I have to admit, I really didn’t put much thought to eating well most of the last two weeks, ‘cept to say that I actively decided not to care.  Well, I’m not sure it was a decision… more of a realization, I guess, but whatever you want to call it there it was.  And it wasn’t the moment to moment “Oh, I really want this…” followed by the “Oh, wow, I feel guilty for eating that,” but I didn’t feel guilty at all.  Still don’t.  I don’t feel guilty when I go out and enjoy myself on vacation… and I don’t feel guilty for setting aside one worry of mine when I’m dealing with personal things such as I was.  I fully recognize that I probably need to figure out other ways to deal with those things, but as it was I didn’t have other tools available to me then and, well, yeah.  I ate a lot of things I wouldn’t have dreamed of.

One thing that did change, though…  I had been drinking more as we approached October 1st, but with seeing the doctor and trying out some new meds I have severely cut back on my drinking.  Mind you, I don’t think I was drinking THAT much, but my home brewed cider is about the same caloric intake as three regular beers so, yeah, it was adding up.  What blew my mind yesterday when I made it back to the meeting, though, was that I officially held even from two weeks before.  All those donuts, all that chocolate, absolutely no tracking and I held even.  Actually, I probably lost a small amount; two weeks ago, I went as “light” as I could, with no belt, no wallet, no cell phone, and only the house key and car key with me.  This week I had all of the above and was still holding even… so I at least lost the weight of those things. Considering how I was eating, and considering I’ve not been to the gym in about three weeks, I’m still a little surprised… but between having built up more muscle mass in the gym in the previous two months and cutting off the calories from the cider, I guess it was enough to hold even.

Oh, well, there was more too.  The first week on the new meds I took a half dose, per my doctor’s instructions.  Friday night I went to a full dose… and Sunday the side effects kicked in, waves of dizziness, nausea, and an odd feeling of my skin kind of crawling a little in my legs and arms.  I know that sometimes you have to adjust to the levels, so I continued taking the full dose for a week, but the side effects weren’t really getting any better… perhaps a little worse, in fact, so last night I went back down to a half dose and will call the doc tomorrow to see if I should just continue the half dose or go to something else.  Other than the side effects, my moods have improved somewhat… then again, we’re past the anniversary so perhaps that’s something right there.  I dunno.  But I suppose my eating was curtailed somewhat when I would have a wave of nausea, so that may be part of it all too I guess.

All in all, though, I’m kind of encouraged by the fact I held even in spite of my eating since my last weigh in.  I hadn’t realized just how heavy those ciders were, or what they were adding up to, I suppose…  if I cut out more of the comfort food (which I actually already have) and keep the rest the same I may go back to losing without a ton of extra effort.  We’ll see.  I did learn yesterday, though, that apparently Weight Watchers will be making some changes to their program coming up in November… I don’t know just WHAT they are, yet, but I’m interested to see what they are and perhaps they’ll help me to feel I’m starting fresh again.  Who knows?

At this point, there’ll be more updates…  I’m not quitting anything yet.  Just don’t hold your breath for them. 

The biggest news of the week, in my mind, falls back to the doctor’s visit on Friday however… and not just because I’m down 42lbs on my medical records.  I mentioned my issues with what seemed like an extended burn out, and the doc gave me some tests and confirmed that by that test I appear to be depressed.  It was kind of funny, actually;  he said men have a harder time of admitting when they’re depressed and wind up turning to road rage and alcohol instead of getting help;  I just commented that I have avoided the road rage but have been a little quicker to temper lately.  It was hard to argue the point on the alcohol, as that’s been a source of calorie issues for me lately too.  In any case, I’m starting Zoloft now and we’ll see if that helps.  It takes 4-6 weeks to really take effect I hear so time will tell how that goes, but I’ll keep people generally posted as to the process.

Of course, that leads right into a few other choices I’ve been debating as well.  I have decided that whether or not I quit Weight Watchers, I won’t make that decision right now if I am depressed.  When I was working the program it was working for me quite well, but I’ve just lost the motivation to really put in the effort of adding up the numbers and figuring things out.  Of course, I’ve lost a lot of other motivation as well…  if the Zoloft helps to bring back a little more zest than I might get right back into the swing of it.  If I’m still trying to just go on my own and not am not tracking in two months, I’ll probably quit Weight Watcher’s then but for now I’m going to stick with it.  I absolutely encourage anyone struggling with weight loss to try to Weight Watchers and really work it, because when you do work it then it really CAN work, but I’ve just had trouble caring about myself (or anything else) to work it lately.  If I do quit, it’s because of me and not because of the program.

I’ve also debated whether or not I really want to pursue this blog.  That TED discussion from a couple of posts ago is really resonating with me.  I have gotten a lot of fabulous feedback from the people here, both those that I’ve met through this site and others I’ve known longer who follow me here.  And it’s felt good, really good.  So good I think I have gotten a bit cocky and relaxed some on the kudos I’ve received instead of continuing to plunge forward and, frankly, even if I’ve lost over 40lbs I’m still at best between a quarter and a fifth of the way there.  So why do I often have the feeling that I’ve got this things mastered?  I know that I don’t, but I’ve lost touch with the tracking that helped me lose about ten pounds a month for the first three months I was on Weight Watchers.  I feel in some ways like some out of touch celebrity, perhaps knowing at some level that something else needs to happen but almost feeling like I’m above it, like it’ll happen without me making that effort.  That I can cheat today and be back inline tomorrow…  every day.

I won’t make any final decisions about what to do with this blog while I’m just starting a new medication and trying to figure out what that means for me.  I suspect that I’ll just throw odds and ends out here and there, however, and I don’t know that I’ll keep the same weekly update going on.  I’ll know more about the blog’s future when I know more about how my immediate future is working out…  and I guess we’ll figure that out together. 

In other quick updates; I walked a little over two miles Wednesday night, enjoying the full moon, but I did not make it to the gym.  I had my first middle of the night cramp that I’ve had in years in spite of a regular stream of bananas (and therefore potassium) and my legs have felt more more sore than they should lately…  very strange.  My clothes are still fitting as they have lately – those couple of pounds I’ve gained haven’t made much difference there.

It’s a new week next week…  and I begin titrating to new medication on it.  Wish me luck… I may need it.  :/

The funny thing is the doctor said that since I was coming in for depression he wasn’t going to get on me about my weight.  I looked at him and told him I’d been losing… he looked at the chart and noticed I lost 11lbs since my last visit and 42lbs since that visit in March before I started Weight Watchers.  By that math, I HAVE lost over 10% even though the Weight Watcher scales aren’t agreeing with that.  Makes me feel a little better about the overall situation. 

Makes me wonder…

I did not make it to the WW meeting again this weekend;  I actually slept in even later than I did the past week, and didn’t actually get out of bed until after the meeting had started.  Next week I’ll set the alarm for my own accountability if nothing else…    My scale of wild inaccuracies is trending up again, though, so I expect some bad news this weekend;  even if I were to run a 5k every night this week and strictly walk the line on the program, which I don’t see happening, there’s a lot of lost ground to make up.

I suspect this is going to be a rough stretch for me, to be honest.  That’s no excuse for jumping off the wagon and waving goodbye to it with a funnel cake in hand, I know, but the road gets really bumpy and it’s easy to bump out of it this time of year.   Why do I say that?  Take a moment and look back at my family tragedy history lesson from back in May for more of a background, but those anniversaries are starting to line up.   October 1st will mark the 8th anniversary of Sullivan’s passing…  November 7th would have been his 10th birthday… December 14th is the anniversary of his original near-miss SIDS incident…  and then there’s all the mixed feelings of the holidays after having spent one at the Ronald McDonald House and knowing there’ll never be a Christmas with all three of my kids together (the youngest having been born after the middle child passed).  Christmas is better than it used to be in many ways, but it’s still a bit of a marathon to get there from here.

I suspect there are some other things going on that I’m not even sure exactly what they are (although some I do and even talked about in last week’s update)…  but I find myself falling back into my emotional eating habits really easily.  I do still have control of some of the issues I used to have, but others, well, not so much.  I still have that appointment with my doc later this week, here’s hoping he’ll have some advice.

I started this blog originally to try and hold myself accountable.   I have to say, I far prefer to write the updates where I can say I lost a few pounds than ones like these, but if there’s anything that’s kept me from just saying “Screw it” and embracing the comfort food it’s been this blog.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets ugly before it gets prettier… but I’m not giving up yet.  Still hitting the gym, still making most of my eating choices good ones…  *sigh*

No one ever said this was going to be easy.  Except maybe me, saying that it WAS easy in stretches… and it has been in stretches.  Time to brace for a rougher one I suppose.

Since some recent updates, however, I now cannot look at what it thinks is spam.  I know there are about 200 messages in there that have built up over the last month or two, but I have no idea if any of them are legitimate.  And I’ve thought about switching comment formats, but I kind of like this one for other reasons and I suspect the problem will fix itself in the next update.  In the meantime, however, if you posted a comment but don’t see it having been approved in a day or two, please let me know.  And how would you let me know, you ask?  Well, I’m glad you asked!  I’ve created an email account for me to use with this site, and the address is “fattiny@lessofaman.com”, but you need to take the “fat” out for it to work.  (I get enough spam from machines just filling up my comments, I really don’t need any more in email…)  If anyone feels confused, remember that the first part is just “tiny” by itself. 

So, hopefully the comment eating spam filtering hasn’t gotten you, but if it has please do let me know.