How do I get off the sugar train??

This isn’t going to be a sophisticated (I could barely even spell sophisticated there… took many attempts.. *sigh*) post. This is a rant.

A rant about SUGAR.

About how it tastes so fucking good. But so fucking bad for us.

And with that I just mean calories and fat and weight gain and etc, from a general perspective. Because I do also know there is the complete anti-sugar lifestyle that is oh-so prominent in places like LA. Where it is the supposed devil. That any sugar is bad, and children are denied sweets and it’s madness (from my own un-researched perspective). And I want to look into those claims and understand that. But that’s taking it to the extremes.

But it’s also, eating all this sugar, all the time, it just can’t be good for the body. Apart from the obvious making you overweight etc, but just how it makes the body feel and be. I think we all know what that “junk hangover” feels like. The body just does not feel good. (Again something I definitely need to research into..)

But goddamm it is GOOD. How can you not have a treat once in a while??

And that’s my problem. I start and I DON’T STOP.

And it is INFURIATING. I love and HATE IT. Cause I eat an excessive amount. And it makes me feel so good as I eat it. But it is such a TEMPORARY good feeling. And then you want more to repeat the good feeling.

But inevitably there will be realisation that you’ve eaten too much. And (for me) the guilt sets in. And all the worry about how I’m meant to be eating good today. And I won’t be on target. And I’m such a disappointment. And I’m weak. Which just stresses me out. And causes me to be more unhappy and anxious and stressed.

And then I eat more.

I just came back from work, where I had gone to the shop in work (THE SHOP IN MY WORK SELLS ALL THE EASTER CHOCOLATE AND I HATE THAT I KNOW THIS AT ALL TIMES), and I had eaten a lot. “To give myself energy for the next few hours of the on-call”. And then all it did was make me more tired and bleugh. And then I was pissed-off at myself. And I’m still tired (I’m ALWAYS tired). So then I go to the petrol station on the way home, before my petrol is low. And before I know it, I’ve reached for treats “for tonight only”. And not just a single snack bar. Ohhh nooo. I get the big packs and/or the multi-offers. And now I feel sick and full. And again annoyed at myself. And tired.

AND THIS IS THE THIRD DAY IN A ROW I’VE DONE THIS.

Where does the motivation go? Why do I give in so easily? I know better. I know I do. I think it constantly. I can tell you “2+2=4”. But I have no idea where “2” is to found or how to keep it.

I’m tired. Mentally and physically tired of being on this roundabout.

I fought and gave up alcohol. 4 months sober. But I’ve replaced it with another addiction. I’ve just got to work out how to cut this out. Work it out of my day, my routine. My need.

I guess I’ve got to replace it with something else. The “good” that food gives me is temporary. What will make me happy in the long run? Can I make that more important to me and the quick buzz of chocolate?

I guess that’s the part I need to work out. Follow me through this journey.

Wish I wasn’t doing another “starting again” title

I can’t believe it’s been 2 months. Time has flowwwwn. It’s been incredibly busy – but then again, who isn’t busy these days?

September and October, and somehow half of November.

I was busy, I was stressed, and I wasn’t looking after myself (yes, yes, despite saying I would on previous posts… this is the theme of my life). I wasn’t drinking alcohol – so my go to chill in the evening after a stressful day was eating junk food. And I ate a lot of it. It would not be unusual to have a large bag of popcorn (Sweet Butterkist is sooo good…) and a full tub of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food (my favourite). And probably more.

And then I would have guilt for that. So I would stress more. And the vicious cycle would continue.

I’ve always thought I’ve been told that it’s been shown that sugar has been proven to be addictive. I truly believe in emotional eating as an addictive behaviour. However, somebody told me recently that it’s not – there’s not any proven biochemical proof of addiction. So this will definitely be an area I am going to look into someday (one day the link will be – here – )

I did run an 8k in the Amsterdam TCS marathon festival. Amsterdam is such a great place. Had a fantastic time. And I ran it in 49mins, which I was truly surprised at – my training was very suboptimal (if we can even call it training..). But I am overjoyed at it, and motivated to keep running and keep my fitness. Although my friend did the half-marathon and she also was “undertrained”.. and then ran it in 1h 50… I can only dream to one day achieve that with all the preparation in the world!!

And then I got injured. The week after – survived basketball training fine. Two days later, warming up, went to do a sprint from standing and strained my calf muscle. Tried to a lay-up and it wasn’t having it. I was devastated. Such shit timing. Didn’t get to play at all, and then basically didn’t exercise for a while (which was not the right way to handle it… but see below…). So that really interfered with any training ideas I had been motivated to do.

Then, I fell off the sober wagon. I had achieved 3 months sober, I was so proud of me. But I hadn’t quite achieved any state of mental nirvana.. and with a stressful week, a sick patient experience which didn’t go very well, then a Halloween party (which I hosted) was too much to resist. To be fair, it did all start because I accidentally opened an actual alcoholic beer instead of the non-alcoholic beer of the same brand I had in the fridge. I was half way through before I realised. And then fun chaos with costumes and ripping things and mayhem… and shots were mentioned… and taken. It was a brilliant night… until I was up still up at 5am buzzing.

Thought I’d learnt my lesson (not a fun hangover), but a trip home, some family stresses, and attending a wedding with brilliant friends I only get to see when home, and the ex-partner in situ and the free wine at the reception ended up in my hands… Fast forward through many shots and excess alcohol, and yup, Pauline is still awake at 5am and more chaos ensued.

I am just tired of it. One drink opens me to a world of chaos. I need to look after me, to make sure the worlds stresses don’t lead to me giving into that one drink. And that will take a lot of work. And I really want to document that journey – regularly, truthfully, – in this blog.

And that will involve me trying to get fitter and healthier. That is a crucial part to me feeling better about myself. Not only does exercise make me feel much better mentally and physically, I will feel an overall better of myself if I am healthier and happier.

But that will not be easy, and I am not naïve to think it will be. I need a system and a method that I can stick with to make my world better. I can’t feel overwhelmed with trying to stick to rabbit foods or truly restrictive diets. Nor will I exercise 2 hours every day. This is unrealistic and unattainable. And goddam I need chocolate in my life.

So how to do it? What is the right way to make long term realistic manageable weight loss and stay sane? Even with my medical training, I’m still not entirely sure. But I have some ideas. And I really want to get into the research and see what really is out there. And I will share that with you all, hopefully in a way we can all understand. Hopefully, that will be the PMA Way. And I’m excited to truly get it going.

Featured

A month flew by – starting again

Oh dear, it has been a while since I’ve posted. I will try to be more regular with my posts (in my head my therapist is telling me to stop giving my self to much “to-dos”… but this is something I really want to do..).

To be honest, I’ve not been very good.

I started well after my previous posts. I just focused on looking after myself a bit more, eating less junk in general. And then I introduced some exercise. And I actually lost 3 pounds by the 2^nd week (one day I will make a graph – and link it here). But overall, my mental health and general energy levels weren’t great- and haven’t been good for a long time. In discussion with my own therapist and GP, we decided to change me to a different anti-depressant.

Not gonna lie, the transition has been pretty rough. In retrospect it was pretty badly timed. The new doctors start in the NHS on the first Wednesday in August. That’s a lot more stress and work added to an already busy and stressful job. And then I went to a family wedding, involving a flight back to Belfast. Where the airline managed to completely mess up and tagged my bag with the wrong name and flight. No surprises, I did not have my bag to go to the wedding. So Mum and I had to run about on a mad shopping spree (I hate shopping at the best of times). But we missed the ceremony.

It was all exhausting. Whether the medication change was a coincidence or not, who knows. But this week I have just focused on sleeping. Expecting nothing else of myself but sleep. Coming home from work, sitting on the sofa, watching TV (I’ve re-discovered Glow-Up, the reality show in pursuit of Britain’s next Make-up artist. And. I LOVE. IT.), and eating what I wanted. Because I did not have the mental capacity to find a way to persuade myself not to eat it all. But with going to bed at 8pm each night (still not sleeping great overall, but better to at least go to bed early), and I think my body slowly getting used to the new med, I have began to feel a bit more human.

The weekend off also helped – I had 15 hours of sleep (broken, but hey) and then went to a lovely orchestral concert on movie soundtracks such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. I LOVED IT. I used to the play the flute in a brass band as a teenager, in the “Belfast School of Music Concert Band” (how fancccy). I played pieces such as “The Fellowship” and the Star Wars main tunes. The nostalgia was incredible, and I was smiling throughout the whole thing. Made me want to go and dig out my flute- it’s in one of these cupboards somewhere… but maybe I’ll just put that at the bottom of the To-Do list for now..

In reflection after the concert, I need to remember how to be me. When I was a teenager in school, I played my musical instruments, participated in multiple sports, succeeded academically, and still had time for video games – without hating it all. In reflection, I was always stressed and I did have a lot of anxiety. So maybe doing it all wasn’t the best overall for me. But it has led to me having an interest and passion in a lot of different things, and I need to re-kindle those interests in a balanced and healthy way. Instead of lying on a sofa and stuffing myself with junk food. And don’t get me wrong – there’s definitely a time and a place for watching a good film or TV series, in fact I have loads to watch. But in a way that is the right thing for me and good for me, not just a way to shut life out and feed myself happy hormones through lots (and lots and lots) of junk food.

In good news though, no alcohol! Not a drop. Even given all the stresses: a hen do, a wedding, and lost baggage (and shopping!!). 1 month, 1 week. And I am so very proud of that.

So I start again – try to have a bit more control. Little and often. Eat less, move more. But I believe that is the reality of weight loss – it will never be a straight line and there will be less good times than others. It’s just about keeping going and finding out what works over all. And I’m back on the horse, for now. Let’s see how it goes.

The first proper post

Written late on Friday 29th July 2022

Just start writing, Pauline.

That’s what my Mum told me – just start writing Pauline. Has told me for so long. I have talked about this blog for years. I’m sure my friends and family are sick of hearing about it. But I’ve always put it off – too busy (so damn fecking busy – studying or the flat or whatever work extra-curricular I’d taken on), too hungover or maybe afraid of this just being shit or afraid of exposing my true self, and being vulnerable to actual attack (and not just the crazy I make up in my head).

Last night, my last night shift of 4, was one of the worst I’ve had. I’m a doctor in the NHS; and it is in crisis. We are being worked to the bone. And still made to feel like shit, whilst working our asses off. And I have suffered. I am mentally and physically unwell as a result of the chronic stress of working and “training” under the NHS.

My shift last night was 9pm-9am. I started the shift being understaffed and then receiving insufficient handover to be able to start the shift efficiently. (I am not blaming the day team staff, I know they had an extremely busy shift and had worked their asses off and would’ve done all they could. I know at some stage you have to go home and you cannot tie everything up. I know, I have been there). I spent the first two hours trying to work out a bed crisis – which really sick elderly gentleman gets the last of the “high dependency” beds? And this is not a skill you are taught; you somehow pick it up, usually when suddenly it is your decision to make as the senior medical doctor on overnight. Over the course of the night, I had extremely unwell patients, family members yelling at me and threatening me with complaints over the previous teams communication, patients in the Emergency Department with 17 hour waits for beds, a long list of patients waiting to be seen, and having a sick young woman with a new malignancy and multiple complications, who now needed to be supported by the Intensive Care Unit. I had my first break at 7:15 am. That’s 10 hours non-stop and high acuity patients. And yet, my morning ended being grilled by a consultant about patients that another doctor (whom we had to borrow overnight because we were short) had clerked in. I felt wholly inadequate, done, and ashamed at the crap handover we gave. But I.had.not.stopped.for.10.hours. They don’t care. And it has left me done and feeling defeated.

There is an element that I should have better “resilience” and self-worth to not be so affected by the interaction with the consultant. But when you are exhausted, trying to please, trying to prove yourself and wanting to have done everything to the levels of excellence somehow expected of you, I was very much beating myself up. I did not, I do not, like being inadequate.

And so I have had enough. Enough of sacrificing myself to the ever turning cogs of a failing NHS. Because nobody else really cares about you. You can still give everything, beyond everything, and still not be enough. And only I am left with an unhappy me on the sofa at the end of the day (or night shift morning…).

I am obese. I am unfit. I have back pains. My muscles are sore and tight. Yet, ironically, I do love exercise. I am an endocrinology and diabetes registrar. I have an interest in metabolic physiology and weight loss. I know what I should be doing. But I am stressed. I am unhappy. I am exhausted and I am lost. I could not do what I knew was good for me, for so many years. So many others things took priority.

I want to be better. I also did not expect my blog to start as a rant about the shiteness of the NHS. I was hoping to tread lightly away from the political, professional and moral pitfall this could be. But, unfortunately, this had been a major contributor to my own illnesses and therefore a driving force behind needing to understand further a lot of the topics I will write about. I want to be healthier and happier. Like, I think, the rest of the population does as well. I hope you’ll join me on my journey.