How many times have I meant to post here but not gotten to it…? Way too many, it would seem, if I haven’t posted for so long! Haha.

I have missed it here, but I have still been quite busy. Stress management and pain management classes have ended and I am going slow and steady at the gym. After Easter, a lifestyle class (a bit of group therapy, doctor and dietician) will be starting.

Job help is progressing, too, and I’ll be taking my first class since 2006 in May. Woohoo!

But here we come to the grit of it.

I have always been about standing up and dusting yourself off when you fall off the horse. I’ve said that, if nothing else, at least I am a person who keeps on trying. But the trucking has been very difficult lately.

I’ve started a food diary, cut calories, become more calorie-aware, have been going to the gym, cut out almost all alcohol… and things have gotten progressively worse. The tiredness that has plagued me off and on for years has been happening a lot since I had the flu last year and came to a major peak in the past fortnight.

I’ve been so exhausted that putting on my clothes in the morning is a major effort – and that’s after a full night of sleep. You can imagine how going to the gym has been going. That along with a bunch of other niggles that are happening more frequently finally got me to go to the doctor to address the problems.

So today I started on the road to getting the mystery sorted out. Tomorrow I get some blood tests. After Easter, I will get the results and go from there.

I’m hoping it’ll be a short road to answers, but it may be a long one. For those still reading, thanks for bearing with me while I try to get my energy levels back up.

Woo! I have new ticker. Haha. I was doing some virtual dusting around here and remembered how much I just to like tickers and that sort of thing. I also remembered how messed up I can be with numbers, so I decided just the ticker is more than enough.

Things have been going along nicely, as you can tell from my silence. I finished up my stress management course and am the better for it. I must admit that I did go in thinking that they wouldn’t be able to teach me much, but I did get more into the importance of breathing. That alone has helped me since with dealing with situations that give me anxiety. All up, a good thing.

I’ve had the first half of the pain management course, which set me off a little emotion-wise because I feel like I don’t deserve to be there. My aches and pains are weight-related, while many of the people there are dealing with accident recovery and complications due to aging. I’m nearly always the youngest one in the room.

I try to acknowledge the feelings and then let them drift by, though, because I reckon I’m there because someone thinks I need to be there. Done and dusted.

I had my first session at the gym there as well. I tried not to go ‘mind reader’, but I got the feeling that the instructor was a little confused as to why I was there. But then I explained my personality (all in until I injure myself) and my history, and things seemed to go well from there. I could swear we barely did anything, but I am feeling quite sore.

It’s been nearly a month since I started my food diary, and I’m managing to keep up with it. I think this is the longest I’ve kept one, to be honest. It does have me thinking more about balance, what/how much I’m eating, etc, so it’s all good.

All up, things are going pretty well. The weight loss so far has been entirely through food diary and what I like to call ‘calorie awareness’. I’m excited to see what happens when I add in the gym work.

One of the things I decided to do when starting my new schedule was to make sure the start of my day was computer free. For years I would either get up, exercise and get straight on the computer or I would get up and go straight on the computer.

Partly, this is sad. Partly, it’s kind of understandable given that I work with a lot of people in the US and the earlier I’m on, the better.

So when I started a couple weeks ago, I gave myself time not only for exercise but also for some computer-free time after that. I initially started it as a part of mindful eating because there was never a breakfast that went by when I wasn’t distracted. I realised that I wasn’t giving my breakfast – no matter what it was – any sort of proper attention.

What I didn’t realise is how good I would feel after doing it for just a few days.

After a short time, I began to feel better in the mornings. My outlook was sunnier, I felt more equipped to handle the day… Even days I woke up knowing it was going to be a ‘sensitive’ day weren’t quite so bad because I got a quiet start.

And it wasn’t about a ‘slow’ start either because it was out of bed and onto the Wii Fit board or out for a walk. (Better than a cup of coffee, I reckon.) It was more about not getting out of bed, putting my body through exercise stress and then hopping on the computer straight after for mental stress.

I was getting to the point where just opening up my email to take care of a few things was sending me into a mild panic attack. My heart would race as soon as the inbox was opened.

Yet what started as something I changed for mindful eating practices grew into a mindful anxiety control practice. It’s not an option for me to quit what I do online, but by postponing it for just an hour and getting up earlier so I had more time to relax into the day, I eliminated 99% of the stress.

Yes, I still have bad days, but I feel much better about handling those bad days than I used to.

More than ever, I am seeing that a little bit goes a long way – and in a lot of different directions to boot.

I meant to post before this and have learned my lesson for not writing my ideas down while I have them (they disappear!), but here I am.

Things have been going nicely – though with a few hiccups here and there – since I switched over to cutting bread, pasta and potatoes out of my diet. It hasn’t been 100% (the potatoes came after discovering how I felt after eating them), but it’s been damn close and I’m happy about that.

This weekend I did indulge in some bread, but mostly because I was recovering from getting a very big tattoo and that’s what my body wanted. I gave myself permission to do as I pleased with bread (which wasn’t much, as my stomach has shrunk some) when I got back home from the tattoo place.

As I have mentioned before, I am enlisted at an employment agency that works to help people get to where they need to be able to go out and get a job. I’m still feeling very good about it all, and at the last meeting, I was referred to a clinic of sorts. Because my weight interferes not only with my physical capabilities but with my confidence as well, I can get help with that through the agency. At the clinic, I will be meeting with a team of spcialists – from physios to nutritionists – to help me get to where I want to be.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens, even though it probably won’t get started until after Christmas.

I do apologise for the slightly foggy update. The tattoo took a lot out of me.

Another relapse. More new fun. This time it comes with ear infection piled on top.

I swear, I’ve spent more time in bed in the past for weeks then I’ve spent awake.

Ah well. Once I’m on my feet again, it’s back to square one.