Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Ach...my head!

Monday night I was really tired and went to bed without taking my antidepressant. Yesterday did horrible things to my brain. Horrible. Starts with a feeling like your head is wrapped in something suffocating. Like that itchy insulation in the attic. Then come the icepick above the left eye headaches...for hours.  Then, and this is a blast, the brain zaps. Live wire, inside your brain. I felt a lot like this:

My point? This was after ONE missed dose. By accident. Do not go cold turkey, people.I went home last night, took my meds, and went to bed. I was asleep by 8PM, and slept until 4AM. I feel much better today, thank you.

What was good fun is that I spent the entire first half of the day running meetings with my head wrapped in insulation. I couldn't remember simple words, and my thoughts were like a bag of Scrabble tiles. I probably sounded like an idiot.

On to the good stuff...this is obviously me blogging, since one of my goals is to blog at least once a week during this 30 days. If you follow me on Instagram, I have posted a few of my checked off goals - got my mammogram on Friday. I put it off for over a year, basically out of fear - fear of pain, and fear of results. The pain was negligible, the results good. I did not take a picture, obvs, but I did take a pic of the certificate in the department, just so I had something to put on Instagram. I also walked with my friend Laura, who is lovely, and always an excellent person to chat with. Her dog is precious as well, and we got a great shot of ourselves with his tongue.

So many of my goals on here are ongoing things - journal all 30 days, complete Joyful eating program, meal plan and prep each week, no pop all 30 days...I am working on a number of these. Pop free 6 days now, I've been journaling:
These are part of my Joyful eating, and I feel I shouldn't post a clearer picture of them, as they are proprietary. I don't know that the developers of the program would care, but I do. But I have been using them every day.
 Sunday I planned meals for the week, made two weeks of green smoothies, and roasted veggies for lunches.
These are the Beginner's Luck smoothie from Simple Green Smoothies. They are not enough calories or protein for a meal, but they are tasty, and get a good, hefty serving of spinach into my day. I have them for breakfast with a piece of bread with peanut butter, or a bowl of cheerios.
I have been at boot camp 3 days this week thus far, and I will go the next 3 to get my 6 in a row. I have planned an excellent day for my friend Alison and me. I have drunk 100 oz of water every day this week; I really just need to record it. I have more than one day with 10,000 steps, but I'll save that for later.

The two I'm having the most trouble with are planning a weekend away with my husband and read Daring Greatly. Every time I come up with something for a specific weekend, I something else comes up. And I really can't get into Daring Greatly. I feel like I have the gist of it, and I only started it on Monday. And there are so many good books to read. My desire to accomplish a goal I've written down is warring with my "Life is to short to read bad books" mindset. Not that it is a bad book, but I feel like vulnerability is not an issue for me. I mean, I come on here and blab about my issues to my thousands (heehee) of readers. What could be more vulnerable than that? Of course, as Ms. Brown posits, oversharing can actually be a camouflage for putting one's true self out there. Perhaps, if I was to continue reading this book, I would discover what it is I am keeping hidden. Who knows?

I have work to do, so I must get back to it. I will continue sharing this with you. I am enjoying my list, and although I had a rather shockingly disappointing weigh-in this morning, I am trying to remind myself that it is an initial weigh in. Again. Ah, the pleasure of being an obese woman, trying to get healthy. It's a struggle my friends, but luckily I have all of you along with me for the ride.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Another month and a new challenge

Well, hey there hot stuff!
Yeah, another month down. I have a bad habit of not liking to admit when I am failing at something, and so I don't post at all, which really kind of defeats the purpose of blogging for accountability, doesn't it? But, it has been a month of not being so well-behaved. And while we all know that the brilliant Laurel Thatcher Ulrich once said "Well-behaved women seldom make history," I don't think she was referring to health and wellness. And eating mass amounts of ice cream, and skipping boot camp classes, and drinking pop, and just being gross. These behaviors are less likely to help me make history, and more likely to give me a heart attack, or, at the very least, land me on cholesterol medication.
So, another month, another challenge - and this one is kind of fun as it combines a list and my favorite social media, Instagram - #TheGoal30


I think the original idea, by @ariellesays, was 30 days, 30 non-scale goals, 1 goal per day - since September has 30 days, at least that's what I assume, but I read about it at roninoone.com, and she is applying her whole What You Can, When You Can philosophy, and I have some goals I'd really like to be cumulative, so there we are. Particularly the no pop, the journaling, and the Joyful Eating class, which I still haven't completed, and I want to. A lot of people made pretty lists - my handwriting is not fabulous, but I still decided to add it to my bullet journal, which I'm still using and loving, since I carry it with me. The goofy doodling is what I do when I can't come up with another item for the list, and I wanted to intersperse some of the health related goals with some other things, like do something with my Girl but not shopping, since that's always what she wants to do. Which is funny, since all she wants to do when we shop is buy more black shirts. Occasionally maroon.
You'll notice I added blog more and take more pictures, and I'm supposed to document this whole thing on instagram, so if you'd like to follow along, I'm @_missy_koeppel
I love my Instagramming. Much more than then Twittering, which is way too loud for my sensitive brain.
Speaking of Twittering, I just read Felicia Day's book, You're Never Weird On the Internet (Almost), and she is truly adorable and fun, and her poor anxious brain makes me want to hug her and tell her she's not alone, although she seems anxious like a type A personality, perfectionist, smart person anxious, instead of my anxiety, which stems more from...I have no idea what, low self-esteem, I guess.
Apparently I had more babbling to do that I thought, but I have to start working now, so we'll chat later. Make sure to kick me in the butt and remind me to keep updating these goals. Phew, it's warm in here...