Rising Above

Tomorrow I will begin my third week of South Beach Keto and I am proud of myself for finding ways to make it stick so far. My family told me they'd like me to make a Thanksgiving dinner kind of late in the game but I pulled off a nice meal. We had "turkey ham" (turkey shaped and flavored like ham), green beans, rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. I made the stuffing with store-bought keto bread so I got to enjoy it and I also had the ham and green beans with butter. For dessert, while everyone ate my favorite pie on earth, I substituted with a single-serve cup of pumpkin pie flavored Greek yogurt with a tablespoon of whipped cream on top. There was less than 1g sugar in 2 TBS and I only had one so I knew it wouldn't throw me off plan. I am not really caring if I'm in ketosis, I just want to stop craving junk and lose weight. So Thanksgiving was a big win for me. Yesterday had its ups and downs. It started snowing early in the morning. I knee it was coming and was dreading it because I knew I had to try and get myself out of our driveway. If you are new to my blog, I have anxiety about driving in snow. This house we bought in August has one of the steepest driveways in town and it's narrow. The driveway is on a north-south hill and our street is an east-west hill which happens to be a county highway as you get out of town. So, we always have to be careful that someone isn't flying over the hill when we're backing out. So I geared myself up mentally all morning, telling myself I could totally conquer my fears and that I'm not going to get used to it if I don't do it. I started to inch back then stop, to see if I was going to slide. Then repeated. I started breathing heavy and could feel all the muscles in my body tense up and start shaking uncontrollably. I was still trying to talk myself through it but got to a point where I started to slide ever so slightly and then I started hyperventilating. In normal circumstances I might have given up and pulled back up into my parking spot but I drive a stick and as hard as it is to get up a hill on dry ground, it's almost impossible when it's slippery. I felt like I was going to pass out or be sick so I went back in the house, crying and hyperventilating and my husband ended up backing it onto the street for me. I was so shaken I cried all the way to the grocery store. I was so irritated that this is my life. I felt like a failure. And I still had to get back home, up the hill of our street and then up our driveway hill. When I got inside the grocery store I was so aware of all the old comfort foods. The old me would have bought all the Christmas chocolate on display, all the salty tortilla chips, all the cheesy dips and pizza. Besides wanting better health for myself, I was so nauseated from the panic attack that I had very little desire to even be at the store. I did make it home OK and had no challenges getting up the driveway. My sweet husband shoveled and salted while I was gone so it was much better. I was still shaken at any rate and I feel like it took me a few hours to come down from it. I bought some gingerbread flavored tea and some cinnamon scented wax melts as a little "treat" for myself and it helped comfort me some. Later that morning my husband and I walked around downtown. My city has a Christmas scavenger hunt at the local shops as a way to encourage people to shop local, so we went to have some fun. We bought a few gifts, a few things for ourselves and then we stopped into a local bar/restaurant for a bite to eat. Keto is pretty easy at restaurants, there is always going to be meat on the menu. I had my choice of burger (I would eat it without the bun and without ketchup) or chicken breast or salmon. I'm not a super big fan of fish so I had a grilled chicken salad. It was satisfying. My husband had a burger and fries and it looked good but every time I can't have something I know tastes really good I remind myself that I'm doing this to fix my health. My kidneys don't care if the fries smelled too good to resist. I also remind myself that this strictest stage of this change is not forever. I can and will eat fries again sometime. I can eat a slice of pumpkin pie next year, when my body's in a much better place. That makes ne feel good; this moment will shape that future me I am hoping to become. I took measurements today, exactly 2 weeks after my first measurements. I can't believe how much the progress shows in the measurements. I have lost 2 inches off both my lower abs and my upper ab "roll" and an inch and a half off my waist. I have lost in my legs and arms too, but to lesser extent. I can really tell in my face. I have decided I am not going to weigh myself until this stricter stage is over in 2 weeks, it really messes with my head to weigh. If I don't see the results I hope for then it affects me, no matter how much I try to not let it. What matters is making choices that will eventually improve my health. Once I lose the weight I can clean my diet up in other ways. Right now keto seems to be getting stuff done. I'm sticking with Yoga with Adriene for now too. It is becoming like a morning therapy session for me, I always feel so good afterwards and I'm starting to long for it as soon as I get my dog inside. I almost forgot to feed him this morning because my body felt so rough after yesterday and I was looking forward to getting on the mat. For some reason the ones I have been choosing lately are a lot of leg and ab work and it's actually making me sore!lol. So I'm sticking with it until my fitness level improves, that way I won't hurt myself trying to jump into other stuff too soon. So many victories in this journey so far. I know I can make it work and right now the drive is alive. I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little excited to see where I'm at 6 months or a year from now.