Just Cleaning the Blood Splatter

Oh, hi! Nice to see you. Careful when you come in though: as you can see there's a lot of blood splatter on the wall and a bit on the floor. I wouldn't want you to track it out when you leave. I'm cleaning as fast as I can.

"Why all the blood?" you ask.

Let me explain with a story.

As you probably know, I have an artificial hip. The outcome of my first hip replacement was terrible and I started seeking out help on the Internet. I found two "hip boards"--self-help sites that provided me with lots of support and information. Some of the information was worthwhile, but some was not.

A number of people on the sites warned fellow hippies off doing yoga. The objective of yoga, in a very general sense, is to create "space" so the joints can move more freely. This is a great idea if you have normal, natural joints that are moving correctly and held in place by healthy muscles and ligaments. A healthy joint does not dislocate, unless an accident occurs.

On the other hand, dislocation can be a distinct possibility with an artificial joint. It's not all that common, but much more common than if you have a natural joint. And when there's too much space, well that just screams "come dislocate me"!

So I studiously avoided yoga, though I had greatly enjoyed doing it at several points earlier in my life.

One day, and despite my fear, I started doing yoga again because my back was falling apart and I really needed help. Not just any kind of yoga, though. I found a very skilled yoga therapist who specialized in working with people who had all kinds of physical problems. Over the past four years, she has found creative, unconventional ways to keep me as healthy as possible. She has been a godsend. I honestly don't think that my fragile orthopedic state would be as "good" as it is without her invaluable help.

Moral of the story: I didn't listen to the naysayers on the hip boards, and went out and found someone to help me who knew what she was doing.

So let's get back to all this blood on the wall.

I've been banging my head. Big time. And it hurts and no, I'm not going to do it anymore after this post is over.

Yesterday, while visiting one of the many weight blogs I read, I came upon yet another person who stated that all intuitive eating had done for her was make her gain weight. Ergo, it's a bad idea.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Ouch.

OK, friends. If you think eating mindfully means gorging, go right ahead. Keep listening to the ignorant and frightened people amongst us. Just don't call it intuitive eating, cause it's not. And it's certainly not mindful. If you think mindful/intuitive eating is eating until you're sick to your stomach, you've got a serious problem listening to your body's signals...which is--surprise, surprise--just what mindful eating is all about.

Geez, this wall is bloody.

Recently, I sent an e-mail to a blogging buddy of mine (you know who you are!) asking her to help me keep a promise to myself to go cold turkey and stop reading a blog that was making my blood boil, my BP rise and the walls of my house rather bloody. I have kept that promise, and don't even read the comments that blogger sometimes posts on other blogs.

Now, I have to go even further though and eliminate many more blogs from my daily bloggy diet. While I will continue to eat dark chocolate in small, "medicinal" doses and allow myself to sample all the wonders the world of real food has to offer (that means never letting an Eggbeater cross my doorstep), I am hereby eliminating diet blogs from my diet.

Go ahead and say "good riddance" if you want. That's fine. I won't be reading your blog to see you say it.

And with that, good luck to you all. Do whatever works for you, although I have serious doubts about how many of you will ever "succeed" (yes, there are always exceptions to the rule--I didn't say there weren't).

I'll continue to blog, albeit sporadically. Anyone who wants to drop by is welcome.

The walls and the floor are clean now.