Mar 31: Plateaunic

Sisters and brothers,

What's the word, now word up? Rhetorical question. Okay, so, how's everybody doing in the Battle of the Bulbousness? Are you sweating and grunting your way through thrice weekly workouts? Training for a marathon of aerobic smugness? Contemplating the idea of one day maybe taking the stairs? Forsaking second breakfast and feeling that's good enough for now? Some where in between? Let me know. Let us aaaaaallll know. Here at D-Weighted, we do not judge. Well, we judge, but not openly. Kidding, kidding! I keed because I love. You know that.

So, you want to know about me? How kind. Since you clicked, I will tell you. My last weigh in, on Caturday, was a little disappointing. I gained .2 of a pound. (How do you say that? "Point two of a pound"? If I was quick on the uptake I would say "a fifth of a pound" but calculation doesn't come as fast as the chatter. I mean, it's fine when you're blogging, but... 'k I'm bored with this aside.) So yeah. Up a fifth. Whatever, it's pretty insignificant and I'm not crying myself to sleep on my huge pillow or anything. But it always sucks to gain, especially when you ran four times that week and observed the Rules of Jenny.

Well, except for the previous Saturday night, when I polished off most of a bottle of wine, some cheese, a couple of one-bite brownies, and 2 pieces of Popeye's chicken w/ fries on the way home. Okay, when you put it that way, dang. It didn't seem so bad at the time. Maybe the double digit blood alcohol level affected my perspective (and my willpower) a smidge.

Even without the Saturday slip, I feel like my body is starting to dig in its heels (um, I am digging in my heels... but like, metaphorically... whatever). Plateaus [plateaux?] are inevitable and all one can do is suffer through them. When I've done all I can do (okay, not ALL, but a Saturday night slip once in awhile is called "living") in terms of eating right and exercising, I just have to feel okay about the fact that I'm healthy and this sort of fluctuation is out of my control.

This weekend I'm headed home for Easter with the fambly. My mom is also doing Jenny so that might help me stay straight. We shall see. Hope to get out for a hike with the Miaouw on Good Friday - the forecast is a glorious 25°C / 77°F and sunny. Bonus: my shorts fit again. And I will pack my running gear, try to get in a run on Saturday or Sunday morning. I asked/cajoled my brother about an Easter Egg hunt on Sunday morning. Being the younger sibling, it of course pissed me off the year my mom decided she'd had enough of hiding eggs. He got three more years of hunts! I threw a tantrum which resulted in my 16 year old brother buying two cartons of real-egg-size chocolate eggs and hiding them in the most elaborate, impossible spots imaginable. I think we were still finding eggs 3 years later. Anyway, he has two late-teens to frustrate and delight with his torturing skills this year. If there is a Hunt, I will present them with any of my kills, as a cat presents her mistress with the still-twitching small bird of the backyard.

Happy Easter or Passover or non-religious enjoyment of a Stat Holiday, everyone!

Mar 25: Googlers

Hey, have a paw:

==3

Just thought I'd check in, say hey, extend the paw. Jenny serves me well - I lost another pound last week, word. The Cancer Ladies also serve me well - my cardio capacity seems to be improving, as are my run times. I did 3 miles on Sunday in 35 minutes and change, and then two days later I did the same run in 34:12. Tonight after work is a 2 mile run with the gals. I expect to huff and puff and hate every minute of it, but running with faster folks seems to be pushing me to extremes I wouldn't do on my own.

So, I use Google Analytics to obsess over who visits this blog. I happen to know, very few. That's fine. I mean, I was hoping by now to at least have my own TV show, but let's face it, I'm no Diablo Cody. (I totally would have worn the shoes.)

Anyway, every once in awhile somebody stumbles onto this blog as a result of a wayward Google search. By far the most popular entry for non-recruits is the one I wrote last April about the Google Maps pedometer. Somehow it got indexed by Google, and now shows up at the bottom of the first page of results when people search on "google maps pedometer". Hunh! Well I hope it's been helpful.

For shits 'n' gigs, I looked at the search terms used over the past year that brought people here (one at a time, for the most part). Here are some faves:

• "president's choice" + decadent chocolate chip cookie
  So referenced in the comments section of a blog asking what foods people cannot keep in their homes for fear of total annihilation within hours.



• crazy lola say: i don't know what to say, he cheated on me with some girl for 5 months
  This one made me laugh my ass off. So random.



• fondle my biceps
  Right on! I love that somebody searched this term, and that they came to my photo with the marked up biceps.



• i really hate myself
  Sad. I hope whoever searched on that term stopped feeling that way. Glad to say I did. (Not to say I didn't return to that feeling, but thankfully it's not a permanent condition.)



• im 19 and bored (related: im frucking bored and depressed)
  Wonder if Iggy Pop helped ease the pain for these two?



• stale cereal calories
  Another winner for the Cereal Killer post! Did the person searching these terms think stale cereal had fewer calories? The food is dehydrated, therefore less fluid, therefore less mass? Wow, I could be like a science genius.



• what is the meaning for the sentence "hotter than i should be"
  I love it when I am able to answer the tough questions for people.



• mandibular disfunktion
  This one had me stumped until I checked the comments section. My girl Cookie was referencing Temporo-Mandibular Joint disfunction. I had never heard of it when she mentioned it, and promptly forgot all about it until just now. And once I finish writing this sentence, I'll forget about it again. Did you say something?

Well alright, that was fun. Time to get back to work. Fondle your Google today!

Mar 18: Rump likes being rump

(or, Notes on the Miaouw)

My cat-fetishizing significant other, referred to on this blog as the Miaouw, and by other qat-related monikers elsewhere, is an appreciator of RUMP. This is a fortunate thing indeed, since mine is ample. He was already half way in love with me without ever having laid eyes on my rump (plus it was significantly less ample back in the day), so I don't worry about him taking off like a cat out of hell once I finally shed some of this asstacular caboose.

Sometimes when I'm in the kitchen preparing a meal (read: shaking out some bagged salad, pressing "START" on the microwave, etc.), he will sneak up from behind and grab one of my cheeky protuberances and growl, "rrrrrrrrUMP!" appreciatively. Man that is a nice feeling.

I can't say for sure what it is about rump that attracts the Miaouw. Perhaps he is fascinated by it because of his decided lack of rump. There's barely anything there! Instead, he has a nice layer around his middle that he refers to as his "rind". He laments rind's spillover muffin-top effect, and makes sporadic attempts to fight the "fat tax", as he calls it. (I showed him my loosening trousers the other day and he said, "hey, fat rebate!" encouragingly.)

The Miaouw could stand to lose a few pounds, it's true. But he is a fan of gnaing [ŋīng]. He likes to gnaing wings, fries, pizza, and Ruffles All Dressed chips. (The latter is a Canadian culinary delight - a potent mix of barbecue, onion, garlic and salt and vinegar flavours. Gnnnnnaing!) Used to be the Miaouw could gnaing all the time and gain no weight. Apparently he was a skinny little bitch in high school who actively tried to gain weight. This led to the acquisition of really terrible eating habits. It gives us something in common, a foundation to build on

Two summers ago, he went on his very first diet and complained bitterly to me about how difficult it was for him, going from eating whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, to having all these restrictions on his freedom to gnaing. Moved me to tears, it did. He eventually forsook the portion-controlled approach that I use, and now uses the "skip a meal" diet plan. He eats a bag of All Dressed, and then he just... skips a meal. Then he gets on the scale and the fucker has lost 5 pounds

Meanwhile, this week I have mysteriously gained 1 or 2 pounds, depending on the scale's mood. Okay, I had some chocolate and a couple handfuls of All Dressed on Saturday, but that's weigh-in day, and I let myself have a little treat on Saturdays to keep myself in line the rest of the week. Since then, I've worked out a couple times and stayed on the straight and narrow as far as Jenny is concerned. There is no explanation for the weight gain - and DON'T say water retention because this has happened to me before and the water does not go away. Seriously, sometimes I gain weight inexplicably and I look to the next week to lose it again and... I don't.

The Miaouw was spooning me in bed this morning - sometimes he demands rump, and who am I to turn him down? - and he said, "Maybe rump doesn't want to leave. Rump likes being rump!"

If you have a more plausible explanation, I'm all ears. Anyway, it's nice to know that rump can stick around for as long as it wants to, and at least one family member will be happy about it

Mar 16: Yogging

Hello smatterings!

-- Shout out to non-clickers. Where were you yesterday?! You totally missed the Freudian self-diagnosis and admission of latent pomoherotic lovemaking with my digitus primus! Well, I left it up for you just in case.

So, yogging! Tonight after work I am running with the Ladies of the Cancer. I believe I may have mentioned that a group of us are going to train twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) after work, in preparation for the Sporting Life 10k on May 2. Last Thursday I went out with them for the first time - we ran 2 miles, and it was humiliating, yo's.

Normally when I run on the treadmill, I go for around 10-12 minutes before taking a walking break. I start fairly slowly, then gradually increase my speed - every minute, I ratchet the speed up by a tenth of a mile (goes to counting obsession, Your Honour). I usually do this until I'm running at around 5 to 5.5 mph. So in point of fact, all this time I've been talking about "running", when really, as Ron Burgundy would say, "I believe it's jogging or yogging. It might be a soft j."

But these ladies, these... Sasha Fiercies... well, they actually do run. After we'd been out there five minutes and forty seconds, I glanced at my watch (so as to properly call the time of death). Oy. I was ready for a walking break but we'd only run half the time I normally run before taking a break. I pushed through to 9 minutes and then walked for a minute. We had planned to do 10 and 1s, i.e. run 10 minutes, walk 1. I normally run 12, walk 2. Maybe that's bad form. Well, I finished the run - did it in 25 minutes. Actually, that's about average for me, when I have been running 3 miles in 37-38 minutes. The next day I ran 4 and 1s at 5.5 mph at the gym, and did 2 miles in 24 minutes, so that seemed like progress

Tonight's run is slated to be 2.5 miles. One of the ladies suggested we do 5 and 1s. I am nervous that I will underperform again. But the ladies are all very encouraging and the main thing is, we are all out there gettin 'er done.

But, yeah. I feel fraudulent calling myself a runner. From now on, I am a yogger, and proud of it.

Mar 15: Orally fixated

Pre-blog orders of business:

1. Beware the Ides!

2. Lost another pound and a half this week. Jennytotal: 11.4 pounds. I am grateful for the results but I still want to punch Jenny, and in particular I want to swat Sara Rue for her new perktacular commercial, losing 30 pounds in 12 weeks (GAH! Bitch!), and lisping. If it weren't for those three items, I would like her. She is very pretty.


On to the pornish blog title...
So I had this blog title in my head, kind of as a joke, because I wanted to talk about how (especially at work, when I am in full resistance mode) I have this behavioural issue around constantly ingesting. Most of the time this means I always have a can of DDP and/or bottle of water on the go, which ensures frequent trips to the bathroom to break up the monotony of editing the business users' manual for... zzzzzzzzzzzzz thunk.

Whooooops, fell asleep talking about what I do at work.

Anyway. In addition to the constant sippage, I spend a great deal of time thinking about my next meal, watching the clock in anticipation of the next opportunity to stimulate my mouth. So in preparation for this blog, I looked up "oral fixation". I remembered it vaguely from studying Freud in Psych 100 - the oral stage of development being the first experience of pleasure in a person's life, plus all this maternal relationship imbalance stuff. I find the psychosexual stuff and the matri/patricide fantasizing dodgy at best, and can remember feeling 100 years-too-late rage at Freud when studying his patriarchal condescending sexist theories, but okay, the guy had some ideas.

According to my buddy Wikipedia,

Oral fixations are considered to contribute to over-eating, being overly talkative... overindulging in sugar, chewing on straws and toothpicks... Other symptoms include a sarcastic or "biting" personality (known as "oral sadistic" qualities). Another indicator is constant nail biting, putting fingers in the mouth as well as biting any future sexual partners they may have.

Hunh.

Confession: I shit you not, I sucked my thumb until I was 18. I lived in constant fear of my brother outing me to friends, and in particular to my first boyfriend. (Ha! Totally beat him to it with this blog!) I don't remember how or why it stopped. Thankfully this hearty maxillary never required correction through orthodontics. Who knows, maybe I was destined for an underbite and the thumbsucking actually saved my parents thousands!

Anyway, yeah. Looking over the symptoms of oral fixation here: over-eater, check. Chatty, to be sure. Sugarholic, hello Beuller? Read the archives much? Sarcastic - see previous. Nail biter, why just this morning I destroyed my left ring fingernail. Finger sucker, not so much in the last 20 years, but, yeah. Biting sexual partners... well, it does say future sexual partners, so I think that buys me a bit of time on that category.

Well anyway, isn't it fascinating? Wikipedia doesn't say what to do with this information. I don't know if there is treatment. It seems this condition comes about during the breastfeeding process. Weaned too soon or not soon enough. Should I find myself a wet nurse and fashion a do-over of the breastfeeding stage of development so I can finally move on to anal fixation? Maybe hire a videographer so I can make a little something on the side by selling video to online fetishists?

I don't know, I think I may be on to something.

Mar 5: I'm still here

Fwiends! The frozen core of my listless heart is at last beginning to thaw. Every day there are drips of sunshine and optimism gathering in a slushy aura that continues to grow. The tide is rising! Soon I'll be overflowing with... happiness? Okay, this metaphor is getting out of hand. I don't want to overstate it, but it's nice to feel something other than... nothing.

I've been faithful to the Microwave Diet for a month now, have lost 8.6 pounds (love the digital accuracy - even if you have a shitty week, you can say you lost .2 pounds), and last week when they took my measurements I was ASTOUNDED to hear I'd dropped almost 12 inches. This from chest (2 inches), waist (4 inches - cha!), pooch aka abdomen (3 inches) and hips (3 inches). Of course my first and lingering reaction is to assume she made errors in every measurement, but even if she was off by an inch at every spot, that's still pretty effin good. So this is encouraging.

Also, sunshine. Warmth. The Olympics. And, I think possibly upping the medication by 50% may be playing a role. But it's so hard to know for sure. There are environmental factors at play, as well as physiological ones, so who knows. It's just good to feel... better, if not great. It's supposed to be 10°C (50° American) and sunny this weekend. Sa-weeeeeet.

Some ladies from work are starting a running group after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, to train for the Sporting Life 10k, which I'm going to do again this year. Sunday May 2nd - mark your calendars.

And, though I continue to have mixed feelings about my reliance on portioned meals, I do very well on the Jenny Craig program. It's easy to stick to, and there are tasty foods and snacks. I confess I spend much of the time between meals thinking about my next meal, but that's standard procedure. At least I know I'm enjoying the meal, not bitter about what I don't get to eat while I'm stuck eating boiled chicken and mmmmm, broccoli! Tonight I eat my petite Fish and Chips (ketchup food, yessss!) avec salad, plus my eensy chocolate cake with dollop of sugary chocolate icing on top for dessert. I can live with it.

About the only thing that's still pretty meh-inducing is my job, which fails to inspire, frequently enrages, but mostly just bores. My contract comes to an end on July 31, and then I'm taking a bit of a vacation from the working world and office culture. So that's the chocolate bar in front of the horse at the moment. Screw carrots.

How's everybody else doing?

Feb 16: Succombing to depression and Jenny Craig, in that order

Darlinks,

If you've been following along, by now you know the pattern: declaration of renewed determination, regular updates, occasional complaints about lack of substantial progress, dimishing returns... radio silence. Weeks, sometimes months later: declaration of renewed determination!

I have to admit it's tough coming back here time and again to admit my defeat. I know that's not news, as generally the declaration post contains some sort of sheepish mea culpa, and this one is no different. The worst is looking at the laundry list of contributions to the diet industry over the past year: buying the Atkins book, signing up for Weight Watchers online (again), the thousands of dollars I have spent on personal training. And now, the inevitable return to Jenny. Fucking I hate Jenny and everything she stands for! Which is a tough stance to take, given the heavily branded contents of my freezer.

In the last 5-10 years of my life, I have struggled more and more with bouts of depression. I've been on a mild dosage of Celexa (a.k.a. citalopram) since summer 2006. In January I spoke to my doctor about the very difficult fall I've had and we upped the dosage from 20 to 30 mg/day, which felt like a backwards step since rightly or wrongly I have this judgment about needing to use drugs to control my mood – I thought this was going to be a temporary measure. Anyway, I think the increased dosage is helping, insofar as it allows me to go to work and function, but I still feel like a piece of clothing that's been washed a hundred times – faded, rumpled, shapeless. Ready for the GoodWill bin. Some days I feel like I have no emotions, just emptiness. Way in the back of my consciousness there is desire, to do something, to be someone, to find joy in creativity and interaction, but it's such a long push to get to the front of the haze of disinterest and lethargy that the fire of ambition is barely a flicker.

In the midst of this, there is one thing that brings joy, or a simulation of it, without fail: eating. If life has no flavour, food still does. So I succomb to it time and again, in the absence of any other excitement. And then my depression becomes more profound as my unhappiness with my appearance grows. It's vicious indeed.

Then you have the whole third world sitch, and the self-loathing only grows. God, I even loathe myself for indulging in self-loathing! GAH! All this navel-gazing, over indulgence in my appearance, my clothes that don't fit, how bad I want to chuck the diet and eat a box of chocolates or whatever. How much money I spend on trying to lose weight. How much energy I spend trying to forgive myself for the pre-occupation. And I don't think that's going to change. This is where I am, this is the life that I live. I live in a privileged culture that has spawned its own brand of life challenges. They are existential rather than practical, but they are real to me.

All these demons swirling around eventually led me back to the doors of Jenny Craig. I lost quite a bit of weight using this program in years past, and kept it off for a couple of years. I was always embarrassed to admit I was a client. I need my foods measured out and pre-packaged for me to prevent me from eating everything in sight. And I will pay far more than the food is worth for this "service"! Whatever, it works for me. I've lost 7.5 pounds so I feel good about the decision. I hate putting money into the industry, but sometimes self-image trumps politics.

So that's where I'm at right now. Kinda dark, kinda struggling with the self-like business, and then struggling with the struggle to self-like, as if that's not an indulgence in itself. I know there are so many of you who will understand this, and who will want to reassure me about my own likeiness. Thanks in advance. This is not a cry for validation or reassurance. I get that you dig me, just like I know you know how much I dig y'all, and appreciate your support. Mostly I just want to share.

This too shall pass.

Love and hugs to you all!

PS Plea from a cat named Lola:

Jan 19: I'm bored

New and improved D-Weighted surround sound: Click PLAY.



The little arrow up there. Yes I'll wait.

Aight, that's it.

Okay, so if Iggy Pop is the Chairman of the Bored, I'm gonna put in for Secretary. Who will bring the motion? Second? Carried. I'm just going to go ahead and assume two of you raised your hands, since here you are, reading my meticulously captured minutes... Of the meeting... That goes on in my head... When there is nothing else there to fill it.

Moving on.
So, I lost a pound. A measly, paltry, beggarly picayune pound. (Hat-tip: thesaurus.com.) Blah, blah, blah, slow and steady, healthy rate of loss, etc., oh, and do me a favour and STFU. Golldangit, you kids, I sweated my BAWLLS off this week, racking up what I thought was an impressive 46 Activity Points, using only 9 of my 35 weekly flex points. And yet the fat, she stubbornly clings. What can I say, I have a very attractive skeleton. Can't get those squatter fat cells to move out without building a frigging barricade and starving them out, it seems.

Ah well. When life hands you... nothing, make nothingade. Assholes.

Continuing good work
I've been back at the running. I ran twice last week. I'm trying to stick with 3 miles / 5 kms for now, and then I do my 10 minute abs video. The other night I did the 3 miles in 36:05, which I thought was pretty effing good, considering last week's entry, where I mentioned running it in 37:40. I really had to push myself, but I felt good about it. On Caturday, the Miaouw and I walked for two hours to pick up Lola's heart meds. The vet clinic is around 4.5 k from my place, so round trip was 9 k or around 5.5 miles. A good hearty walk. We rewarded ourselves with some EXCELLENT Indian food. Relax, bitches, I counted my points, even then, and ate light that night. On top of this stuff, as always, Derek tortures me twice a week. Whattaguy. So I'm feeling pretty good about the activity.

Boredom and Anxiety: is there a connection?
I'm trying hard not to give in to resentment. I feel like I'm bored with my menu but I know I'm mostly just pissed and feeling deprived. I'm not actually all that deprived. Hang on a sec. I'm not actually AT ALL deprived, big picture speaking. I think it's just the notion of restriction. I find myself fantasizing about boxes of chocolates and large orders of fries. Never a good sign. I'm also really fucking bored at my job, which doesn't help. I look to food as a source of satisfaction and emotional excitement. Also, since I watched a marathon of the show Obsessed, I am trying to practice more awareness about how I use food and eating as a distraction from anxiety. Is boredom a manifestation of anxiety? Or something that can cause anxiety? Honestly, I want to know what you think.

Hang in there kiddiwinks. Don't the January get you down.

Jan 12: Deferred damage report

Good Soldiers of the Fat Wars!

Sorry for the lengthy hiatus. I reckon yer used to it by now.

So, where were we? Ah, yes – my holiday pledge to you:

I will stick within my points, and if I go over, I will earn them back in Activity Points. (Normally I try not to swap my Activity Points for food if I can help it.) Mostly I just want to not gain weight.

Pffffffffffftttttttt! Okay, obviously I had to say that. I think I am to be admired for telling myself it was a possibility. Or... something.

Well anyway, it was Christmas Eve and the Miaouw and I were driving to Kingston to fellowship with my family on this most cherished of consumer occasions. We fought, he called me a See You Next Thursday, I bawled like a baby and would have insisted he pull over except we were driving on a 4 lane highway at the time, so instead I just cry-shuddered til we got to town and then got him to stop at a gas station where I attempted to clean myself up. He was contrite, but the damage was done. I said, "Let the stress eating BEGIN!" and I never looked back.

And so it was, that the week between Christmas and New Years, plus the weekend following New Years, I was once again OhTeeDub: off the wagon. By the end of the 10 day stretch, my jeans were feeling depressingly snug at the waist again. FOOOOOCCCKK!!! You GUYS! GAH! Well anyway, I didn't weigh myself last week, but I got back to the business at hand, and this morning when I did my Tuesday weigh-in, I find that I am up just 1 pound from my pre-Christmas weight, so all in all, I'm feeling okay.

I am re-committing myself to my night-time running. I ran three miles on Saturday - it took me 37:40 to do it, which is well off my best time, but at least I did it. The other thing I am experimenting with, for as long as I can take it, is not eating my 35 weekly WW flex points (review of the WW Points system) or my Activity Points. So far so good, but if the austerity measures get to feeling too tough and I'm in danger of chucking the whole thing, I will have something to fall back on.

I note with amusement that a year has passed since I started this blog, and my weight is 2 pounds less than it was then. How v. Bridget Jones.

Love to you all and let's love ourselves a little bit more than we did before this year!

Dec 22: Merry Catmas to all!

Hey there Christmas Cats!

Just checking in before taking awff. For those of you who must know: lost a pound this week. Three week total: 6.5 pounds (kicking and screaming). My scale attempted to foil me this morning and at first it said I'd only lost half a pound. I persisted, and eventually won out. After a half pound week last week and THIRTY NINE (ah, ha, ha, haaaaaaaa) ACTIVITY POINTS EARNED this week, I was not taking anything less than a pound of weight loss. My scale fears me, as well it should.

So I hope you've all been burning tons of fat with all this godforsaken bullshitting fuckmaking Christmas shopping assiness. And of course peace on earth. I swear, I might as well wrap myself in Saran Wrap before heading out into the madness. Or so it feels like, anyway.

Last week's triumph
On Friday we had our office Christmas party. It was the first fun one ever on record. Nice going, Cancer! I am very pleased to report that, although booze and cupcakes were served, I partook of neither. I danced vigorously (gave myself two Activity Points) and stuck primly to four pieces of vegetarian sushi. THEN I went to my workout with Derek! THEN I walked up the hill to the pub to meet SuperBarb and the Boyz and stuck primly to salad w/ grilled chicken and white wine. Okay, six glasses. Still though. It was good to be righteously shitfaced. Then on Saturday I didn't even stuff my face with greasy hangover carbs because alas, I had used up all my flex points for the week already. THE STEELY DETERMINATION! (It helps if you don't get up til noon - less eating time to avoid.)

The week ahead
Alright, it's Christmas. The office is full of Point-y delicioush crap. And then I'm going home for a long weekend of festivussing. This is my pledge to you: I will stick within my points, and if I go over, I will earn them back in Activity Points. (Normally I try not to swap my Activity Points for food if I can help it.) Mostly I just want to not gain weight.

I want to thank you all for sticking with me this past year and always being so supportive and empathetic. I hope you all have a warm, happy, functional holiday with the people you love. With portion-appropriate servings of delicioushnesh!

xo,
Lindsay

Dec 17: Vintage!

Heya folks!

Quick update: lost only half a pound this week. Which bugs me, but this time around I am already prepared to accept the fact that my body really, sincerely, genuinely loves fat and is very reluctant to let it go. I am practicing compassion for my hips, thighs, boobs, arms... change is never easy.

Now on to business: I have a very special treat for you today! Tremendous thanks to SuperBarb for sending me the link!

For you career dieters out there, I know you've done the Dub Dub before. Can you remember what the program looked like when you first signed up? My first time was back in 1984. I wish I still had the materials. I can visualize them still. Instead of the POINTS system, the program referred to food "exchanges". You were allowed a certain number of exchanges per day from each food category: fruits (I think veggies were probably still "free" back then?), meats, dairy, starches and fats. So it was a little bit stricter and probably slightly more nutritious because the program was based on recommended daily allowances for each food group. With the POINTS system, you can eat chocolate or a Big Mac or whatever, so long as you track the number of points in it. It's basically a fancy way of counting calories.

Well anyway. I am curious to hear your thoughts on previous iterations of the Weight Watchers program. But that's an aside. The reason I got to thinking about such things is because Barb sent me a link to this HI-larious website featuring scans of Dub Dub recipe cards from 1974! Outrageous gross and fantastic, all at once!

The site is the work of Wendy McClure, a Chicago area writer who discovered these cards in her parents' basement. You have to read her comments alongside each of the recipe cards. Holy shit they're hysterical! She even wrote a book about them! Holiday gift ideas, anyone?

Thanks again to Barb. Fan-friggin-TAStic find!

Dec 10: The Count LOVES to count POINTS!

Greetings blogren,

Business first: lost 5 pounds after my first week of clean living on the DubDub Online plan. Sweet.

Okay, so, I'm sure lots of you are familiar with the Weight Watchers POINTS® system. For those of you who aren't, a quick description:

Instead of counting calories, or "exchanges" as in days of yore, you count points. The number of points you're allowed to eat per day depends on your weight. I am permitted 21 points per day. Points are calculated based on calories, fat content and fibre content. Generally speaking, a point is about 50 calories. But foods that are packed with lots of fibre and are low in fat can have more calories in them.

Okay, so, you're reading that, doing rough calculations in your head and thinking to yourself, 50 calories x 21 points = 1050...? Is Weight Watchers trying to starve you?! No, see this is the fun part. In addition to your daily allotment of points, you get 35 flex points to use throughout the week, however you want to spread them out. So if you're going to a big party, you can blow a wad and eat cake or whatever. Or you can just add an extra 5 points per day to your regular allotment. It's up to you. I love that, because psychologically, it lets me feel free to binge on occasion. I'm sure that there are some who think this is probably a flaw, in terms of encouraging or enabling that behaviour. Personally I feel that allowing myself the occasional opportunity to go a little crazy is the only thing that's going to keep me on what I would otherwise think of as Austerity Measures.

But that's not all! In addition to the 35 flex points, you can earn more points through the week through activity and exercise. I'm not exactly sure, but my feeling is that you earn 1 activity point for every 100 calories burned, more or less. There's a little calculator that looks at duration and intensity.

I am a person who loves to count. I'm not in it for this healthy lifestyle crap. Please. Pounds! Inches! Calories! Or, in the gym, reps! Minutes! Weights! Calories burned! So, with the online DubDub program, you get this cute little tracker that allows you to plug in all your points consumed, earned, saved, etc. Oh it's a counting bonanza all day long! I must say, I have been far more diligent about walking to work since starting up with the DubDub last week. It's about a 20-25 minute walk each way, so if I walk to and from work, I save money on subway fare and I earn TWO! TWO Activity Points, ah, ha ha haaaaaaa!

Good times.

Dec 7: Confession and shopping: both good for soul

Fwiends!

Man am I ever glad I came back. Wow. Your responses on both Facebook and here to my last post were just so heartening, I can't even tell you. It is hard, facing yourself, admitting your failure(s)(ssss). Turns out it is way harder to face yourself than it is to face your friends. When are we ever gonna learn that? (Perhaps I speak out of turn and you folks already know that. In which case, why didn't you TELL me?! Oh, you did. Nevermind.)

Well anyway, my mood has really been on the upward swing, which is such a relief to report. I decided I needed to get myself some new clothes, to continue (or, begin) this trend of feeling good about myself at any weight. As Stacy and Clinton always say, you've got to dress the body you have, not the body you want. Being close to my all-time weight high, I don't have a lot of clothes right now that fit. Getting dressed every day is a constant reminder of my unhappiness with my body. But going shopping... UGH. Let's just say I'm no Carrie Bradshaw. I speculate that Carrie Bradshaw might not be as much of a Carrie Bradshaw if she was dressing a size 14-16 on her 5'2" frame as opposed to a 2, but then again, there are plenty of larger size women out there who enjoy shopping and looking good, so I don't know maybe it's just me.

I will say that deciding to go for a wardrobe refresh on the 3rd Saturday before Christmas is maybe not the best timing. And for you folks reading in the upper parts of the US and across Canada, you understand the torture of mall shopping in a winter coat, especially when you're trying a lot of stuff on. I had to steal myself against it before I left my apartment.

The Miaouw has been adorable and supportive, as usual. Before I left to face the crowds, the chaos and most of all, the mirrors, he reviewed with me what I should be looking for. Apparently he sometimes pays attention when I'm watching What Not To Wear. We decided my rules should include looking for tops that gather in at my narrowest point and then flow out from there, and bottoms with straight legs, etc. We did stop short of the pointy toed shoe since I think that any illusion of length they may give is negated by the fact they also make me look like a ruler of a geographic domain of Oz. (Although I'm sure they look great on y'all.)

Well anyway, I blew a wad and three hours later I walked home (extra Activity Points!) with all my crap and the upshot is, getting dressed today was actually fun. Onward, ho!

Dec 4: RE-WEIGHTED

Uuuuugggghhh.

Well, I'm back. Including the 15 pounds I'd lost earlier in the year. Plus some new pounds to keep the others company. (What a party those guys are having! The fun never stops.) September and October were really bad months for me. November improved slightly with the arrival of my Miaouw, but times were still kinda dark. I don't know what triggered it, but I was in a very long-lasting depressive cycle and I gave in to it fully. And of course, the more I gave in to it -> the fatter I got -> the more I wanted to hide -> the more depressed I got... you get the idea.

So yeah. My weight is 169. Just 2 pounds shy of my all time high. I shake my head at myself as I write this. I couldn't face the scale while I was in the midst of the depression. A couple of times I made half-hearted attempts to pull myself out and get back on the wagon of good eating and regular exercise. But I avoided the scale, and my blog. All I have been good for is dutifully going to work and then going home to the cocoon of fattitude. Almost all of my clothes no longer fit. I've been wearing a sports bra for the last month because it's the only one that fits, and because my boobs have become gigantic flabsacks. Ugh, it's disgusting.

However! I am approaching the light at the end of this long, dark, autumnal tunnel. I did face the scale. It sucked, but it's over now and I survived. My shame is no longer a deep, unnamed fear. It is concrete and actually not so very shameful - here I am sharing it with all of you, after all.

I joined Weight Watchers online on Tuesday. For the past month or two I have been trying to figure out what I can do to kickstart me out of this depressive cycle. I thought about joining Overeaters Anonymous, which would be a new thing for me. Also free. But I got hung up on the notion of a 12 step program with quasi-religious undertones. I almost gave in and re-upped with Jenny Craig, but that felt like a step backwards. I do need something to be accountable to. With DubDub Online, I am still only accountable to myself, but there's a structure that involves checking in every day, tracking my food intake and my exercise. Mind, I've tried it before and ultimately abandoned it. But I felt like I had to do something and this seemed the least intrusive. Or something.

This weekend I'm going clothes shopping. I need to feel like less of a schlep. I'm going to be this weight, or in this general area, for awhile, and I won't be motivated to get out of it if every time I look at myself in the mirror I hate what looks back.

So, welcome back. I know many of you reading this can relate. I invite you all to forgive yourselves and hop back on the party wagon with me!

Sep 21: I get knocked down, but I get up again

Hey fwiends,

Well, the Puma Diet is no more. I was feeling a little weird about eating all that meat, and since the whole ketosis thing just kinda ignored me and my efforts, it seemed pointless, expensive, and nutritionally dubious to continue. So a couple weeks ago I switched back to a low fat / low carb eating plan. And then slid into high fat / high carb. From there it was an easy transition to fat and depressed again. Ugh.

It's tough, blogging about all of this. It's like inviting everyone to watch you run into a wall over and over again. You start off full of high spirits and good intentions and confidence, and groove to the momentum (that stuff's always fun to write about). Then you start to lose energy, get waylaid, take a vacation, get injured, whatever, and whammo, right into the wall. Failure, disappointment, feelings of powerlessness. I do my best to dust myself off and rev up for another go. And after awhile it just starts to feel like dang, am I ever gonna get past this? And doesn't everybody get tired of reading the same old story? How many times did Charles Schulz recycle Lucy pulling the football out from under Charlie Brown before it got old? (Some might say, never, it's still hilarious. To which I would respond: I'M NOT HILARIOUS, I'M PATHETIC!!!)

Well anyway. I moped around most of last week, eating shit I didn't really want, but eating it anyway, in case I actually did want it since food has always been my frenemy. I kept my appointments with Derek, which helped. Last night I had a revelation that I needed to clean my apartment. I am living in a depression-induced sty. I made lists for every room of my wee humble abode, of stuff I need to do to get some order in my life. In between I did laundry and went out for some healthy groceries. I felt really empowered and it actually gave me energy.

It's very weird, and it all seems so arbitrary: I sit on the green couch for hours and days and weeks, thinking about how I need to get the vaccuum cleaner fixed because, ew, gross, or looking over at the crammed to the brink book shelf and think about how it's only two feet away, why don't I amble over and start organizing it a bit? And it always seems like such a herculean effort to make myself do any of the myriad list of things to do. But then one night POING! suddenly I have the motivation. I don't know how to control the switch, but I'm just glad it finally got activated.

So today I'm lacing up my sneakers and getting ready to sprint towards that football again, hoping this time I will actually connect with it. Or, at least with Lucy's face.

Sep 8: Exercise: what is it good for?

(Absolutely nothing?!)

I've been meaning to write this blog for about a month. Sorry I'm late. Last month, two friends forwarded the same article to me in one day: an opinion piece that ran in Time magazine entitled Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin. One friend (beloved Rusty_grrl) had spotted the article on Bob Harper's Facebook page (he's the crying personal trainer on Biggest Loser). Bob was not pleased:



The article is an interesting read. I can understand why Bob got a little fist-shakey at it; it isn't that the author is saying exercise is useless, but the headline would suggest otherwise. Casual readers who might not read all four pages and/or just skim for details might come away feeling justified for hanging up the sneakers and becoming reacquainted with the custom-made ass groove on their couch.

Compensation without representation (on the scale)
What the article does say is that exercise can give people who are counting their calories and trying to lose weight a false sense of security in terms of ingesting a few extra calories on days they work out. The author refers to it as "the compensation factor". He cites results from a study that showed women who exercised intensely over a six month period did not lose significantly more than a control group who did not exercise (some even gained!):

Whether because exercise made them hungry or because they wanted to reward themselves (or both), most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment. Or they compensated in another way, by moving around a lot less than usual after they got home.

So, any of you relate to this phenomenon? I know I do! For sure there are plenty of times when I allow myself a little something extra, perhaps as a reward for my good behaviour, or maybe because I'm just plain hungry after a workout.

Honey, can you pick up some more self control on your way home?
The other notion that the author puts forward is that self control or will power is finite in people. You only have so much of it to use:

In 2000 the journal Psychological Bulletin published a paper by psychologists Mark Muraven and Roy Baumeister in which they observed that self-control is like a muscle: it weakens each day after you use it. If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you'll be more likely to opt for pizza.

Seriously? Holy geez, all this time I've been hating myself when I should have been hating science! Fucking science! You screwed me over! Well your secret is out now. Nice to have something else to blame for those times when it's gotta be cake.

Let cooler foreheads prevail
The article does go on to say that, of course, there are many benefits to exercise. ("In addition to enhancing heart health and helping prevent disease, exercise improves your mental health and cognitive ability." - I guess Bob didn't make it to page 3.) But the argument for "sweaty, exhausting, hunger-producing bursts of activity" is not as strong as Bob and Jillian would have you believe (if you choose instead to believe this very comforting article, that is). The author believes low-intensity movement, such as a walk - not even a brisk walk, from the sound of it - is just as effective as doing cardio at the gym.

Hmmmm. I don't know guys. First I have to give up aspartame, now I'm expected to give up my sweaty hairshirt of gym torture? It just don't seem right to me.

What do you all think?


PS Personal exercise update: I took the last 3 or 4 weeks pretty easy, since every time I got more intense, my gimpy left calf muscle yelled at me. Also, I read this article and realized I didn't have to. No, no, I kid! I keed! Anyway, recently I have started running again. It's hard to believe how quickly I got out of shape. I've been running at a super-slow pace, and right now am only doing about 2 miles (2.5 including walking warm-down). My heart rate zooms with the intensity of the effort so I don't consider it safe yet to push myself beyond what I'm doing. I'm just glad to be training again.

I don't think I'm gonna be ready in time for the Toronto Island 10k run - it's less than two weeks away. Frowny faces. Instead, I think I will participate in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup that weekend. Picking up garbage can actually be a decent workout, especially if you don't eat donuts afterward.

Aug 29: Aaah, heh heh... whoops?

Last night I OD'ed on Atkins bars. I guess it could have been worse. I still have bars left today. Also I didn't go out and indulge in actual carbicide. (The bars are 2-3 net carbs each, which makes the whole thing pretty low impact, big picture speaking.) I sure thought about it. But I just kept thinking about all that sugar running through my veins, how sick I would probably feel (how sick I already felt), and ultimately I talked myself out of it. Victory in the face of defeat (she mutters grimly).

The thing is, these bars are packed with dietary fibre. Like, between 8 and 11 grams each. And... I kinda lost track of how many I ate at around... um... 7. So after I hoovered the last two, I sat back and clutched my sated belly and endured a night of romance-killing gas. Delightful.

The best (read: crazymakingest) part was that this morning I was down half a pound. I was LOL at my scale.

Aug 26: The Demon Aspartame

Shout out: The Demon Barb, who demanded an update.

So, I don' t know, guys. I've been following the Atkins meal plan for over two weeks and I am ALREADY stuck. Seriously, WTF is up with my wretched body. Everything was going along quite nicely, I was losing at a steady pace, and then this past weekend I hopped on a plane to surprise my Miaouw, who is in the Bay Area at the moment, for his birthday. For the first time in... perhaps ever, I stuck with my diet whilst visiting my boyfriend. Well done, you might say, and I'd agree with you wholeheartedly.

So then, why do I come home and find out not only have I not lost any more weight, but in fact I have gained 1-2 pounds? BITCHES! GAH!!!! Quel frustrate.

I surmise that I must not be in ketosis after all, and I start trying to figure out why. The late Dr. Atkins advises that there are a few prescription drugs that may impede ketosis: birth control pills (check), anti-depressants of the SSRI variety (check). So, nothing I can do about those for now. But also, he advises that you stay away from aspartame. Apparently it can kick you out of ketosis.

Well I knew this going in, and chose to continue drinking my beloved, gut-killing Diet Dr Pepper anyway. I adopted a wait and see mentality. But this weekend I had a lot more DDP than I normally do (which is already a fair amount) so I'm wondering if this is the cause. I'm looking for beverages in Canada that are sweetened with sucralose a.k.a. Splenda. Yesterday at lunch I did recon at the the nearby Sobey's and found that Diet Crush (I like the orange; not a huge fan of cream soda) and Schweppes seemed to be the only sweet 'n' fizzy beverages on the mass market that I could choose from. Last night I discovered that the Loblaws President's Choice label makes their Free & Clear beverages with sucralose, so I picked up a couple bottles of that. Today I've been sipping Tangerine-Lime and guzzling water. I had a headache by 10 a.m. which I attribute to withdrawal.

I also bought some ketostix last night and pissed all over my hand this morning trying to get a reading. I've read not to rely too much on what these things say because different factors can impact on the outcome of the test, like time of day, level of hydration, level of recent activity, etc. I've heard you should test every day at the same time, either morning and/or night time. So this morning's piss says: no ketones in the blood. Sad faces.

So that's the update. I need to get off aspartame anyway. I've known this for a long time. So maybe this is a good thing, even if this is not the impediment to ketosis. I will continue to experiment and test with the ketostix to see if I'm doing the right thing. It's annoying, but I am still feeling pretty upbeat overall.

Aug 17: Life on Atkins

So I've been on the Atkins plan for a week and a half now and I gotta say... LOVING IT! Before I go any further (and this is not because I think y'all are gonna sue me or anything), I want to say that I am still considering this an experiment, I am not endorsing it as a magic cure or advocating it as a solution for everyone or for anyone other than me, and even for me, who knows. I'm just saying, I feel awesome.

Here's what's working for me:

No sugar or bread/pasta cravings
I don't find I am missing out on processed carbs like bread and pasta and potatoes. Once in a while (usually after a meaty kinda meal) I think something sweet would be nice, but I don't feel dogged by cravings. Of course, it's early times yet. There is a theory that the less sugar you eat, the less you crave it, and I think that's true, but I don't know if that theory accounts for the psychological or emotional cravings that come later, and may be related to feelings of deprivation, or maybe other stuff going on in your life that's not related to diet and eating. It's early times. So we'll see if it holds. But for now, I feel very satisfied on this eating plan.

Chewing (and swallowing) the fat
I think one thing that is making a difference is not having to hide from fat. Food that is prepared with fats like butter, olive oil or... dare I suggest... bacon grease - it tastes way better. So I am not feeling deprived, I am feeling the opposite. I've never eaten so much cheese in my life! I have four kinds in my fridge right now! It's unbelievable!

Ketosis is keeping me honest
Also working for me: in order for the Atkins approach to work, you can't really "cheat" or have a few extras here and there, the way I have in the past with low fat, calorie reduced diets. The whole point of cutting down so drastically on your carbohydrate intake is to cause your metabolism to switch from burning glucose as its primary fuel source (once carbs are ingested, the body converts them to glucose and uses it as fuel; excess glucose gets stored as fat) to burning fat as its primary fuel source. This is why you can eat so much fat on the diet - it gets burned right away to fuel your body, and once your body is using fat as fuel, it turns to stored fat and starts burning that too. When your body starts burning fat as its fuel, you're in ketosis.

So anyway, science lesson aside, the point is, from a behavioural perspective, there is sort of a built-in cheat-protection on this plan. I don't take weekends off, or figure it's fine to have a slice of cake at the office or whatever because I'm going to the gym after work. (And again, I must stress: NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT! I actually like that approach, i.e. a little something called "moderation" or "balance" or as some might say, "a bit of frigging perspective".) But the way I was going the past few months, I just needed a more disciplined approach, and in order for Atkins to work, I have to trust the science, since I can't trust myself to veer just a little off course without winding up in Albuquerque.

As for my weight loss thus far...
Well, I'm not exactly sure. I was too depressed to weigh myself at the outset, so I can only estimate what my starting weight was, based on the way my clothing (didn't) fit. I reckon I was between 158-160, but can't say for sure. This morning I am 151.5. I am not saying I've lost minimum 6.5 pounds thus far; I'm sure some of that was water and whatever. When I weigh myself next weekend it will be more telling. Would be nice to finally start losing at a decent rate. I wouldn't mind an average of 2 pounds a week, which is safe. I'm not looking for a quick fix; just want my metabolism to do its part if I'm gonna bust my hump six days a week in the gym.

So anyway, very cool. I'm encouraged. We shall see what continues to unfold...

PS Lola says upside down meow.

Aug 10: Emergence

In case it hasn't been obvious, or at the very least, inferable, I've been struggling. Ne worry pas, it's not a new struggle. I've been here many times before; I'm sure it's a cyclical thing, just part of my process.

Which is not to say that the cycle is unavoidable, or that it is predictable in terms of when it will strike, or how long it will last. When I vowed a month ago to get my shit together, I meant it. I thought I was pulling out of it. But events have conspired against me, including the nagging injury, the lack of confidence in my metabolism to respond to "good behaviour" eating, and the annual family weekend visit last week, which always stresses me out. My anxiety (and anxiety-eating) around this event plays out like that saying about the duration of a cold: three days coming, three days staying, three days leaving. That about sums it up. I got a lot of anxiety eating done in those nine days.

So, rather than sink into total desolation, which I rarely do anymore, thank goddess (i.e. thank me), I forged a plan. It is kind of a radical plan, for me, anyway, insofar as I've never tried this, and it goes against everything I think I know about myself as far as how I react to dietary restrictions. But I feel like I need to do something to kick my fat-ass metabolism off the couch and onto the treadmill. GET TO WORK, DAMN YOU!!

Soooo, I am giving Atkins a shot. I know, I know, diets don't work. But what I really need right now is a bit of encouragement. Some gee-dee results, ya know? I'm going to see if this whole ketosis thing really does work, and if my metabolism responds. I don't know how long I will do this. It's an experiment. I'm on Day 4 right now, and feeling okay. Don't find I miss the carbs or the sugar, but possibly (likely) that has something to do with the attempted carbicide (TM Brüno) over the past couple weeks.

This is all new to me, counting the carbs. It's kinda cool to have something new to focus on, and to eat different kinds of foods whilst trying to lose weight. It is keeping me VERY busy, reading up on how it works and keeping track of everything.

I'm not weighing myself until I've done two weeks of "Induction". Partly I just didn't want to know what the damage was - I couldn't face it. Partly I don't want to get discouraged if it takes a few days or weeks to get my body into this crazy fat-burning mode.

I will blog more about Atkins and how it works in future installments, for those of you who are interested.

Rock on, it's good to feel proactive again!

PS Physio seems to be working. I've been easing off the walking to and from work and doing some extra stretching and stuff. Have worked out the last three days in a row and am feeling no pain, knock on head. Keep your fingers crossed for me!