Cancer, My Dad, and Support

For someone who talks a lot, I haven't said very much for the past month. I just couldn't find the words. Just over 1 month ago my dad was admitted to the hospital with elevated levels of liver and pancreas enzymes, and other symptoms pointing to a blockage in a bile duct. That same night, we found out the blockage was possibly a tumour, and my world turned upside down. Because up to that point I had been fairly convinced that my parents were immortal. I was very sure that my dad did not deserve anything bad to happen to him. And I had no idea what I would do if this situation ended the way some situations with cancer do - with losing my dad. I still don't. And when I don't have the answers, and the words are physically painful when they come out of my fingertips onto the keyboard - writing was something I knew I should do, but couldn't bring myself to do.  But here I am. It took a month and three days, but here I am.

My dad has bile duct cancer. We are very lucky it appears to have been caught early and can be operated on. However the operation is a complicated one - a Whipple (fellow Grey's Anatomy fans will recognize that word - unfortunately, you hear about it because the doctors fight over that surgery, because it's so 'cool', sophisticated, and complicated). They will remove his gall bladder, part of his pancreas, part of his small intestine and the bile duct containing the tumour. Seems extreme for a thumbnail sized obstruction, no? I agree. But the "plumbing" in that area of the body is complex, and those digestive systems talk to one another quite a bit. So it seems a Whipple is a 'better safe than sorry', do what you have to with minimal damage kinda thing. Unfortunately my dad will be in recovery for 6-8 weeks, including some time in the ICU when the surgery is over. Complications happen in about 1/3 of cases, but the mortality rate from the surgery is a mere 2%, which is good news if you ask me. He will likely have chemo afterwards as a precaution, and regular scans probably for the rest of his life. The 5 year survival rate for this type of cancer is only 50-60%, but as my doctor friend Michelle says, numbers are just numbers and every case is unique. My dad is young, strong and healthy - he's got a good chance of landing on the right side of those odds.

There has been far too much waiting. Waiting in the hospital with him, passing the time with coloring books and sharing our annoyance about the doctors in the St. Catharine's hospital who would flit in for 30 seconds every morning and leave my family with more questions than they actually answered. Waiting for tests - ultrasounds, CAT scans, MRIs, ECRPs. Waiting for the results from tests. Waiting for his surgery to be booked. Waiting for surgery (Friday, May 27 - sorry Carden Challenge, but I don't know how to not be there for him and my mom). Waiting is the in-between of reality when your brain can be your best friend and protect you from worst case scenarios, or be your worst enemy and wander your thoughts down those roads that take you to scary places you don't want to stay very long. Some people cope by staying in the worst case scenario places so that bad news feels like good news ("it's bile duct cancer that's operable! not pancreatic cancer that's terminal!"), Some people cope by not visiting the bad places at all (though the crash down to reality afterwards is tougher, due to how high you were keeping your hopes). Me, I land somewhere in the middle. Don't go to the extreme bad places until you have to. Focus on the positive. But oh my goodness, friends, I am so scared. I feel so sad for my dad he has to go through this. Selfishly, I keep going back to "but I wanted another 20-30 years with him" - he's only 62. I sure do hope I get my time.

I have learned some lessons that I thought I'd share.

TELL THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE THAT YOU LOVE THEM. Do not hold grudges over small things - work to resolve problems as quickly as you can! Time here is limited, and far too short for petty grievances and hurt feelings getting in the way of real conversations and real love.

If you're like me and visit your out of town parents every ~1 month, why not try to throw in an extra visit in the middle. Life gets busy, but there is always time for the people who raised you and loved you and waited patiently through your temper tantrums, your crabby teenage years, and your slew of inappropriate boyfriends that you kept threatening to marry ;) You may not have the 20-30 years you are expecting (though I sincerely hope most of us get them).

Don't be naive to the fact that disaster can strike anytime. Don't live your life in fear, but realize that life is certainly not all peaches, roses, rainbows, etc - and if it has been for a long time like mine was, be even more prepared that it can't last forever. But definitely don't take how good you have it for granted - appreciate it every day.

As my friend Teva would say, live your life like a tornado! Drink it all in. Don't be afraid. Have fun. Experiment. Experience. Laugh. Love, Enjoy. Seriously folks - it's all a fucking random crapshoot, and we're all damn lucky to get to experience it - but the time limit on how long we get to stay here is a big question mark, so stop waiting and start living!

And my last lesson, the hardest one for me to talk about.. the one I should be texting you, messaging you, calling you to tell you... but I'm too shy(?) insecure(?) scared(?) to ask for what I need. I'm too bothered by the idea of inconveniencing you, that I just leave it alone. But here it is: I am someone who needs support in the form of chats, texts of good thoughts, laughs, visits with my friends and distraction by their thoughts, their lives, their stories. I am so incredibly grateful for the people who have forced "good times" on me over the past month. I have been so reluctant to say yes - why would you want to spend your Saturday night with me, with this big grey cloud hanging over my head?? But when you do, and we laugh and laugh, and enjoy ourselves, and talk about this crappy situation, but then move on and talk about hockey playoffs - it is so helpful, and healing and wonderful. I have no words to thank you for doing that for me.

I understand the fear of reaching out to someone having a tough time: I don't want to bother them when they're going through something big. I don't want to make them think about this scary situation if they're currently having an ok day, I don't want to be a pest. I better not.  Perhaps for some people this is true and they would appreciate the space (though honestly.. I highly doubt it.. and if they want the space, they will surely tell you and not begrudge you for asking!). For me.. space is not what I want. I felt lucky to get to apply this lesson this week, for friends going through something much more urgent and scary than this. I thought about making some food to drop off (cookies really do make everything feel a bit better.. I have enjoyed a lot of cookies lately...), but then thought: "but they're so busy; this is such an upsetting time; plus my friend REALLY hates pop-ins" (that's something we've always teased her about). I bet before my own realizations about support, I would have backed off for fear of offending or bothering them and just done nothing. But instead, Jeff will be dropping a care package at their place after work today, because on what planet would anyone mind getting cookies and a note to say "I'm thinking about you", even if we catch them at a tough moment or no one is home? It took me my own situation to realize this, though. Big lesson on supporting the people you care about, even when it's hard to know how, or they try to say no.

I want to send my sincerest thank yous for everyone who has said "if there's anything I can do, let me know". That means so much to me! To those who haven't said anything, that's totally ok too. It's hard to know what the hell to say!! Feelings are tough. Cancer is tough. Support is tough. And everyone is living their own busy, hectic lives and I know it's hard to keep every crisis at the front of your mind. Totally get it. From here forward I promise to ask for what I need when I need it, from those who have offered to be there when I need it. It's often not much more than a talk, a visit, a cup of tea, some friendly contact, or a safe, supportive place I can talk about what scares me and these myriad life lessons I keep getting punched in the face with every day. Thank you for offering, and I will do better to take you up on your incredible generosity and kindness. Jeff could probably use a break :) (sidenote to say he is the best husband in the entire world and I couldn't have gotten through any of this without his love and support! he is just amazing!).

Last lesson: life is all about love, the relationships your form, your friends, your family and the people in it. Cherish and honour those things as much as you can.

Today I'm going down to visit my parents in Niagara (lieu days are the best - I led a rainy nature tour in 9C/45 km/hr winds on Saturday so I definitely deserve this sunny day off!!). My dad is doing just fine. They put a stent in to make the bile flow through the blocked duct, and he even worked a shift at his job as a tour guide for wineries yesterday, and went golfing with his buddies last week and had the high score! Today I suggested we go glow in the dark mini putting, go to the casino, or to the wild bird kingdom in Niagara Falls (rainbow lorakeets land and poop on you - what could be more life affirming than that??). Or we may just sit out in the sunny backyard and be glad for life, for time together, and for good food and wine. I'm grateful for this day.

Thanks for reading. xoxo

Just feeling so lucky to have him as my dad!!! :*)

Sugar Update

This is just a quick update because after my January of non-stop blabbing about my "#kristynquitsugar" experiment people have been following up with me about how I'm doing.  It's been just under a month since I decided to chill the f*ck out and just go back to eating whatever I wanted, and see what happened.

You'd think after restricting sugar for all those weeks I would have fallen face first into a cake, but I was extremely hesitant to eat added sugar again. I was terrified about the idea of having to go through withdrawal again, mainly, and scared of how badly I might feel if I ate it based on my tiny experiments during the weeks of removing it from my diet.  So nothing happened, until a few days later at a restaurant my best friend ordered a white chocolate brownie with ice cream and whipped cream and offered me some at dessert.  She apologized for being an enabler, but I explained she wasn't at all.  Because what happened was I had a couple of bites, found it overpoweringly sweet, put my spoon down and forgot about it. For the first time in history - a dessert sat on the table in front of me, and I DIDN'T WANT IT.

At that cake-filled staff retreat the following week there were, no joke, thirty varieties of cake after every lunch and dinner.  The first night I scraped the tiniest sliver off the side of a mint chocolate torte (which looked DELECTABLE!) and nibbled a couple of bites of it before again finding the flavour very sweet, almost fake, overwhelming and somehow.. soapy?  I pushed it away and my colleague who had been commiserating with me at dinner about sugar addiction asked, a bit embarrassed, if she could finish it (we'd just met 30 minutes earlier).  I sympathetically pushed the plate her way - I have been that girl many, many times in many, many situations - I felt her!!  The rest of the week was about the same - a bite here and there.  I ate an entire piece of cherry pie one day which was absolutely lovely and didn't make me feel weird or ill - I wondered if it's because it was delivered with such a whack of fat (and no sugar) in the crust, and fiber in the fruit - perhaps added sugar was a bit in the backseat?  I also SUPER enjoyed a blueberry scone and some banana bread on a hungover morning during plenary and breakout sessions. But it didn't want to make me eat the sugary snacks that were always waiting just outside the conference room doors.

The past month or so has continued much like that, with an unfortunate side effect that whenever I do have added sugar (e.g. two bites of milk chocolate, or maybe 8 chocolate-covered peanuts, or a one bite brownie, or a Chips Ahoy sized chocolate chip cookie) I get a debilitating headache that lasts no less than 20 minutes. It's quite an impressive deterrent to wanting to eat traditional sweet desserts :( I'm still comfort eating with a bag of chips or smartfood here and there, and have become obsessed with blueberry muffins (chocolate chip muffin = headache; blueberry muffin = heaven... ??).  I also notice I still reach for something sweet after meals, though it's most likely to be fruit (mango, raspberry, apple with pb - all of these things taste like absolute bliss, way better than they did in my past life!) or a date-sweetened dessert.  Never ate a date in my life before 2016 but I can whip up a couple of date desserts that are just lovely - even chocolatey, and headache and trouble free.  I can also eat just a few bites and walk away - though I often want more bites after my next meal because they're so good! A big part of this experiment was wanting to make my socially debilitating post-meal sweet cravings go away and it has largely worked, though it's not to say I don't still want/enjoy those treats when they're around!

I love how I can walk past the open package of cookies or box of chocolates on the kitchen table at work up to 10-20x/day (depending how much tea I drink haha) and not really want them, or care about them. I do feel like I have regained some autonomy - yeehaw for autonomy!

I still appreciate the beauty and delight of desserts - emotionally.  I still hope I'll be able to eat a piece of cake at my best friend's shower and wedding without falling to the ground with a piercing headache. I'm guessing much like most things that end up becoming addicting, they feel pretty bad at first (e.g. first time smoking - so I hear, never tried!) but then you kind of like it, kind of want it, add a little more, then a little more, you like the after effects so your body starts ignoring the ill-effects, and before you know it you have a full blown habit.  I won't be actively trying to put sugar back in my former-self-hurricane-pathway and hopefully it means I can continue to have a grown-up, controlled relationship with it.  Hopefully :)

I wasn't expecting the headaches - they are so weird!!!!! But, hey, that's the point of an experiment I guess - occasional unexpected outcomes....

And to provide some honest commentary on my life - I have had many many less than impressive days in 2016.  Lots of couch.  Some days where I've eaten what feels like my body weight or more in various treats (calorie bomb smoothies stuffed with vanilla protein powder, mango and peanut butter - oh man so good; french fries until I couldn't fit anymore in my stomach, eating a whole day of calories by noon, etc.).  I slacked off from working out for full weeks here and there.  Definitely not losing weight or getting smaller (hopefully not getting bigger!!!). I became incredibly disenchanted with cooking for a couple of weeks and just frankly didn't do it (smoothies are dinner, right?). But with all that said, my main lesson was that I'd really like to learn how to beat myself up less for not being perfect - isn't this just life? I'm happy to say I worked out today and cooked a lovely asparagus risotto for Jeff and I tonight - and it felt wonderful (though I wish I hadn't worked out my arms before making a dinner you have to stir for a full hour!!).  Then again, last Sunday on the couch with Jeff's muffin delivery service (what a Valentine, eh!) felt pretty lovely in its own way too.

I wonder sometimes if my greatest lesson in life will be cutting myself some slack, giving myself a break and feeling proud of myself for the things that are going well, instead of focusing on those that haven't.

Stay tuned - this blog and author are, as always, a work in progress. :)

Kristyn 3?

Over the years I've lamented about Kristyn 1 vs. Kristyn 2.  Yes, these two - Kristyn 1: a super healthy, working out 4x a week, cooking a ton, watching her calories lass who isn't really fun for anyone to be around.  She does get the job done though and inevitably drops a few pounds and inches. HOWEVER she almost always without fail reverts back to being Kristyn 2.  This girl is someone you want to hang with - she is baking cookies, watching hours of reality tv on the couch, sneaking thirds and fourths on dessert and almost making it a point to eat everything in site.  It's like Kristyn 2 thinks that she is "off the wagon" and she better live it up before Kristyn 1 comes back. Kristyn 1 always seems to come back... but then so does Kristyn 2.

This is probably what most would refer to as YO YO dieting!! I tend not to think about it as a diet, but if it truly was a lifestyle "change", wouldn't it be more sustainable??  It always, inevitably, "ends". Then my pants get a bit more snug.  Then I go back.

Or maybe I'm too hard on myself.  Maybe that's just what it's like living and eating in today's world of endless comforts both in the form of lovely places to sit and delicious bad-for-you foods to eat. However, it's always been a goal of mine to reconcile these two versions of myself and try to land somewhere in the middle - Kristyn 1.5?  No, she doesn't sound evolved enough.  **Kristyn 3.0!**

So what I'm noticing since I quit sugar on December 28 (#day24! not that I'm counting! ;)) is that I feel a bit more sustainably healthy.  I find that I enjoy cooking, and have been consistently at it for over three weeks now. It's still a time consuming, dishes-making, clean kitchen wrecker, but actually putting together foods and flavours and dicing and stirring while listening to music is fairly zen - I actually start to feel like I get a bit of "flow" going on which I've read is the key to actual in the moment happiness :)  Usually I go on a cooking kick for a week or so and then spend the rest of my life dragging my heels that I better try to cook at least ONE nice meal a week.  But, 24 days later, I'm still cooking and really liking it.  Don't get me wrong - I really like it when there are leftovers and all I have to do is heat them up, but cooking is feeling alright and for some reason a little more sustainable.

If only every meal I cooked was lobster!

I used to be the queen of the yogurt parfait for lunch or even quick dinner - Greek yogurt, raspberry jam for sweetness, sugary granola on top and some delicious raspberries.  I also loved rocking a caprese salad, inspired by falling in love with this salad in Italy: tomatoes, cheese (bulk bocconcini and fior di latte from Costco yes please!), basil and a drizzle of balsamic reduction which I was recently horrified to find out had 10g of sugar per tbsp, mainly added sugar.  So with my two favourite stand-bys gone, I'm forced to make more savoury dishes and maybe I simply haven't found the lazyman dinner in the sugar-free category.

Kristyn 3.0 theory #1: Cooking becomes more of a necessity when you don't have quick and easy sugar-based "meals" to reach for, and only whole foods lying around that need to be cooked and combined to turn into something yum.

Also what's been happening, partly since I quit sugar and partly since I decided to do a try-a-tri this June, is that I've been getting back into running.  My physio helped me with the process, figuring out that some muscle imbalances in my butt and hips were likely causing a lot of my injuries from running.  I retired from running in fall 2012 and have really missed it since.  Every time I do a little of it, I hurt something, so I really have been avoiding it.  BUT, on this plan, I increase running by small increments every week and I'll delay my progress if I don't keep on top of it, and I could hurt myself if I don't do my e.g. weird gluteus medius strengthening exercises: so, there I am.  At least 2-3x a week and it's not really a big deal at all.  You can bang out a mile, even at my sad slow pace, in under 15 mins, do some leg lifts and knee thrusts to strengthen those weird hiding muscles that are weak, roll your IT bands, and you're all done in 45 mins or one episode of the Good Wife on netflix ;)

Last 5k?  Maybe not!  With Viv in 2012 at Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 5k

Kristyn 3.0 theory #2: Exercise is easier to maintain when you have a goal to work towards and you genuinely enjoy what you're doing

Here's another thing that's interesting.  While I've been waiting for the wild sweet cravings to subside and staying off of added sugar - the cravings mainly happen when I am tired, I find- I have occasionally tested the water with sugar.  Those delectable looking raw brownie bites I posted, that I started to binge eat the next day and had to throw the last few out :( , helped me realize that my chocolate addiction could take weeks... or months.. or years(??) to shake (dates + cocoa don't really equal proper chocolate - do they?? - but my brain was saying MORE MORE MORE!).  I accidentally had a spoonful of sugary sorbet at a restaurant and felt tingly and wild afterwards. Jeff found the sorbet "tangy and sour" while I found it "overpoweringly sweet" - weird right?  Last Saturday I decided to try a little piece of one of my favourite chocolate treats - dark chocolate salted almond bark - which I used to eat 15 pieces of in one afternoon (approx 40g of added sugar) and I took one bite and immediately put it down.  It tasted like soap, and also artificial, empty, overly sweet.

Kristyn 3.0 theory #3: When sugar doesn't taste good anymore, it's not that hard to stay away from it

Yesterday afternoon when my travel plans were derailed, the croissant and tea I was planning to pick up from Tim's a distant memory, I popped down to the coffee shop in the mall where I work and ordered a smoothie.  The girl serving me had assured me it contained "raspberry puree and yogurt".  Not thinking twice as I also put goopy raspberry and plain Greek yogurt into smoothies, I ordered it.  It was honestly the worst thing I've ever tasted - I could TASTE the sugar.  My coworker tried it and confirmed it was a pretty fake-sweet-tasting smoothie.  After sucking down 1/2 a cup of it (it was like 4 cups huge) due to my cheapness ($5!!), I had a huge headache and simply set it aside, not to be touched again. I'm delighted that true sweetness (fruit, milk) is now the sweetness I enjoy and look forward to.  I can't imagine I've kicked a lifelong addiction in a mere 3.5 weeks, but I'm surprised how well I'm doing over here on Day 24!!

Raw Brownie Bites (sweetened with dates) - Day 14 downfall

To get through the moments of sugar cravings, which seem to happen after a night of crappy sleep, I give in to the desire to comfort eat.  When you don't sleep, your body doesn't produce the right amount of ghrelin (the "I'm full!" hormone) and I always find I'm hungry all day.  Also when tired I tend to reach for comfort foods.  So I've solved this by making friends with the guy at the convenience store and at least once a week showing up for a bag of Smartfood or salt and vinegar chips - my savoury favourites that before I would only eat if they were at parties - if I was buying junk food, it was chocolate or skittles!!  This new habit is certainly nothing to brag about, BUT, it turns out what I've been reading for years is true - when you have a treat when you really/want need it, it is enough and then you can move on.  Before when I'd come home with Reese peanut butter cups, I'd inevitably be reaching for more sugar later.  Now, I tend to feel a little gross and full after my salty indulgence and am happy to just eat a reasonable meal later. Comfort eating and sleep deprivation eating are similar for me - you can chalk them both up to emotional eating vs. intuitive/because you're hungry eating - so when I had a mega-stressful day at work last week, it was no surprise to find myself in the McDonalds drive through line.  That double cheeseburger has made my day so many times!!  However, as I was still detoxing from sugar, I ordered it without ketchup.  Gotta say - it was a let down!  The fries were still nice (did you know they are manufactured to melt in your mouth - literally start digesting in your mouth for maximum instant pleasure?! terrifying/amazing) but that burger really didn't do it for me the way it has for my whole life.  Weird stuff.

Kristyn 3.0 theory #4: Have a salty treat, feel comforted/satisfied, and naturally move on from wanting to eat your feelings

I brought my scale out for the first time in a long time for this sugar detox experiment and was amazed to see 6 pounds melt off (like a McDonalds fry hitting your tongue) in 2 weeks.  It was fascinating to not even feel like I was really trying (but, but, I just ate chips! antojitos! so much cheese! buttered popcorn!) and see numbers on the scale I haven't seen in years. There are only 3 pairs of pants left to tackle (i.e. drop inches so I can fit into them) which was one of my new years resolutions - and I have a lot of pants - I collect jeans like a hoarder, at least for my cheap self - there must be about 15 pairs in my closet. Sliding into one of those pairs that I bought while telling myself "these will be perfect if I can drop a few inches" (stupid, why do women do this?!) was ridiculously gratifying and kind of a "never done before" feat.  At the end of the day I don't feel the need to change into sweatpants immediately and a few times I have accidentally worn jeans for hours, not even noticing they were on (usually they're so tight/uncomfortable I have to strip 'em right off!).  This is enjoyable, the fact that I didn't have to kill myself to get here is amazing, and all those happy feelings are motivation enough to want to stay on track without really even trying to do anything.

Kristyn 3.0 theory #5: Letting your body find it's ideal size set point, and fitting into your entire wardrobe is reason enough to continue eating reasonably and exercising moderately

Last interesting note, I am riding a much less intense blood sugar rollercoaster (think Corkscrew compared to Millenium Force). I'm still peckish throughout the morning (likely indicative that while my bowl of oatmeal, fruit and almond milk is a decent breakfast, it may be lacking in satiating ingredients like healthy fats or have enough calories), but I can go hours and hours without eating, particularly in the afternoon and evening.  I don't. Even. Think about it.  The other day I didn't eat lunch until 1 p.m.  I would have been curled in a coma on the floor if that had happened last month but I was fine.  Hungry, but not shaky or hypoglycemic.

I may just be on the road to lessening the amplitude of my blood sugar spikes including the low blood sugar moments of hypoglycemia.  This is an excellent reason to keep sugar to a minimum in my diet, and I'm going to continue with that principle for sure. Another health bonus is that eating so many nice, whole foods has done wonders for my stomach - pain, bloating, and all the joy that comes with a sad GI tract - all gone. My sensitive stomach is no longer something I think about too much.  I wonder how my gut bacteria are doing down there??  Whatever you're doing guys, keep it up, go forth, multiply, etc. - I feel great!!

Kristyn 3.0 theory #6: Doing it for your health makes making good choices a no-brainer.

So.  On Day 24 I am going to loosen the reins.  Looking for and thinking about added sugar in everything is fairly inconvenient in public settings.  Plus, having it in such small doses (e.g. in a pizza crust or pasta sauce) doesn't seem like a huge deal now and then, and it's hard to imagine it could set off a cascade of chocolate cravings. Typically when Kristyn 1 would "loosen the reins" and "have a free day" it would turn into a several-days binge cycle from feeling restricted.  But I truly don't feel restricted.  I can eat whatever I want, and there are many delicious choices available to me. A strawberry-kiwi-coconut milk smoothie is the sweetest treat ever, and tastes amazing!!  That bag of chips on a tired day is nothing to brag about, but man do they taste good in the moment and fill me up very well! Next week I'll be away from home Tuesday - Friday at a place with the best food, including the nicest desserts, ever (White Oaks Resort in Niagara on the Lake for a staff conference).  I don't feel my typical Kristyn 1 "nervous/gearing up willpower" about it, or wondering if I'll "slip up".  If I have half a piece of cake I'm fairly certain the world won't end.  But if it sends me on a sugar spiral, or I end up feeling headachey, grumpy and lethargic like after yesterday's smoothie, it would be a clear signal NOT to reach for it again.  And just focus on eating something creamy, or salty, rich and filling at the meal, so I'm not left wanting to reach for dessert. I do hope they have some fruit available, though, my trusty back-up.  I wonder what report I'll have to give post White Oaks!!!

If you read this far, thanks for coming along on my weird sugar journey and quest to find Kristyn 3.0 - a healthy girl who isn't perfect but doesn't oscillate severely between "good" and "bad".. since, secret, there really is no "good" and "bad". :)  I feel quite optimistic today, compared to my last post.  Rather than expect that I'll inevitably swing the other way, crash and fail, I'll try to ride this wave of added-sugar-free happiness and see what tomorrow brings!!

Kristyn Quit Sugar

Last week I launched a secret mission into a life free of added sugar.  I was planning on starting said mission on Sunday, January 3, after New Years Eve and an all day bird count on the 2nd that I knew would leave me craving sweets at its end.  However, after a night of gluttony on Sunday, January 27 and feeling like sheer hell upon waking on the Monday, I decided why not give it a whirl.

This was helped by the fact that I'd just polished off the book "Sweet Poison" and had recently started "Suicide by Sugar".  There are some scary facts about sugar out there.  What scared me the most:

- the hypoglycemia I have developed over the past several years and was formally diagnosed with in 2014 (before that, I just called it "hangry") is likely related to over-consumption of sugar; some people's pancreas under-produce insulin in the face of too much sugar (aka. high blood sugar/diabetes) - mine seem to overproduce it and suck too much sugar out of my blood, leaving me weak, shaky and feeling just downright sick.  The idea here is less sugar = less insulin over-production = less hypoglycemic moments.

- our bodies don't have a mechanism for feeling "full" from fructose.  Unlike fat or protein, where we have an enzyme/hormone system that clicks on to tell your body: "ok, stop, you're full!" there isn't one for fructose because in caveman days if you came across a berry patch you WERE supposed to gorge your face off.  And our bodies, always looking out for our caveman selves, transform fructose in the liver directly to fat, to keep our cavemen selves warm.  Or as it's known today, to expand a muffin top on a well-fed modern human...

- Big Sugar controls A LOT.  There are so much politics involved in why sugar is everywhere, including places you didn't even want it (why does a pizza need added sugar? bread, cheese, toppings, crushed tomato - these things would be delicious without added g's of sugar - why is it there?!).  Big Sugar does not want us to stop eating/loving big amounts of sugar, that's for sure - and I don't like someone contaminating the food supply for no reason other than $$!

- I am fully addicted to sugar and was consuming at least 20g of added sugar per day (on a "normal", "healthy" day - it was upwards of 75 - 100g on days when I was being less conscious of my food choices), in addition to sugars naturally occurring in my food (which were likely another 25 - 30g - or about the amount found in a couple of pieces of fruit and some dairy).

- Those pangs of hunger I felt/feel mid-morning are known as "toxic hunger" or "fructose withdrawal", and it's just my body/brain looking for my next hit of sugar.  I used to jokingly define it to my coworkers as "false hunger", while scarfing another granola bar halfway through a morning in the field, wondering out loud how I could feel so hungry after a double bowl of oatmeal only 2 hours before.  Now I know I was right and I wasn't really hungry - and that freaks me out

So here I am.  It's DAY #10!!!!!! And I haven't had a drop of added sugar. This is largely thanks to my awesome supporters including Jeff, my mom, Dawn, my New Years crew, my co-sugar-quitter Aynsley, and my coworkers, who have all been just amazing!  Thank you guys!!!!

A lot of the research I've done has recommended that a full sugar detox should include the removal of ALL sugar, including sugar from fruit (fructose) and sugar from milk (lactose) to completely eliminate the dependency on it.  I hear that, but I have also thought about the fact that I WANT to have a diet where I'm excited to eat fruit!  I also can't imagine how sad/itchy I'd be without fruit and dairy in my diet, even for just a few weeks!  I don't know that I see the point in going through that withdrawal, only to end up reintroducing fruit back in.  The idea is that to completely recalibrate your palate, you need to remove fruit.  So far I haven't entirely found that to be true, I have had major changes to my palate and cravings with small amounts of fruit in my diet per day, so for now, fruit and yogurt stay!

What has made me the most pleasantly surprised:

- after 10 years of REQUIRING chocolate or other sweets after every single meal, I have had 16 lunches and dinners total in which I have not finished them off with 2 squares of dark chocolate, and most of the time, I don't even think about it

- 4 lbs melted off me in 4 days without even trying and I can now fit comfortably into most of my pants again - hoorah!  I plateaued after that, but hey, I'll take it!  I haven't been staying under any sort of caloric goal, and I haven't been exercising much because I feel like crap a little bit every day (I'll detail that a bit more below) so the weight loss is all due to the removal of sugar.

- when I saw a bag of marshmallows in the grocery store (which I used to keep in the cupboard between fire/roasting season and sneak from time to time when I needed a "hit") I physically flinched, my stomach clenched and I felt gross just thinking about eating them

- the smell of sugar in the grocery store no longer enchants me the way it used to (you know that smell by the bags of sugar in the baking aisle?  oh man it used to get me) - now I have a neutral reaction to it: "that is the smell of sugar".  I can also walk down the candy and cookie aisles with minimal interest in what's around me.  I used to drool over those things while shopping!

- I have been forced to replace things in my diet and it has been pretty easy breezy.  In my last post I wondered if I could ever enjoy gross, bland oatmeal without the sweetness of brown sugar.  I am not sure I'm interested in eating plain oatmeal still but I have been mashing some raspberries or mixed berries into it each morning and truly enjoying the flavour - more and more each day, too.  I lost the granola from my yogurt and replaced it with chia, pepitas, almonds, unsweetened coconut - and I adore it!  I also sweeten the yogurt (thick, sour, Greek yogurt - it needs it!) with mashed berries, instead of jam or honey.  It takes me a lot longer to eat it, but I enjoy it very much.  No more balsamic reduction meant losing my beloved caprese salad, so without tomato salad and parfaits, my "go to" meals have had to become more savoury - and I'm really loving the whole foods I'm eating!  Veggies and fruits are simply delicious.  Cheeses and nut butters and my new comfort foods.  Nuts are the most incredibly filling snack!  Eat a handful pecans and see how long you stay full for - it's unreal.  Sugared peanut butter is replaced with natural almond butter, which is possibly the nicest tasting thing in my house (and I've had almond butter before, and I did NOT feel about it the way I do now).  And crunching on cacao nibs is WEIRD but oddly satisfying, especially knowing I'm getting all the antioxidants of chocolate without the sugar and with the added fibre, good fats and protein.

- comfort food comes in many forms - not just sweet.  Heavily buttered, salty homemade popcorn on day #1 was a delicious dream come true!

- I can easily say "no" to desserts at social functions (had to do this 3x in the past 10 days), because I can't imagine going through withdrawal again.  I'm not ready to add them back in (...yet? I'm not sure yet), and have no desire to (aside from those occasional moments of my brain screaming for them, like when I saw chocolate cake with white frosting in a movie the other night - my favourite - and didn't stop thinking about it for about 18 hours - weeeeird!)

What has been hard:

- Day #1 I felt absolutely desperate - like a caged animal.  I tried to go out in a snowstorm to seek out satisfying sugar-free treats but decided I should let safety be a priority instead of my gnawing toxic hunger. Instead I made the popcorn I mentioned above :)

- Day #2 I got really really stupid and couldn't form sentences or find words I was looking for

- Day #1-3 I had a constant dull headache

- Every single day (up to and including yesterday) I have had one serious 30 minute crash between the hours of 2:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m., depending on when I woke up that day.  I found putting my head down or lying down and sipping a cup of black tea with milk was helpful to get me through it.  During the crashes, I felt nauseous, dizzy and completely sapped of energy.

- Day #4 I had some wild digestive issues, likely related to the onslaught of veggies and lentils in my diet. Usually I would calm my system with simple carbs, but as most were off the table and we had no bread, I had to keep eating cheese and veggies and fibre and fat an all the things that typically bug my stomach.  I made it out alive, though.

- Day #7 I had insane cravings for cake that carried into Day #8.  When I think about the cake, I can still feel pleasure centres lighting up in my brain. This is creepy

- Feeling like I'm "doing it wrong" by not cutting out fruit. I still crave sweetness, but find I am then more than satisfied by a serving of my saving grace Vanilla Almond Popcorn http://realfoodrealdeals.com/vanilla-almond-popcorn/ (sweetened with dates) or a piece of fruit.  Is it a bad thing to still want sweets, eat them in their whole package with fibre and nutrients, and subsequently feel good??? It doesn't feel bad but I'm really confused.

- Feeling like I'm "doing it wrong" because I have largely been a functional human - exercising lightly, working, cleaning, laughing, birding.  I was expecting it to be SO MUCH worse than this.

- So much cooking and food prep.  My go to/easy grab meals and snacks which revolved around sweetened cereal, sweetened oatmeal and sweetened sauces are all out, so I am doing a lot of chopping of fruits and veggies, cooking grains and starches (which take forever!!!!), preparing big batches of foods for easy meals and bringing seemingly 3,000 calories of snacks with me to work to ensure I make it through the day (I bring most of them home, but I'm always so worried I'll wig out at the office that I can't go in without my lunch bag brimming over with a million tiny tupperwares)

- When I explain it to people and they feel like I'm somehow judging their habits or there is an expectation that they do this as well.  Absolutely untrue!  Everyone's journey is their own.  Frankly, I don't care what you do as long as you don't wave cookies in my face while I'm trying to quit sugar :)  And of course if you are interested in taking the journey, I'm happy to be your "sponsor"!

- Feeling a little bit crappy in unpredictable intervals every day.  Blargh!

So.  I'm going to keep taking it day by day, and keep thinking about what I eventually want to do with this sugar-free me, and if I should consider a total ban of ALL sugar from all sources until I stop craving it. Currently, I feel like a pile of garbage (may be related to bad sleep, possibly to withdrawal which I've heard can last 3 days or 6 weeks.. oh god..), so I'm going to sign off.  Sorry this blog post isn't more entertaining with fun pictures like the last one.  I liken it's blandness to being an homage to the blandness of my morning oatmeal.... ;) Kidding, kidding.......

Sugar

"Hi, my name is Kristyn.  And I'm addicted to sugar."

"I could quit if I wanted to!!"

"I only need a little bit every day, then I'm good."

"There are worse things I could be addicted to: cigarettes, drugs."

Yup.  Those are things I've been saying for a long time.  Several years ago I realized I had a true physical addiction to sugar when I tried to stop eating refined sugar for a week.  I lasted about 4 of the most miserable days I've ever had (and the most miserable days Jeff has ever had) because I was so incredibly grumpy, cranky, and irritated. I can remember eating a bowl of strawberries (the least satisfying strawberries have ever been, probably) after dinner one night and glaring at him for no reason, and the look of fear on his face. I didn't realize at the time exactly what was happening, but I was going through withdrawal.

Disclaimer - I understand this sounds a little #firstworldproblems to be complaining about sugar addiction (poor me with this abundance of sweets available to me), but it is actually way more serious than I realized now that I've been looking into it a bit further.  Disclaimer 2 - I'm in the early days of my research, so sharing only my limited understanding of this issue.

Refined white sugar was never a key part of a human diet - only showing up about 200 years ago.  Our bodies are equipped to deal with the breakdown of a small amount of a wide variety of natural sugars (e.g. fructose in fruit, lactose in milk, honey (pillaged from bees)), and have absolutely no idea what to do with the deluge of sucrose, fructose, maltose, etc. being barraged at us daily.  I have read some disgusting statistics about average folks eating 50 kg of sugar per year.  EWWWW!!!  That's crazy!

Sugar can be found in nature, for sure.  But the processing required to distill out a highly concentrated portion of a plant is comparable to how they get cocaine out of the coca plant.  And in the end: a fine white powder that in both cases alights the senses and leaves people craving more, in an endless cycle.  The damage done to our bodies by both is, sure, minimal each time, but over time can launch a cumulative assault that can eventually be deadly.

Where sugar comes from: sugar cane and sugar beet

Where cocaine comes from: coca plant

Sigh.... it's hard for me to malign my best friend sugar in this way. Those who know me well know my sweet tooth is absolutely out of control. Cookies, ice cream and chocolate are my favourites. Cake, candy, pop - I'll take it all.  After every single meal my gut starts pinging my brain: "sugar!" "sugar!" "sugar!".  As an intermittently health conscious person (in that I'm always conscious of what the healthy choices are, but don't always make them) I have creatively found my way around this issue while still managing to maintain or (when I'm motivated) lose weight.  My workarounds include 2 squares of 70% dark chocolate after lunch and dinner, eating my healthy ("healthy?") snack every day of plain Greek yogurt sweetened with 1/2 tbsp PC Blue Menu reduced sugar jam, raspberries and topped with granola (sanctimonious non-health food in disguise #1! but man I love it!!), drinking hot water with lemon and honey, and drizzling my favourite cold tomato salad with 1/2 Tbsp of balsamic reduction (basically tangy sugar).  If I'm dying for something sweet but know I need to cool it with the chocolate, I reach for super sweet fruit (apples, pineapple, mandarins).  My. Sweet. Tooth. Rules. My. Life. Jeff is afraid of it, in his adorable supportive-husband-battling-concerned-husband way, and doesn't at all understand it. It's gotten so bad that I have to manage my own chocolate supply when sharing a cottage with coworkers for a week in the field (because if I didn't have those two squares after field lunch one day, I'd wig out, likely on whoever ate them), and I nearly decimated the group chocolate supply while on a camping trip this summer. I can't reduce sugar/calories without a firm supply of fake-sweet Coke Zero nearby because even though it's not real, it's a reprieve from the blandness of food that's not brimming with sugar. I always offer to bake when I have to bring food somewhere because I know I get to nibble at what I'm making, lick the bowl and have some of whatever delicious concoction I've made when I get to wherever I'm going (plus I'm pretty good at it!).

This seems like a reasonable amount of cookies, no?

It's embarrassing too.  Agh, that's hard to admit.  I've always done such a great job of owning and loving that I'm a sweet person, not a salty one, that sugar satisfies me like nothing else can, and that I just adore it. But honestly, when you've been with me in public and I've ordered that massive dessert in a restaurant, or eaten one too many cookies from the platter that were supposed to be for everyone, trust me, it's embarassing.  Because, like a drug addict, I really don't have control over my actions, which is mortifying.  I'm an autonomous adult - why can't I control what I put in my mouth!?!!!  I recognize it's not like I'm alone in this in the world, and obviously I have SOME control over what I put in my mouth otherwise I'd be 400 lbs. But I'm tired of letting my urges and instincts control me.  I want to be controlled by rational thought - wouldn't that be nice!!

Again, this seems like a reasonable quantity of chocolate cake...

I'm absolutely terrified of the idea of detoxing.  I don't want to be that angry and cranky again.  And if you think about it, there's actually no good time to detox. I don't want to take any of my precious vacation time and spend it clattering around the house, groaning like an angry sugar monster.  I do NOT want to do this while things are stressful at work - who knows what I'll say!!  I am already not particularly nice when people interrupt me when I'm in the middle of something important/stressful - I can actually envision a particular coworker of mine lying unconscious on the floor with Kristyn fingernail marks across his face, and you can just see my rushed trail of destruction downstairs to the convenience store that is my office window looks onto downstairs in the mall........

I sometimes stand in front of the chocolate bars at a convenience store and can't believe this is allowed in this world. Probably how a trying-to-quit smoker feels staring at the wall of cigarettes, or an alcoholic in the LCBO.  "Why is (insert name of massive corporation producing product) allowed to make this largely unhealthy product, and tempt us like this?  Don't they know they're actually killing some of us with these offerings?!"  But of course it's not "their" fault.  It's our inability to control our impulses. I would do very well in a temptation free world, though.  Honestly, I would.  I'd nibble on my dark chocolate daily and get by.  This is what I do in the controlled environment of my home.  But the second there is a dish of candy or plate of cookies on the kitchen table at work, it's a constant struggle to stay out of them - every single time I walk past them, they call my name.  If I make the mistake of picking up the "healthy" ice cream sandwiches at the grocery store, I spend a lot of time at home convincing myself why I shouldn't have more than 2 a day, and often finish that train of thought licking my fingers from the third one.  If I'm at a social event, all bets are off.  If the sweet stuff is near me, I am in the sweet stuff.  Back and forth between my seat and the sweet stuff like a wasp at a BBQ in August.  If only temptation wasn't there, this would be SO MUCH easier.  But it is there, and I certainly don't want to stop seeing my friends and family, or going to work for that matter, so I need to figure out some workarounds.

Temptation, thy name is a convenience store

The full on sugar detox/quit sugar diet sounds a little wild for me.  This is the one where you don't even eat fruit.  You completely eliminate sweet flavours from your diet.  And after several horrible weeks, your taste buds, your brain, your gut finally all get the message, calm the f*ck down and stop sending you messages to eat the sugar.  Then it's easy breezy, and you're done with it - you actually no longer want sugar, or think about it.  OR it  continues to be a difficult struggle, and you always think about it (This reminds me of my mom smoked, who for a few years when she was a teenager.  Forty years later, she says if diagnosed with a terminal illness the first thing she'd do would be to light up. The love of your addiction never actually goes away).  What I'm surmising from the anecdotal research is that for some the pathways of "want sugar!"/"eat sugar"/"feel happy" probably never really go away, they just dry up a little, while the rushes of messages are diverted to other neural pathways like "want something!"/"eat vegetables"/"feel full". <-- so lame.  Haha.  I think that snide comment was my gut flora talking, don' t mind them.  They've just been eating copious amounts of sugar for life and don't want me to give it up because it would make them sad, and die.  What was I saying?  (Now I'm thinking about eating sugar...) Oh, right: the unknown of quitting and if you'll ever really stop wanting it.  It's advised for North Americans to consume < 20 g sugar per day (about 4 tsps, or just over 1 tbsp).  Some people count fruit in this.  If that was the case, I'd be allowed my couple servings of dark chocolate (about 3g each), a couple of pieces of fruit and no added sugar lurking anywhere else (it's always hiding!! in ketchup, pasta sauce, the weirdest places where you didn't even know you wanted/liked it).

APPARENTLY once you train yourself away from refined/added sugar, things start to taste much better.  Faint sweetness in unsweet products like coconut oil, cinnamon and low sugar fruits (mainly berries) really ramps up and becomes "enough".  Then when you reach for that refined sugar baked good, it's actually too much sweetness for your tastebuds/tummy to handle.  AND, AND, everyone - I have seen proof this!  I had a very healthy coworker several years back, for whom I baked a Kristyn Birthday Cake.  Full on chocolate with rich vanilla frosting, and messy blue icing writing on the top: "Happy Birthday!".  After I served everyone, I watched her gently scrape some crumbs away from her piece and lick them delicately off the fork, savouring them, and eventually pushing her cake away not even half eaten, saying "it's delicious, thank you, but it's just too much for me."  I looked up from my nearly finished second piece, a heaping forkful of chocolate en route to my mouth (add icing smeared onto my cheek for effect) and wondered what the heck that must feel like!

To my girls, who won't be surprised, but may feel sad for me: I ate the whole box of Katie's Christmas chocolates in one sitting.  I was SO SAD afterwards.  I did that thing I do, where I feel stressed, because I wasn't feeling well (massive headache), and then I ate all the chocolates in an effort to "feel better" (sidenote: Kate, they were delicious!).  I emerged from a chocolate haze wondering who I was, and what the heck I was doing.  To the masses - can you imagine eating 7 truffles in a row, essentially chain-smoking truffles???  Most people likely wouldn't be able to stomach it. My former coworker would have lost her mind!  I, however, took it like a champ. That kind of sugar binge is no big deal for me - my body can handle it. And that's a bit scary.

That brings me back to gut flora (ah gut flora - it's exactly what you wanted to be thinking about, right?). After some chats with a coworker over my squares of dark chocolate after lunch the other day, I was floating my musings about quitting sugar, and she was telling me about new research she'd read regarding the differences in gut microbiota (the lil guys that live in all our guts that help us extract nutrients from our food and digest away) between sugar eaters and non-sugar eaters, between obese people and thin people, and how it can take a concerted effort to really change the make-up of who's hanging out in your insides.  If I starve the refined-sugar loving gut bacteria, they are going to wig out and send me lots of cues - cravings for sugar, headaches, dizziness... but eventually they're going to starve, not be able to reproduce, and start to die off.  The plan is that I'd be concurrently feeding some of the good guys down there (I do occasionally eat vegetables..) and encouraging them to reproduce and take up some of the real estate of the baddies, and eventually all I'll hear from my lower half is: "dang girl, get me a salad!" (wouldn't that be nice. :))

You almost thought it was a picture of Goodies licorice candy, but instead it was gut bacteria...

The warnings I'm taking from my preliminary (anecdotal) research is that this process goes differently for everyone, and you can tailor it differently depending on what amount of sugar you want in your life - there are no hard and fast rules other than the more sugar you eat, the more you will continue to want it.  I'm not sure that I never want to be able to eat a piece of cake again!!!  But I may be like the alcoholic who can't just have one drink without falling off the wagon face first into a bucket of ice cream.  Maybe I'll need to ensure I'm handcuffed and tied to a couch, have Jeff feed me the cake, and then writhe around a little while I fight the urge to have another piece, try to negotiate with him to bring me another piece, and then eventually give up.  Man, I would be quite the party spectacle!

I don't know that I don't ever want to bake again.  My granny's chocolate chip cookie recipe is a legacy!

I don't know that I don't ever want an ice cream after a long hot day in the field again.

I don't know that I want chia seeds on my daily yogurt instead of granola.

I don't know if I could ever enjoy my morning oatmeal without the teaspoon of brown sugar.

I don't know if I can resist the social pressure of people foisting sugar on me; noting that this IS the world we live in.  Dessert comes after dinner!

However.

I don't know if I want to ravage my body with this drug anymore.

I don't know if I want to die years earlier from the damage I've done to myself by eating so much sugar all the time.

I don't know if I want to develop type II diabetes when my body eventually gives up the good fight and can't regulate my insulin anymore.

I just don't know if I want to be ruled by something OTHER than my rational brain anymore.

To be continued....

Manifesto

Hello!  I feel so sad that I went three months without posting anything - but I have an excuse for my general blogger lameness over the summer - in late May I started what I was jokingly referring to as "My Manifesto"... which I ended up naming "Manifesto"!! This is basically a collection of short, blog-like entries about how I wanted to live my life, places to improve, places I was doing well, aspirations, goals, regrets, you name it.  It's probably where this blog has been leading me for some time now.  I once started typing here as a place to tell silly stories and hopefully make some people smile/laugh, but it was so therapeutic getting my thoughts out that I started working out some serious issues in this medium, and it's been immensely helpful over the years (http://www.sincerelygoofy.blogspot.ca/2013/11/the-need-to-be-liked.html, http://www.sincerelygoofy.blogspot.ca/2014/06/green-grass.html)

So culminating in one big 5 month spew of thoughts onto paper, covering a huge variety of topics from buying a cottage to managing finances to exercise to eating healthily to friendships to being childfree to nature to my career to living life with purpose - you name it, I contemplated it. I read about AA one time (concerned for a friend - I still can't handle more than 3 drinks even if I wanted to #lightweightforlife) and it always stuck with me that a key first step on the road to recovery was to do a searching, brutally honest, self inventory where you basically lay out the contents of your head/soul and get really real with yourself about areas that need improvement, as well as just the honest clutter of truths that are feelings that live within you.  I pictured my manifesto as a tidy black and white notebook with my brain sprinkled across all the pages! :D

It was easy to get off track and wind up on crazy tangents.  I also made a lot of jokes - I think it's kind of funny that I'm just trying make myself laugh since I will never let anyone read my Soul Inventory!  But the most important thing I did was create "I will" statements throughout each entry and put a big star in a circle beside them.  "I will work out 3x/week".  It's a level of exercise that's manageable for me - I've tried 5-6 days; I've tried once a week; I've tried weekend warrior, I've tried consecutive months of inactivity...eep - I know from many years of testing that 3x/week is achievable, doable and beneficial.  So it's in.  Big star in a circle.  Done.  "I will prioritize alone time".  Why I have to keep learning the lesson that I fall apart when my schedule is too booked and I overdo it with social obligations is beyond me, but I'm hoping this big star in a circle next to permission to let myself be quietly alone when I can tell I need it (or even BEFORE I need it) will be the last time I need that lesson 'taught'.  "I will focus on paying off the car by the end of 2016" - it re-centered me to focus on debt repayment and away from thinking of other things to do with $ that aren't a priority right now (e.g. saving for a cottage I'll likely never work up the nerve/savings to buy :D).  You get the picture - lots of "to do"s and I respond very well to to do lists.

Issue - those big stars in circles were scattered across 100+ pages of writing and I would pick up the book on and off all summer long and add to chapters as it suited me - how do you keep track of all those "to do"s!?  So I decided an appropriate birthday present to myself would be to consolidate my list of action items, provide a bit of a status update for myself (pat on the back! or: get down to business, lady!) and have the list handy for reference as I move on from the first third of my life into the second third.  Three is my lucky number, so turning 33 on November 3 and contemplating my 1/3-life crisis felt just like the right thing to do.  There is no wrong time to take an inventory of your life and aim it in the right direction - not saying that path will always be walked in a very straight line, but at least it's nice to check in and make sure you're still heading where you want to go, being the person you want to be.

My BFF's fiance Dan really took to my chapter "Time" where I figured out what was a valuable and not so valuable way to spend time, so I thought I'd share my ridiculous list if it might be helpful for anyone else (you will likely need to replace things like "reality tv" and "facebook" with your own personal vices, should you wish to adopt this way of thinking ;)). Dan and I had a real moment when we were canoeing (with Dawn and Jeff - I'm not just sweeping Dan away on nature adventures) last summer when we realized we were completing four Category A activities at once (spending time in nature, meaningful interactions with people we care about, exercise AND relaxation!).

Ok so the rough breakdown here is a goal to spend 75% of time on Category A activities; 20% of time on Category B activities and < 5% of time on Category C activities.  Since this careful mathematical formula was contrived while I was exhausted after fieldwork one night, high on lake views and caffeine, and plain drunk on manifesto-ing, you'll understand it's highly flexible/adaptable! Inevitable and not included on the list are sleeping, working and bathing. lol.

Category A (i.e. What I Consider Worthwhile Ways to Spend My Time)
- exercise (light or heavy)
- cooking and consuming healthy/delicious meals
- learning (reading non-fiction, watching docs, taking courses, etc.)
- pursuing hobbies/interests
- financial planning (Nov 5 2015 ed: that is so lame)
- nature appreciation
- relaxation (reading; campfires; country drives, etc.)
- writing*
- acts of generosity (helping friends/family in need, volunteering)
- meaningful interactions with people I care about

Category B (i.e. What I Consider Borderline Worthwhile Ways to Spend My Time)
- watching m'stories (I didn't write that.. watching TV is what is says - it also then says "I love my shows - Bachelor, Biggest Loser, Downton Abbey, Grey's and How to Get Away with Murder; I like a good hockey game" - poor Leafs, can't get no respect even in the off season)
- spending time on my appearance (hair, clothes, makeup)
- thinking about work/catching up on work outside of work hours
- housework/grocery shopping
- napping (often a necessary evil)

Category C (i.e. What I Consider Poor Uses of Time)
- worrying
- watching mindless TV - anything outside "my shows" or hockey; may be bumped to Category A if I'm snuggling with Jeff - non-touching TV time doesn't count :)
- interactions with people who bring me down
- browsing facebook/the internet

* truth: the reason I am in here writing a blog entry tonight is because tonight was risking turning into a big old Category C of watching mindless TV alone if I didn't move my butt off the couch!

I still think the categories need some work, but it's interesting how much of my life actually slots into those groups!  I have never once quantified my time according to percentages, but I am certainly aware when I've been lingering on the Book of Face for too long and it's time to get moving, and I grumble about housework but recognize it's ok - a good thing to do, a necessary evil, and I feel really extra great and special when I combine things I love like when I sat under the willow tree in our backyard the other day that was raining yellow leaves all over me and my manifesto, and I wrote, and enjoyed nature and petted Bailey and kissed Jeff and thought: all is well in this Category A world!  Category C's last point spawned a massive tangent about my love-hate relationship that is social media.  Definite Essena O'Neill moment of feeling how hollow it can all be.  I hate to see people "curating" an image, that isn't reflective of real life.  I hate when I catch myself in an overly exuberant sharing moment and think: "what if you just made someone struggling with the opposite end of this issue feel like crap?".  For awhile now I've been trying to balance posts - negative with positive.  That's life, isn't it?  I just want to be more authentic.  And if I/others can't be, well then I'll be spending even less time on that Category C activity in the future and - I dunno - doing yoga while working in a soup kitchen outdoors in nature balancing my budget in an Excel sheet on a laptop? ;)  Hey, a girl can dream.

My manifesto landed me with a BIG to do list.  But I feel confident seeing it all laid out - the person I want to stop being, the one I want to continue to be and the one I would like to grow to be.  I like having a path, goals, a plan, and, really, dreams. I was very excited to learn last week that my good friend Erica is walking a parallel road beside me, waving to me with one hand and a self-help book in the other.  Who knows why some of us weirdos become so deeply interested in self-improvement?? I was suspecting that I was becoming so introspective because this is typically what happens to people in their 40s once their kids are more independent and I was just getting there 10-15 years early because I'm childfree.  But Erica, whilst walking this path, amazingly, has three kids attached to her!! :) It was nice to know I wasn't alone out there in the woods (while lifting weights and blogging and sauteeing veggies.. haha..)

On my radar this week:
- breaking habit loops associated with stress eating
- reducing sugar and increasing whole foods
- generosity (charity curling tournament here we come!)

I realize I've been writing a lot of the same things again and again over the years - sometimes I forget I've written them before and am surprised they're not new ideas.  Life is just a lot to process - and it's really helpful to have a place to come to to lay out the contents of my brain and make sure everything's still in fairly good working order. :)  Cheers to blogs and manifestos, and patience of the people I love to support me on my many varied, dissected, analyzed and beloved journeys. :)

French River Fun

What a super weekend backcountry camping in French River Provincial Park with my hubby Jeff and a few of my faves - Viv, Kristy and Evan.  I have to admit, I was nervous going in!  My last experience canoe camping was when I was 10-12, for three summers in a row at Camp Pinecrest, forced on a 5 day, 4 night canoe trip where we paddled what felt like hundreds of kms, shoved 5 people into a 4 person tent (one person slept at the feet of the other girls) and were allowed to bring a stuff sack with a sleeping bag and one change of clothes to be used as a pillow.  There was a trowel involved, and dehydration occurred frequently.. there were leeches, and crazed raccoons rattling the walls of our tents at night, and one time we came up unexpectedly on some rapids and nearly went down them in our canoes - picture three screaming 10 year old girls trying to steer a canoe out of that situation.  These memories are burned deeply.. and as such I only started camping again when I was ~23 and since then only car camping where escape was easy and I could always bring a fluffy queen sized air mattress ;)  However.. as a lover of nature.. solitude.. campfires.. relaxing.. canoeing... it seemed that there might be a hole in my life that the rest of the world's been experiencing that I've been studiously ignoring.  I was still wigged out about rapids (fear made worse by being dunked/stuck under raft on Ottawa River last year!).. portaging (blame my crappy back).. sleeping on an airpad barely the width of me.. wearing filthy clothes.. no toilets... but I flung myself out of my comfort zone and down the French River (the very same river of 1993 rapids trauma) this August long weekend.  Luckily I had two very experienced and awesome guides - Kristy and Evan, backcountry campers extraordinaire, instructed to remake some memories for me, and my very strong hubby who is more like a mule or workhorse of some sort.. so I had a feeling all was going to be ok!

Mrs. & Cap'n Camping

My husband, the mule, frequently seen carrying 2 60L backpacks - one on front, one on back!

I just wanted to do a short replay about the weekend and why it was so lovely.  Short because I'm still super tired!  I had trouble falling asleep last night, perhaps missing my 18" wide self-inflating airpad and collapsible camping pillow filled with chunks of foam, or the sleeping bag cover filled with clothing I used as a body pillow :P  So I am still pooped today.. but happy pooped!

We paddled 10 km downstream on the French River out of (roughly) the Walmsley Bay area.  I say roughly because the lodge we booked with totally didn't write down Evan's reservation and therefore no canoes were waiting for us and all canoes were gone for the weekend.  The very German lodge owner in the jean shorts, bald spot/ponytail combo and apologetic smile told us "Harold made a boo boo" and offered us a motorboat instead.  I will never forget Kristy's face when she heard that suggestion - pure disgust!  Luckily Harold fixed the boo boo by setting us up with canoes at a lodge down the road, which was a relief.  He told the other lodge owner on the phone that he was sending down "Evan Uge" - she promptly asked when we arrived: "how do you spell your last name, Evan??"  "It's Hughes...". (amazing)

We portaged around three sets of rapids - each one reminding me of my childhood fear of the feeling of the river pulling me down.  Jeff and Evan braved the second set in their canoes - first canoe down: success!  Second canoe down:

Viv yelled to Evan: "are you alright?" and he yelled "noooooooo!!!" as his sunglasses began to float away from him.  He realized later it was a misleading answer (they were fine minus some scratches) and he luckily managed to snatch his shades out of the water before they were lost forever!

We scored gold with only the second campsite we checked out - on a point of land around a bend in the river, with not another soul on it (even though there was another campsite around the back side!  we basically had a double wide site) and the nicest view in probably the entire world! :)

We set up camp and ate gourmet meals (check out this salmon fanciness below!), read, relaxed and shared drinks and laughs around the campfire.

The weather was super cooperative Saturday, Sunday morning and Monday, with just a snag on Sunday when it rained on and off through the afternoon and evening.  We passed the time under ponchos and our (mostly) trusty tarp, drinking baileys and hot chocolate, and watching 2 beavers feed and rest on the shore near our site.  No bears ate our food, or us.  No one killed themselves playing in the rapids at the back of our site on Sunday (I wimped out from going down.. figured why potentially ruin a good thing! :)).  We all fell in the water while completing benign tasks like washing dishes or our faces, including Muggins who is a dog, at least 1-2 times after it rained and the lichens absorbed the rainwater and made everything quite treacherous.  We swam, skinny dipped, read good (everyone else) and trashy (me.. Dan Brown :)) novels, napped, shared our hatred for mispronounced words like "warsh" instead of "wash" and "malk" instead of "milk". We reminisced over ridiculous memories from our 10+ years of friendship, talked about our theories on life, politics, got super politically incorrect for an irretrievable 20ish minutes that I'm STILL laughing about, and ate a LOT of food. Every time there was a slight relent in feeling full, I'd reach for something else to eat. Nice job on the food Cap'n and Mrs. Camping!!!

The sun blazed out just in time for our departure on Monday morning and we paddled back under perfect skies with puffy clouds.

Overall, backcountry camping has been redeemed!  I perhaps took Evan's suggestion to pack lightly a little too seriously (all my wordly possessions in my field backpack - 30L) and may bring a few more creature comforts along next time.  My bum was definitely sore from sitting on lifejackets, bare granite or a wooden bench that Evan carved to the perfect slope which I promptly sat on and split in half.  He tried to make me feel better by reminding me that the wood was rotten and full of termites and grubs.. I appreciate the effort.  So next time - a seat pad, a hammock.. and possibly an investment in a proper thermarest and maybe ONE extra inflatable pillow.  Other than that, it was essentially outdoor, silent, solitude, gorgeous Canadian Shield and White Pine paradise, with canoeing, swimming, reading, napping and nonstop eating and laughing all thrown in for good measure!

The wildlife was amazing too - a mink swam past our canoe and shot a dirty look back at us, we watched beavers living their beavery life, saw a bald eagle soaring over the treetops, a family of waddling mergansers scurrying off a rock and woke up to the sounds of "oh sweet canada canada canada" from a white-throated sparrow each morning, and ended the day to the flutey call of a thrush at night.

I don't quite know why it took me so long to get back out there.. but I can't wait to do it again!

3 man canoe! Jeff, Kristyn, Viv

Homeward bound - Kristy and Kristyn

Fresh clothes and hot lunch at the lodge that saved the day with spare canoes!