I’m into dramas right now.

autumn mist
Image credit: Unsplash

I’m going through a hard time for no good reason. I can’t pinpoint why, and I can’t say for sure when it started. I have a few guesses though:

1. A result of major burn out
Even after — by God’s grace — I was let go from my job with severance in late August, I hadn’t had a break. I was already severely burnt out from my job and thank God that I had almost 2 weeks to rest before getting married (very small religious ceremony, we are having a wedding vow renewal ceremony and reception in late Feb), and due to no longer having a job I was able to travel up north to be with my new husband and spend time with him there.

But I still didn’t have a break because church needs increased, I had to seriously start planning more for our wedding in Feb, when I went to visit Jacky in NorCal we were apt hunting, then moving, then buying furniture, then putting the apartment together. It’s finally done now, but the burn out is already strong, and recovery is slow.

2. A subtle but persistent spiritual attack
Typically the onset of depressing feelings alerts me to demonic activity around me. And of course, why not? I had been entrusted with increasing serving responsibilities with youth and worship team and was also working hard to welcome newcomers. I’ve also been there before (depression), and it’s easier to relapse.

The one-off off day isn’t anything to be afraid of, but when the heaviness in my heart persists and the lies of “nobody loves me, nobody cares” don’t stop swirling in my mind it’s obvious something is wrong. Logically I know this. In my heart and in my brain I know this. But it’s like an outside force is trying to drag me down and I have to fight so hard not to internalise these thoughts. This is especially true when I go out and interact with my friends and church family who, often through no fault of their own, say or do things that hurt me deeply and end up reinforcing this lie, and, if I had somehow managed to move forward a couple of paces in this battle, these things just knock me straight back to where I started — or sometimes even a few steps further into darkness. It’s exhausting. I’m so tired. I hate being overly sensitive. I just about have the strength to fight my demons to stay afloat right now. I can’t face other people outside of this.

I’ve been going out to meet with my wedding coordinator (who’s been a life-saver in all things related to our wedding planning) and some vendors. Outside of this, maybe a conversation here and there with UK friends over the phone but I’m otherwise too drained to leave the house or even read anyone else’s messages let alone respond to them.

I haven’t been able to face my church family at all this week. I’m struggling with finding the strength to go to fellowship tomorrow. I want to go; I should go, but I don’t know if I have the strength to go. I don’t know if someone will make another off-handed snide remark or snarky joke that regularly I’d laugh along but right now can’t handle again. I’m scared. It’s sad.

3. The weather
One of the reasons I wanted to move away from UK was probably a degree of seasonal depression. Rain outside and dark days tend to get me down. It got better in LA — we don’t have many seasons outside of sunny and sunny with the occasional cloud — but it rained a lot in NorCal. That said, I wasn’t as bad in NorCal and LA has been very sunny recently, so I’m not sure this is as big a culprit. Maybe I’m just missing my hubby and the NorCal apartment space that is ours. Having him around to remind me of his infinite love (and a reminder of Christ’s love for me) made things much more bearable.

4. Lack of exercise
This one might be a bit more chicken and egg. I don’t think my depressive state is related to lack of exercising, but I have noticed a marginal improvement on my mental state after exercising (I just did a little now and finally have strength to write something here, which I’ve been meaning to do for a long time). But I need enough mental strength to push myself to do the exercise in the first place.

Either way, it’s been hard. So, I’m into dramas right now. They help me to escape. It’s not the healthiest, but it’s making it easier.

My goal is to escape into God’s Word and prayer. These two things have been lacking recently and that’s probably why I’m on the losing side of this battle right now. I was moved to pray hard yesterday against demonic attacks and for God’s protection and today I am feeling the strength of prayers (also from others, as I am sure there are at least 3 others praying for me). I thank God for them.

I’m trying to do more reading these days, but it takes a lot more effort than just sitting in front of a screen and escaping reality through entertainment and feeling the rush of happy endorphins or relieving stressful tears through empathy. Please pray for me, it’ll come slowly. Please don’t rush me, I can’t handle that right now. My mental state is weak. There’s not much more than I can bear these days. Please be patient — God’s not finished with me yet.

On the bright side, I discovered Viki’s “Learn Mode” in dramas and have actually been able to learn some Korean through it. I purchased an annual subscription because they have a 30% off sale (ends 2nd Jan, 2020) and since I have watched The Tale of Nokdu for the 6th time in a row (up to ep. 8 at least) I can now confidently have a basic conversation with you in Joseon Korean heh heh. Kidding. But not really kidding. I’m trying to watch some modern day dramas so I can actually learn some usable Korean now.

Thanks for reading, and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to reply to you recently. Please keep praying for me.

The Military Diet – Results & Stuff

Whoops! Slightly belated, but I guess not bad for an update. I completed the military diet aaaand… after weighing myself the next morning, I had lost around 2.5kg in total.

Which is pretty good, right? :)

Shortly after, I did put back 1kg, but a final total 1.5kg weight loss that’s kept off is definitely not bad. It’s been almost 2 weeks since and I may have even lost a little more as my appetite’s decreased and I’ve been making sure I don’t overeat. My scales are currently broken though so who knows.

I actually enjoyed some of the meals so much I ate them again outside of the diet plan. I’m trying it again this weekend so we’ll see how it goes!

No ‘after’ photo yet, but here’s a pic from when I was back in Spain, which would be a fairly accurate ‘before’ I guess…

Bobbie in Murcia

I’ll post the rest of my Spain trip pics soon, promise.

Want to give it a go? To make our lives easier, I’ve compiled a list of everything I ate, how I cooked it and a shopping list. I’ve used carefully calculated substitutions based on calorific values of the approved substitute foods.

If you’d like to go for the original diet plan, it’s here. Calorie values here, approved substitutions here.

Let’s begin. Read More

The Military Diet – Day 3

Day 3 was by far the most difficult as you’re only limited to 1100 calories for the day. I knew it would be tough and I’ve read plenty of comments from people who couldn’t get through it without either cheating, or… well, giving up.

It was tough. I woke up on day 3 having had a good 9.5hrs sleep and about 30mins snooze time (would you believe it, I woke up naturally at 8am and freaked out and forced myself back to sleep-ish. I never wake up early).

I believe that affected my weigh-in (although to be fair, I wasn’t supposed to weigh myself until after all 3 days were complete). My morning routine was a bit messed up, I drank about 500ml water before weighing myself so it looked like I even gained 1lb back from the day before. I’m sure this wasn’t the case, however. If anything, it at least made me even more determined to see this final day through.

Breakfast Read More

The Military Diet – Day 2

Day 2 (Sunday) was a little more challenging. I woke up later than I’d intended and only had a 2hr window to clean the house, have breakfast, lunch and rush off to Church. But that was my fault for being a lazy sod.

Breakfast

Military Diet Day 2

– 1 fried egg
– 1 slice toast
– Half a banana

The egg you could eat however you want. Toast + egg practically begs for the egg to be sunny-side up, so of course I had to deliver. Breakfast was yummy and I was very satisfied after. Read More

The Military Diet – Day 1

I have a backlog of photos that I need to share with you guys but I have something more pressing I need to write about. Today.

If you’ve been following my Facebook or Twitter, you probably saw this one coming. Over the weekend, I went on a diet.

The response I normally get when I tell this to my friends and colleagues is immediately “you don’t need to diet!” or even “what do you even have to lose?? If you lose weight you’ll disappear!”. I wish that were the case. Truthfully, I may not look extra large in my photos, but being ethnically Chinese we work to a different BMI scale than Europeans. Last time I checked, I was in the squeezing-into-healthy-but-bordering-overweight range.

To be fair, given what I normally eat… it probably isn’t surprising!

Bobbieness at Exmouth Coffee Company

So also unsurprisingly, I wanted to slim down to a much healthier BMI for my height.

I know there’s a lot of controversy over weight loss, the ‘perfect figure’ yada yada, I’m definitely not trying to get wrapped up in that. I’m especially not trying to make anyone feel bad if they’re larger than me, but this is a journey that I’m on and I wanted to share it. Read More