A friend kindly sent me her thoughts and story, and she gave me permission to share it. Thanks, AM! Part of her experience included a traumatic head injury and hepatitis contracted from blood transfusions.
"Some of this is background, probably a repeated story for you; bear with me. When I moved to Atlanta, and all the years between my accident until that time, there were vague periods when I'd try to get "healthy" by exercising, ignoring the eating part. Truth be told, I truly didn't understand very much about eating healthy; not that I'm an expert now, but I have a few more clues. Those exercise times would mean that I started walking, MIGHT do 15-20 minutes once or twice a week, and when there were no results after a week or two, or something else came up to throw me off, I'd give it up.
"In 2002, I got on the hepatitis meds. which, in a nutshell, caused me to lose about 55 pounds. I was not exercising at all then, and my daily calories were about 500 on the good days; bad days were obviously worse. Plus my metabolism was cranked up, which was a definite plus. Besides eating so little, I got sick very often, and I determined that if I could only eat a small amount, I needed to eat healthy, balanced food. I went to my first dietitian, and she was awesome. She told me about veggies and fruit, drinking water, whole grains, and all the other stuff dietitians know about.
"When I got off the meds at the end of 2002, my doctor told me that all his other patients gained their weight back "instantaneously"; I told myself "not me"! And I began to walk a little, which led to my first five consecutive minutes of running on Feb. 1, 2003. Fast forward on the exercise part: I ran several times a week, Saturday long runs usually with my mom. I ran by time, not distance, although sometimes I knew both. Now I go by time. Beginning on Jan. 2, 2009 injuries struck. I've tried to build up to running, building up V E R Y slowly, but every time I try, injuries hit again. [On a side note, other than my counselor and doctors, you are the only person who knows I've even tried to run again : ) ] I began walking with running in the summer of 2007, I think, and as I think you know, it took over. Originally I walked to supplement running, then it became my only thing. Now I think I do it as much for the mental health as the physical. Sometimes I can walk quick and get my heart rate up, other times I'm slow, pondering things.
"On the food side. I tried WW meetings. I got the points card, the exercise card, both of which I still use a lot, and a few other info. things. I didn't like the weigh-ins at all, and the meetings were atrocious... instead of going to a meeting, I could be out walking!!!! I gave up the meetings after 4-5. Even though I hated the meetings, I liked most of the general ideas of WW. In fact, to this day, I still keep a food journal of sorts. I include the day, date, what I eat, drink, the amount of each as best I know it, and what I did for exercise that day, including the amount of time for each "episode". At the bottom of the page, I list each day with its calories and points eaten, points earned through exercise, and the final tally for that day. Also at the very bottom of the page is my weight: I try to weigh every Saturday morning before eating or anything other than using the bathroom, I write that done and include any comments or thoughts re. it: why it may be up or down (water loss from sweating the day before, good or bad bathroom elimination stuff, etc.), and maybe a thought on how I feel about it. At the very top of the page are comments from particular days about especially good or bad things I did, why I did them, and how I felt before, during, and after. It is laborious and takes a bit of time to fill things in potentially several times a day, but it is so worth it to look back over the last few days, weeks, months, or even years to see what I weighed at a given point, and what I was doing, thinking around that time: what was working or not. I used notebooks at first, but the last few years I've started using binders with loose-leaf paper; generally a notebook or binder lasts about two years, and I have several of them.
"My eating, like my exercise, has evolved. What I try to do these days is eat healthy as much as I can until Saturdays: then I eat horribly if I want to: I eat whatever I want, in whatever quantity, but I still write it down and do my best to estimate calories and points. In fact, that's the day I allow myself oatmeal cream pies, which I love. And true to confessing, the last few weeks I've even been eating about three of them in one day! Again, you're the only one who knows this.... : )
"I think you're doing great to have things organized and lined up, that's essential for me also. I can't buy a lot of things because if they are in the house, I'll eat them. Usually T [her husband] can have things that I shouldn't, but I tell him to keep them on a shelf I can't see or reach easily so I won't be tempted. But I've had periods where I struggled to stay out of his cereal.... Usually I can tell my self that something "belongs" to T, so I can't have any of it; most of the time that works. Having a little one makes your journey harder, and certainly being married and fixing regular (supper) meals would also make things tougher. T and I have different schedules: we usually only eat together on the weekends, although we make that effort. Sometimes we don't even eat the same things, even if we are eating at the same time. It's what we're comfortable with, and it's easier for us to do that since we don't have someone younger than us needing more structure."
--AM
Good thoughts
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