Fun and Therapy

I had a LOT of fun yesterday skating with my little girl. Every time I sit down and start tying roller skates on my feet, I get a thrill of excitement that reminds me of being in sixth grade again. I just LOVE going around on the wooden floors with all the kids out there. I cannot even tell you how happy it makes me to be out there with my child instead of watching or just sitting home. It's really nice to live life.

We have had some company staying with us and it's been very pleasant and enjoyable. There's a lot of food, though, and I am not one to broadcast my "dieting" to anyone I am not super close to. They certainly know I've lost a lot of weight; in fact, one of them when they saw me just said, "oh... wow!" It was kinda cute! So last night we went to a buffet, where I carefully chose the most nutritious, on-plan foods I could in eyeballed portions. My protein was mainly chicken breast with a few bites of tofu and 2 bites of pork; my veggies were plain cold sliced cucumbers, a lot of broccoli, a few mushrooms and other on-plan veggies. I drank water and skipped dessert. The only variable is that the veggies were in a curry sauce, so I did ingest a little of that, but not much as it mostly drained off onto my plate (I had no rice). I am guess I had 1-2 Tablespoons of sauce, and counted it as a fat and my condiments for the day.

Today I went to physical therapy and again they kicked my butt! Seriously, it is quite a workout. I just love the people there and my therapist is awesome! He understands where I am coming from and what my goals are and we work together wonderfully. So he added a very difficult exercise to my routine, which already included biking to warm up, shallow wall squats, calf raises, balancing on one foot on a mini trampoline (this is hard to do!), lying leg raises on each side and on my back, hamstring pulls on a machine, four different hip exercises on each leg on a machine, bridges, and several different kinds of weighted and supported leg raises while lying on a table. The one he added has me standing on a 4-inch step with one foot and putting the other foot out in front of me, then lowering myself slowly to touch my heel to the floor and back up, without letting my knee go past my toes. Wow, is it hard to do! I was exhausted when we got done.

Dinner tonight got away from me a bit. I was completely on plan all day and then I was asked to make grilled ham sandwiches for dinner, and I ate one of those and a large bowl of green salad. Ham is too high in sodium to be on plan regularly but the amount (ounces) was about right; however, the roll was a definite no no.

Otherwise, doing great and feeling stronger. I seriously cannot wait for January. It just seems like a much brighter month for me than December, and also feels closer to spring. Life is good :)

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I Am Ready

Whelp, about time to be turning this back into a *weight loss* blog. Enough with the breaks, time to get this thing done.

My plan is to get back to basics and stick with my current eating plan (Medifast) 100% without any "going off" or "special treats" or whatever until I get to my goal. And then, to do the transition program s-l-o-w-l-y, and on to a lifetime of maintenance. I did pretty well with staying on plan for about three months (no cheats whatsoever) and then the little bits here and there started to sneak in. You can totally tell by the way my weight loss slowed down, too, although I did lose 59 pounds since spring. And really my eating has been a disaster since I hit 175 pounds in the middle of November, for whatever reason. But whether it was physical or mental or a combination of both, I have certainly had enough of a break from strictness now to be *ready* to get back to work. So back to work I go! Back to Sunday weigh ins without gains. Back to the simplicity of eating on a schedule (8am, 10am, noon, 3pm, 6pm, 8:30pm) with no added crap. I do love to cook, you know, and be creative in the kitchen, but I think it started to get in the way of weight loss lately so I aim to simplify. Baked salmon, poached/baked/steamed chicken breasts, canned tuna, lean cuts of beef and pork, and eggs/Egg Beaters will comprise most of my dinner protein from now on. Easy cut and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans will be joined by salads and the occasional pot of kale or other greens for my veggies. SIMPLE, not complicated. Just stick the meat and the veggies on a plate and eat them. The kids can have their mashed potatoes or wheat bread or brown rice with it, I don't mind. Easy stuff here. No more elaborate recipes with a ton of thought put into them (well, maybe ONCE in awhile, just for fun). I am sick of trying to figure out what's already been figured out. I know what works for me; it is simple: five mini meals a day (Medifast) and one nice sized dinner of 5-7 oz lean protein and 3 servings of vegetables. I do not have to reinvent the wheel here. And if you want to replicate this without Medifast, you can! Count calories or carbs if you like, but eat something small and nutritious every 2-3 hours, mainly lean protein, limited carbs, no sugary crap, lots of water. But, you know, ask your doctor first, because I can't prescribe a plan for anyone but me :)

So that's how it is, right now, no more waiting and having a cookie first. I had my 'break' and now I am on the clock. I will be eating 100% on my plan, and I will be doing my (extensive and getting difficult) physical therapy exercises every day. I may take one day off per week as a rest day depending on how I feel.

The other day, I got kind of ticked off at myself. I hit 175 pounds, my lowest weight in 13 years, on October 30th. At that time I made a goal for myself: to weigh 159 on New Years Day. I figured if I worked hard I could lose about 2 pounds a week, and there were 9 weeks til January 1. Losing 2 pounds a week would have put me at 157 pounds THIS WEEKEND. Instead, here I sit at 185 pounds. Doesn't that just suck? It really does. I had a goal and I lost it. I gained 10 instead of losing 18 which put a 28 pound spread between where I could have been and where I am. Yuck! But then I reflect on this whole, 3+ year journey I've had, with lots of ups and downs and highs and lows, and I realize that even if I *could* take back all the screw ups and have hit 145 pounds in 2008, I would not do it. You know why? Because the *head work* is what is going to KEEP me thin. I had so much stuff to work through and fix. I am sure if I had not done that, and had zoomed to 145 in a year's time, I would have regained and would weigh more, much more, than I do right now. I truly believe that. Maybe it's not true for some people, but for me, I have had some major food issues that had to be fixed. And I am confident they are *getting fixed* by doing this he way I am doing it. I am not just losing weight, here. I am learning along the way... as I've said before... getting a PhD in *myself.* And THAT is a lifelong process... but losing weight doesn't have to be.

I am ready, and I've already begun today. I will keep using Twitter to post my main meal (usually dinner) for accountability and to give you an idea of what I am eating besides Medifast. If you're interested you can follow me on Twitter or you can just look down there on the left side of my blog under "What I'm Eating Now" where you can see realtime updates of my dinners. (I don't Tweet much at all, but I do think it is cool to be able to post your food intake on Twitter and have it post right to your blog! Give it a try, pretty simple!) I use Facebook more often to post what I am up to during the day or some random thoughts or to see what YOU are up to, so friend me there if you like.

I want to thank each of you for the kind comments and emails you have sent me throughout 2010. It is so good to feel supported and know that the time I spend writing here is making a difference. I am so grateful for the wonderful support and friendships I find here, and I wish each of you a peaceful, successful and healthy 2011! And now I am off to go roller skating with my daughter :)


*FTC-required disclosure: Medifast provided me with its products for my personal use for free. I am not paid or compensated in any other way for mentioning their products. Medifast states an "average weight loss of up to 2 to 5 pounds a week."*

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Oh Dad, I Miss You

Second post today, but I am suddenly overcome by emotion...

Oh how I miss my father. I miss his tall, slim figure in the hallway peeking in to check on me in my room when I was a child. I miss the way he held me on his lap and told told me I was beautiful and smart. I miss the way he would always sit and play Scrabble with me when I was a kid, letting me use a dictionary as a spell-checker so I could become proficient at the game. I miss his deep, calm voice that soothed when my mother was frantic and raging. I miss how he used to send me into the living room and tell me not to peek in the kitchen while he made little trays of special appetizers, just for me, with toothpicks in them to make them special. I miss the smell of his turkey rice soup simmering on the stove, and the way he always gave me a big hug when he came home from work in his tan or light yellow button-down shirt. I miss his dark brown trousers... I never in my life saw him in jeans, sweats, or shorts... and his mallard duck cuff links. I miss the way he smelled, how he looked when I'd catch a glimpse of him shaving in the bathroom, how he hid little surprises for me on the top shelf of his bedroom closet. I miss how he never used Kleenexes because they were wasteful, but always had a clean white handkerchief in his pocket for a nose blow or when I needed my tears wiped away. I miss his black socks lined up neatly in the drawer, and the way he always gave me the green olive from his martini and let me play with the little plastic swords the olives came on. I miss Michelob beer in the fridge and the big green 1972 Ford station wagon in the driveway that he kept and drove for more than 15 years. I deeply miss the sound of his voice, singing loud and clear along with Al Jolson or Patsy Cline or Jim Reeves on the record player. Oh how he loved to sing. I miss going to Hersheypark together every summer and watching him play skee ball until he won me a prize, and I miss his hugs. I was his only child. It has been 21 years, and I am so sad he is gone.

Did I ever tell you about his death? About how I was a newlywed and had found out just days prior that I was expecting my first child, but hadn't told anyone but my husband yet? Did I tell you how, because I was being shunned by a religion that I grew up in but no longer believed in, they called me so cold and flat on the phone and said, "Your father passed away"? Did I tell you how I dropped the phone and screamed until I could scream no more? How could he be gone? He was fine. He'd died in his sleep of a massive heart attack. I was on my way out the door to take my stepkids to Pizza Hut and got that call. My husband drove me to my mother's house to comfort her, even though they told me not to come... the religious leaders. I thought my mother needed me. My Dad, he wasn't in any religion, and what did religion matter when my father was dead anyway? Did I tell you that on the drive out to the country, sitting in the passenger seat numb with shock, I saw the hearse carrying my father's body going the opposite way, passing us on the road? Did I tell you that when I arrived at my childhood home, my mother was weeping, surrounded by her friends from her religion, none of whom could even speak a word of kindness to me when my father had died just an hour or two prior? Shunning is real, and very hurtful, and may I add that there is no "sin" so dire that anyone deserves such treatment, and then I will add that I had never smoked, didn't drink, never did drugs, remained chaste until marriage, and my "sin" worthy of such treatment was to be a Christian of a different sect than their religion. Did I ever mention here that after I stood, numb, in that kitchen where my father used to make trays of appetizers and play Scrabble with me, someone walked up to me and handed me a set of clean sheets and said, "do something useful for your mother. Go change the sheets on her bed."

And then I walked in there, alone in the dim, quiet room where my father kept those little surprises for me in his closet when I was a child and where he still had his rows of clean handkerchiefs and black socks in the drawers and the mallard cuff links on the dresser, and I set the sheets down, and I looked at the rumpled sheets and blankets on the bed where my father had just died, and I gingerly folded them up to take to the washing machine, my tears dripping silently off my face and mixing with what was left of my father on those sheets.

Dad, I miss you so much, and I thought the pain was not so bad this year. I was fine all day and then suddenly it hit me just now, that you have been gone from my life longer than you were in it. It's so unfair, you never got to know any grandchildren, never got to see me as an adult. It's so unfair that they took your ashes and threw them away instead of giving them to me to save or scatter in a place where I could visit and remember. There is no marker for your earthly remains, Dad, but there is a permanent marker for you in my heart. I love you Dad.

For a story I wrote in memory of my wonderful father, click here.

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Sadly, It's Just Food

Over the past couple of weeks I have come to a rather sad realization. Well, it's sad, because I feel like my fantasy-land bubble is bursting... but it's also a joyous thing in another way. In other words, I think once I get over the sadness I will be thrilled with this lesson.

The new insight is this: it's just food. Now, this is not news to a lot of people. In fact, I've been reading variations of this concept for ages: "food is just fuel" and things like that. I even caught glimpses of a non-emotional relationship with food when I got completely off junky foods and started low carbing with Medifast. I described sitting by a loaf of warm bread and it not "calling" to me; it may as well have been a rock on a plate. I just didn't care.

However, I can assure you that if I were to take a bite of that bread *anyway*, suddenly it would become way, way more than a rock. Food, once it is in my mouth, has always become an Experience. It's some kind of transcendent thing where, for example, if I eat a slice of cheesecake it is almost as if I am suddenly floating above the clouds with angels singing and beams of light shining around me. When I'd sit down on the couch and eat a bag of chips I'd sort of zone out and go to some other place, unaware of anything around me, wrapped up completely in the crunch and the grease and the salt, the sensation of the food going down my throat and the fat coursing through my veins. When I'd eat a plate of pasta, nothing else existed and I was thrown back into some kind of carb high in a world of Parmesan cheese and sausages. It's weird, but it's almost like getting drunk or high I guess. A complete "experience."

Well, that seems to have changed. Over the last few weeks, food HAS called to me as I went off Medifast for one week. I HAVE had cravings and hunger that I have given in to. But none of the foods... NONE... have given me what I wanted from them like they used to. A candy bar used to erase my problems for awhile. A sugary latte would drown out any stress or sadness I was feeling. A plate of cheese made me happy. And the actual, physical experience on my taste buds was just euphoric. Now, I am not sure what happened... if my brain or my body or my taste buds changed so dramatically from being on Medifast for 9 months... but now, it is just NOT the same.

I eat a cookie, it is just a cookie. It's the same recipe I made and got high on last Christmas, but now it just tastes bland, too sweet, boring. I get nothing out of it but a bellyache.

I make my favorite sandwich, take a bite, and it does nothing for me. No erasure of negatives, no special happy high. It tastes like its components: ham, cheese, pickles, mayo. Combining them does not magically turn them into a special potion to solve my problems or make me happy.

I have a piece of bacon, and it tastes like salt and grease. I don't love it, I don't hate it, it is just a piece of bacon and does not change how I feel, and it does not send me spinning into a bacon-happiness coma.

Today is the day my father died, more than two decades ago. I cannot believe he has been gone from my life longer than he was in it. It makes me terribly sad. I have blogged before about how his favorite sandwich was a Reuben, how I didn't even like them when I was a kid and teen, but suddenly after he was gone, I wanted them all the time. Every chance I'd get in a restaurant I'd order a Reuben sandwich, and that first bite would throw me into a delirious swirl of salty, greasy, miss-my-Dad-but-I-am-like-him-with-this-sandwich head trip. Now that I am getting healthy, I try to avoid Reubens. Haven't had one in a long time. But today, I was in a restaurant with one of my kids who got a food gift card for Christmas, so he'd asked me to take him there for lunch. On the menu? Reubens. Big, greasy, salty. I thought about my Dad and how he was gone. I knew it was "the right thing to do" to have a Reuben today in his honor, to be close to him. Only, I knew it wouldn't work. And for the first time in 21 years, I didn't want a Reuben.

I got something else, a turkey sandwich, which was fine but was, again, just food.

It is sad to me, in a way, that there is no special food anymore. I have let myself have several things I have been "dreaming" about for the past 9 months but have not let myself indulge in: a piece of lasagna, a cupcake, some cinnamon toast. Stuff that used to send me flying when I ate it. But this past couple of weeks, every time I ate one of those things, I was disappointed. It may as well have been a plain boiled chicken breast with broccoli. It didn't matter. It *doesn't* matter anymore. I like nicely prepared food as much as anyone, but it is still just food. And now, the simplest things have the most delicious taste to me. A piece of poached salmon with some steamed green beans and salad would be more satisfying than any fancy dish I could dream up.

So yeah, things have changed, and I am kinda sad that I can't "get high" or "escape" with food like I used to. But knowing that whatever I put in my mouth is going to be JUST FOOD and nothing more is also very freeing. Because if that lasagna and garlic bread is *really* the same experience to me as chicken breast and broccoli, then there is no deprivation involved in choosing the latter. And losing weight becomes routine, and not as difficult, and I know I am really... for the first time in my life... okay with NEVER having another Big Mac or another Reuben sandwich again. And that, my friends, makes me happy.

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Uses For That Ham Bone, and Other Thoughts

Tonight I'm making split pea soup with the leftover ham bone and ham from Christmas. It smells so delicious! If you have a ham bone left, you can enjoy split pea soup too... whether you're low carbing or not! I thought it would be a good time to re-share my two recipes:

Best Ever Split Pea Soup

and

Low Carb Split Pea Soup (with no peas!)

Both have great flavor and are warm and nutritious and EASY to make!

On another topic, I am still mulling over the thoughts and information you all left me on my last post; I am gearing myself up for change. I know I will feel better and have less pain when I knock off the sugar and white flour. I made some gluten free cookies this year and wow, talk about pain in the feet and joints! I dunno why I keep fooling myself into thinking a few cookies won't hurt. They always do! I know it, but they still call to me. That's part of what I miss about low carbing: you get to a certain point in ketosis where the sugar doesn't really appeal to you anymore. The cravings go away. Do you think it's possible to get that effect from a whole foods, but higher carb diet? Will the cravings go away with just clean eating, being sugar free and gluten free, even if the carbs are higher? I wonder. Anyway, I am feeling better emotionally that I have in a couple months so it's as good a time as any to clean it up. Working out the details of my 'plan'... which will be MY plan, probably cobbled together with a vegetarian slant (although I'm not planning to cut the meat entirely, I do intend to substitute fish for meat more often and eat less meat overall) and some Nutrarian practices, but I think I'll log everything and keep an eye on calories and carbs and fat. And try, again, to bump up the exercise a bit.

Here's hoping 2014 is a better, less painful year than this one's been.

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Time Capsule 2010: Visions of the Future

Did you ever make a time capsule when you were a kid? I did, and it's a great idea. I took an empty Quaker oatmeal cylinder and filled it up with stuff: some stickers and drawings of my favorite things, a piece of candy I liked, a story out of the newspaper, a lock of hair, a favorite toy (which is why I ended up opening it early... I wanted my toy back!) The best part was the little note I wrote to my future self. It went something like this:

Dear Future Self,

I am seven years old. You are older. I hope you are doing good in school. Maybe your hair grew. I want a parakeet so I hope you have one. I love bagels. I hope you have a horse. The end.

Signed,
Me, Your Old Self

Then, I sealed it all shut with tape, covered the outside with construction paper and the words "TIME CAPSULE" and "Do Not Open Til 1980!" It seemed so far off back then...

As a culture, we have a tradition of making resolutions that we begin on New Year's Day. A resolution is just an idea... a commitment we make to change some part of our lives or ourselves. It's a promise to try to *do* something that we want to do. It is a way of setting a goal and, hopefully, working towards it. And that's all fine and good, except that most people get busy, get tired of the effort, and forget about their resolutions by March.

Not this time.

I would like to suggest that instead of just a resolution, which can be easily faded in our minds and forgotten, we create a time capsule for ourselves with a vision of the future. In it, we place our current state, our hopes and dreams, our goals and plans to get there. We describe to our future self how we hope to be at the end of the year. As time goes by, we know in the back of our minds that our resolution or commitment is STILL THERE, lurking in that time capsule. It is not going away, it is not fading, and it is a standing testament of WHAT we wanted to do and WHY we wanted to do it. It is there to state HOW we will do it and BY WHEN. It is a commitment that cannot be forgotten, because we know in one year, we will open that time capsule and see just how we have done, instead of just forgetting about it and making another random resolution on the next New Year's Day.

I would like this blog post to become our time capsule. What is written here will stand through time. One year from this week, on December 30, 2011, I will link us back to this post so we can all look at our comments, just like opening a time capsule. What will you say to your future self? What will you think and feel when you come back and read them in a year?

To participate, please leave a comment stating some or all of the following:

Where you are now (this can be your weight, your physical condition, how you feel emotionally about yourself)
What you want to accomplish in 2011
How will you get there?
What do you hope to see for yourself on December 30, 2011? How are you different? How has your life changed?
A note to your future self.

Your note can be as detailed or as brief as you like. This can be a powerful thing. You will know in the back of your mind, all year long, that this time capsule is here and you did make a commitment to yourself. You will remember because it is real, not just a thought.

I hope you'll give this a try. You may find it more revealing and powerful thank you think.

Here's mine.

Dear Lyn,

I weigh 185 pounds today. I am really tired of being fat. I'd very much like to be closer to what I used to weigh before I lost my baby and started gaining all this weight. This really needs to be the LAST year for major weight loss.  I am ready to move on to maintenance.

I am sure I can do this. I have a good 30-35 pounds to lose and that is SO much more doable than any amount I have ever had to lose in the past! Focus...I have to focus, and get it done. I want to be there by the end of April.

By this time next year my puppy will be a big dog, hopefully a great partner in my new active life. I hope I had a year full of adventure: hiking, swimming, roller blading, strength training, dog sports, and a self defense class. I bet my knees will be SO much better. I will have so much more energy.

Future Lyn, listen to me. No food is worth the misery of obesity. It is just not worth it. You never want to go back, not even to this "borderline" overweight state I am in now. Just stay a normal weight, okay? You do not want to EVER have to diet again. Just eat healthy and be active and let the obesity be in the past. It's over, let it go, and be a new person. I love you.

Signed,
Your past self.

Your turn.

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Weigh In and Update

Last Sunday I weighed 189. This morning, I weigh 185. That's four pounds gone this week, even with Christmas Eve dinner and allowing myself to have *some* cookies in the evening several days this week. I stayed on plan during the day and drank tons of water. I have to call a halt to the cookies soon, though. We are making and frosting sugar cookies today so there maybe be one or two on the evening agenda with tea. But tomorrow I am going to freeze whatever the kids haven't eaten and let it go, and get back to really focusing on my health. One thing I learned this week is that just because I want to eat a cookie or two, that doesn't mean I have to go off the rails and eat burgers and fries and candy all day long. Might sound silly, but that's what I used to do. If I couldn't have a perfect day, I'd say 'screw it' and just eat crazy all day and "start over" tomorrow. That's pretty silly. May as well eat right at least *most* of the time!

I am pretty excited about January coming up. I love the energy of a fresh new year AND I am so happy that finally the days are gradually getting longer again. I am very much looking forward to spring!

Enjoy your weekend!

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