Ending the Downward Spiral

This one.
This time.

It started with Tuesday's post, actually. I got hold of an article called "Obesity and Energy Balance--Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?" --a long and complicated thing (well out of my expertise) arguing that perhaps all the reasons Dr. Sharma lists as causes of weight gain (eating too much, feeling lethargic and not exercising, having cravings, etc) are actually symptoms of eating too much fructose--or something. They extrapolate to glucose, too, which confused me. (Maybe the whole chain of unfortunate events is set of by a combination of glucose and fructose, such as found in table sugar and HFCS? Could be.)

In any event, even though the authors were careful to say that their particular explanation of how obesity happens does not rule out making behavioural changes to manage it, I find myself completely demoralized and disabled by this approach. I felt the same way when I read Taubes back around Christmas time.

Perhaps one day I'll be able to "hear" whatever it is they are saying, but not right now.

The downward spiral, unfortunately, really began when my children got home. They were away for a glorious, quiet, and restful week and now they are back with their noise and their demands. It's been a difficult transition.

As well, I'm in the midst of planning my son's homeschool year. I want to start tomorrow. Neither of us are ready. As a result, I let the house go, this week, so it is now extremely difficult to find things and to maneuver. Fortunately, my husband took the kitchen in hand this morning before I got up and I was able to make breakfast according to my food plan. (Onion and mushroom frittata with rye toast and 1 cup of mixed berries topped with 1/4 cup yogurt. Coffee. Yum.) I didn't eat well yesterday at all. I couldn't figure it out. There was no counter space to prepare anything. I couldn't think what I wanted to prepare. I couldn't get my food planning sheets off the computer (more on that below.) I felt helpless and overwhelmed. I ate chocolate chips by the hand-full from the bag.

I didn't exercise this week. I need to do it more for mood control than for weight loss. I really could have used it on a week like this!

And sleep. The family, somehow, is back to going to bed at midnight (and myself later, since I need/want a completely calm house before I settle) and the kids and I aren't getting up until quite late. It's hard on my husband who has to be up at 6:30am. But somehow, in spite of my nagging, we get busy in the evenings and it is hard to get away. (My daughter won't go upstairs alone. She doesn't like to be in her room without me, so if I get busy--as I was with planning this week--she doesn't go to bed until I drag myself away. My fault, but I resent it.) My husband and son will take a bath--up to an hour each--every evening. We have only one bath tub--and my son waits for his father to be done so they can say prayers before he will go to bed. I often have to "remind" them that there's no TV allowed after ten o'clock and get them moving every single night. If I don't, things just drift. I should be over my anger about this, shouldn't I? It hasn't changed the situation in over 13 years.

Last, but not least, the computer started giving us major grief a few days ago. It was acting very slowly: programs, if they even started up, would run for a bit--and then not run for even longer. As I was trying to condense an extremely complicated Poetry unit from 24 weeks to twelve (and trying to determine whether hymns like "All Creatures of our God and King" are in short, long or common meter, what trochaic meter is and whether The Tyger by William Blake is an example of it or not. (It is). Of course internet access and the ability to construct spreadsheets were crucial for this task--and I worked on the hiccuping monster until I was forced to stop and run diagnostics. (Thank you, Major Geeks!)

My weight this week: 244.0lbs.

Amazing, that's still less than it was last week. By exactly how much, I don't know. I have to clean up the dining room/home office to find out.