fasting – Shrinking Horizons

Growing older.

There is no doubt about it but growing older is a pain in more ways than one. Joints ache, muscles ache, sleep is erratic and generally everything is more of an effort but somehow I need to get a grip on things and deal with all these minor problems before they take over.

I must be more positive about everything and find ways of sorting things out and first it has to be weight loss. Once that is underway I am sure everything else will start to get better although it cannot become a cross to carry.

We have just had a visit from some friends of my mothers and I do find catering and dieting quite difficult. The low carb, 16:8 diet is by far the most effective but a combination of cooking for others, three meals a day, does absolutely nothing for my will power which just goes out of the window so here I am, looking at a half pound weight gain which given the situation isn’t too bad.

Sleep deprivation is a real problem though, I am woken up by pains in my back, shoulder and leg at least ten times and more most nights. I probably have one good night in every fourteen days. There are no efficient pain killers I can take so I have resorted to CBD oil which does help but not with sleep. I can certainly walk more easily and as long as I don’t overdo things can cope during my waking hours.

I am not particularly worried about anything either, having the AP in a Care Home has taken a huge amount of pressure off the LSO and myself. Yes, we do have to visit but only once a week, then we are told by her that she is living in a brothel which is just laughable. But we’ve heard it all before; it is just a similar situation to when she was in hospital with ‘Eric’ servicing the nurses who partied all night and sex taking place in the broom cupboard. The dog patrolling the corridors at night has also turned up in the Care Home but thankfully not ‘Eric’ as yet! No, she hasn’t got dementia, it’s just the AP’s rather lewd interpretations of the sounds she hears at night. She is still trying to control our lives but it won’t be happening. Thank goodness she isn’t here.

A sense of release.

It is impossible to truly express the level of relief that the LSO and I are experiencing now the AP is finally being looked after in a care home. We have a meeting on Tuesday with the manager of the home and hopefully a future plan will be put in place. The AP is very poorly now, the weeks of refusing to eat properly and being sick have taken a massive toll on her both mentally and physically and she has become extremely weak, unwell and struggling mentally. We are just thankful she is where she is because we could not be doing what the assistants in the home are coping with, she can just about walk with the assistance of a frame, is unable to leave her room at the moment and moans continually about how poorly she has been. Am I lacking in sympathy? Perhaps a little, having witnessed the pantomime of the past eight months, her ridiculous desire to have something wrong to get attention and the pressure that has been brought to bear on the LSO and myself. I certainly knew I had reached the end of the road and that changes had to be made.

But it is still sad to see how quickly she has deteriorated although having said that, there is still a spark of spleen in there. We arranged for the chiropodist who has done her hands and feet for the past five years to continue to do so by visiting the home. She doesn’t normally do home visits but agreed to this one. The AP’s response wasn’t ‘how kind of her’ or ‘I and so pleased about it’, no it was a vinegary ‘she will be hoping to get some extra work from the visit’. I certainly don’t miss this unpleasant aspect of the AP’s personality.

But for the LSO and myself it is lovely to have our space and our lives back but after so long being trapped in our own home we are finding it a slow process adjusting to our new found freedom and the fact that we can make spontaneous decisions. We have even booked a short three day week break in October in a holiday home in the Lincolnshire Wolds that allows us to take the two dogs. This is heady stuff!

The other situation I must address is my need to lose weight, the past six weeks have been so difficult that I have done little to keep on track but after this weekend I will start in earnest. I need to reduce my carb intake again, cut down the alcohol because I am no longer in need of the anaesthetic effect and also endeavour to do some fasting. I am at least back to doing some walking with the dogs which is a plus point.

Is it a change in the weather?

I have no idea why I feel so uncomfortable with myself. Yes, there are worries in the background but not things that should cause this sense of discomfort. I can only put it down to the fasting day and the fact I have a sore throat or could it just be a change in the weather affecting me. From feeling quite Spring-like it is once again heading towards freezing with the chance of snow looming.

The diet so far, is going well and in only nine days I have lost three and a half pounds and hopefully, tomorrow I should be lighter still. I have a long road to travel but I am finding this new 5:2 diet surprisingly easy and it has a real feel-good factor about it.

Even the AP’s continued refusal to remember she is away for a month from the 5th April is not irritating me. Nor is the ridiculous situation that arises whenever a perm is in the offing, causing me any grief. Perhaps I am just becoming more accepting of the situation and more immune to her carping. In fairness the AP has been a great deal pleasanter to have around but that could be because she is shut in her room much of the time ardently watching the snooker which fortunately for us is continuous now until she goes away.

Tomorrow is also Puppy Day when we collect little Lucie and it will be interesting to see Barney’s reaction to his new partner in crime; hopefully it will be a positive one. The puppy will be feeling a little lost to begin with but I am sure she will settle down pretty quickly.

Perhaps it’s all this change taking place that is affecting me, I have become unused to being so pro-active and busy planning things, not just doing the boring same old, same old. I have even been out and about in my car and ventured into a supermarket but that doesn’t mean I have given up on home deliveries I was merely helping out a friend who needed the pharmacy section!

But it’s all steps in the right direction.

It’s another beginning.

Well here goes on another attempt to lose weight. Dieting is a bit like giving up an addiction such as smoking, you must never give up trying.

The 5:2 Diet book has arrived and filled with much enthusiasm I started reading as much of the information as possible. Can this last? I see no reason why not but to begin with I am going to try out recipes before ordering in a shop. There is sound reasoning behind this decision, I cannot afford to just jettison food at a whim so I must first use up what is already in the fridge and fortunately most of it is pretty usable as far as the diet goes. Apart from that is, the full fat yogurt, the puff pastry packs, the crisps tucked in the cupboard and not forgetting the newly made cake filled and topped with marscapone and white chocolate or the sugar free but I guess, not fat free oat biscuits that nestle beside the all butter shortbread and the crunchy ginger snaps that dunk so well in the morning coffee. I shall not continue but oh dear, when an inventory is started on the contents of my cupboards and fridge it becomes apparent why I have a problem with my weight.

Three days have now passed and I have read and absorbed the information on this diet and I am ready to start. I was struggling to sort out the breakfasts as well as lunches and the evening meals whilst cooking for three very different appetites as well as food preferences. Then our daughter suggested I miss my breakfast altogether on fasting days and no-one need know and then I can have two 400 calorie meals or a 300 calorie lunch and a 500 calorie dinner. I then not only manage a good length of fasting time drinking only liquids in the morning but the AP will not know I am dieting. As I have said in previous blogs she is an absolute pain about my weight and once allowed any information worries it like terrier, unable to mind her own business. My life becomes a misery. But this bit of subterfuge should solve the problem.

Tomorrow will be the first fasting day.