This week I felt keenly the changes I'm going through.

Weight loss and new habits mean I am not using food to ignore emotion. Emotion in response to experiences - pleasant and unpleasant. And where does the emotion go when we must be in self-control? Sometimes to grouchy, or cranky, or abrupt.

So I'm feeling EVERYTHING more keenly. Ordinary stuff: when I'm hungry, when I'm tired, when I'm happy, when I'm awake. Stuff that feels new, but probably has been sneaking up on my for close to a decade: perimenopause (something I'm thinking of as a monthly hormone soup). This feels old: I sat outside my office building, sitting under the sweet scent of blooming cherry tree, and realized this hormone soup feels as tumultuous as my TEENAGE YEARS! Yugh. How do I deal with this?! Hopefully a trip to my library later today will offer some insight.

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Did well otherwise this week. Joined a Challenge on one of the Forums. Checking in with that daily (very briefly). Meeting and exceeding exercise goals (did 3 dumbbell workouts in the past week and more than 200 minutes of exercise past week).

In my food overall, have been more conscientious and consistent about not using so much fat. Have had to give up a few of my favorite crutch foods - protein bars and Xylitol. They both seem to cause gastro-intestinal distress.

Re-learned the lessons of how important it is to plan meals and foods for the week since I grocery shop just 1x each week. Toward the end of the week too much chocolate and empty calories were sneaking into each day's meals. Still within calorie tolerances. But my calories are low enough that empty calories are usually self-defeating, leaving me tired for a next day's workout.

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Barely following news of upcoming election stuff, and warrnings of recessional economy. Always I wonder where all this will go. What, if anything, can we rely on. How far into the future do we make plans, how much contingency planning to be done. Here you can see that I can be a worrier. Luckily, husband balances - he's a leaper.

I read this from one of the daily Lenten meditations:

"Most of the miseries we listen to are beyond our power to change, but when we listen to friends with compassion, and avoid blaming, moralising or pushing solutions, we contain their miseries, share their burdens, take in their despair, and metabolise it into hope."

Can't recall where it was written or who the author was. I found the words very helpful. So often I can feel inadequate when faced with a neighbor who needs listening to. I fall into the trap of believing I must fix. Knowing that compassionate listening can be as important as other kinds of doing was very helpful. Funny, I know that when I receive compassionate listening in times of stress or joy it helps me, but I couldn't take that to the next step of being willing to give compassionate listening.


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Forgot to weigh-in this a.m. Will weigh-in tomorrow. Now it is time to enjoy the daylight and blue sky. For rain is forecast later.