243.8 (on gallbladders and [a] Dharma exercise...)

Well, I'm gonna cop to some stupid stuff here.  Last week, my dear friend TKW was here for dinner.  She biked in, and we had Ahi tuna steaks on the grill.  I started telling her about the low-carb Uber-Mocha I've devised, and we decided that it would be a great idea for me to make one... or two.  So I wound up having a mocha with her... at 9pm.

I woke up with my gallbladder trying to punch its way out of my torso -via- my rib cage.  It's done this before with coffee late at night, but I thought that since it was a low-carb version, I wouldn't get that sugar dumping thing again.  Wrong.  Anyway, it seemed to quiet down a bit later that day, and I just thought I'd try and muscle through it.

Fail.

Last night, CCK and I were headed to a zen event I was in charge of running.  We needed something to eat on the run, so we swung into the Hawthorne Fish House.  Great food, and very lightly fried--not in batter--but brown rice flour.  It's about as low-carb as you can get and still be considered a fish fry. 

Fry.

I'd totally spaced on the "fried foods" thing and ate a goodly share.

Oi!  The pain really started to hit me about an hour afterwords.  By the time we got back from the event, all I could do was make pathetic noises and grunts.  The thought of moving hurt.  On a 1-10 scale, this was easily a 7.5, and I haven't been there in a long while.  I took some medicine, including naproxen sodium and settled into a very fitful and painful sleep.

I woke up feeling considerably better today, and had no trouble working the workshop that followed.  I actually made cheese omelets for the crew this morning.  Had mine, and a pork sausage patty.  Had fish tacos for lunch.  Then about 3pm, it hit again.  This time it's about a 6.o, and naproxen is back in me.  More medicine to come.  We'll see how it goes.

But the nice thing I had happen today is that I just visited the scale, and I'm down to 243.8!  Admittedly, teh angry gallbladder is a very effective diet, but I don't think that's really it.  I have been eating, but I think the ANA is starting to work again.  They called it: if you stall, just hang in there.  Well, that is being road-tested, to be sure.

Today at the event I was "runner" for, I had a staring contest with a multi-grain cracker.  I won.  Ditto with the hummus, and the apples, and the pears, and the cookies.  But of all of them, the cracker was my greatest challenge.  I even cut up an olive ciabatta.  Not a crumb went into me.

This new strength--this internal fortitude to say 'no'--is so new to me.  At times, I wonder where it's coming from.  Is this really me doing this?  Is this really me who's now lost (depending on where I start counting) over fifty pounds?  Ten of which came off while I was on vacation?  To Wisconsin?!  And if you go from my highest weight (340) nearly a hundred pounds!?  I won't count that number, because that was way back in 2001, but I'll damn sure take the fitty.  That is a real accomplishment, and for the first time in this entire practice--this entire proccess--I'll say this:

I'm proud of myself.

Tonight, JB is coming by.  I took a carcass from a roasted chicken and cooked it with a leek, an onion, a shallot and a few other things along with star anise, cinnamon, clove, coriander seeds and all that whatnot, and will be making phở gà--or Vietnamese chicken soup--my favoirtist soup EVAH.  I'll be road-testing the Shiritaki noodles in this.  Picture and report to follow.