Celebrate and...
I've now been on my diet for 3 months - it will be 13 weeks this coming Wednesday. Weight Watchers + Ozempic (for what is now true diabetes, but should also help with the weight loss...) A couple weeks after I started dieting but before I went on Ozempic, I was at an appointment to see the nurse practitioner who specializes in hormone imbalance/metabolic issues and she weighed me - I had lost about 9 pounds in the first two weeks. But I've dieted often enough (and known people who diet) to know that the first 10 lbs is usually water weight than comes off when you start eating better, so I didn't get too excited. Two weeks later, I saw her again and I had lost a whopping one pound in that 14 days! Oh boy... what a disappointment, but not exactly unanticipated. Last time I tried WW (which was back in 2018), I don't think I ever got much past that first 10 pounds...
So I've been avoiding the scale. I didn't want the disappointment of knowing all my hard work isn't netting much and I didn't want to give myself an excuse for giving up. But I've been very good and very meticulous and mindful. I've noticed little changes in the way clothes fit me, but nothing that screams WOW. And as far as seeing any changes - nope! But my mantra right now is "if I keep at it, sooner or later it's got to work."
Today, a little mishap caused by my older cat, Pearl, when she fell and knocked over a cup of water I keep in the bathroom next to the vanity for the cats - water ended up under the vanity. So I got out a towel and dragged the scale out from under the vanity to clean up the mess and when I was done, I thought "Well, it's out and maybe it's a sign that it's time to face the music..." I held my breath and stepped on it - I'm down 26 lbs from my starting weight! I was shocked. It's incredible that I can't see or feel it other than a slight difference in how things are fitting - not that things are "loose", mind you, just different! Well, that calculates out to 2 lbs a week, which I've always said was about the max I prefer to lose so that it comes off in a healthy way and so maybe my skin can spring back at least a little... I have a long way to go, but at least this gives me hope that I can do it.
Something I won't dwell on for too long - OMG my hip has been KILLING me! Dr. Corey, my chiropractor, says it appears to be my psoas muscle is shortened and probably spasming. So I'm trying to do some exercises I found on the internet that are oh-so-painful! But you know what seems to help even more? Something I learned from my spiritual guru, Abraham... "Act as if"... in other words, when I get up to walk, I DON'T allow myself to "gimp." No matter how bad it hurts, walk as if there is no pain. And if I can consciously do that, the pain is far less! This came out of an observation that it doesn't bother me as much when I am at work. I think when I'm home, I'm far too focused on it, which exacerbates it!
Joe Dispenza tells his story of healing himself from severe spinal injuries with the power of his mind. He was apparently badly injured in a biking accident and refused surgery that would leave him with permanent chronic pain and instead used his mind, focusing on the "feeling" of being healed and whole - in other words, you get what you focus on or think about. If all you can see and feel is what IS, you will get more of what IS. If you can see past what IS at what's possible, tricking your body into feeling what you want, that state of wholeness has to follow. It's very "heady" stuff that essentially is about the power of the mind. So it's what I'm trying to focus on. Seeing myself fit. Seeing myself pain-free. Seeing myself with clarity and youth and energy.
And before I "blog-off" (tee-hee), I wanted to show pics of a dish garden. Every year for the last few, the DM cactus club has been having a field trip meeting at a very nice nursery in Norwalk called Bedwell's. We create a dish garden, so I've got 3 now and I just brought the last one in today, snapped some pics as it looks really fabulous. Here is the whole thing (closeups to follow)...
I couldn't get the top of the tallest plant in the photo, but here is the top with some detail. This is Senecio crassissimus, commonly known as Vertical Leaf:It's been out in full sun, thus the red edges. It's one of the neatest of the Senecios IMO. Next we have Sedum burrito, the smallest of the Burro's Tail type succulents...When you have a pot full of this, hanging, it's quite impressive! Next is Crassula spiralis 'Estangol'...I'll keep my fingers crossed that it stays this compact through the winter, but it's not likely here. And last one is Senecio jacobsenii...A lot of people call this the cascading or hanging Jade, but it's not in the same genus. It's another one that looks pretty impressive when grown hanging. All are doing very well. I will photograph another dish garden next time.