Chasing the Wagon

When you've had fat habits for as long as I have, it's pretty dang hard to change those habits. I knew that was going to be the case, but knowing hasn't made it any easier. What I didn't consider is how hard it is to change fat habits others have towards you, especially when you want to pretend that other people really don't think that you're fat. Even though you know they do. Because you are. ANYWAY...

Valentine's Day this year is a perfect example. My husband is very supportive of me losing weight. He likes to say that he doesn't care if I'm fat or thin, he just doesn't want my weight to prevent me from doing anything I might want to do, like water parks, or zip lines, or riding donkeys down mountains to former leper colonies (I'll explain another time). I often tell him that when I lose weight, I'm going to run off and find a boyfriend. He always tells me he'll take his chances.

For V-Day, we planned to eat dinner at home because we hate fighting the crowds at restaurants. My husband makes a mean immediate-family-famous, grilled, thin-cut, boneless ribeye steak that he marinates in lots of evoo and spices. Mmmmmmmmm. We agreed to complete the menu with a nice baked potato and some steamed broccoli, all doable on my "life plan." In an effort to save our son and his girlfriend from the same packed-restaurant plight we were avoiding, we offered to cook them the same dinner and serve it to them outside next to the pool so that it would be both romantic and away from us (we would eat on bar stools at the kitchen island - almost 31 years together).

I came home from work on Monday and started to prepare my usual delicacy of tuna with light mayonaisse and sweet pickles, when my husband informed me that he forgot that he was on-call at work on V-Day so he moved our V-day celebration and dinner up a day early. Such great news when you're facing down tuna. Again.

He had already done all of the shopping and had started the dinner so I was left to do nothing, which is sort of my speciality when it comes to cooking (I do have talents, cooking just isn't one of them). He then served me a GIANT steak, a GIANT baked potato, and enough broccoli to...well...a LOT of broccoli. The sad part of it is that I didn't see anything as giant or excessive when it was on the plate. All of the portions looked completely normal and I simply saw it as an awesome dinner lovingly prepared by my husband. I ate every single morsel. It was soooo good! And it wasn't until I had licked my plate that I came back to my senses and realized how much food I had just eaten. What happened to my committment to smaller portions? The only comfort I could take in what I had just done was that I had used spray butter (no fat, no calories, just chemicals) on my potato and broccoli.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but in addition to the tasty dinner, my husband also gave me my most favorite of favorite chocolates - See's Bordeaux. He gave me the small, heart-shaped Bordeaux, and then gave me three more pieces of heaven along with three cherry chocolate cordials (fruit group!). This man knows me! It was portioned perfectly so that I could enjoy a little bit every day for an entire week, and if I had done that, I would be enjoying a piece right now. But no, I downed every last bit of chocolate, too. Rationalization? It was our Valentine's Day celebration and I was taking the day off from portion control. I would just get back on the wagon the next day.

I felt completely comfortable placing full blame on my husband for my being fat. If he hadn't provided all of that yumminess, I would have stayed on the wagon. See's candy? He should have known better! It was all his fault. And then, as I was writing this blog post in my head about how my husband is the reason why I'm fat, the light came on.....it wasn't his fault at all. He was the one who cooked the steaks, but I'm the one who pulled an entire steak onto my plate rather than cut off a smaller portion and save the rest for another day. I was the one who inhaled the entire baked potato rather than cut it in half and save the other half to eat another time with the rest of the steak. The broccoli? Well, that's just plain good for you, no matter how much you eat. And he steamed it just right!

That's all well and good, but what about the chocolate? That's his fault. Except he didn't sit on me and stuff every single piece down my throat in a single sitting. He gave me a few pieces of my favorites rather than a pound of assorted chocolates that would taste good, but that wouldn't have any meaning. I should have had the heart Bordeaux as a special Valentine treat and then had one piece of candy each day for the next week so that the love I felt with each morsel would have lasted so much longer. It's my own fault.

Crap.

I can't blame anybody but myself and I need to stop trying to place responsibility on anyone but myself for my own choices. And I also have to understand that because I have been the way I have been for as long as I have, it's going to take some time to acclimate others around me to the fact that I am trying to be different than what I've always been.

The most enduring gift my husband gave me was a small sign to put in my home office:

It says more to me about so many different things that are far too personal for me to share on this blog, but I know I'm always looking for miracles. If I'm the Princess of Whales in the same princess category as Cinderella, like I think I am, I need to cut myself some slack and give myself the time it's going to take to make this healthy miracle happen.

So it took me a couple of days to chase down the wagon (or chariot, as a princess should see it), but I caught up to it and I climbed back on. It has been, and will continue to be, a bumpy road. I just need to adjust my grip so I stay on better and stop believing that everyone is trying to push me off.

YoYo MaMa

Well, crap.

The down came back up and I regained every single tenth of an ounce I lost last week. Apparently whatever I am doing isn't right or isn't enough. It's a good thing that "crap" is the strongest language I'm allowing myself to use on this blog or you wouldn't be able to read this through filters and firewalls. CRAP!!!

I guess I thought (in my Fairy Tale Syndrome little mind) when I started this blog that my virtual accountability would make it so that there would mostly be successes to report with an occasional plateau, but a GAIN?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....CRAP!

Alright, enough with the potty fingers. Deep breath, regroup, evaluate...

When I put my jeans on this weekend for family pictures, they felt a little looser and my daughter commented that I was starting to look like I had lost some weight. I do recognize that at my weight it's going to take about fifty pounds before the general public notices anything in the slightest, but my family is very supportive and knows I like to have my efforts acknowledged. When I got dressed this morning, my shirt felt a little looser through the arms and back, so I was sure I would be rewarded with good news when I did my weekly weigh-in.

I do know that muscle weighs more than fat, but I think that's only a good argument when you don't have a lot of fat. I have plenty. I've been working out long enough that I'm thinking I should be past that trade-off. Maybe not. I can only hope that's the case and I gained over four pounds of muscle this week.

************



I return to writing this post after a sweaty visit to my personal trainer. I told him about the weight gain and I was fully prepared to place all of the blame on him where I thought it belonged. He asked about what I had eaten and I vowed to him that I had eaten good foods all week. He then asked me about sodium. Hmmmmm. Does that mean giant dill pickles? Pistachios? Cashews? Tortilla chips? Okay, maybe he was on to something. Dill pickles have no fat and are a vegetable. Nuts are great sources of protein. Tortilla chips get the oh-so-healthy salsa down and I very carefully count them out. But yes, every one of them is jam-packed with sodium. And those are just the ones I could remember. So I let the trainer off the hook. For now.

I did my best to work my bum off  in my workout and now I can barely walk, so I'm hoping it helped, but for all the time I have spent working out with few results (at least on the scale), I'm only cautiously optimistic. On the bright side, 4+ pounds of water are a heck of a lot easier to get rid of than 4 pounds of fat or muscle, so I'll be making a few adjustments to my go-to foods and hoping that really is what caused the jump.

My trainer did assure me that I'm going to yo-yo a little bit while I get this all figured out which explains why my weight graph looks like a child's first drawing of a mountain range, but I'm ready for a chart that looks like the stock market after a stimulous package.

And so it goes...

Heavy J

I'm listening to the Grammy Awards and they are inspiring me to play the piano more in the hopes that someday Adele or Chris Martin ask me to tour with them. I wouldn't mind if Someone Like You (me) was able to Viva La Vida and Make You Feel My Love while Rolling in the Deep in Paradise at the Speed of Sound. (Okay, I'm done.) Wait...and I'd like to be 21 again. (Okay, now I'm done.)

I LOVE music and have fairly eclectic tastes, much to the consternation of my family, mostly because I embarrassingly love to listen to pop and clean hip hop (what little there is) but I pretty much can't stand country music, my husband's lifeblood. My favorite playlists probably wouldn't be considered age-appropriate, nor would my behavior at the various concerts and music award shows I took my kids to when they were age-appropriate. (I make no apologies for my conduct at either life-changing Ricky Martin concert I attended that were truly the only "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" experiences I have ever had.) But music has a way of moving me emotionally and physically in a way nothing else can. And that includes food.

I have mentioned that I grew up with food as our measure of wealth, but another thing we always had in our home was a piano. We couldn't afford sports or dance lessons, but my parents made whatever sacrifices they had to in order for all of the girls in the family to have piano lessons. We were allowed to start lessons when we were eight, but when we moved from California to Utah when I was ten, that was the end of the piano lessons because there simply wasn't enough money. Despite that, we still had the piano and we had lots and lots of sheet music.

While building our home in North Ogden, we lived in a couple of transitional houses in Layton. One was a trailer (a mobile home when you're living in it, a trailer when you move) and the other a really, really old house in a decaying neighborhood behind a car dealership. Few, if any, kids were our ages in these neighborhoods so that left us a lot of time on our own to entertain ourselves. My choices of activities were to decorate my room with Donny Osmond and David Cassidy pictures (my sister, who shared my room, decorated with the Jackson 5), and play the piano. Having listened to my sisters practice for years, I found every song I could possibly play and just practiced and practiced and practiced. And practiced some more. In my ten-year-old fantasies, I would imagine myself serving lemonade to my husband Donny while impressing him with my piano skills. So I kept practicing even more in case he needed me to ever accompany him on the piano. (I have since had a real-life dream-crushing run-in with Donny so I don't care if he ever hears me play, and he can make his own lemonade.)

As I went through junior high and high school, I had the most accommodating choir teachers who allowed me to accompany the choirs (I was good enough to play for Donny, after all) and playing the piano through the years has been a lifesaver and has provided me with opportunities I could have never imagined (I'm still imagining the Grammys...). It got me a scholarship in college (although I later became a major disappointment to the choir director at WSC) and I will forever be grateful to my parents for providing us with piano lessons because it has given me an identity outside the weight issues. The piano is an awesome psychiatrist/psychologist that you don't have to pay. I can play happy songs, sad songs, angry songs, emo songs, dancing songs, silly songs...there is a song for every emotion. It also, however, has contributed to my sendentary lifestyle.

There are people who play the piano very physically and dramatically to the point that they are probably burning some calories, but I'm not one of them. Sister Jones (my piano teacher who was at LEAST 100 years old) would grab my shoulders and hold them still if I ever started to sway with the music like I watched them do on TV. She told me I would likely never play solos in Carnegie Hall but that I "sure as heck" would be playing hymns at church and as an accompanist I was not to draw attention to myself. She was absolutely right in that I have never even been to Carnegie Hall but I play the piano or organ in church pretty much every week. I'm not a great soloist, but I think I'm a pretty good mid-level accompanist and if your accompanist dies on the way to your gig, I'm the one you want to call, as long as you have the sheet music because I can sight-read but I can't make anything up. And thanks to Sister Jones, I hold perfectly still while playing so as not to attract attention away from your performance.

So while the piano does not contribute to my exercise, I have been reminded by my nutritionist (another post entirely...) that it is difficult, if not impossible, to snack while playing the piano. It really isn't advisable to eat Cheetos while practicing because the keys and sheet music end up orange (the same reason it is a highly unprofessional snack to eat at work when you are an administrative assistant/secretary). She suggested that whenever I have the urge to snack on something I know I'm going to wear on my hips later, I am to use the piano as an alternative activity. So that's my challenge for the week - substitute a potentially bad choice with a constructive activity like playing an instrument.

I did try to diversify my music skills earlier in my life by teaching myself to play the flute in high school, a very short-lived career due to the self-teaching part. Most recently I took some guitar lessons because it's really hard to sing around the campfire with a piano, but with my giant stomach and tyrannosaurus arms, I recognized that I was going to have to lose some weight in order to properly work the strings on the guitar. Another goal.

So if you hear me playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" (a song I have never been able to play) to perfection if you go by my house this week, stay away because it means I've been practicing way too much and I've been without Cheetos and chocolate far too long to be congenial.

Oh, and if I ever get the chance to go to the Grammys, you can just call me by my hip hop name - Heavy J.

You know I'll keep you posted.

Measure of Success

The scale said I lost 4.4 lbs. and that means I lost the pounds I gained the week before and dropped another 1.4. I'll take it!

I really am thrilled with the weight loss, but to be honest, I was prepared to be thrilled no matter what the scale said, because I've learned from experience that the scale has a tendency to talk smack. There are a lot of times when, despite my best efforts, the scale mocks me with a weight gain or no change and I've worked way too hard this past week to let the number on the scale be the only thing that defines my success. (The number itself is massive enough on it's own that I found myself repeatedly yelling, "Rookie!" whenever they posted the weight of one of the players while watching the Super Bowl.)

I know that the scale is the standard to measure how successful you are when you are trying to be healthier because after all, you are trying to "lose weight" and the scale measures weight. But a scale doesn't measure family disasters, Super Bowls, hormone swings, or discounts on chocolate cherry juju hearts. When you're a food addict, some credit should be given for surviving life's challenges without reverting to old habits. I survived the first three pretty well this week and struggled with the fourth (have you ever HAD a chocolate cherry juju heart?!...) but even in my darkest moments, I was able to get myself through without emptying the pantry. That should count for something.

Another thing the scale doesn't take into consideration is what I could have eaten versus what I actually did eat. This week I should get credit for not eating all-you-can-eat steak fries at Red Robin. I didn't have any of the to-die-for chocolate chip cookies one of our teachers brought to school. I didn't take a Snickers bar that was offered to me by the administration, and I've already shared with you just a few of the things I didn't eat during the Super Bowl.  I have to look at that as success even though with all of those refusals, I should have lost twenty pounds.

I also worked out with my trainer to the point that I nearly had to crawl across concrete to get back to my car, and I worked it in the water to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry as one of the only dark-hairs (dyed, but still...) among the blue-hairs at water aerobics. That should be another twenty pounds!

So while I'm happy with the scale this week, I give myself a big pat on the back for making a pretty focused effort. Well, I would if I could actually reach my back to pat it.

There's another goal to work towards...

Not-So-Super Bowl

Today is a perfect example of all that is wrong with social food pressures - The Super Bowl (dun, dun, duuuuuun...).

This annual salute to the end of the NFL season and funny commercials has ultimately become more about good tailgate food. And lots of it. In years past I have embraced this and have even gone so far as to color coordinate the snacks to match the opposing teams. But this year? I couldn't possibly care less about the teams who are playing and I'm trying to lose weight, so what's the point besides the commercials? About food. Doritos. Pizza. Pepsi. Mmmmmmm..... At least I don't drink beer, but it's still brutal.

We're a Packers/Broncos/49ers family and had hopes for all of them this year but when the 49ers were the last to fall a couple of weeks ago, all excitement and anticipation for the Super Bowl evaporated. My son, though, who has been gone the last two years serving a church mission in Mexico, wasn't having it with the thought that we wouldn't put out our usual feast to the football gods. He can get pretty much get anything he wants by saying, "Hey, remember I was gone for two years," or, "Wow, I haven't had/seen/done that for at least two years."

Even that didn't inspire me much, but in an effort to be a good mother, I asked him what foods he had to have that were absolutely essential for him to consider it Super Bowl Sunday and he came up with clam dip and chips, Little Smokies in BBQ sauce, and perhaps a BBQ. Occasionally after that he would mention something else but nothing he suggested was even remotely what one might consider a healthy food. But who could I blame? I had raised him on Cheetos as a dairy product.

As the game approached, I did try really hard to pick a team since no matter how lame the game, the TV WOULD be on. I liked the Giants because, well, I'm giant, but then Boston is my favorite city and I'm truly a patriot. But Tom Brady is married to a Brazilian supermodel - blech - and my husband and son tell me that the Patriot's coach is a cheating crook. Then again, New York's uniforms are uglier than New England's, and that's an important consideration.

In the end, I decided to go with the Giants because I decided I would allow myself to be giant during the game with all bets off on what I ate. So I bought the Smokies, made the clam dip (almost pure cream cheese - yum), and bought an extra large bag of chips. But that's all I could make myself do. I figured I was probably going to blog about the experience and I didn't really want to have to admit that I went face down in the candy bowl.

My husband picked up on my vibe and saved the day for everyone by making sure we had brats, guacamole and tortilla chips, M&M's, Cadbury eggs...I'll stop the list before I start licking my computer monitor. But (or as pertains to this - butt) he also made sure there were grilled, skinless chicken breasts, fresh pineapple cut up into bite-size pieces, and cut celery with fat-free ranch dip. I made a big pan of sugar-free orange jello with mandarin oranges (my diet drug of choice), so I pretty much ate like a queen. A queen on a diet. But a queen. At the very least, it was a meal befitting the Princess of Whales.

Do I feel deprived? Absolutely! Do I feel cheated? And how! Some things just aren't fair, and having so much great food associated with a non-holiday is almost a crime, but that's just how it is. I'm now living the quote "trade something good now for something better later" so I'm trying really hard to visualize saying hello to a flight attendant without adding, "Can I get an extender?" Or buying clothes in a "normal" store. Or maybe just even wearing the next-size-down clothes I have hanging in the closet.

Excuse me while I go have some fake ice cream on a stick for less than 100 calories. I deserve a treat. And as for the game? I still don't care. It's on right now and there have been some great commercials. The food is still surrounding me, but I'm okay. I just wish there were a Lombardi Trophy for me staying out of the candy bowl.

It really isn't fair...

TMI

When I was little (yes, I used to be little), I would watch my mother plan for months to prepare her lessons for Relief Society (the women's organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and these always included amazing object lessons, handouts, treats and visual aids, although she stopped short of ice sculptures. I really looked forward to the day when I would be able to teach and I got that opportunity shortly after we moved to Huntsville. I was very excited when I was asked to substitute for the regular teacher one week and I couldn't wait to start working on the lesson. The topic? Abortion. Yeah, try making a fridge magnet for that one, and visual aids are NOT recommended.

I was hoping to get another chance at it, and soon after I was asked to teach the lesson for Homemaking Night, back in the day when they still called it that. The topic? Fitness and Nutrition. Really? You want the large couch potato to teach the Fitness and Nutrition lesson? I can understand my qualifications for teaching about abortion because I'm opposed to it and I've never had one. But Fitness and Nutrition? Seriously? To have me teach a lesson on fitness and nutrition is like asking Dr. Kevorkian (Google him, young 'uns) to teach CPR to the elderly.  Obviously they were going with the concept that "the teacher learns more than the student" when preparing the lesson. Maybe they were subtly suggesting that I needed to lose weight and that the research I would do for the lesson would inspire me.

The problem with that then, and now, is there is too much information out there on the topic and most of it is conflicting: eggs are bad because of the cholesterol. Wait - eggs are a good source of protein. Meat is bad so be a vegetarian. Wait - meat is a good source of protein and iron and it's hard to get those things if you're a vegetarian. Milk has calcium and vitamins and is good for you. Wait - milk contains growth hormones and is bad for you. I could go on like this for a long time, but I think you get the point.

The same can be said about exercise. Running is said to be good for cardiovascular health, but then Jim Fixx, the man who most recently popularized the sport of running, died at the age of 52 of a heart attack after running. My son ran in the Olympic marathon trials (obviously his gift did not come from me). One of the top elite runners in that race died shortly after the race started. Just yesterday I was talking to someone about swimming for exercise and they shot me down saying swimming isn't good exercise because it doesn't get your heart rate up high enough to do any good.  URGH (there is a much stronger word I would like to use in the place of "urgh" but I'm trying to keep this a relatively family-friendly blog)!

So this is what I came up with for my lesson, and I had samples of all them on hand:

The Food Groups

by Princess of Whales

Meat/Protein

Pork Rinds

Cinnamon Bears

Almond Joy

Animal Crackers

Goldfish Crackers

Dairy

Anything Milk Chocolate

Milk Duds

Nutter Butters

Milky Way

Cheesy Cheetos

Fruits

Cherry Chocolates

Orange Sticks

Raspberry Truffles

Apple Fritter

Vegetables

Corn Chips

Potato Chips

Carrot Cake

Onion Rings

Breads/Carbs

ALL Breads & Carbs Are Approved

Basically, I just structured the staples of my personal diet around the guidelines set forth by whatever government agency does that sort of thing (even though I think the government needs to stay out of my diet, illustrated by the fact that they no longer use the food groups, but a food pyramid), and that was the result. The information may not have been the best, but the visual aids were delicious!

The point was to show the extreme opposite of what we instinctively know as healthy and it started a great discussion about all of the different methods and ideology that are out there. As I've said before, what works for one may not work for others and the trick is finding what works for you. Bottom line - running can be good, but not for me.

All of this was before Al Gore invented the Internet and since that time there has been a complete dump of information as to the best way be healthy (most of it involving great expense) so I'm more confused than ever. TMI. All I know is that as old as I am, and as much as I know, there's still so much I have to learn.

But more importantly, I still have so much to DO! I guess I can start by getting off of the computer...for now.

Making a Splash

I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to "A Lap, Or So" because I have spent more time in the pool than I have on the road in the last couple of days. Water + My Knee = Bliss.

I made good on my commitment to buy a pass to the local aquatic center, despite my hesitation to pay a little money to use a public pool (where you have no idea what people have done in it) when we pay a lot of money to have a private pool in our backyard (that is pristinely maintained by my live-in pool boy). That hesitation dissipated, however, when the posted temperature on their indoor pool showed that it was 82 degrees and our outdoor pool sits at a less-than-balmy 42 degrees. Definitely worth every penny to buy a quarter-year pass rather than heat the winter water storage. The pass will take me through the end of April which is about the time of the reopening of the "Hairibbean" (named after my pool boy/husband who, while wearing only his swimsuit/Speedo, looks like he is still wearing a sweater).

When I walked in to purchase the pass, the entire floor of the entry was covered in small children because apparently there is an elementary school who brings their students for swim lessons after school on Mondays. After hearing their leader remind them to go to the bathroom, blow their nose and stand under the shower before entering the pool, I made a mental note not to come for a swim on Monday afternoons. I think it would be mutually scary. Instead, I decided to go back later in the evening when I could have the place to myself. What I failed to take into consideration is that the aquatic center was not built specifically for me and has, in fact, stayed in business for many years without my business, so why should I think no one else would be using it?

There are two pools at the center - a competition/diving pool, and a leisure pool (translation - big people pool and swim-diaper-to-tween pool). The competition/diving pool consists of a deep water area, and several lanes for lap swimming.  I arrived for my "solo" swim to find two large groups learning to scuba dive in the deep water area and every single lap lane occupied. That left the leisure pool, which is divided into an area that has fountains, frogs, and slides and then an open area with depths starting at just over three feet and ending at just over four feet. The frog area was overrun with at least 1,000 kids (with a generous allowance for my exaggeration) - I had completely forgotten that Monday Night = Family Night and that apparently swimming is a favorite activity for this night of the week. The tween area was pretty empty, though, so I slithered into the deepest part of the water to begin my workout.

This would probably be a good time to mention that I really don't swim. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. I am extremely claustrophobic when my head goes under water, so "swimming" to me is a modified breaststroke with my head sticking out of the water. I consider myself the Princess of Whales because of my attachment to Lady Diana, but I would imagine that in the water I look more like a bloated alligator bobbing along the top of the water. This style of swimming also doesn't do well in a pool less than five feet deep, so I tried doing some water jogging but my boobage kept slapping against the water and stirring up turbulence to the point that the lifeguard kept looking over at me to make sure I was okay. I then tried doing some stretches but when I would lift my arm out of the water, I looked like I was rehearsing a solo synchronized swim or auditioning for the lead in Black Swan - The Water Adaptation. After awhile I just tried to focus on keeping all of my body parts under the water while still moving enough to consider it exercise, and if you know how buoyant fat people are, that was it's own workout. It wasn't easy, but it worked, and I was substantially more sore the day after my water workout than I usually am after a regular gym workout (sessions with personal trainer not included).

So I'll definitely be going back. Probably not on a Monday night, and I'm going to ask for a schedule of the scuba classes so I can avoid those, but I sure do like how I can move in water and completely forget that I even have knees. If I'm lucky to get in the big people pool, I might even be able to let my mind relax and think deep thoughts. I'm going to hope for that, because while I didn't freak anybody out in the kiddie pool (that I am aware of) I don't want to push my luck.