Cure the Creep

[Just for those of you who are wondering, I think I'm actually out of my depression... Or at least, I've been in twilight/manic for about 10 days now, and that's a good sign. I'm feeling more like myself instead of like a paper-doll cut out with a Lee Press On Smile...]

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special
- Creep, Radio Head

I joined a gym today.

I belong to a discount service, called Groupon. (That's my referral code.) Groupon offers - 5 days a week - a discount coupon to one service or company in my local area. Today's deal was a month's membership to Onelife gym for $29 instead of their normal month-to-month fee of $69. So, I decided I'd go check it out... I didn't want to buy a membership, gym unseen, so I added a gym tour to my list of things to do today.

I admit, I felt some qualms as I parked in the lot and headed towards the gleaming building. A tiny-thin lady left the building just as I got there. I started feeling all weird and uncomfortable. I don't know why I do that; maybe it's just I associate the word "gym" with "gym class". Or I have some obscurely weird paranoid delusion that I'll walk in and one of the personal trainers will look actively horrified that someone like me thinks I could possibly belong to a gym. Logically, I know this is NOT going to happen. But there's still a part of me that expects a Jillian-esque drill instructor type to pop out from behind a cardio machine, yelling "What the hell are you doing here, fatty! Run run run!"

Bah.

Needless to say, my experience was exactly nothing like that.

I tucked Darcy off into the kid's club - they have a fairly large area for kids to play in, with a hamster tube, TV-room, bunches of toys and books - and went on the tour.

Who am I, and what did I do with the old Lynn? I was actually excited that they had a ton of stair masters. I've always wanted to try flight-climbing as a form of workout. Everything I've heard about stair masters has been really good.

The clientele seemed to be various amounts of fit. There were some bulked out dudes and some thin ladies, but there were also others who were less than perfect. A personal trainer nodded at me from where she was working circuits with a lady who was probably a good ten years older than I am, and ish 30-40 pounds heavier. And she wasn't even YELLING! Woah, I like that. I'm just not inspired by people yelling at me. Being yelled at or called names doesn't inspire me to work harder, it inspires me to walk away and not come back.

They have a "cardio cinema" for watching movies while you do your machine work. They've also got a ladies' only weight room. (Not sure either of those will be on my list... the air flow in the ladies' only room seemed particularly stagnant.)

The guy who gave me a tour - Drew - was nice, enthusiastic, and asked me questions about my fitness goals, past experiences, and previous goals. He was impressed as hell with my weight loss, and encouraging about my ability to get rid of these 7 pounds of creep.

(Ug. Why the HELL have I let my weight get so out of control that I'm back to 140 pounds?? Ug ug ug.)

Anyway, I went home (after the farmer's market and the grocery store) and signed up.

So, tomorrow will be my first day in the gym.

I'll keep ya posted.

A Little Less than More

I don't think I can begin to explain exactly how much I hate being bipolar.

I rather expect there are worse things to be. And yet, sometimes being bipolar is damned exhausting.

As far as I can tell, I've been in a downswing for going on nine months.

Nine. Months.

I've had good days - even a few good spots... and I've had some really, really bad days. But mostly it's been a long, long cycle of down. Sad. Discouraged. Lazy. (Lazy is such a bad word. And yet I don't have a good word for the immense amounts of I-don't-want-to-do-Fuck-all that seems to come with these bad spells.) Angry. Frustrated. Self-hating.

And I can track right along with it, my weight loss. Or, one should say Weight Gain.

I weighed in last night at WW for the first time in three weeks. I've been skipping meetings. (I never used to do that. Even if we missed a meeting because of a holiday, or illness, I would go in for a weigh in at another time...) I was up almost 7 pounds.

Ok, let me back up and explain that. It's not up 7 pounds in a week... it was "only" one pound this week.

But it's up 7 pounds from where I was when I declared goal... it's up 7 pounds from my lowest weight, which was never as low as I wanted it to be. (I eventually declared goal at 134, with the intent of pushing for 125 anyway.) I managed to get down to 132 before I started this creep. (Creep: the slow, inexorable movement of soil downhill... geology 101, otherwise known as Rocks for Jocks.)

Right now, I'm having another twilight stage. Usually that's a good thing... twilight indicates that I'm coming out of the downphase... I am self-aware. I realize that things haven't been getting done (as an example, I haven't vacuumed the house in something like 2 months... I think the last time was right before my birthday party...) I notice that the house is a wreck and instead of wanting to go back to bed, I want to do something about it.

And yet, these last nine months have been dotted with twilights that have never, ever turned all the way into day.

I look back at the last nine months... and I've done nothing... I'm barely managing to maintain some sort of status quo, and honestly, the status is NOT quo. (The world is a messed up place... and I just need to rule it.)

I don't know.

I really don't. It may be time for me to go back on medication. On the other hand, that means finding a new psychiatrist/psychologist and going through the whole nine yards all over again... which I hate. I hate shrinks. I hate medications. I hate the clear, vivid gray that hangs over everything while I'm on meds.

And it's not as bad as it has been, the last few times I've done a medication regime. I haven't dug myself into debt. I'm not in the middle of several bad, destructive relationships. I'm just... not productive.

I mean, I've done some stuff. I've paid all the bills. I've kept the house in a reasonable state of tolerable-slovenly. I've had social outings (Too many, maybe!). I haven't - mostly - gone off the screaming deep end and bitten anyone's head off. I've done some writing.

And yet, I've run us dangerously close to the red line for money several months in a row. I've gained 7 pounds (I know, someone's going to say that 7 pounds isn't that much, but 7 pounds in 9 months is dangerously close to a dress-size... and it's been a constant gaining... the 7 pounds might be "not much" but I'd prefer it to be "not NORMAL".) I've stopped keeping my lists. (I'm usually a list-maniac... I like to track my daily chores, what I eat, my dinner plans for the week, my grocery lists, what coupons I have, what's on my social calendar, etc etc.) I don't feel connected to my husband. Or my daughter. Or my friends. I don't feel like I've had a meaningful conversation with anyone in the last several months.

I keep worrying that I'm killing my own twilight. That I start coming around and I see everything I've not-done in the last few months and I try so hard to get back to good that I smash my chances at sunshine and just dive back under the cloud cover. It's kept me holding on the ledge, instead of falling over the side.

But really, I'd like to get back on the mountain now.

ok?

Cereal Killer

I've been whinging quite a lot recently about "I don't know why my weight keeps going up."

Oh, liar liar.

I know.

Believe me, I know.

(And really, you probably did, too. Admit it, we all do this when we read some poor weight-warrior whinging on about it... "well, I bet you've been eating too much. or not working out enough. Or both. Shut up and get back on the wagon, slacker." In various mental tones of niceness. Weight loss is simple. Eat less, move more. Doing it is hard.)

I mean, yes, we all have our weird weight fluctuations. Too much salt can cause a bump, or that time of the month, an overindulgence in cheetos or whatever... but usually, they're fluctuations. Up for a few days, and then back down...

This has... NOT been an aberration. This has been me up .2, up .2, up .4, up .6, down 1 (net of +.4, for those of you less mathematically inclined.) (Completely off the topic here, does anyone else have problems spelling mathematically? I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't SAY math eh mat i cal lee. I say Math mat ick lee. Therefore, I cannot spell mathematically right the first time. Ever.)

I've been paying for Weight Watchers more than I've been free. I usually manage to trim down about once a month to skate in under my limit (I haven't actually NOT made it back into my range at least once a month since November, but each time I make it into the range, it's higher than the last time. April, I made it into my range at 135.8 with a .2 margin of safety.) but I have been consistently up 2 or 3 pounds for the last three months.

Part of my problem has been a lack of something to train for. I miss my long-ass walks and I miss some of the freedom of wandering off the path of what I can eat that went with them. If I'm not exercising several times a week, I had better not stray off my 23 points a day. Without some goal to train for, I've been finding it harder and harder to get my ass down to the fitness center. (I blamed the weather, it was too cold, too rainy, too snowy to walk down there... I blamed the other people who use the fitness center; one whole time I was there, three of the four machines were in use and I don't like the recumbent bike. We all know who was to blame here, right? me!)

Part of my problem has been this annoying sense of entitlement I have. I'm mad, all the time mad, with my husband. Thomas has had a lot of trouble NOT losing weight. Annoying. As. Shit. And let me tell ya, having to live with someone who's whinging about being down another three pounds this week, even AFTER he had TWO DOUGHNUTS is just about enough to make any sane person stuff a few eclairs down their throats. Not to mention that in order to keep him from slipping down the drain when he takes a shower, we've had to stock the house with more high-calorie foods.

But mostly my problem has been nibbling.

I rarely sit down and scarf a 6 point doughnut. But I will eat a 100-cal pack, and 15 minutes later, I'll have another one. And 15 minutes after that, I'll have a piece of cheese. And 5 minutes after that (the cheese doesn't even last until I get out of the freaking KITCHEN!) I'll have an apple. And then I'll have a cup of dry cereal. And if I'm not paying attention, I'll have ANOTHER cup.

None of these things by themselves is the problem. It's that in less than 45 minutes, I've eaten 11 points. Frequently in addition to my 23 points that I'm allotted for the day. Honestly, I should just go ahead and eat the freaking doughnut, right? Then I'd only be 6 points behind, instead of 11.

My biggest problem is that damn cold cereal.

Technically, I buy the stuff for Darcy. In actuality, Thomas and I eat 95% of it. Thomas for breakfast on days he's not headed in to work; me, in a coffee cup, in front of the computer. And again, if I would just have one cup, that'd be fine.

But I don't.

I have one cup... and then 15 minutes later, I'll have another cup... and then another one... one serving of cold pre-sweetened cereal is 100-140 calories. (and, of course, a serving is often like 3/4 of a cup...) There are 14 servings in a box. When that box is empty in 3 days... well...

yeah.

For a while, I was asking Thomas to point it out to me, if I was eating the stuff, so that I'd stop. And I was okay for a while. And now? I'm just eating it when he's at work. Or in the evenings, when I'm reading in the other room. When he doesn't see me.

I'm sneaking food?

Jesus.

So, I fessed up with him about it today. And now I'm fessing up with you.

One of the things that Weight Watcher's suggests as a Tool for Living is Ask for Help. So, I'm asking.

HOW do I keep myself from doing this? I am nibbling myself right out of my weight range, and I must say, I don't like it very much. I feel guilty. And slack. And stupid. And I don't like feeling that way.