Next

Thursday:

This morning I sent my synopsis and the first three chapters of my book to another literary agent. I only really have a choice of four Australian agents that I like the look of and that take my kind of book, and two aren't accepting submissions at the moment. I'll check those two early next year, but otherwise if this one doesn't take me I'll be querying publishers directly which is also fine, I just wanted to try the agents first.

It took me a few days to get this one organised because they wanted a hardcopy mailed to them instead of an email (I am actually a tiny bit concerned about how old-fashioned this is, what does it say about the company?), and my printer ran out of ink and then once I bought more and refilled that the printer decided it was hungry and spent an afternoon chewing up paper. But that is done now.

Jasmine's teachers were at a union meeting this morning so I drove her to school rather late, and somehow I'd forgotten to have breakfast and I had to stop at the post office anyway so I went to a café. French toast with bacon sounded nice (definitely not diet friendly) but it was horrible. The syrup was spiced with something I didn't like at all. I ate most of the bacon and about two bites of French toast. Such a shame. Probably a good thing for my waistline and my blood sugar levels that I didn't eat all that sugary sweetness.

Really stinking hot day. I didn't notice it much, at home in the air con, until taking the kids to their gymnastics class in the late afternoon. That building is so hot in summer and freezing in winter and always smells of kid sweat and feet! But I pretended I was in a sauna and tried to enjoy it.

Rejected

Monday:

I'm feeling a bit crushed right now, my first choice literary agent has decided not to represent me after reading my book. It happens I know. You hear stories about how JK Rowling was rejected seven times or something. Tomorrow I'll send it off to my second choice!

I've now finished the official eight weeks of my Blood Sugar Diet. Despite many wobbles in the past few weeks my weight is finally back down below where I was three weeks ago.

Starting weight 10/10/16: 83.8 kg
Finishing weight 05/12/16: 79.0 kg
Total loss: 4.8 kg

I still can't quite crack that 5 kg loss! I plan to continue on the diet principles for another two weeks taking me to the end of school term and nearly to Christmas, then a relaxed couple of weeks before getting strict again. The BSD is specifically an eight week kick start to improve blood sugars (weight loss is an additional benefit) before moving to a more general Mediterranean diet with more calories and healthy carbs, but I think I need to be strict for a while longer especially since I haven't been sticking to it well. I read of other people's amazing losses over their eight weeks and feel jealous, but actually I am happy with 4.8 kg. It's a lot better than my usual attempts.

Yesterday we had family over in the afternoon and for dinner. I got to cuddle baby Lucy a lot. Veronica is a first-time mum and finding out how hard it can be, especially since Lucy has reflux which causes pain after feeding. I found myself in the slightly weird position of giving breast-feeding advice. I don't feel like I'm an expert, but on the other hand my children did turn out nearly perfect so I must have done something right! With Tim's help, of course.

It's hard not to feel a bit rejected and sad...

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

Wednesday:

I felt good yesterday after a good night's sleep, I had a bad night last night so guess what! Feel tired and grumpy and lonely and yuck today. Being well-rested is so important. I didn't make any plans for today because I was expecting the tree guy to call me confirm he was coming back today to finish cleaning up, but no call and no visit so I hung around for nothing.

I did some editing, housework, reading, mooched around. Feel aggrieved over nothing. Hopefully a good night tonight will fix my mood!

I'm re-reading all of Robin Hobb's Fitz and the Fool books (three trilogies, four if you count The Liveship Traders trilogy, and the very last book in the series hopefully soon to be published), this morning I put book one back on the shelf and pulled out book two - and realised book three is missing. So either it was lost in the move, or more likely we lent it to someone and never got it back. In fact now I think about it I'm sure that is the case and I've noticed it missing before but hoped it would turn up. It clearly hasn't and I will have to buy a replacement which is so annoying because the cover art is almost sure not to match the rest of the set, my copy is 20 years old and there will be new editions by now. I don't mind lending people new books but old ones are irreplaceable!

Tim and the kids are all sick with a cold, but still functioning.

Professional ethics

Sunday:

Tim was exhausted by the week away and I'm always pretty tired, so Saturday was just hanging around the house relaxing. Lovely!

Today we babysat my three-year-old niece Emma for about six hours so her parents could go to the theatre in the city to see Aladdin. She was happy and well behaved all day, Jasmine did most of the minding with help from Aiden and Tim. Tim is so good with kids! We managed to head off a couple of "where is mummy?" moments. It's funny how bad a three-year-old is at Hide and Seek! She would say "I'm going to hide under Jasmine's bed!" then run off. Um, that is not how this game works. And when she was supposed to seek, she counted to ten beautifully then stood still and looked in a vague circle and said to me "I can't see them". I had to take her around the house and say "let's look behind this door" etc. A bit young I guess but she enjoyed it.

Tim's dad and his partner came for lunch and stayed most of the afternoon too. He has recently self-published the second volume of his trilogy and wants me to read it (I have read an earlier version a couple of years ago) and put a review online. I said yes but I find the thought a bit stressful. He is so excited about his books and basically thinks they are perfect. I think they are quite good. Me giving them anything but a stellar review will be upsetting, disappointing and confusing for him. It's going to be a fine line to walk. I am not willing to outright lie to please him, I have been a professional editor and book reviewer and fiction judge in competitions. This is my conscience and my reputation! Obviously I'll emphasise the good and minimise the bad, but I think anything less than "best book I've ever read" might be a problem...

We have a kookaburra visiting every day again, so maybe they will come every spring when they are nesting and like having that easy source of fresh food. They are very picky and only seem to like raw meat. But they are so nice to look at I indulge them. I haven't seen our resident lizard Skinky for a few weeks now so maybe he has moved on or died. :( He made it through the winter so I'm choosing to believe he's gone off in search of a mate now that the weather has warmed up and he no longer needs the bathroom heat lamp. In spring a young lizard's thoughts turn to love.

Rain

Wednesday:

Pouring rain today so I stayed at home. In the afternoon I sat in front of the TV catching up on America's Next Top Model (the end of cycle 21) and did my editing, snuggled under my lap rug while the rain beat against the windows. Rather nice.

Another good day of heathy eating. I am eating enormous amounts of vegetables. When you can't eat processed junk you have to replace it with something, and I am trying to eat moderate amounts of protein and fat. So the gaps are filled with vegetables. I think I had nine "servings" of vegetables yesterday. I find they are much nicer when covered in something tasty... garlic cream sauce... satay sauce (home made of course). Not exactly low calorie but delicious! Or at least lots of spices. I have not yet learned to love vegetables for their own flavours except for a few.

Tim's father goes to poetry nights where you can get up and read your own poems, there is one tonight near Tim's work so he has gone to it to support his dad. The things you do for family!

Book Club

Tuesday:

I finally made it to book club! After going once then missing three months, no one remembered me. But that is ok. The book was "All the Birds Singing" by someoneorother, it starts with a young woman living in fear as a recluse, with something or someone killing the sheep on her farm. It interweaves her lonely life now with flashbacks going further and further back, as she constantly flees from her past, until we finally get back far enough to see how it all started. Depressing book. Lots of sad sex as a prostitute, being held captive by a psycho customer, sheep on the farm being mutilated, hiding knives and hammers all round the house so she have a weapon to hand if she needs it. Everyone in the book club hated it. I at least thought it was well written, although I didn't like the subject matter any more than anyone else. It was nice to get out for a chat with other adults.

Yesterday we had icy rain, it was a bit warmer today so I walked up to the meeting then did some editing in the library, but by the time I walked home it was overcast and cold again. Well, it is winter still! And nothing like so cold as Canberra was. A jumper is enough over my shirt, don't need singlet and shirt and jumper and overcoat with gloves and beanie and scarf! So it's really not that cold.

I've eaten very cleanly for two days in a row, I know this evening and tomorrow will be the danger times as I suddenly go into sugar withdrawal/carb flu/starvation when my body realises I'm filling up on vegetables. But I will be strong! I'm eating plenty of fresh healthy food, just not the processed junk my body currently craves.

So Much For That

Wednesday:

I've been reading a book called So Much For That by Lionel Shriver, who also wrote We Need to Talk About Kevin about the mother of a mass shooter and Big Brother about a morbidly obese sibling. All really compelling books. I'd been reading this one for a few days but got sucked into it at lunchtime and couldn't put it down, finishing it just before Jasmine got home from school! It's about a man who has planned for years to escape the rat race and go and live cheaply and simply in Africa or somewhere, and finally delivers an ultimatum to his wife that he is going with or without her. And she tells him she's just found out she has a very serious form of cancer. She needs his emotional and financial support, and his health insurance. It's about caring for someone through a terminal illness, the US medical insurance system, giving up your dreams for those you love, how family and friends don't always react the way you expect to crises. As always, Shriver is insightful and heartrending.

My husband just rang after yet another conversation with the furniture store we've been chasing for about eight months now about Aiden's chest-of-drawers, which originally arrived (last Christmas) with a piece missing. Twice we have gone through the whole rigmarole of them ordering the part and after months of waiting finding out they got the wrong part. And they never call us back, we have to keep calling them. Well today they told him they have the piece (for the third time) and their tradesman will contact me to arrange a time to come and fix it. Crossed fingers! I just think it's funny, now.

I've been continuing with the vinegar treatment on my wart, and last night the whole top came off so the rest is now level with my foot, which makes walking a bit more comfortable. More vinegar! I'm at war with this horrid thing.

Cold wet week

Tuesday:

It's a cold wet week, I'll be staying inside where it is warm and dry. I'm making good progress on drafting an outline for book two. Tim is still reading book one, I want his feedback before I do my final polish on that. Then, oh my goodness, I will be looking for a publisher. I'll need to get working on the perfect query letter!

I did too much snacking this afternoon, putting me at the top of my calorie range, but I stuck to real food. Nuts, cheese, apple. Soup for lunch didn't seem enough and I was nibbling through to dinnertime.

Curses

Monday:

The new Harry Potter book (... and the Cursed Child) (I always say that as cur-SED, the old fashioned way, not one syllable) came out here yesterday, I hobbled out this morning to buy it and they are sold out already! And don't know when they are getting more stock. Curses. Did the shop not realise it would be a best-seller? Did I not foresee other people would want to read it too? Mistakes were made.

My weight this morning was 82.9 kg. New week, new month, new start. I ate very well today.

When we first moved here lots of birds visited, expecting to be fed (also a water dragon). After a little while I refused to feed the magpies, and the kookaburras stopped visiting, but Sam the butcher bird continued to visit several times a week and I fed him if I had anything suitable (i.e. meat). Today I put some roast beef out for him and before he could grab it three kookaburras swooped down and scared him off!

They are at least four times his size and weight. One of them looked younger than the other two, perhaps a baby from last spring? I put out a lot more food and it was all eaten by one bird, the greedy thing. The other two sat and watched. Sam did a daring flyby and grabbed one piece.

I attach a picture I came across of a cat that for some reason I think looks just like my brother. Sorry no human picture of him for comparison. But if he was turned into a cat, this would be what he looks like.

Offending the Gods

Tuesday:

The God of Nightsweats took offence at me saying I could deal with it, and I had a very unpleasant night due to His retaliation. Four or five in one night! So instead of saying I'm fine I can handle it, I will say oh woe is me I am so tired and headachy. That should appease Him.

I've started the planning stages of book two. Tim is still reading book one and I'll use his feedback to make some (hopefully final) changes but in the meantime I need to get to work on the next book. I did write a chapter ages ago but without really knowing where it was going... so far you could say my outline is "main characters track down and defeat the villain who was revealed at the end of book one". Not really very detailed!

My hunger dial is turned up to 11 at the moment. I am eating anything and everything, never satisfied. It rather disconcerting.

My doctor appointment has been moved up to Thursday, which is awesome.

Big Brother

Friday:

I picked up a book at the library today, "Big Brother" by Lionel Shriver who wrote the brilliant but disturbing book "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (from the point of view of a mother of a teenage boy who kills a lot of students at his school in a mass shooting). I've only started this one, but it is really interesting so far. It's about obesity and relationships. The main character is stuck between a food-Nazi husband and a brother who has recently become frighteningly obese. She doesn't know how to help him, which I think is a problem for the family of many people with self-destructive behaviours. In the first few pages of the book she rambles about our relationship with food and this paragraph really struck me for some reason:

'Food is by nature elusive. More concept than substance, food is the idea of satisfaction, far more powerful than satisfaction itself, which is why diet can exert the sway of religion or political zealotry. Not irresistible tastiness but the very failure of food to reward is what drives us to eat more of it. The most sumptuous experience of ingestion is in-between: remembering the last bite and looking forward to the next one.'

I think about food a lot but confusingly try to distract myself as much as possible while actually eating - I read or watch TV or both. I have tried eating mindfully, enjoying every bite, and hate it. Eating bores me and makes me uncomfortable. I also don't really like it as a social occasion - watching and listening to other people eat? Why would that be pleasurable? My ideal meal is alone, with a book that will stay open more or less by itself so I can use knife and fork. I don't know why this is.

Dead TV

Thursday:

I told you our TV stopped working the other day, while we were watching it. At the time Tim checked all the cables, tried again the next day to turn it on, still didn't work, so we got onto the repair people (still under warranty as it's only six months old). We moved the old TV down from the kitchen to the lounge and have been using that. Well the repair guy was to come this morning to look at it in situ so last night we plugged it back in. And it worked fine! This morning, still worked fine. I cancelled the repair visit. I turned the TV on a couple of times during the day to check, still fine. But tonight I sat down to actually watch something and it lasted about 15 minutes. Then off, on. Off, on. Off..... on. Off. Sigh. Need to get that repair man after all. Of course I'll be calling Friday morning so there is no way it will be fixed until next week. Oh well, first world problem. Still have the old TV.

There was a Tai Chi session on this afternoon but I'm waiting until my foot is more comfortable to stand on so I didn't go. Hopefully next week. It looked like a lovely day outside, through the window.

After school I took the kids to Acrogym, sat and read and had a cup of tea at the café bit which has seats which are merely averagely uncomfortable instead of the horrible seats/stairs in the gym part. It means I don't get to watch the kids do their cartwheels etc which I think disappoints them. I went in for the last 5 minutes but didn't see much. I was trying to read the book for this month's book club, "The Dressmaker" which was recently made into a movie which I have not seen. I am hating the book. Nasty people being nasty to each other in a small country town. And it jumps around to a dozen different characters when I want to read about the main character.

Then we dashed home for an early dinner of pulled pork that had been in a slow oven all afternoon, then out to Jasmine's school for her "musical soirée". The school goes from kindergarten (around 6 yrs old) to year 12 so there was a lot of variety. Jasmine played the clarinet in the high school band, they also had a few squeaky primary school (very small) singers and drum bands and a couple of child prodigies on piano and violin, and a rock band which was amazingly good for three year 8 boys.

Weight up

Monday:

This morning I weighed 81.6 kg, up  2.1 kg from last Monday. So slow to leave, so quick to come back.

I've had two nights in a row of poor sleep due to pelvic pain. I think I will try to find a gyno who can see me sooner than two months away. Last night I tossed and turned, and when I did sleep I dreamed I was trying to sleep on a hard floor! Very tired and grumpy and headachy today. I'm always on the edge of insufficient sleep anyway, so two extra bad nights affects me a lot. I fell asleep sitting up in the afternoon, but only for about 10 minutes as the kids were home talking to me.

I thought my book club was tomorrow, but now I'm pretty sure it was last Tuesday and I missed it. 4th Tuesday of the month. Damn. The book was "The Palace of Tears" can't remember the author (Australian). I don't read a lot of what you might call modern fiction, I usually read fantasy genre or classics, and I'm enjoying expanding my repertoire but it's a shame missing out on the human interaction that I joined the group for. I've marked the next date in my diary this time. Next month it's "The Dressmaker" which they recently made a movie of, but you wouldn't have heard of it unless you're Australian.

Everything I want to talk about today: pain here, pain there, tantruming toddler in supermarket, Foxtel crashing just as Game of Thrones started, long list of tasks I didn't get done... is pretty negative so lets just say I struggled to cope a bit today and leave it at that. I got through the day.

Heatwave

Friday:

I got up this morning to a freezing house. Tim had left the air conditioning on all night, and then closed our bedroom door so we were nice and warm, but as soon as I left our room my toes started to get frostbite. I had to put on socks and a dressing gown. But I quickly came to miss that chilly air. We had heatwave conditions today. I was fine inside, but when I went to pick up the children from school (much too hot to ride their bikes) I could feel my nose-hairs crisping up. I can be very grateful that our new house has excellent air conditioning! I feel sorry for everyone who had to be out in it, including all those poor school children in hot classrooms. In Aiden's class they were doing experiments with water displacement, putting their bare feet in trays of water to see how much the level would rise. Excellent idea!

My task today was to work on getting the house in order. We still have plenty of boxes still to unpack, but I'd also been letting general tidying and maintenance slide. I worked on the lower house today. We have a split level, with four steps up from the mainly carpeted lounge/dining/master bed/ensuite bathroom and garage, up to the mainly tiled rest of the house. I tidied and vacuumed and folded laundry (I always use our bed to fold clothes on) and unpacked a couple more boxes and rearranged the garage a bit and took all the empty flattened boxes out to the garage. The original plan was that the boxes were a loan from the removalist company but now they say they rarely come this way and I might as well keep them. I don't want 148 cardboard moving boxes! I will advertise them to give away once we've finished unpacking.

And I paid some bills and sewed a spare button onto Aiden's other school shirt (yes, already) and looked at wallpaper online and basically felt like I had a very productive day.

I also found plenty of time to read. I borrowed a random book from the library the other day, from a shelf where the librarian displays some interesting books to tempt you, completely different to what I usually read, but I could hardly put it down. It was a crime thriller called "Eeny Meeny" M.J.Arlidge about a policewoman tracking down a serial killer who traps two people together and starves them and only released one if they kill the other person. So one is dead the other traumatised. Maybe not ground-breaking literature, but it was very exciting. I stayed up too late last night and then finished it after lunch today.

Cool change supposed to come through tonight.

Can I?

Wednesday:

I'm rereading a fantasy book series (The Soldier Son) by Robin Hobb where the main character, a fit and successful young cadet, is cursed by magic so that he becomes hugely obese. He goes through all the physical problems and social scorn that this causes - his fiancée dumps him; his father locks him in his room with little food and then no food, convinced he is cheating on his diet somehow; he is kicked out of the army. He experiences other people's assumption that fat equals lazy, greedy, stupid, and even untrustworthy. But then he meets the culture whose magic made him obese, and there finds that obesity is revered as showing wealth, wisdom and power. Huge shamans have "feeders" who look after them in every way. Such a contrast.

The books have reminded me how much I would love to have an excuse for my obesity. It's not my fault, I'm not just greedy and lazy, I have a previously undiagnosed vitamin deficiency and I can't help it! And I want an easy solution - just take this pill and you'll be cured!

I am aware that some people think that we do already have a good excuse - our obesogenic surroundings and addictive sugar intake. And my defeated response to that is: if I am addicted to sugar and that is why I have cravings etc, then the only way to solve that is to go through horribly difficult withdrawal while continually surrounded by junk food so where does that leave me? In the movie "As Good As It Gets" Jack Nicholson has OCD and does something obnoxious as usual and his psychiatrist objects, and he says: "Dr. Green, how can you diagnose someone as an obsessive compulsive disorder, and then act like I have some choice about barging in here?" My point is, I don't want to believe that dieting is as hard as giving up heroin. If it is, then I guess I can't. I've certainly tried often enough. I want an easier solution than that.

I've been enjoying watching The Biggest Loser. The trainers lived with their family teams for a week (I think five days) and ate what they ate, and as well as feeling very sick the whole time, they all put on a lot of weight - the most was Michelle with 7.6 kilograms. I know a lot of that would be fluid retention from the salt, but still. Wow. Then the contestants had their first workout. One woman in particular was of the "I can't" school of thought, but after lots of pushing she got through it and at the end she burst into emotional tears. She could hardly believe it, but she really could do it after all. There is my lesson for the day. Maybe I can.

Glycaemic Load

Saturday:

The next book I chose to read was The Glycemic Load Diabetes Solution by Rob Thompson, MD.

The Glycaemic Index (GI) is a measure of how badly a food makes your blood sugar spike, compared to pure sugar which has a GI of 100. The Glycaemic Load (GL) takes quantity into account. For example, watermelon quite a high GI of 72. But that is calculated on someone eating enough watermelon to get 50 grams of carbohydrate from it. Watermelon isn't all carbohydrate. In fact 100g of watermelon has only 5g of carbohydrate, so it has a glycaemic load of 3.6 (72 x 5/100), which isn't much at all. You'd have to eat a whole kilogram of watermelon to get the 50g of actual carbohydrate used in the study. Similarly carrots have a high GI, but not many people eat 7 large carrots in one sitting. One carrot is fine, and will not make your blood sugar spike to that extent.

Some researchers say a much more important indicator is the Insulin Index, which studies the person's insulin response to the food -- i.e. how much insulin is released. This is correlated to, but not the same as, the level of blood glucose. You still release some insulin for non-carbohydrate foods like meat, which doesn't have a GI number. But this is much more difficult to test for.

The GI was determined by getting quite a small group of subjects (usually 10) to eat the food (seven large carrots doesn't sound fun), and then the results of the blood tests were averaged. I assume there was quite a wide variation, for starters anyone with diabetes or insulin resistance is going to have a much more dramatic result. And also Tim and I were discussing this last night and there is no indication anywhere whether the result is linear. By which I mean, is eating two doughnuts twice as bad as eating one? Is eating ten all at once, ten times as bad? Or is it only six times as bad, or maybe twenty times as bad? I have no idea, and I don't know if it has been studied. But at least all these tables of foods give eaters a way of comparing one food to another in terms of how likely they are to cause a undesirable insulin response.

Back to the book, which I'm a third of the way through and really enjoying. Dr Thompson explains about diabetes, GI and GL, why it's hard to lose weight when you are producing too much insulin etc. His contribution to GL is to give tables of foods in "normal" servings sizes rather than per 100g. So a sandwich includes two slices of bread. A can of fizzy drink is given as the GL for a whole can, not for 100 mL. One that confused me was his serving size of Life Savers (a small lolly, almost pure sugar) as one piece. Who eats one piece? Anyway, knowing the GL for a whole serve is quite useful; but they are US serves, which are large. He comments that the original GL table had a slice of Australian bread weighing 30g but he weighed the ones his wife brought home from the supermarket and they averaged 42g, so keep that in mind if you don't live in the US. I also like to be able to compare things of the same weight, which is hard when they are in serving sizes. But GL tables are available elsewhere anyway, and the serving size tables are quite handy.

The main theme of his book is that if you are diabetic or insulin resistant you have to avoid starchy foods. Wheat, rice, potato. He writes a bit about the chemical make-up of starch. It is processed by the body differently to other carbohydrate foods like fruit and non-starchy vegetables and even sugar. He isn't against sugar in small quantities, because although sugar has a high GI, a square of chocolate or half a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of tea has a low GL. Serving size is important! And even pure sugar requires a certain amount of processing by the body before it is absorbed. NB sugary drinks are a separate and much more evil case because they contain so much sugar... this doesn't contradict my previous comment about tea because half a teaspoon in tea is very different to 12 teaspoons or whatever it is in a cola or fruit juice). Anyway, but starch is absorbed almost instantly and provokes a disproportionately high insulin response which is very bad.

I haven't finished the book but the take-away thoughts so far are:
* Avoid starchy foods, and sugary drinks. (Can have a small amount.)
* Pay attention to the GL of other carbohydrate foods, and moderate your serving size accordingly.
* Exercise (even gentle exercise like walking greatly improves insulin response)

I really like his writing style, he has some cute things to say like Evian (an expensive brand of bottled water) being the word "naïve" backwards. I am well aware that I like this book partly because it aligns with things I already believe. It focuses on carbs rather than fat, but isn't totally anti-carb. It gives easy rules for managing pre-diabetes (and avoiding full-blown diabetes) without having to give up chocolate. Or fruit. Not that giving up bread or potatoes is an easy ask! Not at all! And of course flour is in nearly every processed snack: biscuits, cake etc, so like any diet I think is reasonable, it calls for an extreme reduction in processed food. I will keep reading for his plan on how to give up this tasteless yet somehow appealing substance called starch.

Report card:
Diet: Good.
Exercise: Poor.
Water: Ok.
Sleep: Ok.
Mental health: Good.

The roof saga continues

Friday:

I had another semi-bad night with nausea, I am not sure what is going on and why I only get it when I'm lying down. Residual virus issues, I guess. Feeling ok today.

Today was supposed to include taking the kids to Flip Out (an indoor trampoline playground) then doing some grocery shopping. But we woke to pouring rain and Tim needed to be at work at a certain time (dry) and then there was a knock at the door while we were all still in our pyjamas and it was the guy back to do the ceiling in the rumpus room. Actually four guys this time. So Tim took the car to work and the kids and I snuggled down inside.

A couple of hours later I was called out to the rumpus room to be told and shown that the roof was still leaking! Obviously they aren't going to put up a new ceiling when it's just going to get ruined again. In a way it's lucky it rained today or it wouldn't have been noticed until the water seeped through again. I called the tiling guy to come back, hoping that with the ceiling gone and it currently raining he would be able to see where the water was coming in. I have no idea when he will come, he didn't today. This saga is so annoying! I don't want the new flooring ruined. Our house and garage is cluttered up with all the stuff that should be stored neatly in there. We don't even expect to be in this house in 3-6 months (either move or rebuild/renovate) so we don't want to keep doing work to it, but we can't have a leak in the ceiling! So much time and hassle over the past few months.

The workmen were here for around five hours, nonetheless, replacing the part of the roof that didn't have a leak (ie the part I didn't think particularly needed replacing). So now I am left with an even larger hole (it gets bigger every time) and an unpainted plaster roof with no light fittings. They will come back once the leak is fixed to finish.

 I am sick of looking at it.

So here is a picture of my delicious lunch, a tortilla with pulled pork and salad, pre-wrap.

 

 

I've been reading one of the books from the library, The Blood Sugar Solution by Mark Hyman, MD which seems (I've only ready about a quarter so cannot be definitive) to promote a sensible unprocessed plant-based diet, plus lots and lots of vitamin and mineral supplements. I did have a few doubts from an editor's point of view, things like one paragraph saying 'don't wait until you have diabetes, by then it's too late' but in the next paragraph saying 'it's never too late' and similar little gaffs, but overall it seemed reasonable with lots of citations to scientific papers. He has lots of case studies about patients whose lives he has improved by diagnosing all the problems other doctors have missed, and on page 100 we see J.P. "He had canker sores (gluten problem 2)" which immediately interested me as I get canker sores (mouth ulcers) quite often. He seemed to be suggesting that canker sores and gluten intolerance are related. So I looked up the quoted study on the internet; "Celiac disease and recurrent aphthous stomatitis: a report and review of the literature." Sedghizadeh et al. And you know what? It concludes "Our results demonstrated no significant differences between groups for ... recurrent aphthous stomatitis." and "no significant difference between the CD (celiac disease) group and the control group."

 

He is quoting a study that disproves his beliefs, not supports them. Are the citations just there to look pretty? This puts the whole book into doubt for me. Don't think I'll bother to read any more.

 

I've started another which I like much more, will talk about it next time.

 

Report card:

Diet: Good.

Exercise: Poor. Nothing today. A couple of months ago, I put my gym membership on hold with a med cert due to my shoulder, and that runs out on Sunday. From then I'll have nearly a month before my membership expires. I can't say that going to the gym is that appealing at the moment, but it's out of the cold!

Water: Ok.

Sleep: Poor. Confidently hoping for better tonight.

Mental health: A bit frustrated over the whole roof thing.

 



The Stand

Monday:

So much better today! I still seem to be a snot-producing machine, but I feel much more myself today. Took it easy, did a little work and lots of reading. Another early night is on the cards.

I was wondering today if the difference between my normal and my sick is similar to the size of the difference between my normal and a fit healthy person's normal. Imagine feeling that much better, all the time! Something to aim for.

Sorry I don't have much to talk about. I've spent the last few days re-reading Stephen King's "The Stand" which is about a superflu killing off 99.4% of the human race and what happens afterwards. Possibly poor timing on my part, reading about everyone dying of similar symptoms to what I was experiencing!

The book came out around 1980 I think, my goodness that is a long time ago, so obviously the discussions of technology etc are old, but the thing that really struck me are the outdated ideas about pregnancy. One of the main characters gets pregnant out of wedlock and her mother completely freaks out (to be fair that would still happen today in some cultures, just not mine), there is a discussion about not having sex after the four month point of pregnancy or they might "squash" the baby, a doctor says alcohol is fine when pregnant as long as you drink in moderation, childbirth with the mother's feet up in stirrups like in the Monty Python comedy movie (mother: what do I do, doctor? Doctor: nothing, madam, you are not qualified), a newborn baby is put one of those wards you only see in movies - the babies all together behind a glass wall and the parents only able to look through and not touch (or breastfeed) their own child except at designated times... crazy.

Let it go

Tuesday:

I was angry and upset but I did NOT turn to food.

It was nothing so very bad, just house-training the puppy. He has taken to waiting until we come back inside then peeing on the carpet. Today I stayed out with him for an HOUR AND A HALF, nothing. Came back inside because it was getting cold (winter here, remember) and he barely made it in the door before letting go. I went from happy to furious in a second. I yelled at him and had to put him back outside for a few minutes alone so I wouldn't take out my frustrations on him, I know he is just a confused puppy. But it takes me so long to calm down when I get so upset about something. An hour later I was only just starting to feel better. Still, I did not turn to food.

I said yesterday that last night's overeating was unplanned, but I have realised that wasn't true. I provided most of what I ate, knowing full well I was going to partake. I "gave myself permission" because it was a special occasion - friends leaving and I likely won't ever see them again, or rarely. Yet although I knew for a couple of days in advance what I was going to eat, I guess I didn't let myself think about it too closely. And then was annoyed at myself after the fact! Oh well, moving on.

I got my new Beck diet book in the mail today, the follow up to the one I have been using. It is mainly the same information, repackaged, which I already knew but I wanted my own copy of one (the other is a library book) so I thought I might as well get the new updated one. It is perfect timing, tomorrow is the final day of the six week course in the first book (four weeks of actual dieting, I overlapped the first two weeks of preparation with the actual diet time). Then I can start going through my new one, which is arranged differently into five stages instead of 42 days. I will read it all through before starting on the tasks.

One thing I've been scared of with this diet attempt is that usually a fail means a total fail and I give up entirely and wallow in junk food again. But I'm up to nearly four weeks and although I've had several slips I've just got back up straight away and kept going. This cognitive therapy stuff is really working for me. Concentrating several times a day on why I want to lose weight, giving myself credit for what I do right, not considering a slip the end of the diet, planning ahead what I am going to eat but only one day at a time (I have in the past made weekly plans that I haven't stuck to at all), setting small goals instead only looking ahead to goal weight, dealing with feeling like life is unfair because I can't eat everything I want all the time, it is all helping.

Understanding Nutrition

Friday:

Uni doesn't start for a couple of weeks but I've read Chapter One of my Introduction to Nutrition textbook and since this is mainly a health/weight-loss I though you might be interested in what I am learning.

Understanding Nutrition, Whitney et al, Cengage Learning, 2011

Chapter One was an introduction and overview and didn't really contain new information for me, but it was reassuring to have some familiar concepts reinforced (as opposed to my Biology textbook which was nearly all new stuff).

It went through some reasons why people make food choices; including taste, habit and social/cultural conventions among others. It went on to list the macro and micro nutrients (proteins, fats, vitamins etc) and talked about kilojoules/calories. In Australia we officially use kilojoules, but a lot of people including myself think in terms of calories so I will need to get used to kilojoules (1 kilojoule = 4.2 calories).

Here is a fun fact, what most people call calories are actually kilocalories. The name has been shortened which is very inaccurate - imagine if we started calling kilometres "metres" because it is a shorter word! Not the same thing at all.

Then there was a brief discussion of the role of food in the body, ie not just to provide energy but also the raw materials for building and repairing the body and dozens of other things. It touched briefly on the importance of water, which will be discussed more fully later in the book. My biology text also emphasised the role of water in just about every process in the human body. It has vital differences to every other liquid and is essential on the cellular level. It's not just there to flush out salt and keep blood flowing! Lots of the molecules in your cells (or was it all of them?) can't even attach to each other without water. We'd just fall apart.

The authors talked about what constitutes valid, reliable research and how we know whether we can trust new information, ie peer reviewed journal articles vs claims on a website trying to sell you a weight loss protein bar.

Finally they discuss how recommended dietary intakes are established, including how more of an essential vitamin does not mean better, and talk about how to do a nutrition assessment of an individual or a population.

The book includes access to a website with quizzes and stuff but, frustratingly, I haven't been able to log in yet. I'm really impressed by the book though, it is very clear and interesting so far. It seems to get across a lot of information without being overwhelming.