"Today is the first day of the rest of your life” I know that’s supposed to be inspirational.  But.  What if I screw up today?  What if I come to the end of today and it’s been a horrible day?  THAT was supposed to be the first day of the rest of my life? Ewww.  What is it? All downhill from here?

Nah.  Don’t think so.  Nope.

Do you remember the Christmas show about Kris Kringle? The one that covers from the time he was a baby and left on the Claus’s doorstep?  He grew up making toys and volunteered to go across the mountain to give the toys to children in a village on the other side.

Remember Old Man Winter, or whoever he was, that was on the mountain?  He was mean and terrible and frightening.

Hope you remember by now. Cause the advice about just putting one foot in front of the other and repeat reminds me of the song from that show.  “Just put one foot in front of the other.  And soon you’ll be walking ‘cross the floor.  Just put one foot in front of the other.  And soon you’ll be walking out the door.”

I think I need to go find that song and download it.  It’s peppy.  It’s bright.  It’s real “get yourself moving” music.

How are you doing today, Melody? I was thinking about you and wanted to send a hug your way.

Bree

I’m trying to get back into using my CPAP machine.  I’ve had difficulties with it since I had cancer.  I have lymphedema and that reduces my sleeping positions.  I have sleep problems (waking up in the wee hours or not being able to get to, or back to, sleep) since then that I didn’t have before.  Between those problems and dealing with the mask… well, it’s difficult.  I did half-way decent Monday night.  Actually slept pretty much all the way thru Tuesday night.  But this morning, oy.  I woke up at 2:30a.  Part of my sleep problems are stress related… so the negative thought tapes started going and that kept me from getting back to sleep.

On top of that, there’s been some schedule changes today and new stress for my mom… so as they say… SNAFU… Situation Normal, All…

My headspace… is still all over the place.  Which is pretty normal these days too.  It generally takes me a few days to calm back to a steady state after stressors these days, whether with DH or something.  That’s pretty normal. 

Because DH cleared out quite a bit of the basement after our last confrontation, I was able to go thru some boxes.  That’s progress toward one of my goals - getting rid of junk and being more organized.  I was ditched some stuff, found some stuff to pass on to my mom (progress on one of my values, taking care of my mom).  I got reaquainted with old friends (things).  There were some bittersweet moments… running across old planner pages, from back when I was in charge of my life.  I was going to throw them away.  But decided to keep them.  I’m constantly trying to recall what I did “then” that worked so well for me so that I can apply it to “now”.  Being able to see what plans I wrote down then will certainly help.

One of the problems I struggle with is this… most people, me-pre-cancer included, work out strategies and coping mechanisms in their lives to accomplish what they need to accomplish.  Many of my old techniques relied on the way my brain worked pre-chemo.  The last six years, most of those techniques and mechanisms fell by the wayside.  And my brain post-chemo is not as good as refiguring out what they were or coming up with new stuff.  So, I constantly try to recollect what those techniques were.  For instance, drinking water thru a straw really helps me drink more water each day.  Digging that memory out of my brain has led to me drinking more water.  One of Scott’s messages mentioned a business man who accomplished 3 things each day.  One of the things that worked for me “then” was that I would write down 3 and only 3 things to do each day.  They weren’t big or terribly important.  Nothing serious would happen if they weren’t done.  But they built up in me self-confidence that I could plan and follow that plan and have some internal integrity.  Excavating the memory of doing 20 minutes of exercise even if I had to do it in 1 minute chunks has directly led me to getting back in the exercise habit.

Well, that was a side trip wasn’t it?

So, to answer your question, I’m doing better than before and possibly even better than might be expected, especially given that I’ve only had 5-1/2 hours of sleep.

And it really means a lot to me that you asked!

As I mentioned to Bree above, I was once successful in taking charge of my life and health (I lost 30 pounds).  I used “tweaks”, little things that helped me work healthier habits into my life.  I’m going to try to list them here for myself so that I can keep track of them.  These days if I don’t write it down, I might as well not have spent the energy to think of it.

1. Drink water with a straw.  I think this works because most of the water goes straight to the back of my throat rather than wetting my mouth, which leaves me with a mouth-feel that I’m still dry.

2. Keep water around at all times.  This means making sure I have a very convenient way to always have water with me.  RIght now that’s sevearl purchased water bottles.

3. Add lemon to water for those times when I’d like to drink something with taste.  Just keeps me from reaching for sodas so much.

4. Use the mindgame that 20 minutes of exercise is 20 minutes even if it looks like 1+1+1+… = 20.  Once I start I’m unlikely to stop at just a minute or two.  And the more days I do this, the more likely I am to do more minutes at a time.  (i’ve already worked up to a mostly steady 20 minutes at a go.)

5. Eating what I want… but only if I really want it.  In other words, if I have a craving and I can definitively identify it as wanting Lays potato chips, then I’ll go ahead and have the chips.  But if I have a craving and I can’t identify what I want, I wait until I can.

6. Eat as much as I want, but Only as much as I want.  Keep aware at each bite of whether I want that next bite, without regard to whether there is still food on the plate.

7. It’s better to have seconds than firsts that are too big.  Start with a small initial serving.  Go back for seconds if I really want it.  Related to #5.  Often by the time I’m finished with what’s on my plate, I find that I don’t want seconds of anything.

8. There will always be chocolate chip cookies.  Just because I don’t eat a chocolate chip cookie today doesn’t mean I will never have a chocolate chip cookie in my life.  Obviously this applies to other foods too (applies to other things in life too). 

9.  I give myself permission to eat something at a later time.  If I want something that’s really high calorie or otherwise “bad” for me, I will sometimes write it down.  I promise myself (a bit of a mindgame) that if at some future time - like the end of the day or next week - I still want it then I can have it.  I know that when the due date rolls around I will have forgotten the food completely or I’ll be in a different “mood” and won’t want it as much asy more.  (I do this with purchases too.)

10.  Smaller plates.  This is a standard kind of thing.  But works for me.  I can’t stand to see a lot of open space on my plate so less real estate to fill is better.

11. Planned eating.  This is mostly just packing my lunch or breakfast.  When I went to an office every day to work, if I had my lunch with me I was less likely to go out for some fast food.  Nowadays, it’s mostly pre-packing my not-so-instant oatmeal so that it is the most convenient thing for me to eat for breakfast.  (Course it helps that DH buried my Lean Pocket breakfasts in the freezer.) This one is kind of hard to do with other people in the house.  There are always leftovers in the fridge and I hate to waste food.  Plus, sometimes I reach for my planned food and someone’s eaten it.  This is sort of related to the next one.

12. Reduce my food choices.  This one really helped me a lot.  Scott mentioned it on one of the old podcasts/shows.  With fewer choices (I drew my choices from Weight Watchers old Quick Start program which is based on exchanges), I didn’t have to think or devote much mental energy to figuring out what to eat.  And the less time my brain spends thinking about food, the better for my waistline.

13. The starving children in China are not going to come to my house to eat my leftovers, nor to the restaurant to eat my leftovers there.  I don’t like to waste food.  But.  Once I have paid for the food, no one else is going to eat it.  Once it’s in my home or on my plate at the restaurant, whether I eat it or not, it will in no way benefit anyone else.  At that point, the only important thing is whether it is wise for Me to eat it.  If I’m truly concerned with waste, then it’s best to not get so much in the first place.  This would translate to eating an appetizer as a meal at a restaurant rather than a whole meal or splitting the meal in half and taking the rest home for a meal another day.  And making smaller amounts of food at home, or portioning out and freezing dishes I made at home.

Well, that’s all I can think of now.  I’ll add to this very post if I think of more.

very useful tips...thanks for sharing!

Great tips, Melody!  I was actually planning on posting something similar, but it looks like you beat me to the punch!  (I may do a similar post anyway. *grin*)

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Julie

Melody, you crack me up .The tips are great, but my favorite thing about them is your little anecdotes. I was giggling at the chocolate chip cookie comment. You seem to be in more control of your life today, and more confident. Hope I’m right about that. That makes me very happy. I’ve been praying for you (doing a lot of that for a lot of MTMers lately). Keep up the great work, and I will definitely incorporate your tips into my life.

Later girl,
Bree

hee hee..I like #8 I do that all the time.  I may not be hungry, but the chocolate chip cookie is there and calling to me, and who knows when there will be another one.....and you get the picture

I’m going to copy and paste your list somewhere where I can read it when I’m feeling desperate...THANKS!

that is such a cool list....

I’mn gonna laminate it!

Hey Melody. How’ve you been doing? I’ve repeatedly thought of your above list in situations, and it has really helped. Thank you for writing it down for all of us. Any more progress in your quest for health? Hope to talk to you soon.

Bree

It was a good weekend in general.

There’s some stress due to my mom and some current health concerns she’s facing.  DH was mostly decent… the only memorable glitch was when he rolled his eyes last night - he didn’t need to get up at his usual time but I still wanted to in order to be able to exercise and shower before taking SD to the bus.

I’m off in a minute to take Mom for another test.

My big concern, other than Mom’s health, is that I am miserable at the balancing act that seems to be my life.  Balancing DH against my job.  My job against taking care of my mom.  Balancing all that against my own needs.  I tell ya, it makes a body tired.

About my “tips"… I’m one of those who doesn’t do well at most mind games, those things we use to trick ourselves in better behavior or some sort of personal improvement.  For instance, setting my watch ahead to keep from being late - I just mentally recalculate the time every time I look at my watch, lol.  I call myself a realist, a pragmatist.  But I have discovered that I forget things… like anyone does.  And so I try to use such things to “trick” myself.  I know that if I buy the gee-gaw for $10 that it won’t kill my budget, sure if I did it repeatedly it would… but not just this once.  So I give myself permission to buy it… if I remember it in 10 minutes.  10 minutes later I’ve forgotten it and just like that my long term budget has been rescued from my short term impulse.

Some stress here the past few days.  One is that my mom had to go in for a CT scan follow up of an xray.  A possiblity of not-goodness there.  The other is Myspace.Com.  I really hate that site.  Kids think it’s cool. But teenagers get on there (my SD is a teenager) and just don’t understand the risks involved.  Lots of stress re that for various reasons and SD now has NO internet access. (We use internet protection on her computer but if she clicks a link from a Yahoo mail message it completely bypasses the internet protection.  Oy!)

On the upside…
Friday evening I will be doing some training for my before picture.  My mom sends cookies to my sibs as her presents to them.  And we’re making Rice Krispies treats on Friday. 

But better than that, I’ve asked Mom to do the South Beach diet with me.  She’s diabetic but has a meter so she can keep a close eye on her blood sugar.  She’s leaving Saturday to visit my sibs for a few weeks.  I suggested we start about mid-January.  That gives us time to digest (no pun intended but still a funny one, eh?) what the book has to say and come up with some ideas to get us thru those 1st two weeks.

It’s going to be tough doing it here.  The culinary abilities here in my hosuehold are limited.  For instance, last night’s dinner was fish sticks, mashed potatoes with gravy and corn.  Hmm… If I were South Beaching it already, I could have eaten the fish inside the fish stick. LOL

Melody, how were your holidays? Any more wonderful words of wisdom and encouragement? I over did it, but am getting back to normal. My family does not agree with your cookie theory, not only do they think it needs to be eaten immediately, but by the person who has made the most healthy progress lately. Those people suck. 

Hope to hear form you soon,
Bree

Diet wise, I pretty much didn’t bother over the holidays.  Same with exercise.  But I’m going to jump back on the exercise wagon next week.

The holidays started good then slipped, finally landing with a crash a couple of days ago.  DH spent most of Christmas Eve watching football which meant I was left to myself and then declared that he didn’t know that Christmas Eve was special (after having uttered remarks previously along the lines of “oh, goody, it’s Christmas Eve day").  He recovered that fumble (ouch, what a pun) somewhat.

The crash actually started due to an attempt at discussing exercise.  DH won’t and never has taken my advice - on anything.  He won’t even listen to it.  Even on subjects where there is great possibility of me knowing more about the subject than he does.  In November, because of yet another incident related to this, I told him that I no longer wanted him to give me advice (unsolicited), read health stories to me… nothing.  Not unless he was willing to address my issues about it.  New Year’s Eve he wanted to know how he could present health info to me.  I told him it couldn’t until he addressed my issues concerning that.  It got a bit heated, but he eventually recovered that fumble too.  And then 3 days ago, he came up from exercising with SD.  He kept saying over and over “You could exercise with us too. You could use this machine or that machine or...” and on and on.  The next morning I told him I’d rather have hot pokers in my eyes than to exercise with him so long as he was unwilling to address the core issue.  He thought on it all day and blew.  And during the blow (uhm, discussion? conversation? fight?) he got stupid and said something that was way below the belt.  It all ended eventually with me once again pouring my heart and anguish out and him finally (yet again) getting it.

Now, he “gets” things right along… but then slips back almost immediately.  Which is why I’m just not very hopeful.  For instance, at one point in the discussion(?) he seemed to “get” that a large part of our communication problem is him - he doesn’t say what he means, he says things he doesn’t mean, and he reads tons of meaning into what I say that is simply not there.  The stupid thing he said was something he said extremely badly.  But within 5 minutes, he was backpedaling and making it sound like he feels that the communication problems are mutually and evenly shared.  I can only solve my end of it.  And if he requires the same effort at solution from me as he puts in, then it’s not going to get solved.

But.

On the upside, I’ve been rereading Covert Bailey’s The New Fit or Fat.  Since I seem to have so little focus these days and so must minimize where I place it, I’m going to worry about exercise and let my diet take care of itself.  I don’t eat right but I take a really good multivitamin.  Since I’m concious that I don’t eat right, I will make small changes anyway, just by being concious of what I’m doing.  But I’m not going to try to go for a grand plan or anything.  I’ll just work on what I need to do to actually exercise every day.  Right now that is finding my cordless stereo headphones.  I most enjoy exercising when I can watch something I really want to watch.  I have tons of stuff to watch but am over-sensitive to the noise of the TV disturbing SD or DH if they are sleeping.  (And truth be told, I prefer to not draw attention to myself around here because I just don’t want to deal with the hassle that usually brings.) I’m also trying to do what I can to get my work productivity up.