A week without logging

I have been aware that food logging is a valuable tool for managing not only my weight but any issues I face with food for a long, long time. It was mentioned to me as a calorie tracking tool when I was (well, this is shameful) 10 years old. Like most people, the idea of counting all calories consumed, every day, forever, failed before it ever began. As in Benny and Joon, "The answer is in the question." Can I successfully count calories forever? No. For lots of reasons. It's tedious and daunting, and so without my emotional buy in, it will not help me feel helped. It's also really, really easy to miscalculate, because most people don't have a lot of training on judging what a serving is, and carrying around a food scale is impractical. And, I was TEN.

The other problem with food logging, is that without some training, some counseling, and a lot of introspection and self-knowledge, it can easily devolve into just counting calories or servings of food types. Here's the problem - not all calories are created equal and neither are all people, with respect to those calories. Diabetics need to concern themselves very closely with carbs. If making a trade off, protein and fat will always be better for someone with any insulin issues - this was illustrated when someone close to me recently made a birthday cake for a diabetic and told me that she had substituted apple sauce for oil in the recipe. I quietly informed her that I'm sure it tasted good but that she had added carbs to the cake. Meanwhile, someone like my brother who is almost entirely gluten free can eat carbs, but needs to carefully consider what kind (rice, amaranth, oats, and almond flour much better than wheat flour or wheat products). If you lined up my diabetic friend, my brother, and I, and put us all on an 1800 calorie plan, where we got those calories would make a huge difference to our successful eating, but I doubt any of our food logs would match. People have particular needs because of their pathologies, because of food allergies, because of preferences (I don't care how gluten-free and protein-full cottage cheese is. I just can't do it, folks.) and because we're all special and unique like snowflakes. (smile)

Calories are special too. For me, 280 calories could be over my discretionary calorie allowance, could be what my trainer is recommending as a small bump in fat servings for a week (a really good week of almonds, bacon, and some olive oil, I might add), or could count as a way to estimate two carb servings. In my case, I need to also be very, very careful where those 280 calories come from, not just because of my food allergies (which are weird, and more extensive than I'd like. I am lucky in that strawberries and peanut butter aren't off limits, and I have it all figured out as to how to eat dairy in a way that works for me. But, I do sometimes wish I could be a grown up and drink wine or eat dried fruit. ) or my suspected insulin resistance, but because food is my kryptonite.

Like most people, I suspect it would always be better to get 280 calories of broccoli than 280 calories of M&Ms, and yes, I'm gluten sensitive, so brown rice or spaghetti squash is always going to be better than bread. But I also have to think about if the thing I'm thinking about eating is going to set off a desire to eat something ELSE. I do eat bread, about twice a week. This is less than most people eat bread in a day. and I have to carefully place it in my path because if I eat it early in the day, I will metabolize it faster, but it might also fire cravings for other bad carbs. I do eat pizza, sometimes, but I have to decide ahead of time what the "rules" are for eating off plan, and if possible, store up some discretionary eating and extra cardio to "pay for it."

The real price I pay is when something sneaks up on me and clobbers me with its enticing smell, or beguiling voice telling me that popcorn for dinner sounds like a really good idea. I have to work very carefully to avoid these moments, much the way I see alcoholics trying to remove temptation from their lives, particularly early on in their sobriety. Those addicts can choose to seek out new friends and activities, so that they will find themselves confronted with their drug less and less. They can't live in a bubble forever and will eventually be offered a glass of wine or to go to a party, of course. But they can side step it for awhile - for long enough to log some time in a new normal. I've written about this before - I can't. I can't go to a wedding without being confronted with food, or most recently, a birthday party with a lovely funfetti cake. I can't go on a date or to a friend's awesome awards ceremony without food at least being a consideration. What I can do is decide that I'll have twice as much salad on my plate as pizza, on that date, and only eat two slices, to say no-thank-you to the cake, and then get busy doing something else, and to ask someone who is getting up to bring me ONE breadstick at the awards ceremony and then drink two bottles of water and remind myself I don't need to eat dinner twice. (Having someone else get the breadstick was key, by the way, because it meant I never had to be faced with any other food choices, or a plate to fill. I've said it before - I am lucky to have awesome friends). But here's what I can't do, even if I do all of that. I can't NOT bring food into my house, and I can't not eat.

I wish I could reach down and find some supernatural ability to not eat for, like, 28 days. Like the movie I imagine I would magically, and with heartwarmingly hard-won victories and new choices, find my feet on the path of recovery if I could manage this for a month of rehab. I also imagine that if eating weren't such a necessity I'd feel released. It would be a relief because it's actually exhausting to think this hard about food every day, every meal, every snack, every choice, from the moment I wake up (with my low blood sugar screaming in my head, "Wake up! Eat. ASAP!") until I go to sleep. The only thing more exhausting is the numbing, woolly-headed feeling and accompanying guilt brought on by NOT thinking about it and discovering I ate the whole box of Cheezits. So, I choose the lesser of two exhaustions but sometimes wish I had a less thorny, less insidious, less ever-present kryptonite.

So, for those keeping score, I am eating around the following limitations and restrictions:

• Gluten sensitive. In case you didn't know, gluten is hidden in absolutely everything. (Not just things with wheat in it! Tea! Mixed spices! Fruit bars! Protein shakes!)  For me I try to have this work out to one serving or less of gluten a day, or 7-8 a week. I sometimes am way under or sometimes a bit over. (Right now, it's a bit higher because while some things are easy substitutions - e.g. eat rice instead of bread - others are more difficult and things like gluten free chips, waffles, and granola bars are expensive and I'm on a tight budget these days.) But if I'm doing well with it, it makes a big difference in my energy level, skin, and allergies.
• Allergic to MSG - no Chinese take-out for me. Boooo.
• Allergic to preservatives - this means I can almost never eat dried fruit or off a buffet. It also affects me in certain cheeses, dried fruit, and wine. So, when I eat at your house and you make something cooked in a bottle of Merlot and garnished with Craisins I'll have to politely decline.
• I do much better with dairy if it is partially broken down and lower fat, such as yogurt. (Y'all can pry the greek yogurt from my cold, dead hands. I'm unlikely to EVER give it up even if it turns out it's not as miraculous as I think it is.)
• I can only eat 4-5 servings of carbs a day, and honestly, it is better if half of them were during or before lunch.
• I avoid most soy, because, let's face it, I don't need any more hormone issues. (But I love miso soup so I haven't completely removed soy. Also, in case you don't know, soy is secretly in everything too.)
• And I hate Dill and Mayonnaise with the passion of a thousand burning nuns.

Oh yeah, and eating itself is a problem, because it might set fire to the fuse and cause me to rapidly want to consume moremoremore.

This is where planning comes in. I can read all the books I want on strategies to beat cravings (and I do) and I can go to therapy and meditate (and I DO) but the very best thing I can do is to take charge of my food AGGRESSIVELY. This means a campaign of austerity including planning meals, planning what I will cook, and then shopping for that and only that. When shopping it means being thoughtful and ascetic and feigning ignorance of the existence of trigger foods. Then, as quickly as possible, I need to cook said food, because if it sits uncooked, popcorn for dinner starts to sound like a most excellent idea. Once the food is cooked and in my fridge, it should be idiot-proof, but of course there is the matter of avoiding temptation outside my house, and exercising a lot of control inside my house when it comes to portion size, added calories, and making sure I'm getting my 1-2 servings of fruit, 4-5 servings of vegetables, 4 servings of carbs, 2-3 of dairy, 7-9 of protein, and 2-5 of fats. It's a big job, and cruel task-master, keeping track of all of this. (Note: I measure portion sizes, and meet those servings, but only measure calories on certain items. I'm not against measuring calories anymore, but this works better for me to function and not feel overwhelmed.)

So, of course, this is where tracking my food comes in. I've been using various methods to log food for 4 years. FOUR!!!! I've done it online, carried a couple of different journals around, used logging tools created by my dietician, and all kinds of permutations of these activities. One of the best things I ever heard about the value of food logging came from Weight Watchers. I have to say, Weight Watchers should probably have a disclaimer that says, "does not work for those with insulin resistance" because they do treat all carbs as if they are created equal (4 points of M&Ms are just as good as 4 points of yogurt!), alas. Still and all, I would re-pay every cent I spent there to have learned this way of thinking about logging: Logging your food means acknowledging accountability as your best weapon. If you see patterns emerging, you can tackle them. If you find meals that are working for you, or food choices that help you with portion control, you have a record. But most of all, if you mess up, you write it down in full, and then you walk away with clean hands and a fresh start because you held yourself accountable. You don't have to keep beating yourself up about it. If it means releasing judgment, if it means not always hating myself for something I did three weeks ago then I. Will. Do. It.

So, I log food. Every day. At its best, its invaluable for not only accountability but for planning. Because as I'm writing down that I had some lovely (gluten free) oatmeal with breakfast, I'm thinking about what carbs would make sense in the rest of my day - a cup of rice at lunch gives me 2 carbs, and leaves one more for dinner, maybe a pita with some hummus to get a serving of fat in? Planning and anything I can do to support it is a great predictor of success for me, even if it also increases my control-freakishness. And even when logging is not at it's best, at the very, very least it lets me check in with my trainer and he can either nod approvingly, or he can say, "Umm, two beers? Two?!"

Why then, would I not log last week? Well, for one, I was out of paper. And didn't have it in my bank account to go get some. But, then, I started wondering . . . what would happen without my clipboard to keep me in line? This article suggests that logging is a way of evaluating ourselves, and thus, supplying our own behavioral modification. I became really interested to see what new patterns would be at work, and what old pitfalls would await me.

Here's what happened.

• I still did 5 hours of cardio and nearly 3 of lifting
• I had two drinks
• I ate pizza, but only two slices
• One day I was really hungry and had 3.5 servings of dairy instead of 2-3
• I drank two diet sodas instead of one during the week
• I ate half a small bag of M&Ms but then got such a sugar-rush headache I threw them out
• I ate all the vegetables in my fridge. Like ALL of them.
• The two loaves of bread in my freezer remain there
• I did limit myself to that one breadstick at the awards banquet
• I yelled down a serious voice in my head advocating for for yo with reeses pieces on it and had half a mango instead.
• I was still anxious at each occasion where I ate food not prepared in my house
• My only big unplanned eating was a bowl of popcorn with some butter. 3 of the 4.5 cups of the popcorn count as one serving of carbs on a day when I was low on carb servings, but the rest, the butter, and eating them at 8pm were less than ideal

Now, the nature of logging as you go through the day means you have a tighter rein on what you actually ate. So, it's possible that in there, I ate an entire box of Cheezits and forgot, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I ate off-plan, but not radically off plan in any given deviance, and most importantly, when I ate a big bowl of popcorn, or a breadstick, it didn't set off a chain reaction of eating everything in sight. Again, I could be mis-remembering, but since I also lost 2 pounds last week, I don't think I am.

I'm cured! Ha! Not really. Addicts are always addicts, and I will go right back to logging this week, but it's good to know that I'm headed in the right direction and building new habits in a way that is starting to take hold in my brain. New neural pathways are catching fire. They may not be able to burn faster or hotter than the old patterns YET but they are present. It took 10 weeks of grocery shopping carefully (eating healthy on a budget is the subject of another post coming soon), doing something like 95% of my own cooking, and lots, and lots of quiet time to myself to get here. (I would guess but don't know for sure that doing the cooking myself is almost as important as planning the meals and measuring the portion sizes - being intimately connected with my food makes it much easier to know what I'm eating and be very accountable but also to be very mindful when I'm eating our of my fridge.) But, there is a new consciousness taking root from all of this time I've had to do this thoughtfully, all this getting right with myself, all this meditation, reading, logging, and creating a new level of accountability for myself. It now seems like with enough attention, with enough mindfulness, and with enough professional supervision and input, I could handle birthday parties and banquets very differently some day. So, you know, check back with me in 4 years. (smile again)

Coping and moving on

I have to say, it's a little unbelievable that after 5.5 years of unwavering support and hard work, my company decided to end my position the week of Christmas. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, or maybe the beginning of a sad but hopeful Christmas movie.

What I'm trying for here, though, is the hopeful without the sad. I've never been let go before, so I don't know how I'm supposed to behave. But by people checking in on me I gather I haven't been as sad or panicked as I'm meant to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about the way this happened, or the position it's left me in. And I'm way scared about money. But there's a way to look at this like it's a break-up that needed to happen.

I've been thinking a lot about my break-ups lately and how they usually send me into a spiral of near paralyzing depression and bring up every judgement and feeling of worthlessness I have. That in turn drives me to curl up on my couch feeling alone and numb. That, in turn, means I don't work out, and sooner rather than later I find myself consuming a whole frozen pizza or two bowls of popcorn. Or both. And then, when the faucet gets turned back on to my emotions what first comes streaming out is those same judgements and feelings of being lower than low and not worth anything better. And the band plays on.

Well, here is what has happened this week, pretty much in this order:

• I was let go

• I told my mom and posted on Facebook

• I texted my five best friends (and didn't text the fifth because she just had a baby)

• I freaked out and cried for about an hour, and called my therapist

• My longest-running best friend called me (it's good to have someone who has known you for over 30 years and still loves you!)

• Then I decided to go about my day and week.

I've been to Garden of the Gods with my mom, to a movie, and to the gym. I had the friends over I was planning on having over that night, and we played a hilarious game and ate really good soup and crab dip. I drank several beers.

Don't get me wrong, there have been some tough thoughts about money, about packing up my office, about the way this was handled, and there have been some frantic moments of "Must update my Linkedin profile NOW," and resumes, and job searches, and anxious thoughts about unemployment and part-time work.

But there haven't been any dark moments on the couch. Or in the shower. Or in this chair.

Usually in a relationship, I'm the person getting dumped, left, or abandoned. I wait, and I stay, and I see the good in someone, and I hope and try and believe in loyalty. And so when things aren't working, I usually want to do anything but STOP and break up. Consequently, when things need to end, it's on the other person to end it. So, I shouldn't be surprised that in the relationship that was taking up all my waking hours, they had to break up with me and find the door for me. In the end, that part of getting let go is just like getting dumped.

What's interestingly different is that in every break-up, in every other case where I've been left, I've been mad and resentful but also worried in a deep-down place that I don't acknowledge often that it was somehow my fault. That if I had had that fight differently, that if I had talked about my goals or needs differently, that if I had needed less . . . that if SOMETHING about me had been different that person would be there. To hold myself to the highest level of honesty, I do have to admit I've had a few wandering thoughts of, "If I had volunteered for ___" but then immediately I think, "NO." I am sure this was not about my performance on the job, and equally sure it is not about my results. Knowing that means I don't have to worry I did this somehow. It means I don't have to claim blame.

This means I'm not feeling I have to heal too much from this loss. So, I took a couple of days to enjoy my mom's visit, and that meant I took a brief sabbatical from the gym (and returned hard-core today). and we've eaten out some. And I had more than my fair share of beer on Tuesday . . . which I feel I can do because I know I can NOT do it and be ok.

But here's an interesting thing. Despite what I would consider a normal amount of "Mom is visiting from out of town" interruption to my eating, imbibing, and working out plans, I lost a pound this week.
So, I'm going to make a prediction to you all - If I don't fall into the trap of cheap, bad-for-us-all food that many Americans who struggle with money do, my guess is that while pounds won't fly off of me in 2012, the inexplicable wall keeping me from progressing may have been knocked down by this event. I have had concerns for years that this job was holding me back so . . . here it is. Nothing else is holding me back now!

I'm sure there will be panic and anxiety in the weeks to come, and moments of self-doubt. But in this moment, I am grateful for the opportunity to reinvent myself in the new year. And I am beyond grateful for the friends I have. I've had two offers of part-time work, three friends who forwarded me job opportunities within 48 hours, friends who have offered to put my resume in the hands of contacts or practice interviews with me, and friends who have offered to put me up. Wow. What a gift to know I am this loved in the week when everyone is usually hunkering down and focusing on their own immediate families.

I'll tell you what I'd like to do - I'd like to write this blog professionally. Any takers? any independently wealthy readers who want to fund that? With benefits? Anyone? Bueller?

No. Ok. Well then, I guess it's a good thing I already started on my applications for these five jobs people forwarded to me.

Tomorrow, though, I wish for this for you all on Christmas: may everyone think for a moment about what they have, and if it is what they want or signed up for. If it is, be grateful for the frustrations, hard times, and disappointments, as they make it possible for the good times to shine brighter. Whatever it is you have in your life - children, job, partner, house, goals, dreams, talents, love, strength, a business to run, a dissertation to write. If it's not what you need, then be grateful for the door you will come to when you leave it. And give love to the person next to you. Though there is some doubt to the actual correct birth date of Jesus, and though I still have some questions about what belief in his word means to me, his message is one of love and of sharing love and acceptance. I believe in that.

We celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday on a convenient date for the calendar, so why not this? So love on each other today and tomorrow, and see how long you can keep it going. (So sorry to be majorly mushy. I've just had a really strange week that has presented to me over and over how blessed I am to be so loved by so many wonderous people so I'm trying to spread it.)

update

Ok, in the spirit of brutal honesty, I ate the pizza I was craving. I know it won't help me. I know that even if my the numbers on the scale aren't changing, other changes are taking place. I know that it was an emotional, not nutritional need. And I know that in the end, filling that emotional void with pizza makes things worse. I know it was a back-slide from how awesomely on top of chicken and vegetables I have been. I know, I know, I know all of these things and so much more.

But I wanted it. and I couldn't fight that after fighting fights at work, in my eprsonal life, with my condo association, with my conscience, and the losing battle with the scale. So I gave in.

And you know what? It wasn't even that good. It felt so . . . anti-climactic. It felt so . . . unfulfilling, in every way. I wasn't nutritionally satisfied, I was far from emotionally satisfied, and I did all of this heading into a three day conference where I will be surrounded by bad food every minute of the day. Tsk, Tsk.

So, now I get to try and dig myself out of this hole while working too many hours to exercise, surrounded by desserts, chips, and other unhelpful snacks.

See Christie run. See Christie run right into her worst nightmare. see Christie dig a hole for herself. Now see Christie try to dig her way out while trying to accept that not being perfect at this is part of the process.

Epiphany in 4th grade

I had a flashback the other day. I was remembering 4th grade. My teacher in 4th grade was Mrs. Travena. She was lovely, and in charge of the school newspaper so she was very into making reading and writing cool. What heaven for me. If only I hadn't been 10 years old, I could have appreciated it more. Because, you see, at 10 years old, I had already endured being at an "awkward" age for a year, and I was damn tired of it, and pretty cranky about it too (if only I had known it would last for another 9 years. Siiigh). I'd had my share of boys making fun of my bra by snapping it, my teeth were too big for my face, and let's face it, with my hours of reading and insufferable-know-it-all-ness I was not going to be one of the cool girls. I know this now, but at the time, it was hard that the girls I had grown up with were suddenly a seemingly different species than me.

I felt myself floundering a little, socially, and so I started trying out different friend groups. It turns out that finding my "group" in a school of less than 200 kids probably wasn't going to give me the sample size I needed (I never really did find my "group" until college, and then again in grad school, and then again, here. All three of those groups were well worth waiting for). I never really did find a group that I fit well with. For a lot of that year, I latched onto just one friend: Kelly. Kelly was cute, spunky, and had a life completely different from mine. She was funny, and had interesting stories, and her mom was soooooooo cool. I remember I was in the hallway, collating the school newspaper (by hand) the day that parents were coming in for conferences. Kelly's mom came in, said hi to me, and then went and found Kelly afterwords. She talked with Kelly for a minute, give her a big hug and high-five, and then left our the back door. Kelly saw me and came bounding down the hall, jumping up and down saying, "Oh my gosh! Guess what?! I got all C's! Alllll Ceeeeee's!"

I had a momentary pause and then jumped up and down with her and said, "Yeah!"

Internally, it took me until after she walked away to process this. As I continued to walk slowly around the table, collating by hand, I realized, for Kelly, C's were worth celebrating. That for her, this was good news. At my house, and in my family, my parents said, "As long as you do your best, we're proud," but nobody had ever had to test that beyond a B+.

I'm not knocking my former-friend Kelly. As I came to realize, she worked really hard for those C's. 4th grade wasn't easy for her, and her life at home seemed really cool to me (all that TV and independence!) but also meant she didn't have the support to do cool homework projects like I did. She probably worked a lot harder for her C's than I did for the steady stream of A-'s I got that year. You know, I knocked out some reports and science projects and diaramas, but 4th grade was really pretty easy for me. I didn't have to dig down deep for much - it's not that I didn't care, because I did, but looking back, I wasn't ever really mentally taxed at school until High School.

The epiphany fr me was realizing that I not everyone aims for the same thing, and that my standards are reeeeee-heeeaaally high. This isn't really surprising. Since I grew up as the only girl sibling in my family, and the oldest (all of that to shift and re-settle once I met my sister) I definitely have the standard - take-charge, high-achiever, structured personality of the first-born. I also had parents with high standards, and some means to support them. In my family, winning is important, competition was real, and good grades were expected. Also, despite all of us having a certain degree of special needs, we also had a lot of raw goods to bring to the task wen it came to success at school. It was fair for my parents to expect A's and B's.

It was eye-opening for me to realize that not everyone has the same expectations. This issue has returned to me again and again in my life. I've been told I have very high standards. I've been told I'm my own worst critic. I've been told I have to be kinder to myself. I've been told I'm pushy. I've been told I'm unforgiving. I've been given this message in as many disappointing and hurtful ways as nice ones in my life.

I think about this a lot when setting goals for myself, for my exercise, for my weight loss, for my to-do list at work, for whatever. I think about it when I don't hit the mark I was aiming for. Because everything I've been told about myself, whether or not it was said nicely, is true. I don't just get disappointed, I punish myself. If I eat a piece of pizza I'm a bad person, if I don't get things done on my to-do list I'm an absolute failure. If the scale goes up, I should just resign myself to being depressed for the day. If I don't get what my trainer is showing me on the first try I'm royally pissed at myself for hours. (I hate to admit it, but there was one day where I was supposed to clean-press and we had raised the weight, and I was just not getting it. I had to be more precise with my movements, and fearless, and I was not succeeding at either. By the fourth set of failures, I totally fell apart, throwing a mini-tantrum because I was so mad at myself I couldn't put it into words past "aaaauuuuuugggguuurrrrrrhhhh!")  

I put on a good front when I say to people (generally people who approach me with jobs that don't work for me), "I don't have to be good at everything. There are things I know I am truly exceptional at. I make amazing soup, and can do full splits!" But, the truth is, not being awesome at things is generally not ok with me. I can live with not being fab at the following: Scrabble, poker, rock climbing, drinking Bourbon, making pie crusts, and parallel parking. But everything else, come on, I need to rock at it. Dental exams are to be aced, shopping trips should not only be efficient, but hit the budget mark within a penny, and it's important to me to get good reviews at work. My brother and I have a running joke with my mom that we're her "favorite." It comes up over and over. She'll tell me thank you for something and I'll say, "Mm-hmm, that's because I'm your favorite."

I made a lot of fun of Charlie Sheen, and "winning!" continues to be my ring-tone, but come on, winning is cool. As much as I love winning, I hate losing. Unless winning is losing. And right now, all I'm doing is losing at being a loser.

That's right readers. I lost nothing this week.

Pardon me for a moment, . . . "aaaauuuuuugggguuurrrrrrhhhh!"


In the crazy two weeks that I've had at work, I've managed to fight to find the time and wherewithal to weigh and measure eehhh-hhhheeeeee-verriiii-thing, to bring healthy lunches and dinners with me, and on two occasions breakfast too, to tote around my gym bag and fit my cardio and lifting workouts in SOMEHOW . . . for THIS?! Seriously?!! I hit all of my goals for serving sizes and all of the right number of servings for each thing. I even skipped several carb servings, subbing in extra servings of RAW VEGETABLES. I had several days where I skipped my discretionary calories altogether, and I left alcohol out of the equation altogether.

I stood on that scale and looked at her and said, "I'm sorry, but I cannot put this much time into measuring everything I put into my mouth, and fighting to get my workouts in and still have things be this slow. Everyone else I know can go to the gym a couple times a week and stop eating chips and lose more weight in a week than I do in a month. I'm probably going to eat pizza today. For reals." and then I cried, but just a little

I want to win at this. I have to win at this, even if winning means having lower goals than EVERYONE else. And it's heartbreaking that I'm digging my heels in this hard to deal with my food issues, to be accountable, to peel back as many layers and be truly honest here, to fight myself kicking and screaming into the gym, to give the popcorn the finger when it's what i really want, and to generally know that my endocrine system is a little like that old adage that no matter how far you lower the bar, there are some who will insist on slithering beneath it. No matter how reasonable I think my goals are, or how much harder I am working than everyone else I know, my endocrine system can still frak it all up. And the truth is, my standards ARE high. I expect a lot of myself, and this makes me very much want to pull the covers up over my head. And eat pizza.

I came home, and stood at my counter, and fought off the urge to order pizza. I did not cry. I thought about Kelly, and her C report card and wondered if I could be happier finding my way into that mind-set. What if I was ok with winning less? What if getting a C was ok for me in this case? The problem is, Kelly worked really hard for those C's, and (here's the key) was happy with those grades. I'm working really hard, really, really crazy hard, and trying to talk my way into accepting that C's are the right thing to expect, and getting D's. Deeeeeeeeeeees.

So, I didn't order pizza, and I didn't cry (until shedding a few more tears now) but I did eat two slices of pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and I did skip my run today. then, I felt like a failure and decided to eat vegetables for the rest of the day. I can't phone it in every day, I know, but just for today, I needed to want less and to not try.

What the nutritionist said

So, I've owed readers his post for awhile. I'm not sure anyone is keeping track, or even reading me that closely, but I mentioned three weeks ago that I was referred to a dietician and said I would tell you all more about that and what I learned.

I'll be very honest - I went in with my guard up a little. I didn't want to be told I had to eat anything weird, or that I had to give up foods I liked forever. In my mind, it's not reality to never have pizza again. For instance, there is someone in my life who says, "I don't eat carbs. Ever. Even fruit." Except . . . he drinks, so he does imbibe carbs. I wanted advice on how to get the best results while still keeping in mind that my job requires I travel, a lot, and, I have to be able to go out and have fun sometimes too. I needed some help finding the land of moderation and figuring out how to put down roots there.

I'll also admit that my guard was up because people make assumptions about fat. People assume that when they see fat it means the person wearing it doesn't like vegetables, doesn't work out, has no concept of how to eat, etc. And frankly, my problems are not about knowledge or even about effort. My problems are biological and psychological. I have a lot of knowledge about the benefits of salad and protein and why it's important to eat breakfast and have a couple of well planned snacks. I'm not saying I know everything, I'm saying that my hypoglycemia and my years of dieting means I know more than the average person, regardless of my size.

I've had doctors in the past assume that I am unwilling to eat healthy, or a couch potato. I had one doc tell me if I was unwilling to work on my weight, he wouldn't take me as a patient in his asthma management practice. That's how he brought the topic up with me. He didn't ask what I had done in the past to address my weight - he assumed it was something he would have to convince me of. Ummm, hi. I look in the mirror every day. Do you think I dig sweating in the gym 4-8 hours a week to be this size? When I then told him how much I was working out and how healthy I was eating, he dismissed me and said, "Well, then you'd be smaller than this. You should think seriously about a 1200 calorie diet or getting your stomach stapled." I looked him straight in the eye and said, "I'm not unwilling to talk about my weight or even work on it. Do you have any constructive suggestions or are you just going to continue to assume I'm lazy and ignorant.?"

I lodged a serious complaint against him and found a new doctor, who, by the way did some tests to prove that in fact my lung capacity is not impacted by my weight. But it stuck with me that that doctor felt free to assume so much about me after having me in his office for 4 minutes, and felt free to recommend something medically dangerous for me. (If a doctor who is educated about the body and how it works could assume this, what does the person passing me on the street think?)

It was with this baggage I entered into the dieticians office. I know I'm overweight. I've known it since I was seven. I also know that I have medical conditions that make it impossible for me to ever be a size 2. I know those same medical issues make weight loss a very slow battle. And I know that my lifestyle and work don't do me any favors in that area either. And I know that when you add all of that together it makes it very, very hard for me to stay motivated. Perhaps most importantly, I also know that food is my drug of choice. I choose it over alcohol and caffeine every day and twice on Sundays. It's not just that I am someone who likes food or enjoys it and has somehow accidentally enjoyed too much of it recently. Food makes me feel better, but then it makes me feel worse. It's an abusive relationship. I mean, sometimes I can eat chicken and salad and not feel anything other than glad I ate lunch. But other times . . . mmmmm, all I can think of is unplugging myself with some snack of choice.

The dietician did some really awesome things for me. She confirmed that it's crazy to try and count calories all day long, and that people who do that are more likely to either struggle in the other direction, becoming obsessed with how few calories they can have, or to become someone who doesn't consider that not all calories are created equal (100 calories of brussel sprouts are always going to be better for you than 100 calories of soda). She gave me an opportunity to practice my working knowledge of serving sizes and good choices (1 cup = a tennis ball. 3 ounces of protein = a deck of cards, and so on). She took my RMR which told us how many calories I burn by breathing and doing nothing else. This gives us a baseline of how I should plan to exercise and eat to get the best results. We agreed on the following - 5 servings of bread, grains, or starchy vegetables, 2 servings of fruit (I can combine those for 7 overall servings of "carbs" but it's best for most of those to come from whole grains or vegetable sources rather than fruits), 3-5 servings of non starchy vegetables (tomatoes, broccoli, V8, asparagus, brussel sprouts, etc.), 3 servings of dairy and 7 of protein, 5 servings of fat (1 tsp of butter, 1 slice of bacon, 5 almonds, etc.). This left 180 discretionary calories a day (honey and granola in my Greek yogurt, 1 beer, a handful of chips, etc.) We calculated all of this based on aiming for an intake of 1850 calories a day and taking into account 2 hours of lifting and 3 of cardio a week.

The goal was to lose 1.25 pounds a week, and I'll be honest, that sounded like a lot to me in good and bad ways. Typically at my best if I eat perfectly and work out a LOT I might lose 3 pounds a month. But, she did the math and I wanted to believe in this. I paid for the appointment out of pocket, after all. 5 pounds a month sounded GREAT!

She didn't ask me to take any weird supplements or anything, and the only things she suggested I try were a particular kind of low-calorie organic bread and spaghetti squash as carbs. She suggested these because those two options allow me to have larger servings so she hoped it would mean my feeling more full and satisfied.

We discussed how someone with my medical issues has inherited a genetic predisposition to insulin resistance, and this means I have to have the right kind of carbs to "unlock the gates" and let food get let in to be converted to energy instead of being stored as fat. I'm lucky that with all of this going on that I never, never test as being pre-diabetic or as having even borderline issues with my thyroid. Still, that insulin resistance will make it tricky to find the right food combination for me for the rest of my life. It will often mean I eat but my body forgets it has energy and reacts to low blood-sugar. (Low-blood sugar crashes, are without a doubt, the worst feeling I've ever had. I prefer bone breaks and serious asthma attacks to that feeling)

As it turns out, it also means my dietician has some more work to do. After three weeks, I lost less than one pound. ARG! I know that her practice probably does see a lot of people who are making their first attempt to get healthy. But she's one of my last stops. After this I . . . well, I won't give up. But I may put more effort into dealing with myself rather than continuing to spend a lot of time and money on trying to be something I'm not or can't be. If I can't lose weight, maybe putting more effort into maintaining and being ok with that is wise. I know, I know, maybe I can lose weight just very, very slowly. Or maybe plugging all of my numbers into a formula doesn't capture the whole picture of how my body works. Maybe we just haven't found the answer yet.

I feel very, very tired when I think about how much work it is for me to do this, even with help, and still see minimal results. I do the workouts, I eat the salad, I take the meds . . . it seems like it's time for the pay off. She looked at my food logs and was stumped, because I have been eating a lot of yummy vegetables and doing a lot of exercise. In my heart of hearts I knew that 5 pounds a month was a lot to hope for - not for "normal" people maybe, but for me. I feel I've eared a break and it would be nice to have something work the way it's supposed to. It turns out doing the math right isn't enough.

In a way it was good to know I'm not the only one that my weight is mysterious to. It's good to know I'm not the only person who has to look at me and wonder why the things that work for everyone else don't work for me. It's good to know that someone else has to do extra work to make my diet and exercise give me the results I should have. It's also really discouraging that the things that work for everyone else don't work for me. It's disappointing that hard work isn't enough because I don't know what else to do. I hope the dietician does.

I will say, just as a chance for me to stick my tongue out to that awful doctor - the dietician also told me that less than 1600 calories and/or no-carbs would make my hormones worse. So there. Phhhhhttttttt!!!!

Toes up! Knees unlocked!

Yesterday I was reminded that paying a trainer isn't just about having someone to work out with, or tell me what I should work on for the week. Those things are nice, but when I think of paying someone to do those things, it feels like a massive luxury. When I remember the full range of knowledge my trainer brings to the table, it feels more like a reasonable expense.

Not only does my trainer have a degree in exercise physiology and kinesthesiology, not only can he consult on my nutrition as he reminded me last Sunday, but he also can help me problem solve when my body is falling apart. In 2010 I called him on a Friday from Phoenix and said, "Ummm, I dislocated my knee. I'm taking this Sunday off and will see a doctor on Monday." After seeing the doc and getting referred to PT my trainer was like, "Yeah, we can work out. No big deal." He built workouts that allowed me to keep progressing in as many areas as possible, and I was glad that I spent only one week laid up on the couch. I was grateful to have part of my life NOT be interrupted by that injury. All injuries seriously suck, but after going through a year of trying to avoid surgery on that very knee in 1997/98 and then having the surgery, followed by another year of rehab (1998/99), having that reconstruction fail me wasn't just physically painful, it was emotional for me to. Having my trainer work around it without a blink was actually reassuring and kept me motivated.

Six weeks after that knee took it's trip out to the side, my other knee took three trips out to the side. I can't say he and I soldiered on without blinking when it was crutches and two bad knees. I certainly can't say we just shrugged it off when my MRI results were in and the total wreckage news was delivered upon us (I tore my ACL, mediapatellar femoral ligament, and meniscus. I wrecked it good. Go big or go home!), but we did keep going. We kept going by doing a lot of things sitting down, a lot of exercises that strengthened my back, shoulders, arms, and abs and a few things laying down. we kept going by making fun of my crutches. We were limited, but we kept going. I had a few friends who said, "Wouldn't it be better to save your paid time with the trainer until you can do more?" Sure. But at a time when I felt helpless, weak, and useless it was important for me to have a few opportunities to feel strong, powerful and capable.

Any trainer who can work around two injured legs is a keeper, but yes, he is also fun to work out with, capable of guiding me nutritionally, and he makes me laugh. What amazed me today was how he set about fixing my running issues . I texted him on Thursday and said, "Something is wrong with my running - backs of my legs right under my calves feels hard and bruised to the touch, but there's no bruise. feet cramping so bad they're going numb. Please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong when I see you Sunday."

I walked in yesterday and he had a plan already in place, a plan that involved me working out without shoes. We rolled the muscles of my feet and calves with a lacrosse ball, and then he explained to me that the muscles and tendons in my lower leg connect up to my thigh and hip flexors, but also down into my feet, pulling on the achilles tendon. He told me that some of the ways I have compensated for my knees or have learned to walk with the joint laxity I have are causing me to put more pressure on my arches and toes. This in turn causes me to tense the muscles in my calves, and below, while relaxing the muscles on my shins. That pulls me forward, putting more pressure on my toes, and taking weight off my heels. Additionally, my knees are so loose that they often hyperextend . . . which means they bend backwards. That pushes my pelvis in the wrong direction, tightening muscles in my lower back, pulling up on my IT band and all the muscles and tendons of my legs . . . contributing more to the damn feet.

So, basically, I'm put together all wrong and so I walk wrong. I put pressure on my toes and arches, and I lock my knees out hyperextended which pulls my pelvis and lower back into the wrong place therefore pulling on the muscles in the backs of my legs and puts more pressure on my feet in the wrong places. I try not to blame my parents for constructing me wrong. After all, I was their first; they didn't know what they were doing. But a lot of issues seem to stem from these bad knees which are a result of faulty construction - it'd be nice to pass the blame off. But it won't help me walk right. And without walking correctly, it's unlikely that I will run correctly.

The workout was mentally difficult for me. It wasn't that physically strenuous, because we were focusing on a lot of exercises where I could stand with my knees straight-not-hyper-extended (which feels bent to me) and my toes flexed up towards my face. Every time I wasn't lifting something I got the treatment that tall willowy blondes get when they walk down the street. I got looked up and down to make sure my posture was good, my weight was on my heels, and my knees weren't locked. I was reminded over and over to "unlock [your] knees," and "take the weight off [your] heels." It's pretty frustrating to realize after more than three decades on the planet that I don't know how to stand properly. Arg! Retrain! Retrain!

I am hopeful that re-training myself will result in more comfortable joints, better ability to do more, and a return to running. Best of all would be not having my feet turn into hobbled nubs of themselves as they cramp so hard that my toes curl under.

I was also pretty impressed that without watching me walk or run, without "examining" my legs or feet, just through a text, my trainer could figure out what was wrong, and put me back on the right track. It was reassuring to find that I could walk in and have a workout designed specifically for the issue I was having. If you're interested here are some of the things we did: dead lifts while making sure I was weighted on my heels and not my toes, planks while lifting each leg for one second, keeping toes flexed and knees straight. I also did renegade rows. This is down in a plank position with toes bent to support me but arms are straight down from the shoulder and holding 25 pound weights. As I bring each arm up one at a time I curl into my body holding the weight. We did an exercise that reminded me of bobbing and weaving along the rope in karate - my trainer stretched a theraband our and had me squat (toes up!) and bob and weave for 60 seconds. We did a combination movement of one legged touchdown (enjoy the music on that one!) and lunge where I had to stand on one leg (toes up! knees unlocked!) and send my other leg out behind me and then touch the ground, then stand upright and swing that leg through to a lunge bending the toes of my back/planted foot and keeping the weight off the toes of the front/lunging foot. (I was sweating a lot after that one not because it was so physically strenuous but because the effort of keeping my feet even and my toes where they were supposed to be was enormous.) We did a few other exercises but you get the picture - with no shoes on we could always be looking at what my feet were doing, as well as keeping an eye on whether or not my knees were locked out. We finished by stretching and foam rolling my trouble spots. I won't lie - it was painful. In fact, it was a bitch. But I walked out of there feeling looser all over and more comfortable moving. And it's also good to know that something so simple can help.

I was relieved to find out I hadn't just been wimping out - that this is a real problem. (I always secretly worry that I am a wuss and that the pain I feel is "not that bad" and that I should just "suck it up.") One that I can fix. So, if you see me mumbling to myself about how my feet ar turned out, keeping the weight on my heels, making sure to walk so that I hit three points on my feet (heel, ball, toe), or my knees being unlocked, I'm not crazy. Well, I might be crazy, but it's for a reason.

Honesty, Part 2

Six weeks ago, as a new blogger I wrote this post about honesty with myself. I'm fundamentally very, very attached to my honesty and my ability to say what is true, even if it isn't received well by others. So I explored how that would feel if I turned that honesty on myself. It felt a little uncomfortable, but not painful. In this post I got a small taste of how others must experience me - the uncompromising high standards are probably intimidating. I guess my honesty is too. A good friend pointed out yesterday that anyone with issues probably feels a little concerned or intimidated by the fact that I am very open and honest, because they know their issues will be exposed.

It was an eye-opening conversation for me. On the one hand, I'm not going to stop being honest, but on the other hand I don't want that penchant for speaking out about hard things to be mistaken for a lack of empathy, or worse, some kind of blind spot about my own issues. I take it as a given that my issues are up for grabs too - I mean, I started a blog about them - but I also recognize that if I appear intimidating, then it's probably doesn't seem like I'm approachable on those subjects. My sister told me that when she reads my blog she feels like she's trespassing on my private diary (I reassured her that I have a journal I wrote in just for myself and I'm aware that this is published and read by others) but at the same time, writing about me isn't enough to make sure I'm just as open to being honest about me as I am about others. I have to speak it too.

I often give people the impression that I'm very open. I think this happens because I answer questions very openly. There isn't much I won't talk about in terms of theme or subject - my childhood, my dad's death, sex, you name it. I'll answer it. This often gives people a false sense of knowing me deeply and/or that I am an open book. I remember last year during my scary-but-wonderful singing class my teacher trying to help me perform with more emotional openness saying, "I don't believe this performance. You need to show me more inside." I responded saying something to the effect of I didn't know how to do that and she said, very lovingly, "But I know you! You're an expressive person when you talk. You're very emotional and open!." She wasn't wrong but what I thought was, "Yeah, you THINK you know me, but there's a lot you don't know." Because I am expressive and talk a lot about feelings and reactions, because I talk with my hands and have animated facial expressions, because there are few taboo subjects with me, people frequently get a false sense of closeness with me. I don't mean to mislead them. I'm not trying to lead people down a garden path. It's more that I give a lot up front, but conceal important truths and feelings to keep myself safe. I described this once to another student in the class as being a real estate agent showing a house. I'll invite you in, tell you to look around, invite you to enjoy the open house food I've laid out and encourage you to ask any questions you have. But I'll just conveniently leave out that the house is haunted, or some other important detail.

The need to be more honest to other people, about myself, out loud, was never more clear than when I met with my trainer yesterday. This was the first time seeing him since I saw the dietician last week. I was medically referred by my doctor after messing up my body and my eating with the diet plan that could never work for me (silly Christie, diets where people lose large amounts of weight are for other people!). I didn't think anything about going, but after getting my new eating plan from her, I wanted to share it with my trainer. I texted him as I was leaving the office and said, "Saw the dietician today! Have lots to share - looking forward to Sunday."

When I ran into my friend who also works with the same trainer, she said, "So, you saw a nutritionist?" Since I don't really know the difference between a nutritionist and a dietician I said, "Yep. I really like her." And my friend said, "Well, that's great. Just a question for you. What about (insert our trainer's name here.)" In my brain it made this noise, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." All of a sudden I realized, CRAP! I totally didn't talk about this with him! And he might want in on this to make sure we're all on the same page.

I was medically referred, yes, and there's nothing wrong with me going, but if my goals with him are weight loss, then he needs to know about my medical status and diet; just like when I met with the dietiician I brought info about my diagnosis and medications, as well as about my workouts with him. That door has to swing both ways since the goals are the same in all three consultations. I had given him the impression that everything was transparent between us by conveniently leaving out that the house was haunted, or more specifically, that I was medically compromised and that's why I needed to see someone.

Actually, being more honest about it means saying this: I changed my eating drastically without telling him or my doctor when I went on that plan. I don't have to search hard to find that the reason I did that is because I didn't want to hear cautions or reasons not to go on that plan. I wanted to focus on the 50+ pounds my friends had lost. I wanted, no I needed, to believe that that could happen to me too if I was just committed and disciplined.

My trainer said to me, "I'm not sorry you went, and it sounds like the information and structure you got is helpful. I want to talk to you more about it while we work out. But I also want to make sure you know I could have done that for you too." He thought for a minute while he was setting up kettlebells for me and finished up with, "When I got your text I was a little surprised."

I looked him straight in the eye and said, "I know. I realized that after. I'm sorry. I know you can do this too, but I need as much structure as I can get. My doctor medically referred me because I messed up in July and August. I went way too low with my calories so I lost fast and then stopped losing at all, and that's a warning sign. And my labs were awful. Ahe waved them in front of me and basically said, despite being the nicest, sweetest little Indian lady, 'what the hell are you doing? This is a mess!' I think you should be pissed, but be pissed that I changed my eating drastically then and didn't consult you. It just feels like I'm always on the extreme ends of the spectrum with my eating, and I don't know how to find the middle point on my own." That was all deeply honest, but if I was plumbing the depths of this story I would also have said this: I am a food addict, but self aware enough to know I sabotage myself. That means there's hope for me to find recovery, but it also means when I mess up I feel not just like someone out of control, but like a bad person. It's very painful for me to go through these last few months having to fee my feelings during things that are really hard in my professional and personal life, and all I want to do is buy frozen pizza and Cheezits and pull the proverbial covers up over my head. But if I do that, I'm faced with the feelings of failure and being unworthy of love. I need help. From wherever I can get it.

I think he senses what a struggle this is for me, not just the weight loss, but talking about it because what he said was very firm, but compassionate. "I wish you had told me your labs were bad. In one sense, talking with your doctor is separate, but in another sense, if I had known that I could have done things differently. You don't have to tell me about your labs and doctor's appointments but if you do we can work together better. "

I said that I wanted to share my food logs with him, and have him be involved in that. He gently said,
"You can tell me the medical doctor stuff too." He's not wrong. By leaving things out of the conversation, I wasn't dishonest, but I wasn't honest either. I was avoiding his help because I didn't want to hear that what I did was wrong, or that what I wanted wasn't possible. I didn't know that this plan wouldn't work for me, but I knew that not talking about it with him was a bad idea. So much for the idea that I'm completely open and honest when it counts.

If I want to get better, if I want to like myself more and be more worthy of my own love, I need to be willing to, as a 12 step program says, "make a fearless and searching moral inventory and quickly admit wrongs." I was wrong to pay my trainer to help me get stronger and thinner but not tell him I had changed my eating. I was wrong to not tell him when my doctor discovered my body was crashing and burning on the inside. I was wrong not to tell him that I had been referred to a dietician. I was probably also wrong to not tell him the full truth about me as I know it now and to hold back on saying, "I'm really messed up on the inside, and for the first time I see a way to try and make it better." I was wrong to let him spend the last 3.5 months thinking he knew what was going on with me, and thinking that I was being open with him. Clearly, I'm not as strong on honesty as I like to think when I can so easily leave things out of the conversation to avoid things I don't want to hear.

Yesterday was a wake up call for me. When we sat down and he looked through some of the items from the dietician he said, "Well, I would like to be involved in this stuff with you even though i know you have a plan laid out with her (the dietician) too. "

I said, "Yes, I need you to look at my food log every week. I need all the accountability I can get because I mess up and it becomes a slippery slope really quickly and then I feel like I'm failing at life."

"Well, if you want to use me for accountability, you need to tell me these things. Just sayin'"

So true. Good talk.

9 not-so-simple tricks

I had major IT issues today. And since the IT solution to everything always starts with downloading something and then restarting my computer, I did. After this giant problem (which plagued everyone at work, but hit me harder and in different ways because I am a remote worker and "off the system" ) I had to restart everything, and when my web browser opened, because it defaulted to MSN's home page, it opened up to a scroll of daily articles. One of them was titled, "9 quick tricks that cut calories." Of course I had to look.

It was an interesting read for me, not just in terms of getting good ideas, but in realizing that I already had a lot of this down or have adjusted to fit me better.read down and click on the individual slides. I had varying reactions when I read these from "oh, that's a good idea," to "yup, that works. I should do it more consistently" to "what?!"

1. Take note - logging food. People who logged their food were found to be able to lose twice as much as those who don't. This is because people often underestimate what they are actually putting in their mouths.

I do log my food. Sometimes I forget, but when I do it I am completely honest. Even if what I have to log is that I ate a bowl of popcorn for dinner. What works a treat about it is that when I log, I not only practice accountability and consider my serving sizes (which is the point), but I also end up doing some planning. Oh, I had Greek yogurt for breakfast so I should probably limit dairy for the rest of the day. Chicken for lunch, so I need to have eggs or fish for dinner. Three servings of veggies, at least 2-3 more! What doesn't work about this is that sometimes I get busy and forget to log my food. Right now I have an adorable little journal I carry around in my purse, and I'm getting better at it, but sometimes days slip by. This slide has inspired me to be more religious about it.

2. Find Balance - sometimes dieters get overwhelmed with counting calories, so this is suggesting that instead of counting every ounce and morsel people just try to balance their plates with 1/3rd vegetables, 1/3rd protein, and 1/3rd whole grains.

This sounds so good in theory. It can get time consuming to count calories, and for someone like me, absolute value of calories matters, but what matters almost as much is the source and quality of those calories. (Not all calories are created equal! 400 calories of protein and vegetables is not equivalent to 400 calories of beer) But, even 6 years ago we knew that grains needed a smaller place in the food pyramid. And now, we have something newer and more fine tuned that represents how many vegetables we really should be eating.So, I don't know about this 1/3rd of your plate in carbs thing.

More to the point, at least in my case, if I eat a third of my food in carbs, I will eat an amount of unneeded (and often unintended) calories equal to those carbs because those carbs will bump up my cravings and alter my blood sugar stability. In my world, carbs breed the need for more carbs. That's how over-zealous insulin works. So, the better plate for me is one where it's a smaller plate, and 2/3rds of it is covered with vegetables, some of them raw. And the rest with protein and maybe a smidge of dairy. Fruit about once a day.

3. Swap Smart - basically, the message here is that you can't deny yourself everything, but at the same time you can't have everything you want and still lose weight. So, if you want a treat, have a small one, but don't still have your sweet coffee drink, pretzels, or for yo too.

This I totally agree with . . . to a point. It can't be the case that people never eat a donut, cookie, or have a pumpkin latte again. That's not the real world. On the other hand, for me, having that cookie, even twice a week or so, will derail my results so much that it will demotivate me to the point of having that cookie every day, and then twice a day, and then in come the Cheezits and hello FRED! So, I need to not only give myself the cookie and then take something else away in its place, I need to pick and choose my moments to eat off plan VERY carefully, and keep those moments VERY isolated.

4. Scale Back - try cutting back on serving sizes by putting cereal in mug or dinner on a salad plate.

Duh. Serving sizes are one of the biggest problems we have created for ourselves. The next time you go to a restaurant, notice what they serve your entree on. It's the serving platter size in a dish set, not the dinner plate size! Having said all that, I do sometimes really blow it when it comes to serving sizes. See above - logging is good. Also, looking up some simple things about serving sizes can be helpful. When you read the calories, fat content, and protein per serving . . . pay attention to what the serving size listed there is! I've noticed it is so often smaller than what we normally serve up. How much is a serving of chicken or fish? About the size of a deck of cards. What IS 2 oz of shredded cheese? Get a scale. It's hard work, but worth retraining on this stuff. At least for me.

5. Slurp your starters - when eating out, have a broth based soup. It's filling and healthy and can help you eat less.

This works! Whenever I go for sushi, I get miso. Not only is it tasty, it is hot, simple, nutritious, and filling.

Other tips - I eat something fresh, raw, and high in fiber before going out. Apples! Broccoli! I go in filled up, and it keeps me from munching mindlessly on bread or chips and salsa.

Also, as much as possible, I look up menus before I go so I can go in with a game plan. And if I'm not getting a salad, I do try to ask for a box so I can split my meal into what I'm eating now and put away the part that is more than my serving size.

6. Slow down - try sipping water and even setting your fork down between bites. If the meal takes longer you are more likely not only to be more satisfied, but to know when you are full and not keep eating past your full point.

This works so well, except it's hard. I often have to eat in my car or very quickly before I get in my car. But even for eating small snacks, I do find that if I slow down, and eat mindfully, really paying attention to what I'm tasting, chewing it, and my other sensations, I enjoy my food more. And I eat less

7. Nosh often - eat smaller amounts more often throughout the day. This keeps your metabolism fueled all day as well as keeping you from being uber-hungry and then going overboard and eating too much in one sitting

This is a mainstay of EVERY sound eating plan. And there's a simple reason: eating makes your metabolism fires burn higher. Yes, that's right - eating makes you burn more calories. I know this sounds backwards, but every time you eat, it causes your endocrine system to fire up. The problem comes when I eat more than my metabolism can burn. But if I eat small amount, 4 - 6 times a day, it usually works out. And as a bonus, I'm never hungry or blood sugar crashing and I have more energy to work out, and more endorphins.

8. Pick Protein - protein is important for building lean muscle, which helps burn more calories. and it is also more filling so it should be part of every meal.

For me this is another no-brainer, but it also can be hard. I am the pickiest person in the known western world when it comes to knowing where my dead animal came from. It takes WORK for me to find chicken and meat and fish that I'm ok with, but it's valuable to do it if it means I can eat less carbs without feeling the loss so much. Plus, muscles are hot.

9. Beat Bloat - something about drinking water with lemon, and not eating too much broccoli.

I seriously don't know what this is about. I will not relinquish my broccoli.

So, the lesson here is that I'm doing quite a lot of what is recommended. As a result, my calories are fewer and my weight decreases as well. But it's probably worth paying attention to the places where I sometimes fall down on the job. I think it's also important to look at something else - whatever tips are here, there's also my explanation of making it work in my own life. Maybe there are places where I'm shorting myself results by messing around with the "formula" but there are probably just as many places where I made adjustments for the better. If I did nothing but apply a formula, I'd fail every time.

I know this because when I try to apply an equation to my eating and exercise without taking into account the variables, I fail. Every. Time. If I don't make it work within my real life, all it does is create an un-real life that I can't keep up with after a week or two.

So, simple tricks, but making them really work means factoring in how it works in my life. We'll see what the nutritionist says about this in a couple of weeks.

1 down, 3 to go

This has been coming for a few weeks, but I've put it off. I was hoping to procrastinate it further. But, today my time had come. Yes, today I could no longer elude this difficult chore.

Shopping.

I typically go in to a shopping trip with a lot of hope and expectation and come out sweaty, defeated, and feeling as bad as if I had just been beaten with a truckload of underwire bras. Shopping is WORK. Literally, shopping takes walking, contorting, and carrying a significant amount of stuff. Shopping is that much work for everyone, sure. But shopping for someone like me is also emotional work. When you don't look like the pictures a funny thing happens . . . no matter how many cool clothes you put on, you still don't look like the pictures! More to the point, in my case, I am short. My legs are short even for a short person (which means, yes, my torso is long), my feet are flat, my arms and thighs are muscular, my hips are so wide that it's kind of unbelievable that I haven't had kids, my chest is large and I'm flat out just not built for clothes. Yet, of course, I cannot go around without clothes. So, shopping usually makes me feel like I must be a deformed person. I try on pants and think, it's great that they're 25% off because I'll have to pay to get them hemmed. I try on dresses and feel like I'd be better off wearing a sheet. I try on shorts and want to laugh and point at the girl in the mirror even though I know that she is I.

In ascending order from awful to horrifying torture, the things I least like to shop for are:

• Shorts - I despise the pairs of underwear that girls are wearing these days and calling "shorts" and anything longer comes down way past my knees because I have disproportionately short legs
• Gloves - I have midget fingers too
• Exercise pants - I need something that will not ride up, but will also not drop off my hips when I'm doing squats and I need those pants to magically also not be too long on my legs.
• Tank tops. These are a crucial layer to have in the wardrobe of a Coloradan. A nice way to add some warmth without making something bulky, and also, help make something that shows "too much" more professional. I crave to have tanks and camisoles in every hue in the rainbow. But ones with shelf-bras - no. And the ones that are build to lie long and flat on girls with Barbie's measurements, also no.
• Jeans and business pants - will they fit my hips and thighs? Will they drag on the ground? Will I spend the same amount I paid to buy them to have them altered? Will they make my midsection look massive? Nobody knows. It's like spinning the wheel of chance every time. And sizes are not consistent so that so doesn't help.
• Anything with buttons - I've been trying to figure out if there is a nice way to say this; if there is I don't know it. I have some special gifts and endowments. The kind that sometimes mean random strangers ask me out before they know my name. Anything with buttons is a major ordeal
• Dresses. Ugh. Who came up with this plan of one piece of fabric that is somehow supposed to flatter all different parts of my body? And if they have buttons, see above. I actually love dresses, but hate trying to find them
• Bras. I would buy stock in the company that realizes that for someone with "gifts" having a bra that is a color other than white, beige, or black and is also a good fit, support and comfortable is worth its weight in gold.
• Bathing suits. This is not even a pure body image issue in terms of seeing more of myself. Bathing suits are sized for a whole body. This does not always take into account my "gifts" or the fact that my torso is longer than average. It's the worst.

This means that the only kind of shopping I really enjoy is shopping for socks, shoes, new glasses, makeup, and jewelery. And the stuff I REALLY like in those categories requires some serious bank! I have champagne tastes. Yes, even in socks. I like really nice ones made out of bamboo, or awesome athletic-esque fibers.

The last time I shopped for real it was to buy as many skirts as I could find that would meet my corporate dress code and also cover up my knee braces. And let me tell you, THAT fashion statement was worth forgetting.

But today, my time had come. Two weeks ago I pulled the belt in tighter. Last weekend, I discovered that my "good" pair of jeans could come up and down my bod without unbuttoning. This morning, I had to try on 4 pairs of pants before settling on a pair I used to wear two years ago. And so today, as I drove past the outlet mall, it had to be done.

I walked in with dread. I walked out with an awesome sweatshirt-jacket, a tank top, two shirt-type things, and . . . drumroll . . . a pair of jeans. Not just a pair of jeans. A pair of jeans one size down.

Excuse me for a minute:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

I kept on trying on jeans in the last size. all different styles, cuts, and colors and thinking, "God, these look awful!." And then the light bulb went off. Christie, if your old jeans that are too big are from this store then maybe new jeans need to be in a new size.

I won't lie, my first instinct was to jump up and down and yell out in glee. But since I didn't want to scare the nice people in Eddie Bauer, I held off. My second instinct was to buy three new pairs of jeans in various styles in color, in order to celebrate the new size. I didn't follow this impulse either.

I  had to realize that this is what I hope is the first of many changes. I'm thrilled to have achieved this milestone, but this is the beginning, not the end. I'm psyched to be one size down and get some positive feedback. I'd feel accomplished to be down two sizes, and happy to be down three. But my target is really to be down four sizes. One down, three more to go. So I held off on splurging and bought one pair. But that one pair feels like . . . it feels better than the fanciest dress I've ever worn. It made me really excited to go running tonight and get up and go walking tomorrow.

It makes me aim for heading back to the outlet store in a couple of months for the next size down. These jeans are the emblem of having a moment today where I said, "this might actually be doable." It's the first time in almost two years that I have felt this is something I have the power to do something about. Two years ago, I was feeling thinner and active, but progressing so slowly that it was hard to stick with it. Then, I busted both my knees in quick succession and the wheels really came off the cart. I will never take for granted the ability to work out  and use my whole body again. I did a full year of PT, brace wearing, procedures, more PT, and being so, so limited in what I could do, that I should really be grateful every time I can now run, swim, walk, or do way too many squats to get a good sweat going, instead of complaining. I need to remember that there are too many people out there who would happily sweat and go through significant pain just to take a few steps. I need to remember how hard it was to join their club for even one year. And I need to savor each time I put on these jeans as a reminder that I do have the ability to choose how this struggle will go. The time will pass either way, so it can go by and I can gain weight, or it can go by and I can lose it. That's up to me.

In the meantime, these are awesome dark-wash boot cut jeans that are clearly intended to be worn with my boots or red shoes. So, I obviously need some awesome black or red shirts to wear with them but red is not the "in" color this year. So, if anyone knows where I should look for that, I'm open to suggestions.

Not in Kansas!

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

I've never been to Kansas, which is a riot since I lived and breathed this movie when I was little. (Sidenote: have you all heard that a remake of the Wizard of Oz is in the works? I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to watch it) But I think I know a bit of the feeling of being displaced - lions, tigers, bears, oh my, some witches, people you didn't expect, and different rules and expectations. Whenever I go somewhere new I like to notice what is different and what is the same. I also notice that when I am on vacation, to a familiar or new place, different rules apply.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this. We all do different things when we're on vacation than we do at home. We might eat different foods or try new ones for the first time, agree to go zip-lining or segue-ing, or even see a movie, band, symphony, opera or performance that hadn't previously been on our list. I've done a lot of things on vacations that are not my norm. In past vacations I've gone to baseball games (and loved it!), taken ferries, eaten poi, learned to snorkel, rented a vehicle for the sole purpose of driving wherever the mood took us, done a Turkey Trot, taken a Duck tour (don't sneer, it is awesomely hilarious), gambled $100, seen a performance that was part dinner theater and part cirque-de-solei type circus, gotten a massage, bought indulgent shoes and helped build a fire pit.

This vacation was no different. I did things I don't normally do such as wearing a baseball cap to the store to expedite getting out of the house, sitting on the porch in pajamas, ordering an avocado margarita, playing pool, eating at a decadent restaurant, hanging out with cats, and losing weight without thinking about it. What was that last one you say? No, you didn't misread it. I lost weight without trying. Moreover, I did it while yummily imbibing things like homemade ice cream sandwiches, homemade fried chicken fingers, burgers, raspberry chocolate mousse cake-lets, risotto (mmmmmmmm, risotto), chocolate covered cherries, beer and enchiladas.

I can't yet prove that I've lost weight since I am still en route to home, but I won't be surprised if once I get there the scale reports a loss of 2-5lbs. My guess is that it's right in between there because I can see that my face is thinner, my shoes are looser (I really am not sure why my body insists on losing weight in my face, feet, and fingers first but that's how it happens!), and shorts that were just a tiny bit tight before are now loose. I've had to bring my belt in one notch (two in the mornings before the metric crazy ton of water I guzzle between waking and 11am). And I've started to have an issue with . . . well, let's just say I've decided to make wearing nice underwear a priority for the next little while.

This is weird, right? Most people would expect to gain weight if they were "vacation-eating." Well, maybe not so. Certainly, if you go on a cruise (have you ever been? I know cruises are changing now, but wen I went it felt like it was our  job to eat) that might be the case. But the way I vacation, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I love, love, LOVE vacation. I often am visiting people I know and not even doing or seeing anything new but my natural vacation-persona is to be ACTIVE. I don't go on vacation and run marathons (or even 5ks, though I walked one once) but I like to get out and make fun happen. I'm typically up for putting on some comfortable clothes and getting to wherever vacation peeps are going with as much walking as possible, and I'd much rather spend most of my vacation DOING rather than sitting. As a case in point, note that on Saturday I got up and cooked for three hours followed by a run before partying, on Sunday I dragged everyone out to Bumbershoot where we had about 4 hours of walking for every one of sitting, yesterday I awoke before my cousin and went out for an exercise walk seeking out as many big hills as I could in in Queen Ann, last night we walked to dinner, and this morning I used my last 90 minutes in Seattle-proper for an urban hike in search of the perfect latte.

Of course, once at the airport I had some indoor hiking to do as well. With all of this activity (both planned as exercise and just taken as the best mode of transportation and enjoying the city) it's no wonder I could get away with eating some things that are not normally on my personal menu.

I personally think, though, there are other factors contributing to this positive vacation loss. I've noticed that FRED has been far away. Last night I had delicious, amazing food in front of me (chips, fresh guac, enchiladas, and my cousin ordered a giant thing of cheese fries) and a miraculous thing happened . . . I was . . . what's this feeling? FULL. Done. Over and out. Enough. Having had so many other wonderfully delicious things over the four days that had preceded that dinner, and having water and an awesome margarita in front of me (I swear! The avocado margarita is not only real, but mind-blowingly good. They were from Laredos and people have corroborated my review of the avocado margarita) FRED seems not to tag along on vacations, though he sometimes comes along for business trips.So, on vacation I can just be done when I'm done. No drama.

The day before at Bumbershoot I had had a small cup of ice cream but was still feeling . . . something. I wasn't feeling painful pinpricks of the aura I get before a migraine or the deep discomfort of crashing blood sugar, so I waited it out. After 30 minutes it occurred to me I needed to drink something. Almost instantly I felt so much better after getting my hands around some clear liquid. Meanwhile, I typically leave my house on a work day with close to a gallon of water plus snacks and healthy options, but if you'd asked me a week ago to tell you when I was hungry vs. when I was thirsty, NO WAY.


I also think that walking is like the opposite of addictive eating. Eating things that are bad for me becomes a negative cycle where, despite the fact that I actually like healthy foods, by eating something "bad" I then crave more bad things. Cheezits lead to popcorn leads to frozen pizza and so on until it becomes a fast and furious negative cycle. I notice that when I'm walking it leads to a desire to do more walking. I start thinking how great it would be to get into a routine of getting up early on three work days a week and walk for 20 minutes. I start planning outfits around good walking shoes so I can walk more. I mean, come on, I went looking for the steepest, tallest most slope-ful hills! It becomes a positive cycle.

Also, I think that walking becomes its own stress relief. I really should seriously think about altering my schedule so I can walk three days a week . . . it's a hard trade off when I think about how little sleep I already get, but it might be worth it if I could feel this good about myself even once a week. And stress definitely plays a role not just in emotional eating (and then indirectly, weight gain) but also in the actual hormones involved with clinging to pounds.


The other thing is this . . . my mind comes off ice when I'm on vacation. I'm generally hanging out with the people I find most stimulating, many of whom are the smartest people I know in real life, when on vacation. So that helps. But I think there is something else. As it turns out, most people who soothe with food either do it because they had role models who did, because they didn't learn to self-soothe in other ways, or because they are addictively eating not to soothe feelings so much as to numb them. I'm the winner of the trifecta because I have all three issues. The big one I've noticed is that at this point, I spend a significant portion of my daily time on autopilot. I just do what needs to be done. I have enough experience at my job to get by on that alone, and I'm just enough unfulfilled by my job or frustrated that I don't want to think about it too hard. (This topic really deserves it's own post and may get it at some point). I did this same thing via a large quantity of vodka each week while writing my second Master's thesis (my adviser was . . .  abusive is the kindest, must publishable word I can come up with. And I had determined I had to leave with my Master's so, I had to tough it out and that's how I did it. It was so not good.) and now I'm all growed up and out of school so I do it without alcohol. So, ironically, while there are scores of people who go on vacation in order to turn off their brain, I go on vacation to turn mine on. I have noticed a significant upward trend of the number of cool words I have in circulation in my vernacular when I take a plane and leave for vacation. (And as a linguist I can measure that scientifically . . . no not really. This is anecdotal evidence from me analyzing me which linguists do like to do, but which my other masters in Cognitive Psychology frowns upon. )

Armed with my whole mind, I can be as compassionate and attentive to me as I would be to a friend. (and again, no data here, but I think I'm a pretty good friend who offers support, compassion, and attention readily. But I tank at being those things to myself. In fact, I tend to be really mean to myself). Mindfulness works ever so much better when accompanied with, you know . . . MY MIND!

Does this mean I should find some way to be on vacation 24/7? Gosh, I don't know what the logistics of that would be but it might be worth it if I could drink beer, eat seriously delish dishes, and still feel this good about myself and motivated to keep going on this journey. And, hey, I'd be GOOD at it, but if I've learned anything from the many different jobs I've held in my life it's that being good at something isn't the same as liking it. More likely, it would be better for me to incorporate some of the things I did right on vacation in my every day life.

Here are the things I think I did right:

• Eating when hungry, not due to a schedule
• Stopping eating when full
• Drinking lots of water (I did that before vacay but need to keep doing it)
• Eating lots of vegetables and protein, and making sure to eat a variety. (Proteins included: shrimp, legumes, chicken, burger, fish, and pork. Vegetables: oh so many! So many colors and yummy salads!)
• Limiting carbs but not to the point of keeping myself from enjoying normal things. I generally had one piece of fruit per day, only a little bread if it was on the table, minimal rice, etc. But I enjoyed the fries with my burger, and the beer, Oh yes I did.
• Eating/drinking a high protein breakfast ASAP after waking up
• Not feeling like I have to finish everything in front of me. I allowed some risotto, half of my enchiladas, and a really unappetizing slice of pizza go uneaten. And it was fine. I mean, I wish the starving children could have had it, but having given to the food drive, I felt like I had done what I could do for them and that it was fine to do this for me
• Asking myself if I'm really hungry, or rather, thirsty or bored instead
• Enjoying my exercise. Not just doing it to do it
• Cooking healthy stuff
• Eating socially but not in a zombie-like way
• Spent more time cooking than eating
• Filled plate ONCE
• I often heard the inside voice saying, "You don't need to eat ____ now, you'll be eating awesome food at _____ soon."
• Not judging myself as being an epic failure when I ate dessert, fries, etc. But rather as a normal person eating normal things, enjoying my vacation
• Not letting the stresses and tensions that I did experience on this trip lead to feeling like food was the answer
• Being able to listen to the inner voice
• Walking
  

It's probably worth mentioning that I spent 6 solid days with people who are fun, interesting, sassy, and who think well of me. (At least I think they do . . . ). I'm sure it didn't hurt to be told that I was cool, funny, a good person, possessed of a "good head on my shoulders, "  and, most memorably, " a class act."

Now stay tuned to see how  I do on working these things into real life.

Referrences:

http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/cortisol.htm

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=53304