clickmom

being nice

Went to see the new new undead therapist today (from now he's the NNUD therapist). I had wanted to talk exclusively about the insanity that is my eating/bingeing these days but last week on my first day back I just told the tale of this summer. Today I did not go in there with a fire under me, but once I opened my mouth I only talked about the whole food thing. I was honest with him, and as weird as it sounds coming from someone who blogs just about everything, I had to force myself to be honest with him about the donuts that I binged on a couple (few) times. Last summer I brought the workers donuts all the time, and never touched one, and this summer I brought them donuts and would end up eating three or four by the end of the day. So I stopped bringing them donuts.

What I really wish for is for the NNUD therapist to put me in a hypnotic trance, and then I never want to go near a bad for me food again in my life. I want to eliminate my desire for the foods that give me cramps, diarrhea, bloating, head aches, oh yeah, and those foods (hello sugar, hello fat) that turn me into a fiend scrambling for my next hit.

Every day I wake up with the idea that this day will be the day I turn a corner, start a detox, eat right. And I haven't made it through a day yet. Yesterday I had to bring all the kids with me to get Josh's tooth filled at the dentist. I sent Matt and Evan over to the store to pick p something I had forgotten to get earlier. I gave them some extra money to buy themselves a snack and Evan came back with a huge chocolate bar. He sat down next to me n the dentist waiting room and started to peel back the wrapper. I stared at that chocolate bar and then, and I kid you not, I almost jumped him for the candy. Instead I stuck my hand out and Evan boke off a piece and dropped it onto my palm. I considered hesitating, but I really just popped it into my mouth and recognizing that I had just "ruined" the whole days efforts and had just opened the proverbial flood gates. On the way home from the dentist I stopped for some home made macaroons. Then I had ice cream, dinner, and more ice cream. Then I had a stomach ache.

So I am going over this ritual of bingeing and then admonishing myself and the NNUD therapist calls me out for being so hard on myself. Unbelievable! What an eye opener! I need to be more understanding and sympathetic to me. I'd never say the things that I tell myself to anyone else, well at least not to anyone I ever wanted to talk to again. Why should I beat myself up? I don't beat anyone else up! t made so much sense when started to talk about it. Also, remembering all that stuff about my inner 7 year old from the psychic I spoke to, I figure little me is probably cowering under a table afraid to move.

I was nicer to me today. Honestly, it felt weird and soft, which is weird since I am soft, just not to myself, until now. New M.O. Something has got to work.

food issues

I am in a bad way over here with the food. Yesterday morning I was doing dishes standing close to the cake I bought to fatten dad up a bit and I WANTED THAT CAKE. All I could think of was WANT CAKE WANT CAKE and I knew I was being like a two year old having this internal tantrum, but dammit, I WANTED CAKE so I cut myself a big old piece of cake and that not all that wonderful cake did absolutely nothing for me, so I had a bagel too. And then 20 minutes later I wondered why my stomach hurt so much an I have been either running to the bathroom or sucking up some gluten and dairy laden treat ever since.

My stomach is in trouble here.

Why? Internet, I have got to get a grip on these allergies/intolerances and stop.

over the edge

We hopped into the truck to make our way home around noon today. It was a quiet morning. We spent it sipping coffee and eating (I am so sick in my stomach right now) donuts with the agent who first showed us utopia and to whom I will be forever grateful. He wanted to see the new house so we called him and asked him over. During our chat he told us how his girlfriend was dying of cancer and how they had just taken what he believed would be their last trip together. I sat there listening while in the back of my head thinking to myself that I am not ready to hear about other people's suffering. The whole last year for my mom was really about silently suffering (which she did) and that is where the pain is for me. Even though mom never let on to how bad she felt it was obvious. One day she asked for a bowl of cookie dough ice cream. At the end she had left all the dough pieces in the bowl. She reluctantly admitted she was too exhausted to chew.

Driving in the rain up the causeway I was relieved to not have to hear about the agent's girlfriend. I feel for her. Maybe too much. And then we came upon this....
Our neighbor, who I call the sentry, had gone on a dump run while her husband, who did not feel well, slept in. The sentry had taken their new puppy on the errand and when she returned and tried to park in the roadside platform about their yard her brakes gave out and her car did not stop but instead rolled straight over the edge. She was bumped and bruised from the crash and burned from the airbag. The puppy had been tossed forward from the back seat but was fine. When I realized it was the sentry who had been in the car I almost fell to pieces. The sentry is my mother's age. I couldn't bare the thought of anything bad happening to her. If the sentry had been hurt in that accident... I just don't know what I would have done.

still home being sick-weight loss update on the bottom

OMG people, I can not believe how sick I am! The good news right this second is that my eyes can actually focua on and read the screen as I type this. First time screen has been in focus since last Saturday!

Here's how worse illness in 5 years (since the pneumonia where I ended up hospitalized) went down. Last week I had a post nasal drip, then a sore throat, and then some seriously swollen glands. I wondered why I felt so weak and tired on Saturday. But on Sunday I woke up feeling really off. My soy-berry detox diet smoothie made me nauseous. I ran to the grocery store to buy lunch and dinner supplies and needed a sweatshirt to go out the door. t was 78 degrees.

I made it home, took my temp, 101.3 and took to my bed. I didn't even unpack all the groceries. Eventually the fever went up to 102 and then I got to have the click family routine fight with the husband that goes like this.

Husband : You must take something to reduce the fever
Me: The fever is what destroys what is making me sick! I don't want to take a fever reducer!

Repeat over and over again until someone who is not lying in bed with a fever gets so frustrated that he throws a pillow and storms out of the room and then I end up taking the fever reducer anyway because my fever goes up to 103.5 and my swollen neck glands hurt so much I wanted to make that pain stop. Then I sweat buckets for the next three hours because that is what the fever reducer does to me when the fever is being reduced. And then I lie about taking more fever reducer before I go to sleep because I would rather huddle under the blankets and shiver all night then sweat buckets all night.

But Monday my fever ran around 101.5 which was completely tolerable. I still slept off and on (mostly on) all day long. My neck glands were killing me. Pretty much, with the exception of my whole foods outing I end up sleeping for about 60 hours from Saturday night to Tuesday morning.

Are you still with me here? Dang, I almost put myself to sleep. So readers digest: Sweaty crazy fever dreams with large horned bucks, wild cats, bull mastifs, pugs, and long never ending winding trails, wake up just a teensy fever still nauseous neck pain 9.6 on the 1 to 10 scale. Call good doc. Tell his machine he has to see me. He calls back and tels me to go in a ten. The husband drives me over and the good tells him that fever reducer is OPTIONAL! And that here is a benefit to not taking fever reducer since fever is how an immune system destroys an invader. Ah. Sweet Sweet Victory.

Doc declares I will likely be myself in another day or two, thinks what I have is viral, but swabs my throat for a couple of tests anyway, and I don't have strep and won't know what the other swab finds for a couple of days. In th ecar on the way home I realize I don't feel as bad as I did when I woke up and stop at WF for refried beans and avocado. I already have the corn tortillas, lettuce and salsa at home. My favorite detox lunch) But when I get home I need to lie down and I crash for 2 solid hours. When I wake up I eat the bean soft taco thingy (or three) and that is the first thing that I have had (except for a couple of pieces of fruit) since that berry smoothie Sunday AM.

Now everyone knows that getting sick and not eating for two days is kind of cheating when you have told the internet that you are going to do a weekly weigh in, but I was heading in this successful direction anyway so here is the weigh in after 1 week of detox including 2 days of illness....... ta daa..... ELEVEN POUNDS. Do you know what that means people? Yes it means I must be seriously dehydrated, I recognize that, but still, 11! I can't believe it. But I am happy to see it! Or not see it anymore! Goodbye to you.

Hhhhhello

Okay, here comes the post about the detox.

Are you still with me? Wow, I am impressed by your dedication.

When I went to good doc last fall and told him how crappy I felt and he started running tests he also recommended that I read Ultra-Metabolism by Mark Hyman MD. Good doc said that it was the diet that he lived by. Which pretty impressed me since good doc is a fit and trim older than me guy and also judging by the photo on his shelf in his office his wife is quite the fox. I'd like to be a fox too. So I bought the book. And it sat there gathering dust on my shelf for a few months. But I had mentioned it to Bubbles. And in February when it was my birthday and the book was good and dusty on my shelf Bubbles, who did not know that I had already bought the book, only remembered that good doc had recommended the book to me, gave me another copy of the book. Wow, I was totally guilt ridden. So I started to read the book that Bubbles gave me and gave the dusty one away.

And I told myself that I was going to read all the background and then understand the reasoning behind the diet and then do the diet. Which was a great idea. Add then I read the book painfully slow. But the first 200 or so pages is all about why we end up fat and all the imbalances and toxic causes of a slowed metabolism and I pretty much read the book and shouted "OMG that is SO ME!" all the way through. Because now that I have had every single bodily fluid and bio hazardous waste of mine examined and I know how many alarming issues I am harboring I can confidently say that I am chemically messed up. And this program claims it can turn my metabolism around. And clean me up and restore my health, and polish the scrapes out of my bumper, ...oh wait, that was my dream last night.

Pretty much the diet part of the book is the same old Mediterranean Diet that every one is all worked up about these days. But the two week detox before the rest of the diet is where I am now. Today is day 4 for me. The one huge draw back I am finding is that every meal and the two snacks a day all require some serious in the kitchen time. I don't normally do kitchen time for lunch and snacks. (Because why cook when I can simply unwrap?) And also, waiting a whole hour to cook some brown rice for breakfast is pushing it for my somewhat crazed morning routine. But I am doing it. And that is what counts. And truthfully, there isn't a drastic difference yet (so impatient grasshopper) except that I am less bloated (not sure anyone else can tell). I have no energy at all but who knows if that is stress related (1 more day to finish cleaning out grandma's apartment) or health related. I should be having a nice yeast die off right about now. That could make me feel poorly. Also, if all those heavy metals are on their way out that could drag me down too. Or I could have my own personal stressful life and then get rear ended by some Mario Andretti who thinks he can drive 50 MPH in a parking lot and ..... never mind. You get the idea.

But the upside of this diet is that the weight is melting off already. I am sure much of it is water weight (hence the less bloated feeling) since yesterday, on day 3, I dashed off to the bathroom about every 45 minutes. I hope all that pee contained arsenic! The food is palatable though (with the exception of the banana soy smoothie that made me nauseous for a good hour and a half this morning-never eating that again!) and the kids are even eating and enjoying some of the dinner dishes. Some of the dinners are vegetarian and I have to make an additional meat for the boys because around here if no animal has been sacrificed then it doesn't actually count as a real meal. Maybe a snack. And they want their meals real at meal time.

And as far as appetite is concerned I have none. It's nothing short of a miracle. Or maybe the stench of my own breath. I think that the reason I have no appetite is that everything except breakfast is heavy on garlic, onions and herbs and right about now I am smelling like a garlic flavored gum chewing middle eastern restaurant cook after a long night's work. How's that for foxy?! Hhhhhhhey Hhhhhandsoooohhmme. I am hoping that after a week I can hop on the scale and see Biggest Loser type results, (with less than 4 hours a day in the gym) and if the first 4 days are an indication of things to come, then I am going to be very happy next Tuesday! As far as I am concerned, water counts. And if trim (FOXY) has to equal stinky then let it be so. Bring on the garlic. I figure I will get used to it.

So that is my exciting detox news. I will have the second set of follow up blood tests in June, so hopefully something good will be the result.

send asphalt

Is it me or does everyone now think that every blogger out there with a Bogher Ad Network ad looks like Jennifer Weiner? (At least I think it was Jennifer, honestly, if her first name would have made me snicker in second grade like her last name did I would have remembered it better). For a while I thought all the bloggers were Asian women with lots of black bangles on their raised arms. If you guys think the same thing then I am wondering how effective those blogger ads must be because I can tell you what the chicks looked like but I can't tell you what they wanted me to buy. Also, to the people who make the hyper moving ads, if I can't change the size of my screen to eliminate your annoying moving ad then I will not read the website. That can't be good for business either. I am just saying.

One sure sign that spring has arrived in the garden state has nothing to do with all the green bulb leaves poking up from the ground, or the cardinals and the robins I have spotted flying through on their way back from somewhere, or even the warmer than recent temperatures. Nope, the real sign that spring is finally here are the axle bending pot holes on all of our local roads. Seriously, since this is a yearly occurrence and not some kind of an omen like everything else is, then it must be a signal. And what I suspect is that if you were say, on the moon looking down and admiring the garden state, just the opposite of me being in the garden state looking up admiring the moon, and the sun was at the right angle you could see all the pot holes (craters) and they might spell out something, not S.O.S., but maybe SEND ASPHALT or ROAD CREWS NEEDED HERE with a big arrow pointing right to my neighborhood.

I am a bit disappointed that I never got back to the great outdoors to do some more partially frozen photography this winter. I know it was grandma being in the hospital or rehab since February 17th. This has been a looooong 5 weeks. On Friday when I saw her last she walked the entire length of the rehab. She is actually in better shape than she was when she went into the hospital, because back then she was in so much pain from the bone infection that she couldn't even stand up straight. But keeping in mind that she went to the hospital because she fell and the lying SOB head nurse said she couldn't move one of her legs, then I want grandma to be as fall proof as she can be for her age before going back to the OFH. So I figure another week of therapy won't do her any harm. Tomorrow I am going to chat with the social worker at the rehab about bringing grandma back to the OFH. Also, I'd like to see if they can send a physical therapist to the OFH for a while. I know grandma will hate that, but it can only help in the long run. I can't believe we made it out of this one intact. Well, minus a little toe, but essentially the same grandma and me only a bit more stressed for the experience of it.

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks absolutely dairy free and some freaky things are going on with me. The two most annoying are this incredible swelling of my belly and a pain in my lower back. The pain in my back is like no other lower back pain I have ever felt, so I am wondering if it is my kidneys complaining about the yeast die off that I suspect I am going through. I was in much pain this morning and felt a little better after downing four or so glasses of water. Interesting enough, I pretty much had to run (slowly limp) to the bathroom after each glass of water, which leads me to believe that the water is not taking the long way out and instead running right through me with out doing much kidney cleansing. I'll have to call both the actual MD and my snake oil dispensing voo doo chiro tomorrow. Also, I have been seriously jonesing for and indulging in the sugar lately but tomorrow I am going cold turkey on that too. I am pretty sure I have eaten last trace of anything I can eat in the house (with the exception of the bagged sugar for baking which I have been known on occasion to eat by the spoonful- and YES this is embarrassing to admit) , so it shouldn't be all that hard as long as I can stay determined and focused. My big topic for the therapist this week is going to be the amount of internal whining I do and why I just can't suck it up and get on with my gluten/dairy/sugar/corn/tomato free life. I mean, I know there are worse things than needing to eat carefully.

I'm skipping the weekly winners again this week because once again inspration was hard to come by. I thought I might do something creative at that egg hunt but it was a bad atmosphere, and I barely shot my assignment let alone anything creative or extra. I took some crappy stuff on the iphone, but nothing really worth publishing, so I am skipping.

Now I am off to practice guitar before bed. If I do it for too long my fingers still hurt. And I am saving the content of my practice for it's very own post, but to be truthful with you, even I am starting to embarrass myself with the lightness of my light music taste. I figure it's just another day or two before I partake in liver spots and bifocals.

oral lube

Not that I am counting, but it has been 3 weeks and 3 days since I gave up all things dairy-licious. (Chheeeeeese, cheeeese, how I miss you cheeees!) Some people (my mother) who don't actually believe that I went to a real doctor (as opposed to some alternative incense burning snake oil salesman) and that the real doctor did a real test (as opposed to tarot cards, psychic vibes or the voodoo kinesiology tests the chiro does) to actually accurately diagnose (as opposed to looking into a crystal ball, reading tea leaves and making shit up) my real (as opposed to my hypochondriacally imagined) dairy allergy keep asking me if I feel better. Which is very frustrating, as I do not. feel. better. Maybe I even feel a little worse. Except some people (mom) are somewhat impatient about me having something to complain about and even I may have possibly began to wonder what is up with the not recovering my zest for living after all of this deprivation. (CheeEEEeese!) .

Last night, because I need shit like this to happen to me, before I went to bed I noticed uncharacteristically vile breath coming out of myself. So, I thoroughly brushed my entire oral orifice and went to bed quite satisfied that I would wake up 8 hours later and still be minty fresh. But it was not to be. I woke up practically gagging on the scent of my pie hole and ran back to the bathroom for more toothbrush action. I brushed and brushed and brushed. I felt like I couldn't brush the nastiness out. I spied some scope, grabbed it, swigged, and swooshed. and swooshed. and swooshed. Until the burning made my eyes water and when I spit it out the scope and sewage that is my current state of mouth and my stinky mouth juice had turned the green scope blackish gray.

blackish gray

scope

out of my mouth

as in

WTFFFFF????

So I ran to the chiro for his special kind of snake oil magic and asked him what the heck was going on with my oral lubrication? Oh, yeah, and I have the farts like you wouldn't believe. The chiro waved his magic vials of answers around me and declared me suffering from a massive yeast die off. And I was all like, wait a minute, that's a good thing! Yeast is dying in me and that is good! Dairy loving yeasts that have been my over stayed their welcome unwanted gastrointestinal guests are dying off so fast that they are stinking me up. I practically floated out of the office because finally some good news! I finally did something right!

So if I see you on the street and I happen to say "Hhhhello, hhhhow are hhhhue?" I am totally testing you to see if you will call me out for the stinking breath and then I am going to tell you how thrilled I am to hhhhhaaaave it.

My Allergic Things

Download my_song.aif

I should tell you that technically I am not allergic (in the life and death kind of allergic) to all the foods mentioned. For the test that I just took with the good doc my allergic response was rated on a scale of 1 to 5. I got a 5 for casein and a 4 for milk and the rest of the allergic reactions merely rated a 1 or 2 which are both considered a mild allergy. Good doc said I didn't even have to pay attention to those low numbers and that everyone gets a bunch of 1s. Some of the other foods from the song I have an intolerance to, which is more of a digestion issue than an allergy. But it's not a short song, so I took creative liberties witht he words. I just sang the song straight out and then Matt enhanced it on garage band with the beat and echo before posting for me. This means that 1. I don't in reality have to ability to echo my voice 2. there were no back up instruments during the initiial recording of this song and 3.since Matt did all the work I still don't know how to post a song.

more weird food issues

When I have to tell someone I can not eat wheat the response is typically "Oh my gawd, I could never do that." Yeah, well, the thing is pain and discomfort is an amazing deterrent. The thought of 4 or so days of bloating, cramps and frequent trips to the bathroom that is reminiscent of the worst food poisoning you have ever lived to tell the tale of, is a deterrent, at least for me it is. I mean, if you were in a restaurant and the waitress said that you could have the most delicious meal ever with 4 days of food poisoning, or your second choice with no consequences at all, then I am willing to bet a hefty amount that you would take your second choice.

I have often said out loud that I wish I had a reaction to sugar. Sugar is the monkey on my back. Well, guess what. Be careful what you wish for. I have always had periods where I have almost daily headaches. I always thought they were wheat related. A new pattern has emerged over the summer, since I have been on and off of sugar in the last two months more than I have the guts to admit. It seems to me, that I get a headache the morning after I have eaten sweets. It might just be chocolate, my sweet of choice, and there have been some s'mores going down here this summer, but I am pretty sure that these headaches are coming after a binge and staying until I clean up again. More incentive to get off the sweets for good.

Now if only I could arrange to have an issue with chips.....

back on the horse

There are a few things I don't do. I don't bore you all with every detail of every dietary misstep I take along the way. I don't do fad diets, and I don't do it with a partner. I don't put numbers or time limits on my goals. That was, I don't do it until now. Read on.

OK, so I have had a nice 10 day binge, and for ten days I have been cramming just about everything gluten free and sugary I could find into my mouth- even brown sugar lumps, and now this binge is over. Last week while I was semi-whining to my pilates teacher abut my big belly being in the way, I mumbled something about carbohydrates and belly fat, and she mentioned something about her high cholesterol, and we somehow decided that we would go on The South Beach Diet together on Monday. Can anything be cuter? Chubby me and strong her on a diet together. I am going to do the diet wether she manages to or not. I am there. I am ready.

This evening I sat down with the South Beach book and a pint of goodbye binge Ben and Jerry's, and commenced reading/eating. I am not so sure what they were thinking when they designed this diet. It seems a bit like hospital food to me. First I need to tell you that there will be no diet gelatin going down here. I don't do diet gelatin. Also, second of all, I don't even want to know what gourmet fat free half &half is, and I am not about to find out. Sorry, I have to draw the line at food oxymorons. And, I am somewhat positive that no matter how good it is, it isn't going to fool me into thinking that cauliflower is mashed potatoes. I am going to go bold, and just go ahead and eat the cauliflower.

They say a girl can lose 8-13 pounds the first two weeks. This may because of all the vomiting I might do following this diet, and about the never feeling hungry part- hahahaha. A snack is a celery stick with a piece of fake diet cheese in it. Pfftt! Obviously they haven't seen what I consider to be a little snack. But I am going to stick with it. I just may have to do a little substituting here and there. I think I can handle it. This is good anyways because I really want to weigh a certain number by the triathlon in September, so I have 3 1/2 months to lose 30 pounds. I know that is a lot to lose in a short time, but if I can drop 13 pounds in two weeks, then I am going to be golden. If I can get there-as in down there to the weight I dream about- I am throwing myself a party. It will be big, because this number has not been seen pretty much since pre-Matt days, except for about a week and a half post Matt, 13 years ago.

In summary- 10 days ice cream binge=over, South Beach Diet=new future, 30 pounds=105 days to lose it. The challenge is on. From now on Monday is weigh day.