I love it when people tell me why I'm fat. (not)

November 24, 2012

57.3 pounds to go

To start, a song tribute to Thanksgiving:

(To the tune of Oasis's "Wonderwall")

Today's gonna be the day I eat three plates of food.

By now I shouda figured out that pie's not good for you.

I don't think that anybody ever knows what to do

This year now.

Today's gonna be the day there's a line outside the loo.

I know I shoulda said no to the turkey and the stew.

If you wanna sit next to me I'll share my food with you

We'll go all out.

And all the paths I walked around this morning

you still went and nicknamed me miss snorfalorfing 

Every years it's as if I went and sniffed a bunch of glue

and forgot my health.

Cause maybe, I'll drink all the gravy

Cause after all, I'm a butterball.

Thanksgiving is a hard holiday to deal with in moderation.  There's the classic tips like exercising, eat slowly, wait 10 minutes before you go and get a second helping and try not to eat just because everyone else is still eating.  Alas, I dunked my head in the food and sucked everything up like a hoover vacuum cleaner.  Sometimes there's just going to be harder days than others.  To my credit, I did exercise like a maniac beforehand and got back on the wagon yesterday.  One bad day isn't going to kill me, it's when I let a bad day turn into a bad week and a bad week turn into a bad month.  Nip that bad track in the bud!

Onto this week's subject: fat stereotypes.  I have had more than one conversation in my life (not self prompted) as to why I'm overweight.   It's as if people feel safe to bring it up because it was in the past.  "Remember that one time we went to visit you in northern California and you were a whale?  We knew something was definitely wrong with you."  To their defense, yes, I was depressed.  I wasn't in a good place.  Yes, I was eating everything that wasn't nailed down (very similar to 6 months ago). It circles back to cracking the ice with someone when they're overweight and how do you talk about it?  There's really no good way.  However, being on the receiving end of it is never easy, especially when someone wants to continually reminisce about my 'fat days' and tell me how I got there.  There are two things going on in my head when this happens:

1) I was the one who went through it, not you, so how could you possibly be able to tell me what the answer is when only I can know the whole truth?

2) I hate it when people "take my inventory."

What is "taking someone's inventory you ask?  Has this every happened to you?

Now I'll tell you how to do everything more efficiently.  (That sounds awesome.)

I'm not trying to say it's forbidden to ever ask another person a question but when you start firing them out as if it's a CIA interrogation your subject has most likely mentally fled the scene.  Or literally.  It's why you see certain family members hiding in corners at big events.  (Although this year people were fleeing from me at Thanksgiving because they're afraid I'm going to put them in my blog which actually makes me giggle a little inside.  It must be a sign that I've officially become a writer.)  I do internally know the fact that someone has come up to me and asks me questions is a sign that they care, so I try to hold onto that when I start getting annoyed at the rapid-fire.

Anyway, those judgements and assumptions as to how I got on the path to fat could be right, or totally wrong.  These are all reasons people have given me as to why I am fat:

1) I must be lazy

2) I must be clinically depressed 

3) I was purposefully pushing people away 

4) I don't want to be loved

5) I don't care about myself

6) I don't want attention.  

And my personal favorite:

7) I must not want sex.

Man, just looking at this list still brings on the hurt inside.  How could you be so wrong?  Have you ever looked at the clothes I wear?  It's harder to find stylish clothes when I was more overweight, but I really tried to dress well.  I always do my hair.  I wear makeup, I get manicures.  I accessorize.  I wear heels everyday to work.  I'm a human, of course I want romance and love.  I crave it just like anyone else.  And yes, I do like attention -- I try not to be a spotlight hog even though I think I'm occasionally spastic because of nerves.  And the sex thing?  This is a blog that my family reads so I'm not going to go into detail, but suffice it to say that someone's body fat percentage is not a measure of their passion.  There are horny fat people out there.  Just like there are horny skinny people.

There are so many stereotypes; they say not to judge a book by its cover but we do it all the time.  Fat people are nice.  Fat people are funny.  Skinny people are mean.  Rich people are dickbags.  Poor people are scrappy.  Poor people are lazy.  Mean people live forever.  Pretty people get all the breaks.  Ugly people are smart.  Ugly people have good personalities.  Only sexy women get ahead.  Sexy women get ahead because the men want to fuck them.  Only men can get ahead.  White people are lucky.  Jewish people are good with money.  Jewish women are divas.  Canadian people are sweet.  Mexican men are macho.  Chinese women are subservient.  Old people are wise.  Young people are stupid and entitled.  Powerful women can't get a boyfriend.  Powerful men always cheat on their wives.  The list goes on and on and on.  Yet, I know I've met a fat asshole and nice skinny person.  It's as if we use the stereotypes as a collective rule of thumb and we're all at their mercy.  It can be exhausting bucking them all the time and saying "no, that's not exactly true."

The reason I am overweight is for a cluster of reasons.  I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but it's mostly a fabricated emotional connection and issues with compulsive stress eating.  Mild depression is also a contributor.  For others, maybe they were traumatized at an early age and started using food as comfort long before the rest of us.  Maybe there is a body issue like hyperthyroidism.  Saying someone is inherently lazy, doesn't care or want love is like forcing a square peg into a round hole.  

But how could I possibly be wrong??!?! I'll keep hammering.

What I can say, is the only way to bust the stereotype is to educate the perpetrator on the real reason behind the issue.   And if they don't believe you repeat yourself.  If they still don't believe you repeat yourself again.  And then tell them you are repeating yourself.  Hopefully they will eventually get the message but know it may take some time to affect change.  Sometimes people fixate on a wrong answer and it takes a really long time to get over it, I know that I've done that and it's a very vulnerable place I had to come from to say I'm sorry and that I was wrong.  Make sure when someone comes to you with the long-waited apology not to tromp all over them and say "I told you so!"  You can never go wrong with being kind.

Making an effort.

I think I'm going to offend everyone again.  

November 18, 2012

56.3 pounds to go

I've noticed some people will reach a point in their life where they say 'fuck it' and weird behaviors emerge.  It's when grandma starts regularly telling you about her bowel movements or uncle Steve starts pulling his pants up to his nipples.  Maybe a sister starts wearing the same plaid pants everyday with a ratty shirt.  Or a mangy housedress with bright orange tights.  A brother suddenly puts on 50 pounds and there's no way you can pull him away from his recent 'World of Warcraft' marathon.  (But Bonnie, I have a level 73 orc shaman master.  There's no possible way I could stop now.)  Maybe a co-worker comes in a crumpled outfit that looks suspiciously slept in.

We're in public dude!

When someone around you starts dressing like a hobo, it's normally a sign that something much more disturbing is happening underneath the surface.  I don't have a problem when someone has a 'unique sense of style' but when basic hygiene starts to go by the wayside, something is amiss.  These things include brushing your teeth, putting on deodorant, brushing your hair, wearing a shirt without holes, shaving and showering.  I know I've had exhaustive moments of stress where I sleep until 10AM, wander around my house in PJ's drinking coffee, marathon bad TV and then my big activity of the day is venturing to the grocery store.  I think everyone has these days sprinkled into their lives, and there is nothing wrong with having a 'veg' day.  However, if 'veg' day is happening 7 days a week there is a problem.  Spending that much time isolated starts perpetuating laziness and negative thoughts, and the more time you spend doing that, the harder it is to come back to reality.  I've also found that major isolation like this is what starts triggering 'fuck it' behavior.  So what if I eat 4,000 calories today?  So what if I wear sweat pants to a fancy party?  So what if I wear an "I'm with stupid" shirt to work?

So circling back, what is the "disturbing thing happening underneath the surface?"  In my opinion, in one word: depression.  Depression is a sneaky bitch.  I've never been officially diagnosed with anything major, but it does run in my family, severely, on both sides so I know to watch for it.  For me, depression has a 'creeper' effect.  It's the occasional thought that starts getting watered and tended to and soon it grows into an out-of-control crop.  It really does start off as an innocuous idea and then one day you wake up and say "why is everything so much harder than it used to be?  What the fuck is wrong with me?  I guess I'll just play video games all day and maybe I'll get inspired."  It's not as if you wake up one day and realize "gee, I'm depressed, I think I'll do something about it."  There's lots of denial, hibernating and tears that happen beforehand.  For me, I recognized that I get hormonal dips the week before my period (ew! you said period!) which actually mimics depression.  And the doctors say that being overweight can also contribute to mild depression.  During those times it was happening, I truly thought "what the fuck is wrong with me" as it occured.  Then it would clear up a week later and I would say "ahhhh, it's all chemical."  What I will say if what I was experiencing was mild, god help me if I got the full-blown kind, because what I felt seriously fucking sucked.  I would have no hesitation to take antidepressants if I had been diagnosed with something major.  And no shame about it either.

Depression is no laughing matter.

So what happens if you are depressed and want to start coming out of your cave?  What I would suggest is first, go to a doctor and get help.  The second would be to just go through the motions.  Even though it may seem like a pain in the ass to gussy up every day, get a job and start trying it becomes easier with repetition.

So what if Uncle Steve is not depressed but won't stop wearing his pants around his nipples?  Or take off the dildo hat?  This is definitely a grey area, but I think it could be a gross difference of opinion on what is socially acceptable.  The term "socially acceptable" is a worthless platitude in itself, so how do we define it?  Or abide by it?  What makes someone go 'fuck it?'  I could write an eleventy-billion page paper on this because it's so vague.  If you look up the term "socially acceptable it is defined as: showing standards of behavior that are socially and morally acceptable."  This gets us nowhere, so I looked up "social" which is defined as: the term social refers to a characteristic of living organism as applied to populations of humans or other animals.  It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary."  Huh?  So then I looked up the etymology which states: "the word "Social" derives from the latin word socli ("allies").  It is particularly derived from the Italian Socli states, historical allies of the Roman Republic."

So if I had to take a stab at a general definition of "socially acceptable" it means fitting in with everyone else, a.k.a. becoming an ally.  This could trigger a cluster of "well, I'm not gonna!" reactions, but seriously, think about it.  Sometimes, even though we may not want to, we need to adopt certain behaviors to 'fit in" and I think this is what's going on beneath the surface when people say 'screw you guys, I'm gonna do wha' ah whant:'

1) Some people just like to challenge everything for the sake of challenging it. i.e. If you really loved me you wouldn't care that I'm wearing a dildo hat.  I personally find this infuriating.  You don't have a good reason for doing it except for the sake of doing it.

2) Something kicked you into 'I don't care' mode - what is it?

And as a side note, when am I allowed to say, out loud, that I am embarrassed by someone's behavior without sending them into a funk?  Because if you are the perpetrator of something totally bizarre, believe me, people are talking about it even if it's not to your face.  It's certainly happened to me.

Ultimately, it is up to the person who is in "I don't care" world to make the change to "I do care."  I can't spend too much time getting torn up about it because what matters is that I'm making an effort to care about myself.  I know I get sucked into "let me save you" mode, and it's just not possible to save everyone.  However, to leave it as an elephant in the room would be a mistake.   I do apologize for being unintentionally offensive and if you want to come back and smack me later, that's ok.  Just don't totally kill the messenger. (i.e. me.)

Getting back to the light-hearted nature of this discussion, just because I have to make an effort to care, doesn't mean I have to take 2 hours getting ready in the morning as if I were going to a ball.  All that other stuff I had mentioned in my previous entry like listening to my body, apologizing to it when I overdo it and simply paying attention all counts.  It seems like it would be easy to keep all of my ducks in a row, but sometimes just sticking with the basics can be a lot of work -- especially when I'm overloaded with my job.  This may sound silly but when all else goes awry, at least I have my health and can pay attention to it.  That, and remember not to wear crumpled PJ's to work with kitty vomit stains on them.

Declaring Peace.

(I really should post this tomorrow to go with armistice day.  But what the heck, I'm gonna do it now.)

November 10, 2012

58.7 pounds to go

Plateau number two has reared its ugly head and I'm going into week three of "I'm not gonna budge" with the scale.  I noticed it 2 weeks ago and I went on a crazy exercise binge to see if I could jump start myself.  (I was inspired).  Then to my disappointment I gained weight last week at my weigh-in which I immediately dismissed as an error.  Now I'm back to where I was with the numbers.  Here's the thing: now that I'm experiencing this (again) I don't feel like going into the streets to find someone to punch, I'm just trying to be nicer to myself so I don't fall off the wagon.  

Even though the scale is not moving, I feel really thin today.  I've run into long strings of rationalization over the past 2 weeks: I went on some monster hikes so maybe I gained muscle.  The week before last I ate like garbage and I know it.  This week I have been the salad queen to try and clean up my diet.  And I haven't really exercised since my binge a few weeks ago because I got sucked into a vortex with work.  (I know this is happening because I've been getting a lot of texts recently reading "Are you dead?  I haven't seen you in weeks!")  I do think my body is recalibrating which is why the scale isn't moving but I'm not letting it get me down.

So, I'm getting into this new relationship with my body.  What does that mean?  This conversation I had with my cousin last week explains it:

"I think the reason why I gained weight (along with other problems in my life) was due to deliberate ignorance.  The key to figuring everything out is simply to allow awareness."

"Like, I'm gonna eat McDonald's because it makes me feel good, and not think about what it's doing to me?"

"Exactly."

I've spent such a huge majority of my life not listening to myself.  Now that I pay attention I can feel when my body doesn't feel good.  I eat bread and I get a headache.  I eat too much in one sitting and I get tired.  I eat too much processed food and I feel weak.  I don't eat vegetables and I can't shit.  I drink too much coffee and I shake.  I go long stretches without eating and feel hazy and disconnected.  I have more than three drinks and I get a hangover. (Then I'm a bottomless pit the next day.  Yuck.) 

I can now admit when I do the huge hikes and then binge eat at a family event I suffer the day after.  Again, I first discovered this at the family 4th of July party this year.  The next day I was so fucking hungry.  I had gone back to my normal eating plan and since I had stretched my stomach with a 1500 calorie meal the day before I couldn't get full.  Finally I laid down on the couch, closed my eyes and apologized to my body for about 10 minutes for abusing it.

In the past I would never do anything like that, but again, now that I'm listening it becomes more and more obvious that the things my mind wants are completely separate from the needs of my body.  My mind loves bread.  My body hates it.  My mind craves fast food when I get stressed but then my body will rebel after I've eaten it.  My mind gets distracted by work and I run though my lunch.  Then my body shuts down because it needs food.  My mind wants to keep going going going and my body will say "Oh yeah, you need your eyes to work at a computer, right?  Bam!  Migraine auras.  Slow the fuck down."  My mind says exercise blows.  My body rewards me with a mood lift after I work out.  There is a huge disconnect between the two and when I first realized it I said "this doesn't make any sense!  Shouldn't they be working together?!"  It makes me feel like my consciousness is a little alien inhabiting this body and we have to learn how to play nice with each other.  And awareness is the bridge between the mind and the body.

This sounds silly but when I feel really good I take time to say to my body "thank you for being so good to me."  When I've done something a little ignorant or mean (like overstuffing myself or drinking beer) I apologize.  The more and more days I log my food and eat healthy (176 days today) the easier it becomes to make the right choices.  I got myself into the mess by repeating bad behaviors over and over again.  Now I am cleaning up my act by repeating good behaviors over and over again.  And the more I repeat them the easier it becomes to let go of my food issues.  In fact, they just start to fall away.  It's like when I get a bad cut in an uncomfortable place.  The first few days it hurts and it feels like it's never going to go away.  I stop every 20 minutes and examine how fast it's healing.   When I finally stop picking at it and leave it alone my body can get to work at healing itself.  Then a few weeks later I forget how much it hurt and the cut is gone.  Stop fixating.  Start living.

So when a day like today happens with the scale and I'm plateauing I tell myself "learn to love every step of the way."  This is the body I was given and it's a good one.  I liked my juicy curves when I was bigger and I love how my clothes look better on me now than ever.  I revel in the feeling of "smaller."  I pay attention when my bra is loose on me.  And when I woke up on Wednesday I simply realized that my thighs weren't chaffing me anymore.  The scale is just a number -- one I still need to give some attention to -- but it's not the end-all be-all in this relationship.  I'm grateful that I finally got on the wagon and that I choose every day to keep going on this journey.

A love to last a lifetime.

Keep saying thank you

November 4, 2012

58.9 pounds to go

I think it's interesting when people start noticing my weight loss.  I'll be perfectly blunt, the first ones to comment were the women who were also overweight.  This started happening around the 10-15 pound mark of total weight loss. Then the women who are fit started giving me kudos for taking interest in my health.  Then my family as they were aware that I was trying.  Finally, when I hit about 35 pounds mark the "Ohmygodwhatareyoudoing" conversation started happening nearly every day.  Still, mostly with women.

Here's the thing I am unsure about: I don't know if men notice, or don't notice.  It is very rare (i.e. never) for a male coworker or friend to come up and say "jesus my darlin' you look faaabulous!"  Or even something simple such as, "you've lost weight."  I have two guesses why:

(disclaimer: this is a stab in the dark, but I think I'm on to something.)   

1) They don't notice until it's a dramatic loss. (50 pounds +)

2) They're afraid of what I would say in return / I would be offended / they don't want to come off as a douche.

If I close my eyes and step into the shoes of a male co-worker, I can see how it would be uncomfortable to comment.  'Here's a woman who is losing weight who in many cases, may outrank me in the corporate ladder, so if I say "damn woman, you've lost weight," she may think I'm hitting on her or crossing the line."  It would be the same for someone above me, i.e. "if I make a comment to the weight she's lost she's going to think I'm flirting and abusing my power etc."  Then there are also the standard fears from men of making a comment on a woman's weight such as "she's going to smack me because I'm implying she was fat before" or "she's going to think I want to get with her." 

There is an unwritten rule that talking about women's weight in hard numbers is taboo.  Men know not to ask their girlfriends / wives how much they weigh or ask them to go on a diet.  (An example of another unwritten rule would be don't talk about sex, politics or religion at work.  Period.)  It's also a tough subject to talk about because what if your woman is overweight?  What if you're worried about her health?  Or are not as attracted to her because she's put on some pounds?  Because of this unwritten rule,  when men finally get fed up and do say something it normally comes out like this:

"Well, you are overweight and need to realize it.  I want you to lose 20 pounds for my birthday, I don't like that you eat more than me and are heavier than I am."

Her: "Sob."  Followed by punching him in the face.

To be fair, there isn't a perfect way to broach this subject, but it has to be positioned in the form of caring about someone's health rather than telling them what a fat blob they are.  For me, I had someone very close to me say exactly this:

"There's something I want to talk to you about that's going to be uncomfortable, but I feel I need to say something.  I'm really worried because I've noticed that you've put on some weight and you're taking your stress out on your body rather than in a healthy way."  It was followed by my sobbing, not because it hurt my feelings but because I knew that was true.  My response (between blubbering) was "It's true, I am so stressed out and I can't control what I eat anymore.  I don't know what to do."  It was in the next week that I got on the wagon.

Again, I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that men tend to think on the "well, it is true so what's the big problem" wavelength.  Comments come out like "well, you are 20 pounds overweight."  It's not that they tack on a negative association, they're just saying it because it's a fact.  But believe me, the ladies tack on "and you're a fat cow" to the end of the statement.  But like dealing with any delicate situation, you need to provide lots of cushioning statements before you reveal the truth.  A cushioning statement is something like "this could be difficult to hear," "I'm concerned this may hurt your feelings but I'm coming from a good place," or "I tend to be blunt, so I'm just going to say something even though it's hard to talk about."  Just make sure not to be so fluffy as the person hearing it thinks "what exactly are you trying to tell me?  Just get to the goddamn point!"

Back to commenting on the weight loss, I still get a good amount of hair-brained comments, smile and say "thank you."  Keep doing this, because people will continue to say dumb shit and the negativity association is typically something that is going on with them, not you.

It never ends!

The most useful advice I can give to the commenters is keep it in a positive light.  Instead of saying "wow, you don't have flabby arms any more," say "your arms are looking very slender."  Because when you say "you don't have x,y, & z fat stuff anymore" what the dieter hears is "wow, you were such a bowl of jello before.  I mean, seriously, what a sasquatch."  Playing the comparison game with comments only leads down a thorny road. 

In turn, the most useful advice I can give to the dieters is don't let one shitty comment derail you from your journey.  A bad comment coming from the right person can be devastating.  Even though it may be hurtful, I acknowledge that it happened, forgive the person for saying it (internally) and then reaffirm that I am on this journey for myself and my own health.  The only person who can choose not to eat healthy is me, not the person who said an unintentionally cruel thing.  Once I get re-centered on myself it's much easier to stay on track because as they say, "you can't change the actions of the people around you, only your own."

The thing no one (and I mean, no one) wants to do.

October 28, 2012

58.9 pounds to go

I better get away before she starts lecturing me.

I have had this conversation more times than I can count over the last 5 months.  As I've mentioned many many times in my blogs I count every calorie I eat and log it into an application called "MyFitnessPal" on my iPhone.  It is the easiest thing I've ever used - I can scan barcodes off food and it automatically logs them in.  I can look up a restaurant and the healthiest things on the menu come up first with their corresponding calories.  I can look up beers by brand and gawk at the caloric price I will have to pay.  If I'm going out for sushi I can look up "Rainbow Roll" and see if it's in my food budget.  When I first started incorporating this into my life I spend a lot of time on my couch looking up my favorite foods and realizing how little of it I could afford.  It was the class I had been longing to take for so many years to truly realize what it means to "pick the healthy choice."  Here is an app, here is the food, here is how much it costs. Here is the breakdown of how much of each food group you need every day.  Here is the tracking for how much weight you've lost.  Here is where you can enter your exercise.  Here are your friends who can say how awesome you're doing.  And here is how you're trending for the week.

 

I don't know why there is so much stigma attached to the word "calorie" and (godforbid) tracking it.  Before the invention of iPhones it was different because you needed to carry around a physical diary and food dictionary which screams "this bitch is on a diet, watch out she's going to lecture you!" I personally was always resistant to tracking my food.  Every time a dietician or friend would tell me to track what I ate I dug in my heels and said to myself "no fucking way."  There was a wall there and I was not going to climb it.  The diary seemed silly, it seemed stupid and most of all embarrassing.  I didn't want anyone to ever catch me with a retarded food log because I didn't want them to know that I couldn't figure out how to feed myself without it.  That I didn't have any education or control over what I put in my mouth.  That being healthy didn't come naturally to me.  Because once I started tracking and people started noticing, the truth was bound to come out.

The great thing about the app on my phone is that no one has to know.  Everyone is obsessed with their phones and constantly fiddling with them, so taking a few minutes at dinner to figure out the calories is easy to hide.

Holy shit, potato salad has 358 calories a cup?  The humanity!

Once I started getting used to logging everything I was kicking myself for never doing this before.  How could I have ever expected a crash diet to work when I wasn't thinking about what was going in my mouth?  I was still trapped in the "I want to eat as much as I want whenever I want" mindset so I was prepared to try any crash program in order to achieve it without using that goddamn tracker.  Slowly, I realized that this is so in tune to how I function as a human.  I am an extremely analytical person so dividing my food intake into caloric chunks (300 for breakfast, under 450 for lunch and the rest for dinner) became so easy.  It's like being able to analyze my own marketing, media buy and tracking analytics (what I do for a living) on my own body.  I do this with every other aspect of my life, why not apply it to a healthy lifestyle?  As it got to be more second nature to log my food I found myself referring to my diary a lot because by the time dinner rolled around I had already forgotten what I ate for breakfast.  When I wasn't tracking my food it was so easy to say "did I have one egg or two for breakfast?  Hmmm, just one I'm pretty sure.  I'm going to go for the cake."  When in reality I ate three eggs and was experiencing some serious denial.

And like any big change in my life, I won't be ready until I'm ready.  It's the same thing with the people around me.  Circling back to the cartoon in the opening of this entry, I can feel the "no fucking way" emanating off the people who learn that I'm logging my food.  If they are that resistant then nothing I say is going to get them to change their mind.  The next part of the conversation normally is a long justification as to why they eat the things they eat and whatever crash diet they anticipate trying.  Here's the thing when this conversation happens: I'm doing this for me, it is not a reflection or judgment on the people around me and their choices with food.  They can do whatever they want and I will love them just the same.  I am simply giving information as to the tools that work for me.  Oftentimes if I say, "believe me, I felt just like you about the food logging," it helps take the edge off a little.  (plus, it's true.)

The funny thing is I have now become "the influencer" on my family with the food diary.  The conversation from the beginning of this entry is now happening almost every day because I've reached a point where my weight loss is noticable.  It took me five months to get here and it's probably going to take me another year to get to my goal.  Now that others can see the results they want to get on the wagon too, which is great!  However, I won't deny it's a little unnerving when my whole family is asking how many calories are in my sandwich or what my caloric goal is for the day.  A.K.A  this is no longer a private journey. (Just don't start judging my sandwich or tell me what I should eat instead or I'm gonna smack ya!)  I feel touched and honored that they want to contribute to changing our ways and support me.  Having more positive support is one of the healthiest things I can have, so please feel free to friend me on MyFitnessPal: bonniehorvitz, and we can keep going on this path together.

It's not the heat but the humidity that'll kill you

October 20, 2012

60 pounds to go <-- 40 pounds lost bitches!!

Stress.  It is a mother-fucker.  The worthless platitude goes "you have to find a way to manage your stress or it will kill you."  Then the details on how to do this are shady.  Deep breaths, exercise, etc -- it all seems like advice that is given in broad terms but never details to figure out how to deal with it on a real level.  First, it is helpful to know that there are three different types of stress: 

1) Hypo-stress - doing nothing.  Gee, I slept 15 hours last night, I think I'll get a monster burrito, take a nap and worry about 'what-if's.'

2) Eustress - good stress, like getting nervous for a presentation, and

3) Hyper-stress - OMG! I have 7 to do lists and another list prioritizing my to-do lists.  Did the JC Penney ad print right this weekend? Did I feed the cats this morning? I need to sleep.  Where is my lunch? Where are my pants?? Where is my brain??? 

The "bad stress" that all the studies and articles talk about concern 1 & 3 but not only is it the stress, but the negativity associated with it it evolves into the disease-causing monster.

This is bad.

For me, I have one thing that cures my stress every time: a sauna.  This seems weird and wacky at first glance, but getting in a small wood-scented room and sweating my guts out makes me stop and slow down.  If I've had a bad day I can get in the sauna and sweat out the stress that's pent up in my body.  It is also helpful on a meditative level where I can "work things out."  I can also take my time and let my mind wander to the real thing that is bothering me.  Oftentimes it doesn't happen right away but by the end of it I'll have a clearer idea of why I'm so upset and how I can handle it.  Sometimes I'm just in a bad mood and it snowballs, so not only is there the thing that triggered my anger / stress (i.e. I can't believe you went behind my back, you bitch!) but then I start thinking of everything that person ever did that made me mad and by the end of it I'm ready to explode.

I am an elephant.  I remember everything.  

The other thing with the sauna is that I have a childhood comfort-association with heat.  When my brother and I were young my Mom was constantly dragging us to the desert for hiking, camping and flying trips.  She flew an ultralight (think of a hang glider with a motor and a double bucket seat) which she could only really do in the desert with her buddies.  Since she had kids, we always went with her.  I spent a lot of time playing in dry dirt, eating melty sandwiches and wailing on my brother.  (I also remember spending an Easter out there and getting a basket entirely filled with melted chocolate - it was awesome.)  Whenever I was getting stressed out in the last few years I found myself driving out to the desert and not really knowing why until I made the obvious connection.

As a last plug for saunas, any salesperson will go on and on about the health benefits.  It improves circulation, your skin, removes toxins, reduces chronic pain and burns calories.  I've heard some of them make claims that one half-hour session can burn up to 1,000 calories which is a sham.  The truth is when you get in a sauna your body works harder to regulate it's temperature so your heart rate goes up (similar to exercise).  However, to get your heart rate up to the level of burning 1,000 calories in 30 minutes it would have to be in the 90 - 100% + of your target heart rate range which is impossible (or possible if you're ok with being dead).  I once brought my heart rate monitor into the sauna to test how many calories I was actually burning.  It got up to 90 beats a minute when I was really sweating my guts out at the end or 48% of my target heart rate.  In 20 minutes I probably burned about 70 calories over and above my resting metabolism.  Whereas with normal exercise I need to be at 55% - 85% of my target heart rate (103 - 159 beats per minute) to get the maximum health benefits and best calorie burn. (500-1000 calories in an hour depending on how hard you work.)

However, no one has the time to jump in a sauna and de-stress in the midst of a hectic day.  Not only do I need a cure-all for when I have time to let it go, but I need a fast way to slow down (besides drinking folks!).  I think think this plays a major part in controlling stress and is what the doctors have no real solution for as it is different for everyone.  The most important thing is to find the one mechanism that will de-rail you from the train to insanity so you can start over fresh.  Here is a list of quick de-stressers that consistently work for me in order of effectiveness:

1) Find a way to laugh.  For reals, no faking here.  It will give you a clean slate.  (Yesterday I spontaneously started singing to my new boss over the phone and then realized I was on speaker.  Want.to.die.  The website damnyouautocorrect.com is also a favorite.)

2) Rock out to dorky music that you would never admit you listen to but makes you happy.  (Bad 80's music is my go-to.  Footloose!  Footloose! Kick off your Sunday shoes!  Please, Louise, pull me offa my knees!)

3) Call someone who is a positive influence who can talk you off the ledge. (No whiners, they'll just spin you further into the void.)

4) Exercise (groan). 

5) Come up with a mantra you actually believe.  Me: "Is this something I can control or can't control?"  Figure it out and then act accordingly.  With weight I say "I can't lose 100 pounds but I can lose 10 pounds 10 times."

6) Cruise travel sites for 10 minutes for cheap vacations.

7) Find an isolated place where you can scream and punch something with no judgement. (Go for a drive and let 'er rip and smack the steering wheel.)

8) Weekend de-stresser: go for along drive or a hike to somewhere that makes you calm.

9) Deep breaths / 5 minutes of quiet time.  (This never works for me.)

I feel like I say this a lot but there is no magic-bullet-miracle-cure.  Like with emotional food issues there are a lot of little things that add up to one big problem.  With stress there isn't one answer on how to abate it.  You have to recognize when you're participating and then find something that brings you back reality.  In the end there are a lot of tools at your disposal, but I wanted to at least give several prompts on how I've found my different paths back to sanity.  I've also opened the question to others and heard a plethora of other answers including: meditating, yoga, prayer, thinking about their children, looking at a picture of a tropical island, petting the cat, laying down in a dark room, taking a bath, journaling, getting a massage, reading, playing an instrument, flying, window shopping, and dancing.  You never know which one is going to work for you, but the next time you're stressed pick one and see if it works.  If it doesn't work then try something else until you find your calm.  It may be trial and error or a combination of tools to get you to your happy place, but it's there to be found.

There is no spoon

October 7, 2012

63.3 pounds to go

From the Matrix: 

Neo:  Are you saying that I can dodge bullets?

Morpheus:  I'm saying that when you're ready, you won't have to.

Trying to relate this concept to food is very difficult to explain.  I've been spending the last 24 hours almost grasping how to put this into words, and every time I think too hard and then lose it in the pit of over-explanation.  Charts always work best:

Over these past few months I have been trying to uncover why food is so important to me.  Why does it have to matter so much?  I was planning all of my events around what food I would eat, thinking about what I would eat next while I was eating, etc.  By putting the emphasis solely on taste and comfort I was inserting myself into a circle of misery.  (I still go for a run around that loop sometimes)  Then I realized that food will never be able to give me what I want it to give me: family connection, love, comfort, a party or a listening ear.  Throughout my whole life, food has always been present during all those things - family connection, love, etc - so it's as if I was tricked that food should facilitate them.  Or that food was only way I could participate  

However, in the literal sense, food is power.  When we track what we eat we measure in calories which is also, quite literally, a unit of energy.  So I need 1400 calories of energy daily to live.  If I take in too much energy it goes into the backup stores.  If I expend more energy than I take in, I will use up the stores.  It is that simple.  

So when I get sucked into the black hole of expecting an emotional connection with food, I have to say to myself that it doesn't exist.  I have to adjust my perception on why food is important to me and what kind of role it should play in my life.  Do not try to bend the spoon, that is impossible.  Instead, only try to realize the truth … there is no spoon.  Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends.  Only yourself. 

I can't control what people do around me and their expectations with food.  I can realize there is no emotional connection with food, it is only a unit of energy.  I can do whatever I want and everyone else can continue to do what they want.  What this whole weight problem stems from is my emotional problems.  Once I realize food and my emotional issues go in two totally separate buckets, then I can tackle them individually, not together like I always have.

Let me explain one example how I created an emotional connection to food where it doesn't exist.  When I was little my Dad always kept Werthers hard candies stashed in the glove box of his car.  If I was good (I realize there are so many things now that my parents did when my brother and I were little simply to get us to be quiet for a few minutes) for the car ride, I would get a Werthers during or after the trip was done.  Can I have one now Dad?  Please please please? Now, in adulthood I've been in fight or flight mode at work for the last 4 weeks with the merger and one of the first things I did was get a huge package of Werthers to stick in our collective candy jar.  When the uncertainty of my future started weighing on me to heavily I was running for the candy jar.  It's not an accident that I created that safety net for myself, but ultimately that butterscotchy goodness is not going to save my job.  It's not going to make me smarter, more clever, more savvy in a meeting or calm me down before I have to impress someone.  I fabricated that connection.  In the end, proving myself is all going to fall on my own brain not the food I stick in my mouth.

Now let me explain how others dump an emotional connection onto food and want me to participate.  It was really the first time I realized I don't care about the food, I care about my family.  I was at our fourth of July family gathering this year and I had prepped for it by taking a monster walk around a lake with Mike because I knew I would be around a lot of temptation.  We got there and I ate and drank and was merry along with being uncomfortably full.  We sat around the living room table, beached and gossipy when one member of my family burst out "where are the shrimp?  Are they done yet?"  And he kept asking "where are the shrimp?  Shrimp!"  And I thought to myself, "who cares?  Why is the shrimp so important?"  It's not the shrimp I care about, it's taking the time to be around my family.   We've always joked around that "food is love" but on some level we're making it literal because every time we get together there is enough chow to feed an army and everyone is expected to eat to the point of discomfort.  I haven't quite figured out why we do that, all I know is that it exists and I don't have to participate to keep earning my family's love.

In the end, just because I had this epiphany doesn't mean that I live on a heightened plane of existence 24/7.  I still get sucked into "big food" events and start fantasizing about lunch when I get stressed out at work.  But I do know "there is no spoon" is the goal, and I'm spending more days treating food as the power to my battery rather than using it as an unhealthy crutch.