The irony in procrastination

I learned something today which has helped me feel a little less frustrated about myself and accepting the fact that I am not lazy when I have procrastinated in my work, because of something a motivational speaker on Instagram had said.

“When a person goes into procrastination it is the brains coping mechanism, a response to coping with too much emotional trauma and overload”.  I may not have quoted them correctly, but it made me understand why I have procrastinated so long in my work.

Since September 2022 I’ve hardly written a thing towards any novel, because I have undergone a lot of emotional turmoil in my life.  A grief, followed by a diagnosis in my son, followed by erratic behaviours and arguments and a break in a long term relationship – coupled with the emotions I was already trying to tackle of loneliness, recovering from long-term sickness, trying to start foundations for a new routine, career, every aspect of my life I was trying to concentrate on all at once and I got overloaded and emotionally burned out.

This is why I have procrastinated so long, because I was trying to fix too many problems in my life at once, that I ended up exhausting myself on an emotional level and found I lacked the energy to think creatively, because I’m tired.

I’ve tired myself out by overthinking other problems that I did not have the energy to throw myself into the problem solving of make believe problems.

I understand this now and it has taken a huge weight off my shoulders, the weight was the anger that I had become lazy, when in fact I was the opposite.  I was working myself like a slave to do everything and being hard on myself when I failed my personal creative and career goals and dreams. 

I have also sat back and reflected that some of the things I was angry about because I felt I was lazy about them, I had actually accomplished great things but didn’t notice because I was bogged down in over perfecting them or just simply not noticing the progress I had made.

For example, March 2022 I could barely get out of bed and walk downstairs and up just once without having an asthma attack and shaky legs. 

From Easter 2022 I started to do small exercises, forcing myself to do the little things, until they built up.  Well they did build up over a time and I didn’t notice the physical achievements I was able to do.  Now I can walk up and down the stairs five times before feeling shaky.  I can do 70 reps of side reaches before I feel I need a break and for the past week I have been able to start preparing my own meals and even cooked a meal for the whole family the other day!

Things I haven’t been able to do in almost eight years!

But did I praise myself for doing all that?  No!  Because I didn’t notice until I sat back and reflected on the past year.

No more than had I noticed last week that I’ve lost 14 inches around my waist in 2yrs!  14 inches!

I’ve been on a high protein diet and I have cut out a lot of the unhealthy snacks and caffeine I used to drown myself in, not all of them, but most – to the extent my diet is almost unrecognisable from last year! 

Certain aspects of my health have improved immensely, though I still have two major problems which will never go away completely because it’s part of the auto-immunity problem I have. 

I’m reading emails daily, whereas this time last year I used to go three weeks without checking them! 

I’m spending a lot less time on social media too, I spent my whole day on social media last year! 

I’m starting to read more books.

I’ve finished an art class online.

I am halfway through two more free courses, one ran by Mel Robbins. 

I’m posting on my blog more often than not, whereas early last year I could only really post about once a week. 

I’m cutting my nails instead of biting them. 

I am replying to friends and family as soon as they message me instead of taking weeks to get back to them! 

I’ve accomplished more milestones in the past year than I have my whole life and I didn’t notice them!

I was beating myself up for being lazy and yet I was doing so much – the irony!

I also noticed another thing – I felt I didn’t have the energy to write towards my novels and I was journaling my life pretty hard in private for the past two months and guess what?  I noticed all my journal entries about my life amounted to 350k words, 350k in just two months!

I was writing approximately 2k in private journals and 4k on another one which I sometimes share with selected people a day, I say was, I still am.  This is not including the word counts for my blog posts and poetry by the way, I never counted those up! 

I told a friend online about this and I said why can’t I write like that towards my novels?  She asked the same question back at me too!

Yes, why can’t you?  Why can’t you implement changes in your style of writing so that you can do that just to get the first drafts down quickly?  Maybe you are overthinking your first drafts way too much?  You are trying to perfect first drafts immediately because you feel it’s urgent to write your novel, yet you are not writing your novel because of it. 

Irony again!

Once again I may not have quoted her 100% but that was the gist of the conversation.

Using the same method I do for journal writing to write down first drafts would mean that I would get the first drafts of four or six novels down per month that would be amazing if it is as affective as my journal writing is!

However a novel is more than just a first draft, so that was just over optimistic thinking!  But you get me, right? 

I haven’t started implementing this yet, I am talking about it today, because it is today I am trying to start with that, today is the day I am going to change my first draft method.

Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!

I don’t like being weak!

I am not afraid to admit when I am doing something mindlessly, I am not scared to say “Hey, I don’t know what I am doing” as I am learning something new.

I am feeling like this right now with a new form of exercise I have taken up “medium resistance band exercises”. 

I’ve been bed bound sick from 2013 to spring 2022, before I was bed bound sick I was a very active woman with a weight training past, I was very strong.  I am disappointed to have learned that I can barely move this resistance band, because I have become very weak over the years.

A far cry from 2006 when I could carry a 250llb man across a room!  Seriously, I did that because the guy, who was called Sahid, did not believe I could do it and that I did weight training in my spare time back then because I had strange dreams of becoming a wrestler or gladiator if my other career options failed.

I don’t like being this weak!  I want the amazon in me to come back!  I was very proud of my physical prowess back then, yes I was always a little large looking by most people’s standards, but I was toned and strong and fit!  180 pounds of toned woman!

I am not like that anymore and it’s going to change – I don’t believe for one moment that being forty years old makes me too old to go back to that level of toned fitness and strength!

This is exactly why I am having a high protein diet and trying to put in HIIT exercises here and there in my day.  I am unable to do more than 15 minutes all told in a day, because I am still sick and I have multiple immune problems which will be with me for life; I have to work around it the best I can!

Right now I am doing more in a day than I did a year ago and that makes me feel proud of myself, because I’ve come so far!

I don’t think I will reach my weight goal by July like I said a few months ago because I have had lapses and the weight loss has slowed down somewhat, I do think at my current pace it could be reachable in 75 to 100 weeks if nothing changes and that is depending on whether or not I am losing 0.5llbs to 1llb a week like I have been this past month.

Also my goal has shifted to becoming lighter than I wanted originally.

I intend to do a lot more to make the goal faster, but I am basing this on more failure, ill-health, mental relapses and financial worries getting in the way of the goal – so if I say to myself I will be at my goal by March 2025 I won’t be disappointed every six months, will I?  But March 2025 is doable with the failures and relapses in mind.

If everything goes my way – there is no reason why it should take that long!  There is no reason for me not to be my goal by Christmas 2023 the latest with a 2llb loss per week being necessary to do so and no relapses!

The relapses aren’t dietary – they are lapses in my exercise routine due primarily to illness – but kind of dietary in that financially it might be tough to prioritise high protein – but I am trying to force that as a priority no matter what!

Even if I have to eat nothing but porridge and protein shakes and a celery and spinach smoothie a day, I feel inclined to do this!

In fact this is a discussion I aim to have with Paul, as yes I still live with him and yes, he still holds the budget purse strings!

So, getting back to the gist of this post – I have no idea what I am doing with this resistance band, but I am doing it anyway and I am hoping and trusting I am positioning myself correctly according to these YouTube videos I am watching! 

I’m pretty sure it’s normal for people as unfit as me to get butt cramps when you use this thing on your upper thighs after two minutes? 

LOL!

Thanks for reading!

Personal events of 2022

I had taken up a new protein diet and exercise regime, which worked well.

I have lost 93 pounds of weight since last year and hoping to lose another 50 pounds to reach the goal ideal weight for me by July 2023.

I have unfortunately lost three relatives this year, two due to Covid, as well as a family friend.

I have made some good close online friendships with other creative people.

I have broken up from a long-term relationship and I am now single.

My son has been officially diagnosed with autism on a mild spectrum.

I am no longer on a free from diet, because we have learned I had problems with mustard and soya.

One of the debts I had has now been paid off, that debt was due to paying things off from Christmas 2017, when the government cut our money unexpectantly by £200 just 3 weeks before Christmas!

Thanks for reading and being with me throughout the year!

It’s not vanity week, honest!

Why did I confess about my supressed vanity and why do I seem so proud of it?

Because, it is a major part of my natural personality that got the hardest beatings and chastisements over the years, to me it feels like it was 50% of my personality and that since my suppressors took a hold on me – to get me out of the mind-set of it, it was like I have lived my whole life a lie.

I lived as my shadow self for too long, though many people feel that vanity is the shadow aspect in itself, maybe my mind is all muddled up – but to me, this is what came naturally to me and it is this what got moulded out of me.

I know a lot of people, my mother included will tell me that vanity is the shadow self, because vanity is a sin.

I don’t see how it’s a sin to make the most of what you have, why shouldn’t you adorn the precious body God gave you however you like?  Why should you not worship God through your temple, which is your body and give thanks and honour him for a job well done?

Why is it more holy to hate yourself and live modestly about your looks or abilities, surely revelling in it all is the biggest form of gratitude to the creator?

I remember slaps across my face as a child when I actually used to have the guts to ask these questions to my mother!

“How dare you” she used to say as she’d drag me to the bathroom to wash my mouth with soap, literally!

To wash those dirty words out of my mouth, because I say something that can’t be redeemed, her long nails scratching the back of my throat as she washed my tongue deeply!

I hate Imperial Leather soap to this day!

All the women I admired growing up were the vain glamorous types, I always kind of screwed my nose up at the ordinary woman and lived in amazement at how much some women put the time into their looks above everything else.

I always wanted to be like that too, but I was only like that for two short years in my adult life before I moved in with Paul and about a year when I moved in with Paul – funnily enough the year before I became sick.

Its sods law that I want to get to grips with my true self now and I have long Covid alopecia which is ruining my idea of what great hair is!  I have learned these things over the years, your hair is your crowning glory, and the thing that gets you judged the most; second to that are your shoulders, people look at your shoulders and your neck and judge your posture a lot!  Thirdly to this is the clothing or accessories you choose to wear and it’s generally make up as the last thing people will notice about you. 

Though going back to the clothing, people don’t look up and then down, they look down and go up, they judge you from your footwear.  This is my experience in any case.

Your smile is another factor that probably comes before the cosmetic application judgement!  Which is why I have a closed mouth smile, I am ashamed of my mouth.

My mouth is the most abused part of my body, my voice suppressed a lot, my mouth has had a lot of abuse – forced feedings, mouth wash outs, slapped across the face a lot, squeezed to keep silent, hand over my mouth, is it any wonder my throat chakra is hard to unblock?

So what is going on here, why is it vanity week?

Well it’s not intentionally vanity week – it’s just I am really working on my inner child in the past two or three weeks and it just so happens to coincide with a few of the self-therapies I am doing.

Waking up the true me, the unblocked me, the real me.

I want to take you all on a journey with me – weight loss and changing my image and I hope it will be fun for all of us!

I am not going to be happy until I can rock a pair of suspenders better than Dr Frank n Furter!

Just don’t think of me in them now huh, don’t want to have nightmares now do we?

For me one of the big things I hate about living here is the inability to get access to someone who can do household maintenance when it needs to be done, instead of having to wait years between projects!  Our shower broke down in 2016 and I bought its replacement in 2018 and it still hasn’t been installed!  I need my twice daily showers and twice weekly exfoliations!

I miss lathering myself in shea butter for an hour and then showering it off, the stretch marks were reduced a lot and it does a lot to help with cellulite, but you can’t get into a bath to wash it all off, ew!

I think my biggest goal since childhood was to have the confidence as well as the body to rock a velveteen cat suit too!  One I’ve dreamt of designing since I was a nine!  When I had the figure to wear something like that I didn’t have the guts!

Its really weird how since doing all this inner child stuff, I am seeing a lot of butterflies, dragonflies, caterpillars, flamingos, ibises and peacocks – all representatives of transformation, flamboyance, vibrancy, vanity and confidence.

I have been taking care of my body with a high protein diet, a little exercise per day and face yoga and I am seeing a major difference to my face and figure personally.  I am starting to like myself a bit but I am thinking that’s a lot to do with the change in my mentality, thanks to that Mel Robbins technique I shared with you a couple of weeks back!

I am now able to plank for about one minute, which is impressive when you think that I struggled to hold a squat for fifteen seconds at Easter!

Six weeks ago I could only do ten reps of bicep curls without weights before needing a two minute break to continue to the full thirty reps – now I can do fifty reps off the bat without resting, though I am slightly out of breath by then.

My main focuses in toning up are my triceps area, as that is not a very nice part of my body, as well as my abs, because I look five months pregnant if I am being honest right now.  The rest of the body seems to be doing itself naturally and appropriately, I don’t know why these two areas in particular are being stubborn!

The aim isn’t to become too muscular, but to tone it up and not be horribly flabby.

At the moment my arms look alien to the rest of my body, which is why I pose with them tightly behind my back, because I look like an ape… well I am an ape, all humans are… but you know what I mean!

So, I just want to be beautiful and feel good for it, I want to be in a position of belief when someone tells me I am beautiful.  But I don’t want to be a mean cocky bitch about it like some women are. 

I just want to wear what I want, feel great in it and be who I want to be, when I want to be it, instead of cringing and thinking I am making a fool of myself, or that people are going to think that two little boys are fighting up my skirt as I walk down the road!

Thanks for reading!

Corduroys and weight loss

I really wished I had a pair of brown corduroys with some sunflowers embroidered on them as I like the idea of this today.  I feel a little like an autumn cottage pixie I suppose. A nice bohemian top would go nicely with those style of trousers  I miss corduroys and I am nearly able to look good in them again soon.

I found out today that I have surpassed my weight loss goal for the week, I am aiming to lose one or two pounds a week, but I found out this morning I have lost 4llbs and 2 ounces!

I think it has something to do with the new arm exercises I’ve been trying to do every two days, it’s approximately eighteen minutes, I say approximately because I struggle to do thirty solid repetitions on most of the exercises, so I am pausing around every ten reps for about thirty to forty five seconds.  I know it’s not ideal, but the main place where my arthritis is, is within the shoulder.

The facial exercises to tone down my chin and define my jawline also seems to be working wonders, in fact, according to Paul, he feels the exercises have knocked seven years off my looks.

I have also found a suitcase filled with some of my old clothes of when I was a size 18/20, most of them are starting to fit again.  So wow!

Happy reading everybody!

New energy

This high protein diet is doing wonders for my health and body, I am getting more good days than bad.  Despite currently having a throat infection with a mild chest infection, everything else is improving a lot!

I believe the throat and chest infection has come about because of my birthday weekend splurge of sweet treats and refined sugars, something I am not known for usually, but I wanted a change this weekend.

I don’t normally have a sweet tooth more than three or four times a month and that’s because of hormones and then I usually opt for fruit.  But this past weekend I have splurged on cream cakes, chocolate, jelly babies and a lot of honey and maple syrup – shock and horror!

It’s my birthday weekend, let me live a little.  My weight is stable, I am managing to exercise more often and I am feeling happy for it, but I still have a lot of fat to lose and toning up to do.

Since I started a few months ago to do just squats and standing from a seated position several times a day, I have noticed a positive increase in my mental health. 

I knew from the past that I loved exercise and being active, but when I got sick, I just lacked all motivation to try again.  It is especially hard when you have a lot of people tell you “take it easy, don’t rush things” all the while.

Paul was always stressed out by the idea that I may be rushing back into exercise after poor health and would often moan me into submission about it, so I found it hard to get back into the swing of it all.

I have had some harsh and strong words with Paul about this recently, when he noticed I was doing exercise. 

“Well I got news for you” I said defiantly; “I have been doing these things in secret for the past few months to get back into the flow of it and now I am ready for harder tasks”.  He almost went white.

I am not satisfied staying fat and lazy, I love exercise, I love doing things – I am not content in sitting on my ass all day whining about how poor we are and what we don’t have… if there is something about me that I can say in a positive and confident light is that I am a go-getter.  But like the water dog I am; I flow with the energy that is around me the most and at the moment I am in stagnant waters and I am trying to make some currents.

In my youth my mother encouraged a peacock attitude, but as long as I kept to her lame fashion advice and her fashion advice really was lame!  I have always been a lover of fashion and I strongly believe that your clothes can show the world your personality. 

Unfortunately that is really hard to do when you are obese and you have virtually no budget to play with! 

People do judge you for the clothes you wear as well as your general looks and I am not happy by the kinds of reactions I get when I wear the clothes I do currently, I get very little respect and I am treated like an ignoramus.

I want to be a peacock again, well, you know what I mean right?

I have too much work to do, it’s scary!

I also have to be cautious because in the past I had severe issues with anorexia, bulimia but also another condition where I was addicted to exercise to the point of exhaustion and collapse!

Paul knows this and thinks that any exercise outside of walking everywhere and twenty minute boring aerobics is too much, he is very cautious.

My ideas are very different.  The only lengthy work out I like is forty five minutes long and it is Billy Blank’s Tae-Bo workout, gosh I miss that – this is one of the things I am working towards, being fit enough to do the whole workout again.  It’s fun!

I am also working out to try and get back the flexibility I used to have when I was a contortionist – yes, that’s right; I used to be a contortionist.  Not professionally, just for fun!  Don’t sideways glance at me like that, it was fun!

A friend recently suggested I take up yoga and I laughed, because, I wish… But my body needs a lot of work before I can cock my leg up over my head again!

When I am writing in a calm and peaceful environment I have noticed I work better creatively when I am doing stupid things like this; Fifteen to twenty minutes writing, getting up and doing three minutes of HIIT exercises, followed by jumping jacks and jump rope exercises, then getting back to the desk. 

Not only am I happy doing this, but my brain works better for it!

I wished I had an office which could also be a gym and library all rolled into one, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon by itself, so I have to work for it!

At the moment I am really trying to develop a positive mind-set and a healthy body and a handful of online friends have DM and told me that they really believe, in their hearts of hearts I should avoid sending my work to an agent in October so I can focus on all this other stuff first. 

My friends think I should send it out around February, as the agents will be more prepared as I am sending the work out at the start of the busiest time of the year.  I don’t know what to do to be honest, but I am wondering if I am dumb if I ignore their advice?

I believe the high protein diet is really fixing my body.  As much as I love fruit and vegetables, I know I could never be a vegan because you can’t get Vitamin B12 as a vegan; with my digestive and bowel disease I already struggle to get enough B vitamins my diet as I don’t absorb them very well; not only this but I have allergies to soy and mustard, which can cause my spleen to swell.

According to google;” Vitamin B12 deficiencies can lead to megaloblastic anaemia, a condition where the bone marrow produces large abnormally shaped red blood cells that do not function properly. Dementia, paranoia, depression, and behavioural changes can result from a vitamin B12 deficiency. Neurological damage sometimes cannot be reversed”.

I have pernicious anaemia and rheumatic arthritis, but I am stabilising that the best I can with supplements and a healthy diet where I have to be mindful about what I eat and can’t get stuck into food ruts.  My body really struggles absorbing vitamin B because of those conditions.

My arthritis is the first noticeable change since starting a high protein diet.  Since starting this diet, my pain is getting less and I am starting to get some muscle mass back again, because around Easter time I loss a lot of muscle mass where it started to become very scary for Paul, my doctors and I.

I have a protein metabolism and I am an hourglass shape, I know what I am doing with my body because when I was younger I brainwashed myself to try to be the best that I can be, but Paul encouraged me to get lazy about things, because he was scared I was pushing my body too far and I had such a long term illness after pneumonia due to mono, that I flaked out, literally for years.

Slowly gaining back the fifty pounds I had lost after moving out of my mother’s house, but that’s changing now!

I noticed the worse parts of my ill health came back after three days of slipping up with my protein intake; Paul has noticed it too and has said that losing the high protein diet is unnegotiable now!

I forgot the high I get when I exercise and it’s great!

When I am sad or stressed I eat a lot, it’s a compulsive habit. When I am happy I forget to eat, so I have to watch that too! When I was twenty four my mother took a bigger control of my life and took a lot of things away from me that made me happy, I gained thirty pounds a year in depression and would have got fatter if it weren’t for Paul coming into my life and saving me when he did! I have always struggled with body dysmorphia one way or another. The thinner I get the fatter I think I see myself in the mirror and weirdly enough vice versa.

I have been using Mel Robbin’s technique recently whenever I look in the mirror, don’t see me as myself; I see myself as another person who I am deeply in love with and care about and weird enough it is helping my body dysmorphia a lot! I know it can lead to another problem of disassociation, but if it makes me happy in my own skin then I am all for that!

So look in the mirror, see another person in the room, don’t associate it with yourself, and high five that girl or boy you love!

So that’s what’s happening in my life right now.

Thanks for reading!

Baby steps to fitness

The high protein diet seems to be helping me a lot in my health, though I have had a couple of bad days this week I have noticed my asthmas is improving, whether that is coincidental or not I don’t know.

I am trying to get three minute exercises in about three times a day, because I am doing this from being housebound and bedbound sick for the past eight or nine years, so baby steps!

I started around two months ago squatting for fifteen seconds as that was the most I could do before I got shaky and felt pain, but I have now progressed to being able to squat for up to three and sometimes four minutes now. 

This progressed to me getting up from a chair and sitting down again twenty times in a row twice a day as well, to now being able to do that around eighty times before I need to rest.

Five days ago I added a new exercise to the three times a day thing, that is the weight shake, I can’t do more than twenty five seconds per arm at the moment and I am getting shakiness in my arms again, because they are not used to being used – but I am trying my best to strengthen myself up a bit.

Though Paul is concerned that I have complained of shock pains in my right arm, meaning that my carpal tunnel syndrome could show up again soon, if I don’t slow down a bit.

I haven’t started going out for walks yet, but that’s next on the agenda, perhaps in a week or two.

I have been trying to force my body to use to the idea that I want to be athletic again, even though in reality I am still quite sick, I am trying to force my body to get better. 

I am also working hard in cosmic ordering on all areas of my life, so with my new found positive approach to life, I should get there!  I won’t say hope, because that sends signals to the universe that I want to feel like being hopeful about things and so things won’t change and they must change!

Happy reading!

The table exercise

I am going to share my poetry exercises from the book I am reading about how to improve my poetry or get into it, because I am not confident in what I do;

The book is called “How to grow your own poem” by Kate Clanchy and I borrowed the book from the local library.

There is a poem in the book called “The table” by Edip Cansever and I am supposed to write my own version of the poem.  Here is a link to the poem if you are interested?

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rwtill/Poems/table.html

She comes home eager to share the events of the day

Chattering like there is no tomorrow

Putting her damp coat up on the rack and kicking off her shoes

Throwing her handbag down at the side of the couch

She takes her hair out of the neat bun and places her scrunchy and pins in a green bowl on the coffee table

Nobody cares about what she says, but she chatters on

An old lady got her walking stick stuck in a drain pipe today

Oh and I was told that Liam is having a party at the weekend and asked if I could go

Feet soggy in damp socks placed upon a footstool in front of the fire

Warmth sighing through her – release

Gerald was thinking about getting a cat too, can you imagine it?

Snuggling down deep into the couch

A hot mug of cocoa placed in her hands, stings but then sooths

Happily she sips the creamy sweet drink

Smiling to herself

I know they aren’t bothered by what I have to say

But I‘ve had a good day

Helped a stranger, made a friend, got all the work done in time for a change

She feels herself nodding into a snooze

Life is so draining here

Not like out there where I come home full of energy

She smiles to herself again

I suppose they can’t help it

Being stuck in all day

I wish they’d talk more about their day

Then thinking about the muppets song…

Now what was it?

Ah yes!  Cabin fever!

That’s probably what it is with them

They’ve been stuck inside so long they’ve forgotten about life outside!

Mum, why don’t you go out more?

It’s not right to be stuck in like this!

You are hardly talking anymore!

Putting the mug of cocoa down on a pile of magazine on the coffee table

She turns to look at her mum

Her mum is sleeping in the green armchair next to her

She never used to be like this

She used to be vibrant too

As you can see, the poem doesn’t rhyme like a lot of my poems do, but that’s the point, to broaden my poetical horizons.

I am not happy with the above; I would probably delete it and ignore it.  But then I wouldn’t grow, tell me what you think of it!

Happy reading! 

Body whispering

My diet is reverting and it’s great!  It’s not a diet for weight loss, it is a diet based on my old principles. 

I have known for several years that I have a protein metabolism; something that Paul never took too seriously.  This is based on a book I read around seventeen years ago called “The metabolic typing diet” by William L. Wolcott and Trish Fahey; because Paul didn’t want to cater towards the foods I was used to for whatever reason, I as I always do, compromise what I want for being easy on others, so this meant that I increasingly ate a high carb diet.

This did not affect my weight at all, but I believe it did affect my health.  I became really sick regarding eating and digesting food for quite a while to the extent I got out of the habit of eating food at regular intervals primarily because of digestive pain and the inability to keep things down!

Recently I was told by a doctor that I have no allergies or intolerances whatsoever like Paul believed I had – it is likely the big bouts of pain I have are due to IBD flare ups, because it would seem I would still have days like that, no matter what I was avoiding.

So, I have gone back into a normal for a human type diet – but I wanted to empathise to Paul about my dietary past, before I moved in with him and how I believe that I am not getting the right fuel for my metabolic type.

Just because he is worried about the lack of food I am in taking for the past couple of years and how sick I have been over the years, he has decided to cave into what he believes is this fad idea and he has been surprised at how my appetite is increasing and it has only been six days into the diet.  This post was written on the 24^th August, after some friends are still concerned online that I am not eating enough.

You see this change of diet I am undergoing was actually exactly what I ate before I moved in with him, thirteen years ago!

Since going onto a high protein diet, my appetite is coming back and I am regaining energy and I have already noticed a significant change in my skin, despite this, the caloric intake is not as high as you’d expect, I am now averaging 1900 a day, which is a vast improvement from an average of 1000 and not keeping it down! 

Since my energy levels are improving, I have noticed that I am starting to get more energy to help around the house again and I am not shaky when I do physical activities anymore.

I knew my body very well, I used to be athletic, I used to go on nine mile walks a day, I would do weight training in the evenings, walk a dog, practise the swing ball, do my tae bo exercises twice a day and was always begging people to play netball, ping pong, darts or rounder’s with me.  I had a mostly lethargic social group, but I motivated some of them!

Oh and I loved swimming, a true water baby – I can’t sit on the side of the pool, that’s not me, I love to dive right in there and get bratty like a kid if I am asked to get out of the pool!  I think it’s because my inner child likes to think herself as a mermaid when she is in there!

I learned to know my metabolic type; I felt it is vital for everyone to learn that – because one man’s food is another man’s poison.  You might very well love munching down on crudités, but if you were built for protein, you need to make sure that the vegetables you are consuming are high in protein; there are more than you think!

I poisoned myself for the sake of convenience and I believe it’s what nearly killed me!

I don’t do well on high carbs or high fat and lots of people have the misconception that high protein means high fat, not at all, it depends on the type of protein you are putting into your body!

I have seen such a vast improvement lately that I believe this time next week; I’ll be able to do some kind of light exercise again.

But at the moment my body is going through a healing process, where I feel that whilst I am getting the building blocks into my system, I need a bit of rest.  I can sense my body asking me to slow down and take it easy – don’t leap into anything just yet and I am not going to ignore that!

One habit I never got out of when my diet became high carb was that I never got lulled into the habit by Paul of drinking mostly coffee or tea; I still stuck to three pints of water a day with a green tea, even though for years I did lose my daily cranberry juice, but I’ve got that back too!  Yay!

Most people sneer at someone like me as they see a fat sick person and don’t realise that they are actually more switched on about nutrients, metabolism, dieting and exercise than the average Joe.  Looks are very deceiving my dears, I wasn’t like this in my past!  I got fat due to illness; I actually have a natural propensity for building muscle quite quickly – I don’t need to exercise as much as the average person as I bulk quite quickly.  I suppose I am fortunate for that.

I think the one main thing that bought Paul around to my way of thinking was the fact that I told him, he doesn’t have to change his diet for me, but now I am turning forty in October I really need to ramp up the protein as I will start losing muscle mass at a quicker rate and really it could happen faster for me, because of my rheumatic arthritis. 

In fact, eating a high protein diet could stop my muscle wasting so fast because of it too; this is something a friend told me online.  She is an over fifties body builder and she’s been helping me get back on track with how I used to be!

I am also a natural hourglass shape, my waist has always been unusually small, and my bone frame is considered petit by the doctors, which has always worried them when I gained weight. 

I am also planning to get back into exercising for my shape, with “escape your shape” by Edward Jackowski, which I loved twenty years ago and really helped me sculpt my body the way I like it!  I am also 5ft 8.

So, these are the changes happening in my life right now.

My digestive health is certainly starting to feel like it is stabilising and I was told by my friend that my immune health should right itself in a few weeks’ time too!

I hope so!

It’s challenging with our budget, but I hope we can manage it!

Happy reading!

Health update & cataloging books

For the next few days I will be cataloguing all of the books in this house (with maybe the exception of my son’s bedroom as I want to live till the end of the week), to put on Goodreads.com as there has been some debate from some of my reader friends about just how many books I actually own because according to what they see on Goodreads I don’t have much.  Well I only used to add those that I bought at the time I have been a member of Goodreads, not all the ones I had before I became a member of the site – so, apparently I have to prove my hoarding addiction to the world – lol.

So that is my challenge for the week and it is back breaking!  You’re probably laughing your heads off at what you think is an exaggeration, but for me it is a reality.  Being bed bound sick for the last 7yrs has severely weakened my core that even standing up for more than 15 minutes at a time is very painful.  I think the diet I have been doing for immune boosting is working, because I am having more days out of bed, in fact I haven’t had a full day in bed since around the 21^st of January.

I still need to go back up there regularly, but I am definitely seeing an improvement.  I am also taking extra vitamins with it all too.  I am not losing any weight, in fact gaining it – which is disturbing for me, because my calories are less.  Sugar and fat content is less, food is more nutritionally dense than before and I am slightly more active than I used to be.  It is puzzling why, I have the weight gain.  I am eating approximately 400 calories a day less than I did before these changes and I am doing more around the house, I am now able to care a little for the rabbit and even make snacks and lunches whereas I hadn’t been able to since 2016.  The weight gain is only 5 pounds, but it is freaking me out – somebody suggested my insomnia could be a reason for it, because your  metabolism is determined by your sleep patterns, not sure what to think of that!

My sleep patterns are all over the place.  I usually can’t sleep before 5am and sleep 9 hours a day on average, sometimes I need 13 hours, don’t know why.  I hate sleep, I really find it a time wasting thing and I resent that I need more than the average person because of my infections, arthritis and so forth.  I am trying to force my body into a sleep pattern, by forcing myself to wake up by 10am regardless of when I slept the night before; I started doing this 3 days ago, and last night I think my body decided OK, I will sleep now and the last time I saw the clock it was 02:10am, so I think it’s working a little.

I am really trying to discipline my body.  I am pleased also that whatever is happening to my body, I am able to do around 15 minutes of exercise before getting really tired – it’s a big thing for me, because as I said, I have hardly been able to move for a few years and all of this has happened much quicker than I thought it would.  But all in all there is not a massive difference in my pain levels or infections. 

I’m just trying to force myself and it is torture, I will tell you.  I need to get back to my athletic self again.  I used to be very athletic, I was always up and doing things and loved sport and I miss it so much!  Honestly, this was NOT a lifestyle choice for me, I genuinely became too ill to move and this is why I resent people who think they know about overweight disabled people, people like Anthea Turner!

I have been the victim of disability discrimination and fat discrimination for the past few years and I have seen the worst of humanity – it is especially prevalent with doctors who should know better!

Let’s pray you assholes who fat shame and hate on disabled people are never put into a situation where you are injured and sick enough not to be able to move and that you get fat too and get karma kicking your asses like you would deserve!