Reinventing the Meal
Today is the second day of the rest of my life.
I once knew an A-level racquetball player, the kind of guy it’s no fun to play, because he was incapable of a rally. I would hit the ball and he would roll it out. Or he would serve and I would stand there like the coyote after the roadrunner speeds by, waiting for the Instant Hole to appear so I could fall through it. It was so bad that he’d clock me, even when he gave me 5 points to start AND played the whole game with his left hand (he was right-handed).
Eventually I just played a hybrid of hockey with him, where I’d swing and crack him in the arm or crash my elbow into his chest, distracting him enough that he’d hit the ball like a normal person, rather than a human rocket launcher.
I only learned one thing from Rocket Man, and it had very little to do with the sport he used as a battering ram against my ego. I took a lesson from him, a real one, rather than the kind he gave me when we played together. He showed me some basic stroke production and then he explained everything I needed to master in order to get from beginner to competitive C.
I’m an impatient woman, and so I asked him what I’d need to get from ‘C’ to ‘B’, and then to ‘A’, figuring I would skip all the interim steps and go straight for Racquetball Queen of the Universe. He nodded, as if expecting the question, and then he said, ‘to get from C to B, you must first forget everything you know about racquetball and start over.’
I did what a true “grasshopper” should and cursed him, then took up with my then-college boyfriend Howard Rosen. He was a racquet hack like me, but at least he could keep the ball in play.
I’ve long since given up racquet ball and “contact” sports in general, but I am glad that I met Rocket Man, if only so I could have that little aphorism in my arsenal. Anything that deserves a lifetime of attention requires a lifetime of study. And anything that takes that long to master is going to demand reworking. Tennis is like that. Ditto the martial arts. And weight loss rules them all with a complex-carbo punch.
I keep tossing around this idea that I must change how I view weight loss, and that the new goals will drive me forward. I’ve signed up to race in a 5k run in early June and I look every weekend for The Perfect Weight Bench for the house. I’m pretty well convinced that I should get a step-mill or stair-climber too, since the treadmill is going to be mighty dull this winter, now that I have the taste for outdoor running. And just in case anyone was wondering, no, I will not be racing outdoors this winter. I might love running and I might also love Chicago, but I won’t be doing the Slip & Slide over the sidewalks when the weather turns Canadian. Thanks, but I’d rather get fat. Kidding! But seriously, no, I won’t be Out There, so I’m busy building a gym In Here so I can stay thin and healthy.
But it’s not enough, and anyway, despite deciding on a goal weight, I still can’t figure out how to get there. I wrote this beautiful, hiliarious, post about the How & Why of my goal weight and then, just as I was about to publish it, I balked. It’s not how I feel, and right now, I’m not in That Place. I don’t feel “just a few pounds away”. Goal Weight is miles and miles from here, and it’s as if I’ve suddenly run out of road.
This is exacerbated by the fact that I made WW Lifetime last weekend, and so as far as the Saturday morning crowd-and WW corporate-is concerned, I am Finished Losing. I’m glad I stopped when I did, since I’ve basically been stalled at this weight ever since. Some would call that “Maintenance”. Yes, some, but not me. I just know that I can do better.
The workouts seemed to help at first, but lately, even those have turned against me. Last Thursday, I was 152.0. By Saturday morning, I was edging 155. Monday morning produced 160, and I haven’t even ovulated yet. I have 2 full weeks before period puffiness sets in, and yet Monday night when I took off my shoes, I couldn’t see my ankle bones.
For 10 months, my reaction to this would have been an obvious, “Eat Less”. You’re gaining weight, and that’s what your body knows, so clearly there’s only one remedy. Exhume food from mouth. Less carb, more pickles. Nothing after dinner. Up the fiber to mask the hunger, and do it with popcorn, popcorn, popcorn.
And really, that’s what I wanted to do. But then I had the “Add Fat, you stupid bitch” conversation with Twins, and Howard left (AGAIN) for a week’s worth of travel, taking with him my standard ritual of stuffing myself full of zero-point food after DS’s bed time. Everything I knew was gone. I had to forget it, and start over.
I dug through my closet and found a fitness program I'd purchased 2 years ago from a friend fo Twins, who I'll call "Coach Scientific". I really looked at the nutrition counter and at how he explained body fueling, and how I'd need to eat much more than I had been, if I wanted to shed those last pounds.
I took the plunge. Where once I ate 72 grams of protein a day, I would now eat 140. Where I refused to tickle my tummy with more than 13 fat grams, I would now eat 30. I would embrace carbs, but only when appropriate, I would run until I hurled, I would sleep when I needed it, and I would see if this would work. Starve and Slim had left the building. It was time to eat like a machine.
About half a day into it, I wrote to Twins, explained how I’d changed things and waited for feedback. In a succeeding message, I expressed my frustration, writing, “it feels like I’m starting over.” Twins, who does not credit herself with the wisdom she possesses, replied, “That might not be a bad way to look at it. You kind of are.”
Well then.
I’m almost 3 days in, so there’s no real way to tell how this is going. Twins said it could take a month to convince my body that I’m not actually starving it to death, so it can ‘trust’ me again to let some of my bad fat go. The scale remains about the same, though I weighed in at 158 this afternoon, so I’m encouraged. My ankles still bulge, but it’s better, and while I demurred away from my Super Skinny Pants this morning, I did manage to spend all day in another pair of low rise 6s that managed to stay out of the Up My Butt position, even after lunch.
I’m still struggling to get all my numbers up, but yesterday I ate nearly 120g of protein and had over 20g of fat and 30g of fiber. I ate 6 times yesterday, and after I put DS to bed, I didn’t even bother to go into the kitchen. I didn’t need to: I wasn’t hungry.
Tonight I went running. I hadn’t been since Saturday, when I was sure that I’d injured all my internal organs to such a degree that I couldn’t life or carry anything heavier than a change purse until last night. My inside thigh muscle crabbed right from the first interval run and my hips ached during the last mile, but I ground it out and I finished 4 miles in just under 36 minutes. What’s more, I’m pretty sure I kept a standard pace up through the whole workout, rather than starting like a slingshot and finishing like a slug. I had more spring, more bounce, and no cramps through the whole run, and I even managed to add more time to each interval AND run a couple of doubles in the middle. I didn’t have to stop for an extra rest break at all, and I even ran an extra block at the end, just to make sure my final interval was all run.
That was pretty cool.
I am grateful to Weight Watchers for helping me chop 90 pounds off the Octopus, and I am a member forevermore. I look forward to every meeting, and I’m disappointed when I can’t come. I’m still trying to figure out how to go to my Saturday meeting on my wedding day. I mean, seriously: the meeting is at 8:30 and the wedding isn’t until 6pm. There’s time!
But I think it’s time for WW and I to part as Just Friends. I’m too shy in front of crowds to be a leader, and anyway, that’s Howard’s goal. I’ll keep coming and we’ll have years of memories to share together. But I have to move on now. I’m no longer a fat girl getting skinny, or a skinny girl recovered from her fat. I’m a fit girl, working to fuel my body, and building on the success of my previous journey.
I don’t think I’ll forget everything I’ve learned. I have many priceless memories and tidbits from 10 months of meetings-conversations and confessions and weigh-ins that are a permanent part of me now, one that I hold as dear to me as the return of my Great Love to my life.
What I will forget is the approach to food and the place it takes in my life. Food was something to be wary of, an untrustworthy yet pivotal partner along my weight loss road. Now food is a tool—a piece of the foundation, with each item carefully chosen for the value it brings. I want that tool, and I need the foundation. It is my springboard, and it is my earth…but it is not me.
My body does not define me, as it had for many years, including the thin ones. It used to be the only thing I would remember about myself. I would think about events in my life, and I would know what I weighed, and how much I wanted to lose. I don’t think about that now. I have some pounds I’d like to lose, but none that I must, and none that I feel weigh me down or make me fat. In fact, today, for the first time that I can remember, I was in the presence of a woman visibly and obviously thinner than me, and while I was aware of her and her thinness, I did not compare her to me, and I did not consider myself fat standing next to her.
And then this morning, I didn't get on the scale. It seems I’d forgotten all about that.
A the H(appily Forgetful)
I once knew an A-level racquetball player, the kind of guy it’s no fun to play, because he was incapable of a rally. I would hit the ball and he would roll it out. Or he would serve and I would stand there like the coyote after the roadrunner speeds by, waiting for the Instant Hole to appear so I could fall through it. It was so bad that he’d clock me, even when he gave me 5 points to start AND played the whole game with his left hand (he was right-handed).
Eventually I just played a hybrid of hockey with him, where I’d swing and crack him in the arm or crash my elbow into his chest, distracting him enough that he’d hit the ball like a normal person, rather than a human rocket launcher.
I only learned one thing from Rocket Man, and it had very little to do with the sport he used as a battering ram against my ego. I took a lesson from him, a real one, rather than the kind he gave me when we played together. He showed me some basic stroke production and then he explained everything I needed to master in order to get from beginner to competitive C.
I’m an impatient woman, and so I asked him what I’d need to get from ‘C’ to ‘B’, and then to ‘A’, figuring I would skip all the interim steps and go straight for Racquetball Queen of the Universe. He nodded, as if expecting the question, and then he said, ‘to get from C to B, you must first forget everything you know about racquetball and start over.’
I did what a true “grasshopper” should and cursed him, then took up with my then-college boyfriend Howard Rosen. He was a racquet hack like me, but at least he could keep the ball in play.
I’ve long since given up racquet ball and “contact” sports in general, but I am glad that I met Rocket Man, if only so I could have that little aphorism in my arsenal. Anything that deserves a lifetime of attention requires a lifetime of study. And anything that takes that long to master is going to demand reworking. Tennis is like that. Ditto the martial arts. And weight loss rules them all with a complex-carbo punch.
I keep tossing around this idea that I must change how I view weight loss, and that the new goals will drive me forward. I’ve signed up to race in a 5k run in early June and I look every weekend for The Perfect Weight Bench for the house. I’m pretty well convinced that I should get a step-mill or stair-climber too, since the treadmill is going to be mighty dull this winter, now that I have the taste for outdoor running. And just in case anyone was wondering, no, I will not be racing outdoors this winter. I might love running and I might also love Chicago, but I won’t be doing the Slip & Slide over the sidewalks when the weather turns Canadian. Thanks, but I’d rather get fat. Kidding! But seriously, no, I won’t be Out There, so I’m busy building a gym In Here so I can stay thin and healthy.
But it’s not enough, and anyway, despite deciding on a goal weight, I still can’t figure out how to get there. I wrote this beautiful, hiliarious, post about the How & Why of my goal weight and then, just as I was about to publish it, I balked. It’s not how I feel, and right now, I’m not in That Place. I don’t feel “just a few pounds away”. Goal Weight is miles and miles from here, and it’s as if I’ve suddenly run out of road.
This is exacerbated by the fact that I made WW Lifetime last weekend, and so as far as the Saturday morning crowd-and WW corporate-is concerned, I am Finished Losing. I’m glad I stopped when I did, since I’ve basically been stalled at this weight ever since. Some would call that “Maintenance”. Yes, some, but not me. I just know that I can do better.
The workouts seemed to help at first, but lately, even those have turned against me. Last Thursday, I was 152.0. By Saturday morning, I was edging 155. Monday morning produced 160, and I haven’t even ovulated yet. I have 2 full weeks before period puffiness sets in, and yet Monday night when I took off my shoes, I couldn’t see my ankle bones.
For 10 months, my reaction to this would have been an obvious, “Eat Less”. You’re gaining weight, and that’s what your body knows, so clearly there’s only one remedy. Exhume food from mouth. Less carb, more pickles. Nothing after dinner. Up the fiber to mask the hunger, and do it with popcorn, popcorn, popcorn.
And really, that’s what I wanted to do. But then I had the “Add Fat, you stupid bitch” conversation with Twins, and Howard left (AGAIN) for a week’s worth of travel, taking with him my standard ritual of stuffing myself full of zero-point food after DS’s bed time. Everything I knew was gone. I had to forget it, and start over.
I dug through my closet and found a fitness program I'd purchased 2 years ago from a friend fo Twins, who I'll call "Coach Scientific". I really looked at the nutrition counter and at how he explained body fueling, and how I'd need to eat much more than I had been, if I wanted to shed those last pounds.
I took the plunge. Where once I ate 72 grams of protein a day, I would now eat 140. Where I refused to tickle my tummy with more than 13 fat grams, I would now eat 30. I would embrace carbs, but only when appropriate, I would run until I hurled, I would sleep when I needed it, and I would see if this would work. Starve and Slim had left the building. It was time to eat like a machine.
About half a day into it, I wrote to Twins, explained how I’d changed things and waited for feedback. In a succeeding message, I expressed my frustration, writing, “it feels like I’m starting over.” Twins, who does not credit herself with the wisdom she possesses, replied, “That might not be a bad way to look at it. You kind of are.”
Well then.
I’m almost 3 days in, so there’s no real way to tell how this is going. Twins said it could take a month to convince my body that I’m not actually starving it to death, so it can ‘trust’ me again to let some of my bad fat go. The scale remains about the same, though I weighed in at 158 this afternoon, so I’m encouraged. My ankles still bulge, but it’s better, and while I demurred away from my Super Skinny Pants this morning, I did manage to spend all day in another pair of low rise 6s that managed to stay out of the Up My Butt position, even after lunch.
I’m still struggling to get all my numbers up, but yesterday I ate nearly 120g of protein and had over 20g of fat and 30g of fiber. I ate 6 times yesterday, and after I put DS to bed, I didn’t even bother to go into the kitchen. I didn’t need to: I wasn’t hungry.
Tonight I went running. I hadn’t been since Saturday, when I was sure that I’d injured all my internal organs to such a degree that I couldn’t life or carry anything heavier than a change purse until last night. My inside thigh muscle crabbed right from the first interval run and my hips ached during the last mile, but I ground it out and I finished 4 miles in just under 36 minutes. What’s more, I’m pretty sure I kept a standard pace up through the whole workout, rather than starting like a slingshot and finishing like a slug. I had more spring, more bounce, and no cramps through the whole run, and I even managed to add more time to each interval AND run a couple of doubles in the middle. I didn’t have to stop for an extra rest break at all, and I even ran an extra block at the end, just to make sure my final interval was all run.
That was pretty cool.
I am grateful to Weight Watchers for helping me chop 90 pounds off the Octopus, and I am a member forevermore. I look forward to every meeting, and I’m disappointed when I can’t come. I’m still trying to figure out how to go to my Saturday meeting on my wedding day. I mean, seriously: the meeting is at 8:30 and the wedding isn’t until 6pm. There’s time!
But I think it’s time for WW and I to part as Just Friends. I’m too shy in front of crowds to be a leader, and anyway, that’s Howard’s goal. I’ll keep coming and we’ll have years of memories to share together. But I have to move on now. I’m no longer a fat girl getting skinny, or a skinny girl recovered from her fat. I’m a fit girl, working to fuel my body, and building on the success of my previous journey.
I don’t think I’ll forget everything I’ve learned. I have many priceless memories and tidbits from 10 months of meetings-conversations and confessions and weigh-ins that are a permanent part of me now, one that I hold as dear to me as the return of my Great Love to my life.
What I will forget is the approach to food and the place it takes in my life. Food was something to be wary of, an untrustworthy yet pivotal partner along my weight loss road. Now food is a tool—a piece of the foundation, with each item carefully chosen for the value it brings. I want that tool, and I need the foundation. It is my springboard, and it is my earth…but it is not me.
My body does not define me, as it had for many years, including the thin ones. It used to be the only thing I would remember about myself. I would think about events in my life, and I would know what I weighed, and how much I wanted to lose. I don’t think about that now. I have some pounds I’d like to lose, but none that I must, and none that I feel weigh me down or make me fat. In fact, today, for the first time that I can remember, I was in the presence of a woman visibly and obviously thinner than me, and while I was aware of her and her thinness, I did not compare her to me, and I did not consider myself fat standing next to her.
And then this morning, I didn't get on the scale. It seems I’d forgotten all about that.
A the H(appily Forgetful)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 4:41 PM
2 Comments:
Wow, congratulations! I guess I missed the meeting and your big event! So, does this mean we won't being seeing much of you?
:0(
Bummer....
No, no. I'm still coming every week. And I didn't do the Lifetime celebration-I'm waiting for Maria the Spectacular to come back.
See you this weekend!
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