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.

On Weigh-In Tuesday, weighing in on Cleveland's obese foster child

I'm weighing in today, with the number on the scale, and with my opinions.  Specifically, my opinions about what makes weight loss harder, what makes it easier, and how my experiences relate to the case of Cleveland's obese foster child.

First: Hormones & The Long Haul
When I hopped on the scale last Tuesday, I was up.  By a pound.  Again.  I hadn't eaten terribly, but I still wasn't logging what I ate, and my exercise had slowed a bit.  It's very frustrating to confront my challenges again and again and again.  I try to remember that this is a life-long journey, not a race. I remind myself that so long as I'm committed to taking care of me, speed does not matter - only persistence.  It's hard not to feel frustrated.

Aware of my frustration, my mother-in-law recently pointed me to an article in the LA Times.  Apparently, a medical study found that "subjects who shed weight on a low-calorie diet were hungrier than when they started and had higher levels of hormones that tell the body to eat more, conserve energy and store away fuel as fat."  Even a year later, the subjects' appetite hormones hadn't returned to normal.  The good news is that perhaps the study will help scientists find a way to help those who've lost weight maintain their loss.  The bad news is that until then, those of us who are struggling to maintain or lose more after an initial loss... we just have to fight what our bodies are telling us, keep active, and stay on our journey as best as we can.

Second: The Team Approach
Tom's been home since last Wednesday night - for Thanksgiving plus a week of work hiatus (he goes back next Monday - and I'm reminded what a difference it makes being one of a team on this journey.  While he's working, we're still a great team... but I'm alone in making our dinners, planning our menus, doing our grocery shopping, cooking for myself.  I go to the gym alone.  To Slimmons alone.  (I see dear friends there, but it's not the same as arriving with my best friend.)  And since I'm a freelance writer, I work at home alone.

But since Wednesday, it's been much easier to do everything I was struggling to do.  We've cooked together.  We've exercised together.  We planned our meals and grocery-shopped and discussed our plans.  We've also done a lot of work together.  It supports the very first thing that Richard Simmons ever said to Tom and I.  He said, "you have to do this together, or it doesn't work."

Together with Tom, I was able to come back down a pound - even on Thanksgiving week.  Soon I hope to be back to my 70 total lost, and move on from there.  But I have to be patient with myself, and I have to be pretty vigilant, thanks to hormones that are constantly telling me I'm hungry.  I never used to feel this way.

On the Cleveland Situation
Perhaps you haven't heard yet, but there's a debate swirling around a Cleveland social worker's decision to remove a child from his parents' custody because he was obese.  The child was an honor student and involved in activities at his school, but he is now staying with foster parents.

Apparently, the state worker was trying to work with the parents, but claims that they weren't following doctors' orders.  The parents dispute that claim, that they bought him a bicycle and were working with him. 

The Cleveland Plain Dealer article includes this quote from the mother:  "Of course I love him. Of course I want him to lose weight. It's a lifestyle change, and they are trying to make it seem like I am not embracing that."

The article also states that the mother is overweight herself, and that when she "found out that other kids and a sibling might be giving her son extra food, she tried to put a stop to it."

It sounds to me like the family was torn.  I don't know the specifics of the situation aside from the story, but all I can think about is how the Team Approach helps everything.  And if a sibling - or a struggling mother - isn't doing everything they can to help their loved one (or worse, actively sabotaging them), then it's going to be that much harder for their loved one to succeed. 

One other quote from the article stuck out to me - it flashed like a blinking red light.  "Last year, the boy lost weight but in recent months began to gain it back rapidly." 

It sounds to me like the foster child from Cleveland - like the scientific study suggests - has his appetite hormones out of whack after a weight loss.  It's hard for me to control myself in this situation as an adult.  How much harder would it be for an eight-year-old?  Without his parents?  Without his friends, in a new school, with life upside-down?  I know how my eight-year-old self would have handled it. Hell, I know how my twenty-eight-year-old self would have handled it.  I'd eat.

Is it sad that an eight-year-old is over 200 pounds, and suffers from sleep apnea?  Certainly.  Does it need to be addressed?  Yes.  Are the parents responsible?  Absolutely, to the extent that they are able to control their son.

But does the child need to be removed from their custody?  I'd say no.

While he's in danger for future comorbidities from obesity, he only has apnea, and has been treated for it.  While a parent can encourage and schedule healthy eating and exercise, there is nothing they can do to stop their child from, say, buying crap at school.  Stopping at a convenience store on the way home.  Swapping their healthy apple for processed junk from friends.  I cite these three examples because they are, in fact, things I did as an overweight child.  I remember that our cafeterias had some good salads... but candy, sugary sodas and fresh-baked cookies (3 for a dollar!) were sold at our high school store. Other kids didn't have a problem resisting them... but I did.  I know there were others like me, too. 

So, what can we do?  How can we help this generation of children get healthy, and stay healthy?

For starters, while this branch of the government is removing obese children from their parents, other branches are approving french fries and pizza as vegetables.  (Not even veggie pizza, people.  Any pizza with tomato paste - a tiny fraction of what goes into a pizza's calories.)  It's Regan and ketchup all over again.  Nobody's banning food advertisements.  How many late-night tacos were born of TV commercial taunting?  Who, as a kid, didn't want to go to McDonald's to get the latest toy?  Why are we still allowing it to happen?

The answers lie even beyond the ridiculousness of school cafeterias food and marketing.  But they're not easily addressed.

It would help if there wasn't such a stigma attached to being overweight.  Shame is often a chief reason for overeating - a vicious circle I was trapped in for years.

It would help if there wasn't such a stigma around therapy.  Everyone can use guidance.  Nobody is "normal."  And it's the very thing that helped me begin to address my health.

It would help if sports - especially competitive sports - weren't jammed down every kid's throat.  I have no hand-eye coordination.  I wasn't strong.  And I was scared of every ball ever thrown at me in gym class.  I was never taught to kick the kickball.  I was tossed aside on the no-cut basketball team.  And I was forever losing every race.  The lack of positive reinforcement from teachers taught me to hate gym class.  The negative taunting from my classmates taught me to fear exercise.  So, for a long time, I didn't do it.  I didn't realize that the dancing I loved as a kid could be good exercise as an adult.  I didn't know that the swimming that made me so happy on vacation could make my every pool workout feel like a vacation.  Not every kid is a softball star... and not every kid wants to be.  Maybe parents (maybe even schools) should consider an activity program for those kids who are averse to sports.

It would help if parents who struggled with disordered eating would do everything they could to address their own habits before passing them along to their children.  And that, my friends, is what I'm doing right now.

To the kiddo from Cleveland:  I hope you find your way back to your family, and that they can be a united team to help support you.  And I hope that they, along with the others around you, can help you to learn to take good care of yourself.

And everybody reading this:  I hope that you're taking good care of you, too. 

I stopped breathing.

Last week in therapy, I stopped breathing.

I didn't even realize it.

We were talking about why I think I'm stuck here at 300 (yes, I'm back to 300.  Making it only 66 pounds lost this year.)  We were going over the things that happened when I first hit this weight.

**

It was 2001.  I had just graduated from college.  The end of most people's higher education seems to take the shape of soaring crescendo.  Mine looked like that pathetic "waaah-waaaaah" of a trumpet that signals ineptitude on a game show.  It started looking pretty shaky when my heart was broken (and I mean smashed - and I mean, for years) around semester break, but I pushed through to March for my senior thesis, directing a one-act play by Madeleine George called The Most Massive Woman Wins.  The four wonderful ladies in the cast kept me going, along with my roommate, tech director and all-around best friend, Matt.

But when that was over... well, what did I have left?  No more theater.  No love interest in my life.  No clue what to do after school ended.  And according to my senior audit, I had two more semesters of school left.  Turns out when you're in two different colleges within one big university, they sometimes require 50 extra credits of you, even when you've otherwise fulfilled all of your degree requirements.

There was no final internship or real-world job-search for me after "walking" in my cap and gown.  Instead, I spent the spring and summer in Ann Arbor.  Other than the first and only math of my college career (an advanced statistics class which my adviser mistook for an introductory class) I decided to take a full slate of film classes, because that's what sounded compelling.  (On the up-side, 50 credits of it-doesn't-matter-what-you take did point me in the right direction for my career and eventual move to Los Angeles.)

On my way into that very last final - the inappropriately non-introductory stats - I prayed to any deity that would listen: LET ME OUT OF HERE.  I wanted to get to California immediately, but I had no money.  So after I passed stats-for-not-beginners, I did what haunts the dreams of all college graduates... I moved back in with my parents.

I love my parents.  You know I love my parents.  My parents know I love my parents.  They are terrific people.  They helped me save up money to get a car and a down payment on an apartment, and even loaned me a little extra in case the temp jobs didn't kick in right away.  Despite my mom's ill health and my quest for a career in an industry that's breakneckingly competitive at best, they even encouraged me to follow my dreams.  My dad even drove with me across country with a truck full of my belongings, toward a city thousands of miles away where no job, family, friends or even apartment awaited.   They are/were GREAT PARENTS.

But if you put a 22-year-old, who has lived on her own for four years, back in her parents' house... everybody's in for quite a shock.  Those eight months in Midland were possibly some of my darkest.  I temped as an office assistant at the Company Town's company from 8 to 5, and then I sequestered myself into my childhood bedroom between the hours of 6 and 8 to watch the first syndicated showings of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on a tiny TV.  Around 8, depending on the day, I might or might not have staggered bleary-eyed into the living room.  Or kitchen.  Definitely the kitchen. 

I was lonely.  For my friends.  For Ann Arbor, and all its Culture and its cultures, and everything it represented.  For freakin' sushi.  (Oh, timing -- Midland didn't open its first Japanese restaurant until six months after I moved to LA.)  I was lonely for my freedom.

Wonderful though my parents were, being back in their home meant being back under their rules.  There was a curfew.  There was no heading out to a bar alone, which wasn't my style anyway, but I was desperate for some socializing.  My one close friend in the area was a bride-to-be/on her honeymoon/a newlywed, and though she was lovely and kind, there's only so much wedded bliss a single bridesmaid can take.  Except for Willow and Xander - and they were fictional - I felt very, very alone.  (Side note: little did I know that my future husband felt the exact same way at the exact same time.)

So I ate.  And I ate.  I ate at the first hint of heartbreak in my senior year, ordering the first of many 2 AM deliveries of Pizza House pepperoni breadsticks and milkshakes with my roommate.  I ate during my thesis - a play set in a liposuction clinic - having baked Valentine's cupcakes for no Valentine in particular.  I ate when we found the Girl Scouts special edition Samoa ice cream. ("Please, sir, I want Samoa," we joked.) I ate sushi when I left the Ann Arbor for the last time.  I really ate in Midland.  Fast food.  Slow food.  My parents' food.  My own stash.  Sometimes all in the same night.  Brazenly, not caring who saw me.  Secretly, not wanting to share.  Not wanting to be judged.  I ate.

**

I was finishing this thought when my therapist interrupted me.  "I'm sorry, but I really have to ask you to breathe."


What?

I had been expressing all of that pent-up sadness -- and anger, my therapist tells me -- and I had no idea that I'd been hyperventilating the whole time.  I took a breath.  I tried to make it a deep one.  It seemed impossible.

**

Since my therapy session last week, the concept keeps popping up again and again in my brain.

In my life, I have gained so much weight that I now cannot breathe at night without the help of a machine.

When I binged, I binged until I could hardly breathe.  And I certainly couldn't move well without breathing well.

When I exercise, I exhale.  I breathe out emotional smoke - from the embers of suppressed anger, into which I can so rarely tap.

To fully take care of myself, I must leave enough room to breathe.  In my stomach.  In my schedule.  In my heart.

Today, I will do that by posting on this blog - because holding my words back here is holding me back.  I will do that by planning my food, preparing my food, and eating my food mindfully.  I will do that by sweating at Slimmons, focusing each breath to release of whatever it is inside of me, blocking my progress.

I hope you'll take care of you today.  And I hope you'll breathe.

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!

Weigh-in Tuesday: Yeah. I did it.

Yeah.

I did it.

296.  Two pounds down from last week, for a total of 70 pounds.  That's, like, 7 bags of flour.  At once.

Even though I wasn't posting much last week, I stayed committed to the food plan I wrote about a week ago:

• I cooked every meal (except for three I planned to eat out - and which fit into my calorie plan.)
• Every meal was different.  No duplicates, no leftovers, no boredom.
• I photographed each one.
• I exercised 5 times.

Although I didn't get to sharing them here, the acts of careful planning, preparation, and photography helped me break away from the great food-fight I'd been having with myself. "You want this.  No you don't.  Yes you do.  No you don't, and that's that."  I was still making good choices, but I was losing a lot of energy fighting.

After a week of solid mindful eating, the fight seemed to disappear.  So much so that yesterday, when I was in full-on HALT mode (and somehow managed to be simultaneously extremely hungry, extremely angry, extremely lonely and VERY extremely tired) I chose grilled salmon and salad instead of any of the myriad things that would have helped me temporarily numb my emotions.  And that feels like even more of a success than breaking through my plateau.

When I have a little more time, I may share some of those photos... or I may keep them and share some of the recipes I came up with, because they're definitely worth trying!

I'm vacationing this weekend, and before I do, I'll be sharing a recap and recipes from this weekend's Supper Club event, as well as sharing a little bit about how me and my body are... getting along.  Sort of.  Keep an eye out here for the next couple of days, because I'm looking forward to sharing it all with you.  And in the meanwhile - keep taking care of you. 

Weigh-in Tuesday: What I Ate Today

Happy Tuesday, everybody. 

And like every Tuesday, it's weigh-in day.  And I'm happy.  You may be confused by this - especially since I am about to tell you that I am actually up a pound, back at 299.

But I'm happy.  About a few things, even.  I'm happy that it's not in the 300s.  I'm happy that I'm on this journey.  And I'm happy that I feel like I'm hitting my stride again.

I know - I know.  Heidi, you are up a pound.  How are you hitting your stride?

Well, I had a few challenges this weekend... mostly having to do with feeling lonely, and the ensuing depression, and as a result, eating a few larger-than-they-needed-to-be meals that I didn't cook myself.  Since Tom's now on 14-hour days, plus 9 hours each weekend day, I'm on my own a lot.  And if there's no one in my immediate vicinity to check in with, I have a harder time keeping those meals in check. 

Since Tom started working away at his current gig, I'd also been cooking a batch of food at the beginning of the week that I would dole out for lunches.  Tom is - in my opinion - the more gifted cook between us (though I'm getting better!) and when we were both working from home, he handled all of our lunches and dinners (other than my own protein, since he doesn't eat it.)  The trouble is that I get easily bored.  And lunches all year were our "special" meal - we usually made them larger and with more variety. 

But, yes - I have hit my stride again.  I did this in a few different ways:

• When I sat down to plan my food for the week, I decided I'd try to cook a different breakfast, lunch and dinner,  from Monday to Friday.  
• Putting a solid schedule together with time set aside for cooking has helped me put some structure back into my day, which was increasingly getting away from me.  
• Since I struggled with my accountability last week, I decided I'd also photograph each meal this week, and share them here.  (I'll even post brief photo entries on Saturday and Sunday to keep up my momentum.)
• My core problem - loneliness - isn't fixed by hermit-like behavior.  The more I skulk around in my own shell, the more depressed I become.  So I've been making an effort to be more social this week.  My dad and I are doing daily check-in caalls to discuss our food.  I went to a crafting day on Sunday, I had a Skype date with Rena on Monday, a picnic date with Audra today, and there's a Thursday lady-date with Patty and Alexa.  Plus three separate social occasions this upcoming weekend. 
• A byproduct of shell-skulking is negative self-talk.  It has been my natural state for a long time, and even when I feel like I've mastered it, it happens again before I can even realize I'm doing it.  I'm back to acknowledging myself when I catch negative self-talk, and curbing it as soon as I do.  Man, it helps.
• And, a never-fail pick-me-up: exercise.  I did well last week (5 workouts) and I'm planning to beat that this week.

I'm feeling happier, I'm taking more action, and I'm taking better care of me. 

Here's what I ate on Monday:

1 slice whole-grain toast, 1 tb fat-free ricotta mixed with a splash of sugar-free almond Torani, sliced nectarine.

Boiled egg.

6 oz skim milk, vitamins & meds.

Light tortilla with 4 oz grilled turkey burger with 1 Laughing Cow wedge and pickles.
1 turnip, baked - with ketchup.  1 plum.  Water.

1 small baked potato with 1 tsp Earth Balance and 2 tb TJ's fat free sour cream. (Best 15 calories ever.)

2 cups of steamed broccoli with lemon.

Not pictured: 64 oz water, 1 Sobe LifeWater Zero, 1 donut.  (Yes. Sue me.)

Calorie total for the day: 1340. With donut.


**

OK.  I'm on track.  How are you?  Anything we can talk about, to help you get there?  To help you take care of you?

Weigh-in Tuesday... in the balance

I weighed in this morning with a flat line between last week and this week.  Nothing gained, nothing lost.  Better than something gained, for sure, but not what I hoped for.

Last week had its challenges, and chief among them was my energy level.  I helped Dad with painting every day last week.  I'm not sure exactly why it sapped my energy, but it definitely did. I didn't get my butt to the gym as often as I usually do, so this week I've decided to return to the schedule that helps me best: alternating higher-impact aerobics (at Slimmons) with lower-impact exercise (like swimming and yoga.) I'm aiming for 60 minutes or more, 6 days a week.  I'm determined to have a balanced exercise schedule.

 In fact, I'm determined to find balance in all things.  I know that it's not generally possible, but I like to aim for center (perhaps, as my friend Lisa says, waving at it as I swing past.)

The biggest thing that brought balance to my food habits is actually Richard Simmons' Food Mover system.  When I visited Slimmons for the first time, Richard recommended it to me, and his long-time student Felise taught us the ropes.

This is the FoodMover package, which - if you're inclined - you can order here.
(Just for integrity's sake, I wanted to disclose that I have not been paid to review this.)

Basically, there's a little plastic device with sliding windows, and interchangeable cards.  If you're eating, say, 1400 calories a day, you'd slide in the "1400" card and it would tell you exactly how to balance your diet between servings of carbs/protein/veggies/etc.  As you eat each allotted serving, you close a window.  (When I have a serving of fruit, I close one of the little "apple" windows.)  It comes with a booklet that defines the servings sizes, and after about a week or two of working with it, we had most of our favorites memorized.  

It was surprising just how well-balanced our diets became as we were paying close attention to portion sizes and balance.  Before we started, it wasn't unusual for us to share a half-box of pasta or more.  We expected that if we ate less pasta, we'd be much hungrier.  Thanks to Food Mover, we learned that we never had to feel hungry if we ate all of the rest of the defined servings in a day.  Turns out that if you close all your little "portion windows," not only have you eaten exactly what you set out to eat, you are surprisingly satiated.

FoodMover is an excellent guideline, but I'll admit that the more comfortable I've been with healthy eating, the less attention I've paid.  To help with my general balance, this week I've decided to return to daily FoodMovin', and I'll be sharing my food log in the process for the next 7 days.  I'll explain the "windows" I've closed for each meal.

Here's my FoodMover after lunch & afternoon snack, and before dinner (and lots of afternoon water.)
I'd eaten all of my allotted starch, and had 2 fruit, 3 protein, 1 fat, 3 veg, 1 dairy and 6 water remaining.

  
And here's my log for Monday:
Breakfast - 1 whole-wheat bagel (2 starch windows), 1 tb lox spread (1 fat window), 2 tomato slices (negligible calories.)
Lunch - 1 low-cal tortilla (1 starch) with 4 oz lean grilled ground turkey (2 protein), 1 tsp light vegenaise and 1 tb low-cal blue cheese aioli (1 fat), baked yam fries (2 starch),
Snack - A bottle of Trader Joe's red veggie juice (2 veg, 1 fruit)
Dinner - Personal frittata with 2 eggs (2 protein), swiss chard & leek (2 veg), and 1 oz goat cheese (1 dairy), 1 baked apple with tsp cinnamon/sugar (2 fruit)
Beverage -  12 oz of zero calorie Steaz (1 extra), 8 oz skim milk (1 dairy), 64 oz water (8 water)

Per Richard's suggestion, I usually eat my carbs earlier in the day - though sometimes I spread them out a little more.  All the better balance the blood sugar, my dear.

I have one other goal for my balance this week - I would like to precede my workday with a period of meditation, prayer and centering.  It really helps me, all-around.

What are you doing to find balance in your life this week?  Whatever it is, I hope it helps you to take care of you.

Weigh-in Tuesday, and thoughts on empty calories

I'll get right to the point this morning: this week, I'm down another pound and a half. 298!  The farther I get from 300, the more confident I feel about staying away from it forever.

Last week's therapy session was very insightful.  My therapist always helps me see things more clearly, even if they're things I've just said out loud.  It's funny how saying things out loud doesn't necessarily mean that it sinks in.  I was telling her how strangely terrifying it is to not know how you look at a lower weight.  The last time I was less than 300, it was in college.  I was 12 years younger (and those 12 years are kind of a big deal; faces change a lot from 20 to 32.)  From here on, as I lose weight, I'm going to start not recognizing myself.  My therapist connected that fear with my plateau (and with the binge after weigh-in that I wrote about last week.)  My subconscious is having trouble dealing with the fact that there's a lot of change going on with my body.  So I'm doing some visualization exercises, and hopefully we'll shake that subconscious into acceptance.

The survey I posted yesterday (which is still open if you'd like to participate) has been very helpful.  It's sometimes hard to peg what kinds of blog entries (or themes) are most compelling to my readers, and it's very helpful to hear what works and what doesn't. 

I did get one answer about improving the blog that made me stop and think. And think. And think. And if there's that much thinking, it must be something important.  This reader - a friend or family member who knows me from Facebook - would change this about my blog:


"Less about sweet things-- reading about sugar and other empty calories makes me anxious."

I was surprised by the answer, and my knee-jerk response was: "What empty calories?"  I work very hard on keeping all things in moderation.  It's true that if I eat emotionally, it's primarily sugar that I'm craving.  But even those times when I eat an unplanned food, I'm not eating a lot of it. For instance, last week's binge, which was an ice cream cone.  It's not the amount of food that makes it a binge.  It's the reasoning behind my eating.  It's the unplanned and not-mindful way I am eating.  Which, as a food addict, does happen occasionally.  And I'm working very hard to minimize it in my life.

Do I come across as eating a lot of empty calories?  I'm kind of surprised about that, because for the first time in my life, this year has seen the complete elimination of all fast food (it's been 9 months since I've so much as stepped inside one, let alone eaten at one.) 

We cook, on average, 20 out of 21 meals each week, and that one meal out is most likely at Tender Greens, where I've ordered my usual 3 ounces of seared albacore, a cup of mixed greens and either roasted veggies or a half-cup of mashed potatoes (550 or 650 calories total.)  We buy 48 servings of fresh fruit and 72 servings of fresh vegetables every week, and they're gone by the end of the week.  (that's 3 servings of fruit daily for me, and 5+ servings of vegetables.) 

With rare exception, I eat around 1400 calories daily. Yesterday's, for example, was a pretty standard day.

Breakfast: 
1 slice whole grain toast (70 calories)
Sliced nectarine
2 tb fat free ricotta (mixed with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a 1/4 teaspoon of sugar-free almond syrup) (25 calories)
1/4 tsp honey (6 calories)
1 boiled egg (70 calories)

Lunch: 
4 ounces of grilled ground turkey (160 calories)
2 slices of light whole wheat (80 calories)
1 tsp lowfat vegenaise (15 calories)
1 laughing cow cheese wedge (30 calories)
3 pickle slices (negligible calories) 
1 cup of baked yam (177 calories)
1 tb of homemade blue cheese aioli (30 calories)

Afternoon snack:
1 plum (30 calories)

Dinner:
1 cup baked spaghetti squash with 1/2 slice turkey bacon, tsp Parmesan, and 1/4 of an egg (94 calories)
1 cup roasted veggies with tsp balsamic & a spritz of Pam (110 calories)
1/2 cup white beans with sage and garlic & a 1/2 tsp olive oil (134 calories)

Beverages:
64 ounces of water (0 calories)
8 ounces of stevia-sweetened Virgil's (0 calories)
8 ounces of skim milk (70 calories)

Where do the empty calories fit in?  You could say the cheese is "empty," but it fits into my scheduled fats, and I'm still getting the majority of my necessary fat intake from unsaturated sources (olive oil, vegenaise.)  And honestly, regular small servings of things like cheese keep me from seeking large servings of things like cheese.

Nevertheless, the survey answer stung.  So it must be touching a nerve.  I went back to my recipes, to catalogue them, to see if I posted a lot of recipes for sweet things.  Here's the most recent two pages of recipes, going back to late June:

Savory
Rosemary Quinoa
Curried Chickpea Salad
Broccoli Slaw
Blue Cheese Aioli
Southwestern Popcorn
Roasted Zucchini
Heirloom Tomato & Egg Sandwich
Ginger Noodle Stir-Fry
Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Sweet
Cinnamon-Sugar Popcorn
Zucchini-Blueberry Mini Muffins
Figs with Goat Cheese
Key Lime Mini Tarts
Diet Butterbeer
Whole Wheat Pancakes with Fruit Compote

So, yeah.  OK.  They're right.  There are several sweet recipes.  Though most are low-calorie, and most are sweetened with fruit.  Still, it proves that I do include a bunch of sweet recipes.  Too much for one of my readers.  How about you?  Would you prefer to see less sweet?  Are you worried about my empty calories?  Would you prefer, for instance, when I post the recipes for the most recent Supper Club 600, that I skip the 50-calorie tiramisu recipe?

I'm torn.  Part of me wants to listen and take heed.  There were times in the past where I didn't want to hear people's thoughts on my dietary intake, and it wasn't for the best.  But part of me... knows exactly what I eat, why I eat, and how hard I'm working on what I eat.  And that part of me just wants to say, "FORGET YOU*, I'm taking care of me, and you don't get a say in how that's done."

Because it is being done. 

Take care of you today.  You're the only one who gets to do it.


*Cee-Lo Green radio-edited for politeness.

Weigh-in Tuesday... goodbye to 3!

Happy Tuesday!  I took Monday off for Labor Day, and am buckled in this morning for a good week of blogging, and a busy week of life as well - preparing for my dad's arrival on Friday, and the  Supper Club I'm throwing for him on Saturday.  I can't wait!

I'm going to cut to the chase because I'm excited about my weigh-in this morning.  I'm down one pound.


299!

Yes, that's right, I'm out of the 300s.  And I'm determined that there will be no gains in the future that will put me back there.  I am saying goodbye to 300, and everything got me there.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm going to remember everything that got me there.  And I'm going to remember everything that got me out, and will keep me on the path to good health.  After all... I am now over two-thirds of the way to my first goal (which is to lose 100 pounds) and I'd like to meet it before the year ends. 

An old theater friend of mine commented on my previous post - saying that I looked good but that I always did.  And I'd like to clarify that I love me at 366 every bit as much as I love me at 299.  That me was the very first me to make the same decision I now try to make every day - to take care of me.

I found this image via pinterest, and it made me smile.
I *am* both.

How are you taking care of you this week?

Weigh-in Tuesday with a clean kitchen

Remember last week's weigh-in?  When I was honest about having a rough go, and weighing in 3 pounds heavier?

Well, for the last week, I may have been super busy (and not always on my regular blog schedule)... but I've also been working super hard on taking care of myself.  I've eaten carefully, and tracked my food every day.  And I exercised a LOT.

• 60 minutes on Wednesday at the YMCA pool
• 90 minutes at Slimmons on Thursday
• 8 hours walking around (and standing in line) at Disneyland on Friday
• 90 minutes at Slimmons on Saturday
• nothing aside from walking a the Farmer's Market on Sunday
• 60 minutes on Monday at the YMCA pool
• and it'll be another 90 minutes at Slimmons tonight

I felt emotional from time to time, but I didn't eat emotionally.

And as a result... when I weighed in this morning, I was 4.5 pounds down.  The scale said...

300.0

Seriously. I have a digital scale with tenths and it was exactly 300.0.  I even tried to pee more to see if it would go below, but alas, it did not.

Alas? What is "alas" about it? I'm at my lowest weight in years!  I am very close to saying goodbye to 300 forever.

I learned one thing this week that I'm surprised I didn't realize before... one weird thing that, when it's in place, always spurs me on:

Being healthy is easier when your kitchen is clean.

Last week, during the days I was struggling the most, my kitchen was a mess.  Piles of dishes, sloppy floor, unorganized fridge... the last place I wanted to be was the kitchen.  And Wednesday morning, after I cleaned it, the balanced eating was suddenly so much easier.  So I'm making a concerted effort to keep the kitchen clean, so there's nothing - no mess, no leftovers, no nothing - to make me want to hide from the kitchen.  I do best when I'm making all my meals, and now I know that I can't just stop there!

All right.  I'm off to keep kicking ass, so that hopefully next week I can finally say I weigh less than 300 pounds.  And you? No matter where you are, and no matter how we know each other or how close we are... I hope you'll keep taking care of you.  You deserve it.

Weigh-in Tuesday thoughts on honesty

I'm still behind. And I want to get this post out of the way because I have a post that I'm genuinely excited about to write today.  This post... I don't want to write it.  But I'm going to write it.  Because one of the most important parts of my journey to better health can be described with one VERY important word:

HONESTY.

Without honesty, I might still be secretly eating.

Without honesty, I don't have to remind myself where I've been, where I want to go, and where I am on that path.

Without honesty, I could be choosing to subconsciously punish my mistakes with more mistakes.

Without honesty, others who are on their own journeys would get a flawed picture of what it's like for me to be on mine.

Without honesty, I would break the trust between myself and my loved ones.  Myself and my readers.  Myself and MYSELF.

Without honesty, I could continue on a path of not taking care of myself, because I'd be duping myself - and others - that I was.

But you know what?  I don't WANT to be on a path of not taking care of myself.

Let's get rid of the double-negatives in that sentence.

I WANT TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF.

And nothing... no stress, no projects, no passion, no work, no people, no emotion, no NOTHING... is going to get in the way of taking care of myself.

So here is the truth.  Here is my honesty.

I work really hard to lose weight.  Really, really hard.

This week, I didn't work hard enough.  I gained 3 pounds.  I did so by letting myself get wrapped up in a project I loved, and putting that project before myself.  I did so by being mindless about food.  I did not take the time to follow my plan or get to the gym or track what I ate.  And later, I let myself get down and stressed, and leaned on my addiction to get through it.

And that's not OK.

I'm having a hard time not beating myself up about it.  But that usually leads to the whole subconsciously-punishing-mistakes-with-other-mistakes thing I wrote about above.  So, instead, I'm just being honest.  And I'm picking myself up, dusting myself off, and keeping on this life-long journey of taking care of me.  I have plans, checks-and-balances, in place to help me as I work through this.  And I know I can do this.  I am fighting for me.

Weigh-in Tuesday with the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the Chairman of the Board

It's Tuesday, and like every Tuesday, I hopped on the scale this morning for my weekly weigh-in.

Unlike every Tuesday, I was a little nervous, because yesterday was a VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR day.

Illustration by Eric Carle

Have you ever had a Very Hungry Caterpillar day?  When you've already eaten the one red apple, the two green pears, the three purple plums, yadda yadda... and you are seriously craving "chocolate cake, ice-cream, a pickle, Swiss cheese, salami, a lollipop, cherry pie, a sausage, a cupcake, and a slice of watermelon." i.e. everything in sight.

Alas, I am not a caterpillar.  If I ate all of that yesterday, I wouldn't have turned into Beautiful Butterfly today.  I'd just have gained more weight.  And I did not want to gain more weight after last week's one-pound gain.  I worked hard all week to stay in balance, to eat mindfully and to never surpass 1500 calories (which I stayed below each day, even at a party!)  Plus, I exercised incredibly hard.  I wasn't about to undermine that whole week of work.  Except that...

I did.  I totally did want to undermine that whole week of work.  Not all of me wanted to screw it up for myself.  Not even most of me.  But one tiny part of me seriously wanted food.  And not, like, an extra couple ounces of chicken or another peach.  It wanted crap.  It kept saying "heyyyyyy. I'm huuuuungry."  "C'mon, you know you want more food."  "SCREW IT, OK, IT'S PIZZA TIME.  GIVE UP.  WE'RE EATING."  But it was just part of me.  One tiny part of me.

Let's call that tiny part "Hungry Hippo."

My excellent friend Lisa once described a way she looks at making certain decisions.  It's called "the Board of Directors."  When you are confronted with a choice - for instance, when a food addict wants to eat more than needed - you typically fight with yourself about it.  You might have all different kinds of opinions about that decision... different reasons for doing it, or not doing it.  And these different opinions - these different voices within yourself - are your very own Board of Directors.  And just like any company or government, your board will need to come to a consensus for you to take action... whether that's unanimous approval, or a forged compromise, or even dictatorship on the part of the Chairman of the Board.

Yesterday, my board of directors was pretty loud.  The Hungry Hippo was seated in a wide, plush chair at the end of the table. She was trying her darnedest to usurp the position of Chairman, so she could ignore all of the other board members' appeals and move forward with a dictatorship of overeating.  But the rest of the board was able to see right through her. 

Today, I'm back down to 301, the lowest weight I've been in many years.  Hungry Hippo's hostile takeover has been prevented, and she's got a gag order coming her way... because I'm excited about the next weigh-in being lower than the lowest weight I've been in many years.  (Excited and scared - but again, thank goodness for that board of directors.)

How about you? Do you fight with your own personal Board of Directors?  What do you do on a Hungry Caterpillar day, or when your Hungry Hippo tries to take the floor?  What ever it is, I hope it's kind to yourself, in the best possible ways.  Take care of you!

Weigh-in Tuesday... am I worth it?

I wasn't that surprised when I hopped on the scale this week and found myself up a pound.  I logged 5 solid workouts last week, and I ate really well as inspired by the market food I blogged about.  But all the good action and healthy moderation at mealtime... does NOT mean I get to indulge in desserts in between meals all weekend.

Oh, it didn't seem so bad at first.

At Tender Greens: "That rustic plum tart is made with wholesome, real ingredients. And we're celebrating Tom's new job! That's OK."

But it went on from there.

At Brite Spot: "We never come here anymore. I ate a healthy, mindful meal. And I'm avoiding the banana cream pie. It's OK to share a banana cupcake."

At a friend's birthday party: "It's her birthday. I'm not going to not eat birthday cake. And that's... ok, right?"

And then it got worse.

At a stitch-n-bitch: "Well, geez. Cream pie is haunting me. It's here. It looks good. I'll have a small slice."

Yesterday while running errands: "Oh, screw it. I've already messed up my weekly weigh-in. And Tom is not here and I'm tired and I'm hungry and I'm right outside Yummy Cupcakes. Might as well have one."

The truth is that each dessert would have fit into my plan... if I'd chosen one of them.  I should've just planned for birthday cake at the party. Or had the tart and passed on everything else.  But I didn't.

It's not the end of the world, and I'm not going to flagellate myself for overindulging.  I'm just going to take it easy on refined sugar, and work on the one response from the list above that worries the most: "Oh, screw it. I've already messed up my weekly weigh-in."

I'm going to repeat what I've said here before, for my own benefit: my healthy choices do not revolve around my weekly weigh-in. And this is, in part, why.  I don't ever want my weigh-in to be an excuse to penalize myself.  If my eating isn't perfectly balanced, I should not (and do not want to) binge as punishment.  Nor do I want to eat healthfully as punishment.  I want to eat healthfully because it makes me feel good, it helps my body feel stronger and move better. I want to eat healthfully because it makes my life better.  I want to eat healthfully because I am worth it.

So. Today I'm going to list 6 reasons I'm worth it, to help encourage me on my way.

1. I am worth it because I've come so far.
   Already in the past seven months, I've seen how taking care of my body, my mind and my spirit has led to incredible growth, physical strength, mental focus, and not least of all, happiness. I have proven to myself that this process can be filled with joy.  And it's OK for me to feel that joy.
   
2. I am worth it because I have so far to go.
   That incredible growth still has room for further - even exponential - growth.  I have lost 65 (well, 64 again as of today) pounds and yet I am still morbidly obese. Am I healthier than I've ever been? Damn straight.  Can I become healthier, more centered, stronger? Damn straight.  It's feasible.  I am capable of it.  And I want to pursue the lifelong progress of improved health.
   
3. I am worth it because I'm a good friend, a good sister, a good daughter, a good wife.
   As a compassionate person, my loved ones matter deeply to me. The way I treat my loved ones matters to me.  I want to be the best friend, sister, daughter, wife... that I can possibly be.  And the best way I can do that is to keep myself strong and healthy.  I want to be there for them.
   
4. I am worth it because I want to be a good mother someday. 
   Right now, I'm not ready yet - physically or mentally.  Before my body (may) let me be a mother, I need to physically prepare - through continual healthy progress.  And before my brain will let me be a mother, I need to mentally prepare.  I do not want to be a parent who continues the cycle of disordered eating.  I want to teach my child the joys of healthy food in moderation - and I can't do that while I'm still learning. 
   
5. I am worth it because I have stories to tell.  I have lots of stories to tell.  I have true stories to tell, here on the blog.  I have food stories to tell, through Supper Club 600.  And when it comes to fictional stories, Tom and I share a book of 130 plot ideas we've developed, for stories to tell through film, television, and novels.  I want to tell these stories, and keep telling them, for as long as I can.  And in order to do that... I need to take good care of myself.
   
6. I am worth it because I believe everyone is worth it.
   Each of us deserves happiness.  And I know we can work together to support our journeys to success.  I believe in everyone's capacity for growth - especially when hard work backs up that growth.  And I have to remind myself that I can't believe in everyone having worth... without acknowledging my own worth.  I am worth this.  So are you.

That's it for today.  Thanks for being here, even when I'm not on track full-force.  I'm an addict - to a substance that I need in order to survive - so I'll have to deal with roller coasters my whole life.  The key is to realize that I'm on that coaster, and get off as soon as I do.  So today, I'm standing outside the roller coaster photo booth, missing the sugar air-time, but feeling kind of glad to have my feet on the ground.  I'm taking care of me.  I hope you'll take care of you, too.

Weigh-in Tuesday... with The Ballad of The Ugliest Breakfast

Come and snuggle in, kids, and I'll blow off your lids
With the tale of a breakfast so ugly
That if you were too cool for the nerds at your school,
You would point and you'd laugh at it smugly.


And just what could deserve all your jokes? (O, the nerve!
Shallow folks, why must you be so snotty?)
'Twas a hideous beast. Craggy, wrinkled and creased
with a wart half the size of her body.

  


 
If you look past her skin - to her beauty within -
She seems much like her heartier brothers.
Ah! But there's no mistaking the taste. They are faking;
She's better by far than the others.

  


True, she may be a brute, but she dresses up cute.
You can't say she lacks flavor or style.
Yet she's missing a - je ne sais quois - for the kissing.
Our heirloom's been lonely awhile.

  



Then it's lucky for her, a particular sir
seeks a partner to turn up the heat.
He will be rather droll as he asks her to stroll
on the sunny-side-up of the street.

   



He's buttery yellow, she's tart and she's mellow.
I'd say that it's certainly not
Surprising that their rather salty affair
quickly turns into something so hot.

If you please, don't poke fun if you chance to see one
so odd-looking that some might deride it.
Do not judge it by looks. The best people and cooks
know what matters the most is inside it.

  

   
You can find my full recipe for The Ugliest Breakfast at LiveStrong.com.  If you enjoyed this, would you consider sharing the post or the LiveStrong link on your favorite social network (Facebook/Digg/Reddit/Pinterest/etc) or sending it to someone in need of a tomato parable? You could even give it a little Google + love (there's a +1 button at the bottom of the page.)  Thanks, everyone - I fell in love with this little tomato, and I want to share her with the world.

***

In other news, I think the positive thinking is working.

For one thing, that poem came out of nowhere.  Well, not nowhere. The heirloom tomato, part of which was my breakfast yesterday, certainly inspired me to cook. The cooking inspired me to take pictures.  The pictures inspired me to write.  And all of that certainly inspired me to be mindful about savoring my food, much like the Farmer's Market breakfast did on Sunday.

For another thing, I'm down another pound today.  That brings the total to 65, for those of you playing at home.

How about you? Are you thinking positively?  Or are you down on yourself?  If so, what do you do to change it?  I hope if you've been thinking negatively about yourself, that you'll take care of yourself today by thinking of at least one positive thing about yourself today.  Just give it a try.  What can it hurt?

Weigh-in Tuesday, with updates galore!

It's Weigh-in Tuesday, so I hopped on the scale this morning to find myself down another four pounds!  I think my body must be quite happy about being able to move more.  (I know my mind is, too.)

302!

   


That brings my total to 64 pounds lost since January... and just a few pounds until I'm under 300.  I'm almost there, you guys!  Though, of course, I have another 130 to reach medically "normal" weight... and if you've been following along, you know that because of my history of disordered eating and food addiction, there really is no such thing as "almost there" on this journey.  I'm committed to doing this for life.

Luckily, doing this for life (so far) has been surprisingly fun.  The more I write about it here, the more it becomes clearer that I want this blog to be a celebration of this process.  So yesterday I updated a lot of my information pages on the site, to share a little more about myself, and to clarify what Finishing the Hat (the phrase, and the blog) really means to me.  If you haven't seen them yet, you can visit About Heidi and Frequently Asked Questions, as well as my Progress Photo page for a couple of new photos.

On another note - I want to thank each of you who reached out to me yesterday, in response to my post about my mother.  It meant so much to me, knowing that you were all out there, supporting me.  It was such a difficult post to write, and I am certain it wasn't easy to read, either.  So thank you, so much, for being a part of my journey.  Please know that each day is made easier because you are all here.

Okay!  I'll be back tomorrow with a little Glee-ful adventure... and until then... you know the drill.  Take care of you!

A no-plateau Weigh-in Tuesday! Plus a "burning question" about being fat and fit.

This morning, I'd like to start with a little good news.  I have officially beaten my plateau.  This week I lost three pounds (including the two pounds I had gained, plus an additional pound) which brings my loss to 60 pounds!  I started at 366, and I'm at 306 today. I take a progress photo every 20 pounds, so I'm due for another one now.

It feels great to know that I've made it past the stalling.  The surgery and ensuing rest period has been a bummer, but I've done well with food this week, and I was able to take walks and to work out at Slimmons.  Soon I'll be able to get back in a pool, and I'm incredibly excited about this. I didn't realize just how much swimming meant to me until I wasn't allowed to do it.  I feel energized to hit the full week of workouts, and happy to know that my next mini-goal is only six pounds away!  That's right... seven more pounds (less, actually) and I will be under 300... for the first time in probably nine years.  To most people, I realize that 299 sounds like a lot.  It is.  I'll still be morbidly obese, with quite a few mini-goals until I reach plain-ol' ordinary obese.

The question of weight categories brings to mind an article I read in the July/August issue of Health Magazine.  Their pro/con column, "The Burning Question," asked "Can you be fit and fat?"  Two different doctor-professors weighed in on the matter, one on the side that overweight people who are active have half the risk of mortality of normal-weight people who don't exercise at all. (He makes the case that it only applies to overweight people, not the obese.)  The other doc-prof says no; exercise isn't enough - you must also watch what you eat.  Well, duh.  I watch what I eat.  I exercise and am in reasonably good shape.  But am I healthy?  I guess that's the question.

Seems to me like they were replying - though not directly referring - to the movement known as "Health At Every Size" (or HAES) - which I was first introduced to through the Fat Acceptance movement.  There are three main precepts to HAES:

1. Self-Acceptance: Affirmation and reinforcement of human beauty and worth irrespective of differences in weight, physical size and shape.
2. Physical Activity: Support for increasing social, pleasure-based movement for enjoyment and enhanced quality of life.
3. Normalized Eating: Support for discarding externally-imposed rules and regimens for eating and attaining a more peaceful relationship with food by relearning to eat in response to physiological hunger and fullness cues

I feel like I really address all three of these.

I accept who I am - I know where I've been, what actions I've taken in the past and presently.  I know how I got to this weight.  I still see my beauty and worth at this weight - and my weekly Fashion Friday posts are an effort to highlight that for myself, for the times it's harder to remember.

I am active.  It sometimes goes beyond social, pleasure-based movement, because even if I am not specifically enjoying the exercise (as is sometimes the case) the pleasure I feel after a workout, and the energy it gives me for other things, definitely enhances the quality of my life.

I work very hard at normalized eating.  In the past, I have had difficulties with moderation, and with behavioral/emotional eating.  In fact, that's not in the past.  I think it's likely I will have those difficulties all my life, but the difference between my behavior now and my behavior before is that I am up-front with myself about those struggles.  Instead of avoiding discussion about food choices, I seek it out.  I lay out plans to help avoid the less-healthy choices I make when I'm tired, bored, or simply don't have a road map for my food.  Plus, the KIND of food I eat matters.  I'm eating lots of vegetables, fruit, and whole grains, plus lean protein and healthy fats.  I don't eat out much, and I don't eat fast food at all.  I do count calories, which is not something recommended by HAES - but I don't punish myself for over or underconsumption if I'm hungry or full.  It's merely a tool I use to keep my behavioral eating in check.  It never fails - after a couple of days of not recording calories, and I begin to slip into behavioral patterns again.  It's all about being mindful, and calorie-counting helps me do that.

When it comes to Health's "Burning Question," I think I have a better answer than either doc/prof:  each body is different.  It's ridiculous to generalize.  We don't need generalizations from magazines.  We need to work directly with our medical teams to find out the specific ways we can improve our health.  I do that - so there's a good chance I'd live longer than some average-weight fella who doesn't exercise and eats fast food all day.  Or, who knows, maybe I'll get hit by a bus.  So it's not just about the length of a life, it's about the quality of that life.  The point is that I know I'm worth taking care of - and I'm taking care of myself as best as I can.  And I hope that you will do that for yourself, too.