191

Really, do I need to even say anything with a post title like that...191, as in 191 pounds, as in I gained five pounds over the weekend. Should I tell you how angry and disappointed I am in myself? It probably goes without saying, I am not happy with myself.

I've been trying to figure out what is going on with me, why on earth am I so hell bent on killing myself with food?

I have figured out that there's a direct link with how much I eat and how much I visit my sister. Last week I made three visits with to see my sister, two hours each visit. Even though the visits go really well, I find I get terribly depressed after seeing her. When I'm depressed and sad, I eat junk. I know this is a problem, but I seem uncontrollable.

Since the residents of the adult family home where my sister resides are always working on a jigsaw puzzle, but my sister can't seem to figure them out, I bought a puzzle that was for age 3+. She still struggled with it. I worked with her, giving her hints on which pieces might fit, but she had a very hard time.

I bought the wooden block stacking game Jenga. I read online it was good for stroke patients. She was better with this than the puzzle, and we played several times over the weekend (I visited Saturday and Sunday). She remembered how to play it on Sunday, and I think she enjoyed it.

I brought her new tennis shoes that fit. I had to buy two pair, one size 11W for her paralyzed side, and one size 10W for her non-paralyzed side. She use to wear size 9N. We had a good laugh when I tried to force her paralyzed foot into the size 11W. The shoe was huge and her foot really isn't that big, it's swollen and her toes are curling under, so she needed a bigger shoe. No matter how hard I tried to jam her foot into the shoe, it wouldn't fit. Finally, with her talking and talking to me and me not understanding a work, she grabbed the shoe from my hand and showed the open part to me so I could see I missed a big wad of tissue stuck down in the toe. We both had a good laugh over that one.

I took her for a walk outside yesterday in her wheelchair, with her rolling herself along and using her good hand. It was 58 degrees and sunny. She cried for the first five minutes. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. I finally determined she was happy. It was her first time she had been outside since her stroke on September 21, 2011 (other than being transferred into or out of an ambulance).  She was smiling the entire time, looking at everything and talking non-stop (none of it made sense).

I asked her if she remembered her daughter, Camille? I told her Camille wanted to come visit her soon. She waved her hand back and forth and shook her head no. I asked if she knew who I was talking about when I said "Camille". She looked at me and just shrugged her shoulder and put her hand out, like no, I have no idea what you're talking about.

We had some good visits last week, so why does it depress the hell out of me to see her? It makes me sad, I want to cry when I leave her. I feel awful this has happened to her, and I feel awful what has happened to me. I wake up at night, worried about her, worried about her finances. Just worried about everything.

So I eat to make myself feel better. It's not working.

I'm still alive, still fat and still struggling

I never understand how I can let almost two weeks go by and not post a single word. I think about posting, but never seem to have the time, or if I have the time, I can't think of anything to say. Usually it means I'm in a midst of a binge, which was very true this time around. I know posting regularly and reading other weight loss blogs has been a huge help to me in the past four years (I've been blogging for four years this month).

Life is definitely a struggle these days. Talking to attorneys, rehashing the last four months over and over with them, reviewing the legal documents to be filed in court, and dreading and hating the whole legal fiasco. As much as I detest this phrase, it's the truth in my case, "it is what it is". In other words, I'm screwed and the situation is beyond my control. I have to do what is best for my sister and what is best for me. End of story on that one.

My diet and exercise have been bad. Really, really bad. I only made it to the gym three times last week, claiming I was just to exhausted to get out of bed. I walked at lunch a couple days, but my regular walking co-worker is in Geneva this week, so I had to walk with my backup walker, who walks really s-l-o-w. She's about 100 pound overweight and I think has recently gained even more weight. I can barely walk as slowly as she walks. We stopped at Safeway so she could buy some lunch. She bought a big container of barbecued spare ribs and a giant white flour bagel. We've often talked about weight loss and exercise, but I'd never say anything to her about what she eats. I really enjoy her company, but I worry about her. I bought some fresh asparagus to add to my soup for lunch. Even though I was binging at night, I tried to at least eat a healthy breakfast and lunch.

To add to my lack of exercise last week, I fell into a binge cycle. Oddly, I read about a binge on a beloved blogger's post, and it seemed to trigger something in me. I haven't bought binge food for months, things like cookies, cheesecake and chips. I just did not care. After three days of stupid, binge eating, I think I may have come to my senses today. I feel like I got it out of my system and now it's time to move on to better eating and better health.

Today is busy so I need to finish this up and head out. I've cleaned house a little, just to make it bearable. Next up is the gym first, then shopping for a few items for my sister. I also want to pick up a child's puzzle for her, one with big pieces. Also some games I read that are good for stroke patients. Then I'll head over to her home and visit for an hour or two. Then home to make some homemade soup for dinner.

The weather is fantastic here in the Pacific Northwest today. We have S-U-N-S-H-I-N-E!!!! It's suppose to get up to a high of 58. I love it here when the weather is nice. It's been a tough, dark, wet, cold winter. I'm more than ready for some nice weather. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures today. I plan on bundling my sister up and taking her outside in her wheelchair. It'll be the first time she's been outside since her stroke, other than being transferred to or from an ambulance. I think she's really going to enjoy it.

Oh, almost forgot to mention my weight. I don't know. I weighed Wednesday and was 187.6. Still terrible, but considering that was right in the middle of a binge I'm pretty sure it's up from Wednesday. I'll find out tomorrow. Weight Watchers again!

The worst weighin ever

Okay, maybe it's not my worst weighin ever. When I weighed 240 pounds I practically cried every time I stepped on the scales (and I weighed 240 pounds for over a year).

Maybe it's because I'm out of tears that have been shed over other things, or maybe it's because I know this is temporary, and I can and will lose the weight, but I'm not terribly upset with myself. It's more like, oh well, shit happens. I gained ten pounds in twelve days.

So here it is, available for public viewing, my weighin this morning, at home, buck naked, before breakfast or coffee:

188.0

I knew it was going to be bad. In fact, I shut my eyes before I looked down at the scale and tried to guess my weight. You're not going to believe this but I guessed exactly correct. I guessed 188.0 and that's exactly the number I saw on the scale. Weird.

The last time I stepped on the scales was January 12, that's only twelve days ago when I weighed 178.2. Normally I weigh every day, yet I stopped for 12 days. During that twelve days I was dealing with my sister's sudden move to Seattle and my totally insane niece, fallout from other family members because I basically kidnapped my sister and moved her, and of course, the snowstorm, ice storm and the power outage. All great excuses for eating like a fool (at least that's what I told myself).

Not only have I been eating poorly and eating too much, but I also cut back on my gym workouts drastically. I didn't even go this morning, claiming I was just too tired and too beaten down. That's exactly when I should go, but I just couldn't do it this morning.

No worries though, I have plans to get back on track. I'm not beating myself up too bad because I have lots of other people that do a great job of beating me up mentally (okay, really only one person but she has many personalities).

Tomorrow I meet with an attorney to file court papers to stop my niece's crazy antics. Even though I'm dreading the whole legal maze I'll have to go through to stop my niece, I have a sense of relief that I made the decision to follow through on what I've been talking about for months.

Thank you for all your supportive comments on my sad day post yesterday. It really helped. I agree that I need to seek help from a professional. I know this, but right now I'm swamped with all the financial, medical and now legal facets of my sister's life, not to mention my real life job.

Until I get things straightened out for my sister, I have to put myself on the back burner, but just temporarily. I know someone I can see that can  help me. She's a therapist I met years ago in Toastmasters and she's awesome. We've kept in touch and as soon as things calm down a bit I'm calling her for an appointment. I think she can help me sort out this craziness. Thank you again. I love you guys. You make me feel somewhat normal (and not the wicked witch of Washington).

Having a very bad day

I've been on an emotional downward spiral all day today. After a 15-minute phone conversation with my craziest niece this morning about her mother (my sister) while on my way to work, I came into my office shaking, my heart pounding and very close to bursting into tears. It was a horrible conversation with a crazy person, and not a good way to start my day.

I feel like my heart has been ripped out and stomped on. Even as I write this ten hours after the conversation, I can feel the pain like a knife in my chest.

I won't rehash all the evil things she said to me, but I have retained a local attorney to help me stop her from ever contacting me again. It's a sad situation and a path I didn't want to go down, but my mental health is too important to me to keep living with this kind of insanity.

I really want my old life back. I didn't know how good I had it, when life was simple and my biggest concerns were exercising and losing weight. I'm trying to make the best of things, but the sadness is overwhelming me.

Let there be light!

After 54 hours without electricity, we spotted the Puget Sound Energy trucks at the end of our street around 6 p.m. yesterday. It was cold, dark and wet out but there they were, restoring electricity to our street. I seriously love those guys. They were working around the clock, 24/7, restoring power to over 300,000 homes in the area. It was a cold and rough 54 hours without power, but we made it.

Funny story, about three hours before the power came back on, my husband hooked up our generator. We plugged in the refrigerator, the coffee pot and we had TV. While my husband was at the store to buy more gas for the generator, the power came on. I knew as soon as he hooked up the generator, we'd get power. He should have done it three days ago!

Thank goodness for our gas fireplace which kept the family room warm and toasty, and our gas hot water heater so we could still take showers. I even washed my hair and then sat by the fireplace trying to dry it. You don't realize how much you rely on electricity until it's gone.

I couldn't even go to the gym because because their power was out too even after the streets cleared up. I thought that was a pretty good excuse for not working out. 

We were house-bound Wednesday and Thursday because the snow was so bad we couldn't get out of our driveway. My husband has a four-wheel drive truck so he could have made it, but he decided it wasn't worth dealing with all the other drivers and the mess out there. When the ice storm hit on Thursday, I'm not sure the 4x4 would have done him that much good.

It was truly an amazing sight this past week. Here are a few pictures from the Snowpocalypse or Iceaggeddon (everyone had a name for it). Most of the ice and snow are gone now with temperatures in the 40's, but it was fun while it lasted.

My car, encased in ice. I had chipped the ice off the back and side windows, but I couldn't get the doors open because of the 1/4 inch of ice had frozen them shut.

A Tree in front of L.A. Fitness

The parking lot at Fred Meyers (grocery store that was open).

A tree in front of Fred Meyers

Another ice encrusted tree

Close up of the ice on branches - it was just beautiful

Our Japanese maple tree in front of our house

View down our street. My husband was trying to get his truck cleaned off so he could take me to work on Friday. It took him about 20 minutes. Luckily he has remote auto start so it could thaw from the inside out or he might not have been able to open the doors because of the sheath of ice covering it.

More ice encrusted branches on our Japanese maple. I had a fascination with the ice.

The bamboo in our front yard. It's usually about 15 feet tall and completely blocks the view of our neighbor across the street. Now it's only about three feet tall since the ice made it fall, and we can see our neighbor from our front window (which I hate).

I made it to the gym yesterday, but my eating hasn't been stellar these past few days. A lot of eating out which I'm not accustomed to doing, and sometimes I didn't make the best food choices. We went to the movies Friday night and I had  popcorn and candy. I haven't done that in years and my husband was shocked. I told him to leave me alone, I was going through a bad spell. The whole sister/niece thing, and now the storm and no power, who gives a shit anyway about what I eat. I know. Silly me. Of course I care. Now it's back to the grindstone, eating right and exercising. Life goes on.

Lbs. the movie

I've been reading Pamela's blog, Uncovering Pamela, for almost four years, when I first started blogging in February 2008. She was the first person to post a comment on my blog and she was always there to support me. Pamela doesn't post much these days. She's discovered a life outside of the blog world, and has a busy social life these days. I miss her, but I'm happy for her.

Pamela wrote several posts about a movie that she loved, Lbs. She even went to the premiere in New York and met the director, writers and the star of the movie. She raved about it and I couldn't wait to see it.

Last night Pamela posted that her beloved movie, Lbs., was available on Amazon.com to rent. I'd never rented a movie from Amazon. I didn't even know that was something I could do. I have a Roku box (actually, we have three in our house), so I was thrilled to find out I could download a movie from Amazon to my Roku. It was only $3.99 for a 3-day rental. I didn't even bother to see if it was on Netflix yet because I wanted to see it immediately.

The IMDB gives this description:  A 315-pound man decides to kick his food addiction by moving to the country.

I'm sorry Pamela, but I hated this movie. I mean H-A-T-E-D it. I found it depressing, boring, and left me with a feeling of hopelessness. I didn't love the main character, in fact, I sorted hated him too. I didn't like the story line. I just didn't like anything about it. 

I almost didn't write this post because I respect and admire Pamela a lot, but this is one thing we disagree on.

I advise you to go ahead and rent Lbs. It was rated A+ by yahoo users, and won a New York film award and was a Sundance feature film, so maybe it's just me. It's only $3.99 to rent for three days through Amazon, and maybe you'll get something worthwhile out of it, I didn't get anything out of it except a bit of sadness (and I sure don't need any additional sadness in my life). I prefer happy movies. Lbs. did not make me laugh or feel good about life, that's why I didn't like it.

Your favorite green vegetable

Part of my lunch today, plain old green beans with Pam butter flavored spray and a dash of sea salt.

I haven't eaten green beans for years. I've never really liked them much. I've always thought they were boring and tasteless. These aren't bad, in fact, I'll probably eat them again.

I eat too many Brussels sprouts. Seriously, I eat them several times a week. I've had an ongoing love affair with Brussels sprouts for years. My favorite is fresh Brussels sprouts, roasted with olive oil and sea salt. I could eat these every day (heck, I have eaten them almost every day for months!).

I've decided to branch out and only eat Brussels sprouts a couple times a week (this will be hard), and start eating a greater variety of fresh, green vegetables. I know this would be healthier.

Do you have a favorite green vegetable? How do you prepare it?