At long last, Weigh-In Tuesday

It's Weigh-In Tuesday - or WIT, if you will - and I don't feel like I have any good wit to offer today.  But here I am, for the second consecutive day, writing anyway.

Now that it's day 2 of my TV fast, I'm beginning to run out of cleaning projects, so I'm going to have to get more creative.  This is exactly what the fast is designed to do - drag me kicking and screaming from my stasis.  But it's mental fists a-flyin' while I try to punch my way out of my rut.

Wanna guess what else is in a rut?   The scale.  The holiday season was tough, but I thought I got through it OK.  When I hopped back on the scale upon my return, it was up ten pounds from before I left.  That is a terrifying feeling - knowing how hard you've worked to move in one direction, and how long it took.  And seeing it reverse in a matter of days.  I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I didn't like it.

I've lost about four pounds since that weigh-in.  My progress is compounded, I'm sure, by the lack of exercise.  As I've mentioned before, I've haven't been exercising (flu, depression, flu, simultaneous surgery recovery and depression) all year with the exception of one week between the first depression and the second flu.  And I am STILL not healed enough to work out today.  It's really bugging me that it's taking so long.

Food hasn't been ideal, either.  Not terrible, but not mindful.  It's been a little too erratic -- waiting too long to eat and getting too hungry, for instance.  I'd indulge in a craving moderately, but indulge another craving the next day.  That adds up.  So although I'm down from where I was at the beginning of the year, I feel frustrated with myself.  And when I feel frustrated with myself, I talk shit about myself.

Hell, I talk shit about myself even when I feel good.  An example.  This Christmas, I had a blast playing Just Dance III with my nieces and nephews.  It was great to get moving after holiday meals, and dancing is such a playful way to connect with family.  I was kicking butt (I am seriously good at it) and after awhile, I got warm and wanted to remove my jacket.  But it meant that I'd be shaking my arms to the beat, and I know what that looks like in the mirror... I spent three days a week at Slimmons last year, watching my arms jiggle in the mirror.  And as I lost progressively more weight, the jiggling didn't get better... it got worse.  You see "before/after" pictures everywhere you turn (lately even on billboards) but you don't hear so much about the challenges of skin and sagging.  Which, with 70(-minus-twelve) pounds lost, are now my challenges.  So, as I took off my jacket, I tried to make a joke about it.  "OK, everybody.  Flying squirrel alert!"  I got some puzzled looks, so I explained that my upper arms sag, that if I jumped, I could fly like a flying squirrel.  I expect laughs.  All I got was some firm eye contact from my niece M, who pointedly asked me to cut out the negative self-talk. So wise for a thirteen-year-old.

It hit me hard.  It's true... sometimes I make jokes about myself, and it's one way I can make light of life when it's challenging.  But it's also one way I can tear myself down.  And I need to stop tearing myself down.

That's why, this week, I'm working on building myself up.  Turning off the TV and the phone.  Cooking and savoring healthy and nourishing meals. Writing, on the blog and for my portfolio. Centering. Generally turning on the creative juices.  Or trying to summon them, at least.  I still feel stifled and just plain off... but less so than last week. Little steps are still progress.

The best I've felt so far was last night, when - after a long day of laundry and showtunes - I decided to decorate a pretty shelf we mounted last fall.  I loaded it up with my Disneyland collection.  It was a creative act, and a little out of my ordinary, and it felt... satisfying. 

Thanks again, Dad, for helping us mount the shelf.

Annotated version, for the nerds.

I hope you will you do something that satisfies you today.  Something that helps you take care of you.

Weigh-in Tuesday: Dear Twelve-Year-Old Heidi

Dear Twelve-year-old Heidi,

Hey, kiddo.  It's me.  It's you.  It's us.

Here I/you/we are at the spring music program in sixth grade.

I'm 32 now, and the other day I stumbled upon a thought I hadn't had in a long time.  I was thinking about you, and your music program in sixth grade, and how you were really having a hard time back then.  Because when you're just on the verge of a breakthrough, things can feel especially dreadful.

I remember that you felt isolated.

For one thing, you didn't feel like you were on the same page as the people in your class.  It was a small class, with tight cliques, and emotions running rampant as prepubescent hormones blossomed.  They grew up into some great people, but at the time, you were drifting apart from them.  Couples were pairing off, and it really stung as some your closest friends started holding hands with some of your crushes.  Ah, crushes.  So called for their ability to crush a little heart.  You felt completely unpretty.  You definitely felt fat - though you were at a healthy weight -  and you believed that the fat stood between you and all good things.  It's important that you hang in there, little me.  There are kindred spirits in your future.  There is great love to come.  There is upcoming comfort in your own skin, even when you're actually overweight.  (Even when you're morbidly obese.)  And there is courage to take care good of yourself, too.

For another thing, you were saddled with a teacher who discouraged you.  When you mention to a teacher that you're interested in writing, the last thing you should be told is that you'll never be a good writer.  Heck, even if you were a bad writer at the time (which you weren't) a teacher's job is to encourage and enrich the student, not put them down.  I hate to admit it, but that one statement will come back to haunt you, long after other teachers award you, bosses promote you, clients commend you for your writing.  You'll still secretly worry that your sixth-grade teacher was right, that you'll never be a writer.  But you ARE one.  Throughout your life, you'll work very hard on it, and you'll keep improving at it.  You'll even make a living doing it.

To top it all off, you were getting ready for the spring music program.  Two of the 'cool' girls were asked to do a dance together, and you were secretly (or maybe not-so-secretly) jealous of them.  I know it wasn't so much about the dancing (though you'd been studying ballet for six years)... it was about feeling lonely.  Girls with whom you wanted to fit in were spending extra time together, without you.

Chin up.  You have to realize - you weren't really excluded.  You were, in fact, invited to sing a solo.  But you didn't like the solo, because you wanted to dance with your friends.  And you didn't like the song. It though it was unpopular, like you thought you were unpopular.

But you sang that song anyway. Here you are, doing it.

Here's the thing.  That song?  It's actually one of the most beloved songs in the American music canon.  It became famous in a movie musical.  One that you will grow to love.

You'll watch it for the first time in a few years, at a cozy cabin while eating raspberry pie with your very first kindred-spirit friend.  You'll adore it.  You'll quote from it frequently.  You'll come back to it again and again.

Later in your life, you'll find yourself sitting in a lawn chair, in a cemetery, in the dark.  You'll be snuggled up in blankets, and in your husband's arms.  You'll be surrounded by several of your kindred-spirit friends, as you all stare up at a mausoleum wall, aglow with beautiful scenes from your favorite movie musical of all time.  A cool breeze will swirl around you, and you'll look up and notice that you can just barely make out the outline of the palm trees in the dark

You won't be thinking of how you sang that song in your sixth grade spring music program.  You won't be thinking of anything... except how you feel incredibly - completely - content.

 There's a little piece of advice a former (er, future?) boss gave me once.  When you're feeling jealous of someone because they... have a boyfriend... spend more time with someone else... have a moment in the spotlight... have an easier journey to good health... are more successful in their career...  or for any reason at all... you should:

...Keep your eye on your own plate.

  
It's a figure of speech.  It means that if you're worried about what you don't have, you should focus on what you do have.  Don't have a dance to perform like someone else?  Work hard on that solo, and really savor the fact that you get to have your own private moment in the spotlight.  Haven't sold your screenplays like someone else?  Work hard on them.  Working hard on your writing has always paid off in the past.  (See?  I'm taking the same advice.)

I think it's also good advice to take literally.  You're going to go through a long process of weight gain, little me.  It's going to be hard on you.  But in time, you'll find your balance, and then you're going to take good care of yourself - and try to do it in every way you can.  That's what I'm doing right now.  I'm down a pound this week, but I notice that I've gotten a little bit lax with the measuring, lazy about counting.  So I'm going to work on keeping my eye on my own plate.

You've got big things ahead, twelve-year-old me.  You've got places to go and people to love, who love you.  How's this for a deal?  You keep breathing, and keep trying, and keep being yourself.  And I will, too.  And in another 20 years, maybe we'll get some great insight from 52-year-old Heidi.  In the meanwhile... I am always with you, and you are most definitely always with me.

Love,
Heidi

Weigh-in Tuesday

Yet another less-than-stellar weigh-in this Tuesday.  I'm up one pound from my last weigh-in, making it 69 pounds lost.  (I was at 297 a few weekends ago, and my friend Erik asked me if I just wanted to stay there for perpetuity because of the amusing number, which I do not.)

Am I bummed? Of course I'm bummed.  But I made it through two big weeks for me.

The first of those weeks was spent dealing with some considerable emotional stress (which I navigated quite well in terms of food), then preparation for vacation, and then four days in Palm Springs.  Tom and I, along with a group of friends, rent a house there every October.  It's always a time of creativity and refreshment.

I did art journaling every day we were there. This was my favorite.

It's always one of culinary pleasures, too.  I went in feeling a bit anxious about eating. Everyone usually brings a ton of snack food, and I don't keep snack food in my house. While processed salty and sweet snacks are typically small in size, if you put enough of it together, you can end up eating twice as many calories in an hour as you needed all day. On top of that, each couple takes a turn cooking breakfast or a dinner while we're there... which means that if I choose to go along with our plans, my nutrition is in someone else's hands.  And I don't know if you can tell by reading this blog, but I rarely - if ever - put my nutrition in someone else's hands.

Lucky for me, I have some very thoughtful friends who either made food that was healthier than our standard fare, or who warned me that they would not be (so I'd know to provide for myself.)  With very few exceptions, I was able to eat in moderation, and supplement with my own fruits, veggies and protein.  And over four days, I kept the snacks down to one fun-size candy bar, a few triscuits, an ounce of peanuts, and an ounce of candy corn.  (Considering what else was there and how much of it there was, I feel pretty proud of that.) And while those processed snacks probably played into the weight gain, I'm doing my best to be patient with myself.

The second week - last week - was spent laid flat with an unpleasant coldy-flu bug that specialized in body-aches and sinus pain.  Having just returned from vacation, the kitchen was a mess and Tom was working his usual crazy hours so he wasn't around to pitch in with cleaning or cooking (except late at night.)  In my exhausted state, I ordered delivery comfort food - lots of salty soup, lots of bread.  There was typically veg in the soup and I got fruit from watered-down OJ I was using to hydrate and load Vitamin C... but it was still unbalanced.

In discussing it with my therapist, she pointed out that I had trouble when I was feeling ill after my surgery, too.  It may be when my willpower is weakest, so we put a plan together for keeping a stash of very easy-to-prepare foods at the ready for the next time I'm ill.  I need microwaveable soups, frozen dinners, anything that I can make quickly and help me balance and stay moderate when I have a harder time making that decision.



As my strength returned, so did my desire to put my nutrition back in my hands.

One of the first things I did, as soon as I felt well enough, was to art journal this to remind myself of it.

And I'm taking that effort.  It feels great.  

I'm back to Slimmons tonight, for the first time since Palm Springs.  I did exercise well on vacation - I swam for at least 45 minutes every day, and did free weights and floor work every other day.  But I haven't exercised much since I got sick.  I'm sure the usual 90 minutes with Richard will be grueling... but that's how you get strong, after all.


On another note, I keep seeing a couple of different images on Pinterest that sound like an easy quick-fix for weight loss.  Negative-calorie foods!

Except for one thing... there's no scientific evidence to prove it, and a fair amount to disprove it.  The mostly widely purported "negative-calorie" food is celery, which - according to Wikipedia, if you trust it - only requires 10% of its energy to digest.  That means 90% of its energy stays with you - hardly negative.


One of the lists - which I can't locate now (the trouble with Pinterest) - claimed that honeydew melon has negative calories.  I actually responded to that link, to let them know that not only does honeydew have more calories than cantaloupe, it has less nutritive value.  

Is it better for us to eat honeydew - in moderation - instead of, say, toffee?  For damn sure.  But it's in no way calorie-free, let alone calorie-negative.  And fruit, while it has terrific nutrient value, is still high in sugar, and should be consumed in moderation.  (Like anything else.)


Goes to show that my friend Honest Abe was right all along...

Do your research before you trust something you read... and take care of you!

Multimedia Monday: It's time to start the music...

Today I'm introducing a brand new "day" theme: Multimedia Monday!  Each Monday, I will be reflecting on creativity in a variety of ways, including sharing my TV/film/art/music/literature recommendations, as well as - when I'm able - my own creative work.

Finishing the Hat started out as a way for me to communicate about - and share - my creative endeavors.  When I began my weight loss journey, so much of those creative endeavors began to focus on my fitness and my food, so the blog took a sharp turn in that direction.  Don't worry - I'm definitely going to continue my journey, and writing about it every day.  It'll even play into my Multimedia Mondays.

I still have a long journey ahead of me, but part of me has felt a little disconnected here at Finishing the Hat.  So much of my passion stems from watching (and creating! and also, in previous work, selling) film and television.  Actually, any creative endeavor makes my heart sing.  So each Monday, I'll singing my heart out here about it, here.

I'll start each MM post with "Short Cuts," a quick list of my thoughts and recommendations for the week.

• The fall TV season has begun!  Tom's been working 7 days a week for the past few weeks, so he and I have been struggling to keep up with the new shows (and the new episodes of our old shows.)  We finally killed the last new ones on our DVR last night, and we think we've honed in on one new show to follow, so far: The New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel.  It's charming without being twee, it has bite without being too cynical or ironic, and - this is a big one - it actually made us laugh.  

• I always feel happy when I make a good recommendation for someone else.  I had suggested to my father that he go see The Help, and though he was hesitant to see a "chick flick," he gave it a glowing review after seeing it.  If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a look.

•  As a former market-eer, I take close notice of film and TV campaigns. Though I haven't seen the film, I'm impressed with the tagline (which is the slogan typically on posters and in ads) for 50/50, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen.  A good tagline says it all in one punchy phrase, and the 50/50 tagline definitely does. "It takes a pair to beat the odds."  From that little sentence (and the accompanying photo of Rogen as he watches Gordon-Levitt shave his head) we can gather that this is both a cancer movie (his odds are 50/50; "a pair" = nads) and this is a buddy movie ("a pair" = Rogen + Gordon-Levitt.)  Ingenius!

• Over the weekend, we happened to see a trailer for a film I saw in early preview this spring.  I can't tell you anything about it.  I won't even tell you the name of it.  But I will tell you two things.  One, I loved the movie thoroughly.  THOROUGHLY.  And two, the trailer goes WAY out of its way not to tell you what the movie is really about.  I hate when that happens!  (As a former market-eer, I understand why it happens.  But I still hate it.)

 And on to today's topic.  I saw someone describe these beloved characters as "heartfelt, by hearts made of felt," and I can't help but agree.  I love me some Muppets.

My parents were fond of telling the story about how I used to dance to The Muppet Show before I could even walk.  Apparently, I would squeal as soon as I would see that spinning-top ITC Production Logo. 




My fondness for the Muppets certainly didn't end when I became an adult.  In fact, I may be crazier about them now than I was back then.  (I squeal less, though.)  Luckily for me, there's been a big revival of the Muppet franchise, and if you haven't noticed the resurgence of Kermit and the gang, you're bound to see it before the new film opens November 23.

I'm looking forward to it.  Besides my beloved felt-hearted frog and his friends, it includes the talents of Jason Segel (who is starring as well as screenwriting), Amy Adams (who I've followed gleefully since her Oscar-nominated performance in the wonderful Junebug), and music by Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords.

They're building buzz around the film with a variety of different interesting projects.

For one thing, a cover album of Muppet greats - The Green Album - came out last month.  It's a surprising collection of Muppet classics as performed by a variety of popular and indie artists.  I knew I'd love the already-amazing "It's Not Easy Bein' Green," and the haunting-even-when-sung-by-Gonzo "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday," but I didn't realize how brilliantly clever (and kind of painful) the lyrics to "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" really were until I heard it performed by Matt Nathanson.  Big thumbs-up.

For another thing... I'm not a frequent purchaser of nail polish, but I can't wait to buy my own bottle of O.P.I.'s "Rainbow Connection."

Or "Fresh Frog of Bel-Air." Or "Excuse Moi."  Those two pictured above.

Oh, for that Excuse Moi polish a few Octobers ago, when Tom and I went as my favorite fuzzy duo for Halloween.

My favorite duo costume. Ever.  We don't fit 'em anymore, though!

As fun and playful as the Muppets are, there's such a deeper side to them.   Sometimes deeply sad.  Sometimes deeply inspiring.  I got the idea for this blog topic yesterday, when I stumbled upon a video that Henson Studios posted in honor of the 75th anniversary of Jim Henson's birth.

It's the finale from the television tribute special, after Jim's death.  I won't lie.  It made me cry. 





I was so inspired by the video that I started doodling... and it became another Art Journal entry.

Thank you, Jim, for the beautiful legacy you left to all of us.  Your creativity inspires me every day.

As far as my weight loss journey... it has been a bit of a challenge in the last week, and I'll write about it more tomorrow in my Weigh-In update.  This may be a hard path to travel on, but as I doodled, I realized that having all of you in my life - believing in me - has helped me to believe in me.

I believe in you, too.

Take care of you.

KEEP BREATHING.

Yesterday I was full of fear.

Afraid that the addiction would overcome me, instead of the other way around.
Afraid that I'd gain what I lost.
Afraid I would lose what I gained.
That I wouldn't listen to myself.
That there were people listening to me.
That if I struggled, and shared that struggle, people would judge me.
That if I didn't share my struggle, I would be dishonest with others - and with myself.
That I would end up in a jail of my own creation.
That I don't have what I takes.
To beat addiction.
To stay focused.
To create beautiful things.
To build a career.
To maintain my strength.
To maintain my health, in tandem with any of those other things that I was afraid I couldn't do.

Yesterday I was full of fear.

Today I am breathing.

The big picture is terrifying.  But I need not look directly at it, searing my eyes like the sun.  I have to remember that each small step draws me closer.  All I need to do is keep my eyes on each small step.  And breathe.

Share your truth and keep breathing.
Be mindful and keep breathing.
Gather yourself and keep breathing.
Put pen to paper and keep breathing.
Get active and keep breathing.
Be still and keep breathing.
Forgive yourself and keep breathing.

I just tried art journaling for the first time.  I'm not an artist, but I am a recovering perfectionist.  I remind myself that it does not have to be perfect.  It just has to be true.

  
Food log, Tuesday September 20
Breakfast - Slice of whole grain bread with 1/2 peach and 2 tb fat free ricotta mixed with 1/4 tsp sugar-free almond syrup.  1 boiled egg.
Morning snack - 16 oz pressed vegetable juice.
Late lunch - at a combination restaurant/movie theater.  3 mini roasted portobello sliders with about a cup of chips.  Ginger chicken fresh spring roll in rice paper.  Peanut butter mousse.
Dinner - I didn't eat it.
Beverages - 64 oz water.

Food log, Wednesday September 21
Breakfast - at a buffet restaurant. Egg Beaters omelet with mushrooms and cheese. 1/2 slice french toast with tsp syrup. 1 chicken sausage. 1/2 cup hash browns. 1/2 cup apple salad.  Two pieces of pineapple.  Mini bagel with 2 oz salmon, 2 tomato slices, and tsp cream cheese.
Lunch - at a restaurant.  Seared ahi tuna chopped salad with cabbage and champagne vinaigrette.  Side order of corn bread with tb maple butter.
Snack - I bought a very large box of coconut candy.  I ate two pieces, and, disgusted with myself, threw the rest away.
Dinner - at a mini golf course. Small turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomato.
Beverages - 4 ounces coconut water with pomegranate and acai, 8 ounces skim milk, 64 ounces water

It's not perfect, but it's true.

Take care of you.