bipolar Bipolar and seriously overweight

[Robertaworley]

I'm not yet ready to start because I want to give myself every opportunity to succeed.  My goal start date is September 12th due to the fact that my maternal grandmother's 100th birthday is September 4th.  As the party is in Central Wisconsin and we live in the PNW, I'll be flying back to MSP on September 1st and returning on the 6th.

In the meantime, I've been test driving the program.  And what I can say is, WOW!  Sugar sugar everywhere!  Even though I'm not officially on the program, I've purged my pantry (on another post I have pics of them.)  My husband is working on getting on board with my enthusiasm.  My Pastor's wife introduced me to the program and when I read that it could possibly help me with my bipolar issue, I was intrigued.  Just the test drive alone has shown me that I feel better and have lost some weight (yeah, I know, ditch the scale; husband wants to keep it so it's getting out of my line of sight).  I've always hated scales and always believed that one could eat and lose weight without having to diet.  As a friend of ours has so aptly put it, diet is die with a T.

One of the things I've found is that it is so easy to get snookered.  I was in Haggen the other day to return some of the foods stuffs I had purged.  While shopping, I noticed a wicker basket with a bunch of packets of Justin's almond butter.  I read the label and it said, contains almonds.  Terrific!  They were four for $5 so I got the four.  All this time I'd been diligently reading labels.  So, at my next stop, I had one of the fruit bars and a packet of the almond butter.  I thought, this almond butter is really good...wait...this is a little too good.  So I looked at the packet again.  To my horror, I had just eaten Justin's maple almond butter!  Ever seen Jimmy Kimmel's You Sneaky Mom?  Well, that's how I felt!

Another time I ordered a salad and was super careful to make sure it was compliant.  When it came, it had croutons!  This is going to be an ultimate challenge.  I'm very grateful that I have the time to do a serious test drive and thereby, hopefully, eliminating pitfalls.

Enjoy the video!

Roberta

[Staggolee41]

Hi Roberta!

Welcome! I'm glad you're getting a chance to do a test drive - going over some of these hurdles before starting for real will help. Just a few notes...

Fruit bars are really kind of an "in emergencies only" food (if you think about it, you're really just making a compliant candy bar, what with all of the natural sugars in the fruit).

Second - things I wish someone had told me (or wish I'd come across on the forums) before I started with regard to the changes in mental health through the plan:

• The day-by-day "what to expect" in the book is spot-on
• Days 10-11 are really hard
• Make a plan for when you hit a wall with the mental illness piece (EX: I know listening to certain types of music really helps me recover from a mentally/emotionally difficult situation, so if I'm in a bad place, I'm going to take five minutes and listen to this special playlist I created of my favorite music)
• Make a plan for your husband and you to take extra special care of each other (plan ahead of time to do random, nice things for each other; these things don't have to cost money, just show that you care; nice surprises always feel good, and so does doing something nice for someone you love)

I hope this helps! Best of luck!

[laura_juggles]

One thing to keep in mind, make sure you're checking the ingredients and not just the allergy statement. That packet of Justin's - it's the allergy statement that says "contains almonds". 

But here's the other thing: You haven't started your Whole30 yet. So that maple almond butter? Learning experience rather than a restart. The croutons? Something for you to remember when you are on your Whole30 and order a salad somewhere (don't forget to ask about cheese on salads too). 

[Robertaworley]

21 hours ago, Staggolee41 said:

Hi Roberta!

Welcome! I'm glad you're getting a chance to do a test drive - going over some of these hurdles before starting for real will help. Just a few notes...

Fruit bars are really kind of an "in emergencies only" food (if you think about it, you're really just making a compliant candy bar, what with all of the natural sugars in the fruit).

Second - things I wish someone had told me (or wish I'd come across on the forums) before I started with regard to the changes in mental health through the plan:

• The day-by-day "what to expect" in the book is spot-on
• Days 10-11 are really hard
• Make a plan for when you hit a wall with the mental illness piece (EX: I know listening to certain types of music really helps me recover from a mentally/emotionally difficult situation, so if I'm in a bad place, I'm going to take five minutes and listen to this special playlist I created of my favorite music)
• Make a plan for your husband and you to take extra special care of each other (plan ahead of time to do random, nice things for each other; these things don't have to cost money, just show that you care; nice surprises always feel good, and so does doing something nice for someone you love)

I hope this helps! Best of luck!

That does help. A lot.  

In response to making a plan for when I hit the mental illness wall, have you hear of mood mapping?  Rethinking Bipolar is a good starting point.  Dr. Liz Miller (UK) also wrote a book called Mood Mapping. She, herself was diagnosed with bipolar and lost quite a bit because of it.  It's a very intriguing story.  I will say this, mood mapping is as challenging as the W30 in that you have to do it consistently.  I tried it and the only thing I gained from it was keeping a journal.  At least I came away with something from it.  Since we own a small business and find ourselves hitting the ground running from the moment our feet hit the floor, I just did not have the wherewithal or the schedule to make it all work for me.  I see now that she has a YouTube video.  That would be worth a watch.  This is an introduction to her book.