I Wonder What's Up with Me?

After not posting for quite a while, I wish this could be an uplifting or happy post. The fact is I find myself really emotional lately. I seem to cry at the drop of a hat. I walk around with a constant lump in my throat. I don't think I'm depressed, but everything seems to set me off.

• The heart wrenching photo of the faithful dog at the Navy Seal's funeral.
  

• The hungry kitten video that Oct posted on her blog. I thought it was cute until I made the mistake of watching it on Youtube and saw the back story.

• The beautiful opera singer on America's Got Talent. Her singing is so amazing, I just started crying. (So this is not really a "sad" moment, just emotional.)

• Talking to Dr D about my grandmother. I don't understand how, 40 years after her death, I can't talk about her without crying. I still miss her so much.

• Finally (and I realize this is the most pathetic thing to be sad about)...My mother telling me that I need a facelift. A few days ago, I drove all the way to Tacoma to go with her to the doctor. Afterwards, we're just standing in the parking lot talking about a few things. and all of a sudden she starts to pick apart my face. She points out my sagging jowls and drooping eyelids. When she's done pointing out my facial defects, I'm surprised that other people in the parking lot didn't run away screaming because I'm apparently pretty scary looking. On my way home, alone in my car, I just cried for 20 minutes.

Well, I'm sorry this long overdue post is nothing but a litany of what's making me sad these days. I'll try to write a more positive post soon.

Burn Out

Don't ask me what this means...
it came up when I did a google image search on "Burn Out"

No, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. I wasn't kidnapped by pirates nor stranded on a remote desert island without internet access.

I really appreciate the folks who inquired as to my well-being. Actually I’m okay. I haven’t even “fallen off the wagon” or anything like that. My weight has stayed pretty much the same for the past few months.

In fact, I had my annual physical the other day, and my doc and I had a really good conversation. She's a very nice person, kind and sincere. Even though I only see her once a year, she always wants to know how I really am. Not just physically, but emotionally. We talked about my childhood, my tendency toward depression, my history of eating disorders, and the therapy I'm in right now. I told her in spite of all the work I'm doing, I can't seem to stop thinking about my weight, and how I always think I need to lose another 5 lbs, or 10, or whatever the elusive, or potentially insane, number du jour happens to be. At which point, she told me I don't need to lose any weight. In fact, she told me not only do I not need to lose any weight, I need to stop thinking about my weight. As in..."Stop thinking about IT!" Stop worrying, stop obsessing...just STOP! Good advice, but how to go about accomplishing that? Even when I'm not weighing myself, I still think about it constantly.

Even before I went to the doctor, I had gradually come to a vague realization that I’m suffering from burn out. I realized I’m tired of thinking about dieting, tired of being on a diet, even tired of reading others “weight loss” blogs and coming up with relevant or helpful comments. I’m tired of thinking about IT…the IT that has been my constant companion since I was 10 years old. A 48-year-long obsession about something that, to be honest, has never really been that far out of whack.

All of a sudden, the idea of writing a post, especially weight related, was just exhausting. Blogging seemed to have lost its allure for me so I even briefly contemplated closing down my blog. Then I remembered how much it has meant to me, and all the nice, caring people I've met in the blogosphere. The idea of fading away totally made me feel sad. So I'm not closing down. But right now, I'm feeling like I need an emotional break from thinking about IT too much, at least for a while. And the doctor visit just confirmed what I was thinking, so on "Doctor's orders" I'm taking a break.

I’m pretty sure this respite is just temporary. I’ll be lurking about, leaving comments when I’m really inspired, and perhaps writing a post when I feel the need. When I do, the post may not...make that, probably WILL NOT...even be about weight, just life.

So, this post is just to let you all know I’m fine. I know I’ll be back, just not sure when. In the meantime, take care, everyone. Keep fighting the good fight!

Listening to my heart

I'm still following 4HB pretty closely. I'm still not weighing myself, but the test pants seem to be getting looser. Today my massage therapist told me to stop losing weight, but I think he was just being sweet. Believe me, I still have plenty of meat on my bones!

On our Saturday cheat day, we had sushi for dinner (we shared California roll, spicy tuna roll, dragon roll, and a few other rolls). Hub had beer but I had sake...because I love sake! After we got home, I had a couple (okay, more like 3 or 4) scoops of gelato for dessert...

...Then about an hour later, I started having severe heart palpitations. To the point that Hub wanted to go to the emergency room. He kept taking my pulse and could really feel it jumping around. But since I wasn't having any other symptoms, like chest pain or shortness of breath, I told him I wanted to just wait a while, to see if it would pass.

So we waited. In the meantime, my heart felt like it was flopping around inside my chest. It kept either skipping a beat or adding a beat, I couldn't tell.

Boom boom...ba Ba BA BOOM...Long pause...Boom boom...ba Ba BA BOOM...Long pause.

For over 2 hours.

It finally calmed down after I drank a huge glass of water and took a magnesium/potassium tablet.

After being on a generally low carb diet for a couple of months, I'm pretty sure my body can't handle all the sugar shock (rice, rice wine, gelato). In retrospect, I've had heart palpitations after cheat day before, but never this badly. Bottom line is, I should have known better. (*Thumping self up side of the head.*)

I either need to cut back on the white stuff (rice, wine, pasta, sugar) on cheat days, or maybe just be more careful. Maybe have sushi with beer, and one scoop of gelato or ice cream, rather than the whole pint. Or one California roll and some tempura shrimp and vegetables (which is what I usually get when we go for sushi). Again, just one scoop of gelato.

Whatever I do eat in the future, I definitely don't want to experience those heart palpitations again. I've felt completely okay since then, but my dad suffered from a lot of heart problems, including a severe cardiac arrhythmia which contributed to his death. So perhaps I should discuss this episode with my doctor.

I hope everyone had a beautiful Memorial Day weekend.

(Sorry, even though it probably made me sick, I have to tell you about the gelato I had. It was absolutely divine, which is probably why I ate way more than I should have. Don't follow the link if you don't want to be tempted.)