Better late than never, I’ve been thinking about what worked and what didn’t work for me in 2014.
What worked
Lexapro: I don’t know why I need to take an anti-depressant. I’m not depressed. It’s anxiety, I guess although for me it manifests as irritability.
Anyway, 2014 was the most peaceful year I can remember, and I’m thinking it was a chemically-induced peace. During the homily on New Year’s day, the priest talked about how all peace comes from God. Sometimes God even works through big, bad pharma.
Floradix: I’m mildly anemic and notice a big drop in energy when I don’t take this liquid iron supplement regularly.
What didn’t work:
Cow brain supplements (i.e., bovine pituitary gland pills): “prescribed” for me by my witch doctor by way of pressing down on my arm, these made me feel crazily irritable. It didn’t help that I tried to wean off Lexapro at the same time (another thing that didn’t work), but even once I got back on Lexapro, these continued to make me feel irritable. Maybe I didn’t give them a fair chance, but I’m not going back.
What worked:
Magnificat magazine. I resisted subscribing to this for years because of the expense and because I already own a breviary. Silly Laura.
Audiobooks: for the girls, mostly rented for free through a library consortium. We are loving the Ramona series. And Frog and Toad, read by the author, is a delight.
Chiropractic/massage: My back is the best it’s been in a long time. It starts getting out of whack again when I don’t exercise for a while though, which brings up–
BodyFlow: I love this exercise class. I only make it once a week and that’s only if we aren’t sick. But it’s the perfect combination of stretching, relaxation, and strengthening.
Fabulous Forever: It’s a stretching DVD for old people, and I love it. It feels great.
What didn’t work:
Pilates at Gold’s Gym: Hurt my back no matter how carefully I modified.
T-Tapp: A little more on that here
What worked:
Paper plates: I meant to add this to my goals post–I hereby resolve to eat more often off of paper plates! Better to eat healthy food off of paper plates than convenience food off of fine china!
What didn’t work:
Red food dye: Girl 1 had three rough weeks at school in November, after doing really well for the first two months. The only thing I could think of that had changed in her routine was that I had given her over the counter cough medicines regularly, and those medicines all have red dye in them. We cut out the dye and, upon her return to school after Thanksgiving break, her behavior greatly improved. We’re avoiding artificial food dyes now.
Every diet I “tried”:
The
Christian idealdiet has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried [for more than two weeks].”— G.K. Chesterton, ed. by me
- The No-S Diet: Ha! Yeah, no.
- Calorie counting using My Fitness Pal–There was a time when I could lose weight just by keeping my daily calories under 2,000. Not anymore.
- Weight Watchers–I started off on their “Simply Filling” program and found myself pigging out on low-fat microwave popcorn, sugar-free jello, Weight Watchers brand shakes, and fat-free everything. A low point was when I tried fat-free ricotta cheese. It’s an abomination. The alternative to the Healthy Start is the traditional point-counting method, but I didn’t feel like paying for what is basically counting calories plus weekly meetings I didn’t enjoy.
- Thin Within–a prayer/ positive thinking method of eating only when you are hungry. It makes sense, it really does. And it’s still my goal. But food has too much of a hold on me for this method to work on its own. A dilemma I run into is trying to eating slowly and mindfully when sharing a meal with the two resident barbarians of the house. Eating with them is stressful in itself, but it doesn’t work to eat separately from them for each meal. So.
We’re back to Perfect Health Diet, which I went on initially because food has such a hold on me. It’s not a panacea but it worked better than anything else I’ve tried. Also, Pat wants to go back on it. So here we go again.
And the barbarians are waking so I need to end this abruptly.
What worked and didn’t work for you in 2014?