Thursday, April 11, 2013

Where is the Corpulent Queen????

So when you are struggling to lose weight, change the entire way you look at food, get a 7 year old and a husband on board with said food, helping husband set up a business, setting up your own business, helping your mom in the wake of losing your dad and just overall changing your entire life....throw something else on the fire.

I am proud to announce, that I am officially an EX-smoker! Yep, I took the plunge and got the nicotine monkey off my back. I didn't do Chantix or patches or anything like that. No, I went cold turkey with an emergency e-cig in the glove compartment of my car. Because I went cold turkey, my writing, language and overall demeanor has been less than, shall we say, cordial. Actually, I have wanted to kick puppies. I have not kicked any puppies, husbands or children in the process of quitting smoking.

I didn't really mean to quit smoking, it just sort of happened. If I haven't mentioned it before, I have a lot going on. It was a Sunday, and we live in the middle of nowhere, so everything closes at nightfall it seems. I only had about half a pack of cigs left so I decided I would go pick up a carton while my husband napped and my son was playing his Wii. I got in the car, cranked it, put on the seat belt and lit up a smoke, which I normally do when my son isn't in the car. Then as I got out on the road it just seemed like a chore to smoke that cigarette. I finally just put it out in the ashtray and continued to sing along with Aretha Franklin. Then I had the epiphany: I really didn't want to smoke anymore. I hadn't smoked in over two hours and took two drags off of my "I have 20 minutes to myself and can smoke in the car" cigarette (i.e. the best cigarette ever) and I didn't want to smoke it. To be honest, I didn't want to smoke for the past several days. I immediately panicked a little, thinking how adverse I was to smoking when I was pregnant (yeah, I know, I quit when I was pregnant why in the hell didn't I stay quit???? I asked myself that alot.). I did the math in my head really quickly and realized it was unlikely I was pregnant. I was still wrestling with the question if I wanted to smoke or not smoke when I pulled into the gas station. Now I know what you are thinking: What's the big deal right? Well, like I said, I live in the middle of nowhere and the store is not just around the corner, and if I decided at 10 pm I NEEDED a cigarette there was no getting one. I got out of my car, got a drink and walked around the store so long I think they thought I was going to rob the place. Finally I decided I would buy an electronic cigarette, which would stave off any unbearable cravings until morning.

My husband was awake when I got home and I announced I was quitting smoking. God bless him, Hubs is always supportive, even though I am sure he was thinking "Crap!" I am pretty proud of myself that I haven't really been that irritable (yes I have had a few moments) and I haven't eaten everything in the house. Although, I do know why some people gain weight when they quit smoking: you get your taste buds back and everything tastes REALLY good! This has resulted in a few extra helpings when I would normally stop, but it's getting manageable. I'm also getting my sense of smell back as well, which means I look a bit like a bloodhound by sniffing around my house looking for the source of this smell or that. I haven't really had any overwhelming craving except for day 5. Day 5 was rough and I was on the verge of bumming 1 cigarette from a neighbor to get over the hump and thought "I can suffer today, or I can keep feeding the craving and prolong the suffering". So, like ripping off a bandage, I suffered through it and got over it. There are certain times of the day I miss it more than others, and there is a big lifestyle adjustment to be made as I usually used a smoke break when I really needed a mental health break, needed to think something over for a minute, needed a brief break, or needed to get my anger/thoughts/frustration under control.

As of this writing, it has been three weeks and the cravings are GONE!!! I don't even think about it anymore. Next week is my birthday, and this has been a great gift I have given myself. I encourage anyone reading to take that plunge when you are ready. It's easier than you think!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The Creeping Crud

Ugh! That about sums up the past couple of weeks around my house. For those that don't know me, I have a super-charged immune system that breaks down maybe 2 times a year, usually around allergy season, long enough for me to get a summer cold and a winter cold. Because of seasonal allergies, I may get the sniffles a few times in between, but an actual cold is rare to me. Thanks to the super charged immune system, if I do get sick, I rarely stay sick for very long. A typical cold to me is about 2 days. This year, however, I have had back to back colds for about a month now. Not typical colds either, at least not for me. No, I have had the creeping crud for waaaaaaaaay to long and it has knocked me and my family on our collective ass! I am accustomed to nursing a cold for a day and feeling well enough to go about my day the next day. Not this time. This time, I find myself trying to go about my day by putting on a load of laundry and feeling like I need a nap after. This time, I get worn out and run down just by getting myself a drink of water. I have tried everything to get better, but yesterday I finally realized what is keeping me sick.

As I may have mentioned, my family recently completed building our new home. Due to the home's design and location, we have a wonderful cross breeze that blows through the house when the windows are open, so, given that I believe fresh air and sunshine are the perfect remedy for colds, I have thrown open the windows to take advantage of said fresh air. We live in South Carolina so the weather is beautiful right now and will be replaced with "OH MY GOD" hot in just a few weeks, so I'm taking advantage. In this new house, is a beautiful blue stained wood floor in the kitchen. It really is gorgeous, I'll have to share a picture:

Excuse the mess, that was shortly after we moved in, and that is my fat ass cleaning the kitchen, and my equally fat ass cat supervising.

Anyway, yesterday I realized I had to do some housework regardless of how crappy I felt, because we were going to be evicted when the health department condemned the house. The sunlight was shining in the back door and it illuminated a faint sheen of pollen all over my very pretty blue floor. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but there it was. Not only was there pollen all over the floor, but all over the table, the chairs, the light fixtures, everywhere! I could see my foot steps in the pollen. I am just enough of a neat freak to have had a panic attack and went right to work getting the stuff up. It apparently blew in with all the windows open and was trying to pollinate everything it landed on, including the people. Now, I'm not saying it's not a good idea to air the house out on occasion, but I'm feeling a lot better today than I have for about a month now. Hopefully, the rest of the house will start to feel a little better as well, but I am considering slipping everyone some Benedryl in their cereal just to be safe.

Monday, March 11, 2013

You Must Be Kidding Me!

I stepped on the scales this morning and it has not moved an ounce! This is both ridiculous and a wake up call. While overall my eating is better, it looks as though I need to take an overview of exactly when and how much I am eating and start journaling my meals. I hate food journals. They are tedious. What's more, my tendency to get obsessive about things poses a real problem during weight loss.  Check out my entry for the 5 Stupidest things I ever did to lose weight post. But, it is necessary. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying a plateau isn't to be expected, but plateaus usually come when someone has reached a leveling off point after a "significant" weight loss. This point comes for different people. A person with only 20 pounds to lose may hit a plateau after losing 10 pounds, but a person who has 100 pounds to lose shouldn't hit a plateau before at least 25 pounds in. Women are especially prone to plateaus, as certain biologic functions cause our weight to fluctuate throughout the month, but that's not the issue here.

I know I have not been drinking water as I should either. This is an issue with me. Diet soda is just so gooooooood! And I have a real affinity for coffee. I am not willing to sacrifice my coffee with real sugar and cream. I am a bit of a contradiction in that regard. On the one hand, I have no problem whatsoever drinking a  chemical filled diet soda, but on the other, I hate to defile my morning coffee with the artificial stuff. While I may not need to give it up completely, I don't have to drink it until 2pm each day. Maybe I might sleep better as well, if I cut down on the caffeine and sugar, and sleeping better also aids weight loss.

At any rate, here we go with the journal! Don't worry, I will spare you all the gory details of my food journal.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

And The War Is On. . .

With my treadmill.  It sits there, staring at me, mocking me, taunting me, daring me to climb on.  That great black, mechanical beast snorts and breathes it's song of evil against dripping fangs and the rattling cogs of torment.  Ok, not really.  It is an inanimate object, and the snorting and fire is all in my head, but it's scary as shit nonetheless.  I know from personal experience, if I just get on the thing, consistently, in a few weeks I will begin to, not only enjoy it, but actually look forward to it.  Those few weeks in the beginning however, will prove to be hell. I know my legs will protest. I know my lungs will feel like they can't take in enough air. I know my heart will beat so fast I feel like it will come through my chest. My feet will hurt. My skin will flush a very unflattering shade of red. I'll sweat. I'll cuss. I will tell myself "Fat ain't so bad" and contemplate throwing in the towel. But I also know I can't do it without him.

He doesn't allow me to use the excuse of "too hot", "too cold", "rainy", "safety" or anything else I can come up. He is here, he is in my bedroom so I don't have to get in my car and drive to the gym. My pictures don't care if I haven't done my hair in a month, so it's not like I have to look for cute gym clothes. My son and husband know where I am at all times so when they can't find something that's right out in the open they can easily come and find me. I can put on dinner, jump on the treadmill, stir the dinner, jump back on the treadmill, and do it all over again.

If I remember correctly, that's the reason I got the thing in the first place and it's exactly the reason I hate it.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

What a Crock!

I'm thinking of adding a couple of theme days to the blog, including a recipe day, and that got me to thinking about my crock pot.  Don't ask for the full run down on how I got from point A to point crock pot because a) I'm not a good enough writer to take you on that long and winding journey, and b) you'd lose interest somewhere around the point I was thinking about Harry Potter and how that ugly kid really grew into his looks.  Anyway, suffice it to say, the crock pot is useful to the dieter's arsenal because it will eliminate both the "I don't have the money to cook healthy food" and the "I don't have time to exercise" excuses.

First, the money element:

Crock pots are great for cooking cheaper (i.e. tougher) cuts of meat at a lower, slower temperature.  You can also cook leaner cuts of meat in the crock pot and still have it come out juicy without all the added fat.  Crock pots are also great for cooking big pots of healthy soups and stews that you can then freeze in individual bags for lunches and thus eliminate the excuse for popping out to get some dollar menu fast food. I don't care if everything IS a dollar, it's still cheaper to bring lunch from home.  And, because you are freezing your leftovers, you don't have the worry of getting burned out on eating the same thing for lunch tomorrow that you had for dinner the night before.  Variety is the spice of life!

Now, the time element:

How many people, especially women, give the excuse of not having enough time in their day to exercise?  Close to a billion.  That's just an estimate, but I'm pretty sure it's close.  It's no wonder.  I once worked outside of the home and I know from experience, sometimes moms don't have a chance to even sit down until around 10pm.  Forget about waking up early for exercise!  I never could do it.  I had to get up at 5:30 am as it was to get myself, my kid and my husband out of the door on time.  I had a 45 minute commute, one way, would often work overtime, come home and get dinner and a load of laundry started, help the kiddo with homework, clean the house, finish up dinner, eat dinner, clean the kitchen, do more laundry, do more homework, build a lego tower, get everything ready for tomorrow, lather, rinse, repeat. There didn't seem to be enough hours in my day to fit in exercise.

A crock pot can free up at least the hour you spend cooking dinner each night. You can just set up your meals the night before, throw it on before leaving the house for the day, and come home to a wonderful homecooked meal. It's almost like having a personal chef! Get some bagged salad and an easy side dish and you have dinner!

The only issue with crock pot cooking is finding healthy recipes that fit into a diet plan. To find healthier alternatives to crock pot recipes, one often has to dig a little deeper, but that's not to say it can't be done. Almost anything can be cooked in a crock pot with a little modification. I will be posting tried and true recipes on this blog beginning Monday under the heading of Monday Meals. If you have any you would like to share, please comment or send me an email. You will get full credit!

Monday, March 4, 2013

WARNING: This post may contain the "F" word.

Let's just assume every Monday post will contain the "F" word from here on out. Monday's suck. Monday weigh in days suck harder.

First, a disclaimer: my entire household has been sick this past week.  My son has been sick with seasonal allergies AND wrestling with getting a permanent molar.  So that's been fun. I don't care what doctors and dentists say, kids get sick when their teeth come in. Nearly every mother I have ever spoken with says the same thing and we can't all be wrong. My kid is no different. My husband has been working really hard, long hours because this is the busiest season for his business. As a result, he hasn't been feeling the best either. So I have two very sick guys to take care of. This has translated to grabbing what I could, when I could to eat. But, excuses are like assholes, we all have one. Right? Right! So that's mine.

Now, I crawled my fat butt on the scale today and I haven't lost an ounce! I have gained any, so I'm taking that as a victory in itself, but still I'm a bit disappointed. Oh well, back on the proverbial horse. Which leads me to the rest of my post.

One thing I have learned from being on one diet or another for the better part of my life is you have to keep going no matter what. As some of you may know, I am part of the forums at www.3fatchicks.com.  A very wise poster on that forum (wish I could remember who), quoted a book she read that said: If you were cleaning your fine china and broke a single dish, would you break the rest of the set? No, of course not. Well, weight loss is a lot like that. You will have ups and downs, and you will have days when you just can't resist reaching for that bag of chips, but it doesn't negate everything else you've done. You just have to get back on the horse and pick up where you left off. Had I kept this in mind, I might have avoided gaining and losing the same 10 pounds over and over again.  So, for today, I'm just going to say "Fuck it" and move on to the rest of my week.  Here's to next Monday!


Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Top 5 Stupidest Things I Ever Did To Lose Weight

I have been on a weight loss roller coaster for all but 15 years of my life.  For 4 years, I was, well an infant/toddler/didn't give a shit.  Then for over 10 years I figured things out and got healthy and fit.  Everything else has been one thing and another.  Therefore; I consider myself an expert.  But no one gets to be an expert without a little trial and error.  Below, I have outlined the highlights of my training.

5.  Dexatrim.


I'm sure many of you are thinking "So, we have all used diet pills", yeah, we have.  Unfortunately, I started my little diet pill journey when I was 9.  Like a lot of women, my mother was constantly thinking she was fat. Because of it, she was constantly on a diet.  An irony that is not lost on me.  Because she was always on a diet, she always had one diet pill or another laying around the medicine cabinet.  I knew I was a chubby kid, but around age 9, a boy named Tristan made me all tingly.  He also made me cry when he called me fat.  I think there was something about 2 x 4's, but I've tried to block it out.  Anyway, I wanted Tristan to be my boyfriend, but he wouldn't because I was fat.  My mom had just gotten back in her skinny jeans by popping a few dexatrims so I thought I would do the same.  Only there were a few hiccups with that.  You see back in the day, or rather prior to 2004, diet pills had Ephedrine, Pseudoephedra, Phenylpropanolamine, and all other sort of things they don't allow now.  They don't allow it now because people make meth out of it.  They also don't allow it because these things cause adverse reactions, heart problems, strokes...all sorts of bad stuff.  Another little thing they hadn't quite grasped back in the day: speed actually slows kids down.  The makers of Ritalin have made billions of dollars on this fact.  That will be relevant in a minute.

I'm not real sure what all was in dexatrim, but I do know the first time I took it, I sat on the couch and watched every episode of Gilligan's Island they ever made.  I didn't eat, so I took that as a good sign.  My mom didn't really notice at first, I guess because I left her alone for 12 hours straight.  The second time I took it, I sat under the kitchen table for about 6 hours just contemplating life.  Then my mother knew something was up and kept asking me if someone at school had slipped me a Quaalude.  Apparently, Quaaludes were popular in the early 80's among elementary school kids?  I assured her I had not.  But I said Quaalude over and over again because it sounded pretty.  When she finally got out of me what was going on, she thought it was funny.  See, back in the day, parents didn't freak out over stuff like that.  She called our doctor and he probably didn't freak out either, but I have always wondered if this is how they got the idea for Ritalin.  The ingredient in Dexatrim that gave Mom so much energy reacted much differently in my 9 year old metabolism and slowed me down.  Now, I may not know what all was in Dexatrim, but I do know one thing that was in it....Licorice Root.  Do you know what Licorice Root is?  It's a laxative.  A very mild laxative, but a laxative all the same.  So, combine a very mellow and slowed down 9 year old with a laxative, and it didn't take long for me to decide Tristan was a douche bag and not worth it.  Crapping yourself will do that to a relationship.

4.  The Cabbage Soup Diet



Not only did I have the joy of having a mother who was constantly worried about her weight, but I also had a very vain father.  When someone mentioned that he looked like he had gained a couple of pounds, he decided he needed to go on a diet.  My parents were divorced and I was living with my dad at the time (no, not because social services placed me there due to an unfortunate dexatrim incident).  I was always up for a diet in high school, so I thought I would join him.  Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the Cabbage Soup Diet, the basic premise is this:  You make a big ass pot of cabbage soup (along with some other veggies) and eat as much as you want for a week.  You also have days where you only eat certain things like bananas and skim milk, baked potatoes on another day, etc.  Well, the thing with the soup is there is no meat in it.  And you are only allowed meat on 1 other day of the diet.  I'm not saying vegetarian isn't the way to go (more on that later), but the cabbage soup diet doesn't replace lost protein.  I guess it was day 3 of the diet and my body was so starved for protein that I ate an entire jar of peanut butter whilst sitting in the floor of the kitchen.  Combine the peanut butter, with the fact I was bombarding my colon with cabbage, and well let's just say my Earth Science class got a lot livelier when I very loudly announced my presence during a test.  I will never forget that day.  I could feel it coming and I agonized to hold out just 15 minutes until I could finish my test and be excused to the bathroom, but the peanuts and cabbage would not be ignored.  I finally accepted my fate and silently prayed I could ease it out quietly.  No.  I couldn't.  Luckily, I was able to play it off and no one knew it was me....insert evil grin here.

3.  Anorexia



First of all, there is nothing about Anorexia that is funny.  It is a horrible eating disorder that affects a lot of people.  The only thing funny about Anorexia as far as I am concerned, is the fact that I thought I could make myself BE anorexic.  When I was 14, I knew a girl at my aunt's church who had been carted away to a rehab because of anorexia.  I thought, wow, I'll just try that.  I mean the girl at church was so thin, I just won't keep it up long enough to get sick like she did.  Yeah, teenage girls can be really stupid.  It took about 3 days for me to realize I was the world's WORST anorexic.  At least at 14.

2.  Bulimia


I told my best friend that I tried to be anorexic during a sleep over once.  She proceeded to tell me about how she could never be anorexic, but she knew this girl, who had a cousin (don't all teenaged girl stories start like that), who would eat whatever she wanted and then just throw everything up.  She was totally thin! Eureka!  That was it, we decided we were going to be bulimic.  We pigged out on Ranch Doritos and orange soda and then headed off to the bathroom.  My best friend then discovered she had a very low gag reflex and could not throw up no matter how far she stuck her finger down her throat.  This served her well later, but this blog isn't THAT R-rated.  I, on the other hand, didn't get my finger past my front teeth before I spewed like an Italian fountain.  As bad as I was at being anorexic at 14, I found out at 15 that I was damn good at being bulimic.  It was the start of a love affair that would wax and wane for the remainder of my high school career and on into college.  By senior year I was down 30 pounds and feeling pretty good about everything except my breath, which was always bad in those days.  I also had to shoot down pregnancy rumors when I fainted in Spanish class and later volleyball practice....but I didn't care, high school was almost over and I was going to be thinner by college.  Which leads me to:

1.  Low-fat/fat-free




Let me just start by saying: As a rule, I don't think Low-fat diets are a bad thing.  Especially, considering my family has a high heart disease rate.  Cutting out the extra fat and cholesterol is a staple of a healthy eating plan.  But if you take it too far, as I did, it can very easily end up on your top five stupidest things you ever did to lose weight list.

During the summer between graduating from High School and before college, my cousin, who was my frenemy cousin, called me up to brag she had lost 10 pounds "without even trying" because she was on this new low-fat diet.  It was, in her words, the easiest diet she had ever tried.  In 1990 (yes, I just gave away my age), low-fat and fat-free were all the rage and I'm sure I had seen the food labels but hadn't given it much thought.  She went on to describe how she only got 25g or less of fat from all her food each day, and the pounds were "melting" off.  I did some quick math in my head and realized she now weighed less than me.  You see, my cousin and I were close in age and while we were best of friends, we were also young women just learning about that competition women have with one another.  Thus, frenemy cousin.  It didn't matter to me that we had completely different body types, I, being 5'8" and her, being 5'3" and curvy.  No, that didn't matter to her or me, because we soon were dieting together.  Dieting together, for frenemies, means we were competing to see who could get thinner, faster, and all that mattered was what it read on the scale.  She was right in one regard, the low-fat diet was easy due to the abundance of low-fat and fat-free food products available.  I used fat-free everything; salad dressing, margarine  soup...everything.  I also quit frying and started baking all my meat, and ate tons of vegetables.  The weight was "melting off".

I dropped weight consistently for weeks.  Pretty soon I was looking really good, but thanks to the Bulimia I developed in High School, I couldn't see it.  I got obsessed with seeing the scale move.  Not long after, my cousin stopped seeing the scale move and gave up.  I WON!  Which I reveled in for all of two seconds.  I didn't care that I beat her at the weight loss game anymore.  I wanted to keep going.  I had a number in my head of what I should weigh (120) and nothing would dissuade me otherwise.  Pretty soon, I hit the dreaded plateau.  I waited it out for a week and hatched a brilliant plan during Freshmen orientation.  If cutting my fat grams to 25g made me lose that much weight, imagine if I reduced to 20g????  Sure enough the scale started moving again.  I also started moving when I took up jogging.  Only I didn't just take up jogging.  I ran....everywhere.  I planned my 2nd semester to allow each class to be as far away from the other as possible.  I would run, even though I had 20 minutes to get there, to my next class.  I ran everywhere.  I ran to the mailbox, I ran between classes, I ran to the library, I ran to my car.  Looking back, I now know why I didn't have a boyfriend - I was the weird girl that ran everywhere.  Needless to say, the weight continued to melt away, but it was slowing down.  No problem, I just cut my fat grams to 15.

Between my 1st and 2nd year of college, I had to get a job and drop out.  I'll spare you the reasons why, but I got my first big girl job working for an attorney.  I was still losing weight and still running everywhere.  The weight was continuing to come off, albeit slowly.  I would go two weeks without seeing the scale move and I was as depressed as if I had just broken up with my boyfriend.  Oh, except I didn't have a boyfriend, and that was fine by me because he may have wanted to take me to dinner and I ONLY ate what I made.  You can see how my thinking was about to get screwed up.  After about a month of seeing no scale movement, I decided to cut my fat grams even lower.  Only, I was already only allowing myself 10g a day.  To go any lower, I would have to cut out meat altogether.  So I did.  Only I didn't replace it with any other form of protein.  I only ate brown rice and mixed vegetables and was running over 5 miles a day, sometimes twice a day.  Finally, the scale started to move again.

My family started to worry about me at this point.  My aunt would ask me all the time "How much do you weigh now?  Don't you think you've lost enough?"  I just thought she wanted me to be fat.  When she would point out my protruding collar bone, I wore it as a badge of honor.  The fact that I was only 19 and already hobbling around due to severe shin splints, only proved I was willing to work for things.  Even my frenemy cousin would ask me things like "well what DO you eat" when I would tell her I didn't eat this or that.  It was easy to think she was just jealous because I stuck it out.  This was my reasoning.    I spent all my time either at work, or running.  Very little of that time was eating.  When the scale slowed again, I cut my calories by only having one meal a day, of 1 cup brown rice and two cups of vegetables, spaced throughout the day.

The last day I ate this way, I climbed on my scale before work and it read 140.  I could see my goal in sight and reasoned that I would fast every weekend until I got to 120.  I got to work that day and felt a little light headed, but it wasn't that much worse than any other time so I didn't think any more about it.  My boss brought me some paperwork he needed filed with the judge and that made me happy.  It was always a bonus to me when I got to take paperwork to the courthouse because it meant I got an extra half mile of walking round trip.  I took the paper to the judges office and was chit chatting with his secretary when the floor rose up and swallowed me.  I woke up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

My memory of what happened next is still, after 20 years, still a little fuzzy.  I remember there was a lot of people coming in and out of my room asking me if I ate today, talking about electrolytes and low blood pressure, vitamin deficiencies, etc.  I don't know exactly how long I was there, but I did finally come around and a nurse smiled broadly at me and asked me some more questions like my name and age to see if I knew.  I told her.  She was happy.  She then started hanging an IV bag since the one that was already going was empty.  I asked her what she was doing and when she told me I was dehydrated so she was hanging an IV.  "How many calories are in an IV", I asked her.  She never answered me, she just hung the IV and hurried out of the room.  A few minutes later, a representative from the hospital's eating disorders clinic and a psychiatrist were in my room asking me a lot of questions.  I agreed to check myself in, but only as an outpatient, just to get them to shut the hell up.

I was probably in outpatient treatment for about a month, making no progress with my counselor, even though I was eating a little more, reasoning I would finish losing weight after I got back to school in the fall.  My counselor suggested, again, that I join her during a group session and I finally agreed to go.  I remember sitting there, surrounded by the sickest looking women I had ever seen in my life and it just reinforced what I kept telling everyone...there is no way I was anorexic.  And it's true.  I wasn't an anorexic, at least not clinically.  I also wasn't bulimic since I had stopped binging and purging.  I was, according to my counselor, unclassified.

It turns out, going to that group session that day was the best thing I ever did.  We all sat around talking and "sharing", and I know I rolled my eyes multiple times thinking all these chicks were seriously whacked out.  I didn't hate myself, I wasn't "afraid" of food, and I hadn't been raped by my dad.  I felt sorry for them, but I was also really judgmental and thought they should "just get over it."  I was seriously not thinking clearly. Then we had a group exercise.  In the exercise, we were paired up with a partner.  We were to take a piece of string and cut it to adequate length we thought would fit around our waist and immediately put the string in a bag.  Then we were to estimate a piece of string adequate to reach around our partner's waist without letting them see the string.  Then we shared.  I watched as each woman/girl stood and wrapped her piece of string around her waist.  As you may suspect, the string would have probably reached around several times.  I was sitting there, smugly, thinking I could understand being a few inches off, but some of these bitches had to be faking it for attention.  Then their partner would take out the string they estimated, and the string would be much closer to fitting.  I was still smug when it was my turn.  I just knew I was about to win an argument with the counselor.  Then I wrapped the string around my waist....twice.  The clouds were starting to dissipate a little, but I wasn't quite clear yet.  In fact, I was mad.  Then my partner got up with her string for me, and as she held it there I thought she was just as deluded about my waist as she was about her own.  There was no way in hell that little piece of string was going to fit around me.  Imagine my surprise, when, not only did it fit, but was actually about two inches longer.

I don't know what happened in group after that, because I was too lost in my own thoughts.  I began to see how unhealthy I had really become.  My hair was thin, my skin was dry and I looked much older than my 19 years.  I was also way too thin.  I vowed to turn things around and get healthy even if it meant I had to throw away my size 4 jeans.

I'm sorry to end this lighthearted reflection on such a bummer, but I hope anyone reading this realizes how easy it is to get off track.  Even when we think we are doing good things for our bodies, it is far too easy to lose sight of what should be the goal...health.  Don't get caught up thinking your self worth is dependent on the number on a scale or a clothing label.  Those things don't define you, and they don't ensure your happiness.  You can be happy in your own skin when you realize eating better is about LIVING better.  

Losing Weight Can Get Embarrassing





Ok, when I decided to make this blog, I swore I wouldn't pull any punches and I'd lay it all out on the line, and this is one of those posts.  Forgive me if your humor has evolved past the 12 year old level, because this post is going to be a doozy.

Weight loss, can sometimes get embarrassing.  One of the first things a person usually does when trying to eat better, is incorporate more vegetables in their meal decisions.  Well, vegetables can sometimes wreak havoc on the stomach and colon.  You know where I'm going with this...GAS!

Don't get me wrong, I have never been adverse to vegetables.  I love them, but they have not been center stage in my meal prep for years.  Even if I did serve vegetables, they were usually over cooked, and as we should all know, this zaps the vitamin and fiber benefits right out.  Now, I'm trying to barely steam the vegetables to maintain the nutritional benefits.  My colon, however, has regarded this as an act of war!  Especially considering I tend to prefer vegetables of the cruciferous variety; broccoli, brussel sprouts, greens.  Now if the untrained colon regards vegetables in general as an act of war, cruciferous vegetables would be considered the nuclear attack on Hiroshima variety.

Now, I live in a house of men.  I have a husband and a 7 year old son, and there is always someone breaking wind in the house.  My son thinks it is his job to maintain a certain air pressure in any enclosed space he inhabits.  He's pretty proud of himself when he does let lose the canons too, in a manner only a 7 year old can.  We are working on this and learning it is not necessarily polite to announce when he has "tooted".  It is a bit of a losing battle, however.  If his father is any indication, being amused by bodily functions tends to be something carried on the Y chromosome that they never quite outgrow.  To his credit, his father no longer announces it, preferring instead to let one figure it out on ones own if you get my drift.  He finds that much funnier.  So, not unlike any woman in a house of men, I have been somewhat fighting a losing battle on the "farts are funny to anyone with a penis" front.  Until now.

Combining the cruciferous vegetables with the protein shakes I have for breakfast (because I hate eating breakfast) have left me with an arsenal of my own in the battle of who farts more.  While I am just girly enough to try and do this as privately as possible, sometimes....well....things happen, let's just say.  My husband and son, don't quite know what to think.  I think up until now, my son thought women didn't fart at all.  I think this because he chastised me in the school pick up line one day, in full earshot of a group of teachers, that farting was "not ladylike"!  Yeah, that wasn't embarrassing at all!  It's pretty hard to make people think he's not my kid when he is crawling into my car, and has done so every school day for the better part of two school years.  And, there was no way of hoping no one heard it, when the teachers all stopped speaking, simultaneously, and looked right at me.  So, yeah, parent teacher night is going to be really interesting this year.  I can see them all now, whispering and laughing..."that's Sam's mom...she farts!"

Things also tend to happen when you aren't really conscious   This can put a wrench in the intimacy department as well.  I know because I awoke this morning to my husband hugging the last two inches of the king sized bed on his side.  With his back to me.  Usually, I awake with him spooned up behind me.  It's one of my favorite times of the morning, feeling him there and enjoying a peaceful moment of intimacy with the love of my life.  When I asked him about it he said he was doing it out of "self-preservation".   Already coming to terms with the fact I do snore, combined with the thought of me farting against my husbands lap while he spoons me, has left me feeling like a princess....NOT!

I know from my weight loss efforts before that this is a temporary situation, and I'll get through it.  Eventually, my colon and vegetables will strike an alliance.  It may take a month, but they will come through it.  I just hope they do so before my husband and son decide to team up against me.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Dieting With Men In Your Life

You want to know why married women are fat?  Especially if they are Stay At Home Moms?  Because they have husbands and sons.  The great universal unfairness of the universe, or U-cube, is: men don't gain weight the same way women do.  As a matter of fact they can eat ALL day and still wear the same size they did in college.  Another U-cube, is men SNACK!  A LOT!  My men are no different.  It doesn't matter how long I have spent in the kitchen, and how great of a meal I meticulously place in front of them, and no matter how much they eat of said meal, they will inevitably want snacks less than 2 hours later.  This means I have to either, keep snacks on hand, or cook another meal or dessert 2 hours later.  It's like I'm living with fucking Hobbits who have to have 2nd dinner.

I don't understand this habit.  There was no snacking in my family.  You either ate leftovers from the previous meal or made yourself a sandwich if you absolutely couldn't hold out to the next meal.  We never had chips or cookies laying around.  Someone may make a dessert on a Sunday, but when it was gone it was gone.  Too bad, so sad.  My husband's family on the other hand, eats about 12 full meals in snacks alone.  I've seen my father-in-law down a full meal to the point I thought he would literally explode, and then start rifling around in cabinets a half hour later looking for a snack.  My husband, has done the same thing.  Oddly enough, my family is the fatties.  Even tonight he is asking me if we have this or that, specifically the ingredients for brownies, in the house.  Even though he will protest that he doesn't want me to go to any trouble, we've been married long enough he "knows" I won't let it drop because I have some really sadistic, misguided guilt to make sure he is gastronomically satisfied.  This guilt is wearing me out and making me crazy.  Logically, I should know it is not my place or responsibility to jump at his every want and desire, especially his desire for after dinner snacks when he is the one with diabetes, but it still bugs the shit out of me.  I'm working on it.  I just feel as if I am tied to the kitchen sometimes, and nothing is ever enough.  I could spend all day laying out a virtual buffet and he would still say, "hey, do we have the stuff to make.....?" But it's my issue I know.  I try not to take it out on him, but for the love of God, eat a second helping and let me close the fucking kitchen once in a while.  Or get fat!  Shit!

Diet Pills or If you want to throw your money away send it to me!

In all my years of dieting and trying this plan or that plan, I think of myself as somewhat of an expert.  I'm not medically trained, so if you are using me as your medical advice you are a LOT misguided.  Always check with your doctor before taking any advice offered from a blog.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way....

Diet Pills are a joke.  You are not going to get any magic from a diet pill.  You are wasting your money, and if you really have that big of a burning desire to throw your money around, just send it to me.  Really, I'll start working on a PayPal link today!  Read the labels.  They all say the same thing.  They all say they will help you lose 1-2 pounds a week.  Well guess what sweeties, you can lose 1-2 pounds a week on your own.  The diet pills really aren't helping that much.  Back in the day, I took my fair share of Xenedrine.  This was before some hammer head decided Ephedrine and Drano could be used to make Meth so they didn't regulate it that much.  Yes, Xenedrine did help me lose the weight, but it was because I was hopped up on the speed in the stuff.  I would pop two Xenedrine and maybe not sleep for two days, but my house would be SPOTLESS!  I would also get really bad road rage, and who knows what damage I was doing to my body.  But that was another time.

It especially troubles me when otherwise respected celebrity doctors and fitness professionals advocate and push their brand of diet pills.  I just saw an advertisement for Dr. Oz Diet Pills.  I don't know how much money a person needs but I think it's pretty irresponsible of him.  He is a doctor, I wonder if he takes them himself.  NOT!  The funny thing is, a very well known fitness professional has been hawking her wares all over the Internet as well, and it wasn't that long ago I heard her bitching out some big losers about how there wasn't any magic pills to lose weight.  Hmmmmmm.

Now, I do throw this caveat in: Vitamins are a different story.  But you don't have to buy specialty vitamins, you can get the mid priced variety and they work just as well.  I wouldn't recommend the cheapos, but that is  my preference.  What I'm about to tell you may sound like the wackiest thing you are going to read all day, but bear with me.  Overweight people are actually malnourished.  Yeah, I told you it would sound wacky.  You may be thinking malnourishment looks like those starving children in the 3rd world with pouchy bellies and flies all over their faces, but those are the extreme cases.  The malnourishment of the 1st world, looks a lot like me.  FAT!  Let's face it, if I were getting adequate, balanced nutrition, I wouldn't be over 100 pounds overweight.  I may still be overweight, but not by this much.  Because I've been eating fast food, over processed food, and snacking on entire bags of chips and cookies, my vegetable intake is not as great as it could be.  For that reason, I really advocate a multi-vitamin as part of a healthier lifestyle.

Some vitamins I recommend when starting out are:
B complex - Good for any woman, even if she isn't overweight.  Folic Acid is important for preventing neural tube defects in pregnancy.  B vitamins help iron work more efficiently to prevent iron deficiency anemia, and give you an energy boost.  What do you think is in those 5-hour energy shots?  Take a look at the label...it's a hella lot of B vitamins!

Iron - again, women tend to have iron deficiency anemia, particularly around that time of the month, and iron helps you from getting sluggish.  Check with your doctor as Iron is very easy to OD on.

C - immune boost to keep you from falling off the exercise wagon because you are nursing another bout of the sniffles.  C is also good for the skin.

D - because we live indoors and it helps calcium work harder

Calcium - for bone health

E - for your skin and hair.

I'm sure there are others, but those are my suggestions.  And I can't stress this enough, because I'm not about to pay anyone in a lawsuit...CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR to prevent any nasty side effects from any meds you are currently taking.  Also, don't take Iron and Calcium at the same time, they negate one another.  Take one in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

So, my advice, is save your money, eat better, get some vitamins and write a check to help end hunger.   There are no magic pills to help you lose weight.  You will have to do a little work!



Weigh In Days and Mondays Bring Me Down

It's Monday.  It's Weigh In Day.  It is probably going to rain today.  This day SUCKS!

I started watching what I ate, drinking the water....blah, blah, blah...last week and my weight was 280.  On a 5'8" woman, that's not so great.  Today I got on the scale and I am at 274.  So a loss of 6 pounds.  Not too bad, but not that great for my first week either.  And yeah, I know you should average 2 pounds per week, but people generally lose a lot of weight up front...the proverbial "water" weight.  At any rate, I'm not worried about it.  A loss is a loss.

Just to go on record, Mondays are my official weigh in days, even though I crawl my fat butt on the scale everyday.  Measurement days are, so far, scheduled for the first of each month.  That gives me 3 more days, for a total of 10 days of dieting.  Not really enough time to see a significant difference, so I am contemplating skipping the month of March with measurements.  We'll see.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Atkins, Paleo, HCg.....oh my!

The first thing people generally ask you when they find out you are trying to lose weight is: What plan are you following?  As if no one in the world would try to navigate weight loss without following some bullshit diet plan.

Here is the thing with all these diet plans:  they all work, somewhat, but yet they all don't work with life.  I didn't get fat because I hate food.  You can't show me one person who is fat who will ever say "I don't know why I'm fat, eating is a chore!"  No, fat people like to eat!  That may be all manner of Captain Obvious, but it's true.  When a fat person starts subscribing to this eating plan or that eating plan, they inevitably have to eliminate one type of food or another.  Either they can't eat carbs, or they can't have sugar, or they can't have anything white on Thursdays...what the fuck ever!  You tell a fat girl (namely me) she can't have something, whatever it is, and she is going to want it ten times more.  You want to eliminate the weight problem in America?  Outlaw vegetables.  Outlaw vegetables and you will have some fat bitches giving hand jobs in alleys for a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts.

So, no thank you, I won't be eliminating anything from my diet because some whack-a-do who lost ten pounds tells me too.  Plus, these plans never fit into anyone's real life.  Suppose you are on some weird ass eating plan and you go to someone's party.  The world isn't going to accommodate your diet, so now you have to spend all your time asking the hostess what's in this hor d'oeuvre, and if she used organic olive oil, and did she stand on one leg when she did it so the carbs wouldn't mix with the fats due to the earth's axis.  You know what the hostess is going to do?  She's going to think you're an asshole and you won't get invited back to any parties to wear that fabulous dress you can now fit into.  So now you are thin, sitting on a couch every weekend, NOT eating Doritos.  In the words of my girl Sweet Brown - Ain't Nobody Got Time For That! 

Heaven forbid you actually do eat something that doesn't agree with the very strict eating plans laid out by whatever book you smuggled out of Barnes and Noble, you feel like a complete and total failure.  Excuse me, but I've tried on swimming suits in a department store, I don't need a diet to make me feel like shit.

For these reasons, I'm not subscribing to a trendy diet.  I am going with the oldest diet in the world, the dreaded-by-dieters-everywhere MODERATION plan.  Moderation allows me to not turn down my mother-in-law when she invites me for dinner.  Moderation doesn't keep me from being able to enjoy a night out with my husband.  Moderation allows me to re-learn self control and revisit the joy of having a healthy relationship with food.  It won't be easy at first, but nothing worth having ever is.  Here's to it.


Just Another Fat Chick Blogging About Weight Loss

Well, the title says it all.  I am just another fat chick, blogging about my weight loss efforts.  But I wasn't always this way.  No, there was a time when I lived to exercise.  I woke up early every day and headed out to the gym or the track and didn't stop until I was suitably worked out!  If I gained a couple of pounds, I stepped up my work out or watched my diet until I got back to my magic number.  I wore my health and fitness like a badge of honor in an unhealthy family.  That was my role, I was the "health nut" that got fit out of high school and kept it up for well over 10 years.  I was on the train to "not going to let my hereditary diabetes and heart disease catch up to me ever-ville".  Then, my train got off track.

I don't think people know when their train goes off track.  I don't think it's a big loud crash and crushing of steel that no one could miss.  Rather, I think it's a little bump here and a nudge there.  I think it's a extra serving of desert with friends, a few too many dinners out, a few too many well meaning aunts urging you to "try a little of this".  I think it's a few "too busy to work out" days, until you finally just pull the train into the depot and say "I'll finish later".  Sure, I've cranked the train up a couple of times since then, but never really got it back on track.

Well now it's later.  I can't turn back this time, I have to see it through or I'm going to be facing all those things I worked so hard to avoid before.  I know I can do it, because I did it before.  True, my body is older and it's not going to respond as quickly as before, but it can be done.  If you choose to follow this blog, I'm going to warn you ahead of time: I am a smart ass, I don't pull punches, and there will more than likely be cussing.  Consider yourself warned.