Distracted By Shiny Things. And Bubbles.

I had to laugh, because in the few days between my therapist mentioning that I have indicators of Adult ADD and the day we did the actual assessment, I was in the grocery store, shopping while talking to my sister on the phone. I was walking down an aisle and suddenly put on my brakes, almost skidding to a stop.  If anyone had been walking close behind me, they would have crashed right into me.  Something had caught my eye.  It was a key chain covered with shiny pink sequiny-looking things.  I laughed as soon as I realized what I’d done, and my sister asked me, “What?”

I said, “I was just distracted by a shiny thing.”

Even though that is a humorous stereotype about ADD/ADHD (see all the items on CafePress that say things like, “I don’t have A.D.D.  I’m perfectly focu . . . Ooohhh!  Shiny!” [or "Hey, look, a chicken/squirrel/kitty/butterfly"]), I guess it got to be a stereotype due to the fact that it’s evidently often true.

Now I understand why I stare at people’s jewelry while I talk with them, and sometimes even inadvertently interrupt to tell them how pretty or captivating a particular stone is.  Funny thing is, I don’t wear much jewelry because it annoys me to feel it against my skin and I will almost constantly fidget with any rings I wear until I become annoying to myself.  I mostly just like to admire jewelry on others.

The other day, a man was visiting the office where I work, and he was wearing pretty, sparkly cuff links.  Ad he talked, he gestured with his hands.  I found my eyes following his cuff links and not really hearing all of what he was saying.

One Saturday a few months ago, I was yard-sale hunting with my sister.  I was driving, and we needed to make a U-turn on the main highway where I live.  I pulled into the turnaround opening in the median and saw that there were no cars coming, and as I pulled into the lanes going in the other direction, we noticed that a gas station / auto repair business had a bubble machine going in their parking lot.  I slowed down to look at the bubbles and suddenly noticed a car rapidly approaching from behind.  Fortunately, I saw it in time to hit the gas and get out of the way, but ever since, our private joke when either of us (ok, usually me) is distracted is, “Ooooh!  Buuuubbbbles!”

An ADDitional Piece of The Puzzle

So, I emailed my therapist last week about something (not related to the topic of this post), and I mentioned that I have so much trouble switching my focus from one thing to another.  If I’m on top of things at work and have a productive day, then when I get home I can’t seem to switch gears and take care of the things I need to do in my personal life because my head is still at work.  If I get involved in working on a novel or a web site or some other project at home, then when I go to work, I can’t seem to stop thinking about that project and focus on my work.

My therapist commented that difficulty transitioning is a strong indicator of adult ADD.  I’d actually wondered, four or five years ago, if I might have adult ADD, but I quickly discounted the idea because (1) I’ve never been hyperactive a day in my life . . . or really, anything that even resembles any usage of the word “active”, and (2) I’m sometimes very able to  focus, even to an extreme.  I have a small web design business and have a half-dozen or so web sites that I maintain and I often build new ones for personal use, and I’ve been known to work on a web site for 14 hours straight, focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else except the occasional need to pee or eat or drink water or coffee.

As it turns out, hyperfocus is a symptom, and can be a good thing, when channelled properly.  I guess I just need to learn how not to forget to take care of other things that are important.

I found this ADD web page, and the majority of what it says is so on-the-mark.  My therapist offered to do a formal assessment, or not, as I chose.  I wavered a little, thought about it, and then finally decided to just do it and find out.  What could it hurt to find out?  The results were pretty clear.

And this explains so much.

Now I am realizing that finishing NaNoWriMo felt like such a big deal to me for very good reason.  All the introspection, all the trying to figure out the psychological reason(s) for my apparent fear of success, and coming up with nothing that really rang a bell, other than “If I succeed, people will expect me to keep succeeding, and I’m not confident I can do that” . . . it makes a lot more sense now.

The never finishing anything (one of my friends pointed that out to me just recently, that in the three years since she’s known me, I have begun several projects, novels, etc., and she never heard me ever say I’d finished any of them, and I’ve been this way for years and years), the hyperfocusing on one thing while forgetting to do other very important things, the stupid mistakes at work that would (and understandably should) have gotten me fired a long time ago if my boss hadn’t given me so many chances to redeem myself, the way I so often “zone out” in conversations (that used to drive one of my exes batshit – I don’t mean to do it), the inability to get to work on time more than about six times a year . . . so many things make more sense now.

I hadn’t been aware there was still another piece of the puzzle that I didn’t have.  I’d been blaming all my focus and concentration problems on the different health issues I have that can all come with those symptoms.  That, and I did believe that underneath it all I must just be a lazy loser.  I thought this was as good as I was going to get, and that I would just have to accept it.

In spite of making the decision to go back to school, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I knew enough to try and prioritize what I’ll need to do before I can start, like getting into a habit of eating healthy and losing some weight, so I can be a bit less sleepy all the time and have more stamina, as well as being in the habit of planning ahead with meals so I won’t be left to eat from vending machines at school (which would be difficult because of the gluten and also wouldn’t help in my fight against fatigue or my weight loss attempts).  Knowing about the ADD, though, is a good thing, because now I can finally let go of that “I’m-a-loser” mantra and start forgiving myself and working toward solutions.

My therapist loaned me her copy of Driven to Distraction and I started reading it last night.  I’ve already found some information in it that I think will be very helpful.  I did have to laugh, though, at the idea of reading a book about how to deal with ADD when reading retention and reading the same paragraph over and over are symptoms of ADD.  But the authors both have ADD, so I’m figuring if they could manage to write it, I can manage to read it.  And I do read a lot.  It’s just been taking me longer to read something in the last several years than it used to.  I’d been wondering why I was having so much trouble following a novel anymore.  I can never guess whodunnit anymore because I confuse and forget little details about certain characters and mix them up.

I’m even thinking the reason I tend to eat the same thing for dinner most nights is possibly ADD-related, since I have so much trouble planning ahead and figuring out all the steps involved in making something different each night.  I’m also even more pleased, now, with my decision to just make that quirk work for me and go ahead and eat mostly the same things on my diet as well.  And it’s still working, so far.

Leaving you with some interesting myths from the web site I linked to in the fourth paragraph:

Adult ADD Myths: Fact or Fiction

MYTH: ADD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.

FACT: ADD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.

MYTH: Everybody has the symptoms of ADD, and anyone with adequate intelligence can overcome these difficulties.

FACT: ADD affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes has symptoms of ADD, only those with chronic impairments from these symptoms warrant an ADD diagnosis.

MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.

FACT: A person with ADD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD usually overlaps with other disorders.

MYTH: ADD doesn’t really cause much damage to a person’s life.

FACT: Untreated or inadequately treated ADD syndrome often severely impairs learning, family life, education, work life, social interactions, and driving safely.

MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.

FACT: Many adults have struggled all their lives with unrecognized ADD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to the usual treatments.

Whoa

I checked my stats this morning and saw that my visits jumped to 136 in one day.  For the Fluctuations entry?  That didn’t make a lot of sense.  But then I followed a link to alphainventions.com and I see that was where the traffic came from.  I went to the About page and read most of it, and it’s over my head.  I don’t get it, but boiled down, it seems the key is to update.

Fluctuations

So, Saturday morning, the scale said I’d lost 7 pounds total so far.  Yay!  But wait, Sunday morning, I’d gained back a pound and a half.  This morning, it’s at 6.5.  I’m just glad I didn’t start fluctuating like that in the first few days.  I didn’t drink as much water on Saturday, and I wonder how much that had to do with the change.  I did notice that my fingers were swollen when I went to bed Saturday night.

I spent last evening cooking.  I made beef and broccoli and rice with garlic and ginger, and I made a big Crock Pot full of beef stew.  I froze both in individual containers for lunches, and I still have some of the red-pepper chicken I made and froze with sweet potato and green beans.  Tonight I’ll cook the other chicken that is in my fridge.  I’m not sure yet how I’ll make it.  I’ve been thinking of a ginger-orange chicken I made awhile back with broccoli.  It was really good.  It was a long while back, so I’ll have to remember what I put into it.

That’s about it, for now.

Exercise Plans

Five and a half pounds, as of this morning!

I haven’t started exercising yet. I wanted to begin to establish one combination of new habits first, before trying to add another. The eating-right thing is going really well and I’m very happy with my progress. I think I’ll start my exercising next week.

Back in 2004, when I lost about 45 pounds doing Atkins, I was dancing for exercise.  Nothing special.  I just made some mix CD’s and played them on a little portable CD player with headphones (ok, not as little as an MP3 player, but anyway) and I danced in my living room.  It was fun, it was private, and it seemed to work.

I like walking for exercise also, and I’ll be doing that too, but I can dance in my living room no matter what the weather is like or what time of day or night it is.

Months ago, I ordered two different sets of DVD’s.  One is Hip Hop Abs and the other is Island Girl Dance Fitness Workouts, the Hula Abs & Buns and the Cardio Hula.  I think alternating between them will make for good variety.  I tried both when I first got them, and they’re both fun, but the Hula is really fun.

So, those are my exercise plans.  I’m thinking every-other evening.  Mornings would be better, if I got up early enough.  That’s a whole other challenge, though.  One thing at a time.

Combining Diet Plans

I’m liking this whole concept of lowering caloric intake and then seeing corresponding weight loss.  I love it when things work they way they’re supposed to.

Because “150 pounds to lose” is a huge goal to look at head-on, I decided to break it into five 30-pound goals.  I’m 14% of the way to my first goal.

Note: The rest of this entry carries a severe boredom warning, unless you are here specifically because you are interested either in hearing about my diet or learning about the Inflammation Factor in foods. 

The diet I am following is a modified blend of more than one diet plan.

Back in, oh, I think it was 2005, I ordered a diet plan that was advertised on TV.  It’s one where you answer a bunch of questions to find out which body type you are and then follow the plan for that body type.  I forget what they call my body type, but my type has the slowest metabolism of all the types in their results.  The diet is one where you eat five or six small meals each day.  It’s sometimes hard to remember to stop and eat every few hours, but I’m getting the hang of it.

When I tried this diet in 2005, I had more trouble sticking to it, which is why I have modified it a little bit.  As the diet is written, it is very strict and does not include any dairy products, nuts, bread, packaged foods . . . it’s pretty much lean meats and fish, vegetables, fruits, and carbs like potatoes or rice or sweet potatoes.  (That is for the first six weeks, to improve the metabolism, and then it’s ok to slowly add extra items, I think it said – I didn’t stick to it for six full weeks the first time.)  

The restrictiveness of the diet was a big part of what helped to confirm my suspicions about my gluten intolerance, however, when I tried it in ‘05.  I didn’t start the gluten free diet until ‘07, but having done Atkins in ‘04 and then this diet in ‘05, I really noticed a difference when I cut out bread.  In fact, I remember noticing how much better I felt when I started the Atkins diet, and then the moment I discovered low-carb bread, I started to feel bad again.

But I digress.

The proteins, vegetables, fruits, and carbs are broken down into categories on this diet, and the plan allows for x-amount from one category or a different amount from another category, depending on the calories, fats, and sugars.  The snacks are always a protein and a fruit and the meals (lunch and dinner) are a protein, a vegetable, and a carb.  Breakfast is usually a protein and a carb, but I’ve also seen an example that lists a protein and half a grapefruit, which is the only time I’ve seen a fruit with a meal.  I’ve been eating gluten-free oatmeal and hard boiled eggs for breakfast.  That’s easy to do and I like it.

The modifications I made were to add cottage cheese and almonds to the foods I eat, as well as apples, even though they are in the category of fruits that I shouldn’t be eating until after the first six weeks.  I’m in this for the long haul, and so I’m figuring that as long as it’s working and I’m seeing results, I’m doing ok, and by allowing a few more choices, I’m making it easier on myself.

So anyway, the idea behind a small serving of protein with every meal and snack, as well as the five or six small meals aspect, is to keep blood sugar levels balanced through the day, avoiding big spikes and dips.  That must also be the reason that fruits are at snack times and (other) carbs and vegetables are at mealtimes, to keep the carbs/sugars balanced.

The other diet plan I’m working into the mix has to do with the Inflammation Factor.  I found the NutritionData web site awhile back and have used it off and on to check calories, carb counts, etc.  They also include an Inflammation Factor rating for each item, and I clicked on their “What’s This?” link to find out more.  This is what it says:

The IF (Inflammation Factor) Rating™ estimates the inflammatory or anti-inflammatory potential of individual foods or combinations of foods by calculating the net effect of different nutritional factors, such as fatty acids, antioxidants, and glycemic impact.

How to interpret the values: Foods with positive IF Ratings are considered anti-inflammatory, and those with negative IF Ratings are considered inflammatory. The higher the number, the stronger the effect.

The goal is to balance negative foods with positive foods so that the combined rating for all foods eaten in a single day is positive. 

I followed the “Read More About the IF Rating” link and ordered the book by Monica Reinagel.  I received the book and have skimmed it, but so far haven’t read all of it yet.  I understand the basic gist of combining foods so that the total IF rating for the meal (and for the day) is positive, though, and I have been combining my choices according to that.

For example:

2 oz. of pan-fried chicken breast meat = -16
2 oz. canned pink salmon =  +280 (I make patties out of it with flax seed and fry them in olive oil.  Flax seed and olive oil should raise the IF rating even more.)
1/2 c. baked sweet potato =  +186
1/2 c. instant mashed potatoes = -57.5 (This is when prepared with milk, which I don’t use, so my number would probably be slightly better.) 

I eat the chicken with the sweet potato and the salmon with the mashed potatoes so that both meals average out with positive numbers (I didn’t list the vegetables here because the ones I eat all have positive ratings anyway).  Same with snacks.  Four oz. of cottage cheese is -25, four oz. of unsweetened applesauce is -5.5, 1/4 cup of cubed cantaloupe is +16.75 and 1 oz. of salted, dry roasted almonds is +56.  I’m eating the cottage cheese with the cantaloupe and the applesauce with the almonds.  The cottage cheese / cantaloupe combination is still in the negative, but that will be balanced out with the rest of the day’s numbers.

I just did a quick calculation, and on a typical day, I should wind up with about a 195.  The NutritionData web site says a typical target is 50 per day or higher.

The thing that keeps this from being too overwhelmingly complicated for me is that I’m capitalizing on one of my weirder quirks rather than trying to force myself to endure too much change too fast: I’m the epitome of “creature of habit”.  

Before I was gluten free (I cringe when I admit this), I would eat the same meal from McDonalds for lunch and dinner every day and not get tired of it.  I went gluten free and then started making melt sandwiches with gluten free bread every single night for dinner, and often for lunch on the weekends.  I know.  Crazy, huh?  I suppose that means I’m lazy and unimaginative in the kitchen, though I can cook, if I want to.  I just don’t seem to do the whole meal-planning thing very well.  Part of the problem has been money – it’s cheaper and less complicated to make sandwiches, despite the high cost of gluten free bread.  And part of the problem has been my fluctuating moods and memory / focus levels.  Sometimes it’s just too much to plan that far ahead.  That has been a problem when I’ve tried to diet in the past.  I’d be going along fine and then hit a bit of an icy patch with depression or fatigue and I’d be leaving for work with no lunch prepared and no real plan for what to do about it, and I’d wind up just eating whatever, and blowing the diet.

So instead of beating myself up and trying to force change in two major areas at once (the “creature of habit” thing and my food addictions), I decided to taylor the diet to my established habits.  Since I like for dinner to be something I can make very quickly with little fuss and since I am capable of eating the same thing every night without going nuts, I picked out an easy meal I can make every night that can become as much of a habit as my melt sandwiches did (salmon patties, instant mashed potatoes, and green beans).

 I’ve been eating the same thing every day for breakfast, too.  I eat breakfast at work because I take amino acids in the morning that require not eating any proteins within an hour or so, so every night, I measure my oatmeal into a plastic bowl with a lid and add Splenda and cinnamon for the next morning, and I keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge.  At work, I add water to the oatmeal and microwave it.

I can cook lunch meals ahead, once a week, and freeze them to take to work, and I can cook pretty much the same three or four meals to keep it easy and uncomplicated, and on the occasion that I feel especially creative I can change it up with something different.  During the next few weeks, I’m going to be working on cooking ahead enough so that I have lunches for about three weeks, of about three different meals, and then each week I can cook a week’s worth of one of the meals and keep rotating them so I don’t eat the same lunch every day, for some variety.

There.  I am putting my quirky weirdnesses to good use.  At least, some of them.

Coming soon: a post about my exercise plans.

Results . . . and Results

I saw my nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office last Monday morning to go over the results of the Holter monitor and echocardiogram, and it is mild MVP, which I already knew was not a big deal as long as it’s mild.  I’m supposed to make an appointment to see the cardiologist, but I kept forgetting to do that last week.  I’ll be sure and do it today.  I have to have bloodwork done again, too, though I don’t really understand why my NP wants it again so soon, since I just had it done in September and everything came back great.  But, ok.

The cardiologist wrote in the report that a stress test might be a good idea, so I guess maybe he’ll order one.  I’ve never had one, and how well I will do can vary greatly, depending on whether my back is bad that day and whether it’s a bad fatigue-day or not.  Too bad I can’t predict those in advance.

I live in a second-floor apartment, and I use the nightly climbing of the stairs when I get home as a gauge as to what level the fatigue is.   Climbing stairs at my weight will always make me somewhat out of breath, but on the bad fatigue days, it’s so much more pronounced, along with aching in my legs.  I’ve been making a more concerted effort at sleeping more regular hours (instead of broken sleep, like I’ve been doing for a long time) and not forgetting to take my vitamins.  Those two things do make a surprising difference.

I’m sure he will tell me to lose weight, and of course I am aware of how that will help in so many ways, but one thing that I’m finding comfort in is that MVP isn’t caused by obesity.  In fact, one article I read said that a large percentage of people who have it are tall and thin.  Well, I’m tall.

But of course, while I don’t buy into the blanket belief that a person cannot possibly be both healthy and overweight (my blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol have always been perfect and I have no heart disease), I do know I will feel a great deal of relief when I weigh less.  Moving around will be easier, my back will hurt less, I’ll have more energy, and I’ll be able to scratch any part of my back that itches without needing a back scratcher or other long instrument.  (That’s one of those weird little things one might not think of if they have never been very overweight.)  I miss being flexible, and being able to sit with my feet tucked under me on the couch, and not being embarrassed when I have to pick up something I’ve dropped on the floor and my difficulty is obvious.

So, I’ve been trying for a long time to adjust my mindset to start a diet again, and this, I guess, helped.  I started Friday, in a moment of deciding whether to go to the health food store while I was out on my lunch break to buy some of my gluten free bread.  Bread is one of those things that I am much better off not having in the house if I’m dieting, because the temptation to make “melts” for every meal is too great.  (And grilled cheese or toast or a cheese sandwich as a snack.)  I was questioning whether I was ready  to start the diet yet, feeling a little unprepared mentally, but I had already gone as far, a few days earlier, as to make a shopping list of the foods I would need in order to eat right for a week or ten days.  I opted to skip the bread and went directly to the grocery store, where I bought the items on my list, and it was officially “on” from that moment.

I weighed myself first thing Saturday morning, and by this morning I had lost three pounds.  It was such an awesome feeling to see a drop immediately (the first half-pound was gone by Sunday morning)!  For a few years, as the PMDD and gluten intolerance symptoms were reachng their peak before I figured out what the problem(s) was/were, I had the damnedest time trying to lose weight.  I would start a diet, and even after a week or two, would see either no change or a weight gain.  Well-meaning people would tell me that “muscle weighs more than fat” and that it must be all that exercising I was doing, but all I was doing was walking, not building muscle.  Doctors gave me “the look” – the one that says they think you’re a whack-job.  Some people thought I must not really be dieting, only claiming to, or I was doing it wrong.  Once I went gluten free and started taking Yaz for my PMDD, I automatically dropped several pounds without trying, and then remained at that new weight, though still way too high, until very recently.  I wasn’t aware I’d begun to gain again until I was weighed on the doctor’s scale the last couple times.

I’m thrilled to see that immediate result.  It gives me the “want to” to keep working at it.  It’s the way it’s supposed to work.