Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)

I've been a pretty busy woman this year.

I decided - probably in November, I think - that I needed to make some changes to my life before I got mired down in unending disasters, both of the house and of the self.

Problem:

My house was always a mess, and about once every three months, my husband would get really huffy and spend an entire weekend cleaning. I'd help, but we wouldn't talk to each other while we were doing it, and we were both angry about the whole thing; him because I wasn't really doing my job of cleaning the house and me because he was being sort of a dick about the fact that I wasn't doing my job, and because he was slamming things around and just being unpleasant.

Problem:

Diabetes was looming in my future pretty loudly. My A1-C was "worrisome". I was expanding in all directions like some out of control roman army. I was in size 24s and a few 26s. I never looked good, I rarely felt good. I was sweating, all the time. Even sitting still in an air-conditioned room.

Problem:

My daughter was having some late-development problems. Her language skills were basically non-existent. She was painfully shy around people she didn't know. She wasn't at all well-adapted to go on to school in the fall.

Problem:

My husband and I were co-existing. We didn't talk as much as we used to. Our sex life was becoming infrequent. We weren't fighting more; but even that was worrisome. We weren't fighting at all, and for us, that's a problem. It usually means there are too many things we're not saying.

Problem:

I just wasn't happy. Not with myself, not with my life, not with anything. I can't say I could complain of misery, because certainly it wasn't that. But little things just kept piling up and not being dealt with. I was ignoring things that needed attention. I was behind on bills. I was behind on everything. And I wasn't doing anything. I don't just mean not doing anything about the problems, I mean not doing anything AT ALL.

I'm a big fan of lists, as any of you who've read here for any length of time will know. I love lists.

Back in December, I took a tw0-week evaluation of my life. I wrote it down, every time I was angry or upset, why I was angry and upset and what I was doing at the time.

I didn't try to analyze it, or categorize anything. That was for later. What I wanted just then was a list.

Here's a sample, copied from those lists:

Monday, Dec 17
3:21PM

Tripped over Darcy's stool. Again. Bruise on leg, yelled at her. She cried. More frustrated. Was getting snack. Grrr.

Tuesday, Dec 18
6:48PM

Thomas & Darcy both complaining about dinner. Had to do dishes to find kitchen. Hand washed pot and broke nail. Dinner late, and not very good.

9:15PM

Ordered pizza. Annoyed at spending money. Moved money from savings to checking. Getting to under $500 there. Worried about Christmas presents.

I'm sure you can all see where this is going.

Because the house was a mess, it was taking longer to do things. In order to cook dinner, I was having to clean the kitchen first. That meant dinner was late. Often dinner wasn't even made; we ordered pizza, or got take out instead. When Thomas and I first got married, I cooked dinner 5 nights a week, we ate out once, and one night a week he was "on his own" for dinner, and I would have a bagel or something. I kept frozen snacks and whatnot on hand for him to eat.

As time progressed, I got to the point where I was cooking dinner no more than twice a week, and he was "on his own" for three or four nights, and we ate out once or twice a week.

We rarely had any "extra" money in case the car broke down, or there was an unexpected expense. Christmas was a major hassle for me, and one that often had me considering how, exactly, I could unload five or six friends, so that I didn't have to buy them presents; and more importantly, they wouldn't give me MORE STUFF that I didn't have a place for.

Some of these problems there were solutions for; go on a diet (OK, since I've been yelled at this a few times, I'm just going to say this one more time and then you're on your own, people. DIET is easier to type than "lifestyle change". Besides, in this culture, "lifestyle change" to me sounds like I've decided to divorce my husband and shack up with Leslie, the incredibly hot girl at my weight watcher's meetings, and while that's not entirely unappealing in fantasy, it's not going to happen. I recognize that I'm going to be on DIET for the rest of my life; that I can never go back to "eating like normal" because this IS my new normal. And if I said this doesn't depress the hell out of me sometimes, I'd be lying. I recognize the truth; putting a fancy multisyllabic label on it doesn't make it less depressing. Aside from that, I tend to say "lifestyle change" with heavy sarcasm and the finger quotes around it, which certainly isn't having the intended placebo vocabulatory effect. There. Enough lecture. And I don't want to hear about it again? Ok? OK.) clean the house and keep it clean, etc.

But it did seem to me that, looking things over carefully, the main problem was ME. Everything else was symptoms of that overwhelming single problem (Ok, so maybe not Darcy's development problems) in that I just wasn't happy with myself.

Quite a long time ago, a friend asked me "Is your problem with where you live, or is your problem something you're just going to take with you when you go?" I was wanting desperately to move away from Lynchburg and get back to the Williamsburg/Newport News/Hampton Roads area where all my friends were. (In this, we didn't quite succeed, because while we do see our friends slightly more living down here, it's still not entirely as much social life as I would like.) It's a question that's well worth the considering. Is the solution I see actually going to fix my problem, or is it like putting a band aid on an open arterial wound?

The core problem: I didn't like myself anymore. I was fat. I was lazy. I was not being a good parent. I was not being a good wife. I didn't have any sense of purpose. My writing had fallen by the wayside of not being able to concentrate while Darcy was constantly asking for attention. I had no... accomplishments.

The solution: Fix and Change what can be fixed and changed.

The Serenity Prayer
(edited for us godless heathens)

Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking this world as it is,
not as I would have it;
Trusting that I may be
reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy
Forever in the next.

I can't always - or even often - change the world around me. But I can change myself. And I can change how I react to things.

I'm not happy with the way I look, or feel: I can change my eating habits.

I'm not happy with the way the house looks: I can change my cleaning habits.

I'm not happy with my marriage: I can become more the partner that I think I should be.

Of course, once having defined the problems, and the solutions, one must come up with a plan to implement those solutions. On the other hand, these aren't entirely uncommon problems, therefore, why go through the effort of reinventing the wheel. Surely, someone out there has a plan for me?

Enter Weight Watchers. It has the tools I need to manage my eating. Journaling, the 8 Healthy Guidelines, Activity Points, mostly clear eating guidelines (there are some things, especially on Flex, that don't seem particularly clear to me!), support structures, accountability weigh ins, and reasonable expectations.

Enter Flylady. This took me a while to find, actually. If you ask a typical person (no matter how disorganized they are) about housecleaning, most people would say that cleaning the house is easy, it's just that they don't have time for it. (Which, of course, as a Stay at Home Mom, always makes me feel worse, since if there's anything I seem to have in abundance, it's time. I don't, really, but I always feel like I should. And certainly other people feel like I should. If you're a Stay at Home Mom, you know how it goes, and if you're not, I can't possibly explain to you the condescending attitude, the contempt, and the disregard that I have to put up with from time to time by COMPLETE STRANGERS.)

I didn't find Flylady until one of my friends gave me the word CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). I found that extremely funny - not to mention extremely accurate - and started using it immediately. A week or so later, when I used it, talking to someone else, they asked me if I did Flylady. I said no, and moved on. But then, I was curious. What the hell was Flylady?

Flylady, like Weight Watchers, is a tool. It's a way to get things into shape that have been out of shape. And a way to do it gradually, to set reasonable expectations, and certainly, actual methodology on how to go about doing it. (That's one of the things I like about weight watchers and flylady. Specific. Instructions. Anyone can tell you "set goals, set up a plan" but that's such empty advice and it really doesn't help if you have no idea what a reasonable goal is, or how to get there.)

The FLY part of Flylady stands for Finally Loving Yourself. This is a goal and a thought I can really get behind. Housewives are SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives). And cleaning your home is "blessing your family."

So, the surprising thing is: Having started the process towards working on those two items that I could change, the other things have changed as well.

My husband and I are closer now than we were at this point last year; back to being silly-crazy in love with each other. (I don't think we ever came close to falling out of love with each other, but it's sometimes harder to express love for others when you're so damned busy hating on yourself that you really begin to question why a rational human being could love you. And if that's the case, then what the hell are you doing with this whacko who can't possibly see what a worthless lump you are?)

And strangely enough - without very much help from me - Darcy has come into her own. I've assisted when I can with outings to see other kids her own age, and by providing workbooks and more educational computer programs and television. But I don't think those things did it all. I guess she was just ready to start talking mostly in English. She still reverts into her nonsense language when she's upset, or if she wants something but she doesn't know what it's called. (As a note: when she doesn't know what something is, she describes it by color. "I want the brown..." "The brown what?" This could be anything from a gold cloisonnes butterfly on my desk - I guess gold is close to brown, and if you don't know what color gold is... to a chocolate ice cream bar.)

All things considered: I'm pretty FLY, (for a white guy).

Post Script: Almost forgot about the weigh in thing. Which in a way, is good. I'm up .2 pounds this week, but I forgot about it because I'm not really all that upset about it. I was a little ticked last night, but 1) this week is my ovulation week, which seems to always be a week that I either gain or maintain and 2) .2 pounds really isn't that much of a gain. Mostly, I think I was ticked about it last night because I was so close to my 35 pounds that I thought for sure I'd get it this week. Now I won't. But probably, I'll get it next week. I'm now .6 away from it instead of .4, but I don't think losing .6 pounds by next week is impossible,

Shopping Plans

Healthy You Update I've become a big fan of the Core Plan. So, we're continuing to stick to Core, at least for the time being. This week, I'm down another 1.2 pounds. Thomas is down 2.6. (Sneaky bastard, he's getting ahead of me again!)

In order to feed my family, I'm having to take a huge leap as far as planning in advance goes, which has in turn cut away a lot of the excess food that tends to accumulate in my refrigerator. I've been a terrible packrat about food for a long time; since I was able to afford to do so. My later years in college were pretty tight, financially, and there were weeks that all I ate was rice, cheese, tomato and ground beef (keep in mind, during the early 90's, tomatoes were cheap. They aren't now.) Ever since then, I have had - as my friend Carol would say - enough food in the house to feed a small army.

Which is really not necessary... there's no reason to have more than a week's worth of food on hand at any time. I don't need 8 packages of backup ramen. I don't eat it if I can possibly manage to avoid it, and we're not so poor as it's likely that I'll be forced to consume them or starve.

On Tuesdays, I go through the fridge and check out what's still in there. Are there leftovers that are getting dubious? Fruits that are spoiling? I clear out the excess - not that there's often much, since I tend to send leftovers to work with Thomas as his lunch, as well as eat them myself for lunch. Tuesday evening, dinner is whatever leftovers are getting close to going off, so we can waste as little food as possible.

Wednesday, I sit down and plan dinners for the week. I usually use a pattern like this: one fish dish, one steak or veal dish, three chicken dishes, one vegetarian thing, and one night of leftovers or going out. Once I've decided what sort of meats we're eating, I go through and select recipes. For example, this past week's menu looked something like this:

Wednesday 96% fat free hamburgers with leftover chili
Thursday tuna steaks over sauteed vegetables
Friday whole wheat spaghetti and organic sauce, salad, and rolls
Saturday out to eat (sirloin and salad bar for me)
Sunday General Tso's Chicken, brown rice
Monday sirloin steaks, barley & mushrooms, mixed vegetables
Tuesday chicken with caramelized onions, ginger-glazed carrots

Once I have the menu put together, I check my supplies to see what I already have. From that, I make my list based on what I'll need to cook the rest of my recipes. I check my herbs and spices to see if I'm running low on anything, ditto with sauces and dressings. How're my basic staples? Soup? Cereal, rice, barley? What have I got for fruits and vegetables? I always need more of these, we're eating so much fresh fruit and veggies recently. I've figured out that we need approximately two bunches of bananas, 8-10 apples, one package of grapes, one package of strawberries, 3 roma tomatoes, 2 - 3 onions, 1-2 avocados, 1 bell pepper, a bag of pre-cut lettuce (I'm still too lazy to cut my own salad lettuce...), and a bag of baby carrots. Per Week. And generally I get 2 packages of frozen veggies. I keep economy sized bags of frozen peas and corn in the freezer, but I also like to keep those mixed bags of broccoli and cauliflower on hand.

After I'm done checking over and writing down foods, I check the rest of the house. Toilet paper? Check. Dishwasher tabs? Running low. Trash bags? Laundry soap?

I write up my list based on where things are in the store. I've been through that store so many times that I pretty much know what order the aisles are in. I leave plenty of space on the right side of my list, in case I forget something, so I can jot it on the side near the related foods.

After my list is done, I check my coupon caddy. Do I have any coupons that will go with anything I'm buying. I paper clip these to my list. And then, I'm ready to go to the grocery store.

HYC (Or Scales in 4 part Harmony)

Hi everyone...

Well, I had a small gain this week... .4 pounds, to be exact... Surprisingly enough, I'm not completely freaking out about it, either.

If you look at my pattern, it goes this way: loss, small loss, big loss, maintain or gain, small loss, small loss, big loss, maintain or gain.

I'll probably get my period today, or at the latest tomorrow (it was kind enough to be slightly late this time, and not bother me on my vacation, for which I am profoundly grateful).

So, I'm thinking that this is just my pattern, and a gain or maintain is to be expected this week....

It's probably a little too early to be tracking trends, but statistics are the other form of math that I really enjoy. (I once saved the company I worked for over $150,000 because I like tracking trends, and I discovered that a certain company's transmission systems were failing at or around the 60,000 mile marker... Of course, after that they decided I ought to be able to find them $150,000 every YEAR in warranty... some people have no sense...)

Also, I did my measurements again last night (two weeks since I did them) and arms and waist were the same, but hips were down 1/2 inch and thighs were down 1 inch! Wow! And I'm back in my size 18 jeans for the first time in almost 2 years...

So, all in all, I would have liked the scale to actually have some reflection on what I'm doing during the week, but I'm not in a bad mental place about it...

Inertia and Entropy

Inertia:

1. Physics The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.

2. Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change: the inertia of an entrenched bureaucracy.

Entropy:

1. For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.

2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.

3. A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.

4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

5. Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

Oh, have we got loads of that in abundance around here.

Thursdays are my technical "day off". No housework, no workout, no chores. No 'To Do' list. Thomas suggests that I should change to Tuesdays, since Tuesday is his Work From Home day... but seriously, he's still technically working, which means that I end up having to wrangle Darcy off him while he's on conference calls and whatnot. So, rather than take Tuesday off and being mad at Thomas every time I have to do something anyway because he's working (you can read as much sarcasm as you'd like into that sentence) I think I'll stick with a day that he's not around. You pick your hills to die on, but it's better to pick them wisely.

Anyway, I usually do a bit of pick up anyway - dishes and whatnot. Yesterday, I didn't. I was sick. I spent most of yesterday sleeping/dozing on the sofa and wondering vaguely what the Points Count was on the six pounds of snot I swallowed. (Sorry. Well, no, I'm not... I felt yucky yesterday, so you can feel a bit yucky, too.)

Day before yesterday, my house was spotless. Yesterday it was... ok. Today? It is a FUCKING DISASTER. There are crayons all over the living room floor, the dishes are piled up in the sink and on the counters. Someone spilled chocolate milk mix onto the floor and didn't bother to wipe it up. The trash can is full and there's a small pile of trash in front of it. My desk has again collected spare bits of clutter; as well as a pile of used Kleenex because my desk trashcan is full. (Again. Man, that thing don't stay empty long!) Darcy's Tinker Bell costume is in a crumpled heap in the hallway. And two pairs of shoes and socks have managed to creep out of the bedroom and ended up piled in front of my computer.

I feel like what I need in my life is Professor Moody, rapping his walking stick on the floor and yelling "Constant Vigilance!"

Is it just me, or is weight loss sort of like trying to keep a house clean? My body's natural state is fat, lazy and immobile. And I'm looking at a very long road of Constant Vigilance.

I'd mope about this somewhat, except, guess what? I've got a house to clean. So this is as much bitching as I can afford to do.

The List Rules

Anyone who knows me well will probably scoff at this statement, but it is, nonetheless, true...

I am a stickler for rules.

Ok, go ahead, you can laugh. That's fine. I know the impression I give off is that I spend a lot of time breaking rules... but that's not really true. Well, not entirely. It's more like this - I like rules with authority behind them. If I can break the rules and there's no consequences, they're more like guidelines. And guidelines are very mushy.

I've also got two ways of doing things: either tell me what you want, and leave me alone to get it done, or tell me exactly what you want and how you want it done. I had this problem with an old job where the Supervisor wanted a report on breakdowns... he couldn't tell me what he actually wanted the report to look like, but the five or six I turned into him weren't it. "Nope, this is wrong." "So, how would you like me to do it, then?" "Not like this." "What about this one?" "Nope, that's no good." Argh.

But that's all beside the point...

I do make my own rules a lot. I'm okay with that. And Roleplaying books always have a line in them about "You're the GM, if you don't like these rules, change em." I take that particularly seriously. It's a rule that I can change the rules, so that's good. And it's a basic 'rule' of cooking that you try the recipe exactly the first time, but then you can start working on variations. (If you're a VERY good cook, you can work on varieties without ever tasting the original, but I wouldn't advise it.)

So, around the beginning of the year, Thomas and I had a long talk about the things in our relationship that weren't... exactly working the way we'd like them to. I've got serious issues with his anger resolution skills, and he was starting to get pissy with my lackadaisical housecleaning.

He's promised to work on his issues and I'm working on mine.

And thus was born the List.

My to-do list...

Which has certain rules that I've set for it.

• Writing the List is the first thing we will do. Before we do a single thing ON the list, we must write it down.
• The list will be NO LONGER than one page in a notebook. Writing in the margins is okay, but flipping the page is not. If there's more things than will fit on a page, it's more than 1 day's worth of work, and it won't all get done.
  (I have a thing for notebooks, by the way. If you ever don't know what to get me, a nice journal-sized notebook with an interesting cover is a great plan. I always need more notebooks... )

• There will always be one thing on the list For Me. Whether this is baking something (I love to bake) or taking a bath, or watching an episode of Firefly, or reading for an hour... It's part of my plan to Take Care of Myself.
• There will always be one thing on the list for Darcy... sitting down to play a game with her, or work on teaching her to write, or giving her a haircut.
• Anything not done (except for making dinner) by the time Thomas gets home from work will be moved to the Next Day's List.
• A task can only be moved to the Next Day three times. After that, it goes to the top of the List and must be done first.
• Every item done must be scratched off when completed.

Smart and Healthy!

Brr! It's freezing outside...

However, the outdoors venture was a good plan, as I'd overheard yesterday at our WW meeting one woman telling another one that the Food Lion had SmartOnes on sale for half off. I also had a $1.00 off coupon from some of our start-up books, so I brought that with us.

We got several tv dinners at $1.49 each and the desserts at $1.25 each, for a total savings of $14.01 for things we were planning to buy anyway.

So, if you're doing Weight Watchers, you like these meals or desserts, get to your own Food Lion; the sale looks to be at all their stores... and if your freezer is bigger than mine? Stock up!!

Eating Adventures Outside the Home

So...

We survived our first time 'eating out'.

Of course, we cheated. Not that way, mind you, but in making our lives easier. We went to Applebee's, which has a deal with Weight Watchers and offers a full page of menu options (only one dessert, tho, boo!) that already have the points value figured up.

I did some research yesterday, however, before we went. My normal favorite, the Chicken Fajita Rollup, wasn't too bad, clocking in at 5 points per half, with another 4 points for 2 tablespoons of the mexi-ranch dressing. The problem is, the dressing is mostly what I get the sandwich FOR, and I usually eat most of my fries by dipping them into the dressing. And while I could probably get a vegetable in place of the fries, I still thought the dressing might be too much for me to resist.

Thomas asked me what the points value would be for his normal - the Cowboy Burger, Onion Rings, and a dessert. Of course, most restaurants don't post their Nutritional Information, so what I came up with was a 'best guess.'

7 points for 8-9 onion rings
21 points for the cheeseburger
12 for chocolate mouse

Ouch.

We decided not to order the things we usually got, even though we both had plenty of Flex Points left over.

I got Confetti Chicken (7) with a side of steamed broccoli, and Thomas got a bowl of French Onion Soup (3), Portabello Mushroom Chicken Sandwich (7) and then we both had the Raspberry Chocolate Cake (4) as a dessert. I really enjoyed the chicken... it was just mexi enough to satisfy my southwestern thing - although I could have really gone for a few lime wedges to bring a little zest to the rice and broccoli. The broccoli was, at least, not overcooked, nor dredged in butter. I ended up using the side-salsa to dip the broccoli in. The portions were good-sized too. Just enough to be one serving, although I miss the idea of having something to re-heat for lunch today.

Thomas said that his soup was good, although the low-fat cheese was a "little rubbery", and he was not really happy with the sandwich, although he said some mustard would have helped the situation enormously, but our waitress was not great about coming back with any frequency.

I was pretty impressed, too, with our friend Toby, who came with us to dinner. Toby's always been thin, and he's one of those weird sorts who never had to unlearn bad habits (well, at least as far as eating goes). As far as I know, he doesn't actually like soda, and naturally eats carrot sticks as snacks (from some other planet, really). He's also religiously inclined towards not eating bacon cheeseburgers. This being the case, I was sort expecting a snarky comment or three from him, as he's got a sometimes brutal sense of humor, but he was actually very encouraging.

So I had a rather pleasant evening, came in under my points count by 1, which while I'm not recording it as a net-even for me with my mathematical error the other day, mentally I am happier with my goof.

Problems with the Hen House

I didn't want to write about this last night with Thomas prowling around the house like an angry tiger.

I think I'd mentioned that he'd been having problems all week meeting his point-goals. Not going over, but just getting to them. I checked his Quick Tracker and the closest he's gotten to his point totals was 4, and the most he's missed it by is 8. That's a whole other meal, for me... I was trying hard not to be mad at him about what's essentially not his fault, and I think I was doing a good job, but I did leave those extra points to be his responsibility. (He doesn't cook and he tends to forget to eat for long periods of time before he'll eat a whole box of moonpies... )

Well, apparently that's not going to work.

He was up .4 pounds from last week. Now, honestly, a .4 pound gain really isn't a big deal, but I think it was depressing for him as a first week. Usually it's the first few weeks that things go well, and after a while that things don't go well. Of course, he's not been eating all his points either, so chances are very good that his body went into shut-down/starvation mode.

The meeting for me, which started out good (lost 1.4 pounds!) and got better; won prizes, talked to people, had a good time... for him, started out bad and got worse.

The receptionist handing out the leis handed one to me, then glanced at Thomas. "Oh. Are YOU actually going to be staying for the meeting?" I blinked, confused. Well, I figured that a lot of guys don't stay for the meeting, and she needed to save Leis because they had a lot of people who were new.

Whatever.

We moved up the lines to get our Weigh Ins. Unlike last week, Thomas and I split up... so I missed a lot of the conversation between him and the receptionist.

He was up .4 pounds. He asked the receptionist about this, since he'd been short on points all week, and here he was gaining weight rather than losing it. The receptionist said "Well, make sure you eat all your fruits and veggies... and no, fries don't count as a vegetable." She didn't give him his Week 2 literature and tried to shoo him out of line. He refused to budge. "I haven't been skimping on the fruits and vegetables and I'm having trouble meeting my points anyway. I mean, I don't want to have a cheeseburger just to fill out points." Receptionist: "Well, when you get to 20 points like me, you won't have that problem, will you?"

I heard that last bit and my eyebrows went way up. The receptionist dismissed Thomas from consideration by getting out from behind her desk to greet someone who'd just walked in...

While we were waiting in line, the leader had started up the little Leis game. Thomas pretty much pushed me out of my chair to go play socialite, saying he'd stay with Darcy and make sure she didn't get into trouble, so I didn't really think much about it.

During the meeting, after the game was over, the Leader talked about how her son and her husband were trying to emotionally blackmail her and sabotage her eating, and her son had bought a deep fat fryer for her as a Christmas present and then invited all his friends over and asked her to make chicken wings for them. She made several mocking comments about "husbands" who she often called "shadow members" who didn't actually attend the meetings.

Thomas, already smarting from the weight gain, and the receptionist's dismissal of him, viewed the entire meeting as an exercise in man-hating and was rather grouchy.

So he came home and consoled himself by eating a six point chocolate we had left over from Christmas and ranting for the better part of three hours. Last week, while I was complaining about being hungry and being constantly in a bad mood, he kept saying we had to stick with it for at least ten weeks, and etc. This week, he's talking about turning in his meeting stickers for a pro-rated refund.

I know he's angry and I know he's upset. He hates reverse-sexism and I have to admit that he's very good about not being sexist himself, not even casually. He also tends to notice when other men are being casually sexist and he often calls them on it. But he expects the same respect from women, and a lot of times, it's just not there. Watch commercials for a while if you don't believe me... a lot of commercials are the smart women telling dumb guys about sales, or a product... or the dumb dad is doing something and the mom corrects it...

I've offered my suggestions: I got lots from the Weight Watchers message boards. Adding cheese, adding a protein serving, upping the fat content in his milk, drinking some juice instead of water, etc. I suggested that he join the message board for men, and see what they had to say... I suggested that we continue to browse meetings until we find one that we're both happy with. Finally, I shoved him out the door to go grocery shopping and buy himself some higher points snacks.

We'll see, I guess...

Prolific

I seem to be writing here an awful lot. If you're reading, don't get too adjusted to it. I'm sure, once I get a better handle on what I'm doing and why, I'll slack off as a writer. It does seem to be my habit.

Yesterday I prepackaged a bunch of little salads to use... mostly because I'm lazy. One of the reasons I don't eat salad on a regular basis is that it's a hassle to make. You have to buy lettuce and carrots and celery and cucumbers and peppers and... then you have to chop it all up, and it wilts fairly quickly, so if you're not on top of things, more than half of it goes to waste. So, by doing it all yesterday and packing it in easy-to-use containers, I hope to be able to eat more salad without being quite so grouchy about it. Of the 10 (or 11?) packs I made yesterday, we've already eaten three. Depending on how things go, I may have to buy 2 monster packs of pre-cut lettuce (which has always been the biggest thing I hated about making salad was cutting up lettuce...) per week. We'll see.

Today's 'self-assignment' is to spot tag all the food in the house. I bought some sticky-dots at the Office Max yesterday in 8 colors. Light green, medium green, dark green, blue, yellow, light orange, medium orange, and red. What do people have against purple or pink? Really!

I've assigned them out thus:

• Light Green: 0 Points (free food)
• Medium Green: 1 point
• Dark Green: 2 points
• Blue: 3 points
• Yellow: 4 points
• Light Orange: 5 points
• Medium Orange: 6 points
• Red: 7 points

[If things go past 7 points, 1) I probably shouldn't be eating them anyway and 2) I can just add a second dot. Two red dots is Right Out.]

The idea is to make things simpler. Rather than having to look up everything I want to eat when I want to eat it, I can check the serving size, and eye the dot. Obviously, this will be a lot of work at first, and will add probably a half-hour to grocery trips as I 'put away and label' rather than just 'put away.'

So far, I've managed to tag everything I've eaten today and everything in the freezer.

That's good, I guess. I have 2 cabinets, the fridge, and the pantry to go... might take a while.

The problem I thought I was going to have with Thomas; I already have. Yesterday he went to bed 5 points down. And I was hungry, after using all my points.

Sigh.

And there's just, really, nothing satisfying about having a cup of carrots. I can eat it, yeah, and maybe I'm not hungry afterwards, but I don't want to eat them. They hold absolutely no interest for me.

I wonder if I'll ever get past that.

Too Much Thinking

Gah, what IS it with me....

I ate breakfast at 10:00, so decided that a 1pm lunch wouldn't be a bad time to have something to eat... so at 1, I got up... while I was up I decided to make salad packs.

I bought a HUGE bag of shredded salad, carrots, and cabbage. Basic dinner salad stuff. $3.99 for the bag. I dumped the whole thing into the biggest bowl I had (and it heaped over the top in all directions.) ~11 servings. 20 calories a serving. So that HUGE bag was 230 calories. Cool.

I got out some other veggies: carrot sticks, baby tomatoes, onion, cucumber, and the last remaining quarter of a yellow bell pepper. I filled 11 sandwich bags with 1 1/2 cups of greens, added three baby tomatoes, one slice of bell pepper (chopped up), three small slices of onion (also diced), three slices of cucumber, and three baby carrots (slivered). I smushed the air out of them and lined them up neatly in the bottom of the fridge.

And then I came back to the computer... and sat down... and realized that I hadn't actually fixed/figured/or gotten...

lunch.

SIGH.