RRARF day 3: Stress

The last 9 months have been crazy. I have been to 4 weddings and two funerals, hosted several weekend long parties and an endless stream of welcome house guests, and traveled to at least 5 states to see all my friends and family (as far as California and as close as New Hampshire) and finally went on a real vacation with Jason to Canada. I worked many many extra days, then worked two jobs, then had a total career shift that lasted 7 weeks. Thats just some of what I have been doing. No wonder I am depleted. Every time I thought things were letting up, they didn't.

I have stopped exercising. I haven't seen my friends at the circus studio in about a year. And my friend who teaches Pilates thought I blew her off because after seeing her weekly since November last year, I disappeared off the map in June and didn't call her until October. We played phone tag for a while but still haven't caught one another on the phone. I cancelled my gym membership. I haven't done any yoga or stretching. My garden pretty much died. I didn't even hike that much spring-fall. I spent a lot of time in the river over the summer, but that was mostly spent sitting on the dam and occasionally jumping off of it. This is a sad story for this former dancer.

Now that I have a week of unemployment and three days of RRARF under my belt, I actually find myself wanting to move. Which is my normal state of affairs, I love to move and dance and jump and climb. I am thinking that my over-taxed system shut down the impulse to move my body. Since I am rather adept at listening to my body I couldn't make myself exercise.  Yesterday I rolled out a mat on the floor and then just rolled around on it. I stretched my back and played with my abs for a while. Sara the cat seemed very pleased that I was doing this again and walked all over me and under me and wherever else she could be in the way. Even though this is Rehabilitative Rest and Aggressive Re-Feeding, movement and gentle exercise is still a must. I hope to continue to wish to move and possibly begin to do some Pilates again.

RRARF day 2: Nerve Impulses

I did better at eating copious amounts yesterday then the day before. There was one moment when I was totally in the mood for a nap. I thought to myself "oh good a nap opportunity!" Unfortunately I was not able to take it. I had an interview in the middle afternoon about 40 minutes from my house. It took Jason and I a long time to dig out the cars so that we could use them. Our landlord came by with his big snowblower and cleaned up our parking area and made some paths around the house. I was very grateful for that. I went down to this staffing agency that is looking for a new staffing coordinater right at what turns out is my "second lunch time" 3:00. On the way home I got hungry, although it had only been a few hours since I had eaten quite a bit of food. I mean REALLY hungry.  It made me think that the brain must regulate hunger in a similar way to pain.

When the body is in pain for any long stretch of time, the brain will quiet down the nerve impulses so that you don't feel it as much. You are in pain, but it isn't your sole focus. That is how there are so many of us walking around in chronic pain completely functional.  From a bodywork stand-point, once you take the body out of pain those nerves get a rest. When the pain comes back, it hurts a heck of a lot worse then it did before. As Dr. Ruch said "the body likes being out of pain, it gets addicted to it." Obviously your organism would love to be at a healthy stasis all the time. Since in the past I would spent a lot of time hungry before I ate, it stands to reason that the nerve impulses were dampened until I was SERIOUSLY HUNGRY generally around 1 in the afternoon and then dinner time. Now that I am filling myself up at the first signs of hunger (which are hard to determine, but I imagine will get stronger) those nerve signals are resetting themselves. Although I wasn't SERIOUSLY HUNGRY on the way back home after my interview, I was hungry and my nervous system definitely wanted to let me know about it.

p.s. I decided yesterday to skip a day so as to blog about the whole entire day after it happens.
p.p.s. The interview went very well

RRARF day 1: How am I going to eat all this food?

Things started out pretty well here in RRARFland. The day dawned cold and snowy and slept straight through to 9 am. Upon rising I made the traditional breakfast of champions, you know the one: eggs, bacon, potatoes, buttery toast. I ate until I really didn't want anymore. That left some toast on the plate. As soon as I thought of eating again I ate the toast and some salad.

This continued throughout the day. Although I probably spent a little more time hungry than advisable. It is hard to eat so much in a sitting every time. I have spent practically my whole life eating most meals until I was no longer hungry- not necessarily full. The transition to eating past full all the time is weird, and a little uncomfortable.

We took a great little walk in the snow mid-afternoon. Our house is right on some town conservation land with some nice trails. I thought about bringing my snowshoes but  decided that I would rather trudge though in the knee deep snow. Our landlord and his family go cross-country skiing back there often. I would love to do that. I'm so happy we had a proper snow storm, we have more snow due next week. Yippie!

Ready Set GO!

I am READY!

Tomorrow I will start the day eating as much a possible within 30 minutes of rising. It probably won't be all that much to begin with, as I am accustomed to eating only a slice of Ezekiel Bread with cheddar cheese on it for breakfast. Or, barring a lot of time- just a few ounces of cheddar. Yeah, I know its weird, but it really keeps me going.

Other fun things tomorrow is that its supposed to snow. Seriously snow (FINALLY)- they are predicting a foot, but I hope we get more. Sometime tomorrow I will be tromping around in the woods enjoying the quiet. I may even get a chance to snowshoe this winter!

While go RRARF for the next 30 days I will weigh myself twice a week. I know a lot of people advocate against doing this. Letting go of the scale is a freeing thing for many women. However, I've never been concerned about my weight. My general indicator that I need to shape up has always been when I suddenly start bumping into things with my hips and butt and I need to loosen my bra straps. With that in mind I am interested in any weight fluctuations that occur for the next several weeks. I weighed in just now at 123.5 which is lower then I have for a while- probably because I have actually been eating for the last half week. Since I have one of those fancy shmancy scales with a body fat % meter (which is I am sure woefully incaurate) I will also track that. Today I had 29% body fat which is totally usual for me.

Re-Thinking Moderation

I have decided to start doing the full RRARF diet on Wednesday, instead of easing in for two weeks. The reason for this is my current unemployment. I hope to not be unemployed for long; beyond the three zillion jobs I have applied to, I also can go back to the massage job I left seven weeks ago if need be. In light of that I may be unemployed for a month, but probably no more then that. A fantastic use of that month would be RRARF, since rehabilitative rest is a vital part of the program. Now that I have "more time on my hands" I can sleep as much as I want (score!). I have already napped twice in the last 3 days. Plus working on my health will hopefully keep me occupied instead of getting depressed. Normally, when I get depressed I stop eating.

Another thing I am planning on doing is going through some of the stuff I have accumulated. I tend to attract things, lots of things, and then hold on to them. It would be great make more space to attract money instead.

Hog Death

Today I went to Old Sturbridge Village to witness the butchering of the hog they slaughtered yesterday. I had a blast, and not completely because one of my best friends works there. I learned some great things about how much bacon it is possible to get from one pig. Bacon is any meat that has striations of fat and muscle that is brined and smoked. That means that you get bacon from not only from the belly, but also from the jowles, legs, sides, and back. Especially if the hog is a high fat breed such as the Large English Black pigs they raise at OSV. In ye olden times they would use pork fat for cooking as well as making soap and candles so a high fat to meat ratio was highly prized.

I snuck away for a bit to walk along the river and swish my way through the downtown area in my very large coat. I found my way over to The Small House where two older women sat knitting by the hearth. We had a lovely conversation about various topics.

I have spent many hours at Old Sturbridge Village in the last few years, but its been a long time since I thought about what a treasure it is.

Saturday food success

I am very proud of myself. In one day I had both my Achilles heels (one for each ankle) for proper food consumption working against me. 1) I was upset about losing my job and 2) I was only in charge of feeding myself. However, I managed to eat three meals today plus two snacks. Dinner was my favorite, I had salad, sweet potato, and shrimp cocktail.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Tomorrow I am going to Old Sturbridge Village to watch some people butcher a hog.