Recalibration

So the other day I stepped on the scale as I do each morning, and I saw a number that was an ALL TIME HIGH!!  

Of course, alarm bells went off and I had to stop and think. There is no mystery about why I've been gaining weight. I've been eating too much. I've been eating too much for many reasons, including feeling bad physically and being bored mentally, in addition to the existential angst of seeing the world I thought I lived in being savagely revised. Food has recently been way too big a place in my life. Taking up lots and lots of mental space, and turning into a crutch to salvage an otherwise not-so-hot day. I can't fix the whole world, but I can try to address the more personal issues.

To address the food, I decided to at least temporarily join Weight Watchers, to gain access to the their app to track all the food I eat. My thought is to recalibrate both food choices and portion sizes, which I think have gotten entirely out of whack. I ate a certain way at  home for decades: much meat, quite a bit of vegetables, using fats freely, and having the occasional treat without guilt. Very few carbs. I never bought bread, and rarely made rice or pasta. Never ever french fries. My choices modified to incorporate foods from my vegan girl, so I had more brown rice, beans, and sweet potatoes in my repertoire, without disastrous effect. But then, a couple of years ago, I threw away all of the old practices and started back into eating more mainstream foods. And then, my obsession with food grew and grew and I've been feeling very disordered in my food choices. I really was in a quandary, every morning waking up and deciding to "eat right" and every day along the way not sure what choices were "right". I was buying and eating a lot of packaged and prepared foods, many of them "healthy" enough in their ingredients but somehow helping with substantial weight gain.

I know a lot about food and nutrition, and the main thing I know is that almost all nutrition "science" is bullshit. The way I started eating in the nineties, low carb and higher protein and fat, was at the time demonized as the least healthy way to eat. Broad sweeping public health recommendations on what to eat have been made with very little rigorous science to back them up. Even to this day, by necessity most of the research is observational and short term, because it's not possible to accurately control what people actually eat over the long term. 

However, there is a growing consensus about a moderate way of eating, heavy on fruits and vegetables, sufficient protein, and moderate on carbs and fats. The Weight Watchers point system nudges choices towards that diet, without firm rules about having to eat, or excluding, specific foods.

I was last in WW about a decade ago, and the app has gotten so much better and easy to use. I think the weighting of the points has also changed, though that is less obvious to me. You are given a daily and a weekly budget of points, and each day and each week resets. You can track ahead or catch up later. The app not only shows points information, but also fiber and protein (for which there are minimum numbers suggested) and carbohydrate and fat grams (for which there are caps). 

Foods can be tracked on the phone or computer several ways. There is an extensive database, so you can type and search for the food you are eating ("fresh mandarin orange"). You can build a recipe using foods in their database, and it calculates points based on how many portions it makes. You can scan a package barcode on your phone. You can even scan the nutrition label on a package, and it will add the food and calculate points. Lastly, you can type in all the nutrition information for an entirely new food and it will calculate the points.  

Because the app is so easy to use, it feels right now a bit like a game, to build and execute a plan that stays withing the points budget. The first few days, I was shocked at how some of my staples would quickly use up a whole day's point budget. I immediately started buying more fresh fruit and also rotisserie chickens, both bargains in the currency of WW points. I was less shocked, but glad of the discipline of a budget, by seeing what my habitual evening treats were adding to the tally. I've searched for treats that satisfy my need to feel I'm getting a treat, but that have reasonable points tallies. Bonus if they bring protein or fiber along for the ride. Dried and spiced garbanzo and fava beans have hit the spot, a crunchy salty snack food that feels indulgent. And I want to be indulged! Dark chocolate covered almonds are about one point each, something to maybe reach for when craving a sweet. Just knowing the point count slows me down.

So, ironically, food is taking at least as much space in my mind and physical day as before. But this feels different, more like I'm in driving the bus and figuring it out rather than subject to random emotional whims and constant internal discussions and bargains. (A friend of mine noted the same effect.)  My hope is by getting used to different choices and smaller portions, it will eventually require a bit less constant focus. But I'm still getting used to scanning bar codes on prepared foods in my freezer and finding that the one package will take nearly every point I have! I haven't decided whether that means I exclude them from my diet for the time being, or is there some modification that makes them alright? 

Digressive anecdote:  I was sharing the joy of the fava beans with my girl, and later she sent me a picture of the Wasa rye crackers, above. "Do you know about these, fellow fiber enthusiast? They've got a lot!" It made me laugh, "Sweetie, these are a Norwegian heritage food! I was raised on these - I think I was teething on them. Grandma used to eat them with pickled herring. Yum! But I haven't had them lately" And they got added to my shopping cart the next time I was in the store. This morning I had a couple with smoked salmon and a very thin schmear of cream cheese. Yum! 

Now in my third week, I didn't sweat Thanksgiving but did track after the fact. Nearly twice my daily points budget. Hooray for a reset this morning, and another one tomorrow.

The reason I want to calibrate my eating is because I want to stop and then reverse the weight gain. Just three days after restricting my food to within budget, the scale had dropped four pounds from that shocking high! I knew the drop was no more reflective of my actual weight than was the one-day peak that sent me in this new direction, just a fluctuation of water and other temporary things. I weigh daily, and I focus on an average of several days, not any one day. Still, it was nice to see such lower numbers. Now, three weeks in, my weight has settled in around that lower number. I plan to continue to track via WW until I don't want to any more. I don't know if I'll lose weight this way, but the reset and re-calibration is worthwhile anyway.

**TRIGGER WARNING** **TRIGGER WARNING** **TRIGGER WARNING** **TRIGGER WARNING**

I have been very lucky in my life. I have not had any trauma specifically affecting me, my body, my direct life. No major injuries, no sudden job loss, only the kind of minor sexual assault every girl experiences (and, apparently, the President of Mexico). A residual fear of crowds and mobs that makes me cautious about going to protests or even festivals. And of course I shared the deep national trauma of 9/11, in a fairly personal way.

But people I love have had unexpected sudden death or catastrophic injuries.  And, while all of those deeply affected me emotionally at the time (and in retrospect), only a few had immediate direct impact on my daily life. Those are the ones that still grab me, hold me, come up unexpectedly and punch me in my nose. 

When  I was in grad school, in 1980, one of my dearest friends was murdered on her doorstep on a Saturday night. Horrible, but it got worse. There appeared to be a serial killer abroad. Or, perhaps it was someone I knew. My roommates and friends and I were interviewed, fingerprinted (for exclusion purposes they said, we had been in her apartment and driven her car), and interviewed again and again. We supported her family, my first personal experience of dealing with the mundane aftermath of death, packing up her things, organizing a memorial service. My grades plummeted. Three out of four semesters in the top 10% of my class, one semester barely getting by.  For the better part of a year, I didn't sleep the whole night through, but existed in a kind of split shift. Bed early, up after midnight for hours doing school work, back to bed as the sun came up. I graduated, left town with no resolution of who done it, and life moved on and into a more normal pattern.

A couple of years later, I was living in Ohio, and sleeping at my boyfriend's house. I was drifting off as he watched the 11 o'clock news in the bedroom. Suddenly, I jerked awake as I heard "authorities say the suspect may have been responsible for a string of murders of women in Michigan and Texas". Just that. I was too late to hear more, but I lay rigidly awake all that night. The next night, I was again drifting off when my boyfriend came into the bedroom. I jerked awake, and all I knew was I wasn't dreaming, there was actually someone there, not my imagination. I screamed! I shrieked enough and so loud that the neighbors all turned on their lights and checked  their yards. I quickly settled, but it was the start of another long spell of sleep disrupted nights. The following day, my phone rang. My old roommate in Ann Arbor said, "Yes, they've got him."

From time to time I've toyed with the idea of writing in more detail about this, and I thought that maybe now, in my old age, it was time. Maybe pushed by finishing a novel that dealt with the aftermath of trauma, I thought about it for a while this morning. Write about my friend and our friendship, and our circle of friends. Recount the immediate events, maybe look at my shelf of journals to find what I wrote at the time, make it clear finally -- not the resolution, there can never be that -- but who killed her and what happened to him. Tell it as a story. Put a bow on it. Be sure others know about her and what happened. Thinking about it, I wondered if there was a picture of my friend on the web. I was curious if I could find details of her family, wondering how they had gotten on. 

I was startled to find a recent (this year) documentary about the killer. I didn't read enough to find out if the whole series was about him, or just the episode. With shaking fingers, I bookmarked the site, and closed the tab so I wouldn't stumble on it accidentally. I was gasping for breath. Panicking. 

I fell back on my mindfulness training: Just breathe. Close your eyes and feel the breath. Let feeling the breath fill your mind. What does it feel like? Where do you feel it? Just sit with it, inhabit it. After a few moments, feeling calmer, try visiting the emotions that drove this panic. Let the emotion come. You are safe. You are in a safe place. Feel what you feel. How does it actually feel? Can you name your feelings? Where do you feel them? Just sit with it. Don't push it away, but let it come. You'll be fine, because you are really safe. If it's too much, return to the breath. You are fine. You are safe. You are sad, but that's ok. You are fine. As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong. Just breathe.

This has been the hardest thing for me, actually allowing myself to feel my feelings. Not just now, but for years. My brief foray into therapy with a mindfulness twist let me finally get there.

The unexpected reminder of trauma is traumatic. Trigger warnings are a real and necessary thing. As "woke" becomes an object of scorn (not among you, my dear readers, I know) so have trigger warnings been subject to derision. But finding a level of detail and images about my friend set me off today, even though I initiated the search. It's taken me three hours to write this, with breaks for walking around and dipping into more breath meditation. I'm pissed at how much I'm blowing my nose, when I thought I was almost done with my head cold of this week. But I felt a need to capture this moment, not to just move on.

I may write more about this. But I'll do it with plenty of warnings for myself in place. It'll be some work, not just the writing of my own thoughts, but having to do research to ground my memories in facts. Something to tackle gradually, not all at once.

But today will be a fine day. I have several projects planned, and a neighborhood get together to cap it off. Excelsior! 

 

Light and Dark

The entrance of a lava tube cave
in Iceland. The light at the end 
of the tunnel!

I'm very attuned to the light. I bought my house for its big windows, and I follow the light from room to room during the day. I wrote extensively about light in this post back in 2019. I still follow the same routine at home, following the sun each day. I'm very aware of seasonal changes, and as dark has come earlier this year, I though about adding more and brighter lights inside, as it has become difficult to read (from anything but a backlit screen) or do anything with details in less than full sunlight.

I decided to have my cataracts out of my eyes, as an alternative to buying more lights! I'm at the midpoint now, a week since I had the first eye done, the second to follow in two weeks. There were several reasons for doing this, but one of the most compelling to me was hearing from my neighbor about his experience. He noted how, during the time after the first eye was done but not the second, he could wink and see a huge difference in how bright the world was. This was very appealing to me! Another reason is that I am getting upgraded lenses, so that I'm likely to be able to avoid wearing glasses in almost all conditions! (At least for a while.)

It's been a mixed experience so far. The jury is still out on results. The actual operation was not a huge deal, despite high anxiety beforehand. In a rare case of collecting on all the chauffering I did in her youth, my girl picked me up at 6:15 am to go off to a surgery center across town. As I lay on my gurney, with an IV port in my hand, I wondered why I thought it was a good idea. But shortly, I was wheeled into the "laser room", where I received an injection near the eye, and then small metal fingers were placed in my eye to hold it open (!!!) and a large machine positioned over my eye made noises while apparently things were done to my eye via laser. It took 3 minutes. I guess it was pre-programmed based on photos of the eyeball taken earlier. Then I was wheeled to a different operating room, where I received an anesthetic via the IV port. I had been warned that while I wasn't going to be unconscious, the anesthesia would cause short term memory loss. Sure enough, the next thing I remember I was in the recovery room and a nurse was placing a perforated plastic patch over the eye (it was mounded, so nothing actually touched my eye, only the skin around the eye socket). In just a few minutes, my girl was escorting me out and driving me home. No pain, except for inserting the IV. 

The patch came off as soon as I got home, per instructions. It goes back on every time I lie down, because it would be easy to accidentally poke my eye or put pressure on it by burying my face in a pillow. That first day, I dozed, ate convenience food, listened to books rather than read or watch anything. I seemed to be seeing fine, and I went to bed early. Still no pain, and none since.

When I woke up before sunrise the next morning and peeled off the eye patch, everything was dark! I winked my alternating eyes, and with the old eye I could see via dim ambient light, but with the new eye I could see nothing! As I peered around in increasing panic, I could faintly make out a single bright LED marking something charging across the room. Everything else was pure black!

I switched on the light and things became more clear. I certainly wasn't blind in the new eye, but it was dim. Very very dim! The opposite of what I had been expecting. I subdued my panic as I went about my morning routine of coffee and the ipad. As I do when very upset, I wrote. Here is an excerpt: "It's as if there were several layers of smoked glass between me and the world." And: "I am terrified! I do not want this! I don't know if it will ever be better." And, finally, "I will not do the other eye if this this is normal. How can I go to Norway's polar night and look at Northern Lights?" Let's all cheer my catastrophizing! Who needs clear thinking in moments of crisis?

I had a nine o'clock check in at the doctor's office, and I drove myself to it. I wore a pair of glasses I found in my broken glasses drawer, already missing the right lens, but with the left lens intact to give me distance vision. As the sun came up (behind thick clouds), I could see decently, but when I pulled into the parking garage, it got very dim. Looking through both eyes was worse than looking through just the old one. 

I was upset! They had given me a list of things to not worry about and those to be concerned about, and it being dark was not on either list! A very brief foray onto the internet did not lead to any stories about darkness, just pain and loss of focus which were not issues for me. But when I saw the technician a few moments later, she said "your pupil isn't dilating, that's normal, of course check with the doctor, but I can see your pupil is tiny". So when I saw the doctor, she said the last thing she did was put in drops to freeze the pupil, so the shape doesn't change the first day while the new lens is settling in. I whined about how that wasn't on the caution sheet. She assured me it would be better by the next morning, Friday. I told her I'd call her if it wasn't. The actual test of visual acuity was an anticlimax - outstanding clarity both near and far! And, as the day wore on and it got lighter, my eye seemed to be settling down.

But then it got dark again! The second night was as bad as the first, but I just went to bed early, counting on it being all better as the doctor had promised. When I woke up the next morning, it was NOT all better! But, it was significantly better. I decided not to call her, knowing that meant not calling until Monday. I would give it the weekend. The day turned out to be shiny and bright, and my new eye seemed to be just fine in the light. It was Halloween, and our neighborhood has a children's parade and party, which started slightly before sunset. I went, and as it got dark, I realized the eye was still a problem. I winked away, comparing the view, and I resolved to cancel the second eye if it wasn't completely better by Monday. Catastrophizing was still in full flame, and I knew I couldn't agree to let myself become handicapped by having no night vision in both eyes!

 Fast forward through the weekend, where by Sunday morning, the eye was FINALLY totally equal to the old eye in (subjective) light transmission. Success! So no call to make on Monday.

Now, after a whole week, I'm pretty happy with how it is. It's supposed to continue getting better. I see the doctor again next week, and the week after that I'm scheduled to have the second eye done. I am mostly leaving off the one-lens glasses, instead relying on my new eye for both distance and close up. Though I wore them yesterday when driving, my driver's license says "corrective lenses". It takes maybe thirty seconds after I put them on or take them off, and several blinks, for my brain to snap to reading the signals clearly. I still wear the eye patch to sleep, put drops in several times a day, and have an exercise ban. I'm not supposed to bend over, nothing that will raise the pressure in my eye, so I've perfected my squat for picking things up off the floor. 

I will be discussing with my eye doctor about how to handle the adjustments in light transmission when I see her before the next eye operation. But, knowing about it, and knowing its temporary, I think I could live with the whole dark experience if necessary. 

Last thing, I may explore cosmetic surgery around the eyes once I'm fully healed. I have some growths on my lids, and my lids droop, especially the left one. If I don't hide my eyes behind glasses any more, I may want them to look better.