Fitness, Future, Fat and Fire Hydrants

I'm missing you guys.  Missing catching up with you.  Isn't this spring weather incredible?  I've worked like crazy this winter cleaning out my basement.  It's almost picture worthy.   And, I'm getting these old knees and legs into working order these days, just in time for spring.  Bicycling every other day in front of the talking heads on CNN.    Total workout time now is 30 minutes; I'm working up to one hour.   First time, two weeks ago, I could pedal standing for 30 seconds before my legs and butt started screaming.  Now I can pedal standing up for 2 1/2 minutes, before collapsing back on the seat.  Before I can tackle the hills around here, I have to pedaling standing up for 5 minutes straight.  Wouldn't you know, my pants are getter tighter.  It's like my new muscles are pushing my fat further out.

For that little issue, I have signed up for a 21-day challenge diet plan, starting this Monday.  The "Eat Fat Get Thin" plan, from a book of the same title, by Dr. Mark Hyman.  According to him, fat is O.K.  Certain kinds anyway. Today, I'm cleaning out my refrigerator and cupboards of what's not allowed - vegetable oils, alcohol, dairy, grains, beans, anything with gluten or high fructose corn syrup.   Can't drink any wine.  Which is O.K., because I gave that up three weeks ago.  It's kind of overwhelming, this plan, for someone who doesn't like to cook.  But I want to try.  I'll feel healthier.  The 21-day challenge group has its own Facebook page - for all 1,000 of us. 

My PTSD recovery is really going well.  I'm up to Marathon Mile Marker 10.  That's my self measurement.  As it happens, I've been at it 10 weeks, so by mid-summer, I will be compulsion free.

Now that I have some real recovery miles under my belt, I can describe what my state of mind used to be while on PTSD. 

Jangled nerves, always.  No other reality, except when 1) I drank, or 2) I was on anti-depression meds.  Side effects were unpalatable for both.

A lot of you can probably relate to this; that is, if you have a phobia.  Then you know, that one terribly horrible experience with, say, a shaky plane ride, will make similar encounters something you avoid.   That's Post Traumatic Stress at work.   But what I'm learning, is that it doesn't even need to be a stressor that you yourself experienced.   You could be picking up on someone else's stress.  Do you know, that babies born to women in and around the World Trade Towers on 9/11 were born with the same traumatized nervous system that their unlucky mothers developed in response to such horror?  I knew that babies of mamma addicts have to go through withdrawal, but I didn't know fetuses can't help but carry the stress condition of their mother.  Makes sense.  However, it's not a PTSD sentence for the little babe.  If the mother truly loves and bonds with her rattled child, all will be soothed. 

If she can't, and the trauma is chronic, it's like the baby is trapped in a home with the alarm clock going off, the doorbell ringing, the telephone ringing, and the fire hydrant in the kitchen shaking from water pressure, bursting unpredictably and drowning all she cherishes when it does. 

So a little baby in such a home, grew up and became me.  I got used to mayhem.  When I moved to NYC, I fit right in, because doesn't that describe life in the Big Apple?  I was one scrappy gal, but it was very, very tiring.  At last , love beckoned, and I moved out to the country with my husband.  Here, I felt peaceful inside for the first time.  Fast forward to now.  I mean, now until this January and PTSD counseling.  Now,  when I'm out socializing,  the fire hydrant isn't shaking, ready to erupt, inside me.  It isn't even there. True, the doorbell, telephone and the alarm clock are ringing, but this is why I'm at mile 10, not 26.   By the end of this I will have the wherewithal to see who's at the door - maybe answer, maybe not - then check caller ID on the telephone - maybe answer, maybe not - and finally throw that damn alarm clock against the wall with the force it deserves.

So good to share. Happy Spring, and do write a comment, please!