Doctor

Went to the doctor the other day, the heart doctor. She tells me i HAVE to lose weight. Of course I already knew that. I have gained. Every time I try to lose I gain. I freak when i try to diet, and end up eating more than if i was not trying. She tells me she wants me to go to my GP and get a prescription for diet drugs and antidepressants.

I hate the idea of diet drugs, and will require one that has been in use for years so it is less likely to have surprise side effects, but maybe it is time.

I do not think i need an antidepressant.

The first time i went to see this doctor i was down. I thought I was diabetic. I knew i had high blood pressure. I was down.

The second time i went to her i knew i was not only not diabetic, i was not even pre-diabetic, and I had taken a stress test that showed all was well in my chest, and the blood pressure was under control, and i had lost weight in the diabetes scare. All was well. I was high.

That is the way she wants me to feel. But i have taken antidepressants before and that is not how they make me feel. Having the future look hopeful makes me feel that way. I was up with cause.

So I called and made an appointment with my GP. She is on vacation and will not be able to see me for over 2 weeks. I have time to think about it.

I also have an appointment for another stress test. I look forward to the results of that. I get scared when i push myself and i get all out of breath and my chest hurts. Right after a stress test that tells me my heart is functioning well i can push myself a little harder.

When i talk to my GP I am going to tell her that i want to exercise under the supervision of someone who knows what they are doing. There is a place in Sugarland that just opened up that offers that service. If i could learn how far it is ok to push….. The same center also offers diet supervision. I don’t know what it would cost. Surely insurance would cover some.

blog

Sitting here thinking that the purpose of this blog is to keep me on the straight and narrow food-wise, or at least to keep me focused. I guess it is making me think about it tonight.

quiet

Well, Chris and Christina have moved out. I am glad for them, and appreciative of the new space, but it is awfully quiet around here.

I have been moving the last of their things into their room and going thru stuff in the sewing room and tossing and giving away a pleasing amount. I had been thinking we should move our bedroom into their room and move my sewing room into my current bedroom, but lately i have been thinking of just moving my sewing room into their old room. The furniture fits better in their room and my bedroom furniture fits fine where it is. I am ging to repaint, either way. 🙂 I like seeing the deep yellow walls (it reminds me of them) but it is not me. I may, however try a little darker shade of the color i had chosen, mostly because they have encouraged me to.

Distance tech support

I usually don’t mind doing tech support for people. I know it is the first geek rule: don’t do free tech support, especially for family. Something about people expecting you to do tech support from then on for free. And if something doesn’t work/breaks in the future you are held responsible. For whatever it was that broke. Not always a place you want to put yourself into.

But I do it anyway. Usually it is stuff that isn’t so much of ‘help fix this major problem’ as much as it is ‘I don’t know how to do X’ questions. I don’t mind the latter; the former are the ones that come back to bite you. So I do my best to make sure my solutions are, indeed, the solution needed. I don’t want to fix a symptom if I can find the real problem.

Well, one of the distant (as in physical distant) relatives is having a computer problem that I’ve been trying to help them fix. Right now they are stuck with a dead hard drive. (some data might be retrievable; I hope the drive isn’t gone beyond all hope) I have a spare hard drive. Not that this spare is one that I would really like to give out; it has been sitting unused for a while now. Drives don’t always like to be left alone like that after being used for a while. Hence I am doing my best to test this drive for any problems. Right now I’m using programs from the disk manufacture to check the drive out. Please oh please pass the diagnostic!

I really don’t want to send a drive that is going to die soon if I can help it.

(and I really wish I could tell them to just go buy a cheap Dell; but they can’t do that right now. )

Thursday 8th

Mostly a frustrating day. I went to the pool this morning and learned that my favorite instructor is quitting in 3 weeks. I will miss her. All the other instructors are obviously bored with the stretching and flexing we need, and do not lead a class that is challenging or interesting.

Class was frustrating because the pool was so full. The first 30 minutes there were only 2 or 3 swimming classes. The second 30 minutes there were 2 or 3 swimming classes, several parents who were teaching their own children and cutting thru our walking space like it had been allotted to them, and a physical therapy group occupying roughly the same space we were using. There was also a bunch of kids in the deep end, so it would not have been any better in the deep water.

Summer pool use is frustrating. The Y needs money; they schedule things in our time slot all the time. They do not do this to the other classes. I guess they figure all we are doing is walking while the other classes are jumping around to loud music. Perhaps that makes them a more real class. I wish i liked the earlier class, but i don’t. Jumping around hurts my knees, even though i am jumping in the water, and nobody can keep up with the music, which does not seem to bother anyone else, but it bothers me. The volume also bothers me. I do not understand why exercise music must be so blasted loud.

But there was one good thing at the pool… a conversation with another walker. She joined weight watchers about 6 months ago and has lost 50 pounds. She talked about how she edged into the diet and how, now that she is used to it, she is not hungry. She likes the point system they have for their food, and she likes that you lose slowly. It was a good conversation.

The rest of the day was spent in pursuit of a swim suit. Mine gave way in a big way this morning. I doubt if i could wear it again. I thought i might try tomorrow because i love Fridays. Fridays there are no swimming lessons! Then i remembered that Monday was a holiday so Friday will be the make-up day. I think tomorrow i will stay home and try to re-make my suit again.

They must put alot of chlorine in the water. My swim suits disintegrate at a speed I have never before experienced.

I did not find a suit. I came home and found the site of the manufacturer of my current suit. They have a well laid out site. They do not sell their suits, but they have pictures of each suit they make and link each suit to every store that sells it and they link each style to similar styles. I spent a while following links and did not find a single suit i could order.

I looked on ebay and found one suit that is possible. It is a different brand. I have learned that different brands may be too short from my last series of suits purchased thru ebay (none of which worked for me). I wrote to the seller asking her to measure here and there, If it is long enough i will buy it.

But the only sure thing i can do, i will do tomorrow. I will cut the ragged remains of my old inner suit away from the outer “dress,” and replace it with the inner suit from a suit i bought on ebay last time around. This ebay suit has a sheer ruffly outer dress. I would feel so silly in it, but more than that, the purpose of the dress is to make my shape a little less well defined, and that sheer does not hide a thing. It did not look sheer in the picture on ebay, and sheerness was not mentioned in the description. I thought about sending the darn thing back and demanding my money, but the under suit fits and is a color that i could wear under my current suit.

The outer skirt on my current suit shows no effects of chlorine for some reason. I would think it was that it is loose, but the inner suit is not tight and what happens to it has nothing to do with stretching and everything to do with rotting.

Anyway…….. frustrating day, but i am not without hope for next week.

Got a Job

Long ago when the world was still fresh .. .. .

er, when I graduated from college I had an interview; my first in person interview. I thought that I would be such a great fit for the job that I would have an offer in a week or so. After a few calls, e-mails, and weeks of waiting I moved on to other prospects.

Interviews came and went. I had a few that I thought would come through. Nothing did.

Six months passed by. Still nothing.

Then it came time to move from the apartment. I was packing up everything, getting ready to shut down and pack up my computer and an e-mail arrived. Not quoting, but the e-mail asked if I was still available as the company was expanding and they needed more people. A few phone calls later I had a job offer. I talked with my wife; accepted the next day.

Fast forward a week and I have found a place to rent close to where I’ll be working. I am looking forward to being in the Austin area. My sister (hello!) loved living there and, so long as I avoid certain university grounds, I think I will enjoy the area as well. And, ok, I think I will enjoy wearing my class ring all the more in the area. The reactions I’ve gotten from some people in the area (who I’m sure were from the other university) are priceless. Ah, I digress.

The job itself is a support and programming position. I get to support clients by making changes to the code base. In the future I will travel to client sites, make presentations to clients, and even more stuff that I will learn about later. It is a small company so I know I will be doing a touch of everything as time goes on. In any case, I will enjoy the challenges that this position brings.

book

I finished reading The Cracker Factory tonight. It is an old book (copyright 1977) but it was still current. Amazing how much the heroine reminded me of me and her husband reminded me of Luke. Not that we are as extreem, not that i have a problem with alcohol, not that we have the kinds of fights they had, but there were familar emotions and responses and solutions.

I guess, if i am comparing myself with the heroine in the book, my crutch is food. Unfortunately when i came to terms with everything else, i did not come to terms with food. It is still a raging problem. My motives for eating are different now, but the problem is worse, as it is now complicated by age and a past period of withdrawn inactivity which led to a reduction of muscle and increase of fat, complicated by the stress my current weight puts on my joints. In other words, i may not binge like i used to (though i do eat badly and semi-binge from time to time) but lack of activity makes means the result is the same… weight gain, not loss.

I think sometimes of the times i have lost weight. Once i got into counting calories and carbs and fat and it became a game to see how little i could eat. The only other time i did not even realize i was losing till my clothes got loose. I did not notice that i was not biting my fingernails, either, till i saw they had grown. But i cannot reproduce that time. I was euphorically happy then. I was coming out of a long depression, a depression i had not even known i was in till i looked back and saw it for what it was. That would be pretty hard to do again, especially since i am no longer in a depression, at least not like that one. I get depressed from time to time, but i do not live depressed any more.

So how do i get stated now? I have tried the calorie counting. It snuck up on me that time it worked, but now when i do it i know what i am doing is trying to get myself to modify my eating. And every time, EVERY TIME, without exception, that i know i am trying to lose weight, i gain instead, and the harder i try to loose, the more i gain. I think that problem is worse now than it ever was. There is something about trying to diet that puts me into full panic eating mode. I am not afraid i will starve; I am not afraid i will never eat ice cream again. I have no idea why i go into such a panic. I only know that i do.

Sunday night

The idea is to write something every day, even when what I have to report is not good, so…

I did not eat well today, nor did I exercise. I also did not binge, and, though I was not as active as I could have been, I did accomplish a little on the house clearing project. I tackled the bedding storage in my room. The goal was to keep only what I use and to get rid of or move enough so that I have room for all of what is left. I have one bag destined for goodwill. It contains that pink lean back on pillow thing, a sheet, and a spread, so far. I am debating what to do with some of the other sheets. I have 2 sets of jersey knit sheets that stretch out and get all messy on the bed. I do not have room for all my sheets, so I think these will go, but I may send them to Trip or Bill instead of goodwilling them.

I should keep a food diary. I try to do that from time to time. It would be a good thing if I would actually do it… I am eating ritz crackers and cream cheese as i write this and it is after midnight.

First Post?

This may not be the first post on the site, but it is my first post and i find myself oddly wordless. I encouraged this idea and now i sit here drawing a blank!!! What in the world am i supposed to say???

Chris is telling me what to say.

I am looking forward to this experience. I hope it catches on with everyone. ect….

Actually I do hope it catches on. This idea sort-of evolved out of Chris’s suggestion that i might have more sucess with my diet and exercise if i kept a journal, and that if that journal were public so others could follow my sucess and failure, it might be even more effective. I like the idea. It is my intention to post every day, even if all i say is that it was a good day or bad day in the battle of the bulge. I think (and hope) that daily writing about the battle will help me focus on it. And it would be nice to read what others have to say on what i say.

I think that it might also be a good place for us to all keep others updated on what is going on in our lives. I realize that we do a very good job of that already in e-mails and phone calls, and i do not want to detract from that, but this might keep us in touch in a different way. We will have to see.

Welcome Family

Ah, the Family.

A collection of individuals spread across half the US. Maybe it will spread from ocean to ocean someday.

In any case, this blog is for everyone.

The original idea: a place for people to help each other track their progress on eating and exercise.

The evolved idea: a place for all info and stuff

The current idea: a place for the family to communicate with each other and help each other on eating and exercise.

So, everyone register and I’ll make sure that you get all the fancy rights to write posts and pages and all that fun stuff.

Enjoy and start posting!