The Power of Kindness in Everyday Ramblings

A couple of wow it has been a long time events today. Even though yet again our case rates are higher than they have ever been. I took the bus both to and from the grocery store like I used to in the before times. Of course, it was nothing like the before times. I took this picture waiting for the bus on the way home. You don’t see the discarded mask and the trash.

At least my rain pants still fit.

I am practicing all the protocols. The bus rides are not more than 10 minutes long, the buses have been industrially cleaned, everyone wears masks and at least on the way down the windows were open. I use hand sanitizer before and after, do not touch my face and use recommended hand hygiene when I get home. The cloth mask goes into a lingerie bag without touching anything else after I wash my hands, which is, at the cats well know, the first thing I do when I get home.

The second oh wow is I am getting my teeth cleaned this afternoon. Everyone who has had it done here since the original lockdown that I have talked to says they feel we’ve got this, and it is safe. All of those people are healthy, so I feel like I am in good hands.

Over the last 8 months I have gained 4 lbs. I gained more than that the last 6 months at the bad bad job. My doctor said that it would help my back and the problem with my leg if I could take some weight off.

Losing 5 lbs. takes 20 lbs. of pressure off the joints.

For the last few years, since working for a year with the nutrition counselor/dietician coach I have been generally following the intuitive eating principles of no restriction, no diet, no bad foods and exploring what I am hungry for and the idea of feeling when I am full. I believe totally in the idea that we can be healthy at any size.

But I am also a person who has not, and never will fully recover from the changes that occurred in my brain from having a severe eating disorder when I was younger, and all that physical stuff was still developing.

If you are a person that has not had an eating disorder you can empathize but not know at all what having those brain changes means in terms of taking in something as simple as one’s reflection in a window passing by. It can be torture emotionally.

So like with any chronic condition, it is a question of managing it.

How do I lose enough weight to take some of the pressure off my spine (while working to strengthen the support around the areas in question) without slipping into disordered behavior???

That is what I have been struggling with.

I have come up with a simple plan that I started last weekend. I am a numbers person, love metrics, so I have returned to the app where I log what I eat every day. There are no rules, no restrictions, no good or bad. I weigh myself once a week on Saturday mornings and text my weight, usually with a joke or wry observation, to Kes and Mrs. Sherlock.

That is it.

That’s the plan.

One thing that it made me realize is how much, in volume, I had been eating. Eek.

Other than the fact that I am truly disappointed in the information we received about how the people in this country feel and what they want, and why more people voted Republican than in 2016 I am doing okay about the election news.

I am not happy and no we do not need the National Guard here in Portland, but I am doing okay.

It is time to have this be over and address the pandemic. It is still kindness that makes me cry.

Last updated November 05, 2020