Feb 27: Pants that fit

I bought some new clothes last night. Big sale, plus coupon that expires tomorrow. I bought a ton of tops, but only one pair of pants. Which is strange, because god knows I need pants that fit. For the last couple months, I've been making due with a beige cord skirt, a pair of stretchy, swishy black pants, and some jeans I bought in December at my fattest. The jeans (size 14) are now incredibly comfortable, even while sitting. They are just the right amount of baggy. Yesterday I pulled out a pair of size 12 pants and deemed they were not too tight to wear anymore. In retrospect, I probably could have waited another week or two. (And will.)

When I was clothes shopping, I tried on a really nice pair of grey pants. Encouraged by fitting into my size 12s yesterday morning, I pulled a size 12 off the rack to try them on. In the fitting room I was like, what was I thinking. These will never fit. I was pleasantly surprised when I put my first leg in and didn't feel an impossible constriction around the thunderous thigh before I even pulled them up and attempted to do up the waist. I was able to do them up, but they were too tight to wear right now.

I thought about buying them anyway, reasoning that they will fit in a few weeks at the rate I'm going. It's the old numbers game wreaking havoc on my psyche once again. I want to be able to say I'm a size smaller, and take that as another small numeric indication of my success.

But I realized that the more important thing is having clothes that fit the body I'm in right now. I feel so much more confident, energized, and motivated when I look good in my clothes. I know it's a weird irony; looking good in size 14 pants makes me want to lose more weight so I can't wear the pants anymore. In the end, I bought the grey pants in a size 14. I realize I might only wear them for a month or two (fat chance I would ever get off my ass and get them tailored) but the motivation of feeling good for those two months will be well worth the $36 I paid for them.

Feb 25: week 8 weigh-in viddie, finally!

Hey everybody, sorry for the wait. Sunday night I was doing an epic liveblog chat during the Oscars, Monday night I was beat, and last night I was all set to finish the damn thing and my boyfriend called and we spent several hours on the phone. Priorities!

So anyway, things are going well this week. I am still struggling with the "menu fatigue" business, but I am really focussed on exercise (last night I ran 2.5 miles / 4km without stopping once for a walking rest!) and it's definitely keeping me in the game.

Best news of the week
This morning someone at work asked if I'd lost weight. Wheeeeee!!!




Postscript for my mom: hi mom! My mother has technical issues that somehow preclude her from viewing the videos. So from now on, I will also provide a recap of how much weight I've lost. Bonus this week: screencaps showing before/after thus far.

This week's weight loss: .5 pounds
Total weight loss: 8.5 pounds
Current weight: 157

Feb 22: new viddie is coming tomorrow...

Hi guys,

I shot the video and did quite a bit of editing, but have been on Oscar duty for the last six hours, and had a technical issue with the viddie that could not be resolved in time. I'll get the video posted tomorrow night after work, promise. Oh, and I will respond to comments from the weekend tomorrow, too.

Y'all are awesome! Thanks for caring.

Feb 20: Backslidden

Aw, geez, you guys. No sooner did I post yesterday's I'm feeling damn good about myself business than I went home and ate my face off. Interesting, n'est-ce pas? For me, the self-sabotage always seems to come hot on the heels of the self-love.

Okay, so back up. I did engage in what felt like binge behaviour last night, but I only binged on food in my house (i.e. relatively healthy stuff), and I stopped long before I started to feel sick from too much eating.

In the interest of full disclosure, and in the vein of confession being good for the soul, here's a full account of what I ate last night:

1 small slice whole grain bread	60 cals
2 tbsp organic guacamole	40 cals
1/2 cup leftover stirfried veggies and chicken	75 cals
3 eggs, fried in oil	350 cals
2 more small slices whole grain bread	120 cals
750 ml low fat frozen yogurt	600 cals
2 pkgs of Sensible Foods crunch-dried fruit	150 cals

Wow. That looks like a lot more than it felt like when I was eating it. The fro-yo was the biggest indulgence. I had 3/4 of a litre left in the freezer and I just went at it. Anyway, by my calculations, this binge amounts to about 1400 calories. Up til that point, I'd consumed about 650 calories through the day, so I'd say all in all, could have been a lot worse.

I'm going to the gym after work tonight, and I'm gonna shoot for 45 mins of cardio; up the ante from the 30 I've been holding myself to for the last few weeks. Tomorrow I meet with my trainer and we're doing THREE reps on the weights (up til now it's just been two), so I know I'll put this behind me.

As far as what went wrong yesterday: I think there are a number of factors.

One, the aforementioned tendency to self-sabotage when I start to feel good about myself. Fuck I hate that about myself. In October I did four weeks of Booty Camp, this killer outdoor exercise class. At the end it was still hard, but I was starting to feel fit. When it was over, I fell off the bandwagon and was in a food freefall for all of November and December, and I think I gained around 15 pounds, possibly more, I am too ashamed to calculate it and tell you all.

Two, menu boredom is starting to set in. I need to find some ways to shake stuff up a bit. I did mention to the Miaouw that I thought it would be fun for us to take a healthy cooking class together. He gave an enthusiastic Paws Up to that one.

Three, even though I love having him here, I think I may have been reacting a bit to having my space back to myself after the Miaouw left yesterday. I am an introvert and sometimes I start to feel the stress of close quarters. I think I may have been reacting to that a bit.

Well anyway, as Usher put it, this is my confession. Not trying to make excuses, just trying to learn from it. Also, trying to take a positive from it. In the past, this could have been a white cake with thick white icing, a bag of McDonald's, a big bag of chips, a full box of chocolates, and/or some combination of all of them.

File this incident under "Progress, not perfection".

Feb 19: Staying focussed

Hiyooooo!

I'm back in the land of the living dead a.k.a. my job. I took a few days off to spend time with my Miaouw, in town from California for a week. For those who don't know me (and even for some who do), this is my infernally cute nickname for my boyfriend who will be moving to Toronto in May to be with me and Lola, in that order.

Anyway. As many of you may know, it's not easy staying on track when you are sharing your life with someone else. Actually, that is not always true. Sometimes having someone else around can actually be helpful, in terms of motivation and support. As a binge eater, my most destructive behaviour happens in secret. (The Miaouw calls this "secret eating", and I love how he takes this thing that I feel total shame and self-loathing over and sort of demystifies and almost trivializes it, just insofar as my perception of it as something big and serious and impossible to conquer. It's not a secret anymore.)

The flip side, though, is that, like the song says, we're here for a good time, not a long time and there's an urge to make the most of our visits by just indulging in everything fun and delicious and happy-making while we're together, including and especially eating our faces off and chasing it with beers and silliness. Healthy routines get put on hold, and once you've cast them aside, it can be hard to resume them.

Well, this visit I think I did a damn fine job of toeing the line. I kept both of my appointments with my trainer, one of which was on Valentine's Day, and also got the Miaouw to join me for half an hour in the exercise room on Monday night while I did a two mile run (he cycled 6 k and suffered the dreaded bicycle butt for his trouble). I also cooked for us quite a bit, and stuck with my very healthy veggie stirfries. We did eat out a couple times, and one of those times I had a roasted vegetable sandwich with a side order of fries WHICH I THOROUGHLY AND COMPLETELY ENJOYED, to the extent I wanted to finish it off with some sort of extravagant dessert (indulgence is a slippery slope, my friends) but I was awesome and kept myself in check.

Anyway, I'm planning on doing a run on the treadmill tonight, followed by an indulgence of another sort (cheeseball Grey's Anatomy -- it's February sweeps, yo! Faye Dunaway is gonna be on! Cut me some slack!) and then sticking with the exercise for the rest of the week.

I'm feeling pretty damn good about myself these days.

Feb 16: The numbers game (plus viddie)

This week's weigh in is at best inconclusive. The scale is a cruel, mysterious mistress. As you'll see from the viddie below. This isn't exactly a news flash, but pinning your motivation to the numbers on the scale is a slippery slope. The scale giveth, and it taketh away. And the other way around.

Anyway, I am trying to re-work that habit, by understanding that eating right, exercising, not putting toxic gunk in my body is its own reward, and that I shouldn't feel entitled to a numeric reward on the scale. And that if the number on the scale doesn't move, or worse, goes up, it doesn't mean the effort to live well is wasted.

On the other hand, I think the numbers game is helpful when it comes to progress in the gym. The cardio machines are tedious, but they have so many numbers you can watch and obsess over to push yourself to go a little bit longer past your comfort zone: they track calories, distance, time, intensity... between all those sets of numbers, it's easy to go just a little further to achieve a nice round number in one category (say, "I'll run 'til I've burned 200 calories"), and then the next category needs to be rounded up ("I'll go 'til I've hit a mile") and then the next ("once I hit 15 minutes I'll rest")... and before you know it, the first category needs a new round number.

Anyway, with respect to this week's weigh in, yes, I was exasperated. But I spent some time thinking today about how good it felt to run for 33 minutes yesterday, for 2.5 miles. I felt as though I could have gone on. It doesn't really matter that much what the scale says. My body is getting stronger. I accept the fact my metabolism is not going to do me any favours, and that the fat is very reluctant to give up its winter home. Or at least, I'm trying to accept it. I'm glad I'm treating my body more reverently, anyway. It makes it easier to look on these curves with tenderness and acceptance.

Feb 11: Foodstuff

I'm happy to report that the Unprocessed Plan is still going really well and mid-way through my sixth week eating this way, I am not feeling deprived, yearning for french fries (or potatoes in general), chocolate, frozen entrées, or any of my previous staples.

This is not to say that I have entirely forsaken my once-beloved chemicals. I am transitioning.

Here are some healthy swaps I've recently made:

Peanut butter: I actually got that stuff you have to stir. Crazy! I am still adjusting to the taste, which I suppose is one way of keeping me from sticking a spoon in this glop and eating from the jar. Shameful chemical and sugar addicted confession: when I make a sandwich with it, I sprinkle a packet of Equal on it. (I will wean, I will wean!)

Non-stick spray: I ran out and did not buy a replacement. Despite my lifelong fear of calories, I have switched to using one to two teaspoons of olive oil for my stir fries. I'm okay with it because olive oil is really good for you: these are good calories. The only thing that's kinda lame is, I can't quite bring myself to fry an egg in olive oil, so even though I have a virtually brand new non-stick frying pan, there's always a tussle with the pan to get the egg out onto the plate in one piece. What the heck, I'm gonna break the yolk and dip my toast in it anyway.

Future swaps in the works:

Minced garlic: oh, it's so super convenient and easy just to grab a spoonful of this stuff rather than chopping up garlic and pressing it. I do the same with puréed ginger. Mmmm, I love the puréed ginger! But I'm thinking... I could probably do without those extra preservatives.

Ice cream / frozen yogurt: I really don't know if this is bad. I mean, I gots to have some sort of indulgence, ya know? When it comes to grocery shopping, I've been using the Paul Plakas rule of thumb: if you can't pronounce the ingredients, chances are it's not good for you. Also, the fewer ingredients the better. I have been avoiding looking at the ingredients on my beloved ice cream too closely. I get the low fat stuff but half the time low fat just means more sugar. So, I'm gonna have to get real on that one at some point.

Jasmine rice: so fragrant, so delicioush, and oh so glutenous. It is virginal white, guys. I know I need to switch to brown rice and I will, eventually. When I have rice (once or twice a week), I only use a quarter cup uncooked, so it's taking awhile to get through the bag. Maybe I should buy some brown rice and start mixing them? Maybe.

The aforementioned Equal: I also sprinkle some (down to half a packet) on my berries when I have them with cottage cheese in the morning for breakfast.

The last to go:

Diet Dr. Pepper / Diet Coke: a.k.a. cancer in a can. I'm sure this stuff is killing me. But I love it. I love it! And what do you do when you're orally fixated and you need to feel like you're eating or ingesting something but you're sick of water? Sigh. Some day. I'm in transition.

Food recommendation of the week:

Sensible Foods crunch dried snacks - my favourite is Cherry Berry. The packaging boasts that it's "all natural, fat free, gluten free, no added sugar, no added preservatives"... and the list of ingredients would seem to support that. It's perfect for when you crave something sugary. One package is something like 80 calories. I sprinkle half a pack on top of ice cream and it is deeee-vine.

Any recommendations from the peanuttiest gallery out there?

Feb 8: week 6 viddie is up

Hello faithful handful!

Okay, results are in and the question remains: what the fizzuck does a body have to do to rev up the gee-dee metabolism? Pull a Benjamin Button? Ah well. The good news is, after five weeks of a healthy diet, I am not feeling deprived and/or longing for garbage food. And I am losing weight at a slow but steady pace.

I was in the shower earlier this week and I looked down at my hip and had an intense visual of that old saying, "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips". I thought about all the sugar and fried gunk and stuff with no food value whatsoever that I have shoveled into my yap over the years, and saw it racing through my veins in search of a home, plunking itself down on the outer reaches of my ass, like fat cell pioneers. Those fat cells really like it there. They are squatters that will have to be evicted through the unpleasant act of squatting, it seems.

Feb 7: New measurements viddie!

Hey, check it out! I'm shrinking...aaaggaghhhghh!!!

Feb 4: How long have you been fat?

I’ve been fat for my whole life, or so it seems. I can remember when I was six years old, going to the doctor for a check up, and hearing the doctor tell my mom that I was 10 pounds overweight for my age category. There’s just never been a time in conscious memory when I didn’t define myself this way.

I know there are some people who start to gain weight in their 20s and 30s, when their metabolisms start to shift and their youthful eating habits catch up with them. Or after they have kids. Some people put on weight during health or emotional crises. I know it’s hard to lose weight, and it’s hard to be fat in terms of what it does to your self esteem, but I wonder: do people who gain weight later in life struggle in the same way as those who’ve internalized the fat label at a very early age?

I think about all those early memories and experiences: my brother calling me fat every day of my life as a means of gaining the upper hand in our relationship (when that didn't work – who am I kidding, it always worked – anyway, he could always just beat the shit out of me), kids on the playground silencing my wit with the indefensible, "shut up, you're fat!", going clothes shopping and hearing salespeople refer to me as "chunky"... and that's just the pre-teen years! Adolescence was brutal.

Do these early experiences make it harder for me to lose weight and keep it off? Will I always think of myself as fat, no matter what I weigh? If I slim down to a size 6, will I just think of it as a temporary pass to a place where I don't belong?

Like most career dieters, I have had a few shining periods of success. I won’t go so far as to say that I was ever thin. When I’m on a diet, the goal I have in my mind is that I just want to look “normal”. I want to be able to walk down the street without feeling like I stand out as different because of my weight. As a person who is obsessed with body image, I am constantly assessing people as I come into contact with them. With a flickering glance I instantly categorize them in my mind as “normal / average” or overweight. I don’t know if other people do this, but when I think about a goal I want to attain for weight loss, it’s just to be able to occupy the former category, not the latter.

Of course that’s entirely subjective (not to mention probably slightly crazy). It’s just… there. I don’t know how to stop thinking of myself that way, or other people. I am constantly comparing myself to others, wondering if I am bigger or smaller, where do I fit on the spectrum?

And I know that it doesn’t matter. Or at least, I understand that it shouldn’t. Part of the struggle to lose weight and get healthy – a big part – has got to be how to scrub away these beliefs. They are so deeply imprinted they feel like tattoos, impossible to remove. But there’s gotta be a way. Or maybe I can just have them altered. Like Johnny Depp’s “Winona Forever” tattoo now says “Wino Forever”. Instead of seeing myself as

F A T F O R E V E R M O R E

...maybe instead I could be

  A   F   R E   E   M     E

Hmm. Gonna have to do something about those unsightly gaps. Reconstructive surgery for excess skin? Maybe I could get Oprah's Angel Network to pay for it.

Something to think about. (I am open to your suggestions.)

Feb 1: week 5 weigh in viddie is up

The suspense is over! Behold.

Feb 1: Mindfulness in the kitchen

Hey rock stars. Yes, it's Sunday, weigh in day. I've shot the "raw" footage and will probably post the viddie tonight. Right now I'm at the office. I figured the best way to combat my resentment at having to be here on the weekend was to not work. At least for a little while.

As for the title of the blog: this is something I've been thinking about for a few weeks. As you may know from previous entries, in the last few years I've been a fairly regular client at Jenny Craig. I've always been sort of sheepish and embarrassed about it, I guess because I realize, even if other people don't, that the reason JC works for me is because of my food issues. I was actually diagnosed around 6 years ago with binge eating disorder. When I'm on Jenny Craig, there is almost nothing in my kitchen to cook with because I don't need it, and I don't trust myself not to binge on it. My fridge is a condiment storage facility and little else. (It's the freezer that sees all the action.) And I'm embarrassed about my lack of self control, even if Western science wants me to feel okay about it by giving me a diagnosis, which seems to defer responsibility by saying I'm sick, ergo I can't help it.

The Kitchen is not something to be feared!
Well anyway. Years of subsisting on a diet of almost entirely prepared and pre-portioned meals left me not only afraid of my kitchen, but also incredibly lazy about cooking and clean up. I was a little bit apprehensive about switching to a diet of whole, unprocessed foods and fresh produce, insofar as the amount of time it would take to prepare and clean up afterward. On JC it's so easy; you just stick your nose in the freezer, grab a box, toss it in the microwave, and shake out a bowl of bagged salad: voilà, dinner. You don't have to think about it. And when you're ready to eat, you eat. There's no time spent preparing. And when you're done, the only thing to clean up is the salad bowl.

But I realized after a few weeks of preparing my food that in addition to adopting a healthier diet, there was another important benefit I hadn't considered: the time I spend preparing my food before eating it forces me to be mindful of what I'm putting in my body, to stay present during meal time. One of the symptoms of binge eating disorder is eating really quickly, and when I went to treatment for the disorder, I discovered that my tendency to plan a binge by buying immediately consumable foods (chips, cake, chocolates, fast food, etc.) was not all that unique to me. You don't want to think too much about what you're doing. You just have this compulsion that must be followed, this hollow feeling that you keep trying to fill, even after your stomach is sore from stuffing too much food into it.

Conclusion: Jenny Craig is not good for binge eaters
I think throwing a meal in a microwave and having it ready in 5 minutes may somehow unwittingly play in to that mentality. I hadn't ever considered it before, but I think that's another reason why Jenny Craig is not a long-term solution for me. It's more like a medication that treats the symptoms, even as it reinforces the behaviours that ultimately manifest in those symptoms.

Hunh.