and all these sorrows I have seen, they lead me to believe that everything's a mess

Monday, 08/13/18, 11:21am, 4:17pm, 5:30pm

My brain.

It's hard not to despise my brain when my depression strikes, or even just in thinking about or talking about my depression. Hmmm, maybe I'll change that to "the depression" rather than "my" depression. Maybe that helps, or can help, take away some of that self-shaming. "My" makes it sound like my fault.

Anyway.

I get these depressive thoughts that run me in circles thinking that "I suck", "I'm a failure at [insert anything and everything]", "I don't deserve to live", "I don't deserve to even be treated for depression", etc, etc. This morning I was trying to (and I've certainly tried this before as well) tell myself that "these thoughts are the depression", "they aren't real", etc. And I was capable enough to tell myself this (which is a long way from what I've been in the past, or even most of my crashes), but I couldn't get myself to believe this. I start saying things like "I suck so bad that I can't even stop believing all this even though I know it's the depression".

Nasser and I were discussing this morning how to fight these thoughts, you know, cuz I was in the midst of a crash. He talked about learning to recognize that these thoughts are happening and that these thoughts are originated by the depression, which is basically the foundation of using mindfulness for depression. But then we talked about, after recognizing this, placing these thoughts away. Sorta like all the distraction techniques.

I'm starting to get a good image in my head of where to place these thoughts. Last week I was at my sister's house. And she's really big into gardening and yard work, all of which I have a lot of trouble with. I saw that she has this method of taking care of these Japanese beetles that eat the tops of fruit trees. She keeps a little bucket of soapy water in the backyard and when she finds a beetle she puts it in there. The beetle can't escape because of the soap in the water and it drowns. I saw this method again last night when Nasser and I watched a video of a homemade yellow jacket trap and they used soapy water again to drown the yellow jackets in the end.

So now, I'm using the soapy water image to "trap" and "drown" my depression thoughts. The image helped this morning, but I haven't exactly experimented with it much. I'm not sure that it will work but I guess over the years I'm never sure that anything will work. I just have to keep trying.

The other thing that Nasser reminded me of this morning is that progress doesn't have to be fast. I don't have to become an expert at a particular method in a day. The whole idea that progress can be slow is something I need to work on, something I need to apply to everything I do. I'm getting there with losing weight and trying to get in shape. I've been trying to make bits of progress here and there. I've been trying to recognize that I can do 20min on the stationary bike at home and still feel like I did something worthwhile. And I'm trying to notice things like "hey, I haven't been snacking so much between meals lately". I don't have to lose 20 pounds in a few weeks or something. Even if the progress is slow, it's still progress.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned, and at the moment I don't feel like perusing my latest posts, I'm still getting ECT treatment but it's been every 4 weeks for pretty much the whole summer I think. Once we hit the 4 week stretch, after increasing the interval each time, the ECT psychiatrist gave me the option to stop there and see how it goes, or to do some more treatments at 4 week intervals and see how it goes. And I chose the latter. So now, Nasser and I plan to meet with the doctor on Thursday to discuss the plan moving forward. I think, or assume, that this meeting will determine that it's time to stop, but I also want to have a clear plan moving forward of how we'll check in to be sure I don't need to go back to it. My last treatment, 2 weeks ago, was... awful. Let me clarify. The treatment itself was fine although I seemed to have some more physical pain than usual, but then that physical pain seemed to last longer than it ever had before. And I seemed to have a big emotional crash as well, that didn't recover all too quickly, and maybe it's still a bit of an issue (although it's hard to tell since the boys go back to school on Wednesday and maybe I'm sick of the summer).

I feel mostly ready to be done with ECT. But then there's also this, I guess, crutch feeling to it. I'm scared to stop. I'm scared I'll stop and I'll steadily get worse and worse, but it will be hard to tell and I won't want to admit it, and then I won't want to admit or accept that I really just need another treatment boost or whatever. I'm scared it will be too hard to recognize what I need. It's always been hard to recognize that anyway. (I assume it has been, since my memory isn't all too good.)

But then I'm glad to stop and have more memory improvement. I still find it really difficult to discover things I don't remember, I find it difficult to talk with people that I don't talk with regularly and I have no memory of how much I've talked with them about my treatment or if I'm forgetting times when I did see them over this past year.

I'm glad to stop trying to figure out a bunch of logistics for every time I have a treatment.

I'm glad to stop having to deal with the fasting, the clear liquids only stuff, and the recovery over the couple to several to many days after.

I hope that this will go well. I hope I continue to have improvement in this fight. I hope that I continually find ways that really work and that I'm able to practice them and that I'm able to make some of them second nature. I hope that I can start feeling more confident in things in my life. I hope that I can feel confident enough to start and stick with choir again in a few weeks, like I plan on doing. I hope that I can keep feeling more and more confident as a parent, and really every other role I play in this life. I hope.

starlight, I will be chasing a starlight until the end of my life... our hopes and expectations, black holes and revelations

Thursday, 07/12/18, 2:59pm EDT

Apologies for the long absence. I can blame travel for some for it (which I am yet again doing), and having kids home with me for a bunch of time over their summer vacation so far. "A bunch" as in a lot more than I'm used to, not "a bunch" compared to other people out there. But then to give some perspective, "a bunch" more than others out there as well.

I actually wrote a longish draft about a month ago but never finished it and thereby never published it. This has happened before. If it gets to be long enough after writing the beginning of a post, I lose that momentum, that thought train, and it all doesn't make much sense to me anymore to bother attempting to finish it. Eh. That draft was written towards the end of that one biggish suicide week- the one with Kate Spade's suicide, Anthony Bourdain's suicide, and the release of that CDC report about the increase in suicide rate throughout the US since 1999. It was a tough week, emotionally, as suicide discussion is always difficult for me. And then, just in writing the above, I couldn't remember Anthony Bourdain's name, so I was searching through some list of notable people who have committed suicide in the 21st century, and I came across Robin Williams' name from his suicide in 2014, which had escaped my memory. And then there was just the scary length that list was. So now I'm just feeling all the feels again, as usual, of how badly I wish we could get a better handle/abatement/ or just something on mental illnesses and general wish people have of no longer existing. It just... sucks.

But. That isn't the topic I wanted to discuss today.


I want to discuss failure.

It’s something I'm quite certain I’ve brought up before, in varying degrees and contexts, but… failure.

Failure.

Failure is something that has been a really big deal in my head and I’ve continually striven to “not be a failure” which has meant I must somehow be “perfect” (since that’s the opposite?). I think a lot of my depressive thoughts have centered around “I am a failure”:

“I am a failure as a mom”,
“I am a failure because I became a mom so young”,
“I am a failure because I got pregnant out of wedlock”,
“I am a failure at using my engineering degrees”,
“I am a failure at fighting my depression”,
“I am a failure because my depression treatment finally brought me to requiring Electro-Convulsive Therapy this past year”,
“I am a failure at integrating into my life all the things I’ve learned from therapy and depression reading/research and discussions and advice from others”,
“I am a failure at staying in shape”,
“I am a failure because I’ve gained a bunch of weight in the last 2 years”,
“I am a failure because I don’t fit into the clothes I used to”,
“I am a failure because I can’t run a mile without taking walking breaks and without my feet screaming at me”,

“I am a failure because……….”

Everything. Anytime, anywhere, always. Despite that big list, it’s only the tip of the iceberg; I really could go on and on. But you really don’t want to read more than that list, you probably didn’t want to read that long of a list, and I really don’t want to continue because I also know that it could just send me down the hole when here I am, trying to write stuff to keep me out of the hole and maybe even, if possible, help others to not go down that hole.

I went to Catholic schools 1st through 8th grades, switching schools halfway through due to a move we made. Which as a side note, sucks for having to make new friends, you know?

Anyway, I was pretty smart (maybe still am, who knows?), in particular at math. In first grade I was doing second grade math. I can’t actually remember if this event happened in first grade or second, but one of the times I left my classroom to join the next grade’s math, while my class continued working on whatever it was we had been working on (because this is how it was done. Someone from the other class would come to say they were ready for me to join in, and other stuff was done in my classroom. Because apparently this special case they made for me wasn’t really done before? And maths were not taught at the same times? anyway…), apparently while I was gone, the teacher made an announcement to the class to not bring the assignment home to finish because she was concerned we’d all leave the work at home. Well of course I never heard this announcement. And of course I was learning the other math while everyone else could work on this assignment so I had to bring it home in order to work on it and catch up. And then guess what happened? Yup, you guessed it… I left my assignment at home. Because what else would a child of 6 or 7 have done? So then the next day when I told the teacher I’d left my work at home (and I wasn’t smart enough apparently, or at least not learned in the ways of standing up for myself, to say that I hadn’t been in class when she gave that announcement), she really brought me to understand how badly I messed up. And the typical punishment at that time was to put kids to stand in corners (cuz somehow that made sense??). Well I ended up in a corner behind the teacher’s desk. And then she forgot about me. And it still didn’t occur to me to stand up for myself, but I ended up there for way longer than I should have. And I stood there, silently crying. Eventually I was taken out of my punishment, but somehow any memory of the teacher making any apology doesn’t seem to exist; all I remember is the other details in rather exact perfection.

And needless to say, after that school year I decided I wouldn’t go learn the next year’s math anymore because it just wasn’t worth that kind of humiliation and that kind of crushing my spirits and that kind of origin or reinforcement of this idea that I’ve messed up/I’m a failure.

In high school and college I think I felt really good because I thrived so well academically. In high school I was always in accelerated/ advanced placement classes, I got the highest possible score on every one of the advanced placement exams I took earning me college credit. Then in college I studied mechanical engineering, which challenged me, but I guess I rose to the challenge. I did well, I graduated after four years, with one of the semesters being away and working as a co-op, and with internships for each of the summers. I even graduated “with honors” aka magna cum laude or one of those things. I’m not saying all this to brag, but to try and make out what it all has been through my life, what has been my measure of whether or not I’m a failure at that particular bit of my life. I guess I understand a little as to why I put such importance on the academic stuff, even if I don’t think it was the healthiest, especially considering how I think that attitude has probably contributed some/a lot to my current mental health issues which really manifested post kids. I’ve had some additional schooling (with my master’s degree) and some working, but I’ve felt like I haven’t done nearly enough, and I don’t feel remotely capable of going back into it, especially since the ECT treatment has destroyed so much memory. But then I don’t at all feel “enough” as a mother and continually feel like a failure there in my interactions with my kids, and I see all the other mothers around me and compare myself with them and I see how much they are able to accomplish while I can barely do anything especially when I’m constantly doing things for my mental health (and failing at that in the process).

Ok, so let’s try some different things out that don’t focus on the failure stuff so much. Oi. This sounds hard and sounds like I’m already setting myself up for failure.

Deep breath.

Listen a bit to that fantastic music running through my earbuds right now.

Remember a few things…
I love my children.
I love my husband.
I love my family and friends.
I love all those out there who struggle, with the same or similar stuff/thoughts, or with completely different mental or physical or just daily stuff.
I love… myself. (despite how badly I want to add “I think” to that statement)

Now a few more things…
from my bracelets given to me by two wonderful supportive people in my life…

“YOU ARE ENOUGH”
“You Are Braver Than You Believe Stronger Than You Seem And Smarter Than You Think”

I try to wear these bracelets almost every day, because even if I don't sit there and read them multiple times a day, or even when I really should read them as a reminder when I'm down, I think the process of putting them on in the morning is a little uplifting reminder thing that then is just part of my day. And those continuous, habitual reminders can make an enormous difference and very much help in the long run (as I believe research shows but I am too lazy at the moment to look it up and provide links).

Some more things to remember...
I try very very hard, in everything I do, in all the different roles I play in my life, as a wife, as a mother, as a family member to many, as a friend to many.
I try very hard to make the world a slightly better place, particularly in my role as a person who struggles with mental illness and has come to some capability of sharing my personal experiences with others.
I love others around me with my whole heart, even when I don't speak to them very often, even when they live far away or I hardly ever see them, even when they only have been part of my life for a short bit of time a long time ago. I love, very much.
I try to be a good person, to care about people and the world and the earth.


There are some therapies I'm considering trying out to work through some of this "I am a failure" stuff that I continually come back to. Because it is still a bit too ingrained than this post or my lists will really fix. Don't get me wrong, I think this stuff helps and will help and is very worth doing. I just think I need more help that just this.

I would love to get to a point in my life when I can truly discuss this failure stuff, or really all my mental health stuff, without feeling a bit triggered by the discussion. Without wanting to just sit down and sob. Although maybe the fact that I feel these things and yet continue to try and discuss it all with others and share my story is almost even more of an encouragement for others to get there? I don't know. I guess I'm trying to say that I want it to be easier to talk about but also not get to a point where I'm distant or disengaged with it all.

I want everyone out there to be able to recognize the need for help, to feel able/capable/free to seek the help they need, to be free of those feelings of failure that come with seeking help. I want our society, our world, to accept that all people need to feel supported in their lives, in their feelings, in their struggles. Hah, I want that perfect world, rather than that failure of a world I so often feel we're living in. But I guess we do have to continue to strive for the highest possible, without that full connotation of perfection, but maybe just general improvement, so that we don't just keep going at the level we're at. We are not failures, we don't live in failure, but there is always something to keep doing, to keep trying for, to keep improving.

well I know what's right, I got just one life in a world that keeps on pushin' me around, but I'll stand my ground and I won't back down

Wednesday, 10/11/17, 7:56am, 9:15am (and Tuesday, 10/10/17, 12:51pm, 1:46pm but I just couldn't get myself to finish it)

Do you know what? I have written 196 blog posts. That feels... crazy/ridiculous/maybe overkill?, to me at least. My "blogiversary" is coming up in less than a month- November 7th- and I'll have had this blog for two full years then. That doesn't seem very long, although it does feel like a lot has happened, emotionally speaking, in that time.

It's weird, looking back at some of my earlier posts, and emails to friends and family, sharing my blog. There was a lot of "I've figured out how to live with my depression" attitude. I'm not entirely sure if I was truly doing much better back when I started the blog; I mean it was before Adam's death and I know that triggered me quite a bit. But then, last November my psychiatrist diagnosed me with "treatment resistant depression", which was really a reflection of the bunch of years prior to that, not simply those few months. And as many of you know, if you've been following along with my blog, or my facebook, or just me, I've been doing much better, as of late, after going through 5 weeks of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) acute phase (as in 3 treatments a week) and getting to a point of going every 2 weeks for treatment during the maintenance phase now. I'm also on some medications, and going to therapy regularly again (I quit going for a little while during the intense and very regular ECT treatments due to the short term memory loss), and I've gotten a lot of support from many different people, so really it's everything working together.

I've shared some about my "state dependent memory" loss, but there was a bit more that was hitting hard yesterday. I was going through old emails of sharing my blog, and the responses back and forth with various friends and family about it, especially with people who felt able to tell me about their own struggles, after I'd shared about mine. And it pains me, a lot, to realize I'd lost some of the memories of who else out there struggles. It's not like I necessarily discuss our shared illness regularly with most of these people, but I hate that we had these very personal emails about it that I simply don't remember. Thank goodness for emails saving and being able to look back on them, right? As Nasser reminded me this morning, looking back on all those, remembering all the people that share this illness or something similar with me, helps to remind me of how I'm not alone as well as why I share, most especially in the hopes that it helps others who struggle.

It's hard having memories that are just gone though, with no control over that. I guess I just need to keep reminding myself that it's just a sign that I really am doing much better.

I recently discovered a writer on the internet, who I'm a little obsessed with. I discovered her on Quora, where she's answered over 550 questions... woah. I have actually linked to one of those answers (hers is the top one here) before... to the question "Why do people suffering from depression always call their struggle a battle? What exactly are they battling?". Turns out she has a website, and she writes about all kinds of stuff, but I've been most intrigued with her posts about mental illness/depression. I really appreciated her post on helping a friend with depression. I've tried to write about this at times, but I think she writes a whole lot more eloquently than me. So I urge you all to check out her writing.

So this morning I opened up something like 5 different tabs on my Chromebook for "Couch to Half Marathon" training plans. I've definitely gained a lot of weight in the past... 4 months? 6 months? 12 months? more? It's been... needless to say... frustrating? embarrassing? confidence busting? And it shouldn't be. I don't, hopefully, judge others who weigh more than they want to or whatever. We are who we are. And it's so much better to embrace who we are. But I'm not very good at that... as probably most people aren't as well. It certainly bugs me that a lot of my clothes don't fit well or right or at all, but it definitely bugs me more that I haven't been able to run more than 1 and 3/4 miles yet (because it's so low, I have to count by the quarters!), I get winded really easily, I can't hold a plank in yoga for more than a couple seconds, the cycling class I've started going to with my brother-in-law once a week has me sweating uncontrollably and I often feel incapable at going at the higher resistances or reaching the cadence goals. Mostly I want to be in better shape. I want to be in the kind of shape to be able to hike 14ers (14,000+ mountains), bike long distances, run a half marathon again, do triathlons again, and plenty more. I expect some kind of body shape will follow if I focus on those things, even if I don't lose all the weight I've gained.

I rolled my ankle 2 weekends ago, which hasn't helped my exercise goals/attempts. I haven't run since prior to that; unfortunately my ankle isn't quite feeling right still. Luckily I was able to book a last minute physical therapy appointment for later this morning to get help with the ankle. Hopefully that helps. Until I'm back to more running/walking, I'll be trying to focus on the cycling stuff, yoga stuff, hopefully more swimming stuff too. At least I'm exercising a lot more than I was for much of treatment, right? I gotta appreciate the little steps forward.

I'm going to finish off with some gorgeous fall pictures, mixed with the snow, as well as my boys playing in the snow on Monday. (Did I mention that our crazy Colorado weather brought us snow on Monday? It's all melted now and today has a high of 67 degrees. Gotta love global warming!) Oh and FYI, the snowman is holding his own snowball and sitting in the sled, because apparently he went sledding too? And... TK is wearing flip flops because... Colorado kid? He had taken off his snowgear already when I insisted on some pictures with the snowman, and flip flops were his solution. Of course.

if you try to refuse, will they judge your worth by the hour, time after time after time

Wednesday, 09/13/17, 11:32am, 12:46pm

Hello there. I'm doing a bit better again, I guess because it's not the weekend again. Sigh. Trying to figure out more as to why the weekends are so tough for me; I discussed it a bit with my therapist yesterday, who I hadn't met with in a little while. Last time I met with her, over a month ago, I decided to wait to re-schedule because of my memory problems. I was having appointments with her but not remembering what we had talked about in the previous appointments so it wasn't really helping much. I feel like I'm starting to get my memory back a little, having a little less short-term memory issues (although nowhere near gone). It's weird, I'm improved, but I still feel, like, way less brain capacity than I normally have. Like I talk with people and I'm just forgetting words left and right. It's tough and it makes me less interested in interacting with others. Sigh.

So recently I found this Ted Talk that somebody posted on Facebook, that I found so totally intriguing and, just, well, mind opening.

Here's the link if you'd prefer to read the transcript, as Nasser did when I told him about it. :)

It's about neurogenesis, which is the growth and development of nervous tissue, something that it turns out, we do into adulthood. She talks about some of the different things we can do to increase neurogenesis, with things like diet, exercise, sleep, sex, haha. She also talks about how things like depression are typically associated with decreased neurogenesis. Nasser and I were discussing last night how some of the effects of my ECT treatment are associated with increased neurogenesis, so I got all excited about that.

So really, truly, this electro-convulsive therapy I've been doing, since mid-June, is well, working... we think. Despite these tougher weekends I've been having, or whatever, even those are not even close to how bad I had been, before the treatment. And it feels like we're having a tough time transitioning between the acute phase (going 3x a week for treatment) and the maintenance phase (going once every 3-5 or 6 weeks). But I don't believe the doctor is really concerned about that, it's more just me. But then I have this habit of worrying about a lot of things, like, all the time. Which is partially the depression and anxiety and maybe partially my personality. So anyway, we are making progress still towards getting into true maintenance phase. And I think once we really are there, I'm going to feel like there's a true end in sight for the treatment. Just right now it doesn't feel like there is as much, just because I don't know how long this transition is going to take.

So, I think I mentioned last time about the new flexibility we are allowed to take with the 24/7 thing. So Nasser has now walked the boys to the bus stop in the mornings a few times without me, which has been nice, and this morning, I went for a short run on the path that's on the outskirts of our neighborhood. We had originally planned for me to do it on the circle path that's on the greenbelt behind our house, so Nasser could have just glanced out the window every so often to check on me, but the sprinklers were going this morning when I was getting ready to head out, so he suggested the path, which he can't see from the house, and I got all excited by the, like, super increased flexibility we were taking. Haha. Nasser told me that it's not like I've been wandering off since the treatment started, so he didn't think we had much to be worried about. And he's right. Although, when I started the run, I had a slight bit of confusion of not remembering quite where to pick up the pack, but it came back to me quickly, and I had no issues with the whole thing, other than not having ran in many months and it feeling super difficult and slow. Oh well, I DID IT. :)

I still have this treatment, at the 9 day mark, scheduled for this Friday as well as one scheduled for Monday, which is the 12 day mark. Timing-wise, I have no interest in doing the Friday one anyway since it's scheduled for 2pm. I always have to fast a full 8 hours before, so technically I could eat a breakfast, as long as I'm done by 6am, but usually I fast from the night before and just make that dinner my last meal. But with how well I'm feeling today and yesterday, I'm thinking I'm going to cancel that Friday appointment anyway and go for Monday's 9:30am treatment (SO much better timing in my opinion). Just, you know, feeling a tad worried about having the weekend again, but hoping I can keep upping my activity level since this run today because I know that it helps me a ton. It's hard, if I'm not doing as well this weekend, we won't want to be as flexible with the 24/7 thing because the flexibility determination is also dependent on how I'm doing. Ah well, we'll see. Just keep trying I guess.

Have I told you much about my sleeping CPAP usage in awhile? I had my 2-week follow up appointment with the sleep technician yesterday where we talked about it and looked at the data from the machine. She's very happy with how things seem to be going for me and with the data- I've been using it A LOT, like an average of 9 hours a night (with like a half hour of that being "getting used to it" time before bed when I'm just wearing it and reading on my phone or whatever), which is not like a lot of people when they start using a CPAP. Like apparently a lot of people don't use it as much as they're supposed to in the beginning because it really bothers them to sleep with it, and apparently a lot of people come in to that 2-week follow up looking super tired and sleep deprived because the CPAP is just interfering with their ability to sleep. It hasn't been that way for me. I've been sleeping rather well, I think, and don't necessarily feel more well rested yet than prior to using it, although Nasser thinks I've been more alert. The other thing from the data is my "events per hour" is super low- 0.7 on average, which is fantastic. So yeah, hopefully I just keep getting more and more well rested, which will more certainly keep helping the depression.

Oh so last night, I ended up going to this fun event in Boulder, along with my sister and a friend, hosted by Skirt Sports, this awesome women's athletic clothing company, in honor of their 13th birthday. They had it at their store, gave $20 to spend as a gift to every one of us, had a workout if you got there early enough (we skipped that part), dinner catered by Noodles and Company, drinks from Ska Brewing (which I, of course, did NOT partake in), some speakers, and a cake from Kim and Jake's Cakes. It was super fun, I ended up buying a skirt and top that were on sale which I'm super excited about, and I realized again how I could wear this company's clothing casually, even when I'm not working out. So they make workout/running skirts (with built-in shorties), which are not only amazingly functional, have awesome pockets, but they are also super cute. And I do already own several, but I think I had kinda freaked out recently, when I gained some weight. And I worried that they didn't fit me well anymore. Well I fixed that thought process this morning when I pulled a bunch out of the drawer, ran in one, picked one to wear for the day, and I've felt great in them again. I feel better in these than I do wearing regular capris and stuff that often just make me feel chubbier or whatever. Man, gaining weight sucks, but within these stupid societal expectations we have, it really really sucks. And you know what, when I'm going through this crazy big medical treatment that causes me to have seizures regularly, I think I'm really allowed to gain some weight. So get off my effing back, society.

Anyway, I think that's all I've got for today. I hope the rest of this week keeps going well and I hope I can keep some of it up this weekend. But I'll also try not to get down on myself this weekend if I am feeling down. That's an important bit too.

fat bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round

Thursday, 05/05/16, 10:02am

I know yesterday's post was pretty heavy. We're going a little lighter today. Pun intended.

Nasser and I started this new diet, in support of my brother-in-law Jeff, but also because we both wanted something to help us lose some weight. I really go up and down a lot with my weight. Right now I'm about back to the weight I was at Halloween last year when I started the weight challenge with friends. The weight challenge did actually go decently well, I lost about 10 pounds, but gained back 3 or 4 when I got sick and stopped exercising for awhile but didn't lose the appetite. Then after the holidays I wasn't really watching what I ate, because I figured I was exercising enough. Nope. I gained it all back now.

Anyway, I'm still rather skeptical about this new diet. It's technically Atkins, but not the Atkins from when it first came out. It's low carb, not no carb, and it does balance more with veggies than it used to. Still, we've totally cut out breads, sugary snacks and desserts, and (this is the part where I'm more skeptical) all fruits for the first 2 weeks. Right now all our carbs should be coming from veggies and nuts, supplemented with lots of protein and fats. It's weird to be so generous with the fats, oils, creams. I've switched to coffee with heavy cream in it, and I'm pretty well accustomed to the lack of sugar now. My breakfast this morning was actually quite delicious. Spinachy, cheesy eggs with a serving of salsa on top.

My breakfast + coffee was a whopping 5.8g of net carbs, where my daily goal is 18-22g (at least says the app). This is quite low, compared to normal people intake of 225-325g. I still haven't decided if I'm doing the easy version of the diet which allows a bit more, around 40g I think. This is my first day actually counting and not just saying oh, that's low, I can eat that.

There's definitely different schools of thought out there on whether or not this is a healthy diet. It does seem to work and it gets your body into fat burning mode rather than carb burning mode. Which seems like a good thing to me for what I need right now in life. I guess we'll see how well it works. The idea is eventually, when you get to your goal weight, you do increase the daily carb intake to like 100g.

Ugh. I hate doing diets. It's frustrating, annoying, it makes me grumpy, and this one seems to have made us feel a little weird for a bit. It's normal while the body is transitioning from the carb burning to the fat burning, and we're doing things to shorten this period of time, replenishing our electrolytes by drinking mugs of warm broth (because you know, Gatorade has too much sugar in it), eating lots of fats (ummm, yeah, I may drink sips of cream straight from the carton every so often when I feel the sugar cravings).

I also hate the idea of "going on a diet" and that's exactly what I'm doing. I totally respect and believe that we shouldn't have to aim for some ideal body type. And yet I want to lose some weight. Part of it is I want to be healthier. I want to fit better in my clothes and feel more confident in my body. I also want to be a better athlete and be less prone to injuries.

I was probably stupid to change my diet right before my 10mi race this Sunday. I've done 2 runs so far while on the diet, plus a kickboxing workout, so I'm definitely able to exercise. And although I've felt weird and not up to the exercise prior to doing it, I've felt good while running so far on this diet. But I definitely need to plan enough time to make eggs before the race. Can't eat anything quick like cereal or granola or an energy bar (aaah those things are all full of sugar!).

I've become one of those anti-sugar people in just 5 days on this diet. Man I am going to have trouble baking. That sounds tough.

Luckily I have the internet, plus a cousin who doesn't really do sugar and keeps a food blog, I'm sure I'll find plenty of ideas out there.

Back to my run this Sunday. I'm starting to get the nerves in the stomach. They're forecasting rain now for this weekend, which I'm not sure what to do with. I've run in heat, I've run in cold, I've run on snow, I've run in flurries, but I'm not really one to run in the rain. Especially for such a long run. I guess that requires some additional internet research.

That's all for today. I have an article about depression that I'm saving for another day when I feel like talking about depression. Plus I am pretty happy right now and don't want to mess with that.