About 6 months ago, my doctor frowned at me and said what doctor's say to everyone from time to time. It is never IF they will say it, its WHEN they will say it. Sometimes I think doctors approach strangers on the street and ask them when they are going to drop a few pounds. I think it is a required course in medical school "Weight Management, or How Best To Frustrate Your Patients".
That aside, I was having some health problems so he really did have to say it this time. This was a nightmarish time in my life. My precious youngest son had died the month before. I was lucky to be standing erect and breathing, but my body was about to fall apart and I had to do something or cause my other son to lose his mother and my husband to lose his wife, on top of losing Andy. I cried when he told me I needed to lose weight and said "how do you expect me to solve the unsolvable problem of my life when I am in the worst time in my life?" He just gently patted me and said, I know, but it is what it is.
He told me to get out my phone and load a free app called My Fitness Pal. I didn't have a choice, he made me do it while I was there. I thought this was nuts, because I TRULY believed I was incapable of losing weight with every ounce of my being. I thought there was something wrong with me, because I didn't eat that much. I thought it was going to be one more time where I had to prove it to another doctor.
My Fitness Pal asks you to enter your height, your weight, your age, your sex, and your activity level--like sedentary or active or in-between. Then it asks you what you want to do--maintain your weight, lose weight, etc. I guess you could put in gain weight, but holy cow!!! Then it asks you how much weight you want to lose--I put down 4 pounds a month. I know that sounds like its too slow, but slow and steady will get you there, PLUS it keeps you from getting discouraged-very important for me. After you do that, it tells you how many calories a day you require to meet your goals.
Then all you do is start recording what you eat in the app. There are a couple of ways to do it--you can type in what you ate, like "bread" and it will search and show results for you to choose from--like white bread, etc. You also can scan the bar code on the bread wrapper it will enter that for you directly through the app. You can adjust the serving, like if you ate more or less than one serving, and it tells you what a serving is. It then adds those calories and subtracts them from the total for the day--and tells you how many calories you have left for the day. At the end of the day you can click a button and it will tell you that "if every day were like today, in 5 weeks you will weigh ___" That is really encouraging to me for some reason. It will also show you how much protein, fat and carbs you had and tell you how you did. You can also look at a week or a month and see if you are eating a healthy balance. Really interesting information....
If you exercised, you can add the exercise and it will calculate the calories burned and add extra calories for you to eat for the day.
The main reason this simple process worked for me is the mental aspect--this is what was different. First of all, I agreed that this app is private information that only I see. I also made an agreement with myself that I will put EVERY bite I eat in there no matter what, so I really know what I am eating. If I let myself slip one time in this area, I know I will fail so this is my only absolute non-breakable rule. I put a piece of fudge cake in the app on my birthday, and another piece the day after and just kept on trucking. The other agreement I made with myself is that I could eat anything I wanted, (yes ANYTHING) and that I would let up a little on the weekends, as long as I put what I ate in the app. (The app has all of the restaurant and fast food restaurant nutrition information, so if you ate a Sonic burger and fries it is fast and easy to enter it.) The other agreement I made was to stay away from the scale. Eat anything you want and don't weigh--sounds insane, right?
But here is what happened: when I knew I could have a burger and saw how many calories a Sonic burger was, and what I would weigh in 5 weeks if every day was like today, I stopped wanting Sonic burgers. It was completely without stress. When I discovered that Ranch dressing on a meal salad is 510 calories, I stopped suffering through lettuce lunches. I found some things I love to eat instead, like fresh cooked vegetables. I make a big pot of greens, or green beans, or okra and tomatoes, --all from scratch, and ate that for lunch instead of a dumb salad. I really enjoyed that and found it easy and very natural for me to do. Eating what is natural to you is important as long as you know the calories you are consuming and are responsible for that. One day I was really craving hot cheese dip and Fritos, so I sat in the parking lot at the grocery store and figured out the calories in the app. I ate that for supper and enjoyed it immensely and happily made up the calories and nutrition the next day by choice. But I haven't done it again--that satisfied me.
It is sort of like personal finances, if you think about it. You would never think of going to the mall and writing check after check on things you want without knowing your bank balance. But if there is something you really want, you can save your money for it. In a sense, that is exactly what we are doing by not knowing the calories taken in that day and eating anything you want. I know this for sure: I can eat what I want and as long as I am honest in the app and I stay below my calories, I will definitely lose weight. I don't have to think, or feel guilty or wring my hands either.
When I stopped weighing (sometimes I won't even let the doctor weigh me), I started thinking in terms of what I was eating in a week, or a month, instead of in a day instead of being terrified about the next weigh-in. If I have a bad day, it doesn't bother me as much because I know it will work out over time. The first time I weighed I had lost 30 pounds, the second time 58 pounds! It felt incredible! Do you know how freeing that is to not have to answer to that stupid scale? I just did what I was supposed to do and trusted the process. Also, if I want to plan a big day, I can do that--naturally, and I emphasize naturally--what is natural for Susan.
Susan is not a meat eater, and diets that make you consume lots of fat and no carbs is not natural for Susan. Susan does not like salad that much, so eating salad is not natural. If I make myself eat things that are not natural, I feel deprived. I love fruit, and I know it is good for me, but a lot of "diets" won't let you eat fruit. I have to live this way forever, you know. I love potatoes. (sigh) The answer to that has turned out to be that I eat only fresh home-made potatoes because they have less calories (a lot less) than frozen or restaurant. It is also not natural for me to peel potatoes with any regularity, so I don't eat very many anymore. However, I know I can have them when I want them. In this simple process, I am eating healthier and eating nothing processed. Did you ever read the label on frozen dinners? They are VERY high in calories, are gross and you get hungry later. I can't afford that.
Is it really this easy? It never occurred to me to use my own brain to lose weight. If I know that cupcake is 600 calories, and know what it will cost me, I won't eat it. It's not willpower, it is about my own desire to not want to weigh that big number in 5 weeks over a stupid cupcake. If I REALLY crave a cupcake, I eat one--and record it. The next day, that cupcake is in the back of my mind and I am noticing that I always make better choices to make up for it.
Who knew that the best doctor was the doctor in me? If I know what am eating, and what I will weigh if I eat it, my brain chooses the right answer almost every time. If I know I can have a bad day and still lose weight because I am not afraid of the scale, I find it easy to keep going. Absolutely no willpower, just brainpower that comes from knowing what is crossing my lips and exactly how it will react in my particular body. Isn't that what a lifestyle change really is?
One other thing that is a incredibly important: you need a safe environment. I don't keep chips and cupcakes, and especially Cheetos in the house, because I will EAT them. This is also very natural for Susan! However, every Sunday, I put food in the house that I like to eat that won't hurt me. When you get hungry, or stressed, your brain gets stupid in that area, for some reason. If I find Cheetos when I am hungry or stressed, I will eat Cheetos--there is no compromise in this. So I don't ever keep Cheetos in the house. I allow myself to stress eat, that is also natural for me! I keep gallon jars of those big dill pickles in the house just for that, because I love them. (Get that celery away from me!)
Somehow, miraculously, I have lost nearly 60 pounds in 6 months without exercising (yet), without feeling hungry or deprived during the most stressful time in my life. It really was that easy.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Half-Ton Mom
Last night I watched a documentary on TV about a woman who was 29 years old and weighed nearly 900 pounds. I honestly don't know why I watched it, I think I wanted a little reality check-up to make sure I was not slipping into that mediocracy in diet-land that always leads to failure. The truth is, I have the tendency to rationalize too much and think that failure really and truly is no longer lurking and let up just a tad. However, if I let up just a tad, I always stop loosing weight. If I stop loosing weight, I give up. Rationalizing has enormous consequences. Loosing weight is mathematical and scientific--it just FEELS emotional.
Watching the story of this woman was painful to me, but the message I took from this story was not the intended message. I usually avoid these documentaries because they feel sensationalistic to me, and also because my deepest fear has always been that there, for the grace of God go I! So as the moth was drawn to the flame, I tuned in. The woman, Renee Williams, was a young Hispanic woman with three young daughters. She had beautiful long, jet-black, shiny hair, and a lovely face and loving personality. Her daughters were precious, and obviously adored their mom.
I was shocked at her sheer mass. Her enormous arms dwarfed her head, her body seemed to cover what appeared to be a king-sized bed. She was immobile, confined to lay semi-paralyzed in a world where she could not lift her legs, sit up, or walk. All she seemed to be able to do is to talk to her daughters (not hug them), use a laptop rested on her chest, and.... eat enormous amounts of food.
She had a caretaker who lovingly prepared meals for her, and emphatically admitted that she had a "very healthy appetite". He remarked that she loved old fashioned comfort foods, loved snack foods and cookies which had to be brought to her bed since she was immobile. Her pre-teen daughter was obviously worried about her, and said that her mother would send her to a local fast food restaurant to buy 8 hamburgers for her, in addition to the meals and snacks that the home-health caretaker was preparing and bringing her.
The documentary contained self-videos with Renee's desperate appeals for help to acquire weight-loss surgery, and centered on the tragedy surrounding how the "super obese" were turned away because of their high surgical risk. Finally, Renaissance Hospital in Houston was introduced as the saviors that agreed to do the risky gastric bypass surgery on her. Renaissance specializes in obesity surgery, and is one of the only hospitals that will do surgery on patients in excess of 400 pounds. The surgeon commented that when he informed a super-obese patient that it was very possible that they would not survive the surgery, that 100% of them replied "they didn't care." An official of the hospital, herself a success story of gastric by-pass surgery, passionately explained that the obese have less than a 95% chance of loosing weight on their own, and that the super-obese have virtually no chance. The official's life had truly been changed by the surgery, and this lovely, compassionate woman was emotional and passionate about weight-loss surgery. Her opinions were deeply colored with the emotions of her experience, and the solution that weight loss surgery afforded her. Because of this, I would not call her objective. Her comments rang very familiar to me as I remembered hearing from the surgeon in Houston a few months ago that , even though I am a fraction of Renee's size, loosing weight on my own was nearly hopeless and that dangerous surgery was my only hope. He emphasized that I was a ticking time bomb, adding another level to my desperation. Hearing the same comments on the documentary infuriated me because I knew from experience that hopeless desperation is not a state of mind in which to make an informed decision.
Transporting Renee to the hospital was an event that left me speechless. A fire truck and ambulance was called to the house, and a dozen firemen filed into her bedroom, along with an EMT crew. As the camera rolled, the men rolled the 900 pound, semi-clad body to her side as a tarp was pushed under her, then rolled to the other side and pulled through. After she was on the tarp, 10 men pulled and heaved and inched her toward the stretcher. It took all of the firemen to move the stretcher through the house, barely able to get her through the doors and down the stoop. Truck ramps were installed on the ambulance to load her, and neighbors stood and watched as the dozen firemen grunted and heaved the stretcher up the ramp into the ambulance. I observed Renee silently and courageously endure this humiliation, and wondered if she was happy to see the sky again as she was wheeled through the yard.
The surgery was filmed, her body across two operating tables; the only way the surgeons could access the middle of her body was by standing on step stools and leaning across her body. The doctors were concerned that her blood gasses were problematic because the weight of her body mass was restricting her breathing. A mechanism was used to mechanically crank up and lift the fat on her abdomen so that they could access the organs beneath it. Miraculously, Renee survived the surgery and joyously began her recovery.
She was hospitalized for two weeks as she recovered and gained hope. In the two weeks following the surgery, she lost 60 pounds. Then suddenly, she went into cardiac arrest as a result of the surgery and died.
The funeral was attended by the woman administrator at the hospital, who wiped sincere tears from her eyes. The young daughters were inconsolable, and dropped rose petals on the enormous casket that was lowered into the ground by a hoist. Since Renee's surgery, a man who weighed in excess of 1000 pounds was literally cut from his home and had surgery at Renaissance. I could not bear to watch any more, so I turned off the TV before I learned the outcome of his surgery.
I need to say that Renee's death pisses me off! Instead of doing the surgery that killed her, why didn't the hospital facilitate an intervention with the family and caregiver that were bringing her every life-taking bite of junk food she ate? If she had been a drug addict, she would have been placed in a treatment facility where she would be detoxed, and learn why she needed to medicate herself with drugs. Why didn't the hospital put her on a controlled diet in the hospital while they had her in there, and give her treatment, therapy and education to empower her to lose at least some of the weight on her own? If it had merely given her a better chance at surviving the surgery, it was worth it. I know from experience that this option wasn't even discussed with Renee. She was told she had to have the surgery or die, and she made the best decision she could based on this information.
I don't know why Renee had to die. It was ultimately her fault, because no one forced her to eat that amount of food over the years. However, Renee had no confidence that she was capable of loosing the weight because she had been told it was impossible by experts. I know because I have been there. Imagine just telling an alcoholic that it was impossible to recover.
I just don't understand why the only help most doctors can offer the obese is surgery. I hate to suggest that it is about money, but no doubt the profit margin figures in to their decision. If we have accessible treatment facilities to rehabilitate alcoholics and drug addicts, why are facilities not readily accessible for people like Renee? I guess one of the things that concerns me the most is that one of her daughters is already obese.
We are ultimately the captains of our own ships. I am just so grateful that I stopped believing the doctors when they said I couldn't do it. Stand back and watch me!!!
RIP Renee, you made a difference.
Watching the story of this woman was painful to me, but the message I took from this story was not the intended message. I usually avoid these documentaries because they feel sensationalistic to me, and also because my deepest fear has always been that there, for the grace of God go I! So as the moth was drawn to the flame, I tuned in. The woman, Renee Williams, was a young Hispanic woman with three young daughters. She had beautiful long, jet-black, shiny hair, and a lovely face and loving personality. Her daughters were precious, and obviously adored their mom.
I was shocked at her sheer mass. Her enormous arms dwarfed her head, her body seemed to cover what appeared to be a king-sized bed. She was immobile, confined to lay semi-paralyzed in a world where she could not lift her legs, sit up, or walk. All she seemed to be able to do is to talk to her daughters (not hug them), use a laptop rested on her chest, and.... eat enormous amounts of food.
She had a caretaker who lovingly prepared meals for her, and emphatically admitted that she had a "very healthy appetite". He remarked that she loved old fashioned comfort foods, loved snack foods and cookies which had to be brought to her bed since she was immobile. Her pre-teen daughter was obviously worried about her, and said that her mother would send her to a local fast food restaurant to buy 8 hamburgers for her, in addition to the meals and snacks that the home-health caretaker was preparing and bringing her.
The documentary contained self-videos with Renee's desperate appeals for help to acquire weight-loss surgery, and centered on the tragedy surrounding how the "super obese" were turned away because of their high surgical risk. Finally, Renaissance Hospital in Houston was introduced as the saviors that agreed to do the risky gastric bypass surgery on her. Renaissance specializes in obesity surgery, and is one of the only hospitals that will do surgery on patients in excess of 400 pounds. The surgeon commented that when he informed a super-obese patient that it was very possible that they would not survive the surgery, that 100% of them replied "they didn't care." An official of the hospital, herself a success story of gastric by-pass surgery, passionately explained that the obese have less than a 95% chance of loosing weight on their own, and that the super-obese have virtually no chance. The official's life had truly been changed by the surgery, and this lovely, compassionate woman was emotional and passionate about weight-loss surgery. Her opinions were deeply colored with the emotions of her experience, and the solution that weight loss surgery afforded her. Because of this, I would not call her objective. Her comments rang very familiar to me as I remembered hearing from the surgeon in Houston a few months ago that , even though I am a fraction of Renee's size, loosing weight on my own was nearly hopeless and that dangerous surgery was my only hope. He emphasized that I was a ticking time bomb, adding another level to my desperation. Hearing the same comments on the documentary infuriated me because I knew from experience that hopeless desperation is not a state of mind in which to make an informed decision.
Transporting Renee to the hospital was an event that left me speechless. A fire truck and ambulance was called to the house, and a dozen firemen filed into her bedroom, along with an EMT crew. As the camera rolled, the men rolled the 900 pound, semi-clad body to her side as a tarp was pushed under her, then rolled to the other side and pulled through. After she was on the tarp, 10 men pulled and heaved and inched her toward the stretcher. It took all of the firemen to move the stretcher through the house, barely able to get her through the doors and down the stoop. Truck ramps were installed on the ambulance to load her, and neighbors stood and watched as the dozen firemen grunted and heaved the stretcher up the ramp into the ambulance. I observed Renee silently and courageously endure this humiliation, and wondered if she was happy to see the sky again as she was wheeled through the yard.
The surgery was filmed, her body across two operating tables; the only way the surgeons could access the middle of her body was by standing on step stools and leaning across her body. The doctors were concerned that her blood gasses were problematic because the weight of her body mass was restricting her breathing. A mechanism was used to mechanically crank up and lift the fat on her abdomen so that they could access the organs beneath it. Miraculously, Renee survived the surgery and joyously began her recovery.
She was hospitalized for two weeks as she recovered and gained hope. In the two weeks following the surgery, she lost 60 pounds. Then suddenly, she went into cardiac arrest as a result of the surgery and died.
The funeral was attended by the woman administrator at the hospital, who wiped sincere tears from her eyes. The young daughters were inconsolable, and dropped rose petals on the enormous casket that was lowered into the ground by a hoist. Since Renee's surgery, a man who weighed in excess of 1000 pounds was literally cut from his home and had surgery at Renaissance. I could not bear to watch any more, so I turned off the TV before I learned the outcome of his surgery.
I need to say that Renee's death pisses me off! Instead of doing the surgery that killed her, why didn't the hospital facilitate an intervention with the family and caregiver that were bringing her every life-taking bite of junk food she ate? If she had been a drug addict, she would have been placed in a treatment facility where she would be detoxed, and learn why she needed to medicate herself with drugs. Why didn't the hospital put her on a controlled diet in the hospital while they had her in there, and give her treatment, therapy and education to empower her to lose at least some of the weight on her own? If it had merely given her a better chance at surviving the surgery, it was worth it. I know from experience that this option wasn't even discussed with Renee. She was told she had to have the surgery or die, and she made the best decision she could based on this information.
I don't know why Renee had to die. It was ultimately her fault, because no one forced her to eat that amount of food over the years. However, Renee had no confidence that she was capable of loosing the weight because she had been told it was impossible by experts. I know because I have been there. Imagine just telling an alcoholic that it was impossible to recover.
I just don't understand why the only help most doctors can offer the obese is surgery. I hate to suggest that it is about money, but no doubt the profit margin figures in to their decision. If we have accessible treatment facilities to rehabilitate alcoholics and drug addicts, why are facilities not readily accessible for people like Renee? I guess one of the things that concerns me the most is that one of her daughters is already obese.
We are ultimately the captains of our own ships. I am just so grateful that I stopped believing the doctors when they said I couldn't do it. Stand back and watch me!!!
RIP Renee, you made a difference.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Down In My Back
A few days ago, I woke up with a splitting backache. Not the kind where you need to go to the emergency room or anything, but the kind where one muscle decides to go renegade and generally hurts like the dickens. I guess I slept on it wrong, which is a strange expression if you think about it, but remarkably accurate in this case. I would love to believe that someone in my life might say "well it's no WONDER with the way you cooked last week, poor thing! Next year WE are cooking and you will just relax!" Sure. Right. My present station in life tends to lend itself to self-abuse before a hot stove to celebrate the holidays, for some reason.
Fresh out of Thanksgiving week, I decided to engaged in a frank conversation with Dennis (or a Dennis conversation with Frank) about "having my back" when I go through a slump with this new way of living. I told him that if I got discouraged, it was his job to back me up. If I got in a "what's the use?" mood, then he was to instantly start cooking broccoli in the hopes that I would snap back to my senses. The whole time I was telling him this, I was listening to the drone of my voice and thinking that this was futile, it is impossible for those types of words to be heard by male ears-- sort of like one of those dog whistles. You ladies know how men can be.
The post-Thanksgiving weekend went fine, and in spite of the post-pie-syndrome (PPS) which had my body craving carbs, I required no intervention. Then I woke up with a backache on Monday morning.
The backache really threw me for a some sort of strange and unexpected psycho-loop. I haven't suffered since I began this, no virus has invaded, no accident has left its mark on me, and no stomach virus has rendered me pitiful. Suffering often has an unpleasant side effect for me which is simply unexplainable. I know when I am really sick when I cry over cat food commercials. I can't explain the sentimentality that comes with infirmity, I just know that it happens. Being sick lowers my mental age, and causes me to seek comfort and excuses why I can let myself slide. It causes me to want my Momma, to be sweet to myself, and to hold a major pity-party when I still have to get up and go to work anyway.
As the week wore on, I found my initial challenge of being too busy to plan meals compounded with the fact that my back hurt too bad to shop for healthy food. I took a little time off, which meant my husband had to work longer and harder in our business. One day about mid-week, I was home taking muscle relaxers and staying off of my feet when the meal planning just seemed to pale in comparison. I mean, after all, I am in pain, Dennis is working late, and sometimes you just have to do what you can to get by. But then, last week was Thanksgiving, and two weeks before that was my birthday, and when all of these excuses keep lining up, I will never get anywhere, will I? I was frustrated, and felt guilty that I needed Dennis to take care of dinner after he got home after working a 12-hour day. The words of defeat actually crossed my lips, and I said "what's the use, Dennis, just go pick some fast-food up, this is impossible."
What happened shocked me. The man who I asked to "have my back", the man who had worked 12 hours and was finally on his way home at 8PM, the man I thought had stored my request in the same place he stores my requests to pick up his socks said to me "No. I am coming home and cooking us a healthy dinner, and then will clean up the kitchen. You aren't giving up tonight." He did exactly that.
My wonderful doctor told me early on not to let Dennis, or anyone else sabotage my efforts. I was prepared to deal with contraband waved under my nose. I was prepared for complaints about the menu. However, it never occurred to me that he was willing to have my back to this degree.
Since that tough-talking doctor in Houston warned me that 95% of obese people fail at weight loss, I have been thinking about the qualities of the 5% of the ones who SUCCEED. I think having someone to have your back is definitely on the list.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Digesting Thanksgiving Dinner
I can't look into the future. I don't know if I will win the lottery this week, or if I will ever be discovered and become a movie star, or even whether the sun will come up tomorrow. However, there are a few things I know for sure. I know that my dog will always be happy when I get home, and that I will always love my family, and that never, never, will mourners stand over my grave and say "poor thing, she was so stressed that she just starved herself to death."
From the day we are born, we are taught that food is comfort. Our first experiences with being fed are combined with being wrapped in a warm blanket and held next to our mother's heart, as she rocked and sang to us. Well no wonder that when we have a bad day the first thing we want is Oreo cookies! Am I suggesting that, from now on, as a way to remove this human trait, that we systematically blow an air horn behind all feeding infants? I think not. No...I definitely think this is a bad idea. However, as thinking adults we need to embrace the emotions that naturally flow through food, especially if we are one of the humans that God generously endowed with extra fat.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I, for one, am thankful it is over. I have learned that having a plan is paramount to my success as a svelte angel. Together, my sister and I bought a thousand groceries in preparation for the family feast. Our challenge was to scale down quantity while our guest list was being manipulated daily. Having enough food without having too many tempting leftovers while anticipating the sum total of possible diners became a task akin to quantum physics. We divided the menu between us, and two kitchens were filled with the sounds and smells of cooking for two days. I was left unsupervised in a kitchen with most, if not all, of my favorite trigger foods--all carbs! When no one was looking, I did GREAT. I ate only what I planned, and the carb-rich leftovers were out of my house by this morning. I am proud of me.
However, the negative emotions that flowed through me surrounding the Thanksgiving meal were frightening, and this surprised me. Early on I became aware that I was spending too much time planning the menu, and it puzzled me. My initial distorted reaction to this realization was to think "it must be true" --the old, ugly impressions embedded by weight-loss groups or misinformed doctors in my past. My over-planning must be something diagnostic that proves something abnormal about me. These old thoughts have the ability to rob me of my success, in essence THEY are my weight problem. When I really drilled down into my thoughts, I realized that I sincerely was not excited about the food that was ahead. I was just over-planning the planning! I am so determined not to fail that I not only wanted an escape route, but a hatch within the escape route in case it failed. I have already embraced that my largest obstacle will be my perfectionist traits, setting unrealistic goals and pushing myself too hard--sort of like "no pain, no gain" on steroids. I didn't see this until today, when I found myself surprised at how easy it was to simply be aware of the plan and follow it. The problem is not Thanksgiving dinner, the problem is to be accountable for the calories you consume over SEVERAL days, not the one. Once I embraced that, I could just do it. The unnecessary emotions and fear, were associated with the big picture and emotional scars of my entire weight problem and the years I have spent fighting it. Somehow, someway, I need to remember that the defeatist hammer I sometimes think is poised over me is only there if I let it stay. Tomorrow I can always have a do-over. I am beginning to believe that it is really that simple. Christmas is going to be easier since I learned this.
From the day we are born, we are taught that food is comfort. Our first experiences with being fed are combined with being wrapped in a warm blanket and held next to our mother's heart, as she rocked and sang to us. Well no wonder that when we have a bad day the first thing we want is Oreo cookies! Am I suggesting that, from now on, as a way to remove this human trait, that we systematically blow an air horn behind all feeding infants? I think not. No...I definitely think this is a bad idea. However, as thinking adults we need to embrace the emotions that naturally flow through food, especially if we are one of the humans that God generously endowed with extra fat.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I, for one, am thankful it is over. I have learned that having a plan is paramount to my success as a svelte angel. Together, my sister and I bought a thousand groceries in preparation for the family feast. Our challenge was to scale down quantity while our guest list was being manipulated daily. Having enough food without having too many tempting leftovers while anticipating the sum total of possible diners became a task akin to quantum physics. We divided the menu between us, and two kitchens were filled with the sounds and smells of cooking for two days. I was left unsupervised in a kitchen with most, if not all, of my favorite trigger foods--all carbs! When no one was looking, I did GREAT. I ate only what I planned, and the carb-rich leftovers were out of my house by this morning. I am proud of me.
However, the negative emotions that flowed through me surrounding the Thanksgiving meal were frightening, and this surprised me. Early on I became aware that I was spending too much time planning the menu, and it puzzled me. My initial distorted reaction to this realization was to think "it must be true" --the old, ugly impressions embedded by weight-loss groups or misinformed doctors in my past. My over-planning must be something diagnostic that proves something abnormal about me. These old thoughts have the ability to rob me of my success, in essence THEY are my weight problem. When I really drilled down into my thoughts, I realized that I sincerely was not excited about the food that was ahead. I was just over-planning the planning! I am so determined not to fail that I not only wanted an escape route, but a hatch within the escape route in case it failed. I have already embraced that my largest obstacle will be my perfectionist traits, setting unrealistic goals and pushing myself too hard--sort of like "no pain, no gain" on steroids. I didn't see this until today, when I found myself surprised at how easy it was to simply be aware of the plan and follow it. The problem is not Thanksgiving dinner, the problem is to be accountable for the calories you consume over SEVERAL days, not the one. Once I embraced that, I could just do it. The unnecessary emotions and fear, were associated with the big picture and emotional scars of my entire weight problem and the years I have spent fighting it. Somehow, someway, I need to remember that the defeatist hammer I sometimes think is poised over me is only there if I let it stay. Tomorrow I can always have a do-over. I am beginning to believe that it is really that simple. Christmas is going to be easier since I learned this.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Undressing a Thanksgiving Turkey
Tis the season to be fat. Let's face it--the holidays are about consumption, including and ESPECIALLY food. I am the main Momma, I am the turkey cooker, the main cheese whiz, the banana peeler, and the person who is responsible for creating the aroma in the house that makes my family smile and feel like the good old days. My dressing is what my kids crave, Mother's sweet potato recipe is lovingly resurrected in her memory, and Anna Beth's chocolate pie is cooked only twice a year and this is one of them. The dance of the sugar plum fairy plays on my TV, Hershey kisses ring like a bell-choir on the tube, catalogs fill my mailbox with every confection known to woman on every page. I really don't wince when I look at chocolate candy anymore--that is sooooo.....yesterday. (sigh) However, I want to cook all of those wonderful holiday sweets and treats that makes my family smile, and then makes me argue with myself in the middle of the night in front of the refrigerator. Seeing the smiles on my family's faces just doesn't cut it for me.
I love watching the Martha Stewart show around holidays. One year, I watched her show at Easter and spent the next week making individual Easter baskets out of pipe cleaners for my Easter table! After that, I wouldn't let myself watch her again. I also love to watch Mad Hungry and the diva of coronary artery disease herself, Paula Dean. I love to cook for the family at holidays, plain and simple. I have slowly allowed myself back on the Martha Stewart show, and saw her make the finest apple pie in the world yesterday. Oh, how autumnal, how lovely, how fragrant! Certainly there is nothing wrong with that! It is just a shame that it contains the sugar-drug that will set me off on cravings and set me up for failure. Evil, evil Martha, with that trim waist and that herb garden. It's plain not fair.
But, it is what it is.
Again I must have a plan. I will cook the fragrant tasties, and I will enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner with my family. I will add some really tasty healthy foods that lend themselves well to the holidays, like.....uh.....well.....let me get back to you on that. The main thing is, I MUST MUST MUST not keep leftovers this year. Inside I hear my voice whining, "but I just looooove Broccoli Rice Casserole and I only get it once a year and I love to eat it for breakfast the next day." That is one of those problem foods for me. You know what I mean, the kind that sings to you, the kind that you can't stop thinking about. I talked to a friend today who just had open heart surgery and told me how he unsuccessfully tried twice to slip out of the bed to stand at the freezer and eat ice cream out of the carton last night. Both times, his wife intervened and he didn't get ice cream. OK, like that is ever going to happen to me! I could get up and fry chicken and Dennis wouldn't know it. The dogs would, but they would be delighted. Dogs don't care if you are fat.
But I care if I am fat, so I have to choose between the holiday food and the Svelte Angel. I will enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner, every bite, without guilt. Then no matter how many children are starving in China, I will put the leftovers in the trash, padlock the refrigerator and throw away the key. I promise, because I am worth it.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Devil's Food Made Me Do It
I am struggling. I mean I am really struggling, with cravings and all of those awful you-big-fat-looser feelings I get when I am reminded exactly how much and for how long I have failed at this. This is painful stuff for me that I want to run screaming from the problem. I know a big part of this is physical, when I first settled into the lowered carbs in my system I lost the cravings, and when I lost the cravings I ate properly and felt great about myself. However, there have been some real Devils in my path the last couple of weeks and I was thinking a little sin wouldn't kill me.
I would like to believe that, actually, I mean this IS for the rest of my life. I would like to believe that occasionally I can have carbs and not find myself as I am now--up at 1:23 AM blogging about it. The Devil in disguise looked harmless enough: I have hosted two parties in three weeks at my house. For both parties, I had to prepare a carb-rich dish for what was a covered dish and after both parties, a great deal of carb-rich food was left at my house. Last blog, I bragged about how my potato salad was not calling to me, and how surprised I was! Well let me tell you, the Devil's Food brownie's that were left here at the last party know how to speak my name in four languages!
I avoided those brownies for 5 hours at the party, until my head kicked in. "Let's see, that is a one inch thick square--there can't be more than 50 calories and 20 carbs in it, and after all, a little sugar once in 7 weeks won't kill you and will keep you from craving it." That mental conversion to the dark side reminded me where the name "Devil's Food" must have come from. I explained it the same way to myself as I grazed by the next day and picked up two more. I keep asking myself "why in the world didn't I just throw them away?" I thought it was because I hate to waste food, *BUZZER* and that my kids and husband shouldn't have to not have them. *BUZZER*. If this were a game show, I would be going home. This is hard to say, but I must: "I wanted to keep them for me!!!" Truthfully, the calories probably didn't hurt me a bit, but the carbs lit a fuse that has had me white-knuckling these last couple of days. The white-knuckling alone won't kill me, but it starts the mental self hate-mongering. The combination of the three has the potential to do me in. Somebody in my head lied to me about that brownie. Intellectualizing and rationalizing doesn't work with a drug, and sugar is a drug that makes you crave more. Carbs cause cravings, simple and plain. Cravings cause failure, simple and plain. I wish it weren't true, but here I sit.
I woke up from a bad dream to write this. I was in one of my first houses, the house I lived in just before I bought my first house. There was a bad guy in the house and I was running from him and hiding from him, but I kept falling asleep. I was in the living room and was looking out of the door for the bad guy when I discovered someone in the room behind me. I turned, ready to fight, and was surprised to see my wonderful doctor standing there, explaining that he was not real and that I was OK. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.
My meals are planned and in the house for the rest of the week, and I am getting up this minute and throwing those evil brownies in the outside trash. The Angel is in the building.
I would like to believe that, actually, I mean this IS for the rest of my life. I would like to believe that occasionally I can have carbs and not find myself as I am now--up at 1:23 AM blogging about it. The Devil in disguise looked harmless enough: I have hosted two parties in three weeks at my house. For both parties, I had to prepare a carb-rich dish for what was a covered dish and after both parties, a great deal of carb-rich food was left at my house. Last blog, I bragged about how my potato salad was not calling to me, and how surprised I was! Well let me tell you, the Devil's Food brownie's that were left here at the last party know how to speak my name in four languages!
I avoided those brownies for 5 hours at the party, until my head kicked in. "Let's see, that is a one inch thick square--there can't be more than 50 calories and 20 carbs in it, and after all, a little sugar once in 7 weeks won't kill you and will keep you from craving it." That mental conversion to the dark side reminded me where the name "Devil's Food" must have come from. I explained it the same way to myself as I grazed by the next day and picked up two more. I keep asking myself "why in the world didn't I just throw them away?" I thought it was because I hate to waste food, *BUZZER* and that my kids and husband shouldn't have to not have them. *BUZZER*. If this were a game show, I would be going home. This is hard to say, but I must: "I wanted to keep them for me!!!" Truthfully, the calories probably didn't hurt me a bit, but the carbs lit a fuse that has had me white-knuckling these last couple of days. The white-knuckling alone won't kill me, but it starts the mental self hate-mongering. The combination of the three has the potential to do me in. Somebody in my head lied to me about that brownie. Intellectualizing and rationalizing doesn't work with a drug, and sugar is a drug that makes you crave more. Carbs cause cravings, simple and plain. Cravings cause failure, simple and plain. I wish it weren't true, but here I sit.
I woke up from a bad dream to write this. I was in one of my first houses, the house I lived in just before I bought my first house. There was a bad guy in the house and I was running from him and hiding from him, but I kept falling asleep. I was in the living room and was looking out of the door for the bad guy when I discovered someone in the room behind me. I turned, ready to fight, and was surprised to see my wonderful doctor standing there, explaining that he was not real and that I was OK. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.
My meals are planned and in the house for the rest of the week, and I am getting up this minute and throwing those evil brownies in the outside trash. The Angel is in the building.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Angel Aware
I am puzzled by something that delights me. As I go through my days, the old gun-shyness still rares its extremely ugly head as I watch TV, walk through the grocery store and watch for evil lurking behind baked goods or in the potato chip aisle. When a commercial comes on where melted chocolate is being poured over something even better, I normally recoil and quickly change the channel, in hopes of stifling a craving that eventually will need to be satisfied in something fattening. When these cravings were denied a long time, I must admit that I felt mistreated and, to be perfectly honest, felt sorry for myself because I am not the type that can EVER indulge. Eventually I gave in, ate the chocolate thing, and felt guilty. There is nothing cerebral about this process, I will assure you.
Since I have vowed to be brutally honest with myself, I need to admit something incredibly cool! I still am seeing the evil commercials, and early on I resorted to the decades-old habit of recoiling in fear of feeling those awful feelings which could end with a rendezvous with that chocolate thing and the ensuing guilt. I noticed recently that those commercials no longer have an emotional bang for me. In fact, I have pretty much been able to leave the remote control alone over the last week. This is new for me, and I am finding myself so much more at ease, and it is wonderful. However, one thing is REALLY new for me. Like everyone, I have trigger foods that I have trouble leaving alone. My husband is the same way, which is why I never keep baked goods in the house. (thank God for sugar free jello!) My trigger foods are different than his, starches like potato salad, broccoli and rice casserole, and baked potatoes. My early vow was to simply keep them out of the house, to embrace the idea that I have trouble leaving them alone and solve it by simply extracting them from my reach. Over the last two weekends, we have had guests for parties or for dinner on our new deck. I do not believe in forcing my dietary restrictions on guests, so I prepared the standard fare for a BBQ, which included my home-made potato salad. I put more effort into planning how to deal with the potato salad in the house than in cooking the potato salad! I was going to allow myself to have a small portion, and then send every bite of left-overs home with my guests. The next weekend, we were grilling steaks for our dinner guests, and my husband and I discussed how to be a good host while still staying within common sense for our eating plan. I googled carbs and calories in a baked potato and discovered that it would be OK to split a medium baked potato with my husband once in awhile. I also had problems not offering dessert to my guests, even though I needed to stay away. I decided to bake a frozen cobbler, and that I would allow myself a very small serving, after all, this is for the rest of my life and I am really working on relaxing into the process. This would be the only sugar that had crossed my lips in six weeks, and I thought that was reasonable as long as it was a little serving, and a one-time thing and I went right back to work the next day.
Here is the cool thing. I put the pre-planned amount of each of these trigger foods on my plate at these two parties, I ate a couple of bites and thought, I don't WANT this. This is bad for me and it is just not worth it. I just threw it away, just like that. I was shocked at how easy this was for me; this is new for me in this lifetime. I can't help but wonder what is going on that is just so different this time. While I am 100% engaged and determined, I feel more may be at play than just my ability to white-knuckle past dietary obstacles. Another noticeable difference is the total lack of emotion in this, no guilt, no feeling sorry for myself. It is though my intellect has at last entered the building after all of these years. What the heck?
Honestly, I think there are several "angels" at work in this. First, I honestly think I have some help from real angels--I am so determined and so easy in my mind. Second, I think the science angel is helping a lot. My bloodwork showed I had a high Insulin level. We all understand how powerful hormones are, and that they can impact emotion, thinking and behavior. Insulin is a hormone, capable of wielding enormous power over the human body. I have been eating a very small amount of carbs, and that drives down the Insulin. It is my understanding that carbs cause cravings, and that Metformin also lowers the Insulin, which also causes cravings. Whatever is happening, I am just grateful, grateful, grateful! Could it really be this easy? After 45 years of struggling with my weight, have I finally found a doctor who has found the source of the problem instead of just wanting to treat the symptoms with surgery? My own Mother died at age 62 due to complications from weight loss surgery--I can't help but wonder what would have happened if she had access to Metformin and this bit of knowledge about what caused her weight problem. That part hurts.
I can't help but credit my wonderful doctor. It costs a few hundred dollars for the bloodwork to test for the metabolic causes of obesity, plus occasional visits to re-check bloodwork. The first surgeon that did weight-loss surgery never even met me before he saw me just before checking out of the hospital post-surgery. The thousands I paid him for the few minutes he spent with me during surgery pale in comparison to what my current doctor is making curing me. When I was a teacher, I used to joke about the kids getting in the way of my job! Apparently, unfortunately, patients often get in the way of the medical community making money, too.
All I know is that I am different now, I feel different now. While I have some regret that a cure has been so incredibly slow coming, I am overwhelming grateful and hopeful that it may just be at hand.
Since I have vowed to be brutally honest with myself, I need to admit something incredibly cool! I still am seeing the evil commercials, and early on I resorted to the decades-old habit of recoiling in fear of feeling those awful feelings which could end with a rendezvous with that chocolate thing and the ensuing guilt. I noticed recently that those commercials no longer have an emotional bang for me. In fact, I have pretty much been able to leave the remote control alone over the last week. This is new for me, and I am finding myself so much more at ease, and it is wonderful. However, one thing is REALLY new for me. Like everyone, I have trigger foods that I have trouble leaving alone. My husband is the same way, which is why I never keep baked goods in the house. (thank God for sugar free jello!) My trigger foods are different than his, starches like potato salad, broccoli and rice casserole, and baked potatoes. My early vow was to simply keep them out of the house, to embrace the idea that I have trouble leaving them alone and solve it by simply extracting them from my reach. Over the last two weekends, we have had guests for parties or for dinner on our new deck. I do not believe in forcing my dietary restrictions on guests, so I prepared the standard fare for a BBQ, which included my home-made potato salad. I put more effort into planning how to deal with the potato salad in the house than in cooking the potato salad! I was going to allow myself to have a small portion, and then send every bite of left-overs home with my guests. The next weekend, we were grilling steaks for our dinner guests, and my husband and I discussed how to be a good host while still staying within common sense for our eating plan. I googled carbs and calories in a baked potato and discovered that it would be OK to split a medium baked potato with my husband once in awhile. I also had problems not offering dessert to my guests, even though I needed to stay away. I decided to bake a frozen cobbler, and that I would allow myself a very small serving, after all, this is for the rest of my life and I am really working on relaxing into the process. This would be the only sugar that had crossed my lips in six weeks, and I thought that was reasonable as long as it was a little serving, and a one-time thing and I went right back to work the next day.
Here is the cool thing. I put the pre-planned amount of each of these trigger foods on my plate at these two parties, I ate a couple of bites and thought, I don't WANT this. This is bad for me and it is just not worth it. I just threw it away, just like that. I was shocked at how easy this was for me; this is new for me in this lifetime. I can't help but wonder what is going on that is just so different this time. While I am 100% engaged and determined, I feel more may be at play than just my ability to white-knuckle past dietary obstacles. Another noticeable difference is the total lack of emotion in this, no guilt, no feeling sorry for myself. It is though my intellect has at last entered the building after all of these years. What the heck?
Honestly, I think there are several "angels" at work in this. First, I honestly think I have some help from real angels--I am so determined and so easy in my mind. Second, I think the science angel is helping a lot. My bloodwork showed I had a high Insulin level. We all understand how powerful hormones are, and that they can impact emotion, thinking and behavior. Insulin is a hormone, capable of wielding enormous power over the human body. I have been eating a very small amount of carbs, and that drives down the Insulin. It is my understanding that carbs cause cravings, and that Metformin also lowers the Insulin, which also causes cravings. Whatever is happening, I am just grateful, grateful, grateful! Could it really be this easy? After 45 years of struggling with my weight, have I finally found a doctor who has found the source of the problem instead of just wanting to treat the symptoms with surgery? My own Mother died at age 62 due to complications from weight loss surgery--I can't help but wonder what would have happened if she had access to Metformin and this bit of knowledge about what caused her weight problem. That part hurts.
I can't help but credit my wonderful doctor. It costs a few hundred dollars for the bloodwork to test for the metabolic causes of obesity, plus occasional visits to re-check bloodwork. The first surgeon that did weight-loss surgery never even met me before he saw me just before checking out of the hospital post-surgery. The thousands I paid him for the few minutes he spent with me during surgery pale in comparison to what my current doctor is making curing me. When I was a teacher, I used to joke about the kids getting in the way of my job! Apparently, unfortunately, patients often get in the way of the medical community making money, too.
All I know is that I am different now, I feel different now. While I have some regret that a cure has been so incredibly slow coming, I am overwhelming grateful and hopeful that it may just be at hand.
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