MIA – Missing “Inaction”!

As one reader recently commented, Transformational Diaries has been missing in action. But when I thought of the term I had to laugh, for it conjured up all sorts of things.

I’ve had a ridiculously busy April beyond even normal levels. For example, my 13 year old daughter, Poppet, is in a state synchronised ice skating team traveling to the National competition in December this year. In April, the team had a Canadian World Champion spend some intensive time with them over almost a 2 week period. This meant a huge amount of juggling of family resources (given there are still another 2 daughters as well) as not only was there school and all the usual commitments, but Poppet often had to be at the rink (45 minute drive away in light traffic) before school and after school and huge chunks of the weekend.

And so, there were mornings where we would get up at 4.30am to be on the ice for 6am, plus nights where we would get home at 10pm. In one day I spent 5 hours driving to and from things!

It was crazy!

And so, the term “missing in action” seemed to apply as there was not doubt I was ‘in action’ all the time, but for some of the family (and the blogging world), I was missing.

Then I laughed at the term considered another way ….. missing …… ‘inaction’!

I have failed to learn the lesson of balance yet again. I have been missing from my own life and as a result have been caught in a cycle of ‘inaction’ yet again. My diet has drifted toward the easy to get hold of carbs and sugar hits once again. My water intake has been inconsistent as has been my taking of supplements that help my body get on track. I had gone into survival mode and in so doing made choices that ultimately affect the quality of my survival! How ironic!

This seems to be the bane of my existence, this juggling duties of a Mum very much involved with her children, with my own needs.

And so, as always I welcome your feedback and comments as they help me stay focused and connected to what I need to do.

How do you cope with juggling competing needs within your life? How do you maintain balance?

Monday, 02 May 2011 08:59 Written by Catherine 4 Comments

Disconnected

Well, Transformational Diaries has certainly been in remission …… and unfortunately so have my weight loss efforts.

Since mid-November as the stress and time pressures associated with Christmas and busy school holidays increased, at about the same time I began to have more carbohydrates in my diet.

I would make a really quick sandwich rather than a salad with some protein.

In hindsight, this for me was the start of the slippery slope.

After a short while the ’3pm munchies’ began to take hold. Unfortunately as I was in the throes of making Rocky Road, Fruit Mince Pies and all other assorted Christmas treats, there was an abundant source of sugar-laden instant fixes!

So not only was I consuming more wheat-based carbohydrate, but the sugar got far more of a thrashing than was good for me.

And then I started feeling crappy again – tired and under pressure all of the time, joints aching and feeling like a 70 year old (or worse!), temperament shifted toward being a little bit more snappy, intolerant and impatient and the inevitable bloating and weight gain.

Well, in that 3-4 months I had put on 7Kg of the 12 Kg that I’d lost! Now past experience has shown me that a lot of that is fluid my body holds onto when I have a carbohydrate / sugar heavy diet, but even so, BLOODY HELL!

So why did it happen?

I think it was a period where I went back to my old ‘modus operandi’ – putting others first above my own needs, without there being any balance.

When I felt time pressured I cut back on the things that ultimately help me:

Morning exercise time
Daily meditation
Healthy, vegie filled meals with some protein at each one
Blogging

I mistakenly believed I was ‘freeing up’ some time, but all I was doing was robbing it, because before long I was back to being really tired and needing ‘Nana Naps’ to get through the day.

I had “robbed Peter to pay Paul”.

Mistake, big mistake!

So, I have started again – low carb / high protein and morning walks 5 out of 7 days. Daily meditation routine still not quite there, but vow that I will get into it.

I weighed in at 97Kg a week ago and have dropped to 95Kg already. My bloating has gone, my aching joints have disappeared, my feeling of being overwhelmed has lifted and my energy levels are improving.

1 week – thank heavens!

When I tried to think of a word that described overall how I had been feeling, one word kept coming into my head….

DISCONNECTED

I felt disconnected from that which make me feel good …. from my essence. I had put it on hold to allow the labels of my other roles (which I love) take over when that really is unnecessary.

That old lesson of BALANCE comes back to haunt me.

Let’s hope I’m closer to learning it this time around!

Do you have any lessons that trip you up every now and again just to see if you’ve mastered them?

Friday, 25 March 2011 11:42 Written by Catherine F. 9 Comments

Not Waving …. Drowning!

What a few days I’ve had. Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve coped too well.

We’ve had a health challenge arise with my 10 year old girl, Snugglebunny. She’d had a sore ankle for about a week and following my intuition I took her to the hospital, rather than the local Doctor. They found no broken bones on the first x-rays, but then thought that with the symptoms she might have osteomyelitis (a bone infection).

Blood test came back showing there was no raging infection, but they wanted to schedule a bone scan to confirm it wasn’t in its’ early stages and if it wasn’t, was it a fracture that didn’t show on the x-rays initially? If that was the case, then they said they would be concerned that she has a fracture without a traumatic event causing it and that there might be an underlying condition.

So, we were sent home with crutches, with a bone scan to be scheduled (and canceled if her foot was better before then).

I wasn’t happy with having a bone scan if it wasn’t really necessary (if there were other treatment options) and as luck would have it, we were able to see Dr Kitty Campion, my medical herbalist, at short notice.

Kitty scanned Snugglebunny using the VegaTest machine and it confirmed there was no bacterial or viral infection. But it also showed a number of food intolerances at the moment and, even though she has a really good diet, an inability to assimilate her nutrition. This resulted in her being deficient in a number of key vitamins and other things. The results also showed that she is having problems with her pituitary and thyroid / para-thyroid and given the combination of results, is likely to be having trouble producing good quality bone.

So, not only is she likely to have a fractured foot, but she has a problem with the major gland in the body, the pituitary.

We’re doing hair analysis to see the exact extent of her vitamin and mineral deficiencies and Kitty recommended a number of things to start creating the environment for Snugglebunny’s body to heal. So, my daughter is off chocolate, sugar, salt, coffee (no big deal as she doesn’t have it!), tofu, gelatin and cheese for the time being, as well as having some herbal stuff / tissue salts.

Interestingly, we’re yet to hear from the hospital with regard to the bone scan.

All of this, coupled with getting my husband ready to go to Melbourne for a week (and him flying out on Friday), has left me in a bit of a spin.

I’m stressed, pressed for time, really tired and making ‘get me through the day’ poor choices. I need to sleep well. I need to eat well.

I seriously have to get a handle on all this. Something has to change. I’ve not had time to do the spreadsheet for this week, I’ve barely taken my vitamins, pro-biotics etc for my Candida, my water intake is down, the house is a mess, but at least I’ve got the dog out for a walk most days.

Sorry guys, but just needed to vent my frustration with my ability to cope. I know that the Candida will not be helping with the fatigue, sugar cravings etc, but I’m just over it! Signing off to go and get some sleep!

By the way, I now realise how crappy the font looks on my blog when you view it through Internet Explorer – completely different to how I see it on my Mac. We’re working on a facelift in the next couple of weeks, but for now, this will have to do!

Sunday, 31 October 2010 21:46 Written by Catherine F. 2 Comments

Just Call me a Drama Queen!

I do believe that I’m a drama queen!

I have this remarkable ability to make something I don’t want to do seem like some enormous, ball breaking task that will strip me of my life-force.

Where is all this coming from?

Well, I just completed one outstanding tax return for our self-managed superannuation fund. It’s 12 months late, not just a few days, so there was a growing sense of urgency to complete it and get it to the Accountant to do their stuff.

So, for ages this task had been seeming like it was Mt Everest. It was looming over me, causing me a heap of stress in my stupendous efforts to avoid it at all costs.

I was not looking forward to it at all.

But, as happens when the Tax Office sends you a letter, my days of procrastination were about to come to an end. As luck would have it my Accountant was on holidays until today, so in my mind that gave me a teeny tiny bit of breathing space.

HA!

So, I dragged my reluctant body kicking and screaming to the office desk and the computer and began my torture time.

And you know what …….

It wasn’t as hard, annoying, painful, mind numbingly boring or difficult as I’d been building up in my mind all this time.

It was not the big deal that I’d made it out to be and that all the stress and energy it took to avoid doing it was seriously a waste!

When I feel under pressure, when I feel stressed, well that’s when I make the choices that do me no favours. When I’ve got too much on in a given timeframe and I’m trying to split myself in pieces, when I take on far more than I should, well I get stressed. Couple that with fatigue and that’s a recipe for disaster for my efforts to eat well and exercise.

Stress and fatigue, my 2 biggest de-railers of my weight loss efforts. I reckon if I could get those 2 under control, well, I’d be a lean mean fighting machine (so to speak).

So, back to the drama queen …..

I think that part of this journey is showing me to just suck it up when confronted with a task I don’t want to do and get the bloody thing done. Because it will cost me more in mental, emotional and physical terms the longer it lingers on and that seriously is not worth it.

I can do it AND I can do it easily!

“Every achiever that I have ever met says, ‘My life turned around when I began to believe in me.’”

Dr. Robert H. Schuller
Minister and Author

UPDATE: I also just finished the 09-10 tax for the Super Fund that’s not due until Jan next year! WOoo bloody hooooooooooooo! Feeling a bit righteous here – up to date with the Super Fund tax at least!

Wednesday, 06 October 2010 11:51 Written by Catherine F. 4 Comments

Breaking the Stress Cycle????

Well, a couple of weeks ago I thought that I had come out of the tunnel and was ready to “get back on the horse”. And at the time, I did feel like that. I started to feel really positive and optimistic about this weight loss journey, rather than feeling like I was wading through concrete, as had become the norm for a couple of months.

Well, the work related things (read: overdue tax stuff for our business and super fund) that I had been putting off and putting off and putting off …… you get the picture …… well, they were about to bite my lard ass in a big way.

So, I had head down solidly doing something that was very left brain – logical, ordered, systematic. While I now feel good for having completed 3 of the 6 big tasks and have a couple of monkeys off my back, I feel a sense of emptiness.

.

I miss my creative time. I’m a massive ideas person and miss the flow of that.

I miss blogging.

I miss learning about new things.

They are like air to me now.

.

(I used to be, and dabble a little on the odd occasion, an Occupational Health and Safety professional – in a very male dominated, left brain environment too).

I don’t think I could go back to a working or lifestyle environment that doesn’t give me “ME” time. Does that sound selfish?

I noticed the change in my blogging too in the last little bit – it became more ‘functional’ rather than from the heart.

In the heavy stress of the last couple of weeks, I have once again responded in my habitual way – my exercise drops off and my diet becomes more carb and sugar based….. more comfort food oriented. It’s so obvious to me looking back on it. The impact on my body …. the candida has flared up big time.

Just before getting down to the pressing tasks I was sick with the flu. A beautiful friend, L, made me some of her hearty soup that kept me going for the better part of a week. So, even though my energy levels were oh so low, I ate well, really well.

However, once I was over the illness and my time was taken up with these tasks that were stressing me (and I didn’t want to do), I went back to what I’ve always done – eat crappily (is that a word???) and not exercise.

How on earth does this cycle get broken, because when I’m in the middle of it, I’m in survival mode and don’t see it!

Any suggestions from those of you that have broken the stress cycle or the comfort eating cycle????

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HELP!

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Thursday, 02 September 2010 12:10 Written by Catherine F. 6 Comments

Posts Tagged ‘stress’

MIA – Missing “Inaction”!

Disconnected

DISCONNECTED

Do you have any lessons that trip you up every now and again just to see if you’ve mastered them?

Not Waving …. Drowning!

Just Call me a Drama Queen!

UPDATE: I also just finished the 09-10 tax for the Super Fund that’s not due until Jan next year! WOoo bloody hooooooooooooo! Feeling a bit righteous here – up to date with the Super Fund tax at least!

Breaking the Stress Cycle????

I miss my creative time. I’m a massive ideas person and miss the flow of that.

I miss blogging.

I miss learning about new things.

They are like air to me now.

HELP!

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