3 days.

Its been three days. Three whole days.

I think I’m having sugar withdrawal. Not that I’m a completely sugar free zone but the sugar levels have dropped mahoosive amounts.  You don’t really know how much you eat until you have to limit it.  And my body doesn’t like it. It’s missing the white stuff. If I wasn’t so determined to lose this extra weight I would have caved in by now and reached for some chocolate. Or baked a cake.  Here’s some things that have helped me to resist ransacking the ‘snack box’ so far: 

– I had a coffee. Even the making of the coffee kept my mind off what my body and my brain wanted, and then afterwards, I had something to hold in my hands.  This would kinda defeat the point if you have three sugars in your coffee. Thankfully, I’m ok with coffee-sans sugar.

– I got busy with work. Rather than procrastinate I threw myself into the list of jobs that needed to be done on the computer. I’m someone that becomes consumed with the task in hand so rather than dream of cream cakes, my mind was otherwise engaged.  Everytime my mind wandered to snacking I’d give myself just ‘one more’ job to do. 

– I picked up my Slimming world magazine and look at some success stories.  Some serious encouragement was needed and reading about people who had managed it made me feel I could do it too.  I think out of everything I tried, this was by far the most effective.  Distraction is great, but nothing beats a good dose of motivation.

needing to knit.

When this sciatica started back in October, somewhere between drug-induced slumber and tearful frustration I picked up a pair of knitting needles.  Now this wasn’t the beginning beginning of knitting for me.  The previous winter I had learnt to cast on, knit garter stitch and just about cast off.  I made two whole scarfs.  After that the needles were forgotten in the busyness of family life.  I picked them back up again hoping to distract me from the pain in my back.

We all need something that can take us away from the hustle and bustle of life, if only just for a few minutes at a time.  Reading, writing, painting, playing music, listening to music, gardening, photography, cooking, baking – anything.  We were made to be creative, it’s in all of us, we just need to find the right outlet.  For me it’s photography, baking and since only very recently – knitting.  Normally I feel blessed to be able to grab a moment to get my camera out or a half hour to bake a cake.  And for this season of my life, as I’m drugged up to my eyesballs in painkillers and limited with movement, I cherish the chance to pick up my wool and knit.  It’s a beautiful thing coming out of something quite bleak. With sciatica breathing down my kneck I love to knit.  I need to knit.

So this is where it all starts.  I’m working my way through a book – knitty Griity by Aneeta Patel.  I start here in a place where I have no idea how to knit a button whole, wouldn’t know where to begin with those weird needles that are stuck together with a bit of string and I have no clue what to do when you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere.  And I share this journey with you.