Diary 8

September 17, 2015

I went through some stuff in my room today. I had many bankers boxes of papers and god knows what else all tossed in together and stacked in my room. Depression & anxiety does not play around. Its mantra is, "Fuck this, fuck that, you don't deserve to be able to see the carpet." I didn't exactly do a lot of filing, but I threw away lots of junk mail (YES I had junk mail from 2010) and receipts. I still have a dozen boxes to go. Egads, I know.

I finally FINALLY finished putting together my desk. I moved into this house in 2009. I have an L-shaped glass desk. I think I put together a half of it so I could have SOMETHING in 2010 or 2011. Today I finally put the entire thing together. There's so much room for activities!

I even found my bookends in a box! I put my study materials on my actual desk so that they can stare at me while I browse things online that will in no way determine my earning power.

Among the office supplies & old receipts in the boxes was a Queen box set, a compilation CD of the music they played at the Frankfurt Galaxy American football games in the late '90s, and a CD with about 15 pictures of a vacation I took with then-friends in 2003. So much fun listening to that music again and looking through those pictures! Great memories that I probably wouldn't have revisited today if I hadn't decided to find the junk mail to throw away in one single box.

We made pork chops & spinach for supper. That's all I had to eat all day besides coffee & milk. I consider it intermittent fasting. I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat. I didn't miss the food. I hope I have more days like that. Maybe the pictures I found today will help remind me of what it takes to get back down to my 2001 weight (I'd already gained 15 lbs in 2003).

Tonight I'm grateful for being able to remember some good times. I can't remember them all, and I feel like I should be able to remember more than I do. I don't know if it was the decade of medications or the insomnia that they caused. In any case, it makes me sad. So I'm super grateful that I can remember some.

I'm also grateful for the odd day when I feel super motivated and not hungry. I don't know whether that's hypomania or the pills I'm on for my cold sore. Meh. Doesn't matter, still cleaned.

Take care.

Procrastination and solidifying structure in one's own life

Writing about this subject may be another means of procrastination. But I want to put this out there so that if I fail, at least there is a record of me having tried, or maybe some of the compiled thoughts will help someone else. Besides--you only fail if you never try again, right? Right?

I don't consider myself to be self-disciplined at all. This may come as a surprise to people who know that I served "honorably" with the military for many years; that I own a home and keep my lawn semi-groomed; that I have well-fed pets; that if I wear a piece of clothing out of the house, it is most assuredly clean, dry, and serviceable; that my car is fairly well-maintained; and that much of my coursework for the degree that I finished last autumn was completed online. That last one is the one that really gets people. "You took and passed how many online classes? Oh my gosh, you must be really self disciplined!" No, there are plenty of external motivating factors in all those cases.

Most of the time, though, I have a hard time seeing reasons for motivation and reaping that "just do it" feeling until it's too late. But that isn't what this post is about. This post is about distractions and habits.

Over the years, I've seen several articles about internet addiction and social media addiction. Some people describe their Netflix viewing as "binge watching." I am not a scientist and, if it is possible to be addicted to these things, I'm not sure I meet the criteria for addiction. I have recently begun to come to grips with the thought, though, that my overusing these leisure outlets is negatively impacting my life. If not negatively impacting it, then it is at least hampering my progress. I don't blame anyone but myself.

Twitter and Netflix were absolutely necessary to my survival during a time in my life when I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. I wasn't seriously contemplating suicide, but I didn't want to live anymore, either. I found so many wonderful people on Twitter who understood that, and I was able to joke with them about it and share coping mechanisms. I'm forever grateful for the lifeline Twitter gave me. Netflix was also wonderful because I could immerse myself in characters' lives and forget mine. Lots of mindfulness proponents might disagree with me, but escapism was and is a huge coping mechanism for me against anxiety and clinical major depression.

And it's not just escapism. I read an article recently that mentioned that viewers can form para-social bonds with movie & TV characters. So basically, a combination of social networking and Netflix has acted as a stand-in for in-the-flesh socializing for me. For years. I think I needed that at one point when I couldn't see or feel hope and had no energy, inclination, or money to leave the couch, much less my house. But more and more often now, I feel like it's not enough.

My major depression is in semi-remission, so I think I should use this opportunity of the leg-up out of the pit to try to make my life better while I can. Statistics say that I will experience another devastating episode of major depression sometime in my life, so I need to make hay while the sun peeks from behind the clouds.

About a month an a half ago, I ran across a comic ("Is That Not Worth Exploring" by James Rhodes, illustrated by Zen Pencils)--probably on reddit--that made me think. It deals with identifying the unimportant stuff you spend time on and replacing those activities with something meaningful. At least, that's the way I interpreted it. I set the URL to the comic as the pinned tweet on my Twitter profile, hoping that more people would see it and be inspired. Of course, I've not taken Rhodes's advice, but I do think of his words once in a while and sorta hate myself for not doing anything. It has made me think, though.

Lately I've been wondering, "what did I do with my leisure time before I had internet access at home?" And then I realized, "oh, I don't just browse social media and watch Netflix during leisure time. I also do it while I'm supposed to be doing other stuff, like studying, housekeeping, applying for jobs, etc."

As you may know, I am overweight. I like to eat. Most days I eat many times when I'm not even hungry, and then I feel physically and emotionally awful. I mean, yes, I get a mood boost from the food, but then I am upset with myself because I know that overeating leads to weight gain. At one point, I decided to look into Overeaters Anonymous. I thought, "how can OA possibly work when the whole idea behind AA (on which it's based) is abstinence from the substance? Everyone NEEDS food." Turns out that OA's definition of abstinence is only eating planned meals and snacks. It gives a structure. That made sense to me. I tried it for a while on my own (I have never attended an OA meeting), but suffice to say I would not have earned any sobriety coins. I can still see that it makes sense, though, and could work for me. I know that because imposed structure worked for me in the military for many years. The problem is that if I'm the one trying to impose the structure upon myself, I am too lenient with myself.

So here I am, recognizing that I've been making horrible use of my time and that I need structure. I've had way too many zero days, especially in the past four years. But what should I do? Where should I start?

I think I should instill new habits. I'm in an enviable position right now, one where I do not have a job to go to every morning, so my schedule can be anything I want as long as I'm moving toward my goals (and as long as the schedule doesn't cost more money--I'm on a tight budget). You might hear that revamping one's entire lifestyle can be stressful, and that each little habit should be overhauled one at a time. But I have plenty of zero days in the bank to show me that even if I fail on changing most habits every single day, I will still have done more in a few months than I have in the past four years. So why not change everything at once? Fuck it, let's go.

Everyone's probably heard or read that it takes 21 days to instill a new habit. This, obviously, has been contested by psychologists and life coaches, so I'm not going to make this a 21 day challenge. This will be over a few months, starting today and going through December 31, 2015, at least. Let's see what I can accomplish.

Like many of you, I love lists. I love making them, I love checking things off, I love running across them in a junk drawer years later and laughing about how many things I didn't check off and that seem trivial in retrospect. In this case, I don't need a list because the number one thing on my list is studying. Everything except fitness & housekeeping seems to hinge on money.

Since I've already identified how much I rely on Twitter & Netflix to distract me, I'm going to say that I will no longer be on Twitter and will not watch Netflix (or regular TV) between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. (local). This will probably seem ridiculous to people who have no problem with this stuff but, in my case, this is absolutely necessary.

I will probably spend the rest of the day bouncing between studying and making new rules/revising my daily guidelines/creating Excel spreadsheets to track everything. Which is more procrastinating--unless it works. *squints at the screen*

My brain is panicking a little right now about staying off Twitter. "How will I know what's happening???" I have to keep reminding myself that

1. It's not forever, I'll check in in the morning & evening
2. I have emergency alerts set up on my phone if we need to evacuate for weather or anything.

I'm reminded of basic training when we had no access to news of current events whatsoever. At some point, one of the women in my group remarked that it would be great if we could have access to newspapers. The answer given was that our being sequestered and away from the outside world was temporary and that outside news would not benefit our training. Hopefully, these thoughts will hold me over and calm my nerves.

"Screw it, why should I even care about fitness?" (Updated March 24, 2015)

I'm fat, ya know. Overweight. If you care about BMIs (which I think are bullshit...oh, I need to add that to the list), today I fall into the "obese" category. But if I were to lose three pounds (water weight or whatever, the BMI calculator DNGAF), I would be in the "overweight" category. Regardless of how I feel about BMIs, it is true that I would look and feel better if I lost about 40 lbs.

I wasn't always overweight. I am 5'2". I had to gain three pounds to join the military at age 18, as the minimum weight for my height was 95 lbs. I was 120 lbs and 30 years old when I received my official depression diagnosis. The antidepressants they put me on were supposed to cause weight loss, but I gained weight instead. The nausea that the pills caused made me constantly feel like I'd gone too long without a meal, so snacks helped keep the nausea at bay. My job was fast-paced, we didn't receive lunch breaks. We ducked into the break room and gulped down a snack or meal whenever we had a few minutes. As a result, anyone who was eating would be left alone. Anyone who happened to be in the breakroom without food in their hand could be asked to come back out and work, even during their break. So I ate on every single break.

Here it is a decade later, and I haven't gotten back down to 120 lbs even once. I maxed out at 170, and I am close to that now. There are so many reasons, excuses, things that sidelined me. The antidepressants caused sleep disturbances. I could fall asleep, but my body wasn't truly sleeping. The sleep study the doc sent me for showed 50+ arousals per hour (no sleep apnea, even though I'm fat!), so basically I did not have a solid night's sleep for almost a decade. I (seemingly) slept long hours, 8-18 hours per day. When I was up and about, I was dragging. I drank coffee all day, every day. I rarely had the energy to work out. In retrospect, it's amazing that I even held a job.

I realize there are people with harder, more difficult lives than mine. But there it is.

So now that I'm 41, I've pretty much trashed my body (super weak, flabby, & chubby), I don't have a significant other and don't care to find one in the near future and, as a depressive person, I kind of don't care if I die of a stroke or heart attack tomorrow, I am trying to find reasons to get my shit together.

Some days, "I want to wear cute outfits again someday" is not enough of a motivator. I might need a memory jogger that, say, pulmonary fibrosis runs in the family and the better my cardio is now, the easier it'll be to tolerate when I'm 80.

That's where you come in. I'm collecting reasons to get fit and stay fit besides the usual generic cosmetic and health reasons. I want to hear your personal reason in 140 characters or fewer. If you don't want me to use your name here, just let me know. Thanks!

1. "I have a long family history of diabetes. If I get too heavy, I put myself at an even greater risk to develop it." --@dcas1978

2. "To lose weight so my back and knees won't hurt so much!" --@Zaerion

3. "I try to keep active to help keep the black cloud at bay. And because I don't want to end up like my father." --@racerabbit

4. "I've got a bad back. When I get too fat it really starts to hurt. :)" --@ocularnervosa

5. "Pulmonary fibrosis runs in my family and the better my cardio is now, the easier it'll be to tolerate when I'm 80." --@binkytoes

6. "Free drugs* with every excercise session! 
*endorphins" --@binkytoes

Veggie Italian Bake

NOTE: Oh, lawd. I finally tried it. Too many zucchinis, I think. Changed up the recipe some.

This is adapted from a low-carb (noodle-free) lasagna from the Dashing Dish blog.

Veg/Sauce layer:
3 medium zucchinis
1 large yellow onion, diced

1 (16oz) package frozen spinach
2 cups black beans (I made mine from scratch in a crock pot the day before. Cheap!)
1 (15oz) can or jar of pizza sauce
2 cloves of garlic, minced (I use the stuff from a jar)
4 Tbsp Italian seasoning

Cheese layer:
1 (32oz) container of ricotta cheese (I've also made this using 16oz of cottage cheese, which was also good)
1/2 cup grated parmesan (using the powdered kind may help thicken up the juices)
Topping:
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (this varies, depending how cheesy I want it to be)

1. Slice all the zucchinis into medallions, salt them, and cook them until soft in a stock pot (not crock pot). Salt them lightly to draw out the moisture. This takes a while and requires quite a bit of periodic stirring. Alternatively, spread them on a couple cookie sheets and roast them at 425F for five minutes on each side.

2. If you haven't used the oven yet, preheat the oven to 375F. Microwave the spinach according to the package directions.

3. VEGGIES: In a large non-stick skillet, cook the onion, mushrooms, and garlic until the onion's soft. Combine the rest of the veggies (including zucchini & beans), the seasonings, and the entire can or jar of pizza sauce in the skillet with the onion, mushrooms, and garlic. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. CHEESE: Mix the ricotta (or cottage cheese) & the parmesan cheese.

5. Spray a 9x13" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Begin with a layer of the veg mix, top it with a layer of the cheese mix, then sprinkle mozzarella on top of that cheese mix if you like. Continue like this until the casserole dish is full ending with a layer of mozzarella on top.

6. Cover with foil (try not to let the foil touch the mozzarella) and bake at 375F for 1 hour.

7. Remove the foil and bake another 5-10 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and/or brown (brown cheese doesn't sound good, though).

8. CAREFULLY remove from oven. It will probably have a lot of hot, boiling liquid around the edges. Let the casserole rest for about 10 minutes before serving.


----------------------

The thinking behind the modifications I made:
1. Beans instead of meat
I am a cheapskate plus I have a family history of gout, so I am trying to cut back on meat.
I realize this recipe probably does not count as low-carb since it includes black beans, but I'd rather have black beans than pasta if I'm having carbs.

2. Spices
I doubled the garlic & spices as per usual.

3. Pizza sauce rather than spaghetti sauce
This is a juicy recipe with all the veg, so you don't really need a ton of spaghetti sauce. I've also noticed that it seems to be easier to find pizza sauce that doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup (or other sugars) than it is to find a clean spaghetti sauce.

4. Zucchini medallions rather than strips
I made it once using the strips that the Dashing Dish called for. I found it to be too much trouble for a supposed structure that was lost when I dished up the portion, anyway. I'm far too lazy for such a low return on investment.

5. Omission of broccoli & cauliflower
I like broccoli but not in spaghetti sauce. It turns out that everything fills the casserole dish very nicely without the cauliflower, too (which was not as gross in the spaghetti sauce as broccoli, but still yuck).

Enchilada Casserole

Ingredients:
Corn Tortillas (about a 12-20 pack)
1 Can Enchilada Sauce
1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 Bag (16oz by weight) Grated Velveeta (or Cheddar) Cheese
1.5 lbs. Ground Beef
1 Onion (optional)

Brown ground beef with chopped up onion.  (About half way through
browning, soak tortillas in water on the side) Once brown, drain grease.
Mix ground beef, enchilada sauce, cream of chicken soup, and cream of
mushroom soup over medium heat.  Put a thin layer of "mixture" in the
bottom of a 13 x 9 casserole dish.  Tear tortillas into quarters.  Put a
layer of tortillas, then a layer of mixture, and a thin layer of cheese
and repeat until it's all used (top layer should be cheese, of course).
(The Velveeta cheese is very thick when it melts in this, so you don't
want a SOLID layer of cheese, just kind of sprinkle it around)

Almond Chocolate Mug Cake

I bought some almond flour and wanted to try it in a mug cake like the one I'd been making from the My Kids Eat Squid blog. I found a paleo version on the Delighted Momma blog and adapted it using what I knew from the MKES recipe. Turned out sort of Almond-Joy-ish and totally hit the spot. I love the balance that taking a little plain cream cheese with each bite gives it.


1 Tbsp Coconut oil
3 Tbsp Almond flour
3 Tbsp Cocoa powder
2 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 Egg
1/8 cup Cream cheese

Melt the coconut oil in the mug in the microwave for about 20 seconds. If it's not completely melted after 20 seconds, just stir it around in the mug until it's fully melted.

Using a fork, mix the almond flour, cocoa powder, honey, and vanilla extract into the melted coconut oil. Once the coconut oil has cooled down a bit, mix in the egg.

NOTE: Ensure that the egg is mixed in well, or you'll end up with a cake with a pocket of cooked egg white somewhere in there. Not mixing it well can also lead to the cake exploding when the egg cooks.

Once the egg is properly incorporated, microwave on high for 2 minutes.

THE CAKE WILL BE TOO HOT TO EAT RIGHT AWAY.

Top with the cream cheese. Let the cream cheese melt on it for about 3-5 minutes while the cake cools.

Optional mix-ins:
-Nuts
-Cinnamon
-Low-sugar Smuckers Strawberry Jam
-Chocolate chips

That chocolate mug cake on my blog tastes like shit when you make it with Splenda.

— Apparent Aphasia (@binkytoes) September 4, 2013