The Aftermath

Today's food:

coffee, Fiber 1

lunch - small pc leftover quiche, asparagus

apple & peanut butter

balonie spaghetti (whole wheat linguini) and 3 small slices of garlic butter bread (peppridge farm in the frozen section of the store). Yes, that right, balonie from the deli couter, like the sandwich kind. I cube it, cook in skillet, then simmer in spaghetti sauce with veggies from the garden.

AND THE CAKE! OMG!! Delicious! This is the greatest thing! Or maybe I've been looking forward to it and knew it would be the bomb. Wow - if anyone wants the recipe, I'll share! Pecans, coconut, chocolate, cream cheese...heaven!

I'm winding down from the little fit I threw starting yesterday. I think I have bouts of paranoia. WTH?

Tomorrow I look forward to an Alanon meeting and a visit with my Sponsor. I think that my Sponsor probably understands the craziness in my head a little bit. Maybe I'll learn something that will help me to calm the wild beast that is me. I hope and pray! I'm learning how to be willing to let go a little bit more. And to STOP judging. Baby steps, right?

Oh, I read a quote in one of my Alanon books today and it was JUST what I needed:

"No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched." -George Jean Nathan

Feeling Blah

Yesterday's food:

coffee oatmeal

yogurt lite, small pc. quiche

small pc. quiche, asparagus

choc. chips for a snack, oh, yes, now I feel better

grilled burger w/ cheese, mushrooms, onion, acavacdo & mayo

walnuts for my midnight unexpected crash. I successfully avoided the chocolate

I went swimming yesterday morning, I it really wiped me out! What a nice refreshing workout. I'm doing anything to avoid feeling like I'm "working."

What a mood swing last night! It felt like a lingering panic attack. Yes, I've been getting that feeling too. The residual effects are anger which is what I'm feeling today. But I'm trying to haul my butt up out of it.

Today I did a Wii workout and tried a new one called "My Fitness Trainer." The trainer's name is Maya. Oh, Maya whipped me doing a 15 minute cardio session - if you could see me in my living room working out with a "vidya game" you'd laugh! Maybe some of you are working out with your Wii's too. It's great fun and a much tougher workout that I was hoping for today. Seriously, it kicked my butt! I'm not sure what I think about Maya...

Well, chocolate cake day is here!! Can't wait to get it made. The Schwann man is coming today, so I'm planning to get some ice cream as well. Oh, yes, I love to cheat.

I'm having an especially difficult day with my mind. I'm so angry with my husband - it all started yesterday evening. We were sitting at the table yesterday evening eating a nice dinner and he was telling me about his most recent AA meeting, the step he's working on, what is difficult and what is more difficult, blah, blah, blah (I imagine it's all pretty tough for him). One of my gripes lately is that he doesn't share enough with me what he's learning about himself from the AA meetings (you know me, I always talk his ear off). Well, he's just doing the right thing for me, bucking up and doing his part to share.

As he was telling me these things, I could feel unexpected anger deep inside me welling up from simmer to boiling over in about 10 minutes flat. I don't know why, but I started thinking about all the "life goals" we've been postponing, all the home improvements that are on the back burner and all MY hopes and dreams which have been torn to pieces because alcohol has pretty much derailed everything. And this early into recovery, he's nowhere near thinking about the future, he can't even see as far ahead as next weekend.

I'm so frustrated! I want to make plans, go on vacation, paint a room, so many things! Not only is lack of future planning an issue for us right now, but going to our meetings us sucking. He goes to meetings on evenings when I'm home. I go to meetings when he's home. Result, we can't even get together long enough to go over the budget for the upcoming week. It's the little stuff we can't do together because we're both focusing on recovery that really starting to eat away at both of us.

We're both frustrated. I'm trying not to allow my frustration to eat its way (no pun intended) into my food choices and training regimen. I was pretty proud of myself for choosing walnuts in my unexpected white hot fury last night. There is a Kit Kat and a Turtle in the pantry (my husband bought for emergencies because he knows me), but I DIDN'T TOUCH EITHER OF THEM. YESYESYES. Hurdle overcome! Mountain climbed! Baby step taken!

I'm not feeling so happy today, but cheat cake is coming. :) That's enough happy thought for me right now.

Can't sleep!

OK, I'm completely weird-ed out and I can't sleep.

I had a pretty rough evening. I was hanging in there OK, when suddenly I had a quick downturn of my mood for some unknown reason; I do that a lot lately. I don't know, it's Tuesday, so I guess I'm due a white-hot mood swing. I suddenly became very angry and really couldn't wait to get out of the house to my Alanon meeting. Oh, boy. Then things got worse. I'm supposed to feel better after a meeting, but just not so.

I'm new to Alanon, and quite frankly, I don't know my ass from my elbow these days. Life for the past year and a half has been confusing and I'm just trying to get out of bed and brush my teeth, much less anything else. Seriously, it's a huge deal for me to get dressed (in real clothes, not pajamas). Sometimes, that's a good goal to have.

(Venting starts here) Anyhoo, I feel like a pack of Mary Kay ladies is descending on me at Alanon. "You really need to buy another book...you really should chair a meeting...don't you want to be on our email list?...you really should..." OH MY GOD, I barely walked through the door and I'm ready to bolt already! I'm completely new to this, I'm just trying to learn how to get through the day, I'm only on step one! I don't know how to say "no" with confidence again, I'm still just trying to locate my elbow. I feel like they're trying to run me off. I need simplicity, not complicated-y. I just need a soft place to fall, a meeting where I can learn something wise, not more complication. K.I.S.S. ("keep it simple, stupid" - have you heard that?).

I am totally freaked out. So what's the knee jerk reaction? Stuff my face with crap food at midnight, internalize, bottle it up. Hate on my husband for getting us into this situation. If it weren't for him and his stupid drinking problem, I'd be skipping through fields of wildflowers, tip-toe-ing through the tulips. Hate, hate, hate, fester, fester, fester, rot, rot, rot.

Poor, poor me. Send sympathy chocolates to me at . . .haha.

What has happened to me? This is not me. Feeling sorry for myself and eating away my pain? This rabbit hole is pretty deep. Good thing I found the food.

Monday

Wow. Look at this amazing lunch.

OMG! I was just thinking about last night's pie and ice cream fest. I can't believe I made such a stupid excuse for cheating that badly. WHAT WAS I THINKING??!! I CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT!!! I'm surprised that none of you called me out for it!!! :) haha After that big ol' cheesecake I had this weekend, I can't believe that I actually thought that pie and ice cream was a good choice for the Silver Vegas Dress. What was I thinking? Hmmm. Oh, well, I'll be making up for that one this week, starting TODAY.

Today's food has been good:

B'fast: 1/2 cup coffee, Fiber 1 cereal

Lunch: dry tuna, tomatoes & a piece of sourdough bread (could have been whole wheat for a better choice). I've provided a lovely delicious pic here. Too bad it doesn't have smell-o-vision. It reeks of stinky tuna!

Snack: fruit & nut bar, fruit protein shake

Dinner: Quiche (mushroom, spinach, krab & cheese), asparagus. OK, let's be real, I snuck a few bites of cheese & krab while I was preparing dinner, but I gotta count those too!!

I went shopping for this week's menu today. Having the whole week's meals planned out (including snacks) makes it easier for me to stick to cleaner eating. I don't have to think about what I'm hungry for, I just look on the list posted on the fridge and see what yummy goodness I planned for myself. Besides, Wednesday is a cheat evening dessert, and I can hold on easier with that in my sights!!!! It's a fancy kind of German chocolate cake with cream cheese and the likes - yum!! I've never made it before. Come oooon, Wednesday!

Speaking of, I just love cooking! We have decided to have a least one "mystery dinner" every week (a new recipe). Yes, he cooks, too, which is totally great. This week we have 3 mystery dinners planned (last night was one)! Coming up: steak au poivre and chicken piccata on the weekend. I gladly share recipes if something peaks your interest. If Wednesday's cake turns out good, you'll be hearing about it for sure!!

After dinner, we made cookies for our new neighbors to take over. The house smells yummy and edible, but I resisted the temptation to sneak one. Besides, we had just enough for an even dozen. My OCD took over and I couldn't stand taking over 11 cookies to new neighbors, so that made it easier to resist. I am craving something sugary, so I might have 6 or 8 chocolate chips I have in the fridge later (the kind you bake in your cookies). I will surely report them if I do. I just feel a serious sugar crave after dinner every day and need to taste something sweet. Psychological or physiological?

That brings me to a topic of discussion, and please feel free to comment your thoughts here. I've been doing some exercises for my Alanon work regarding "alcoholism is a disease." Do I believe/understand that alcoholism is a disease? Why or why not? Truthfully, I have been having a hard time getting my head wrapped around the concept.

So what about food and how the "disease" concept can relate to eating? Is being fat a disease? Is overweight-ness a disease? Is the uncontrollable urge to binge eat a disease? I know there's a whole 12 step program for Overeaters Anonymous, but just as a shallow discussion, how do I relate and cross reference my experiences with the concept of disease? I have some present thoughts on the matter, but I will save them till later because I'm interested to see if any of you might want to share your comments on the subject. Again, you can comment to this post here, or if you'd rather share privately via email, that's great, too.

Sunday

Food, OK, here we go:

Fruit & nut bar, coffee, cereal

Another bar

Krab & cucumber filled sushi

Protein fruit shake

Orange Roughy with Avacado Aioli (home cooking by by the husband in today's pic)

Steamed zucchini

Sweet potato (with butter buds, splenda/sugar & pecans)

Peach pie & ice cream

OK, OK I know, it's not supposed to be a cheat day, so what's up with the pie and ice cream?? I ended up mowing the lawn yesterday in the hot, hot heat index of Texas, and let me tell you, I burned 4 gazillion callories, so I treated myself! :) Plus, it turned out to be a Wii marathon yesterday with the Sports Resort (swordfighting, basketball hoops, archery, etc).

I will say this: I was disappointed as I mowed the grass. My arms feel weaker than I'm comfortable with and I pushed that silly mower with every ounce of energy I could muster up! I can certainly tell that I'm nowhere near the top of my game these days. When we lived in Tennessee, we had a huge yard and it was entirely on a sloped hill. I remember coming home from the gym from a hard workout and mowing the grass while I was still in my sweaty clothes and feeling "a nice stretch and winding down from my workout." Yesterday's mowing WAS my workout.

Now, some might say that they're happy being overweight and out of shape, everything's just fine, thank you very much. Yee-haw for them. For myself, it's different. I've been fat and I got better, and I'll say it again: "Life looks a damn sight better when I'm fit, svelte & in control of my food choices." Right now, I can do better and I can look better, so this is why I'm working so hard.

Tomorrow's a big day of running errands, so I got to bed at 10pm. Ooo, I'm gonna be sore.

A New Week

Saturday's eating was pretty much residual of cheat day:

Coffee, cereal

Yogurt lite

Leftover Cheesecake Factory (and CAKE)

Homemade mushroom pizza with creamy Italian dressing (not a good choice, but I love pizza no other way)

Nothing too exciting to report - my husband and I played Wii Sports Resort. Wow - that is so fun!!

Sugar Hangover

Cheat day yesterday - woo hoo! It came in the form of dining out, which we hardly ever do. Here's the breakdown of yesterday's food.

B'fast: coffee with the usual accoutrements, Fiber 1 cereal (I just can't do oatmeal in summertime)

Snack after workout: Fruit protein shake, almond snack bar

Lunch: leftever salmon, potato and corn from last night's dinner.

Dinner at Cheesecake Factory:

Appetizer bread with butter (too much of both, who cares, it's Cheat Day)

Mango tea loaded with to much sugar, who cares, it's Cheat Day

Half of a Kobe beef swiss cheeseburger with onions, mushrooms, tomato and extra mayo

French fries with mayo, yum

A few bites of my husband's chicken piccata and pasta drenched in olive oil, OMG delicious

A few hours later for dessert: 1/4 slice of Red Velvet cheesecake trimmed in white chocolate shavings

Boy did I feel sick from all the sugar last night! It was so great, but halfway though my half of the slicec, I started feeling el sicko. So I've still got some cake left today, as well as the other half of my burger. I'll have it for lunch, provided I get on the Wii sometime this morning. :)

Speaking of Wii, my shoulders are sore! We bought a new game and played last night, and my shoulders feel throbbing this morning! I must be getting a lot of good out of playing the Wii fit stuff, because I am feeling it like I'd feel a good workout at the gym. But it's so much more fun!

I keep asking my husband, "Am I skinnier yet?!" And he keeps laughing under his breath and saying, "Yes, I think you already are!" Ha. He's go great for playing along with me. It helps me to keep up the clean eating.