Dietician

As anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know, I am very overweight. My attempts to lose weight have gotten less and less successful over the years in the sense that even when I start all over again, I don’t seem to be able to keep it up for more than a week or two, if even that. 

Last May, when I was visiting my sister in France, I spoke briefly with my sister about this, telling her about an article I had read about this luxury fasting clinic (sounds like a contradiction in terms but I think it sounds absolutely heavenly, you can read that article here "Enemas, laxatives and one nut: my ten days at a German fasting clinic") and how I’d actually like to go there. She asked me why I didn’t go to the doctor and ask if there was any equivalent for less-well-off people covered by health insurance. I kind of brushed her off but inside could feel myself getting very defensive just even from her really quite innocuous question. As these things go, I firmly pushed the thought out of my head but by the time summer was drawing to a close and my own attempts had never made it past a day or two, the idea of going to the doctor had worked its way sufficiently through my subconscious. It took me a couple of weeks of thinking about it to actually screw up the courage to go to the doctor and ask for help but I did it. And he was on holidays. Typical. 

Rather than traipse across town (my town is small, it would have been about a ten-minute walk) to the doctor who was covering for him, I sort of heaved a sigh of relief and told myself I’d go and see him when he was back from holidays. Of course by then I had lost my nerve again and it took me another while to actually go to him. Then it was a month or so of sorting stuff out with the health insurance place, getting all the right forms filled, stamped and signed correctly and all that kind of thing. And then, it sort of seemed to happen very quickly and all of a sudden I had my first appointment with a dietician.*

That was on 7^th February and today I had my third appointment. I thought it was great that it was working out so well to blog about it today but as it turns out, today’s appointment ended up being incredibly emotional for me and I’m still feeling a bit vulnerable and not wanting to talk about it. Perhaps I’ll find a way to come back to the topic during this A to Z and be able to write something a bit more positive. :)

On the whole, she is being a big help and I have made some progress. I’m a bit caught between knowing how much better I could be doing if I were just a bit better organised and trying to learn how to deal with the situations that my disorganisation lands me in time and again. And, as has been the issue for the last year or two, it’s the keeping at it that is the hard part. I have not managed to keep at it consistently by any means but knowing that there’s another appointment coming up in a few weeks is helping me to at least always keep coming back to trying to do better. I’ve lost 2.6kg (just over 5.5lbs), which to me, is really not a lot to have lost in eight weeks but at least it’s going in the right direction and I know that it’s changing habits and improving my overall eating which is the most important thing for now. If I can get that stuff sorted a bit better, then the weightloss will happen one way or the other.

* I’m using the word dietician partly because it fits nicely into my A to Z. The literal translation of the German word would be “nutrition advisor”. Feel free to substitute whatever word is the appropriate word for the profession that is actually regulated by the government in your country.

Crap

Forgot to write a post today. Mainly cos I couldn't think of anything good to write of starting with c. Now I'm in bed and thoughts are wandering and I realise I could have written something about the constitution. Or compassion. Or the cinema. Or carrots. Or clocks changing. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

Boxes

Almost a year ago, I wrote a post about how I was going to perhaps move some of the still unpacked boxes out from the bedroom so that I could paint the cupboard and rearrange some stuff before unpacking those boxes. And, that still hasn't happened. It has been bothering me more and more the last while but I couldn't face actually doing anything about it. In the end, I've come up with a throw-money-at-it solution. I need to be careful on this kind of thing. Now that I'm working full-time again, I can loosen the pursestrings a bit but honestly, not all that much.

However, in at attempt to try and create enough physical space to create enough mental space for me to actually get on with things, I've decided to rent a storage space for a while. I'd like to think that it's only for a couple of months but then decided to be realistic and signed up for a year (taking the corresponding discount). It's just a 1 square metre (1.2x1x2.2) space and it'll be costing me €33/month. If I want to switch to a smaller cube (1x1x1) during the year, I can do that, too.

So I hired a car for the weekend, and set to dragging out the (I thought) 12 boxes of cloth and wool and crafty stuff that were piled in my bedroom. Except there were actually 15. And at least five of them had kitchen stuff, documents, books and all sorts. I had totally blocked that out but now that I've looked at them I remember adding them to that pile because I just wasn't ready to deal with them. They were among the last boxes I packed before moving, when it was three o'clock in the morning and just a few hours before the movers were due to arrive and I thought I'd never finish. Even yesterday, nearly two years later, I could nearly feel that panicky feeling coming back. Still, I'm only sending boxes with the crafty stuff to storage, and I'm keeping the other boxes to deal with now.

I do have friends coming to stay next weekend, which is partly what gave me the push to finally tackle this so I think I may end up putting a lot of stuff into that cupboard, just to get it out of the way (which is exactly what I didn't want to do the whole time). But I'm setting myself the challenge to deal with one shelf/large pile every weekend from now until the end of may in an attempt to deal with it once and for all.

The other thing I've squeezed into the storage space is my barbeque. It was the cheapest one available at Argos when I bought it about, well, it must be more about 18 years ago now. I was so looking forward to be able to using it here on the balcony and then a couple of months after I moved in, the house rules changed to state that open flame barbeques are no longer allowed. Very frustrating. I've at least freed up the space on the balcony now and when it comes time to emptying out the storage space, I'll have to think long and hard about whether to keep the barbeque or not. I know the sensible thing is to not keep it and just get another barbeque if I ever have a space again that I can use one in. But I also know that the quality of cheap barbeques today is nothing like the one I have (I'm not the only one who thinks that - have had lots of compliements on what a great barbeque it is from lots of people who have used it, even if it is just a basic round one). Anyway, that decision is being pushed down the road for now.

And in the meantime, I need to get back to the boxes. There are at least two more that can go into storage and then I need to deep clean the space they've all been living in for the last two years. To say it's dusty in there would be an understatement.

Art

When I was about fifteen or sixteen my dad bought a picture at a charity auction. I remember him telling me at the time that it didn't really matter if a picture was "good" or not. The only important thing is whether or not you like it. If you like it, it's a good picture.

In terms of appreciating art, I've always kept that as my guiding thought. Sometimes though, I really would like to just know more about art. I feel sometimes like I live at a very superficial level, never really doing more than barely scratching the surface. And not must in relation to art but in relation to literature, music and so many other things.






A few years ago I decided to at least try and expand my knowledge of some of the most famous painters' work so now every year, I buy a calendar with a particular artist's work in it. The ones I like are a particular sqaure format (with an equally-sized page underneath with the dates on it in squares that actually have space to write in) and they're not terribly expensive.It has been a good way to expand my knowledge a bit beyond just the most famous paintings of some artists. For example, after a friend was talking about Munch and I had said I didn't like The Scream at all it got me thinking that maybe I should check out what else he had ever painted. Coincidentally, at the end of that year, I happened to see a calendar for Munch in the format I like and I got it. Turns out, he did a lot of stuff that I really do like. But any of his iterations of The Scream or similar? Well, I can easily leave them

This year, I decided to push the boundaries a little bit more and instead of a traditional European master, I chose a calendar of work by Hiroshige. I have to admit I do quite like some of it and it is interesting to look at it and see how different it is to Van Gogh, Monet, or Rothko (some of the others I've had).

Now all I need to do is to find more time to be able to just sit and quietly contemplate what's hanging on the wall!

Blogging the A-Z of April

I did this challenge in 2013 and it seems crazy to me that that it already five years ago. Those who say that time just passes more and more quickly the older you get are absolutely right. For some reason it came to mind again recently and I thought I might to it again. It was definitely an interesting exercise to come up with something to write every day. It's actually about as simple as it sounds, you simply blog every day in April except Sundays (exception this year for 1 April, I think) using A-Z as your guide. There is an official website but I'm not going to actually sign up this year. What I found very stressful last time round was trying to visit other blogs as well. This year, I simply want to do it as a writing/blogging exercise for me. To ease the pressure, I'm also allowing myself to simply post a photo on days that writing something just isn't going to happen easily.

Life is a bit of a slog

Really trying hard to keep going these days. Not getting a lot done but everything little thing take so much mental effort it's like a huge achievement when something does actually happen.

Last weekend got a big black bag (black bags are actually blue over here, but I still call them black bags) and went out to the balcony and dumped all of the dead plants into it. At the end of July last year I had access to a car so I took a detour on the way home and bought soil, compost and stones as well as a few small pots of herbs with plans to fill up all of my big pots, pot on the herbs and maybe plant some bulbs for the spring. And the herbs have been on the balcony dying ever since. Well, I kept them alive for maybe three months. Actually, the parsley still hasn't died, so all is not lost. And the soil and compost have been lying on the living room floor. So, the dead herbs from the balcony, as well as the two amarylis that I got for birthday and xmas presents from work and left outside once they started to die off, went into the bag. And I cleaned up the mess that the sap from the amarylis made when it was knocked over and then we had minus temperatures for a while. I moved the bags of soil and compost outside, which has helped with the little tiny fly problem I've been having, and hopefully, since they had a few days of freezing weather now, too, any remaining fly-offspring have been taken care of, too. Such a simple thing to just drag those bags outside but it honestly took me a couple of months of being really annoyed at those little flies to just do it.

Since I had the industrial strength cleaner (leftover from when I moved) out to take care of the frozen sap on the balcony, I also tried it out on the sap that leaked all over the inside windowsill last year when most of my aloe vera plants died. It was absolutely rock solid and nothing I had tried had worked and it had, quite honestly, added a good bit to my feeling bad over and over and worrying what my landlord would say when he found out. But the industrial strength cleaner, while terrible for the environment, actually managed to do the trick (after leaving it to soak for half-an-hour). So that was one more thing achieved. Today I took the approximately one minute I needed to turn around the butcher's block-style rack I have so that I can easily pull it in and out from under the tiny counter, giving me a bit of space to actually work with. Something that it occured to me might be a good idea probably a year ago. But at least it's done now.

Just about an hour ago, I actually took that black bag, added all the current rubbish to it, and brought it down to the big bin downstairs. Today I have also done a wash, which is now hanging to dry. On Thursday I brought the patchwork blanket downstairs and washed it (I told my brother at the start of February I was going to send it to him - that's how long it has taken me to get up the energy to do that task). Today I've made carrot and orange soup, with five portions waiting to go into the fridge for lunches next week. I ate the final portion of pasta bake that I made last weekend and the final portion (well, ok, two portions but they were small so it's now one very big portion) of the soup I made last week is heating up for me to eat for dinner soon. I've made egg muffins to have for breakfasts again. Last week was the second week I did this and I totally burnt them so I was really careful this week. I'm using six eggs and having three muffins every day for breakfast (Monday to Thursday). This week I added a small onion, half a small leek (both chopped very finely) and a very small carrot (grated) with just a bit of salt and pepper as seasoning. 

I have my second appointment with the dietician next week and am a bit nervous. I have not, to be perfectly honest, been following her plan very much. But I have, especially in the last two weeks, started to mostly eat "from scratch" food, even if it that has often meant bread and a slice of meat or cheese. I have lost some weight, although not a huge amount but it is just taking me a long time to get my head in the game and I really want to take as long as it takes. There is just no point in forcing myself to eat a certain way without changing my behaviour from deep within. One thing I have been relatively successful with was her advice to leave 4-5 hours between meals and not eat anything during that time. I have done this at least between breakfast and lunch on most days and between lunch and finishing work on slightly fewer but still most days. Evenings are most difficult at the moment. And weekends are a bit tricky, too. I haven't yet started to keep a proper food diary. I really need to work on increasing the amount of fruit and veg I eat. I have definitely not kept to the treats twice a week idea and am still eating some kind of chocolate every day. But generally just once a day and a drastically lower amount of rubbish then, too. It might shock some that that's a reduction but there you have it.

The health insurance company has approved a year-long program for me, which means (I think, need to double-check when I see her next week) monthly half-hour appointments with the dietician and eight activity appointments (I think to be able to try out different exercise classes to find one I like). They cover the bulk of the cost and I have to pay €273 for the year (in three instalments of €170, €58 and €45). I think realistically I'll need two to three years to lose the weight I need to lose but every day I do something that aims towards that goal, well, at the moment every instance of doing something feels like an achievement. One day at a time sometimes has to be one hour at a time and sometimes it feels like all of my strength is going into simply not giving up and actually trying again, with very little leftover to actually make any progress. But as long as I can still do even that much, I'll keep trying.

Make-ahead breakfast

First of all, thank you everyone who commented on my last post. Lots of food for thought there. I think I have been/am more depressed than I realised, which doesn't help matters at all.

But I made a small positive step yesterday, having had my first appointment with a dietician a couple of weeks ago but not really implemented anything we talked about. Because my new job involves me getting up very early (leave house just after 6:30, which is really, really early for me), I have fallen back into grabbing something from the bakery to have for breakfast. So on Saturday I bought some eggs and yesterday I actually made what some call egg muffins and could also be called mini pastryless quiches or mini baked omelettes.
Just did these with onion and herbes de provence. And eggs of course. I used 10 medium eggs and it was way too much for my 12-bun bun tray so I got 12 muffins and one more huge one in a mini quiche tray. Next time I'll try it with just six eggs and make 10 muffins. Then I can just grab two on the way out the door each morning. Will experinent a bit with more fillings, too. And try to remember to add fillings to tray and pour eggs over rather than mixing fillings into eggs first. That should hopefully cut down on the amount of filling floating to the top.
No artistic merit to this photo but what the hell, at least I did something good for myself yesterday. And I even did the washing up before going to bed, too!