The Hungry Little Caterpillar

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2011-06-06T17:51:00.001-04:00

Just in case you're interested in what I'm up to now, may I present: Paid by the Weird.

Pick Three

2011-05-18T11:00:00.002-04:00

Good news.

And Bad News.

HI! Haven't seen you all in a while, how the hell are ya?

Let's start with the bad news.

We all know that I fell off the healthy eating wagon, right? I mean, c'mon, no one here is stupid. When a weight-loss blogger disappears, it usually means they've gained weight and they don't want to deal with it.

I weighed in today for the first time in 112 days. (So says my Wii Fit. It didn't ask me where I'd been, or be snarky, tho, and I'm happy about that.)

I've only gained 2.4 pounds since the last time I weighed in, tho, and that's a really good thing.

On the other hand, say hello to the 150's again. So, I've gained about 25 pounds back in the last ... eh, I'd guess 18 months or so since I really just stopped paying attention. (On the other hand, when I got on the scale this morning, I told myself I wasn't allowed to freak the fuck out unless I was back to the 180s. And I'm not. So I'm not.)

Had a nasty shock at the Old Navy the other day getting new shorts.

Anyway....

Nothing I can do about that now except try to fix it.

I said something to a friend of mine the other day that went along these lines: Keep my house clean / Be a good mom / Watch what I eat and exercise / Be a Good Wife / Write / Have a Social Life : Pick three.

I can sometimes handle four of those at a time, if I give two of them half-priority. Like, be a good mom before 5pm and be a good wife after 5pm.

So... I need to have a sit down with myself and figure this out. Do I need to be less than 150 pounds? Is that absolutely critical? Does my house NEED to be clean? (and bitch, don't even go there. we're not talking about stepford family clean or anything, but generic household chores and getting dinner cooked and whatnot... I'm not ever going to live in a house you could white glove. No matter what else I gave up.) Does my child need a good mother, or can she live with one that's just so-so?

On the other hand...

Concentrating on the other priority in my life, the one I don't talk about much here (keep your eyes open if you care... I may start a blog about that elsewhere)...

I'm now, officially, a published writer.

My short story will be published in the upcoming anthology Steamlust. (I didn't make the name. Personally I liked the working title, Clockworks and Corsets, better...)

It's not a lot. It's one short story.

At the same time, it's everything.

Being a writer has been the one goal I've always had. Never really lost sight of. Wanted. Longed for. Dreamed about.

Finally, a few months ago... I decided to stop fucking around and DO something about it.

And in October, I'm going to hold my very first published work in my hands.

Oh, and before I forget... I'm doing the Susan G Komen 3 day again.

And I deserve it!

2011-03-01T12:26:00.002-05:00

I don't know if I've particularly talked about this here before, so I'll go ahead and sum up:

One of my core thoughts in relationships goes along these lines: If you can replace the words "But I love him/her" with "But I deserve to be treated like this," then clearly, there are issues with the relationship.

For example: Boyfriend is cheating on girl. She is unhappy, her self-confidence is a wreck. He either promises to change and doesn't, or basically blows her off with a "well, that's just how it is, baby. You can be with me on my terms, or not at all." She complains to me about it. I suggest that she find some backbone, self-respect, and LEAVE HIM. She says "But... but I LOVE HIM." (Translation: "I believe, deep down, that I DESERVE to be treated this way.")

I do, sometimes, give credence to the fact that you can't always control who you love. But I do believe - truly, and firmly - that what you DO about how you feel is UP TO YOU. You might love him. And he is treating you badly. HOWEVER, you control what you decide to do about it. If you decide that staying with him is the best option, that's YOUR CHOICE. No one else is forcing you to stay with him, be treated badly, continue to feel badly about yourself. (because we all know that in that sort of a relationship, the person on the 'being treated shabbily' end of things quickly stops asking 'what's wrong with him/her that she/he treats me this way' and ends up in the world of 'what's wrong with ME that I can't MAKE him/her act right?')

So, that's my core belief. And it applies to more than just boyfriend/girlfriend relationships. It applies to everything.

My father, for instance, tends to question my judgment a LOT. If there's a subject out there, chances are we disagree. And for a long time, we always ended up in nasty, hateful arguments. Seeing him stressed me out so badly that I'd be a wreck for weeks before we had our visit, and fumingly angry for days afterward. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I had given him power over me, that I gave him the ability to make me crazy, and that I didn't have to do that.

Now, I'll give my father a lot of credit here: we talked about this, and we developed a much better relationship. The key to our relationship is the simple phrase: Do you want to fight about this? If he brings up something I feel strongly about (gay marriage, for instance, is a particularly contentious issue for us.) and it's the middle of Christmas dinner. "Do you want to fight about this?" "Well, no." "All right, then." It's a warning: I'm willing to fight about this issue if you are, but I'd prefer NOT to argue with you about it. We both know the other person isn't going to change their minds, and why disrupt the hell out of Christmas by being mad about stuff we can't do anything about ANYWAY.

I love my father. And I deserve to be treated with respect. He may not appreciate or agree with my beliefs, but he is required to respect my opinions.

And then the particularly hard part: I love myself. And I deserve this!

I deserve to have clothes that help me feel pretty. I deserve to not feel guilty about buying a dress, even if I only "need" to wear it once every few months. I deserve to spend money on myself. I deserve to be fit, and healthy. I deserve the pleasant ache in my shoulders after a yoga workout; I love myself enough to give myself that gift.

I love myself.

And I deserve to treat myself with respect.

Plans and Day Planners

2011-01-03T07:49:00.003-05:00

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.
-- Napoleon Hill

I love lists.

I love seeing fairly simple tasks, bulleted down a sheet of paper.

There's nothing quite like the simple satisfaction of sitting down, lowering my eyes to my desk, picking up a pen, and scratching something off my to-do list.

I love notebooks.

I love the crisp feel of fresh paper, the smell of pages, the broad white possibility, just ready for whatever happens to come.

I love pens. I personally own more pens than I will ever use. In fact, I have a hard time restraining myself from buying pens.

Do not, if you love me, ever set me loose in an office supply store.

(Did I mention I love post-it notes, too?)

My current favorite pens were a gift from a friend. They're from post-it. Black-inked pens on one end, pink, yellow or blue highlighter on the other, and have a dainty little carriage holder in the cap for tape tags.

Oh, Johnny, I love tape tags!

Yesterday, I got a new day planner.

It's from At-A-Glance and it's quite hideously ugly.

It's orange.

I forsee the purchase of many, many stickers until I cover the entire front and back.

On the other hand, it seems to be perfect.

Perfect is such a terrible word, fraught with disappointment. And yet...

It is quite lovely.

Each day has a whole page set aside for it. I can write appointments on it and still have plenty of space left over for my daily to-do list.

I'm using the HOT section at the bottom to write down my plans for dinner menus and anything that desperately needs to be attended to.

I've divided the pages in half, making two columns. The right hand side is for special tasks for the day (for instance, this week - likely next week, and perhaps the week after THAT - I am reorganizing and cleaning the kitchen. A thorough cleaning!) and the left hand side is for those things that are regularly part of my chores list (make bed, do dishes, plan dinner, swish and swipe the bathroom).

So far, I've done everything on the left side of the page for today.

2010 (the year we made contact?)

2011-01-01T13:05:00.002-05:00

Let me 'splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
-- Inigo Montoya, Princess Bride

Sometimes there's just a bit overabundance of life. You'd like to spread it out, like peanut butter on a piece of bread, so that it's mostly smooth from one side to the other. You don't get a mouthful of plain bread here, and a wadded up bite of nothing but peanut butter there. For one thing, it makes for a lumpy sandwich, and for the second thing... ah, metaphors are over-rated.

My house is finally empty of guests. Thank you.

I got overwhelmed this year - and this year I was trying to "take it easy" for the holidays. Easy seemed to mean that I had four unexpected guests (who let me know on WEDNESDAY that they were joining us!) for Thanksgiving... three guests before Christmas and one after. I only didn't spend time with my dad this year because of a freak snowstorm that dumped more than our fair share of white shit all over everything.

Exciting things that happened this year:

I got a new (to me) car. My husband started riding his bike to work. This meant I could actually leave the house from time to time.

I joined a gym and I take yoga and spin classes semi-regularly.

I got a concussion, hitting my head on a coat-hook. In a bathroom. Seriously, how the hell does that happen?

I broke my toe. Resulting from walking oddly while my toe was broken - ingrown toenail on the other foot. That got infected.

Got bitten by a spider. This *also* got infected.

I had a blender-full of boiling soup explode on me. I got some severe burns, but thankfully my daughter wasn't in the room, so she wasn't hurt as well, and I managed not to burn my face. It cost me a great deal of pre-holiday planning time (I was still in bandages and on pain medication for Halloween and I didn't start really feeling like myself again until halfway through November. As a result of all these annoying injuries, I named November "No Injuries in November" and astonishingly enough managed it.)

I've gained about 15 pounds since the beginning of 2010. This 1) puts me firmly back in the overweight category and 2) has pissed me off so badly that I did the most stupid thing possible, which is to say, I said Fuck It, I'll worry about it later. Yes, it's later, now. That being said:

I've decided to do the 3-Day again this year. 2009 was a banner year for me, and the 3-Day was definitely part of it. Also, apparently if I don't have a crazy goal to work towards, my work-outs fall off alarmingly. So, if you want to donate, please do.

I can't really think of anything else at the moment. It's been a bland, slip-sliding sort of year, and I'm just as happy to have it behind me.

Hope it's a better year.

F&*% You, Weight Watchers!

2010-10-03T10:15:00.002-04:00

[Insert standard disclaimer here about falling off the wagon, gaining weight, not posting, etc etc that you've all heard about 100 times if you follow weight loss blogs at all. I'm not going to repost it.]

I stopped going to Weight Watchers back in August. After an unsuccessful attempt to move my goal weight (from 134 to 139)... well, let me rephrase that... moving the goal weight was successful. And then I blew right past it. The idea was, according to my weight loss leader, Beth, (who I still love and I sometimes feel like a horrid person for abandoning her!) to reduce some of the pressure on me... that if I didn't feel so much like I needed to maintain at 134, I wouldn't stress so much, and I would just naturally lose the weight.

It's ok, you can laugh. (I've screamed, cursed, swore, and otherwise acted like all kinds of Crazy, but whatever works for you.)

Yeah.

So... I managed to stay at 139 (or within 2 pounds of it) for most of July, and then a bit of August... and then I continued right on up. I don't know that I'll ever quite forget that annoying little noise the Wii Fit makes when I step on it and it tells me I'm "overweight". It's a mocking little noise and my Mii looks down at herself in shock and horror. (in case you've never seen it, I've gotten QUITE USED to my Mii with the triumphant horns and jumping up in the air when the weight comes up as "normal")

I'll say this for the Wii Fit. It is just as mocking and cruel as kids back in the fifth grade. Like I don't have enough problems; lets add mockery from my scale?

So... yeah.

I ran right up to 143 or so.

Now, on the BMI scale, that's only overweight for my height by 2 pounds. So, what's the big deal, right? The big deal is that I've gained almost 7 pounds this year, and nearly 10 from when I hit goal. And it wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. Even adjusting my goal weight wasn't keeping me "free".

And with joining a gym (I love my gym... it's clean, it's friendly, it's not a meat market. I love my classes...) which costs $30 a month, I was having a lot of trouble justifying the $12 a week I was spending at Weight Watchers for the privileged of hearing Beth go over the same information week after week after week. Honestly, I've been going to WW for three years (ish) now. There's not much new they can tell me. I know what they think I'm supposed to do. I know. Whether I'm actually listening, or just hearing, I haven't really been GETTING anything out of it for a while now.

Over the last three years or so, I've tried tracking about 80 different ways. I've used weight watchers paper journals, I've used the online site. I've used Spark People. I've made my own paper journals. And honestly, very little has worked for me long term. I've always felt annoyed, blown it off, forgotten about it... (also, it doesn't help in the SLIGHTEST that Thomas doesn't need to track AT ALL and the bastard is still as skinny as a rail...) But I know I need to track, so back in September I've tried to be better about my tracking.

I managed to track for almost all of September. I was still mostly following Weight Watchers guidelines - getting 19 points a day, trying for my vegetables and stuff. (As a note, when you're down to 19 points a freaking day, there's no room for anything that's not your dairies/vegetables/protein.... seriously. Screw grains, you're not getting any flipping grains! Your two oil servings are 2 points, 2 dairy servings are 2-4 points, 5 f/v are 2-3 points if you happen to really like apples, which I do!, and 2 protein servings 5-8 points per day... that's 11-17 points a day right there... and a cup of brown rice is 3 points.)

And you know what? I was still sneaking up in weight. And sometimes it wasn't a sneak. I'd be doing "perfectly well" and I'd drop 0.2 pounds. -0.4 pounds. And then POW! Gain 2.8 pounds in a single day.

Truly, this was NOT working.

So, talking with one of my online friends, I decided I'd try something else.

Enter the F&^# You, Weight Watcher's Plan.

Before you get upset and defend the plan, allow me to say this: It did work for me. For years. I wouldn't be where I am now without it. And even 10 pounds over goal weight is not someplace I ever thought I'd be. I never thought I'd be wearing size 4 or 6.

It's just not working NOW.

And I'm upset.

Whether I should be upset with myself or the plan, I don't care. I'm blaming the plan.

I joined Spark People, and as I don't have access to the Online Tools, I'd been using that to track. Every single day it was telling me "Hey, bitch, you don't eat enough!" Ok, so it wasn't saying it like that... I'm allowed some creative licensing.

I've gone through this before. I get so obsessed with Eat Less, Move More. I mean, it's what you hear ALL the time...

So I'd work out three times a week, go for walks 2 - 3 times a week, and eat as little as humanly possible. (Seriously, I haven't eaten so much as a bite of pizza in 2 years!) And it was NOT working. I wasn't eating my flex points. I wasn't eating my Activity Points. I was hungry, angry, and gaining weight.

So, I decided, about a week ago, since I was gaining weight *ANYWAY*, that I would experiment.

I'd see if maybe Spark People had a clue.

They don't "reward" exercise with more food. Nutrition and fitness are completely separate. You set up a goal for working out and you set up a goal for losing weight.

Spark People said I should be getting 1,500 - 1,800 calories per day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. (Ish.) According to my strict Eat Less WW policy, with my 19 points, I was getting between 900 and 1,200 calories a day.

So starting on Monday, I pushed it. I was gaining weight anyway. I hadn't seen the inside of a WW meeting hall in over a month. It wasn't going to matter to anyone BUT ME if I put on another five pounds.

Instead of counting points, I've been counting calories. Not worrying so much about fat content. Not worrying about high fiber foods. (Especially not the crap I've been eating recently trying to keep my points down, like absurdly high fiber yogurt. I mean, really? What is IN THAT stuff anyway. It's YOGURT. There shouldn't be FIBER in my yogurt!) Not worrying about getting in my "healthy oils". Tracking how many fruits and vegetables I've been getting, how many grams of protein.

This is only week one. It may change.

But this week, I've gone from 141.1 to 138. That's over three pounds.

In a week!

And I'm less cranky, less hungry, and feeling LOADS better.

Thanks for getting me to where I am, WW... but it may very well be past time to part ways.

It's not you.

It's me.

My Safe Place

2010-08-02T14:45:00.002-04:00

The last few minutes of yoga class are laying on my back, towel over my eyes (the instructor can't change the lighting in the room, something she complains about every single time we do the corpse pose).

"And now, you're going to go to your safe place. Forget about whatever else you have to do. Forget about your concerns. Put them away from your mind. Your safe place. Picture it. Hold fast to that idea."

And I think back, and I grab hold of images of my grandparents' summer house. A tiny two bedroom cabin set on the barest imaginings of a peninsula; one good summer storm away from being an island. The path from the dock is no wider than two feet; a few bridges that cross what might actually not be a damp spot in the trail, but merely a very aggressive bush that holds one side of the land to the other.

I can see the docks. The front deck. The tuffets in the back of the house. (Did you ever wonder what Miss Muffet was sitting on? I don't. I've seen them... they're round domes of moss, almost perfectly round, like a seat cushion. You can pick them up, they're dirt on the bottom, and move them somewhere else, and they'll just continue to do their thing...)

And yet, I'm seeing everything from a bird's eye view. A perspective I've never actually seen these buildings, structures, trees. I don't see any people, although I was never there when there was less than four people in residence, and usually there were more. I've never seen the house from the top, nor peered down at the back yard from the roof.

I can't seem to picture myself there. Not in a deck chair, or lounging on the deck, or swimming in the back bay, or walking in the shallows over to the Point.

It's strange.

But I'm not in my safe place at all.

No one is.

Slack? Not Me!

2010-07-13T12:33:00.001-04:00

I've been "on vacation" for the last few days. What started as a reunion party for my college's science fiction club has become a full-on yearly summer party. Starting some time around the 4th of July and running full force until about the 12th, it's nothing but people, drinking, food, visitors, food, drinking, reminiscing, getting to tell the same old stories to new people... and hey, did I mention the food?

However, I've been pretty good with the food. Well, except for yesterday... I don't think I ate MUCH yesterday, but what I did eat was almost entirely chips. And salsa. But since I didn't eat the whole bag of chips, I think it was good. Well, not good, but not totally throwing myself down the stairs. When I'm chasing the last few tomatoes around the bottom of the salsa jar with a Popsicle stick, I might need some help.

And I've been working out... not at the gym, but I did walk a LOT, and did some running around in the park.

Despite that, my weight's up a bit. Probably all the salt.

Went to Yoga again today. Oh, I love it! My instructor was very impressed with me. Today's class structure was Abs, butt, and balance.

"Are you sure you're a novice?" she asked me after class. "You had your foot way up there during tree. And your balancing tiger? that was excellent. That's a really hard pose!"

Seriously, I love the gym, I've been enjoying my classes and the workouts... but if I had to pick why I'm staying at the gym, it's yoga class. I was sweating like crazy, but I feel soooooo good afterward.

Zoooooooooomba

2010-07-08T09:16:00.002-04:00

I tried Zumba yesterday.

The operative word being "tried."

Yoda, with his "do or do not" obviously never attempted any baking, since we all know you can try to bake a cake, and sometimes you just don't succeed.

The class was HUGE - quite a shift from the morning Yoga class - something like 40 people were crammed into the same room. The instructor was very tiny. Not just thin, but the kind of woman that the slang word "shawty" was made for. I mean, I'm not exactly tall, but this girl was... maybe 4'8"? Given that the class was so large, this made her extremely difficult for me to see, even when she was standing on the stage.

Also, there were four new people, of which I was one, and most of the rest of them were very familiar with the class. She didn't call out moves or anything. Often she made a hand gesture over her head when we were getting ready to change up moves, but since I'd never been to a class before, I didn't know what any of them meant.

Now, don't get me wrong, none of the basic moves were all that hard. I've done regular dance aerobics before, and these were just modified steps like I've done before. Except with a lot more hip and leg movements. And for instance, when I started rhythm boxing, I was remarkably uncoordinated the first few dozen times, but I kept at it, and eventually I learned. Well, the basic steps, at least. I'm just not up to shaking what my mamma gave me... I think the instructors hips are attached to the rest of her with string, like those little toys, you know the ones, where you push the button on the bottom of their stand and they collapse like wet noodles?

And I learn pretty fast - it's one of the advantages of being a genius (which is completely countered by being socially inept and uncoordinated!) - so usually within a series, it wouldn't take me long to get it.

I ended up leaving the class after 40 minutes, when it was a 60-minute class, but that was because all the jumping around had annoyed my bladder (one of the joys of getting older and having babies that no one ever told me... ) and I had to go visit the ladies room. Next time, I'll remember to go RIGHT before class!

That's right, I said NEXT TIME.

Despite being relatively uncoordinated, I had a good time for those 40 minutes.

(to make up the cardio, I hit the elliptical for 25 minutes after I used the facilities before heading home...)

I also got macked on by someone who overheard me discussing raiding with Drew. (one of the guys from the gym that I've talked to several times... we discuss Warcraft, which is actually kind of fun to talk about while on the elliptical... PS - it is also very funny to be listening to mathematical formulas while doing cardio... badass fucking fractal!) Ok, dude. Seriously. Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I'm a gamer. No, I'm not going to sleep with you. Go away.

Yo(ga)!

2010-07-07T08:58:00.003-04:00

So, I took my first Yoga class yesterday.

Wow.

I just can't say that enough. Wow.

I've done a bit of yoga before, mostly in front of the TV. There's a bit of yoga poses on the Wii Fit and I have a 15 minute Yoga workout on one of my DVDs, but there's a huge difference between Wii Fit and an actual instructor. (First of all, while I love my wii, the "trainer" is annoying - I have an overworked A button thumb from hitting the "skip whatever you're saying" button - and the background is the most cheerless gym in the world.) Not that the decor in the Onelife is anything to write home about, unless you're into weird color scheme letters.

The class is pretty small. I was the only new person, and there were six of us total. The instructor, Melissa, was a tiny little woman. She came in and asked if there was anything we particularly wanted to work on; to which I responded that I didn't know, since I was new to the class.

So she took us through an entire body-stretching routine, to kind of see where my flexibility was and what poses I would need work with. Melissa is, of course, a Bendy Wendy, but I didn't feel particularly out of place. I was about in the small-to-middle side of the class. (One of these days, I'm going to STOP playing Fattest Girl in the Room. Check back with me in 2020.)

I don't really remember the names of any of the poses, except cat-cow and downward dog, both of which I've done before. But the stretches felt really good - a little tight through the backs of my legs and calves - but good. And one of the things we did - thumb against the mirror, arm straight, bending away from the arm? - fixed a weird pull I've had in my shoulder for about a week now. It was *really* nice to be able to sleep last night without waking up because my shoulder was hurting.

At the end of class, Melissa and I talked a bit and she asked me why I'd decided to do yoga, so I told her about my car accident. (Eight years ago, I hit a woman in a conversion van who was making an illegal left hand turn across four lanes of traffic. I spent 3 months on the sofa and six months learning to walk again. Given that I was told I'd never walk again, I've come a LONG, long way. Last year, I walked 60 miles across three days in a charity event.) Still, my flexibility isn't what I'd like to be, especially in the ankle that I broke - shattered would be a better description! My ankle doesn't actually bend forward very well. Much better than it used to, but I think there's still room for improvement.

She was impressed with the flexibility I did have, especially in the hips. "I would never have guessed you as a beginner if you hadn't told me."

I will definitely be going again. I feel completely relaxed. Also, I got two vertebrae in my back to pop, which desperately needed to. So despite being mad about my weigh in last night (according to WW's scale, I maintained this week. According to my scale at home, I should have been down 2 pounds! Argh! I am TIRED of paying $12 a week to feel like a failure.) I feel pretty relaxed today.

Cure the Creep

2010-06-30T13:04:00.002-04:00

[Just for those of you who are wondering, I think I'm actually out of my depression... Or at least, I've been in twilight/manic for about 10 days now, and that's a good sign. I'm feeling more like myself instead of like a paper-doll cut out with a Lee Press On Smile...]

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special
- Creep, Radio Head

I joined a gym today.

I belong to a discount service, called Groupon. (That's my referral code.) Groupon offers - 5 days a week - a discount coupon to one service or company in my local area. Today's deal was a month's membership to Onelife gym for $29 instead of their normal month-to-month fee of $69. So, I decided I'd go check it out... I didn't want to buy a membership, gym unseen, so I added a gym tour to my list of things to do today.

I admit, I felt some qualms as I parked in the lot and headed towards the gleaming building. A tiny-thin lady left the building just as I got there. I started feeling all weird and uncomfortable. I don't know why I do that; maybe it's just I associate the word "gym" with "gym class". Or I have some obscurely weird paranoid delusion that I'll walk in and one of the personal trainers will look actively horrified that someone like me thinks I could possibly belong to a gym. Logically, I know this is NOT going to happen. But there's still a part of me that expects a Jillian-esque drill instructor type to pop out from behind a cardio machine, yelling "What the hell are you doing here, fatty! Run run run!"

Bah.

Needless to say, my experience was exactly nothing like that.

I tucked Darcy off into the kid's club - they have a fairly large area for kids to play in, with a hamster tube, TV-room, bunches of toys and books - and went on the tour.

Who am I, and what did I do with the old Lynn? I was actually excited that they had a ton of stair masters. I've always wanted to try flight-climbing as a form of workout. Everything I've heard about stair masters has been really good.

The clientele seemed to be various amounts of fit. There were some bulked out dudes and some thin ladies, but there were also others who were less than perfect. A personal trainer nodded at me from where she was working circuits with a lady who was probably a good ten years older than I am, and ish 30-40 pounds heavier. And she wasn't even YELLING! Woah, I like that. I'm just not inspired by people yelling at me. Being yelled at or called names doesn't inspire me to work harder, it inspires me to walk away and not come back.

They have a "cardio cinema" for watching movies while you do your machine work. They've also got a ladies' only weight room. (Not sure either of those will be on my list... the air flow in the ladies' only room seemed particularly stagnant.)

The guy who gave me a tour - Drew - was nice, enthusiastic, and asked me questions about my fitness goals, past experiences, and previous goals. He was impressed as hell with my weight loss, and encouraging about my ability to get rid of these 7 pounds of creep.

(Ug. Why the HELL have I let my weight get so out of control that I'm back to 140 pounds?? Ug ug ug.)

Anyway, I went home (after the farmer's market and the grocery store) and signed up.

So, tomorrow will be my first day in the gym.

I'll keep ya posted.

A Little Less than More

2010-06-15T12:37:00.003-04:00

I don't think I can begin to explain exactly how much I hate being bipolar.

I rather expect there are worse things to be. And yet, sometimes being bipolar is damned exhausting.

As far as I can tell, I've been in a downswing for going on nine months.

Nine. Months.

I've had good days - even a few good spots... and I've had some really, really bad days. But mostly it's been a long, long cycle of down. Sad. Discouraged. Lazy. (Lazy is such a bad word. And yet I don't have a good word for the immense amounts of I-don't-want-to-do-Fuck-all that seems to come with these bad spells.) Angry. Frustrated. Self-hating.

And I can track right along with it, my weight loss. Or, one should say Weight Gain.

I weighed in last night at WW for the first time in three weeks. I've been skipping meetings. (I never used to do that. Even if we missed a meeting because of a holiday, or illness, I would go in for a weigh in at another time...) I was up almost 7 pounds.

Ok, let me back up and explain that. It's not up 7 pounds in a week... it was "only" one pound this week.

But it's up 7 pounds from where I was when I declared goal... it's up 7 pounds from my lowest weight, which was never as low as I wanted it to be. (I eventually declared goal at 134, with the intent of pushing for 125 anyway.) I managed to get down to 132 before I started this creep. (Creep: the slow, inexorable movement of soil downhill... geology 101, otherwise known as Rocks for Jocks.)

Right now, I'm having another twilight stage. Usually that's a good thing... twilight indicates that I'm coming out of the downphase... I am self-aware. I realize that things haven't been getting done (as an example, I haven't vacuumed the house in something like 2 months... I think the last time was right before my birthday party...) I notice that the house is a wreck and instead of wanting to go back to bed, I want to do something about it.

And yet, these last nine months have been dotted with twilights that have never, ever turned all the way into day.

I look back at the last nine months... and I've done nothing... I'm barely managing to maintain some sort of status quo, and honestly, the status is NOT quo. (The world is a messed up place... and I just need to rule it.)

I don't know.

I really don't. It may be time for me to go back on medication. On the other hand, that means finding a new psychiatrist/psychologist and going through the whole nine yards all over again... which I hate. I hate shrinks. I hate medications. I hate the clear, vivid gray that hangs over everything while I'm on meds.

And it's not as bad as it has been, the last few times I've done a medication regime. I haven't dug myself into debt. I'm not in the middle of several bad, destructive relationships. I'm just... not productive.

I mean, I've done some stuff. I've paid all the bills. I've kept the house in a reasonable state of tolerable-slovenly. I've had social outings (Too many, maybe!). I haven't - mostly - gone off the screaming deep end and bitten anyone's head off. I've done some writing.

And yet, I've run us dangerously close to the red line for money several months in a row. I've gained 7 pounds (I know, someone's going to say that 7 pounds isn't that much, but 7 pounds in 9 months is dangerously close to a dress-size... and it's been a constant gaining... the 7 pounds might be "not much" but I'd prefer it to be "not NORMAL".) I've stopped keeping my lists. (I'm usually a list-maniac... I like to track my daily chores, what I eat, my dinner plans for the week, my grocery lists, what coupons I have, what's on my social calendar, etc etc.) I don't feel connected to my husband. Or my daughter. Or my friends. I don't feel like I've had a meaningful conversation with anyone in the last several months.

I keep worrying that I'm killing my own twilight. That I start coming around and I see everything I've not-done in the last few months and I try so hard to get back to good that I smash my chances at sunshine and just dive back under the cloud cover. It's kept me holding on the ledge, instead of falling over the side.

But really, I'd like to get back on the mountain now.

ok?

Cereal Killer

2010-05-05T16:43:00.002-04:00

I've been whinging quite a lot recently about "I don't know why my weight keeps going up."

Oh, liar liar.

I know.

Believe me, I know.

(And really, you probably did, too. Admit it, we all do this when we read some poor weight-warrior whinging on about it... "well, I bet you've been eating too much. or not working out enough. Or both. Shut up and get back on the wagon, slacker." In various mental tones of niceness. Weight loss is simple. Eat less, move more. Doing it is hard.)

I mean, yes, we all have our weird weight fluctuations. Too much salt can cause a bump, or that time of the month, an overindulgence in cheetos or whatever... but usually, they're fluctuations. Up for a few days, and then back down...

This has... NOT been an aberration. This has been me up .2, up .2, up .4, up .6, down 1 (net of +.4, for those of you less mathematically inclined.) (Completely off the topic here, does anyone else have problems spelling mathematically? I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't SAY math eh mat i cal lee. I say Math mat ick lee. Therefore, I cannot spell mathematically right the first time. Ever.)

I've been paying for Weight Watchers more than I've been free. I usually manage to trim down about once a month to skate in under my limit (I haven't actually NOT made it back into my range at least once a month since November, but each time I make it into the range, it's higher than the last time. April, I made it into my range at 135.8 with a .2 margin of safety.) but I have been consistently up 2 or 3 pounds for the last three months.

Part of my problem has been a lack of something to train for. I miss my long-ass walks and I miss some of the freedom of wandering off the path of what I can eat that went with them. If I'm not exercising several times a week, I had better not stray off my 23 points a day. Without some goal to train for, I've been finding it harder and harder to get my ass down to the fitness center. (I blamed the weather, it was too cold, too rainy, too snowy to walk down there... I blamed the other people who use the fitness center; one whole time I was there, three of the four machines were in use and I don't like the recumbent bike. We all know who was to blame here, right? me!)

Part of my problem has been this annoying sense of entitlement I have. I'm mad, all the time mad, with my husband. Thomas has had a lot of trouble NOT losing weight. Annoying. As. Shit. And let me tell ya, having to live with someone who's whinging about being down another three pounds this week, even AFTER he had TWO DOUGHNUTS is just about enough to make any sane person stuff a few eclairs down their throats. Not to mention that in order to keep him from slipping down the drain when he takes a shower, we've had to stock the house with more high-calorie foods.

But mostly my problem has been nibbling.

I rarely sit down and scarf a 6 point doughnut. But I will eat a 100-cal pack, and 15 minutes later, I'll have another one. And 15 minutes after that, I'll have a piece of cheese. And 5 minutes after that (the cheese doesn't even last until I get out of the freaking KITCHEN!) I'll have an apple. And then I'll have a cup of dry cereal. And if I'm not paying attention, I'll have ANOTHER cup.

None of these things by themselves is the problem. It's that in less than 45 minutes, I've eaten 11 points. Frequently in addition to my 23 points that I'm allotted for the day. Honestly, I should just go ahead and eat the freaking doughnut, right? Then I'd only be 6 points behind, instead of 11.

My biggest problem is that damn cold cereal.

Technically, I buy the stuff for Darcy. In actuality, Thomas and I eat 95% of it. Thomas for breakfast on days he's not headed in to work; me, in a coffee cup, in front of the computer. And again, if I would just have one cup, that'd be fine.

But I don't.

I have one cup... and then 15 minutes later, I'll have another cup... and then another one... one serving of cold pre-sweetened cereal is 100-140 calories. (and, of course, a serving is often like 3/4 of a cup...) There are 14 servings in a box. When that box is empty in 3 days... well...

yeah.

For a while, I was asking Thomas to point it out to me, if I was eating the stuff, so that I'd stop. And I was okay for a while. And now? I'm just eating it when he's at work. Or in the evenings, when I'm reading in the other room. When he doesn't see me.

I'm sneaking food?

Jesus.

So, I fessed up with him about it today. And now I'm fessing up with you.

One of the things that Weight Watcher's suggests as a Tool for Living is Ask for Help. So, I'm asking.

HOW do I keep myself from doing this? I am nibbling myself right out of my weight range, and I must say, I don't like it very much. I feel guilty. And slack. And stupid. And I don't like feeling that way.

That woman who isn't me

2010-05-04T10:50:00.003-04:00

Today, I took down most of my old pictures.

I know, some websites and self-image consultants and whatnot tell you to keep out some of your "pre-lifestyle-change" pictures. (I called them my "fat pictures" earlier today and boy did I manage to piss someone off.) That looking at these old pictures of myself, I can see how far I've come, how much different I am now. That these pictures will inspire me to keep up the good work (or, on the flip side of the coin, they'll terrify me into skipping that snack!).

They don't.

All these pictures tend to do is make me sad.

Someone else said to me that we (the before me and after me) were the same person, only the packaging has changed.

I'm not sure that's true.

The old me didn't like to be outside. The old me would rather order her groceries from an online service and pick them up so she didn't have to walk around the grocery store. The old me would do anything - ANYTHING - to avoid physical activity. The old me worried so much about the state of her health that she could barely sleep at night, and yet was so determined not to change that she refused to see a doctor. As if whatever illnesses she had could be avoided just from lack of knowledge. The old me wore the same shabby house dress day in and day out because it was just about the only thing she had that fit and was comfortable. (She wore different clothes when she went "out", but generally avoided going out as much as possible, too.) The old me was uncomfortable in a restaurant booth, the edge of the table constantly buried somewhere deep within folds of fat. The old me once lied, boycotted a store, and blamed a sales clerk when it was actually her fault that she'd knocked an expensive china figure off a shelf with a too-wide hip. (She told everyone that the figure had been broken to start with and the clerk pinned it on me because she picked it up.) The old me was constantly depressed. When her entire batch of friends filled out a "pick words to describe her" experiment, Every Single One of my friends selected "Unhappy" as a descriptor. The old me was constantly overheated and sweaty, using extra-strength deodorant several times a day and still having wet spots under her arms.

The new me is active. The new me gets cranky if she hasn't been out of doors at least a few times a week. The new me is constantly chilly (the new me also has a MUCH LOWER electric bill because she doesn't need it to be 68 inside her apartment during the summer!) The new me has a tan most of the time - and not a "lay around and bake" tan, either, but one that's got several strange lines from wearing different clothing outside. The new me likes clothes shopping. The new me goes to the doctor regularly, is aware of her blood sugar levels, and doesn't avoid the dentist. The new me would rather walk to the 7-11 and get a diet coke as a "treat" than go to the Red Robin and eat a basket of cheese sticks (ok, I'm not sure about that one yet... I'd still rather eat the cheese sticks. the point is, however, that I don't.) The new me is happier. The new me has a lot of active, healthy friends who do active, healthy things. The new me is absurdly excited about her new Wii Fitness game.

So I took down all those old pictures.

Because I don't know that person anymore.

Gravitational Absolutist

2010-04-07T11:08:00.002-04:00

I'm not much on organized religion. I don't find the idea of God particularly upsetting, but I've found, unfortunately, a lot upsetting about God's churches. God's okay. People... not so much, sometimes.

And I was That Kid, when I was younger. You know, the annoying little shits who think they're so clever...

"If Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth, and they had two sons, one of whom killed the other, where did Mrs. Cain come from?"

"Could God make a rock so big that He couldn't move it?"

You know... I think it's mandatory that all church groups have one. We're a plague, that way.

Now that I'm older, and especially as a mother, I can see some uses for God. Child, "Why do I have to clean my room?" Me, "God said so, now get it done!"

All kidding aside, I've settled into a sort of comfortable philosophy. "Gravitational Absolutist. Gravity works. All the time. Under all circumstances. Everything else... is up for debate." (No, please don't fill my comments with stuff about Zero Gravity... zero gravity is not, actually, being unacted upon by gravity... any mass - and even light - are affected by gravity, whether we are aware of it or not. Zero gravity means only that we do not feel the effects of earth's gravitational pull. If there was no gravity in space, our planet would not stay in its orbit, as well as many, many other Bad Things.)

Ok, I'm finished discussing physics, you can pay attention again.

A few years back, I saw graffiti on a bathroom wall.

"There is no gravity, the earth just sucks."

For a gravitational absolutist, this sort of sentiment is the blackest heresy.

The earth does not suck.

Even in the deepest despair, there is something worth looking at, admiring, doing, being.

It's not always easy to find. It's usually not easily achievable. But it's definitely there.

I say all this because I am beginning to really HATE maintenance. I don't know why I expected maintenance to be easy... why I thought losing the weight would be the hard part. Why I thought I'd "have it down" by the time I got here.

I haven't.

I don't.

It's not.

(As an aside, I still hate my husband, for whom maintenance has also not been easy, but for a different reason. The bastard can't stop LOSING weight. His goal weight was 175. He now clocks in around 157 - 161 pounds, depending on how many cheeseburgers he ate last week. Now, I know - I even feel this way! Frequently! - that many people say "Oh, that's a problem I'd love to have." Except the thing is, it's still a problem! It's difficult to find pants that fit him, especially since he has such long legs... you try finding 30/34s off the rack! His blood sugar, which used to only bottom out once in a while, does so ALL THE TIME now.)

My goal weight is 134. I bounce back and forth between about 135 and 138. If you're familiar with Weight Watchers and their rules, this means I'm paying for meetings. A lot. Still.

At $12 a week.

That's $12 a week I really could be using for something else.

And I debate, back and forth; am I a failure, because I can't maintain in a 2 pound range? Does it really matter to anything other than my pocket book as long as my jeans still fit? Why am I so freaking hungry all the time? I do try, about every other week or so, to go back to eating 19 points a day in an attempt to lose more weight. And it's just not working for me. Days I eat 19 points, I'm so bleeding hungry that the next day I end up eating 29 points.

Part of it is, I think, that I'm not training for my walk anymore. Walking upwards of 5 hours in a day, plus another 2 or so a week, plus hitting the gym twice a week? I'm not doing that most of the time. If I'm doing "well" then I'm getting in about 90 minutes of exercise a week, which is a significant decrease from last year when I was doing 9 - 12 HOURS of working out weekly. The annoying thing is, just because I'm not working out like I used to doesn't seem to mean my appetite has decreased, like it theoretically should.

Part of it is Thomas... in order to not lose any more weight, he's having to eat out, or get sweet or high-fat treats more regularly. This leads those things to being in the house. Or it leads to a LOT of resentment on my part; he can do it, why can't I? Why can he have four slices of pizza and LOSE two pounds this week, and if I have one slice, I gain weight? It's not fair. I feel like I deserve to be able to have an ice cream. Or a candy bar. Or whatever.

And you know, it's not about deserving.

“Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe." - Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

I recognize that it's stupid, childish, pointless, and useless to have those thoughts. We're just made differently, and being mad about it isn't helping. Doesn't make it any easier, sometimes. Recognizing that I'm being stupid, childish, pointless, useless (AND FAT!) doesn't make me feel any better either.

The only thing I can do now is decide what I am going to do now. I can't control Thomas's weight loss, or his frigged up metabolism. Where am I going to go with what I know about myself?

I miss the walking, I really do. And I miss training, and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.

So, I think what I am going to do is sign up for a new event. As much as I liked the Komen 3 day last year, the fund-raising for it made me sick to my stomach. So, I don't want to do that again this year. (I may try to do the 3-Day every other year...)

And then my Weight Watcher's Leader was talking about something she was thinking about doing... The Virginia Beach Rock and Roll Half Marathon.

The thing with the 3-day, it was about endurance.

A half marathon, where I have to do all 13.1 miles in 4 hours? That's about speed. My normal walking speed is about 3 miles an hour. I won't be able to walk that slowly if I'm going to complete the half-marathon before it ends. I won't be able to take sit-down breaks every 2 miles or so.

So... I'm going to do that; sign up is by the end of May and will cost me $85.

Gravity works. All the time. Under every possible circumstance. The rest... is open for improvement.

A Merry Workout Pledge

2010-04-01T07:59:00.004-04:00

If you don't read A Merry Life, you should. Mary is adorable, and I'm personally in awe of her... she has done a TON of cool stuff - especially visiting her boyfriend Kepa in New Zealand and I am desperately envious...

Here's a word of advice; DO THOSE THINGS... not necessarily bungee jumping, but get OUT there and do that you can, while you can do it. Don't let your weight get in the way... don't let "what people think" get in the way. There are a lot of things I wish I'd done, and while they're not impossible to do now, it is harder with child...

Anyway, she's been having a tough time recently and asked for some support to get her back in the gym... she said yesterday she'd walk on the treadmill for 30 seconds for each comment she got on her blog... well, she's got some sadistic readers, because she got a TON of comments.

She's also got some masochistic readers, since a slew of us said we'd do it with her. (I personally feel my job as "support" isn't just to pat you on the shoulder and say "You can do it" but to get out there and get dirty/sore/crazy with you!)

Now, by the time I read about it, the possibility for my getting to the gym yesterday were nil. (There's nothing to DO at our apartment complex's fitness center except work out. Which is fine under normal circumstances, but I really didn't think that Darcy would want to sit around for 2 hours and watch me on the treadmill... ) And while she is up for walking certain distances, she gets cranky after about 3 miles or so, and I just really can't carry her very far any more. She weighs like 40 pounds these days! (I know, I know, I used to carry more than twice that around ON ME, and god only knows how I managed to do that, because carrying her for more than half a mile makes me want to throw up.)

So, I said I'd do it, but that I'd get my wii fit and step-raiser out and do step instead...

I'm crazy.

I know it.

You know it.

Now my legs know it.

Mary got 180 comments.

So I did step for 90 minutes. Three 30 minute free-step sessions on the wii. Watched two episodes of Buffy (And, coincidentally, watched the one where Buffy was doing step in the beginning, and Giles was complaining about her deplorable taste in music... )

And then we went to Darcy's soccer practice and I walked around the field for twenty minutes with Thomas. Usually we go around three or four times. (well, it's not just the soccer field, which is actually a half-sized field for the "tiny tots" league, but the entire field, which is the half-sized, the full sized, the baseball area, and a good section of just grass that needs desperately to be mowed.) I've measured the route we walk, it's about half a mile per lap, so in addition to 90 minutes of step, I walked another mile or so.

11,622 steps yesterday. 900 calories burned. 5 and a half miles.

So... I really, really hope Mary feels inspired today.

Because I feel like a noodle.

Falling Down

2010-02-23T10:50:00.002-05:00

If you asked people about their greatest fears, people come up with some pretty exotic shit.

Snakes. Like how often do you actually get into a situation where there is a snake in your house? Under your pillow? - sorry, had to throw that in there, I have a friend with a really, really funny story involving a nagging wife, a fork and a bad dream.... He tells it better than I do, tho.

Spiders. Ok, spiders are kind of icky - although I am oddly fascinated by them and have tons of pictures on my cellphone of spiders that I've seen in weird places - but logically, we all know that spiders really aren't all that dangerous. In my whole life, I've been bitten by a spider... ONCE.

Of course, the "persons of size" group has a whole other category of fears that generally boil down to public humiliation. Sitting in a chair and having it collapse under you. Not fitting in a booth/roller coaster ride seat/airplane. Knocking over a shelf in a shop.

My fear?

Falling down.

I'm not talking about falling off the theoretical wagon. And I'm not talking about falling off a building kind of thing. I'm talking about tripping over the cat. Losing my balance on the stairs.

Typical, every day sort of tumbles that my child does fifty times a day.

There are a lot of things I can't/won't/don't do because I'm scared of falling. Utterly terrified.

Now, admittedly, my fear has some basis in reality. I've fallen, just walking down the street, and broken my elbow in three places. There was a actually a chip of bone that came OFF and was free-floating. Which could have involved all sorts of expensive and painful surgery if it didn't reattach during the healing process. It did, and I was spared a franken-arm to go with my franken-ankle. But it could have. I've had an arm in a cast for six weeks for walking into a tree. Sprained ankle taking a tumble in a kiddie pool. Two fractured wrists for falling off a horse. That's not to mention all the injuries I've gotten having something fall ON me. (At least I'm not my mother. She's had trees fall on her. MORE THAN ONCE! New joke, if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, will it fall on my mother?)

Part of my easily breakable state is because I took steroids. For years. For asthma complications, steroids are the go-to drug of choice by emergency room doctors. I spent better than nine years being on steroids more often than I was off them. Which did some majorly craptastic things to my bones, my immune system, my weight.

And then there's the part of me that seems to be perpetually clumsy. I have a near-permanent bruise on my left shoulder from my frequent habit of walking into the door frame in the kitchen. I have knocked myself out at least twice coming up under things like cash-register draws and wall-mounted antique telephones. (don't ask.) I am still astonished that my breakfront's door isn't broken (pun intended) from the number of times I've clipped myself on it.

And, honestly, part of it was that I was fat. Being fat, you're more likely to walk into something because there's just not enough room for you. You misjudge how far out your hip is. How far back your butt extends. I used to joke (self-hatingly, but still, joking) that my boobs came into the room a week before the rest of me. And there's all that pounds per square inch FORCE that being fat complicates. Climbing stairs, for instance, puts four pounds of pressure PER POUND that you are, on your knee. At my heaviest weight, that's 880 pounds of pressure I was putting on my knee. Imagine what that weight is like on your bones when you fall down. It takes eight pounds of pressure to break any bone in the human body. (and those are for normal-people bones, not weird old lady butter bones like mine!)

So, why am I talking about this today?

I fell down yesterday.

And not just a simple tripped over one of my daughter's toys fall.

I was outside. Racing my daughter on a scooter (she was running, I was using the scooter...) And I turned the corner too fast and clipped the edge of the sidewalk.

And aside from a slight bruised ego and a wet spot on the knee of my jeans, I was perfectly fine. I didn't even have those long moments where my heart rate is waaay too high and I feel faint and dizzy.

To me, that's impressive.

Takes a Little Time (Sometimes)

2010-02-05T15:19:00.002-05:00

Well it may not be over by morning
And Rome wasn't build in a day
You can name that thing a thousand times
And it won't make it go away...

- Takes a little time, Amy Grant

You know, I've figured out my problem.

(I know, I know, I only have one?)

Seriously, y'all, bear with me. I had a bit of an epiphany the other day.

When I started all this, over two years ago now, I kept trying to remind myself that Happy wasn't guaranteed. I could get thin, and all that would mean is that I was thin. It doesn't mean I'm pretty. Or smart. Or confident. All it would mean is that I was thin. (er).

And still, I got here (no, I still don't really think I'm thin... I'm working on it. I'm definitely thinner. Normal-sized.) and expected to be happier. I expected to feel more confident, more energetic, sexier. Something.

And it still seems to be the same old me. Slightly older. A bit more fashion-conscious. (ok, and I've discovered something odd about myself. I like... shopping for shoes. And clothes. And hair accessories. Um... ok? This is me? Since when?) Now, I realize, going back and re-reading this blog, and other things I've written, done and said... that I am more confident. I am happier. But it was such a little bit at a time, I didn't really notice it was happening.

But see, here's the thing....

I'm stubborn. My dad likes to call it tenacity, but you may as well just call a spade a spade. It's pure bull-headedness.

I have not yet failed to accomplish anything I wanted to accomplish.

I wanted to quit smoking, and I did it. I started smoking when I was ten. years. old. Smoked on and off for 17 years. And quit. Cold turkey. Haven't picked up a cigarette in 12 years. Don't intend to ever do so again.

I wanted to lose weight. And I did it. You've all seen that.

I wanted to walk sixty miles. And I did that, too.

I wanted to organize my house, get my housework accomplished, and generally not feel like a slob. Mission accomplished.

So my problem?

I keep wondering why I haven't fixed everything else.

If I can do anything I set my mind to, why can't I do everything I set my mind to? Why, for that matter, can't I set my mind more often?

When I spell it out like that, even I can see how ridiculous it is.

Also... what the hell am I unhappy about? HONESTLY?

I have a wonderful husband (and I hate saying that, because it never sounds honest.... it sounds like a prelude to my saying "but..." And yet, it's true. He's pretty damn wonderful.) My child is not me, and that's ok. She's good at math, and has sticky points with reading. But she's very well behaved, enthusiastic about stuff in general, positively cheerful most of the time, and not particularly whiny. I get along with my parents, mostly. I love my step-parents. Most of the time. I'm friends with my relations, after seventeen years of NOT being friends with them. I even like some of them rather a lot. I get second looks in the grocery store. I've been whistled at in the street. (There needs to be a word for that feeling of being simultaneously creeped out and yet flattered at the same time, there really does.) I have enough money to pay the bills, buy some stuff I want, and yet not have everything I want. (Who really wants to have everything they want? I mean, if you have everything you want, you start wanting really complicated, world-domination sort of issues. And who wants that?) I have good friends. And even beyond my good friends, I have a wide circle of acquaintances. I'm comfortable with my life.

So what's my problem?

Today, I feel pretty damn good, actually. So... not much.

Maybe I should try being more aware of what I have and what I've done than worrying about those things I haven't fixed yet. There's still tomorrow, after all, and tomorrow is another day.

Quitting my Job

2010-01-26T15:03:00.002-05:00

Conversation I had today on Twitter:

tisfan Made it to the gym, 35 minutes on the elliptical and now I'm all shaky. No more gym skipping. Bad me!

dragoneyes @tisfan You get points back for going back, tho!

tisfan @dragoneyes well, yes, but if I didn't let the damn wagon get so far ahead of me when I fell off, I wouldn't have to run to catch up.

dragoneyes @tisfan Yah, well, your job is to beat yourself up for your transgressions. My job is to congratulate you for your triumphs

tisfan @dragoneyes my job sucks.

Conversation I had the other day with my husband:

Me, hands on hips, looking around the living room, "This house is a mess! I have been such a slacker recently."

Husband, soothingly, "We've been busy and Darcy's been sick. You've had a lot to do..."

Me, "Yeah, well, nothing says 'I suck' quite as much as a filthy carpet."

Him, "You are SUCH a perfectionist."

Me, harumphing, "You'd think if I was a perfectionist, I'd be better at it!"

Him, "You say that like being a perfectionist is a good thing. You need to say enough, sometimes. You keep striving for something that's not possible. You do your best, and that's enough."

Me, "This isn't my best, though. This isn't even CLOSE to my best."

Him, "This was your best for last week. Next week, you'll have different problems."

It's one of my more aggravating tendencies; this refusal on my part to ever recognize accomplishment.

Pride... is one of those emotions I'm not very familiar with. It's sort of like... I don't know, liking your parents. You know you should, but most days, you just don't feel it. (Ok, when I say "you" I mean me. I don't know how you feel about your parents. Mine and I have a whole separate airplane to ship our baggage.) People see me and they're all "Wow, you've lost so much weight, I bet you're really proud!"

Well, I should be.

But. I'm not.

At all.

I can see, in comparative pictures, how far I've come. And yet... I can also see how much farther I have to go. My house is never clean enough, I'm not thin enough, my writing is never done, my parenting style is somewhat lackadaisical. I don't volunteer enough, I don't keep up with my emails. I don't, I can't, I'm not.

Gyah. Reading it isn't even a wake up call, it just makes me feel even more pathetic.

What does pride feel like? I really don't know.

People compliment me a lot these days, and I've trained myself (mostly) to stop saying "Yeah, but..." I still downplay my accomplishments, and even when I don't, I still don't feel like they're all that. The 3-Day, for instance... it wasn't hard. It wasn't tons of effort. I trained for it, I was ready. I got it done, and that's what I set out to do, but... anyone could do it. (Yes, in my head, I recognize that while many people could do it, quite a lot of people don't. And that's what makes me different.) And still, all I can see is how much more/better I could have done.

My job sucks.

I think I'll quit.

Someone want to give me a severance package?

Totally. After.

2010-01-15T08:11:00.006-05:00

I really don't have any comments...

Not There Yet

2010-01-11T14:31:00.004-05:00

About a week ago or so, a group of us went to see Avatar 3D... (If you haven't seen it, you should go. Not for the plot, which is ridiculously Ferngully/Dances with the Wolves/Last Samuri-ish... but because the 3D effects are brilliant. Even if, honestly, I'm getting a little sick and tired of 3D. But that's another story...)

Anyway, somewhat after the movie, me and Leslie were discussing the costuming, and she mentioned that she'd like to dress up like Neytiri.

"You realize she's mostly naked, right?"

"Well, she's wearing those boob-things."

"She doesn't really have boobs."

"Well, really," Leslie continues, "I'd just like to be that comfortable with my body."

Thomas adds, "Hey, I'd like to be that comfortable with her body."

I shrug. "I don't think I would."

I get a pair of blank looks, so I expand. "I mean, I don't want to be that comfortable with her body - " Thomas and I, you must understand, have this semi-joking agreement that if we're ever in a situation where we can't reasonably be expected to be faithful, it will be forgiven. Now, the chances that either of us are EVER going to be in a situation where we've got the opportunity to bang a celebrity are so low, I don't think it's something even my mutant worry brain can latch on to as something to fret over. "Well, seriously... would you be comfortable with YOUR body, next to hers? Would you really want to have sex with that woman, knowing she's perfect and you are... rather less than?"

"I'd like to find out," says Thomas.

"I know I wouldn't be," I said. "It wouldn't matter if Oded Fehr were here this exact moment and wanted to take me to bed. I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't be comfortable enough with myself."

Leslie gives me an exasperated look. "I'd think by that point you'd be enjoying yourself too much to worry about it."

"I'm not in that place yet," I said. "I really wouldn't. Hell, even with Thomas, who was perfectly happy to have sex with me when I was 220 pounds, I worry now, during, what he thinks of how flabby and nasty I look, and I can mostly push it aside, but it's always there. With someone who was perfect... I really don't think I could do it. I wouldn't enjoy myself. It would be mortifying."

"You are weird."

Well, yes. I've been told that before.

Say you want a Resolution... (with apologies to the Beatles)

2010-01-04T11:32:00.002-05:00

Well, glad that's over.

That being "the holiday season."

I haven't been enthusiastic about Christmas since, oh, I dunno, when I was thirteen or so. I'm not religious, I don't always like my family very much, and I never have as much money as I'd like to have.

Therefore, the holidays are stressful, expensive, boring, busy (I often wonder how boring and busy can go together, but just because I'm running around like a chicken minus its brainpan doesn't mean I'm interested in anything I'm doing...), and on top of that now, a major stumbling block towards my healthy-eating thing.

My brother-in-law came down for Thanksgiving (with his dog). This is the first time I've seen the man since I married his younger brother... TWELVE FREAKING YEARS AGO!

(Quick story; when I met his brother, I glanced between Thomas and his brother... and thought as far as looks went, I was getting off second best. Which is not to say I've ever thought my husband was UNattractive, but compared to his brother... well, let's just say 75 pounds doesn't really look good on anyone... and now... well, the two of them still look astonishingly alike, but I think I came out the long-term winner... his brother is still whippet thin, but he's also about two inches shorter and has an unfortunate tendency to dress in orange. Which made him quite popular with my child, whose favorite color is *also* orange, but doesn't really do great things for his complexion.)

And then we drove 10 hours down to Georgia to spend a week being bored with my mother. St. Simon's Island, Georgia might not be quite as bucolic as my dad's farm up in Spotsylvania, but... you're taking two complete geeks and dropping them someplace with 1 computer, dial-up connection, a 15-inch TV, no working DVD player, and no cell phone reception. Also, it was still cold as all get out, and my mother was recovering from knee replacement surgery. All of which means we had nothing to do and a lot of time to do it in. (We did give my step-dad a DVD player for his Xmas gift and the first thing Thomas did was set it up so we could watch teeny tiny star trek...)

And then we drove 10 hours back and my brother-in-law came back for New Year's. (with the dog again.)

Busy. And yet, boring.

I did gain some weight, but only about 3 pounds, and according to the Wii, I've already taken it right back off.

Maintenance sucks, just so you know. I thought it would get easier, but it doesn't. I really need to get my shit together and drop another 5 pounds or so, just so I have a little more wiggle room. I've already had to pay for one meeting in December. (I was 1.6 over my 2 pound tolerance... which is actually 3.6 pounds up from goal... blah!)

Anyway...

This year, I'd like to give myself the following:

Continued good health.

I intend to achieve this by dropping to at least 129 pounds (at the moment, that's a needed loss of less than 5 pounds). I further would like to keep in shape by continuing to go to the fitness center at least twice, and preferably three times a week. I would also like to get in at least 30 minutes of yoga per week.

Less stress.

I intend to achieve this by continuing with my good housekeeping skills. I also intend to start keeping a budget, so that I can track why we never seem to have any extra money. I am keeping a weekly calendar as well, so I can better track my daughter's homework and school stuff, appointments, and birthdays, so I can stop stressing out last minute when I either remember that I forgot something, or find out that my cousin's birthday is TOMORROW.

More time with friends.

This year, to try to cut down on the amount of money I spent on people's Christmas presents, I gave my closest friends a small token gift and a certificate. These certificates are set up that I will spend one afternoon/evening with each of my friends (once a month), take them out to dinner and a movie, or go to a museam, or a baseball game, or whatever... this will allow me to spend more time with the people I care about and also to spread a Christmas budget over the course of a year, so that I'm not overwhelmed with it.

Better family.

I would like to try to continue relations with my aunts and cousins and my brother-in-law. I intend to do this by mailing out cards for holidays and birthdays, calling to chat once a month (rotating through the couins and aunts, so that I don't call anyone more than twice a year... the phone lines do go BOTH WAYS...) I'd also like to spend more quality time with my daugther. Once a month, I'd like to do something for her - go see a movie, go to a museam, go to the park, etc.

Continued improved self esteem.

I'm starting with a professional photo shoot tomorrow, in an attempt to get some better pictures of me in the house. I'd also like to continue with my social service. Once a month, I'd like to give something back to the community; volunteer my time or give blood, or select a charity and make a donation, or give items to the Thrift store.

The gift of reading.

I have recently reaquired a library card, and I've selected (from recommendations) 12 books to read over the course of the year. My goal is to read 2 "new" books per month.

So, those are my goals for 2010 (that's pronounced twenty-ten, thank you very much!)

1 - lose ~5 pounds and maintain my weight
2 - get to the gym
3 - do some yoga
4 - keep up with Flylady
5 - budget!
6 - use weekly calendar (track daughter's homework and projects better)
7 - more time with friends
8 - keep in touch with my relatives
9 - work on self-esteem
10 - read 2 new books every month

How about you? What's on your plate for 2010?

Empty Drawers

2009-11-20T12:38:00.004-05:00

I was folding clothes the other day - a thankless task, honestly (however, folding 1 load of laundry burns approximately the same calories as walking a little more than half a mile... that's JUST the folding, not the lugging about of laundry baskets, loading or unloading the washer, etc) and I was thinking "damn, I have a lot of clothes." Then I was folding up a postage-sized pair of underwear. "And they're all tiny."

Truth be told, it takes me longer to fold the laundry now than it used to. What was a full laundry basket two years ago contained six or seven shirts, twelve or fourteen pairs of undies, a few bras, a couple towels and two or three pairs of pants. (If you're gathering from this that I wore the same shirt several times, you'd be correct. I didn't have that many things that fit, nor were flattering... Also, I was probably depressed. The problem with depression is that sometimes you don't know you're in it until you're not... but the symptoms: I rarely left the house, I usually wore the same baggy housedress five or six days in a row - can you say YUCK with me? I know you can! - were all there... it's only NOW that I'm realizing HOW MUCH better my life is...) And my laundry basket was FULL.

These days, a full laundry basket contains 4 - 5 pairs of pants, two pairs of sweat pants, 10 tank tops, 5 t-shirts or blouses, a skirt, one sundress, 17 pairs of undies, 4 bras, 2 sports bras, 2 sports shirts, my Victoria Secrets bathrobe, 2 or 3 sweaters, 18 pairs of socks (I simply cannot BEAR to wear the same socks I worked out in...), four bath towels, 2 gym towels, and my sweat jacket.

I haven't gotten a new laundry basket.

My clothes are just TINY.

On the left side of that photo is one of my cami-bra tops from Express. (I currently have 9 of these things and I still want the espresso brown one, and a few more of the patterned ones.) It's a medium. I tried on the smalls the last time I was there, and while it fit, it also displayed some of the stubborn back fat. Plus the shelf-bra inside it was a LEETLE TIGHT. So, still mediums. I'm ok with that. On the right side of the photo is one of my racer-back tops from Torrid. Right before I started losing weight, I discovered Torrid, and I still recommend them for the plus sized line that actually looks good. Also, their stores are neat, with nice wide aisles (ever wonder why Lane Bryant has to pack their clothes in so tight that you feel like you're going to knock over a display?) and really nice changing rooms. Anyway, I had a number of those tank tops. Size 4XL. That's an XXXXL, just in case you were wondering. (If we wanted to be Roman, it'd be an IVL. That looks better.)

I have an ENTIRE DRAWER of clothes dedicated to activity. Sports bras, yoga pants, sweat pants (I almost called them sweat slacks, except there is NOTHING slack about them... they are Tight as All Hell. I actually have to zip them down my legs... on the plus side, a contractor today from Chesapeake Sidings actually leaned out the window of his truck and yelled 'Nice gams, lady!'... by the way, who the HELL says 'gams' these days?") workout shirts - including my 100 pushups tank because it now has huge sweat stains around the neck and under the arms and is too ratty to wear out in public - sweat bands for my hair, two swim suits (one of them is even a bikini and I look GOOD in it... I am only dismayed that I managed to snag it just at the end of the season and didn't actually get to wear it out to the beach.) and the towels that I take to the gym with me to wipe the sweat off.

And despite this.... I still have two... count them! TWO empty drawers in my dresser.

You know, a size IVL sweater folded up takes up half an entire drawer by itself. I have four sweaters now, folded neatly, in half of one drawer.

So... I have empty space.

Guess I should buy more clothes, aye?

Make Believe

2009-11-02T11:58:00.002-05:00

Does This Blog Make Us Look Fat has an interesting series of questions for the dieter/weight warrior/lifestyle changer, whatever you want to call yourself that I thought was particularly pertinent for me today.

Go, read, come back. I'll be here.

Are you done?

Great... now I thought I'd look at this question from the other side of the equation. I am at goal weight (or, at least I was last week, and I don't think I've gained 1.6, which would be enough to push me back to paying for WW's this month...)

1. What is your goal weight or size?

My goal weight was originally 125, but I've had a hard time pushing to that point. For the last four and a half months I've been bouncing around (and I do mean bouncing... my weigh ins look like a 2nd grader's drawing of grass... up down up down...) between 132.4 and 138.

Technically, my goal is 134, which means according to WW, I need to be between 132 and 136. When I mathed out sizes (given that 10 pounds is "about" a size) I figured that from a size 24, if I lost all 90+ pounds that I wanted to lose, I'd end up in a 6, or maybe a 4. I did that. The jeans I'm wearing today are 4s.

2. How do you behave at goal?

At goal, I am... paranoid. Astonishingly enough, getting to goal didn't change me completely! I don't know what I expected, but it's not been a lightbulb moment. I still have yet to look in the mirror and see a thin person. I'm ok with comparisons (ie; I'm thinner than I was, I'm thinner than that person, I'm not the thinnest person in the room) but I still don't feel like I look thin.

I had hoped when I got to goal, I would/could relax a little. And yet, I'm so close to my goal weight that I don't really have any wiggle room. A 2 pound gain for me will have me once again paying for weight watchers, and I've discovered (as you all probably know!) that eating pizza (no matter how MUCH pizza or how LITTLE pizza) will cause me to gain 2 pounds.

I am actually less active than I was while losing. Having finished the 3-Day, I haven't yet instituted a new goal or excercise plan and Sundays, which used to be my crazy-exercise days have now become "sit around the house clicking facebook every 2 minutes" days.

3. What does a person who is active or at a certain weight do to stay there?

According to WW, I should be eating ~22-25 points (give or take) plus my 35 weekly and whatever Activity points I get. I don't know what I've been eating, since my tracking has once again fallen by the wayside. I hate tracking, I really do.

Right now, I'm trying to get back into tracking; 4 days a week, at minimum. I will give myself extra "gold stars" if I do more than 4 days tracking this week. Also, I think I'm slipping on vegetable servings again. Since I haven't been tracking, I don't know for sure. But I'm also trying to get back on track with fruits and vegetables.

Also, I got an unexpected and unpleasant surprise on Halloween. I went to donate blood (a surefire way to lose 1 pound, since a pint's a pound, the world around!) and couldn't because my iron count was too lose (12.5 is the minimum, and mine was stubbornly sitting at 11.) So, for the first time in quite a while, I'm dedicating myself to remembering to take a vitamin. I've always been a little dubious about the whole nutritional supplement thing... it seems to me that if you're eating the way you're supposed to, a vitamin shouldn't be necessary. So, I must not be eating right, eh? I did find a caffienated vitamin from One-A-Day; so I'm going to try that and see if that'll help me keep on track with that goal.

4. At the end of the day sit and think. How was this day? Could “being at goal” be your lifestyle? Could you live like this?

I'm trying really hard... sometimes I think I'm trying too hard! I'm totally stressed, and spending a great deal of time being pissed with Thomas when he eats a 1/2 pounder cheeseburger from Ruby Tuesday's (1350 calories, 90+ grams of fat) and then LOSES weight!!

I won't lie and say that being at goal hasn't had some positive effects; I'm less self-conscious than I used to be (or at least, I no longer CARE what OTHER people think of me... not that other people could POSSIBLY be as harsh on me as I am on myself...) and I have a dresser full of clothes that if I don't absolutely LOVE it, I don't HAVE to wear it. (still working on getting rid of the stuff I don't wear much or at all...)

On the other hand, getting to goal and maintenance hasn't been... easy.

It's worth remembering that just because you get there doesn't mean the work is over. We all know that it's easier to gain weight than to lose it...

Contest News!

I want to thank everyone for their comments and/or retweets... The winners are KyraTX and FlybabyF. Please email me at tisfan at gmail dot com (you know how to reformat that, right? right.) and give me your mailing information so I can get these out to you! Congrats!

How Breast Cancer Changed My life

2009-10-27T14:38:00.006-04:00

Excerpt from my old blog:

October 3, 2007.
My mother has breast cancer.

Why is there never anything helpful to say about these sorts of things. "Sorry you're sick. Hope you don't die." "Hmmm, can I have all your stuff when you're dead?" It sucks that I sit there on the phone, gaping and just having no idea what to say. Maybe they should teach a college course on "shit to say that doesn't sound completely stupid in the face of a tragedy." I know I should have signed up for it.

Yes, they caught it early. Yes, breast cancer is survivable. Yes, it's still one of the leading killers of women in the United States. I know all this. I knew it even before she told me she had it.

And people keep asking me "If there's anything I can do..." and there's a bitter, nasty part of me that wants to scream at them... "What the FUCK do you think you can do? Because, really, if you're sitting on the cure for cancer just so you can offer it to me at a convenient time, you're a real jackass." I don't say that, though, because it's rude. And I do know that people love me and care, and they wish there was something they could do. And I'm not even mad at them, I'm just mad at the situation. Still... "What the fuck, man, what the fuck. No, there's nothing you can DO. There's nothing I can do. We have to just hope that there's something the goddamn doctor can do aside from sending my mom a BIG HUGE bill."

Ditto, I'm mad at my mom. One of the first things she said to me was "Don't tell your dad, ok?" Oh for fuck's sake woman. Look, I know she's vain and self-centered from time to time, but jesus h christ, get a stepladder and get the fuck over it already. She's been divorced for fifteen YEARS. It's about time that she stop giving a royal FUCK what he thinks. What does she think he's gonna do, anyway? Gloat? My dad may not have been the most wonderful husband on the planet, but jesus, he's not like that. And even if he used to be, he's not anymore.

I feel sort of alone in this... my friends don't really like my mom much. She's sort of neurotic and immature. I don't have any family support in this; I've disowned (and been disowned by) most of my aunts and cousins and the like. It might be nice to talk to someone else who actually cares about my mom, you know? My friends care about me, and believe me, I appreciate that. But they don't generally care about my MOM. That's ok, and I don't blame them for it, but gods, I do wish I had someone to talk to who does care about her.

I can't decide if the timing of the rest of my life is good, or bad. I have Darcy's birthday party this weekend, and Carol's baby shower next weekend, and I still have a ton of stuff to do, so I'm staying really busy. But I'm also having a lot of trouble focusing on the tasks at hand. I stood there blankly at the bank the other day for like ten minutes with my mouth open, disconcerting the teller, while I tried to remember why I'd gone there in the first place. (To get quarters.)

I dunno. I hate feeling lost and useless like this.

And I don't know what to do.

This followed a doctor's appointment in July where my doctor said "I'm not liking your A1C results... I'd like you to try to lose 10% of your body weight - about 22 pounds - by the time I see you in January or I'm going to be forced to put you on diabetic medication."

And was followed by this picture being taken of me.

I weighed about 227 pounds.

My asthma, my ankle, and my fear of falling down (every time I've fallen in the last few years, I've broken a bone... I have crappy bone density from years of steroid use, and I'm a klutz on top of that. All in all, it doesn't add up to a happy and safe life.) were my excuses to keep from working out. My attitude was an excuse to not diet ("diets don't work!" "I can't lose that much weight!" "It's pointless!").

But after those three things - and they say these things come in threes... oh, wait, that's celebrity deaths... whatever - I decided to change my life.

I might not be able to change my genetics - I now have breast cancer history on both sides of my family - but I could change my eating habits and weight.

My husband and I started "watching what we ate" just after November of that year. And started weight watcher's "officially" the first week of January, 2008.

You all know the rest of the story... my husband's lost 90+ pounds. I've lost 87 (ish) pounds. I started walking; he started running. We've changed our lives a LOT.

Two weeks ago, I walked the Susan G Komen 3-Day... sixty miles.

Today, I read this article in Fitness Magazine:

"Women think breast cancer is mainly related to family history," says Melinda Irwin, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine. "But in truth, only about 10 percent of cases are. That means 90 percent of breast cancer may be caused by environmental or lifestyle factors like weight."

It's a good article, and I highly recommend it. It's encouraging to think that - what I did in the depths of "I need to do something" fear - I made the right choice.

This is me, today. (Well, technically, two weeks ago.) And my mom. I weigh 134 pounds. I can walk sixty miles. My mother's been cancer free for almost 2 years. And her surgery scar is really minimal.

4 Ways to Beat Breast Cancer

1. Watch your weight.

If your BMI (body mass index) is 25 or above, work to lose 10 percent of your weight.

2. Get moving.
Exercise for two to three hours a week for the ultimate protection, says Melinda Irwin, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine. "Aim for 60 percent of your maximum oxygen intake, where you have to take a deep breath every other word if you're talking," she adds.

3. Schedule regular sweat sessions.

Chores don't have the same anticancer effect as working out, because "they tend to be start-and-stop," Irwin explains. "You could spend an hour in the garden and raise your heart rate for a total of just 15 minutes. When you exercise, you get continuous moderate-intensity activity."

4. Veg out.

Eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and kale. They contain isothiocyanates and indole-3-carbinol, compounds that may prevent the growth of tumors.

BLOG CONTEST!!

I've been enjoying my subscription to Fitness Magazine (I got to try it on the cheap through a special offer on my Sargento Cheese sticks...) I'm going to renew my subscription. When I do this, I'll be getting 2 free subscriptions to give away as gifts.

If you'd like to win one of these free subscriptions, leave me a comment!! Post about this contest on your blog!! Or twitter about this contest!! On November 1, I'll select two lucky winners and you'll get a year's subscription to Fitness magazine! (yes, if you do all three things, you'll get three chances to win!)

173,942 (Now What?)

2009-10-19T11:41:00.003-04:00

I'm having PMS. Post-marathon Syndrome.

Otherwise known as the "now whatism".

For the 3-Day event, I trained for over eight months. I raised a lot of money (no where near the amount that one woman did... she got the taj matent... $24,000... impressive.) and basically had one driving goal for most of a year.

In the process of meeting that goal, I also lost another 22 pounds, worked my endurance up, whittled myself down to a tiny size 4 - I'm still astonished by that, just so you know - did 200 squats, 100 pushups, 200 situps. Walked countless miles. Wore through three pairs of shoes. Bought a sleeping bag, ground pad, and a crapton of gear for the event.

At the event, I met a bunch of really wonderful women (and a few pretty cool guys, too...). I felt strong, impressive, happy, sad, angry, frustrated, empowered, triumphant. I walked all 58.5 of the route miles, plus quite a bit more wandering around camp, crossing the pit stop stations multiple times to go pee, get food and drink, and stretch. My total steps for the weekend were 173,942. As my stride length says it takes me ~2200 steps to get a mile, that's ALMOST 80 miles over the course of a weekend.

I got to see my mother for the first time since right after her surgery. I carried a dozen or more rally flags. I met survivors, both of breast cancer and losing someone they loved to the disease. I danced on street corners. I made the same two jokes about 40 times each. ("I spy with my little eye... something that is pink!" and "I live in a swamp! I'm not used to hills. Where I live, the only hills are the man-made ones that are on the golf course, and oddly enough, they don't let me walk there!")

And now I'm home again.

And I've been here for two weeks.

And I don't really know what to do with myself.

I mean, seriously. How do I top this?

Some of my friends are being a little funny about it. "Why do you have to top it?" Me, "Well, because I'm only 37 years old... if this is the pinacle... wow..."

My husband was more like, "Well, what was the really big part of it for you? The endurance training, the fund raising, or the emotional aspect? If you can figure that out, you'll know which direction you want to head next."

I've been considering doing Hershey's Tour de Pink next year, if I can get a bike.

I don't know. I just feel a little... down.

It's hard to go back to doing the dishes after you've spent the weekend feeling like a goddess...

0 to 60 in Three Days

2009-10-14T08:35:00.003-04:00

Watch this space for updates... there will be some, and I have a ton of stuff I want to say about the Three Day, but right now I'm digging my house out of complete pit-dom (ok, not complete... Thomas DID do dishes while I was gone - much to my shock!) and recovering from the inevitable "I spent 3 days around a bunch of strangers and now I'm sick as all fuck" that happens whenever Thomas takes vacation.

But this is me and my mommy at the Dupont Cheering station on Day Three and has now become my most favoritist picture of myself. Ever.

I am strong.

I am awesome.

I have endurance.

I have hope.

I am a goddess.

Picture Pages

2009-10-05T21:10:00.012-04:00

Have some photos.

This is the hat I'm wearing for the 3-day...

And here as some scenic pictures from my training walks...

One of Lady Bump's cousins... Astonishingly enough, the wild turtles act the same that she does, which is to say looking up at me pleadingly so I'll feed them.

When I say "hills" around here, I mean, small heaps of dirt with grass on them, like this... Chesapeake is FLAT flat flat.

But there's LOTS of water...

This is one of my favorite spots on my walk. I don't know why, really. Maybe it's just the big rock seems incongruous with the rest of the scenery.

Scattering of leaves
As if trees threw a party
And forgot to clean.

The local library... I love the round side of the building. It's just nifty.

Squirrel!

I also saw a river otter, but he was a fast little bugger and I didn't manage to get a picture.

When Properly Motivated

2009-10-02T10:15:00.003-04:00

I can run very, very fast.

Last night, Thomas, Darcy and I were out for our usual Thursday walk (ish about a two-miler.)

One part of our walking path takes us along the "lake". It's not a lake, it's a hole in the ground where water collects. There's a lot of that around here. I do live in a swamp (part of the Great Dismal Swamp, actually...) and there's a lot. LOT. of water around here. (As a further note, I actually live in one of the highest points in the city, 18 feet above sea level. That's NOT very far, really.) Anyway, our view here is to the left side, water, to the right side, the backs of a bunch of condos. We're walking and we see a white and brown spotted dog running around, leash dragging merrily on the ground behind him.

A few minutes later, a woman pushing a jogging stroller trots up, looking furious, and calling for the dog. The dog, being a dog, ignores her completely and continues tearing around, peeing on trees, sniffing bushes, and generally acting dog-like.

Eventually, said dog notices us and comes bounding over, so excited that not only is its tail wagging, but the whole back end of the dog is wagging.

Thomas reaches down and snags the leash.

"Oh, thank you," says the lady. She leaves the stroller where it is and comes over to collect the dog.

Darcy is busy petting the dog, who is now slobbering all over my child and wiggling ecstatically. (Both dog and child. Are wiggling, that is. Darcy gave up slobbering a while ago.)

"He's very excited," the woman comments, taking the leash. She and Thomas talk a bit about the dog. I... don't much like dogs, so I'm trying to dodge the animal and keep an eye on my daughter and occasionally glancing at my watch wondering how long we have to make small talk before we can keep walking. We're supposed to go to Target after our walk and then I need to cook dinner and I'm hoping that things won't run too late because...

I glance over at the stroller to realize it is ROLLING BACKWARDS DOWN THE HILL TOWARDS THE LAKE.

"Jesus," I comment and take off flat running. I probably covered about 20 yards in 3 seconds, grabbed the stroller handle and turned sideways to keep the entire thing from flipping over on the rough ground. The baby, inside, is a red-headed little girl who is... fast asleep.

"Mom's saved the baby!" Darcy yells, jumping up and down and cheering.

"I stole her from a stupid Dikini while he was taking a pee pee," Thomas mutters under his breath.

Key to the City

2009-09-15T08:15:00.003-04:00

I've been totally strict with myself and my eating this week. I've been petrified that I would gain 1.6 pounds this week, which would take me over my 136 pound "top end". Terrified that I would gain just enough weight to guarantee that I'd have to start maintenance over again... that it would take me 14 weeks to get to lifetime. Or 21. Or another year.

I get so afraid, sometimes, of screwing things up at the worst possible moment. It would be ok (all right, so it's me and it wouldn't be ok to botch things totally in the very beginning, but at least it would be understandable...) to get it out of the way early...

But no, my tendency is to make a hash of things right at the very end. Usually in full view of everyone and everything under the sun.

Of course, I know it's not really like that. In real life, when you bump into a waiter at the country club who's carrying pasta and he spills marinara sauce all down your white jeans, all the rich people in the club don't actually all whirl on their heels to point and laugh at you.¹ In real life, most people pretend you don't exist when something completely embarrassing happens to you. (Well, unless they've got a cellphone camera with them, in which case you might end up with your picture on YouTube or People of Walmart)

And 95% of your friends won't continually nag you about your failures either, no matter what they might be thinking. And since you've got no idea what they're thinking (No, you can't interpret their looks, or silences, or read between the lines in an email. I swear to you... you wouldn't worry so much about what other people thought of you if you knew how infrequently they actually do.) you should just take them at their word. The other 4% will be charmingly funny about your failures, and will be a great source of comfort if you let them, by placing your mistakes in a light in which they actually make sense. (Foul ups are FUNNY... if you let them be. And once they're funny, they can be forgotten...)² 1% of the people you know will viciously remind you of your mistakes, be complete pains in the ass about it, act like they never make mistakes themselves and you should prove to them that they do by promptly shoving them the hell out of your life.

I'm working really hard on believing this.

Failure is how we learn. It doesn't mean we're substandard. Or stupid.

Last night, I made Lifetime with Weight Watchers. Since January 2007, I have lost 87 pounds. (Gone from 219 to 132) I have dropped 10 pants sizes. (size 24 to 4) I have increased my stamina. (From getting tired walking around the block to being tired walking 24 miles). 21 months.

It's taken me 21 months to lose the weight. (yes, it still annoys me that my husband managed to lose an additional 3 pounds - he's at -90 - in about half the time...)

It's been a long time coming. I've learned a lot. I'm feeling pretty confident and comfortable with my lifestyle choices.

Last night, I got a tiny little plastic key to go with my keychain. ³

Gaining lifetime isn't the end. Far from it. Gaining lifetime is just one step - admittedly, a pretty BIG step - on this journey.

But I've got the key to the gate; and now I can move on. I've been in the city of Weight Loss for so long; now I can open the gate and see what else is out there.

___________
^{1 - Karate Kid reference. I used to adore this movie. I probably still do, except I don't always like to admit it. Maybe I should go watch it again, just for giggles.}

^{2 - Go ahead... try to think back on the last time you had a really good laugh about something someone said. Can you remember why you were laughing? What exactly you were talking about? Unless it was yesterday, probably not... you just remember having a good time with so-and-so. We're genetically wired to remember failures and bad experiences because those are where we learn.}

^{3 I wonder, sometimes, what it says that while the "weight block" keychains are metal - for the 25 pounds, 50 pounds, and 75 pounds markers - the lifetime key is plastic....}

Jeans

2009-09-14T10:24:00.002-04:00

As if I needed more reasons to hate my body, I got two pieces of information this week that in turns disgust and amuse me.

First, I apparently have no ass.

Second, my thighs aren't big enough.

I went jeans shopping this past week with my friend Leslie. Shopping with Leslie is nothing like shopping with my other girlfriends. While my other girlfriends tend to tell me things are cute, Leslie spent most of her time criticizing. Not so much criticizing me, exactly, but the quality of the clothing, the fit, the color, the prices. She blames this on having a very picky father who insisted on absolutely the best, followed by years of being married to someone who - while he himself might not have had tons of cash, was at least the spoiled child of people with a lot of cash.

So... she's fussy about clothing.

And while I'm an apple, Leslie is a pear. (Well, a pear with an enormous chest.) I don't have a waist, so to speak. And I have absolutely no butt whatsoever. Any jeans that closed around my middle were baggy in the butt.

I had, actually, never noticed this. For me, what's always been more important about jeans fit was how well they reduced the look of my protruding stomach. One of the big problems I've had with my appearance, post weight-loss, is that I don't look thin. I am weighing in around 129-131 pounds (first thing in the morning) and yet I look like a smaller fat person.

"Well, that's unattractive," says Leslie, as I walk out of the fitting room in a pair of Old Navy sweetheart jeans. They're a size 4. SIZE. 4. Damnit.

"What is?" I turn around in the mirror.

"Your jeans... you bag in the butt. And believe me, in jeans, that's the place where you never, ever want to be baggy."

"What are you talking about?" The jeans were pretty damn snug, actually. They fit tight over my stomach and yet didn't spill muffin over the top.

Leslie walked over to the mirror and turned me until I could look at my butt. "Here."

She was right. Just under where my ass would be (if I had one) were a series of creases. I tried on another pair of jeans. And another. And we went to two more shops.

They all do it. Every. Single pair of jeans. Including the ones I was wearing.

I finally ended up getting two pairs of 4s at TJ Maxx anyway... they still bag in the butt, and yet it doesn't seem like there's anything I can do about it. If the jeans fit in the butt, I can't snap them closed (or if I can suck it in hard enough to zip them up, I get terrible muffin top.)

I'd feel even worse about this if it weren't for one consoling factor. Leslie's jeans might be stretched tight across her butt and thighs, but they gap terribly in the waist. No one ever has to wonder what kind of undies she's wearing...

So, I'm not unique, even if I am the only apple in my group of friends. At least my jeans are comfortable, rather than being stretched here and there, and making me worried that someone's going to feel tempted to drop an ice cube down the back of my pants.

Jeans are just Not Made for Women.

On the other hand, there's nothing I can do about my thighs. I already walk so much as to be ridiculous, and having lost 85 pounds, my thighs are measuring in around 18.5 inches at the moment. When I started the whole weight loss thing, my thighs were 27 inches around. I think I'll go ahead and stay in the higher risk category, ok? Ok.

Not So Much

2009-09-01T07:44:00.002-04:00

Maintenance is, quite frankly, boring.

I have two more weeks to go until I'm Lifetime (free meetings for as long as I maintain my weight below 136 pounds...)

Technically, I think I'm not supposed to get below 132 pounds, either, but I think most leaders don't enforce that.

I'm not currently very happy with Weight Watcher's web site. If you're familiar with the site, you've probably already heard these complaints, but I'm going to reiterate them anyway.

I enter my weight on Tuesday morning, even tho my meetings are on Monday nights, since the day you enter your weight is when the site resets the weekly points meter. As far as I've ever been able to determine, there's no way to change this setting. Reality-wise speaking, it doesn't (or shouldn't) really matter when my points reset, and yet as we all know, losing weight is at least 75% a head game. The tricks we learn to help us cope with the fact that (and I still doubt this assertion) "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels," for the most part, we'd all rather be eating. (Especially me. Technically, I'm "thin". Or, at least, normal... and I don't feel it. I don't feel good about myself, I don't catch glimpses in the mirror and think "oh, wow, look at me." I look in the mirror and say "Jaysus! How can I have lost 85 pounds and still look like I should have Goodyear tattooed on my ass?" Believe me, chocolate cake tastes a LOT better than how I feel most days.)

So... my meetings are Monday night, and I enter my weight first thing Tuesday morning. (This also keeps the site from yelling at me all day Monday about not weighing in when my meeting isn't until 5:30pm anyway!)

I declared goal at 134 pounds. I actually weighed 133.4.

The next two weeks (weeks 1 and 2 of my six week maintenance period) I had no changes. That was pretty impressive, actually... week three, last week, I lost .4 pounds, which took me to 133 flat.

When I entered that weight in the site, I got the following (quoted from memory, so it might be slightly inaccurate) "Don't forget, you are supposed to be maintaining your weight. You might want to increase your points intake!"

Ok, look. I'm one pound BELOW my goal weight. This is not cause for alarm. Weight does, shockingly enough, fluctuate. Even a completely healthy person's weight can vary by up to 5 pounds in a single day just from intake, salt, chemical changes, etc.

This week, I gained a pound. I am now exactly on my goal weight, exactly 134 pounds.

And guess what?

If you said "I bet the site provided negative feedback again," you would be exactly correct!

"Oh! You gained a pound! Well, that's normal in maintenance. You might want to consider going back to what you did to lose weight in the first place."

I mean, talk about a contradictory message. Is it "normal" or is it "going back to what I was doing that made me lose weight."?

What's wrong with "You are still exactly in your range for maintenance. Good job!"

Grumbles.

In two weeks, I should hopefully be lifetime. And I'm seriously considering whether or not I want to continue to use the eTools, since they're currently "free" with my monthly pass, but if I want to keep using them after I am lifetime, I will have to pay the monthly fee. There isn't even a discount for Lifetime members, and the site is NOT what you'd call cheap. Hell, my Warcraft monthly fee is less than Weight Watchers. And believe me, I spend a LOT more of my time there.

So... the fact that the eTools feedback tends to be negative... well, it bugs me.

(While I was losing weight, it bugged me as well, so it's not like this is a new complaint. As I went along, entering my weights, I found that unless I lost over 1 pound but less than 2 pounds, I did NOT get encouraging feedback... what I often got was snarky feedback. "You lost .4 pounds. Are you happy with your weight loss? If not, see your leader for ideas on how you can increase your loss!")

Now, don't get me wrong, I get a lot out of the Weight Watcher's site, not the least of which is a slew of recipes that I use regularly.

But still... I'm wondering.

Do I really want to pay for something that frustrates me on a weekly basis?

(Addendum: It is possible, with Thomas's work "Health Initiatives" that we might be able to be reimbursed for the eTools... since he's also a lifetime member, if he signs back up for eTools after I make lifetime, I can use the tools to get my recipes and whatnot, ignore the tracker, and not deal with the snarky feedback. His company pays up to $250 a year for health initiatives - in addition to, I might add, paying his entry fee for the 5K he's running in October - and provided I can find some way of printing a reciept for the eTools, we can get it reimbursed to us. A year's worth of eTools is $192... so... I think we will go that route.)

Guest Post - Weight as a Disability

2009-08-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

A quick thought from my darling husband - Thomas - who I've spoken about with recurring frequency around these parts. Hope you enjoy his thoughts on an issue that came up at work and the discussion it spawned which he later shared with me, and now with you.

Okay, so the topic that your usual host asked me to talk about is 'Weight as a Disability' after we'd talked a bit about it.

First, let me cover how it came up. A while back the AMA was asked to review whether obesity should be counted as a disability. As is typical, it was the fluff reporting on the new channel that was on at lunchtime at work, and became our topic of conversation (our lunch conversations are not for the faint of heart, and have gotten us in trouble with bystanders on a few occasions). So Sam turns to me and says “That must really burn you up, what with all the weight you've lost.”

So I had to have an opinion now, as the weight loss 'expert'. I told a bit on Enzo's story as a good example of why it should be considered. Enzo was heavy enough he caused the floor to shake when he walked. BIG GUY. When I met him, he'd started Weight Watchers at his doctors recommendation. While he was working on his weight he was out twice on medical leave, once for each knee to have them replaced. Eventually his weight loss stalled out around 125 pounds lost. He and his doctor decided that it was necessary to get the gastric bypass surgery to get his weight under control fast enough to keep from damaging the knee replacements.

Over the time (about nine months to a year) that all of this occurred, Enzo and his doctor had to fill out the disability paperwork and get the approvals for the procedures and time off, and all the other items required to get things lined up three times.

I can see a wonderful argument that if obesity were counted as a disability, they could have lined all of the surgeries under a single disability and saved huge chunks of time filling out paperwork. That doesn't even take into account the advantages of having the last surgery (the bypass) requiring huge amount of effort to prove as 'necessary'.

Unfortunately, I can also see problems with 'if you just gain another 20 pounds, you'll qualify for the disability and then we can use the surgical solution' as a horrible abuse caused by labeling obesity as a disability. Not to mention the 'I can get Social Security Disability and not have to work if I just get heavy enough'. I have friends who are considering the bypass surgery as a replacement for changing lifestyles (I have a separate rant in my pocket about that), and can see them taking a ruling of disability as proof that that is the way to go.

So, in the end, no it didn't burn me up that it was being considered, but I do understand why the AMA did eventually returned the answer of 'No'. It's not that it may not in some cases be true, but that there's too much risk of abuse of the label, and many people can address their weight without the 'issue' being a 'disability'.

Winners!

2009-08-22T11:19:00.003-04:00

The two free copies of Lose the Diet, selected using the nifty little app at Buzz My Blog will be going to:

Lori

and

She-Fit

Congrats!

Please email me at tisfan at gmail dot com in the next week with your personal information and I will get those in the mail for you to enjoy as soon as possible.

Expanding on 140 characters...

2009-08-21T08:57:00.003-04:00

(If you haven't donated to my 3-Day walk and you want to, please take a few minutes to go here http://tinyurl.com/SGK3day and make a donation in honor of yesterday's training walk. You could donate 1 cent for every 100 steps I took yesterday - ~50,0001 steps! - or $1 for every mile - 23.7 miles! )

# - I could get to like my new super ability. Auto alarm clock. Told myself, Self, we need to get up at 6am and look, I'm up! (dressed, too!)6:27 AM Aug 20th from web

The even nicer thing about my super power was that I didn't wake up 15 times in the middle of the night to check the time; a hazard when I try to set a body alarm clock. It was astonishingly dark when I woke up, but by the time I got dressed and ready to go, the sun was mostly up. The grass was still dewy and it was already in the low 80s. Yeah....

# - Prepping to head out for my 24 mile walk; if I leave by 7am, I should be able to get there and back by 5pm....6:32 AM Aug 20th from web

I'd frozen my water bottle as an experiment in keeping cold water with me. That didn't really work as well as I might have hoped. For the first thing, having a water bottle that cold built up a lot of condensation on the bottle, which then proceeded to drip down my leg, and secondly, by the time it got really warm, it had already melted completely. On several occasions during the day, I was drinking hot water.

I wasn't feeling the walk, so to speak, those first couple of miles. My back hurt a bit - not sure why - and I was a little cranky.

# - first rest stop... 2.5 miles... I am a bit sweaty already...7:40 AM Aug 20th from mobile web

I stopped in the park for 10 minutes, refilled my water bottle. My ice was more than half gone already, and the left half of my waist pack was soaked. I have decided I will not try to freeze my water bottle again. The park was completely empty. I've never seen it quite so dead before. Even when I brought Darcy and her little friend here last weekend at like 7:30, there were a few other people. Guess there aren't many people who get up at the crack of dawn on weekdays who aren't headed for work...

After the park, I stopped a half mile down the road at the 7-11 and bought a soda.

I used to think that caffiene no longer really has much affect on me. I've been so addicted to it for so long that I don't feel caffiene much. Except yesterday I did. Within about ten minutes of drinking my Coke Zero (absolutely my favorite soda these days!) I felt loads better. My back stopped bothering me, my low-grade headache cleared up and I felt much happier. Truly, caffiene is a wonderous substance.

[Note to self: go down to the Rite Aid and buy some of those caffiene strips and put them in your walking pack. They may come in handy later...]

# - second rest stop... hardee's at princess anne. note: take dif route back. farrel has no sidewalk. had to walk in median. no. fun.about 23 hours ago from mobile web

Here's where I made my first mistake of the day... When I hit the 5 mile marker and turned onto Indian River Road, I didn't check my directions. When Thomas and I are driving to the mall, we take Farrell Parkway... my googled directions took me down Indian River to meet up with Lynnhaven Parkway further down... Well, I made the mistake of going via Farrell. Which did NOT have sidewalks.

But I didn't know that for a bit... the sidewalk ended about 1/2 mile in. And for a while, there was a bike path on the side that was perfectly wide enough for one person to walk in it and be reasonably safe.

View Larger Map

However, at Pleasant Valley Road, the bike path ended. Kaput. And the bushes were very, very close to the side of the road. There was no way I could walk on the side of the road; no one would be able to see me, and I'd get squashed. Squashed didn't sound like a good way to go, really.

The google app for my phone, while fairly good at providing turn-by-turn directions, isn't too great for exploring alternative routes (what I should have done at this point was go up Pleasant Valley to Homestead, take Homestead to Providence, and Providence to Princess Anne.) but I didn't know that. The neighborhoods in our area are like vast spider-webs of roads that may or may not interconnect, come to maze-like dead ends, and are otherwise scary, even when you know where you're going. (For example, I have been going to my best friend's parent's house for 17 years and I only within the last 3 years or so, have been able to get there without a map!)

Instead, not really knowing how to get where I wanted to be from where I was, and not wanting to turn around, I did something beyond stupid. I crossed halfway and walked up the median.

(Now, I do want to say that I did the majority of my walking in Virginia Beach, and for the area, Virginia Beach has the BEST sidewalk system. But really!! This was absurd!)

The median is made up of mulch and trees and flowers. Mulch is unpleasant to walk in. It's not very firm, and while it fortunately hasn't rained tons recently (so I wasn't squelching) I was still sinking in with every step.

And then I got up to where Farrell blends in with Princess Anne. There's a little bridge that goes over the road, and then Princess Anne. Well, I couldn't go that way. The only space on the bridge that isn't taken up by traffic is a narrow K-rail (concrete highway divider. I call them K-rails because I like the movie Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones a lot more than I should, given that it's patently absurd.)

I stood in the median and pondered my options.... go back (~~fuck me!~~ forget that!), attempt to walk on the K-rail (no, bad plan, do NOT do that, idiot!), or take the wrong exit to Princess Anne. That sounded like the best option... I mean, I'm on foot. It's not like I can't pick which direction to walk down the road no matter what side of the street I'm on.

So I got onto Princess Anne, walked about another half mile or so, and decided to stop and have something to eat. I went to the bathroom, and was a little concerned. As I had already had 40 ounces of water and a 20 ounce bottle of coke, I would have expected to pee just a little bit more. But I guess I was sweating enough to bypass the kidneys. My tank-top was absolutely drenched at this point. (Good thing that snotty woman from the grocery store on Monday wasn't around... she complained that I smelled after 6 miles... by the time I stopped at the Hardeez, I'd done 8...)

# - having a bit of protien... egg and sausage biscuit sans the biscuit. ug. butter flavored crap that thing...about 23 hours ago from mobile web

I got a sausage and egg biscuit, some orange juice, and had the lady refill my water bottle again. My tastebuds have changed a LOT in the last few years. I literally could not eat the biscuit. I took a bite and promptly spit it out. Gyah! what is IN that crap? It tasted like... lard and congealed flour. I used to love biscuits. My favorite meal from Hardeez was the biscuits with sausage gravy... anway, I peeled the bread off and ate egg and sausage with my fingers, which was still slightly greasier than I would have preferred.

# - i am 7 minutes ahead of schedule... waiting for CBiP to open so I can have lunch. hope it is soon... am out of waterabout 22 hours ago from mobile web

Lynnhaven parkway is under contruction. I ran into another spot where suddenly there just wasn't any sidewalk. Fortunately, the sidewalk on the other side of the road was still there. (It was listed as "closed" but I ignored that. For the most part, the sidewalk was intact... altho there was an annoying spot right by Holland where the traffic was horrid and the sidewalk was gone for a block... I ended up having to detour down Holland for about a quarter of a mile until Holland had a divider in the middle of the road so I could cross half the road at a time and not risk getting smoshed.

I did some calling around earlier this week to resturants in the area. I figured the worst they could tell me was no, and I thought I'd make a plea for a free lunch, and maybe some donations from local businesses. Cheeseburger in Paradise came through for me. I had lunch on the house (grilled shrimp salad with some little crunchies and an apple crisp for dessert) and talked about the walk with the manager. I also drank a lot while I was there. Two glasses of water (one mixed with a gaterade2 packet from my walking kit, a glass of milk, and most of a diet coke.

I also went to the bathroom twice. [Get out your passports, I'm going to TMI land for a minute...] I started menstrating on Tuesday, and I was concerned that Thursday was going to be my OMGKILLME day, but fortunately, it wasn't. On the other hand, I'm worried about one particular aspect of the 3-Day... that's the fact that I cannot seem to have a BM unless I am relaxed and seated for most of an hour. (When I weigh in, first thing in the morning, that's not exactly what I do... I get up and putter around the house, check emails and whatnot, until I've been awake for about an hour, go to the BATHROOM and then weigh in. On days that I don't, I always have at least a 1 pound "gain" that really isn't a gain... that's more information than you wanted, I'm sure, but it seems to be a side effect of my high fiber diet...) Despite a couple of attempts, I did NOT have a BM until after I got home. I'm a bit concerned about the effects that's going to have on me for 3 DAYS...

# - puttiny my life in googles hands to get home...about 21 hours ago from mobile web

Not wanting to walk back down the median on the way home, I fiddled with my phone's google app for at least 10 minutes before leaving.

View Larger Map

This is what it gave me.

# leslie_z @tisfan PA has sidewalks all the way up to Kepmsvile but I think that would make your walk a good bit longer about 21 hours ago from web in reply to tisfan

(PA, Princess Anne, would have added another 2 miles onto the route as planned, and one mile to the route as I walked it...)

I refilled my water bottle, changed my socks, and headed out. I was a little stiff after having sat down for about 45 minutes, but that faded off pretty quick. Within a mile, I was feeling ok. A little tired and pretty damn hot, but ok.

Round about Salem, I noticed that I'd accidentally shut off my pedometer. I'm not entirely sure when I did that, altho I'm guessing it wasn't off for very long. By the time I hit the 15 mile marker, I was checking my watch and step-count entirely too often. I think I might have clicked it when I went to answer a text message from @bwjen (here's my shout out to Jen, who texted me several times during the day, made me laugh and was encouraging and helpful) and then noticed less than a quarter mile later.

I stopped at a 7-11 and got another refill to my water bottle, doctored it with a gatorade packet, and on an impulse, bought one of those 5-hour energy drinks. Eurgh. What the hell is in those things? Nasty stuff.

My pedometer/watch/heartrate monitor is programmed to ping me when my heart rate gets into high range. Usually this only happens when I'm on the elliptical and deliberately trying to get my heart rate up. Since I didn't have my watch's booklet with me, I couldn't remember how to turn that alarm OFF. So I had to deal with my watch pinging me for ... well, quite a while. I turned my music up and attempted to ignore it.

I walked down Lynnhaven. And walked. And walked. And I was looking for a road called Dalrymple. And not finding it. And not finding it. And then I passed a huge sign that said "Lynnhaven Parkway ends, 7,000 feet!" (And in truth, if you look at the map, it does end shortly after Dalrymple. But I couldn't see the map on my phone very well and I was starting to get very nervous about being lost.) Also, the sidewalk vanished on me again a few times. Usually it popped up again on the other side of the road, but really, I was getting sick of crossing the road to continue to be safe while I walked.

Finally I came to a sign that said "To Kempsville Road". I know where Kempsville is. And I was getting nervous about Lynnhaven coming to a screeching halt. I wanted to finish my walk. I wanted to not wimp out. And I especially wanted to NOT have to call Thomas to come get me because I was lost.

# - thanks random guy who gave me a cold juice and directions... having a sitdown for a bit about 19 hours ago from mobile web

About halfway down Albright (that's the road I took, and looking at Google Maps today, I added about 3/4 of a mile to my trip by not following the directions I was given!) some random guy wearing an OBX t-shirt and blowing grass clippings around on his lawn, waved at me. I stopped. "If I go straight down this way," I pointed, "will I get to Kempsville?"

"Surely will," he said. "You look hot... would you like something to drink?"

Me: "Absolutely. Thank you..."

He went into his garage and brought out an Ocean Spray juice. "I have water, too, but it's not cold...."

"Thank you."

We talked for a bit, and he was very nice. He offered to let me come inside and sit in his air-conditioning for a bit, but at that point, I figured it would be a mistake. I was likely to not be able to get back up. I waved goodbye and headed down the road.

About half a mile later, I had to stop.

# - giving serious consideration to vomiting. god it is hot. about 18 hours ago from mobile web

I wasn't actually that serious about throwing up, but I was getting really tired, and the juice wasn't sitting entirely well on my stomach.

I've been sporting a persistant blister on the little toe of my right foot on and off for a few weeks. Usually it doesn't hurt, it just looks ugly. Knowing that I'm prone to this particular blister, I proactively treated it. I wrapped my toe in moleskin and changed that out when I checked my socks. I got 19 miles before it flared up on me and when it did, OMG OW. It was like stepping barefoot onto a lit match. I promptly sat down on the side of the road and peeled my shoes off. The moleskin had slipped a bit (I was pretty sweaty) and so I re-wrapped it and then sat for about 10 minutes or so (exchanging text messages with Jen, and also with my husband).

# mbroooks @tisfan Been a bit since an update. Everything going okay? about 18 hours ago from web

# - @mbroooks yeah... having a sit down near kempsville and albright. not sure exactly where I am... about 18 hours ago from mobile web

# glossaria @tisfan If you're going Kempsville down to Volvo and thence home, you've got about 3.5 mi left from where you are now. ^_^ about 18 hours ago from web

# mbroooks @tisfan Looks like you're about a mile away from Centerville, assuming you're going SW down Kempsville. about 18 hours ago from twhirl

When I got back up, my pace dropped. A lot. I'd been maintaining a pretty good pace of 3.4 - 3.7 mph and when I started walking again, I was down to about 2.7. Which really isn't bad, mind you, it's just slower than I'm used to walking. (and you know, the really annoying thing is, when Thomas and I walk together, if he's not slowing himself down to match me, I still end up feeling like someone's third harem wife, walking about 20 feet behind and slightly to the left of him... there's some disadvantages to being less than five and a half feet tall... and one of them is I have short little legs.)

I finally made it to Kempsville about a mile away from City View park.

# when i get home, i am rosa lee parksing my self on the sofa. "I ain't movin'."about 17 hours ago from mobile web

I got to the park and promptly collapsed onto a metal park bench. It was shady and a bit breezy where I was. I took off my waist pack - which was still wet, but this time I'm pretty sure it was sweat - and lay down on the bench. Keeping in mind this isn't a solid metal bench, but a steel mesh, it was astonishing how comfortable it was. Pop! Crack! Pow! My back snapped several times as I settled myself down and squinched around to keep my head from hanging off the side of the bench. The last pow sent a surge of endorphins into my system and I sighed happily.

I closed my eyes.

I don't think I fell all the way asleep, but I did drowse a bit. I got to the park around 3pm and I didn't get up to leave until like 3:26...

When I got up again, my blister wasn't bothering me as much, but my elbows and wrists felt really strange. The backs of my hands were swollen. These days, you can clearly see all the bones in the back of my hands. Not yesterday. I looked liked I'd never lost any weight at all, the backs of my hands were smooth and puffy, almost shiny. I felt like the one of the demon guys in Big Trouble in Little China.

In the vein of too-much information a little late, I got this email this morning from the 3-Day coaches:

Recent scientific research has underscored the benefit of remaining well hydrated before, during and following physical activity. Hyponatremia (low sodium) is a rare but serious condition that can cause weakness, cramps, swollen hands and feet, confusion, and even seizures. To decrease your risk of hyponatremia you must replace fluids lost through exercise and consume food with salt. Maintaining fluid balance takes a concerted effort on your part in modifying your drinking behavior throughout your training day. The goal for fluid intake during exercise should be to fully replace fluids and salt lost through sweating. The physiological and performance benefits of doing so are well documented.
The best way to estimate the amount of fluid you are losing through sweating is to weigh yourself before and after exercise. You should drink at least one pint (2 glasses or 16 ounces) of fluid for every pound of weight lost due to sweating. If you weigh more after your training session, you may have drank too much fluid. Another way to estimate your hydration status is to monitor your urine output in terms of frequency and color. If you are urinating a small amount of dark-colored urine, then you need to increase your fluid intake.

Rapid and complete rehydration following exercise requires the consumption of a volume of fluid and salt that is equal to that which was lost as sweat. The fluids that taste good and have some amount of salt in them tend to be consumed more rapidly. It has been shown that athletes who include a cold sports drink during their activity will drink more fluid. Eating foods that contain salt decreases your risk of over-diluting your fluids. Your fluid replacement needs may vary based on the weather conditions, terrain and your training level. Drinking when you are thirsty is the scientifically supported method to use which takes this into account. However, for participants who may find it easier, here are some fluid replacement guidelines to follow under normal conditions:

Pre-training walk/Pre-event:

Drink an extra 8 glasses (64 ounces or 2 quarts) of fluid during the 24 hours before a long training walk or the event.
Drink 2 glasses (16 ounces or 1 pint) of fluid 2 hours before exercise. This will allow time to excrete the excess fluid prior to walking.
Remember, in hot or humid weather you may need to drink more fluids.
If you are walking at a slower pace, you may not need to drink as much.

During your walk: Monitor your fluid intake. Drink when thirsty. Your urine should be dilute and you should be urinating frequently. Try to consume 4-5 ounces of fluid per mile (1-2 standard water bottles per hour). This should include water and sports drink.
Post-Walk: Drink a combination of water and sports drink and consume food with some salt after exercising longer than 1 hour.

Well, at least I know better now. And it never got worse than the swollen hands. But blah. Guess I didn't eat enough yesterday (Big Mistake #2). I really wasn't hungry is part of the problem. Usually on these walks, I eat a few times... breakfast on the road, a snack, lunch, a snack. And that's for 12 mile walks. I did almost double that yesterday and only ate breakfast and lunch. And honestly, if my lunch salad had more than 300 calories in it, I'd be surprised. Shrimp is pretty low cal, and I didn't eat the dressing.

# 50,001 steps to lynnhaven mall and then back to my front door. That's a nice number, don't you think? about 16 hours ago from web

I noticed that I was very close to 50,000 steps just after I got back onto my home street. I think if I'd still been under 50,000 when I got to the door that I'd have had to walk a bit more, since that's such a nice big round number.

I fell into my computer chair and the first thing I did was checked Twitter and my email. I am such a geek.

# Footdr69 ROTFL!!! YOU'RE PRICELESS!! RT @tisfan: when i get home, i am rosa lee parksing my self on the sofa. "I ain't movin'."

# @Footdr69 oh, I can put a price on me, baby... wanna make a donation to my sorry sad tired butt today? :D http://tinyurl.com/SGK3day about 16 hours ago from web in reply to Footdr69

@ KyraTX @tisfan We all bow before you. ;) It's amazing that you're doing this in this heat.about 18 hours ago from web in reply to tisfan

# @KyraTX yeah, it was HOT today... but looking at it this way... walking on October will be cake, by comparison. BIG CHOCOLATE CAKE! about 16 hours ago from web in reply to KyraTX

# hanlie @tisfan How are you doing out there? I'm thinking of you...about 19 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to tisfan

# @hanlie thanks sugar. as soon as I can pry my butt out of this chair, I need to drink more. I am all swelled up >.<

# kikimonster327 @tisfan Sounds like where I live... why on earth are there streets with no sidewalks?

# dragoneyes @tisfan Good luck on your walk today! :-) 6:44 AM Aug 20th from Twitterrific in reply to tisfan

# MizFitOnline @tisfan good luck. stay focused and you'll be great! xo xo,6:37 AM Aug 20th from mobile web

# As a note: I will absolutely NEVER buy and consume another energy drink again. Ever. OMG my heart rate is STILL over 120.about 14 hours ago from web

Guest Post - Ideal

2009-08-20T06:42:00.000-04:00

Hey y'all, just a note from your full-time, snarky blog writer here. I'd like you to give a big hello to my best friend. We've known each other for... oh, about 18 years now... pretty scary sometimes. Some friendships are fleeting, some endure. Ours has been through fire and back; tempered over the years and the mileage. I don't even think I could begin to explain how much this one particular friendship means to me... aside from my husband (and honestly, she's got seniority on him!) this is the most important person in my life. So please, give her your undivided attention (as you'll see, enough in her life is already divided!)

I have no idea how you do it.

Lynn says this to me, from time to time, and when she does, I always feel the same way about it: Half of me is flattered -- pleased that someone I love and admire so much has noticed the incredible juggling act that is my life (work and a child with diabetes and another child in that constant-supervision-required stage of toddlerhood and dieting and exercising regularly and maintaining a semblance of a social life and multiple hobbies and...) and is impressed enough to comment on it. The other half of me is comprised of an exhaustion-fogged panic that she might ask how I do it, when I myself sometimes have not the foggiest notion.

Some days -- by which I mean most days -- I feel like a Japanese subway attendant, pulling on my neat white gloves and pushing as hard as I can to cram just one more thing into the day before it disappears down the tubes. But not doing it is not an option. As Lynn put it, I just put on my big girl panties and get on with it.

I do it one day -- sometimes one minute -- at a time.

I have no idea how you do it.

From time to time, I've heard this from people at work. None of them ask me how I do it, though, or I might tell them: I sacrifice.

I've sacrificed a lot of my precious "me" time, and some of my husband's time, as well. I get home from work an hour and a half later than I used to, so I have no more than five minutes to relax and make the transition from "working" to "housework" because there's only half an hour between when I get home and when dinner needs to be on the table if the kids are going to get to bed on time. I sacrificed playing World of Warcraft entirely when I realized that having to choose once a week (on average) between the game and the gym was making me resent the gym, and I'd rather not play the game at all than risk it interfering with the best thing I've done for my health in the past twenty years.

(I may also have sacrificed bits of my sanity. I cried myself to sleep, the night I cancelled my WoW subscription. And I actually wound up in therapy when I realized that my determination to find a schedule that included everything I wanted had gone terrifyingly far down the path to true obsessive-compulsive behavior.)

I have no idea how you do it.

My husband doesn't say this to me, because he already knows how I do it. He's watching me do it, and picking up the slack whenever I need him to. He's taking care of the kids when I need to go to the gym in the evening. He's not keeping junk food in the house. He's not complaining when I've had a bigger-than-planned lunch and halve our dinner portions without warning. He's taking on more than his fair share of keeping the kids on their schedules so I can keep all these commitments to mine. He knows, because while I'm putting on my big girl panties, he's manning up to do whatever it takes to help me.

However it is that I do it... I couldn't do it without him.

It's a common question, in dieting/exercise circles. How do you do it? Everyone wants to believe that they'll eventually find the answer that lets them flip the switch in their own brain that makes eating right and exercising easy. But it doesn't work like that. I don't do it because I acquired some Zen wisdom that makes me want to go to the gym, or because I uncovered a secret Tibetian technique for making undressed salad taste like chocolate brownies. I do it because at some point, I re-evaluated the priorities in my life, and entirely to my own surprise, correcting my health had filtered up toward the top of the list. I simply reached a point in my life where this was what I had to do.

Will it last? I don't know.

I do know that I'm more than 75 pounds lighter than I was last year at this time. I do know that I'm thinner now than I've been at any point in my life since before I started dating my husband. I do know that I can do things I haven't been able to do in years, and that I'm beginning to find ways to get a little of that sacrificed "me time" back.

I do know that I can do this, now.

About that, I've got a pretty good idea.

In Another's Eyes

2009-08-19T06:20:00.002-04:00

First off, there's still time to enter and win one of two copies of Lose the Diet by Kathy Balland. Please go here and leave a comment, twitter about this contest, link to it on your blog, whatever! Contest will be open until Friday!!

Well, we all know I have Issues.

I don't see myself as I am, and I certainly don't see myself as other people see me.

We also know that I'm a little too cynical to think the I'm ok, you're ok theory of self-esteem improvement actually works, most of the time. You can tell yourself you are lovable and capable as much as you want (or are forced to!) and it doesn't really help all that much. The best way, I've found, to gain self-esteem is to do those things that you think are worthy.

Sit down, look at those things you find admirable in other people. I'm not necessarily talking about Michael Jordan (don't we all wanna be like Mike?) but about the people in your life that you look up to and admire. Because we can't all be basketball players. (Even if Sulu would like that if we were...)

What are the people you admire like? Are they intelligent, witty, or generous? Be careful, while you examine these people: do you actually admire them, or are you jealous? Make a list of the things you admire in the people you've chosen... honest? Or tactful? Kind-hearted?

Now, sit down with your list of traits you find admirable. I admire people who are even-tempered, good with children, generous, determined, and mostly cheerful, with a good dash of sarcastic.

Here are the items you can work on; I admire people who are even-tempered. I... well, let's just say I won't win any awards for being calm in the face of aggravation.

But I can work on it! It's not possible, perhaps, to be perfect, but we can always, always find ways of improving. I'm learning - slowly, and with a great many set-backs - to calm down. To take a few deep breaths. To ask myself if this really matters in the grand scheme of things.

I admire people who go out of their way to make other people's lives better. I may not be wealthy, but I can give to charity. I'm an organ donor. I give blood regularly. I'm doing a 60-mile, 3-day walk in October to raise money for breast cancer awareness, screenings, research, and hopefully one day to find a cure. My daughter and I take trash bags out with us to the playground about once every 3 months and clean trash up in our neighborhood. I donate my gently used clothing and household items to the Salvation Army. I click here. And here. And here. And here. Every day.

Sometimes it helps to see yourself through someone else's eyes. It's not always easy; there's sometimes the nagging suspicion that someone is telling you what you want to hear... but when you get an honest opinion - or sometimes for me, it's even just seeing a list of my accomplishments; what does it look like to someone else...

Here's what some friends had to say about me recently... and the thing is... nothing here isn't true. It's just... wow, when you put it all together like that, maybe I am, actually, pretty damn nifty...

One of my best friends, Jeanne, sent this email out to her family and friends (who are not also my family and friends, since we do have a load of friends in common) and bcc'd me on it...

My best friend will be participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure in Washington, DC in October.

That's a 60 mile walk for someone who was a half-a-pack-a-day smoker 12 years ago (until she quit cold turkey). Who was told after her ankle was shattered in a car wreck 8 years ago that she'd never walk again without a cane (today, she can step-run like Rocky Balboa). Who was in the "high-risk pregnancy" category 5 years ago because of weight-related complications and asthma (which she has since controlled). Who was borderline diabetic 2 years ago because of her weight (she joined Weight Watchers in Jan. 2008 and has lost over 80 pounds to date; her husband, who joined to support her, has lost over 90).

She has a beautiful 5-year-old daughter, and a close family history of breast cancer-- both her aunt and her grandmother were survivors. Her mother's breast cancer diagnosis in late 2007 was her personal wake-up call to improve her life and her health, for her own good and that of her family. Now she's done it, and in October, she means to give back in her mother's honor. She's up to walking 18 miles on the weekend, and she's working out extensively during the week to prep for the Walk.

Unfortunately, unlike a standard walk-a-thon where you simply raise as much as you can, the Susan G. Komen Foundation sets a minimum fundraising goal of $2300 that you must meet in order to be allowed to walk in the 3-Day (any donations short of the goal will still be accepted). She is only about halfway to her goal. She's an amazing person, it's a great cause, and she really, really wants to be able to walk.

Please help.

Well.

It does sound sort of impressive, doesn't it? When you lump it all together like that. I tend to see things all microscopic. I have problems - doesn't everyone? - but my problems are like a bunch of tiny rocks. If I hold them in my hand and put them out at arm's length, they look fairly minor. But I don't. I bring them up close to my face and study them. I know them intimately. Try it. Take a small rock, less than an inch across, and hold it up as close to your eye as you can (and still be able to focus on the rock! Don't poke your eye out!) Now, you can see the rock really well, right? But the problem here is that you can't see much aside from the rock. The rest of your life is blurry, out of focus, and blocked off because you're looking too closely at a stupid, little rock.

One of the people I admire (and, I confess, am somewhat jealous of) had this to say to me recently:

I chuckle every time I think what the "college Lynn" would say if she saw you now. It is silly to say that you make me proud as I have nothing to do with any of the things you have done. Yet your hard work has inspired me to work on making things better for me. Good luck on your walk!

How nifty is that? Someone that I admire is admiring me right back... interesting.

I may not be where I want to be, and I may not yet be who I want to be. Neither am I who I was, and neither am I incapable of change.

Perfection and true happiness may be unattainable (and I reserve the right to doubt) but we can always improve, we can always become better, and we can always be happier.

I think these are things worth striving for.

And I think, sometimes, I need to sit down and look over just how far I've come.

Book Review - Lose the Diet

2009-08-14T06:00:00.002-04:00

Lose the Diet; Transform your body by connecting with your soul - Kathy Balland

Hello everyone – I am so happy that the Hungry Little Caterpillar is included in my virtual book tour, and to share my book with you called Lose the Diet – Transform your body by connecting with your soul. Thanks so much Lynn for having me here.

The caterpillar is such a great symbol. What is so fantastic about the caterpillar is that it represents our amazing ability to transform ourselves. Not that we (and the caterpillar) are not already beautiful beings, but my point is that each one of you already has the power within yourself to achieve your hopes and dreams. All it takes is the belief in yourself, some determination and a few tools to help you get there. My book Lose the Diet explains that, and gives you the help you need to achieve your goals.

In Lose the Diet I tell the story of the two caterpillars that were walking along one day when they looked up into the sky and saw a beautiful butterfly. Then one caterpillar looked at the other and said “you’re not getting me up in one of those things!” But the caterpillar did not realize that she was already a butterfly, just waiting to transform. And so it is for you.

The moral of the story is: See the butterfly within yourself. Tap into your ability to achieve your dreams, because the answer to your success is in only one place: You!

Kathy Balland is the author of: Lose the Diet – Transform your body by connection with your soul. For a FREE half hour guided meditation audio to help you relax and reconnect, sign up at: www.LoseTheDiet.com. The book trailer is: www.DietFreeMovie.com. Follow Kathy on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/LosetheDiet

Diet has gotten a bad rap, recently. (Or, at least, the word has...)

"Diets don't work!" "97% of all diets fail!"

Obesity is all over the news, the grocery stores are filled with 100-calorie snacks. And yet, we're all getting fatter. What gives?

Lose the Diet is a book about giving up the "diet mentality" and learning how to eat to live, not live to eat.

Kathy Balland is a wellness coach and expert in the mind-body-soul connection in the areas of weight and stress management. Clinically certified in hypnotherapy, her work with clients in addition to her own weight management has provided deep insights into the real causes and their remedies that finally released her and so many others from the weight war, once and for all.

Now, I'm lucky in that - aside from having gestational diabetes and having to eat 1,800 calories while pregnant! - I've never really done the dieting roller coaster. Once in college, I did a low-fat "diet" for a while, lost maybe 30 pounds and then broke up with my long term boyfriend, went to Not Eating for a while when depressed and then got back into my old habits... but I never did the year-in, year-out binging, dieting, South-Beach, Atkins, pills, powders, special machines (in just 6 minutes a day!) that I know a lot of people (women!) have. I've never tried to lose 10 pounds for a single event. Never done a wrap, never taken dieting supplements ($45 for a 30-day supply? Thanks, no... ), never drank slim fast shakes instead of eating, etc. (For example, my wedding dress was a size 24 and I did not attempt at all to shove myself into a 20.) Unfortunately, I do know a lot of people who have been there, done that, joined the club, and they have jackets.

The Diet mentality, the "I have to lost 30 pounds and I have to lose it right now, and I don't care how it comes off" begins a pretty nasty cycle of starving, losing, binging, gaining back more than you lost... until eventually you can "diet" your way up to morbidly obese. Even Weight Watchers, which I continue to heartily endorse (I only wish they were paying me!), has some diet mentality still attached to it. Low fat, low sugar, pre-packaged snacks... which have the nutritional equivalent of a chunk of road tar... (and some of them taste like it, too...) are heavily pushed. And because Weight Watchers continues to stress that "you can eat anything you want" some people are prone (myself included) to 2-point snacking themselves out of weight loss...

Balland has - while not a new approach to eating - a more "entire life" change. The information she gives out (And if I could change only one thing about this book it would be that Balland does not cite her references. Even if I probably wouldn't go look up her source material, I prefer having the option to do so.) is simple. Eat whole foods, prepared at home, as often as possible. Get plenty of fluids. Sleep. Relax. Exercise. De-stress. Figure out what emotional baggage you have that may be causing you to eat too much. And like all simple things, can be very hard to actually DO.

My personal favorite bit of the book are the 10 commandments for stress reduction; something I personally need to work on.

VII. Thou shalt relax and do nothing regularly.

VIII. Thou shalt not even feel guilty about doing nothing, or saying no.

Yeah... I need to work on that.

I did find that, after twenty-some months of research, losing weight, and reading blogs, I knew most of the information Balland provides. While I still have areas that I need to work on, I think this book is more suited to either the beginner or someone who has been yo-yo dieting without making much progress in changing their life. I somewhat considered it a refresher course on things I already know (and should be doing!).

I've changed my life, and while my soul and I might not entirely be on speaking terms... we'll get there.

And now, for you! If you're interested in this book, I have two signed copies to give away.

Hit me up in the comments between now and August 21st for a chance to win: retweet me (follow @tisfan on Twitter!), or post a link to this entry on your blog (and then comment that you did so, because I am technologically idiotic sometimes and don't always know if you linked me in your blog! Der!) or add yourself as a follower of this blog (if you are already a follower and you want an extra entry, just note that in your comments that you already follow my blog!) for extra entries. Two people will be selected out of a hat (or some other completely random way to be determined later) and I will ship to my overseas readers (do I have any?)

Guest Post - Your Body's Design

2009-08-12T10:22:00.001-04:00

I'd like to take a minute to introduce you to one of my followers who's been with me since the beginning. The lovely and talented Hanlie, who follows a very interesting food plan (or, forgive me for saying it, but she's on an unusual diet...) Many of us cut portion sizes, count calories, or switch over to some low-fat, low sugar version of our normal crap intake. Whilst I can't quite see myself going her route, it's fascinating to read about! I greatly admire Hanlie and her determination. I hope you enjoy her views as much as I do... without further ado, I give you... Hanlie.

PS - I personally adore the fact that she has citations. I love citations.

Thank you Lynn for asking me to do a guest post!

This is NOT a post about giving up meat, but about returning to the food your body was designed to eat.

I follow and advocate eating a whole-food, plant-based diet. In other words, what you do eat is just as important as what you don’t eat. I eat mostly fruit and vegetables, and much smaller amounts of legumes (beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils), whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, millet, oats, etc.), nuts and healthy fats. Once or twice a week, usually when we’re eating out at other people’s houses or at restaurants, we may have something of animal origin. We’re not fanatics!

“Plant-based” means eating lots and lots of plants and very little animal products. I will never tell anyone to give up meat, and I haven’t given it up completely myself, but I do believe, based on reams and reams of independent, peer-reviewed research, that eating meat is a health compromise.

You don’t even have to be scientist to figure that out for yourself. You just have to look beyond the advertising and the cultural indoctrination and examine your own body to realize that you were not designed (or evolved) to eat animal flesh, especially not in the quantities that we’ve been led to believe we should consume.

Can you move your jaw from side to side? What about backwards and forwards? Sure you can.

Congratulations, you are a natural herbivore or plant-eater!

What’s that? Oh, you thought you were an omnivore? Sorry, that’s just another popular myth. Physiologically humans are actually not classified as omnivores, since omnivores (bears, raccoons, etc) more closely resemble carnivores, while we humans resemble herbivores.

Here are a few more reasons why animal flesh is not suitable for human consumption.

Carnivores and omnivores do not have any digestive enzymes in their saliva. Humans and herbivores secrete carbohydrate digesting enzymes in the mouth, which is why our jaws have such a wide range of motion - we have to chew our food well to mix the food with the saliva and start the digestive process.
Meat can only be digested in a very acidic environment, which is why the stomachs of carnivores and omnivores have a pH of 1 or less when there is food present. Herbivores and humans have a pH of 4-5, which means that we struggle to digest flesh.
The small intestines of humans and herbivores are long – between 10 and 12 times the length of the body, while carnivores and omnivores have short intestines – 3 to 6 times the length of the body.
The colons (large intestine or bowel) of carnivores and omnivores are short and smooth and serve only to absorb salt and water, while humans and herbivores have long, highly specialized colons, often full of sacs, nooks and crannies where vitamins are produced and absorbed, water and electrolytes absorbed, and fibrous plant-materials fermented.
The livers of carnivores and omnivores can detoxify vitamin A, while those of herbivores and humans can’t.
The urine of carnivores and omnivores is much more concentrated than ours, and that of other plan-eaters.

These are just some of the scientific differences that make meat-eating problematic for humans. It is thought that herbivores, and by definition humans, are further evolved than meat-eaters, since our bodies are more sophisticated and complicated.

Our hands are beautiful and flexible, made to pick fruit from trees and pull vegetables from the ground, not to bring down prey. We don’t have the speed for it anyway! Our mouth openings are small, because we are meant to eat small morsels and chew them well. Our teeth are not suited to tearing raw flesh from bone, but rather to bite, chew and grind our food.

We are not even psychologically equipped to eat meat. Have you ever watched a kitten or a puppy stalking things and pouncing on their “prey”? The hunting instinct is so imprinted that even thousands of years of domestication has not eradicated it. Human children don’t do that. To quote Harvey Diamond, “Place a small child in a crib with a rabbit and an apple. If the child eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I’ll buy you a new car.”

When you’re out walking in nature and you spot a squirrel, your first thought is not to tear it apart and devour it. We find all baby animals cute and our instincts are to protect them, not harm them.

Yes, our brains have evolved to the point where we can fashion weapons and tools, hunt in groups, cook our meat, confine and keep animals, etc., but the truth is that our bodies have not evolved to tolerate the eating of animal flesh. Just because we don’t get sick or die right away when we do it doesn’t mean that we don’t pay the price in the long run. People who smoke cigarettes also don’t pay the price right away. The problem with meat-eating, as with smoking, is that prolonged strain on the body causes degeneration, which is the collective term for most of the health problems we face these days.

Medical research is telling us that people who eat little (less than 5% of calories) or no animal products not only have far less heart disease than the rest of the population, but also have much lower rates of cancer, hypertension, diabetes, gallbladder disease, kidney disease, obesity and colon disease. They live on average six to ten years longer than the rest of the population, and in fact seem to be healthier by every measurement we have of assessing health outcomes.

Add plenty of raw fruit and vegetables to a low, or non-existent, consumption of meat and you can virtually disease-proof yourself and your family. And your waist line will return to normal.

When it comes to food, habit is stupendously powerful, so don’t expect to change the habits of a lifetime overnight. The following books can help you (and your family) to make a gradual transition to a healthier life:

“Eat for Health” by Dr. Joel Fuhrman (this is more gradual and less restrictive than his “Eat to Live” program and includes loads of healthy recipes)
“Perfect Health: The Natural Way” by Mary-Ann Shearer (the program we follow)

You will immediately notice an increase in your energy levels (it’s no coincidence that carnivores spend most of their time sleeping!). Before long you will feel better, “lighter”, healthier and mentally sharper, yet more peaceful, than you ever have before.

Additional reading:

“The Food Revolution” by John Robbins
“The China Study” by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell
The Comparative Anatomy of Eating (http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm)

When We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroine...

2009-08-11T08:51:00.002-04:00

Maintenance...

Is not very exciting.

Except that it sort of is.

Except when it's not.

Yeah, I'm all over the map recently.

Let me start over again.

Maintenance... uR Doin it... Pretty wel akshuly.

I weighed in this week exactly the same as last week. (Despite my Wii Fit telling me I'd lost 6 pounds, gained 3 pounds back in one day, and according to it, I am 2 pounds down from where I was last week, but you know, I begin to think it's doing unspeakable things with my DVD player in its spare time...)

Also, because I hadn't decided until after the meeting and my quick chat with Beth, that I was declaring goal, I hadn't announced it at last week's meeting.

So I did that this week.

I brought in my obligatory Before picture and my fat pants. (No, I didn't stand in half the pants to show them off...)

I was quite astonished at people's reaction. My weight watcher's group, you must understand, has a LOT of regulars. I've known about half these people for at least a year (even if I don't remember all their names) and at least 5 of them for the entire 20 months that I've been at WW. So, I was a little floored at the gasps when i held up the 8x11 picture. (Were they horrified gasps? I'm hoping they were "wow, I'm impressed" gasps. But really, that before picture scares me, so they might be horrified. Except I'd hate to think that I horrified anyone except myself.)

I also apparently sold someone a few months of weight watcher's last night. She was on her way out the door - had come in for some information and decided that she'd "think it over" - and Beth shoved me in her direction. "Quick! Quick! Go show this to her," she hissed at me just after I weighed in.

The woman stopped. Goggled. Looked at me. Looked at the picture. Looked at me.

"Incredible." She said. Then she proceeded to grill me. How many points did I eat a day, how long did it take me, was I happy... fortunately she did NOT ask me about my exercise, as that might have frightened her off. As it was, she ended up staying for the meeting, asking loads of questions, and as we were leaving, she was signing up for the monthly pass.

Stay tuned this week, I have some exciting stuff in the works for you, including a guest post from the lovely and intelligent Hanlie of Fertile Healthy, and a book review and contest!

Check back in next week as our intrepid heroine (not to be mistaken for intrepid heroin!) tackles another big obstacle! Sleepover party for 6 yr olds... scary!

Guest Post: - Less To Lose

2009-08-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

Hey everyone, your friendly neighborhood Spider Man here... oh, wait, wrong script... anyway, I just want to let you know that I have a lot stored up for August including some guest posts (If you'd like to write a guest post on a weight loss/exercise/lifestyle topic that you want to share with my readers, I'm happy to discuss it with you. Hit me up in an email - tisfan at gmail.com and we'll see what we can do for each other. I have a few open slots remaining!) Also coming up in August, I have a book review and some giveaways.

Right now I'd like everyone to say hello to my friend Leigh and - ok, I won't call her my "inspiration" because that would be rude of me, after going on my multiple rants about "inspirations" and honestly, she wasn't - but she was my go-to girl when I was researching what would be a possible weight-loss program. I've talked about her quite a bit, and I hope you enjoy what she's got to say. I know I have, and I want to take a minute to say thank you to her for all her help, support, suggestions, commiserations and otherwise being as good a friend as I could possibly ask for... and without further ado, I give you Leigh's guest post.

For most of my life, I've been the "skinny girl". Growing up, I could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. Granted I was taking 2-4 dance classes a week, so that helped. But my weight was never really something I thought about. When I went to college things stayed mostly the same. I didn't have the "freshman 15" issue that many college students have. Actually, I briefly thought I was seriously ill because I'd lost 6 pounds, until I realized I was spending several hours a week riding a trotting horse (which for those who don't know is pretty close to spending several hours a week doing squats... while balancing on two straps... attached to a large quadraped).

And then I graduated. I got a fabulous job as a software developer. Instead of riding horses and sprinting between classes, I was riding an office chair and occasionally walking down the hall to the snack machine. And since posteriors are like goldfish, the pounds soon followed.

Two years out of college, I realized I'd gained almost 20 pounds since graduating. Some may be tempted to prefix that number with "only", but after sitting at a steady 121 pounds through most of high school and four years of college it was an alarming trend. One that I wanted to stop sooner rather than later.

I settled on Weight Watchers as a potential solution. A friend of mine had been a Weight Watchers member in the past, so I knew a little about it, and it sounded like a good program. But I was concerned. Would I be the "skinny girl" that looked silly coming into the meetings? My friend assured me there were a variety of shapes and sizes at the meetings, so we joined together (yay buddy system!)

At the first meeting, my starting weight was 132.5 pounds. I got all the materials, and jumped into the whole process of tracking foods and calculating Points for things. I hunted down the mathematical formula for Points online and learned to approximate things while grocery shopping so I didn't have to stand in Farm Fresh with my slide rule in hand - though I did write the calculated-out Points per serving on almost everything as soon as I got it home. I made a game out of finding 0-Point and 1-Point foods. I didn't always follow the plan perfectly, but I did follow it.

And I lost weight. In little bits. Half a pound there, a pound here. I had weeks where I maintained (aka didn't lose any), and I had weeks where I got the ever-so-sympathetic "Oh, you're up by 0.2 pounds. Well that's not bad! Are there any questions I can answer for you?" (Well, no, probably not. Not unless you can tell me why I opted to eat that second slice of cake the other day. But I think my therapist is more qualified there.)

After some period of time, and I honestly can't remember how long at this point, I was down to 121.6 pounds. So very close to the 121 I remembered as being "my weight". And the next week, I came to the meeting and stepped on the scale and... maintained. Disappointed, I talked to my meeting leader, and decided to set my official Goal Weight at 122 pounds instead of 121. Still feels a little bit like I cheated, but there you have it.

Those of you who are Weight Watchers members know what comes next. After maintaining my goal weight for 6 weeks, it was time to become a Lifetime Member. Woo! I went into the meeting that week feeling pretty good. When the time came for Celebrations, I was happy to stand up and talk about what got me there (tracking, finding 1-Point foods, portion control) and so forth. And then the leader asked me to share how much weight I'd lost total.

"17 pounds."

::snort::

The snort came from a woman behind me who quite clearly had more than 17 pounds to lose and quite clearly thought that having made Lifetime after losing "only" 17 pounds was scoff-worthy. I could practically feel the eyeroll she directed at her friend beside her. I deflated. Collected my little gold key from the meeting leader and slouched back into my seat.

If you've ever tried to lose weight, especially to lose weight in a safe and healthy way, you know it takes work and dedication. That's true for the first pound, the last pound, and each one in between. So why was my 17 pounds lost less important or impressive than the 17 pounds anyone else has lost? Just because I only did it once?

Kudos to anyone who's ever needed to lose 17 pounds and done it in a safe and healthy manner. Heck, kudos if it was 5 pounds. Kudos again if you've done it more than once, and kudos a third time if you've changed your habits and kept the weight off.

I've done all of the above. Lost, maintained. Gained (needed to start exercising), lost again. Maintained for several years, got older, gained a little, readjusted my goal weight (yes, it's allowed), maintained some more. Life happened (huge relationship break up, moved twice within a year, bought a house, got laid off, got new job... ack!), gained more than I'd lost the first time (depression and unemployment will do that). Got life back under control, maintained for a year. And then finally at the beginning of 2009, jumped back on plan and lost the 15 pounds to get me back down to my goal weight (now 125 pounds).

We'll see where life takes me from here. The comforting thing is the knowledge that I can do it. I know how to eat the right foods in the right portions to maintain a healthy weight. And if life happens and throws me off track for a little while, I know how to eat the right foods in the right portions to get back to where I need to be. To be a happy and healthy me.

For most of my life, I've been the "skinny girl". The most common reaction I get when I tell someone that I'm a Weight Watchers member is "Why? You don't need to lose weight." I just offer the person a knowing smile and say "Exactly."

That's It, I QUIT

2009-08-04T10:15:00.002-04:00

Before you panic, or send out the Intervention Police.... relax.

I'm just quitting in the attempt to lose more weight to see a goal number that I'm not going to reach.

I'm well within my band (Weight Watchers pegs me at an ideal weight of 113 at the lowest to 141 at the highest, so 134 is towards the top end of the middle) and have been for quite some time. I hit 140 pounds in the end of April, which put me at "normal" weight on the (oh so infallible...) BMI scale.

Ok, so when I started this journey, I wanted to around 93-94 pounds. I've lost 85 and a half.

I'm at a normal weight BMI (and since I'm NOT a hyper athlete and do NOT have dense bone structure, I'm going to go with BMI as a rating since I don't know a better way to do it, since at 5'3", I don't want to weigh what COSMO thinks I should, which is like 90 pounds for your first five feet and 5 pounds for each inch after that, which would have me at 105, and that is just too damn skinny for me, thankyouverymuch.) for my height. Something like 23.6. (The Wii Fit tells me that people with a BMI of 22 are the most healthy, but ya know, the Wii Fit can insert some unpleasant things into its battery compartment.)

I'm certainly physically fit. I can do 100 pushups, 200 squats, bench press 75 pounds, do 190 situps, walk 18 miles, run 1 mile, go for over an hour on the elliptical at a pace of 144 strides per minute, do two assisted pullups (my friends from New Jersey keep insisting I try it whenever we're at the gym at the same time, and they help... I wonder sometimes if it's because Paul likes to put his hands on my legs... ah well, whatever, it's kinda fun anyway...)

I'm in a size 6 (or a 4, depending on the cut of the clothes.) When I started this and "mathed it out", I was prediciting I'd be in a size 8 when I reached goal. I don't mind being a size 6. My shirts are mediums and smalls. My dresses are mediums. I look good in my clothes. I'm wearing high heels for the first time... well, ever, really. My shoes are a size 6.5.

What more do I want out of this whole weight loss journey?

The things I want; to feel good about my body, to have a flat stomach, and to not slouch over like my grandmother (and father), are not things that I'm going to achieve by getting to some idealized waist size, or scale number. Those are things I'm going to get by toning, practice, and well, just stopping being such a self-hating pain in the ass.

Also, I'm stuck.

On June 15th, I weighed in at 134 (with a huge, five pound drop...). Yesterday? 133.4. That's right. In the last eight weeks, I have lost... a whole, whopping .6 pounds. I go up, I go down. I lose a pound, I gain a pound and a half. I lose half a pound, I gain .4. I'm tired and annoyed and frustrated. I'm tired of hating myself for every little splurge and bite of food that I eat.

(And it's NOT like I'm splurging on a bag of chips every day... this week's treats were; 7 fried cheese sticks, a piece of pita bread, half a pint of hot and sour soup, and 3 mushu pork rolls... That's. IT. On top of that, I gave blood, so I should have LOST a pound this week... I mean, really, they took a pound of fluid out of me, I should have lost weight... and I didn't.)

So...

I was joking with my weight loss leader last night... the rules for getting to Lifetime is declaring goal and then going 6 weeks and being with 2 pounds below or above your goal weight. (Which means in the next six weeks, I need to weigh between 132 and 136 pounds) So, my joke was that after having been 8 weeks at almost exactly the same weight, declaring maintenance would cause me to unexpectedly drop 5 pounds and I'd have to start over.

This... would not bother me one bit.

I am healthier. And while I know, I know, I know... this journey is about health, not about my shorts size or some imaginary number on the scale, I do feel slightly stung about giving up, nine pounds away from my goal.

And yet, it's time to get the hell over myself.

I have achieved what I set out to achieve. I am healthier. I am at a lower risk for breast cancer, diabetes, and other health complications. My asthma is well under control. I am in a normal weight category.

I am done.

At least with this stage....

Next station; Maintenance.

Bad Attitude

2009-07-28T08:47:00.003-04:00

"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!"
"Only fools are positive."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!"
"..."
-- Ferngully, Batty Koda and Zak Young

"Enjoy the journey..."
-- Beth

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
-- Winston Churchill

I could go on...

But I won't.

I have a bad attitude. I'm cranky, sarcastic, snarky, negative. I'm pessimistic. I hate everything and everyone. Yes, even you. And your mother. And your mother's pumpkin pie.

Seethe.

You know, you positive people out there. You suck! Your chipper little attitudes and your Lee-press on smile and your smug little quotes...

Bite me.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard it, since I started watching my weight: If you don't think you can do it, you can't.

A good attitude makes it all possible.

(And by assumption/default, a bad attitude makes everything impossible.)

Oh, puh-leeeeeze!

Excuse me while I vomit up sunshine, unicorns and sparkly vampire sex. (Sorry, been reading Twilight recently... and while I love it, don't get me wrong, it is very often completely over the top and morbidly cutesy, a combination I never thought I'd see.)

You do not. Need. A positive attitude to accomplish ANYTHING.

If there's something worse than constantly having cutesy little pithy phrases rained over me like some fluffy bunny jerking off rainbows onto my head, it's being told that I should work on my attitude.

~~Fuck. You.~~ Forget that.

Weight loss is work.

Exercising is work.

Being happy is also work.

Question: Why do I have to do everything?

The simple answer: I don't.

I do not have to be happy.

I do not have to have a good attitude.

I can still accomplish my goal without it.

Now, I'll admit, Thomas has had an easier time of it... he has lost weight faster, easier. And honestly, except for that second meeting, he's been relatively laid back about the whole thing... now, one might wonder (and I do...) does his good attitude come from the fact that the whole thing has been easier for him, or has it been easier for him because of his good attitude?

He doesn't think they're related like that, not cause and effect, at any rate. He does think that my attitude (I freak out about weight gains, I get mad at TV commercials with food porn, I spend a lot of time wanting to bite someone's hand off...) makes things harder for me. That if I would relax a bit, it may take just as long, and it might be just as much work, but at least I wouldn't be so stressed about it.

(As a note, when I make the same suggestion about not stressing when it applies to his JOB... he's not so good...)

Honestly, I get a bit irate by the over-emphasis on "positive attitudes".

I mean, does anyone else feel like a freak show about this? Am I the only one who doesn't have a list of perky, pithy quotes stuck to my fridge? Who wants to shove "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" down some obnoxious idiot's throat?

Hi, my name is Lynn.

I have a bad attitude and I've lost 85 pounds.

(Lost .2 pounds this week... well "at least it's not a gain...")

It Ain't Me, Babe

2009-07-21T09:59:00.002-04:00

Go 'way from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I'm not the one you want, babe
I'm not the one you need

I got one of those emails yesterday.

I'm fairly sure every successful dieter has gotten at least one. And it's not just the emails... it's being out in public and mentioning to someone that I've lost substantial amounts of weight. Or at a family gathering with people I've not seen in a few years...

"What's your secret? How did you DO it?"

"Weight watchers... and exercise."

"oh." Mutters something about how they should start dieting and wander away...

I get really tempted to say things like, "Oh, I just gave myself a ground glass and vinegar enema three times a day for a week."

Just to see what people say.

Losing weight is work. It's not easy, it's not always pleasant and it can be damned frustrating.

You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,

Losing weight isn't about what plan you follow. It's not about carbs, or fat or antioxidants. (Honestly, I don't even really know what an antioxidant is...) It's not about never or always. It's not about a special pill or a magic food or in just three minutes a day.

It's about portion control. It's about balance. Planning. Moderation. And mostly, it's about time.

Portion control: You can eat any food you want. The higher in calories, fat, and sugar a food is, the less of it you can eat. Know what a portion is. In the beginning, that means measuring, weighing, and generally annoying yourself. Until you know what a portion should look like. And sometimes it means continuing to measure. I know a lot of people who "know" what a cup of something should look like, and over time, their "cup" runneth over. I'd say even after you have a really good handle on what you're doing, every six months or so (or more often, if you find your weight drifting or stalling out) you should go back to measuring for a week or so. Just to make sure.

Balance: Yes, while Weight Watchers "points" can be spent on any sort of food, you should balance out your diet. (I am personally NOT in favor of any diet plan that restricts a certain type of food, no matter what type that is... ) Fruits, vegetables, protien, dairy, grains, even sweets. I know there are people out there who are gasping in horror at the idea that I believe you should eat sweets. I know, and I've heard all the arguments against sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc etc. And this is what I know; you don't get fat from eating too many tomatoes. And let's be realistic; if you are fat, you've probably been overindulging in high sugar, high fat foods. But I also believe that attempting to give these things up forever, for good, no more, never blacken my doorstop is not realistic. It is possible... and yet, it is possible that I will win the lottery. It is, however, not likely. And too many people throw up their hands in despair and quit when they can't get it 100% right. (That's a rant for another time, so I'll just bypass that today, shall I?) And in my opinion, even 57% right is good enough. Or certainly better than 100% wrong. Don't you?

Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.

Planning: I believe planning is an essential part of any eating plan. I mean, it is an eating plan, isn't it? Thus, planning. Every week, I sit down and decide what dinners I'm going to cook; I don't necessarily decide I'm having tuna on Monday, chicken on Thursday and vegetable soup on Sunday, but I do plan out 6 or 7 "dinner meals". That way I know what to shop for. Planning means making allowances for days when you can't be 100% in control of what you eat and when. "Cookout at Dad's" means I need to do extra workouts, plan how much food I'm going to indulge in, practice what I'm going to say to food pushers.

Moderation: Take everything in moderation, even World of Warcraft.

You say you're lookin' for someone
Who will promise never to part,
Someone to close his eyes for you,
Someone to close his heart,
Someone who will die for you an' more,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.
- It Ain't Me Babe, Bob Dylan

I can't give people what they want. There is no magic pill, no special solution. It's hard work. It's learning yourself, learning your body. Learning what your triggers are. You have to make the decision to do it, and then do it.

And then keep doing it.

Even when you don't want to.

Especially when you don't want to.

(Had a good weigh in this week; I was down 1 pound. And I'm pretty certain that I've decided my goal weight is 131, which means I am only 2.4 pounds away from goal. Wooo!)

Vanity, thy name is Weight Loss

2009-07-14T10:59:00.003-04:00

Thursday, I gathered together with a bunch of my girlfriends (all of us are on Weight Watchers... I'm such a trend-setter... Not entirely true, Leigh was doing Weight Watcher's before any of us, but she'd gotten to lifetime, then had a bunch of Real Life fall on her head and she quit, regained some of the weight, etc etc. Anyway... Thomas and I started Weight Watchers in January '08, Jeanne picked it up... April of that year? Carol in October... and I'm not quite sure when Leigh went back, but she's back at her goal weight... in our group of friends, we've relocated something like over 300 pounds...) There I go with those long asides again... sheesh! Anyway, the four of us (me, Jeanne, Carol, and Leigh) went clothes shopping at some of the trendy little shops up in Newtown.

Actually most of the shops there aren't terribly trendy, they just look trendy when behind the brick and class look of Newtown.

Carol's high school reunion is coming up soon and she needed a dress. I was in dire need of a few more pairs of shorts to get me through the summer, because honestly, three pairs wasn't cutting it, particularly when two of those pairs were bright pink and bright blue. There's only so many times I can wear the same clothes in a row before someone notices. Jeanne was short a few pairs of work-pants, and could have used another pair of jeans. I don't know if Leigh needed anything particular (she was a last minute addition because we didn't know earlier if she was going to get the time off from work) but wanted to hang out anyway.

We hit Anne Taylor first, where I immediately pounced on the saleslady. "I need your help," says I. I was wearing those grey-brown and white flowered pants that I got from Old Navy a few weeks back and a black top. The two items of clothing didn't clash, exactly, but it was the only top I had that even remotely went with the pants. "I need a top to go with these."

She took me around the shop and we looked at tops. (As a note, clothing salesladies are almost inevitably thrilled about weight loss... they can smell a commission a mile away and nothing says "new clothes" like 85 pounds gone...) We looked at various neutral shades, most of which were "not quite..." We looked at several different white shirts which they either didn't have my size or were too floofy for me. (I just don't tend to look good - in my opinon - in those 'romantic, feminine' styles. Probably because if I have too much froof on a shirt, I'll end up fidgeting with it. Or I won't iron it.) And then we found the perfect top. It was a white tank with some brown-grey crochet lacing around the collar. The lacing was almost the exact same shade as the background on my pants. Seriously, they looked like they were made to go together, it was that perfect.

After we found the Perfect Shirt, she insisted on showing me a bunch of other shirts, pants, shorts, skirts, dresses... anything she could think of that I might possibly buy (I did mention that salespeople can smell a commission, right?) and I ended up picking up a black and white flowered sundress. I probably wouldn't have gotten it - it looked in danger of falling right off my chest - until Leigh came up behind me and adjusted the straps. I hadn't actually realized the straps were adjustable.

Then we crossed the road to Lane Bryant, where Carol discovered to her glee, they had absolutely nothing that fit her right anymore. Their lowest size is a 14/16 and all the 14/16 dresses were just too big. We found one pantsuit/jumpsuit thing that looked really good on her, but she was going to need like $20 worth of tailoring to make it fit. (The hem of the pants part needed to come up a good 2 inches, and the elastic around the bust was going to need to be replaced with some elastic that actually had a good grip. The top looked great, but was threatening to fall down the instant she took a too-bouncy step.) She did still fit in their jeans from there, so she got a pair of those, and (I think) a wooden chunky bracelet.

Jeane, on the other hand, who hates jeans... tried on a few pairs of the Lane Bryant jeans, and declared them terrible. I'm not sure they are, but they certainly are confusing. The sizes are all wonked - they retooled the sizes so that they start at 1, which is equalish to your size 14 in other stores, and go up from there - and then they come in three color-cuts. Red, blue, and yellow. (Not that the jeans are anything but blue and dark blue, but red is like extra butt and thighs, yellow is for extra tummy, etc.) So, while I think the jeans are quite excellent, you do sort of have to try on a red one, blue two, and yellow three, frequently, before you figure out what your size combo is. If you're not happy wearing jeans in the first place, the style-size-cut thing can be a bit intimidating. When I first bought pairs of the new styles (I only ever actually bought one pair, since I was on my way out of Lane Bryant shops just as the new jeans were coming in) I had a saleslady assist me with what sizes and cut she thought I should be in.

We left there and headed over to Old Navy, where I managed to score a sale or two. Technically, just one sale, but since I bought two pairs of shorts... I have figured out the 4/6 thing. Some of my shorts are 6s and some are 4s, and I couldn't figure out for a while WHY I could wear a 4 in some styles and not in others. It turns out that it's where the waist lays. If it's a high-waisted piece (ie, the snap fastens over or around my navel) I can wear a size 4. If the snap goes 1 inch below my navel (mid-waist) or around my hips (low waist) then I need a 6. It's not that I can't fasten a size four at a mid or lower, but I muffin-top over them. Yuck. I'm still working on tightening up my abs, but I may never get any better than this.

Carol and Jeane were both very excited to realize that they could, actually, shop at Old Navy. (Unlike me, where I spent a while in the Lane Bryant sort of nostaligically fondling the clothing that was never going to fit me again... I know a lot of prior fat girls bid a cheerful fair-the-well to Lane Bryant, but I always felt... comfortable there. For me, being in a fancy boutique is intimidating. Lane Bryant feels like home...) Jeane found a few pairs of pants, Carol got a very cute top and some tanks, and some very nice water bottles. (Which reminds me, YOU got a DEAL, girlfriend. I saw those exact same water bottles in Target on Friday for $17 a piece!!)

After that (we did shop til we dropped!) we headed down the street to J Jills, which was going out of buiness. Prices were marked down, down, down, and then 70% off after that!

Which meant I picked up a pair of silk pants ($6), a linen jacket ($9) and a really nice wool-cotten blend sweater ($11). If I'd bought them not on sale... the three items would have run me over $300. Nice.

We were all so enabling each other to spend money...

Seriously.

"Oh, that looks SO CUTE! You MUST buy it!"

I'm quite sure the saleswomen in the various shops were delighted to see us. I know I spent at least $100 total, the others similiar amounts or more...

You know, when I used to go shopping, it was this rapid, horrible event.

Run into the store, pick one or two things that weren't horribly colored. Often I didn't even try them on in the shop. Honestly. I would rather deal with the hassle of taking something back for an exchange than risk crying myself sick in the dressing room. (Also, I hated taking off my clothes in front of three mirrors. I mean, seriously. With bad lightening. So not like I ever looked good, but did we really need to go through all that?)

Now I go into the dressing room with anywhere between 8 and 10 items, try on a bunch of stuff, come out of the dressing room to look at it, solicit opinions, feel how it moves when I move, etc. We spent all afternoon trying on clothes.

And honestly, I couldn't have imagined a better afternoon.

Sushi. Shopping. Chocolate.

Fantastic.

(As a note, despite not tracking and massively eating out all week while Jeane was in town, I apparently managed to get in enough activity points - the children's museam especially was a LOT of activity!! - I managed to drop weight this week... down 1.6. I'm back to less than 5 pounds til goal...)

For your Viewing Pleasure

2009-07-07T10:20:00.004-04:00

First off, the obligatory "fat pants" picture...

These are my "before" pants that Thomas and I both fit into. Size 24s. Can you believe it? I was astonished about 2 weeks ago when I was doing my measurements... my waist is now only 1.5 inches larger than my THIGH used to be. (Starting right thigh measurement was... 27 inches. My waist is now clocking in at 28 1/2).

And now... the "can I get away with this yet?" picture...

Also, just so y'all know, I think I've turned a significant corner in my getting fit journey.

I am no longer freaking out about a gain. (Yes, smart ass, that means I had a gain this week. 1.6 pounds, as a matter of fact.)

Not publicly. Not privately.

I am really... no longer fazed by a weight gain. This astonishes me. I never thought I'd get to a point where I was "whatever" about it. I don't... care.

Which is not to say I'm grabbing the chips bag and going to town with it. Just that I know the weight came on and I know I have the skills and patience to take it back off.

For me, this is a great, wonderful thing.

Moments

2009-07-05T23:45:00.003-04:00

When I was a child, like no older than nine, I developed a massive crush on my dad's best friend, Tip.

Tippy was sweet and didn't talk to me like I was an idiot. He was good looking, tall and thin, with a ready smile. I always looked forward to seeing him, and generally held him in my mind as one of the ideals of manhood. I think I gave up hope of getting him to notice me as a woman... oh, when I was like 27. Like. At my wedding.

I saw him this weekend, for the first time in like 2 years. (Last year, as you might recall, we decided to skip my dad's annual 4th of July BBQ because we weren't ready to face buffet-style eating...)

So, you know, the last time Tip saw me, I weighed in at over 200 pounds.

When he saw me, he gave me a big hug and kiss and said in my ear, "My god, you look fantastic!"

And when he went to leave, he picked me up and spun me around a few times. "You know I love you, right, kid?"

Watch out, Thomas... your competition is back.

Under Consideration

2009-06-30T10:29:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot recently; having 6 hours outside, alone, will do that for you. (Of course, if you follow my twittering adventures, you will also know that 6 hours, alone, outside, in the 90+ degree heat with no cloud cover will also induce vomiting, passing out, wimping out, and accidentally sitting on a freaking ANT's nest... And hey, I'll take A.N.T.s - Automatic Negative Thoughts - over actual physical ants any day of the week!)

What have I been thinking about?

First thought: Declaring goal.

I've been at or below my "acceptable" weight for about 10 weeks now. I crossed under 141 pounds on April 27th, which is the highest my weight can be (without a doctor's note!). Since then, I've been playing hunt and peck with my weight. (I will confess, I have dropped 8.8 pounds since then; but that first week on Geoff's eating plan really kicked my weight loss in the seat of the pants...)

My original stated goal was 125 pounds. And then, since I have to weigh in post-lunch and fully dressed, I decided that I would do 130, since I didn't want to have to actually weigh about 120-122 in order to maintain my WW goals... (street clothes weigh between 2 and 5 pounds... a pair of jeans weighs at least 1 pound and could be as much as 3 pounds. Just in case you wanted to know that.) Now I'm fluttering around 134 - 135; and the weird thing is, I feel so much better about my weight recently.

I think I got some validation with that article that was published at MSNBC. My "problem" wasn't getting loads of sympathy... or at least, not the sort of sympathy I was looking for. I got a lot of exasperated "you look fine, sheesh." and "what the hell is your problem, you're a size 4, for pete's sake." I understand that, I really do. A year ago, I'd have probably been yelling at me, too.

And yet, I wasn't as happy with my weight and my appearance as I thought I'd be when I was looking at the greener pastures from so far away. (I also further think that some of the exasperation directed at me was transferred aggression; "If she doesn't think she looks good at a size 4, what the hell do I look like at a 16, and I was sooo happy about being in a 16...")

Now, however, a mere two weeks after the article was published, I'm feeling better. More comfortable in my body. Vindicated. I'm still not 100% happy, but let's be serious... is anyone 100% happy with anything? There are always going to be things I don't like about myself, or my appearance. The day we decide we can't possibly get any better is the day we should just go out and die.

So, I've been thinking about declaring goal at 135 (what IS it with us and wanting some nice round number... I'm half tempted to declare goal at 134 just to be obstinate and stubborn and weird...)

This will 1) cut down on my monthly outgoing cash, as I will become a lifetime member in ~6 weeks. I haven't had any trouble keeping my weight the same(ish) or continuing to move down. Even my large weight bounces have been in the 1-2 pound ranges.

2) hopefully allow me to relax, a little. Not so much relax about what I'm eating, but damn, stop being obsessed with myself.

3) I still have the option of losing more. Thomas declared his weight goal at 175 and now clocks in at a sweet 162 pounds...

On the other hand, I did SAY I was going to get to 130, and man, I hate not doing something that I said I was going to do.

So, I'm conflicted.

What are your thoughts?

Second Thought: Guest Posts

I'm setting August aside for some guest posts. I've already approached a few writers and dieters about writing guest posts for me and their response has been enthusiastic. So, if you're interested in writing a guest post for me, hit me up in the comments, or shoot me an email at tisfan at gmail dot com. Likewise, if there's something you'd like to see covered here, contact me, or comment me, and I'll see if I can't find an expert/bullspinner to write something about it.

Third Thought: Upcoming Posts

I've got some stuff in the works, including an upcoming virtual book tour with Kathy Balland. I'll have a copy of her book (signed!) to give away. I'm going to do an interview with her, so if there are any questions you have for her, please let me know so I can get my interview prepped!

Shiny Happy People (make me sick). I've been considering writing a blog post about my attitude. Sometimes I get really, really tired of people telling me how important a good attitude is and how much more you can accomplish with a positive attitude and lemons into lemonade, blah blah blah... I have a craptastic attitude, and I'm here to tell you that even us sourpusses can succeed! Would you all be interested in listening to my rant on that particular subject?

The Hair and Makeup Syndrom. Ever notice how different people look in their before and after pictures? I'd like to explore the nature of the beast... anyone interested in that? Thoughts? Commentary?

Fourth Thought: No, not really.

It's not, since I didn't know how much my weigh in would be pre-falling over, but for those of you here for Healthy You, I'm down .4 this week. I'm not sure that counts, tho, since I was all (according to everyone else. I felt ok. A little tired, but ok...) freaked out yesterday. It was exasperating, actually, since my husband wouldn't let me stay home alone while he went to give blood, and made Leslie babysit me. Eyeroll.

Anyway, before I fell over onto an anthill yesterday and got swarmed (literally. It was scary and freaky...) those were my thoughts.

I Should Be Committed

2009-06-24T09:58:00.006-04:00

Thought I'd take a few minutes to answer a reader question. (I like answering questions... it's like being handed a paper topic... the hard part of writing is often what to write about... So if you ever have a question, please ask!)

"Okay... so how did you get to a place where you could earn that many activity points? A place where you could really commit to this lifestyle? I'm trying and I do well for a few days (or a day) and then let it all go at the first obstacle." Rebeca from All Vegged Out asks.

I've eKnown Rebeca for quite a while; started following her old blog quite a number of months ago back when she had (in my opinion) absolutely the Worst Job Ever! and have followed her through her journey. She takes some great pictures of food. I don't personally tend to take pictures of my food, but man, for whatever reason, I'm utterly fascinated by looking at other people's pictures of what they're eating.

Anyway, now that I'm completely off-track, allow me to make an awkward and grammatically ugly transition sentence and get back to talking about commitment.

(Keeping in mind that commitment has a lot of definitions; including referring a potential law to committee, the perpetuation of a crime, and being confined to a mental institution. Yes, I love to play with Dictionary.Com... Of course, what I'd really like is the CD version of the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's still ungodly expensive and no one likes me enough to buy that for me as a gift...)

(Again, standard disclaimer; what works for me might not work for you. You know - or you should know - yourself better than I do... )

So... I will dispense advice... now.

Start Small.

Here's where I see a LOT of people making the same mistake. Much like with their food plans, sometimes people just decide they're going to change their lives. They're going to eat next to nothing and work out 9 days a week for 27 hours a day. (I exaggerate slightly for effect. Sue me.)

Seriously. Slow ~~the fuck~~ down.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Noah didn't start building the ark when it was raining. Baby steps. Whatever you want to use as your mantra.

If you haven't been doing any form of exercise at all (aside from fork-lifts and fridge-runs) you will want to start very slowly. Put on your shoes and walk outside for 5 minutes, then turn around and come back. If that didn't bother you too much, walk 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back.

When I started, my husband and I walked around the block. That's a little less than a mile. It took us a little more than 20 minutes the first time. And god, I hated it. We did that a few times a week, got thrown off by a bout of food poisoning... and eventually got back to it.

Gradually we increased the length of our walks, and we've varied a lot in how dedicated we are to them. These days, we do them at least once a week, and sometimes twice. Once in a while, we'll get three in, but as both of us have moved on to other things, that's fine.

So, start small. If you have a workout video, don't decide to do the whole half hour, or sixty minutes, or decide you're going to do it EVERY DAY without FAIL for 30 days. (I get really annoyed with people and their 30-day shreds that they quit 6 days in... it's too much. SERIOUSLY. Chill. Out.) The first time I did a workout dvd, I did... 7 minutes?

Do what you can. Push yourself, but not too hard. Because otherwise all you're going to do is push yourself OVER.

You Do Have Time.

Your only real obligation is to live until you die. Everything else is optional. --Harley Hahn

You should work out.

"I don't have time."

Yes. You do.

I don't ~~give a rat's ass~~ care how busy you think you are. My best friend has two kids (one is a juvenile diabetic) and a full-time job and has several different doctors that she has to see on a regular basis, and even though she doesn't always get to the gym as regularly as she'd like, she does get there. And when she doesn't, she hops on the Wii Fit when the kids are in bed.

Please, trust me on this; you have time. Somewhere in your week, you have time.

Maybe you don't have time to drive all the way to the gym, do a 90 minute workout, get a massage, have a smoothie, take a shower, and drive home. I'll agree with that.

But somewhere in your day, you have time. You just need to find it.

Priorities. Priorities. Priorities. Ok, let's look at your day; Non-optional stuff: Work. School. Kids. Eating. Sleep. (Yes. Sleep is a priority. Get some!) Some fun stuff. (Yes. Relaxing is mandatory. I don't care what you do for fun, but you should do something. Watch TV. Read a book. Play a video game. Go to a baseball game. I don't care, but at least three times a week, you should do something for you that you enjoy. Otherwise, what the hell is the point to life anyway? Besides, if you never do anything fun, YOU are not a fun person and... who the heck wants to be THAT person?)

Everything else you do is optional. Helping out your aging, cranky, disagreeable aunt? YOU decided you would do it. Volunteering at the homeless shelter? Again, you. Getting together for a stitch-and-bitch with that woman from church that you really, really don't like. Guess who made that an obligation. YOU did.

(This blog entry is getting long enough as it is without my going into detail about learning to say NO to people and reorganizing your life. I may get back to those topics later.)

There's a standard visual aid for time management; Rocks, gravel, sand, water. You can read this and then come back here, since it's well-written in many other places, so why reinvent the wheel?

At any age, it's important to know what your "big rocks" are. Then, you can start to have the balance you want in your life/career and the satisfaction of knowing you chose your goals.

If a healthy lifestyle, complete with exercise is a priority for you, then you have to make it a priority.

There are all sorts of ways to find extra time. If you watch a lot of TV, maybe you could cut out a show. Or TiVo it to watch later. Or get up during commercials and do jumping jacks (or tricep stretches, or bicep curls, or whatever.) Wake up a little early and go for a walk (or run) before you even shower. Go for a walk at lunch. Hire a babysitter once or twice a week so you can get to the gym. (Many gyms have programs for kids, or at least daycare, so check out that option.) Make exercise a family priority and have a work-out day where you all do something active (play volleyball, badminton, softball, tag, go swimming...) at the same time. Take your kids to the park and let them run around. While they're doing that, you can get a pretty good workout with standard playground equipment.

Find Something You Like.

Or at least, something you don't actively loathe.

This may take quite a while. You may have to try a lot of different things to find something that you actually enjoy. Lucky you, there's a lot of different things to try!

Walking, running, weights, workout dvds, biking, elliptical, jumping rope, playing tennis, swimming and yoga. These are the things I have tried. There are other things that I'd like to try that involve a little more money on my part (dancing, rock climbing, fencing...)

Be flexible. How do you know you don't like doing push ups? Have you tried recently? Well, just do a few. (Yes, if I sound like your mother pointing at your plate of green beans, that was deliberate.)

Keep trying. I didn't like the elliptical the first time I tried it. It was weird and wobbly and scary.

I didn't like it the second time I tried it either. I felt awkward and weird and ridiculous and I got off in less than six minutes.

Then, during my few sessions with a personal trainer, she made me get on it again as part of my warm up routine. I'd said I didn't like it, and she decided to "take me out of my comfort zone." I did 10 minutes that third time, and by about 5 minutes in, finally figured out the damned rhythm. She advised me to use the elliptical for 10-15 minutes as cardio at least once a week, before heading back to more familiar territory with the treadmill or the bike. The fourth try at the elliptical, I ended up staying on it for thirty minutes.

And now, I freaking love it.

Mix It Up

Now that you've found something you like to do (or at least, don't hate it more than anything else in your life) and you've got time to do it... well, ~~shit~~ darn. Now you're bored.

If you get bored easily, you may have to mix your routine up frequently. This isn't a bad thing. Trying new things regularly can help keep your body guessing, keep you from falling into a rut, or a plateau. Even if you find your one thing (or three things) and can keep doing them constantly, you may want to vary your times or intensity, just to keep it fresh.

Set Specific Goals.

I find it a lot easier to work out if my work out goals are very specific.

If you've been trying to get fit/lose weight/eat better for any length of time, you'll know as well as I do; the scale is fickle. My mantra for this is "Biology is not chemistry." Changes to our bodies take place on a cellular level. And between the mouth and the scale, there are so many things that can happen, it's a miracle that anything does happen. Sodium, time of day, time of the month, time of the universe. Water weight, over-exertion. The list is endless, and much like the weather, there is absolutely no way to predict it with any certainty whatsoever.

Setting specific weight goals, particularly if you set them with a time-line attached to it... you're setting yourself up. You'll either meet the goal easily, get overconfident and fall flat on your face later, or you won't accomplish it, and you'll be angry and frustrated. (Not that anger, frustration and exasperation aren't all part of the grand scheme... get used to it. It will happen. And you're not a freak for feeling bad about these things. You don't need to always slap on the Lee Press On smile... this is hard work, and you are entitled to your feelings.)

"I want to lose 20 pounds by summer."

Good for you. I want a pony and a glittery bridle. Let me know how that works out for you.

You can't always control your weight. Not down to the pounds and pence of it.

But you can control your exercise.

One of my eFriends says that a good goal is something you can barely accomplish. I'm not always sure I agree with him, but whatever works for you... I like goals. I like ticking something off a checklist.

If you're currently walking for ten minutes, you might set a reasonable goal as, "I'd like to be able to walk for two miles." And then add in little increments of time or distance...

For me, the 100 push up, 200 squats, 200 sit ups challenges have been a great inspiration. I may not be able to control the scale, but doing the challenges was a way to see some improvement. I have completed two of the three and am currently working on the sit up challenge. I do plan, when I finish the sit ups, to go back to the push ups. (I do push ups in my circuit training, but usually only 10-15 at a time, so I am pretty sure that while I did do 100 push ups in a row a few months back, I cannot do that now. So, I can start over. Cool, huh?)

If you're not into challenges, you might do something like my husband's done. He couldn't seem to dedicate himself to exercise (well, not unless I was dragging his butt out to go walking) until his friend signed him up to run a 5K. With a specific deadline, he's thrown himself into training for it. The money is paid, his friend is counting on him. So, he's getting it done. And, as he said to me yesterday, "I'm not hating it as much as I was afraid I would." (This from the man who used to say that he only ran when chased.)

Walking a Mile Does Not Justify an Ice Cream Sundae

One problem I see a lot is people who overestimate how many calories they burn. Weight Watchers gets around this a little bit by doing a 2:1 return. A food point is 50-70 calories, but an Activity Point is 100 calories. There are lots of sites out there to gauge your caloric output (here let me google that for you.) so find one and use it.

I know it can be confusing and annoying, but really, the average calorie count for an Ice Cream Sundae is not 20 minutes of low-intensity workout. (For example: I burn about 300 - 350 calories on the elliptical going over 5mph for 45 minutes. That's maintaining a heart rate of 145 - 160...)

Get Over Yourself.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. - Voltaire.

My husband - before starting the training for his 5K - never wanted to work out unless he could dedicate an hour to it. And he could never find the hour. He liked his sleep a lot more than he liked getting up an hour early to go to the gym.

I know people who won't touch the weight machine (or the elliptical or any other piece of exercise equipment) because they don't know how to use it. Get someone to teach you. You didn't know how to read and write before someone taught you.

So you can't lift as much weight as Mike Manly Muscle-bound. So what? Get a stepladder and get over yourself. You have to start somewhere.

Anyone else who cares how much weight you're lifting (or not lifting) has too much free time and too little self-confidence. (And yes, actually, that means that if you're eyeballing Sally Slender or Mike Manly, you have too much free time and why aren't you using it to work out?? I know it's hard sometimes to not peek at someone else's workout summary, but you don't really need that information. I promise.)

You don't have to do something well in order to do it. And you will get better with practice.

You are the only competitor who matters. Let your competition be with yourself. You may never be better than Mike Manly. But you can be better than YOU are today.

And if this is your first night at Rock Band.... you have to sing.
-- Matt Brooks.

Don't throw yourself down the stairs.

The second part of Rebeca's question (remember Alice? This is a song about Alice...) was about snags.

Snags happen.

Life happens.

When you stumble on the stairs, is your immediate response to throw yourself to the bottom of the flight, just because you missed a step?

When you scratch the paint on your car, is your first impulse to go out and ram your car into a dump truck? Because, really, if you've scratched the paint, you may as well wreck the car!!

Do you chip a plate and then throw the plate at your entire cabinet of dishes?

(If you do, please seek help now, because I'm not qualified to deal with your issues!)

Accept these facts now.

You will miss workouts.

You will have shitty weigh ins.

You will gain weight unexpectedly.

You will have bad days at the gym where you can't lift, run, or otherwise get anything done.

Life sucks. Get a helmet.
- Denis Leary

So you hit a snag? So what? Did you think you were never going to fail? Wow. You must be God!

GET OVER IT.

I know, it's easier said than done. But in the end, if you let one snag throw you off track completely, that's the failure. Having a bad day? Normal. Natural. Ordinary. And frankly? Boring.

You had a bad day. You didn't feel well and you didn't work out. Ok. Bitch for 10 minutes and then move along. Nothing to see here.

People tell me I'm an inspiration. People tell me how much they admire me and are impressed with my weight loss and my dedication. They want the "secret."

Honey, there is no secret.

You just have to do it.

What I did? That's in everyone. Anyone can do it. I just did it. One day at a time. One meal at a time. One workout session at a time. One complete screw up at a time. (I am not a complete screw up; some parts are missing!)

Do I skip gym trips? Hell, yes. Do I miss walks? Sometimes. Do I fall off the fucking elliptical? With alarming frequency.

It's not what you do one day that makes the difference.

It's what you do most days.

Almost Famous

2009-06-23T11:59:00.002-04:00

I had a first yesterday.

I went in (again, I still don't understand what is up with my Wii Fit, which told me I was down about a pound for the week...) and weighed in. Up .8 pounds.

I was completely unfazed.

There were a ton (pardon the pun) of excuses for it; I just started my period, I ate high fat and salt content food the night before, and I had skipped my Long Walk for the weekend because of an annoying on and off coughing thing I have going on. Bwjenn, if you gave me your cold over the internet... well... I'll just have to figure out how you did that, because I'd really like to transport other things over the web...) But I didn't bother to state them. Obviously, I knew them, but it was like, not important.

The weight is coming off.

I feel good.

I'm getting, a bit, to feel like I look good. (Next time you see me, real-life, remind me to show off my arm. My word, I have muscles! /Flex)

So, you know, that's cool.

Also, some other cool stuff - blog related - has happened recently... I'm going to be hosting a virtual book tour for Kathy Balland's book Lose the Diet; Transform your body by connecting with your soul. I'll even have an extra signed copy for some lucky reader, so keep your eyes on this spot. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I'll let ya know!

And this article came out on MSNBC. That's me in that first paragraph there. (Yes, Kellylyn is my "real" first name. Isn't it AWFUL? Somebody should slap my mom. Really.)

Finally, I puffyheart my friend Geoff. I don't know why my head can know something, and even my husband/best friend/weight loss leader can know and tell me things, and I just DON'T LISTEN. Here's your stupid sign, seriously. But I've been following Geoff's food plan for almost three weeks now, and I feel SO MUCH better it's just unbelievable.

So, I'm going to leave you all on this note (again with the puns!)

This ain't a song for the brokenhearted
No silent prayer for the faith departed
And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud

It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive
- It's My Life, Bon Jovi

I'm not a doctor, Jim

2009-06-18T09:44:00.004-04:00

Both the feedback and the enthusiasm I've gotten over the last blog post have been pretty amazing...

I've gotten a bunch of hits, emails, twitters, etc about my new eating plan and I wanted to say a few things.

Standard disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nurse, nutritionist, dietitian or otherwise qualified to make any medical decisions. Any advice you read here is my personal opinion, which is to say, as likely to be complete crap as anything else you read on the internet. Please use standard discretion before following advice. Consult your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. Yaddah yaddah.

Substandard disclaimer: My friend is. Geoff (who absolutely does NOT want his contact information given out and I'm going to respect that because he is a friend and I don't want him to beat me with a stick) is a licensed dietitian and is currently about a year out from getting his PhD in kinesiology in the field of sports medicine. Before he gave me all his advice, he had me give over my food logs, had me keeping track of my workouts (including keeping a log of my heart rate - I was to measure my heart rate first thing in the morning, before even getting out of bed, randomly through the day, before, during, and after workouts, and before bed) and rather ruthlessly questioned me over the phone about my entire life (even so far as asking how often I had sex, what my sleep schedule looked like, mood tracking, headache tracking... etc).

His advice to me, which was a lot more detailed than I discussed in Tuesday's post is custom tailored FOR ME.

There's some standard advice in there that I don't think is generally bad for anyone to follow (avoid overly processed 100 calorie packs, eat all your weekly flex points, eat at least 3 hours before you sleep) and then there's some advice that's probably slanted towards my High Intensity/High Activity lifestyle.

Please keep in mind that on your average week, I'm logging between 25 and 40 activity points. (And I'm very careful to double check and triple check my activity points - I don't go with what weight watcher's site says, I'm tracking my activity by my heart rate monitor and often rounding down.)

Among Geoff's other admonitions, he was very clear on his opinion of crap-food. As far as he's concerned, food comes in a couple of varieties: lean protien, vegetable/fruit, dairy/calcium, good carbs, healthy fat and crap. I'm supposed to limit myself on the crap food. (Crap food is a 100 calorie pack, or potato chips, or white bread, or ice cream with more than 5 ingredients... he's a big fan of simple ice cream where the ingredients are like milk, sugar, cream, flavoring.) No more than 1/10th of my eating is supposed to be crap. So, if I eat 24 points in a day, no more than 2.5 of those points can be crap. He says I can spread that over the week or eat it all at once; so if I want a McCrap Burger (his name for it, not mine) then I need to eat over 120 points in the week, so I can save 12 of those for the McCrap burger.

He also laid out for me a specific healthy fat/vegetable/lean protien/dairy ratio for me, which leans a bit to the protien side because I am specifically building endurance muscle. I didn't cover it specifically in Tusday's blog post because I didn't think it was particularly important. I'm not going to cover it specifically now because, as I said, it's laid out specifically for me and what Geoff sees as my particular nutritional requirements.

Anyway, end of lecture. I just am a little whelmed by the response I've gotten to that blog entry and I want everyone to be sensible when adopting a new eating or workout plan.

Thanks!

Me and Michael Phelps

2009-06-16T07:53:00.002-04:00

My weight loss has been a real case of the running in place recently. Down 1.4, up .6, down .2, up 2.2, etc. Netting out to zero, or close to zero.

And my god, I've been hungry.

Not Oh, that doughnut looks tasty sort of hungry, either.

But My bleeding Christ, I would kill someone to have a half cup of tuna fish!

You know when you find yourself feeling guilty about the six or seven grapes you ate (packing up your husband's lunch for the next day and snitching them as you washed them off...) that there's something really, really wrong.

I wasn't hungry for chocolate, or cake, or even cheese. I was just hungry.

Constantly.

And I got scared of my points again. I wasn't losing weight when I was eating my activity points (altho I wasn't eating most of my flex points... maybe 5-10 in the course of a week). So I stopped eating my activity points. And I still wasn't losing weight. And then I started skipping food from my regular points...

For the last couple weeks, without really confessing what I was doing - or even really thinking about what I was doing - I've been starving myself.

I get 19 points a day. Calculating that out, if I avoid the full fat stuff and eat mostly high fiber... that's 1,330 calories per day. My basal metabolic rate (rough guestimate based on height, weight and gender) I'm supposed to use up 1,400 calories laying in bed and pretending I don't exist.

You know that's not what I do.

I hit the elliptical a few times a week. I walk. I swim. (Hell, I even swim with my 35-pound child piggybacked on my back, and let me tell ya, that's not as much fun as it sounds... not for me, at any rate... good workout, though...) I do step while I watch old episodes of Buffy. I clean.

So, the question in my mind was this; how can I not be losing weight?

With the sort of calories I'm burning versus the amount of not-eating I was doing... calories in < calories out = weight loss, right?

I continued to cut calories. I was continually hungry, and I was getting to the point where I wanted to cry every time I opened the fridge. Every time I walked past a mirror. Every time I got dressed.

So, I'm talking to a friend of mine - bitching, really... and he said this;

"Girlfriend, you're working out like an athlete. It's time to start eating like one."

(Ok, maybe not that much.)

"Seriously, I want you to do this - do it for me, for just a month, and see where you are..."

- Eat the twigs in a bowl for breakfast NO MORE than twice a week. The rest of the week, eat an egg, or a muffin with some soy peanutbutter (we have to eat the soy stuff because of my daughter's peanut allergies, but it's really quite good, and loaded with protien.)

- eat at least one chocolate bar per week. Not the kind with goo in it, but a plain hershey's bar, or a lindt bar.

- eat your activity points. All of them. The day after you earn them. For snacks from activity points, chose high protien, low-carb foods. Cheese. Eggs. Grilled chicken strips. Yogurt.

- Avoid those 100 calorie stupidsnacks as much as possible. That means no more than 2 packs per week, and really, you should cut them out entirely. If you want a cookie, buy a damn COOKIE.

- eat all your flex points. ALL of them. Not 10. Not 20. 35. Points.

- drink 8oz of low-fat chocolate milk after your elliptical training.

- don't eat after 8:30pm (or, more exactly, don't eat in the three hours before bedtime. If you go to bed at midnight, you can bump that up to 9pm, etc.)

Me, looking at this list, actively horrified: I'll gain weight!

Him: You won't.

Me: Yes, I will.

Him: Ok, let me put it to you this way; I will pay for your weight watcher's membership for as long as it takes you to lose any weight you gain in that month.

Me: Oh, all right. What's the worst that can happen?

So... I tried it. I wore my Mio Stride almost all day so that I had a more accurate count of how many calories I was using up in a day. I ate. I wasn't hungry most of the time (after about Thursday, I was surprised by how hungry I was first thing in the morning, but after breakfast was eaten, I was fine...) and I had a pretty good week. I wasn't tired. I wasn't headachy. (I've spent the last two months having a low-grade headache all the time. So, you know, if I've been a bit of a bitch recently, that's probably part of why...)

My Wii Fit told me I was down about two pounds for the week, but you know, I didn't believe it. I've been having serious discrepency problems with the Wii versus the Weight Watcher's scale.

And actually, I have to admit, I was looking forward to yelling at my friend. See! See! You are so full of crap! That food-plan works FOR A GUY! You idiot!

But... I probably won't get to.

I lost five pounds this week.

Five.

Holy shit.

Me and Michael Phelps.

Well, anyway, I'm committed to trying this for 30 days.

Eat more to weigh less.

Doc Hudson: I'll put it simple: if you're going hard enough left, you'll find yourself turning right.

Lightning McQueen: Oh, right. That makes perfect sense. Turn right to go left. Yes, thank you! Or should I say No, thank you, because in Opposite World, maybe that really means thank you.

-- Cars

Get Rich Quick (Count Your Blessings)

2009-06-11T11:06:00.003-04:00

I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one
- Jay-Z

I spend a lot of time complaining, I know. So I thought I'd spend a little while reiterating the things in my life that I'm happy about.

- I don't have more debt than I can pay down.

- I don't have more house than I can afford.

- I don't have a retirement investment account that's lost a great deal of value over the last few years. (We just started ours recently, so while I don't think we're all that prepared for retirement, we haven't had the stress of watching our money being thrown into a hole...)

- My child is mostly a joy. (She has her days, don't we all? But mostly she's good-natured and quiet - quiet is really, really important to me!)

- I get along with my parents. Mostly.

- No one in my immediate family is sick.

- I have a frequent, fulfilling and satisfying sex life. (I've been learning recently among women my age, this is a rarity and I should treasure it. And believe me, I do.)

- I am confident that my husband loves me.

- I am confident that my child loves me.

- My husband is a wonderful father.

- Most of the time, I don't feel like a bad parent.

- I have not ever been ashamed to show off my arms in public. (Michelle Obama aside, I don't think my arms are unattractive, and it's never occurred to me not to wear tank tops.)

- I love my cell phone. (It's a silly thing to be grateful for, I know, but I really can't tell you how much joy I get out of playing with my little high-tech toys...)

- My husband no longer works 12 hour shifts, weekend nights.

- I have lots of friends, and I honestly love all of them.

- I'm not yet 40. I'm not still 22.

- I still enjoy stupid action flicks and disney/pixar movies.

- I have 7,368 songs stored on my computer. I love music.

- I will never wear that stupid housedress again.

- I never have to go to high school, and no one expects me to attend a high school reunion.

- I still love all the artwork in my house.

- I own more than 400 movies, tv shows, and other dvds. I love having a great variety of movies to watch.

- I love my new silk sheets; even if my husband doesn't like the color. (they're sort of melted caramel colored. He thinks they don't go with our blue comforter.)

- I never have to iron a shirt. (My husband does his own ironing. It is one household task that I refuse to absorb and refuse to feel guilty about.)

- Putting a guildmate on Ignore has greatly improved my quality of raiding.

- I have confidence in my own intelligence.

- I am a great cribbage player.

- My house is mostly clean, and certainly is cleaner more regularly than it's ever been before in my adult life.

- I don't have to work in corporate America. I have three friends that remind me on a regular basis that this is SUCH a good thing.

- Three days later, I love my new haircut.

- I can wear high heels. And do.

- I no longer feel squashed getting into a restaurant booth.

- I take for granted that I can accomplish 30 minutes on an elliptical. (In fact, the other day, I did 65 minutes on the cross-trainer.)

- I take for granted that I can leave the house without my inhaler.

- Let me repeat those. I TAKE FOR GRANTED that I can accomplish 30 minutes on an elliptical. I TAKE FOR GRANTED that I can leave the house without my inhaler.

- I can run down stairs.

- I have made up with aunts and cousins that I've been estranged with for more than seventeen years.

- I no longer loathe summer. (I do recognize that it's hot. But this is no longer a problem for me. I don't mind sweating. I don't feel oppressed by the heat.)

- I have accepted responsibility for those problems that are my own problems. I am gradually letting go of those things which are not my responsibility.

- I love Flylady. I love my control journal (That's what SHE said!)

- We live less than 5 miles from everything we need; grocery store, husband's work, hospital, mall, movie theater.

- Our apartment complex has a fitness center.

- We're locked into our rent-rate for the next two years.

- I have a turtle and she is healthy and well-adapted to being in a terrarium. She does a few simple tricks (eats out of my hand and follows my finger around)

- I may not always love my neighbors, but at least I've never seen the police covering each other before changing into an apartment, guns drawn (this happened at the last place I lived.)

- We have not had a particularly bad hurricane in about six years.

- It's been over 16 years since the last time I had an affair outside my relationship; I don't miss the lying, cheating, worrying, and generally feeling like scum about it.

- I've finished taking care of my dental problems.

I do not want what I have not got
- Sinead O'Conner

500 Miles

2009-06-09T13:50:00.021-04:00

I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man
Who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door
--The Proclaimers

I went out for my training walk on Sunday. We used to have a cute little bunny rabbit living in our front yard - I think he nested under the shrubbery near our apartment. Anyway, this is all that was left of him the other day. And the lovely scavengers who decided to clean the road. Ug. Turkey vultures.

Most of the road I walk along looks like this... sidewalk, a few feet of grass, and then very thick woody areas. There are tons of wild flowers. Unfortunately, the trees are far enough back from the road that I don't get lots of shade. And I just discovered yesterday that the reason I'm getting lobstercated every weekend is that my sunblock lasts 80 minutes. Less if I'm sweaty. Ahem. That's not nearly long enough, and I can't carry it with me, the canister is too big to go in my pack. So I need to start making other sunblock arrangements before I save the world from breast cancer just to die from skin cancer. Also, my back looks quite weird from all the different tan lines I have.

Sometimes there are fields upon fields of flowers - ok, yes, to those weird people who have to mow their own lawns, these are dandilions, but I like them. You don't have to.

I thought this tree was particularly lovely.

This weekend, I wanted to add like 2 miles to my walk without really going anyplace different, so I walked through two parks. This one is City Park, not to be confused with the second park, City View park. Don't ask me, I didn't name the dang places. City Park often has "events". This weekend there was an Indian PowWow and a farmer's market, neither of which I actually got to see, since I was at City Park 'round about 9:30 or so, which was at least 2 hours before either event started.

This gentleman's name is Reggie. We passed each other twice (I was going one way around the park and he was going the other way) and had a bit of conversation the second time we passed each other. He also took down my url for the 3-Day and said he was going to hit the page for a donation, at which point I said I'd give him a mention on my blog, so here he is. And if you're reading this, Reggie, it really was a pleasure talking with you! See you next weekend, maybe!

Planes, trains and automobiles... Heh. Anyway, this train was just parked there, and I rarely get to see a train so close up. I could have walked over and touched it...

This caboose is part of the display at City Park. I'm not sure why, the signage for it is on the other side, and I didn't feel like walking all the way around the fence, which spreads over almost the entire south side of the park. Thanks Reggie for taking this picture of me in my walking gear. Even if my tongue is sticking out. I can't figure out what I was doing that my tongue is sticking out...

Well, they're not steel, but magnolia trees are very common in this area, especially huge ones like this. Whenever I get visitors in during the magnolia flowering season (who are not native Virginians) they comment about these trees.

I ran into this little fellow about three miles in to my walk and he let me get pretty close before he took off into the underbrush...

You are here!

Where is here? I stopped at this Exxon for a rest break. There was a teenaged kid here, driving his mom's SUV and playing music extremely loudly, and squeeling his tires and generally acting like someone who's never been laid... I was tempted to yell at him about it. "Hey, you know they have herbal suppliments for your problem!" but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Someone's impressive garden. I don't really know anything about gardening, but I have noticed this flower bed a few times before. I guess noticing is the point, right?

Everybody needs a thneed.

Okay, this is my second rest stop, City View Park. I walked twice around this park, since their walking path is only 1/2 mile long, but at least it's mostly shaded, so that was nice. They also have a lot of little league games being played here and a fairly large playground area. I plan on having a picnic/party here later this summer.

I've never actually seen a Scottish Thistle before, although I understand Sean Connery has one tattooed on his ass, I've never seen that either.

And these are my favorite sorts of flowers. There's a bunch of them growing about a mile away from my house.

(For those of you checking in for Healthy You, I'm up a pound. Getting really sick of this whole weight loss - or lack thereof - thing. Also getting a lot of "well, you're in range for your weight goal, you could just stop here..." which alternates between pissing me off and making me want to cry. I should quit? Here? "You're a size 4, what more do you want?" I want to feel good about myself. Damnit. Sorry... anyway, I'm going to give it six weeks and if I end up maintaining between 135 and 139, I'm going to be "done" and call it "good enough." and if I'm still losing, albiet slowly, I'll try and push further. But really, that's a whole nother entry.)

Final Four

2009-06-02T10:31:00.002-04:00

Well, on the weight loss front, things aren't going so great. I gained last week, and this week's loss wasn't quite enough to even level the week's out, so I'm still at a .2 gain for the last two weeks.

Which, one would think, wouldn't be enough to piss me off. Except that if you've been reading here for any length of time, you know that it is.

I'm averaging a weight loss of about two and a half to three pounds a month. I mean, I know... I'm supposed to be happy because things are trending downward, and blah blah blah.

I keep waiting for the moment.

The moment where I realize how worth it this whole struggle has been... the moment where I notice how much more energy I have. The moment where I look in the mirror and don't recognize myself.

Fortunately, my continued efforts have nothing to do with that moment.

Because I haven't had it yet.

My getting up in the morning routine still includes a quick check in the mirror that says "Yep, still fat."

I don't look like I have less than ten pounds to lose. I look like I have a massive spare tire around my middle. If I could lose another thirty pounds I might look okay.

I guess I was thinking I might look pretty. At some point.

I mean, sometimes I have a moment, but it's not even a full moment. More like a micro-second in which I think Maybe I don't look entirely bad.

This, despite the fact that I just ordered new clothes. Again.

I don't have many clothes that fit. I have three pairs of shorts (two Smalls and a 5/6) and maybe a dozen t-shirts or tank tops that look good. I currently have no bras that actually fit (yes, I know, you can tell. I've been told. The next person who tells me I need a new bra better cough up $40 so I can buy a few, or shut up. Ok? Ok.) and only three pairs of undies that aren't waaaaay too big. I've undergrown my shoes again, so all my nice high heels that I bought (after going from a 9 to a 7.5, I really would have thought my damn feet were done shrinking!) have a half inch gap between my heel and the back of the shoe. Which is apparently very noticable in the various pictures I've taken recently, since everyone's pointed out how much I look like a little kid in Mommy's Dress Up Clothes.

I went into the Target and Old Navy the other day to try clothes on; see I have a $25 gift card for Old Navy, but it's only usable online. And I needed to know what my size was, since I don't want to order a 6 and need an 8.

Except, the shorts that fit? Are 4s.

Will someone please tell me; what the ~~fuck~~ heck is wrong with my brain that I cannot be happy with size fours?

Water Weight

2009-05-27T09:27:00.003-04:00

So, to answer some questions: no, yes, too much, don't know yet, and thank you.

Seriously. My car is permanently disabled. Well, it's still running, but it's not fixable for less than $1,500 and for a car we only paid a grand for in the first place, it's not worth the investment, especially since the transmission isn't the only thing wrong with it. Thanks for all your concern and commentary. Our plan now is to run it into the ground and see how much money we have managed to save up by the time it goes kaput.

It must be nice, I think, to be in a job where you get paid just to diagnose a problem. Doctors get office visit fees, whether you end up treating the problem or not. Garages get fees for hooking up a computer and driving the car around the block. (I ended up shelling out well over $100 just to find out that the car's not worth fixing...) I give advice to a lot of people. I need to start charging for it, even if (especially if!) they don't follow it.

Sunday, I went for a distance building walk. Toby joined me again. Ug. I do like him, most of the time, but really, spending 7 hours of my weekend with him is starting to be a bit much. Also, he has a revolting habit of chewing with his mouth open, which makes lunch time a trial. Maybe I can find some way to tell him nicely next week that I'd prefer to walk on my own once in a while. I like having company, sometimes. It does make the walk go by faster, and at the same time, I don't want to "wimp out" in front of someone else. On the other hand, it seems like I never get to spend any time... alone. I'm either the go-to guru on food and diet; or I'm "wife" or "mommy" or the romance expert (I cannot tell you how many people come to me for dating/relationship advice... numbers that large don't make sense. I further cannot count the number of people who actually listen to me about it... numbers don't come that small.)

It was a nice enough day for a walk, and we walked most of the way to Leslie's house and then back. Leslie wasn't home, she had plans... So we stopped at the BP station about a mile from her house, had lunch, and then headed back. According to my pedometer, we walked 16.8 miles in about six and a half hours. That's not very speedy, honestly; about 2.5 miles an hour, but we did stop for breaks and...

Well, then it rained.

At first, the rain was nice; kinda light and scattered and cooling.

And then... it rained harder.

And harder.

I couldn't have been any more wet if you'd tossed me in a lake.

Water, by the way, is really, really heavy.

My shoes were completely soaked, enough so that it no longer was worth the effort to try and walk around the 3 inch deep puddles. Water poured through my baseball cap, down the back of my neck, and into my shirt. It was raining so hard, literally, I couldn't see more than fifty feet in front of us (and only that far until my glasses started fogging up... after that, I could barely see at all...).

We walked the last two miles in that downpour.

And soaking wet clothes are really heavy. Between pushing through puddles and how sticky I became (well, the legs of my shorts were drenched and they rubbed together and wow, that slowed me down a lot...) we lost a great deal of ground.

Just as we were getting to my apartment, it stopped raining.

Typical.

"Well, at least it stopped," Toby said.

"Yeah, so instead of looking like troopers," I rolled my eyes, "we just look stupid."

As a note, my weigh in was the suck this week. After losing 4 pounds last week, I was back up .6 this week. My weight loss for this year is the suck. I have ~8.4 pounds left to lose, and at the rate I'm losing, it's going to be 2010 before I'm not paying for meetings anymore.

Sigh.

(And yes, while you're wondering, Thomas lost another 2 pounds this week. Yes, by all means, kill him.)

Burning through my Good Karma

2009-05-19T09:43:00.003-04:00

Well, this week has barely started and already I'm neck deep in "owing someone a favor."

See, this is the thing... my car is not being happy with the world. Sometimes it doesn't shift. Not all the time, just sometimes. (It's an automatic, not a stick...) The tach thing will rev up and up and nada. No shifting. Now, sometimes when this happens, it'll sort itself out in a few minutes, and sometimes it has to be manually downshifted, and it'll sort itself out, and sometimes you have to turn the car off and back on and it'll be fine. Until it happens the next time.

Now, I took the car up to the Firestone yesterday (and got a ride back to my house from Leslie...) and this morning they called to say they have no clue, couldn't find the problem, but here's another $350 worth of maintenance they recommend we do to the car in the meanwhile.

"Will that fix my problem?" I ask.

"Um, we couldn't find your problem, so I don't know." This is mechanic-speak for "No, it won't. But we'll get more money out of you!"

So, now I have to go get the car, pay them $75 for being annoying and unhelpful, and then take the car down the street to a transmission-specific shop and pay them another $75 to see if they can make heads or tails out of the issue.

Now, on the plus side, the new guy says it sounds like the sensor to him (based on my description) because if it was the actual transmission, it wouldn't be an intermittant problem... but he's not sure and he still needs to do diagnostics on it...

However, we only have one car, so an additional problem is, when there's a mechanical issue, getting from hither to yon is... a real pain in the ass.

Last week, we took the car in for inspection; or more exactly, I did. And I walked out to get the car the next day...

This week, we've had to bum rides from Leslie and Toby... and I had to get Leslie to cart me around yesterday to get this problem taken care of with our bedsheets. (Which is to say, I accidentally bought the wrong sized pillow cases. Standard pillow cases do not fit on King Sized pillows... ) And then there was an issue because I accidentally left my credit card in my other bag, so we had to go back to my place, pick up the card, then back to the store... what a pain...

Thomas is going to have to walk to work tomorrow, since it's unlikely that we'll get the car back today.

Tomorrow or Thursday (if we don't have the car back by then) I'm going to need to bother one of them for a ride to the grocery store. How exciting. Just what I want to do, my grocery shopping while someone else waits around for me.

95% of the time, I don't care that we only have one car.

This... is the other 5%.

Regardless, I'm sure you all didn't come here to listen to me whine about my car trouble.

Yesterday, I was very stressed out (today, I'm still stressed, but there's a limit to how long I can carry around incredible stressyness, so right now I'm in the "sort of resigned" phase of it...) and when I get really stressed out, I tend to scratch my legs. Don't ask me why, it's just a nervous thing. But since I don't really want big gaping holes in my skin, I decided I'd wear a pair of tights, so that I could keep myself from doing too much damage.

So I put together an outfit that I thought looked okay with tights.

And it really, really did.

I think I looked intensely cute yesterday.

And... those pesky 2.6 pounds that showed up last week decided to go away again. And they took with them another 1.4 pounds as insurance.

So, I ended up with a 4 pound loss yesterday, which moves me over 80 pounds total lost. (81.2 pounds lost, to be exact, but who's counting? Oh, right. I am.)

Big Fat Zero

2009-05-12T10:29:00.002-04:00

Well....

This weekend there was a "software" update at Weight Watchers. My leader and receptionists were busy trying to get their computers to actually work... and they weren't working particularly well.

I don't know if this botched up the calibration of the scales or not.

However, last week, the Wii Fit said I was up over the week; not much, just .2, and my losses at my official weigh in ended up being -1.4 pounds. This week, the Fit said I was down 1.4 pounds from last week, and my official weigh in was up 2.6 pounds.

Combined with my gains and losses, that adds up to a big fat zero loss for the last month.

And yes, before my faithful readers plaster the comments: water weight, salt, time of the month, too much exercise (I did walk almost 13 miles on Sunday), I'm sunburned, I didn't overeat but might have undereaten again. I know. Believe me, I'm 18 months into this weight loss journey, and I do know all the various psuedo-reasons that I had an unexpected gain. Plateau... etc. Yep, check check check.

I really, really need a vacation. I'm so tired of everything. I'm tired of my housework; I'm tired of my husband; I'm tired of my child. I'm tired of listening to my friends and their complaints about the stupid places they work. (Silver lining; three of them work at the same place and while I get to hear the same complaints three times in a row, I don't have to try to keep track of more than one set of stupid office policies...)

And after spending a good deal of time yesterday trying to get my points tracker lined up for 19 points, I'm NOT going to change it back to 20.

The Ballet

2009-05-11T11:45:00.004-04:00

So, Thomas took me to the ballet this weekend; it was sort of combination birthday/mother's day gift.

I haven't been to the ballet in a long time; not since my best friend in high school died. (She fell asleep at the wheel graduation night and drove her car off an overpass. She hadn't been drinking or anything, she was just worn out. And as she was a brilliant, witty, friendly, pretty and talented sort, the whole event went to cement my opinion of the general completely unfair nature of the universe...) Anyway, Tracy used to be a ballet dancer and we (my mother and I) went from time to time to see her in various performances...

A few weeks ago, I was paging through the paper - have I mentioned I subscribed to the paper in an attempt to start being more frugal by clipping coupons? Thus far, it's been a good investment. In three weeks (the paper costs me $10 a month) I've clipped over $18 worth of coupons; and not coupons that I have to stretch to use, either, but ones that are stuff I would have bought anyway - (Ok, that was a very long aside...) Anyway, I was thumbing through the paper and there was an advert for Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

Further investigation (Small bit of trivia about me; I am a russophile. I love all things Russian - well, except politics - decorations, art, music, history, culture. Love it. I minored in Russian History in college sort of by accident. I was just taking classes that I was interested in and my advisor pointed out that all I needed was one speciality history class in a field aside from Russian Studies and I'd have a history minor already completed. My primary professor who taught most of my Russian Studies classes was enomoured of me, said he'd seldom met someone who understood Russian culture as well as I did, and I was the only student in the last decade to whom he'd awarded an A+ on a term paper. This did not, I might add, endear me to my classmates.) yielded the information that this would be one of the first performances of Prokofiev's intended ballet.

"Living people can dance; the dead cannot." This was the rather utilitarian explation offered by the freat 20th centure composer Sergei Prokofiev as to what possed him to alter the fate of literature's most celbrated loves, Romeo and Juliet.¹

Simon Morrison, a professor at Princeton University and famed musicologist, discovered in 2003 that Prokofiev's original score included different music and a surprisingly happy ending. Stalin-era censors edited out twenty minutes of music, thickened the orchestration and restored the tragic ending, resulting in a performance that was almost unrecognizable from Prokofiev's opus.

The Virginia Arts Festival is one of the few openings for this new ballet; a master's dream restored. In fact, the performance we saw actually preceeds the ballet opening in New York. For me, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity...

So, I asked Thomas, "If I wanted to go see the ballet, what might you say?"

Thomas frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "I've not been to a ballet since I was in high school, when my sister used to dance. I've no idea if I like it or not. Sure, we can go."

So, we went.

As I'm not a professional reviewer or familiar enough with the ballet to accurately describe the performance, I won't. I'll simply say I enjoyed it immensely, and Thomas's comment was "It wasn't the worst thing I've ever done, and the music was good." That's hopeful enough that I might be able to persuade him to do this once or twice a year.

Also, I got to dress up, and that was good.

This is my new dress; a size 6!! My shoes, while they do match the dress nicely, were unfortunately, a half-size too large, and made walking a bit dicey... why did no one tell me that losing 80 pounds would make it so that I lost two complete shoe sizes? I'm now wearing a seven, and all my old shoes are 9s. (Fortunately, I wasn't much into shoes when I couldn't wear heels, so I didn't have to replace too many pairs... in fact, I own more shoes NOW than I did a year ago...)

In any case, I had a good night... I felt pretty and thin for the entire evening, even after the dancers came on stage. And we were very, very close to the stage, so I got a very good look at how thin they were, and while they might be more muscular than I am, I don't really think that Juliet was all that much smaller than I am.

I found myself playing the Fattest Woman in the Room game again, but it was oddly different. I wasn't the fattest, nor was I the thinnest. And strangely enough, it didn't matter. I felt pretty, I looked pretty, and that was all that was important to me.

1. Leona Baker, Romeo and Juliet, Alive and Dancing

Decked Out

2009-05-08T10:23:00.003-04:00

My birthday was last week (Happy Birthday, me) and as usual, my enthusiasm for this fact was at an all time low. I don't know, really, why my birthday bothers me so much, but it does.

And it's one of those weird, contradictory sorts of things; I don't want people to make a fuss about it. At the same time, if people forget about it, I'm grumpy. I do apologize to all my friends for whom I have been ungrateful, annoying, and otherwise cantankerous about it.

(My husband theorizes that it's my mother's fault, because my birthday parties as a kid weren't for me so much as they were for her to show off the amount of money my dad made, and frequently involved inviting people I didn't like to my party. Seriously. The girl who wouldn't let me wait on her porch for the bus, even when it was pouring down rain while everyone else from the block sat inside and watched tv? Came to my birthday party - sans present - every. single. year. My birthday parties tended to be pretty fancy for the time; my mom did things like rent out the local video arcade, or took everyone to the movies, or Kings Dominion... and the cakes were fantastic. The one year we did the video arcade? My cake was a giant pacman, with a smaller cake as the power-dot and cupcakes as the point-dots. Pretty nifty... and yet, I'd spend the whole party sulking because Donna was there, making sure my guests didn't actually talk to me, breaking my presents, and telling me how ugly I was. Or that so-and-so CuteBoy from school thought I was a slimy, diseased little gecko. Oh well, at least she was creative.)

Anyway, I did get some really spiff stuff for my birthday and I'm quite happy with my gifts...

From one friend, I got a heart-rate monitor/pedometer watch. This thing has some serious bells and whistles... I'm still figuring it all out, but it does record my steps, check my heart rate, keep track of milage, displays my calories burned, etc. I've had a couple of problems with it, the first of which is a design flaw and the second of which is my inability to actually remember how to use any sort of complicated gidget.... the first problem is that the step-meter turns itself off after 15 minutes of inactivity; which means if I'm sitting at my computer desk for a bit, I have to remember to turn it back on. The second problem is that I'm constantly, accidentally recording my current heart rate as my resting heart rate. I think (I'm not sure, but I think) that this is botching up my calories burned number, since if my "resting" heart rate is recorded as 120, it doesn't think I'm working very hard when my heart rate is 150.

She also gave me a bottle of sunscreen (yes, thank you for the hint, my sunburn is much better...) and a flashlight for my walk.

My other friend got me a waistpack for my walking that carries one water bottle and has a multitude of pockets and straps. I'll be road-testing that on Sunday, but so far is seems pretty good. If nothing else, it'll STOP me from hurting my collarbone with wearing my shoulder-bag incorrectly. (I've got a nice wear-spot on my chest... dang, when did I get these bony things just under my neck? weird! weird!)

So, I'm all decked out for my walking!

Nineteen...

2009-05-05T09:49:00.003-04:00

I think my Wii Fit Scale is on crack, since last week it told me I was up, and my official weigh in ended up being down, and ditto this week. I expected to go in to my weigh in and have Fran make that terrible little face; I call it the Weight Smile. She sort of tilts her head to one side, take a deeeeeeep breath, then lets it out with a very quick, "You'reupalittle,notmuch,tho,just.6
andthathappensyouknow." And then she smiles. It's a painful grimacing mockery of a smile, and honestly, in the last 18 months that I've been a member of weight watchers, I think I've grown to hate that smile more than anything else.

But instead, I was down 1.4 pounds. This is good; and at the same time, bad.

I have lost another daily point.

(On the plus side, this should be the last point I ever lose, since I don't intend to try to lose more weight than will take me to 130 pounds. Or at least, I don't intend, officially, to get my weight down below that...)

Down to 19 points a day. That's approximately 950 - 1,330 calories a day.

I don't know why moving down fifty calories a day is worrying me so much.

Maybe it's because I don't know many people who are down in that weight range. Most of the people I know who are at their goal weight are lots taller than I am; Thomas, for his maintenance range, eats about 38-40 points a day. (I know, he doesn't really count...) Other people I know in maintenance weigh in around 140 - 180 pounds... (lucky tall people!) and are eating 22-27 points a day, or have given up on points...

Sometimes I feel like I could pile all my food for the day onto one full-sized plate and a "normal" person could eat that as an entire meal. (You know I used to...)

It's a little frightening.

Fantastic

2009-04-28T16:10:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm officially in my last 10 pounds to lose...

And (according to my weight watcher's weigh in) I am officially in a healthy BMI range. Keeping in mind that I weigh in at 5:30pm, fully dressed, my "official" weigh ins tend to range about 5 pounds heavier than my morning Wii weigh in. Which means, technically, I can now declare my goal weight at any time. I think I'm still going to push to get down to 130 before I declare goal, but I could say goal was Right Here and that would be acceptable for Weight Watchers.

After my weigh in yesterday morning on the wii (I'll tell ya, I'm starting to get sick and tired of that stupid little smug bastard, the wii fit board...) in which I gained 1.8 pounds and had to go through a lecture from the Fit Board about not eating late at night, blah blah blah... I really wasn't looking forward to my official weigh in. After having gained 1.4 pounds last week, I just didn't think I could face another gain.

It's completely annoying when the fact that I exercise a LOT is throwing my weight off in the wrong direction.

However, that turned out not to be the case; as my official weigh in had me down 2.6 pounds from last week... I dunno what the problem is with the Fit. Maybe the carpet is wonking it up somehow...

Topping a good weigh in off with news that my husband is going to take me to the ballet (Romeo and Juliet) as my birthday present, and the fact that my car needed no repairs to pass inspection, my foul mood from yesterday has turned completely over on its head.

Sometimes it seems like such a hard life
But there's good times around the bend
The rollercoaster's got to roll to the bottom
If you want to climb to the top again
Good Times Around the Bend, String Cheese Incident

Sacrifice

2009-04-27T11:46:00.002-04:00

You know, October looks a lot closer from the end of April than it did from February...

I feel like I'm not training hard enough. The "suggested walking" schedule that the 3Day sends out has got me walking 4 times a week, plus a day of "cross training." I missed two weeks of walking because of illness and cut one week of walking short in order to bring home a hatchling turtle.

And yet, at the same time, I'm starting to really resent the time this is taking. I spend all day Sunday on the road, or recovering from the walk. (getting sunburned two weeks in a row really isn't making me very happy... it's my own fault, I know that, but at the same time, it's still really exasperating.)

Technically, according to the training schedule, I should be walking both Saturday and Sunday, because the really important thing will not be that I can walk 20 miles one day, but that I can walk 20 miles three days in a row...

I don't want to give up my whole weekend. I don't feel like I have enough time with my husband as it is. And I don't have anyone to sit with my kid for six hours on Monday... and now Thomas is thinking about training to run a 5K with his friend at work, and that'll just be more time that we're not home and not together.

Not to mention the fact that I'm not planning well for meals.

I'm so freaking hungry by the time Sunday evening rolls around.

And it doesn't seem to matter that I save my weekly points for Sunday (and my activity points.) I haven't yet - in the 16 months or so that I've been on Weight Watchers - ever, actually exceeded all my points...) I can lose weight all week, and then Monday rolls around...

The wii fit says I'm up 1.8 pounds from yesterday.

Yesterday I ate a salad from Subway, a clif bar, some popcorn, and 3 pieces of pizza.

Why this caused me to puff up like some sort of freak of nature, I just don't get it. I walked eleven flipping miles yesterday in 90 degree heat.

Also, I'm not even halfway through raising the $2,300 I need to be able to enter the walk in the first place. I really need to get my act together, because otherwise, all the sacrifice of my time, energy and honestly, to the detriment of my weight loss, will have been for nothing, and of course, the Charity will take my doner's money and say "Oh, too bad..."

And the worst thing about it?

I felt *really* good yesterday.

The Cycle of Flation

2009-04-25T09:02:00.003-04:00

This was my day, yesterday.

Start with an empty balloon. Stretch it out. Flick it across the room a few times at your friend. Blow it up. Tie a knot in the end and bat it around like a ball. Then, when it's floating gracefully across the room, BANG! The cat jumps up, sinks his claws into it and splodo... and instead of a cheap, pretty toy, you've got a bunch of shapeless scraps of plastic and a terrified cat.

Things started out sort of eh. My daughter woke me up; I got up, set her up with a wii game and attempted to go back to bed for a while (I'd stayed up pretty late the night before finishing off the sparkly vampire romance novel series... ) but that didn't work out so well, as Tuesday (did I tell you that if being clumsy was a crime, I'd be incarcerated for the rest of my life?? I didn't? Oh, well, anyway...) I fell over on Tuesday and nearly killed myself, managed to avoid death by concrete block to the head at the cost of one completely scraped toe and another one that... well, sort of hurt. Yesterday, the sort of hurt blossomed into a massive bruise under my toenail. Quite ugly, and for whatever reason, rather excessively painful. Resting the toe on the mattress? Hurts. Allowing the blankets to rest on the toe? Hurts. The only really comfortable place for my foot is uncomfortable for the rest of me. So, I got out of bed.

But my weight is doing well; according to the Wii Fit, I've lost about two and a half pounds this week. (Most of last week's gain, I'm convinced, was water weight.)

I finally got around to making up my mind about the 200 squat challenge. (The same guy who does the pushup program has a 200 sit up and 200 squat program as well...) It took me so long to decide to do it because I really, really hate squats. Not so much while I'm doing them; they're really not all that hard individually; and not the next day; I'm only a little sore the next day. But the third day? Oh, ow.

So I cleared some space and began with my squats. I had decided my personal challenge to myself was to do at least 36. That would put me squarely in the Very Good category... room for improvement, but certainly no slackard. (Keeping in mind that I've never done more than ten or twenty squats in a row, and these usually make my legs pretty sore, you can see where I might not want to aim higher than 36, right?)

But it was so easy... thirty came... and went.

And forty.

And fifty.

Around sixty I started mentally joking with myself that it wasn't much of a challenge if I finished the whole 200 today, but wouldn't that be impressive?

At sixty-five, Darcy started 1) talking to me (or more exactly, asking questions. If you know anything about five year olds it's that they are not actually physically capable of ending a sentence without a question mark. Even if they're saying something like "I have to go to the bathroom?" They want/crave/need/require/are possessed by demons to demand an answer of some sort. Even if it's just "well, for God's sake, go to the bathroom, then!") and 2) getting in the way. She'd stand just in front of me so that I'd have to shift my arms just slightly so that I wouldn't bonk her in the eye with my finger. And as soon as I'd figure out how not to do that, she'd move again. (And no, telling her to go away would have just ensured that instead of standing there, being in the way, she'd grab onto my leg and start crying and asking me if I still liked her... she's been a little insecure recently. Exasperating as that is, I didn't think getting into that particular little cycle again was going to be conducive to getting my squats done.)

So, I'm doing squats, dodging a five year old, and attempting to answer questions like "What are you doing?" "Squats." "Why a squats?" "Because I'm exercising." "Why are you exercising?" "Because it's good for me." "Why is it good for me?" "Well, it's not good for you, honey, you're not doing them, are you?" "I don't know." "Doesn't look like you are to me." "Why doesn't look to you?" (I am really. Really. Epically. Looking forward to her going off to school in the fall... oh yes. I am.)

And... because I'm talking, working out, the door is open and there's a breeze coming in from the porch... I managed to inhale a piece of dust. At 70, I start coughing. I try a few more squats, hoping I can get my breathing under control, but...

Nope. Not happening.

So... 72 squats.

Ok, that's not bad, really. Twice as good as my personal goal. I'm vaguely disappointed, however, because I think I could have done more, if I hadn't started coughing.

My babysitter came over about an hour after that and I headed off to the gym. For the first time since I got sick, I got a full workout in. 30 minutes on the elliptical, bicep curls, tricep lifts, rowing, chest presses, chair dips, crunches, stretches, walking. (Also, I walked 1/4 of a mile while carrying a 14 pound plastic jug of cat litter! That's got to count for at least a bit more...)

After my workout, I headed over to the drugstore to pick up a soda (yes, I still drink them... just only like 1-2 times a week...) batteries (the wii fit has been complaining about dead batteries for a few days now. I need to get a charging station for both the wii motes and the fit board...) and cat litter.

I'm feeling pretty good about myself; it feels good to be pleasantly wrung out and sweaty from my workout. I have those little twitches in my muscles that tell me I did good. My asthma has - at least for the time being - taken itself off to the back of the room, instead of sitting right up there in the first row waving its arms around like that idiot in Welcome Back, Kotter.

"How was your workout?" the cashier asks me. I'm on fairly good chatty terms with most of the people who work at the drug store. They see me a couple times a week.

"Oh, good, good," I said, grinning. "I did 72 squats today."

The cashier blinks. "Oh. I do 150 everyday."

BANG!

There goes my balloon.

Well, don't I feel pathetic.

8 Mile

2009-04-23T09:34:00.003-04:00

I've been a little MIA around here...

First, I've got a collaborative blog project here: A bunch of us at Twitter are walking "together" for this Weight Watchers 5K... So, if you're interested in that project, just shoot a DM to @bwjen and she'll hook you into that project. I'm going to actually be physically walking with my meeting group, so's Thomas and Darcy will be joining us as well, altho truth be told, Thomas will probably have to carry her at least part of the way. But our leader, Beth, is going to be setting up the walk so we'll end at the Skinny Dip. That's for Carla, who refuses to work out at all... except where there's Ice Cream involved.

Secondly, I have another collaborative project of my own. The weekly Wii Fit Challenge. It started off with just me and another girl and I now have four or five people who are interested. So, if you're interested in that, just leave me a comment with your email in it, and I'll send you an invite to that project.

So those are my current web projects; at home I'm trying to clip coupons and stick better to a grocery budget. I don't think I'll ever get to the point of some of my web-mommy friends who can feed a family of four on $40 a week, but I'm getting better. I've ordered the newspaper, which is $9 a month and started collecting coupons. Tuesday, when I was at the laundrymat, I took out all the coupon fliers and went through them while my dryer loads were going. Yesterday, I went to the store with $ 7.79 worth of coupons. (the 40 cents off and 50 cents off were doubled, and the B1G1 got me a free packet of tuna fish; normally $1.99)

Now, part of the frugal mommy thing is that I'm not supposed to buy anything that's not a grocery at the grocery store; no shampoo, cat food, lightbulbs, feminine supplies, etc. Those items are supposedly cheaper at drug stores, pet shops, Wal-Mart. I'm sure this is correct, and I am trying to remember (well, except that I won't ever shop at Wal-Mart again... long story.) to pick those items up at other times. Also, it's not always the best deal. Yesterday, the Harris Teeter had a special, buy one box of dishwasher tabs, get one free. Plus I had a coupon for them, $2.50 off. So I got 40 tabs (about 5 weeks of dishes) for $3.49.

On the plus side, I may be well stocked for dinner meat for at least 3 weeks. The Harris Teeter (if you have one in your area, you should go check out this sale) is offering the 2.5 pound bag of pre-frozen chicken breasts Buy One, Get Two Free. That's 7.5 pounds of chicken for $9. Also, last week they had a huge package of beef cubes (stew meat, kabobs, stir fry) on sale for $8 for 4 pounds, so I divided that package up and stuffed it in the freezer. And I have one packet of veal, a pound of ground beef, and 2 packages of turkey cutlets. That's 18 dinners with meat, plus I've got tuna, pasta, and other vegetarian dishes planned. So, while I spent $102 yesterday, I have fed my family for the next couple weeks, only picking up vegetables and produce...

Cool.

Now, Friday we got together with Leslie and headed over to City View Park to walk and play with Darcy and whatnot. While we were driving there, I commented to Thomas that I was planning - eventually - to walk to Lynnhaven mall, depending on how far away it was. If it's over 15 miles, I wasn't going to do it just yet, but I thought it was about 10-12 miles, so in the next few weeks...

"And walk back," he says.

"Oh, no," says I. "I was going to call you when I got there and have you pick me up."

"Oh, I see how that goes."

"You could walk to my house," Leslie pipes up from the back seat. "I'd give you a ride home."

So, Sunday, I mapped it out. It's 11.4 miles to Lynnhaven mall and 8.6 miles to Leslie's house. Since I've missed my walks because of illness recently, I didn't want to try eleven miles, but I figured 8 miles was doable.

I packed my bag (note to self: please, please buy a new bag soon, this one is killing my shoulder...) and headed out. It was a nice day, a little sunny, and about low 70's. The roads had sidewalks the whole way (always a plus) and were just busy enough to make me happy I'd decided to go ahead and wear my iPod. (If there's no sidewalks, I won't wear it... it's not safe. On the other hand, if I'm on the sidewalk and someone decides to run me over, the likelihood that not wearing my iPod will save me is pretty low...)

I passed this tree about 1/3 of the way there and thought it was quite pretty. Actually, it's prettier even than the picture shows, because the surrounding bushes were also covered with these purple flowers. (Yes, I'm sure the owner of the tree and bushes isn't happy about it... I think this purple stuff is one of those parasitical types of flowers, but hey, it's not my yard, and it does look nice...)

However, all the walking I did on Sunday, combined with some high sodium food choices made my weigh in on Monday... not so great. I was up 1.4 pounds.

On the other hand, over the last three days, according to the wii fit, I've dropped 2.4 pounds... stupid water weight.

Slip Sliding

2009-04-16T11:05:00.002-04:00

Ok... officially, I'm blaming my best friend Leslie's soon-to-be-ex husband.

The chain of events;

Stupid Ex racks up credit card debt, lies, uses the company truck to hide and fall asleep at work and exhibits other assorted immature behavior.

Leslie decides that Stupid Ex is a waste of time and space (I don't disagree here) and asks for a divorce.

Stupid Ex moves back in with his parents. He also requests that Leslie give over his things (acceptable, I suppose...)

Leslie, moving some furniture around in order to get his stuff out of the house, drags a recliner over her foot, tearing her toenail off at the root.

She calls my husband for advice.

Thomas advices that she wait there and we'll come pick her up to take her to see a doctor.

We go to the Urgent Care (not very urgent, takes us three hours for her to get seen and treated.) While there, we are shut in a smallish waiting room with an older woman and her booming cough.

Two days later, I start coughing.

My asthma flares up but good. (I don't know if you recall, but about eight months ago, I was declared "perfectly healthy" by my doctor and taken off my long-term asthma medications...) Unfortunately, my asthma has slowly come back. For a few months, I wasn't using the albuterol at all, and then I started using it from time to time, especially after I did any intense cardio.

Over the last two months, it's gotten steadily worse. I was using the inhaler at least once a day, and three to four times a day if I did cardio.

Last week, I've been using it three to eight times a day, cardio or not.

And Tuesday, I about collapsed on the elliptical after 11 minutes.

So, I finally gave up and called my doctor.

I'm back on the Proventil and Serevent.

And he wanted me to go on a week's run of steroids.

And here's where I'm conflicted. As I've said before, my primary weight gain started with a few runs of prednizone back in college.

I really, really don't want to go back on steroids.

On the other hand, I've said enough as far as ~~fucking around~~ following my doctor's orders go. I've promised myself I'll stop being in denial about my health and actually take care of problems.

And yet... I don't want to undo the last several months of hard work by going on steroids for a week and gaining back 30 pounds. Or, if I don't gain, being unspeakably hungry for several weeks. (I remember clearly being on steroids... I was hungry all the time. Bone-gnawing, stomach twistingly hungry. And it didn't stop, no matter how much food I stuffed down my throat.)

God, please, I don't want to go back there.

I have a doctor's appointment in two weeks.

So, this is what I've decided to do; I'm going back on the long-acting inhalers for a week, and if that doesn't significantly clear up, then (and only then) will I take the week's worth of steroids.

I know my doctor wants to knock this out; and I know that he really has my best interests in mind. Lung infections are nothing to mess around with, and he's being concervative. Knock this out of my system before it can settle in and make more problems for me, long term.

And yet... why throw three things at the problem when two (or one) will fix it?

So, I'm being a little bit risky, perhaps. But I'm monitoring myself, and if I have to go back on steroids, I will.

But if I do, expect to hear me bitching. A lot.

What Matters

2009-04-14T11:57:00.003-04:00

My weigh in was good; down 1.8 pounds. My Wii Fit says I am snugly in the 130s... Weight Watchers (later in the evening, and with my clothes, says I'm at 141... if I lose anything at all this week upcoming, I'll officially be in my weight range for Weight Watchers, too.)

Last night was our quarterly "You should get more exercise" meeting.

Sometimes I wonder about the people who decide the meeting topics for Weight Watchers... I picture a board room with a bunch of men who've never been on a diet in their lives, mocking fat women and trying to decide how best to torment them with the meeting topics.

Seriously....

I mean, I know, there's a limited amount of things to talk about when you're talking about Weight Watchers. Food, food, portion control, food, sugar versus artificial sweeteners, food, exercise, restaurants, food, controlling hunger...

Deciding on a meeting topic each week would not be a job that I'd want to do.

I wonder how long in advance they decide these things... do they map out the entire year, or do they map it out one season at a time?

Anyway, yesterday was the "you should work out, even a little bit" meeting. We cover that topic about once every three months or so. (The problem with being someone who's been at Weight Watchers for over a year is that I've heard it all before...) Of course, this year, Weight Watchers is doing this walking challenge thing; getting people to train to walk a 5K.

We talked about it a bit, and one of the girls at our meeting was seriously rolling her eyes. Carla's been a member of Weight Watchers since before Thomas and I joined... and she hates working out, hates exercise and isn't the least bit interested in doing any of it.... despite that, she's still getting thinner... she's not quite to goal yet, but she looks pretty good. So, you know, you don't have to work out. It's not necessary.

On the other hand, it does have a lot of benefits, and I know we've all heard them before.

Improves mood
Lowers the risk for certain diseases
Improves sleep
Increases lung and heart health
Improves the ability to concentrate
Relieves stress
Builds muscle, which aids in weight loss

Yeah, we all know these things, right?

What I have noticed, in my more than a year now of losing weight and increasing my workout is that none of those things matter to me.

I started my exercise program, at first, because I thought I should. I didn't really want to. But I thought I should do it, so we started slow. We walked a mile. I didn't particularly enjoy it. It was cold and after about half a mile, my back, legs and feet ached.

Eventually, walking became more than just an obligatory form of activity and I started looking forward to it as a time to reconnect with my husband and do something with my child. Quality time with my family. My husband and I got between 35 minutes and an hour or so to talk without the distractions of computer and television... over time, I started to feel better about walking.

I tried adding new exercises in; I did a workout DVD for a while. Thomas and I went out and played tennis a few times. I tried Couch to 5K. Some things worked, some didn't. I didn't stick with much for very long; tennis got more and more inconvenient as the weather got warmer and more people were inhabiting the courts; running gave me wicked shin splints and even after multiple attempts, I have not been able to continue running for more than three minutes... unless I'm jogging in place in front of the Wii, something that makes no sense to me whatsoever. The DVD got boring. But I did continue to get some activity in.

Then our apartment complex added in a fitness center. So, I usually hit that three times a week now, doing elliptical, walking, biking, weights... I joined and completed the 100 pushup challenge.

So, there we are in our meeting, talking about the benefits of exercise.

I said, "Well, working out makes me feel Hard Core."

Some wiseass from the far side of the room mutters, "Hell, you are hard core."

"It doesn't matter what I am," I said, looking over at her. She's been coming to Weight Watchers for about five months now. I smile a bit, trying to be reassuring. "It doesn't matter what other people say. People can tell me I'm doing well, or that I look good, or whatever. None of that matters to me in the slightest. I don't usually believe them anyway. What matters is how I feel. And doing pushups makes me feel good, makes me feel strong, makes me feel sexy. It may seem silly, but I feel better about myself for doing 100 pushups than I have for losing almost 80 pounds."

New Shirt and Wii Challenge

2009-04-10T11:42:00.003-04:00

I stared at the shirts.

What kind of ~~masochistic bastard~~ crazed fashion designer came up with this?

The shirts were pale colored, light blue and white, peach and white, pale pink and white. With a breast pocket. And a row of four buttons at the neck.

And horizontal stripes.

Now admittedly, I stopped shopping in the plus section quite a while ago, but I still view horizontal stripes as clothing only for stick women who are pretending they have breasts and prisoners.

I made a face. I loved the style of the shirt. And I adore that pale teal color. And I've always liked that semi-tye-die patterning... also, it was on sale. $2.99.

Ah hells.

What was the worst that could happen?

I snatched it off the rack and tossed it in my cart. I was already trying on a couple pairs of shorts. (Jean shorts, I'd grabbed a 6, and 8 and a 10. I've been having trouble with shorts recently... and some bright colorful cotton shorts in small and medium.)

I ended up trying it on without actually looking too carefully at it. I made sure it fit, and then took it off again.

This morning, I decided to wear it. I slid it over my head and then turned to the mirror, smoothing out the wrinkles.

Wow.

One of the problems I've recently been having (with me and the mirror) is that I feel like my chest has shrunk enormously while the fat layer just below my ribs has... well, NOT.

Not according to this shirt. Wow.

Just seriously. I'm not being able to get over looking at myself.

I look like a brick house.

I think I'll be headed back to the K-mart this weekend and pick up several more of these tees in the other available colors.

_______________

Me and some friends are going to be doing a Wii Challenge this week, starting the 13th and running until the 19th. For starters, we'll be just doing 4 sessions during that week, of at least 15 minutes, and posting our high scores to each other.

Sounds like fun, I'll keep you posted on how we're doing...

75 pounds (Time Keeps on Ticking...)

2009-04-07T11:13:00.002-04:00

Last night I inched over another 5 pound marker.

They're getting further and further apart as my weight loss has become this epic crawl... and it was never all that speedy to begin with. (I know, I know, safe weight loss is no more than 2 pounds a week, but hey, there's a big space in between .5 pounds a week and 2 pounds a week and I wouldn't mind sticking my weight loss averages into a slightly closer to maybe getting this done sometime this century...) Seriously; it took me eight weeks to lose five pounds... at that rate, it's going to take me twenty weeks to lose this last 13.6 pounds. So, look for me hitting my goal... oh, in September...

Ah well... it's not like I have anything better to do. Or that it's going to be over, once I reach goal weight... I'm never going to be able to eat six doughnuts and lose a pound anyway, like my husband does. So I may as well just get used to the idea that I will always have to guard myself carefully and watch everything I eat. For the rest of my life.

God, that's depressing.

I'm not meaning to be. It's actually been a pretty good week; Thomas finally got a promotion at work which came with an actual pay raise and no additional responsibilities. (That would be different from some of his previous promotions which involved a cut in take-home pay and significantly more responsibilities. I'm perfectly serious; when he moved from hourly to salary, he got a 10% pay raise, but by adding unpaid overtime and losing the double-pay for holidays, it resulted in a 3% net loss in our spending cash...)

I've just been sick for the last week and unable to hit the gym at all... Working out with a head cold is one thing, working out with an upper respiratory infection is something else entirely. I get really tired walking across the room, or coughing, or honestly much of anything. And the scary thing is, I remember when I felt like that all the time (minus the coughing... but seriously, I remember cleaning the living room in two foot chunks because bending over to pick up Darcy's toys made me tired.)...

I don't like it much.

It was Thomas's birthday and we had some fun; a smallish birthday party and then we went dancing up with some friends - which is to say, mostly we sat on barstools and listened to music. I managed to drag Thomas out onto the floor for one song, which is the first time he's danced with me in... three years. I think the last time was at my cousin's wedding. So, you know, I'm now set up with dancing until 2012.

Standing in for Mii

2009-04-02T10:07:00.003-04:00

I have nothing else to add.

P.S. Ok, I lied.... I have something else to add. My Mii is actually smiling. Or smirking, more exactly. It's my traditional expression, as you can see here...

Giving Myself the Mad-Props

2009-04-01T17:39:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, I wrote a short article for a truly inspiring and fun blogger, Scott "Q." Marcus, for his new, independent magazine, Two Words. While my submission was good, unfortunately print-costs and prior agreements ended up pushing my entry out in last minute cuts, but Mr. Marcus was gracious enough - and I certainly hope impressed enough - to ask me to join him in a side-endeavor for promoting the magazine and writers who were interested in the project.

I am, of course, happy to do so.

I don't usually spend a lot of time here talking about other bloggers; I figure you're all perfectly capable of glancing at my list of favorites on the side bar (which doesn't even begin to cover all the blogs I actually read; I'm RSS-subscribed to any number of other blogs which I haven't gotten around to adding to my blogroll...) and either reading or not.

Allow me a moment to do so, as it regards Scott "Q." Marcus. This man is beyond fascinating and beyond funny. He's real, in a way that often success stories don't always strike me as genuine. Sometimes, seeing the slim, neat, magazine-perfect "after" pictures don't always do anything for me. The walked around the block to defeat a cookie craving... while I understand how hard it is to sum up sucess in a pithy phrase or three, it also... well, those pithy phrases can really wear you down...

Changing your life, dieting, whatever you want to call it... that's hard bloody work. And Scott acknowledges the work, even after the "After" picture is taken. In his picture, he looks quite handsome, slim and witty, and in his writing, he's sometimes crazy, sometimes lazy, sometimes dry, and always, very, very human. When I was first getting started with my lifestyle change, Scott's blog was there for me. And even now, 75 pounds later, he's still there for me.

Being able to contribute to his cause, write for his magazine, or post on his group effort blog... that's a great honor to me, and one I hope fervently that he recognizes... On the one hand, he's done nothing for me but be who he is... and on the other hand, his example, his wit, and his gods-honest hope and faith in the perserverence and dedication in humanity in general... has helped me to do everything.

If you're interested, this is my article that didn't quite make the cut for the premier issue... I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Drive By

2009-03-31T20:04:00.002-04:00

I'm not feeling so good today, but I didn't want to miss my Healthy You check in;

I'm down 1 pound this week. That's .4 pounds away from 75 pounds lost total. The wii-fit measures me (first thing in the morning, clothing optional) as being 1.1 pound away from "Normal" BMI. It also crosses me over the 4th 10% loss goal... (which is not, mathematically speaking, the same as 40% gone... but I've been counting down in chunks of 10%... )

Thomas is down like over three pounds this week, so once again, he sucks and I hate him. Just kidding.

Mostly.

I went for a walk on Sunday (got 5 miles logged) and found myself a hatchling painted turtle. So, now I have a turtle, and I am happy.

I had a dentist appointment today and I'm having a flake-o reaction to Novocaine that's making my fingers swell randomly. Quite uncomfortable and I'm spending most of my day in a benedryl induced fog.

Which is why this post is so disjointed and non-sensible...