clevermanka | Mental

Entry tags:

Mental

The good news is I'm not depressed--at least not as much--and I think that's thanks to the 5HTP, which is now no longer bothering my stomach at all. I take it on my low-food days and I'm fine. The bad news is I am touchy, irritable, and easily set off. We're talking PMS-level anger issues, so yeah. Good times. I'm attributing that to the Cipro. Hey, only three more weeks on it! Yay!

I'm making every effort to stay calm and think about what I'm saying and doing before letting my temper flare. After a nasty and pointless spat yesterday afternoon with

mckitterick (sorry, hon), I realized that I'm letting myself behave in a manner I would find unacceptable in other people. I don't tolerate this sort of thing from others, and I'm not going to stand for myself behaving like spoiled, self-centered brat. Just because I feel put upon and attacked doesn't mean those feelings are valid or helpful or anything other than interfering/faulty levels of various stuff in my system. My brain chemistry is simply messed up right now, and the person who is behaving the worst towards me is myself. I am going to take ten seconds to remember that next time I feel pissed off. Which will probably happen in the next fifteen minutes...

Mental issues and food: I've always had a love/hate relationship with food and I don't see that changing soon, no matter what good habits I might develop, or bad habits I might indulge. I fear I will never internalize the concept of Eating To Live. Food is a pleasure to me. It's something to be enjoyed and savored. Eating is a social activity and a solitary comfort. It's difficult for me to eat food that is not pleasurable to eat. After several days of plain (or only lightly-seasoned) meat and leafy greens, those things are not at all pleasurable. I want to stop eating. I would rather go hungry than eat a pallid, bland chicken breast. Of course, not eating isn't a good alternative either, so I choke down a meal--contrary to the way I was raised (learning not to eat if you aren't hungry is a major thing when you're fat kid). After a while of forcing myself to eat things that make me unhappy, I binge.

Now let me clarify about binging. Our current social climate of despicable eating habits and appalling food choices might not agree, but for me, eating a locally-made bread and high-quality cheese is a binge. No Doritos or Oreos, thanks. Gimme Wheatfields and Brie. I like that about myself--that I don't care for overly processed foods anymore--but it means that when I want to improve my health or lose weight, there's just not a lot of room for change/improvement in my food intake (and since I'm not giving up coffee or booze, so you can just stop right there with that thought). And believe me, my body reacts just as poorly to that loaf of bread as someone else's body might react to a bag of Chips Ahoy and a quart of whole milk.

I need to figure out how to live with a restricted diet (even for a short amount of time) without taking two steps back every time I reach my breaking point. I can't wrap my brain around the idea of no longer viewing food as a pleasure. How do I get there? Hypnosis, maybe?

EDIT: I just had a thought. Why is it so much easier to force myself into exercise habits than eating habits? Hmm.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Could you play with the texture, smell, or appearance? Something to take your mind off how bland or restricted it is? Or perhaps work on drink-food pairings so you get a little reward with the food?

As far as drink pairings go, I'm down to drinking alcohol only two days a week, and let me assure you that is not helping with the depression and PMS issues at all. =D I allow myself some coffee in the mornings, but after that it's just water and herbal tea the rest of the day.

It's pretty awful.

The texture thing...hm. I make a lovely shredded pork, but it's got lots of stuff in it that I'm not allowed at the moment: onions, tomatoes.

But that's a really good idea--playing with textures. Thank you. Perhaps on my higher-calorie days (Su-T-R-Sa) I can make a cheesy casserole instead of the egg-based ones I've been doing. Or maybe some beef-based soups with a dollop of yogurt.

This is an interesting dilemma... No solution here, but an observation: Tho creatures like us (Humans?)are stimulation junkies, we must still nourish ourselves, and part of that is meeting our needs for stimulation (at least part way). Accommodating (managing) stimulation is neither simple nor easy... Bummer. I also think that it's too much to expect more than 90% compliance with any of our weird schemes.

it's too much to expect more than 90% compliance with any of our weird schemes.

Interesting. Very interesting. I made it nine days on the meat-and-greens before I broke down and went out for Mexican on the tenth day. So I guess there's my 90% compliance.

Perhaps I could push past that ten days to a fourteen-day cycle and allow myself a binge every other weekend. Of course, the trick with that is not slipping into the trap of thinking "My binge weekend isn't until next weekend, but this is my birthday/vacation/friends visiting, so I'll just have an extra binge this month!" Because that never ends. Except in tears. And no small amount of G.I. distress and/or weight gain.

I've never considered the fact that stimulation (choose your poison--I guess mine is food) is a biologically necessary component in human beings. But of course. That makes complete sense. So my next task is to find adequate food stimulation that doesn't make me ill or break out in hives.

ms_danson had a good lead on that by suggesting I incorporate different textures of food. I'm going to start playing with some ideas there.

I like to think of it in meals per week. If I eat 42 meals in a week then 4.2 of them can be cheats. Of course if you are trying to switch from glycolytic to oxidative metabolism, you must be stricter than this, at least in the beginning. You can add oils however, like nut oils, olive oil, or coconut oil.

What do you eat for that .2 meal?

Since the small-meals-with-snacking thing upsets my stomach and makes me drowsy, I have about 21 meals per week. That's two binge/cheat meals a week. Not bad--once I'm where I want to be, shape-wise.

I forgot to mention, chromium and Ginko have synergistic effects with tryptophan, as does Yohimbine.

Thanks for the info. I'm pushing so much extra stuff into my system these days, I hesitate to add anything else. I'll keep those in mind, though, for some day when I'm not taking a zillion different pills.

This is exactly what Tom and I have been talking about.

The manner in which I was able to approach Atkins at all was to keep focused on the temporary nature of the arrangement for me. As the early stages of that are very much what you describe (bland meats and straightforward green vegetables), it was easy to bump into losing appetite not because of the diet, so much, but because it just becomes impossible to want to bother to eat something so...bland...uninspiring...tasteless...

Over time (as I was doing that seriously for a few months), my palette changed up, so that I was taking in more subtle flavors (rather as your tastes have changed with stepping away from processed crap).

So if you can try to keep focused on the hopefully temporary nature of this...and maybe to think about how you are starving the little bacterial bastards as you keep the carbohydrates out, it can keep you on track.

Deepest empathy.

D.

Yes, here's hoping it's temporary. *crosses fingers*

/tangent

So, I read "binging" as "bing-ing" - and thought, "Wow, that stupid new search engine's hype has really caught on if its verbage has gotten to Lydia!"

*grumble* Stupid internet commercials. *grumble*

Well, continued good luck with things. You have the most dedicated approach to fixing personal problems of pretty much anyone I know, so I'm sure things'll work out.

I had no idea there was a search engine named Bing. Bing? Really? Those programmers need to get friendly with marketing types in a serious way.

Thanks for the nice words. I figure I'm the only one who can solve my problems, so I'd better be dedicated!

Yeah, evidently it's Microsoft's attempt to compete with Google in search engines - it was just launched yesterday or something.

Diane and I watch tv on Hulu together (Stargate SG-1), and the ads for it have been running every. single. break. for the last week or two.

If I knew that it would make them smarter, I would.

However, from experience, it doesn't help at all.

*pat*pat*

Poor thing. I'm so sorry. =(

I'm glad the 5HTP is really helping! Too bad we can't switch food "views"--I kind of see food as a pain in the butt and not a social thing. Mainly because I'm always eating by myself. So even when I start cooking for myself again (I hope I remember how to . . .), it will be a necessity thing. I enjoy cooking, but it's just not as fun when you are just doing it for yourself, and then eating while you are working.

But, at the same time, I guess I'm lucky that it never crosses my mind to buy a bag of doritos. Oh wait, I do eat corn chips. But they don't have all of the weird synthetic flavor stuff on them. And, as a vegetarian, my version of fast food is an organic Amy's microwave burrito. Hmm, I've gone off on a tangent, and completely lost my train of thought.

Hormones. Have you ever tried that hormone cream you put on your skin? I think the merc has it. That might help with the PMS. I've been thinking of trying it. I recently stopped taking the pill, and wonder if that's why I've been feeling "crazy" lately. They say the pill helps with PMS symptoms . . .

I'm sure the anger issues are due to the Cipro. Once that is gone, I'll be fine. I don't want to introduce anything else to my body at this point.

Right. I meant if you were still having those issues after you were done with the Cipro.

I doubt I will. I've never had this sort of thing before, and it was like a light switch from *blah* to *GRRRR* when I started on the antibiotics.

EDIT: I just had a thought. Why is it so much easier to force myself into exercise habits than eating habits? Hmm.

Dont' know if anyone else piped in on this one (honestly, you get so many comments it's hard to keep up) but perhaps because eating and exercise both prodice different kind of body highs? Your body's pleasure sensors react to food, thereby encourage you to eat more, and you get an endorphine high from exercise, thereby making it pleasurable...

Could you maybe eat less of your indulgence food more often? Little treats here and there?

Other than shock treatment (eck!) I don'tknow that you'll ever not view food as pleasure though...

You bring up a very interesting angle, which is made all the more fascinating by the fact that I have never found exercise pleasurable. I've never in my life experienced an endorphin high. Ever. Well, from exercise, anyway.

So I think what's happening there is I don't get pleasure from the exercise, but I know it's good for me and I know I look better when I'm following some sort of exercise program. I get no direct physical pleasure from it (like I do with food), but I get indirect mental pleasure from it because it makes me look good and yes, I'm just that vain.

I should try thinking of my treats in the same way. Sort of like the anorexic creed of "nothing tastes as good as thin feels" but not taken to that extreme level. Just something to let sit in the back of my brain so I can pull it out when those carbs start calling me.

Thanks for raising a very good point. That helps a lot!

By the by, with all that cipro, I'm technically allergic to you now. Don't touch me please.

I'll be careful. No hugs from you? Jeez, this just gets better and better.

I don't think there is an answer in the food/pleasure connection. Pleasure is where it is. Killing it would not be a Good Thing.

Perhaps Food as Fuel when the pleasure turns off at meat and leaf? Get some different leaves? Some stranger meat?

Stranger meat

Pardon me while I huh-huh-huh in a Butthead sort of way.

ahem.

...looks long and carefully at CR, and then backs away sloooowly.

I'm so sorry to hear about the issues with the emotional tides. Um.. if it's any consolation, I ate a big-ass burger the other day With Sweet Potato Fries. yah, it was great at the time, but it sucked thorny vines later.

I must get to you this week.
Sorry, the bloating has not reduced yet, and that's my own foodie issues.

But.. yay! The CD is here!
and.. on another note.. done any dancing lately?
Dance it out, maybe?
or just have a drink and bitch? You can join me for that one, I'm doing Farkin Great at it.

XOXOX

I would love to get a better copy of this song. I was hoping to burn the CD for Saturday's performance today, but I'll wait until tomorrow if I can get the quality copy of the song.

I'm madly working on revising a costume, but if you'd like to come over and watch me stitch, you're more than welcome!

roya_spirit is giggling at the "stranger meat" and I'm giggling at the "different leaves."

=D

Seriously, though, this is going to be an interesting road. Especially if it turns out to be a life-long issue and my G.I. issues aren't resolved by the antibiotics.

Your 3rd paragraph is me to a "t". Yup-yup. I know we've talked about food, exercise, body image...it is interesting and plaguing simultaneously for me. I am interested to see how you deal with this...trying to keep up more with LJ lately. Tom made a workout/eating plan for me. The Plan and I haven't found comfort in our marriage yet, but we'll get there.

Good luck!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mental

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject