Ch ch ch changes...

Lots of changes going on.

The last aunt on my mom's side died two weeks ago, and her funeral was on the 14th. Went to the funeral, caught up with the cousins that came. For all of us, we're now the oldest generation. We're the grandparents (and great aunts), the ones the kids look up to. The ones that hold the family together.

When I mentioned that to the cousins, it was a shocking realization to them. We are now Grandma Beck. My oldest brother is now the oldest cousin at 68. It may be another 10 to 20 years before this generation starts dying off. Still... It's a shift I'm not sure any of us were ready to make.

I'm the only one out of the 13 of us that doesn't have kids. I'm the youngest by 12 years. I was also the first to lose both parents.

It's an adjustment.

Add to that for me personally trying to let go of the boy. It's been a conscious thing on my part. I'm making the effort to not look at his schedule every day, or to keep track of him via IM, or to look at his desk when I make a trip to the rest room. I've only stopped by his cube twice this week to talk, both business related. The second one did turn into a discussion about martial arts and weight lifting. It was Friday afternoon at 4 so I wasn't too concerned.

It's hard. Something is eating at him. When I talked to him on Wednesday, he admitted he was deflated, and his body and energy showed it. I wonder how much of it has to do with what's going on at home. He's not driving his Focus, he's been driving the Blazer, so I'm wondering if he sold the Focus. I'm also wondering if he sold his motorcycle, because I haven't seen it when I've ridden. I can tell the days he rides because he wears a specific pair of boots, rather than his tennies.

He also admitted he needed some alone time. He said he was about ready to tell the wife to pack up the kids and go see Grandma so he could get some work done. Given there are seven people in the house, there can't be much alone time other than when he's staring at the inside of his eyelids. I ran across a meditation I'm going to make a copy of for him about alone time, encourage him to start scheduling some time by themselves.

He also gave me back the copy of Celestine I'd given him. Actually, he put it on my desk the Friday I was out at the funeral. So I wrote a note, tucked it in the book and put it back on his desk when he was out Thursday. When I talked to him Friday, he gave it back saying he was cleaning up his desk in preparation for doing remote workplace. He had already taken some stuff home, and was taking more home that night.
His reason for giving it back was that he just doesn't have time to read it now, given his college homework, trying to finish up his degree, and all the stuff going on at home. He said he will ask for it back when he has time to read.

The other adjustment in my life is realizing how insulin resistant my body has become. When I kicked over to the body builders diet, I told the trainer that the carbs were too high, and it turns out I was right. The amount of carbs has driven my body into insulin resistance. No wonder I stopped losing weight.

Now that I've had that aha, I've moved back to my high protein, very low carb diet. I've moved back to six meals a day and will work back to five. I've also changed my workouts to three days lifting/cardio/stretching and two days cardio/stretching. I gained almost a pound and a half of muscle this week. I've also noticed I'm not so moody or down.

I'm looking at a couple of online places that have supplements to help change the insulin resistance and get my hormones back into balance so I can let go of the weight, get my adrenals straightened out and stop the periomenopause symptoms. There's a place locally called Bristlecone Fitness that has success turning back pre-diabetic clients. It's not cheap - P said her bundle was $800. I just don't have that at the moment since I'm not allowed to do more than 5 hours of overtime a week. I've emailed them to see if they would let me do some payments ahead, then do the testing and their BOB diet. See what they say. If they are willing to work with me, I'm willing to do it.