Hi, all
 

Hope everyone is hanging in there! Been busy off indulging in and reckoning with a food addiction and a 30 pound total weight gain and a stress fracture, so I've been busy and not drinking. Or exercising. Of course.

My foot hurts like the dickens. None of my clothes fit. But I'm still sober, married and employed. So bam, killing it! (Not.)

Anyway, hope the site has been free of diseases, accidents, deaths or imprisonments: what's in store for us if we continue to return to drinking. I'll take the weight gain. It's easier to correct than liver failure (although eating could get me that also), family dysfunction, wrecked relationships or death.

Is it easy to face life with all its difficulty? No. Is it easier than the ******** of alcoholism? Yes. It just takes time to see it.

Sassy,

Love this fresh dose of optimism!!! Let's be real here -- you ARE killing it! Sorry to hear about your stress fracture; ouch :( But hey, you're looking at all the things you have, and it has inspired me to smile :)

Thanks for that!

Hey they didn't blot out my bad word! Does that mean we're all swearing in here now? Because I could really get behind that.

Great to have you back. I was wondering what happened to you.
Yep, food won't mess up our lives like alcohol. I'm kind of addicted, too. But my metabolism is so fast and I work out keeps in check.
Now trying to get off a nasty coffee addiction.

Anyway, great to here from you and stay sassy!

Sorry about your foot but great to hear of your progress stillsassy :)

D

Sorry to hear about your foot, but I agree with Vigilance, you're killing it in other areas. This area, most importantly.

I'm really struggling with food issues and weight right now too. I wanna join a gym but I'm just not sure I could and not over do it and end up hurting myself worse in the long run.

An old timer once told me "As long as you don't drink, everything else is subject to change"

That always gives me hope. No matter how many times I fall flat on my face with the diet or exercise or am in too much pain to get at it at all, I remember that.

I'm glad you're back from your trip. Your words of inspiration and head on approach of kicking the s#it out of this illness is something this place needs.

Well said SS! Kick the sh*t out of that alcohol demon :a043:

Staying,

I adjusted my eating lifestyle over the last several weeks to a protien and high quality carb approach.

I learned it while listening in on a conversation at the gym.

I can eat a bunch, but I try not to eat any processed carbs/sugars... e.g. bread, pasta, sweets. I pretty much drink water, coffee, and tea only.

I periodically...every 3 to 10.... days eat what ever I want. But, the go to diet is healthy proteins...chicken, beef, fish....and quality carbs...like spinach, cabbage, squash etc. I use cheese, mayonnaise, apple cider vin., olive oil, seasonings etc. All the time too.

When I was a drunk I was stuck at about 250. It was in a pathetic high bp diabetes and death inducing state.

When I quit being a drunk, I slowly, as in still going, improved my diet and ramped up the physical activity.

I am sitting at 215 today. My lowest weight was 197, but that was a lot of water weight.

I believe diet is 80%. Diet changes everything.

Thanks.

Agreed 100% - whatever life throws at us, it's much easier to face without alcohol holding us back. Hope your injury heals quickly Sassy.

I believe it too. In fact, part of the reason I wasn't here is I was struggling so hard with food that I didn't feel like I had anything to give here and my problem seemed so different to me than what people are struggling with at SR even though I know addiction really is just addiction.

I recommend the show "Mom.". whoever wrote that show knows addiction personally. The stages of the recovering. Anyway as the heroine nears the end of her first year sober from alcohol, her cross addictions start kicking the **** out of her. For her it's gambling and risky sex. For me it's food. she has to contend with the repercussions of her cross addictions and there's a lot of denial: she acts like she's got it all figured out but you see her getting cocky because she licked alcohol, then her life crumbling at the seams a bit because she is cross-addicted.

So out of desperation I pulled out my old Atkins 1972 book. I had bought it at a thrift store a couple years back. First week carbs are super low to get insulin levels way down. I'm eating but not too hungry and the pounds are dropping. Even my foot hurts a bit less. Atkins day 3.

Those of you doing keto: it's atkins, people! They just call it by another name now.

Good old Dr. Atkins was ahead of his time. And at the risk of inflicting the wrath of the Keto Police, he never recommended drinking high priced CBT oil or paying top dollar for grass-fed butter and beef. I can't afford keto! But Atkins I can do...

I've been reading his book from 1972. He actually knew a great deal because of his experiences with patients. quite a dated book! some sexist language about women in there making me chuckle. We've come a long way in that regard. But his science is actually crystal clear and still true today.

Starting day 5 and still taking it easy, really should do some strength training but tired from the diet change. Down 5 pounds and absolutely no hunger. Sick of meat which I don't like much anyway, so Today I'll have a bit of fish.

Yeah it's funny how much marketing gets inserted into a basic concept, people always trying to make a buck, but if you just go to the store and buy your veggies and your proteins to cook in butter, that is the whole ballgame!

It's fascinating how a simple dietary approach ( like folks have been using for thousands of years ) …. can garner such great results.

:scoregood

Keto is basically staying on the Atkins induction phase.

I found relatively inexpensive CBT oil, but in reality I don't drink it that much, and I don't do the whole grass-fed thing. My friend who's on MEDICAL keto does it all, but she's dieting to survive cancer.

My 60 grams of sugar in my ginger ale today was DEFFO on neither keto nor Atkins...

Glad you're back and taking the bull by the horns Sass. I'm working through the GD hernia thing and back to working out, lost the weight I gained on vacation. Going to do a bulk cycle over the holidays once I'm healed from the surgery, which will probably happen in early October. The stress fracture thing sounds like total suckage.

I could also get behind the cursing thing....I curse like a sailor IRL.

My cross addictions were risky sex and overspending....classic mania/hypomania. Gambling was never my thing. Dealing with sex as an addiction has a lot of the same elements of food addiction. Ya gotta eat, and celibacy really isn't an option for me.

Ah, dopamine. So beautiful yet so troublesome...

I did a work out in the garage tonight after the husband left for band practice, which was unbelievably difficult and made me nauseous but I want to keep the muscle I've put on. Bunch of hang cleans and front squats and 1 minute deadhangs from the bar. I know it's a protein sparing diet but also know that any diet burns at least some muscle...and I'm stronger than my husband and my 21 year old kid right now. It took time to get that strong! Only strength training until I am free of foot pain.

I'm now doing a modified keto with much more protein. Still losing fat and muscle is building. I like it better. Still (mostly!) ultra low carbs, just swapped protein for some of the fat.

Good post SSassy.
Weight?
HA!
Preburns- 126kg
Just after burns- went down to 74.
NOW- 99.
Beats booze any day. I do not drive dangerously if I eat chocolate. I am not a nasty, horrible person if I have cake and I do not worry about where the cookie wrappers are the following morning.
STILL-attempting moderation in all things is the watch word for me....

I'm so ready to go up the rungs on atkins. Meat, green lettuce and cream is getting pretty old but I'm impressed I managed to stay on it for 5 days. Wednesday I go up 8 carbs for one week. that means some tomato or onion with dinner, or some soft cheese, or 1/4 c nuts. Atkins did not do the net carb thing back then.

I'm down 6 pounds. More importantly the pain in my foot is minimal now and I am not overly hungry still. Just food boredom but that will get better. The kids are amazed I am walking without a limp.

When I stop losing for the week, that week is my carb limit. so you stay at that point until the loss starts again, then you add a little again.

When I'm working out I know my CCL is around 50 or so. But I'm still just wanting to do it by the book. It's a project. :)

It DOES beat booze any day!!! Such an important thing to remember. Alcohol is such an immediate danger for real drunks, it can kill pretty fast: us and others not to mention the enormous toll it takes on others.

It was a learning process for me to accept some weight gain. In fact I consider it a true sign of my sobriety that I was truly putting it first, knowing how plagued with body image I have always been. It was a huge step to just let the chips fall.

Now that my sobriety is on surer footing and I am having consequences from weight gain it is time and I feel more ready for this. When you can't walk, it gets real and you know it's time for a change but I forgive myself for everything I had to do to get sober.

Agreed. My first year sober was a sugar fest, which was certainly unhealthy, but way better than my daily fifth of vodka. I finally tackled my donut addiction at one year sober. I'm still fighting with coffee and cigarettes. But booze will always be the Big One that needs the most attention; to drink again is to die (and look a real mess while doing it!)

Eight. Pounds. Down. One week of atkins. Today I add in 8 carbs per day for the second week.

I'll take it. Though still looking a bit matronly in that size 10 dress. It is what it is!

Deadlifts today no matter what. Plate sit ups and bicycles, and perhaps some farmers carries, then back to that deadhang! I don't care if it's 10 pm, this work out is happening.

Best of all: one week into low carb diet and no real cravings for alcohol. Lots of alcohol thoughts and drinking thoughts popping up as expected: but the craving is gone and I have enough blessed space between alcohol and this change in diet.

Last time I committed to low carb eating, about 9-10 days in, I began drinking again and found I could still lose weight dieting and drinking. I lost 50 pounds in 3 months, got compliments from everyone, and my drinking worsened. and worsened. And there wasn't much room for it to get worse without it becoming a disaster to begin with.

It makes sense that I put on weight, that I didn't diet, while recovering from alcohol. The trigger was such a strong one: hunger response= alcohol binge, that if I didn't get some time it was never going to work. alcohol sobriety had to be first, so i set aside everything else.

Exercise helped a lot, I think that's the reason I was able to keep it from a much larger weight gain. I rapidly gain weight in the presence of cabohydrates, so doing cross fit helped keep that gain in one year to only 30. I put on 60 in four months after getting sober once....I'm going to survive that coming famine for sure, when climate change wipes out all fresh food and I'm surviving on Twinkies I will be the last girl standing! ;)

Man, did I hit a wall. I crashed the last day of two, just utter exhaustion, unable to finish my work because I had to go to bed and woke up way behind in my charting with some very irritated coworkers.

I don't have energy to do any house chores or even get out of bed.

I don't have any balance yet and I am almost at a year of sobriety. I don't mean to be triggering but it seems self care is so much harder after getting sober. Not that drinking too much is ever a solution, it just "fixed" things and I still don't have a handle on those things.

Just venting I guess.

(((sassy)))

I don't post much about how long it took me to get some regular stability going on after I stopped drinking.

One year in and I was still trying to find balance.

I continued to persevere and now, three + years in, I am feeling steady.

I know you will continue to persevere so I am just saying "I get it"!

:grouphug:

I get it too.

I also think Atkins is tough.

Really. tough. I had no energy.

I feel your pain Sassy.

I hit the wall today. Enough is enough. I'm joining my gym tomorrow and I'm gonna detox myself off the fast food junk while my fam is in the Poconos for a week this Sunday.

I just can't deal with the constant mood swings and bs yoyo s#it. I've had enough.

There's an old saying that people only truly change when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change. I'm there now. UGH......

I'll say a prayer for you. God knows I'm gonna need it.

thank you bulldog, and everyone!

I'll say a prayer for you too.

After I went downstairs I ranted to my 21 year old who said "ok so maybe you went too low but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Up your carbs to a moderate level and keep going. do 30-40g a day, you did that for a long time and it was better. I don't want the junk food coming back in the house! Keep going mom!"

Oh, if only everyone had a fun 21 year old to give them pep talks.

Then weirdly: I seemed to have turned a corner today. Much more energy. almost no foot pain. Thoughts turning to crossfit...

Bulldog, why aren't you going to the poconos??

Best wishes detoxing off junk food. it's NO picnic. Hope the gym goes well. It will help keep your mind off your sugar/white carb detox!

Thank you. That helps. I "know" a year is still early, but then a part of me is just like goddamnnit why can't I get an effing grip already?? But I'm better today.

Yeah. It was the right idea, but I knew while I was doing it that it was too low for me. I upped the carb count a bit with some cottage cheese, nuts, extra veggies and it feels like night and day with my energy, even though I didn't go much higher.

I don't like moderation. Does that make sense to anyone here, that I might have an issue or two with moderation? ;)

It's a "girls" vacation that my mother in law does every year. She has a couple of lake houses , so they get all the women from that side of her family- cousins, aunts, grandmas, grand-daughters, etc. together and they all have a week on the lake.

I kinda need the down time to re center myself. This summer has been really chaotic with mini trips and family staying with us and such. It'll be nice not to have a house full of females. I dunno if God's just messing with me again, but in my house, none of the women are in sync if you know what I mean. It's 24/7/365 PMS. I feel like my head is gonna explode.