Tag: Diet

The Season for Reasons

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I usually ignore the magazines at the front of the check out. The magazine with celebrity photo on the front never interested me to begin with – I only know name of people I’ve seen in movies, and their personal lives are usually uninteresting to me (ruins seeing them in movies if I know too much about them).

I will admit, however, to having been distracted more times than I can tell by the ” What’s Wrong with Your Body and How We Can Fix it” magazine. For some reason, I let myself be fooled by headlines promising an insane amount of weight loss and the first week, written by sadists who know I don’t have patience to ride out a diet for the entire month. 

Then last year one of my doctor suggested the South Beach diet. I figured it had to be halfway decent since the recommendation came from the doctor. I described the bullet points to my dad, also a doctor, and got approval from the family nutrition expert. I did. And guess what, the first few weeks I lost 14 pounds. 

Not bad as far I was concerned.  It was time to reward myself with a donut. 

Aside from a few small chocolate-covered detours, I actually stayed on the straight and narrow for most of the summer, moving to a more plant-based approach that was easier to grow myself.   Over the course of four or five months, I lost about 50 pounds. 

I got away from looking for a miracle and focused on long-term health. 

And then winter came.  In Vermont, you’re kind of a prisoner in your own home and of the layers and layers of sweaters and coats you put on the minute you get up. The upside is the camouflaging of the poundage you put on to keep warm (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). 

I teetered around Thanksgiving and got completely off balance after Christmas. I’m back on a modified fitness plan but somehow have not been able to pull my fat butt back on that diet wagon (at least not for more than a couple days time). 

So that, ladies and gentleman of the jury, is why I just had to look at that magazine with hot pink cover blaring the unheard-of promise of 24 pounds to lose in the first week. Just the thought of it made me consider taking a monokini instead of a muumuu to the beach.

Sadly, I know success comes down to the tried-and-true Eat-Your-Vegetables-Control-Your-Portion nonsense that has worked since the beginning of dieting.  But the thought of my muumuu, reminded me of the my impending annual two-week swimsuit season, during which time (purely coincidentally) sightings of a great white whale beached on the shores of Lake Michigan are reported.  

The inevitability of a season more certain and terrifying than tax time was the only reason I needed to find that last two dollars in my wallet – even though I know how that article will end.   

 

Old Habits

 

Back on The Wagon horizontal Web

I’m enough of a yo-yo artiste that I know bad habits don’t die, they just wait for winter to regroup.  Case in point, the last few weeks I’ve been treating my body like a bit of an amusement park, and I can’t be too shocked when I feel like I’m looking into a funhouse mirror.  

Still, when, in honor of spring and impending swimsuit season (which, for me, is a misnomer as I rarely wear a swimsuit anywhere), I stepped on the scale this morning, I realized it’s time to get back on the wagon.   

The Things I’ve Lost

40 pounds

Tuesday was momentous. I finished cleaning out my office. You can now enter the room without signing a waiver of liability in the event that one of my stacks of books or supplies or other-crap-that-gets-tossed-in-the-office-when-we-don’t-have-time-to-find-the-right-place-for-it.

Wednesday my office became a multi-purpose work and workout room when I moved a weight bench into the briefly empty space along the back wall. About 5 minutes into setting it up, however, I realized it was missing something very important – weights. I added their acquisition to the to do list for the next morning.

Thursday, I stepped on the scale, hoping I’d hit the forty pound mark, and I crowed. Forty-one point six (I do count the points). Then I headed to the grocery store for necessities and capped of my trip to town with a visit to Kmart, hoping they’d sell the round weight plates I’d need. I only wanted a pair of pairs of 5 and 10 pound weights – Schwarzenegger I’m not – but the only thing that came close was a 40 pound box of round weights on sale for $25.

I grabbed the plastic tape that was holding the box together and hoisted it to the top of the shopping cart. It wasn’t back-breakingly heavy, but I couldn’t imagine carrying it from the back of the store to the front. I slid the box from the top of the cart to the bottom, setting down my load and laughed, ignoring the puzzled look of the nearby stock clerk.

I still carry plenty of stuff in my head wherever I go, but thinking about the plastic tape-wrapped box I’d lost kept me smiling through the rest of the day.

Comfort

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What is it about the colder days that makes bread need butter to be nourishing? What is it about the roads littered with leaves that sparks the craving for something hot and chocolatey?

I’ve been so good all summer, and while I’m still kicking it up on the exercise wagon, the numbers on the scale refused to budge for the last week or two. It’s no great mystery. I’ve been indulging. Cottage cream ice cream over apple crumb pie to celebrate the Big Guy’s birthday, a few days of stress-induced gluttony, and the only thing keeping the numbers on the scale from climbing is the fact that my exercise plan is often my only downtime – a fact that keeps it alive and well.

It’s another part of the game. The exercise is easy. It feels good when you’re doing it. If feels good when you’ve done it. It’s kind of like sex without consequences. But keeping up the calorie count – is there ever a time when it feels good when you’re doing it?

There are recipes that can make you think the calorie counting feels good because it tastes good, but the fretting is only rewarded on the scale in the morning. When it’s still dark at 5:30 in the morning, it’s hard to see those numbers at all, and the aroma wafting from that calorie-laden bowl of peanut-butter oatmeal wraps around me like a hug – softly strangling my willpower.

Back on the Horse

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Last weekend I fell of the wagon and fell hard.

Knowing there was a party at the end of the day, I decided to take a day off from fitness and counting calories and label reading. I’ve been pretty good for most of the last month, and even though I told myself not to say never-ever to treats, ever was supposed to be limited to three bites. Saturday I took three huge bites.

The first bite was the veggie breakfast burrito which could only be considered healthy because of the word vegetable in it. The second was a hiatus from any exercise. And the third was an evening devoted to eating local corn dogs and fries at the dairy bar and then from the freezer case at the local country store.

My three non-regulation sized bites left me with a whopping hangover, making me all too-aware of the fact that ice cream would not be a performance enhancing drug for my morning workout. But I knew I had to workout. My sister has already signed us up for a 5K in Connecticut at the end of the summer, and, even though I’m doing the 3 miles regularly now, I know I need to keep doing those three miles if I want to not come in second to last (it has happened).

Getting back on the diet wagon always seems harder than getting back on the fitness wagon. I’ve been doing South Beach and then found my way to the Forks Over Knives plant-based way of eating, and the recipes on both have been phenomenal. I can’t really say my taste buds been deprived the last few months, but empty calories can be so darned delicious, and my new morning meal, usually so satisfying, didn’t have quite the same appeal on Sunday morning.

By about the middle of my strength training, however, I had found my way back onto the fitness wagon, and there’s a reason for this. There’s something about running and lifting weights that gives you instant satisfaction in a way that eating less simply can’t. The farther you run or swim or climb, the harder you push, the more your body becomes a temple, and the better you want to treat it. Right now, mine still looks a lot like a temple to a paunchy goddess of vice, but it gets a little more solid every day, but it isn’t the penance at the scale that keeps me going.

The Numbers Game

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243 was the number on the scale Monday May 25, 2013. 

1412 was the number of calories to eat each day to lose 2 1/2 pounds each week.

15 seconds was the longest I could run without stopping.

22 was the number on the label inside my  jeans.

6 is the number of times I had to run day 1 of my fitness program before I could finish it.

2 is the number of kids who were depending on me to be strong enough to take care of them.

24 is the number of runs I’ve done since the first time I actually got through a routine.

9 is the number of weeks I’ve been counting calories.

12 is the number of days I slipped up on a vacation 14 days long, and 

18 is the number of days in the last month I behaved – for the most part. 

3.68 is the number of miles I ran yesterday without stopping.

1282 was the number of calories allowed on the calorie counter yesterday, and 

209 may still be a big number on a frame that’s only 63 inches high, but it’s the sum of a summer of small but meaningful successes.  

 

 

The Pack

 

At the beginning of the summer, I could barely walk up the hill of our 900 hundred foot driveway without stopping to get more air. For most of the spring, I rationalized my 'performance' with the excuse that I had started the year with pneumonia. Knowing that not moving was worsening my lung condition didn't get me off the couch until late night chest pains sent me to the hospital for stress tests.

The long-tern lung infection was to blame for the chest pain, but I knew my deep and gorgeous hunger (as Cary Grant might describe it) and less gorgeous physical sloth were not helping my lungs get any better. So, as I sat in the doctor's office, watching him tap a place on my chart where I had been about 50 pounds lighter, I got to my tipping point.

A few years ago, I had another similar moment of Zen that led to a summer of good nutrition and walking. I let myself get stymied at the end (something I've already moved to prevent this year) by shortening days and a bad attitude, but I remembered that the biggest changes began when I started running. This time around, I decided to start the running with the eating plan, and taking the two roads together has made all the difference, and in a way I never would have expected.

I started very slowly using a plan that had worked three summers earlier (C25K from Runner's World – try it, it works). The plan starts you with 30 second runs followed by 90 second walks and repeats until you've been run/walking for 30-35 minutes. I am not proud to say that at the beginning of the summer, I had trouble making it once around our house or even trotting for 30 seconds. Yesterday (a few days before Labor Day), I ran 3.68 miles with hills and no stopping. Part of me wishes I could say I did it all by myself, but along the way I discovered something even more valuable than my little app. I discovered encouragement.

My first runs were always on our sloping driveway and around our bumpy yard. I was embarrassed to have anyone see how slowly I ran. Then I mentioned my new plan to my sister who's currently getting ready for a 20K. She didn't ask my times. She didn't ask if I thought I could do it. She just gave me a verbal pat on the back and said, “Keep going. I'll get us signed up for the Labor Day 5K.”

We've run the the 5K together before, and, to her credit, she ran with me the first time – giving encouragement the whole way. Then, I was very conscious of the faster runners that seemed to flow around us like gazelles cutting swaths around a slow-moving elephant. Now, I barely notice it.

In the last few months, I've begun to notice more runners on the road. I've seen them in all shapes and sizes. I see slower ones and faster ones. When I'm running, we wave at each other. When I'm driving, sometimes I'll honk or yell, “Go for it!” at them whether the windows are up or down.

They're all doing it, and when I talk with other people I know who've been running or even just started, we never compare times. We talk about going the distance. We talk about how far we've come. The women who've traveled farther share their acquired wisdom with those of us who are at the beginning of the journey. The times matter, but I never feel like I'm competing with someone else – I'm only competing with my old time.

So, if you're running (or walking) on the road, and a strange lady passes you, shouting at you to keep up the good work, she is nuts. But I've decided that if you've started your journey – no matter where you are on it – you are doing good work. And that deserves encouragement, so I'm passing it on.

 

What You Don’t See

 

Dear Mr. Retailer,

 

You carry my old size, but you never carry it in the store because you see my wallet, but, apparently you don't want to see me (or the other thousands of American women who you ask to order online rather than come in your store to shop). But I'm eating better and working out, and my body's getting stronger and tighter. Now I even wear one of the coveted sizes you do carry in the store, but I don't think I'll be back.

 

You see there were places that did want me as well as my business when I was bigger. They saw not only a person who was fighting the battle of the bulge and needed a uniform, they saw something more. They saw the person that can afford to buy your plus sizes because she has an income. They saw the person who finances the wardrobes of her non-plus-sized kids in the same store. They saw a person worth doing business with.

 

So, now that I can get into your clothes, it's tempting to be part of the crowd you do see – that part of the crowd that doesn't have to special order the sizes you're too embarrassed to carry in the store because someone 'unfit' might be caught browsing there. But while your clothes may hang better on my body, a retailer who couldn't see me as a person when I was larger, just isn't a good fit for me now that I'm getting smaller.

 

 

 

 

 

A Banner Routine

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I wasn’t exactly pudgy in high school. I doubt any of my friends would have called me fat, but I doubt I was the only girl who looked in the mirror and wished they were skinnier, taller, more like the faces staring out from the magazines. I was hardly model height or weight or anything else, but looking back, I can hardly believe how hard I was on myself.  I’m sure I wasn’t alone there either.

Decades later, standards have changed, but so have I. There are now petite models, plus-size models, and, if they ever start looking for a petite, plus-sized model shaped roughly like an orange, I’ll be in serious demand. So, even though I’ve lost twenty-seven pounds since the beginning of the summer, I still have a long way to go.

I’ve been traveling a good part of that road on foot on the make-shift track I’ve formed in the tenth of a mile of grass and gravel that surrounds our house like a wavy running track. This morning, after a bad fall from grace the night before, I got up and greeted the apple tree between the house and garden thirty-two times, I glanced at the soon-to-expire inspection tag on the front of my car thirty-two times, and I said hello to my puzzled dog thirty-two times.

It was routine again after the second lap, and there’s something comforting in routine. My legs no longer feel tired on every lap. I’m not out of breath after each lap. When my music program ends on my iPod, I keep going for a few more minutes because I can. A few more songs and it’s no longer about the weight but about going the distance. It’s about making taking care of myself part of my routine. It’s the same mentality that helped me make writing a part of my routine last summer.

Anyone who’s been reading this blog since last summer knows that my posts have gone from being daily and even twice daily to weekly or semi-weekly on good weeks. I can blame some of the lapse on a little more chaotic work schedule and the kids being home from school all summer. But the reality is that at the beginning of the summer, I had to make some hard decisions about which battles I needed to fight the hardest for a while.

In the middle of May, chest pains sent me to the hospital for a stress test. It was the culmination of a winter of health neglect that coincided with a fairly serious bout with depression. The chest pain turned out to be a very bad lung infection, but it was a wakeup call. So I started walking.

Eating right takes more time than opening a box of Shake’n’Bake. Exercising takes more time than sitting down on the couch for another book. Fitting those things into my life, however, was a battle that I knew I had to fight for me.

At first I thought it was selfish and destructive. I wanted to write. I had committed to it. I needed to take care of my job and my house (in that order). But I knew I needed to take care of me. Then I stumbled on a quote by Michele Obama that, whether you love her or love to hate her, had a lot of truth in it.

She said, “You’d get up at four in the morning to get to a job. You’d get up a half hour earlier in the morning to take care of your kids, so why shouldn’t you take a little extra time to take care of yourself.” That hit me like two tons of liposucked lipids.

I get up at five in the morning to work on email or fix a file for a customer.  I spent most nights for the better part of 2 years and then 3 with an infant glued to my breast because they needed it. So why, I asked myself, wasn’t I willing to do that for myself. Now I do because I’ve come to the recognition that it’s okay for a mom to do something for herself. You are doing it for them. You’re doing it to be there for them for the long haul and to be an example, but it’s okay to do it for yourself.

Now I feel I’m starting to feel like I’m winning the battle, even if it will never end. But it’s not an uphill fight, and it’s giving me the gumption to take up the writing banner that has meant almost as much as my health. There have been spurts and fits trying to get the routine back, but the challenge now is to find a way to make those two battles one.