Put my big girl pants back on didn't I!

Thursday 12th December 2019
When you're thinking 'this isn't working', ask yourself 'what tweak can I try'.

I woke up yesterday morning and I'd started my monthlies, I should have seen that as a sign of the day to follow!  But I didn't, ever the optimist...  Anyway I wrote the following as I was out walking Alfie, I find writing it down as if I was talking to someone helps me when my heads a bit of a mess;

It's just gone 9am on Wednesday 11th December and I'm out walking my dog thinking about how to lose my gained weight. Yes I'm a WW coach who helps others do just that and I do it well, but here I am struggling with it myself. 

How does the carer start caring for themselves again? 

Mmm that's what I'm trying to figure out. I've just watched a potcast interview with Robbie Williams and WW and he talked a lot of sense, however he's not me and we have very different lives as do we all. 

I need to find the solutions to my own problems, yes I can use the techniques found in the WW programme but ultimately I need to adapt it to suit me. 

I guess a good place to start is to work out what my obstacles are, my main one is I've become a really emotional eater, more so than ever before. Why?  Because my mom has Alzheimer's and vascular dementia and I never know how she's going to be from one day to the next. One minute she can be calm, the next aggressive, one minute she knows who I am, then she's asking me who I am. Last night she said, "how silly am I putting my nightie on when we've got to go home!"  She was home.  Then there's the fact she doesn't like me not being there, so even being in another room can be an issue. Not forgetting the disturbed sleep, the anxiety she suffers, none of this is making for an easy life and I find myself eating because it tastes nice and drinking because it chills me out. 

So what am I doing that's helping. Well I walk the dog every day, that's something. 

What could I start doing even if I don't stop doing the emotional eating/drinking?

I could start honest tracking. Even with that I'll start it then think why bother. How do I get out of this funk!

I get frustrated when people suggest stuff like getting help with mom, taking time for me. These things aren't easy if even possible, I appreciate it's coming from a good place but mom gets worse each and every day and I'm get comfort blanket and that's not going to change till she's gone x

No further forward really, I returned home with cold hands from using my phone outdoors and a couple of thousand steps on my Fitbit and thought no more it what I'd written.  

Back in my office, leaning over to shut my blinds because the window cleaner had arrived and I didn't want him to see the state of the mess that it was, I knocked over my pint of water!  Of everything it could have gone on, it chose the crochet booklets that I get with my boxes each month that are irreplaceable, well I went into full on meltdown.  This was the icing on a very big crap cake, there were tears I won't lie and I threw my toys out my pram and ranted about what a shithole my house was and how every time I started to clean up, I ended up in pain with my back, blah, blah, woe is me, blah, blah, pity me, blah, blah, poor me, my life is so hard.   You get the picture!

Then something clicked, just bloody start woman, the cleaning, the eating, okay so you can't go out to exercise - what can you do?  YOU CAN BLOODY CLEAN YOUR HOUSE WOMEN!  And that's what I did for 3 hours, a deep clean of the kitchen and wet room, that's 2 of the 7 rooms in this house done.  I played my music full blast and sung my heart out which really lifted my mood.  I did also drink a couple of cups of coffee towards the end which probably wasn't the best idea as I don't drink a lot of caffeine these days so by the time I got to my workshop and had another one, I was like tigger for the first hour or so, then I crashed and burned.  Every fibre of my body ached when I'd finished cleaning, but I was already in pain beforehand, the 3 hours housework I'd done earned me 13 FitPoints, now that's a bonus.

I may not have a life that enables me to get out and about, but I can make the most of what I do have, I'd got 16k steps on my Fitbit by the end of the day, that's more than active enough for sure.

Food/drink wise, okay so maybe right now I'm struggling to lose weight, that doesn't mean I should just not bother at all, it means I need to do the best I can when I can.

I realised I need to go back to complete basics, I'm going to ignore the emotional eating for a moment, that's for another day, I'll get back some of the fundamentals first.  Things like drinking that pint of water in the morning, not leaving it there on the desk long enough to get knocked over! Have a protein rich breakfast that's low in Smart Points, I follow the blue plan so eggs are zero, no excuse there is there!  Look for low or zero foods to fill me up, this will make me feel better overall and I'll be less likely to emotionally eat so much, I know this to be true, I've proven it in the past (and if you haven't watched the Robbie/WW podcast, it really is worth watching. https://youtu.be/KF8TppiIiCg

I will find a carers approach to wellness that works for me, I won't give up.  Listening to my members last night,they gave me so much hope hearing how great they feel this year compared to last, how great they felt going out to parties.  They also said how when they had overindulged they felt tired and yucky the next day, this made me realise that this feeling of lethargy had once again become my norm.  Yes taking care of mom can be draining, yes having sleepless nights with her is going to take it's toll on my but not eating well is exacerbating the situation really isn't it - I'm not helping myself.

I'm not going to tell you what I did 'wrong" re my diet yesterday, I'm only going to focus on the things I did right and they included;

I drank more water than I knocked over!
I ate 3 satsumas
I had lettuce and tomatoes on my breakfast sandwich
I had a low pointed lunch knowing I had a high pointed tea planned -  WW chilli pot for 2SP, so good, will definitely be having that again with cauliflower rice for a really low pointed meal.  My new mission is to try and make my earlier meals lower so if I do emotionally eat later, the damage isn't so bad.
I ended my day with 16k steps & cleaned for 3 hours earning me 25 FitPoints.
I honestly tracked everything, even if the total was a little bit ugly!

Yeah, I'm changing how I track, I'm going to start recording the things I did that helped and not focusing on the stuff that tripped me up.  I will continue to honestly track regardless.

There that's the contents of my brain dumped on a page and I feel so much better for everything that happened yesterday, my office will be tackled this weekend and I know I will feel amazing after doing that.  I've already got a big back of stuff for the charity table at the church from my kitchen.  If I can live without it, it's going, time to declutter again.  I like being able to see my work surfaces!

Here's to making it through my busy day, hoping mom doesn't turn into the nightmare she did last Thursday but being the best I can be if she does.

Mwah, thanks for listening, luv ya xx

Love me xx