tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46543039301296087432024-03-17T22:04:07.509-05:00Table for OneSolitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.comBlogger207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-33082864093624123902020-09-23T19:18:00.004-05:002020-09-23T19:19:12.558-05:00Budgeting Without Being a Dick (or an Asshole)<p> A few years ago, I read a vacation post by a blogger-who-shall-not-be-named that really pissed me off. Said blogger retired in his 30s, has a net worth in the millions, and prides himself on being uber-frugal. In this post, he described taking his rather large family to a museum that let visitors set their own admission price. His chosen price? $2.</p><p>Not even $2 per person. <i>$2 for his family.</i> And he didn't just list this as a budget line item - <i>he bragged about the "good deal" he had gotten.</i></p><p><i> </i>I think I vomited a bit in my mouth when I read that. I love the idea of pay-what-you-can attractions and events, because they enable people whose means are limited to participate, without having to ask for a special discount or feeling ashamed about being unable to afford the full price. But the flip side of this is that <i>the people who can afford to need to pay more. </i>Not brag about being an asshole who only pays $2.</p><p>When I was revamping my budget recently, I kept thinking back to this post. And even though I feel frustrated and financially vulnerable at the moment, I really want to ensure that I don't start behaving like a dick just to save money. As I get used to putting some limits on my spending, there are a few things I'm doing to try to avoid being a dick.</p><p><b>Recognize my privilege:</b></p><p>I'm not budgeting to survive or even to live comfortably on a small income. I'm not even doing it to make sure I have enough to retire when I'm 65 - I'm doing it in the hope of being able to save enough money to retire as much as 10-15 years earlier than the traditional retirement age. I am incredibly fortunate to be in this financial situation, and hopefully it will get even better "after COVID", if there is such a thing. So I do not need to, nor should I, make morally questionable choices to cut my spending*.</p><p><b>Keep tipping:</b></p><p>People who work in the service industry are pretty universally underpaid and are often treated really shittily by customers and employers. When I started working as an attending, I made a commitment to do a tiny bit to help people in the industry out by upping my tipping game. I started tipping for takeout, which I had never done before, and I increased how much I tip for delivery<b> </b>and table service. I increased my tipping rates further when COVID hit, and I try to remember to keep some actual cash on me at all times so that I can still tip at places that only accept cards and don't have a tipping option on their machines (I'm looking at you, Starbucks). </p><p>It is reeeeealy tempting to cut back on this right now. It's an "easy" way to save money, and it doesn't affect me in the least. Except...cutting back on tipping at the same time as the service industry has been devastated by COVID is the move of an asshole. So whenever I don't cook for myself, I maintain the same tipping rate as I used before.</p><p><b>Keep donating:</b></p><p>The charitable donations line in my budget is also a really tempting thing to cut. Spend less without having to give up anything? Sounds great! Except...asshole. I know that my local charities need the money now more than ever, so I'm treating that line as a fixed expense and not touching it**.</p><p><b>Keep supporting the businesses I believe in (and avoiding the ones I don't):</b></p><p>I recognize that the Walton family and Jeff Bezos aren't affected by whether I support their companies, but it feels good to boycott the businesses that seem to be the worst "corporate citizens". (You will also never catch me eating at Chick-fil-A.) And when I avoid the giant multi-nationals, I have more money to spend at local bookstores, the farmers market, and other small businesses. And my dollars actually do matter (at least a little) to local businesses.</p><p>What else should I keep doing, even as I try to cut back? <b> </b><br /></p><p>*To be clear, this is where I am right now. For people who aren't earning enough and are legitimately struggling to get by in our brutal capitalist society, do what you need to do. </p><p>**Honestly, I should probably actually increase the amount that I donate, but I'm not quite mentally at that point yet. Eventually.</p>Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-44923628507034910132020-09-13T11:53:00.007-05:002020-09-23T19:19:41.389-05:00Return of the Budget<p><a href="https://treadlightlyretireearly.com/2020/09/23/womens-personal-finance-wednesdays-week-102-roundup/"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><img alt="" class="wp-image-14934" data-attachment-id="14934" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="img_0959" data-large-file="https://i2.wp.com/treadlightlyretireearly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/img_0959.png?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1" data-medium-file="https://i2.wp.com/treadlightlyretireearly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/img_0959.png?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-orig-file="https://i2.wp.com/treadlightlyretireearly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/img_0959.png?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1" data-orig-size="500,500" data-permalink="https://treadlightlyretireearly.com/2020/08/04/womens-personal-finance-wednesdays-week-95-roundup/img_0959-2/#main" data-recalc-dims="1" height="200" src="https://i2.wp.com/treadlightlyretireearly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/img_0959.png?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1" width="200" /></a> <br /></p><p>My relationship with budgets has varied a lot over the course of my adult life. When I was an undergraduate and then graduate student, I sort of had a budget, but it wasn't a very detailed one: my approach to spending was essentially "OMG I have no money, don't buy anything that isn't food or shelter". Once I started working, I had a basic budget for my regular expenses and savings, but I was also doing a lot of contract work, which allowed me to spend on luxuries without having to carefully track my spending.<br /></p><p>And then I became a <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2015/05/budget.html" target="_blank">medical student</a>, and any frugal habit I had ever developed was abandoned in an LOC-fueled spending frenzy. It was absolutely delightful in many ways, but it left me with a $200,000+ debt hangover at the end of nine years of training. So I put myself back on a <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-mechanics-of-budgeting.html" target="_blank">budget</a> during my last year of fellowship, and I mostly stuck with it to about the end of my first year as an attending.</p><p>It's been five years since I started working, and for the past four I've abandoned the budget. I've still tried to be mindful of my spending, but I've definitely let a lot of small and not-so-small expenditures creep back into my life. I hadn't been worrying about this lifestyle creep at all, because as a single physician still living in my apartment from residency (10 years and counting), it wasn't having a huge impact on my ability to save.<br /></p><p>And then COVID hit.</p><p>Before I talk about the impact of COVID on my finances, I will say that I am incredibly grateful to be someone who still has a secure and well-paying job. I am thankful that I don't have to worry about my ability to put a roof over my head or food on my table. And living in a country with universal healthcare - praise <a href="https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/politics-law/history-idol-tommy-douglas" target="_blank">Tommy Douglas</a>. I know I am very fortunate...but COVID has still hurt.</p><p>To protect myself, my patients, and my community, I mostly "see" patients over the phone right now. I do have some in-person clinics, which allow me to actually see the sickest patients, but close to 90% of my work is virtual. Which is great! Reduce the spread of COVID while wearing sweatpants and avoiding a daily commute? I'm in! Except...the government is paying me about 40% less for phone visits*. So I'm working just as much, with the added stress of WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC THAT COULD KILL YOU AND EVERYONE YOU CARE ABOUT, while getting paid significantly less.</p><p>(Again, I will pause for a moment of gratitude that I am alive, thus-far COVID-free, and still earning more than I need.)<br /></p><p>In the beginning, I lived in this lovely delusion that COVID was a temporary thing and that we would resume our regularly scheduled programming within a few months. Within that delusion, even a significant decrease in my earnings felt okay, because it was finite. I even ramped up my charitable giving, because I recognized that there were a lot of people and organizations who were much more seriously impacted by the pandemic than I was. I didn't feel worried, because I fully anticipated that I would be back to generously feeding my retirement accounts before the end of the year.</p><p>Sigh.</p><p>Apparently COVID isn't going away. And apparently the pay cut is going to be a long-term thing.</p><p>And while I am thankful to have enough, I am also a whole host of negative emotions about the impact the pandemic is having on my earnings and the vision I had for my future. Where I previously thought I might be able to retire in as little as six years, now retirement is waaaay farther away. (How far? I don't really even want to think about it. Nor do I totally know. Just much farther than six years.) I feel a huge sense of loss, but also an emotion I haven't felt about money in a long time: fear.</p><p>As a single person, there is no backup plan. If I don't earn money**, eventually my savings run out and I don't eat or have a safe place to live. And while I know that this is unlikely, and far off even if I were to lose my job, I have an anxiety disorder that is quite happy to turn the remotest of possibilities into a reason not to sleep at night. </p><p>So what to do?</p><p>I could work more, and I am considering trying to pick up some extra call shifts, but I also recognize that working more will make me more stressed and anxious, which I'm trying to avoid. Buy lottery tickets? Marry rich?</p><p>Budget.</p><p>I sat down this week and took a serious look at how much I've been earning and spending since COVID started. And then I cried. And then I made a budget for myself. It isn't actually all that strict, particularly given that I only have to care for myself and one geriatric cat, but it is a definite reigning in of my spending. There is some anxiety associated even with this, as the mere act of putting limits on my spending creates a further sense of scarcity for me. But I'm hoping that this will fade over time and that the bump in my savings rate will help to make me feel (and objectively be) more secure.</p><p>It's worth a try.<br /></p><p>*Why, you ask? Me too.</p><p>**Yes, I have disability insurance.<br /></p>Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com97tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-81009139042488348442020-07-13T21:27:00.001-05:002020-07-14T07:24:19.154-05:00Four MonthsI think this is officially the longest I've gone without posting here.<br />
<br />
March and April were surreal months. The day that the WHO declared COVID a pandemic, I went to work like normal, rounded with my trainees, and went to yoga. The following day, my city started going into lock down. My clinics were shut down, and except in the most extreme of cases I could only do patient visits over the phone. Schools and non-essential businesses closed. My world shrunk down to my apartment, my cats, and my computer.<br />
<br />
I wish I could say that I handled things better than I did. I would like to tell you about the books I read, the fabulous sourdough I baked, and the superfit body I gained through turning my bedroom into a home gym. But I can't. What I can tell you about is cheese. Because for a solid month and a half, my main activity was eating ridiculous amounts of cheese.<br />
<br />
I had a lot of time off of work in April, because I was supposed to be in the UK at a conference and on vacation, and instead I spent most of that time on my couch eating. Partly it was my way of resting after a really busy start to the year, but mostly it was my way of grappling with (or trying to avoid grappling with) the complete upheaval of everything I had previously considered to be stable. I struggle with uncertainty at the best of times, and I really didn't know how to cope with *waves hands at everything*. So I avoided, and I numbed as best as I could.<br />
<br />
I almost started this next paragraph with "We were really lucky", but I won't, because what has happened in my province and in my country hasn't been a matter of luck: it's been leadership. Both federally and provincially, the government has acknowledged the seriousness of COVID and taken steps to protect its citizens. And as a result, we've been really fortunate to mostly contain COVID. Even though we're slowly reopening across the country, our numbers have fallen to just over 200 cases a day - for the whole country.<br />
<br />
Four months after the start of lock down, life is starting to go somewhat back to normal. I'm eating less cheese. And things that were tenuous and uncertain are slowly settling, albeit not as much as they were pre-COVID. I am so, so grateful to live in the country that I do.<br />
<br />
For all of my American friends, I am so, so sorry.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-88397133011996358462020-03-15T21:04:00.002-05:002020-03-15T22:08:01.499-05:00Stay HomeI know that I am mortal.<br />
<br />
Anyone who goes through medical training, if they pay any attention whatsoever, is forced to confront this fact. For me, there is one particular moment from my residency training that brought this home to me. A woman very close to my age had come into the hospital feeling unwell, and a series of CT scans had shown that she was dying. The scan report described numbers and dimensions of multiple tumours, and at the end the Radiologist had left a horrifying impression statement: "Riddled with cancer". I was the one left to deliver the news to her, and as I read the scan report and thought about what I was going to say, her two children ran past the computer I was working on, laughing as they turned the hospital ward into an impromptu field for tag.<br />
<br />
I know that I am mortal, and yet, I don't really KNOW that I am mortal.<br />
<br />
A week ago, I was watching the New York Times Coronavirus map, as the outbreak spread closer and closer to the United Kingdom, worried that my conference in April would be cancelled.<br />
<br />
Then I accepted that my conference would be cancelled, and worried that if I went to the UK for vacation, I would be quarantined on my return.<br />
<br />
Then I worried about going to the States.<br />
<br />
Then about going to the Rockies.<br />
<br />
It was only about Thursday, as I watched the numbers go up and previously yellow countries turn to red on the map, that the seriousness of this started to hit me.<br />
<br />
My first real worry was that I would be called on to provide inpatient care. I've worked almost entirely outpatient care for the past seven years, and I've never worked inpatient care except under direct supervision, so the idea of managing a heart attack or having to put a breathing tube into someone in respiratory failure fills me with terror. I will do my best to step up and do whatever I am called upon to do, but I certainly do not want to.<br />
<br />
And then, in the last 24 hours, as I've had a quiet day of social distancing at home with the cats, I've had time to reflect on what this really means. I'm just as vulnerable to this infection as anyone else. Probably even more, given that I will still be going into the hospital and seeing patients, albeit in a very limited capacity for the foreseeable future. And my friends.<br />
<br />
Fuck.<br />
<br />
One of my good friends is a paramedic.<br />
<br />
The mother of my godson is an ER doc.<br />
<br />
Another good friend is an anaesthesiologist.<br />
<br />
Another friend a surgeon.<br />
<br />
Many others family physicians.<br />
<br />
Many, many others internist who have taught me and with whom I trained.<br />
<br />
And fucking idiots are going to the bars for St. Patrick's Day. Getting their nails done. Taking advantage of discounted fares to go on holidays. I understand the denial, because I was there a week ago. But I am filled with fear at the thought that the people I love, my community, are vulnerable because other people don't want to have their freedom restricted in any way.<br />
<br />
I keep saying the same thing over and over again: Please, for the love of everything, stay home.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-62277021499760463292020-01-31T22:47:00.001-06:002020-02-02T10:55:04.074-06:00One Month In - How Am I Doing?You may recall that I set some pretty ambitious (for me) goals at the beginning of the year. So how is it going one month in?<br />
<br />
<b>The Good:</b><br />
<i>"meditating every day"</i> I have done this! I was pretty well established with my weekday morning practice, so my main challenge here was finding a way to meditate on the weekends. Initially, I thought that I would meditate first thing in the morning like I do on weekdays, but this literally never happened. Turns out, I really enjoy sleeping in and getting a lazy slow start to weekend days, and there is no part of me that wants to start the day on a meditation cushion. So I have been doing it before I go to bed on weekends, and it has gone perfectly so far.<br />
<br />
<i>"I mostly just want to keep working and
hoarding money for the future" </i>I had nine days of very busy call this month, so I have done a lot of hoarding of money. It's lovely for the net worth, but I would honestly like to do a little less earning and a little more resting.<br />
<br />
<i>"I want to keep building on
the friendships I have."</i> I've also been doing this! Even though it's been a busy month, I've made time to go with friends to see our local queer choir, to visit my godson and his family, to go for dinner with my brother, and to go out for dinner and a play with my mom and her partner. (I think there has been more? It's a bit of a blur.) For an introvert who has been busy with work, it has been about the maximum amount I can expect of myself.<br />
<br />
<b>The Not As Good:</b><br />
<i>"I would like to work on keeping up with everything."</i> This has been very mixed. One of my proposed ways of achieving this was <i>"just doing the shit now"</i>, and I have definitely incorporated this approach into my life, to good effect. I am constantly trying to spend a few extra minutes to do all the nagging little tasks as they come up, and as a result I'm getting a lot more done without it feeling overwhelming or like a giant burden. And I'm worrying less about missing things. Perfect example - I got an application for reimbursement of a work expense, which isn't due until April. My initial instinct was to put it in my to do pile (I had three months to do it, after all), but instead I took the five minutes required to fill it out, put it in the return envelope, and put it in the mailbox. And now it's done, and I don't have to worry about missing the deadline for getting money back.<br />
<br />
The biggest challenge has simply been that work has been really busy. In addition to nine busy (and really emotionally exhausting) days of call, I had a week of teaching, and I've taken on a new volunteer position with a national organization (You know. Because that helps with burnout.) I've worked at least part of one weekend day every week since the beginning of the year, and still things are slowly starting to build up. It's frustrating.<br />
<br />
And as for my "go to work earlier and stay later" approach?<br />
<br />
Ha.<br />
Ha.<br />
Ha.<br />
<br />
When I was writing my original post, I had the (utterly ridiculous, I don't know where it came from) idea in my head that I sometimes go to work late or leave early because I'm lazy. This past month has reminded me that it's actually because I'm tired. I have a limited number of productive work hours in me every day, and once they are finished, there is no value in me sitting in front of a computer trying to work. I need a mental break. So those days when I leave early are usually because I'm mentally shutting down and ready for the day to be over. And the days when I arrive late are usually because I've been suffering from insomnia and have allowed myself an extra hour to catch up on some sleep.<br />
<br />
This has been an important reminder to not be too hard on myself and to extend myself a bit of grace. I am human, and I can only do so much. It's also a really important reminder to set boundaries and to not apologize for doing so. At the moment, I'm having to set some boundaries on fun things in my personal life, but I'm hoping as the year goes on and my call schedule settles down a bit that the boundaries will be more towards work. I've also firmly decided that I'm going to give up a volunteer commitment at the end of the year (I reeeeealy should've given it up at the beginning of the year, but I got talked into agreeing to another year), which will free up one precious evening every month.<br />
<br />
<b>The Total Nope:</b><br />
<i>"I'm aiming for a regular practice of four yoga
classes per week"</i> At best so far I've made it to three classes in one week. Things have just been busy, and in some cases (call) I've had to skip yoga, and in other cases (social life) I've chosen to skip yoga. Part of me is sad, because I really do love it and am seeing a lot of progress, but I'm also making peace with it. I have a really full life, in mostly good ways, so it's okay that I'm not being absolutely perfect at everything.<br />
<br />
So that's the one-month check in. As for February? I have three more weeks off call (yay!), during which I'm fully intending to get caught up on everything work related (plausible if I do some work on weekends), after which I have one week on, one off, and one on. Ugh. I'm intending to keep up with the daily meditations, as I do think they help keep me present and calm, even though my brain feels squirrely while I'm doing them. I'm going to try to do three yoga classes a week, as I think it's more realistic than four right now. And, perhaps mostly importantly, I'm going to keep learning from the process and being kind to myself. I'm actually doing pretty well at things that are hard, and I deserve to be proud of myself for that.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-7601552086023498792020-01-04T21:40:00.000-06:002020-01-04T21:40:00.908-06:00Four Days into 2020 - Getting My Ass Handed to Me By CallWhen I wrote my post about resolutions for 2020, I was very intentional in talking about "experimenting". I knew that I wasn't going to be able to change everything the moment the clock struck midnight (I am not a magician), so I wanted to give myself permission to do things gradually and to falter along the way.<br />
<br />
Well. <br />
<br />
This was a good thing.<br />
<br />
I went back to work on Thursday, and I am starting the year with four days on call. And what a call it has been. I've had multiple really sick people spread all over the province, and my pager has been going off seemingly constantly. Whereas I thought I'd be staying late to keep up with paperwork, I've had to stay late just to get the bare minimum done.<br />
<br />
It's honestly a little demoralizing. I'm only three days into the work year, and I already have new letters that need to be dictated and old letters that need to be edited. And I've had one night of insomnia, followed by a sleep deprivation-induced migraine. (Awesome combo)<br />
<br />
But...it's a process. And I know that call is the hardest part of my job, particularly when it's busy call. So I'm breathing. And focusing on what I can learn from this experience, rather than on all the things that don't seem to be working.<br />
<br />
When I reflect on the past few days, the biggest thing that I'm reminded of is how much I dislike the uncertainty of call. This isn't really shocking, as I'm a person who hates surprises and likes to have everything planned. Carrying around a tiny piece of plastic that can scream at me and derail my day without warning is really not my favourite thing.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, there are things that I can do to make this easier to cope with. The biggest one, and one that I've been leaning towards but not quite willing to commit to until now, is not making plans with other people while I'm on call. In theory, the best thing about home call is the fact that I can continue to live a normal life while I'm call, but in reality, everything is made worse by the pager hanging over me. I hate planning to meet someone and then having to cancel (or getting called away in the middle of doing something). It happened on Thursday night when I was planning to meet a BFF for my favourite yoga class, and then it happened again on Friday night when I was supposed to go to a party for people from my residency. And it sucked.<br />
<br />
Not to say that I will never make plans (I would still try to make it to the Friday night party, for example, as the date was fixed), but that I'm going to try to keep my call days as flexible as possible. Some of this is more mental than anything - trying to not get attached to any idea of how the day will look, but rather take things as they come*. If the day is busy and I have to work until late, I'm mentally prepared for that. If it's not and I have time for non-work things, then it's a bonus and I can use the opportunity to go to yoga or wash dishes or sit on the couch with the cats playing Stone Age online with <a href="http://www.the76kproject.com/">The 76K Project</a>. (Mostly the latter).<br />
<br />
I'm trying to approach my current weekend this way, and so far it seems to be helping (?). When I got up this morning, instead of trying to map out the weekend, I made myself a list of things from highest to lowest priority. Providing good patient care was #1, with prepping for my upcoming lectures (which I technically should've had done by yesterday) #2. While I was responding to pages this morning, I spent a few hours getting the lectures done, thus getting the most important (as well as the most stress-inducing) task out of the way. And then the pager was kind to me, and I was able to go to an hour of <strike>the worst suffering I would ever willingly subject myself to</strike> yoga. I've also managed to get a few other important items knocked off my to-do list, and if I ever stop playing online games I will even do my dishes.<br />
<br />
The change in approach and mindset has already made me a little less emotionally reactive when the pager has gone off. It has still been annoying, and I'm not looking forward to starting my day at the hospital tomorrow, but it's better. Will it help in the long term? I guess I'll see...<br />
<br />
*I feel like call gives me some sense of what it would be like to be a parent. Everything is going well, then *BAM*, one kid spills a 2 L of milk on the floor and the other is running around naked drawing on themself with permanent marker.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-68738130251828105002020-01-01T16:11:00.000-06:002020-01-01T16:13:06.844-06:002020 - Progress, Not PerfectionIt has been a few years since I made a New Year's resolution. In <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2017/01/2017-year-of-saying-no.html">2017</a>, I resolved to say no to more things, which obviously wasn't enough given the burnout I hit in 2019. In <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2018/01/do-i-need-to-make-resolutions.html">2018</a>, I seem to have been in a bit of a dark place in which I thought resolving to do anything was futile, because I wouldn't be able to stick to it anyway.<br />
<br />
The past two years have shown me that, under the right circumstances, I can actually make pretty big changes in my life. In that time, I've greatly expanded and strengthened my social circle, to the point where I couldn't see everyone I wanted to during my two weeks of holidays. I've started a (somewhat) daily meditation practice and gone to a meditation retreat. I've been really consistent with yoga, going to 45 classes in the first half of the year and 83 in the second half*. I've adopted an <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2018/08/why-i-stopped-dieting.html">intuitive eating practice</a>, which has led me to a much healthier relationship with food (and overall healthier eating habits) than I've had in my life. And I've cut back on my work responsibilities to the point where I am only slightly dreading returning to it tomorrow.<br />
<br />
When I look back at the changes I've made, the keys for me have been twofold: motivation and gradual progress. I haven't made changes out of a sense that it's what I should do, but rather because I can see how the changes will make me happier and otherwise enhance my life. The goals I set for myself are personal and are aligned with my values, not things that other people think are important. I've also started slowly with things (It took me over a decade to develop a regular yoga practice!) and allowed myself to learn from the process of change, rather than thinking that I'll be perfect at a new thing the moment I start it. As <a href="https://www.donebyforty.com/">Done By 40</a> said in a comment on my last post, "Progress, not perfection".<br />
<br />
Looking ahead to 2020, my hope is to have a relatively uneventful year. 2019 was a year of tremendous growth and change, but it was also a hard one. I kind of want to catch my breath**. I want to continue with my mindfulness practice, and I'm aiming for a regular practice of four yoga classes per week and meditating every day. I want to keep building on the friendships I have. My financial situation is really good (No debt! Lots of investments!), and I mostly just want to keep working and hoarding money for the future. Overall, I don't anticipate any radical changes in 2020***.<br />
<br />
But....in 2020, I would like to work on keeping up with everything. I feel like I'm perpetually behind - on housework, on work work - and I find it draining. I hate having clutter in my home and 100 dictations to sign off on in my inbox. I hate feeling like I'm perpetually catching up, only to have new work pile on top of me the moment I finally get through the old work. And it's not like I'm saving time by procrastinating on things - I have the same amount of work to do, regardless of whether I do it right away or put it off for weeks.<br />
<br />
Which...is really everyone's problem, right? While the specific tasks may differ, I think we all have an endless to-do list that is never done to our satisfaction. So, while I'm setting this as a goal, I am also trying to be realistic. And to extend a lot of grace and compassion to myself. Because no matter how hard I work, I am never going to get to the bottom of the list. And I need to make peace with that.<br />
<br />
As far as how to do this...I'm going to experiment. Try something for a while, see how it goes, then keep it or reject it. I'm not expecting that I will get to the end of the list by midnight tonight and then always keep up with it, forever and ever. I know it will be a process, and so I'm trying to give myself the time and space (and lots of grace!) to work with the process. For the moment, I am going to try three things that I think may help:<br />
<br />
1) Going to later yoga classes: Some of my favourite yoga classes are at 5:30 PM, which unfortunately means leaving work at 4:30 and therefore losing out on a lot of potential work time. I'm going to try sticking to a regular weekly schedule, with a 7 PM class as my earliest, so that I get an extra hour or so at work at the end of many days.<br />
<br />
2) Coming to work earlier: My work days start between 8 and 9:30 am (sometimes 10 if I really let myself sleep in) depending on whether or not I have a morning clinic. I'm going to try to get to work for 8 am consistently so that I'm getting some extra work time first thing in the morning. As an added bonus, I'm hopeful that the more regular wake up/go to work schedule will be good for my insomnia.<br />
<br />
I recognize that I'm proposing to both start later and finish later, which has the potential to simply be too much work. But I'm hoping that this will allow me to get most, if not all, of my work done during the week, thus giving me weekends completely off to recharge. I'll see how it goes...<br />
<br />
3) Just doing the shit now: I'm human. I procrastinate. Sometimes epically. Yesterday I logged onto a conference website, thinking it was the last day for early bird registration, and when I discovered that I still had two weeks, <i>I logged off</i>. I did very quickly log back on and register for the conference (also booked my Airbnb like a superstar), <i>but my initial impulse was to procrastinate for another two weeks</i>. I've already started trying to break myself of this habit, as I know it is a huge contributor to the piles of things to do that build up. So I'm trying to just respond to the email, just put my dishes in the dishwasher, just put away the laundry that I've already folded (instead of it sitting on my dresser until the basket is empty), and just add the item to my grocery list (instead of cursing myself when I get home from the store without it). Just. Do. The. Shit.<br />
<br />
Who knows if this will work. I like some of the 5:30 yoga classes, so I might cave and go to them. My bed is very comfortable, so I may sleep in. Doing the shit gets tedious. But I'm going to give it a try and see where it takes me.<br />
<br />
<i>Any suggestions as I try to get more on top of things in my life?</i><br />
<br />
*At least. I only track yoga classes for my main studio; I think I did another 10 or so at other studios over the year.<br />
<br />
**I feel like I'm tempting the universe by typing this.<br />
<br />
***Seriously, I feel like I'm baiting the universe with this post.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-61426229657935663052019-12-27T19:13:00.000-06:002019-12-27T19:13:21.308-06:002019 - The Year of Breaking OpenI'm not big into dates, but for some reason I love the start of the new year. Even though there's nothing magical about the transition from December 31 to January 1, it always gets me reflecting on the previous year and thinking ahead to the next. When I re-read <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2019/01/words.html">my New Year's post from this year</a>, I had to laugh at my intention for 2019:<br />
<br />
"And what for 2019? Mostly, I want to keep going on the path that I'm
already on. I want to remain in the present moment, enjoying it when I
can and learning from it when I can't."<br />
<br />
<i>Learning from it when I can't</i> describes so much of the past year. I existed in a state of near-constant stress for months, and then I basically fell apart when the chronic stress became too much. For weeks, I wasn't certain if I would choose to (or even be able to) stay at work. It was horrible.<br />
<br />
Probably the wisest thing I did, and something that was only possible because of my mindfulness practice, was stay present in the tough moments. My mantra through that time, which I would sometimes recite multiple times in a day, was "Be patient. Be present." I somehow knew that, if I could just show up for those moments, that I would learn something important from them.<br />
<br />
And I have learned an incredible amount over the past year. I've learned that I am limited in how much I can do well (as is everyone), and more importantly, I've learned that I have the support of my institution to set limits on my work. I don't have to overbook all of my clinics. I don't have to work through weekends most of the time. I don't have to say yes to every administrative task that comes my way. I can (and absolutely must) say no.<br />
<br />
I've also learned that I am very hard working, even though I don't always feel that way when I compare myself to the overachievers who seem to be everywhere in medicine. I regularly go beyond what I need to for my patients, and I show up for them even on the days when I would rather pull the covers over my head. I'm committed to the work that I do, and I put in the effort needed to be a really good doctor.<br />
<br />
Overall, as hard as a lot of the past year has been, I'm really proud of myself for getting through it. And for not quitting my job! Because it's generally a pretty good one, and I do a pretty good job at it, if I may say so myself.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-56003543786587307322019-12-14T10:11:00.000-06:002019-12-14T10:16:50.406-06:00How I Almost Moved Into a House But Didn'tA few weeks ago, I opened up Facebook while eating breakfast and saw an ad for the perfect house. Only a few minutes from where I currently live and still in a neighbourhood that I love, the house was the ideal balance between "old enough to be charming" and "new enough to not have knob and tube wiring*". And it was for rent, which is probably the only way I'm ever going to get into a house, as I'm utterly terrified of buying something.<br />
<br />
It took me only a few minutes to email the person renting it, and I stopped by to see it on my way home from work that evening. When I walked in, the house was toasty warm and beautifully decorated for Christmas, and my heart said a very loud yes. This is my home. I want to live here.<br />
<br />
For the next four days, I lived and breathed that house. I posted about it on Twitter and Facebook, I dreamed of all the things I could do in it (Butterfly garden! Bat house! Little Free Library!), and I started rescheduling my upcoming vacation to include packing up my apartment and moving into a house. I was 100% mentally there.<br />
<br />
And then...I went back. I went to see it again with my Mom and to work out the practical details, and the reality of the house started to sink it. Houses come with lawns to be mowed and driveways to be shoveled and windows (so many beautiful windows) to be washed. And the $400 more per month in rent was only the beginning of the increased costs - I would have to add electricity and water and gas and a home alarm system and alllll the things I would want to buy with double the space that I currently have. Yes, I could host games nights in a stylish historic living room warmed by a gas fireplace, but I would also have to get up early on snow days to dig my car out of the detached and unheated garage.<br />
<br />
I went home that night, and I thought and thought and thought, trying to figure out what to do. It wasn't a question of whether I could afford it - I save a high percentage of my income, so there is money in my budget to move into a much nicer home than where I'm living right now. The question was, why did I want to move into a house?<br />
<br />
The answer, for me, was social. I wanted to host games nights for friends and have my aunt over for coffee and drop in informally on the friend who lives around the corner. All really good things. But...none of them dependent on being in a house. Sure, my one-bedroom apartment is limited in its ability to host big gatherings, but I'm an introvert who actually doesn't really like being around large groups of people. Two to six people is about ideal for me, and my dining room table can comfortably seat six. The size of my apartment isn't really what limits me socially - it's time and energy, both of which I'd have less of in a house. <br />
<br />
The financial side of it, even though I could afford it, was also a big issue. The added costs would be approximately equal to one month a year of income - that's huge! When I looked at it that way, and asked myself "Would I rather have that house or an extra month of vacation every year?", vacation won without a moment of hesitation**.<br />
<br />
So....I still live in the apartment where I've lived for nine years. And...I'm good with that. Work is a 6-minute drive when there's no traffic (and under 30 in even the worst of rush hour traffic). I can easily walk to fabulous restaurants and coffee shops. And I have time and money and energy to do the thing that's most important to me: connect.<br />
<br />
*Technically renovated to not have knob and tube wiring...but still new enough to not be a nightmare of old home disasters.<br />
<br />
**Not that I'm going to take an extra month of vacation, as my vacation
time is already pretty ridiculously amazing, and I do need to earn
money.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-13549293425480481142019-11-08T22:57:00.002-06:002019-11-08T22:59:18.587-06:00How to RestAs a resident, I had almost no time off. I worked as much as 100 hours in some weeks, often in 24-hour-plus stretches, so I was basically always either at work or collapsed half dead on my couch. I didn't have to think about the concept of work-life balance, because there wasn't any. I worked, and I did what I could to survive the five years relatively unscathed*.<br />
<br />
And then it ended. And I was an attending! With a better schedule! And money! And completely no idea of how to take care of myself in a long-term, I want to be happy and not die of a heart attack kind of way.<br />
<br />
I knew that having a life outside of work was a priority for me, but because it had been so long since I had had one, I had no idea how to make that happen. I also faced the new challenge of always having work to do. Labs to review, patients to call, prescriptions to renew, presentations to prepare - I live in a giant game of medical Whack-A-Mole. For the longest time, I tried to get everything done before I would "allow" myself to rest, which meant that I was always trying to work and never actually resting.<br />
<br />
Except....I was wasting a shit tonne of time. Like most people, I have a limited amount of mental and physical energy every day (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory">spoons!</a>), and once I use it up, I can pretend to be working, but I'm really not. I'm checking Twitter. Or Instagram. Or Facebook. Or going to Starbucks for another tea. It feels like work time, and I resent it, but I'm accomplishing very little.<br />
<br />
Earlier this year, when work seemed to occupy every waking and sleeping moment of my life, I was finally forced to acknowledge that I can only accomplish a finite amount of things. And this amount is never as much as I want it to be. Yet I was working myself beyond a sustainable limit, and for what? Desire for more money that I didn't need? A sense of obligation? Conditioning from the medical system to never rest? I was failing miserably at having a good life for really no reason at all.<br />
<br />
I am incredibly lucky to have flexibility in my job and to earn much more than I need to, which as I've mentioned over and over again has allowed me to back off from work and regain some much needed time. But just as importantly, recognizing my limits has given me permission to rest. To designate evenings and weekends and long stretches of holidays as "not working" time, rather than "working but not actually accomplishing anything because I keep <a href="https://twitter.com/FrugalishMD/status/1192521002690981889">Tweeting about marshmallow peanut butter squares</a>" time.<br />
<br />
Which makes all the difference. Because distracting myself on the Internet while I'm supposed to be working isn't restful. Sleep is. Yoga is. Meditation is**.<br />
<br />
Not doing is restful.<br />
<br />
Next week I'm on call again, and I have a long list of things I would like to get done before I go back on call. Some of which I will get done tomorrow morning, but once my designated work time is over, I'm going to stop. I'm going to go to the theatre with my mom, and then I'm going to eat and drink more than is doctor recommended. On Sunday I'm taking myself to a Nordic spa, and I can guarantee that I will spend the whole day moving from heated bed to hot tub to wet sauna to dry. Because I will need all my spoons next week, and trying to work all weekend is not going to give any of them back.<br />
<br />
*By the end, I had raging anxiety, was socially isolated, and had lost all self-care habits. "Unscathed" is defined very loosely here.<br />
<br />
** When my f-ing monkey brain isn't wandering all over the place, which
it always is, so I take this back, meditation is not restful, dammit.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-48089635862854355182019-10-31T21:04:00.001-05:002019-10-31T21:05:03.793-05:00The Return of HappinessYears ago, when I was early in residency training, I wrote a post on <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2015/02/blog-post.html">the first version of this blog</a> called "Fundamentally Happy"*. In it, I talked about how, despite the many challenges of residency, at my core I was happy. Satisfied with where I was in life and with where I was going.<br />
<br />
Earlier this year, I lost that feeling. Not just for a moment, but for months on end. I felt like I was working constantly and as if life was a perpetual slog through overbooked clinics and piles of paperwork. In the beginning, I was having trouble staying caught up for more than the briefest of moments, and eventually I lost the ability to ever catch up. I was slowly drowning.<br />
<br />
It has taken a lot to come back. I have drawn on every resource available to me to get through this, and I have been so lucky to have been met by nothing but support everywhere I went. Support from friends, colleagues (remember the one who <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-body-says-no-really.html">took three weeks of summer call</a> for me?), and even my department head. I am so thankful to have had a good experience, because I know that many physicians who burn out don't.<br />
<br />
Life is different now. My clinics are capped, so even on days when everyone shows up, I usually run (at least close to) on time. I don't run over too often, and some days I finish early. I still get behind on paperwork sometimes, but it's usually because I've taken something extra on (like travelling to a remote community to share my knowledge with a group of rural physicians) and not because the work load is too much. And when I get behind, I can catch up again.<br />
<br />
I can finally breathe again. Not the shallow, panicked, desperate breaths that I was breathing for months. Deep, calm, happy breaths.<br />
<br />
Things are so much better.<br />
<br />
*I think. My memory is crappy.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-36202943845221600872019-09-02T16:38:00.001-05:002019-09-02T16:38:25.072-05:00Practice, Part OneI wrote a while back about how <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-i-started-to-meditate.html">online dating got me into meditation</a>. While I only went on one date with the yoga-loving woman mentioned in the post, we have established a fairly close friendship over the past year, and after listening to her talk about her love of yoga, I decided it was something I should also do.<br />
<br />
I had done yoga before, but only in a once- or twice-a-week, go-months-without-practicing kind of way. Thanks in part to my friend's inspiration, as well as another friend directing me to a fabulous studio, I have now become someone with a regular practice. I look forward to classes more than almost anything else I do, and I am sad that I don't yet have the stamina to go to a class every day - although I set a personal record of 19 classes in August, so I'm getting there.<br />
<br />
In all my posts so far about burnout, I haven't yet written much about the role that yoga played, but ironically, I think it was a big part of why I burnt out when I did. Before I started doing yoga, I was living with blinders on, getting through each day by focusing on the work and ignoring how miserable it was making me. In yoga, I spend an hour or more each class inside my own head, and it's really hard to ignore how you're feeling when it's just you and your thoughts*. Being present with my own emotions forced me to acknowledge them and, eventually, to do something about them.<br />
<br />
Yoga also, in a very tangible and physical way, forced me to confront the fact that I am limited. Doctors aren't supposed to be - we're taught from the beginning of medical school that we should be able to do any amount of work under any conditions without ever making a mistake. And while I knew intellectually that this was utter nonsense, on an emotional level, this concept of what a physician should be was harder to let go of. In yoga, my limitations are right there and are impossible to ignore. If I go to a hard class one day, my muscles will be sore the next day and I won't be able to do the same poses. I am limited and imperfect. And I need rest.<br />
<br />
Now, on what is hopefully the other side of burnout, yoga is a big part of how I'm rebuilding. It's exercise and stress relief and a place that always feels safe. On harder days at work, I take comfort in knowing that I can end my day on my mat, with a bit of calm and a bit of peace. It's my happy place, and I'm incredibly grateful to have found it.<br />
<br />
Namaste.<br />
<br />
*and an instructor made of nothing but bone and muscle who can bend their body in super-human waysSolitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-84008111752547117492019-08-05T09:09:00.000-05:002019-08-05T11:03:16.932-05:00How FIRE led me to BurnoutFor a physician, I think and talk and write a lot about taking time off. Two years ago, I <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2017/07/happiness-on-path-to-fire.html">committed to taking vacation every three months</a>, and I have done a pretty good job of sticking to that ever since (I even took an extra vacation this year!). I talk to trainees all the time about taking time away from work in order to maintain their mental health and have some joy in their lives. So, until recently, I really thought I had the right mindset with respect to so-called work-life balance.<br />
<br />
Except...underlying everything has been the idea of FIRE. Work my ass off for a few years, save as much as possible, and then run away to a life of complete freedom and constant joy. The dream! While I still allowed myself vacations, the desire to have enough money to retire as soon as possible led me to make other bad decisions that were perhaps worse than never taking time off. Sure, I'll add more patients to my already overbooked clinic. Sure, I'll take on some lucrative contract work that I don't have time for. Sure, I can do an extra Friday afternoon clinic even though I'm barely clawing my way to the end of the week as it is. I convinced myself that I was being a good doctor by seeing more patients, but if I'm being honest, the real driver was the extra money that could go directly into my retirement savings.<br />
<br />
And so, <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-body-says-no-really.html">as I've already written about</a>, I crashed in a somewhat spectacular way.<br />
<br />
I'm actually kind of thankful for the crash (or, at least I think I will be when I look back on it someday), because it has forced me to reevaluate my decisions. And two big things have come out of my months of self reflection. First, continuing to work at as a physician is the best option for me, at least in the present. I have contemplated taking a significant chunk of time off or quitting to pursue another career altogether, but when I look at it in the most practical of ways, doing so doesn't make any financial sense. I could go part-time as a physician and earn more than I would doing most other jobs. In the years it would take me to study to do something else, I could work full-time as a physician and save up most of what I need to retire. My current reality is that I need to work to pay bills and save for the future, and medicine is by far the most efficient way of doing that. As an added bonus, I also often like my job, at least when things aren't as overwhelming as they have been recently.<br />
<br />
Second, and probably the more important, is that I need to stop making my decisions from a place of fear. While part of my motivation for achieving financial independence has been a desire to not work, most of it has been a desire to not need to work. To know that, whatever illness or mental health crisis or government overhaul of the healthcare system may hit, I am going to be okay. Because as a single person with no one else to rely on, <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2017/08/financial-personalities.html">I worry a lot about my financial future</a>, even when there's zero necessity to do so. And that is a really unpleasant and unhealthy approach to money.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, things at work are starting to get better. I have only one slightly overbooked clinic left, and my clinics are going to continue to get lighter over the next few months until I achieve a point of actually being slightly underbooked. I'm at the point where I can usually get my work done within the 45 hour a week maximum I've set for myself. I'm scheduled to start six days of call tomorrow, and I'm not having panic attacks or suffering from intractable insomnia.<br />
<br />
There are moments when I'm actually enjoying my work and remembering why I became a physician in the first place.<br />
<br />
So I am going to keep practicing at letting go of all the things that have been driving me to burnout. Letting go of my obsessive tracking of my net worth. Letting go of the countdown to retirement. Letting go of the belief that the future is going to be so much better than the present, and the desire to burn through time in order to get there.<br />
<br />
I'm going to try, as much as I can, to live in the now. To enjoy what I have, to be grateful for all the good, and to simply breathe.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-39291980625040926072019-06-15T16:58:00.000-05:002019-06-15T17:07:05.116-05:00When the Body Says No, ReallyWhen I wrote <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2019/03/when-body-says-no.html">this post</a> three months ago, I thought everything was going to be okay. I had turned down a few things that were stressing me out, and I'd shuffled around a few patients so that I was only overbooked for the next two months instead of the next four, and I thought it was going to be enough.<br />
<br />
Except it wasn't.<br />
<br />
The stress kept getting worse. I went from feeling anxious most of the time to feeling anxious all of the time. I was constantly aware of all of the work I still had to do, and no matter how many extra hours I logged, the amount kept getting bigger. I would push myself hard for days to get sort of caught up, but then a single busy call shift or clinic that ran over would undo it all. I eventually stopped trying to get caught up, resigning myself to being perpetually behind and overwhelmed.<br />
<br />
And then I started fantasizing about leaving. Not random, fleeting thoughts of "I wish I could spend this beautiful day outside instead of in the hospital", but whole days of thinking "If I liquidate all my assets and live on a <a href="https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/">mustachian</a> budget, how long can I go before I'd have to work again?"<br />
<br />
I might have been able to hold things together if I'd actually stuck to my plan to say no to everything, but I didn't. An offer came for me to present at a national meeting, and it felt like turning it down would have a hugely negative impact on my career. So even though I was at my limit, and doing so would mean days of preparation and travel and time changes, I said yes.<br />
<br />
The presentation went fine, but I was so tired afterwards that I could barely force myself to leave my hotel room. I tried to go to conference sessions, but the speakers' words turned to static in my brain, so I wandered Montreal aimlessly when I should've been at the conference. I bought books and sushi, and I spent almost an entire day devouring them both while hiding in my hotel bed. I didn't want to be a doctor anymore. <br />
<br />
It was a week later that I crashed completely. The weekend after the conference was Pride, and I decided to do all the Pride things all weekend, which is not a recipe for introvert happiness. By the time I dragged my beer-soaked Blundstones home at 10 PM on Sunday night, I was a wreck. And I couldn't sleep. At 2 am, wide-eyed and jittery, I made my way to the computer and emailed the nurses to say I was cancelling a clinic.<br />
<br />
11 years of clinical training and practice, and until then I had never missed a day of work for anything other than the direst of medical situations.<br />
<br />
It was (at least, I hope it was) the wakeup call I needed. It was my moment of realizing that slowing things down a bit in a few more months wasn't enough - I was in trouble now. I could maybe muddle my way through six weeks of clinics until my next vacation, but there was no way I could do that and do two weeks of inpatient call. I could not keep pushing myself.<br />
<br />
The two weeks since that moment have involved a lot of soul searching and a lot of conversations with people who have thankfully been incredibly supportive of me. The biggest thing - the thing that saved me and for which I will be ever grateful - is one of my colleagues took three weeks of my summer call.<br />
<br />
Three weeks.<br />
Of call.<br />
In the summer.<br />
<br />
I hope that someday in the very distant future I will be in a position to do someone such a huge favour, because if he hadn't done that, I'd be on stress leave right now. Taking those weeks of call from me has given me a way forward, a bridge to a time when I can actually scale my workload back enough to make it tenable in the long-term.<br />
<br />
He quite literally saved me.<br />
<br />
There is so much more to say, but as I write that line and let the truth of it sink in, I can't think very far past it.<br />
<br />
I am so glad that every time I'm in darkness, someone brings me a light.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-75442289446933293112019-03-24T09:57:00.001-05:002019-03-24T16:11:11.320-05:00Why Saying No is HardIn retrospect, I'm a little surprised that it took me as long as it did to start protecting my time. I've known from the very beginning of my training that, in order for my career to be sustainable, I need to have some time to recharge. And I've done very well at protecting my time when it comes to vacations. I've taken all of my allowed vacation days, and I've refused to do any work or studying when on vacation. But when it comes to the day to day, I've let myself take on far more work than I can handle permanently without being miserable. So why?<br />
<br />
<b>Conditioning:</b><br />
I spent nine years in medical training (4 years medical school, 3 years residency, and 2 years fellowship), and seven years in undergraduate/graduate school before that. As a trainee, I got very limited choice about things. My courses were mostly decided for me, someone else set my schedule, and saying no to things was almost never an option. So I just sucked it up. For years. I suppressed my desire to sleep and eat healthy food and have strong relationships as much as I possibly could, and I survived in a sugar- and caffeine-fueled haze because I had to.<br />
<br />
And then, I came out on the other side, and it took a while to occur to me that I was in charge for once. Since starting my job, I've somewhat reflexively said yes to things, because that's simply what I've always done. But I actually don't have to do that. For once, I get to make the decisions. <br />
<b><br /></b><b>Denial (It'll Get Better Soon):</b><br />
Whenever I look at my schedule, I think "Once <insert current thing that is taking up too much of my time> is over, I'll get a chance to catch up". Except I never do. Current thing gets replaced by next thing, and my schedule stays busy and overwhelming. It has been like this for almost four years, and yet it is only now that I'm really waking up to the fact that my schedule will always be overwhelming unless I deliberately take steps to slow down.<br />
<br />
<b>Money:</b><br />
I really have absolutely zero to complain about when it comes to my money. I am paid very well, and since I started working in 2015, I've paid off my six-figure student line of credit and accumulated almost 1/3 of what I need to retire. I am doing great, and I know there are a lot of people who would be very happy to swap financial situations with me. I recognize how fortunate I am financially, and I am incredibly grateful for that.<br />
<br />
And yet...I still worry. What will happen if I become disabled*? If my province radically cuts healthcare funding and my job changes or disappears? If I burn out and am no longer able to work?<br />
<br />
The worry drives me to accumulate. To build up my cash savings and my investments as protection against all of the uncertainty of life. Working less means earning less, and while it would still be more than enough, it feels scary to someone who is as security-focused as I am.<br />
<br />
<b>Shame: </b><br />
Other people do more than me. They see more patients, do (waaaay) more research, and have more administrative responsibilities. Lots of them have spouses and/or children, so they have a whole second set of duties to take care of when they go home. And when I look at these people, I wonder "Why am I complaining about my much emptier schedule? Why can't I do as much as they do without complaining so much?"<br />
<br />
It is hard to accept that I simply can't. Whether it's because of my anxiety, or being an introvert, or my perfectionism, or some combination of that fabulous trifecta, I simply cannot do as much as other people do. And more importantly, I don't want to. I want to not panic if I have to add an extra patient to a clinic because of an emergency. I want to sleep through the night without experiencing anxiety-induced insomnia. I want to have unstructured time at home to just breathe and exist, without having to constantly run through my to-do list in my head.<br />
<br />
I want to be happy, at least most of the time.<br />
<br />
<b>What makes it hard for you to say no?</b> <br />
<br />
*I have some, but not enough, disability insurance right now. This is one of those "important but not urgent" things that I've been putting off for too long. Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-20322472300915579982019-03-20T22:06:00.000-05:002019-03-20T22:07:42.642-05:00When the Body Says NoOverwork crept up on my slowly.<br />
<br />
Work has always felt busy to me, but over the past six months, the intensity has been increasing. An extra patient or two added to each clinic. A new computer system that is supposed to, but doesn't, make things easier. An extra trainee to supervise each week. Nothing particularly time-consuming on its own, but the cumulative effect has been a few extra hours of work every week.<br />
<br />
At the same time, life outside of work has become busier. I've invested a lot of energy into meeting people, and my social circle has expanded. And on New Year's Day, I met my new girlfriend! And I've started doing yoga. And while all of these things are good (some of them really good), they all take time.<br />
<br />
I started to notice the effects of being too busy right before my Christmas break. At the end of yoga class, lying in shavasana (aka "corpse pose"), I'd often fall asleep. On a particularly bad day, I'd cry. I thought that I just needed a good break, but I felt just as tired and overwhelmed after my 10-day break as I had before. The same thing was true when I returned from a recent week of vacation in Mexico.<br />
<br />
The lowest point came the first week back from Mexico. I was in the middle of my usual Thursday paperwork day when I started having an anxiety attack. I couldn't focus on anything I was supposed to do, and all I could think about was how I could never possibly get done everything I needed to do. I ended up having to leave early, because I was just desperately spinning my wheels while accomplishing absolutely nothing.<br />
<br />
That night, I took a long and serious look at what had gotten me to that place. (Also a long and serious look at my bank balance. If it had been high enough for FIRE, that might have been the moment for me. But alas, it's not even close.) And I realized that I haven't done anything to protect my time and energy, even though I know that I am someone who gets (relatively) easily overwhelmed.<br />
<br />
So my new phrase is "fuck no". (The "fuck" part said inside my head, because of the aforementioned lack of enough money to retire.) I have put an absolute moratorium on saying yes to anything else, and I've been getting rid of any commitment that I can possibly get rid of. I've put a firm cap on my clinics, and when people say "Can't you just squeeze in one more patient?", the answer is "Noooooo".<br />
<br />
Better to pare back now, when I'm not totally burnt out, than to be forced to do it when I am.<br />
<br />
(I have so much more to say about this, but I'm exhausted. Hopefully soon!)Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-90210020623374736252019-02-22T05:28:00.002-06:002019-02-22T08:28:27.204-06:00My Financial Independence Manifesto If you are in any way following the personal finance community, then you have likely heard about the alt-FI Manifesto that was recently published on someone’s blog and then featured on Rockstar Finance. (I’m not going to link to it here, as I don’t personally want to give it any more traffic. You can certainly Google it if you really want to read it, or alternatively you can read Done by Forty’s excellent <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/Done_by_Forty/status/1098286893911793664">summary</a> and interpretation of it on Twitter.). In it, the writer goes into great detail about how he feels the world should work from a financial perspective. At its essence, I think it distils down to the following philosophy:<br />
<br />
“I got mine. Fuck everyone else.”<br />
<br />
I’m not going to spend a moment of time going through the arguments in the manifesto, as I’m sure other bloggers will do a much better job of that in the coming days. It’s also the middle of my last night in Mexico, and I really should be sleeping while the waves crash loudly outside my window rather than hastily writing an insomnia-driven blog post on my iPhone. What I am going to do instead is state very briefly how I would like to see the world work.<br />
<br />
In the simplest of terms, I think the ideal society cares for all of its members. It doesn’t take the dog-eat-dog, winner takes all approach that characterizes the current political and economic culture in the United States. Instead, it recognizes the humanity and value of every member of society, and it attempts to create systems and structures that benefit every member of that society.<br />
<br />
I’m always happy to debate what that looks like. I’m happy to talk about welfare versus universal basic income, or about how best to respond to addiction, or about strategies for reducing homelessness. I will not, however, ever debate the humanity of the most marginalized members of our society. I will never debate my belief that those of us who have more have at least some obligation to those of us who have less. That is the essence of my financial independence manifesto.<br />
<br />
I also want to take a brief moment to address the issue of “tribalism” that was raised in the original manifesto. The manifesto proposes that we should stop dividing ourselves into groups and learn to not see things such as race, gender, sexuality, etc. I will admit that, as a queer woman, there was a time when I believed this very thing with respect to my sexuality. I thought that the only difference between being queer and being straight was that my partner’s genitals matched my own, and as a result, I didn’t think that I needed to specifically have queer friends or be part of the queer community.<br />
<br />
Two things fundamentally changed this belief for me. The first was travelling with my partner of three years through the Middle East. For two weeks, we had to be constantly vigilant to not touch each other in public or say anything that would give us away, knowing that our sexuality and our relationship made us unsafe. When she introduced me to people with whom she had lived and worked, people who are like family to her, she had to introduce me as her roommate instead of her partner. It’s hard for me to describe how painful it was to essentially be erased from the life story of the person who was most important to me. That is something that most straight people don’t ever have to experience.<br />
<br />
The second thing was dating a woman who is a very active member of the local queer community. When we dated, I suddenly found myself hanging out with other queer women and attending community events that I had never even heard of. And while I love my straight friends dearly, I found something in the queer women that I had never gotten from my straight friends. Understanding. Recognition. Commonality of experience. When I talked to them about coming out, or travelling to a country where my sexuality is illegal, or my lifelong hatred of wearing dresses, I didn’t need to explain myself. They had been there, and they simply understood.<br />
<br />
So no, I don’t think we can simply ignore the things that make us different. On a personal level, there is value in connecting with people who share and understand your experiences. On a broader societal level, recognizing these differences is essential to dismantling the discriminatory systems that marginalize people who are not white, heterosexual, cis-gender, able-bodied men.<br />
<br />
It’s still the middle of the night, and I am tired. Partly because I should be sleeping, but mostly because I am tired of selfish, ignorant people continuing to speak from a position of hatred. And I’m tired of organizations like Rockstar Finance giving these people a platform.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-43466450542258393962019-02-01T12:56:00.000-06:002019-02-01T12:56:01.843-06:00Why Are People Assholes? (A Mostly Rhetorical Question)One of my friends is grieving. She's going through a major loss, and although she is very guarded with her emotions, I can see that she is hurting deeply. I wish there were something I could do to take the pain away, but as is usually the case, all I can offer is a sympathetic ear, words of compassion, and an endless supply of hugs. Nothing, and everything.<br />
<br />
I hate when people suffer. I've dedicated my working life to doing what I can to minimize suffering, and I try in all my interactions with people to be kind. To not add anything further to the burdens that people already carry. So when I see people acting cruelly, I am overwhelmed by the question "why?". Why do billionaires underpay their employees and not allow them bathroom breaks? Why do teenagers beat up homeless people? Why do jerks go onto Twitter and attack perfectly wonderful personal finance bloggers about their decisions to buy new cars?<br />
<br />
Is it just a failure of empathy? A failure to see the humanity of the other person and give a shit about what they're going through? And, if it is, how do people get so broken that they don't care about the pain they cause others?Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-25304144563574097972019-01-15T18:59:00.000-06:002019-01-15T19:03:25.834-06:00What it is Like to MeditateWhen I started to meditate, I arrogantly thought that I would be good at it. I'm generally pretty good at sitting still, and I can stare off into space for hours, so I figured I'd be a natural. <br />
<br />
Nope.<br />
<br />
Nope nope nope nope nope.<br />
<br />
My <a href="https://www.pocketmindfulness.com/understanding-monkey-mind-live-harmony-mental-companion/">monkey mind</a> is as active as anyone else's. From the moment I plunk my ass down on my meditation cushion at way-too-early o'clock, my mind starts wandering to anything other than my breath.<br />
<br />
<i>Should I put dried cherries or dried blueberries in my oatmeal today? I had dried cherries yesterday, but they are my favourite, so maybe two days in a row is okay.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Should I go to yoga at 5:30 or 6:45? I like the 6:45 instructor better, but I'm always hangry because I have to wait to eat supper.</i><br />
<br />
<i>I wonder if next year's conference is going to be in Barcelona. I've never been to Spain. I could eat tapas. Mmmmm. Tapas. Maybe I should go to the tapas restaurant this weekend and have patatas bravas.</i><br />
<br />
And on and on. No matter how many times I bring my attention back to the in and out of my breath, it inevitably wanders back away. Over and over again.<br />
<i> </i><br />
Which, for a perfectionist, is just a little annoying. Some days I can sit with the distraction, watching my thoughts wander away and patiently bringing them back. Other days I scream in my head <i>"OMFG what the fuck is wrong with you it's just sitting and breathing it's not hard stop thinking about eating Hagen Daas when you get home from work tonight!"</i><br />
<br />
The only reason I've been able to stick with it for over six months (six months!) is because I am a compulsive reader, and every single thing I've ever read about meditation has said that this is okay. This is normal. The wandering and returning isn't failing - it is the practice.<br />
<i> </i><br />
But I still find it hard to let go of the idea that someday I'll figure it out and every meditation will be bliss. A few weeks ago, I went to a group meditation, and I meditated for a solid 45 minutes. And it was awesome! I have never in my life sat so peacefully and been so focused on my breathing. I thought I had done it!<br />
<br />
And then the next morning, on my cushion, my brain said <i>"Don't forget to take your lunch to work today because it's the pasta sauce you really love and you'll be really sad if you leave it on the counter and you have a busy morning clinic and the pasta sauce will be good after clinic as long as you don't fuck up and do something stupid in clinic, in which case you'll be crying into your pasta sauce and it will be ruined forever and you'll need to find a new favourite recipe which is really hard to find so you'll probably be miserable until you die alone and without good pasta."</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i>So yeah. This is me on meditation. Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-58194330344504332532019-01-01T09:23:00.001-06:002019-01-01T09:23:42.937-06:00WordsIn March of last year, about 5 months after my major breakup, I decided that I was ready to start dating again. I had gotten past my initial euphoria at leaving a bad relationship, allowed myself to grieve the good parts, and reached the point where I felt okay with being single. I was ready.<br />
<br />
As I was getting back into dating, I distinctly remember thinking about how good a mental space I was in. I felt like I had worked through a lot of my old demons (anxiety, self doubt) and kind of figured things out. I understood shit. I can even remember, in one particularly arrogant moment, thinking that I had learned most of the big things in life and really didn't have that much more to learn.<br />
<br />
(Cue deep laughter from the universe.)<br />
<br />
In my last post of an unsuccessful NaBloPoMo, I wrote somewhat glibly about <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-i-started-to-meditate.html">starting to meditate</a>, completely diminishing the magnitude of the impact it has had on me. On one level, it has done what I expected it to: made me appreciate the present moment more, helped lower anxiety, and improved my always inconsistent sleep. What I completely didn't expect was the deeper changes it has brought about*.<br />
<br />
Through meditation, I am learning to see everything more clearly. I am getting more comfortable with difficult things and learning to sit with them so that I can understand them better. Habits, thought patterns, relationships. The last half of this year feels like a veritable explosion of self understanding and personal change. Far more has happened than I can possibly capture in a single New Year's post.<br />
<br />
It became popular a few years ago to choose a word for the year as a way of setting an intention, and while <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2018/01/do-i-need-to-make-resolutions.html">I didn't do it at the beginning of 2018</a>, in retrospect, my word for the year was clearly growth.<br />
<br />
And what for 2019? Mostly, I want to keep going on the path that I'm already on. I want to remain in the present moment, enjoying it when I can and learning from it when I can't. <br />
<br />
2019 is going to be all about mindfulness.<br />
<br />
*This whole post feels so hokey, and if I'd read someone else's version of it a year ago, I'm sure I would have rolled my eyes and accused the writer of having drunk the magical kombucha. Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-47114361446824310902018-11-03T16:54:00.002-05:002018-11-03T17:15:46.981-05:00How I Started to MeditateI've been thinking about meditating for years.<br />
<br />
Although I don't remember specifically, I suspect that I first heard about mindfulness meditation sometime during my medical training. It was probably during a session on "resiliency" or "work-life balance", and I was probably cursing the fact that I had to sit through an hour of stupid talks before I could get back to the ward to finish my work and go home. I probably laughed at the idea of using my precious free time to sit on a cushion and focus on my breath. <br />
<br />
But it kept coming up. In talks, in articles, from friends and co-workers. And always with an emphasis on all the things it has been shown to help with: depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, and pretty much every other bad thing that people struggle with. So I <a href="https://www.10percenthappier.com/mindfulness-meditation-the-basics/">read a book</a>, which I loved. And <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-time-i-failed-at-meditation.html">went to one class</a>, which I hated so much I practically ran to the instructor to get a refund at the end of it. And I thought often about doing it. But never did.<br />
<br />
(This is the point at which I would love to insert something profound about a life-altering experience that motivated me to start meditating. In reality? (<a href="https://www.creampuffrevolution.com/">Rosemary</a> is going to laugh at this.) It was a girl.)<br />
<br />
I met a woman online who is super into yoga - does yoga at least once a day, reads books about yoga, goes on yoga retreats, and has a yoga tattoo, into yoga. And...she was really cute. And while I couldn't become an expert in yoga in the week between when we met online and when we met in person, I had enough knowledge about meditation that I felt I could claim some proficiency in it after a week. And meditation is basically yoga without all the stretching, right? So I started getting up 15 minutes early every morning to plunk myself down on that cushion and focus on my breath.<br />
<br />
Sadly, the date was not the beginning of a great romance that I have failed to talk about here (Despite my abysmal blogging record recently, I would have blogged about something that exciting.). But the meditation stuck. From day one, I felt a little less anxious, and a little less stressed. I slept a little better. In exchange for getting up 15 minutes earlier, I really do feel 10% happier. <br />
<br />
Apparently online dating can pay off. Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-7559307675756493242018-11-02T23:38:00.001-05:002018-11-02T23:38:58.292-05:00This May Be a Month of Placeholder PostsIt is 11:33, and I suddenly remembered this blog and NaBloPoMo. So...I'm sorry. This is not going to be a particularly inspired post. It is, in fact, going to just be a list (someone said that lists were completely okay). I will try to do better.<br />
<br />
Things I May Write About in the Next 28 Days:<br />
- Meditation<br />
- What to do when all your friends have babies, but you're single and childless<br />
- Dating (For this post, I will need a good gif of someone moaning while they rip all the skin off their face)<br />
- Something money-related, given that I kind of claim to be a Personal Finance blogger?<br />
- Uhhhh...photos of my cats?<br />
<br />
This could be a long month.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-37129685984576835452018-11-01T22:06:00.000-05:002018-11-02T07:39:22.213-05:00If Creampuff Can Do ItIt's NaBloPoMo, one of the worst-named events ever, which means that Rosemary at <a href="https://www.creampuffrevolution.com/">Creampuff Revolution</a> is blogging again!<br />
<br />
I haven't blogged in almost two months. Not sure why...maybe because meditation is making me less angsty, and I am less in need of a public space to vent? Maybe I'm just lazy? (Bets on the latter.)<br />
<br />
I don't know if I will NaBloPoMo this year, but the day is almost over, so I'm putting this here in case I decide to commit to it. If you're still reading my blog and I decide to do it, what do you want me to write about? Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-27874634440528545732018-09-03T18:16:00.001-05:002018-09-03T18:17:08.283-05:00Building CommunityThis weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2017/09/post-mortem.html">end of my relationship with my ex</a>, M. The anniversary of the actual end will be this Wednesday, but I'm going to be on-call that day, and in the interest of not being a disaster at work, I am trying to get all the feels out this weekend. I spent Saturday alone at a Nordic spa, warming myself in hot tubs and dry saunas, and yesterday I basically lived in my pjs. The only reason I bathed was because I had made plans to go to the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7681902/">Mister Rogers documentary</a> with a friend, and I thought she might prefer it if I didn't smell*.<br />
<br />
Today, Labour Day, I'm rejoining the real world. My fourth load of laundry is in, the fridge has been emptied of moldy olives (who knew they could go moldy?), and the dishes are drying in the rack. And after days of wallowing in the hard stuff, I'm searching for the good things that came out of my "failed" relationship. What have I found so far?<br />
<br />
Community.<br />
<br />
M's family has belonged to the same church since her parents met at a local bible college, so their connections to other church members go back decades. Soon after I started dating M (once she had come out to her church in the middle of a sermon she was delivering), I started getting invited to events with members of her church community. Fundraisers, potlucks, small group dinners, reunions at the bible college, board game afternoons, and trivia nights...my social calendar filled up effortlessly. And it was really lovely. She goes to a very left-wing, social justice-oriented church, so while I didn't share a faith with these people, I definitely shared a philosophy with them.<br />
<br />
And then, it ended. At the same time as I lost M, I also lost my connections to the dozens of people in her life who had become an extended family to me. My social calendar emptied itself out. It's been a year, and I still find myself grieving some of the harder losses**.<br />
<br />
But the upside is that the loneliness I felt after the breakup drove me to work on my own community. I had neglected some important relationships while I was dating M, and in the past year I've done what I can to strengthen them again. And because many of my friends chose the past year to start having babies and to disappear from the social world, I've also been looking for opportunities to befriend new people. I've become really good friends with R, who is the ex-girlfriend of another friend of mine. I've developed a friendship with <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2018/05/dating.html">the woman I dated after M</a>, because although we were romantically incompatible, we have a freakish amount of things in common. And I'm becoming friends with another woman I met through online dating. (One of the perks of same-sex dating...online dating can be a source of friendships!)<br />
<br />
I'm also joining pretty much everything I can think of to join. I <a href="http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2017/11/taking-risk.html">became a board member</a> for a local theatre company. I joined a conversational French group. I started going to a drop-in knitting group. I've joined a group of lesbians of "a certain age" who are interested in local cultural activities. I'm even going to an upcoming information night about co-housing!<br />
<br />
I'm not going to lie - it's been hard. It sucks to have spent over three years in the midst of a supportive community and to have suddenly lost it. I miss the ease of having a partner and a ready-made social life, at the same time as I recognize that it isn't healthy to be dependent on another person for all of my social activities. As an introvert, it's also really difficult for so many of my relationships to still be in the early phase. I want the comfort of 20-year-old friendships, not the awkwardness of new relationships!<br />
<br />
But I'm working on it. I'm taking the opportunities that present themselves, and I'm putting myself out in the world as much as I can. And trying to be patient as I rebuild the community I lost.<br />
<br />
*You should go see this documentary, but if you have any heart, go with someone you're comfortable crying with. And take Kleenex.<br />
<br />
**How am I doing with the whole not wallowing thing?Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4654303930129608743.post-11400507172995658682018-08-25T09:22:00.000-05:002018-08-25T11:45:45.973-05:00Why I Stopped DietingLike most women, I could tell you a lifetime of diet stories. The first one I remember is from grade five, when I was 10 years old, and I decided that I was tired of being the biggest person in my class*, the boys having not hit their pubertal growth spurts yet. In a moment of inspiration, I created for myself an elaborate system in which I could eat whatever I wanted, but only if I exercised first. Every food, from a carrot to a can of Coke, was assigned some cost in terms of sit ups or distance walked.<br />
<br />
I think the system lasted for a few hours, which isn't very surprising given that it involved doing something like 50 pushups before I could eat a single apple, and I have never successfully done a pushup in my life. But where it failed in getting me to lose weight, it succeeding in taking a kid who had always been a good eater and turning her into someone who didn't trust herself to know how to eat. Someone who no longer thought of food in terms of things she did and didn't like, but rather in terms of things that were "good" and "bad.<br />
<br />
And someone who, like lots of women, would spend decades of her life on and off diets. When on a diet, I would try to be constantly virtuous, eating only small portions of healthy foods and watching the scale more closely than I currently watch my net worth. When off, I would allow myself to eat anything I wanted, knowing that this was my opportunity to scarf down whole tubs of Hagen Daas and make regular trips to the McDonald's drive-thru. I never quite got to the point of binging and purging, but my whole dietary pattern was essentially a slow-motion binge-purge cycle.<br />
<br />
The most "successful" diet I ever did, if success is measured by weight lost, was Weight Watchers. A few of my friends lost weight by counting "points" and going to weigh-in meetings, and one offered to share a copy of the material with me. For six months, everything to cross my lips was assigned a point value and recorded diligently in a food journal. If I didn't have enough points for everything I wanted, I could earn more by exercising; for example, a walk to and from the ice cream shop at the bottom of the hill by the university where I worked was enough to earn me a small scoop of ice cream, as long as I didn't get it in a cone.<br />
<br />
And it worked! The pounds melted off, and I lost about 25% of myself. I got to buy a whole new wardrobe, and people constantly complimented me on how good I looked. When I see pictures from that time, I miss my almost-tiny body and the huge confidence boost that came from finally being skinny. The only drawback?<br />
<br />
I was utterly miserable.<br />
<br />
I was existing on about 1200-1400 calories per day, even with the extra calories I earned from exercising, and there was no way for that to ever feel like enough. I spent every minute of my life thinking about food - about how hungry I was, about when I would eat next, about how I could save or earn enough points to eat half a chocolate bar. And all I could talk about was food and weight. I became the person that people avoided in the lunch room, because they knew that I was going to talk about the number of points in their lunch or encourage them to join me like a Weight Watchers missionary.<br />
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Eventually, it broke me. The satisfaction of being skinny didn't make up for the misery of being hungry, so I stopped. And watched as every single one of the pounds I had lost came back, bringing a few friends with them for good measure.<br />
<br />
Weight Watchers was the last serious diet I ever did. I still had periods when I would be frustrated with my weight, and I would try to lose it for a week or a month or two, but after the long-term failure of Weight Watchers, I had become disillusioned. Maybe, it occurred to me, dieting didn't actually work.<br />
<br />
When I started medical school, I once again got hit with the dieting mentality in full force. Lectures were filled with slides about the "growing obesity crisis" and about how we should counsel our patients to "lose 1-2 pounds a week for sustainable weight loss". Except, now I started to push back. I asked professors how realistic it was to expect patients to lose 1-2 pounds a week, and they had to admit that almost none of their patients were able to do it. I started to read the scientific literature, which shows that even under optimal conditions (clinical trials with nutritional and exercise support), only a small percentage of people lose weight, and almost no one keeps it off long term.<br />
<br />
<b>Diets. Don't. Work.</b><br />
<br />
So I vowed to never diet again. In the beginning, this led to a frenzy of eating. Everything was allowed! In a short period of time, I made up for all the ice cream and pop and chips and candy that I had deprived myself of for years. And it was great! Except...I felt like shit. And I actually started craving healthy things, like salads and blueberries.<br />
<br />
So I did what any bookish nerd would do, and I read. I read about the impacts of lifestyle (not weight!) on health, and about Health at Every Size, and about intuitive eating. And I learned that being anti-diet and anti-scale doesn't mean that you have to shop exclusively in the junk food aisle. One can fight against the oppressive capitalist system of the diet industry and still be healthy.<br />
<br />
My focus now is on eating and exercising in a way that keeps me healthy and mentally sane, regardless of what happens to my weight. Not in a "I'm really trying to lose weight but will pretend it's just a healthy lifestyle" way, but in a legitimate "I'm trying not to give any fucks about the scale, but it's hard because I've been conditioned to view my weight as a measure of my value as a person" kind of way. I'm using the novel system of eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm not. I'm packing my fridge full of healthy foods, but I also have three tubs of ice cream in my freezer, because ice cream is good for my mental health. I'm walking all the time, not because it earns me more points, but because I live in a beautiful city and it is much more fun than spending my evenings cursing the right-wing assholes on Twitter.<br />
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I am simply taking care of myself.<br />
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And dammit if I haven't lost weight. I don't know how much, because I refuse to step on the scale, but my face is a little less round and my jeans no longer leave a mark on the middle of my stomach. In a weird way, this makes me angry, because dammit I've finally let go of the need to be skinny and of the quest to not to take up so much space. And as I lose weight, it's hard not to listen to the old voice in my head that says that it's better to be thin. That if I just cut my portions a bit, walk a bit longer every night, I could be thinner. I have almost thirty years of practice with dieting and only one with self care, so it's tempting to go back to my familiar routines.<br />
<br />
Except that I'm so much happier now. I'm happier eating like pre-diet me, simply because I like food and it makes me feel good. I'm happier without the diet/no diet cycles and the despair when the number on the scale won't go down. So fuck dieting. I'm officially done.<br />
<br />
*Like many girls who diet, I wasn't even overweight at the time; I was simply tall. I was in the 99th percentile for height and the 90th percentile for weight, so my diet wasn't a response to being fat but rather to feeling huge next to all the short girls and knowing, even then, that huge was bad.Solitary Diner (Also Known as The Frugalish Physician)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01239189582752445700noreply@blogger.com15