59Carol's Journal, 10 February 2019

Today's weight is a triumph. I have come through a difficult week and still managed to lose 0.7. Awesome.

Egull suggested that I concentrate on minimums when faced with a hard situation. Thank you Egull! I hung onto the following all 7 days: I ate my set breakfast, did my morning exercise routine (1 to 1.5 hours depending on day), drank my 15 cups of water plus 5 cups of tea, and did 5 minutes of meditation. The plans for lunch and supper would just have to be the best I could do.

To give this some context:

Monday morning it was -22F and I needed to pack for the next month, load the car and get the car started. It took almost 4 hours to get the car going. The plan had been to leave home around noon. My husband wasn't physically up to it until 6:30 at night. I had made my frig bare and packed whatever was left. So I had a half burger my husband hadn't been able to eat a couple of days earlier. For supper we stopped at a grocery store and I bought a sub to eat. We were settled in the hotel room by 11 pm.

Tuesday: had my set breakfast, went to the hospital for his 'minor' surgery where it was running late. Two other people were re-scheduled but he was put in as a priority as his surgery was a requirement of a much bigger surgery on Feb 11. Ate a sandwich at the hospital cafeteria while comforting my friend of 30 years who lost her husband 3 weeks earlier. When my husband was released I took him to the hotel and then went to get his prescription filled and grabbed a microwave supper.

Wednesday: Had to load the car and get going. The block heater plug broke off in my hands. It is still -22F. We got on the road by 1:30 by 3 I stopped for a sandwich. Stopped again to buy a new plug for the block heater. My husband installed it in the parking lot despite his extreme fatigue and the bitter cold. Got to the next city by 7 pm. Too tired to get food, ate a cinnamon bun, left over spanokopita an apple and went to bed.

Thursday: had to leave for the hospital by 7:30 so got up at 5 am. Loaded the car, made my tea, ate breakfast, did my exercises and left on time. He had meetings starting at 8 am to noon. By the end he was barely standing. Drove to our final Air BnB and put him to bed while the cleaners worked around him. I went for groceries where I bought yet another sandwich and unloaded the car. Put everything away and was done by 7 pm. Ate an open faced sandwich and dropped into bed at 8:30.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday normal routine. My adult children have arrived so now will need to be accepting that meals are more out of my control.

Monday we leave the house at 5:45am for my husband's surgery. It is highly invasive and is expected to take up to 8 hours if things go well. If they go poorly it will be much shorter. This surgery will be pivotal as to what the next steps will be. I will not be able to exercise that morning. I will eat breakfast, take water and tea. Those will be the minimums for that day.

Why do I care about the weight thing now? Because I need to be healthy in order to deal with whatever is coming. I also have no control over the events that are happening or their outcomes. I can control my exercise and eating behaviours. So you take what you can get and put one foot in front of the other!

Dave and I will be married for 42 years come March 4. Trying to fathom life without him is difficult. So for now, neither one of us think about it and are living day by day and sometimes hour by hour.

That was quite something for a Sunday morning read! Truth be told I needed to just get it all off my chest and this is the place that I have been writing in.

241.8 lb Lost so far: 26.7 lb.    Still to go: 71.8 lb.    Diet followed reasonably well.

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1092 kcal

Fat: 35.71g | Prot: 61.27g | Carb: 138.06g.   Breakfast: Whole Milk, Honey, Kombucha, Poached Egg, Yam, Tea (Brewed). Lunch: Seafood Snacks - Boneless Herring Fillets in Tomato & Basil Sauce, Birds Eye Stir-fry Vegetables. Dinner: Meatless Lasagna, Cooked Broccoli (Fat Added in Cooking). Snacks/Other: Tea (Brewed). more...

3159 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Walking (slow) - 2/mph - 5 minutes, Dance (square dancing) - 20 minutes, Stretching (yoga) - 30 minutes, Sleeping - 9 hours, Weight Training (moderate) - 26 minutes, Resting - 13 hours and 39 minutes. more...