I GET IT NOW!!! (Yes, I'm shouting)

I think I've finally figured out my depression. Now to figure out how to fix it!

I lost 80 pounds by counting calories and making sure I got proper nutrition. When I had the kidney stone surgery and was put on the new diet, things changed. I never had the diet mentality before--I just ate healthful foods & counted calories. Now? *I'm on a diet.* No wonder I'm depressed.

Now the trick is to figure out *how* to get this diet mentality out of my head. I'm so tired of "I can't eat that" coming out of my mouth at home and at the grocery store. Come on brain, figure something out.

Oh, The Possibilities...

Lots of different possibilities in my life right now.

Diet--reading tons of diet books trying to put together a plan for myself that is heart and kidney healthy. Not following any one plan, just a nutritionally balanced, Jo-friendly plan. It's tough to get enough MUFAs now that I can't eat nuts, so I'm studying and tweaking.

Life in General--Here are where the big possibilities are. Now that the taxes are done, the bills are paid and the big projects need my attention are behind me, whew, it's spring cleaning time. I am a huge believer in decluttering once a year and having a big spring clean. I have not had a major declutter spree since Dec of '08 due to my health and focus, and I haven't had a huge spring clean since probably '07. It's time.

Right now I'm reading Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston right now. It is the best book for motivating and inspiring a big clean. I highly recommend it, and was thrilled it's on Kindle.

Anyway, I plan on going through my house room by room. I will declutter each room, re-organize what's left, make a list of anything needed, then wash walls, curtains, floors, etc. When one is done, I move to the next. The only bad thing about this is the house is a mess during the process because you have to put your donate pile somewhere, your somewhere else pile somewhere, etc.

This is a huge project and I am eager to attack! I haven't felt the energy to do this for so long.

At the end of '08, my husband gave me the best gift ever: his time. We did a major clear-out the week after Christmas. We ordered a dumpster and filled it twice (we had recently inherited many, many things thus so much junk), we donated van loads of books, animal supplies to the local shelter, tons of clothes and household goods to the local Salvation Army. It was liberating.

The process of doing that cleared my mind and my heart. We worked our tails off and the energy in the house was amazing. It was a huge weight lifted from our shoulders.

Speaking of weight...it was a month after we finished that big project that I started my health journey here. That clear out, getting rid of clutter, opened up energy for me to be able to start. It freed so much--I cannot begin to describe how liberating that was.

It's time to do it again. We will order a dumpster, because we have old carpeting in our garage that needs to go. (DH laid new carpet this past fall and we hadn't ordered a dumpster to get rid of the old stuff.) Most our goodies will be donated, though.

I need the weight of a dirty house off my shoulders. It's not that it's dirty, but in my mind, it is because I haven't had a good spring clean in so long. It's clean enough, but I'm a little OCD and want it cleaner--Jo clean. And as I said, I just have not been myself and haven't had the energy to devote to the big project for a couple years now.

It's also a time to declutter my mind. I am reading weight loss books not looking for a new magical cure, but for inspiration. I'm stuck in my ways, I'm depressed about lack of loss, the new kidney stone prevention diet, and I just need to get rid of all that negative clutter in my brain.

Spring. Perfect time for cleaning the house and the mind. Oh, the possibilities of what this will bring.

Gratitude Not Attitude

I'm on Facebook and have an account that is for fitness/health/diet only. I love it and check it daily. Many of my "friends" are Beachbody coaches. Most are not obnoxious, but some drive me crazy. In fact, I have unfriended the obnoxious Beachbody coaches. I have to say this about most of the BB coaches...they are always posting inspirational phrases and quotes. It is nice to read all that positive stuff on a daily basis.

So yesterday one of the BB coaches posted this: Have gratitude...not an attitude. I LOVE it!!! It's my new mantra. I have shortened it a bit, though: Gratitude not attitude.

Now, putting that new mantra into place isn't easy. Was telling the hubby about it and I flat-out said: It's easier to be pissed off. It's easier to be mad, pissy, whiny, grumpy, etc., than to look at the bright side.

I've never been a the glass is half-full kind of girl. I see the glass as in the middle. I call myself a realist, I see what is before me. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. So it's hard to be cheery. With the kidney stone stuff, I've been a half-empty girl, but I'm sick of talking about kidney stones...

So I'm going with the fake it until you make it stance. I keep reminding myself, whenever I get in a grumpy mood, gratitude not attitude. Come on spring, hurry up and get here I'm sick of it being 15-20 degrees below normal--oh, wait: I'm so happy it's not the middle of winter, 30 below zero--gratitude, not attitude. (That's definitely faking it.)

I'm working on it. Our minds are powerful things--and what we think, how we think, sets the tone for everything. So I'll opt to fake it until I make it.

Gratitude. I'm grateful for many things and choose not to dwell in the past. Well, I choose to try not to dwell or to stop myself when I do start dwelling. It's a start. ;-)

Money, Books, TV and Salad

Money. I cannot spend any more money. This Kindle is great, but I want to read books that cost money, not the freebies. sigh Cannot buy any more books! Or exercise DVDs! Oh, my biggest downfalls.

Last night I decided I needed a little inspiration and I bought Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. I stayed up more than half the night reading. I had no idea it was written by The Pasta Queen. I remember finding her blog long ago and playing with her photos on her site. I'm enjoying the book very much.

While reading more than half the night, I turned the TV on and the only thing that looked remotely good was a show called Downsized. I think that's the name. Fascinating. I kept thinking of our own finances, and how we could improve. I'd watch a bit, then get engrossed in the book, then watch some more. There was one episode where the father bought the mother a fake Starbucks cup and the ingredients for her own coffee drink so she could save money. I wondered why she hadn't done that all along, but I think I'm a bit more frugal.

Anyway, we were discussing this show at lunch today and talking about my spending. We eat out about once a month now. Maybe twice, but usually just once. My son and I go to The Olive Garden after his orthodontist appointment and enjoy it immensely. One of the things I love about The OG, as I call it, is their salad. I love salad. It never tastes as good at home as it does there.

I did buy a bottle of their dressing when we were last there. It's not the best ingredients for me and my kidney diet. I'm going to have to work on my own version of their dressing. At any rate, I get the dressing on the side and a little goes a long way. Still, at home, it's not the same. I've decided the difference is that their salad is served on chilled plates. We talked about this, and DS suggested I buy salad plates and keep them in the fridge. Brilliant--will do that.

And that brings us back to money. Must not spend money. Curb my spending habits. There's just always something I want/have to have. The question is, will I buy salad plates???

I'm a compulsive eater. I didn't get to 282.5 pounds without having the compulsion issue. I am usually pretty good with money, but if I were to place a bet on this, my bet would be this: I'll buy the plates due to compulsion.

It's a vicious circle, isn't it?

Random Tidbits

My scale? It seems to like the same number. It's stuck there. That's okay, I just keep plugging away. It will get sick of that number soon enough.

Went to Wal-Mart last night and found Sean Anderson's favorite Joseph's Pitas. I can't wait to try one for lunch today! They look fluffy, soft and yummy. The ingredients list is good for a bread item and they're only 60 calories. I was so excited to find them. They were in the deli, not the bread aisle. I never go into the deli section but just happened to on a whim last night--lucky me!

It's snowing. It's March 23 and it's snowing. It's cold. It's 30 but feels like 20. Humidity is high from melting snow, all-day rain yesterday, and a touch of wind. Brrrr. Poor doggies, I'm a wimp, I don't want to go play with them. Funny how in January/February when it's 20 below, I can go outside with them and it is nasty cold but doable for a few minutes. Now? It feels much colder, only because we've had a touch of warmth. Spring is coming, and soon I'll be complaining that it's too hot and humid. lol

I bought a Kindle. The greatest thing ever. For years I have had difficulty reading books because my left eye goes completely blurry when reading. I can read a computer screen, but only a page or two at a time from a book--and I have to be sitting perfectly straight to do that. I've even been seen by a neurologist and had an MRI to figure the problem out, but they couldn't. I snuggled up in bed last night and read 1/3 of a book in an hour--I almost cried, I was in heaven. My eye did not go blurry, and I did enlarge the type on the screen. Why did I wait so long to get one? I've got many books to make up for! Plan on getting as many freebies as I can, but the very first book I bought was one of my favorites, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. I have the book in paperback, but due to the above reasons, I can't read very long. It has been updated and I felt it was just the right book for my first purchase.

Before I started this journey in February of 2009, my husband, son and I did a massive declutter spree on this house. We filled a dumpster, we donated van loads of stuff to the library, to the animal shelter, and to Salvation Army. The Epilepsy Foundation is my choice for donations, but they don't have a local pick up and we needed to unload now. Every room was gone through, decluttered and organized. It was liberating. I honestly believe it gave me the energy to start this journey.

Well, that was two years ago, I am a little bit of a clutter bug, and we've done some projects around the house that created clutter and it's time to do it again. I had read that book before we started the last declutter, and it's time to get inspired to do it again. I feel a major spring clean coming on.

I look at it as getting unstuck. I have been stuck for quite awhile, stuck in pain, in attitude, in depression, in frustration--and it's a physical way of making something great happen. So, soon, very soon, I'll be kicking booty here and decluttering again, washing walls, spring cleaning, and bringing back some loving, clean, fresh energy into this house.

Spring just brings out the energy, the life, the rebirth, doesn't it?

When you clear your clutter, get organized and fresh, you have more energy to devote to the things you love and to your goals. I'm ready for a fresh infusion of that energy!

Believe!!!

Somewhere along the line I stopped believing. I think it happened when the pain from the then-undiagnosed kidney stone was so severe. My world just fell apart. Pain is a horrible thing to endure.

I stopped believing in myself. I got so frustrated. I had a diet thrown at me that I did not want to comply with. I was just simply overwhelmed. I stopped believing I could ever achieve my weight-loss goals.

I never stopped believing in my quest for fitness--I've had a couple of killer workouts this weekend.

I was thinking about those workouts and about the whole weight loss thing. If I don't believe I can do this, then I won't. It's that simple. I think I have proof of that.

So it's time to start believing again. It's time to dig out a few favorite photos from the past and stick them on the fridge. It's time to visualize what I want.

Like I used to say...I can do that! I can and I will.

My Mind is TIRED

I'm tired of thinking, tired of deciphering, tired of trying to figure out why my body is holding on so darned tight to the weight. I'm tired of working out hard and having great calorie burns, great deficits daily, and my body holding on to the weight.

I started doing more research--that's all I ever seem to do. I've read The American Heart Association's Website dietary recommendations, the Kidney Organization's, The American Cancer Society's. I've read about metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and kidney stone prevention.

My mind is SPINNING.

Today I was in a big city with a real book store. I went to the diet section and decided to look for some inspiration. I laughed out loud standing there in that section. You name it, there's a diet. Book after book after book.

The bottom line is this: eat a plant-based diet, healthy fats (olive oil, olive oil and more olive oil!), lean meats, complex carbs--whole grain only, eliminate processed foods, drink plenty of water, and consume fewer calories than you expend.

If only it were that simple. I think, though, that it is that simple. There are some things I could do to better my dietary intake. I've started consuming a tablespoon of olive oil daily, for starters. I need to dump the rest of the processed garbage that I eat. I don't eat a lot of it, but enough that I think it makes a difference.

It's a lot more work to eat this way. More kitchen time. Have I mentioned I'm kitchen challenged? I get into that "I have to further give up" mentality, too. Stinking thinking.

I used to believe that you could eat whatever you wanted as long as you were in your calorie range and be okay. That's how I started out and it worked. I knew deep in my heart, though, that wasn't true and I very slowly started making changes. The thing is, that needs to be constant--one cannot quit tweaking their diet. So time to tweak some more.

I'm just so very tired of trying to figure everything out. It's tough balancing a kidney stone diet which eliminates some very healthy foods, plant-based foods! (Beans, spinach, soy, etc.) Yet I have to do it, I have to figure it out.

Working out is something a love and NOT a problem for me at all. However, I even have room to grow here as well. Interval training (HIIT) has been proven to be very effective in raising HDL. I need to raise my HDL. I don't do a lot of interval training--in fact, I haven't done an interval workout in a long time. I tend to prefer steady state cardio. So I can tweak there as well. Cathe to the rescue.

I had wanted to do The FIRM's 90-Day Rotation. At this point, though, after careful consideration, I think I'll finish out the week and stop the rotation and add in some interval and circuit work. Cathe has had a fantastic sale and I just ordered some more of her DVDs which arrived today. They're tough, but I think at this point I need to challenge myself some more.

Yesterday I had a meltdown. I cried. I just don't understand how it works for some people so perfectly, and others struggle. My body chemistry is messed up. It's like I have to work four times as hard to get anywhere. I cried and whined to my husband. I think he thought I was giving up, because he said, "But Jo, think, you've lost 80 pounds, you don't want to mess that up." He didn't get my complaints. I'm just in a rather bad mood over all this. I'm never giving up, even though I throw out, "Forget this, why bother, or, well, worse." Just because I'm whining doesn't mean I'm throwing in the towel. Far from it.

It stinks, though. Why does it have to be so hard? Two steps forward, one step back...that's just the way it goes for me.

Marching forward, fight on, I'll get there. Maybe it was bad luck to rename my blog The Tortoise. S~l~o~w. However, the tortoise did win the race.