feeling that when I have days when I want to eat fast food or go out with friends and family, I can eat what they are eating if I am careful with portions. I can choose to have the hamburger or a slice of pizza or a dessert, and I will not throw up my hands and eat everything in sight because I “cheated” on my diet. In the past, I have binged for days after belittling myself for “cheating.” Figuring this out for myself has helped me with the anger I feel toward myself for having reached my goal weight so many times, and regained the weight when we hit a difficult place in our lives.

We've lived in two different houses when I reached my goal weight, and shortly afterward we found we had mold in the house and had to move into an apartment for months. My difficult times haven’t been trivial. One day I am going to list every time that I have let myself be knocked off the track and have ballooned back to my Cringe Weight. I read that in a blog today. The blogger asked for people to tell her what their Cringe Weight was. My cringe weight is 196. After the first time, right after cancer, I have come close to 196 two times.  Now I'm realizing that in this life I don't say "if we hit a difficult time" but rather "WHEN we hit a difficult time." 

Weigh-in for June 14

My weigh-in day was June 14. I didn’t write on that day. I had lost -1.99 pounds.  Part of the week my scale showed a loss of 3.5. Oh, well. I’m trying not to be so into the numbers on the scale, but it isn’t easy. This week I’ve handled it by not weighing every day. Mondays are my weigh-in days because that’s the way my Bodybugg software is set up.

Day 1 yesterday

Yesterday, June 6, I started on Day 1 of my diet/healthy eating.  My starting weight was 191.17.  I weigh at night, and tonight I was down -1.77 pounds.  I will put up pictures of how I really look now, as soon as I can figure out how to do it.  I need it on the left of the screen, with my weights below the pictures.  Maybe I'll muddle along and find out how to do it.  Maybe I'll find a nice blogger who will help me on some of the blog design that has me scratching my head.  I will make Sunday my weigh-in day.

My new Bodybugg came today.  I am so glad to be able to go back to using it and not having to guess what my deficit calories are.  I had forgotten how easy it is to record what I eat.

I'm still not sleeping at night after going off Ambien CR a week ago.  But I feel better.  One of my goals is to get off all meds.  All I have left that I'm taking are two high blood pressure drugs and Prevacid that is OTC.   My doctor prescribed me 4 addditional prescriptions that I'm not taking because all of them gave me scary side-effects.  One of my biggest problems has been the drugs that doctors have put me on.  They are all poison for me.   He took me off Xanax in March.  I went into shock 2 weeks later and was in the ER and then the hospital for a week.  I was on Clonazepam in the hospital and since March.  All of my doctors are new since we moved to the Ft. Worth/Dallas area.  And they don't have a clue.  I have taken Xanax for years for muscle spasms and migraines.  I googled Clonazepam and wasn't too happy to see that it didn't seem to match my needs.  The curse of my existence is the medicine that doctors prescribe.  I think I'm repeating myself!   I want to be so healthy that I take NO drugs.

 Last week I noticed that I was itching all over my body.  Last night it was dreadful and kept me awake all night.  My ankles were swollen badly and still are.  I had a rash on my lower legs and they felt feverish.  I'm sure these are side-effects of the drug.  Almost all drugs cause me such bad side-effects that I can't take them.  My doctor said to discontinue the Clonazepam.  I was afraid it would be like Xanax and I would have to decrease gradually.  I'm so thankful that I've been able to discontinue with no apparent problem.  I expect to be feeling much better very soon.

Have to start healthy eating NOW!

I can wait no longer.  I must start with healthy eating and no more than 1200 calories tomorrow.  After years of losing and gaining I'm feeling so inadequate to know how to eat.  And that is so silly.  I have been reading and trying to learn about nutrition for decades.   It must be the depression of knowing that I have to plow the same ole ground again.  I read one of my favorite bloggers tonight who says to start now...not to wait until tomorrow or Monday.  For one thing, I am so bloated that I am miserable.  This is something new for me.

 I wanted to wait to start until my new Bodybugg arrives.  I used one for over a year and lost weight more easily than I've ever done.  For the first time I learned why I "couldn't lose weight."  I simply didn't move enough, and I didn't have a deficit of calories.  My old bugg is not compatible with my 64-bit computer, so I finally bit the bullet and ordered the latest version.  When I used it 2 years ago, I ate a lot of fruits and veggies and good foods, but I was also able to eat what I liked and let the bugg compute my calorie intake and calories burned.  Well, I will try to sort it out tomorrow.

 I was awake all night last night, so I tried to figure out how to start a blog.  I haven't slept since Monday night.  I've taken Ambien CR for several years, and I have that strange side-effect that causes me to get up during the night like I'm sleep walking and binge eat.  Sometimes when I awaken in the morning I am shocked to see the remains of the cookies and candy that I've eaten.  Although I always try to avoid sugar when I'm in my right mind, my lean husband keeps lots of sweets.  He now locks the ice cream in a plastic tool box, before it goes in the freezer.  And he is supposed to keep everything else locked in a duffle, but he sometimes thinks he'll just hide it.  HA!  I always find it.  I haven't binged since last Monday night, but I haven't slept either.

A swimsuit that takes off 10 pounds?

Mercy. I looked at an Oprah magazine cover and there’s an article, “Want a swimsuit that takes off 10 pounds?” No, ma’m. I want a suit that takes off 60 pounds. Go away. I’ll think about swimsuits next summer…please, God!