Catching Up

I've been rather busy in the past few days. I was away from home, working at a conference in Collingwood, a ski resort town that is rather charming (great restaurants!), but the resort complex is hard to find your way around and has an artificial, "charming little village that's all a farce" feel about it. Needless to say, all the female interpreters shopped til they dropped. I bought a nifty little grey corduroy jacket--good for wearing at relaxed conferences (not inter-governmental meetings where low-key office wear is best).

One evening, a few of us went for dinner at a great French restaurant (yes, another one!) where I had a salad with excellent house dressing and an amazing fish stew. The Pinot Grigio wine was crisp and light and I enjoyed it immensely even though I can't drink more than a small glass. Sadly (?), after the salad and a piece of bread, I really couldn't finish the fish stew. I still have to learn to let go of the food that I have no room for! Note to self: order less, give it to your friends or leave it--unfortunately, the leftovers will not get to Darfur (and I'm really not trying to be sarcastic, just realistic).

I'm still struggling with stopping when I'm full, though I'm not a binge eater. Just sometimes, I eat a "bit" too much. I still desperately crave a sweet at the end of a meal too. Yesterday, the Fudgee-ohs were calling (the kids sometimes have a cookie after supper) and it was a superhuman effort of will to tell myself that I could have one later, if I was feeling hungry. "Later" ended up being a bowl of unsweetened apple juice, a piece of Camembert and a few almonds. In the world of calories (which I try not to count), the Fudgee-oh would have been less, but the food I ate was real and nutrient-rich, so I consider that I did the right thing.

And guess what? I weighed myself this morning and found that I'd lost about 1/2 kilo since last week. Take that, evil diet demon! (On a completely different and silly note, my husband and I are addicted to watching the old TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which we bought on DVD. What a hoot.) My weighing schedule is totally off. Sometimes I weigh myself every day for a few days in a row, and then I make a heroic effort not weigh myself for a few weeks. I'm not a perfect Paul McKenna follower ("Weigh yourself every two weeks. No more, young lady!).

Which leads me to something that's been sloshing around in my brain recently: fear of losing weight. Wild, eh? I suffer from hyperthyroidism, which, for the most part does not rear its ugly head. I have had two episodes, once 15 years ago and then recently at the end of 2007. One of the disease's most unsettling symptoms is weight loss. Yes, twice in my life, I have been able to eat like a horse and lose weight. Sounds amazing until you realize that you also have to accept heart palpitations, shaking, feeling hot, diarrhea, not to mention all kinds of long-term things you really don't want to have. I was on medication for all of 2008 and was only allowed to go off it in January 2009, literally on the same day that I bought Paul McKenna's book and started changing my attitude towards food. Needless to say, my endocrinologist was a bit concerned when I saw her two months later and had lost 3 kilos or so. Fortunately, my blood work was normal, so she didn't freak out too much. I just saw her again last week and the scale only registered 0.4 kilos less, so she was happy. I'm now officially in remission again, hopefully for a long, long time to come. But that does explain my ambivalence towards seeing the numbers on the scale go down!

Another big concern of mine recently has continued to be my knee. After one week of brace-induced bliss that included lots of walking and three, pain-free sessions on the elliptical trainer, my knee is again starting to give me hell. Yesterday, I met with the technician who will fit me for a made-to-measure brace but he didn't want to make any decision on the type of brace necessary until the doctor sees my x-rays. Unfortunately, the x-ray clinic seems to be having some anger management issues with my doctor's office (I'll spare you the story) and I couldn't get the x-rays to the doctor before he left to go on a conference. So I won't be seeing the doc (with x-rays in hand) for another two weeks or so and then we'll start the brace process. In the meantime, this afternoon I'm seeing a physiotherapist (yes, I know you call them "physical therapists" in the States) and getting some knee strengthening exercises, to go with everything else I should be doing every day!!!

I was starting to feel really excited about exercising on the elliptical and working up a sweat. I've got to be more patient though. Fourteen minutes yesterday (wearing the brace) was still too much for my poor knee. To be continued...

And finally, there's my changing body (male readers, you may yawn, but that's life). I'm bleeding way too often and I have to speak to the doctor. I've got some doctor issues happening which I don't feel like going into here, but I should speak to a professional soon, just to make sure there's nothing really abnormal going on. Another to be continued...

I've got an interesting blog post a-simmering in my mind, but I've got to read a book before I can say anything intelligent. Stay tuned.

Please say a prayer for Dr. George Tiller and for goodness sake, do NOT listen to Fox News. Dr. Tiller was a good man. He was not a killer. He was assassinated.

Ciao for now.