Jacquelyn's Space

Are they sure this guy isn’t from Poland?? LOL

 

 

 

Tonight I decided to put my Ipod on while I write. Bad idea. The first two songs were old favorites and now I just want to forget writing and sing my heart out. I haven’t done that in a while – I don’t sing like I used to; I don’t listen to music as much as I used to. I think that is a byproduct of depression. I am starting to come out of it and hopefully gaining more energy so now I can allow music back in my life. I just can’t sing and let in all out tonight because I have a lot of writing to do and my husband and stepson are home – I can’t belt out all my favorite love songs for fear of embarrassing myself. I would probably scare the crap out of them too, ha.

I wonder how many calories singing burns? I looked it up – sitting and singing for an hour burns about 157 calories. Standing and singing for the same time burns around 367. Awesome! I will have to remember that. I usually stand and sit while I am singing and my ‘concerts’ usually last at least an hour.  I could add singing at least once a week to my exercise/activity regimen.

Activity Calculator:

http://health.discovery.com/centers/cholesterol/activity/activity.html

I sometimes think that if I sang every time I got a really bad food craving, I might not eat, I might forget about the craving. I have never really tried it because (my will power isn’t strong enough) I am weak when it comes to food. I want to eat! Well there is always my lack of energy problem, and food gives me a short term high. Singing usually tires me out. I would still like to do some research on this concept – can a person be successful at replacing food cravings with a hobby or activity? Interesting… I wonder if there are any studies out there on that – something I will have to investigate.

Yay! So I got on the Wii today and I have lost 2.2 pounds since the last time I was on two weeks ago. Of course my BMI is down a slight bit also. That is awesome considering all the food I ate yesterday. I did a few balance exercises on the Wii fit and then I couldn’t wait to try out Just Dance 2 again. First I decided to try the other new game I bought – Gold’s Gym Dance Fitness.

I popped that one in and set up my profile and did a little bit. I didn’t like it very much – it is too hard and goes too fast. You really have to be coordinated to work out to that. Plus I wanted to see what music was on it but I couldn’t figure out if I could pick my songs or if I had to work my way (earn it) through. I had to give up. I think I will put that one away for when I get a little more coordinated.

Then I put in my Just Dance 2. I was thinking that I would just do one song and then stop but I ended up having so much fun with it I did about 4 songs. That kicked my butt again but I like it. I just don’t know what is so fun about that game but it is fantastic. If I only have enough time to work out to that every day I will lose weight in no time. Most of the time I don’t even move my legs – the whole not coordinated thing prevents me. With practice I hope to get better.

It is so weird that I like that dancing game. I was never much of a dancer or at least not one for choreographed dance. When I was a kid all the girls I knew always wanted to pretend like they were dancers (that was back in the early 80’s and Solid Gold was a big thing, haha – look it up young’ins!)or cheerleaders and that never interested me that much. I am surprised I love Just Dance 2 so much. It might be because it is more fun than just regular exercise or aerobics and the dances aren’t all the same – more variety. Anyway I am happy I bought that game.

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I had an excellent one although it is not going to help my quest to lose weight at all. I had TWO Thanksgiving dinners! Well not all on the same day, thank goodness. My husband and I went to my Mom’s Wednesday night and had Thanksgiving dinner with her and my sister-in-law and my nephews. I did not stuff myself, which is a good thing. This was partly due to this not being the best Thanksgiving dinner my Mom has ever cooked. Don’t tell her I said that.

*My youngest nephew, Brent, Brent the holy terror. He is not as innocent as he looks

* I titled this picture "Thanksgiving Rolls" – Brent took a picture of my fat rolls, ha.

 

On Thanksgiving we went to my husband’s family get together. I must say I did some damage to the food table. I did go back for seconds. All the food was sooo good! I did a really good thing though. I brought the Wii game (I bought it online but hadn’t had time to play yet), Just Dance 2, to the party in hopes I could get my two youngest nieces to play with me. They were excited to play so after dinner we popped the game into the Wii. That is one hard game! It kicked my butt and made me sweat big time. I did about two songs (maybe 3) and that was it for me. It was fun though. My youngest niece (she is 7) lost interest in it pretty quickly because the game is pretty difficult at first. I thought my idea was going to fizzle out but most of the family started playing and those who didn’t play had a lot of fun watching the dancers. I was surprised to see my nephews really liked the game and even my brother-in- laws got up there to dance. We all played for about four hours! The game was a big hit and I must have laughed my butt off – that burns calories, right? Everyone had a good time and it sure beat sitting around nodding off to football on the TV. So I am happy I brought the game and I think I am going to bring it to the family Christmas too.

 

Various Dancing Pics:

 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I hope that we all have a lot to be thankful for. I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I am afraid to write about it all though for fear I will jinx some of it. I am silly. I am not normally superstitious but that is the one way that I am. I always think about the story of Job from the bible, not that I am that devout or have everything that I have always wanted but I am blessed. I need to spend more time with God.

 

I was reminded of this last night in my internship. Dr. D used to be a minister <I think> or at least has helped out his church in that capacity before. He read a client a passage from the Bible that I really liked – James, Chapter 1, verses 2-8:

 

 

 

Now I do this often, even without truly realizing it and even without being religious (churchy). I do talk to God and ask for guidance. This has always brought me comfort. For that I am thankful.

 

So I got this great idea from my friend Jeanette. She made a list of things to painful to write about, and find that extremely interesting. I don’t know if she intends to write about them. We talked about it and perhaps needing to write through the painful things in our lives but I get the impression that she is not ready. I decided to make my own list like that also but for me these things are not too too painful to write about. I mean I will get around to writing about them just so I can work through some stuff that makes me depressed. I am generally not afraid to deal with my issues. 

 

Some of the things on my list:

 

Something my counselor noticed about me (pointed out to me), and it surprised me, is how I will cut off my emotions. I never consciously thought about that but on some level I realize that I do that. When I feel emotional pain and I can’t or don’t want to deal with it I will just shut it down. I do this with physical pain also. A big part of it is I don’t like to cry, or show an huge amount of emotion in front of people. I can’t say I never have but I do try to keep it under wraps. I always think that people don’t need to deal with my emotional crap. This begins to be a problem when I have trouble showing affection because of blunted emotions and also when I shut down the emotions (which oddly enough is related to with my creative side) when I have to deal with an issue in counseling – those painful issues. So I cut off the emotion, I put it away until I have time to deal with it, which seems to be never. It is almost like Scarlett O’Hara’s (Gone With The Wind) favorite saying – "I can’t think about that right now. I’ll think about that tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day."

 

So does this make me afraid to deal with my issues after all? In a way I think on some level I am because I am afraid to fall into that black hole of depression and not be able to work my way out of it. Another part of my not dealing with some of ‘these things’ is that my issues, my depression stems from stuff that happened to me a long time ago, which some stuff now triggers. Life moves fast and I am doing all I can to keep up with the here and now. I feel I have little time to deal with the stuff from the past. Plus I thought I had dealt with the stuff, I didn’t realize I was just shutting down a lot of the time. Then I think why do I have to deal with this stuff – that is not my life now? Why can’t I just move on (recurring theme with me)? In a lot of ways I have moved on because time has a way of pulling you but in a lot of ways my issues affect me, like with the depression. I feel that stuffing these emotions away has also made me stuff parts of me away, the parts that contain most of my creativity. Creativity is important to me and I don’t want to lose that part of myself. I also don’t want to lose some of the memories connected to the painful issues. I hope that working on this stuff will help me with my creativity and also my energy level in the long run (I find they are connected as well).

 

Eating! That is a way I stuff some emotions down or away. I never really noticed it fully until just recently. On some level I realize that I eat to lift my mood and self-medicate but for the most part I always told myself I ate to get energy, to stay awake. A lot of my eating is to stay awake but there is a connection to emotional eating also. It is so weird how all that is connected – the depression, the stuffing of emotions, eating, energy. But I digress. A few weeks ago after a difficult session with my counselor (we had been talking about the death of my grandma and how a lot of stuff in my life seemed to go to hell or changed after) I felt really bad but I couldn’t really process it because I had class to go to and other obligations, etc. I decided to go to lunch and went to the buffet on campus. I ate a plate of food and still felt horrible. I was thinking this sucks. I was trying to shut the bad feelings down but it wasn’t working, the counselor had touched on something. I went and got a piece of banana cream pie. I took a bite and that bite, the sweetness, lifted my mood immediately. I felt worlds better. The damn pie helped me stuff my emotions away. Wow, that was the first time I had ever consciously felt that effect.

 

Another issue is anger. Depression is anger turned inward. What am I so angry about? Am I angry about the things that happened to me? Things for the most part I had little control over? I realize I am angry over the things I had control over but didn’t do much to help myself. I usually don’t have trouble expressing anger, especially when I have a blog to come to and write it away. In some ways the anger eats away at me through negative self talk and negative self image. I made my list of "Things Too Painful To Write About" and a lot of that list deals with the things in me I don’t really like. It is not all about the negative things that happened to me. UGH! I don’t know, just that my issues make me angry, the fact that I can’t get over some stuff makes me angry and I don’t want to be angry or be perceived as an angry person. Truthfully I don’t think I am perceived (except by those who have felt my wrath and only that, ha) that way but I know the anger that exists inside of me and it is not healthy.

 

So I have my list. I have this insight. I guess I need to get to work writing through my issues. I can’t do it all on here though but as always I don’t mind sharing some of what I am going through in hopes that it will help someone on some level.