Interpersonal Game Theory

My trickiest task as a writer is to stick to the topic at hand. I'm so parenthetical in real life, it's hard not to be tangential on the page. And given how infrequently I blog these days, I want to put it all out there!

No mind, I'll do my best not to wander.

A number of people have asked me how I'm adjusting to the move (and the fact that the tear down starts on April 3). I don't know how to answer this question because, in any given hour, I feel 6 different ways.

Sometimes I'm very pleased by the spaciousness of this new house - and, really, it's spacious. The neighbourhood is totally different, even as I'm quite familiar with it because it's only a 25-minute walk from my "other house". It's much more of a hub than I realized before I moved here. And I love that. I just wish I didn't feel so annexed. Ha! You know you're a true urban-dweller when a place with a few trees and some stand alone houses (not too many) throws you over the edge. If you want to hear my latest first-world issue, it's that my commute time has doubled. Yeah, I know that most people won't cry for me given that 15 minutes (by public transit) has turned into half an hour. But that means my walk to work is almost not doable at this point, unless I leave an hour for it (not that I've had any time to walk to work in months). And the 15-minute walk from the current house to the subway is along a wind corridor. So inclement weather is a bitch. The other issue is that I pick up the subway further east than I used to. Which means that it's almost impossible to get on a train between 8 am and 8:40 am. The train is just too packed by the time it gets to my new stop (think Tokyo). Look, I knew this would be the case and I'm getting with it. But I can't say that it makes the weekday mornings fun.

As for the impending deconstruction of my home - well, I'm just not thinking about it. This is the usefulness of marriage. One can ignore the unthinkable.

On another note, I made the decision last week to leave the job I've been doing for the last 8 months. (I will return to my former role.) The decision was complicated - my current role was a promotion, the subject matter endlessly fascinating (and, by any estimation, very important). I'm not going to devolve into details, but this is relevant because it gives a bit more context to the, ahem, rich tapestry of transformation in which I find myself currently. In part: I cannot work 60 hours a week (at a relentless pace) while also managing a degenerative disease, a family life and a major home renovation. Coming to grips with my limitations, at this middle-aged time of my life - the time when career push may well have meaningful professional and financial impacts for the future - has been humbling. No question, my ego and my confidence have taken a hit. But I'm sure as hell not the first person that's encountered this sort of dilemma so I'm keeping it real. Not many people have the options I do and I'm incredibly grateful to be able to be able to turn this particular train around. There will be another and that journey/destination will be the right one at the right time.

You see what I mean about the tangents.

If you can believe it, this post is neither about home nor work, but about sugar/systemic inflammation. I know, way to fuck with you! I've been doing this lifestyle diet thing for 3 months, and I thought I'd talk about how it's impacting the way I look and feel. To clarify, I don't have a scale so it's going to be tricky to tell you that I've lost a certain amount of weight, though intriguingly, I did get weighed at the doctor's, right before embarking on this plan, because they needed accurate weight to determine sleep-testing parameters. I'm sure it's on file. So maybe I'll ask about what my new scale-weight is next time I'm there (which is all too often these days).

I'm looking for the book with my most recent dimensions but it's nowhere to be found, unsurprisingly, so I went to my latest online measurements (stored in the Custom Fit database, though from when I can't remember cuz I forgot to note it in the data set) and recalculated on that basis. It would appear that my dimensions have all decreased in size. My waist is 2 inches smaller, my hips - never a place where I gain weight - are also an inch smaller. My full bust measurement has decreased by an inch and I note my bras are not fitting in the same way. Fortunately, I have bras in EVERY size and I'm in no way hard-pressed to restock. My under bust measurement is down 2 inches and my over bust measurement has decreased by 1 inch. I mean, when one loses an inch from the biceps, that's notable. I don't have lower body measurements to call on at the moment but, from the way my clothes are fitting, I suspect I've lost a reasonable amount of circumference in the upper thighs and derriere. This is where weight deserts me first. Actually, weight leaves my face first and many have commented that my face and neck look "very dewy" or "refreshed". Those closest to me have said, point blank, that my face and neck look much thinner. Don't worry, if anything's aged me by 10 years it's all the shit that's going on around me, not the loss of a few inches. :-)

Note: It's possible that this dimensional shift is caused by loss of muscle mass, given how little movement I've had a chance to do lately, but I am being exceedingly careful in my dietary choices to avoid that potential outcome. I consume more than enough calories (I believe, not that I've been keeping a count lately, no time) and most of them are from fat and protein. I will say that I'm frequently nauseated and I often don't like to eat, but again, I think that's as much about my emerging relationship with food as anything.

Note that I have managed a house move (a huge stressor from my perspective) and a job shift within the same week and I did not stray from the "healthy lifestyle" path. This proves to me that eating for emotional reasons is a very useful technique - which becomes all the more palatable when one opts to forego that path. Oh well. Let's chalk it up to skill development.

I don't feel as if I've returned to my optimal/comfortable size and shape - that which preceded the transition of perimenopause - but I'm moving in that direction. With some time to exercise, I suspect it's within the domain of possibility within the next few months. This is very encouraging though I'm not one to count my chickens.

So I'm here to tell you, if you wonder whether giving up a vast swath of the foods you enjoy will make a meaningful difference to mid-life weight gain, the answer is definitively yes. Sorry, I have no good life advice to get you from here to there. There's no fucking way in hell I'd be doing this if not to reverse and delay serious pain and its root cause. And I'm seriously vain.

On the topic of vanity and middle-aged weight gain, I can attest to the fact that, once that weight goes, one does look younger in the frame (if not in the face, for some). And I, for one, look infinitely less frumpy.

But how do I feel?

Well, this one's hard to contextualize given a few factors: it's the end of winter (generally when weather and dampness have been at their worst for longest and my pain reacts badly to those), I'm beyond stressed and I'm in the midst of a variety of treatments (jaw related specifically). I've also not done yoga (in any meaningful way) in almost 3 months. Partly this is about lack of time but it's also my decision to step back to unlearn some of the body-memory that may be limiting me in improving pain with yoga. Yoga is soon to be reinserted into the equation.

I definitely feel different, though to quantify it is currently challenging. I feel lighter (which no doubt has diminished some of the physical stress on my stressed-out skeleton). I'm also more able to discern what's happening with my blood sugar at any given moment. Lord, if there's one thing you do for yourself this lifetime, go through the misery of giving up sugar (and it's HORRIBLE) - at least for a couple of months, so that you can learn what it is to be at odds with your blood sugar. When you can stabilize your blood sugar, you can function with so much less effort. Note: It's sadly dull. Be warned.

Recently I told my mother how, all my life long, I used to routinely forego food until I felt that sick tug of shakiness and omnipresent craving because that's how I liked to feel when I started to eat. She was shocked and horrified. I had no idea that this wasn't a normal approach. Disordered eating can sneak up on you, peeps, and it can happen independent of those big ticket ailments like anorexia or bulimia. Just sayin'. Having gone through withdrawal, I really do wonder the degree to which those with big ticket conditions experience said conditions, in part, because their brain chemistries are fucked up beyond belief because of uneven blood sugar.

I've read that eating in an anti-inflammatory fashion (and I'm doing this in a modified way, in no sense extremely) can take up to three years to do its systemic damage-control. Most people do start to feel better within 3 months, but three years is a long time to hover in the brink. I don't see that I have much of an alternative right now, except to embrace this choice as a meaningful enabler of my future health. In a worst case scenario, it'll have been a really dry few seasons.

I will say that my tinnitus is still all too there and I have times of bad pain, though it's somewhat less systemic-feeling than it has been and it doesn't linger as endlessly.

So that's all the news that's fit to print today. Hope your weekend is going well. Peace out.