i took this photo in Canada on my 50th BD trip there

Back from Sedona, back from the lab with a bandaid on my arm and John’s back from his Dr. appt.  Good Lord they took 9 tubes of blood from me.  And they didn’t even give me a cookie after! : /

ok, guess it wasn’t exactly a donation

I was relieved to hear that Alfonse cancelled his GI Dr. appt. for this afternoon as he’s been getting very fixated on non existent health problems lately jumping from Urgent Care to ER to Dr’s offices to find out nothing’s wrong with him.  He challenged me (to put it mildly) much of our trip to Sedona obsessing and fixated on some GI issues and not listening to anything me or any Dr. told him about it.  He finally admitted he was afraid he was dying (not a new theme) which is more the issue.  I was going nuts myself with all of the various Psychiatric diagnoses he’s got going on–Schizophrenia, Depression and Obsessive/Compulsive disorder with these inconsolable thoughts about his health.  I had many long talks with him about it and finally just said “we can’t talk about this anymore” as it was exhausting the going round and round.

So for him to cancel that Dr’s appointment today saying “I don’t think I need to go see that Dr.”  was a huge sign of improvement.  Whew!

We talked a great deal on the way up and back about changes we are committing to make in terms of diet and exercise.

My friend JJ spoke to me one day at length about the success she’s been having with the 5:2 eating plan.  It’s basically eating regularly for 5 days and doing a mini fast for the other two, intermittent days of the week.  I love everything about this eating plan and it’s supposed to be very effective on a number of fronts.  All I can say is I felt better immediately after completing my first fast day last Thursday.  I think it was primarily mental as it feels good to finally take some control when you’ve felt out of control.  My eating habits haven’t changed dramatically but my stress level did for much of this year which packed on at least 15 pounds on top of my already overweight body.  Sigh…

This is a really good BBC program on this eating plan:

I love fasting.  I love the Zen aspect of it as much as anything.  Having days where I don’t have to even think about going to the store or what I might prepare to eat.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a major cook and really enjoy it.  But the day to day grind of making sure I have food in the house and organizing my meals is often stressful.  Having two days a week where I eat boring predictable 500 calories is a big sigh of relief for me.  It’s not “fasting” by definition but it’s still taking a major break from my eating routine and recalibrating things.

This is also this guy’s website (I’ve not gotten his book and so far don’t feel a need for it):

http://thefastdiet.co.uk/

So Alfonse and I shook on it.  We’re going to do this program at least until the end of the year and see what results we can get.  I think he will see faster results than me which will be great.  He’s male, he’s not dealing with menopause (lovely) and he has more weight to lose.  I also think taking some control of his health in this way may mitigate some of this other obsessing going on.

We’ve also committed to hiking together at least two days per week at this mountain preserve near our homes and the 30 day Squat Challenge.  Including the pic again in case you missed it and would like to join along.  It’s surprisingly easy and I’m feeling myself getting better at it after just three days.

So….it’s Fall and we’re getting our bodies/minds in to better shape.

On this week’s agenda–SOUP!  I’ll have a fun post on that coming up as I’m going to a Soup Swap this Sunday.  Yeah!

Cheers everyone…to good health…and a happy week!