I am in the middle of a stint in my hometown, playing diligent daughter while my mother has knee replacement surgery.  The first 10 days were spent caring for my father (who has vascular dementia) while my mother was in hospital and the second 10 days is to be spent helping out while my mother slowly settles back into life at home. 

My father has absolutely no capacity to transfer things from his short term to his long term memory.  As a result we get the same questions over and over (and over and over) again.  He eventually remembered my mother was in hospital, but forgot why.  He would tell people on the phone that she was unwell and we took her up to hospital, with no clue he was telling huge fibs. 

The week with my father was challenging – also because of the constant visits to my mother and the fact that he would forget we had just been and want to go again.  As a result he spent all of his waking hours dressed and ready to go out.

I surprised myself over that time by NOT binging on food to cope with the stress.  This of course, may be because there was nothing in the house to eat.  (I previously posted that my mother had cleaned the house out of junk food in an attempt not to ruin my diet).  I did drink more booze than I should, though not enough to be hungover as my father is a man of routine and was up early every day for his breakfast.  My eating patterns were out of sync however, and I found myself eating breakfast mid morning and then nothing again until dinner.  Then I would drink several wines at night and after much fossicking, overindulge (just a little) in whatever I could find – leftovers; yoghurt with chocolate bits etc  (I WAS desperate for something sweet!!).

But to my relief I got on the scales yesterday and found that I am still about 125 kgs which is what I was (after gaining nearly 3kgs from a post-weigh-in binge) when I left my own place and what I maintained during my 10 days at the beach before coming to my hometown.  Of course I would like to lose some weight before I head to my own home in a week, but if I can maintain this weight I won’t feel as if I have spiraled out of control.

Once I travel back to my home I have to make arrangements to restart Weight Watchers and I would like to have not gained too much weight.  Ideally – given that 4-5 weeks will have passed – I would have preferred to have lost weight and in my pre-holiday fantasising, I lost HEAPS of weight and returned to work looking positively svelte (ha!).

But, I am well-accustomed to damage control and expecting the worst.  I keep expecting exorbitant weight increases each time I get on the scales, so find myself relieved that the numbers has pretty much stayed the same.

It means I am not starting too far behind the eight ball, when I do start.  Again….