Well Whadda Ya Know . . .

I've GAINED 1.3 pounds in the last three days! Weighed in on the 23rd, then just a few hours ago, today, the 26th.

Since I had recently been getting very bored of one type of item in my diet, I'd been seeking a change, and been changing some things up the last few days, which led to a variety of other items.

I don't think that those items were necessarily more calories than what I had been tiring of, but . . . . it's one possible factor. It's also potentially the fact that the TYPES and VARIETY . . . . .

It's a good thing I've been keeping a food diary, so I can see the difference between the last three days, and the previous 7-8 days, back to when I had started tracking the food; I can use the differences to mix-and-match some of the different types of stuff from the last few days that weren't in the previous 8 day stretch, and try to come up with a combination that still has me losing weight, but at a modest rate.

There'll likely be ups and downs, but I now don't feel as panicked that things will plummet in a free fall. Still, to do what I've done the last couple of days, is still a pretty big conscious effort to make sure I'm eating as soon as I feel like I've had just enough of a rest from the last meal or mini-meal. Ie, I'm not CONSTANTLY eating, but I can't go longer than 2 hours without trying to figure out what to fix so I get enough either. Depending on the WHAT, as far as content of everything I'm eating (granted, there's been two pieces of cake in the last three days, not huge though) and depending on when I add using the exercise bike to a DAILY regimen instead of it just being every OTHER day (with this walking on my knee, without a cane, AT HOME, being a new stress on the leg, I'm concerned about adding too much, especially since, after 6 days of it, it still doesn't feel stronger, and I get wobbly partway through the day still), adding in that daily exercise bike, will burn more daily calories.

I had REALLY been concerned about adding that daily biking, when I thought I had no way of controlling the rate of weight loss. With that fear beginning to be alleviated, that also alleviates the fear that I won't get the benefit to my leg that doing daily exercise biking will add to it. I'm just not quite sure when to add it. It doesn't really hurt, it's just I wish I felt even a slight difference after almost a week of walking on the leg at home . . . . .

Even with knocking physical therapy down to two days this week, since we have a total gym and the bike (the only other machine used at physical therapy is the knee bender, NOT an aerobic exercise, but painful; extension work is done on a table, and, again, not a calorie burner), I did my squats on the home TG and then used the home exercise bike on Wednesday, since this week we started with the reduced schedule of twice a week physical therapy on Monday and Friday. So I still got the "big" exercises in, although I suppose all the "extra" effort of getting out and going to the physical location would not have been there, taking some calories burned out of the equation, but not a zillion. Still a factor, though.

On another note, I think perhaps that, since I've been living with my bipolar and other mental health diagnoses for so long, that I've forgotten the potential impact that they can have on others, the potential judgment/stigma etc. that they can produce, the potential for a reaction of, "I'm not going near THAT with a ten foot pole . . . ."

Some might say, well, if someone would be like that, you're better off, but . . . it's not that simple. I just forgot myself and rattled off that hey, here's where I blog, to someone from my past, and now I'm worried that, well . . . .

Especially since it's been some time since I used the blog effectively for mental health advocacy, fighting stigma and fostering understanding and hopefully acceptance by showing what MY struggles and experience are like, with my illnesses, tough and harsh though they are at times, especially in the blacker storms, as well as it having been some time since I've used the blog effectively to show WHO I AM, beyond illnesses both physical and mental, although those are both aspects of my life experience, especially recently, in the surgical situation.

Jeez, if that wasn't a run-on paragraph, I don't know WHAT is. I am not doing very well at focusing lately, even ON my medication for that. STILL trying to get the appeal for the MRI claim written, as well as the financial papers for special small payments that are usually unacceptable for such a large balance, for the institution that performed the MRI's, finished and mailed off with associated financial papers. MUST be mailed tomorrow. Even so I don't know how we're gonna scrape up another $50 a month even if they DO accept it . . . . and we have to work out that much of a payment on another medical bill now, too, so . . . blimey.