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shyQcodep · 10-17-2006, 09:44 AM

I've made a few changes to my abstinence, the most recent one 3 days ago. The changes started with my visit to the nutritionist on 9/28 - she looked at my daily food plans and said that it was a great start, but....

The issues which she had with my food were the need for greater variety and a suggestion that I add a serving of vegetables, and then she asked "So how's your exercise going?" After an awkward silence I said something like "What's exercise?" After some more stammering, I made a commitment to walking 20 minutes per day, which is now part of my abstinence. I've actually changed that to walking or cranking the stationary bike, but it's still 20 minutes of light exercise daily.

My response to the nutritionist's issues with my food was that I would work on them - not a hard commitment. However, after a week or so I began to add that serving of veggies and now it's part of my abstinence - I eat a total of 5 servings of fruit of vegetables daily - three of fruit and two of veggies.

The other change came without external prompting - it was one of those awareness, acceptance, action things. I had been aware for some time that my use of salt was way beyond normal levels, and when I wrote my OA food history one incident which I included was a memory of being told by a fellow student one night in the freshman dining hall that I used so much salt that that I would get high blood pressure - which I now have. That still wasn't quite acceptance, but I recently became aware that rehabs often take away our salt (as they do sugar and caffeine as well) and I had the thought that my chronic problems with dry skin and poor wound healing could at least be exacerbated by my use of salt. I went from those thoughts to "If they take away salt in rehabs I should be able to go without salt too", and I've been free from added salt for two days now and I'm on day three. I can't say that I've exactly felt withdrawal, but on the other hand by yesterday afternoon I felt pretty miserable and I'm in about the same place today, just trudging along.

So that's the update - changing and trudging.

James

10-17-2006, 09:44 AM	#4 (permalink)
shyQcodep Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Syracuse, NY Posts: 113	Ch-ch-ch-changes..... I've made a few changes to my abstinence, the most recent one 3 days ago. The changes started with my visit to the nutritionist on 9/28 - she looked at my daily food plans and said that it was a great start, but.... The issues which she had with my food were the need for greater variety and a suggestion that I add a serving of vegetables, and then she asked "So how's your exercise going?" After an awkward silence I said something like "What's exercise?" After some more stammering, I made a commitment to walking 20 minutes per day, which is now part of my abstinence. I've actually changed that to walking or cranking the stationary bike, but it's still 20 minutes of light exercise daily. My response to the nutritionist's issues with my food was that I would work on them - not a hard commitment. However, after a week or so I began to add that serving of veggies and now it's part of my abstinence - I eat a total of 5 servings of fruit of vegetables daily - three of fruit and two of veggies. The other change came without external prompting - it was one of those awareness, acceptance, action things. I had been aware for some time that my use of salt was way beyond normal levels, and when I wrote my OA food history one incident which I included was a memory of being told by a fellow student one night in the freshman dining hall that I used so much salt that that I would get high blood pressure - which I now have. That still wasn't quite acceptance, but I recently became aware that rehabs often take away our salt (as they do sugar and caffeine as well) and I had the thought that my chronic problems with dry skin and poor wound healing could at least be exacerbated by my use of salt. I went from those thoughts to "If they take away salt in rehabs I should be able to go without salt too", and I've been free from added salt for two days now and I'm on day three. I can't say that I've exactly felt withdrawal, but on the other hand by yesterday afternoon I felt pretty miserable and I'm in about the same place today, just trudging along. So that's the update - changing and trudging. James