The Fat Lady Sings

Over the (Muffin) Top

2011-04-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, then.

I'm not Catholic, but writing here feels a bit like sliding into a confessional. Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been 16 months since my last post...

A few things have happened since last I wrote. Those who know the personal stuff are already updated, and I won't test the patience of those who don't, so suffice to say that I have had a year of rampant, selective, amnesia.

First, I forgot how to keep my weight off. Then I forgot how to lose it the weight I'd gained. Then I forgot that going to restaurants and eating gluten free tiramisu actually exacerbates the problem. Finally, I forgot that running cures all my woes.

Spring has yet to make anything other than a fleeting dash in and out of Chicago, but on the days that it's reached above freezing I have taken my 165 pound frame out and pounded the Prairie Path. Over the last 2 or 3 weeks I've managed to climb back up to a respectable 6 miles per run, though at an embarrassing Senior's pace of 12:56 minutes/mile, largely since I'm still doing intervals. I run 2.5 minutes and then walk 1.5. I tell myself it's because I'm just getting back into it, which I am, but in reality it burns my brain to think I can't run for 3 minutes when 18 months ago I ran 13 miles with barely a stop for water.

But....plenty of time for Scarlet Letter re-enactments later on. It's time to jostle the cottage cheese from my thighs and send the octopus back into retirement.

I started tracking my food intake and the shame of writing "Baby Ruth" skinnied my intake down in a big hurry. I've also helped myself along by overdosing on Reese's eggs, so I can't even look at them now without shuddering. All Hail the Overconsuming PMS beast! I will probably have to hypnotize myself to forget about Cadbury mini-eggs, but since Easter is over, I figure if I can stay out of Target, Walgreen's, Wal-Mart and CVS until the Clearance sales are over, I'll be free.

And it's working. The up side of gaining weight is that you get a new "first week". I've lost 5.4 pounds since Sunday and with the 17 points I burned over lunch (6.7 miles, 89 minutes), I will doubtless have a decent weigh-in tomorrow morning. I may be up over goal for the first time since hitting my goal, but I am back in the groove, and this might be the best $13 I've ever spent on a Weight Watcher's meeting.

Somewhere along this I have to figure out what happened. Was it the 'I can track in my head?' Was it the cold weather that drove me to the treadmill and then out of the FOX-news blaring YMCA? Was it my new relationship with a lover so much fun that I *liked* to go out and I didn't bother to adjust my weekday eating to compensate for the GF Uno's pepperoni pizza I was eating twice a month? Yes, yes, yes and probably many other things.

I think what I've discovered is that this journey is never over. My relationship with food and overeating is like any other, and requires maintenance.. I must be aware always that I am caring for myself and my diet, and never take for granted that things are OK and don't need my attention. I must check in regularly, and consider that I may need to spice things up once in a while, because even if it looks like it's going all right, anything will turn stale if not paid attention to.

So there it is. I must maintain. It only took 5 years and a flop off the wagon to figure it out. But maybe that's OK; sometimes it is the very act of failing when we learn exactly how to succeed.

Hope to see more of me here and less of me everywhere else.

A the R(eborn)

Homespun Wisdom

2009-12-14T10:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finished my first usable bed-sized quilt. It’s a queen-sized log cabin variation that I made for DS, and as soon as I can figure out how to post a picture, I will put it here.

I’ve made bed quilts before, but they were so shabbily constructed that their useful life was confined to stuffing them back into the trash can liner I’d used as a “gift bag”. Quilting is a long, painful process for me, and one that I’m not fully prepared to say that I enjoy. The Working With My Hands part is satisfying, if still disappointing because I have no eye for color, no ability to sew on point and no patience to quilt feathered circles or detailed flowers into the blocks. But I persevere, hoping that someday I’ll be able to do something that I enjoy with at least a modicum of talent.

The thing I like best about quilting is the sewing, called ‘piecing’ in quilt lingo. In piecing, I can watch my efforts over a time continuum that does not resemble moving through a black hole, unlike all the other parts of the quilting process. Fabric selection, washing, cutting, assembly, layering, quilting, binding, and, for me, a truckload of bellowed cursing, are the reams of pain and torture that I endure in order to do the one thing about quilting that I like.

I do all these things because I understand it’s a process, but frankly I’ve always considered it a little bit of false advertising to call ‘quilting’ just ‘quilting’ and not ‘back-breaking thankless work with a tiny bit of creation inserted in the middle’. It’s rather akin to a peanut butter cookie that’s smashed in between foods that give me the dry heaves. I want the cookie, but I have to think really, really hard about making the effort to go get it.

It’s a difficult, stress-laden hobby, and most times, I cannot explain why I haven’t thrown it all in and returned to sewing. Sewing is easy. when I decided to learn sewing, I took a class, bought a machine, and in a few weeks I was churning out dresses, shirts and even a few draperies. Even now, years removed from regular sewing, I can build a shirt in 5 hours. It took me over a month to make this quilt, and I muttered obscenities to myself at every turn of the needle.

Sometimes I think it’s my attempt to teach myself patience or to learn precision work. I’m a high-level thinker and I work in technology, so there’s nothing about my professional life that I can ‘touch’ as an accomplishment. Quilting gives me that, though it also serves as a reminder that Mistakes are Visible, and since I always give my projects away as presents, this escalates them to Mistakes are Visible to Others. Still, despite my poor quality, my poorer attitude and the pinched nerves in my low back that inevitably happen as a project winds down, I continue.

And here’s why: this morning, when I showed the quilt to DS and he just stood on the bed smiling at it and holding me, I knew that it had been worth it.

A the N(eedled)

Free At Last

2009-10-22T08:42:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night, I completed the final exam of my last class in my MBA program. Though it will be some weeks before I receive my diploma, I am officially finished with school.

Twenty seven months of constant stress around homework, reading assignments, quizzes, exams and online discussions have left their mark. I am staunchly avoiding my home office these days, reluctant even to sit down for fear of rejuvenating the anxiety of deadlines and self-paced learning. I'm glad I did it, and now I am very glad it's done.

As I am an insane individual, I spent parts of last week looking through other online programs, seeing if I could pick up a 'quick' MS in Technology or a PhD in something of interest to me (Business Administration most definitely is not). After turning in that last exam, though, I decided that I really did need a break. I may enroll in non-degree courses at the local community college, after a suitable hiatus. I've long wanted to learn French, so that in the event I needed to apply for permanent residency in Canada, I would score more points for having some command of their other official languages.

I've also had a long-held interest in automotive technology, based in part on the fact that I have zero knowledge and so am forced to trust whatever coverall-uniformed crew member has been sent out to 'discuss' my car problems with me. As both our cars are elderly, I think it's smart to get more savvy about what I'm driving and how it operates. These courses are also available at the community college. In fact, there are more auto classes than French classes, so I stand a better chance of becoming a skilled tradesman in the North Country than I do a bilingual white collar working stiff. No matter; I am interested in these things, but my brain needs a rest.I can decide whether to continue my education once I've recovered, and if I will study something of interest vs. something practical.

In racing, you're supposed to take one day's rest from running for every mile you ran. I'm trying to figure out if there's some corresponding formula for how long to lay off capital "E" education after I've finished a degree. One week for every month? One month for every class? One lifetime for every MBA? We'll see. I made it all the way to 10am on Saturday before the allure of Having Nothing To Do wore thin. As of this moment, I have 27 items on my Must Do Immediately list.

I did resume running in the spring and actually ran the Chicago Half Marathon last month. It was long, it was hard and I lost a toenail but I really felt good doing it. I'm running a 10k with a fellow Weight Watcher this weekend, and it's very pleasing to me that 6.2 miles is a no-big-deal, standard workout for me now. It's getting colder now, and so far I've managed to adjust to Runner as Popsicle. We'll see how things change once it snows.

One thing that may propel me through the winter is a twitching need to run faster. I can run 10 miles with no issue, and obviously can run up to 13.1 without stopping or falling over. But my 11:23 minute/mile pace needs work. Even at my age, I should be able to cross the finish line a little zippier than I do. So this winter is a devotion to speed work, intervals and conditioning. I'm not going to worry about running without stopping or keeping my speed down so I can put all the miles in. I'm going to run when I feel like it, as fast as I feel like, and then I'm going to walk to rest until I can run again.

I may never do the Chicago Half again--it's a total drag getting up at 4am for a 7:30 race and eating (gluten free!) pancakes on the fly in the dark on the way to the South Side. However, there is a half marathon in the suburbs that is of interest and there's races in other cities that are now worth investigating.

I also have to slim down my eating. I'm up 6 pounds from my pre-celiac diagnosis, and while I'd like to blame the corn vs. wheat thing, I think I'm just eating more. I let my calories creep up while I was running and now that I'm not in full tilt race mode, I can't sustain it, so I've gained. I am giving myself until Thanksgiving to get back to the mid-150s, and I'm running faster now, which should help. Wish me luck.

I hope to be here more often now that I have my life back and catch you up on what's happening. I didn't really realize how much of my life got sucked up into school, and now that it's over, I feel like I have 2 years of catching up to do with the house and with my personal life. Maybe it all worked out that way: it was time for school and now it's time for life. I am totally OK with that: the men in my life are super-cool, and as it turns out, they are a hoot to be with.

More to follow, assuming I can drag myself downstairs to type.

A the E(mancipated)

My Trading Post

2009-06-03T19:43:00.001-07:00

I'm in my second-to-last MBA class this term, and while it is butt-kicking dull, it is also insanely time-sucking, and so, as usual, I have no time to write what I wish.

One of the things I am always required to do with these online classes is participate in the 'student louge' or online forum for talking about This Week's Topic. One can only imagine the cliffhangers generated from a bunch of overworked 40somethings trying to drum up creative things to say about the Price Elasticity of Demand or the Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management in a Lean Manufacturing Environment. One can almost hear the paint drying on the growing grass...

Despite my utter frustration with the third-grade level writing and the propensity for my fellow students to agree with one another rather than risk a debate on anything, I continue to write as I always do--long and with attempted wit. As a result, I am largely ignored. I do not understand this, except to surmise that it is simply too much trouble to read my blatherings and/or respond.

So to "get back" at my peers and to thrash out at least a little whimper of a post, I'm copying one of my Week 1 posts out here. We were asked to write out the "3 compelling reasons why we chose one product over another, and conversely, what we would sell if we were a supplier. Finally, why does it all work?" Stay with me; remember, if it's worth writing, it's worth making fun of. And there's no better target of fun-poking than myself.

More celiac writing to follow. Much, much, much to tell, but MBA comes first--at least until mid-October, when my last assignment is turned in.

A the I(n my Penultimate Class)

I am a Consumer Reports girl all the way down the line.

Price is a concern, but is secondary to quality and reliability. I take a very long time to decide on all but the most trivial of purchases, and I admit that even those "impulse" purchases are relative re: timing (it took me 3 months to choose a travel mug).

As a result of what I politely term my 'scientific mind' on purchases, I go for the sturdy, long-lasting, Global Warming-durable items. I'll choose stainless steel over plastic, cotton over polyester, and, in the higher-priced markets, Toyota over Hyundai. Both have lovely body styles, but even though Toyota is way more expensive and far less flexible on price, their cars never die.

My Eureka vacuum trumped the Hoover in microbial pickup and durability of attachments. The 45% silk cardigan I plucked from an obscenely expensive boutique has been with me since college, and the leather backpack I bought as a Starting My MBA Gift in 1995 (no typo, it's been 14 years in the making), just yielded its first tiny (repairable) tear.

The third category of Reasons to Purchase behind Durability and Price is propensity for timelessness re: fashion. Because it takes me so long to decide and because the things I buy last forever, I can't risk too much that's trendy, lest I look like a throwback, or some crazy Chicago lady who lives out of her shopping cart (irony intended). :)

On the seller side, I would not be so presumptuous to assume that everyone is as spastic as me regarding a Zillion year half-life, so I'd do a bell curve of items: 70% in the pretty good/no complaints/will last at least a season stock and then fill up the rest of my inventory with fringe on both sides: half in the fragile-yet-trendy and the other half in the Will Outlive Your Twinkies category.

Why do I think it all works? Because there are always buyers available to purchase items of quality (again, a relative term).

Gluten for Punishment

2009-04-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

My sick mind is a powerful being.

Three weeks ago, in what was an otherwise ordinary checkup, I heard both ‘you’re anemic’ and ‘symptoms suggestive of celiac disease’. Because I am so fond of overreacting, I decided to eliminate gluten from my diet immediately. Celiac disease can cut up to 10 years off of your life, and in 60% of adult cases, celiacs have no symptoms. Since it is very easy to ignore a disease that makes no noise, I decided on a preemptive attack. Cut out the amber waves and bring back the villi! My small intestines, my weakening bones and my teeny red blood cells would all celebrate with me.

This proved harder than I imagined. First of all, much like celiac disease, gluten is everywhere. A sticky protein substance found in wheat, barley and rye, it is literally the ‘glue’ that holds processed foods together. When not playing a poison on TV, it’s a great fiber source, a base for any kind of bread or baked good, and sometimes used as a dusting on conveyor belts to keep items clean. An instance of 5 parts per billion can be enough to cause a reaction, though, so in order for a food to get the prized gluten-free label, it must not only be gluten-free, but also be manufactured in plants that separate the celiac foods from the gluten-made.

Soy sauce has gluten in it. So does Cool Whip, reduced fat sour cream, and the calcium supplements I’m taking to overcome my early-onset bone thinning. Howard is still unemployed, so now is not the time to be tossing out good food or spending $12 for gluten-free “Cheerinos”. Ten extra years of life is worth it, though, and from what I can tell, there’s no downside to removing gluten from my diet. There’s more calories in corn-based items, but again, I’d rather be 2 pounds heavier than dead. So if it means I have my stir-fry without garnish, and with rice instead of couscous, then I’m ok to try it for a while.

Celiac Treatment #1: Destroy Everyone Else’s Vacation
We were in Florida that next week. My poor in-laws; uprooted from their routine whenever we come down and now I have to shoo away all flour-like entities from the kitchen. You can’t even cook on the same surface where a flour-dusted item once lay. Forget the fat-free fudge pudding, the Reduced Fat Nilla Wafers and those yummy tortillas we can only find in Florida. The grandparents were really cool about it, and in fact, the corn tortillas we had for lunch on the second day were way better than the flour tortillas I’d been eating for the last 2 years. But still, I felt supremely guilty.

Something happened. I started to feel really good. I had a couple of days where I ate too many prunes (to counteract my reduced fiber intake) and crimped up my inside for a while. And then I took my vitamins before breakfast one day, and all the nasties of empty stomach/gelatin capsules mélange struck me and I was decommissioned for about 3 hours. Seriously, don’t ever do that. I really thought I was going to do an Alien stomach eruption. But once I stopped trying to destroy myself, I felt great. The teenage skin that has never left my face or my shoulders cleared up. I had this feeling of thinness in my tummy that I never had, even at my lightest weight. I was pretty tired, but we’re more active in Florida than at home and I figured the iron deficiency was working against me as well. I slept more than I expected to, but when I was awake and not poisoning myself, I felt awesome. Maybe gluten-free was the path to high energy health.

Celiac Treatment #2: Go off-program to prove illness
Seven days into the new diet, I found out that you’re not supposed to go gluten-free until after the screening test. Apparently the telltale sign of a celiac is a high level of gluten antigens. So if you stop eating gluten, the antigens will go down and you’ll look healthy when you’re not. So with only 2 days left to the test I sprinkled a generous amount of wheat germ on my dinner and then had some more in my cool whip-topped fruit for dessert.

And then I had a reaction. Not a doubled-over, wailing in pain reaction, but my face got flushed and kind of prickly. I was warm all over, and I had jumbling noises in my abdomen into the night. By morning the redness had lessened, but it was still there, and when I put more wheat germ on my eggs, it came right back. Freaked out and horrified by my face, I didn’t do any more wheat germ that day. I figured 2 large doses and a skin reaction would be enough.

My doc told me it would be a week or more before the test results came back. But, as is usual in the case of this new dude, I had results in 2 days. I still have anemia, but it’s improving. My celiac screen was clear.

Clear that I have celiac? Well, no. All antigens came back negative. I do not have celiac.

So what was all that noise back there? Clearly my body reacted to something over the weekend.

Celiac Treatment #3: Be Sick Anyway
I had another reaction at lunch today. I ate a bit of the mayonnaise (has gluten) and now my stomach is upset. So either I’m a complete goon-head and am mucking up my own health in my brain, or I really do have celiac and I hosed up my initial opportunity to uncover it. They should biopsy the crazy part of my brain. Though there would be no point-clearly I’m certifiable. No reactions at all until Celiac was suggested; now they are everywhere. And I still think I’m diseased even though the test came back negative. Sometimes it’s just exhausting being me.

The only real determinant of celiac disease is the small intestine biopsy. Apparently the blood screening is good for confirming the disease but not particularly reliable for an unqualified yes, especially if the disease is mild to begin with. Up to 30% false negative, if, like other celiacs, I am abnormally low in a particular gluten antigen. So even if it’s elevated it would show normal or even negative. I talked to the specialist’s office and they are clearly skeptical. Looks like I might get the periscope-down-the-throat treatment after all. Not my idea of a good time, but hey, if they give me Versed, I won’t remember it. And then I’ll know for sure. No more Psycho Brain posing as Doctor Know-It-All.

Stay tuned. And ask Howard for his Garbanzo Bean and Sweet Potato waffle recipe. I know it sounds hurl-worthy, but they were really good.

A the C(ranial Celiac)

Wheat The People

2009-03-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

Every year in March, I go to the doctor for a check-up. I don’t particularly enjoy the paper dress/show me your insurance card combo, but it must be done and my birthday is in March, so it’s easy to remember. Every year when my odometer turns over, I go in for a tune-up.

My doctor drew my blood, listened to my lungs, complimented me on my weight loss, and said he’d call when the results came in. Two days later, he leaves a message on my voicemail. “Hi, Amy. Doctor Kirk here. I got your blood test results and you’re pretty anemic. Give me a call.”

When I reached him, he repeated his message. ‘Man, Amy, you’re anemic. I mean, really anemic.”

He goes on about how anemia can be caused by a number of things, including a simple iron deficiency, but he wants to check everything out on the inside to make sure I don’t have any secret bleeding going on. He gives me the name of a practice near my office and tells me to call once I have the appointment scheduled. Their name? Midwest Digestive Disease.

I’m pretty sure I hyperventilated the rest of the afternoon. Through it, I managed to stay at work (barely) and call the appointment desk for Midwest Disease (that’s what they call themselves). Magically, they had an appointment for the next day. Just an office visit; please have your doctor fax over the blood results. You’ll be here no more than 20 minutes, and there’s no need to fast or freak out.

That’s what they think—clearly they’ve never met me.

The “Midwest Disease” staff was really nice, and the doctor was friendly and incredibly forthcoming with information. He showed me my results on his laptop, pointing out that not only do I have low hemoglobin, but that my red blood cells are smaller than normal. He stands up and points to a poster of the human insides. “Anemia generally has 4 causes. The first, iron-deficiency, has 3 common sources.”

On he went, detailing every possible combination of reasons why this was happening. My multi-vitamin didn’t have iron, I had heavy periods, I was unable to absorb iron, I gave blood regularly; on and on. I’m pretty sure he has Asperger’s, because he was looking in my direction, but he rarely made eye contact. Oddly, the Asperger’s set me a bit at ease. I’m pretty comfortable with brainy, engaging males who are sometimes fleeting in their eye contact. Plus, it somehow made him really human, which reduced my blood pressure off the 4-alarm stage. He said good-bye, and then another very nice nurse scheduled an appointment 2 days later at Edwards Hospital.

The Edwards Hospital staff is other-worldly in terms of their service. In the 3 hours I spent at the hospital, I talked to no fewer than eleven people. Every one of them was friendly, engaging, and working to calm me down. I was freaked out beyond belief, and the procedure itself gave me the dry heaves in terms of its invasiveness and possible Bad News Outcomes. Even so, each nurse had something warm and soothing to say. There was no chit-chat between staffers, no pretending I couldn’t hear them while they gossiped, and no acting as if we were all sitting at a bus stop, except that one of us was wearing heated blankets and an i.v. They worked, they talked to me, and when the doctor came in, he gave a little intro. “This is Amy. She has anemia, and we’re going to check and make sure everything is all right with her.” Then, when it was time to begin, the nurse closest to me said, ‘This is where you’re going to start forgetting things.’
She was right. I had been told I’d be in ‘twilight’ sleep, but my mind is completely blank and black until I was in recovery and Howard was talking to Doctor Asperger.

One business day later, I was on the phone discussing results. No bleeding, no suspicious things, but evidence suggestive of celiac disease. Dr. Asperger wanted to run a blood screening test. I called Dr. Kirk, who responded, "Wow, Celiac". We agreed to screen me, deciding that we’d check my blood for anemia again, now that I’m on an iron supplement and eating spinach with every meal.

I’m not having the test until after I get back from Florida, but in the mean time, I’ve done some research on Celiac Disease. It’s like an armadillo: I’d never heard of it before, and then as soon as I typed it into my search engine, it was everywhere. Even Weight Watchers had a discussion board full of women who had had the disease for years.

Celiac Disease is essentially Gluten Intolerance, a condition where the body does not recognize wheat and its kin as nutrients. It views them as viruses or enemies and ‘flattens out’ the little hairs in the small intestine, refusing to absorb nutrients in or around the wheat. It’s apparently incredibly common (1 in 133 adults), wildly undiagnosed (estimated 97% of those affected do not know) and takes an average 11 years to uncover.

The disease used to be a childhood ailment and the unlucky youngsters diagnosed were doomed to a diet of bananas and baby food for their whole, stunted lives. Now, while gluten-free food is affordable only if you pay in gold bars, it is plentiful, especially if you are willing to cook for yourself. Low fat is tougher, but the closer you stick to the ‘ground’, e.g., eating whole foods, the easier it is to keep the grain out of your life.

Even with all that, going to the grocery store looking for gluten-free foodstuffs is a bit like running with scissors over broken glass while your hair is on fire and hoping you won’t get hurt. Wheat and its long line of aliases are the base metal of foods, the petroleum of the ingestible. Apart from the obvious places--cereal, bread, and pasta, wheat is in (nearly) everything processed, most soups, some make-ups and many vitamins (in the capsules). Moreover, even if you eat something that’s gluten-free, if it was cooked on a grill with wheat, the teeny gluten microbes can stick to the food and make you sick.

If it goes undetected long enough, severe anemia can develop, or significant bone loss, or even cancer. FYI, last fall when I got my mammogram, Dr. Kirk suggested I get a bone scan as well. I have thinning bones. It’s a common thing in tall, thin women, but I was 43 when the test was done, which is pretty young to show borderline osteoporosis. So even though I have no symptoms of celiac, I suspect that something is up.

So, insofar as I can, I’ve given up the Glute. I have found nothing that shows a detriment to removing it from my diet. Whatever I need in terms of fiber, roughage, grain or vitamins can be had from other sources. My carb intake is pretty low anyway, so the challenge will be to wipe it out entirely. I’ll need to take a magnifying glass to every vitamin capsule, every high-fiber wrap in the freezer, and everything that’s not in its original form. It will be tough, but Howard has already donned his Cooked Crusader Cape and declared himself up for the challenge.

The thing that concerns me is DS. Celiac disease is hereditary, and so if I have it, he may as well. Doing the de-glute on him will be much tougher. His favorite food is pizza, and after that is Cheerios. We tried gluten-free pizza last year and he picketed the front lawn. When I offered him gluten-free cookies in apology, he threatened to sue. But if he has it, then the wheat must go. Whatever the pain, I will do it. Anecdotal evidence suggests that children with autism spectrum disorders show a marked reduction in disorder symptoms and behaviors when the gluten is removed from their diet. It can take 6 months to pull it all out and get the small intestine villi back in action, but when they recover, they do so completely; so long the child remains free of the amber waves.

It’s a tough time to be investing in this type of food, but I guess we’ll just have to consider it part of our health insurance premiums. If it truly helps, then it’s worth it. No offense to Dr. Asperger and the cast of Zen Scrubbers I met at the hospital, but even with their terrific service, I’d rather not have to go through any of this again if I can avoid it.

By the way, in the first moments after discovering my anemic condition, I called Howard to find out how much iron was in my regular multi-vitamin. There was none. Zero. Zippo iron in a women’s formula multi-vitamin. I got a supplement right away, but are you kidding me? I’ll be really irritated if I went through all this just because I was too dumb to read a label.

But no, there were lessons here, even if my only illness is stupidity. I don’t need gluten, and we could all potentially be healthier without it. I can always find other ways to gum up my insides. After all, every time Howard travels, I have to cook for myself.

A the G(lute No More)

Bridge to Nowhere

2009-03-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

After slogging through a beast of a course last term, I am now enrolled in Economics for Dummies, a prerequisite to the MBA-level Economics for Bozos class that’s part of my regular program. I took economics as an undergrad, but since it has been more than 5 years since the final (way more, in fact), I do not qualify to skip this class, and so I am enrolled with 16 other dunderheads, most of whom are new to grad school, and all of whom have never had the guns vs. butter conversation so prevalent in intro courses.

Because it’s a preemie class, the work load is considerably lighter than the last few terms, where I’ve barely coming up for work or food from the time the syllabus is published until after the final is posted. So after 8 straight terms of bore-in-don’t-stop intensity, I now find myself in a place where I have some time in the evenings for interests other than Finishing This Dang Degree.

My reprieve is well timed, since we’re about to embark on our annual spring journey to Florida, soaking up the sun and pretending that we’re not still on Winter’s last pouting lip here in Chicago. Howard and I, looking for things we can do with my in-laws and also for ways to entertain ourselves later on, decided to take up Bridge. I’d heard many things about the game, and my in-laws are enthusiasts. What a nice thing, I thought, to pick up a game that is known & loved down in Florida, and that Howard and I can share with his family.

As it turns out, Bridge is less a card game and more a combination of Chess, Greek, Cooking, Power Aerobics and Mortal Combat. The books I read make me feel like I’m prepping for a Senate confirmation: give as much of the truth as you can without really saying anything while simultaneously trying to decipher the code that’s going on in the seats across the aisle. You want to be careful that you communicate everything you can to your partner without giving away too much. And don’t undersell: you’ll be sorry if it comes up later. It’s better to take the penalty than to let the other side walk away with all those voters, er, points.

Howard and I have split up the learning tasks, with me studying the bidding structures and Howard working on trick play. So while Howard gets to watch cards whiz by on his monitor, answering condescending questions (and how could we have done that better, hmmmm?), I struggle to translate passages such as this:

“Decide up front what bidding convention you will use, such as “Strong No Trump Rodwell” and remember that 4NT is a false bid, meaning you have between 16 and 18 HCP, and that your response to partner’s declaration is 5C if you have either 4 or zero aces.”

I have no idea what I just wrote.

My personal favorite is the follow-on to this comment, which suggests that partners decide in advance what ‘convention’ they’ll use to communicate during bidding, and that they must share that convention with their opponents. “Secret bidding is unethical in bridge. You have every right to ask an opponent what his bid means.” I find this hilarious. I can see it now:

Grandpa Rosen: 3 Diamonds
Me: What does that mean?
Grandpa Rosen (looking puzzled): It means 3 diamonds.
Me: Okay, thank you.

So glad I asked.

Despite the aggravation of the bid language and the skulk-through-the-grass-and-then-Kill!-Kill!-Kill! tone of the books I’m reading, I do find the game fascinating. This isn’t like Accounting or Real Estate, where the idea is simple, but the terminology has been deliberately stretched & morphed so that no reasonable person could understand it and the profits are left to those who do.

No, Bridge is more like tennis. If you ask someone how to win at tennis, they'lltell you that it’s important to get the ball over the net and inside the lines more often than your opponent. But really, it’s really all about getting your opponent to get the ball over the net and inside the lines less often than you. It’s about chipping away at his points and his confidence until he chucks his racket at the fence in frustration, after which it's just a matter of time before you're shaking hands at the net feigning humble surprise at your win.

So it goes with Bridge. Ladies and gentlemen sit down at the table, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ even when they don’t mean it, politely overlook each other’s errors and pretend not to know what everyone else is talking about during the bid, even though they know precisely what is going on. Play moves from bid to trick, whereupon each side tries to get the other to win fewer tricks than they do (rather than trying to win more tricks than the opponents). After a while, people shake hands, change seats and start over.

I like the dichotomy of it—using cards as weapons while behaving as if they were handkerchiefs, or playing tricks like barracuda while swimming like a swan. It’s the height of competition played at the peak of politeness. Pretty cool stuff for 52 pieces of plastic with odd artwork on them.

And if none of that works and I’m still spinning around in circles wondering why my partner said 2 spades when he really wanted to play diamonds, I can always just offer to play the dummy hand. I’m really good at that.

A the W(eak Two)*

*It’s a Bridge thing.

Slimming Down

2009-03-06T08:52:00.000-08:00

Howard lost his job on January 30.

It was not all bad news. Howard had suffered nearly every day of the 16 months he was employed at the great Chicago retailer. For over a year, he was working any time he was awake, and sometimes he was working when he should have been asleep. It was so bad for the last six months that I couldn’t remember what he looked like without his blackberry posed in front of his face, or without a grim, furrowed frown etching deep lines into his mouth.

Even so, the loss of half our income is a blow. He had 3 good leads right from the start. Two have dried up, and the third, while promising, is sputtering along at an unpromising pace. He refuses to travel, which I appreciate, and he’s flexible on his earnings, which concerns me, but not as much as losing him to the Friendly Skies or to another Blackberry nightmare.

In the mean time, we’ve strapped in, eliminating all extraneous spending. Even our grocery bill has taken a hit: we plan a menu for the week ahead of time, we take a list, and everything comes from the discount market up the road. Budgets are firm, no exceptions. I’d rather have a little less soda now than have to start eating Doritos on sale in a few months.

The upside is that we’ve managed to sock away quite a bit in the last few weeks. And we’ve all learned quite a bit about how to entertain ourselves without wasting money in the process. For example, we rarely used the Wheaton Public Library except for occasional excursions to preview a magazine we considered subscribing to, or to peek at books that were of interest, but held no long-term shelf value for us. Now we’re there Saturdays and Sundays every weekend that DS is around. DS and Howard play games on the library computer and I browse for books or leaf through old Weight Watcher magazines, and we always take books, movies (March of the Penguins!), CDs and new games home for the week. It’s a free date and it’s entertainment rich for everyone.

I’ve started bringing my lunch to work everyday as well. Since Howard isn’t eating downtown anymore, this is a huge cost savings for us. Plus, since I’m fully regulating my food intake and not subsisting on salads all day long, I’m fuller and my weight is stable in the low to mid 150s all the time. Plus, since I take time for lunch, I’m able to read a little bit of non-MBA while I enjoy my maintenance-friendly meal.

One of the books I borrowed from the library was the Beck’s Diet Book by Judith Beck. Her approach is similar to the Weight Watchers philosophy, but is a little more hard core and also a little more realistic in terms of living life as a former heavy person in a fat-filled world. I’ve picked up a bunch of new habits that have slowed down my eating and given me the strength to resist cravings even during PMS times. I feel more stable than I have in years, maybe ever.

In fact, this whole experience has slowed me down considerably. I’m more measured all day long, and more likely to think things through before (over)reacting to bad news. I eat slower, move slower, and have more peace in my mind than I have had in a very long time. This loss of income has transferred into an important growing lesson for all of us. Howard and I are a couple again, rather than two flyby adults living in the same house with a son in common. He’s back on track with his diet, and is rolling around in the joy of being a full-on Daddy. DS, ever the loving boy, skipped all the resentment he was owed for losing his “Rosen” all those months and is now happily crawling all over Howard at night. The two of them found a Math video game a few weeks back and now they spend part of every evening defending the Solar System against some wizard that is afraid of numbers.

Plus, I’ve just surfaced from the hardest course of the MBA program (so far!), so I was able to sneak in some extra homework time while the boys did simple algebra at the desk next to me.

It’s always been my experience that those who get pushed out of the tree always land on a higher branch. I don’t know if that will be the case for us financially; right now it doesn’t seem so. And I don’t know how long this strapping in will have to last. I do know that it’s made us all stronger, and happier, and I intend to keep up the spending freeze once Howard goes back to work. Of course, I might downgrade it to a spending “slush”, but the idea is the same. Spending money does not entertain—at least, not for long. But spending time with my family does, and the return on investment is completely unmatched.

No slick aphorisms this time. I’m truly happy just to have my life and my family back, even if it’s in Discount Mode right now. We’re going to be all right: we already have everything that we need. We’re doing what we love; the money is sure to follow.

A the C(ontented)

Acceptance Speech

2008-10-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have made my peace with maintenance.

After skiing down the weight loss slope and arriving at 147, I planted my skinny flag into the ground and declared victory. I knew I was holding my weight down artificially, but wasn’t really sure by how much, and I was unwilling to find out. I wanted to be below 150. There was no other option. 147 or Fight!

It was hard work being hungry all the time, but I decided to just suck it up. If this was what I needed to do to keep my weight in the 140s, then that’s just how it was to go.

Well, my body’s physiology had other plans, and eventually my resolve got plundered by my hunger. Most of the problems occurred in the “happy hour”, the hours after lunch wore off and before I could get home for dinner. I was working a lot of late nights during the winter, and those hours after 5 when the office was empty and the windows were dark, I would often get up to ‘stretch my legs’ and wound up stretching my stomach instead.

My weight crept up, slowly at first. I could still get back to 147 on Saturday mornings by skipping my Friday night snack, and then Friday night dinner. Eventually my weight settled in at 149, even despite heroic efforts. I was still OK with that until my first period hit and the extra pounds tipped me over the 150 mark. I had sworn I would never go back “up there” and so my anger drilled my weight back down.

Short-term solutions being what they are, it didn’t last. My body demanded fueling, and when I refused it the good stuff, it drove me on toward the chocolate. My body set up camp at 151, teetering back and forth on that heavy balance scale bar. Each morning I would step on the scale and wonder if I needed to move that ‘150’ up or down.

Fast forward to the summer, and I could no longer feel the Weight Watcher in me. My weight hovered in the mid-150s, and jumped to a tear-producing 158 during my period weeks. I reverted to all the insane crap I’d done previous to WW, promising myself if I could only get back down around 150, I would switch back to a healthy program and do it right.

You can guess how that went.

Some time around there, I got wind of a TLC program called “What Not To Wear”. I watched a few episodes, recoiling in horror at the cattiness of the hosts and the derisive way they handled their style neophytes. Disgusted, but unable to stop watching, the show’s tentacles snagged me and I became an addict. Then I became a convert.

The WNTW hosts, while still catty and borderline mean, talk often about dressing the body you have, and not the body you want. They go on to preach that you should not wait until you’ve lost weight to dress appropriately & stylishly. It is the very wardrobe items that women deny themselves that keep them in a ‘if only I could lose X pounds’ rut. As long as you look schlumpy, you’re going to act and behave accordingly.

So I took stock of my own wardrobe, and an honest appraisal of my appearance. I did not like the way my body looked in the mid-150s. My tummy jutted out and I had to go from Dressing to Flatter into Dressing as Camouflage. But I had to admit that my shape wasn’t all that different from the way it looked at 147. At my lowest, I was Nearly a 4. Up at 156, I was Almost an 8. So really, I was within a size 6 the entire time. I decided right then that a Size 6 was OK, and that I would shop, and dress, in clothes that fit and were flattering.

Out went all the pants I’d bought just because they were size 4 or size 3, but that really didn’t do anything for me. All the junior jeans got donated. Every blouse that peeped bra got tossed, and double ditto for the sweater-as-tent garments. I replaced my skinny trousers with flattering dresses, and turned in my Lesbian-Look shoes for pumps. I cut my hair, bought some make-up and started wearing jackets nearly every day.

Suddenly, people were noticing me. I wasn’t just a Skinny Bitch anymore, but a well-dressed manager. I got way more compliments than I’d ever received in those Size 3 stretch jeans, and my visibility into the executive ranks increased by the day.

AND THEN!!!

My weight started to drop. In exchange for accepting myself, and for dressing in a way that complimented me (rather than showcasing the things I wanted to hide), my confidence grew, my sense of self re-appeared and with that pride came the discipline to return to the WW program. Almost without effort, my weight dropped from 156 to 150.5, and the Nearly 8s started looking droopy on my frame.

So now I’m learning at last how to stabilize the scale. I have really learned how to treat myself, and what ‘once in a while’ really means. I have absorbed that hunger is not a desired state, and that eventually it all catches up to you. Most importantly, I realized that the urges to get fat still lives within me. If I don’t stroke the beast on occasion, she’ll charge out of the cage as soon as I turn my back. And that’s when the trouble starts.

I seem to be hovering now somewhere in the 152 range, and it’s a pretty comfortable place. I did discover while shopping in the better places that I’m actually an 8, and while it was a bit of an effort to accept it, I did eventually come around. It isn’t the size that people see, it’s the fit. Yes you can have back fat and a spare tire even if you’re underweight--if you dress improperly. On the flip side, you can hide all those annoying imperfections with the right kind of clothes. In fact, if you get really good at it, you start to see your body as just that—Your Body. Neither perfect nor imperfect, but simply you.

Simply me.

Sometimes I think that if I had committed to looking my best at 251 pounds that the weight would have come off faster, or healthier, or some other ‘er’. But I don’t think so. I had so many years of beating myself up and dressing badly that no amount of chiffon and tummy panel would have aided me down the scale. Sometimes it’s just about putting the time in. On the other hand, I do think that if I had put more effort into dressing my body as I transitioned from Fat to Fit, it might have happened more naturally and I wouldn’t have had the drive to get down below a weight I could properly maintain. My body would have level-set where it was truly easy to maintain, and my stress & agony would have been greatly reduced.

I don’t have that option of course, and so I just need to remember that I’ve learned my lesson about what really works in weight loss & maintenance. I’m hopeful that my fitted clothes will help me to stay within this range, neither dropping down too far so skirts ride on my hips nor creeping up too high so I get ‘whiskering’ across my lap.

Now if only I could get to the gym regularly. That’s the next beast. I have no excuse for blowing it off, and I’m elated every time I work out. Clearly I still have some extra fat left…in my brain. Guess I know what the next lesson plan looks like.

On I (bench) press

A the M(aintained)

First Of Many

2008-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

DS started first grade today.

I had heard that the first day of school was one of those Big Days, a milestone to be remembered forever. But since DS had ‘started’ school twice already, with pre-school and kindergarten, I was content to leave it that Lynda the Nanny would take him to school as usual and tell me about it tonight.

I am excited for my son. Nervous too, and anxious to see how he’ll react to all-day school and cafeteria lunches. But he’s made so many gains this summer; I can’t help but get all giggly and jumpy when I think about my little boy going to first grade.

And he’s not really a little boy anymore. He grew nearly 5 inches and gained 7 pounds over the summer. His size 5 body became a size 8 overnight and his shoe size jumped from 12 to 1, completely passing 13. Most of his little boy baseball caps don’t fit him anymore, and he’s taken up golf. Well, okay, putt-putt golf, but he’s really good. Last Thursday night, he beat 4 adults on a tough Sarasota course.

We came home yesterday afternoon from a 4-day visit to Florida to see DS’s grandparents. We were pretty active this time—luckily, my retiree in-laws don’t ascribe to my ‘sit at home and do nothing’ hobby. DS had some huge wins while he was on vacation. He attended a monstrous barbecue/dance party at the temple, and he was all smiles as he shook hands, called people by name and let them touch him without a single shout. He was dog tired, having swum at least 4 hours that day. But he kept himself intact, learning how to dance in a circle holding hands with strangers and how to form the letters in “YMCA”.

We went to Jungle Gardens on Sunday (http://www.sarasotajunglegardens.com/jungle/) where he got to hold a (30 pound!) alligator and stand in flock of flamingos while they preened their feathers and pretended not to notice him.

The other days he swam, ate pizza, swam, watched golf (seriously-made Grandpa turn off the Olympics), tried clams, and hung out in the pool with Rosen in the way that they do when we’re all in Florida. The 2 boys become inseparable water frogs and spend their days glued to one another as they play tag or try to outdo each other in crazy jumps off the side of the pool.

We were flying back to Chicago, and I noticed that DS was looking out the airplane window.DS is normally very chatty on flights, so I touched him on the arm to make sure he was all right. He turned around and smiled at me. “I’m looking at the clouds, Mommy.”

I asked him if he wanted to read a book. “Maybe later,” he said, “I want to keep looking right now.”

And that’s when I realized he has become his own person. He’s not a ‘high needs’ baby anymore, but an independent boy with his own thoughts. I don’t have to point out clouds, or planes or even people for that matter. He sees things now, and he observes. I am no longer his interpreter; he is his own. He still has his challenges and there is much work to be done, but overall, he's a pretty typical 6-year old who doesn't need his Mommy hovering over him every second, explaining his condition and make way for him in the unforgiving world. Did he ever, I wonder...

With my epiphany came a burning need to take him to school. I'll probably not have another chance like this. He may not want an escort to middle school, and he'll probably have a hot girlfriend who drives by the time he hits high school. So there’s just dropping him off at college left, and that’s too long to wait.

But I demurred. DS is at his best when he can predict what's happening. He needed the consistency of Lynda taking him to school. I had the day off anyway, but I had homework of my own. He could tell me all about it tonight.

But then the house got quiet and then it got to be 8:45 and then 9:00. School started at 9:15. I could walk and still make it if I left Right Now. I jumped up and dumped my homework on my desk. Plenty of time to do homework. My little boy is starting First Grade today.

I changed out of my ‘work at home’ outfit of Howard's ratty t-shirt and lounging pants, stuffed my feet into my trail shoes and hoofed out the door. I chugged up the hills as fast as I could, preparing myself to find the school already in session. The school is 0.6 miles from our front door, and I had about 10 minutes to get there. I put my head down and charged.

I got within 2 hills of the building, and I started passing parents who were coming back from dropping off older children. I picked up my speed and crossed the last street, beating a eighty-something crossing guard to the intersection. He gave me a sideways look as I whizzed by, clearly agitated that I hadn't wait for his ‘all clear’. Sorry, bucko. If you want to direct me in traffic, you'll wave that orange flag a little faster next time.

I crested the hill and there was Lynda’s car, the lone vehicle in the drop-off zone. The school doors opened and DS’s kindergarten aide came outside, walking toward the car. Lynda appeared from around the front, greeted the aide and then opened the rear passenger door. DS skipped out, wearing his plaid button-down shirt and his favorite baggy cargo shorts. He’d let Lynda spike his hair for the occasion, and he was all smiles. He pulled his backpack out of the car and slung it on to his shoulders. He took his aide’s hand, waved to Lynda and walked into the building as if he’d done it every day of his life.

I kept my eyes on the doors until DS vanished, and then I turned away quickly, dropping my sunglasses into place. I was so proud of him, but still, I couldn't stop myself from crying just a little. My little boy is no longer. He still needs me, but not in the way he used to, and not nearly to the same degree. Suddenly all those things Other Parents said struck me in the heart. They grow up so fast. They’ll be gone before you know it. He's not a baby anymore.

Two years ago, he could barely talk, and any change to his routine would trigger a meltdown. The first time we visited Florida, he ran away every time his grandma tried to kiss him. Last night, we had barely finished unpacking when he asked to call her. We had barely been home for 2 hours, but he wanted to say hello. He told her he loved her, and he made sure to remind her that he would see her again in 124 days.

School lets out at 12:15pm today. It’s just a half day, probably just a day to meet the teacher, set up his desk and have a tour around the place before everyone goes home. Tomorrow, school sets in full-on, 9:15am to 3:30pm. We’ll march to that schedule more or less until early June, when he’s released to wait it out until 2^nd grade.

Oh my. Can’t think about second grade now. I’m still gearing up to sell DS on the idea of bringing his lunch to school, rather than cave in to public school nutrition. But that’s his call, more or less. I put my foot down over ground beef, but the rest is up to him. At least for now. Eventually, I’m sure, he’ll eat a hamburger just to spite me.

So I’m off to schedule his winter swim lessons and perhaps tackle my homework again.That’s plenty for now. At least for me. DS may have other ideas. I’m thinking golf clinics for over the winter, perhaps. No matter what it is, I'm sure he can handle it. He's a big boy now: first grade and all grown up.

A the C(omplete)

In Deference to Indifference

2008-07-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

After I lost my weight, I didn’t worry about backsliding or even about keeping my weight down. I didn’t expect that I’d ever struggle again, but I figured that I could summon back my Loss Mode any time I needed it. I could grab an apple, look over my size 4-ish body, and then get back to the business of being thin. I had crossed the threshold. I had seized the sword. I had defeated the Fat Lady, and I had won.

My God. What a dumbass I am.

My weight loss was relatively easy, in large part because I had a WW cook in the house. I refused to eat anything I hadn’t cooked (OK, that Howard hadn’t cooked), and though I had a sweet tooth, I knew every substitute for dessert, every method for thinking myself out of temptation. And I had my Lifetime WW Membership. What else could I want?

Well, some sense would have helped. And just a few minutes of remembering how I got fat in the first place—by not paying attention to the stomach that sits inside my brain. You know, the one that says, ‘hey chocolate is neutral-colored, and so therefore has no calories!’. I had no counter-attack, no way to retreat and regroup, and no disaster recovery plan. Everything went well until it didn’t, and then it was as if I’d never learned how to get the weight off, much less keep it at bay.

It’s sometimes hard to take this as seriously as I need to, since I have not slid down into Lard-O-Land. My diet is still very reasonable. I have whole weeks where I’m the veritable Bodhisattva of portions and choices. I’ll have that pure sensation of high fiber and lean protein in my body, where all my cells are signing and every breath is its own treat. But then I’ll eat some not-quite-a -salad for lunch and my ‘Bodhi’ turns into Buddha; some fat guy lying around whose clearly had more than his share of the honeyed locusts.

So what now? I can’t be the Drill Sergeant anymore, and the Standard WW Program will not work for me. I cannot be someone who indulges every once in a while. There is no such time increment for me. I must be fully in control, because otherwise, I am completely out. When I am off program, the only difference between Me Now and The Fat Lady is time. Given enough weeks in the ‘oh, I can change back any time I want’, and I’ll be squeezing into my size 20s all over again.

I started taking yoga this spring, and it has really helped me to keep myself focused on the present—to remove myself from expectations or worries, at least for the hour I’m in class, and to appreciate whatever limits my body has for me that night. It has also done an amazing amount of sawing away at my General Nervousness, a piece of my personality that was so deeply ingrained that I thought I was strung tighter than a high wire. So that has helped to calm me, both in the moments when I’m tempted to choose poorly, and then in the aftermath, when I’m ready to do the Scarlet Letter thing and flog myself until I burn off all the calories I’ve eaten.

I’ve also really tried to care more about food, thinking if I find some things I really love, that I won’t want the decadent variety any more. I hear Howard talking about some amazing meal he had while traveling, or my friends at WW recount The Great Chicago BBQ of 2008, and I wonder if perhaps this is the way In. These people really seem to enjoy their special foods, and they seem to succeed at transferring their Love of Lays over into Baked Cheetos or even carrot sticks (advanced technique only-don’t try this at home).

I’ve thought about this a lot, and for a while, I wondered if I was deficient somehow, because I have not learned to salivate over steamed broccoli and grilled turkey breast. Frankly, it is sometimes hard for others to understand how I got heavy, since there are so many fatty foods that I don’t like. Can’t stand steak. Ditto salmon, Orange Roughy and all the ‘marbled’ meats. Even the word ‘marbled’ paired with meat turns my stomach.

I am not a starch hound. I shrug away offers of potatoes, pasta, and rice, and I can’t even bear the smell of French fries. I like cheese all right, but never enough to load up on rounds of Brie with crackers. I don’t drink, I haven’t had a fully sugared soda since the 1970s, and I loathe all forms of mayo-based “salad” (tuna, chicken, potato, macaroni). What’s left?

Well, lots of things actually, especially if you’re flexible about what constitutes ‘food’. I hate to cook, so my ‘diet’ before consisted of whatever I could heat and/or eat in a single pan/bowl/dish, or with my hands. Egg rolls. Cereal. Pop-Tarts. Ice cream. Fried chicken. Pie. Brownies. Even cake, though you really, really have to want the one-pan deal.

So there it was. I got fat because I was lazy. I ate what was hand-y. If it could fit in my hand or be prepared and/or consumed with a single utensil, I was in.

And that’s kind of what happened this year. I see something tempting, and if it’s easy to pick up, I will. I don’t have favorite foods I can stash at my desk to distract myself because I have no favorite foods. I like everything that Howard and I eat, but I don’t love anything. I don’t look forward to any particular meal. When Howard offers to make whatever I want, I let him choose. I have a few ‘favorite’ restaurants, but only because I know I can eat there, and not necessarily because I like what’s served.

Maybe it’s better that I don’t care about food. Maybe I should be glad, or even grateful, that it doesn’t matter to me what I eat. After all, if eating the treats doesn’t satisfy me (it doesn’t), then I don’t have to prohibit myself from eating them. I simply have to acknowledge, and remember, that they do nothing for me.

And yeah, clearly it’s going to be much harder than just writing it down. I still crave double-cheese pepperoni pizza sometimes, even though I gave it up several years before I went on WW. The grease made me sick, even at 251 pounds, and that is saying something. I did finally acknowledge that it was the food—the consistently greasy, over-fatted, fermented sausage/oily cheese that did me in, but sometimes when I drive by ‘Hut’, the desire appears.

So I’ll need time and trials before this truly sinks in. I’ll doubtless still have some wobbly moments, but each time I remember that I don’t really like bad foods, the memory will get a little more traction.

Jewel once wrote that ‘nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend.’ I didn’t want to be flexible—I thought that was the path toward ruin. It turns out the opposite is true. I must bend or I will break. I did break. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being disappointed and I’m tired of trying to force myself to love chicken and hate Cherry Garcia.

Flexibility for me isn’t cookies at the mall ‘sometimes’ or relaxing the program ‘just this week’ while on vacation. But it is allowing myself to sway, and giving myself the time to discover the difference between a bend and a break.

I’m freeing myself from the guilt of eating badly. And I’m putting myself in a place where the temptation lives no longer.

But I should keep going to yoga class, just in case. Believe me, I can use all the flexibility I can get.

A the B(ending So I Don’t Break)

O Sae, Can You See?

2008-05-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve been mulling a new hair cut for some time. Not just a trim up or a reshaping mind you, but an all-out, change-the-look Hair 'Do. I grew out my Fat Lady Chop Off after Howard and I got back together, taking 2 years to snip out the layers. I managed, barely, to get my hair down to my shoulders for my wedding, and I liked the look so much that I decided to get it keep on growing.

About a month ago, I realized that my hair is too long. It has no shape, it doesn’t look professional, and really, it's unflattering. My stylist had been recommending a new cut for the last 2 or 3 visits. You’re thin now,” she remarked. “You’d look really cute in short hair. And it would make you look even taller and thinner than you are.” Did she say thinner? Count me in and cut me off!

This Saturday was the day. I was due to get a color too, and clearly my stylist had forgotten about the cut. She hadn’t scheduled enough time to do both. I watched her face turn arsenic-poisoned white, and was about to recommend a reschedule when she said. “I can do it. Let’s go.”

We quickly relocated to her cutting chair, talked it over to remind each other of what I wanted: blunt-cut bob, short enough to keep off my face. OK, got it. Scissors went to scalp, and away we went.

When she finished a few minutes later, asking the requisite, ‘What do you think?’ I frowned. I looked like Peppermint Patty, all square-headed and choppy. My stylist frowned with me, “Well, this is what you asked for. I did exactly what you wanted.” Maybe, but couldn’t she see that I looked like a Block Head? I couldn’t bear to hear the defensiveness in her tone, and I knew she was running behind already, so I told her to leave it be. Maybe my hair was in shock. Let it go, and let’s get coloring. At least the gray could get covered.

Well, color-me-brown, but the hair remained Bowl Cut With Legs. My face looked fat and awful, and my hair just hung there, lifeless.I pulled it back into a ponytail to get it off of my face, but it just slipped right out of the holder and splattered all over my cheeks and neck. It was a disaster. By the time Howard and I left the parking lot, I was practically hyperventilating.

Now, perhaps the stronger women in the crowd would have demanded a re-cut, but that is not me, and anyway, I was unconvinced that my stylist could fix it. Howard did his best to comfort me, but I knew that it was hopeless. I looked like one of the Monkees. And not the cute one, either.

I made it home, somehow, but then when I went upstairs to see if I could pin it back, the horror of the right angles hit me again. It was horrid. My bangs lay against my forehead, lifeless, and the sides flopped like beagle ears at my jaw line.

I began to cry, and then to rage. How could she have done this? Why wasn't I more specific? How am I ever going to make this work? Howard listened to my lament as long as he could, and then he pulled his phone out. “Let’s go fix it. Today. We’ll find a salon, explain that it’s an emergency, and see what can be done.” I waffled. My god, what if it got worse? I'd have to put my head and my ego into the hands of a complete stranger. Besides, what salon could take a hair emergency at 3pm on a Saturday?

Well, as it turns out, Zazu Salon & Spa could do it. Remember that place where Howard went to get waxed after I tried to kill him with the at-home fur remover? That' the one. They had a stylist who could see me at 4:15, and who understood that this was my 2^nd cut of the day and a Follicular 9-11.

Once at Zazu, I was led in by my stylist’s ‘assistant’ a Marina or Martina, some barely 20 girl with gleaming white teeth and lint-free black clothes. She sat me down, offered me something to drink and told me that Sae would be with me in a moment. Sae, pronounced ‘say’ or ‘sigh’, whichever I preferred.

Okay, then. I wasn't very keen on trusting this Disaster Recovery to a woman who couldn't decide how to pronounce her name. But I was here already, and I couldn’t live with my Basset Hound Head another minute. I slunk down in the chair and waited, avoiding the mirror.

A moment later, she appeared: a pretty, bubbly Japanese woman half my age sporting a sassy ‘do with highlights that cost more than my net pay. “Hello, I Say,” she said, and then I realized she was introducing herself. “Let me see.” She examined my hair, listening and nodding in time to my breakneck speech. She nodded. “I understand. Look.”

She lifted my hair and puffed it up around my chin. “This is too choppy. Makes your face look square. I'll round it out, give edging. It’ll be very nice, super-cute. You ready?”

I could not respond. She was warm and that smile tempted me to hope, but it was too much to ask just yet. Sae went on, smiling. The turquoise beads around her neck danced and jostled as she talked, her hands dancing around her animated face.

“This happened to me too, once. Very bad. But it grew out. It was OK. And I can fix you. You’ll see.”

My paralysis continued. I couldn’t move or speak. She signed and put her hand on my shoulder. “Look, it's ok: you’re not ready. Let’s just do a consultation today. Let me do a little bit of work around your face-no length off. Just a little to smooth it out. I won’t charge you, and you’ll feel much better. Then you can call me in a day or two, when you’re ready. I'll be here, and we’ll fix it. OK?”

Well, I don’t know if she’s the Greatest Salesman in the World or what, but that clinched it for me. “No,” I told her. “It’s all right. Go ahead.”

At first, I couldn’t bear to watch. Later, I couldn’t bear not to. The Hell On My Head became a halo. Sae talked and laughed and told stories while she snipped. She chatted with her assistant, shouted over her hairdryer and complimented Howard over and over again. “I can’t believe he’s here!” she kept saying. When I told her that he had made the appointment for me, I thought she would kiss him.

When it was over, neither Howard nor I could stop smiling. Sae gave me her card with her schedule on it. “Call me in 2 weeks. You’ll need a bang trim. No charge. Schedule 15 minutes and I’ll fix your bangs. Don’t forget. See you then." She gave a firm handshake to both of us and bounced off.

When we left, Howard, spoke up. “I think you should stick with her. Whatever reservations I had about short hair, they’re gone. You look great. She was awesome, and she wants to build a relationship with you. I think you should let her.”

And so I will.

I have my new bob, and it’s exactly what I wanted: chin length, out of my face, neat, trim, and flattering. Sae mentioned that she wants to soften my hair color too. “More brown, make you look pretty,” she said. And you know what? I believe her.

Saturday morning, I had the worst hair cut of my life, and from someone who I’d trusted to scissor me for 3 years. I was physically sick from the results and certain that I had no choice but to hide behind headbands and wait until it became un-wretched. And then, within hours, the mop on my head became a Picture Perfect coif, done by an angel wearing a black tank top, designer Capri pants and slip-on spiked heels. By dinnertime, the memory of the Block Head was so far gone it was as if it had happened to someone else.

It never would have occurred to me before Saturday that I should change stylists. My old stylist was fine. Far from perfect, but good enough for what I needed. We didn’t need to be friends. I had friends, and I certainly wouldn’t let any of them cut my hair. Sometimes a relationship is bound up by its parameters, and that’s ok.

I’m not saying that Sae and I will ever be buddies. In fact, I doubt we will. But she dropped everything to help me, a total stranger, at the end of what had to be a very long day for her. She listened, she told me exactly what she would do, and she offered to walk away if that’s what I needed. And then she fixed it all. I can't imagine what else she could have done, and what she did was nothing short of miraculous. I went from looking like Raggedy Ann to a sleekly coiffed professional in less than an hour. I couldn’t think of a reason to switch stylists before Saturday. And now I cannot believe that I ever went back to Stylist #1.

Sometimes things happen for a reason, even if that reason is completely hidden for a while. Sometimes it's time for a relationship to end--no blame on either side; it's just just time for both parties to move on.

And sometimes we get to find out why we're with someone, and why that someone is the very best person for us, no matter the circumstances. If it weren't for Howard, I'd still be curled up in a corner of my room, weeping and wailing over my bad luck. Instead, I'm bouncing around in my new 'do and thanking all the heavens for my perfect, made-for-me Man.

A the S(ometimes Why)

Sweetness and Blight

2008-05-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

So first the important news: Writing cures PMS.

I spent last month plotting out my daily mood and weight, hoping that the ‘cycle of my cycle’ might yield some clues as to why I’m out of sorts for 12 days of PMS followed by 7 days of period. For months now, I’ve had 3 bad weeks out of 4, and I was starting to wonder if I had Something Serious going on.

As it turns out, I have nothing to report. I had a bottom at the beginning, but after I got past the early days, I leveled off around the 7 or 8 mark and never went down. I had an angry day, but it was a mere shadow of what normally happens. And the PMS I did experience was, on reflection, just an echo of What Usually Is. So clearly, journaling cures The Angries. And the Sleepies and the Saddies and even some of the Bloating. I gained this cycle, but it was just shy of 2 pounds instead of my usual 3.

So the Quantitative Method apparently folded into the Hawthorne Effect where, in studying myself to see what I could improve, I improved.

But the science is not all wasted, because I discovered something important. For example, I now ‘bottom out’, weight-wise, on Wednesday. I think it’s because I’m doing yoga on Sundays and Tuesdays. It could also be because I weigh in on Saturdays and I’m so freaked out that I’m still in the 154 range that I am super-strict all weekend. This spills into the week until Wednesday when the results start to show and my body starts demanding food. Three weeks in a row, I was Perfectly Pure until Wednesday, and then I caved. Last week, I managed to get through Wednesday only to see Thursday take its place. By the time I got it under control, it was too late to weigh in at Weight Watchers. I actually did something I thought I would never do: I stayed away from the meeting, too embarrassed to weigh in with yet another gain.

I also discovered that I crashed whenever I indulged in sweet snacks. I would let a few jelly beans pass my lips and then I’d be nearly comatose all afternoon. Not only would I be jittery and near unconscious, but I was powerfully hungry immediately after the ‘treat’ and for hours afterward. It was as if the sugar triggered Famished Fatty and set her loose into Candyland. And then, once I'm stuffed to the gills, I'm so shot from the sugar that I cease to function.

Friday night, I had some fat free Reddi-Whip (that does have sugar in it), and 10 minutes later, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. This was no I’m Busy and Therefore Tired exhaustion, either. This was anchors-on-the-eyeballs, organs drooping, wring-me-out/stick-a-fork-in-me wiped out. Even Howard noticed that I couldn’t function properly. I'd been fine all day, and so my accusing finger pointed to the aerosol can in the refrigerator. It couldn't have been the jello. Must have been the white foamy stuff. With great remorse and hoping I was wrong, I marched to the refrigerator, pulled out the rest of the Canned Sweetness and tossed it into the trash.

I have heard for years that sugar is a drug, or that it can behave like one in the body. The human body cannot properly digest refined sugar. It taxes the pancreas, runs roughshod over the adrenal glands and plays havoc with your brain. Speaking personally, sugar is like crack for me, I can never have a little. If I taste it at all, my body lunges forward as if I’ve never stopped eating it. No, that’s not right. It races me to the candy counter, demanding that I catch it up from all the candy it’s lost since my last binge.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to prove empirically that I’m addicted to sugar. But I don’t have to. I know what it does to me; it crushes me under its boot and then it goes after my husband. If it’s feeling particularly ornery, it goes after my son. No, not ‘it’. I. Me. I turn into a shrieking nerve cell dancing in a vat of boiling oil.

No matter what the cause, I am tired of it. No amount of sweetness is worth this agony. Whatever pleasure I derived from desserts and ding-dongs, it’s gone now. All that’s left is the grating, incessant need to feed a habit that is long past pleasurable.

So, effective last Saturday, I am sugar-free. It’s going to take some time to get me to 100%, since sugar is a little godlike, in that it’s everywhere. There’s even sugar in WW yogurt --or artificial sweeteners, anyway. In some ways, Splenda and NutraSweet are worse than sugar. They are sweeter, and they make the cravings stronger. So I switched away from my beloved WW yogurt to plain yogurt with fresh fruit.

It is taking some getting used to, and it involves a lot of conversations with myself about how I'll be happier and healthier in the long-term. Howard is a trooper about it, even blending up a mix of strawberries, raspberries and mangoes to ladle over the yogurt. It's nice, but it's no WW, and it's going to be an adjustment.

I’ve also plucked out all the ‘oh they’re fat free, so they’re ok’ snacks, such as jelly beans and Twizzlers. I've even eliminated the lone Jolly Rancher I sometimes allowed myself in the afternoons if I got dry-mouthed. It’s all gone. I am sugar-laden no more.

The weekend went pretty well, but I definitely had some tough moments on Monday at work. I’m struggling through it by reminding myself that I don’t eat sugar anymore-that it’s not one of the foods I eat. I’m trying to find a positive spin, some way of affirming this. I don’t want to say, “I can’t eat sugar,” or even “I don’t.” I want it to be something ‘yes!’. I have to think about that one. It’ll be hard, but that’s good. It’ll give me something to obsess about while I march through detox.

I’m on Day 5 now, and it’s picking at me. I am sitting at my desk, wishing that I lived on an organic farm with only lean protein and low-index carbs to ‘tempt’ my afternoon appetite. But I can already tell that I’m better. I’m not as hungry when I get home, I fall asleep more easily, and my mood is more consistent through the day.

It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be worth it. The times I’ve been sugar-free have been better than anything teeth-rotting that I’ve put into my mouth, including peanut butter pie—and that is saying something. My skin clears, the puffiness recedes from my face, and my energy level zips up into the troposphere. Yanking the white powder out of my life does more for me than does exercise, organic fruit and days full of sunshine.

I don’t know why I’ve resisted the obvious for so long. I suspect it is denial. I am so powerfully addicted to sugar that my body has worked for years to convince me that I am not. Oh, you can have a little. Oh, you’re thin, you can afford a tiny indulgence. Go on, take it. It’s so good. You’d be so popular if the octopus came back.

Well, I don’t care why I waited 43 years to get a firm grasp of the obvious. I can’t fix those times ‘back there’. I can only move ahead, clean and clear and every day, farther and farther from my addiction.

A the F(ive Days Clean)

Baby on the Weigh

2008-04-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Day 16
Mood: 6, pushing 7 even though it’s raining and cold

I would save so much time if I weren’t such a dork.

I have wasted years of my life fretting over things that are just not that important. Take this weight gain, for example. Yes, I am disappointed that I haven’t figured out the formula for successful weight maintenance, and no I do not wish to consider this my new ‘goal’ weight. Sitting here now, 2 days removed from the weekend rant, I can approach this logically. I think if I could remember this, and keep from exploding over every transgression, I’d do better. I’d feel better, I’d recover quicker, and I’d have less fallout. These angry thoughts don’t help me discover the path in, and they certainly don’t point to the way out. The potholes in my program remain, and every time I circle the block, my body gets a little further out of alignment.

There is a perfectionist streak in me, which I suspect is part of the problem. I have fantasies of never touching a Reese’s miniature again, but I grow weak when they’re sitting in front of me. I freeze, my brain turns off, and I cave. Then I spend days punching myself out over it. Once I’ve diverged on the Road Less Travelled, I burn my map in protest, pluck out my eyes and then sit stewing on a log, wondering why I can’t find my way back.

WW says that I should learn from these mistakes, and create ‘hedges’ to protect myself from the soft spots in my brain. Okay, but what about the repeat offenses? Isn’t there some threshold after which you just can’t hear yourself say ‘Oops, Self. I’m sorry…Again’? I know that I'm an impatient person, and whatever is true about me with others goes double when I'm dealing with myself.

I prefer to think about life in terms of obstacles, and how each time I overcome one, I become stronger. Every time I walk by the candy dish and keep my hands away, I’ve won, and I’ve made the next time easier. My weight goes down, my clothes fit better, the octopus retreats and life improves.

But the urge to indulge never gets easy, and it certainly never goes away. And I can’t seem to apply the same ‘each time makes me better’ logic to the falters. Every time I trip, I collapse, and then I descend into a Scarlet Letter-like flagellation. What’s wrong with me? Why do I do this? Look how much harder I’ve made it for myself to get back down. Clearly I’m not committed to weight loss.

Writing it all down, I see the absurdity of it. My mistakes have already happened, and there’s no way to undo them. I really have no choice but to walk away and take what I can from the experience. So that is the new goal. I accept that I am not perfect. I understand the unfairness of expecting to live my whole life without a food error. There is no such thing as Zero Tolerance eating.

And with these pronouncements comes a truth. I cannot indulge without consequences, because the sweetness in the treat triggers The Beast. I really do feel better below 150, and that’s where I want to be. So if I’m headed down there, I need to be active in pursuing that goal. I can’t sit at my desk eating malted milk balls and wondering why my diet isn’t working.

I want to build more things, like make a list of what I can and cannot eat, and the times I’m permitted to feed myself, making everything else off limits. But I live in this world, and it’s unrealistic to assume the Buddhist Monk diet of fish & rice. I don’t eat enough carbs anymore, and anyway, robes make me look fat.

But I’m going to be a grown-up about this, or at least make a plan to grow up. I can’t be a baby anymore. I must assume responsibility. I’m good at assuming responsibility. It’s just a matter of tweaking the job description a little. After 17 years in Human Resources, I think I can do that.

A the B(aby No More. Or, at least until next time.)

Eating Stealthy

2008-04-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Day 14
Mood: 5/10, and I’m being generous here.

This stinks.

I want to say that WW stinks, and my food addiction stinks and the unmentionable weirdness in my life stinks. But those are all by-products. What really stinks is my discipline. My discipline and my focus, both of which have gone hurling out the window and down to the curb, crushed by the extra weight I have carried since Christmas.

After last Saturday’s weigh-in at 152.75, I was inexplicably up to 155.50 on Monday, even though Sat & Sun were virtuously clean, food-wise. I was down to 154 by Tuesday, but then when Wednesday hit and I was still above the 153 fat mark, I lost my cool, and I never recovered. This morning, I’m back at 156, and there’s not a PMS day in sight for over a week.

I don’t think I can officially call it Holiday Weight, especially since I don’t celebrate Christmas in any real way (read: with food). Howard and I ate through December pretty much the way we always do; lots of vegetables, lean protein, low-fat popcorn at night. In any case, even if I had over-canape’d myself at the buffet, that was four months ago. I’ve been hiding behind my excuses, the weather, and long sweaters for 16 weeks. I have even sunk into that Nastyland-rationalization. Maybe I’m not meant to be 147 pounds. Maybe I’m stuck here in the low (MID!) 150s for good.

Well, sure I’m stuck here: stuck until my eating continues out of control for another month and I find myself dancing with the high 150s. How much longer until I can’t wear my jeans or I’m forced to buy new clothes because my wardrobe is Too Snug For Work?

I wish that my weakness lay in some common WW territory: I have to cook for a skinny husband who won’t eat ‘diet food’. Or that I traveled for work, and I can’t get good food on the road. Or I’ve been run over by a truck and my wheelchair doesn’t fit into the StairMaster. No, my malady is mine alone. My disease lurks in the trenches of my subconscious, down in the dino-brain between the awe of money and the fear of death.

I eat bad things when I’m alone.

I do this, even when I’m not hungry, even when I’m already sporting seam marks from my clothes, and even when I don’t like what I’m eating. I’m like a drunk in a hotel room with an complimentary mini-bar. If there’s free food, I’ll eat it.

Somewhere, ‘back there’, I was hungry all the time. Or maybe not hungry, but not able to eat when I wanted to. Or maybe ate whenever I needed it, but never allowed to indulge. I’m guessing here, because I honestly don’t know. We had nothing growing up. Everything was measured, and we didn’t eat leftovers because there never were any. Bologna sandwiches were a common dinner, and soup was served year round. But I can’t reasonably blame No Snacks In The House on my dysfunction. Anyway, I didn’t even know that was unusual until someone in my Sunday School class told a story about a ‘poor needy’ family who had sandwiches for dinner, and I realized that she could have been talking about me.

I do remember times growing up that I was really uncomfortably underfed, but most of that was after I moved away from home. Once I had $6 to last me 3 weeks until I got my first paycheck of the summer. I bought Ramen noodles at ten-for-a-dollar, broke each package in half and ate one ‘piece’ for breakfast and one for dinner. I skipped lunch (couldn’t afford it) and trolled the break rooms in the afternoons for post-meeting leftovers. I walked home through some not-so-cool neighborhoods, because I didn’t have the bus fare to get home the ‘luxury’ way.

Another time I had some car problem and it wrecked my budget for the winter. I bought a family-sized bag of instant oatmeal and gigantic box of brown sugar and ate that 2 or 3 times a day for over a month. When my roommate gave me a jar of peanut butter, claiming that she didn’t like ‘the creamy kind’, I nearly wept with joy. I stole a sleeve of saltines from a different roommate and hid the loot in my room, spreading transparent layers of peanut butter over a single cracker every night, to stretch it out. When I ran out of crackers, I pilfered a spoon and fed my habit straight from the jar.

But that’s just Growing Up stuff; learning about money management the hard way. I don’t think I can pin my issues on peanut butter and fake noodles--though I didn’t eat either for many years after that. I think it’s just the mis-wire in my brain, that I don’t ‘know’ where my next meal is coming from, or that it will ever come, and so I’d better down whatever I can slink off with.

It’s the same reason why I haven’t purchased anything of substance for years—if ever. I don’t know when I’m going to lose my job, or get all my money taken away by some mean-spirited former live-in lover, or forget to turn in a tax document and have my bank accounts siphoned off by the IRS (this latter has never happened). When X and I had to buy a second car to get me to work, I paid cash for a used mini-van and then was mean to him for weeks afterwards. We had effectively tripled our income, but I couldn’t rest until every cent was replaced and resting in the savings account.

So okay, if this is who I am, then what do I do? Do I accept this about myself and say good-bye to the 140s forever? But then I can’t explain how I was able to maintain that beautiful position for months. Do I dig into the nethers of my mind, figure out why I’m such a psycho about dollars and donuts, and then work to weed it out of me? I don’t think there’s a shrink out there who could un-truffle that one. I don’t even know what it is; how would she?

Maybe I just put myself into places where I’m never alone, or if I am, there’s no food anywhere. If I have to work late, I schlep to the library. If I’m home first, I walk laps around the house until someone comes home. I make the house ingredients-only, so if I want to pad the octopus, I have to make something. That ought to fix it: I’m as lazy as I am stealth when it comes to food. If it ain’t made, don’t eat it. That’s me. If I even have to sprinkle fat-free cheese into a wrap, I’ll blow it off. Too much trouble.

Too much pain. Today I met a friend for lunch. I hadn’t seen him in years, and the last time we were together, I was at my fully fatted 250+. Yet I nearly cancelled because I’m carrying 9 extra pounds, I’m in my size 7 juniors , and I look bigger.

He would never have known-from his perspective, I’m down 90 pounds and 11 sizes. But I came close to collapse, worrying about what he’d say when he saw my octopus hanging over my jeans. Never mind that he has a new baby and that he called me ‘slim’ when he saw me. I knew I was different, even if he didn’t. I knew it, I did this to myself, and that has made all the difference.

This crap-tacular attitude won’t help, I know. I’ll fix it. I just have to work it out. And work out. And give up my alone time, because clearly that is a trigger. Guess it’s time to find the ‘safety’ and snap it back on.

A the W(TF?)

I Can See Clearly Now

2008-04-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

Day 8

Weight 152.75

Mood: Healed

My mood lifted on Friday morning. After 2 weeks of hard labor in the Progesterone-depleted desert, I’ve emerged. I’ve had a couple of hiccups, but I can tell that I’m better able to handle the Life’s Little Moguls with less stress. I made it through an intense work week, I managed to get DS off for his weekend with X without crying (in front of him), and I’ve started kissing Howard again. I didn’t even mind it too much that Maria the Spectacular wasn’t at Weight Watchers this week. The Dark Days have passed.

I lost all 3 of the Period Pounds and even succeeded in shaving off an extra 0.25 for good behavior. I’m still hosting the ‘wiggles’ at the waist line, but I can see my figuring returning, and last night I wore my size 3s for Married Night Out. Good times.

I must keep writing. Writing records my daily emotions, and that gives me the “in” I need to see the bad days and then figure out how to prune them. And exercise could help. Keeping active would give me something to do other than count Howard’s battle scars and behave like an exposed nerve wrapped around a dentist’s drill.

I’ve been thinking for days about where to go from here. I want to plot out a plan to Roto-Rooter the ‘angries’ out of me, or to find enough peace inside my swirling self to acknowledge the mood swings and accept them with a laugh. I keep analyzing and bargaining and calculating, and nothing sounds good.

So I’ve decided to give up. Rather than fret or predict or regret, I’m just going to Be. I’m going to enjoy my good mood. There’s really nothing else to do anyway, other than push out my good mood by worrying about the carnage from next month’s free fall. Worrying about its inevitable onset will only prolong the agony. And nobody wants that. Just ask Howard.

A the G(uess Who Went to Yoga This Morning?)

PS-Holy Crap! 350 words!

The Agony of The Treat

2008-04-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

Weight: 156

Mood: stormy

I’m on Day 4 here, and I’m starting to think that this extra weight will stay with me. I managed to have a perfect day yesterday-not even a foray into the Snickers mini’s. That was tough, let me tell you. At about 3pm yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk with my head in my hands, my hands in my hair, and my body rocking while I sang old gospel songs to distract myself. Oh, Lawdy, make this pain a-go away.

I’m pretty sure that the guy who sits in front of me thinks I’m a raving lunatic. It’s enough that I talk to myself all day long, grumbling about vendors, testing out presentation language and reading spreadsheets aloud, as if that will help me digest the data. But now I’m actually in a faux-fetal position in my chair, moaning and holding myself. Call the cops, Vinnie, She’s done gone to the Bad Place.

I’m telling you, sitting there and keeping myself from scavenging the empty offices with Known Candy Supplies was a physical pain. I don’t ever have to wonder whether I have a junk food addiction. If there had been a cigarette and a pay phone nearby, I would have been Meg Ryan in “When a Man Loves a Woman.” I even have the hairy-man equivalent of Andy Garcia at home to prove it.

Anyway, so I ground my way through ‘happy hour’, as it were, had a regular dinner and did not snack at all post-DS bed time, except for my standard popcorn, AND STILL there is no movement on the scale. I am telling you, when I get back down to 147, I am either going to strap bathroom scales to my shoes or never, ever get on a scale again. My ego is far too dependent upon That Number. I am a slave to Where the Needle Stands.

I’m still lying in bed at night, and it’s starting to catch up. I yawned my way through most of the afternoon. Lucky for me, there were no peanuts sticking to my fillings.

Thursday (Day 5)

Weight: 154.50

Mood: Amused Agitation

I really have no idea why I’m so stupid.

Yesterday, I’m blathering on about how the weight has stuck to me, and now this morning, half of it is gone. I had another great day yesterday, and that’s helped, I’m sure. But I didn’t make it to yoga class tonight, so I’m down on my exercise for the week. I really needed that class, too. I seem to be taking a long time to get out of post-PMS Trauma this month. I have to find a way to regulate myself. The weight comes off. It always does.

So the bulge is down today, and I definitely have a flatter ‘fit & finish’ now. I spent the day in Size 5s with a regular shirt (vs. the longer than life variety I’ve been wearing lately), and I did ok. I was hungry all afternoon, but I staved it off, and now here I am. I’m almost looking forward to tomorrow’s weigh-in

I really wish I could bottle up how I feel right now, and then sprinkle it over myself when I’m faced with free food. I really like how I feel when I don’t eat. Not in the ‘I only eat tomatoes and water until I die’ way, mind you. There is a clean, pure, disciplined feeling I have in my insides when I’m between meals, I know my stomach is empty, and I’m powering my way through the hours. I feel strong then. Really strong and in control of myself. That’s what I have to remember. No amount of peanut butter Twix will make me feel that way.

Despite 2 years of discipline, I still view food as reward, punishment, comforter and pimp. Not to mention the reason why I sometimes look like I’m smuggling scrambled eggs under my pants. So maybe in addition to writing down what I plan to eat each day , I should write down when. Maybe if I only eat when I’m ‘supposed’ to, I won’t be tempted to eat when I can. It’s worth a shot. And it might be just the thing I need to bring out those itty bitty shorts and not worry that my can is falling out of the back end.

A the S(icko)

734 words, but hey, I covered 2 days. I’m starting to get into the challenge of Getting My Idea Across Without Yammering Forever. So far, so good. But I’m not committing to anything until after next month’s PMS.

PS-773 words. Oops. Aw, who cares. At least I’m not eating.

DeManic Monday

2008-04-15T08:29:00.001-07:00

General mood: 5 (of 10)
Weight: 156
Tuesday’s feeling: wiped
Wednesday's feeling: clearing

There’s a day every month when my body just comes along for the ride. That was Monday. I managed to get through everything and had a productive day at work, but that caffeine headache drilled a hole into the right side of my brain and then they turned on the A/C, since it was above 40 degrees outside (which apparently constitutes ‘summer’ in Chicago now), so I froze to death all afternoon.

But DS and I had a great evening, even if I was about as interesting as toast crumbs. DS is enthralled by cuckoo clocks right now. The Awesome In-Laws have a cuckoo clock in their kitchen, and DS would bolt up from whatever he was doing to watch the ‘penguin’ (that’s what he calls the cuckoo) come out and sing. He’s so into them that I’m thinking of getting him his own cuckoo clock for his birthday.

Of course I’ve since discovered that if you get an authentic Black Forest chalet, the cost can quickly run into the hundreds. As DS has the usual kindergartner's attention span, I wonder if he’ll watch it for a few days and then grow bored with it. Or worse, want us to turn it off, because the ‘penguin’s’ chirping is interfering with his video games. No, not that! Perish the thought!

Anyway, since he’s completely into them now, he may abandon them by the time his birthday rolls around in May. But in the mean time, he spends his evenings previewing cuckoo clock ‘videos’ and remarking on whether they have dancers, whether the bird is brown or white, how much music they offer, and if they have a beer-guzzling lederhosen dude on the front. All important things in selecting the right clock. Guess which one of us will be the cuckoo if this keeps up much longer?

Today, Day 3, is better. I’m no longer at the sneezy end of Life's Dustmop. I’m still a little dishrag-y and I think my evening cappuccino was a ‘regular’ and not a ‘decaf’, since I was in bed a long time before I fell asleep. It was either that, or my homework is far more fascinating to me than I realized. I kept thinking about one-tailed hypothesis testing (not nearly as interesting as it sounds) and when I closed my eyes, I saw bell curves. But I can feel my energy returning. I might even take a walk tonight after work. It’s going to be in the 60s this evening, and we’re all so sick of looking at the inside of the house that I think a skip to the park may be in order. Of course Lynda the Super Nanny is so good about getting DS outside, and Karl (Nanny husband) is so keen on making DS into an English soccer sensation that my little angel may be dead tired by the time he’s returned to me tonight. That’s ok. That’s what strollers are for.

Speaking of that, I noticed over the weekend that he refers to cookies as ‘biscuits’. I will have to fix that before some bully sneers at him during lunch, but for now it is so adorable. My little Yankee boy is referring to Nutter Butters as biscuits. Now if only I could figure out what he means by ‘markers’. Any Brits out there who can help me? Even Lynda doesn’t know. It’s some secret code, and he really likes them, but I can’t get enough of a description out of him to provide the treat. I know they’re small, colorful and soft. And they’re not marshmallows. When I suggested that last night, DS looked at me as if I had leprosy. Mom! Not Marshmallows. MARKERS! Sure. I’ll get right on that. As soon as we have the Universal Translator installed. Guess the new roof will have to wait.

A the S(till Fat, but Improving)

PS-659 words!

Shrinking Responsibility

2008-04-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

In the interest of getting back to writing, and to give myself something voluntary to do (this), I’ve decided to work on short posts. I know, HA, HA HA. Believe me, I’m laughing right along with you. Me write short? That’s a Zero on the scale of “Likely to Happen”. But it’s my goal, and anyway, I miss writing like I miss being thin, and so perhaps these two things will help each other.

As a motivator, and to give myself something to write that is (1) short and (2) interesting, and also possibly (3) give my husband a reason to get down off of the roof and put the grapefruit knife back in the drawer, I’ve decided to track my daily mood and weight from the beginning to the end of a cycle. I have suspicions that my PMS has now grown to an all-time length of 12 days. When I add the 6 or 7 days of my period (yup, a full week. Ain’t that sweet…), that gives me roughly 19 days out of 29 that I’m feeling gross, fat, icky, cranky, tired, and/or generally ill at ease with the world. And while I appreciate all the ‘material’ that Feeling Off gives me, I have to admit that this is a long time, even for me, to be sideways with life.

I’ve started by writing in the morning, since I seem to be more even then. If I don’t get a good reading, I’ll switch over to evening check-in next month. At the end of the month, I’m going to make up some charts (geek!) and a few graphs (double geek!) to see what my average feeling is over the cycle, how many days I really do feel Off, and if there’s anything going on day-to-day that might be triggering it other than my 40-something hormones. I’ll post it all, so you can laugh at me while I try to fit my life on a histogram and a bell curve with standard deviations.

I’m taking charge of my life! Well no, that’s probably overstating. What I’m really doing is documenting how many ways I’m not in charge. But you can’t change what you don’t track, and really, I’m determined to fix my moods. I probably won’t splay everything out here, particularly as I get close to the end of the cycle and I start shoving Howard back up on the roof, but I’ll give as much as I can. My hope is that eventually I’ll just come to accept that this is the way of things for now, expect that my emotions start peeling off of me around Day 18 and take the Zen approach. I have all kinds of things going on in my life right now relative to acceptance and Zen and Living Right Now. But of course, there’s no place to put that in a short post that’s about something else.

As a caveat insert here, let me tell you that my life is full. I don’t feel overwhelmed, but perhaps that’s because I don’t have time to stop and think about what all is going on. And it’s not like there’s a lot. Work is busy while I’m there, but I manage to get most of my work done during regular hours (8-5:30, with a rare lunch break). I have started staying late on Wednesday nights (7pm), since that’s Boys Night Out with Howard and DS. I’ve discovered that I cannot be alone in the house, because if I am, I turn into Fat Lady Eating Machine. So, to alleviate some of that stress and some of that problem, I’m just staying at work until I know the boys are on their way home.

Plus, I may start staying late on Thursdays, since there is a great yoga class with an awesome teacher that I’d like to do. It’s really hard to find true Yoga instructors in Wheaton. Most of the yoga teachers here in the west Chicago suburbs are Pilates instructors in (weak) disguise. They go too fast, they talk too much, and they are incapable of doing a yoga class without slipping some Pilates/core/suck-in-your-stomach jazz into the practice. I like, slow, controlled, hold-the-pose yoga. I have decent strength and balance, thanks to years of martial arts and tennis, but I’m about as flexible as a Popsicle stick, and so I need to concentrate when I’m stretching. If someone is yakking about all the benefits while I’m trying to quiet the screams in my hamstrings, well, let’s just say that I’m probably not going to relax. Yesterday I actually rolled my eyes during one instructor’s blather about standing on a block to improve your balance. Who cares what you think? That’s what After Class is for. Ah, hormones. Clearly no good.

Anyway, since I’ve found this class and this instructor that I like so well, it might be worth it to me to lose an evening with my family, in order to be civilized enough the rest of the week so that they’ll want me around.

However, that aside, I’m not working many weekends, and while school is intense, it’s manageable too. I do my homework after DS goes to bed, around 8:30, and I usually finish up some time around 10pm. I do need 4 or 5 nights to get it all in, but I usually have one evening a week (generally on Fridays) where I don’t have anything due, and I can relax and do nothing…Though really, what I do is catch up on the chores I’ve not been able to do all week while I’m building confidence intervals and writing papers. I don’t like being idle. I picked that up from a little snippet from Gone With The Wind, where Scarlett remembers her mother, and how her hands were never idle. I've worked for years to build habits that keep me constantly moving and productive.

My recent foray into Living in the Moment calls for quite a bit of stillness, however, and I’ve discovered that I like it. I prefer to talk less, and to move less, and to BE where I am, rather than simply be there and think about other things. I’m more centered, happier, and definitely more relaxed. But that was last week. It’s easy to be Zen when you’re lounging by the pool, watching your husband’s folks roll around in being grandparents and getting an utterly delicious fill of Being With DS. Taking it back with me is another thing, and since I’ve never been low-key, it is a struggle. But I am determined to calm down.

I WILL DEFEAT THE ANGER, DAMMIT!

Kidding. But it is how I feel. And sometimes it’s so hard to get out of my head and just be. But when I am there, wow…it is a great, great thing.

So I think I was right when I said that my life was full. Unless I get up earlier in the morning (insert sardonic cackle here), I haven’t time for exercise beyond the 2 yoga classes a week (Sunday mornings is the other one), and I have no hobbies. School is my hobby. Work is my filler, Family is my priority, and Weight Watchers is an old friend who is waiting for me to call her. Well, I’m dialing.

I just came off of a 1-week trip to Florida/Paradise with my smashingly awesome in-laws, so really, I have no reason to be stressed. Ah, but Grasshopper needs no reason—only an opening and POW! We’re right back to where we were, pummeling vendors at work, snarling at my husband, and weeping at the scales.

Hmmm. Looking this over, I think that tracking my weight and my moods probably won’t do anything for my psychotic tendencies, except give Howard a record of my bad behavior. But hey, it might help, and anyway, it’ll be fun, I’ll get to write every day, and I’ll get to share some of the less caustic musings out here. And as we all know, writing about stress alleviates it somehow. Or at least it makes it funny. Here’s hoping.

I don’t plan to post every day, even though I’m writing every day. My expectation is that if I start writing a comment that is too long to get down on paper in 15 mins (my allotted time for plotting & tracking), then I’ll type it out and post it here. I don’t want to commit to anything regular, since I haven’t posted in ages, but I really do want to bring it out here and share it.

Day 1: April 13, 2008 (Sunday)
General mood (scale 1-10): 6
Weight 156 pounds
Evaluation of today: Sucky

Yep, I’m up 9 pounds from my goal weight. The 3-pound fairy has come to call; I always jump 3 pounds on the day my period starts, and there it is. Yesterday I weighed 153. No big prize for that, either. I’ve been stuck at 153 for a month, and no amount of water guzzling, pickle eating or general suffering between meals has chiseled off those 6 pounds. And now I have 9. I know these 3 won’t last. They stick stubbornly to the octopus for the duration of my period, and then they vanish, all at once, on the last day. So it’s 6, but today it’s 9, and I feel every ounce.

On a good note, I think I know part of the reason that I couldn’t drop back down to 147 despite all my efforts. Apart from the obvious lack of exercise, and my refusal to stop eating Hershey’s miniatures, I think it’s the Niacin. I started taking Niacin (Vitamin B-3) about a month ago, when Awesome Boss recommended it. My good cholesterol was just a wee bit low last year (38 when it should have been above 39), and he said that taking Niacin would boost it. Plus, Niacin does this wild thing where it ‘flushes’ you, by opening up your blood vessels and rushing your blood around so that you look like you spent the weekend at a Swim-up Bar in Cancun. It's supposed to be really good for your heart. I like healthy organs! bought some Niacin, popped a 500 mg tablet into my mouth and waited.

I flushed all right, and I got itchy and blotchy and really, really hot. But I liked it, and it was cool to see something at work in my body, so I kept at it. In fact, I liked it so much that I started taking it twice a day. When I got a time-released style in Florida and didn’t flush at all, I felt completely cheated. I got home and the first thing I did was down the Niacin. I flushed and all was good.

Sure enough, at my last physical, my good cholesterol had jumped into the 60s. BUT my overall cholesterol, which had been 123 last year is now 174. AND my left side was hard and kind of hurting. I looked up Niacin on the internet (OK, Wikipedia) and it mentions that Niacin blocks the breakdown of fat in your body. For those (MEN) with seriously low good cholesterol, it’s sometimes prescribed to aid in the buildup. And guess what? If you take it and you don’t’ really need it, you can do liver damage BECAUSE THE NIACIN WON’T LET YOUR BODY BREAK DOWN ITS FAT. It is generally not recommended for women.

Ok, then. So I chucked it all, and I have been downing water until I’m leaking, trying to aid my liver in getting back to normal. It was only a month, and I was still below the lowest prescription level, but still…so uncool to muck with the liver. It’s been 2 days and the hardness is waning. It’s less tender too, but it hasn’t gone away completely. I’ve really cut back on my coffee, so I can concentrate on the water and in getting my body back to normal. but now of course I have a caffeine headache. I’m such a moron. No more flushing for me.

And clearly it’s not only the Niacin that’s preventing me from losing the weight. But I have tossed all the B-3 into the trash. Plus, now it’s Day 1, and my chocolate cravings have completely vanished. They appear like clockwork right around Day 21 and hound me without reprieve for 8 days until my period starts. Then they check out, take a 21-day cruise, and if they meet me at the grocery store, they pretend they don’t know me. It’s so odd. I really wish I could remember that they’re temporary and that the craving is not real. But so far, and ever since December, they take me over. I’m hopeful that writing this down and confronting them head on (with mouth closed!) will help.

Concluding thoughts-Writing short will be a much bigger challenge than I thought. I may have to post soon, just to see if I can keep it under 500 words.

A the L(ong and Less Lean)

Safety in Numbers

2008-02-29T13:20:00.001-08:00

I never considered myself a numbers person.

Oh, I dabbled in all the college prep math classes, and took all form of giddy pleasure in the One Right Answer phenomenon. In college though, I took a calculus class from a NASA brainiac who couldn't teach. Being the quitter I was, I abandoned math and turned to liberal arts for comfort.

The numbers bug stuck with me. I managed to sneak in a statistics classes and a few ‘business math’ classes to round out my sociology degree. The classes, while difficult, stirred a pure satisfaction in me. Those long pages of pencil scratches, the proofs and their logic, and always, the marvel of the One Right Number at the end.

In an attempt to put the analytical back into my life, I have tried at several points to earn an MBA. This has largely been a disaster. Cleveland State proved too hard to navigate the bureaucracy, and Webster University was too far touchy-feely for my hard numbers desire. DePaul proved promising, but it was an MFA in Writing. You’d think that a writing degree could hold my interest for 48 credit hours, but alas, the program was for those who wanted to teach others to write. I really don’t get how someone could teach writing rather than do it, and anyway, teaching is not for me, so off my plate it fell.

Time passed and I found myself in a great job with some realistic upward potential. I decided, yet again, to pursue a second degree. This time, with DS and Howard in the picture, I opted for the on-line route. In the end, I returned to Webster. They gave me full credit for the classes I took back in 1995 (and I love them for that), which was reason enough to return. And they had put a whole new section into the program--numbers. MBA in Finance, here I come.

The first two classes, marketing and organizational behavior, floored me with their work load. I did well, but I longed for a quantitative class. I had 100 pages to read every week, and reams of reports to write. All I wanted was something where I can do the problem and come up with the One Right Answer. Wasn't this a finance degree? Didn't I do my ucky core classes already? Enough with the yakkety-yak on the papers, the citations and referenceson topics I’m only marginally interested in. Please, get me to the numbers. I want to stretch my left brain.

Ah, grasshopper. Be careful what you wish for.

I’m taking Principles of Financial Accounting this term. This class is kicking my arse up and down the street, let me tell you. The paltry PowerPoint presentations that serve as 'lectures' do nothing but turn the textbook material into animated drivel. I work until my brain wires cross and I can’t understand even my own notes, and then I hang it up. I wouldn’t say that I’m now longing for the right-brained classes, but sometimes I question whether I’m a numbers person.

I want to be, and to think I am, but sometimes when I’m elbows-deep in Bond Discount Rates and my shoulders ache from hunching over my notebook, I wonder.

I used to say that college was great except for the classes. I learned so much more about life in 4 years than I ever could have absorbed from the hours in lecture halls. Well, if that’s true for undergrad, it goes double for MBA school. I’m learning a ton, and most of it is happening outside the college-ruled e-papers I’m stuffing into my professor’s In Box.

In deference to that adage, and to my longing for a numbers-centered mind, here’s a small (numbered!) list of things I’m discovering about Me along the route to higher education:

1. I do not know how to learn.

I’ve never really had to study for anything. I took books home in high school because that’s what people did, but I never used them. College, apart from the Calc fiasco, was more or less a breeze. All around me, engineers ate the early shift in the dining commons, hit their desks by 5pm and stayed up into the small hours of the morning, solving problems, checking take-home exams and studying until their eyes glazed. Not me. I spent 2 years hanging out with Howard and cramming for exams by reading the entire textbook in a day. Halleluiah for my photographic memory, otherwise I might still be an undergrad in Cleveland.

Anyway, I never learned to study, and it's proving problematic for me, because...

2. I will not necessarily ‘get’ something the first time I’m exposed to it.

Because of my history with school, I expect to understand something the first time it’s explained to me. That is not how accounting is going. I have to read the chapters at least twice. I do all the self-study material offered, all my homework, and most of the problems posed in the textbook’s web-enabled tutorial. Even then, sometimes I’m just barely skating on the edge of understanding. Howard says it’s because I have to learn everything on my own. Maybe. I admit, some days I long for a dull, monotonous lecture, or for a classroom full of the dumb looks I give my computer every night. At least then I could raise my hand, ask a helpful-to-me question and get in answered in real time. I can e-mail my instructor and he’s pretty good about answering me. But usually by the time he responds, I’ve either figured it out or decided that I just won’t get it this time. This leads me to the nadir of this experience, which is recognizing that.....

3. I will make mistakes.

Wow, is this one tough to swallow. I got 100% on every assignment in all my classes up until now. Even that inane paper I had to write for Professor DumbAss managed to get a perfect score on the rewrite. Not so with accounting. I’m still carrying an A average, but I’m making mistakes in the homework. I have not accepted this, and I think it’s hampering my ability to learn. This leads me right back to Problem #1.

Or really, it’s all part of the same problem. I never learned to study, I am impatient with myself, and I abhor the idea of imperfection. Sucks, sucks, sucks.

It occurred to me this week that my issues with weight loss are identical to my issues with this class. I have really struggled with my weight since Christmas. I think it’s part of the reason I haven’t been writing as frequently lately. The other part is this dog-level homework, but still, I could probably sneak out an hour a week to put a short post up. Of course there’s another ‘problem’, succinct speech. I’m pretty sure that’s why I never wrote poems or short stories—I can’t be brief! There’s too much to say, and way too much to complain about! What if I missed something?

Okay, anyway. So I ate too much at Christmas and I waited too long to admit that the weight gain was real, and so this week, I finally accepted that I’d have to go back into loss mode. I had several false starts, but this week seems to be sticking. I haven’t digressed at all this week, and the scale is tipping back downward. I’m still hovering near the 150 mark, but the octopus has receded, and people at work are asking me if I’ve lost more weight, so it’s working.

I see now that I didn’t really overcome my eating problems when I lost the weight last year. I fixed the issue, but I didn’t solve the problem. I think I was so jacked to start the program and so determined to get the weight off of me that I didn’t bother paying attention to the ‘happily ever after’ part.

I’m still tempted by everything chocolate and I’m not to be trusted alone in a room with a pantry. So when temptation hit, I folded like a peanut butter sandwich on white bread. Oh, save me….

This week I managed to get through gymnastics by downing a non-fat cappuccino and the Wednesday night Boys Out Climbing by staying at work and refusing to go grazing. It was hard, hard stuff, but I made it, and today I’m wearing my size 3 jeans with no dunlap on the belly. I even had to cinch a belt on to keep my knickers from showing.

I expect that I still have 2 weeks more in loss mode before I can return to true maintenance. I’m working on accepting the fact that I’ll have to learn that, too. Lucky for me (?) I’ll be in a week-long break between classes, so I can really think about how to experiment with adding points without pumping back up.

My hope is that this time will be different for me. It is already, really. I stopped the gain at 7 pounds and I got it under control while I was still in my current size. I do have a lot of history and good habits that I can use to help me through this, and of course I have Howard. I won’t ever have lost ‘more’ weight, or even done anything other than remove the pounds I’d gained while I wasn’t on guard. But pounds off is pounds off, even if it’s a reprise.

It’s hard to accept this, because it feels like recovering from a failure, rather than learning a lesson. But 147 is 147, even if I have to hit it twice to make it stick. You might say it's my One Right Answer.

A the C(runching My Way Back Down)

My Fat Trap

2008-02-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

Keep it Simple.

Or in my case, Keep it Simple, Stupid. I should have that tattooed on my hands, so I could see it all day long. My life gets painful whenever I forget to keep it simple. And almost always, when my life starts to convolute, it’s because of my big yap.

I had a mentor a while back whoI admired for his fast-track success and his straight-talking style. I remarked about this once, and his response surprised me. ‘I’ll tell you, I’d have gone much further, and much faster, if I’d learned to keep my mouth shut.’

I share that affliction. To quote the comedienne Ron White, I have the right to remain silent, but not the ability.

All my life I’ve struggled with the troubles my mouth has created. My anger in my youth destroyed many (ex-) friendships, and my anxious chatter ruined most of my adult love affairs. Later on, my drive to rise up the ranks of Corporate America helped me to develop a biting sarcasm that got me fired 4 times. To give you an idea of who I once was, my first boss told me I had all the sensitivity of a chainsaw. I took that as a compliment.

I wonder at times if I’m like incapable of sentiment or empathy. No, that’s not right—I do have empathy. My problem is not a lack of emotion or care. I feel everything. I just disregard it, in favor of speaking my mind.

One of the characters in Atlas Shrugged noted, “Nothing is more important than how well you do your work.” I believe that, and I live that, and I wonder sometimes if it’s this very drive that sabotages my efforts to improve.

I had my review yesterday. It was a relatively short conversation, as it should have been. SuperBoss knows what I’m doing, he inserts his opinion when I ask, and otherwise he leaves me to my job. So the review and his comments held no surprises. He was more effusive than I’d expected, but the comments were things I had heard for months. He gave one caveat: since I’d been here less than a full year, he could not rank me Outstanding. It’s how he felt, but we couldn’t have that. We would have to settle for Exceeds Expectations.

Fine by me, but still, when it came right down to it, I was disappointed in the review. SuperBoss had been talking about working toward promoting me. He’d been repeating himself and encouraging me to think about the impact of this for so long, that I had started to think of myself in the new spot. He’d been very careful not to commit to a date or even that he could do it, but I carefully ignored that—I was getting promoted! I had almost put myself into that space, imagining myself in a real office, and working at the higher level, and on the first rung of upper management at last.

Promotions here occur throughout the year, and I’ve never seen one happen at a review, but still, I’d been anticipating it for a while, and I thought that the review would be a terrific time to do it, especially for an associate who was (almost) rated as outstanding. Instead, he started talking about waiting until this next set of responsibilities goes through, which is at least a year from now. I don’t know what’s happened that I could be doing so well and earning so much praise, and now a promotion that seemed almost imminent is now something for next year’s review—maybe.

What happened? I brooded about it all night, and then this morning it occurred to me. It’s my mouth. Again.

After we finished the review, SB mentioned, in a rather roundabout way, that I would do myself a lot of good if I could be gentler in correspondence and communication. He emphasized that I have a terrific reputation here, and that I’m known for my sense of urgency and my results, but that I could make that even better if I were kinder to people.

I’m paraphrasing here—he really was subtle about it. But I know him well enough to realize that his ‘just think about it’ way means that people have said things about this to him. It’s what is keeping me from my next job.

So here I am again, with my mouth is keeping me from getting ahead. It’s not budget, it’s not opportunity, and it’s not space at the top—it is me.

I’m comforting myself with the knowledge that the ability to fix this and remove the last obstacle lies squarely within my power. Still, we’re talking about a problem I’ve had since I was 10, and one that I thought I’d fixed. And I really thought I had overcome this problem. I am so careful about my language. I don’t use sarcasm at all anymore. I try very hard to insert an ‘unfortunately’ into e-mails that carry bad news. In fact, I thought I had overcompensated to such a place that I was something of a pushover in certain ways.

Clearly I’m not, though it still feels this way, and now I’m going to have to dial it down even more, because if I don’t, I’ll be stuck at this High Man in a Cubicle level forever….or until someone gets sick of my trap and has me fired.

I’m working on it. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks pulling back on my ‘straight speak’ at home. In an effort to reduce the explosive incidents, I’m inserting bubble baths into my evenings, even when I have so much to do that I could stay up all night and not get it done. I think this will help, but really, I won't know until I'm faced with something stressful. Will I stay or will I blow?

My propensity to see things in their extreme form, and my drive to keep things from getting disastrous by refusing to let anything happen at all is keeping me from getting ahead. I am keeping me from getting ahead. Me and only me. Sucks, sucks, sucks.

Work isn’t the only place where my mouth gets me into trouble. I’ve been bouncing around the low 150s since mid-December, and I can’t seem to find the focus I need to get me back to my goal weight. I have a few days of perfection, and I start to get that “thin” feeling of the Below 150 club. Then I go to DS’s gymnastics on Monday night and I snack on something outside of the program, and then I have dinner on top of it, because of course natty snacks don’t satisfy.

Then Wednesday night comes and the boys are out climbing until 7:30 and I’m in the house, starving. I don’t want to have dinner without them, and I don’t want to eat anything that will ruin my week (Monday did that already), so I pick and whittle at the no-point junk foods until I’m sick. Then I’m cranky because I ate wrong and I’m still hungry, and the evening is ruined. Mostly because I’m sick and irritable, and so I start shooting off of my mouth.

I did discover something this week that could really help. I’m PMSing, which always challenges those in striking distance. But I’d been calmer than usual and so I was able to monitor my emotional decline. Things begin for me around Day 18 and continue for 9 stormy days until my cycle ends. On Tuesday, I had too much fat free Reddi-Whip and when it layered itself on top of my degenerating progesterone, I felt jumpy all night. Then on Wednesday, I had some chocolate at work. Dumbo me decided to stay at the office instead of going home and scavenging for Dinner #1. All I managed to do was move my binging from home to office. I had a headache and I felt dizzy, and then I snapped at Howard over nothing.

Yesterday, I was sugar-free. Let me point out at this juncture that ALL days should be sugar-free: this is how far I’ve removed myself from the daily WW regimen. Anyway, I felt better then I had for the previous 2 days UNTIL I got home and downed a sugar-free jello with fat-free Reddi-Whip (which has sugar in it). DS also got drugged by the Valentine’s Day extravaganza, and we had a preview of the Teenager All Out War right after dinner. He slept it off, I cried in guilt, and today we’re all better, but I would give my right arm not to repeat that. Once again, my mouth got me into trouble, this time with my darling boy.

I believe that this is fixable, and not something so deeply ingrained into my psyche that there’s no workaround. I have to believe that, because otherwise I’ll wind up alone and angry. Speaking from years of previous experience, I guarantee that this is not what I want. The problem I have now is that I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to be an effective executive (wannabe) or even an assertive, pleasant person without throwing my weight around. I know that this is so, since I’m doing all this while simultaneously thinking I’m a pushover. I have a perception problem, and it manifests itself right in the middle of my face.

SuperBoss started taking yoga about a month ago. He was pretty even before, but I can tell that he’s far more relaxed now, and he seems more centered and relaxed. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should find my Zen or my ohm or whatever it is that makes the Type B folks around me just as effective (or moreso) than me, while keeping their friends and family intact.

Intact. In tact. There’s a thought. Maybe if I just waited to speak or e-mail, much of this would go away. It wouldn't take long-just a few minutes, or a day at the most for something really incendiary. Or maybe I should think through all the possible conflict scenarios and craft diplomatic responses ahead of time, so I’m not left to determine the right answer when I’m sitting on the spot.

Or maybe I should treat others with the respect and courtesy that I’d like to have. Be nice and stay out of the candy aisle. Those two things could solve everything.

Keep it Simple. I’ll omit the ‘stupid’, in the interest of creating better communications. Let’s see how it goes.

A the T(rending toward tact)

Stuck on You

2008-01-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

So clearly, Howard and I cannot be trusted to be alone together.

DS was away this weekend, and the weather threatened to housebound everyone. Weather folk everywhere warned of below-zero air temperatures and death-experience wind chills. I heard it all week: Don’t go out: it’s not safe. Find something to do indoors.

Everyone who read my last post knows that Howard and I don’t dare do anything indoors when we’re without DS. Clearly something happens to the air in our home that renders us incapable of logic, decision-making or sense. I wanted to take down the jungle gym in the basement to make room for more exercise equipment, but where to store it? Even the garage was too cold to attempt.

Ditto my desire to ‘freecycle’ the dresser, queen bed, train table and anything of Howard’s I could coax out of the house and on to the lawn. There would be no rain or snow, so the equipment would be ‘safe’ for garbage pickers to nab. But who would dare go trolling for freebies during Tundra Sunday? We needed more options. Painting was out—obviously. Cleaning was done, and anyway, I was not in the mood. I’m PMSing big time, and if I even lift a dust rag during these days, I start screaming. Must try something else.

In the end, Howard and I did our usual go-round of errands. We froze, and since we opted for sushi at lunch, we starved, but we got all the running done by 4pm on Saturday. Howard made stew, we watched a movie, and all was well.

Then suddenly it was 6pm, there was no DS to entertain us, and no chance of doing anything outdoors. What to do, what to do…..ah! I’ve got it! Remember that dumbass idea we had where we’d wax all the hair off of Howard’s body, even though we have no equipment and no knowledge of the process? Yeah! Let’s do that!

Sometime last summer, in a discussion that defies any attempt to translate out of Married CoupleSpeak, Howard and I decided to shave his back. It looked so good, we shaved his chest, and he went around all bare and proud until his pokey stubble stabbed me one night in bed and then the regrowth itched Howard so badly, he started looking like a cartoon dog with fleas.

We shaved again, and then again & again, wearing down the blade on his hair clippers, each time trying to get closer to the skin. I nicked him every time, and he bled every time. I was lucky enough that I never snagged anything ‘precious’, shall we say, but still, blood is blood, and anyway, the stupid stuff kept growing back.

We talked about sending him out for a professional ‘wax on/wax off’, but the only spas who do that are in BoysTown, in the city, and we worried about the exact meaning of ‘Full Monty with Surprise’. We toyed around with it a bit each time I mowed his chest, nightmares of “The Wall” and all form of silent-era Horror film flashing before me. Could we do something else? Well sure; we could Nair the poor man’s whole body, but we feared we might never get the smell out of the bathroom. We could do laser removal or electrolysis, but dang that hurts, and anyway, if ‘Buff Chest’ costs $240, what in heaven’s name would a de-seeding run? No, no. There had to be something more civilized than Rocky Horror to fix this.

Waxing it is. Howard and I dutifully strode our ignorant selves into Sally Beauty Supply, picked up the Microwave Waxing kit, an extra box of muslin strips and off we went. We got home, Howard de-shirted and I plopped the coffee mug-like wax container into the microwave. Thirty seconds on high, apply evenly to the skin, lay the muslin strip over, pull in opposite direction. Voila! No more hair, and no more shaving. Easy stuff, awesome results.

I guess we should have listened when the clerk at Sally Beauty tried to warn us. “You understand this hurts,” she said, her eyes on Howard. He nodded, eyeing a bottle of skin numbing solution. “Yes, I know.”

“No, listen,” she said, her voice emphatic. “This really, really hurts.”

Howard looked up from his topical Novocain. “Okay,” he said. The enthusiasm had drained, but the resolve remained. “We really want to try it.”

Now I can’t verify this, of course, but I’m pretty sure that woman is still laughing at us. I’m certain because I can virtually guarantee that she heard Howard screaming all the way from Wheaton.

We really did think we had everything under control. We were like the parents in Bill Cosby’s famous childbirth routine. We were intellectuals. When we want to know something, we read a book. Well, Howard and I were clearly uber-intellectuals this time, because we opted out of the book, the magazine, the pamphlet and even the internet. When it came right down to it, we consulted exactly two things: the 3-line directions on the wax mug and each other.

Lord, here comes the flood.

First of all, the substance in the mug is not wax so much as it is glue. Stringy, sticky impossible-to-regulate glue that sticks to everything. It took me a full 5 minutes to detach the stirring stick from the mug, and then I carried a violin-like bevy of strings across the table to Howard’s back. The strings dutifully followed gravity, settling in Howard’s beard, hair and neck. I tried to whack them away, and now one of the cats has a honey-colored beauty mark on his ear. I worried for a moment he’d try to clean it off and then his paw would affix to his head, rendering him 3-legged. Luckily it landed on the fat cat who has decided he likes it.

I ladled the wax down on Howard, careful not to overload the area. I pressed the muslin in, rubbed it exactly the way Line #2 instructed me, and then I paused. How long to leave the wax on? If it’s too quick, it won’t pull up the hair. If I wait too long, the whole thing will fuse to Howard’s back and he’ll have a 3-D tattoo flapping up from beneath his shirt collar. I waited about a minute and then decided to take the plunge. I grabbed the end of the muslin and yanked.

Ok, oops! Probably should have told Howard I was going to do that.

Howard flinched, tensed, went into cardiac arrest, and then said in his characteristic calm. “Wow. That hurts.” He paused, gulped for air and then turned back toward me. “How does it look?”

I eyed the spot. “It looks great,” I admitted. “Really nice.”

I could tell Howard was wishing for another answer. “How many more strips do you think you’ll need to do my whole back?”

I did a quick geometry problem and added a few to cover myself. “Maybe 12,” I said. “At the most.”

“Okay, keep going.”

Raging Morons Take Two

I never got a clean strip after that. Plus, I ignored Line 3 of the directions, which told me most firmly NOT to wax over an area that had been previously waxed. In trying for a smooth finish, I wound up layering wax upon wax upon matted back hair until Howard’s midsection was covered in praline-like blobs. I did 2 or 3 more strips before Howard remembered that we’d forgotten to get a skin numbing salve. It was too late to go out now, so Howard opted to self-medicate and brought out his 18-year old scotch.

Good call. If Howard had a little, he’d mind the pain less. If he had a little more, I’d get a contact high and I could relax a bit. And if things got really out of hand, we could pour it on to his now bleeding back in hopes of staving off an infection.

We worked about 8 strips and half his back before we gave up. I couldn’t find a clean spot to land a strip, Howard was in a perpetual state of goose bump and he was tipsy enough that he wouldn’t hold still. I had switched to latex gloves after 2 pairs of my fingers fused together and no amount of scrubbing would undo them.

Glue on my gloves, glue on the table, and now I’m not sure that Howard can get up off the chair. I closed everything up and sent him to the shower. “Put the water on as hot as you can stand it. Try to melt the wax off.”

Howard pelted himself with too-hot water until his legs blistered, but the pralines remained. We wound up scrubbing his back with a pumice stone. We got a bunch off, but he still stuck to his t-shirt, and I’m pretty sure he got a second-degree burn from the water.

I took a look this morning, and it’s just awful. He looks like one of those stray dogs in mid-season, whose part-shedding, part-dogfight-torn coat is just hanging off of him. I looked up the spas again and found a few ‘instructional videos’ on how to wax properly. They were all women ‘models’, and there wasn’t anything more complicated than a leg wax, but everyone appeared calm. I kept my eyes on the lady getting leg waxed and she didn’t even blink when the muslin came off.

Howard and I talked it through, as intellectuals will do, and decided to try it again. I would attempt my newly honed skills, we would return to Sally for numbing solution, and a wax remover, and we would prevail.

Seriously Stupid III: The Rip Tide

Once again, the first strip yielded perfect results. I numbed the skin, slid the wax over the area and pulled (with warning!), revealing a clean, clear space. But then the pralines came back, and then DS came home, and every time I would pull a strip, DS would turn away from his game to ask me, “Mommy, is Rosen all right?” After the third post-DS strip, when he asked me, “Mommy, what are you doing to Rosen?” I gave up. Wax off, no coda, el fin.

Oh, and of course we forgot to get the wax remover, so Howard took a bath this time, careful not to overfill the tub, so in case he got stuck to the bottom, he wouldn’t drown.

Howard insists he’s glad of the experience, and suggested that professional equipment is better than the at-home variety. Likely, and of course they’re all licensed, but still, my god! It’s not surgery (though I’m sure it felt like it to Howard). It’s wax and hair. It’s simple physics. An object at rest remains at rest unless disturbed by some external sticky stuff. Seriously, how could this have gone so wrong?

Coulda been the whisky….Maybe, but where’s my excuse? Howard behaved like a girl in this, and I mean that in the very best sense. He could have shrieked and yelled and cursed (as I was), and rolled around in the pain. But he didn’t. He barely lauded more than the occasional, “mother of god!” and I’m pretty sure there was only one four-letter expletive all night, and that was during the pumice-me-the-moon phase. He stood up to the pain and then he sat down and let me do it to him again today. I applaud his patience, his resolve, and his Zen.

I also made him an appointment with the BoysTown Wax Capades. After all, the little bits I see are sexy, and I want to see him when it’s all done right. When it comes to doing something like this, Howard needs a pro, at least the first time. He has strict instructions to watch how the Muslin Fairy layers, ladles and rips his chest, so I can do the same, Heterosexual Style, after he gets home.

A the W(axing and Wailing)

Painted (Ma)Lady

2008-01-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

Q: How many people does it take to paint a bathroom?
A: As many as you like, so long as none of them are me.

DS spent last week in Florida with his nanny and her husband. He was gone for 7 days, and I needed something distract myself for a full week. I was on my last week of break from school, and I was working every day, so the project had to be simple, swift, and productive. I talked it over with Howard, and we opted to paint the bathroom. It’s small, it’s enclosed, so there’s less chance of the mess spilling over into other rooms, and since we use it every day, there was added motivation to finish the project on time.

Since we had the time, I decided that it might be fun to be a little daring. Oh, the hubris of the untalented. I have no artistic talent. None. I admire artistic things, but from a safe and outsider’s distance. Painting, music, dance, and even theater are all delights to me, but only as a spectator. I know this about myself, yet I forgot all about it when I opted to sponge-paint my bathroom.

Or, at least, I remembered long enough to call my brother, who is an artist and who does have talents for color and style. Howard and I got him on the phone on December 30, just a few hours after DS had boarded a plane to Tampa. We directed my brother to the paint palette site and showed him the colors we’d chosen. After a few ‘ewwww!’ responses from him, he suggested a 3-color combination that appeared to be just shy of Utterly Insane. Where Howard and I had picked Whispered Peach, Brother opted for Blood Orange, paired with Rhubarb and Vanilla Milkshake. Purple, Orange and Sugared White. Dear God.

But, he is an artist and I am not. I trusted the artist and committed to try. We loaded up with supplies and a full gallon of the Blood Orange. We brushed the cut in and then rolled the first coat, and when we were done, I wasn’t sure whether I was standing in the center of a volcano or had been relocated to Middle Earth. The once gray-green white vanished beneath Bursting Sunset, and the color was so vivid and bright that it reflected all the way down the steps and in to the living room. I gulped away my nerves and Howard comforted me in a voice that had only slightly less tremor than my own. Don’t worry. This is just the base coat. It’ll be covered with white and purple. Excuse me. Rhubarb.

When it came time to sponge the Milkshake over the Inferno, the effort seemed suddenly too large, and we opted to do ragging instead. Ragging involves clumping up some piece of cloth (in this case, Howard’s undershirts), dipping it into the paint tray and then stamping it all over the walls. The ragging leaves a more interesting mark than the sponge, and so we tore up a group of shirts and set to work. This was Monday night, New Year’s Eve.

When we were finished, the Blood Orange had given way to Melting Dreamsicle. The orange, while muted, was still there, curdling the walls in every child’s ice cream nightmare. The echoing down the hall had dimmed, but the white looked sloppy on top of the orange, and there were now smudges of both paints on the trim. The drop cloth had torn and there was a dragon-shaped stain next to the tub. I called my brother, concern seeping through my forced laughter. “It’s in the blending,’ he assured me. “And ragging is nicer than sponging. I figured you would like that better.”

Well, ‘better’ is a relative term. It was ‘better’ than feeling like I was showing in utero, but I was far from satisfied. But commitment is commitment, and we still the Rhubarb. One more coat to go.

Brother had suggested we build the Rhubarb in stalk-like extensions from the floor to ceiling. I couldn’t figure out how to make a stalk with a bunched up underwear clump, and anyway, there was still way too much orange showing. I opted for full coverage, banging the rag against the walls to blot out the orange and mix with the white. Howard, on the other side of the bathroom, gave the Stalk idea its full due and make literal purple stripes up and down the walls.

Once completed with the Rhubarb and the bathroom “finished”, I could barely keep from crying. The purple clashed with the orange, the white had all but vanished, and we had Rhubarb on the stepladder, the sink and dripping down the shower stall. I knew I could never make it a full year with my bathroom in such a state. I called Brother.

On his instructions, we diluted the remaining Milkshake 2:1 with water and then rolled it over the whole wall. It would be like a glaze, he said. It would tone everything down and even the color out.

Wednesday afternoon, with hope and paint supplies waning, we diluted the white, loaded up our rollers and set to work. Apparently my talents for stirring do not extend to paint, because the dilution left the combination runny, and no amount of squeezing the roller would fix it. Howard gave up rolling and took to mopping up the puddles. About halfway through, I looked back at our work and tossed my roller down. “It looks like we’re painting over wallpaper,” I said. Howard agreed. It was a disaster.

Sadly, our work had left its mark in places not intended. Stray bits of Blood Orange had made its way past the painter’s tape and on to the ceiling. Howard had attempted to sponge off some of it, but that only managed to widen the stains. I knew that we’d have to do the ceiling anyway. Today was not that day for sure, and so while the stains rankled me, they would have to remain.

Thursday night, 5 days after our little project began, Howard bought home cans of primer. We figured, correctly, that no amount of any color would dilute the Citrus Explosion growing on the walls, and so we would simply start over. I thought, briefly, that perhaps painting the walls white would be enough. We could stop there, and just leave it until it was time to paint again, post-new bathroom.

Ah, but The Project That Will Never End had other ideas. We needed 2 coats of primer to get the blood and the rhubarb off the walls. Plus, the Stark White of the primer threw me back to every cheap rental I’d ever lived in, where every wall was White, Oh So White, and the trim hinted at way too many coats of ‘just slap it on before the next move-in’. I couldn’t leave it.

Friday night, after Primer coat #2 went up, we drove out to Lowe’s and picked up another gaggle of chips. We settled Saturday morning on Whispered Peach, a color remarkable close to the original color we’d chosen before the Artist’s Hangover took to our walls. We bought 2 gallons, new rollers, and brushes specifically designed for latex paint. Our trim and cut-in work was awful-there were brush marks everywhere, and no amount of paint-loading or brush-scraping seemed to fix it. We ‘invested’ in good brushes, complete with their own post-project holders, hoping that this, at least, would solve one of our myriad problems.

Nope.

The Peach went on lovely, subtly and smooth. Howard and I have no talent at this, though, and so the ceiling got its new stains of muted dawn to duel with the fruit salad. I did the cut-in work twice, the second time with a wedged sponge, and still the brush marks remained. By now, on Saturday morning, with DS due to return the following night and now SIX days into what should have been a 2-day project, I couldn’t focus on the pretty.

We got 2 coats up by Sunday morning, and then set about cleaning up the biggest spills. Howard replaced the bathroom mirror and then dug holes into the wall trying to put up our new medicine chest. While he cursed his way through anchors and drywall, I grabbed hold of a tape end and pulled. And that’s when I discovered that paint is a lot like nail polish. If you have 2 or 3 coats, you need acetone to take it off. If, however, you have 7, all you need to do is pluck off a corner and the whole nail peels off without effort.

Chips, chunks and slabs of pale orange peeled off with the tape, sometimes removing every coat we’d layered in the last week and showing the hospital gray-green white that the room had been Before. Howard used a box cutter on the niche areas, and I did my best to pull straight and even, but still, there are holes in the paint, and all of them are in obvious, can’t-hide-this-mess places.

The ceiling is a smudged orange, and somehow, the Blood color managed to seep up under the tape, so that there is a thin line of Raging Sunset along the lip of the ceiling in half the room. The tub looks like a cauldron of stewed vegetables and the shower stall is nothing short of melting-vegetable surrealism. After the last tape clump had been stuffed into the trash, I stood at the doorway entrance and shook my head. “We have destroyed this room,” I told Howard. “Yes,” he replied, “We have.”

I admit that I did distract myself while DS was gone. And with respect to the Universe, this is nothing. We’re not starving to death. Our home hasn’t been burned by the Junta, and even my Christmas indiscretion matters little at the macro level. We’re healthy, we’re all back together, and I got it done in time to delve into Principles of Financial Accounting, which started today.

Howard took a bigger approach, noting that we learned priceless lessons. We are plain, simple people when it comes to decoration. The blood-rhubarb-milkshake would have worked with someone talented who had hours to rag and sponge the walls Just So, but that is not us. We should have stuck with the creamy Hint O’Color that we’d chosen originally and left it at that. And in the mean time, we chose a small, self-enclosed room to showcase our fubar. We didn’t pain the kitchen, none of the cats fainted from the fumes, and now, more or less, it’s over.

DS did recognize all the changes, and spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom cataloging what was new. That helped, but more to recognize that he was aware of the changes, something he wouldn’t have noticed a year ago. I’m glad for that, though I would have preferred to discover this by adding new pillows to the sofa, rather than drop $300 on paint that wound up covered, and then stripped off, in this heinous attempt at innovation.

I shuddered my way through my morning routine today, my eyes constantly darting to the orange smears and the color-spattered floor. We will have to repair the torn paint section—sometime. Right now, I have resolved only to bear it until I have the time and wherewithal to fix it. As I can’t bear the idea of being away from DS for even a day, it seems I’ll be dealing with my Tangerine Dream for quite a while. If it gets too serious, I can always relocate my shampoo to the basement and shower there. It’s cold and small and inconvenient, but at least everything matches, and there’s no paint on the floor.

A the L(onging for “Before”)

Every Little Thing

2007-12-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

Whoever said ‘it’s the little thing that matter’ got it all wrong. The little things are all that matter.

Take for instance, my house. The first time I tried to buy a house was January, 1987. I saw a house I liked and I called the realtor. The house was about five times what I could afford on my paltry entry-level salary, so I thanked the realtor and forgot it, but the fuse was lit. I wanted a home of my own.

Flash forward through two dozen moves, a slew of jobs, 13 cats and a decade as an independent consultant. I continued to yearn for a house, continued to search, and continued to fail. By the time 2005 opened, I had put offers down on 11 properties: 2 in Cleveland, 9 in St. Louis, and 1 in Chicago. I had succeeded in buying 3 of them, had held them for an average of 16 months and had made $2,200 in TOTAL profits from the combined sales. Each time I growled my way through a closing or yet another foiled sales contract, I would resolve never, ever to do it again.

But every spring I would emerge like a crocus, poking my head out, looking around the neighborhood and combing the open houses, hoping that this might be the year I could commit.

At last I found a house I liked. It had everything I required and was in my price range. I got a mortgage broker with a brain, I grit my teeth through Loan Commitment, and I signed the papers one day short of my 41st birthday. In total, I'd spent 19 years and 2 months looking for a house. Longer than most people take, admittedly, but then again, it took me 23 years to find my husband, so perhaps this is not so surprising.

I’ve lived here for almost 2 years, and while I’m very happy, it’s becoming obvious that the house is what my old friend “Cuba” used to call ‘una vieja con colorente’: an old woman with lots of make-up. There are pretty stencil patterns on the walls and all the doorways are trimmed in natural walnut. I have 2 huge bay/bow windows and a 3-tier deck, and all the trees in the yard are ‘mature’. But the trim is starting to separate from the walls, most of the appliances are hobbling around on walkers, just waiting for their turn to keel over, and the roof tiles are curling up. This last part means that 9 years into a 20-year roof, I’m going to have to replace it, along with the gutters and probably the windows, since the storms don’t drop all the way in and none of the screens stay in place during the summer months. I live in fear that one of the cats is going to lean on a screen and wind up in the compost bin.

On top of this, I’m in a constant frenzy because I can’t keep the house clean. Somehow, no matter how many ‘attractive storage bins’ I buy from Lowe’s, the place is always cluttered. I keep blaming it on Howard, but the truth is, there’s no basement, and so no real storage space. Well, there is a huge crawl space off the lower level, but I refuse to use it. I just hate the idea of a room full of boxed up ‘storage’ that’s never accessed, never used, and somehow, never makes it out to the curb. In an effort to prevent such a disaster, and since we don’t really have this option anyway, I’m forcing myself to ditch anything that is not in use Every Single Day. We’ve cleared out the big rooms and taken about 20 boxes worth of items to the shelters for donation, and still, there is crap everywhere. Clearly, we are going to have to move.

I’d been thinking for the last several months that we needed a bigger house, and now at last I had my proof. I spent weeks burning through spreadsheets, trying to work the budget on how we could afford a house twice the price of ours, which is roughly what it would cost to get a house just a little bit bigger and just a little bit newer.

I worked the numbers, factoring in how we could still pay for speech therapy, occupational therapy, nanny salaries, college tuition, and of course, the entire collection of V-Smile video games. I abandoned the idea when I remembered that the only way we could do it is to get a big bargain in this crappy market, which, of course, means that I would probably lose money on the house I own. So I deleted the spreadsheet and went upstairs with broom and box in hand, looking for anything I could throw away. I tossed all I could, and there was still crap everywhere. Defeated, I returned to the spreadsheets.

Today, at the grocery store, while freaking out over the bill and adding it to the list of expenses that I’d forgotten to include on the New House Extravaganza, I picked up a decorating magazine. I’m not one for magazines at all, and having a 5-year old has given me the ability to induce Temporary Blindness at the checkout counter (where all the candy is housed). But today, I spotted a For the Home magazine that was neither “Frou-Frou Weekly” nor “The Contractor’s Crack: All Things Seen From a Squatting Position”. It was just a sensible magazine with 2 blurbs on the cover: “Open Your Cramped Spaces" and “Clear Your House of Clutter—Now!” Into the cart it went.

I read through a bit of it this afternoon between throwing out all of DS’s toys and threatening to move Howard’s office to the deck if he didn’t clean out his side of the closet. I was ogling pictures of all the teeny spaces made gargantuan, and starting to believe that the house needed a complete furniture makeover, when I spotted a Sofa On Jaunty Angle photo. It occurred to me that we could get better use out of the family room if we did something similar.

During the next 2 hours, we (and by ‘we’, I mean Howard) lugged the bistro table up from the crawl space, only to lug it back down again, moved the breakfast table in and out of the kitchen and then in and out of the family room, and then jerked the couch across the carpet, tripping over the video game wires all the while because DS refused to stop playing, even after we’d taken away the couch, then the ottoman, and then angled the television so he couldn’t see the screen.

It was awful, but when I sat on the couch in its new place, I knew we’d done the right thing. It’s as if we’ve moved to a new house with a beautiful, spacious, open floor plan. The kitchen clutter has reduced dramatically. The family room borders on the expansive, AND I can see the library, the living room, both staircases and both yards from my spot on the couch. It is AWESOME, and it only took moving the couch about 8 feet and 90 degrees. One little thing, and suddenly I’m in a brand new place. I’m like Dorothy right now, tapping my slipper socks together and murmuring, ‘there’s no place like home’. Indeed there isn’t.

I don’t know whether this is a renewal of my vows to the house or a new perspective on what’s always been here or maybe just a lesson that it’s ok to pick up a magazine every now and then. It doesn’t matter; I changed one teeny thing and now my whole world has opened up.

The ending is a good one, but the moral is biting. I wasted a lot of time picking through the numbers, mulling the feasibility of a bigger house when I didn’t want to move, and we probably shouldn’t consider it anyway. That happens to me a lot. I spend a lot of time worrying about stupid crap, blowing something out to the rafters, rather than taking my time and looking for a simple (or simpler) solution. I did all that number crunching, all that worrying, and as it turns out, all I needed to do was relocate the couch. I’m focused on the wrong things and worried about the Big Stuff when I should be watching (not worrying!) the little things around me.

In my defense, it did seem an obvious place to put the couch. The previous owners had their couch in the same spot, and it kept everyone from falling off the little step from the kitchen into the family room. Now that we’ve moved it though, the “real” obvious news is that it was completely in the way before. I took someone else’s truth and accepted it as my own. Big mistake. Big. What else am I missing?

Rather than worry about whether the house is big enough, or whether I’m getting ahead at work quickly enough, or what appliances I'll have to replace next, I need to focus on what’s is in front of me. I need to see things, really see them, and then use my brain for something other than coming up with a Disaster Recovery plan for Every Worst Case Scenario Happening Simultaneously. If I can just do that little thing, I think my life would be a whole lot different.

I’m not going to worry about next year, or Out There or Forever anymore. Those things will be taken care of Right Now, and in the million Right Now Moments that follow.

See? I did have a point. It was right there in front of me all the time.
A the M(icro Manager)

PS-Just as an aside regarding: the appliances, we had to replace the dishwasher and the hot water heater this week. I always knew that I appreciated hot water, but I didn’t know how much until I tried to take a cold water shower on Saturday night. Did you know that cold water actually pierces the scalp and causes bleeding-like sensations for hours after the impact stops? That was really something.

Also, the garbage disposal is on its last leg, as is the refrigerator, and all the countertops need replaced. But man, does it look great in here since we moved the couch. :)

I'm Still Standing

2007-12-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

And sleeping, and eating, though not very much these days. Mostly I'm just sitting and stewing.

I'm elbows deep in a final paper that defies all manner of stupidity, redundancy and "learning", even by Tier 2 graduate school standards. I'm stressed, and I'm confused, and I'm trying to remember why I thought it was a good idea to continue my formal education.

Nonetheless, I will not allow this Stereotype Of All Things Bad Professor to wreck my 4.0 GPA, nor will I let a paper undo my resolve. Never mind that "paper" in this sense is far more about formatting and APA guidelines than it is about content (MUST resist the urge to repeat remark about redundant, meaningless education). Never mind that I'm at last excited about Christmas for the first time since I was ten years old, and I can't really do anything about it until this Mammoth Document About Nothing is completed. Let's not even get into what's happened the last 2 weeks re: my emotional (lack of) maturity, my discovery about what kind of Fat Girl I am (it's good news), or the amazing things that are happening at work.

They're all coming, and I'm suffering because I can't write about them. But as soon as the Asinine Paper is written, I have 3 weeks before I begin "Principles of Financial Accounting", plenty of time to clean out the dandruff from my house and do the 8 bazillion errands that must be done prior to December 17 deadline. Again, no time to get into why I chose such an arbitrary and near-t0-impossible date. I'll clean, I'll clear, and I'll write, because man, I need to.

I'll even tell you about Professor Tenure, once I'm able to do it in a way that uses more English than expletives. That could take a while. This was really an exercise in All Things Stupid.

Speaking of stupid, I have to get back to it. Just wanted to let you know that I'm thinking of you, and I'm thinking of writing, and I'm missing both, but should be back some time later this week. My deadline for the final paper is Wednesday evening, so after a day of soaking my head and showering off the inanity, I should be able to compose a post or two.

See you then. Remember to put 2 nice things for yourself on your To-Do List. No fair scratching them off in the interest of time. As Maria the Spectacular mused yesterday morning: There is no time to do anything you want to do. You must make the time.

Make the time.

A the M(aking the Time, but not for another Week)

Embellishing the Truth

2007-11-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here’s the thing: my mind sees a shape other than the one in the mirror.

Last I checked, my eyes were in my head, adjacent to my brain. The information about my size has to travel only a few inches, and yet, apparently, there is a FAT blockade that distorts the data as it moves from my optic nerve to my cerebrum.

I am of normal body weight. The BMI agrees, as does Weight Watchers, the American Heart Association, and the American Medical Association. Health Central lists me as underweight, but it’s based on my ‘small’ frame, which is determined by my ability to wrap my index finger around my wrist and have it overlap with my thumb.

None of this surprises me. I am aware that I no longer need to lose weight. I still have Fat Lady habits, but I hope to quell them, even as I acknowledge it will take as long to create a diamond than it will to refrain from swooning at a peanut butter Twix. But, apart from the monthly (okay, daily) cravings, I have no problem with that. What’s irritating me now is my insistence on buying only clothes that are the smallest size possible, even when they don't fit me.

For instance: I have been a size 6 in dress pants for months. Some cuts can only be described as Saggy Butt Britches, but for the most part, they are flattering to my figure. I can slip on a 6, zip and close them and wear them the same day without a stitch of alteration. I can do this even when the slacks have that nasty inside button whose sole purpose is to imprint itself into the Octopus. I can wear side zipper, low rise, flares, pin stripes, and the occasional wide-leg balloon pants that strike me as more Bozo Goes Corporate than true business casual. I am a size 6.

So why do I insist on spending hours combing through the TJMaxx Career section, yanking every size 4 into my cart and then forcing Howard to play chess on his Blackberry until his eyes cross, only to stomp, cursing, back to retrieve all the same pants in size 6, only to refuse to buy them, because they are a 'big' size? Because, dear friends, on occasion, and with certain labels, I can wear a size 4.

I have proof of this: a lone pair of size 4s that fit me like a 6. They don’t pull across the tummy, as do other, traitorous 4s. They don’t surf atop my ankles as many of the lesser 4s do, and they do not stitch their name into my hipbones or across my fanny. They simply fit. I can even wear them during PMS week. They are awesome and I love them.

I shudder to consider that these may be a small size 6 in disguise, or that perhaps the maker went too far to the right in sewing the legs to the waistband. I’ll never know, and so I do not consider that these are a fluke. My brain has decided that I can wear this size 4, and so, by deduction, I should be able to wear any size 4. When I shop, I try on only size 4s, and then, when none of them fit me, I leave the store in disgust. This has gone on so long that I am starting to run out of pants.

The same goes for sweaters. I can wear a Small, but I can’t wear every small. I have “solved” this problem by refusing to buy anything in a Medium. I wear my jeans much tighter than my dress pants (all hail the Mother Goddess, Lycra), and so sometimes the ultra-low rise forces the Octopus into the “cheap seats”, atop my waist band. I can’t really wear fitted sweaters, or anything that isn't an extra-long, because if I do, I'll have a spare tire stretching my sweater out of shape OR poking out from under the sweater's hem. This last problem is particularly troublesome, since not only is my tummy flabby and covex, but completely inappropriate to display at work. So I have a choice: buy size M sweaters or size 4 jeans. Guess which is going to happen?

If you chose ‘neither’, you are correct. In fact, my Too Tight To Breathe taste in denim has gone to the ridiculous place. Last night, encouraged by my Darling Husband, I bought a pair of size 25 jeans. Remember the Seven jeans that I bought a few months ago? Well, those were an American size 3, and a “waist” size 26. I have a pair of Lucky’s in 27, but frankly they aren’t going to last because they get saggy during the first wearing, and so I am constantly throwing them into the wash, and then drying them on the ‘volcanic’ setting, to shrink them. I have done this so often that now they are too short, and so I have to take them out of the dryer and stretch them by hand before putting them into the kiln. It’s too much work-better to get 26s and be done with it.

But no, I couldn’t be content to own a pair of jeans that fit like tights. I had to see if I could shrink down just a little bit more. I spent a full 10 minutes in the dressing room with the 25s, tugging, twisting and grunting in the handicapped stall (the only one big enough to lie down in), and I still could not get them closed. I was on Day 24 of my cycle and I did have 3 meals in me, but still, even my absurd jeans rule stipulates that you have to get them on in order to buy them. I snuck out to show Howard, who immediately started making grunting noises of his own, and so I scurried back, peeled them off of my legs and, after circulation had returned, joined Howard at the checkout line.

Here’s how tight they are-I got them on this morning, but the octopus had to be stuffed into my bra, and even after I’d worn them for a full hour, I had to lie down on the bed AGAIN to get them back on after my trip to the can. They are too small, and they are too tight, and it’s a wonder I don’t walk like Frankenstein when I wear them. But I’m keeping them. At least until after my period when a true judgment can be made.

It’s risky for me to own something that I could outgrow by picking up just one pound, or that I can’t honestly wear for 10 days out of the month. It’s risky, because if there is even one item in my closet that is too small, I may collapse. Yet I’m considering keeping the jeans because they are a size 25. Never mind that they make horizontal tracks all down my legs from the creases, or that I have “NEVES” tattooed on both hipbones from the decorative pocket divots.

This is really stupid. There’s no shame in being a 6, or a Medium, or whatever the tag reads. The tag is immaterial-it is just a label, and it’s meaningless. I weighed 144.875 pounds on my wedding day, and my Size 12 dress fit me perfectly. I was okay with that. Admittedly, I had 7 months to get used to it, and I’m still talking about it, but I accepted it. Sort of.

Okay, maybe not. And that’s the problem. Why must I strive to wear smaller clothes? I’m not getting any smaller unless I spend all day at the gym and/or reduce my food intake to tomatoes and water. I could significantly slim my waist line if I considered The Surgery, but I cannot rationalize general anesthesia for a bikini-ready midriff.

I needed to shrink for so long that my brain still considers that the only clear sign of success. Now I need a new goal, one that reinforces my current state, and that dismisses the tags as little more than a randomly assigned number. It's time for me to grow...into myself.

I want to wear the most flattering clothes I can find, and it’s important that my lines travel smoothly, and don’t need extra gas to get up over Old Smokey. I can't do that as long as I'm sucking and tucking into the smallest numbers, or wearing sweaters so tight across my stomach that I have to hold my breath all day, just to keep from looking pregnant. This is the size I am, and the size I plan to stay. It's time to build my permanent wardrobe, with pieces that I can wear most of the year, and that will last forever.

Maybe that's the trick: buy something that lasts so long that the tag falls off, and when I go to replace it, I won’t look for the label, I’ll just check the fit. Yeah, okay. And after I go buy these ‘who cares what size they are’ pants, I’ll go to the food court and indulge in a Fat-Free Cinnabon. Nice try.

But any goal worth mocking is also worth trying. The blasting is over, the sculptor has put her knife down, and it's time to pick up the paint and the embellishments. This is my size, and I will find a way to embrace it. My first act will be to go out amidst all the Christmas Crazies and find myself a new pair of size 6 pants. Maybe I’ll go nuts and get a medium sweater, too. Don’t hold your breath, though. That is, unless you’re buying jeans that fit like mine.

A the Y(ielding to the Floor)

Binge & Purge

2007-11-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

It’s time for me to come out of the closet.

Before everyone starts pitying Howard, I do not mean to announce a switch in my sexual orientation. I am a practical heterosexual, and so my marriage and my morals remain intact. No, this is about my years-long struggle against eating like a waif in public and a walrus behind closed doors.

I’ve danced around this topic for a while, but I think I’m ready to stop being polite and tell the raw truth about the history of my food addiction. I do this in hopes that sharing my secret will somehow help me to rid myself of its hooks in me. So here goes.

My need to fill my stomach has long focused on two things-eating as little of what was put in front of me, and sneaking around to supplement my diet with junk food. I grew up one of three children in a single-parent household. When I was 17, my mother was grossing $8,000 a year. We lived with my retired grandparents, the 3 children in the house’s unheated upstairs bedroom, and my mother slept on the uninsulated screened porch out back. I went to work as the school receptionist, just so we could have a phone in the house. All 3 of us children qualified for free lunch, and at one juncture, I qualified for free breakfast as well. If I hadn’t been utterly humiliated at being given that “privilege” I would have 2 of my 3 daily meals handed to me by the state.

I was always hungry. Not Ethiopia, starving-to-death hungry, but hungry all the same. There was never any extra food in the house. I got into trouble once because I put 2 packets of instant oatmeal into my breakfast bowl. My mother had budgeted for us each to have only 1, and there was no wiggle room. I probably knew this at some level, but I was hungry at school long before lunch, so I had attempted to stave off my stomach rumblings by eating more at breakfast. As that was not an option, I went looking for other ways to fill up between meals.

I got pretty creative. For example, I stayed in Girl Scouts for years, because there were snacks served at every meeting. Bad snacks, to be sure: potato chips or cookies and milk, but food is food, and the Girl Scouts met twice a month. Eating those after-school snacks helped me get through the afternoon and, sometimes, through dinner.

I loaned myself out as a babysitter at age 10, and routinely raided the household refrigerator after the kids went to bed. I say this without pride: I’ve since had those kinds of babysitters, and while I sympathize with them, it still irks me to go into my fridge for something that should be there, only to find that it’s gone, or that there’s that last sip left—you know, the one that’s useless, but keeps the bottle/can/container out of the trash.

The only vegetables we could afford came in cans. They were cooked in a rolling boil until the last remnants of taste disappeared into the range hood. Hot dogs, hamburgers and baloney sandwiches (our standard dinner meals) were served on white bread with mayonnaise as the only condiment. I hated most of it, and, unless forced, would not eat it. To this day, I cannot stomach even the smell of real mayo.

I probably wasted a year of my life sitting at the dinner table after everyone else had gone, desperately trying to choke down inedible (to me), and now cold food. I wasted another year in my room or in punishment for throwing out the food when I thought no one was looking.

I earned a decent allowance and was a regular babysitter at several homes in my neighborhood, but I never had any extra cash. The whole of my weekly allowance went to dime-store candy, the best value for my quarters at the time. I wasn’t allowed to have non-parent-bought food in the house, and so whatever I purchased had to be consumed in secret, before I got home.

In college, where every meal was a buffet, I ate as little as I could manage (dining commons food is also inedible), and then spent evenings in my room, unwrapping candy bars or aluminum tins of cheap breakfast rolls--whatever I could find that was cheap and filling. I wolfed them down, eating as fast as I could manage, so I could wipe my mouth off and stash the evidence if someone came to the door.

I worked off-campus for 3 years during college. I would eat a sparing lunch in the campus commons, take the bus downtown, find something in my company’s building drug store and eat it (alone) in the elevator going up to the office. If there was someone in the elevator with me, I would take it to the ladies room and hide in a stall, taking care to flush the wrapper down the toilet. Always destroy the evidence. Never let them see chocolate on your fingers or foil in your hands. On the way home, I’d do the same thing.

I found 5 or 6 different places where I could indulge my habit, and I rotated where I went to buy things, so the clerks wouldn’t take too much notice of how much I took out with me. I ate what I could at the bus stop, or if there were others around me, I’d sneak it in bites on the bus, or cram it all into my mouth on the walk back to the dorm. Once back on campus, I’d go to dinner, again eating very little, but sneaking out with a napkin full of cookies to eat in my dorm room before Howard came over for the evening. If I went back to the dorm alone, sometimes the cookies (6 or 8, on average) wouldn't even make it to my room.

It became easier as an adult, and as I’ve always had a job that paid me enough to have food in the refrigerator. But by then it didn’t matter-the habit had formed. I dusted my stove more than I scrubbed it, and I once lived in an apartment for 2 years and never once turned on the oven. I ate at the couch, hunched down below the windows, or in the bathroom with the door closed. I lived alone, but I would not eat anywhere I could be spotted. I stuffed the wrappers inside milk cartons or their carry-home plastic bags so the trash men wouldn’t see what was in my garbage.

Last year, before Howard came back, I was involved with someone who fancied himself a cook. He was wrong, but compared to me, he at least made food that was hot and unpackaged. We were both trying to lose weight, so he modified recipes to suit our lower-calorie desires, and tried to serve some sort of steamed vegetable every night. In truth, even though we barely did anything worthy of weight loss, he started losing. I did not. Not only was I still eating too much, but I was eating all day long. As soon as he left for the day, I would dash from my office in the basement and raid the pantry. I would barely get back downstairs before I’d consumed whatever I’d grabbed, and so back up the stairs I went, this time taking a larger portion so I could do a little work between “meals”.

By the time my boyfriend arrived to cook dinner, I was reeling from the sugar high and really, too full to eat anything. Yet I sat down to dinner every night, unwilling to admit I was stuffed from binging all day. I ate bits of what he’d cooked, and then made up an excuse to go out on an errand at night so I could feed the habit before bedtime.

Writing it now, it's obvious how crazy my behavior was. Eating on the sly became a habit so ingrained in me, and so steeped in guilt and shame that I couldn’t share it with anyone, and so I couldn’t break it. If you substituted "heroin" or "alcohol" for food here, it's easy to see what level of addict I had become.

Weight Watchers talks about how their program works because they endeavor to change people’s habits. Rather than flood members with pre-packaged meals that won’t teach you anything other than how to spend money for processed food, Weight Watchers sets you loose in your own neighborhood with psychological counseling, group therapy and weekly “confessions” at the scales. Sixteen months of this and my habits have changed. I eat salads for lunch instead of ArbyQs. I have jello for dessert instead of half of a pecan pie (the other half was for dinner). I walk more, I drink more water, and I know how to choose the right foods. My habits have changed.

But I have not. The Sneaky Snacker still lives in me. I am still that person, and Halloween is a testament to that.

There’s a leader who substitutes on occasion at my regular meeting. She talks about how she always gets a Mrs. Field’s cookie when she goes to the mall. She takes great pains to make sure the cookie isn’t eaten at the mall, or in the car on the way home, but in her home, out in plain site. “I eat my cookie in the daylight, and with dignity,” she stated. “I only do it once in a while, and I enjoy it, every time. I have earned it, and I deserve it.”

I fear that if I “allow” myself an occasional indulgence that eventually it’ll be an everyday thing, and then an all the time thing, and then all my size 3 clothes will go to the women’s shelter while my closet fills up with bigger sizes…and stashed treats. I have no ability to monitor or to moderate myself. For me, it's all or nothing. I am a nerve cell when it comes to food. I eat it all, or I have none. There is no middle place.

I persevere and I have hope. I’ve come all this way, and really, this is the first mishap in months. I can’t plan for these things; I’d self-destruct. But maybe I can just know this about myself and do what needs done to fix it after it’s happened. And maybe, some day years from now, I won’t have to worry about it at all.

Wish me luck.

A the P(romise to be Funny in the Next Post)

Hallo Weenie

2007-11-11T19:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I think I’m sufficiently past Halloween now that I can talk about it.

I think that the great Pagan New Year is just going to be my red-light holiday. I can skate past Thanksgiving, breeze through Christmas and sleep through New Year’s Eve. I ate more buttercream icing at my wedding than I have in the last decade, so birthdays pose no threat to me. Today when Howard stopped to check in with some Ben & Jerry’s sorbet, I looked on, unfazed. Weight Watchers and my devoted husband have pulled me along, so that now when I say I’m disciplined, I mean that I’m disciplined in how I eat, rather than by what I eat. Every day is regimented, satisfying, and healthy. Every day is a treat to be in my 145.50 pound, size 3 frame. I love who I am, and I love who I have become.

Except on Halloween.

Last year, I had a total meltdown at work. The CEO announced that kids would be trick-or-treating in the building, and so I bought 2 bags of snack-sized candy and put them out at my desk. Tragedy ensued. I still can’t believe that I lost weight that week, though considering how little real food I was ingesting, perhaps it’s not so incredible.

I rallied immediately, and managed to keep from pilfering DS’s candy stash, despite the fact that my old favorite, a Reese’s cup came home in his plastic trick-or-treating pumpkin. I put the pumpking out in the garage, and eventually forgot about it. When I went to retrieve his pumpkin this year, there sat the Reese’s, fused to a bag of Skittles and a trio of melted tootsie rolls. Summer in the garage had been unkind to this crowd, and I had to soak the bucket overnight to get them unstuck from the bottom.

I thought I was ready for Halloween this year. I’m a totally different person than I was last October, I rationalized. Back then, I was just 3 months into my diet. Right now, I’m 5 months into maintenance, and I’m so in tune with my body that I know exactly how to regulate my weight, right down to the amount of sticky rice I eat on sushi nights. I still get the Chocolate Heebies at PMS time, but they’re more annoyance than temptation, and anyway, my clothes all fit so tightly, even a 3 pound misstep would mean I’d be going to work in pajamas (which I do not own). So, motivations abound to keep myself in check, including the happiness and pride I feel at keeping myself down here in the 140s.

I opted to work remotely this Halloween, staying away from the cluster bombs of candy bowls that popped up like tulips all over the place. I would go home, lock myself in the house and stay there until DS returned with Lynda from his own jaunt around the neighborhood. My Amazing Boss, ever understanding and sympathetic, approved my request with good wishes.

Halloween came on a Wednesday this year. On Monday of that same week, a package arrived for me-some small gift from a vendor. I opened the package, ever wary of anthrax and letter bombs, and found instead a sealed glass jar of Hershey’s miniatures. I’d never before so hoped that the box had exploded instead. I stood up to hand it over to the Aussie triathlete downstairs who keeps a satchel of loot slung off the corner of her cube, when I saw a gleaming golden wrapper near the top. Reese’s miniatures. Suddenly, my brain flooded with all form of meeting rationale-you can’t deprive yourself, it’s better to have one than to binge later. There’s 35 points every week that you haven’t used in 18 months…and blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse, until I decided that I was strong enough to handle it. I opened the jar, retrieved the nugget and had my little piece of heaven.

Well, woe to the atheist who considers it a good idea to eat the christian afterlife. My brain went completely into overdrive, and before I knew it, there were 4 unaccounted for wrappers in my trash. I marched the rest to the kitchen, dumped out the contents on the counter and went back to my desk and sat motionless until the insulin rush passed. I had a little Come To Leader meeting right there at my desk. Ok, then. I cannot be a ‘one-bite good, two-bite better stop’ Weight Watcher. I know this, and while I’m sorry that I experimented, it was probaby good for me to remind myself that I’m not strong enough to be around things that still attract me. I’ve build hedges of greens and fruits and lean turkey breast for a reason-they insulate me, and my spiking blood sugar, from myself.

So misstep has now come and gone, and I’m ready to announce that Halloween for me means a costume and some fun pictures for Grandma and Grandpa Florida, but nothing else. No 2-point turtle pie , no pumpkin fluff, none of this “I can have just a taste” reasoning, and no more thinking I’m far enough away from the Fat Lady to look back. I’d still turn into a chocolate bunny, apparently, and then I’ll eat my own ears just because they’re right in front of my face.

Wednesday arrived, and I showed up at work in full armor, loaded with a steely determination to eat nothing other than what I’d brought to work. I made it until 12:30, whereupon I packed up my laptop and raced home. I didn’t dare stop at the grocery store for much-needed milk. Candy goes on sale at Halloween, and it’s everywhere-at the register, beside the bread and tucked in behind the tampons. Actually, this last one is brilliant, but I was in no mood to appreciate genius marketing. I had to retreat.

Once home, I had my lunch, I made a pot of coffee, and I went downstairs to work. Unencumbered by interruptions and assaults on my vulnerable nose, I pounded out 3 days worth of assignments in about 4 hours. Around 5:00 I got up to refill my coffee mug and happened to look out the living room window as I passed through. A woman walked by, pushing a stroller and escorting two costumed children. Oh no! Halloween had come to Wheaton!

It was dusky already, and there were no lights on in the front of my house so it would be easy to pretend I wasn’t home. But I’m a momma now, and I wouldn’t want some cheap old lady to play possum at her place, just so DS couldn’t get his treat. So off I went. I drove to Jewel, bought the minimum amount of candy I thought I’d need for the 2 hours of trick or treating, and went home, determined not to open a single bag until the doorbell rang.

I made it home just in time to see the first clan leave my neighbor’s house and head across the lawn to my front door. I barely had time to yank the bag open before they rapped at my door. I dumped a stuffed handful into each bedsheet, made polite chatter with the moms while the kids ooo’d at their good luck and waved good-bye as they skipped off down the road.

I emptied the remaining candy into a big silver bowl and then dashed back to my office. I’d just stay downstairs, coming up only when someone arrived at the door. I’d stuff their bags as full as I could manage while holding the door open, and then I’d head back to my office, pretending there was Nothing To See in the living room.

Well, that lasted until I sent off a group of kids and could see the next group heading up the walk to my neighbor’s. I knew I wouldn’t have time to get downstairs, and it wouldn’t be practical. It was 5:45 by now, and I’d stopped working for the day. I stood by the door, my eyes glued to the children. I can do it, I can make it, I am stronger than those little chocolate squares.

I made it, but I’m shaken by the experience, and I admit that more than a few of the trick-or-treats wrappers wound up in my own trash can. It was nothing like last year, but it was more than I wanted (which was zero), and more than I needed (also zero). I just can’t trust myself to be around candy when I’m alone, especially on a holiday that’s all about forbidden indulgences.

On a happy note, I did discover this week that I can still eat pumpkin butter. It’s very sweet and it gets my sugar tooth going, but there's no fat in it, and just half a teaspoon in a dessert cup of fat free cool whip has me sighing in pleasure all evening. It’s enough for me, I really like it, and here’s the kicker: I can eat it in front of anyone and not feel guilt or shame. Maybe that’s my litmus test and my challenge. If I think I want something like this, I must eat it in front of someone. That ought to cure me of any more Halloween slip-ups.

But just in case I’m wrong, next year I’m going to take Howard’s advice and spend the afternoon at the library. Maybe I’ll put a Skinner Box on the porch, so each child can come to the house, pull a lever and get their goodies without me as the handout. I don’t mind the double standard, really; each person has to decide for themselves whether to buy and/or eat candy. And I’m not going to become one of those Moms who hands out apples or dental floss or play-doh. DS doesn’t need that kind of reputation, and anyway, that’s not how the U.S. celebrates this ‘holiday’. But I can’t be an active participant—I’m not ready. Perhaps I never will be. I hate that I had to fall off the wagon, AGAIN, to find out. But at least now I know for sure.

A the S(till in Rehab)

A Chicago Yankee in Queen Elizabeth's Court

2007-10-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

So anyway, as I was saying about Canada…

Canada is the 2^nd largest country in the world, and is also one of the more sparsely populated. At 30 million (roughly the population of the ten or fifteen largest cities in the US), there’s lots of room to spread out. Admittedly, much of it is uninhabitable unless you are born with seal skin, but even so, the cities I’ve visited have been obvious cosmopolitan centers (centres!), but in a way much different from their U.S. counterparts.

However, it’s not all sunshine in the Land Up North. In fact, per my last post (below), in some instances, it’s barely sunshine, or at least rarely. Anyway, I’ve put together List 2: Other Things To Know About Vancouver, for when our friends and loved ones cross the border and visit us in the Land of Rain.

The Traffic

Vancouver doesn’t have the gridlock that chokes Chicago, but it’s still the 3^rd largest city in Canada, and so there’s traffic everywhere. Cars are smaller, and there are more cars than vans or SUVs, but they have the right of way in all situations. This includes people. Stay on the sidewalks until the little white man says it’s ok to cross. I mean this. Unless you are already more than halfway across the road when the ‘don’t walk’ sign comes on, stay put. Pedestrians are optional here. If you’re stuck in the middle of a boulevard, deal with it. It’s better to get wet than to get flattened.

Don’t ever assume that it’s safe to cross the street, even on a red light. Vancouver, like Toronto and Ottawa is a walking city, meaning it’s easier to get around on foot or via bicycle than it is in a car. This is obvious, and it puts a crankiness in Canadian drivers that appears when they turn the ignition and vanishes as soon as they exit the car.Always look both ways, a couple of times, before leaving the curb.

Once in the street, keep your head moving in a constant left-right-left-right motion until you’re back on the sidewalk. Be prepared to stop or sprint as needed. Don’t expect to get any love from the public transportation, either. Buses lurch through the streets like dragons on Red Bull. Stay clear. These are awesome, low-key folks, but man, nobody likes being on the roads. It is always best just to let them pass.

NEVER JAYWALK! I have yet to see a local do it, and the few bicyclist who have attempted it have gashes in their gear to show how unwise this idea is. There is plenty of time to get to your destination. Find an intersection and wait your turn.

The rule above has one exception-the pedestrian crosswalk. Move with confidence in these spaces. They’re traffic oases, and cars will stop for you, no matter their speed as they approach. Don’t dawdle and don’t stray from the white lines, but otherwise, go ahead and cross without a light in these spaces. They’re rare, but they exist, and they are respected.

Food & Drink

Learn to love sushi. You’ll starve to death otherwise. We love sushi, and had planned to eat every beyond-the-condo meal at a different sushi restaurant. We did that, and I’m glad. But I admit that if we hadn’t been raw fish maniacs, it would have been much tougher to stay on our WW program. The Vancouver magazine noted that sushi restaurants are as plentiful as sea urchins in a kelp bed. This is accurate, and also something of an inside joke to uni eaters. Learn the joke. Get used to real wasabi. Grow to love sticky rice.

Get comfy with eating in restaurants you’ve never heard of. Chains don’t exist in Vancouver the way they do in the U.S. I saw 1 Burger King, 3 McDonalds, and a Denny’s, though I think that was shut down. Most eateries are café style, boutique type foods, and while that’s interesting, they’re still about the ‘shovel food in ‘em and get ‘em out so we can turn the tables’ variety. Thai, Russian, Vietnamese (lots of Pho here), French, and tapas are available, but everything is golden brown and swimming in le fries Francais. Maybe there’s a reason that Vancouver walks everywhere-it’s required in order to stay thin. And, speaking of thin…

Prepare to feel fat. Vancouverites of all varieties (indigenous, citizens, foreign nationals and students taking up the good stools at the coffee shops) are skinny. Not terrifyingly so, but thin enough that overweight people stand out. Canada is like the U.S. was in the 1970s, before obesity hit epidemic proportions. Everyone was more or less normal body weight, everyone was more or less active, and it was pretty tough to find accommodations for the obese.

Canadians don’t appear to discriminate, but there are so few heavy people that there isn't room for them, as it were. I would have felt like a whale in that city if I had gone before I started losing weight. Heck, I would have felt that way anytime before about 10 pounds ago. The whole country is taut, thin, and euro-looking. I adore them for it, but I recognize also that it’s only because I kind of look like that now. It would have been another thought entirely if I'd needed a plus-sized anything.

Become a hunter/gatherer of hot items. This is surprisingly difficult, considering how cold rain is (again, see post below). I was constantly looking for something steaming. Even the green tea at the sushi places, normally too hot to hold the cup, was alarmingly tepid. And by the way, leave your coat on when you go into any place. These people are so outdoorsy that they leave doors and windows open regardless of weather. I nearly froze to death in Yale Town, because despite the 45 degree temperature and the torrential downpour, the waitress kept propping the door open. Even when the customers would close it (or attempt to close it a little) as they left, she would skip right over, haul the thing wide open and kick the stopper in place. The restaurant was not hot (it wasn’t even warm, as evidenced by the shivering clientele), everything was wet from the rain, and the last time I checked, most sushi is served cold. Yet, there she was, and the few of us who remained mostly shrugged it off as a local custom we didn’t understand, held our chopsticks in quaking fingers and finished up as quickly as we could. If we’re going to freeze, we might as well be moving. That way, we have a better chance of raising our core body temperature and keeping warm(ish).

Architecture

Not only is Vancouver the City of Glass, it is also the City of Balconies. Every high rise holds its own set of “get outside” patios that pepper the buildings like shingles. Maybe it’s that the weather is balcony-friendly so infrequently that residents can't risk waiting to ride the elevator down to the lobby before they're out in it. The sunshine might not last that long. So, no matter the size, style or fitting of the building, they all have balconies. Even the Westin Hotel had balconies. I find that fascinating, considering that the windows would not open. So, it’s unsafe to let some fresh air in, but perfectly all right to lop yourself whole-body into the atmosphere. Sure. Ya-hey, right?

All hail the scaffolding, awnings and general protrusions on the sidewalks. All storefronts have some form of umbrella-like structure in front of their display windows. Makes sense. If I risk a soaking by stopping to view the snow boot collection, I’m moving on. BUT if I get a little boost for my umbrella, I might just take a moment, browse the selection and step inside, letting my ‘brolly’ rest in the stand for a minute.

And speaking of that, Vancouver appears to be exempt from window steaming. It seems to defy physics that it’s so wet and rainy outdoors and so dry inside, and yet I never saw a single fogged up window. It must be akin to the roads in St. Louis, MO, that have some substance that keeps them from melting in the heat (but, by the way, makes them wildly slippery to drive on in the rain). I never felt at risk of losing my footing, despite the rain and the hilly terrain. So, the sidewalks are ski-proof and the windows are fog-free. Oh wait; maybe it’s because they keep the doors open.

Final musings

Pee before you leave the country. If you heed only one piece of advice, make it this one. Public restrooms (called washrooms) are completely absent. Even in places where you’d think they’d be required, such as a food court, they don’t exist. Signs are everywhere, ‘no public washroom, sorry’. Even in the places they did exist, you had to buy a coffee, AND a pastry, leave your laptop and all your cash behind the counter, count to 10 in French and then backward in Mandarin, and pledge that you would not tell anyone in the U.S. that you were permitted to use the can. Maybe it’s a green-country, save the water thing, or maybe it’s just not done the way we do it here. But oh my, both Howard and I nearly succumbed to racing behind a dumpster more than once. It is painfully difficult to find somewhere to relieve yourself of recycled coffee. Emphasis on the painful part. Take a port-o-let with you, build up a steel bladder, or risk dehydration. There really is no other way.

Other than that, the place was perfect. I’m still wearing my Canadian-flag embroidered Vancouver Fleece everywhere, forsaking the beautiful leather jackets Howard bought me earlier in the year. I shunned sushi until today, worried that after having local fish for a whole week, eating the ‘imported’ variety would disappoint me so badly that I could only do sashimi out of the country. And, I’m working to get DS to a Walgreen’s, so that he can get his own passport, and then, come spring, when the winter is over and the rain has gone, we can travel through customs as a threesome.

A the E(xpatriate Hopeful)

Singin' In The Rain

2007-10-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

I am a roller coaster hound, and Cedar Point is my Motherland. Whenever I go, I eschew most of its offerings in favor of scream-ripping roller coasters. I’ve done other things at The Point-gambling, midway, shows and (now) a sprint through the gauntlet of Fried Stuff on Sticks. I even went to the beach once (Cedar Point is on the shores of Lake Erie). But since I barely make it there anymore, and I suspect that eventually my age will catch up with me, and I won’t be able to board the brain-battering rides, I spend the bulk of my time doing what I love--catapulting down clackety, man-made mountains, screaming and waving my hands in the air.

There is, however, one ride at Cedar Point that I avoid entirely. I think it’s called Water Canyon. In case you didn’t catch the hint of its theme in the array of pictures and wood-carved graphics stating, “You WILL get wet on this ride”, know that Water Canyon’s sole mission is to douse its riders until they are wringing wet and shivering. It’s tempting, to some, on searing hot days, but it has no appeal to me. I didn’t do the Wet T-shirt thing during Spring Break, and so I’m not about to put myself in a place where thousands of strangers can comment on the fact that I still wear plain white skivvies.

It’s interesting to me, then, that I would choose just such a Water Canyon for my honeymoon. Howard and I ticked through cities worldwide, our only real criteria being that we would go somewhere that neither of us had ever been. That proved tough with Howard’s 20-year travel career and my own smattering of ‘I Have To Get Away From You’ excursions peppering my past. In the end, we decided that we should head to Canada. I adore all things Canadian, as does Howard. Moreover, he has a bit of lingering Anglophilia going on from his years spent living in England. So, we turned our eyes north in search of a honeymoon destination. Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Montreal, and Quebec City proved too cold for our liking, and so we shifted west, to the great Pacific/Canadian Rockies beauty that is Vancouver, British Columbia. Someone once told me that Canada is the California of North America. If that’s so, then British Columbia is the California of Canada, and Vancouver is the California of B.C. What’s not to love about the left-most west coast in our hemisphere? Vancouver, here we come.

Not just Vancouver, mind you, but Vancouver in the Rainy Season. Vancouver on the lip of a 5-month drizzle/shower/windless hurricane that leaves the whole of the city looking as if it has just spent half a year on Water Canyon.

I did this on purpose-we want to move here someday, and I wanted to try it out when the weather was crummy. It’s easy to plant your mental roots in a town where the sun soaks your face and the cyclists smile as they zoom by. It’s quite another to commit to a metropolis when you can’t feel your feet and you’re wondering if perhaps snow isn’t all that bad.

I checked in with weather.com a few days before the wedding and noted that our entire vacation would be 50 degrees and rainy. Well, ‘a few showers’ on a couple of days, ‘rain’ on a couple more, and ‘wind with possible storms’ to round it out. That’s ok, I consoled myself. I’m on my honeymoon-I don’t need to be outside the whole time. I knew the weather would be like this. I wanted it that way. Howard wanted it that way. We are here to acquaint ourselves with the dark side of the Monsoon.

And so we did. We arrived to overcast skies, giggling at the “Please Queue” sign at the taxi stand and swooning over the courteous customs agent (seriously, he was really nice). We rode to our condo in ‘scattered showers’ and when we lifted the blinds in the living room and took in the floor-to-ceiling view of Grouse Mountain, Stanley Park, and the Vancouver Rowing Club, I noticed slanting water streaks on the windows. “Look, honey,” I told Howard, “it’s raining.” Howard looked out the window, we ‘oooh’d together as a seaplane descended toward the bay, and he smiled. “It’s not so bad. Let’s go out for some lunch.”

We headed toward Robson Street, and the rain trickled along, snapping into spontaneously-formed mini-puddles. I smiled as I watched the little water dance. How charming. The rain here has its own personality.

Well, yes, it does. But not in the way I imagined.

I thought I could handle the rain and that I wouldn’t need any special training or accoutrement to manage it. Oh, the hubris of the 4-season dweller. First of all, rain is wet. Yes, that’s obvious, but racing through a downpour on your way from the parking lot to the mall is entirely different from walking for miles in a steady, silver fall. Eventually, rain soaks through coats, hats, mittens, shoes, socks and skin until there is no reprieve until said skin goes numb and there is no more feeling to feel.

Second, rain is cold. Noting a ’50 degrees and rain’ on the weather channel says nothing of the fact that 50 degrees is the daily high, and that the rain may not allow it to get that warm, or if it does, that it won’t matter, because you’re so far removed from relief when the ‘high’ is reached that you wish it would go away. Fifty degrees just might thaw out your hands, and then they’ll freeze anew when the next shower begins. Which, it will, any minute.

I added something extra to my Going Out There clothing every day, and yet somehow, I was never quite warm enough. I lopped on a euro-looking hat and stretchy gloves on Day 1. That helped until they got wet, and as both were knit, mostly all they did was keep the water close to my flesh. On Day 2, I layered up, donning both of my colder-weather sweaters underneath my rain jacket. Again, it did help, but somehow the rain managed to jump up under my coat and seep through the hems of my sweaters, causing thigh-level coldness and wet. Moreover, on that day, we wound up on a main street where the puddles ran together to make rivulets, attacking my shoes completely and my jeans up to the shins.

On Day 3, I opted to discard all decorum and wore everything I brought, plus spent the day in search of Vancouver Fleece. Apparently, all the locals wear it. I knew this, but shrugged it off before I arrived. Why wear fleece in the rain? It’ll only get wet. Well, maybe regular fleece shrinks and soaks in the rain, but Vancouver Fleece is rain proof. Howard and I noticed at once that we were warmer and dryer. Howard acquired an oilskin duster as well, and he was so dry that he walked around without an umbrella. I really envy him.

If I were moving there immediately, I would invest in better clothes. Being there without a rubber wardrobe is akin to visiting downtown Chicago in January, wearing only a London Fog. Surprised we’re still contemplating a move? Don’t be. The Vancouverites, while not as effusive as I’d expected, are pleasant, friendly, polite, and urban in a Not-U.S. way. I love it. I hope Howard does too. I’ll love it more as soon as my waterproof trousseau is complete. As soon as I get up the nerve, I’m having a maple leaf tattooed on the lone dry spot on my body…wherever that is.

And so, for those contemplating a vacation up here, or for loved ones who wish to visit once we emigrate, I’ve composed this helpful list of things to know about urban downpours.

Bring enough money to buy waterproof everything. Spend the time to get things you really love. You’ll be wearing them a lot.

Carry your umbrella everywhere, even if it’s sunny. Trust me, it won’t last. Besides, it’s perfectly all right to carry an umbrella when it’s not raining. Likewise, it’s just fine if you want to open your umbrella and walk under it once the rain has stopped. In typical, ‘ya-hey, do what you like’, Canadian fashion, it’s also perfectly all right to carry your closed umbrella during a rain storm. I saw this more than once, and I am still in awe.

Don’t worry about having space to walk around in a sea of umbrellas on a crowded street. Folks are very generous with umbrella space, and that runs counter to how I expected it to be. I figured that umbrellas would be at a premium here, and everyone would jostle for “brolly space” and huddle under their own hoods. Not so. In fact, there are so many umbrellas that you could walk around downtown and stay reasonably dry, since there is no real space where an umbrella is not opened and in use. In typical ‘we all share’ west coast fashion, even the panhandlers stay dry. “Orphaned” umbrellas are left outside, opened so folks can see they are usable, and then, when someone happens by who needs one, they pick it up with a smiling nod and carry on.

Choose your umbrella with care. Size is not so important as function, and it will be with you a lot. And don’t worry about making an Umbrella Statement-they are not only practical here, they edge on the Medically Necessary. Think of them as a Canopy For Your Exposed Skin. But, go ahead and splurge on something fun. Black is the most popular color, but there are plenty of primaries, patterns and silliness in the nylon to make the sidewalks interesting during showers (which is always). Women don camouflage umbrellas, men hold pastels, and even share those pastels with other men (and even do so when both are heterosexual. Color matters not, but good sense does.)

If approaching someone on the sidewalk who is walking under an umbrella, as you are (this will happen so often you won’t notice it), tilt your umbrella slightly to the outside. Your partner will do the same, thus covering you both slightly and preventing an umbrella collision and risking a tear in either’s fabric. While it’s fine to carry a destroyed umbrella (I saw one that was little more than a bike wheel covered with a lonely, sad dishcloth), it’s always better to take special care of your rain guard. Respect your neighbor’s umbrella, too. You never know when you might have to share it.

Avoid puddles. This is harder than it sounds and seriously important. It’s hard to say when you’ll next be somewhere warm and dry enough to de-shoe, and so you’re stuck with a little bit of rain forest against your feet until further notice. It really is worth walking on the curb or sidling perpendicular to the foot traffic, if it means your feet stay out of the off-road lakes.

Become addicted to coffee. There are 2 chains here-Starbucks and Blenz (the Canadian Starbucks equivalent, but nicer, neater, and cheaper). The neighborhoods also have local haunts, most with wireless access and an array of fun, local food (such as the rhubarb muffin and peanut butter/chocolate chip cookie I saw yesterday in SoMa). Coffee shops are warm, dry, and serve hot things. There’s little else that needs explaining. Plus, they have the largest umbrella stands and that’s important. It’s rude to drag your soaking umbrella into any establishment, and so every place has a stand. Leave your umbrella there, taking care to shake out the excess rain (outside!), and then fold it up and put it down. It’ll still be there when you leave. Everyone has their own.

Next up: Traffic and Food/Drink, followed by Ode to Mooseland or some other such Canada-phile post. I have lots & lots to say about this Land of Water.

Oh, and P.S.-all that pre-wedding weight loss disappeared. Despite walking my feet off and eating only egg whites and sushi, I am sitting at 149 pounds. Very annoying. Clearly, the U.S. makes me fat.

A the O (Canada)

Goin' To The Chapel

2007-10-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

So, let’s talk about the wedding.

It took nearly 9 months of planning and 24 years of wishing, but it happened at long last. On October 13, I married Howard Rosen, the man of my dreams. In the course of myriad decisions surrounding said Event, he became my husband, my partner, my very best friend, my (other) maid of honor, and my son’s Daddy. Excuse me, our son’s Daddy.

In the midst of making all my dreams come true, I managed to dip down to a svelte 144.875 on Saturday morning. I haven’t seen 144 since the 1970s, and wow, that was cool.

I don’t expect the weight loss to last. I was running around like a madwoman all week, shunning my usual shy ways and smiling and talking more than I usually do, which apparently burns all kinds of calories. I was also picking at my food, rather than eating it, so my guess is that the 2 pound loss is a wedding present to myself, and now I will have to spend the rest of my life knowing that I weigh more “now” than I did On My Wedding Day.

Of course it meant that my gown, which was sewn to my body 3 weeks before was now sliding down off my sad little shrunken rack, and so I spent the evening hitching it up in a most unladylike fashion. I also discovered during the cocktail hour that I was stepping on my dress whenever I moved, and so I had to hold my breath during the whole of my first dance with Howard. That was interesting, but surprisingly very easy, since I was so nervous, I wasn’t breathing anyway. Sometimes I can be very lucky.

The evening had its moments, and while most of it was spectacular, a few things need to be showcased. One guest intimated that I should consider a Jugs “refill”, since I’d lost so much of my décolleté in the slide down the scales. Another hinted that I should consider an Octopus-ectomy, so I could show off my new body, rather than having to shroud my Mommy Tummy with beads or low-slung jeans. She actually thought I chose my gown in order to camouflage my midsection. It saddens me that some people are so unhappy with themselves that they would assume I’d be just as self-critical, and would welcome their ‘friendly’ advice.

These teeny pieces aside, the evening was a delight. The men all looked dapper, the women beautiful, and despite a little Chuppah Hiccup at 5pm, the room glowed with color and light. My heart thumped so hard as I waited for my turn in the processional that the silver beads on my gown jumped with every breath. I was sure I would faint from anticipation, and then, when I turned the corner and stood at the entrance to the Great Hall, joy and elation overwhelmed me. I saw Howard at the front, and while I sensed the people around me, my eyes focused forward and my mind shrank to Right Now. Forty weeks of plans, problems, decisions, and splitting endless hairs and bills with Howard, and it all melted away in that moment. Here I was, at the top of the aisle, and at the end was the destination I’d yearned for the whole of my adult life.

My darling boy sat with Lynda the Nanny-Goddess and her amazing husband, Karl. DS smiled and was quiet throughout the whole of the ceremony. I know this only from talking to Lynda, since I didn’t see him. I was looking for him in the front row and worried that he’d want to jump up and get married, too. He stood with us during the rehearsal and even walked with me during one of the practice processional runs.

I feared it was a mistake to include him in the dry run, but I couldn’t stop myself. Howard and I had talked to him about getting married for months, and whenever we brought it up, he’d always say, “I want to get married, too.” So it seemed mean not to include him in the rehearsal. Even so, including a 5-year old in something and then asking him to sit silent and invisible the next night borders on the cruel. But he was an angel throughout, and then, when it was over, he fell asleep at the head table, with his head on my lap and my fingers stroking his hair.

It, like nearly everything else that night, was perfect.

In the end, just as Howard predicted, it didn’t matter that some folks no-showed and that some folks posted that I would have preferred stay home. It wasn’t My Night (I didn’t want that), and it wasn’t anyone else’s either. It was elegant, beautiful, and when it was over, I had Howard as my Husband For Life, and DS had an in-house, at-home Daddy.

Wow.

In the array of parties and hoopla that surrounded the rehearsal and the wedding, I managed to get chided for abandoning my blog readership. My new Aunt, “Queens” was most vocal. “You’re going to start blogging again, right?” Another friend huffed at the lack of material the last 2 months. "I'm not going to start working at the office, you know. Post up, baby. Wedding's over. Come on already."

Well, promise made, and promise kept. I may be the happiest woman on the planet, but there’s all kinds of things to skewer in my new role as "now, what's your new name again?" Married life may mellow me, but the sharp-tongued gal lives on. A Rosen by any other name, and all that.

The honeymoon is officially over. It's time to get back to work.

A the R(eturning to Regularly Scheduled Ranting)

The Old Gray Mare

2007-09-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

I ain’t what I used to be.

I became many things in the thirteen months that it took me to rappel down the 251 pound mountain to land in the 146 pound grass. I became an athlete, a working stiff, a fiancé and a heterosexual. I also became a happier woman and a better mommy, though I think that had more to do with Howard and DS than with my weight. Or maybe it was the loss of all the adipose that allowed me to move more freely in the world that my surroundings had created. Either way, I emerged from fatness, changed forever.

It occurred to me in the first rays of Goal Weight that I’d lost way more than 105 pounds. In addition to all form of self-doubt and self-loathing, I shed a number of things that I had long thought to be true about myself. In what I will call the ad hoc memorial service for the Fat Lady, here are a few things that, along with being fat, I just ain’t no more:

Slow

My brain fires on 12 cylinders at all times unless I’m at an outdoor rock concert (it’s a contact high!), but my body moved slowly. It always has. I went to college on 500 acres and always had to leave my dorm 10 minutes earlier than everyone else, just to make it to class on time. I didn’t walk so much as I sauntered, or later, shuffled. I crinkled my nose at people who clipped along, or walked at what seemed to be the speed of sound. My pace never quickened, even when I thinned---until now. A couple of weeks ago, I did a panel discussion in the Loop, and, when it was over, I realized that I hadn’t brought enough cab fare for the trip back to the train station, so I decided to hoof it along the main route, walking until I found a no-fee ATM and then taking the Turbo Trip in the next yellow car I saw.

As it happened, I never saw the ATM. A few minutes into my walk, I figured that I had enough time to make it all the way to the station. It was just over 2 miles to the station and I had about 40 minutes. I figured if I walked at a decent pace, I could make it with 5 or 10 minutes to spare, allowing for traffic lights, speeding cyclists and the inevitable obstacle course of panhandlers along the way. I kept walking toward the depot, switching directions when I hit a red light so I could keep moving. I walked at a comfortable pace-quickly, but never to lose my breath or to break a sweat (I was in a suit and had to go back to work). I made it all the way to the train station in 20 minutes, with 20 mins to spare and nothing to do but breathe diesel fumes until the commuter showed up. But I had all my breath and I’d managed a little workout besides. I’m not slow anymore. My standard walking pace is now 3.0 mph. Pretty cool.

Afraid

Fat makes you a lot of things, and for me, one of them is afraid. Somewhere in the long history of bad relationships, torturous work assignments and a host of interstate moves, I got scared. I stopped talking to people, stopped telling them about myself, and stopped wanting them to know me. I’m divorced, I’m fat, I’m a single mother…I’m all sorts of things that put a (-) sign in front of my name, or worse, a big, FAT zero. Once I passed the place where I could no longer say, ‘oh I could stand to lose a few’ and had to admit, ‘I’m overweight’, it all changed. I didn’t want people to get to know me, and I couldn’t bear the idea of investing in anything worthwhile. I didn’t have the courage to develop real friendships, and so faux friends sprung up all around me. I had a whole garden full of people who were okay to hang out with the fat girl because she never asked for anything, gave everything away and never stopped to consider that this was a self-destructive maneuver all on its own.

I don’t feel that way now, and a number of those faux folks have gone. Not all, but shedding takes some time, and eventually I imagine that I’ll be rid of all that excess baggage. In the mean time, I’m no longer afraid to reach out to people, no longer fearful of how they’ll judge me once they meet me. They might still dislike me, or try to take advantage of me; those people are everywhere. But I’m better equipped to spot the Takers now, and I’m better positioned to attract the Givers and the real people who want nothing from me but me, and who will give nothing but themselves. There’s nothing scary about that.

Angry

This ties pretty closely to the Fear Factor. I spent so many years being angry: mostly at myself, but also at my partners, my situation, and sometimes, at life as a whole. I couldn’t catch a break, I couldn’t get out of my contracting rut, I couldn’t find someone to love me who wasn’t broken in some capacity, and I couldn’t stop yelling about it. Sometimes it worries me how much of my life I hacked off by spurting adrenaline into my heart over things that shouldn’t have mattered, but that did, in the small and seething space I occupied for all those years.

Now, I have a great job that is both rewarding and challenging. I have the man of my dreams-literally, and I am blessed with the most wonderful child in the whole of Human History. I have a pretty little home, a houseful of happy cats and a wardrobe that, while still plain and a little frumpy, hints at the happiness that held the debit card to purchase it. I still get stressed, and I still yell too much—ask Howard. I may always be high strung and prone to overreaction. But I’m hopeful that it’ll dissipate, just as my fear and my girth did, and that some day, I’ll be one of those folks who walks around talking in aphorisms and actually meaning them. Why rage? It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s a goal, and maybe now, it’s achievable.

Gray

The women in my family live for ages. All my great aunts lived well into their 90s, and my Aunt Jane lasted 109 years. They all worked their gardens until the end, showed up at family reunions giving each other the stink eye and vying for the best apple pie in the bunch and fried their chicken one piece at a time, with recipes to be guarded with white gloves covering (dainty) iron fists. They were grand dames, and they were good at being grand dames because they had looked like spritely crones for most of their lives. My mother started graying at 21; my grandmother at 18. When I went until I was 30 before I produced my first white crown ornament, the village wise woman went to her tent to consult the family tree. Could this be a Davis woman? Where is her snow?

I spent 12 years going back and forth between henna and semi-permanent color, never fully committing to covering my gray, and yet never really feeling I could let it grow out. I didn’t have much for a long while, just a few strays under my bangs. When I turned 40, I got some more, but most of it was still right on top of my head. Last year, in a fit of “I yam what I yam”, I let the rinse fade and tried out the Me & My Gray-bies ‘do at home and office. Most folks at work either politely ignored my Crone Goes Wild bouffant or noted that ‘I couldn’t do it, but it looks great on you.’

I wasn’t sure whether I liked it, and then, one night I was browsing the Natural Instincts at the grocer and Howard asked, “What are you doing?” When I told him I was thinking of covering my gray with something Warm and Golden Brown, he made some snipe about pancakes and syrup and then sighed. “Don’t color your hair. Or do,” he hedged, always the diplomat. “Do what makes you happy. But I like your gray. I think it’s sexy.”

Gray it is!

I kept it white, and it started to curl, all on its own. I’ve had poker-straight hair my whole life, and so when the curlicues appeared, I decided that maybe gray hair was for me. It was like Samson-my curl was tied up in my dye-less hair. If I colored it, I’d have to go back to straight and icky.

About a month ago, on a whim, I picked up a box of 5 Minutes to Lying or some such color that covers gray but only lasts a week or two. Curious if I would like my hair in an all-brown motif or spend the entire night under the shower head to wash it out, I brought it up gently to Howard. He seemed agreeable, though he was quick to caveat that he really liked the gray. “Don’t do it for me.” But the wedding loomed, I had plenty of time to wash it out if I hated it, and anyway, I just wasn’t sure if I wanted Granny Wozen in the pictures next to her husband, Howard. So off to the shower I went.

I didn’t like it at first. Though it appeared that I would get to keep my curls, the all-over color looked boring to me-no action up front, and no interest. I frowned and fussed in the mirror, checking to see if a stray strand or streak had made it through the wash. Nope. I did look younger, and it wasn’t awful-just really, really different. I took my head downstairs to show my men.

DS noticed it at once. “Hey mommy, what happened to your head?” What indeed? I explained what I’d done, and in the process, Howard turned around and took in a good look. “Wow,” he said. “I mean, I loved the gray but…Wow.”

Okay then. If gray is sexy and brunette is better, I’m a-covering up the old gray mare. After all, she ain’t what she used to be. And thank goodness for that.

A the O(ld but not Gray)

(Happily Ever) After

2007-08-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

It’s here at last.

Or rather, I am here at last. After fifty-six weeks of logging my meals, attending WW meetings and bagging up endless stacks of fat clothes for the AmVets, I have reached my goal. Effective immediately, my diet is over. I am now an "After".

And just in time. With eight weeks to go before the wedding, I’m sure to face little wisps of stress here and there (HA!), and so I’m glad that this piece of my life is finished. Yes, I’ll have to figure out how to keep the scale at a standstill as I prepare for a monumental (positive!) stressor, complete with annoying details, long to-do lists, alterations to plans, alterations to clothing, and alterations to guest lists that simply will not sit still. No biggie, though. In my new, slim, maintenance-mode body, this will be a…what? Piece of cake?

Well, okay, clearly not cake: not for the Fat Lady on Maintenance. It’s more like a big bowl of sugar-free jello. Hmm, somehow not as satisfying. Nor as convincing.

But I have my amazing fiancé to help me, along with his colossal parents, and my DS, who, by the way, is walking around the house announcing that he’s getting married, too. Well, why not? Aren’t we all marrying each other? It isn’t just Howard and I, after all. It’s all of us. On October 13, we create the legal component of what the last year has created already: a family. A unit, to have and to hold from that day forward.

But more I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-a-fairytale later. For now, I need to roll around some more about making my goal.

Somehow in the good luck that continues to follow me everywhere, I managed to produce an insurance pound. My goal weight is 147, and this morning, the scale pointed exactly at 146. The new digital scale did me one better, announcing 145.60. This is the end of my period, and I’m sure some of that is my body behaving in typical fashion, not only meeting the goal (finally!), but doing so with an extra little slammer at the end. I don’t expect to keep the insurance pound, and frankly, I don’t mind. I’m at goal. I made it.

This morning at WW, the meeting was titled, “Talk about what works, laugh about what doesn’t.” So please humor me a little retrospective.

I have learned that while I consider myself to be a thin person, that the Fat Lady lives on. The Big Broad lies just on the other side of my junior-sized wardrobe, sprawled across a two-person lounge chair, her stomach grumbling, and demanding a return to the Good Old Days. I have bested her, but she’s crafty and smart and it will be a long time before my habits hold the majority in my House of Commons. Maybe someday I’ll find a way to make peace with her, but for now it’s all out war, and she’s the mouthy, cantankerous rival who gets the last word in everything. Luckily for me, she no longer gets the last bite.

I have learned that eating a little bit of the forbidden foods yields disaster. We had a substitute leader this morning that nailed the way I feel about red-light treats. She said, “I can’t have one if there is more. If I do, everything that’s left becomes mine.” Amen.

It could be that some day I can go to a cocktail party and have ‘just a little bit’ of things, or I can weave treats into my program and not see them show up immediately on the scales. But I don’t think so. My fatness was not a temporary insanity. It is symptom of something long-term and deeply rooted in the crevices of my soul. I have problems with food, and when I am in need, it is my comfort and my foil. I have to shun red-light foods as an alcoholic shuns drink, and reap rewards and celebrations in other ways.

I don’t know what those rewards will be, or how it will change my life. I do know it will make me stand out forever. But I’d rather be a freak who fits into her junior clothes than an overweight, unhappy person who can eat whatever is put in front of her. There is no middle ground for me, no compromise. I eat as I exercise as I work, and as I live—head on. I’ve learned that when I forget that fact, I am reminded at once with tighter clothes and a heavy stomach.

I gain or lose weight in direct proportion to what I eat. I always have. At one point, when DS was 2, I was exercising an hour a day and burning 800 calories on the elliptical, and my weight remained stubbornly at 213. I didn’t get it: had birth and motherhood changed my metabolism so much that I couldn't lose anything? Was the ongoing breastfeeding standing in the way of normal clothes and healthy living?

I learned the hard way that it wasn’t any of those things—it was just me, eating to be fat. When I went back to work and had to give up my daytime gym trips, I gained 15 pounds in a month. Direct proportion. I know it. I accept it. I will use it to my advantage. Nothing bad in my mouth means nothing bad at the scale.

So, okay, there was no laughing here about what doesn’t work. I’m not sure that I’m ready for that. I’m a little post-traumatic stress right now, where I worry that even the proximity of fatty foods will make me gain. I hold on to my goal weight in these first hours, and it feels as precious and fragile as I do. Laughter comes later, at my first ‘thiniversary’, maybe, or in shared war stories with others on the journey.

I can see the whole trail now; all its hills and curves, every rut, and all the tears that muddied the path. I clutch this imaginary trophy tighter than any tangible reward I’ve ever earned. Because I did this. Me. My sweat and my discipline brought me here. They’ll keep me here, too, every moment and every day, one meal at a time.

I’m so glad this happened before the wedding. It exhilarates me to know that I’m beginning this new life completely removed from that old person. I can shed all the baggage of that woman, and leave it behind in the pounds that are no longer. It’s just one more thing I can pin to this event, one more way that this becomes a pinnacle of my life, and a point of unmatched happiness.

Now that I’m here, at fighting weight, it’s time to start shedding the rest of the unwanted saddle bags in my life. It’s time to purge, and to rid my house of all things bad and belligerent from Those Years. It’s a clearance, and Everything Must Go! Everything will go, too, you’ll see. I know I can do it, now. If I can yank these pounds off of me, then the rest will be easy.

Stay tuned. It’s going to get interesting.

A th S(inging at Last)

Follow the Leader

2007-08-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

I need no further proof that I am still the Fat Lady.

I might walk around in size 3 junior jeans (if a little stiffly), but I fight the cravings of a mad woman every single day. I see candy and I want it. I smell peanut butter and I tremble. If the guy in front of me brings in donuts one more time this week, I may go postal. I don’t even really care for donuts, but I am prey to any food that is free, or fatty, or tastes like comfort. I am not okay to do this on my own, and I am not healed. This broad is just never, never going to sing and set me free.

A couple of years ago, I had a personal trainer build a diet/exercise program for me. He talked at length about retraining my taste buds to crave healthy foods and shun empty calories. And, to a certain extent, I have done that. I was moaning so hard over the tomatoes we got from the farm this week that Howard had to excuse himself from the kitchen. Last night we had organic corn on the cob and I nearly wept with joy at how good it tasted. I didn’t even use any butter-just a little bit of butter buds (some scary, preservative-filled, butter-like powder) and salt, but wow. Yummy, yummy stuff.

It works on the other side, too. I see sandwiches piled with fatty meats and cheese and I sniff in disapproval. I walk right by the impulse-buy brownies and Nutri-Grain bars in the cafeteria. When I come home from work and I’ve missed my afternoon snack, I go immediately for the nonfat yogurt or mini-popcorn. It doesn’t even occur to me to hunt for something evil. It helps, of course, that there isn’t anything like that in the house. Even DS’s Ritz crackers are so oil-laden that I can’t even smell them without my stomach turning. I have changed my habits. But even so, there is as part of me—a big, slathering, eat-until-I-faint part, that wants everything she sees. It has no bearing on my hunger level, the nutrition content, or what the scale read that morning. It is all about availability and convenience. And need: panting, sweating, need.

I’m at my worst when I’m alone. That’s what’s so frightening about Howard’s job, and the fact that he can disappear for weeks at a time. When he’s with me, and we’re eating together, I have a support network that is also something of a gatekeeper. I couldn’t imagine eating something frothy and Off Program in front of him. I can’t even imagine discussing it. I hesitate to let these temptations seep out of my brain and on to my tongue. Talking about comfort food excites me as much as it disgusts me, and I worry that talking about them dilutes their danger. I might be wrong, and I might be cutting of an excellent source of dispelling the great allure around things I can’t eat anymore, but it’s too risky to try. So I don’t discuss it with Howard, and I don’t admit that I have a problem, and then suddenly I’m faced with cake remnants in the coffee room or some Red Riding Hood du jour brings in a bag of something that she doesn’t want in her house, and I suffer all day long.

So when Howard went out of town a few weeks ago, and I was left alone with my PMS, I slid off the wagon. Not much—juts a few goldfish crackers and an atomic fireball here and there. Plus, of course, way too much fat free Reddi-Whip on my jello. And then on my couscous. And then on my pickles. No, no, just kidding on that. But I went through most of a shaker of popcorn seasoning in 2 weeks, flavoring up the Near-Dairy topping so it tasted more like dessert. Or, in a few instances, dinner.

And it showed up almost immediately. I had been creeping downward, even holding on to 148 pounds for a couple of days. That’s a miracle, especially given that I was heading toward my period. But then the goldfish crackers swam in schools and then DS didn’t finish all of his M&Ms one night, and suddenly I was thinking up reasons to stop by Walgreen’s on my lunch break. Sure enough, by Thursday I was teetering at 151. There was water weight in there for sure, but there was some oil as well. I managed to come back around, and I wound up with just a small gain on Saturday. But still, the whole episode left me shaken.

Now I’m in the withdrawal phase, where I’ve stopped hunting for treats and now I’m just working my way past the urges. My body is all excited about the new surge of refined sugar and it wants more, more, more. I’m back to digging my nails into my palms and re-routing myself around the building to avoid the marshmallow pits. My life is suddenly a game of Goth CandyLand, where I’m navigating the Sugar Plum forest and the GumDrop swamp, but instead of smiling sweeties, there are smirking meanies, and even though my entrails bunch up when I falter, I still want everything I see that’s wrapped in foil or served on a stick. So when it came time to do this week’s goal, I went back to my empty plate and made a promise. This week, I would follow the program.

I’ve heard this comment for a year at WW: Follow the Program. There will be someone who will announce a great loss, and Maria the Spectacular will ask, “What did you do differently?” The answer is inevitably the same: I followed the program.

I admit that I’ve rolled my eyes (internally) when I’ve heard this. Well, of course it worked if you followed the program. And of course you’d have trouble if you didn’t. Write down what you eat. Concentrate on low-density foods. Drink water until you leak. Exercise, exercise, exercise. But this week, it was different. Maria, who has had her own toils with keeping her years-long maintenance intact, noted that she’d had a couple of rough weeks and then surged back with a huge loss. The catalyst? The program. I followed the program, she admitted. Well, if it works for the leader, then it woudn’t hurt to try.

I went home and opened my WW spreadsheet. I have a chart with my weekly weigh-in and a sheet with every day’s food intake, along with the calorie, POINT, and protein/cab/fat/fiber content. To my amazement, I hadn’t logged a single day’s intake in nearly 3 weeks. I had gotten lazy about it before that, noting that some days I was simply copying the whole of the previous day’s food and pasting it into today. If I eat the same things, I rationalized, and I know what those food values are, I really don’t need to log everything. I know how many POINTS are in my lunch salad, and Howard’s hummus, and a 3 oz serving of grilled turkey on a whole wheat wrap. I can keep track in my head. I’m fine.

Apparently not.

So I dug through my head and back-filled a couple of days. Voila. Not only was I no longer in weight loss mode (target =18-19 POINTS per day), but I had crept over into maintenance-plus. I was lucky that I hadn’t gained more than I had. I was still fitting in to everything, and I still looked the same, but I could feel my insides changing. I had allowed the enemy to breech the front lines. The encroachment was small, but significant. There was time to fix it, but no time to wonder if I should. Follow the Program. It had to help.

I’m down below 150 again, and while I’m edging toward my PMS, I have it under control. Maybe the slip up was a good thing. It was humbling for sure, and a good lesson to learn. It’s also been a time to think about a reasonable goal weight. Do I just need to stay in loss mode forever? It seems I can’t trust myself to ease into maintenance, even when there’s only 2 pounds left to go and I’m burning 2100 calories a week in exercise.

Maybe I’ll be en guard forever. Maybe the desire for sweets will never vanish. I might have to find a way to look at those cravings as a comfort-sort of viewing change as something predictable-it’s always here, it will always be, it’s easiest just to accept it. Rather than berate myself for wanting the bad things and then caving in, it would help if I acknowledged the pain that I feel, but remind myself that the discipline is much easier than the regret. Nobody ever got into trouble for following the program.

I am simply not a person who can have “a little bit” of something off-program. I can’t have cheat days. I can’t ease into normal. I can’t mold the program to fit my life. I have to shape it from inside me. I have to bend myself to fit the program, and I have to follow it exactly. There’s no suffering involved in that—I’ve done it for a year, and when I’ve suffered, it’s when I’ve strayed. Low-complexity carbs make me hungry. Broccoli does not. Pop-Tart remnants make me cranky. Apples never will. I thought I was far enough away from 251 to risk a little bit of fun. I am not. I will never be.

I can feel the change already. I’m sitting taller, I’m walking better, and last night, I pounded out 40 minutes of hard time on the StairMaster. I’m still resting my knees from the race, and I hope to get back outside once the blacktop stops bubbling, but for now I’m stuck on the stationery aerobic machines at the YMCA. I can do it. After all, even though I’m not burning as many calories, I’m getting a harder workout that’s strengthening my legs.

And I get to do a little lifting, which helps all over. I came home from a workout on Saturday and insisted to Howard that we get the weights in the house. I can run or log time on the elliptical pretty easily, and pretty much anywhere, but I have to have the weights at home. It’s a bit of an expense coming at a time when we have to give away all our money to caterers and florists, but it’s an important investment. I deserve to lose weight and keep it off. I will make it work: I just have follow the program.

A the B(ack on Track)

10k Gold

2007-08-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it.

Last Sunday, at 8:32am, I crossed the 10k finish line. I clocked a pokey 10:08 pace, but I ran the whole thing at a steady cadence, I never stopped to walk or rest, and I passed more women than passed me. I wound up somewhere near the middle of the pack of nearly 1400 runners, and I finished 72^nd…in my age group. And no, I don’t know how many women were in my age group. Seventy-three? Nine hundred? Four? It remains a mystery.

I ran with Maria the Spectacular and her daughter, who brought along 2 friends from work. I moved away from them soon after the starting gun, in part out of nerves, and in part because I’m a lone runner. I enjoy my time alongside Howard when we go together, but for all purposes, I fly solo when on foot. I wanted to be alone with myself as I logged the miles and took in the scenery.

Choosing an all-woman race as a first-time event was smart: women chatted all through the race, talking to each other about parties, picnics, work, and, of course, their men. I saw very few hard core racers (certainly there were none at the back of the pack, where I started), and I didn’t get elbowed out of someone’s way or shoved off the path because I was clogging up the “lane”. A few non-racers crossed our paths, dodging through with their dog or darting around us on cycles, but for the most part, we had north Lincoln Park to ourselves. The sun was bright but mild, the lake was calm, and the humidity stayed out in the suburbs. It was pretty cool.

I resisted the urge to sprint off the line at the start, and again near the end. I couldn’t see the finish line until I was 100 feet from it, and so I dared not notch it up, not knowing whether it was 500 yards or 1.75 miles before I hit the Finish mat. God forbid I run 5.5 of a 6.2 mile race and then collapse a few feet before the end because I miscalculated the finish line and my own ability to run at full speed when I’d run most of the race like a normal person.

I had lots left in the tank when I stopped, and though I crashed when we got home, sleeping nearly 7 hours on Sunday afternoon and leaving Howard to fend for himself the day before he traveled (DS slept with me in solidarity), I was fine. I had a bit of soreness the next day, but since I’d been running 7-ish miles per workout for 2 or 3 weeks, this was a Sunday Morning Run, and not much else.

I’m glad I did it, but I’m not sure I’ll repeat the race experience. Running is one of a rare few things in my life where I’m not competitive. I don’t carry the timer with me anymore, I don’t try to run until I hurl, and I stop to walk if I get winded or the humidity suffocates my legs. It’s my pleasure, purely and easily and I alone own every sweaty, huffing moment of it. Somehow the idea of picking at my pace, or of running more hills or intervals for the sake of the sport just dogs me. I don’t want to do anything but run. Given how infrequently I can do something for its own sake, rather than as a gnawing crawl for the Championship of the Universe, I think it’s best to leave it alone.

Especially since I may have to give it up.

I’m so worried that it’s true, and that I’ll have to give this up when I’m still a fledgling. I’ve been having a burning sensation in the tops of my knees for the past couple of weeks, and sometimes it lasts for 2 days after my workout. I don’t feel it while I’m running, but the burning starts immediately after I stop and intensifies for a full day afterward. I keep to low-heeled shoes at work and I make sure my form is textbook, but the ache has persisted. I suspect I’ve done a bit of overtraining—it probably is too much to ask a newbie runner’s body to log 21 miles a week in only 3 sessions. But I love it, and I have to say, I’m pretty stressed about the idea of stopping. If it doesn’t abate soon, I may have to seek help, and all the running books say to stay away from doctors—their favorite advice to runners with knee pain is “Stop running.” Oh, and of course, “That’ll be $150, since this was not covered by your insurance.”

I took most of this week off, opting not to work out at all until Thursday, in hopes that the burning would go away. I went to the Y, deciding that maybe I could keep my fitness level up if I did 2 stationery workouts a week and reduced my running to 2 times (from 3 or 4). I mounted the elliptical and ran it as fast as I could for 30 minutes. I’d planned for 40, but the treadmills were Right There, and I just had to hop on. I haven’t been on a treadmill in months, and I wanted to see, just for a minute, how it would be.

Let me tell you, after criss-crossing the DuPage county Forest Preserve, running on a treadmill is like watching other people ride a roller coaster. You get some idea of the thrill, but it’s so unbearably monotonous that all you wind up getting is dizzy and bored. I made it a mile before I gave up. I hadn’t prepared to run and so was having some issues (details withheld for modesty’s sake), and eventually I had to step off. I wanted to go back today, but the burning has returned, quieter than usual, but then again, I only ran 1 mile instead of 7. I am going out tomorrow though. I’m taking my old shoes too, since now everything is suspect. Maybe it’s the miles. Maybe it’s the trail. MAYBE it’s the shoes, and the fact that this allegedly awesome running store didn’t watch me run when the sold me the shoes. And maybe, if I change enough things, the burning will go away and I can get back to running injury-free.

The Mommy Marathoner at work suggested that I don’t have enough musculature in my legs to support me, and so the work is falling to my joints—literally. I like this idea best, since it’s fixable, and fixable with more exercise (and exercise I’ve been meaning to add for months now). So my new plan is to run 2 days a week and do the Y 2 days (or 3). I’ll run for an hour outside, but on Y days, I’ll do 30 mins of zero-impact aerobics (YAWN!) and 30 minutes of weights. I’m a hard core lifter from way back and I know how to work my whole body in 30 minutes, especially at the beginning. Eventually I’ll have to alternate days and body parts, but for now I can beef up my legs and get back to the business of hoofing on the limestone.

In the mean time, I’m still hungry all the time, and it got way worse when Howard started traveling again last week. I started thinking about why my brain went so haywire as soon as Howard’s limo left the driveway. Eventually, I remembered an old news article that made a connection between some chemical in chocolate and some receptor in the brain that gets all fuzzy when you’re in love. I wanted chocolate because I missed my man. It helped to know that, intellectually, but I still had to leave through the shipping dock every night this week, to avoid the basket of goodies that a woman at work (a triathelete, I might add) now keeps at her desk.

I really hate skinny people sometimes.

Someone at WW said last week that the part of my brain craving bad foods is a part of my physiology, and will never go away. Hats and horns, my pain is chronic! It’s just like alcoholism-a disease, terrible and progressive, with no known cure. I’d get one of those ribbons to stick to my minivan, but I fear it would remind me of an Auntie Anne’s pretzel and make things worse. Oh, cinnamon sugar darling, come comfort me while I mourn my self-destructive gene pool….

Howard is home this week, and while I logged a record low 147.25 pounds on Monday, it was only because I slept all day and ate nothing and I knew it wouldn’t last. I’m still hovering in the 150 area, but I figure that adding resistance training will build muscle and encourage me to eat more protein. Maybe the Fat Lady will be so busy digesting branch chain amino acids that she won’t notice that I’m cocoa-deficient.

Fat chance. Hmmm. Maybe next week’s goal is to figure out how to turn that into a no-fat chance. I’ll think about it on my next run.

A the T(en K)

PS-Yeah, ok. It was pretty cool to run the race. I finished a 10k. Me, the ex-Fat Lady, who couldn’t slam the car door a year ago without taking an extra breath. I ran 6.2 miles without stopping, and sort of felt cheated that there wasn’t more to do. Maybe I’ll look up that ten-miler race in October….Stay tuned.

A Rosen By Any Other Name

2007-07-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

What will your name be after the wedding?

As The Regulars know, I’m getting married in 83 days. Married to the man who starred in 25 years of my adult dreams (not that kind, you pervs), and who found me again last year, fat, miserable and living in “interesting” circumstances.

Despite my attempts not to wish too much into Howard’s return, and against his own self-proclamation that we move things slowly, we’re now less than 12 weeks from wrapping ourselves and our lives around each other forever.

Not that I can imagine a tighter, more permanent knot than we have now. Our little family rituals warm me; from the soft of the ‘good-nights’ we give each other as DS falls off to sleep, all the way to the grit of battling work, school and PMS. These days I’m so happy that it’s hard for me to remember sometimes that there’s a lot going on, and that even though it’s all happy, it’s still stress.

I’m hoping that the end of this next period brings a new low and I’ll be within a pound or so of goal. So here comes maintenance. I’m so busy at work that I haven’t taken a proper, sit-and-be-quiet lunch break since I converted in April, and in a few weeks, I’ll begin my MBA program. On top of that, bridal dresses are coming in, wedding invitations call to me from beneath their tissue-paper cocoons, and the guest list fluctuates daily with a ‘are they coming/they might not’ that bests old Dr. Doolittle’s Push Me-Pull You in the number of hairpin turns it takes.

Just my side of the list changes, mind you. Howard’s list built itself the night we authored it, went through a simple edit when we showed it to his parents, and, apart from the rare news that someone simply cannot comes (with reasons such as ‘we don’t live in the country anymore’), it’s a fixed entity.

Not so the Bride’s side. Folks I wouldn’t invite to lunch are offering to invite themselves to the wedding, and others, such as my father and both surviving grandparents, drop off, their lives too difficult and/or complicated to make the drive out from Ohio. It’s crazy, and it makes me wonder about myself and why I chose/was chosen by this group of people to represent ‘my loved ones’ at the most important ritual of my life.

On that note, and a sparkling bright spot in the ‘second-to-last-minute preparations’ parade, my brother has stepped up in a gargantuan way, agreeing not only to walk with me down the aisle, but getting his tux right away AND joining Howard in the ‘I’m wearing a real bow tie’ extravaganza at the wedding.

I’m so glad I asked him. It felt weird not including him in the party before, and when I think about it, he’s probably a better escort for me, all things considered. “T” has seen more and lived more and been through lots more crap with me. I’m glad he’ll be in the pictures, and I’m relieved that his tie will look great (here’s hoping that he can show Howard how to do his tie, too.).

I’m so looking forward to the wedding, and even though some of the glitches are heartbreaking, I know that it will run smoothly and beautifully, and as close to Plan as could be expected, given there’s 100 people and heavy hors d'oeuvres involved. So, that’s aside for now. On to the whole Post-Wedding Name Change dance.

I’ve noticed that as the wedding approaches, that I’m getting a lot of ‘so, tell me what your new name will be’, and ‘what shall we call you after the wedding?’ I hadn’t thought much about it before. Howard and I breezed through it right after the engagement, and Grandma Florida lobbed it up once in her typical supportive, ‘I love ya regardless of your answer’ way, so I really hadn’t considered that it merited thought until now. But I think I’m ready to discuss it.

I’ve been Amy Mc______ my whole life. Yes, I’ve been married before. But I never changed my name legally, and though I went ahead and petitioned for the ‘return of my maiden name’ at divorce time, the fact is that I’ve been me, and considered as me, and addressed as me, since my mother named me forty-two years ago.

The reasons not to switch names at marriage have changed over time. I didn’t want to worry about changing it back—too late for that, and, per above, it doesn’t matter. A woman gets married, it is assumed that she has legally changed her name. The only mystery is whether she keeps her middle name or substitutes her ‘maiden’ name in its place. For a (long) while, I considered it personally offensive that I would be the default Gal in Court, and in line at Social Security, and starving over lunch at the DMV, to get my name switched over. And then, I just got old, and decided that if I’ve been Amy Mc this long, I might as well stay this way. And anyway, it amuses me when people ask, ‘so what will your name be after the wedding?’, and I reply, “Amy”, or “Mc_”.

That doubled up in logic when I convinced X to let me name DS with my last name, rather than his. He was unconcerned about Carrying On The Family Name, and when I pointed out that I’d be carrying the babe for 40 weeks (ok, it was 39 weeks and 5 days) and pushing said infant (NINE POUNDS) from my loins, that perhaps I’d prefer it if the creature got my stamp, he agreed.

All good, and I’m glad of it, but now, faced with Howard and the memory of several girlish years when I tried his last name with my first, the argument grays up. I’m still 42, I’m still Me, and DS still shares my name. I still like my name, I like being a “Mc”, that odd place between “M” and “N” in the alphabet (according to every set of index cards). It’s got character, and it’s got Mother Ireland in there (where I’ve never been, and btw, my “Irish” ancestors were from Kentucky).

But now….now I don’t know. I think about my family. Good, hard-working, blue collar folks who couldn’t catch a break if it were made for them. They’re tough, they’re survivors, and they’re mine. But they’re not particularly warm. They….WE live far away from one another, we don’t gather together at holidays, and ‘infrequently’ is about the best we do on communication. We don’t know anything personal about one another, we don’t talk about anything of consequence, and when we get married, well, we’re happy, we suppose, but we don’t go. Can’t get off work. Too much to do. See you at the reunion. Maybe.

I’m at fault, too. I haven’t been home to Ohio since the year I got pregnant, and even then I took the trip with great reluctance. That was 2001. The trip before that was seven years prior, in 1994. I’d just broken up with the Step-Father and I didn’t care for the idea of reading all day alone on Christmas and seeing if it really is true that Chinese restaurants stay open. The year before that was 1987, when my grandmother died.

I call my mother when I can’t remember the last time I spoke to her, and I call my sister never. I have no idea where any of my aunts or uncles live, I don’t have anyone’s phone number, and I wouldn’t recognize their spouses, their children, or even most of them, if we passed on a sidewalk. It’s just how we are.

Howard’s family is like the antimatter of mine. They all live far away, but they’re tight and they’re involved with each other, and they seem genuinely to enjoy being together. They have issues, but it’s accepted as part of The Package, and even now, every day, their sense of inclusion warms me until I weep. Why wouldn’t I want to be a part of a family like that? Believe me, I do. It’s everything I never knew existed, and now that I’ve found it, want it every day forevermore.

His friends are the same stock. Loyal, loving, close and involved in each other’s lives. Not everyone is First Class Friend, but anyone who’s around is cared about and known. Why would I want to separate myself from that? I don’t; not at all. In fact, I’m rather looking forward to the new friends I’ll make under the Happy, Bordering on Ecstatic mindset. I’ve made lots of friends during the Unhappy years, and the products of those are as disappointing as you’d imagine. Not everyone is less than desirable; many are not, in fact. But enough of the Old Life Crowd exists to remind me that there could be something better that awaits me on the other side of this wedding.

So now I’m looking at my wedding as this unbelievably magical moment that has this unexpected surprise to it. In joining this family and these friends, I get an opportunity to grow up and grow old in a culture of acceptance, where I am known and understood. I’m an old dog (okay, cat), and I’m proud of me. I’m proud of many things I’ve done, and I’m even proud that I have regrets, because it reminds me that I’m human, and that my life, even now, creaks and sways sometimes. I also realize that marrying Howard and changing my name wouldn’t put any of my history behind me. It wouldn’t change anything about who I am. But these days, when I think about where I want to be and who I want to become, it’s that woman married to Howard, living happily ever after. And I want everything that involves, inside AND out.

I still don’t know what I’ll do regarding the law, but no matter how my business card reads, and no matter how I sign my social security checks in 20 (25?) years, come October 13, 2007, in my heart I will be Amy R. Those of you who didn’t know me before may simply call me “Mrs. Rosen”.

Kidding. At least for now. After all, I just introduced myself to the kid next door as “Mrs. Mc”. But no matter. He knows I’m getting married soon. I’m sure it’ll be no surprise to him that I’ve changed my name.

A the T(welve Weeks to Go).

PS-Happy Anniversary, my darling.

Eat No Evil

2007-07-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

Cripes, I’m hungry.

I don’t know whether it’s just some evil trick that my body is playing on me, but lately I’m like an orphan in “Oliver!”, singing about food, glorious food. Suddenly, my previously-trained eyes are darting to donut boxes and Spanish-rice specials at work. Yesterday I saw my boss eating a salad that was literally a ranch-dressing soup, and my mouth watered. I don’t even like salad dressing, but all that cheese and all those big hunks of meat just sang to me like the ship-crashing sirens they were. I don’t get this, and I don’t like it. I haven’t been smearing my egg whites with peanut butter or snorting Snickers, and yet my brain has decided to bring back all the desires for the old, make-me-fat-and-keep-me-there “diet”. What in Crisco’s name is going on?

Frankly, I think it’s mostly a backlash from an experiment I conducted a week or so ago, when I ate as if I were on maintenance. I wanted to try it, to show myself that there was nothing to fear about adding a few extra calories in to the daily feast. It was nothing fancy-just an extra apple, a little bit more protein and a smidgen more carbs, plus yogurt with ham (not together!) for my last meal/snack instead of low fat popcorn. I edged my calories up by the WW-recommended 4 POINTS (about 350 calories for those who calculate food values in the regular way) and had 5 or 6 mini-meals instead of my 3 or 4 regular ones. I wound up eating every 2.5 to 3 hours, and while it was exhausting, it was good. I was satisfied all day long, I did not down an entire jar of pickles right before bed, and I managed, at last, to get my fiber count up over that 35 g hump. Glory day.

And a huge mistake. Nothing to fear? Guess again.

I went back to my regular plan the next day. After all, I’m now hovering around the 150 mark, and the big bar is back in place, so I am definitely still in weight loss mode. I ate my normal 3-point breakfast (vs. the 4.5 ‘maintenance’ meal), and felt properly sated at meal’s end.

And then my body decided that it liked the Eating All The Time model so much that it would torture me until I caved and brought it back. I’ve resisted, more or less successfully, but it’s as if a single day of over-feeding has created this beast who will not be quieted with Jazz apples and non-fat yogurt. The Fat Lady emerges yet again. Seriously, somebody just stick Excaliber through that broad and let’s be done with her already.

I am out of practice with being hungry all the time, and now I’m holding hands with the PMS bitch, so pretty soon, poor Howard is going to lose whatever hair he has left, because I’m going to yell it right off of his head. So clearly I must remain on a diet every day for the rest of my life. I'll get used to the hunger, and maybe someday soon, I'll stop dreaming of ice-cream covered everything and peanut butter pie.

I have changed other things too, which probably contributed to all this. I gave up coffee entirely.I managed to wean myself in a way that spared me from the Caffeine Headache, and I thank whatever deities helped me with that one. I’m not sure I could have made it through on just Excedrin Migraine (which has caffeine in it).

Soda left the building as well. One of my WW buddies told me that diet soda contains sodium benzoate which is more or less a poison. Okay, then! All coke-brown, white, purple, and even the High Class root beer, is no more. DS took it well; better than Howard or I, and now we’re all on a strictly water intake. When I’m drooling for Diet Coke, I remind myself that every other creature drinks only water so there’s no real reason to drink anything else, except for pleasure. Ah, pleasure. One of the things I shed along with 101 pounds.

By the way, WW is a big honkin’ bunch of liars by writing that water is the best appetite suppressant. It does all right, and I’m definitely healthier now, but I’m hungrier, too. And while we’re talking about it, ice in water doesn’t help. It just makes my hunger cold, which makes it angry.

I’m glad I made the switch: I don’t have these weird ‘creature crawling across my intestines’ aches anymore, and that is excellent. That was downright scary, and a couple of trips to the doctor yielded nothing but, ‘let’s wait and see’. Yeah, great. Me, whose motto is, “instant gratification takes too long” is going to ‘wait and see’. Good luck with that. But a few changes in diet and the removal of these potent poisons seems to have vamoosed the symptoms. And that's good, because that was most un-fun.

So I gave up the last of my vices, and it's really helped. People want to know what’s new, because now I’m not only thin, but my skin is all glowy and I have muscular definition where once I had only sag. I want to tell them how I’ve changed, but it’s difficult to be heard over my stomach's howl.

I’ve decided to view this as I’ve viewed the other inexplicable things on this journey—as a temporary weirdness, devoid of logic and bound to disappear in such a banal way that I won’t realize it until something else oddball pops up. I mean, my hair is curly now and I can see the veins in my arms-something I’ve never had. Stuff is going on, I have no real control over it, and it defies all deduction. Why worry about something I can’t change?

Gotta go. It’s time to eat.

A the R(avenous)

Afternoon Delight

2007-07-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

So clearly I’m an end-of-day person.

I missed my run yesterday, due to some stupid weather thing. I don’t know exactly what it was; something about lightning, damaging winds and a silly flash flood. I wanted to try it, because it seems so hard core to run during the rain. But even I cannot rationalize a workout when there are bolts of electricity flying about, and so I came home, feeling flabbier already.

I made up the workout today. Even though I’d missed just a day, and even though I’ll still get 3 full runs in this week, it was so odd to me not to run on a Tuesday that I was twitchy all night and downright cantankerous this morning. I’ve yet to experience the Runner’s High, and yet I seem fully capable of the Runner’s DTs when I don’t go shuffling through the wilderness. Yippee.

And I hindered myself further by opting to wear a skirt and heels today. Heels are bad news for runners, and since I was on my toes all morning, my calves ache now, and since I had to wear those shoes again all afternoon, I’m a little shaky in the shins. Seriously, what moron wears heels when she’s going to run midday? This moron, apparently.

I needed to do it: I had a big meeting with all the VPs, and I wanted to look as smart and professional as possible. So I wore my back-pleated skirt and my patent-leather heels. They looked great, and I got all those ‘oh, you must be an executive’ looks all day. I haven’t worn heels in a while, and it was nice, nice, nice to see my reflection in those business clothes. But still, I suffered. Luckily (???) I suffered enough that I won’t repeat the error. But tonight I’m all hobbly and it’s my own vain fault.

Since the meeting was at the end of the day and I knew I couldn’t work out after hours, I made the plans to run at lunch. I picked a new spot-a forest preserve near the office and with a trail long enough to accommodate my full run.

Within 100 yards, I wanted to collapse. It was pretty mild today, but I was running in fields vs. forests and the sun was right on my face. Plus, since Howard was not with me and I wanted to stay hydrated, I ran with my 1-liter water bottle in my hand. Big mistake. A 2-pound weight is probably manageable if it fit in my hand, but in the Jumbo Plastic Container size, it’s akin to carrying a sloshing bunny in your fist.

The run got easier, and eventually my bottle drained far enough that my hand stopped cramping. I hit the western branch of the DuPage river, complete with a little dam and a strip of blacktop that was springy and straight. I took off a little bit down the stretch, and even though I had to stop at the end to figure out which of the 4 paths was the trail, I felt good and the break was only a few seconds. I turned around when the path hit the street, ran the whole thing back, and then lost 5 full minutes looking for the top half of the trail.

The map shows it as continuous, but it is, in fact, broken up by a parking lot, a picnic area, two stinky outhouses, and a kiosk. I was off the trail so long that my bladder won the war and I had to duck into the outhouse, holding my heaving breath while my shaking legs held me up over the hole. My god, I didn’t know they still made outhouses. This is Chicago, right? I mean, there is the river Right There. Anyway, after the pit stop, I found the trail behind a ‘no vehicles’ sign and set off, grateful for the canopy of trees.

About 3 minutes in, the path narrowed and then disappeared. The path was wide and the grass was flattened, but still, it’s uneven ground. It was weird at first, but I got used to it faster than I expected, and then it was really nice to trot through the woods, with trees overhead and grass underfoot. I picked up my pace again, and I noticed that I met and passed my usual 4-mile collapse. I was so intent on keeping my feet from turning inside out that I missed the mark that would have told me to melt into hysterical exhaustion. I have to say, it was refreshing to finish a run without having first screamed in rage or melted into sobs or both. Score One for a Distracting Path.

I ran almost the whole thing, and my stops (apart from a trip into aforementioned outhouse) were just a few seconds. At the end, I was tired, but I felt good. I did just a pinch over 6 miles at just under 9 minutes per mile. A little faster than usual, and feeling a little better than normal.

So maybe I need to acknowledge that while I can ‘run’ 6 miles or more in a session, I’m not seasoned enough to run the whole thing without a break. In taking these tiny (3-5 second) stops to drink water, check my directions or double back when I found out I was off the path and in someone’s back yard, I recovered enough to keep myself intact with good form all the way through. Fancy that: listening to your body and having a good outcome. Well, I guess it’s okay to do now, since my body is no longer telling me that if I eat a stash of Hostess fruit pies before I get home, that the calories don’t count.

Anyway, I think that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to stop declaring my workout a Total Waste of *&#^%! Time when I am forced to walk for a bit. I didn’t even get the heavy legs that I’ve been getting lately. And it could have been anything-the water, the temperature, the hour….but I think it was just me, trusting and listening for once.

Results not typical. Don’t expect me to continue this without a zillion interruptions and backtracks. I mean, it’s me after all.

But I think if I could really convince myself to run when I felt like it and stop when I needed to, I could probably jump to 7 miles per workout: maybe even this week. Something to consider, especially if I can also do it a little bit faster. Right now, edging 1 hour per workout, it’s really just a little bit too long to do the whole thing over lunch.

But I don’t think that’s really relevant, since I didn’t much care for the run. I liked the preserve, I am glad that my run got logged before I put in 9 full hours at the office, and I really liked running on the grass. I had a whole Mother Nature Woman thing going on. It felt natural, and while my knees are a little sore tonight, it feels muscular, which means I worked something new and that is good.

Still, I didn’t like the rushed feeling I had, I wasn’t too keen on stripping in the basement bathroom at work, and tonight after dinner, I was jonesing for a run, as if my brain had forgotten the miles logged over lunch. I can see doing this in an Emergency Session, like today, when I’m already down a workout for the week and there’s no way to make it up at night. I’d rather run at noon that skip, and so it’s there for me if I want it. I felt safe at the preserve, and it’s nice to be discovering my city all over again, this time at odd hours and with wildflowers at my feet.

But I'm an afternoon gal. I can’t do what Howard does and crawl from bed at 5am, or wait until DS has gone down to go strolling through Wheaton in my sneakers. Whatever trade I must make, my run comes after work. It’s my transition time-the notice to my brain that work is over, and that my family awaits me at the end of the trail. I like that way better than squeezing my workout in between meetings. I don’t want it squeezed—I want it stretched and oozed out over the bridge of my day. I have my work, I have my nights, and now, I have my afternoon delights.

A the A(fter-Nooner)

Down and Downer

2007-07-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

Another barrier broken.

I weighed in on Sunday, registering 149.25 pounds, logging a total loss of 101.75 pounds and 40.5% of my original body weight. The big bar has come down.

Of course, it went right back up on Monday, at 150.50, but Monday is always my ‘heavy’ day, and so I despair not—at least until I see whether it’s going to stick.

Speaking of stick, I decided to run a real 10k last night: not the fake 10k I’d been running at 7min/mile a few weeks ago. The thermometer thrust its 95-degree mercury tongue at me, but I was determined to do a long, slow distance, and that was the time I could do it. I ducked out early from work, with the blessing of “Artemis” the Director who runs a 6-minute mile without any training. She gave me some pointers on keeping my mouth from cracking and my legs from collapsing and sent me off into the draining heat.

I hit a fatigue spot around mile 4, and spent a full minute screaming at my phone/mp3 player for not knowing inherently that I wanted to change the music I was hearing. I couldn’t get Howard’s water bottle to work-clearly, it’s designed for engineers, rather than the more creative, arty folk like me, who prefer not to use their brains, or their manners, when they are most needed. My legs fused to the ground and I had a little limestone pebble in my shoe for the whole trip, making me cranky(-er!) .

I realized, after the fact, of course, that I do normally hit a spot of fatigue right at that juncture, and so am going to try a PowerGel (sp?) on my next run. I felt great for the first 3.5 miles and even finished strong, but man, the middle was just a drag. I was okay in the shade, but the sun just yanked all my resolve out, and once I stopped for water, I couldn’t seem to get my rhythm back.

But I did it, and even though I wasn’t supposed to time myself, I did, clocking a dishrag-rotting 1hour, 8 minutes. Yes, I know I wanted to run it slowly, and no, I don’t wish to have a heart attack to prove I can run at the same speed in Hell’s Kiln as I do on brisk mornings, but still. I’d managed an 8:45 minute just 2 days before. Oh, well. The point is to run for fun and fitness. I’m getting the fitness for sure: my hips are slimming, my torso is shaping in new, appealing ways, and even the octopus has less to say these days. Of course, today I’m in my size 3s, so it’s rappelling over the lip of my too-low-rise “waist band”, but still, there’s not a roll so much as a little croissant, and I have to say that this is fine with me.

In other news, it’s official that my father will not be attending the wedding. I figured out the other night that I will have exactly zero representation from his side of the family at the ceremony. My mom’s mom is teetering as well, and my brother can flake in an instant, so if all goes to plan, then I will have exactly 3 relatives representing me: my mother, my sister, and my sister’s husband. Keep in mind that my sister and her husband are videotaping the wedding as a present to us, and I know for a fact that if I hadn’t agreed to be filmed during the most solemn moment of my life, that I wouldn’t have the two of them in attendance, either.

I knew my Dad was a maybe from the get-go, and so I’m not really surprised. But I am disappointed. I guess he decided that he’s already attended one of my weddings, and so that was enough. I would find a way to resolve this easier if he were just standing around in a suit on the front row. But we’re doing a Jewish processional for the service, which means that both bride and groom are (supposed to be!) escorted down the aisle by both parents.

I can’t decide which is worse-that people will see me with only my mother (if that!) and think that my father is dead, or they’ll know he is alive, and so will assume that (a) we are not on speaking terms, or (b) that he disapproves of my marriage, and so is boycotting. Well, I’d gone 6 months without any drama; I suppose I was due. And I don’t eat chocolate anymore, so I’m without any vice to comfort me.

Guess I’ll go for a run.

A the S(pent)

Turn of the Century

2007-06-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

I made it. I’ve lost 100.0 pounds.

At 7:50am this morning, I jumped on the scale, and there it was. 151 pounds. In fact, It’s really 150.9 or thereabouts, since the balance marker on the scale is a hair’s breadth below the 151 mark. I am officially down a full century, and I don’t care that pounds aren’t measured that way. Now that I’ve returned to losing weight—even though the reasons remain inexplicable (eating more? Exercising? Mercury went retrograde?), I am celebrating. I am down 100 pounds from my heaviest. I made it through everything and this goal is getting logged with something material. Open your wallet, Octopus-Mistress. Something Honkin’ this way comes!

For months I’ve been salivating about this moment. Usually when I thought about what the goal would be, it came in a small velvet box and cost a lot of money. At first, I dreamed up a sizzling diamond pendant equal in (diamond!) weight to the number of pounds I’d lost. When the number hit 90, and I realized I’d be plunking down several (many!) thousands on a rock, I backed off and pointed instead to a tanzanite ring with some diamond accents. Tasteful, beautiful, and rewarding from every angle. But then, I have my engagement ring and my commitment ring, and so where am I going to wear this (also expensive) bauble? I need to find something else.

But what? I need nothing, I want nothing, and I’m saving for a wedding.

Back when I was stuck at 153 and convincing myself to make goals other than weight loss, I ‘rewarded’ myself for my running by purchasing a pair of elite shoes. I realized as I put the first miles on those awesome sneakers that those shoes meant more to me than the sparklies. Me, who got certified by the Gemological Institute of America all the way back in 1991, just so I would know what I was looking at when I picked up a gem. I love jewelry, and I own a nice collection. I still retain that love, but now it falls more into fascinating beads or big, chunky pieces brought back from cruises by my dear, dear friend and future Mommy-in-law, Grandma Florida. My prized possession right now, apart from my solitaire, is a blingy watch that came back from Morocco. I’d been looking for a watch since 1989, and hadn’t found a thing that even tickled me. But this piece just knocks my face off every time I put it on. It’s a watch, it’s jewelry, it’s from someone I love, and I adore it.

But jewelry, especially gem-quality jewelry, just isn’t me anymore. I’d rather have an elliptical machine, or a weight bench with dial-a-dumbbells, or maybe a GPS watch, so I can venture off the path at the Forest Preserve and go running over the softer ground, and then let my wrist guide me back to the minivan in time to meet Lynda and DS at 6 o’clock.

I have some time to think about it, but not much. Now that I’m at 151, my last goal of 147 is totally in range. Howard is off the road now, and so Reddi-Whip gets returned to its original, more reasonable role of after-dinner, on-top-of-jello food. I’ve extracted the goldfish crackers from my diet and I’m razor-focused on sprinting toward the finish line: my finish line.

I have every reason to believe that I can make it down to my bottom. Four pounds to go, and miles ahead of me to burn those last few fatties off of me. We biked 18 miles today and I’m going for a full 6 mile run tomorrow. Heck, I might even see a size 0 before it’s all over.

No, I can’t count on that, and I really don’t need it. I am content to ignore sizes, sort of, so long as they’re all down on the lower end of the racks. The cut and the fit matter more to me than the number. Especially now that I can fixate on the scales. Just a few more to go, and then the real maintenance starts. And it’ll mean so much more to me, because this is my maintenance, born of my cursing and suffering and now, my joy at having nearly reached it.

One more pound and that big bar is moving off of 150 to rest on 100. I'm moving that bar backwards, and it is never going up again. I’m in a new century now. One free of size “W” clothes and winded walks to the corner and wondering if I could ever surface out from under all that fat. I got one hundred pounds of it off of me, and my sites are aimed square on those last 4. Don’t get comfy in there, fellas. You are goin’ down.

And so am I.

A the C(enturian)

It's a Magic Number

2007-06-29T19:19:00.001-07:00

All my life, I’ve had a love affair with the number 3.

In college, Howard quoted some oddball film, where an eccentric scientist spelled his name with a silent “7”, and a whole bunch of ‘Q’s or something. I don’t remember the letter configuration, but I did remember the silent number. I liked the idea so much that I began to spell my last name with a silent “3”.

Eventually, the number ‘3’ came to mean anything impressive enough to merit special attention. Spectacular putt-putt venues got renamed go3lf courses. Restaurants I enjoyed had new, silent characters inserted into their names. Angie’s Pi3zza. TGI Fri3days. Sometimes I got fancy, and simply substituted the ‘3’ for another letter. Taco B3ll. Auntie 3ms. T3d Dr3wes. Yeah, two ‘3’s in that one. That ice cream deserves it.

Once I sent a letter to my brother’s roommate, and for reasons I cannot articulate, I screwed up the whole address. I used the wrong first name, mixed up the street name with one that didn’t exist in that town, spelled the city incorrectly, and botched the zip code. So what should have read:

Mr. John Smith
175 N Cherry Street
Delaware, OH 43015

read instead:
Mr. Jeff Smith
175 N Banana Drive
DelaWHERE?, Ohio 41305.

And, of course, I put a ‘3’ in both my names on the return address.

The Delaware post office delivered the letter. Moreover, it delivered the letter in 3 days. Thereafter, that civil service organization became known as the Delawa3re post office.

School House Rock, the great series of animated music videos from the ‘70s, that delivered more education to me than most of my public schooling, had a little song for the number 3. It was a quiet song, nothing like the awesome rock tunes they did for “Interjections” or “Verb! That’s What’s Happening”. No, the ‘3’ song is a soft little ditty, referencing all form of triad from the collective unconscious. Past, present and future; faith, hope and charity, and a constant reference to 3 being a magic number. The chorus warms me particularly:

A man and a woman had a little baby.
Yes, they did.
They had three in their little family.
They had three; it’s a magic number.

Whenever I thought about being a parent, I always figured I would have only one child. So to me, 3 was the perfect number, the right number for my family. I even built a little needlepoint of that poem for X when we were together, inserting DS’s nickname for ‘baby’ to personalize it. He left it behind when he moved out, and I almost threw it out during one of my Purges. I’m glad I kept it. That family is gone, but now I have my perfect family. We are 3. It’s a magic number.

This week, with my loss edging toward the 100-pound mark (a three-digit number!), I went shopping. I was having my period, and so the Octopus was pressing its head against my pants anyway. Things don’t fit me as well in this week than they will in others. I think that may be part of the reason why I’m always in the dressing room during the First Days of my cycle. I figure if I can squeeze into a new size with a little bit of grunting, then they will surely fit for real once my tummy recedes.

Nothing really fit. The Jones New York got close, and I may go back next week to try again. But the Calvin Klein was way too snug. It surprised me, since I’ve had great luck with ol’ CK so far, but I may have to admit that I’m not going to get below a size 6 in dress clothes. I’m okay with it; in fact, it makes shopping a little easier, since apparently it’s okay to be tall if you’re a 6: at least, moreso than if you’re a 4.

I dumped the suits on the ‘reject’ rack on my way out of the fitting room and pointed my cart toward the junior jeans. I’d scored a pretty pair of shorts in a size 5 the week before, and I was feeling lucky. Besides, if I can find at least 1% lycra, I can get those babies on without lying on the dusty dressing room floor (don’t try this yourself: it’s gross, and only kinda worth it).

I found a pair of size 7s with a nice, faded look to the front of the legs. They also had that trademark 1.5” zipper that girls jeans seem to favor, but I couldn’t find anything else that stood a prayer of containing the octopus. I tried to find a size 5, which really fit me better, but these seemed to be a stand-alone. Looks like a slim shopping day for Mistress Crabs-A-Lot.

I realized once I got them into the dressing room that they were not size 7, but brand name Seven. Well, that made more sense. The word ‘seven’ was plastered all over the tags and the stickers and the jeans, and at first, I thought the maker was just really intent on letting shoppers know what size the jeans were. Comforted, I pulled them off the hanger and stuck my foot into the first leg.

Oooh, wow, these are tight! And they feel like much more than 1% lycra. Remember those woolen tights from kindergarten? The kind that don’t ever really pull up so much as just adhere to your leg? Woe to the little girl who sprouted hair too soon-she was about to get the Juniors Stretchy-Tights Epilady treatment. These jeans were just like that. They didn’t slide up my leg so much as creep, and when I got them to my groin, they sort of stuck to my skin. Tugging didn’t really help, since there wasn’t anything sturdy in the fabric at all.

I did a couple of squats and they oozed up over my hipbones. I thought they were way too small, but then I realized that with a gentle pull, I could paste the two sides of the wee zipper together. They buttoned easily, if alarmingly below my waist and I took a look.

The octopus was doing a cliff hang over the belt line, but a couple of tucks secured it into its denim hammock. The jeans had skinny legs, and I like that, and while the rise was ridiculous, they looked okay. I did a turn and my butt was sort of in 2 sections, but looked appropriately mature-yet-junior, and I decided that any jean willing to crawl over the invertebrate was going home with me.

As I was peeling them off of my legs, I noticed the tag in the back read ‘26’. I twisted the jeans off (eventually just turning them inside-out and kicking them off my feet) and then gave the tag a good eyeball. Sure enough, they were a 26. Twenty-six what? It couldn’t be a waist size-it doesn’t get anywhere near there! Then I saw another, smaller number above it. It was a ‘3’.

I checked the hang tags, and there it was again. Seven Jeans. Compare at, blah, blah, yadda, yadda. Size 26 E (Europe?), 3 USA.

Size 3. I was in Size 3 jeans. No holding my breath, no pretending to be bacon on the floor of the dressing room, and no more than 1% lycra. Size 3. Juniors. Mine, mine, mine.

I almost wore them back to the office, but the octopus registered her distress, and so I demurred. I did wear them the next day, though, and while I had some hip bone distress from the closeness of the fabric to my joints, I also got compliments all day long. Great jeans, you look skinny. Where’d you get those? What size are they?

They are 3. It’s a magic number.

Am3y

Off track

2007-06-24T19:13:00.001-07:00

I hate the track.

I’ve hated the track since high school, when I ran with the girls basketball team out of the gym, up the hill to the stadium and around the black cinder track, huffing and panting while Coach Blow-Dry stood around in his sans-a-belt trousers. Loping around in circles, listening to my own labored breath and watching the rocks jump up from the ground and sign leases inside my socks ranks right up there with shampooing the insides of my eyelids. I switched to fencing in college, just so I wouldn’t have to run any more freakin’ laps.

I’m just not built for tracks. I know this, and I remembered it a couple of months ago when I tried to run in ovals around the Wheaton College 400. Dull, awful, and, despite the spongy-looking surface, absolute horror to my joints. That’s why I spend so much time running off-road: it’s prettier, it’s softer on the bones, and it isn’t the track.

I’ve been doing my running lately in the Forest Preserve. I’ve been running around Herrick Lake for the last few weeks, content to circle the one-mile circumference, rather than venture off, alone and winded, into the preserve itself. The area is perfectly pleasant, but I’m just not confident enough to sprint away from a would-be assailant if one appeared on the back end of my run. So I run in circles, varying the direction so that I wear out my ligaments in tandem. The last time I ran the lake, I did 7 full laps. I did the whole thing averaging about 6:50 per lap, and while I’ve done better, I felt okay with it.

Then someone at work told me that her GPS watch clocked the lake trail at 0.83 miles, and not 1.0. Crushed, but doubting that my little $10 Target pedometer could compete with a GPS watch (and determined to get find out how to get one for myself!), I brought Howard into the mix. We took to the Prairie Path on Friday, with Howard cycling beside me. According to the bike’s odometer, I run somewhere between 6mph and 7mph, which equates to approximately 9:15 per mile.

Nine minutes, when I thought I was running at 7. I’m sorry, but that is blisteringly slow. My god, how long will it take me to finish the 10k? An hour! Will the finish line even be up at that point? Will I be running into someone’s picnic because all the racers and their families, and the sponsors, have gone home? I can’t have that. I must run faster. I might not get to the pace I thought I was doing, but I can do better than nine minutes.

I went to the library and got all their books on running. The one that grabbed me was a Hal Higdon, apparently the Gucci of running-by-the-book-coaching. I plucked ‘Run Fast: How to Prepare for a 5k or 10k race’ and carried it home, unsure of the 1980s man on the cover, but hoping that running transcended fashion, and that the advice would still hold.

The book, while interesting, is clearly written for the hard core runner (100 miles per week) who is using 10k races as a speed workout. I find it funny that there are people who use my target race as a warm-up and/or workout in preparation for ‘real’ races. I’m trying to think how this would equate to me, and I guess it would be a book about how to get faster on the dash from the bed to the bathroom when I’ve drunk too much water before bed. Oh well, all things in perspective, I couldn’t walk to the corner last year without losing my breath, and today I can run for 4 miles before I start to make noises when I hit a hill.. Maybe by next year, I’ll be okay to lose a couple of toenails in the San Francisco marathon, because the hills make for good preparation to the flatter Chicago terrain.

Higdon’s book is all about using sprinter’s workouts to make distance runners stronger, and therefore faster. I’m in. I read about interval training, strides, sprints, fartleks (I swear that’s a real word), and using anaerobic drills to create greater aerobic capacity. I skipped over all of Higdon’s advice about postponing speed work until I’d run for a year, did at least 15 miles a week and had a ‘race pace’ based on some portfolio of competitive runs. I need to get faster now. Last Saturday, I packed up my boys, and off we went.

DS paced me for the first warm-up lap, but then his tiny legs gave out and he opted for walking, calling to me, ‘Mommy, you don’t go fast!’ No joke, kiddo! That’s why I’m pumping my arms like pistons around this stupid ellipse. Howard kept pace with DS, but they got ambushed by a pack of co-eds playing Frisbee football on the fake grass, and so they loped around the loop while I chugged and huffed my way through the drills. I did half a lap at nearly-full speed, and then a quarter-loop walking, and then started it all over again. I jogged 2 laps as a warm-up and did a final ‘victory’ half-lap at the end. By then, DS was melting and even Howard looked a little bit over-sunned. I figure I did about 3 miles, far less than a run, but my legs were tired and it felt good to blow the carbon out.

According to Higdon, I ran too fast. I should have been running at race pace, vs. all out. Well, tough. I don’t know what race pace is, and so I just went as fast as I could while still maintaining my form. I’m sore still, but it’s clearly muscular and not joint-related, and so I’m going ahead with my planned run tonight. And then on Thursday, after it cools down, it’s back to intervals at the lake, this time with full knowledge of its 0.83 secret.

Long runs increase endurance, but intervals increase fitness. Starting Thursday, and for the next month until the Fleet Feet gun goes off, I’m working on chipping my time down. I’ll beat the one-hour race time for sure, and maybe, just maybe, the adrenaline of the day and the other racers can lift me to my ‘race pace’, whatever that is. And then I’ll be back at it the very next workout, chiseling time off of that, too.

I have my long runs and my intervals now; things to alternate, each with their gifts, and each with their demands. I can get faster, and fitter, all at once, and so maybe next year when I lose a toenail, I won’t even notice.

That is, unless it happens on the track.

A the D(irt Hiker)

Leaping from the Goldfish Bowl

2007-06-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

I discovered last week that I am still the same old fat girl.

Howard is traveling still, this being Week #8 that he’s been out of town full time. Yeah, he comes home on Thursday night, but it isn’t until after 9pm, and we both work on Fridays, so to my mind, he’s gone all week. Plus, Sundays are filled with limo reservations, boarding pass printings and packing, so to me, it feels like he’s only here on Saturdays. It’s not enough, and it’s wearing on all of us.

Howard and I are now to a point where we’ve agreed to have a fight on Friday night, whether we need it or not, which we will. We’re both so wired from being apart that we get cranked up over small things. We spend all week ignoring them, because we have so little time, and that's late at night on the phone, so it's a weak connection at best. We don’t address anything real while he’s on the road, and then the adjustment of him returning home wipes us out so badly that inevitably we blow up at each other. Then we spend hours feeling guilty about fighting on our lone day together, which exhausts us even further.

So, starting this week, instead of doing that, we are now going to catalog the week’s offenses, battle them out on Friday night, cry, make up, have sex, and then spend the rest of our weekend being normal. We’re going to do it anyway, and so we might as well get it done, so we can get on with being our usual happy-family selves.

Howard has been an angel through it all, shouldering the blame, as if there were any, for being out of town. He spends his whole weekend doing things for DS and I to “make up” for his time away, and he manages, somehow, to do some wedding planning while he’s working 10-hour days and having dinner with his power-mongering boss. Plus, as you know, he cooks all day long on Sunday for me, packaging up single-serving meals and making sure there’s enough produce in the house to let me eat WW-friendly all week long. He even makes a few jello cups for me, so I can have a little something sweet and topped with some fat-free Reddi-Whip for dessert. I can eat all week as if he were here, and continue sliding down the scales, as if he’d never left.

Would that it were so. I’m so down by his absence that I can’t bring myself to eat, and at the same time, my emotions beg me to comfort them with all those No Longer On The List foods.

I made it through the first couple of weeks all right. I missed Howard, but it was sort of a romantic longing. Oh, look: at last a lover that I’m sorry to see leave the house. We can do a whole Sara McLachlan thing, where we’re sad, but it’s glorious. That wore out quickly, though, and then the loneliness and the quiet of the house prodded me to comfort myself with the old standbys.

It started small, as it always does with a bad habit. The first bad week, I ate ham instead of Canadian bacon at breakfast, since I didn’t have to cook that, and I doubled up on the yogurt when I discovered it was too much trouble to scramble egg whites. The next week, I had a handful of goldfish crackers before dinner. I skipped my carbs that night, but still, the grease of those evil little crackers laid in my stomach all night, and I know that the nutrition content (read: fat) was no match for the bulgur/brown rice combo that Howard had made for me over the weekend.

Next, I ate a Pop Tart after dinner. That stormed my intestines and had me cramped up for the better part of the evening. I couldn’t believe that I once considered those rectangular demons a Choice Pig Out Selection. They are nasty, and that is super-true when they are stale and when I’m out of practice eating them. By my calculation, they are 4 POINTS apiece-roughly the amount I eat for a light-yet-filling dinner, which would include 4 ounces of chicken breast, 2 salad-plate-sized wraps and a fat free yogurt of my choosing. I knew it, and yet, I ate it anyway.

That next week, I fell through the floor. I only ate a real dinner one night, and I downed a full can of Reddi-Whip each evening. I didn’t even put it on top of anything. I couldn’t do that—I was already eating too many empty calories! It was like too-sweet ice cream, that went down easy and buzzed me just enough that I didn’t miss the regular dinners. That is, until I finished the cup and my stomach demanded something real. No, honey, I can’t do that. But how about a little more fake sweetener to take the edge off? I actually ran an extra day, just to try to keep the pounds off of the scale.

What happened to me? It’s as if all these weeks of training my brain and teaching myself to crave healthy things vanished along with my Food Chaperon. I’m worried now that my success is based on Howard’s proximity, or his eyes on my plate, rather than anything I’ve done on my own. It’s unsettling to think that if he went somewhere overseas and I didn’t see him for 3 or 4 weeks straight that I’d be in bigger clothes and lying around the house like in the old days. I fear that as soon as my just-a-little-bit-snug jeans gets Just A Little Too Tight, that I’ll panic and it’ll all be over. Down the drain (read: stomach) goes all that hard work.

I got it back together last week, and then ran 27 miles. In a stroke of luck I don't dare expect again, I weighed in last Sunday morning and logged an amazing 153.0. I’m still struggling with those last 2 pounds, but at least now it’s a fair fight, rather than me bludgeoning myself with crap and guilt and self-destructive thoughts.

I’m PMSing this week, so the octopus is a little puffier than usual. Somehow though, I’m okay with it. It sort of reminds me that I’m just a chink away from my old self. The Fat Lady lives on. I might have retooled myself, but the re-engineering is going to take a while.

Last Saturday, Maria the Spectacular commented in our meeting that she gives herself a small goal every week. I’m going to start doing it, too. For this week, my goal is to make a real breakfast for myself every morning, including eggs, cooked ham or bacon, and ONE yogurt with flax meal. I’m also going to make a sit-down dinner for both DS and I. Lynda the Nanny-Goddess tends to feed DS when he gets off the school bus, and that makes him harder to commit to dinner, but summer school is in the morning now, and if we do some of our studying or playing for an hour or so beforehand, and I make myself a sensible snack when I get home, we can wait until 7 or 7:30 to eat.

I haven’t figured out how not to miss Howard, but I am committed to caring for myself in his absence. It’s enough that we’re all suffering because of each other-there’s no sense in me stretching that out to myself. Besides, I’ve got a figure-hugging wedding dress to slither into in less than 4 months. That’s an awesome motivator, believe me. I cannot afford to buy another, bigger dress. Just ask my cranky, cheap-o accountant. Oh, wait: that’s me.

Off with the crap. Back to the races. Those last 2 pounds are coming off, and then all the rest of them are staying off. I look good, I feel great, I'm eating right, and I believe I'm becoming thing for life.

A the B(ack on Track)

PS-I wrote this last Monday. This morning, I weighed in at a new low of 151.50. All hail the Panic Attack. More (of course) later.

Your Mileage May Vary

2007-06-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I learned one of two things:

(1) The City of Chicago is in on a conspiracy to sabotage my confidence as I prepare for my first footrace, OR

(2) I stink at simple math.

The City of Chicago is on a grid, with 8 blocks to the mile. Has been since State and Madison became the (0,0) point during the engineering layout, continues to be so for all inhabitant and tourist ever since. Streets go north-south or east-west, except for Lincoln, Grand, and Clark, which run on a diagonal. If you want to know how to get somewhere, just look at the address where you’re standing, and start walking. Or, if you’re in a higher-priced neighborhood, hail a cab. Chicago doesn’t do the ‘streets go north-south and avenues go east-west’ like Manhattan, but hey, we’re Midwesterners, and frankly, we’re just not that detail-oriented. From the air, the city streets mimic the largest waffle you’ve ever seen, and, from the ground, no matter where you’re standing, it’s 8 blocks to the mile.

On July 27, I will be running in the Fleet Feet Women’s race, a 10k run that winds around Chicago’s lakefront. I’ll be on a cinders path with up to 3,700 other runners, racing past Belmont Harbor, the Foster Street beach house, and the famous totem pole at Addison Street. In preparation for this, since I am an anal-retentive competition-insane crazy broad, I took Sunday morning off from my Mommy errands, loaded Howard and his Daddy-cycle into the minivan and rode up to Hollywood beach, where Lake Shore Drive begins. I wanted to see the path before I ran it the first time. I wanted to feel how different it would be to run on the breezy lakefront vs. in the more stifled suburban winds (all puns intended). We landed near the Edgewater Beach hotel, found a parking space with alarming ease, and took one last potty break (very important!) before I started shuffling down the path toward the Belmont Harbor.

The actual race course doubles back on itself and the starting point appears to be a random place along Wilson Avenue, so I decided instead that I would mark off 3.1 miles on a southbound course, turn around when I hit the mark and run back. Total mileage: 6.2, with a decent view of the slope, angles, and terrain of the path between the starting spot and the finish line. Bryn Mawr is at 5600 North and Belmont is at 3200. That’s 24 blocks, so according to the Chicago Grid, that’s 3.0 miles. I started at Hollywood beach, which is 2 blocks north of Bryn Mawr, allowing for the extra two-tenths of a mile that I would need to go my full 10k. So off I went, secure in the knowledge that I’d run three 10ks in the last week, and so this run should be textbook. Routine.

Actually, no.

First, thanks to my darling fiancé, I was now the proud owner of a new bicycle—a sleek and snazzy hybrid bike that woos me to ride faster, faster, faster! After we got the bike on Saturday, we cycled out to West Chicago and back, logging about 90 minutes on the bike, and averaging at least 15 mph. Poor Howard. I didn’t tell him ahead of time that for me, bike ride and bike race are interchangeable terms. I’d crank up on my pedals and whoosh ahead, then look back and find this tiny speck of a man, pedaling like a normal person and (likely) wondering why he’d chosen this “bike-o-path” as a mate. To his credit, he never complained, and I did slow down (on occasion) so we could actually ride together. I wasn’t tired when we finished, but 90 minutes on the bike is a full workout, even if it didn’t injure my knees the way that running does/did/will. So my legs were a little less rested on Sunday when I hit the path. I wasn’t hurt or sore, but clearly, something at the cellular level needed a little more break than I’d given them.

Second, it was hot on Sunday. The thermostat in the car read 89 as we were driving in, but I reasoned that it’s always cooler at the lake, and anyway, there’s a delightful breeze that accompanies the water, so even if it stayed near 90, I figured that it wouldn’t feel so hot. As it turns out, I edged off the cinders-based running track almost immediately and wound up on the blacktop cycling path. Blacktop is much, much hotter than dirt, especially when it’s crowded with city folk who are used to the cramped quarters and edge & elbow each other all along the route. I was in the sun most of my run, and the blacktop seeped up through my shoes until my socks threatened to start smoking. And, the temperature was not cooler in the city. In fact, by the time we finished, the odometer on Howard’s bike read 95. Ugh.

Finally, while it may be that there’s 8 blocks to the mile and the trip in a straight line from Hollywood to Belmont is 3.1 miles, that rule does not apply to a winding, double-back style bike & running path that sometimes hugs the lake and other times dances on the lip of the Drive. I now know also that I got caught up in agitation with all the cyclists streaming past me and tried to keep up with them, so I was running much faster than any pace I could sustain for 6 miles in 95-degree heat. I made it about two-thirds of the way down to my turnaround point and had to stop, my breath gulping and my legs yelling at me from above the fire pit in my shoes. Anger, of course, does wonders to fuel the spirit, but very little to motivate a PMS-beleaguered suburban dweller baking in the city sun.

I made it as far as the halfway point before I peeled off, tired and defeated, and angry enough to cause stares as I shouted my self-indignation. Howard attempted soothing words-this is new terrain, it’s full of people, it’s morning, it’s hot, you biked an hour and a half yesterday. Who cares, I told him. I’m here to race. I need to run the full 10k without stopping. This workout is a waste.

I pulled off my pedometer to check my time, certain that this would be the thing that would send me over the edge. Since I hadn’t run the whole of the distance, I was sure that my time was slow. It was. 33:11, or about 11 minutes a mile. When I ran 10k at Herrick Lake on Thursday, I’d run it at a 7:15/mile pace. Good god; even at faster-than-I-can-manage pace, I was dog slow.

Then I looked at the mileage. It should have read 3.1 miles, but instead it read 4.5. What? I looked around me: we were at the Belmont Harbor, and the familiar high-rise apartments of that corner stood over us to the west. I did the math again. Yes, 5800 minus 3200 is 26 blocks. Eight blocks to a mile. 3+ miles. But there was the pedometer, insisting that I’d run 4.5.

Well then.

It still stunk that I couldn’t run the whole thing without stopping, but 4.5 miles of rage was better than 3 miles. And, recalculating the math, I’d run at about a 7:30 pace, including all my walking breaks. Okay, that’s better. Not good, but better. The only thing I had to do now was slow down enough to find a pace where I could run the whole thing back, and then run the whole thing back. If I did the whole trip, that would be 9 miles. Well, nothing to do now but take a drink, find an opening in the trail traffic and get going.

I did the second half in 34:30, so a little bit slower. I really lost my legs in the last mile and had to do it in intervals. It was the strangest thing-I had the aerobics and wasn’t tired that way, but my legs got heavy and demanded I stop. Since I was so far beyond my regular workout, I didn’t mind (as much!), and just ran what I could and rested when I had to. I stopped 3 times on the way back, but I made it at least 2.5 miles before I stopped, which was longer than I made it on the way down. I finished up with a total time just over 1:07, and averaged about an 8-minute mile for the whole thing. I don’t think I can really count that, since I stopped for a full 5 minutes at the halfway point, but two 4.5 mile workouts is better than one, and in the final analysis of it, I ran 9 miles yesterday. Plus, Howard pointed out that I passed a lot of other runners on the way, even at my slower pace, and that I was only passed once (by a runner), and he was sprinting.

Now, 24 hours removed from it, I know that it’s not necessary to run the full 10k; only to finish it. I also know that when I do intervals, I run faster, since I can rest between spurts. My pride-based ego (which is huge) insists that I run the whole thing, and I probably will. My ego will also not allow me to stop during the actual race, and so while I may collapse at (over!) the finish line, I can’t see that I’ll be stopping. I’ll do what the experts say for the first race-start near the back, don’t fret when obvious-marathoners sprint by, stay focused, and leave my headphone at home. Good advice, all. But they also advocate running my regular workout pace, and I don’t think I can do that. I’ll try, but something tells me that I’ll be working hard to keep up with the veterans, and to run the whole thing, so that I can say I did it. Running a 10k is a completely different experience from finishing a 10k. I can do it-I have.

I’m so glad that I went down there on Sunday. I didn’t run the actual race course, but I’ve seen the lakefront, I’ve run on both paths, and now I have 5 weeks to prepare, including at least one more weekend when I can go down and race on the actual trail. I’m through with my anger now, and the only thing that remains is my anger at myself for getting angry in the first place. Who cares if I couldn’t run the whole thing? This is something fun for me, something I love. I should treat it as such. And now that I’ve done this once, I have a goal to beat for the next time.

So that’s the long, and the longer, of it. Thank goodness for the pedometer, otherwise I might have hung up my shoes for good. Well, okay, for the rest of the day. But still, even though I would have gotten back on the path by Tuesday, it would have haunted me to think I couldn’t run the full 10k in the city. Now though, that I know that 10k in Chicago is really more like 15, I’m feeling better about the whole ordeal. I looked at the race map last night after I got back, and I smiled. Yeah, I can do that. I ran 150% of that today alone.

I have a new goal now: to be running 10 miles per workout by the time race day comes. That way, when the “k” gets stretched to “mile and then some”, I’ll be ready. Then too, when I start off way too fast, I’ll be finished before my body gives me the finger and hurls me to the ground in protest. I should get that weight bench soon: Howard is going to need it, so he can carry me all the way back to the van after the race ends.

A the W(aiting for Pedestrian GPS)

Running Down a Dream

2007-06-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

Screw my body; I want to keep my brain forever.

Many irritated apologies for not catching you and me up on all that’s happened. I think I may have to go to the ‘write less, but more often’ model, since I’ve begun, mind-melded and lost at least 4 posts since I wrote last, and that does not count all the writing I lost in the 2 weeks between the last post and the one before that. But enough whining. I’m already hopelessly behind.

So let me hit the highlights and then challenge myself to write an under-500 word post, so everyone can keep current without having to devote an entire morning to reading each of my musings. Here goes.

My decision on whether I’m finished losing weight, or just stuck on 153 for the rest of my life, or maybe just eating too much Fat Free Reddi-Whip now that Howard is traveling 100% of the time, continues to be a point of daily debate inside the entropy of my mind.

Akin to ‘am I done already?’ I ask myself if I should just pretend that I’m always losing, since on the days (okay, hours) that I’ve decided I’m actually on maintenance vs. stuck at 153 pounds, I wind up eyeballing all form of Bad For Me foods. This week, I actually ate a Pop-Tart. I didn’t even really have those when I was fat! They’re not food, there’s nothing of merit in them, and frankly, since I am no longer 9, they don’t taste all that good. I’m up a pound this week, and I’m pretty sure it was the (stale!) Brown Sugar Cinnamon “pastry” that I ate this week, instead of the frozen grilled shrimp that had been left for me by my caring-yet-absent fiancé.

Single parenting SUCKS, and is made double-sucky since Howard is actually a participating partner in our lives. DS and I do all right, but we’re basically dormant while he’s gone, and while I stew in guilt about it during the day, I simply cannot bring myself to do anything fun with DS in the evenings. For DS’s part, he seems content to flop on the couch and let me read to him or watch “West Side Story” for the bazillionth time. Seriously, that has to stop. Good film, and the longer scenes don’t affect him the way current television does, but he’s starting to quote some of the movie now, and there are a few epithets that no one should utter, least of all a 5-year old about to enter kindergarten.

DS is going to regular, mainstream kindergarten next year. After a long, funky, oddball negotiation with the IEP team, they agreed, with extreme reluctance and prejudice, that, given the unavailability of our first choice (let him go all day, in the self-contained K half day and the mainstream half day), that he really was better suited for mainstream, especially if he had an aide. So, noting item 3 above, I have a lot of social skills training to do with DS prior to the first bell in August.

Now that DS has a diagnosis and a placement for next year, I have finally gotten him into a private speech therapy class. He’ll go twice a week, once for 1:1 therapy and once to a small group that emphasizes speech and social skills, and is designed for children like him, with high intelligence and mind blindness. He’s already come so far, and I think this will really catapult him into Me But Typical for next year. I’m trying really hard not to get overenthusiastic about this, especially since he’s been talking so much more lately, and with greater diction and sentence structure. He’s still far behind in social skills, and that’s key in a mainstream situation, so we’ll see how the summer goes.

Since my Awesome Boss has ladeled all kinds of new work on me, including a bunch of finance/accounting things about which I know nothing, I have decided that now, 20 years since I graduated with my B.A., is the perfect time to get that advanced degree. I researched programs for a month and finally settled on a place where I’d done a few grad classes back in the 90s (yeah, I’ve been kicking this around for a LONG time). They’re going to give me credit for the work I’ve done, even though it was 9 years ago, and my advisor has encouraged me to CLEP test out of a few prerequisites, so if I get all that done, I will finish my MBA in 2 years. I do find it funny that I’m on board with the CLEP thing, though I admit that is largely because these tests are administered in test centers and not in freezing college cafeterias, where I’d be a caffeine-deprived middle-aged woman in the midst of hung over teens, taking the same dang tests and wondering what the Hock I was doing there. This way, I can humiliate myself in private, study from the comfort of my “crib”, and nobody has to know that I’m taking a college-entrance exam at 42. Well, nobody but me, Howard, and all of you, but hey, what’s a little teen humor between old fogeys?

That’s the big stuff. Now on to the less newsworthy but more Obsession-minded: my running.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve discovered 2 running junkies at the office. Both are women, both have children, and both have run for years, so they have tons of advice for me. The Director is a hard core runner, who even now, years removed from her regular training still clocks a 6:08 mile when she’s (in her terms) ‘laying up’ in a race. The other is 5 months removed from having her second baby and is training for the Chicago Marathon this October. I managed to snag the Momma for lunch last week, and I dragged a ton of ideas out of her. She rattled off speed workout ideas and shoe shopping suggestions, and diagnosed my “I’m gonna retch” sensation by announcing that I was dehydrated and that I had to over-water myself on the day before I run, as well as the day of my workout.

One thing both women talked about at length was the Runner’s High-that moment when you’ve pushed past The Wall and then feel like you could run forever. Momma said that I wasn’t getting it because I was doing interval training-that builds my fitness faster but it keeps me from the endorphin rush, since I stop when it gets hard. She suggested I run just a little on my days off, just to see if I could run a mile without stopping, or half a mile, if that’s all I could do. Determined to get The Rush, I agreed.

Well, I’m a forty-something newbie runner, so the idea of running when I should be resting my gonna-get-arthritis knees worries me. But I got stuck in the house on Monday, and so DS and I loaded up the treadmill and I ran until I had to stop. I did most of it at 6mph (10-min/mile pace), and while I was tired, it felt pretty good. I made it 2 miles (yay!), but I also thought I could do more. I didn’t look at the monitor until I hit 1.4 miles but then I was constantly looking down at it and I’m pretty sure I sabotaged myself.

Wednesday, I decided to try again. I packed my gear and left work a little early. I went to the Herrick Lake preserve by my office and mapped out a route. The path around the lake is exactly 1 mile. I would run it as long as I could, at least 2 miles though, and just stop when I had to.

I got to 3 miles and was so surprised that I stopped, fearful of hurting myself. I walked for about 30 seconds, but my breathing was back, and so off I went. That last mile hurt, and then I got worried that I’d be late getting home, so I left. Final mileage: 4.0, at 27 minutes, or roughly 6:15/mile. (over 9mph). I have NO idea how I ran that fast-I really felt I was running at a comfortable, easy-to-maintain pace.

I spent Thursday and Friday determined to get back to Herrick and see if I could get that 5^th mile in. In the mean time, Maria the Spectacular invited me to join her and her daughter for a 10k race. Ten kilometers is 6.2 miles. I agreed to sign up. And then my Psycho Competitor Brain jumped in and said ‘hey, if you ran those 4 miles so easily and so fast, I’ll bet you could do a whole 10k without stopping. Just take it easy, and I’ll bet you can do it.’

I decided to take an extra day off, to get my body healed completely, so I had no soreness excuses to keep me from running as far as I could. Howard and I loaded up the van, bolted DS’s new tag-along bike to Howard’s gleaming silver streak (father’s day present), and off we went. I was nervous, but determined to try. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t run the whole thing today. The longest I’d run at all was 5 miles, and that was on intervals, and the longest I’d run without stopping was 4 miles, and that was just 2 days before.

I made it.

Ran the whole thing. Six-point-two miles. 10k. Final time: 44:15, or roughly 7 minutes per mile (just over 8mph). I got REALLY tired on mile 4 and insanely tired on mile 5, but I kept going, knowing the runner’s high would kick in and I could go on forever. Somewhere in the middle, I convinced myself that if the high hit late enough, I might run 7 miles. Or 8. Or 10. The half-marathon couldn’t be far behind.

Well, yeah, actually, it is. I made the whole thing, but I was slower than the 4 miles, and I never got the runner’s high. Or maybe I did, but I missed it because I was dodging toddlers and some clown walking his Great Pyrenees across the span of the trail. I was pretty sure at some point I was running slower than I could have walked, but I kept the spring in my step, I kept my head down on the inclines, and I refused to stop, even when my body hinted that Old Ladies new to running shouldn’t be out dong 10k runs without months and months of training and Hal Higdon (running guru-apparently) whispering in their ear.

My brain, though, refused to quit. That last lap was hard-unbelievably tough and seemed to take forever, but I did it, and it was not The End for me. My calves are sore, but I’m not hurt anywhere, and Howard said I looked tired and worked when I finished, but not spent. It’s true. I was tired but I probably could have done more. But that’s enough for today. I’m happy to leave some on the track for next time. After all, I ran a 10k today. All by myself, having never really run more than an occasional sprint to a departing train before this year.

Yay me. But at the same time, there’s still some work to do….somewhere. I think.

I did what I wanted to do and switched my goals from weight loss to fitness. Somehow, though, I remain frustrated. Does it matter that I’m 153 pounds (154 today, grrrr!), even as I’m comfortably in size 2 everything, when at 157 pounds in March I was a 4 or a 6? I know that size loss is all due to this exercise. I even look different since March, even in my face, and that’s unexpected change for a bunch of running.

Will it eat at me forever that I’ve lost 97 pounds or 98 instead of the 100 or even 106 I’d hoped for? I don’t know. I don’t see any extra baggage on my body, but since I didn’t choose a goal, I didn’t really reach it and so I’m not sure whether I should stop. I always said I wanted to lose until my body found it’s ‘set point’ and then I would rest happily there, knowing I found my true and healthy bottom. But it’s so weird to have backed into a goal. No answers, and that’s very frustrating for the control freak/gotta know it all now woman that I am. That didn’t change when I got skinny. In fact, if anything, that broad has more energy now, since she doesn’t have to cart around an extra 100 (98!) pounds any more.

I’m very happy down here, wearing size 5 juniors and knowing that often, I’m the thinnest person in the room. What a change it’s been from last June, when I tipped the scales at 251 pounds and couldn’t cross my arms over my chest when I sat down, and, when sitting, couldn’t tell where my boobs ended and my stomach began. Now I’m a 34DD, and while my waist won’t ever be the teeny teen wasp-thing it was, I can wear low-rise jeans without too much protest from the octopus, and really, these days I actually prefer to have pants sitting on my hip bones, because they then accent the athletic shape that I’ve recently created.

What’s next? I just don’t know. Maybe I’ll figure it out on the track, when my body is too busy counting laps to realize that my brain has worked it all out.

A the T(en-k)

PS-That 500-word post thing goes into effect next time. Maybe. :)

On the Road Again

2007-05-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love to eat.

I have so much to catch you up on, but this is the biggest and most urgent issue, so I’m starting here. If I can figure out how to stop sleeping at night, I might be able to get everyone current on all that’s happened in the last 2 weeks.

So first, it seems that golden flax meal is not only nature’s broom, but Amy’s Miracle Cure. I’ve been stirring it into my yogurt at breakfast or on to my couscous at night. I’m running about 50/50 on the yogurt vs. couscous, since I run out of yogurt annoyingly often. I love yogurt so much and Weight Watchers makes a brand called “amaretto cheesecake” which is just as awesome as it sounds, and so while I attempt to eat only half a serving, I usually wind up downing the whole 6 oz, and before I know it, my refrigerator is devoid of those darling little cups and I’m back to eating dry brown stuff on top of my dry brown stuff. Yummy.

But even when I have to drink double waters at dinner to get the flax unstuck from my esophagus, it is totally worth it. Not only does the octopus seem less bloated and creepy, but I am dropping weight again. This morning I clocked in a crisp 153.0 pounds, down 98.0 total and off only 1.0 pound from my low before my body freaked out and starting piling on pounds out of nothing. I’m still doing the CLA and the fish oil tablets, and I’m sure they are helping as well. But all hail the little bag of horse feed in my refrigerator. I am back on the weight loss road again.

And speaking of feed, I am still eating more, and I love it. I’m still not quite where I should be calorie-wise, especially on the protein side, but wow has it made a difference. I get to eat pretty much all the time, I’m only hungry for short periods (vs. all day, like I was before), and I feel so much better. I can really be an ass sometimes. In my quest to get things done Right Frickin' Now, I often sabotage my own high-strung efforts. There’s nothing to be done about it, but I really wonder how much more pleasant this would have been for me if I’d exercised from the beginning, ate everything I was supposed to eat and behaved like a normal person. Well, normal for me, but let’s not get picky.

Then again, maybe it’s just not realistic to expect this of me. After all, I had Howard as an example through this whole process, and I never took his lead. Even when he would feel good all week while following ‘his’ program and then starve all weekend when he was following mine, it just never occurred to me that he was losing weight at pretty much the speed I was, and that I could have a more civilized approach to lifelong thinness if only I would have opened my pie hole and consumed a little more.

In returning to food, I did make some painful changes. For example, I’m barely drinking soda any more, and I’ve cut way back on the pickles at night. Of course, I don’t need them as much anymore, and I was eating them because they were basically “free” calories, but it’s still sad to say good-bye to diet root beer and the sugar free chocolate soda. I can’t help believing that the sodium content contributed to my ankles-as-flagpoles look, though, and so out they went.

I also nixed most of my popcorn consumption. I had noticed that the only thing it did for me in the afternoons was make me hungry, and it seemed to puff me up at night, so that when I ate it late on Friday, I weighed in heavier on Saturday. Let me tell you, it is MOST annoying, to be light all week and then weigh in heavy at my meeting. So I still have it, but it’s more like twice a week than twice a day. I don’t miss it as much as I expected, but again, I don’t need it as much any more.

On the exercise front, I’m still running and getting more obsessed by the session. I discovered that I do better if I take 2 days off between runs, so I’m only running 3 times a week right now. This incites me to get that dang weight bench into my rec room already, since I don’t dare hope to stay fit and healthy on running alone. I’ll be endorphin-loaded for sure, and that’s awesome, but I need some real muscles built, and I need something to do on my days “off” besides barter with myself that I can have a serving of goldfish crackers so long as I sprinkle them with flax meal.

But while I wait to get off my mushy tushy and do that, I’ve experimented with running styles. I think running is like racquetball or the guitar-anyone can do the basics in a few minutes, and you can spend your whole life hanging out in the beginner’s section and be pretty happy. But in reality, it’s one of those sports that take a long time to master and there’s a zillion ways to improve it from every angle. I borrowed 2 runner’s magazines from Maria the Spectacular (which I then forgot to bring with me to the meeting on Saturday-they’re coming, I promise!), and they were both great and completely over my head. The words were English, but the concepts were entirely foreign, and it looks like they both catered to the Hard Core runner whose been pounding the pavement for years, rather than lil’ ol Interval Gal Me who’s been at it for 6 weeks.

I did pick up some things about racing and stride, and I’ve used them both already. I figured out, for example, that I wasn’t running or jogging so much as I was sprinting during my run intervals, and while that has its merits, I can’t keep it up for the 4 miles I was logging. I happened to shut off my music at the halfway point about a week ago, and so I had to clock the ‘front’ half of my run separate from the back. I ran the first 2 miles in 15 minutes and the second 2 miles in 19, and I did it the same way, running 90 steps (I don’t have a stop watch-too cheap to invest in a good one), and walking 40. So clearly I’m inconsistent on my speed. I also realized that in sprinting, I was running so that my foot landed way out in front of my body, rather than under me, and that was stressing my quadriceps and my knees, so that I did the Old Lady Hobble for 2 days after any workout. I figure that some of this is New Body Running, but some of it was also bad form. So I shortened up my stride and suddenly the Old Lady Legs went away. Cool.

But I continued to be unable to run for any kind of distance. Yes, I know it’s only been 6 weeks, and yes, I’ve ‘upped’ my running from 70 steps to 90 while keeping the walking constant. But when I think about entering a 5k race, I want to run a bunch of it. I figure adrenaline will keep me racing longer, but there’s no way I can run 3 miles without stopping. The last I checked, I could do about half a lap around the track. Sucks.

Plus, I had this nagging urge to hurl for most of my run, and I could never catch my breath on the walking intervals, even to slow down my hyperventilating. I’m okay with that on some level, because I want to keep improving. But I have to tell you, it’s kind of embarrassing to be moaning out on the roads, even if there’s no one around to hear me. I’m not a tree in the forest, and so it was still happening.

Howard suggested I do a slow run for the first 5 minutes, to warm myself up. Ha! What does that skinny clown know? ‘Warm up’ for me translates into ‘wasted time’. Balls out at all times or forget it! Full speed or stay at home! But then I finished my run on Friday and I couldn’t stand up for 3 or 4 minutes after I finished and I was weak-legged for most of the night. So yesterday I decided to try it. Why not? If I hated the slow pace, I could chuck it for next time. I was going to try 5 miles this time, and so I figured it was a good idea to go easy. Since I was adding 20% to my distance, I wouldn’t mind having a ‘slow’ pace on the first trial. And it sure would be nice to finish a run without wishing I would just upchuck and get it over with.

I reversed my route so I started on a pretty big down hill run. I realize that makes it a big up hill run near the end, but hey, we’re tweaking things, let’s mess up both sides of the equation. I ran to 100 steps and I felt pretty good, so I just decided to keep up the soft pace until I felt ready to stop. Well, I ran for half a mile, even taking in a pretty big hill in the middle, and I was fine. I only stopped because I thought I should, to reduce my risk of injury.

After that, I ran 3 more intervals at 300 steps (keeping the same 40 step walk). I made it to mile 3 before I had to slim it down to 200. I kept up the 200 until mile 4, when my calf started a protest and my stomach started turning. I noticed that I was running faster, trying to get the run over with, and my nausea had returned. I forced myself to slow down. I did try to run the last quarter-mile in, but there were two loopy, turny hills between me and the house, and I got snagged. I did manage to finish on a run, which helped, but I was spent when I finished. Final run time: 45 mins. The last 4-mile run I did was a 7:30 min mile. This one was 9 mins. Much slower for sure, but a far more civilized experience. I’m a little muscle sore today but there is no knee pain and I am walking like a middle aged woman, rather than an old lady. Pretty cool.

So maybe I’ll save the sprints for ‘speed workouts’ once I read that mag again and figure out what that means. I’m going to keep up the 5 miles (which Howard informed me is 8k) and now, instead of aiming for a 5k race, I’m going to try for 10k. Imagine that: the Fat Lady contemplating a 10k run. Well, I did 5 miles yesterday and 10k is 6.2 miles. It’s just a stone’s "hurl" away, as it were. I can definitely see it from here. So again, Me=Ass, but at least I’m learning to listen to others, even if it’s after the fact. One monster hurdle at a time…so long as it keeps me on the road.

So I’m losing right now, albeit slowly. I only lost 1.5 pounds in the last month, but my body was clearly adjusting to the workouts. I think it’s over now, or at least fixing itself, so I hope to continue down the scales until I’m finished. There’s so much else happening that I think I might be okay with this. Well, not really, but I’m certainly less stressed about it, which is going to help draw the pounds off of me.

Howard’s parents were in over the weekend, and both gave me good advice on this. Grandma said to leave my weight as it is until after the wedding and then see how I feel. Grandpa suggested I go ahead and drop to 151, so I could get my 100 pound “pin” and then stop. I’m not really sure that I’m ready to let go of my weight loss, but I got several good looks at myself this weekend, and I have to admit that whatever other weight comes off will be just window dressing. I’m a size 2 in stretch jeans, and a size 6 in everything Misses. In juniors, I’m a 5. What else do I need?

What indeed. No time for THAT discussion. Not until I stop sleeping, anyway.

A the R(oad Warrior)

Reinventing the Meal

2007-05-16T16:41:00.001-07:00

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)

Something Fishy

2007-05-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

Fat and I have become reacquainted.

Two weeks ago, when I posted ‘Freakin’ Friday’ and included my daily food intake, I got a call from Twins, who said, ‘you’re not losing weight because there’s not enough fat in your diet.’

Twins has been telling me for 3 years that in order to move fat out of my body, I must first put fat in. At first, I took her advice literally, and ate only fat, figuring that the more I could stuff myself with ‘good’ things, the faster my weight would drop. Guess where that got me? Yup, tipping the scales at 251.0 pounds and wondering why my ‘diet’ wasn’t working.

Then I started WW last year and basically removed fat from my life. Oh sure, there are trace amounts in the garbanzo beans and occasionally a gram or 2 sneaks in from the couscous, but basically I’ve lived a happy and fat free existence for the last 10 months. But the slow losses these last weeks and the irritation that I have only a few (ish) pounds to go before I’m done, while I’m still clearly in weight loss mode irritates me enough to try something new, even if it feels like sliding a cheese grater across my skull.

In order to lose weight, I must eat more fat.

Not just any fat, mind you. Good fat. Yeah, good fat. Sorry, but “good fat” rings right up there with other Impossible to Digest morsels such as ‘pre-pregnant’, and ‘3x petite’. Every time I think about this, I picture myself scooping Crisco straight from the jar or slathering my salad with melted butter. I twitch and I curl up into my wastebasket at work, and then I get behind on my e-mail. What in tarnation is good fat? Olive oil-but not cooked. Then it turns to Trans fat, which is bad. Nuts, but sparingly. Fish oil, preferably still in the fish. Flax seed. No, golden flax seed. No, golden flax meal. So glad I asked. Because you know, one can’t be too careful when it comes to types of seeds that I’ve never heard of before.

The olive oil is out, because 1 teaspoon equals 1 WW POINT. Nuts are also out, because they’re a red light food for me. Twins talks about eating 6 raw almonds a day. I think I can eat 6 almonds before I even get the package opened. Looks like I’ll have to use the supplements. Lucky for me, I already have a little pill-by-the-day that houses my multi-vitamin, my probiotic supplement, my potassium, folic acid, blackstrap molasses iron because, you know, since I’m on a low fat diet, I’m a little bit anemic.

As it turned out, I am having a little bit of fat every day, in my CLA supplements. Conjugated Linoleic Acid (sp?). That’s a fat. This should come as no surprise, since the “tablets” are about as long (and as tasty) as those fake rubber worms you use to catch fish. And speaking of fish, OMG what Guantanamo guard-wannabe invented fish oil supplements? It would have been easier for me to catch a live salmon with my bare hands and squeeze all the oil out of it myself than it would be to swallow these ‘fish gels’. I’m pretty sure if I could fuse 2 of them together, I could make a toboggan. Put 3 together, and I have to stand up to swallow them, because the stack is taller than I am.

I think I understand now why supplementing the diet with fat helps you to lose weight. I can see all the extra calories I’ll be burning by climbing the step ladder to get to the top of the Omega-3 long chain. Forget my little pill bottles. I'd have to use one of Jackie O's old pillbox hats, just to house the fish pills that would then have to work their way down my throat. God help me if one goes sideways. I'd look like one of those cartoon dogs who gets a bone stuck sideways in their throat.

Icky.

I've done it, though. I've downed CLA and fish oil and flax MEAL every day, taking care not to eat it too soon before or after a workout, and staggering it through the day. I do this because Twins suggested it, but also because I need to lie down between supplements. Swallowing somehting as big as DS's head is hard. It conjures up all sorts of memories around his head coming out of me, and then my appetite goes away, and then the last thing I want to do is eat fat. Vicious, awful cycle.

But I've done it. I’ve hated every swallow and I’ve been tensed up so badly this week, ingesting (good) fat that I’ve given myself cramps and heartburn. But I’ve also noticed that I’m a little bit less hungry during the day, and that the flax seed is helping things move along through my system. Howard calls flax meal “nature’s broom”. I’ll just leave it at that.

Last night, I still had some (good) fat to ingest and the only food left for me to eat was jello. Figuring I’d rather ruin my jello than swirl the flax around in water and down it straight, I sprinkled it over my (fat free) reddi-whip. You know what? It wasn’t bad. It turned my dessert into something of a raspberry crunch. In fact, it was decent enough that this morning I stirred the flax into my yogurt. Not bad. Key lime with grains. It’s almost like granola.

So, a compromise at last. There’s fat in my diet-but it’s (almost) all good, and it’s (almost) all in supplements. I’m not drizzling anything over my salad, I’m not draining anything out of the cast iron skillet, and my hunger isn’t as gnawing as it was a week or so ago. Of course, the fish gels still look more like suppositories than vitamins, but hey, I’m getting what I need and I’m not triggering any Bad Food History in my mouth when I swallow them. Believe me-if bad fat tasted like the ‘no fish burp’ capsules, I would have been thin years ago.

152.0 this morning. 99.0 pounds gone, and the next post will tell how many to go.

A the F(at Eater)

Nothing to Fear, But...

2007-05-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

I fear the end of the journey.

This morning, I was over at the Northern Illinois University campus, attending a business review that my Awesome Boss (A-B) recommended for me. In addition to this, I went to a seminar earlier in the week, I have a dozen (literally) projects and presentations to build, and today, I joined the executives at their quartile review & pow-wow session.

After 10 years as an independent recruiter, where I was largely relegated to back corners and any place they could put an extra (fat) desk for me to do One Job Only, this is as refreshing as, well, a run in the neighborhood. A-B seems excited about my prospects, and I am devouring his faith and trust in me. I’m loading myself up in a way that is bound to backfire on me, but I’m so gunned to show my ability to run and manage things that I scarcely care. Besides, for the first time ever, I am at last in a relationship that will allow me the freedom to explore something other than being pissed off about my crappy relationship.

Of course Howard is traveling this week for the first time since we’ve been together, and it’s the worst possible week to travel. But even that does not dampen me. I am an employee of this great place, and I might be done losing weight at last.

You’d think that would be a powerful pair of accomplishments, and if I were normal or further away from the Insanity Continuum, you’d be right. But alas, it’s still me, and I can find the lead nickel in a pot of gold.

So, this morning as I was in the bathroom, letting out yet another batch of extra coffee, I caught a good site of myself in the mirror. I was wearing my size 6 pants that are not (embarrassingly) tight, and my size small blouse, that hung on me in a most flattering way. I gave myself the Profile Check, and had to admit that the Octopus was behaving—a marvel, considering that I’m on Day 29 of my cycle. My period is delayed because of my Psycho Workout Schedule, but it’s clearly coming; one look at my face will confirm this. When the Swallows return to my Capistrano face, I can see the last remains of the Belly Creep. But no, today it was fine. Not flat or concave, as I’d prefer, but definitely not protruding, and certainly not an obvious problem area.

Which made me wonder: maybe I’m done losing weight. Howard is not much help in this area. When I ask him how I look, he makes all sorts of yummy noises and declares me perfect. Well, thank you, and the blushing bride in me just gave my fiancé about a thousand points. But the WW buddy stirs in frustration. I still show some obvious Areas of Improvement when I’m nekkid, but I look pretty normal when I’m dressed. How much is left? What’s my final figure? When will I hit true maintenance?

My loss is better than last month’s (at 6 pounds, vs. 4.75), but clearly I’m near the end. And it’s much harder to under-nourish myself when I’m working out, so I expect to keep up this pace, or slower, until the end (149? 145?). My body demands food, and more of it. I’m glad for it; after all, I don’t think I ever really believed that I could keep my previous food count up forever and expect to stay down below the Fat Zone. So, I’m okay to keep the loss slow and the shape/fitness coming. But when is it over? (142?)

I’m frightened to stop losing, because I don’t know how to maintain. Maria the Spectacular mentioned this in an early meeting, saying that WW members are good at losing, and good at gaining—sometimes really good. But we aren’t so good at staying the same. Apart from the high school/college years, my weight has swung like a trapeze artist bungee jumping off of Mount McKinley. I have no success at maintaining, and so it terrifies me to face the fact that I’ll soon stop losing and will have to start ‘staying’.

And of course I wonder if I’m still losing now because I want to hit artificial goals. At 154.0 this morning, I’m down 97.0 pounds from the start. Do I want to go below 151.0, just so I can have lost 100 pounds? Do I need to go to 149.0 so I can drop the big bar on the balance scale? Must I hit 145 because that’s the low-medium range for my height & weight and I want to be comfortably in the middle of normal? Or am I aiming for 142 because that’s the weight I was all through high school and college, and everyone told me at the start of this that I’d never see that number again? And of course these all ask yet another question, that of maintaining it. If I did hit these numbers, could I keep myself there? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to see. Because what if I can’t….

In anticipation of the inevitable Finish Line, I’ve tried to think up new goals that will keep me motivated to stay the same, but I couldn’t think of anything. It feels like a contradiction, to have goals around remaining motionless. And the program loses much of its allure when the ‘final’ outcome is to show no progress at all. The zero-sum is the progress, and the goal-seeking missile in my brain explodes in frustration every time I think of it.

Then I realized that I was trying to build weight loss goals when there would be no more weight to lose. I don’t need to cut my weight down; I need to use it to build the rest of myself up. I need new goals-ones that use my new body as the base and the backdrop for those new tasks. I need things less life-changing and more lifestyle-growing.

So I tried again, and this time I got some things to grab: building up my lean body weight (adding muscle). Running a full 5k without stopping. Squatting my weight. Doing 12 pull-ups without a spotter. Pretty awesome stuff—hard things, all, and most of them I’ve never done before. Just what I needed.

Maybe eventually I won’t even have to think about the weight loss (maintain) piece, except to remember that I eat a certain way, and no other. Perhaps I can think of my body and my thinness as a given to be protected, but not a thing to be feared.

Maybe I can use my success at weight loss to spur other, harder goals for myself. Things like moving into a Director’s role at work, or maybe eventually a VP spot. Or to publish my writing for money, and know that I’d be okay with a book signing, because I don’t have to hide my ‘writer’s spread’ figure. Perhaps it’s starting and finishing the advanced degree that I’ve been salivating to do since the 90s. Or, in that case, a better goal would be to decide on what that degree will be, since I can’t ever decide.

It’s time to let go of the “thinning shears” and move on to the scythe. I already know how to lose weight, and now that I’ve applied my weight loss passion to exercise, I will run off the last pounds with ease-no matter how many (or how few!) remain.

See? Lots of things to do.

This next phase of “the project” requires a shift just as big as the one at the beginning of my weight loss--the one where I decided that I couldn’t label Pop Tarts as a fruit anymore, or consider peanut butter sandwich cookies a natural source of protein. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my life since then. Here’s hoping I can generalize some of those skills to lifestyle and self-improvement. Maybe the Fat Lady can go on vacation for good, and I won’t even notice if she doesn’t write. I won’t miss her, and anyway, I’m the writer now.

A the S(lim, but probably a few more to go)

Freakin' Friday

2007-04-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

Or, "The Saturday Morning Weigh-In: A Love Story"

Portions reprinted without permission from Grandma Florida, who received something very similar on her last birthday.

Dare to be a Freak about your Weight Loss.

On average, Americans gain 7 pounds a year. Do you know how many extra daily calories it takes to do that? Sixty-seven.

Sixty-seven calories is nothing. It’s 2.25 ounces of lean chicken breast, seven-eights of an egg, or three-quarters of a Weight Watchers snack cake. It’s barely a whisper of extra food. And yet, when you add it up every day for a year, there’s 7 extra pounds on your frame. For most women, that’s nearly a full size. Stretch that out over 5 years, and then switch out the low fat bread for regular, add some preserves to the muffin and plunk a sausage next to your egg, and suddenly, 7 pounds is thirty-five. Or forty. Or more.

Nobody talks about diet or eating in sixty-seven calorie increments. Moreover, nobody really talks about weight loss in terms reasonable to women, and we are by far the larger group interested in, and in need of, serious weight loss advice. Weight loss and ‘normal’ diets are all based around a 150-pound man. Nutrition information, exercise and calories burned, and percentages of protein, carbs, fat, and fiber all kowtow to that elusive male who really does not need to lose weight, since how short would a man have to be, in order to be overweight at 150 pounds?

Any woman who can’t maintain her body weight eating 2,000 calories a day (RDA recommended) must ignore all the ‘nutritional information’ and ‘dietary guidelines’ on standard foodstuffs. We have to be freaks about everything that we put in front of us, and everything that goes into our mouths. We must battle away the temptations designed to line our tummies (and eventually, our hips) with foods that are rich, filling, and devoid of everything but the ability to make us fat.

In truth, there are lots of people in WW who eat ‘normally’. They eat pizza, ice cream, and cookies, and only some of them are the low-fat varieties. They drink at cocktail hours, they indulge in the meals that they prepare for their families, and their exercise program consists of going to the bathroom during commercial breaks. They lose weight, slowly, and the line charting their progress across the calendar looks like a series of teeny ‘w’s. Sometimes up, sometimes down, and sometimes ‘y’, as in, ‘Why did I eat all those meatballs when I knew I had to weigh in this morning?’

I can’t stomach that kind of “progress”, and so for me, chocolate, peanut butter, and refined sugar are Off Limits. Of course, there are good and bad weeks, even when one is virtuous, but I haven’t figured out a way to be Zen about the gains, and so I’ve worked my program so the likelihood of a gain is about as small as the size of my desserts: teeny.

It’s hard. Unbearably hard sometimes. I know it. You want to be thin and you want to be healthy, and yet, that pizza just looks so good. You try to create a compromise, where you cut back on your favorites, figuring that you can stand a slower loss. And maybe it works for a while. But from what I’ve seen, the closer you are to eating normally, the more likely you are to look normal, which, for an American woman, is overweight. If you want to get thin and stay thin, you’re going to have to become a Freak.

Cher once said, “If it came in a bottle, everyone would have a perfect body.” Okay, she didn’t actually ‘say’ it. She was featured on a Bally’s poster that had those words. She also ‘said’ that “Excuses are not going to lift up your butt.” I happen to like that one better, because, even now at 154.50 pounds, I have a mushy tushy.

My God. I’m quoting Cher. Anyway…

It’s easy to eat normally; that food is everywhere. It’s hard to turn your back on the delicious alternatives filling the table. It’s hard, and it’s frustrating, and it’s wildly stressful. But it’s so very, very worth it.

My old WW leader gave us a mantra to say every morning: I look good, I feel great, I’m eating right, and I believe I’m becoming thin for life. We are what we repeat. I do look good, I do feel great, I am eating right, and on my life, I swear I’m becoming thin for life.

Positive self-talk works. It’s one of the cornerstones of the program. Believe it. Be it. Commit to this every day. It’s a thing we do for ourselves, and it’s more important than almost everything in our lives. Good food and activity are paramount to feeling good and living well. Chuck normal. Dare to be Freaky!

Weight Watchers has made huge strides since I joined them the first time in the 90s. I remember reading one of the early books, and it talked about the importance of water. Everything they wrote in that little brochure was accurate: water curbs the appetite, it acts as a natural diuretic, and it’s the only real thirst quencher. But they ‘marketed’ water in the worst way. “Jazz it up with lots of ice”, the pamphlet read. Oooh, cold water! Now that’s a tasty treat! Luckily, they don’t do that any more. The program is grounded and sensible, and successful. This works. Make it your own, and then make your way.

With that in mind, and with a thank-you nod to my WW buddy “Blonde”, I’m posting today’s food intake, to show you what Freakin’ Eating looks like. You are welcomed to declare or decry my style, as you prefer. Keep these things in mind as you read:

1. I make it a point to eat lean protein at every meal.

2. I consider carbs, even the handsome ones, to be Spawn of the Devil, so I barely eat them.

3. Without Howard in the kitchen, I would be eating hard-boiled egg whites and cottage cheese all day long. Or, I might still be fat.

4. Almost everything I eat gets stuffed with what I call ZPE-Zero POINTS Extravaganza. That’s code for any food that’s zero POINTS and also acts as filler. Examples include mushroom, onions, peppers, tomatoes, or any vegetable--except the starchy ones like corn or potatoes.

Breakfast (7am):

3 slices low-fat Canadian bacon (60 calories, 1 g fat)
3 egg whites, and 1 egg yolk, all completely loaded with ZPE
1 c fresh fruit (berries or melon), or 1 serving WW yogurt
POINTS Total: 5.0

Snack #1 (10am):
1 granny smith apple, skin on
POINTS: 1, Running Total: 6.0

Lunch (1pm):
4 oz lean, skinless turkey breast, grilled with ZPE
1/2 c fat free hummus to use as a ‘glue’ in the wrap
2 small high fiber wraps
Salad with strawberry tomatoes, red peppers, cucumbers and jardinière and/or salsa (salsa makes salad dressing completely irrelevant.)
POINTS: 5.5, Running Total: 11.5

Snack #2 (4:30pm):
½ bag 94% fat free Kettle Corn
POINTS: 1.5, Running Total: 13.0

Dinner (7pm):
6 oz grilled tiger prawns on skewers with whole water chestnuts and red peppers
½ c couscous, to act as a ‘bed’
A ton (okay, a cup) of grilled yellow squash
POINTS: 5, Running Total: 18.0

Snack #3 (10pm):
½ bag 94% fat free Kettle Corn
1 apple, shared with Howard.
POINTS: 2, Daily Total 20.0

We eat more turkey than seafood during the week, and there’s likely to be a salad full of chicken breast during the day. Plus, Howard and I just discovered that ostrich meat is wildly lean and very delicious, so I think we’ll be eating more of that now. He made us tacos this week with ground ostrich, and using the Trader Joe’s Greek fat-free yogurt as our sour cream (try it. Seriously.), and it was so good, I nearly cried. Howard is so great. I think I’ll marry him.

Wait a second….

Sometimes I will supplement this with a protein shake in the mornings, depending on how I’m feeling. I tend to be fine until about mid-afternoon, so I save my snacking until then. I drink a lot of coffee (and not enough water), and so that helps to curb my appetite in the mornings. But I get busy in the afternoon and my works tires me, so I’m more prone to scavenging in the pm, so that’s when I have the fiber-rich popcorn. It’s hot, it smells yummy, and it’s filling.

Not always, though, and sometimes I have a second bag. It’s completely worth it. After all, I can have two full bags of reduced-fat popcorn OR I can have 4 teeny Snicker’s minis. When I look at it that way, I choose the popcorn every time. Unless of course I’m PMSing, in which case I have both. Don’t tell Howard. :)

One more thing of note is that I don’t eat processed food anymore. I used to, all the time. Especially when I was dieting. I shoveled the Lean Cuisine and the Weight Watchers entrees into my freezer, thawed them obediently in front of the Reheating Altar (the microwave) at meal time, and then did my best to take more than 3 minutes to finish them off. Then I would pretend to be satisfied for at least an hour before I dove into the freezer and grabbed (the whole box of) WW chocolate éclairs. Guess how much weight I lost? I’ll give you a hint. It’s the first word in ZPE.

I have a number of friends who are alcoholics. When I listen to them talk about their battles in social situations, the language rings familiar. We face the same demons, even though they come in different packages. We need something external to satisfy something that’s missing inside of us, and that need is real.

I’m a food junkie. I will probably always have to duke it out with the Sugared Angels. I don’t believe in the 12 steps, and I certainly take full responsibility for all of my actions, past and present. But still, there is something in me that acknowledges the need for Bad Foods, even when (especially when?) I know they won’t help me. They won’t solve my problems, they will often add to whatever stress I’m feeling, and they tax my body.

Did you know, by the way, that the human body cannot digest refined sugar? We can’t digest it, because the body does not recognize it as food. It’s a drug, and a poison, and I’d give my right foot to be able to eat it every day, with no consequences. Note that I wouldn’t give my right hand: I need that for typing. :)

We are not given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. Weight loss goals are the hardest, because you can never give up food. At the same time, though, they are the easiest, because they are common, and they are shared. We feast together, we fast together, and when it’s all over, we celebrate. We just don’t do it with chocolate.

Well, maybe if it’s Splenda-sweetened.

See you on the Freakin’ scales.

Running on Plenty

2007-04-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

Mystery solved!

Well, one of them anyway. Thanks to my friend Twins for decoding the ‘working out like mad and gaining friggin’ weight anyway’ anomaly. According to her, this is a mystifying, but common, problem. She herself just began a new cardio program, and is up as well, despite an eating program that makes me look like the poster child for Fast Food Nation. So I figure if Twins is gaining, then I should be, too.

And then of course, a day later, all the ‘extra’ weight dropped off. I weighed in yesterday morning at 154.50, down 96.50 pounds from my peak and sporting a mere 61.5% of my original figure. As of this moment, I have no more than 12.50 pounds to lose. I am on week 4 of WW maintenance, and I feel great.

People are starting to tell me I’m too skinny. Ha! I do believe there is such a thing, but that is not me. Normal weight for my height and build is 135-167. At 155.50, I’m on the high side of medium. I’m thin, for sure, but I’m not skinny, and I’m certainly not too skinny.

And by the way, I wore the 7-junior jeans to work today, and they were a Smash Hit. These girly pants hug my legs and make me look positively slender. I was even okay about having to leave my shirt untucked to hide the octopus’s head, which kept poking out from the beneath ultra-low waist line.

The greatest thing about life down near the 150 mark, though, is that it’s been really easy to ramp up my exercise program. And it helps that I am in love with the grind. I love running. I love it. I am to a point already where I am racing to get home on workout nights. And I’m forcing myself to take evenings off, because I don’t want to overdose on this very, very good thing.

Running erases every irritant, stressor, and agitation in my life. It’s what bubble baths are to my friend Twins: relaxing, indulgent, and delicious.

Of course the more I run, the more pumped full of endorphins I am and the less I’ll need the running to level me. But hey, I’m still Amy Cranky-Pants, even all doped up on happiness. I can invent agitations and create conflict out of banality.

Earlier this week, I was all ramped up and progesterone-depleted, on Day 18 of my cycle. I’d had a whole day of little irritants-the reception site can’t seem to get the menu right, people were late for meetings all day long, and Subway has apparently replaced their low fat wrap with something that looks like it ought to be housing tamales. So I was in no mood for anything ‘challenging’ when I hit the front door that night. DS was doped up on the ice cream that the Nanny had given him, despite my repeated requests that she not feed him refined sugar, and Howard was in his Cooking Space, where he is neither receptive nor responsive to conversation. Stage Set: Seething Bitch enters left.

I was so overwhelmed with all the inane things from The Day that I snapped at Howard when he asked me when I wanted to eat. Things turbo-torpored down from there. We spent the evening circling each other, and I didn’t even try to talk it out with him, because I could not think of a single thing to say that wasn’t sarcastic or mean.

I took it to work with me the next morning and stewed about it all day long, and then, when I got home, I went downstairs to work out. It wasn’t my scheduled night to exercise, and I did not really feel like digging in. After all, being angry over stupid things is exhausting.

But I did it anyway, and I wound up doing things at a little faster rate, increasing my run time to 90 seconds and I even did a few 2-minute run intervals. I was gulping air big time and my clothes were sticky when I was done, but it was a good workout, and I was glad that I did it.

Then I went upstairs, and as soon as I saw Howard, all my nastiness and nerves vanished. My brain offered up a solution and I smiled for the first time in 24 hours. Me smiling on Day 19! Call the priest, it’s a miracle.

I’m almost angry I didn’t discover running earlier in my life. My coaches always told me that I was too chesty to run, or that they didn’t make sports bras in my size, or that I simply didn’t have the ‘athletic capacity’ for racing—whatever that means. But I can’t be angry about any of it, because my endorphins have wiped out every negative thought from my head. I’m to a point now where, if I start edging toward rage, I want to ride the treadmill.

I know that I need to vary my workouts, because the body is a tricky creature that adapts to challenge more readily than we imagine. After 2 or 3 workouts, it ‘figures out’ how to make things more efficient, which means of course that you burn fewer calories doing it. I have the elliptical on my list of possible purchases, but now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t get a step mill or a stair climber instead. I love the impact of my feet hitting the belt, and of my body bearing its weight as I drag it though the running intervals.

The elliptical at the Y was fun, but it didn’t feel like much of a work out. I could make it so, sure, and it would be better for my joints if I did. But I have to think about whether I want it enough to trade in running on alternate nights. I want to feel the effort I’m making. I wish we had room for one of those mountain-climbing simulators. Now there’s a weight-bearing exercise. Maybe I should just stuff the house full of hard-to-do exercise equipment. I need a big purchase for hitting my goal weight. This might be it. We don’t need any furniture anyway. We’re going to be too busy working out. Fair warning to everyone (who was) planning to stay with us for the wedding: I hope you like sleeping on an incline bench or curled up next to dial-a-dumbbells.

Warm weather also suggests bicycling, and Howard has offered to teach me to rollerblade. I’m pretty sure that skating will be more a resistance workout, as in, my body resisting rolling down a hard surface on round skis, and then resisting getting up after I’ve slammed into the blacktop. But that may allow for enough variance, and while cycling out in the open doesn’t offer as much hard core rewards as the run, I can go for longer periods (I’m still at 30 mins on the treadmill), and I can work on my tan besides.

In the mean time, I’m hungry more often now, but I think it’s a healthy response to the workouts. My hunger is more insistent that it has been historically, and it's demanding the good food. Today I built a salad at work, and I traded out my usual 5 green olives for extra grilled turkey. It was so good that I actually made yummy noises at my desk, and now the guy who sits behind me thinks I like him.

So I learned three things this week: fake weight drops off naturally, running solves all problems, and it’s best to enjoy “decadent” foods in the cafeteria, where moans of pleasure are drowned out by conversation.

Mystery solved.

A the P(avement Pounder)

The Closer I Get to 2

2007-04-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

Call me Junior.

Well, first the annoying stuff. Despite having a banner week AND working out 4 times this week, including a 90-minute marathon racquetball session on Friday night, I am up an inexplicable 2.0 pounds. WTF?

I refuse to consider this a gain, since I’m pretty sure I burned all the calories I ate this week. DS has me at 1-minute intervals, where I’m walking at 3.0mph and then running at 5.0mph. Let me tell you-for a woman who runs only when about to miss her flight, 5.0 mph is fast. So it’s not possible that I’ve gained weight, but there it is. It’s just another line item on the list of Inexplicable Things About My Weight Loss. Lucky for me, since I weighed in last week wearing everything I owned, I only registered a 1.20 pound gain, and anyway, I’m still far below my WW goal. But still: annoying.

And of course now I’m coming up on PMS (yippee!), so next week I’ll be doing full-on battle with the chocolate drawer at work, the goofs who keep leaving donuts on the hallway file cabinet, and the endless array of suited vendors who want to take me out for lunch. Happy to Be Me!!!

It’s not the out-to-lunch thing that bothers me so much as it’s where these reps want to take me. Nobody wants salad or grilled lean meats for lunch: not when the Branch Manager is buying. No, it’s deep fried oysters in cream sauce and things under silver hoods, born by waiters dressed better than I.

All I hear is, ‘let’s get to that tapas place-the plates are small’, or ‘there’s a new chic French restaurant right down the road from you.’ Okay, a little food tutorial here. ‘Tapas’ is code for ‘your ass is going to spread out like a sombrero’, and ‘chic’ means ‘this is why Americans hate us: we eat healthy, wholesome foods and feed you clowns the bread-laden fatstuffs covered in sauce.’ And by the way, the ‘small plate’ phenomenon is meaningless when it comes to tapas. They have to serve those things on teeny coffee plates, or customers would die of instantaneous heart disease while deciding on dessert. So no, I’m not going there.

One vendor asked me where I wanted to go (now THERE’S an idea!), and when I said I wanted go to go Chili’s to get the grilled Caribbean chicken salad, he nearly choked on his tie. Chili’s? When I have approval to get flaming crepes and I could sneak in a glass of wine and say it was for you? What kind of procurement person ARE you? I can’t even make a coffee meeting civilized. When I offer to meet them in the building for a brief, no-food talk, they always try to get there ahead of me and then produce a tray full of All Things Lard-Laden as proof of their desire to work here. So lately, I have to leave my desk early to beat them to the cafeteria, and fill my mug before they get there. Even then, I get, “oh, well, if you bought your own coffee, then at least let me get you a danish. I’m getting one for myself, so it’s no problem.”

Not for you, maybe.

On the up side, I’ve been on expeditions the last few weeks, shopping for the next piece of my transition wardrobe. I’m pretty sure that if I could find a pair of 1% lycra jeans in a size 2 long that they would fit.

Ah, but herein lies the problem. Where I was once too large to shop at Kohl’s, unless I was willing to be seen in Mavis Fuentes wear (that’s Daisy’s older, fat sister, btw), now I am too small. The lowest size on most of their jeans is a 6, and the few brands they carry in a 4 don’t go long. I’m a 34 inseam. It’s not Nicole Kidman long, but I’m not Queen Torso either, and I’m still insisting on pants that go all the way down to my shoes. I tried on a pair of Capri pants, just to see, and it’s just not going to work for me. As with everything in my life, I exist only at the extremes. Short-shorts or pants to the heels: nothing in between. The only thing I can wear that shows leg is a skirt, and even then, it must be knee-length or it bombs. Shin length and all the high-fashion equivalents (tea length, intermission length, ankle-sweeping) make me look dowdy. Forget the short varieties: let’s just say that they suggest that I’ve switched professions from vendor management to something much, much older.

Anyway, I started at Kmart, looking for the low-rise stretch that hailed up the 4L that I threaten to wear out. Nothing. Not even a 2 Average to let me try. Next I try Eddie Bauer. They have them, but the button placement weird and wrong. It’s not above the zipper, and really, it’s closer to the right pocket than it is to the fly. I ask the clerk about it. “Yeah, that’s how they’re made,” she remarked, stating the obvious. “You might be able to get them on line.”

“It’s not the size, it’s the button. Don’t you have any with the button in the right place?”

She checked her ‘stash’ of 2L, which basically amounts to the pair I don’t have in my hand., “Nope. That’s how they come.”

Okay, then.

I can’t find a 2L anywhere that fits. The places that have them (Ralf Lauren, Gap) make them in 100% cotton, and I’m still a 4 in a zero-stretch. Not to mention that the Ralf pants are so low that they actually sit below my hip bones. I would have to dig out my old maternity blouses, or maybe buy one of those mini-dresses that I can’t wear, just to cover up the octopus. Who can wear these things? Anyone who’s had even a single meal in a college commons would splay out of these babies. So this won’t work.

Determined and more than a little frustrated, Howard and I set out last weekend to find new jeans. He scored, even adding inches to his inseam in the process, but I continued to bomb. I did discover that I’m a 30x34 in men’s pants, but come on! Do I really have to go back to Menswear just to get fitted clothes? Besides, I’ve rather grown to like the way that stretch jeans curve with me.

Men’s pants are like a double-denim erection. Everything stands straight at attention-no curves anywhere. I appreciate their extra room in the tummy, though I acknowledge it is not built for the ladies. These pants “fit”, but they’re not curvy, they’re not flattering, and anyway, they stop making the 34” inseam at 30”, so as soon as I drop anymore weight, I’m right back to hunting, and this time, I have Make Me Stiff jeans that are, well, flaccid.

No.

We blanked all over Oak Brook Mall and were about to hurl the white flag at Kohl’s when Howard suggested I try the juniors section. Flooded with memories of Jordache, Gitano, Bill Blass and Diane von Furstenburg from the 1970s, I sidle on over to the Young Miss section and start hunting. Within minutes, I discover a few facts.

Fact #1: Teenage girls are slobs. I knew this on some hypothetical level, but wow, they are pigs. Every dressing room was littered with discarded clothes. I felt like I’d stumbled into the high school girls locker room after the Cheerleader Rapture. Clothes everywhere. Shoes everywhere. Not a clerk in sight. No wonder Moms of Teens go gray. It’s a wonder any of these skinny pre-pubes ever make it to prom.

Fact #2: No one in high school has a figure. All the clothes have curves built into them, suggesting the shape to come, and yet somehow falling short, because, let’s face it, the goods just aren’t there yet. Oh, sure, hints sneak in occasionally, and there are all form of clothes to flaunt it. But they all rest above the (exposed) belly button. Crop tops, lace-up blouses, sparkly wife-beater-like creations with deep dips front & back. But the girly-girl hips don’t really exist yet, and the jeans are there to prove it.

Fact #3: If the designers of young girl fashions are trying to help these girls look older, they failed. That is, unless every 16-year-old in western suburban Chicago wants to look like Annie after she’s done the mosh pit. These clothes look young. I know I’m 42, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve been in the Junior section to buy something for myself. But seriously, these clothes all look like the Juniors are turning wistful eyes back to grammar school.

But size does matter and I can’t find a 2 anywhere, so I dig through the (disgusting!) piles of denim and choose a size 5, size 7, and size 9. Encouraged that there is a plethora of size 0 long, I shove my way to the dressing room, kick the clothes off the floor (hey, I want to fit in!) and slam the door.

The 5s are true hip huggers, and like I said before there are no hips built to hug, so I get them to the top of my thighs before I have to sit down and let the blood return to my limbs, and to keep myself from fainting. I jump up to the 9s, and they are too big. Size 9 junior is too big. I cross my fingers, suck in the jellyfish tummy and slide the 7s on.

A match!

They’re low-probably too low, but they fit, they’re stretchy, so they’re curving, even if by youngin’ standards, and they’re plenty long. I take about 1 second to debate the merits of the men’s 501 button-fly before I chuck them on the floor (Hey! Everyone else was doing it!), and tuck the 7s into the cart.

I am now the proud owner of Girls Jeans. Size 7L-J. They’re not an obvious junior, and the hip pocket design is unisex and simple-easily passable for a Misses. And now they’re mine, lying side-by-side with the 4L-M and waiting for me to find a blouse long enough to cover up whatever might seep out from beneath the ‘hip’ huggers.

I might never find my 2, and I don’t see getting into a 2 Junior unless I liposuction an entire leg away. But I think I’m all right with that. I’m in Junior jeans. How about that? Maybe I’m all right with a gain this week: It’s just what I needed to fill out my new clothes.

A the T(eenie)