Waking Up

Today, I weigh 235.4 pounds.

And I know why.

Throughout this weight loss journey I began in October of 2012, I have wanted losing weight to be easy and effortless.

I figured if I ate the right food in appropriate quantities, exercised every couple of days, slept right and managed my stress, I'd lose weight. And so I did.

Until I didn't.

I used the whole30 as a weight loss diet--which it isn't--and it worked! Then, a few months later, I did it again and it didn't. (Yes, I lost weight. But then I gained it right back.) I became frustrated with the lack of texture in my diet--eating meat and vegetables constantly meant no creamy, no smooth and, what I missed most, no crunchy. Cheap cuts of meat are fatty cuts of meat and when I was told I had gall stones and realised that eating fatty meat probably triggered my attacks, I lost it.

I also wanted to see how much fat I could eat without triggering an attack. So, I dove head first into bags of family sized potato chips, large chocolate bars, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, grilled cheese, bags of M&M's.

Stupid.

I think eating Paleo, as laid out in the whole 30 protocol is a marvellous way to eat: but it is not sustainable for me. Nor is it necessary. Fortunately, other than tiny gallstones, I have no gastro-intestinal issues.

I like the Perfect Health Diet. In their chapter on weight loss, The Jaminets advise eating less fat, (trimming visible fat, not eating the chicken skin, using low-fat cooking methods) and eating to the calorie level you wish to sustain. There may be more recommendations, but these two I remember. (I got their book out of the library. Twice.)

They advocate eating "safe" starches such as white rice and potatoes. Dairy is allowed in it's "processed" forms, like cheese and yogurt, and as a fat, like cream. Milk, given its lactose, is not recommended.

I can live with this "diet."

But I cannot eat blindly. I cannot eat "as much as I want" even if it is "clean" and unprocessed, "natural" food.

I have to be conscious. I have to put in some effort. Exactly what I was hoping not to have to do. This blog post, by Erika Nicole Kendall has convicted me. In it, she writes:

Because… wait for it… auto-pilot doesn’t work for weight loss! That’s right – you can’t do it. Why? Because waking up one day and deciding that you’re going to go auto-pilot eating nothing but grapefruit for breakfast and lunch can’t change the fact that your auto-pilot used to lead you to McDonalds or Krispy Kreme for breakfast every morning. Auto-pilot, unfortunately, does equate to mindlessness. It’s operating without thinking. “Not thinking” before led us to being unhealthy in the first place. It certainly won’t lead us to “healthy,” and if it does, it certainly wouldn’t do it overnight… or in two-six weeks like other diets. Excerpted from The Anatomy of A Diet: Why They Work, and Why The Success Never Lasts | A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss

For me, the whole 30 was my "auto pilot." Truly. That's probably exactly why its creators don't want it to be used and viewed as a weight-loss diet. Using their diet protocol as a way to become lazy about what I put into my body is likely the very last thing the Hartwig's would have wanted.

So, I am left with the task of becoming conscious whether I like it or not, whether I want to be or not. Does that sound nuts? Honestly, I'd really rather be lazy. I'd rather it not take time and effort on my part. Sigh.

I am going to have to learn to count calories.
I am going to have to track my food.
I may even have to weigh and measure.

I really, really don't want to.
But I also really, really don't want to be 235 pounds. Or, even, 200 pounds.

me, at 235 and my new haircut!

So, time to put on my big girl panties.
You know, this could be good.

Meditation Day 6: On Success

Northern Coast of California source



Three Questions:

What is your definition of success?
When I acheive something I intended to do, that is success. If I acheive something I wanted, but I didn't do it by way of intentional action, then it was a lucky accident!
 
What do you need in your life to make you feel more successful?
I need some challenging goals.

What would it take to accept that everything you need, want, and desire is already within you?
My happiness is within me.
My joy is within me.
My satisfaction is within me. So is my dissatisfaction!
My ability to love, to serve, to connect is within me.
My creativity is within me.

But is everything I need, want and desire already within me? 

I believe this is true--to a point. How I respond to someone's behaviour is within my control, of course, and by changing my response to another I can change how she or he will treat me. But not always. Other people are just not "within me." I'm not sure there is anything that could convince me that the above is absolutely true.

I keep seeing a little house on a sandy/rocky beach in what I imagine to be Northern California--like the picture I found via google above. I know it is entriely possible for me to go and live there someday. If it is what I want above all else, I can make it happen. All I need to do is get on a bus and go. The trick is to have that cottage and my kids graduate high school, my husband and his job which keeps us in food and clothing (not to mention, shelter!). I cannot have all I want simultaneously--I cannot have everything I want all at the same time. Hate to be a downer, but again, I don't believe there's anything that would make me believe that the satisfaction of every need, want and desire is within me--in so far as it is a true need, want or desire. That is, if I give up the dream of the cottage on the coast which is certainly within my power, then I have dissolved that desire--not satisfied it! At least, I think that's the intended meaning of the above statement. If I am merely to accept the fact that my needs, wants and desires are within me, and no where else, then, no problem, I accept that already!

The prologue to the meditation challenged me to find the "seeds of success" in the things which aren't working for me right now. That would include 1) the daily writing I've paid to do in my writing course, 2) my morning routine which keeps the house decent and 3) working on my plans for Christmas and many other things, once I sit down and think about them. As for those three things, I really don't think it's more complicated than to just do them. Start the work. Do it. Dunno. No magic solutions are occurring to me!

A Conversation

The night I ate too much Chinese food, I called my husband over and told him, "I ate too much Chinese."

He replied, "So? I got it for you as a treat."

"It was so good, I ate too much."

"So?"

"So, I feel like I've blown it. I feel like I might as well forget about it all and just eat whatever I want."

"That's just an excuse to give up."

"But what do I do?"

He looked at me like I was from another planet.

"No, seriously, I don't know what to do. I blew it. I'm a failure."

And then he said, "Why don't you just eat less tomorrow?"

"What?"

"Why don't you just eat half or something of whatever you eat tomorrow."

"Is that all? Is it that simple?"

and so it was.

(PS: dental work helps.)

Derserving.

I am losing weight.
But I don't deserve it.

I really am seeing the scale go down nearly every day. But I am not exercising with my Leslie Sansone videos every day and I'm not following my plan exactly right every day either.

Today, for example, I had a small bowl of potato chips. Yesterday, it was a half cup of chocolate chips and peanuts. The day before that --well, that was Monday. It may have been a "perfectly on-plan" day.

But there's that word. That horrible word. That word which derails more attempts at change than any other, I'd bet. That word which has destroyed more than it has ever created. What word?

"Perfect."

Yeah, that one.

I think that rooted in my feelings of undeservedness is this feeling that I cannot possibly derserve what I want and am working towards unless my efforts are perfect.

So, while I may not be doing my Leslie Sansone videos evetry day, I am getting out in the evening and walking with my husband and the dog. I walked from one end of the mall to the other today without feeling like I had to collapse. My feet didn't ache, even though I wasn't wearing the "right" shoes.) I couldn't do that two months ago.

And the food? Well, it isn't perfect and I do need to reign it in: but it is perfectly acceptable, for example, to compensate for the unplanned "treat" (like the peanuts and chocolate chips) by not eating the one I had planned. It still counts as taking the right steps in the direction I want to be traveling.

When I look at it like that, "derserve" actually seems like an odd notion. Weight loss is not something I "deserve" as a result of my efforts: it IS the result of my efforts. One day, maybe, a plateau will be the result of my efforts--or a gain. I won't "deserve" those either--they will simply be the results of my actions--no more, no less.

I am responsible for my actions and thus I am responsible for their consequences, to a point. Teasing out that point is a brier patch of problems. The whole rhetoric of "personal freedom" and its accompanying language of "dessert" and "worthiness" around obesity and weight loss is a decidedly thorny issue.

But tonight, I can say this much. I am not doing this weight loss thing perfectly. Not by a long shot. But I seem to be doing it well enough.

And that's good enough.

Now what?

I decided to clean up the house today.

As it gets closer to being clean, I find myself asking, "What if I get it all done?" What if I manage my life so that I live in a clean house, most of the time, that I make healthy choices about my food, most of the time, that I take care of health concerns as they occur, most of the time and that I control my anger and have positive relationships with my family most of the time?

I've been struggling with all of these things for years. I feel close to the end of the struggle.

What will I do with myself, then?


Ugh. This is an extraordinarily uncomfortable place to be in.

So, A Patient Walks into the Dentist's Office

When I walked into that dentist's office eight years ago, I was full of shame. I had periodontal disease. Not a life threatening disease, but a disease all the same. Moreover, I was told by looks and words, a disease I could have prevented.

It was true I didn't floss. I had many excuses for that. And I smoked--with no intention of quitting.

I went in for four excruciating sessions of scaling and root planing (Novacaine and I do not always get along) and at the last appointment, the hygienist sighed and called me "non-compliant" (I remember that clearly) and pronounced the whole procedure "unsuccessful."

Well, with respect to the latter, maybe she did and maybe she didn't. It was a long time ago. I do know that I felt helpless. I did not start flossing--and after a final cleaning in October of 2008 (about a month after I'd quit smoking) I stopped seeing my dentist and her hygienists entirely.

A few months ago, I receive flyer in the mail from a dentist in the neighbourhood. I have an aching tooth. I want to start a diet, but I want to start a weight loss diet--not a soft foods diet! So, I make an appointment. After a good cleaning and an x-ray, they tell me that I have two molars, one on either side of my mouth which should come out. Nothing else to be done. The dreaded periodontal disease is back, never went away in fact, and it has eaten away at the bones holding the roots of those teeth and there is nothing left to hold them in. My bones? I've lost bone mass?

This new dentist doesn't blame me. He says some people are prone to it, some aren't. Then he said something interesting. It seems that periodontal disease is now regarded as an auto-immune disease. That is, the antibodies my body produces against the little buggers on my teeth don't attack them so much as they attack me and my bones (or something like that). Odd. Weird.

I mourn the loss of my two teeth.

Yesterday. I walk into the same office as eight years ago. I'm there for a consult on putting in an implant so a new tooth can be built on the right side of my mouth so I can chew there again.

This time, the periodontal disease is worse. The pockets are deeper.

I should be feeling horrible, right? I should be feeling helpless. I should be flat on the couch, moaning my plight, mourning the lack of corn on the cob in my future, anticipating the discomfort of dentures, right?

But no.

Something happened in that office. The seed planted by new dentist (it's not your fault!) and the recognition by the specialist that it is a chronic condition but it can be managed ("The patient can have significant impact..." was as far as he went, bless him, "but without regular professional cleaning it's impossible," he continued...) somehow inspired me to be hopeful. I felt as though I suddenly understood how the patient is supposed to "partner" with the health professional in the management and treatment of the disease. I finally understood what everyone means when they say the patient's attitude is critical to the success of treatment.

I can't explain it, though.

The world is a different place for me now than eight years ago. The situation may actually be worse, but the prognosis is better. (I have to insert a quick note here that it's not all just mental. The fact that I have quit smoking, I believe, has made a significant difference).

Bottom line: I have hope. I didn't have it before. I could have had hope, but I didn't. I now see it was a choice I made.

But I can choose differently, this time. This time I choose hope and all that goes with it. I like hope.

Good Food vs Bad Food, Part 1

Hrmph.

Beck wants me to rid my house of "bad" foods--defined as any food not on my "diet."

There is no such thing. No food is a "bad" food.

Many years ago, when I was about 100 pounds less than I am now, I remember an incident where I was chatting with a group of women about my favourite bed-time snack: a bowl of ice-cream with a brownie or two on the bottom, chocolate syrup and whipped cream on top. One woman said to me, "I wish I could eat like that." My thought was, "Of course you can eat like that, if you are willing to accept the consequences."

Obviously, I knew exactly what I was doing.

One way to accept the consequences with eating a bowl of ice-cream like that is, well, get fat. Been there, done that.

The other is to include it as a part of what one eats for the day. It's simply a matter of balance: if I splurge on this, I must restrict, well, everything else.

So, technically speaking, it is inaccurate to say that "ice-cream with a brownie, chocolate sauce and whipped cream is bad."

It may also be dangerous. To say that a food or certain foods are "bad" is to set off a rebellious, child-like reaction which is harder to avoid than the big bad bowl of ice-cream.

But it goes beyond simply reacting to being told I can't do something--it's more like I don't want to accept the fact that I cannot (or should not) eat certain foods.

Because, of course, I don't want to restrict my eating in other ways. I'm as spoiled as they come. It's like I want to be able to walk in the rain without getting wet. I want to deny that the laws of physics apply to me. To tell myself that I "can't" eat something puts me in a frame of mind where it's possible I'll eat it out of pure spite. Isn't that odd?

But I'm a grown-up now--and I don't want the insanity of my thoughts to rule me any longer.

So, truly, I can eat whatever I want as long as when I eat it, I do not sabotage the goal of getting to and maintaining a healthy weight for myself. Given my goal, then, I have to cut back on something else--whether I like it or not.

So, my first diet rule is this: I can eat whatever I want as long as I know what it will cost* and I include it as part of the calories I have set for that day.

So, just how much of a splurge is that "favourite" snack?

1/2 cup of ice cream: 130 calories.
But, let's be honest, I probably ladled in one cup or more. so: 260
1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup: 70
2 (Two-Bite) brownies: 180
4 tablespoons low-fat whipped cream: 30
Total: 540 calories.

Dear heaven.

Just having the ice-cream with chocolate sauce is outrageous. I can see now why my grandmother called it a "treat."

My mother called it an indulgence--and lived with guilt.

I am of the generation who has been culturally conditioned to believe that we are owed treats-- that indulgences, should indeed, somehow, be risk free.

This road to personal responsibility? I've a feeling we're in for a long and bumpy ride--with only the occasional stop for ice cream.
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* There may be other psychological and subsequent behavioural costs to consider. For example, eating that bowl of ice-cream may set off uncontrollable urges to eat more ice cream (or more high cost foods) --or it may set off a hard to resist habit of eating ice cream (or other high cost foods) on a regular basis. I don't know. It's something I'll need to be on the look-out for. I wish I didn't have to. But that's really neither here nor there, is it?