Update on my plan, psychiatrist visit, and life in general

It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that I have failed miserably at sticking to my new Simply Filling plan. But I’m still on board with following the plan.

This holiday weekend brought a series of unplanned events and outings and I ended up going way off track. Pizza, donuts, ice cream, cookies, pancakes…yikes. I felt horrible by the time the weekend was over.

But I have seen improvements in my food choices overall—not including those parts of the weekend where I was way off track. I went grocery shopping and did not buy any “junk” foods. The contents of my cart looked much healthier!

On Friday night, hubby told me to take Saturday and go out and enjoy some alone time. I don’t know why, but I was nervous about it and felt guilty. But once I was out the door and on the road I felt much better about it.

It is AMAZING what a little bit of alone time can do. This was my first outing by myself since baby was born. I cranked up my music and sang in the car, did a little shopping, ate lunch in the car, went to Barnes & Noble and sat at the Starbucks drinking an iced latte and eating a cookie while reading my book, and finally I went grocery shopping—ALONE.

By the time I got home, I felt so refreshed. I was able to be the patient and loving mother and wife that I want to be. I really needed a break—I see that now and so does hubby. Even baby girl seemed happier after having some quality time with daddy. I think we both needed a little break from each other!

Sunday, hubby’s dad invited us out for Chinese. And then that evening we all left on a little road trip to meet some of hubby’s relatives. That was completely unplanned.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist and I explained everything to her. I don’t feel like she really hears me. I feel like I’m being rushed in and pushed out sometimes. She tells me the exact same things every single time. She asks me questions that I answer the same every single time. She obviously does not look at my file before seeing me and I find that frustrating.

Anyways, she tells me that of course I have chemical based depression and that means that I don’t have enough serotonin. But how does she know that’s what’s causing my symptoms? She’s just guessing. I tried to explain everything that happens, etc. and her answer is to up my anxiety meds and doubled my Xanax and told me to take it before I get anxious. Ummm? How am I supposed to know beforehand that I am going to be too anxious for my own health?

She says the buzzing feeling in my arms and my legs is the anxiety. She asks me abruptly, “Why do you feel like that?”—Well, I don’t know! That’s the point. Isn’t that exactly what depression and anxiety are? You have thoughts and feelings and you don’t know why or how to stop them. You’d think a psychiatrist would know that. Something isn’t quite right and I want to figure out what isn’t right before I just keep taking more and more medications.

I told her how it was like a flip of a switch for me and the depression comes on suddenly and can last for days or for weeks. Her response, “we all have times we feel sad, even on the medications”. DUH. There is a big difference between feeling sad, and feeling like you want to die, lacking all energy, crying all the time, feeling like a dark cloud surrounds you, and feeling hopeless. I know what it feels like to have a bad day—and what I feel is not just a bad day. But she doesn’t seem to hear me. Maybe it’s time to find a new psychiatrist.

Anyways, baby girl came down with a 102 fever yesterday afternoon. Poor baby. She went to bed last night at 6:30 and is still sleeping this morning at 10 a.m.! That’s a sure sign she doesn’t feel well. I’m glad she is resting though because that’s the best medicine. Hopefully it’s short lived.

Weigh in Day: Switching to Simply Filling

I lost 2.2 lbs. this week after my gain last week. I’m happy with that because I feel like I’m making progress despite numerous setbacks. That’s a total loss of 6.7 lbs…so I am up overall from my lowest, but I’m still on the losing side from where I began, so I’ll take that as a win.

I’ve been really struggling with eating the right foods. I’m not so sure it comes down to willpower or if those junky foods really do affect our body chemistry in a way that makes us feel like we need the foods—as if we’re addicted.

A simple solution is to keep the foods out of the house but somehow I keep thinking, I can eat anything I want on Weight Watchers if I do so in moderation. And that’s fine and dandy if I actually kept to that rule and only ate in moderation—but all too often I end up eating too much and then throw in the towel.

So I believe that I need to spend at least a week eating good, nutritious foods so that I can get myself back into the mindset that I used to have where I actually did eat all foods in moderation—and that didn’t mean eating 1 serving of this junk food, and 1 serving of that junk food, and maybe 1/2 a serving of another junk food. You get the point.

Yesterday, I tricked myself into believing that I was changing my weigh in day and that I was starting a new plan. I actually changed it all on Weight Watchers and weighed in and everything. This helped me get back on track yesterday instead of waiting until today. So today, I weighed in again and deleted yesterday’s weigh in and changed my weigh in day back to Friday in the system. Tricky. Tricky. And sad that I require these mind games!

What’s my new plan, you ask? I’m going to follow Simply Filling for at least a week. So far so good. It’s all a mind game, once again. I like that I can eat a variety of healthy foods and not have to count the points for them. But my trial run yesterday showed me that 1) I really need to get groceries, 2) I will have to practice moderation with foods that aren’t on the list of Simply Filling foods, 3) I feel so much better physically when I’m eating nutritious foods.

The last two days I’ve eaten oatmeal with fruit for breakfast along with a glass of milk. For a snack, I ate Smart Pop popcorn. I kind of overindulged for dinner at the in-law’s house because their cooking is just so good. Thankfully, there were also lots of veggies so I didn’t do too horribly.

I want to start seeing the weight come off again. I have been hovering around the same weight for far too long and it’s simply because I’m not staying on track—I quit counting my points.

I keep reminding myself that it’s not too late to change my habits so that the little one learns the skills for living a healthy life. She’s still a baby and I can still do this! But I also need to be very careful not to be too hard on myself and feel like a bad mother because I’m obese— I travel down that road far too often and I need to let go of guilt, per my therapist!

My only focus this week will be to follow the Simply Filling plan. Exercise will be an added benefit if I feel up to it. All too often I start something with great intentions such as, I’m going to eat X way, exercise 5x this week, drink 64 oz. of water, eliminate all sugar and carbs, only eat fat in the mornings, etc. etc. Nope, starting small again this time.

I have a feeling that I will get over the food boredom I’ve had lately once I start cooking those delicious meals with fresh and healthy foods!

 

How was your week? Did you meet any goals? Are you making any small changes? Do you have a favorite Simply Filling recipe to share?