Pillar of salt

That´s what I turned into (well, almost) when I stepped on the scales this morning.
Up four pounds in two days.
No, I didn´t overeat. I didn´t have bread or pasta. The chocolate boxes stayed closed, thank you.
But.
It´s been svelteringly hot hereabouts for several days. So, I´ve been sweating. A lot. Which in turn made me crave salt. And gave me the usual-for-that-kind-of-weather swollen legs.
So, what I saw on the scale this morning... is water retention.Not fat.
A look at my weight curve for the last two years pretty much confirmed the pattern. Whenever outside temperature goes beyond, say, twenty-six degrees centigrade, my weight will plateau or even go up, by around said four to six pounds. Which means weight loss just doesn´t happen in summer, even though I eat less than when it´s cooler. As I do not drink soda at all, and summer dishes at our place are mostly vegetables, that darned water retention is the only explanation for that.
Still, it´s vexing. And scary because that four-pound jump brought me back up above the limit of morbid obesity, which is a place I never wanted to go back to.
The only thing I can do now is keep away from salt, stick to my calories, and wait for the water to go away. Oh, and wear compression stockings. I did that all the time when I was at my top weight, and obviously the edema isn´t going to leave along with the extra weight, so I had hoped for too much when I believed I wouldn´t need the compression any more.
Why I tell you this? Many of us seem to be having similar problems, and put them down to failing at weight loss. Witness the lowering frequency of blog postings of some of us. They regain weight, and hide their bloggy heads in shame.
To avoid despairing,
-journal what you eat. If you ate just 2000 calories on a given day, there´s no way on earth you coukl gain four pounds of fat on that day.
-weigh yourself, before breakfast, after potty and in the nude, daily.
-watch external factors, too. How long did you sleep, was your job especially stressing, did you sit more than usual, or work out more than usual, that kind of thing.

And, most importantly, keep records of your observations. Sometimes, it takes several years of records to discern a pattern.
Like for me today.
The good thing about having discovered that pattern is that now I can stop beating myself up over it, return to my normal (less salted) eating habits, and wait for cooler weather to return along with a visit by the whooosh fairy.
No reason to retreat to the fridge, no reason to give up.

But proof, again, that losing the weight and keeping it off requires watchfulness.


Julia

Library declutter: done

I took advantage of the fact that DH´s out of town over the weekend today and pulled out all of my pocket books that were slumbering in the closed parts of my living room shelves, spreading them out on the floor and then sorting them by author.
And then... I grabbed one of those reusable shopping totes I have that can carry a whole week´s groceries... and proceeded to fill it.
First thing I noticed- I still had "double" editions around. Books I liked and which I had bought both in their original language and in translation. As I don´t really need two of the same book, I ditched the ones that were in worse shape, keeping the better ones..
Next to go: those books that are nowadays available for free via Kindle or Project Gutenberg. I am reading quite a lot of classics, but those well-thumbed Penguin editions of everything from Dickens to Bronte really don´t have to clog up my shelves any more.
Next on the list: the unfinished projects department. Some books look better in the store than when you try to read them. In the past, I used to keep these and add them to my (mental) reading list, as if they´d be less uninteresting at some nebulous point in the future. Meantimes, they, too, took up plenty of space.
Lastly, some books that had turned out to be trash, or that had disintegrated so badly that keeping them simply wasn´t worth it. 
Several hours later (I admit to browsing through the books and getting caught up in some of them) I had not one, but two of those totes full of paper to take to recycling, and enough space liberated in my bookcase that I could put two shelves´ worth of pocket books that used to be out on display into the closed compartments.

The shelves that used to house those will, for the time being, be left empty.
And my living room is one step closer to the minimalist look I want to achieve.



Julia

Poison gifts

Last night, I went for another go at my bookshelves. The worn-out tomes I mentioned in yesterday´s post were the first to go. And then I went at the hardcover shelves.
Now, as I mentioned, I don´t buy hardcover unless -there is no pocketbook edition, or- it´s a book I so like that I absolutely want a more sturdy edition to last forever.
Thus, a lot of what I have there are presents, namely, from my family.
Having somebody else buy your books for you is a tricky business at best, as in "you know my taste quite well- I already own all of these".
At worst, it´s an attempt to make someone over into what the buyer thinks that person should be.
So, from my dear family, there´s a steady influx of politicians´memoirs, travel experiences, books on theater and opera (I´m not a fan) and odd specimens of rubbish, which usually go into the shelves unread, some with their protective foils still on.
Every time I get one of these, I get angry at the thought of what useful thing the money they shelled out for that could have bought instead. I also get frustrated because I have told them quite often what I wanted, and got one of those pieces of trash instead.
To me, that shows that they are buying gifts for a person who doesn´t exist, a person who should conform to their idea of what their child should be like. Needless to say I don´t fill the bill in the least. And I sometimes think the sole purpose of those books is to make me feel guilty that I don´t.
Which doesn´t incline me in the direction of reading them, either.
Sometimes, DH reads one of those books, but there was one particular book that no one in our household would ever read, which was "gifted" when there was a serious falling-out as a slap in the face in gift wrapping. I always think it´s funny how the word "gift" in English means a present and in German it means "poison". This book definitely represented both meanings.
So, I put it into the recycling bin. I am still mulling over the fate of the other ones- they are good for keeping up those middle-class academic household pretensions when you line them up on your shelves, but then again- who watches, and who cares?
What I did, incidentally, find out was that these books are of interest to so few people that the online resales place I went to to find out if I could at least recoup some of the money wasted on that book had an offer of...9 cents. Not even a dime. And definitely not worth spending wrapping material on.
And definitely not worth keeping around just to have my hackles rise every time I come across that book.

I have better uses for the space that took up, and for my peace of mind.


Julia

Past tomes

For every period of my life, there have been books that went with it. Books that were given a plastic sticky foil protective coating, and then carried about just everywhere I was going.
Those books, to me, are synonymous with experiences from my past. They remind me of the time I bought them, the places where I read them.
They also represent, for that particular segment of time, the place I retreated to whenever things got rough in the outside world.
Some of them, even, represented rare displays of affection from people around me who, generally speaking, weren´t really affectionate.
They were books for a special time and a special place in the story of my life.

And, when that time and place was past, they ended up stored away in my bookshelf. Taken along with every move to another town, and lovingly re-shelved when unpacking the crates.
Sometimes, I would take them out, leaf through them, and put them back. Doing so made the feelings from that particular time in the past come to life- the very ones I had, back then, tried not to feel by immersing myself in those books.
They were, mostly, not very pleasant feelings.

Still, it didn´t feel right to let go of those books. They were my history, after all, weren´t they? Even if I had ceased to look at them, even if I had been reading some of them, literally, to pieces. Even if I had to hide them behind other books because their cracked and dingy spines were just too ugly to put in the front row. Even if I would, for some of those, have been acutely embarassed to have somebody know that they had been such a central part of my life once.
Every time I declutter my bookshelves, I am faced with those books. For some of them, I managed to let them go. Others are still hanging around, taunting me.

These are my next decluttering project.
If I ever wanted to read those particular works again, in the wonderful time of the internet and international online book retailers I would, probably, be able to procure another printed or even electronic version within a few days.
The actual tomes, the ones I have kept for so long, aren´t necessary for that. After all, in a book, it is the content that makes it valuable, not the dead tree it is printed on.
My past decluttering actions, when it came to books, have shown me that I almost never even think of re-reading any of the books I already decluttered, and if I do, most of the time I end up saying it is not worth my time and my money to hunt up another copy, anyway.
So why should I keep books I am not likely to re-read anyway? Preserving memories isn´t a good enough reason if they aren´t pleasant memories. And the books I am talking about don´t even make good decorations.

I know what I will be doing tonight....


Julia

The measure of enough

For the longest time, whenever I was bored, I took my boredom shopping. The glitter and sounds of the mall distracted me from feeling lonely. A chat with the salespeople or the person at the cash register made up for the human contacts I did not have otherwise. In a period of my life that preceded a rather nasty separation, hanging out at the mall saved me from having to go home and face the situation there.
Being there, of course, meant acquiring something. Sometimes it meant acquiring anything at all, just for the small surge of feeling good that came with each purchase. And most of the time, it meant acquiring something that I actually did not need.
I liked to drink flavoured teas of different kinds, so I was fair game for each and any offer of tea drinking paraphernalia. Cups, teapots, tea sieves, lacquered containers to put the tea in.
Or clothes- in the search for something that would make me look slim, or at least less fat, no week passed without my dragging home a new garment.
Or books. If I didn´t find anything else to buy, I could always drop by the bookstore.
Slowly but inexorably my flat filled with stuff. Soon, there was more stuff than I could put away. So, I bought shelves, boxes, and others of those products that promise order out of chaos.
But these, too, filled up, and still there was stuff streaming in at a steady rate.
What with stashing stuff in those boxes, just finding any particular item was beginning to be a chore. Having to triple-stack my books in overflowing shelves meant looking for a particular tome became a veritable treasure hunt.
I had reached the point where it was all too often more convenient to purchase another edition of the same item than to hunt up the one I knew I had somewhere.
I had also reached the point where the mere thought of my stuff was sufficient to freak me out. 

And then I separated from my partner of ten years for reasons of terminal incompatibility. That also meant that I had to (gasp) move to a smaller flat.
I spent several weeks culling the contents of, at least, my bookshelves. As for the household goods, it was supposed to be an amicable separation, so I let the ex have a rather generous pick of the contents of the kitchen cupboards. It was, actually, not even making a sizable dent into what I had.
To tell the truth, neither any of the books I tossed, nor any of the plates and cutlery, or kitchen electronics, nor any of the furniture I also let him take away, has ever been missed by me.
The same thing goes for the at least twenty flower pots, the trampoline, or the second set of stereo equipment.
For weeks in advance of the move, the trashcans at our place were overflowing. I also made several runs to the dump, every time dropping off a full carload of stuff.

When I moved the rest of my possessions to my new, smaller flat, I had for the first time in ages whittled them down to a point where I could, if I set up shelves in every room, really put everything *away*, meaning that there wasn´t anything left that did not have a home of its own.
The purging of several boxes full of tchotchkes that had been bought during the former relationship also made the place look tidier and more roomy.

I wish I could say it stayed that way. Alas, my shopping habits had not changed. Slowly, new pieces crept in, again filling the place up. And then there was DH, who moved into my flat with all the trappings of a second household in his wake.
So, I had to make room for these, too. Which meant that all of a sudden, the place was more stuffed than it had ever been, with half of it (or almost) not even mine to decide about whether it should remain....
The feeling of overwhelm that came with that was all too familiar.

Only now, I had that memory of better days when I could and did keep the place tidy.
And I remembered what I had to do to get to that place: toss the excess.
What kept me from starting at once was the belief that I had already let go of everything tossable.

I started out slowly, with the double sets of kitchen stuff. I had to take DH into the boat, of course, and together we picked out the things we had two of and tossed the lesser quality ones. Some gadgets I wasn´t ready to altogether part with, plus some sets of china that held too many memories of the ex, were boxed up in the cellar. (I know that´s only prolonging the inevitable, but at least they were out of my kitchen).

Strangely, or rather, to-be-expectedly, the mess did still not grow smaller. Until the day I reinforced my decluttering with a shopping embargo.
Because what I had done was make some room, and then proceed to fill it up again with new stuff. Only when I stopped shopping for new stuff, did I really start to generate free space in our flat.
I also started to question my conviction that I had nothing more to toss.
Life changes. So do the things we need for our present lifestyle.
I used to serve food on large-diameter plates. I found out that was one of the reasons I got fat. The large-diameter plates went out of use, and on to the trashcan.
I used to own at least ten different sets of trekking poles because I needed them to walk. I can walk without crutches again, so I kept just two sets of poles for DH and myself, should we ever want to go trekking.
I used to wear plenty of make-up to bolster my then-fragile self esteem. I ceased doing so when I started to lose that excess weight. Today, I keep one set of makeup for the case of there being some event to attend, the rest has been tossed.
My teapot collection, while it´s still rather sizeable, has been freed from all the specimens that would drip, or be too difficult to handle when full.. And it´s been quite a while since I last bought a new one. 
Of the china we use now, there are no more than two sets of each- not six because there might be visitors.

The best thing about all this is that there is finally free space in our flat, and it´s growing along with our decluttering.
By now, whenever I consider a purchase, I decide up front where the thing will go. If there´s no space left, something else would have to go- which quite often leads to the discovery that I am not ready to give up the old piece for the new, which means the new thing stays unbought.
I found out that works best with shoes and handbags...:).

I intend to continue on my decluttering mission, to the point where the things I do not need which are inside my household will be outside my household.
Sometimes, that requires brutal honesty with oneself . It requires exposing the fantasy selves whose equipment is stashed away under the bed or inside the wardrobe. It requires admitting to myself which hobbies, or activities, that I once thought would be great to do, have either never become a part of my life, or I stopped doing them many years ago. It requires admitting to myself that I have grown older. It requires admitting to myself which clothes, or accessories, are just a bit too... youthful for someone approaching middle age (I refuse to admit I might be there already).
And it requires facing all of those insecurities that I tried to hide behind all this stuff.

Because stuff may cover up insecurity on the outside. But it never cures it.

So, I keep on decluttering.And finding room to live the life I want, without being dragged down by the stuff of the past.


Julia

MIA in the sauna

So, what do you need for a sauna?  Heat, of course, plus those cold-water showers. Both of which we had aplenty last week. Top that off with plenty of work, plus my well-known aversion to too-hot weather, and you get.... one lazy blogger who has been MIA for over a week.
I can´t even promise to better myself as the next week is promising to be just like this one.

Over the weekend, I finally got around to downloading the most recent photographs from DH´s camera. Most recent, in that case, meaning back to the middle of last year, so, before my latest bigger weight loss.
Which meant that I could, for the first time, take a good look at what I look like when I´m no longer obese.
Actually, looking at those pix felt a bit eerie, because I haven´t yet reached the point where my internal representation of myself has caught up with how far I recondensed myself. So, it was more like, who is that slim female wearing my clothes?
Which, of course, made me look up a few of the old pictures at top weight. Seeing them today, I still can hardly believe that I did, at the time, manage to avoid the realization how fat I was looking. But that´s exactly what I did. The pictures where there were impossible-to-miss rolls of fat around my waist and a triple chin, or the ones that definitely showed my face looking like the full moon, used to be what I zapped by, or even accused the innocent camera of having done something to make me look wider.

It´s good to be rid of those fatgoggles.
Because I mustn´t ever stop being watchful if I don´t want to go back there.


Julia