In which nothing much seems to happen

I am trying to get back into blogging, and yet I feel nothing significant has occurred for me to write about. I am supposed to be doing a 10th step review of every day. I had emailed my sponsor about it and asked for some guidance on how best to do that. But I haven't heard from my sponsor in several days. I know he has some child custody issues, and perhaps that is keeping him busy.

There are some things at my morning job I haven't been very good at turning over. I ate over them today. Bah.

I teach my class starting Monday. I am almost prepared, but I have to come in to work anyway on Saturday so I will shore everything up for Monday then.

I just feel like I am not moving forward. I guess the good thing is that I am not moving backward?

In which there is an awakening and a moving forward.

I have finally finished my amends. I had an indirect amends to do to a bunch of people that I don't remember their last names or their name is so common i have no way of getting their contact information from the internet. I wrote out the amends on slips of paper, and then pulled each one out of a pocket, one at a time, said a prayer over the person and made amends in my heart, and then burnt the slip in a metal bowl. Outdoors. In the cold, and the wind. The next day, the ice storm came.

My sponsor tells me that one has a spiritual awakening after completing step 9. All I know is that in the middle of my amends I had the antidepressant fiasco, and a relapse. I have been getting back on track, but today two pairs of pants did not fit me. Now I may be retaining water which is why they don't fit all of a sudden, but when I was fitting into a size smaller last summer this is not heartening news.

I started emailing my food to my sponsor again. I think letting someone else (who knows what this disease is like) know of my food for the day keeps me accountable. My goal for the week is to make it to the gym the rest of the weekdays. I didnt go yesterday because of the ice storm, but I did go today.

My sponsor gave me something to read in the Big Book, and then I have to do some writing. I am asking to be willing tonight.

In which some simple truths are revealed

One of my libraries focuses on health care resources. Very popular in the health care field right now is a thing called "evidence based medicine." What this term means, is that we can assume things work by testing them. If scientific results show the desired outcome, then we can assume, by the evidence, that the treatment is effective or not effective.

While I don't have large, scientific studies for my own behaviors, I can use my own evidence to show me what I should and should not be doing. When I ate on my food plan, exercised regularly, managed my stress and worked the steps, I lost 30 pounds. When I stopped taking my antidepressant, I was unable to eat on my food plan, wake up in the morning to exercise, or manage my stress. As a result, from July to October, I gained 15 pounds. Getting back on my anti-depressant has meant crawling out of this hole in my lifestyle -- it is more than just my weight, it is my entire well being that has suffered. Evidence based self care has shown me what I need to do to keep my life in balance.

Usually for the New Year, I try to set some goals, and review my goals from last year. I don't think I achieved any of my goals from last year -- they were things like, take nutritional supplements, publish a peer reviewed article, benchmarks for exercise, etc. I did make progress on all of those things, however.

The "Big Book" talks about people who make alot of resolutions, but no decisions. Here is what I have decided to do this year:

(1) Work the steps
(2) Excersise to the best of my ability
(3) Eat what my body tells me to eat
(4) Manage my stress through yoga and meditation
(5) Work on improving my relationships with other people
(6) Manage my finances responsibly
(7) Manage my professional tasks responsibly

I guess this can all be boiled down to:

I will do what I know works for me.