Mar 31: Weight loss tips from The Miaouw

Hello, empty theatre!

Quick update: I have started yogging again! I was holding off on reporting this, since the struggle to find motivation to exercise has been iffy at best. I didn’t sign up for the Sporting Life 10K, because I thought there’s no way I’d be ready for it. I had this romantic if sweaty notion that every year I would improve my time, and this year, what with the excess weight and the whole sloth appreciation society business, I know that won’t be possible. So I was letting that defeat me before I even got started.

Well screw that mentality. A week and a half ago, my office moved into a new building, closer to the Good Life. I decided to make good associations and new habits with this new environment, and have been going to the gym after work regularly. The first time, I got on the treadmill and told myself, whatever you have to do, just do it. So I started with 2 and 1’s (run 2 minutes, walk 1). By the end of each two minutes, I was a mess, but I was determined. I just set the speed lower. Yesterday I was up to 4 and 1’s, which is great improvement over just 10 days, I think. Even so, it took me 40 minutes to run 3 miles. Back in the day I was going 4-6 minutes faster, but whatever, I’m out there, doing it, which is a MAJOR WIN. Or, winning. Whatever the kids and the crazies are saying these days.

So with all that extra activity, I still only lost .8 last week. My total weight loss over the past month and a half is something like 2.4 pounds. Jeez. Even so, I feel great about returning to the exercise thing. I knew I would get back to it eventually. I’ve decided I’m still going to sign up for the Sporting Life 10K on May 1. I don’t give a shit what my time is; for me, the triumph will be showing up and gettin’ ‘er done.

Okay, on to the titillating subject line at hand: The Miaouw has a couple of unorthodox diet tricks that I thought might be useful if you are out of your mind and if you first sign a waiver that you won’t sue me or anything.

1. Do not wear winter jackets in winter.
   Being from southern California, winter is an anomaly to the Miaouw. I got him a winter coat for Christmas two years ago. He brought it back to California and then forgot it there. But he is undaunted. He goes out in the frigid sub-zero temperatures in a cardigan with a windbreaker, and when I look at him like he’s nuts, he insists that this is a weight loss scheme. I suppose there are a lot of extra calories to be burned through violent shivering. I think he also thinks the little metabolism elves are taking chunks of fat storage and throwing them on the fire, trying to warm up his body. I gotta admit, this theory sounds kinda sciency.



2. Blood donation on a regular basis.
   So the idea is, not only do you lose the initial mass from the liquid (great for pre-weigh-ins!), but that your body burns calories in generating more blood to restore your reserves. At one point, he was suggesting we do a blood clinic crawl – donate blood every day for a week. Alas, it never came to pass, so I can’t offer up any evidence to support this wild theory. The other drawback, of course, is you wouldn’t be allowed to eat the cookie afterwards. That would totally defeat the purpose, obvs.

Well anyway, these are just some ideas that I in no way endorse and will not be held criminally responsible for. Enjoy, little lab rats!

Mar 25: Pithy nutrition lesson

I’ve been on a mandarin orange kick lately. With the revolutionary advent of free fruit on DubDub’s new Points Plus program, I have been enjoying much more fresh fruit in my diet. I buy mandarins by the bag and eat 2 or 3 in a sitting. Delightful!

So I was remembering a few years back, my dad’s wife mentioning something about the white stuff on oranges being very good for you, and that you should never peel it off for this reason. I mentioned this to Jan once and she wrinkled her nose. The idea with eating an orange as a snack, in her view, is that it takes an extra long time to do so because of the meticulous process of removing all the white stuff. So you feel like you are eating for longer. (That’s one of those dieting trade secrets for y’all – a freebie from my mom!)

So anyway, I looked it up. The white stuff is actually called “pith”, and the scoop is, it’s where the majority of an orange’s nutrients are stored. According to the sciency titled “Food Genetics” blog,

The pith, part of the protection layer for the orange, contains high levels of fiber, anti-cancer agents and important bioflavonoids (an antioxidant). So next time when you have an orange, think twice about peeling off those healthy beneficial white piths.

Apparently, the juice of an orange contains only 25% of the vitamin C found in an orange. Hunh!

So now the challenge goes out to OCDers who are concerned with their health but also like a nice, clean canvas before biting into their juicy fruit!

Mar 24: The trouble with DubDub

Good blogging, weightful wonders!

First things first: yesterday was WeighDay. I was up half a pound. Irritating, though not unexpected. On the weekend, I gave in to the Call of the Bile. At the time, of course, the bile was disguised in its pre-digested form as a Caramel Dacquoise. For those not in the know, this is a cake featuring alternating layers of hazelnut meringue, buttercream, cake and caramel sauce. They sell a frozen one at the Rabba convenience/grocery near my apartment. I’ve been eyeing that puppy for weeks. On Saturday night, I had a hankering to just go bananas. Except not with fruit. I also ate two small bags of chips. (I told myself this was an improvement on one party size bag, and I believe that.) I didn’t eat the entire cake – I very thoughtfully left about a quarter of it for the Miaouw. Anyway, I calculated the points and I used all of my reserve points EXCEPT one. So technically, I stayed within the rules of DubDub. But apparently my body didn’t get the memo. Anyway, whatever, half a pound = no big whup, and I sure did enjoy that binge.

So me and L-Mac² went to the lunch time weigh-in yesterday and sat through the tedious meeting. Afterward, we both agreed that the meetings are basically lame. They always say that people who go to meetings are whatever per cent more successful than those who don’t. I make myself sit through them as a sort of physical and mental testament to my commitment to staying on the program, as opposed to any inspiration I derive. The problem is that a lot of the women there are really old school and they have internalized all these unhealthy notions of “dieting” and being “good” or “bad”, wanting to eat something but telling themselves “I shouldn’t”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve internalized this shit too, but at least I know better, that I… uh… shouldn’t… fock... Well, you know. I at least struggle against these notions. Whereas a lot of the unselfconcious discussion at these meetings is amongst the lifers who trade their “secrets” to weight loss, like chewing gum. (When this was suggested last week, I resisted the urge to put my hand up and tell them that chewing gum is also a trade secret of anorexics, bulimics, and the eating disordered. I learned this first hand when I was being diagnosed with binge eating disorder some years ago.)

Yesterday, the leader asked us to talk about how we can re-frame how we think about so-called “failures” (a.k.a. “caramel dacquoise”). How can we take a positive spin on these incidents we might have previously thought of as failures? I started to say “it’s not a failure, it’s a choice” but somebody else spoke up with some sort of easily digestible, predictable and pat response that fit the leader’s notes. But what I wanted to say, how I wish the discussion had gone, was to say that it’s not a fail or a win, it’s a choice. You decide you want to eat three quarters of a caramel and meringue layer cake? You understand the consequences going in, right? So, enjoy. Everything is choices and consequences of those choices. Choices in and of themselves are not inherently "good" or "bad", "win" or "fail". We project all kinds of meaning and judgment onto them and then we get all fucked up about it. I know I enjoyed my binge on the weekend. I know that it’s a behaviour I chose rather than sitting with whatever feelings were coming up, and dealing with them. I’m okay with that.

I don’t know though. Probably this sort of approach is a bit too vague and intangible to be promoted at your local Weight Watchers meeting.

Mar 16: One of the best falafels OF ALL TIME

What up, groupies?

It's been a long time since I blog and rolled. Its been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

Yes it has.

Sorry about that. You will be pleased and perhaps surprised (I shall take no offense) to hear that I am still "OP"* as they say at the dieting trade shows and online fora. I had a week where I lost nothing, then two weeks in a row where I missed my DubDub meeting (last week for JURY DUTY! Quel excite! Except, turns out, not.) Found out today I lost 2 pounds. That's for three weeks, plus the week before that I didn't lose, just maintained. So, yeah, a little irritating. But whatever, it's still down, so that's awesome. Also, Moammar has been advancing on the freedom-from-fat-fighters who want me to exercise regularly, quashing the revolution. I need to institute a No Green Couch Zone or something. I know, this metaphor is beyond bizarre. This is what happens when you run out of decent blogging material and just start letting the consciousness stream forth.

So while I was on jury duty, I started reading Breaking Free From Emotional Eating, the Geneen Roth book I mentioned awhile back. Some interesting notions. She advocates eschewing the notion of "diet" forever, which sounds pretty awesome, I'm sure you'll all agree. She also suggests eating WHATEVER YOU WANT, which is equal parts tantalizing and terrifying. The big proviso is that you learn to eat when you are hungry, not when you are lonely, or bored, or because it's the habitual time you normally eat, or all the zillions of reasons we eat that have nothing to do with hunger. The idea is that if you learn to listen to your body, to recognize real hunger and feed yourself accordingly, you will come to trust it. And the same goes for eating what you want, and what you need. When she first decided to give up dieting and eat only when she was hungry and to eat what she wanted, she ate chocolate chip cookies for every meal for two weeks. She gained weight initially, but eventually she ended up losing 30 pounds over the next couple years. And she kicked the chocolate chip cookie yen.

It was interesting, reading this book at a time when I was mentally free (from work or the TV or most any distractions) to contemplate it. I had to buy my lunch every day, and reading this book that is urging me to allow myself to eat without guilt, to eat what I wanted, to the point of satiety, kinda messed with my head. Not necessarily in a bad way, just... it's a different way to think about food and eating. It's not an easy fix – there is a lot of heavy duty emotional work that has to happen. I'm not ready for it yet. But I did let myself eat what I wanted one day on lunch. I had a falafel, which is not something I normally crave. I was very hungry by the time I ate it. I sat down to eat, and did not have any distractions, like a book or the TV or a computer or even a conversation. I looked out the window at the hustle-bustle of Dundas Street West and just savoured that falafel. My god, what a falafel. It was incredible. I enjoyed it so, SO much. At the end of the day I went home and looked it up and found DubDub says 13 points for a falafel. A bit steep (lunch for me is typically a 6 point Lean Cuisine or similar). But I didn't crave anything more after that, did not snack or anything, so it worked out fine.

I am trying this approach on a little bit at a time, to see if it fits. I have this counter-intuitive notion that I want to lose the weight first, and then adopt this no-more-dieting approach. Sigh. I'm sure I'm not the first to think that way. Ah well, soldier on.

PS holy geez, just found the falafel image for this post; looking at it full size and reliving my falafel experience. It is a fond memory, but I am happy to report that I am not obsessing over the desire to go out an replicate it immediately. But some day.

* "On Program"