Dreaming Paris

Just wanted to note that since I've cut refined sugar and white starches from my life to practically nil, I have been feeling much better and have more energy. The night before last I allowed myself some cookies from a gift from my son's girlfriend, and I woke up feeling like I had a hangover. Though my scare turned out to be just that, a scare and not an actual problem, I have continued to eat as though it were real because it so easily could be, and that consequence from a very small cookie binge just proved that sugar really is like poison to me. I'm physically happier without it.

It's down for me today. http://mashable.com/2009/11/23/facebook-down-4/

So, 3 years ago my doctor told me I was prediabetic, which spurred me into action and I lost 30 pounds, 25 of which I have since put back on. But last week I had another scare, and there cannot be any going back for me. I have changed my lifestyle. Luckily, I already had most of the groundwork covered. I have my tracking tools, my guidelines, my exercise routines, etc. I created it all over time to best fit my abilities. I mean, let's face it, there's no way I'm going to go to the gym and do a 30-60 minute workout regularly. Not even to save my life. But I will do yoga 3 times a week and go walking or cycling 3 times a week. Or dancing. One day that will become part of my routine. When I have money again and can justify the cover charge. I have no choice in the matter. The only thing to roll back diabetes, and it can be rolled back but you will always have it (it's like being an alcoholic) is diet and exercise. No more refined sugar, ever. Lots of fruits and vegetables and good carbohydrates (no starchy white foods). So after reading up a little more thoroughly on the disease, I'm very glad to know that I'm not having to start from scratch in creating a plan for myself. I just need to implement the things I've already created. I use a combination of a neat little book called The Ultimate Pocket Diet Journal and sparkpeople.com for tracking my foods and their nutritional values. I've been entering foods into my Sparkpeople database over the last 3 years, so I'm not always having to do that now. The only new tool I've created is a chart to check off my suggested number of servings of the various food groups and the colors of fruits and vegetables I'm taking in. I should be getting a good variety of colors, so this is letting me see my weak areas so that I can work on them. I already know that legumes and dk green veggies are tough for me. Sparkpeople also helps you track your fitness plan, so I can figure out how many calories I'm using up with various activities. It's trés cool. If you like the idea of social networking to help you with your weight/fitness goals, Sparkpeople is the best free place I've found. I don't do the social networking, though. I get enough of that w/FB. Don't need more. Don't want to talk about my new lifestyle all the time, I just want to do it. Which is what this post is about. I'm doing it. And so far, it's a-okay. My biggest problem is cutting out the fat grams now. Basically they're coming from dairy products, and occasionally nuts, both of which I love, but I must be more careful with the dairy. Cut back to fatfree milk. Doing lowfat cheese. But still, there's too much. I'm also vegetarian again. I was one for two years, I went off it for one year, and as of Nov. 1, I went back to being one. Even though I like meat, there were days when it kind of nauseated me when I thought about what I was eating. I decided I really didn't need it after all. And I'm doing great with that. Now that I have to watch everything else as well, well, I guess I'm relearning how humans were meant to eat to begin with. We really don't need a lot of meat, we're fruit, vegetable and grain creatures. Plant creatures. We can exist completely on what grows from the earth, and our bodies like us better for it. And not processed stuff, either! Fresh, though cooked is okay. So anyway, we'll see. I want to see the kind of success Nancy achieved. I've admired her tremendously for her self-discipline because I know how difficult it is. But I AM NOT going to get up at 3 am to exercise. I'm just not!

So I'd been looking forward to seeing the movie Coco avant Chanel at the Tampa Theatre with my French meetup group as a treat. I go. I wait in the lobby. And wait. Get myself a cup of herbal tea and wait. I look in the seating below. No one. I go to the balcony seating. No one. Oh, well, I wanted to see the movie, so I settle in. Enjoyed the movie. Hung around after to see if I came across the group. No one. I make a comment on the meetup site that I couldn't find any one. The organizer writes me to say they were there, she can't understand how we missed each other. I've been to a few meetups where she attended, so we know each other, which isn't always the case with others. I noticed in her email of today that she says "last night" and it clicks. I check the date of the meetup. It was Sunday, not Saturday. I knew that up until Saturday when for some reason my brain decided the meetup was that night. I hate getting old. Do you know what else I did? I forgot to send in the $50 rebate on the new phone my folks got me. It's now too late. $50! I wanted to use it to get new headphones for it because the ones that came with it suck and don't stay in my ears. It would also have paid for the car charger. Bleh. Just bleh. Getting old SUCKS.

Maybe no one. Maybe I will get there. But it ain't lookin' so good. Paris, I mean. It might just remain a dream. I don't even have a passport. I meant to get one last year when I still had some money to do it, but money just seems to slip through my fingers like water. I could be happy right now if my finances weren't in such a mess. I like teaching. The hours and the work suit me. But I need more of it. As an adjunct at only one college I can only teach 3 classes, no more. And the subject I teach isn't one to which they assign a full-time position. I haven't been able to get on teaching the same thing (college success to college newbies) at the other colleges around here. I need a doctorate to teach education classes in the universities in this area. I need a doctorate like I need a hole in the head. That's one of my financial worries, my student loans. But they're deferred for now. Why have I made it my life's work to educate myself in areas that are useless? That provide very few opportunities for finding work? First an art teacher. Now adult education and eLearning design. Oh, there are eLearning jobs out there, but without 5+ years experience in the field no one wants to look at me. There are a couple of other issues that I can't write about because they involve others in my family, but suffice it to say, we're all stressed right now. Really stressed. And Christmas is coming. I know money isn't the basis of Christmas, but it sure helps to make it merry, doesn't it? :-( At least I'll see my parents and brother at Christmas. But my kids won't be there. One son is in Afghanistan, another one will have to stay here working, and my daughter has the opportunity to spend it with her boyfriend, which, if you knew my daughter and what her life is like you would realize is a major deal and a good one at that, though it's a little anxiety ridden for all of us. My foray into tutoring entrepreneurship was a bust and it left us deep in debt. Now I can't find a decent paying job and my husband's job, though pretty secure, doesn't support even our small family of 3. Especially not with the debt I incurred. Not only that, I would like to see a doctor. I need to see a doctor. But I have no health insurance. Add to the mix my ongoing experience of "the change" which leaves me with memory gaps, unpredictable mood swings, and crying jags that come and go without warning. I'm generally in good spirits when I'm distracted from thinking too deeply about all of this...when I'm not experiencing the depression part of the change, that is. But I'm so very, very tired all the time. Heavy sigh.