Sara Gets Skinny

Foodie Friday: Magic Pop

2012-01-06T20:35:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago, while I was browsing the bakery section of my local HyVee grocery store hoping to catch a glimpse of the freshly made chocolate whoopie pies that occasionally appear on the shelves (like chocolatey little grenades tossed into my path by the hateful hand of Satan himself) when my concentration was broken by an alarmingly loud metallic noise that can only be expressed in writing as "KaPOPChing!"

Whipping my head around and instinctively dropping ot my knees to avoid stray bullets, I spied a woman behind the counter of a previously unnoticed kiosk standing tautly next to a metal contraption looking at it tensely with a her lips twisted in a slight cringe. A moment later, the aforementioned other wordly sound rang out and a disk shaped UFO flew up and out of the machine. Intrigued, I went over to see what all the ruckus was about--and that's how I discovered this week's food find:

Kim's Magic Pop!

A six inch edible disc that is best described as a cross between a rice cake, a tostada shell, and a styrofoam plate, Magic Pop is an extremely low calorie cracker/bread/tortilla alternative. They are made on site at the store and bagged in stacks of twelve that sell for around $3.00. Available in several flavors, I have found them to be an excellent addition to my Weight Watcher's friendly food repertoire at just one point for THREE of them!

I've broken them into pieces and scooped up soup, spread them with a wedge of laughing cow cheese or peanut butter as a quick snack, and used them as an edible plate of sorts for a delicious breakfast scramble. I used them to create a quick broiled "pizza" and tried them in lieu of a traditional taco shell for a crispy tostada.

Be warned, these are not to be eaten unadorned. Of course you could eat them plain for a totally "free" snack. You could also pour hot water over a bowl of styrofoam packing peanuts and pretend it's cereal, but I wouldn't recommend that either. It should also be noted that they are porous by nature, and as such can get a bit soggy if you load them up with moisture rich toppings. I've found that you can delay the mush if you spread a layer of laughing cow cheese on it first, or use any sauce as a dip rather than a spread. For instance, to Magic Pop Pizza, top one with a little low fat mozzarella, mini pepperoni and sliced veggies and pop under the broiler to brown--THEN dip it into marinara as you eat it.

You can read more about the available flavors and see where these are available to purchase in your local area at their website here.

Happy Popping!

Twenty Duz

2012-01-04T22:19:00.001-06:00

2011 was not my favorite year.

The glass-is-half-full part of my brain keeps trying to remind me that the first 10 months of it weren't so terrible, but the glass-is-half-empty contigent insists on pointing out that there was enough concentrated bummer oozing out of the last two to bring approximately 1000 glasses to half-full status--and is it really such a great thing that your glass is half-full if what it's full OF is the bitter remnants of your miserable, ruined life?

Ok, maybe that was a bit dramatic.
Let's just say that I was really ready for the year to be over.

Not that I was planning on sending it out in style or anything. The kid was going to ring in the new year with copious amounts of energy drinks and video games with some friends, so I had planned to continue my ongoing training for the Olympic spinster team by ringing in the new year with some crocheting, watching the second season of the BBC sitcom "Miranda" online (seriously, so funny I actually LOL when I watch it. Literally.), all while sipping off-brand sugar free hot cocoa and surrounded by my cats.

Oh yes. It was going to be a very wild night.

So when my friend Mizzle* invited (read: demanded via text in ALL CAPS) me to drive down and ring in the new year with a low key evening of food and board games with her family, I knew that it was a much less pathetic way to ring out the shitstorm that was 2011 than what I had planned.

And I really didn't want to go.

Maybe I was just in a mood. Maybe the idea of the hour long drive seemed like a little much. Maybe leaving my poor dog to brave the inevitable fireworks on her own seemed like a bad idea. Or maybe this lingering depression was getting the best of me that night and the idea of spending the last holiday of the season solo without anyone to kiss at midnight made me want to pull the covers over my head and hibernate until spring. And so I decided to politely decline, knowing that Mizzle is such a good friend that she'd totally understand and not push the issue and bully me via text over and over and call me until I agreed to come.

So I went.

And it was OK. I had some kick ass corn casserole and more than my fair share of bacony cream cheese dip on ritz crackers. I won a game of Apples to Apples, and had a good time during the games I lost too. I downed a delicious cup of coffee spiked with coffee flavor liqueur (Coffee within coffee. Very inception.) I talked a little about the life in the aftermath of the Ass-hat, and a lot more about other things...and before I knew it, the year had ended and a new one had begun.

I'm not sure what I thought was going to happen when the clock struck midnight, what would be different in the world betwen 11:59 PM December 31, 2011 and 12:00 AM January 1, 2012. It's not like I thought an angel would appear in a flash of white light and present me with Tim's head on a platter and declare that a new era of personal fabulousness was about to begin for me, starting with my magical transformation to an instant size 12 and the surprising information that my new mattress was actually stuffed with $100 bills. Well, I hoped that would happen, but I knew it wouldn't. Probably.

What DID happen is that I rang in the new year after spending a pleasant night surrounded by people I cared about. I had survived 2011 and started 2012 alone, but not lonely. Something I hadn't even wanted to do at first turned out to be the best thing for me, and I was glad I did it.

Kind of like stepping on the scale today. After two long weeks of holiday meals where I'd been satisfied with my choices but realistic about what effect they'd likely have on my weight loss progress, I hopped on the hateful bucket of bolts tonight....and gained 2.2 pounds.

And it was OK.

In 2012 I'll kick those 2.2 to the curb, along with a whole bunch of their friends.

New year. New start. New me.

*Not her real name. And yet, actually her real name. Puzzle that one out!

Solving for X

2011-12-29T19:46:00.001-06:00

So I've got some food issues.

I realize this is not exactly a shocking confession. It's not like I started this post with the line "So I'm a man now, call me Chuck." or "So I once killed a hobo" or "So I'm a republican". One might assume that anyone who has achieved a level of fatosity (Not actually a word. Don't look it up.) as impressive as my own likely has a food issue or two (or twelve) lurking around in their psyche somewhere. And I don't disagree.

I do, however, believe that not every overweight person on earth is cut from the same cloth. Line up 100 average sized people and ask each of them what their particular brand of crazy is and you'll get quite a variety of answers. Organize a similar line up of people who struggle with obesity and ask them about their food issues and you'll get an equally impressive array of responses.

Some will profess to be emotional eaters, others will confess that they eat compulsively. Some will cite mindless eating as their major problem, while a few will call out an underactive thyroid or other endocrine condition as the reason for their weight problem. A surprising number of respondents will tell you that, despite all visible evidence to the contrary, they don't actually have a problem with food (and it turns out that massive denial of the existence of food issues isn't strictly a "food issue" in and of itself, so kudos to anyone who manages to squeeze through that loophole). And at least a few people will tell you that their problem is that they simply love food.

Me? Always the overachiever, I fall into several of the categories above. And the truth is that I think most obese people do. I also think that obesity is still such an oversimplified condition that most people continue to view it as primarily a character flaw, a problem that can easily be solved by working the factors in the basic formula for weight loss:

As a fan of math from way back, I tend to believe that the above equation is essentially valid. But I also believe that it's incomplete. We all know that consistently taking in fewer calories than we burn will result in a decrease in our weight over time. And yet, despite the simple mathematical certainty we all cling to, the world is still full of Lane Bryant stores, airplane seatbelt extenders, and a zillion blogs just like this one. If it really were just that simple, we'd all be taking turns lifting up our shirts and flashing people who walked by just so we could mutually admire our washboard abs.

So after some careful thought and a lot of intense dry erase board work (insert imaginary movie-montage here, think "Good Will Hunting" only replace Matt Damon with a middle aged fat girl and WAY less actual math), I surmised that the formula above is missing a single factor, one tiny letter that has the power to drastically alter the outcome. I submit:

Ah yes. The elusive "X" factor. What is it, you ask? It is...whatever it is. It's what stands in the way of the first two factors in the equation. I'd like to be more specific, but I can't--and that, I believe, is the problem. It's whatever brand of food-crazy you suffer from, the monkey wrench that turns the mechanics of weight loss from a 2nd grade math problem into algebra. My X may be different than your X, which is different than his X, which might not look anything like her X. We have to define our own X factor and learn how to fight it if we want to make it to the solution side of the equation and achieve the elusive state of "smaller butt".

But any time you add a step to a process, it ups the difficulty level. Not only do we need to eat less and move more, we've got do wrestle with and remove our X factor with every bite and step we take. Keeping two balls in the air? Easy. You’ve got two hands to do the job. But toss in a third, and suddenly you're juggling. Which, it turns out, is WAY harder than it seems when cartoon clowns do it. It takes a lot of practice and no one, not even the most talented circus performer under the big top, doesn’t drop a ball every now and then.

I'm starting to believe that the secret to keeping all the balls in the air lies in accepting that you're going to drop one from time to time...and that’s OK. Maybe on the days when one ball goes crashing to the floor, we hold tight to the two still in our hands. And if it turns out we need both hands to manage just one of them, we drop a second ball and hold on like hell to the one left. And on the inevitable day that we lose our grip on all three we take a deep breath, shake out our fingers, and pick them back up and try again.

I can eat less. I can move more. I can beat back my X factor of the day with a whip and a chair and the words on this page. Lately, I can do all three at once. What effect is all this juggling having on the size of my butt?

Do the math.

What I did for Love...

2011-12-21T20:07:00.001-06:00

Nearly six weeks into my suddenly single status change, life has evened out a bit and this new normal is starting to feel, well, "normal". Which happens to be WAY better than the whole "shattered into a million pieces" feeling it started out as.

The truth is, the despair didn't stick around as long as I feared it might. And actually, after the initial shock wore off, it turns out that the prevailing feeling I had wasn't really despair at all. Hurt, yes. Embarassment, you betcha. Disappoinment? In spades. And underneath it all was an tinge of something I couldn't quite put my finger on--until one morning I woke up in my brand new bed, looked at the empty space beside me, and let out a long sigh...of relief.

You see, I knew that Tim wasn't my lobster.

It wasn't love at first sight. At least not for me. I had some serious reservations about whether or not we were a good match for eachother, and I thought long and hard about what I could live with--and without.

Sex advice columnist Dan Savage is fond of saying that "there is no settling down without settling for", and I believe that's true.

So in my usual style, I weighed all the pros and cons (ad nauseam, ask my friends and family) and decided that despite what he couldn't give me, I was willing to settle for what he could. Maybe he was lacking a few of the traits on my top ten wish list, but maybe I was aiming too high. Maybe, I reasoned, you don't get two chances at great love in a single lifetime. Maybe, at 40 years old, you just don't have the same choices you might have had earlier in life. Maybe close enough would be good enough, and if I decided it could be enough, it would be. So I settled.

I settled right back into eating too much as well. Food, after all, was something we had in common. It was an easy way for us to spend time together, to do something we both enjoyed. Conversational lulls seem natural when your mouth is full of ice cream. Silences don't seem as awkward when they are filled with the sound of cracking crabs legs and sizzling porter house steaks. Wondering what you'll have to talk about at all after the wedding is over seems immaterial over 6 flavors of cake on your plate.

If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed that some of the food-crazy I'd gotten very good at controlling was creeping its way back into my life. When I found myself wolfing down a 20 piece McNugget in a parking lot on my way home from the office, I probably should have realized that all was not right with the world. The day I put three Mounds bars in my desk drawer "just in case" should have been a clue. When I stood in the light of the refrigerator late at night and ate the leftovers I'd packed for lunch the next day right out of the tupperware, it was a red flag that I shouldn't have ignored. I chocked it all up to the anxiety that comes with planing a wedding. Maybe I didn't realize that "wedding stress" and "stress about the wedding" were two very different animals, that the former was about choosing dresses and flowers and invitations, and the latter was about who you chose to stand beside you that day.

In the end, every concession I made to be with Tim was mitigated by the idea that he was a good, kind, honorable man...but it turns out that he wasn't ANY of those things. And he was a lot of things I didn't know he was. Like a liar. And probably a cheater (a claim I make after a forensic analysis of his cell phone records and an anonymous phone call to someone named "Dawn" who was a party to 252 text messages in a month). And a colossal pussy. So when he left the way he did, he went from 5 out of 10 to -3 out of 10. There just wasn't anything to miss.

Though at first it felt like I'd been shot in the chest, it didn't take me long to realize that I had actually dodged the bullet on this one. Love shouldn't be something you have to talk yourself into. Relationships aren't always easy, but they shouldn't be that hard either.

Six weeks have passed, and when someone asks me how I'm feeling I can say I'm fine--and actually mean it most of the time. I've made peace with the food again, found some of the control I'd slowly been losing and my weight is back on the way down. Life may not be great yet, but right now it really is OK.

And all things considered, that's something I can settle for.

Lost Kitten

2011-12-14T21:10:00.000-06:00

Nobody panic! My cats are fine, in fact as I type this one is likely sleeping in a puddle of fur on the kid's pillow, and the other is bullying the dog out of her kibble. THIS is the cat I lost:

For the record, this is not my child. I don't even know who's child it is. But I have always dreamed of having a redhead baby, so just for today, let's pretend this IS my child. Isn't he cute? Polite too. Never rolls his eyes, doesn't layer on the Axe products so thickly that my eyes water, always flushes the toilet, lets me cut his hair short, and has never once sent me racing to the ER after he got hit by a car on his bike. He is totally my favorite son.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

According to my good friend Google, Marie the cat weighs 1.6 pounds--which happens to be exactly how much weight I lost this week.

I've had a second excellent week on the Weight Watchers program, and for my effot I was rewarded with a loss of a buck and change at the scale today. Do I wish it had been more? Well, duh. Of course I do. But in a lifelong battle with the fat, it's the cumulative effect of every small victory that adds up to long term success. A respectable 1.6 pound loss works for me.

Google also informed me that 1.6 pounds also happens to be the weight of the 3G, Wi-Fi enabled iPad 2, so I could have said I lost one of those too. And if you happen to find one laying around on the bus, or a park bench, or sticking out of the backpack of a distracted hipster--then I DID lose one, and you can send back it to me via UPS. Overnight, please.

Nothing so shocking as a glimpse of her stockings...

2011-12-12T22:01:00.004-06:00

It has been said that idle hands are the devil's workshop.

And if by "the devil's workshop" they mean "an excellent vehicle for shoving cheezits into one's mouth" then I totally agree.

Though I have amassed an impressive collection of reasons to eat that have nothing to do with hunger, sometimes it's simply the lack of anything better to do that finds me in the kitchen. Or in the drive-through lane. Or digging around in my desk drawer to find that tootsie roll I'm pretty sure I threw in there last Halloween. Over the years I've learned that one way to rechannel my brain's obsession on all things food is to give it something else to do, another task to direct my freakish ability to focus on.

And that's why I decided to make new Christmas stockings this year. A few weeks before my world imploded, when I was still concerned about not looking like a satin wrapped bowling pin in front of my family and friends, I did the mental math and computed that if I traded my nightly raid-the-cupboards-for-random-carbs-and- watch-TV-with-the-family-pre-bedtime-ritual for a maniacally-cut-and-sew-and-applique-and-embroider-while-repeatedly-injuring-myself-with-sharp-objects-routine that I might be able to both lose weight AND complete three new stockings to hang by the fire before Christmas Eve

You know how some people decorate for the holidays and their freshly cut, snow flocked trees are draped in golden ribbon, sparkling white lights and perfectly coordinated ornaments that form the centerpiece of a whole-house theme that looks like something Martha Stewart herself oversaw the completion of before the House Beautiful photographer showed up to document it for the December issue?

I am not one of those people.

I believe that a Christmas tree should be a festival of multi-colored lights and a home for every ornament your kid has ever made, that any relative or friend gifted to you, or that you made to hang on the pitiful tree in your college dorm room so that the only things on it wouldn't be colored condoms and paperclip chains. The sleigh bells on a plastic belt that always hung on your beloved Grandmother's front door should continue to find a home on yours, and the cheap porcelain nativity set (the one that had to be glued back together when you came downstairs and found the severed head of Joseph perched menacingly on his walking staff after your three year old broke it while making the figurines fight like ninjas) should be set up on the end table by the couch every year.

This decorating philosophy is what made me settle on old school felt craft stockings covered in sequins and stuffed and embroidered with retro-chic fabulousness. I picked out three appropriate designs and got to work on them. And, miracle of miracles, my plan worked. I had managed to curb my night time snacking, AND I'd finished the first stocking!

I was nearly finished with the second one when the person whose name had been embroidered on it decided to go all Houdini on me and disappeared from my life. After the shock of the first few days began to wear off, I sat down one night and ripped off the stitches that spelled out his name and tried to decide what to do with it. I considered boxing it up and sending it to him, but I figured that an unfinished stocking embroidered with "Ass-Hat" would probably just get thrown away and I couldn't see letting all that hard work go to waste, so I just went ahead and finished it. I've been trying to decide what to do with it.

I guess that since he never used it, I could save it for someone else someday. In fact, I could embroider the name of the next person I go out with and give it to him on our first date--because that's not creepy or anything, right? Though now that I think of it, that might be a great idea! I mean, if I give it to the guy and he loves it, then I know he's an over eager freak and I go running the other way as fast as I can. And if he finds it off-putting and frightening then HE goes running away as fast as he can, and...oh, wait. I didn't think that through very well. Never mind.

In the end, I decided to put it away and work on the third stocking, and that's what I've been doing for the last few weeks. It's just one little sled-riding bunny away from being done, and I think it will be finished before the week is over.

As a diversionary tactic, the stocking project has worked like a charm. It's kept my hands busy, making it much harder to use them to transport food to my mouth during these dark, cold winter evenings. But equally importantly, it's kept my MIND busy, helped me not to obsess over the unexpected turn that life has taken in the last month.

Yep, that's right. It's been a month--and I'm still alive. And I'm not just alive, I'm also OK.

And we have new Christmas Stockings.

Win-Win.

Food: 0, Sara -6

2011-12-07T19:53:00.000-06:00

Against all odds, it's been a really good week.

In the last seven days I've managed to do something that I literally haven't done in YEARS: I rejoined Weight Watchers and spent a full week completely, 100% on program. And it paid off. Know how I know?

Because when I stepped on the scale today I was down SIX POUNDS.

BOO-yah, Baby! I'm back!

The Fourth Stage of Grief: Tater Tot Casserole

2011-12-06T08:19:00.000-06:00

After learning of my ex-fiance's surprise disappearing act a few weeks ago, I immediately did what any self-respecting woman in my position would do: I called my therapist.

After she picked her jaw up off the floor (and there were numerous floor/jaw bruise incidents that week. Seriously, how did NO ONE in my life see this coming?) she told me that as luck would have it there had been a cancellation in her schedule and that she could see me that afternoon.

After I did my best to lay waste to an entire box of tissues in her office, she produced a slightly modified list based on the Kubler-Ross "Five Stages of Grief" model (with an extra step thrown in, because hey, I'm an over achiever) and told me to be aware of the steps I'd have to go through as I adjusted to the abrupt end of the relationship. And I, being a homework loving geek from way back, have been clutching it ever since. Observe:

An actual scanned copy of the list my therapist gave me, which I've included here because its germane to the post, and not just because I really wanted to use my new hand held wand scanner. Which totally rocks. And that's on the lowest resolution! I'm not saying I also scanned a throw pillow and my dog's back, but if I HAD done that you'd totally be able to see every fiber in the fabric and each individual dog hair. On both the pillow and the dog.

Step 1: Denial passed pretty quickly. I don't spend a lot of time mired in those parts anymore. Check!

Step 2: Anger? Um, yes. A lot of it. That one hasn't faded as quickly, and I'm given to understand that these steps are somewhat fluid in nature and that anger might linger even as I make my way through the rest of the list. Check. Check. Checkcheckcheckcheckcheck. CHECK!

Step 3: I'm still a little fuzzy on the whole "bargaining" thing, but I'm pretty sure it refers to all those times I thought things like "maybe if I hadn't gained weight" or "If only I hadn't gotten mad at him that one time 5 months ago when he totally deserved it" or "maybe if I click my heels together three times and wish REEEEEEEEAAALY hard I'll wake up and none of this will have happened." So, check. I guess.

Which brings us to the stage I am currently firmly ensconced in:

Step 4: Depression.

I wish that I could tell you that I am so well adjusted that I had a good cry and then got right on with the business of acceptance, but I can't. I'm sad. I'm sad that the future I had counted on isn't possible anymore, that someone I loved would treat me with so little consideration and respect. I'm sad because, let's face it, cancelling a wedding is a depressing task. And for me, food and depression often go hand in hand.

When I'm depressed, it can be hard not to seek comfort in dishes that fall into the category that has the word "comfort" in the title. On days when it feels like the empty space inside of me will swallow me whole, the only thing that has a chance to fill that void is something warm and satisfying. It's a temporary fix, one that will leave me empty in the long run, but in the short term that rarely seems to matter. I fall prey to the brand of magical thinking that whatever ails me will certainly be cured by a gooey grilled cheese (and if it happens to include bacon, so much the better). Or the perfect almond cupcake. Or a mountain of fettuccini alfredo with butter soaked breadsticks and a token salad.

Or a plate full of savory-on-the-bottom-gooey-in-the-middle-crispy-on-the-top Tater Tot Casserole.

I made some the other night. I'd been thinking about it all day, going over the ingredients in my mental kitchen inventory, and practically sitting on the floor watching the oven window like a television as I watched it bubble and brown. As I scooped it out onto my plate, I could barely wait for the steam to dissipate so I could engage in casserole therapy to drown my sorrows. Giddy with excitement, I inverted the pepper grinder over my plate and, just as I began to turn the barrel, I felt the top give way and watched in horror as a full cup of peppercorns spilled all over it. As the tiny spheres stuck to the creamy sauce and got lodged in the molten cheese, I reacted perfectly appropriately by bursting into angry, heartbroken tears and loudly asserting that HE had done this to me, had loosened the top of the peppermill on PURPOSE, a last insult before he left designed to further RUIN MY LIFE!!

It was a short lived, though impressive, tantrum. All the hurt and anger that I'd been keeping at bay for the last few weeks came pouring out in a flood of tears over a very peppery heap of ruined dinner in the sink. When I pulled myself together, I calmly served myself up a replacement helping, then sat down to eat it. It was good, but it wasn't as good as I thought it might be. It wasn't comfort, it was just food.

It turns out that all the work I've put in on myself during the last few years hasn't been in vain. I am convinced that without it I wouldn't be where I am today, just three weeks out, and already working my way back to normal, to a life that goes on toward new hope.

Get ready, Step 5. I'm heading your way.

One Good Thing

2011-12-02T11:33:00.004-06:00

Years ago, a friend gave me a terribly simple yet profound piece of advice. She said:

"Every night before you go to sleep, find ONE good thing about the day that just ended...even if the only good thing is that the day is over."

I have never forgotten those words, and I've tried to live by them.

There are some changes coming to this site, a line in the sand that I'm drawing and crossing as the next phase in this ongoing journey is before me.

The best thing about this day is that a NEW one starts tomorrow.

World Fall Down Go Boom

2011-11-26T00:57:00.000-06:00

Hello Internet.

So you've noticed I've been MIA, but I suppose with all the life living and wedding planning you gave me a pass on being incommunicado, and I thank you for your patience. How've y'all been?

Me?

Honestly, I've had better weeks.

Of all the lessons that blogging about my weight loss journey has taught me, the single best one is the value of honesty, of the phenomenal power that the truth can wield in our lives. A secondary, though no less important, lesson I learned is that sometimes the truth hurts.

Internet, I got dumped.

Ouch.

I'd like to sugarcoat it, to make a joke or two and a glib reference about how I lost 260 pounds in a single day, but the truth is that I just don't have it in me to laugh this off just yet.

Two weeks ago I was getting married. The dress was bought, the deposits were paid, the reservations were made, the invitations were picked out and the engagement pictures were taken. I woke up one Thursday morning and engaged woman, dressed for work, kissed my fiance goodbye and told him to have a good day, and by noon everything had changed.

He called me at work. Said he'd done something that would come as a big shock, and that he never meant to hurt me, that I was a wonderful person with a great kid and an awesome family...but that he had moved out. Told me it wasn't me, that it was nothing I'd done and there was nothing that I could do. It was over. And it was.

He was gone. So were his clothes. And the couch. And the TV and entertainment system. And our bed. Every gift I'd given him, every item he'd moved into our home...gone. He turned off his phone, and there hasn't been a single word from him. No goodbye, no apology, no "Dear Sara" note on the mantle, nothing.

I never saw it coming. At all. Sure, he'd been a little tired lately, but he'd injured himself at work a few weeks before and had a lot of lingering pain. But we'd just had engagement pictures taken on Sunday. We tasted wedding cakes with my family on Friday.The day before his disappearing act he'd taken my car to get the oil changed, called me at in the afternoon to tell me that he was heading off to work, have a good night, love you, bye.

And now I stood in the rubble of my ransacked home, and as I stared at the fallout all around me and my mind tried to make sense of what had happened, I grasped for reasons that he had done this to me.And all I could think was:

I must be my weight.

I know that this is silly. Yes, I've gained some weight since we met over a year ago. But he had put on quite a few pounds too, and he wasn't a delicate willow to begin with either. He never made my weight an issue, he made me feel beautiful and special and I started to believe that I was. I believed that it was finally my turn to be happy, to win one for all the fat girls out there who secretly believed that falling in love and being overweight didn't have to be mutually exclusive.

At the end of the day, I have chosen to take him at his word and believe that it was nothing I did or didnt do, and that his cowardly little escape act was the result of a deep seated character flaw within him. We had always marveled at how, with such a crazy upbringing and tumultuous childhood, he had turned out so normal. Turns out he wasn't. Normal, good people don't do what he did. He's defective, an anomaly.

He left me holding every bag, with every burden that his leaving brings with it. He left me to pick up the pieces of my son's broken heart. He left me to tell the world that the wedding is off. To call all the vendors, to cancel all the plans, to stare every day at the non-returnable wedding items that hang in my half-bare closet. He left me without a bed to sleep in. He left me.

And now I've got to find me again.

Wish me luck

Crazy(ish) no more...

2011-05-31T15:17:00.000-05:00

An eavesdropping fly on the wall one week ago might have heard the following snippet of conversation:

Me: I've been thinking that I don't need to see you as often anymore.

Therapist: I think you're right.

Well bring on the propeller hat, rainbow wig and bright orange rain poncho (which I assume is standard attire for such an occasion) because I've officially graduated from crazy school!

Well, that's how it feels anyway.

I've spent my Thursday lunch hours discussing the finer points of my emotional well-being with a therapeutic professional in a year-and-a-half long quest to find out just what the hell is wrong with me. And to my great surprise, I think we did just that.

It was a personal crisis of epic proportions that led me to her in the first place. I walked into her office full of plush furniture, eclectic decor and shelves stuffed with self-help literature without knowing what to expect. All I knew is that I felt broken, like there weren’t enough king's horses and king's men on earth to put me back together. A lifetime of cartoon images of bespectacled, clipboard toting men asking patients lying in prone positions about their mothers didn't prepare me for the soft spoken, scarf wearing, easy smiling, kind eyed yet sharp tongued woman who introduced herself as Cynthia when she invited me to sit down anywhere on her cushy furniture and tell her all about it.

There was no in-depth analysis of my dreams or dramatic recounting of childhood traumas. There were no shock treatments or repressed memory discoveries, or creepy attempts to reenact my birth experience. Instead there was conversation. There was advice. There were sometimes tears, but also a lot more laughter than I'd expected. There was talk of the fat, but there was more talk about all the other things I am. And--to the great delight of my inner nerd--there were worksheets, handouts, diagrams, and homework. And, most importantly, there was progress.

Therapy gets a bad rap sometimes, I think. The red-blooded American pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality that runs deep in our collective veins can sometimes mistake reaching out for mental health support as evidence of a weakness of character, a convention of a modern age that relies on science and medicine to cure what a good kick in the ass should be able to knock out of us. After all, people have survived for thousands of years without therapy and antidepressants, why do we need them now all of a sudden? That argument is short sighted at best. People lived without antibiotics for thousands of years to...and they died of ear infections and strep throat. If I had cancer, I'd get chemotherapy. I had a case of the crazies, so I went to therapy, and I'm so glad I did. The hardest work may be over, but I'm not done yet.
I am the same woman who walked into that office for the first time, but I am not the same person I was that day. That girl was so lost in her fear and despair that it makes me ache to remember her. But the woman writing this? Her I like. She’s strong. She’s resilient. She knows where she's going, and she’s tough enough to keep working to get there

Scared Straight

2011-05-26T10:55:00.000-05:00

Scared Straight

Yesterday I did something momentous. If, that is, one defines “momentous” as “something I’ve done like a thousand times since the age of 12”.

I rejoined Weight Watchers.

Again.

If you’d like me to spend oodles of time and space explaining the particulars of just why keeping my ample buttocks on the proverbial wagon on a permanent basis is an impossibility, you can drop me an email and ask for a dramatic recounting of my numerous climbs onto and spectacular nose dives off of said wagon.

Or you save me a lot of time (and fritter away a bunch of yours) by going back and reading my archives. I did just that recently and have realized that something I’ve said before in the last few years happens to be true:

The longer I do this, the more convinced I become that this journey is essentially an endless series of beginnings, of moments when draw a fresh line in the sand and start over. Sometimes the fresh start comes from a place of zen, a calm acceptance of the infinite struggle between ourselves and a lifetime of obesity.

But there are other times when we see a moment in our future where we’d just really rather not be quite so fat, thank you very much. Like, say, the prospect of wearing a big white dress in front of your friends and family while pledging eternal love and faithfulness to a man just crazy enough to love you.

That’s right, friends. Tim and I are engaged. A year from now we’ll be dressed in our best and saying I do.

(Shout out to the citizens of hell who are all enjoying tall glasses of ice water today—You’re welcome!)

The quest for the dress and a body that fits into it begins today.

Let the adventure continue!

The fog's getting thicker--and Leon's getting lllllaaaarrrger...

2011-04-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

(Pop quiz time: name the movie that inspired the title of this post. Anyone? The answer, of course, is the 1980 cinematic tour de force "Airplane!" Eminently quotable, funny stuff. Check it out.)

So it has been a busy month here at skinnysara.com. Oh, not in the posting department, because as you've no doubt noticed that hasn't been at the tippy top of my priority list of late. There are three main reasons for this:

1. I'm preparing a new media venture with an obesity & weight loss focus that is turning out to be way more work than I thought it would be. It seemed so easy, a microphone, a computer, set up shop on iTunes and start talking--but it would seem that there's quite a bit more involved in the world of independent radio production that meets the overzealous and untrained eye. Thankfully I had the foresight nearly 16 years ago to give birth to someone who is turning out to be quite an able podcast producer and is helping his poor old mother navigate the process. I'm super excited about the new project, stay tuned for details soon!

2. Tim and I have been doing a little more foodie-tourism traveling and juggling work and family responsibilities as well. So much to do, so little time, blah blah blah--and working on #1 above is where I've been spending my meager discretionary time.

3. I, like the aforementioned Leon, have been watching my weight tick up the charts lately--and I don't even have the fog to blame. Well, unless you count the comfortable fog of love, that is. Suffice it to say that my life long quest to catch up to, get on, and stay on the proverbial wagon continues and the increasing certainty that there is a big white dress in my future has convinced me that keeping my butt planted right here on this hay bale is still a top priority in my life.

I'm writing about 1, 2 and 3 above, stay tuned!

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

2011-03-16T18:54:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about having weight loss surgery.

I’ll give you a few moments assemble the villagers and get into full-on angry mob mode. Got your pitchforks and torches ready? Great. Start marching, but promise me you’ll read the whole thing before setting fire to the comments section, ok?

It’s not the first time I’ve thought about it, of course. I’ve considered the pros and cons of the various procedures that fall under the umbrella of weight loss surgery (WLS) for years. In fact, I remember being in grade school the first time I heard about someone my parents knew who was getting their stomach stapled. At the time, the fat and I were just starting our life-long tango, and I was already painfully aware that my weight was a problem that needed solving. I recall hearing my Mom talk about how the person would lose a lot of weight after the surgery, but if they ate too much the staples could rip out and they could die. It scared the hell out of me, partly because the name of the procedure conjured up an image my head of my second grade teacher Mrs. Nelson pointing her taupe metal monster of a stapler at my midsection and slamming her palm repeatedly onto the arm of it (she was a scary broad) and partly because of the whole “if you eat too much you die” thing. Even then I knew I could never have my stomach stapled. I always ate too much.

WLS has come a long way since then, with a bevy of procedures with fancy names and less invasive techniques. Call it gastric bypass, roux-en-y, duodenal switch, lap band, or even good old stomach stapling, it all comes down to the same principle: drastically reduce the body’s ability to take in food by drastically reducing the capacity of the stomach. It’s major surgery, a measure once thought of as a last resort that has become an increasingly more popular. Hundreds of thousands of people each year weigh the pros and cons of jumping on the WLS bandwagon. I’ve weighed them myself.

Cons: It is major surgery that permanently alters the regular functions of the digestive system, and the effects cannot be reversed. It has a stated mortality rate of 2 % within 30 days of surgery because of the complications that severe obesity brings to the surgical table, and post-operative complications arise at a higher level for WLS patients for the same reasons. It’s life altering, dangerous, and comes with a long list of life-long limitations, requirements, and side effects that one must accept in return.

Pros: It works.

As weight loss techniques go, it’s hard to argue with results. Most people who have bariatric surgery lose weight. A lot of weight. They lose it faster than those who go with the diet and exercise route exclusively, and—this is important—they keep the weight off a lot longer. Because patients no longer have the ability to overeat (at least at first), the procedure takes the concept of willpower out of the equation for a period of time, allows the body to shed weight under the premise that it will be easier to keep it off in the long term. Of course there will always be notable exceptions, but statistically speaking if you want to take off a lot of weight and have a better than normal chance of actually keeping it off for a significant period of time, then going under the knife is your best chance at doing so.

But don’t say that too loudly.

Get any group of people together, and no matter how united they are in their common purpose, they will find a way to divide themselves. In the community of people who are fighting morbid obesity, WLS is a very divisive issue. Log into a weight loss message board and ask a group of people struggling to lose 200+ pounds whether they have ever considered WLS, and you’re likely to get a flurry of responses from people who have considered it, but ultimately decided against it. I’m one of them. It isn’t the content of some of these responses that surprises me, but the tone.

There’s an air of superiority that hovers over the debate against WLS. Much pride is expressed in the decision not to take the “easy way out” and to lose weight the “right” or “healthy” way. It’s as if there’s a moral code in fat-fighting circles, and those of us who go the traditional diet and exercise route are dutifully playing the hand we’re dealt by the rules, while those darn WLS people try to sit down at the table with aces stuffed up their sleeves. We’ll show them. We don’t need to cheat to win, we can lose just as much weight the old fashioned way!

But the thing is, most of us don’t. The weight loss recidivism rates for traditional diet & exercise are astronomically larger than those for WLS patients. And believing that there is a “right” way to lose weight only buys into the theory that obesity is primarily a character flaw, and that the tools we choose to combat it fall somewhere on that same moral compass. I can use a butter knife to loosen the screw holding the kitchen light fixture in place, or I can go the garage and get a screwdriver to do the same task. Just because it took me longer to get and use the screwdriver doesn’t make the light bulb replacement process more righteous or the light in the kitchen brighter. My choice of tool has nothing to do with the end result. And at the end of the day, that’s what WLS is. A tool.

I know people who have had WLS and are living healthy, fulfilling lives in bodies that let them move freely through the world in a way they never could when they were morbidly obese. They have followed the post-surgical recommendations, accepted the limitations of their newly plumbed digestive systems, and tell me that what they’ve lost is absolutely worth the new life they’ve gained. The comorbidities that their obesity brought with it are gone, and they are healthier than ever. They are the poster children for what WLS can do for someone who has struggled with obesity for most of their lives.

But I also know people who have had WLS whose experiences haven’t been as picture perfect. People who never lost all the weight they expected to, who experienced debilitating post-surgical complications, who weren’t able to follow the strict guidelines they were given after their procedures and suffer because of it, who changed their physiology without addressing the psychological components of their obesity and eventually ended up right back at the weight they were before the surgery, and higher. I know of people who have lost their lives as a result of the same surgery they hoped would save it.

I believe that it’s crucially important that both sides of the story be told, that anyone who is contemplating a surgical remedy for their obesity should know that it isn’t a cure, and that there can be disappointing, dangerous, and sometimes fatal consequences to WLS, that the risks sometimes outweigh the rewards. But I believe that it’s equally important that we should also accept and celebrate the successful outcomes of WLS, we should revel in the successes of our fellow fat fighters who have chosen to add WLS to their arsenal of weapons in their weight loss battles, and that the reward is sometimes worth the risk.

For the record, I’ve decided against WLS. I have weighed the pros and cons, and my obesity and I are living together pretty peacefully lately and continuing with Weight Watchers still feels like the right path. For me, the possible risks of WLS to my health and future aren’t worth what might be gained, nor are the sacrifices I would have to make worth it to me right now. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s a universally bad choice, or that I might never consider it again. If I have learned anything on this journey, it is that I don’t have all the answers. I do not begrudge anyone the right to choose their own weapons in fighting our common enemy, and I wish us all peace in making the choices that are right for us.

Come on baby, (re) light my fire...

2011-03-04T10:06:00.000-06:00

Psssst! Hey, fellow fat-fighter. Yeah, YOU!

Are you losing your motivation?

Did you start this journey with a long list of reasons to get healthier and an iron resolve that seemed to only get stronger with every pound shed? Did you feel invincible and wonder why on earth everyone couldn’t get their act together like you did?

I did.

And then one day I woke up and it just…wasn’t…there…anymore.

I searched for it, I tried to relight it, I even accepted that it might never burn as bright as it did once upon a time. I missed the old flames, yearned for them. Wished and hoped that one day they’d rekindle.

And then I got over it.

I can make a list of a thousand reasons I want to lose weight, but the truth is that weighing enough to call this board home means that there is a single reason to stay in the fight that I must never lose sight of:

I want to LIVE.

I want to experience life in a body that doesn’t limit my choices and opportunities at every turn. I want a life that isn’t cut short by the health issues that obesity fosters. I want to make decisions free of the fat, to not have to the width of my body decide what I can and cannot do. I don’t want to be crushed under the weight I carry or the emotional burden it brings with it.

If I was stuck in a burning building, I wouldn’t sit idly by while the smoke got thicker wishing I could breathe better. I wouldn’t walk half way to the door where the air was a little clearer and sit back down. And I certainly wouldn’t stay there as the flames got closer, telling myself “Well, at least it’s warm in here…”

Of course not. I would run, I would fight, I would break down the walls if I had to. I would do everything I could to escape the flames and breathe clean air again.

This is not about wearing cute clothes or turning heads. It’s not about being a certain size or shedding a specific number of pounds. This is about LIFE and DEATH.

I choose LIFE.

Which do YOU choose? What are you going to do today to make it happen?

Have Food Issues, Will Travel

2011-03-01T18:42:00.001-06:00

You know how when you go into the monkey house at the zoo, and the smell of the place assaults your unsuspecting nostrils and you can’t help but gasp and exclaim “Wow, it smells AWFUL in here!” to anyone in earshot? And then you’re all like “Hey, look! Baby gorillas!” and you find yourself enjoying watching the chimps frolic on their jungle gym and laugh as the cranky old orangutan flips the bird to the crowd with a big, gummy grin, and after a while it doesn’t smell so bad because you’ve gotten used to it and you don’t even notice it anymore until someone new walks into the building and you hear them gasp and say “Wow, it smells AWFUL in here!”

Turns out I was living in the monkey house.

It didn’t occur to me just how much life I’d been missing out on in the last several years until I started actually living again. All of a sudden I felt free to actually DO things, amazing and exciting things like running out to the store on a whim, or going to a movie on a weeknight, or having a leisurely Saturday night dinner with a friend, or going to sleep before 10 PM. And—if I wanted to get REALLY kooky—maybe even a romantic weekend trip to someplace exotic and fabulous.

Like, say, St. Louis.

Ok, so maybe it isn’t exactly synonymous with romance, but it was the destination of my first weekend getaway with Tim last November. I could tell you that we settled on that city because the prospect of a ride up to the top of the Gateway Arch and the promise of two free beers at the end of the Budweiser Brewery tour was just too tempting to resist. Or maybe because we both love long car rides that are unencumbered by a bunch of pesky scenery, but you wouldn’t believe me. Of course if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, the real reason we chose to go there won’t surprise you at all. We decided to spend the weekend in St. Louis because it was the closest metropolitan area to this:

Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, MO. The birthplace of many an eventual heart attack, I'm sure.

Several years ago, I saw Lambert’s Cafe featured on a Food Network special about the country’s best places to “pig out”. Famous for it’s gigantic portions of down home specialties, side dishes served family style by roaming restaurant staff, and their world famous “throwed rolls” (which are served to you from across the room via jump-shot, and if you want one you have to catch it midair—totally worth the burned fingertips!), a visit to Lambert’s went on my personal bucket list. When I mentioned to Tim that I’d always wanted to eat there, being a foodie himself (and a fan of car trips in general) he was all in. We decided to make a weekend of it, and thus found ourselves spending a three wonderful days driving across Missouri, drinking free blueberry beer, roaming the charming shops of St. Charles, viewing the city from 630 feet above the river, and driving two hours to the thriving metropolis of Sikeston where I was served this slab of chicken fried steak & mashed potatoes smothered in cream gravy in a 12 inch stainless steel skillet (a meal which I believe legally qualifies as a suicide attempt in every state except Missouri).

It was a long way to travel for dinner, but you know what? It was totally worth it. We had a fantastic time, and look forward to going back someday. It won’t likely be any time soon, though. Partially because we value our cardiac health, and partially because there are lots of other restaurants in the world that we’d like to visit.

The idea of foodie-tourism is something that’s always appealed to me (surprise!), and I’ve had a running list of places I’d like to eat someday that’s been growing for years. I blame cable TV, which is the food-addict equivalent of internet porn. If Guy Fieri features a particularly interesting Diner, Dive or Drive-In, it goes on my list. If Adam Richman from Man v. Food eats sandwich on french bread loaded with grilled pastrami, cheese, cole slaw and french fries (ON the sandwich! OMG!), then you can bet that someday I’ll find an excuse to get to Pittsburgh and try one.

There is a piece of conventional weight-loss wisdom that says we should strive not to have food be an “event” in our lives. If we remove the mystique surrounding special occasion meals and diminish the excitement of an anticipated treat, we can begin to view food only as the fuel our body needs to function, and nothing more. We can train ourselves to believe that Thanksgiving is about family, not oodles of food as far as the eye can see. July 4th is about the celebration of our freedom, not eating the world’s best lemon bars. Vacation is about seeing new sights and experiencing the culture of unfamiliar areas, and not about catching a hot roll with your bare hands before slathering it in sorghum & butter and devouring it.

I disagree.

Well, not totally. I believe that my food-crazy is part of who I am, and I am never going to eliminate it from my life. But I also believe that I can train myself to channel it in a way that makes my life easier to live on a day-to-day basis. For me, the problem isn’t that I put special food events on a pedestal, it’s that I put EVERY food event on one. There are days that I look forward to having a stick of string cheese with the same anticipatory glee that the thought of dumplings and kraut once a year at Thanksgiving induces. I have daydreamed all afternoon about the tater-tot casserole that we’ll be having for dinner with the same kind of palm-rubbing glee that a piece of my sister in-law’s chocolate cake incites in me a week out from a birthday party. Maybe the trick is to make everyday food unimportant, and to let the special event foods keep their mystique. If I can work each day to see food as fuel, then I honor my body by keeping it healthy and fit enough to really enjoy those moments when food is allowed to take center stage.

So that’s what I’m trying to do. Tonight I fuel my body with grilled chicken & brown rice & veggies. Tomorrow I fill the tank with steel cut oats, fresh strawberries, and low calorie popcorn. And the day after that I will cheerfully dine on low fat cottage cheese, steamed brussels sprouts, and baked tilapia--because I know that, someday, there’s a 22 inch loaded chili dog in Phoenix that’s got my name all over it…

You had me at Hola...

2011-02-22T18:22:00.000-06:00

I am a woman of many quirks.

Among them, just to name a few, are: an impressive ability to remember the lyrics to every song I’ve ever heard (whilst also often not remembering to close the freezer door or let the dog back in the house), a bordering-on-creepy obsession with a certain late singer songwriter (I don’t want to name names, but his rhymes with “Fan Dogleberg”, a nearly pathological fear of mold (seriously, I would throw a dish AWAY before cleaning out anything of questionable or fuzzy nature), and a total inability to sleep in a bed where the covers are untucked from the foot of the mattress.

And those aren’t even the WEIRD ones.

I choose to believe that these tendencies fall somewhere to the left of the border between “charming” and “crazy” but I’m well aware that very choice might actually have tipped me over the line into crazy-town. I think we all have our own crazy, and embracing it makes life a lot easier to manage.

Case in point: For some reason, after any fairly prolonged bout with illness, when my appetite returns I find that there are only two things that sound at all appealing me:

1. Diet Coke, and

2. Mexican Food

The Diet Coke thing is a mystery, as I don’t particularly like soda in general and never have. Under normal circumstances the only time you’ll ever see me drinking a diet soda is if the restaurant in question doesn’t have fresh brewed iced tea (Unsweetened. Only. EVER!) or if an armed assailant has ordered me to do so at gunpoint. Yet for some reason my body craves—nay, DEMANDS—that my post-illness thirst can only be quenched by the Coca-Cola Corporation’s flagship diet soft-drink. It passes eventually, the craving wearing off slowly over a few weeks.

The Mexican food thing is less mysterious, as I have long been a fan of any food item that even vaguely sounds like it comes from south of the border. Burrito? Sign me up. Enchilada? Yes, I think I will! Taco? Sopapilla? Enchirtio? Quesadilla? You betcha! Basically if Alex Trebek would sound insufferable pronouncing it, then I’ll gladly eat it (with sour cream and a side of beans and rice!). But for some reason, post-sickness Sara wants to eat it—and only it—for every meal. Six years ago, after a heinous bout with the flu (and I mean the big daddy himself, the actual “influenza”, which kicked my ass so hard that it is maybe the only time in my life I ever thought to myself each night that I might not wake up the next morning) I ate nothing but taco salads for two weeks. Literally. I ate a taco salad every day for lunch, and nothing else the rest of the day. (Except for diet coke, of course. Duh.) Eventually my appetite becomes less laser focused and other foods begin to appeal to me and all goes back to normal. Or as normal as it gets with me, anyway.

After beating this latest viral foe back with a whip and chair, I find myself right back in diet coke & taco territory. I’ve managed it a little better this time around, choosing to embrace the diet coke-iness (sodium and all) and to only occasionally indulge in duly journaled and accounted for Mexican food. When I relayed this to my therapist two weeks ago (whom I adore, and whom I also had to explain my five-minute tardiness due to the hold up in the line at the McDonald’s drive thru where I had been forced to stop before our session in order to purchase a $1 large Diet Coke) she nodded and said that she was curious about whether there was a psychological reason that these things in particular seemed to comfort me after being sick. I responded that I was pretty sure it wasn’t the result of any long buried trauma. It’s not like I had once been accidentally locked in a dumpster where my life was saved because I managed to survive for a week on a half empty can of diet coke and a discarded chalupa. I think it has less to do with the type of food, than it does with food itself.

I have a long history of using food in ways that have nothing to do with nutrition. For as long as I can remember, food has been a comfort to me. I have used it as a reward for a job well done, for consolation for a broken heart, as a sedative to dull the panic that sometimes rises within me when my stress level soars out of control. Never mind that I know full well that it’s a fleeting fix, that eventually the same thing I reached out to for comfort will cause even more discomfort in it’s wake, because sometimes the need for temporary comfort outweighs the consequences. Spoken like a true addict, no?

Just today, after a long morning sitting in the ER with my 15 year old son (who it turns out is just fine, the shooting abdominal pains that sent us there with him doubled over and moaning have been explained and treated and all is well with the world), as I made my way into the office to salvage what I could of the work day, I rolled my neck to try and release the stress and worry accumulated over the last several hours, and out of the corner of my eye I saw two words that advertised exactly what I knew would make me feel better right then:

Taco Bell.

I found myself changing lanes and positioning the car to make the turn into the drive thru lane, my mind racing with the kind of magical thinking that only those of us acquainted with my level of food-crazy can understand. Yes, a $.99 chicken burrito make me feel better, I just KNEW it would. Mexican food makes everything right. Sure, it would cost me 11 points, and I would probably eat the lunch I’d packed that day when I got to work anyway, but I wasn’t going to get anything done feeling like this anyway, so valium via burrito seemed perfectly justified. As I made the turn toward the parking lot, I looked up and saw the golden arches next door and thought to myself “Maybe a $.99 double cheeseburger would make me feel even better. Ooh! Or an apple pie! Or….”

And that’s when I snapped out of it.

A burrito wasn’t going to make me feel better in the long run. What ailed me wasn’t going to be soothed by a burger, or pie, or even a $1 large diet coke. No, the only thing that would really bring me a little peace would be a few deep breaths, a few hours of catching up at work, and a few moments spent getting it out of my head and into words.

Guess I really am starting to feel better, huh?

Love, Bread Pudding, a viral near-death experience, and the “F” Word…

2011-02-18T20:54:00.000-06:00

Hello Internet!

Long time no blog, friends. Did you miss me? I have REALLY missed you, and I would go the traditional route and spend this whole paragraph apologizing for the prolonged silence, but the thing is that I’m not all that sorry, particularly, and a long drawn-out mea culpa would be less than sincere. So instead, how about I just fill you in on the events of the last few months and then we pick up right back where we left off and pretend like nothing happened, ok?

So love came back to Sara-town last September, and guess what? It’s still here! The last five months have been quite a whirlwind around here (Hmm. Has it really been only five moths? Side note: that means that in one more month I’ll get to start appropriately quoting one of my very favorite movie lines of all time from Sixteen Candles when Sam and her Sister Ginny are discussing Ginny’s upcoming wedding to the man everyone refers to as ‘the bohunk’ and Ginny says very earnestly “Sure, there are other men who have loved me, but not for six months in a row” which always cracks me up whenever I see it, or even think about it. Can’t wait!).

It turns out that navigating the pleasures and perils of new love can really take a toll on a gal. It’s like one day you’re just living your life, finally confident in the balance of flavors you’ve struck in the casserole of your life when: BAM! A big old handful of boy gets tossed in the pan and all of a sudden it’s a whole different dish. One that seems like it might be a little heavier on the cheese than you’re used to, and that takes a lot longer to prepare. And bake. And eat. It even seems to leave way more dirty dishes in its wake. All that takes some getting used to. And it just might pack on a few pounds, too.

So I gained some weight along the way. 22 pounds, to be exact. To be fair, he gained some too, thanks in no small part to the veritable feeding-trough of our first round of holidays together. Leave it to me to fall in love with another foodie, but say what you want about him—the man can COOK. I may have filled the December air with the sweet scent of jam shortbread, pumpkin loaves, and the finest molasses cookies the world has ever known, but he in turn treated us all to some kick-ass Jambalaya, a Christmas Gumbo, and a bread pudding so delectable that everyone privileged to have eaten in on December 24th is STILL talking about it wistfully two months later.

As we headed into January, we both got back down to the business of weight loss, helped out on my end by a return to Weight Watchers and diving head first into the new PointsPlus program revision, a viciously contorted update photo shoot involving my conveniently forgotten about white pants (stay tuned, if you dare), and also by the contracting of a virus of epic proportions that treated me to a five week stint of mono-like symptoms including excruciating throat pain and debilitating exhaustion. On the plus side, it facilitated really impressive results at the scale due to the whole barely-eating-anything-and-sleeping-14-hours-a-day routine I got into for a while. It was just last Saturday that I woke up and thought to myself “Hey, I don’t feel like hammered crap this morning!” and it felt like I was (finally!) on the mend. Just in time for...

MY 40TH BIRTHDAY!

That’s right folks, on this past Monday the first digit of my age flipped over and I entered a whole new decade of my life. Interestingly, it didn’t bring with it any of the angst or wailing and gnashing of teeth that 30 sent my way (seriously, that sucker nearly killed me). In fact, it was a pretty great day. Since I share my birthday with Valentine’s day, the weekend was packed with celebrations. A romantic dinner out on Saturday, a family trip to the Japanese steakhouse on Sunday, culminating in the back yard grilling of perfectly ginormous steaks and baked potatoes the size of regulation footballs (and steamed broccoli, because that evens things out, don’t you think?) on my birthday proper.

I enjoyed every bite, tracked the points for them too, and was rewarded at the scale on Wednesday with a gain of 1.2 pounds, after which I shrugged, declared that it had been totally worth it, and got back down to business. When I relayed my weigh in results to the man I my life (who I shall refer to as “Tim” from here on out, because that happens to be his name and all), he agreed that it was a deserved, but temporary effect of the weekend’s festivities. He then said that he hoped I would start blogging again, so that he’d having something new to read on my website. And since I wanted to, I did.

So that’s what’s been up with me. You?

What's the love equivalent of the Freshman 15?

2010-10-06T22:21:00.000-05:00

Conventional wisdom states that when kids move away to college, the access to copious amounts of already paid for dormitory cafeteria food causes most new freshman to pack on a few pounds. With unlimited exposure to soft serve ice cream, all you can eat Lucky Charms, french fries at every meal and delicacies like “Turkey Americana” (a hideous concoction of processed cheese and thinly sliced ham sandwiched between two large slices of deli turkey, then battered and deep fried into Frisbee sized discs of deliciousness that I haven’t eaten in nearly 20 years but I’m fairly certain I would knock over a four year old to get to if presented with the opportunity in the next five minutes), it doesn’t surprise me that many new college students pack on the ubiquitous “Freshman 15” as a result. Not me, of course. I put on the “Freshman 32”. But hey, I’m an overachiever.
Apparently there’s another rite of passage that is notorious for packing on the pounds. Turns out they don’t call them “love handles” for nothing.

As I mentioned last week, there’s a new man in my life. As I’ve also mentioned on several occasions, I am committed to keeping this blog on-topic. Because I reveal so much of myself through what I write here about food, weight loss & obesity issues, I purposely don’t write much about the rest of my life, preferring to hold those things as private. But in this case, my weight loss and non-weight loss worlds are colliding, so a little discussion of the phenomenon seems appropriate. But if you’re expecting juicy details, you’ll be disappointed because I NEVER kiss and tell.

(Which is a lie straight from the pit of hell, because I TOTALLY kiss and tell…just not on my blog.) ;)

According to several credible sources (The New York Times, Prevention, Seventeen magazine, my friend Michelle, and a stranger I was talking to in the drug store the other night) it turns out that love can indeed make you fat. This doesn’t surprise me, particularly, since the generic date usually includes a meal of some kind, a little shared buttered popcorn and finishes with a cup of coffee or a pomegranate margarita (or two, even). Even when the butterflies that have taken up residence in your tummy won’t allow you wolf down the entire #1 combo platter while sitting across from him at your favorite Mexican restaurant, it turns out that eating even HALF of that monstrosity is more food than any normal human being should eat in one sitting (or two, even). Add in that he’s a classically trained foodie and also spends 40+ hours a week running a huge restaurant specializing in the production sauced up chicken parts in every conceivable iteration and you’ve got a foolproof recipe for packing on the pounds if you’re not careful.

But if you’re very lucky, the special someone you’ve found will share your commitment to eating well. If they’ve, say, lost 40 pounds themselves this last year and want to take off 20 more then it makes it easier to put on the brakes when the food starts getting out of control…but it’s still not as easy as it sounds. The giddy, giggly, hearts-and-flowers nature of new love often has the same kind of intoxicating effect on our decision making process as frat party keg beer has on a new freshman (for proof of which I offer the sporadically written in but nonetheless scandalous account of my 18 year old self preserved in diary form). So a little frank discussion is in order, about where you’ve been and what your goals are—and just how important not letting the food get out of control again is to you. And that, my friends, isn’t the easiest conversation on earth to have.

This little patch of the web has been the strangest of phenomena for me. It’s the place where I’m the most open I’ve ever been about my weight and what it takes to fight the fat every day. Nearly everyone I know (and countless people I don’t) knows about this site, and I’ve revealed details of my life and my experiences that are more intimate than I ever dreamed I’d share publicly. But I had to give some real thought as to when I’d be ready to share it with a new significant other. I want to share my life with someone again, and the things I write about here are a big part of that life.

So I dropped hints about it, mentioned I was a blogger and that my website was important to me. I told him that one day I’d give him the address and he could read all about me and my special brand of food-crazy. I waited to see when I’d be ready, and wondered what he’d think about what he sees here. Would he see my starting pictures and cringe? Would he read what I wrote and realize he’d bitten off more than he could chew? Would it bother him that the internet saw me in my underwear before he did? And after he saw it all, would he still like me?

I guess we’ll find out…

Who wears the pants around here anyway?

2010-09-29T23:36:00.000-05:00

Not me, yet. But I’m getting closer!

First, let me apologize for not posting in over a week. I do have a really, really good excuse though:

I met a boy. :)

Well, a man, really. But since I feel a lot like a teenage girl around him I think I can appropriately refer to him as a boy without sounding like a total ass. Or not. Either way, I’ve been a little preoccupied--and I’ve been recently reminded by a few readers that simply being in the throes of new love doesn’t constitute a valid excuse to ignore my blog (what a bunch of taskmasters!). And I tend to agree, thus here I sit.

Rest assured that my shrinking butt is still planted firmly on the wagon, and even through it is three days late in coming, I present you with the following photographic evidence thereof:

I feel I should take this moment to mention that for the sake of continuity I have chosen to wear the same clothing items for each two-week progress shot, including the baby blue panties that feature so heavily in this photographic series. Rest assured that all the non-pants clothing you see has been laundered regularly, so snicker and make jokes about the perceived irregularity with which I change my underwear if you must, but know that it’s all fresh as a daisy in reality.

The Christmas Clothes Challenge page has been created, but I’ve held off on posting it:

A. Until my feet touch the ground again, thus giving me the traction necessary to maneuver my laptop into a position that is conducive to that undertaking, or

B. Until I suddenly develop a talent for web publishing skills beyond those of a chimpanzee.

I hope that one or the other will happen in the next few days…

C is for Cookie...

2010-09-16T23:28:00.002-05:00

I had a dream last night.

Not a notable dream, particularly. It wasn’t nearly as complex or interesting as some of the nightly film-festivals my subconscious likes to host in my sleeping brain. I wasn’t cooking tableside for a group of angry Japanese business men who were insistent that I add live baby chicks to their flaming steak-diane, head-butting my way out of a locked wooden box, or trying to remember why I hadn’t bothered to put on pants before showing up for my shift as a barista at Starbucks. (And can I just add here for the record that I have those terribly upsetting “Why the hell am I naked in this random public place?” dreams all the freakin’ time. The real world interpretations seem fairly straightforward to me, but it also seems a little silly that dream nudity upsets me so much when I have no qualms about splashing this little corner of the web with pictures in which my underwear plays a starring role. Go figure.) No, this dream was remarkably mundane.

I dreamed I was eating m&m’s.

That’s it. I wasn’t eating m&m’s while riding on the back of a flying dolphin on my way to the first Calculus class I’d been to all semester even though I needed the credits to graduate and I didn’t even have the book and the final started a half hour ago. I wasn’t chasing a horde of m&m’s down the hall because they’d sprouted legs and fangs and were fleeing from me armed with a bazooka that shoots blobs of rubber cement. And I wasn’t buried up to the neck in a continuous shower of m&m’s and being forced to eat them in great gulping mouthfuls lest they pile up over my head and suffocate me (though I’d be willing to take a shot at reenacting that one!). No, In this dream I was just sitting on the couch, eating m&m’s.

It was kind of awesome.

After surviving several wrestling matches with those candy-coated little boogers over the years, I don’t eat them much any more. I know that the beauty of the Weight Watchers program is that no food is off-limits, and that I absolutely could eat some m&m’s right now if I wanted to. And I do want to. But I also believe that if you opened the door to Hell’s waiting room, walked across the carpet of burning coals and up to the demon on duty at the reception desk, that nestled between a sign that said “Welcome to your Eternal Damnation!” and a picture of a couple of horned & fork tongued children would be a big, heaping bowl of m&m’s--because every good minion knows it’s just good business to keep the candy dish stocked with the infernal creation of the CEO himself.

So today, when a friend at work casually mentioned that she’d bought some m&m cookies for her department, I just as casually mentioned to her that I’d had a dream about m&m’s last night, and then promptly forgot all about the conversation. Until I needed to refill my giant water cup, and sitting there right above the ice machine was this little beauty and a few dozen of his friends:

So I ate it. Well, it wasn’t THIS cookie, because there wasn’t time in the approximately 5 seconds between when I laid eyes on it and when it resided in my digestive tract to snap a photograph. This cookie was the second one I took with me to my desk, and planned to send to the same fate as it’s twin…right after I recorded the indulgence in my daily weight watchers food journal. As I calculated the points for two cookies (two delicious, chewy, moist, buttery, fresh baked m&m cookies), a small bit of my sanity returned and I realized that I was totally fine with spending 5 points on one cookie, but spending 10 points for two of them was just a little too rich for my blood. So instead I took a picture of it, spent a few moments of quality time gazing at it, and then put it back where I found it for someone else to enjoy.

In the end I got to eat my cookie and keep my dignity too, my m&m jones satisfied for the moment.

Dreams really do come true. :)

Does my butt make these pants look small?

2010-09-13T06:45:00.000-05:00

WARNING: The following post contains an image that shows far less swimsuit-area skin than the one that preceded it two weeks ago, but still a goodly amount of baby blue panties. My apologies to the squeamish.

As you know, there’s a gorgeous pair of white wool pants that have been hanging in my closet for over two years. They’ve been mocking me from their hanger, size 20 tags still attached, for so long that I started to believe that I’d never wear them. But all that changed on August 28th, when I posted a somewhat inappropriate picture of myself wearing (read: squeezed partly into) them, and vowed that I’d do the same thing every two weeks leading up to Christmas Eve 2010 when I would post a picture of myself wearing them to dinner that night.

Unfortunately for you, I am a woman of my word.

I fully expected this first progress shot would be more “shot” than “progress”. After all, two weeks isn’t a very long time in fat-girl years. I mean, sure, I’ve lost nearly 7 pounds in that time but that doesn’t exactly translate to much appreciable sizing movement in the plus-size fashion world. The old convention that you go down a size roughly every 10 pounds doesn’t hold true once you leave the realm of “Misses” sizes to foray into the world of “Women’s” clothing. In fact, in my experience it’s somewhere closer to about 30 pounds between sizes, and can even be more than that the higher you go.

This phenomenon makes perfect sense to me. I think about it like blowing up a balloon. The first few puffs into a deflated balloon make a really big difference, but as the balloon inflates the increase in circumference is less noticeable with each breath of equal volume. It works the very same way in reverse—a slow, steady flow of air out of a full balloon causes it to decrease in size slowly at first until it gets small. It can be frustrating for those of us with so much to lose, and often we have to post really impressive numbers at the scale before the balloon has deflated enough for the world to take notice.

And so I wasn’t terribly hopeful that a seven-pound loss would translate into much pants related progress. But just a scant 14 days since I promised I’d do it, I gently removed those creamy, dreamy trousers from the hanger that’s been their home since I bought them, took them down to the kitchen, slipped them over my legs, up my thighs, to my hips…and up them a few inches! Check it out:

Left: 2 weeks ago, Right: Today!

It’s not like I’m going to wear them to work tomorrow or anything (though if they suddenly dump Casual Friday in favor of Almost Naked Monday, I know what I’m wearing!) but I can actually see the difference. And so could my son! Which, now that I type it, feels a little on the creepy side but I’m going to ignore that feeling in favor of one that’s more pleasant: Hope. I'm starting to really believe that I’ll be wearing these pants come Christmas Eve, and it’s a GREAT feeling.

So I’m putting out the call: Do you have something hanging in your closet that YOU want to wear by the Holidays? If so, I invite you to join me for Sara’s Christmas Clothes Challenge!

The rules are simple, and all they require is the desire to change and a tiny bit of bravery: Pick a piece of clothing that doesn’t fit you right now, power up your camera, and take a picture of yourself in it today. If you’ve got a blog, post that picture for the world to see, along with your pledge to post a new picture every two weeks and send me an email letting me know that you’re in! You can link to my site in your blog if you like, and I’ll link YOU in my bi-weekly white-pants posts. Over the next few months, we’ll have a parade of shrinking, well-dressed bodies to display for the world to see!

And even if you don’t have a blog, you can still play along. You can email me your pictures for me to post (or not to, whatever you prefer) and tell me about your progress, or you can be a silent partner and make a private pledge—but I hope you’ll share your progress with someone when you feel comfortable. I’ve already gotten a few starting pictures from some great readers, and I can’t wait to show you their progress as the weeks pass!

So what do you say, internet? Are you ready for the Christmas Clothes Challenge? Who’s with me?

Looking for the Lightning...

2010-09-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

I love this time of year. September rolled in over the plains last week and brought with it the clear sunny days and crisp cool nights of fall, with a pleasant little shower or two thrown in wetting things down enough that I didn’t have to water my lawn (my pathetic, scorched, gasping lawn). This transition time between summer and autumn, when that perfect combination of open windows and lots of covers on the bed makes for the best sleep I’ll get all year (which is totally worth the inevitable teeth-chattering sprint into a hot shower when the alarm goes off) is my favorite season-that-isn't-technically-a-season.

When the oppressive heat of the typical mid-western summer starts to lift (Q: What did the humidity say to the heat? A: It’s not you, It’s ME.), everything around here looks a little brighter. The leaves begin to change colors, the smell of BBQ grills and wood burning fire pits fill the air at dusk, crowds gather to watch padded boys and men of all ages toss around the pigskin, and suddenly I’ve got to find another source of white noise to get to sleep because the constant hum of the air conditioner is missing from the soundtrack of the night.

It always feels like a renaissance to me, when people begin to come out of the off-season hibernation period and emerge from the cool shelter of their homes into a world that no longer threatens to melt them into the pavement if they linger too long in the merciless sun. All of a sudden we’re making excuses to leave the house, reminding each other to take a jacket just in case we need it, and things like mowing the lawn or running to the grocery store don’t feel court ordered punishment anymore. People seem happier, less grumpy, like they’re no longer weighed down by the never ending heat.

And me? I feel good too.

A good friend of mine at the office keeps a basket of candy on her desk, and when she noticed yesterday that her supplies for it were running low, she asked me what she could buy to fill it that wouldn’t tempt me too much. It was such a thoughtful question, borne out of her concern and support for my ongoing battle with the fat (and probably due in no small part to the day I had a run in with a particularly dastardly confection in that very basket). I surprised myself a little by immediately replying “Anything is fine with me, nothing tempts me that much lately.” And I wasn’t just being polite. I actually MEANT it.

Since May of this year, I’ve been back on my weight loss game with a focus and drive that continues to amaze me. It’s not so much the fact that it exists that I find fascinating, but rather that it’s a different feeling than I’ve ever had before. It’s not completely unfamiliar, but it’s not the old feeling I longed to get back for so long either. It’s something totally new, which is a bit of a surprise. I always hoped that if the chaos of the last few years finally abated (and I wasn’t always sure it would, to be honest) that I’d be able to get back where I was before, that those old fires would start to burn again and I’d pick up right where I left off. But that didn’t happen.

When I was finally able to focus on my weight loss goals again, things looked different from my new vantage point. I’d learned a few new things along the way, lessons taken from my successes and won from my failures as well. When I decided that I was ready to get back on the wagon, I took a different seat than I had the last time I’d climbed onto it. The road was the same as it had always been, the map was full of the same landmarks and symbols and the route was clearly marked…but the view wasn’t the same. It wasn’t bad, in fact it was pretty darn good. But something had changed--and eventually I realized what was different this time around:

It was ME.

Motivation is a tricky beast, and many a weight loss journey (or most, if not damn near all of them) have seen setback or two. Or seven. And inevitably when get back down to the business of losing we find ourselves longing for the way things were back when it was all fresh and new, when we felt invincible and couldn’t imagine why we waited so long to take control. We retrace our steps, stretch our arms to the heavens and beg for lightning to strike us again…and it doesn’t. It can’t.

It’s true what they say: lightning never strikes in the same place twice. But that only matters if YOU stay in the same place, and if you keep moving it can strike again. It won’t be exactly the way it was the first time, but you won’t be the same person you were the first time either. You may never forget that first strike, but take it from me--new lightning packs one hell of a jolt.

Feelin' Groovy...

2010-09-01T22:07:00.000-05:00

If you’d have told me six months ago that by September I’d have been filling a blog post with all the good stuff that’s been happening lately, I would laughed in your face. And by “laughed in your face” I mean I would have pulled the covers back over my head and grunted something approximating “Go and peddle your optimism elsewhere and leave me to my misery”. But you’d have been right because the glass, these days, is decidedly half-full:

· I lost 3.4 pounds at my weigh in on Saturday morning, capping off another great week with an excellent showing at the scale! I’m just six-tenths of a pound shy of 35 pounds lost since I got back down to business in May, and I’m less than five pounds away from seeing a TWO as the first digit of my weight. All in all, not too shabby!

· I’m three weeks into my online dating experiment and, despite my fears, I haven’t been relegated to “last kid picked for kickball” status. There have been a few bites; some I threw back, some swam away, and few are still on the line…and there’s at least one that I’m willing to keep reeling in. So far, so good.

· My little foray into inappropriate photography in Saturday’s Christmas pants post yielded me some fantastic feedback. The response was overwhelmingly positive (though there’s always a hater or two in the bunch, and I invite those who found the sight of my panties objectionable to remove their finger from the orifice it is currently lodged in and use it to click their mouse right on off of my site), but my favorite email was from a reader who sent me a picture of herself in the pants SHE wants to wear this Christmas—which got me thinking about just how many other people might have something in their closet that’s been mocking them, and wouldn’t it be cool if we could all cheer each other on in some kind of challenge? So take a look in your closet, dust off your camera, and STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS!

· I’m happier more days than I’m sad, I feel good more than I feel bad, and I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of that silver lining they’re always saying every cloud has while I was out walking tonight, and I have the photographic evidence to prove it exists:

Against all odds, today life is GOOD. I realize that all this optimism might be inviting the universe to drop the other shoe that, even as I write this, is likely dangling precariously just overhead. But on days like this, when I begin appreciate just how long it’s been since I’ve had days like this, a potential Nike to the noggin is a risk I’m willing to take.

One leg at a time, just like everyone else...

2010-08-28T18:09:00.003-05:00

WARNING: This post contains a photographic image that may not be suitable for…well…anyone, really.

Every woman on earth knows that sizes in the garment industry are notoriously relative. Since there are no hard and fast standards in women’s clothing sizes, various brands can just make theirs up as they go along, and a selection of garments from different manufacturers with the same size printed on the tags will be vastly different in the way they fit. I have a pair of size 22 pants coming out of storage that fit perfectly, I have a pair of 20’s that I wore to work yesterday that are getting noticeably too big to keep wearing, and I have a pair of size 24 slacks in a drawer that I couldn’t get into with a shoehorn, a can of Crisco, and the collective directed prayer of the Baptist congregation down the street.

Two years ago, when my weight was at it’s lowest in my ongoing journey (which is now just a scant 20 pounds lower than it is right now, I might add) I was out shopping and happened upon a lovely pair of cuffed, wide leg trousers in a dreamy shade of cream that were fully lined and—because miracles do happen—were made for someone who is taller than 5’6”. Which I am. By nearly 5 inches. A glance at the tag revealed that they were a size 20, and, get this, they were ON SALE! And by “on sale” I do not mean that they were marked down from ungodly expensive to merely ridiculously expensive, because I have much higher expectations of exactly what constitutes a bargain than some people. You’ll never see me getting excited over a 15% markdown like some people do. (Yeah, Mom. I’m looking at you.) These were deeply discounted, and so I stepped into the dressing room, slipped them on, and though they were slightly too tight to wear immediately I knew that it’d only be a few more pounds before they’d look like they were made for me. So I bought them, brought them home, hung them up in the closet…and that’s where they’ve been ever since.

As life began to spiral downward, my weight began to inch up to fill the void. And so my brand new beautiful white pants hung there, unworn, tags still in place, as a testament to hope and a reminder of better times gone by. I’d see them almost every morning when I got dressed, and I’d often pause to run a finger down the sharp creases in the buttery material and wonder if I’d ever get to wear them. Once, I decided to try them on, but when they didn’t even clear my thighs, I hung them back up in defeat. After a while I moved them back further into the closet, where I didn’t see them as often. They were out of sight, but never out of my mind. Oh, white pants, I wish I knew how to quit you.

Then just the other day, as I was dressing for work, I realized that the pants I was currently wearing had finally gotten too large to be anything but frumpy. So I pulled them off, relegated them to the goodwill bag, and flipped through the rack of trousers I’ve been working to get back into, when a brilliant flash of white wool caught my eye. In a fit of optimism, I pulled them out of the closet, slipped my legs into them, and pulled them up….to my hips. And that’s as far as they were going to go. As I stood there, more or less trapped in trouser limbo, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and saw this:

It was in that moment I made a vow that I WOULD wear these pants. Soon. Along with all the lofty goals we want to achieve through weight loss, it’s important to have some that are more concrete, more easily measured and reported as tangible proof of our progress. And so, internet, I tell you this: I will wear these slacks to Christmas Eve dinner on December 24, 2010. I’ll try them on every two weeks, and I’ll post a new photo each time. And as the weeks go by I’ll compare that embarrassing photo to this one as a way of reminding myself that I am a work in progress, and that there are two really important words in that phrase. WORK and PROGRESS. I want to see the effects of both of them.

So stay tuned, folks. It’s time to show everyone exactly who wears the pants around here.

And now for something completely different...

2010-08-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

I got an email today from a long time reader who wrote to convey their disappointment in the direction my blog has taken. What once seemed interesting and inspiring was now boring and depressing, and maybe I would be better served by getting back to the grass roots of my journey instead of rehashing “what a shrink said to emphasize your non-fat self worth” and that if I did then self worth would come with reaching my goal.

Well. Ouch.

And so as I hoofed it 3.5 miles around the lake tonight, I thought about what they’d said. I admit that this blog isn’t the same as it used to be. I lost my focus for a while, and my weight loss progress suffered for it. At the time I made the decision that I would keep what I posted on this site on topic, and that what was going on in the rest of my life wasn’t germane. I have always felt that this was a place to tell MY story, but so much of that story was intertwined with one that wasn’t mine to tell, and so I didn’t. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe a little more information would have bought me some slack. Maybe if I’d hung a sign that said “closed for repairs” and waited until I’d found and glued together all the pieces of my broken heart then I could have returned with a big smile and bypassed all the unpleasant introspection and gotten right back down to the business of finally not being so fat.

I can only tell my story. And this darkness, the one that’s finally lifting, was a part of it. But you know what? So is the light that is finally shining again, and maybe it’s time to write about that. I’m kicking the fat’s ass lately, shedding the pounds and reaping the benefits--and those are my stories to tell too.

In fact, just this morning I set a new goal combining the upcoming holiday season with a pair of winter white wool pants that have been mocking me from my closet for the better part of two years now. I’m on a quest to show those smug slacks who’s the boss around here…complete with embarrassing photos. Wanna see ‘em?

The revolution begins tomorrow. Tune in then!

One (point two) is the loneliest number...

2010-08-22T12:31:00.003-05:00

But I’ll take it!

The scale ponied up a 1.2 pound loss this week effectively putting an end to two weeks of involuntary maintenance, and saving me the jail time that would inevitably have ensued if I’d been forced to make good on my threat to take the weigh-in lady hostage if she told me my weight hadn’t budged yet again. (You got lucky this time, Gloria.)

In the fight against the fat, it’s tough not to get obsessed with the scale. In fact, its counter intuitive (and kind of stupid, frankly) to say that focusing on the numbers isn’t important. The goals of better health, increased mobility, rising self confidence, and improvements in quality of life are all a direct result of the steady decline of the same numbers we try and diminish the importance of. All the benefits of working to be at a healthy weight are side effects of watching the digits on the scale go down, and when they stand still even for a short period of time it can be easy to lose sight of everything we’ve gained in the wake of what we’re not losing.

As I paused for the applause at receiving another 5 pound star, I considered my answer to my leader’s standard “So tell us how your weight loss is affecting your life” that I knew would follow. I considered regaling the group with the fact that this is not my first go round with WW, and that while I’ve lost over 30 pounds since rejoining in May, my grand total is much more than that, but even just composing that speech in my head made me roll my own eyes so I refrained. When the question was posed, I decided to just go with the truth as it stands for me today:

This is another day in a lifelong struggle, and I know that they key to this whole weight loss thing isn’t dwelling on the last year, or month, or day, or weigh-in, or choice. As a very good friend of mine is fond of saying, the only thing that matters is what I do next. And that’s what I’m concentrating on today. And tomorrow. And beyond.

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

2010-08-20T12:08:00.005-05:00

I took a personality test a few weeks ago and was rewarded with a 30 page long in-depth assessment detailing 15 different dimensions of just what this Sara person is all about. This is not the first time I’ve been exposed to one of these personality inventory tools, and with exception, every time I’ve taken a similar test (Cosmo quizzes about your flirting style and “Which twilight character are you?” viral web tests don’t count. But FYI, I’m a Jacob.) I find myself flabbergasted at just how accurate the findings are. There are days when I can’t seem to take what’s pinging around my skull and form it into a coherent set of thoughts in 1000+ words (and for proof, I offer the last, oh, 90 or so entries below), but 45 minutes of yes/no answers, multiple choice questions, and rating various characteristics on a scale of “very much like me” to “not at all like me” appears to be adequate time to have me analyzed, pegged, printed, and spit out.

Flipping through the results (read: poring over the pages and highlighting particular passages in two separate colors, one for items that resonated with me for their accuracy, and another for the things that were totally true but not terribly comfortable to read—then adding a third color for things I want to bring up in therapy. Yep. Sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here.) I found myself flattered by some things I knew to be true, enlightened by a few things I realized were true after I read them, and moved to action by a particularly accurate passage. In the section that explores the impact that our words have on those around us, my report had this to say:

“You've learned over time to speak kindly. You find the right word to let your friends or your partner or even strangers know the best things you feel or believe about them. You have opinions, of course, and you hold strong beliefs, but the first thing out of your mouth in response to what someone says is not a contradiction to or a complaint about what they've said. You find a compliment either for what they've said or how they've said it, and you mean what you say. It may not be the whole truth but it's the truth that matters to you between you and the person in front of you.”

That rings true to me. I believe that in nearly every situation in life we can choose to be kind, and that all too often the phrase “I’m just being honest” is code for “I can say any jackass thing I want because I deem it to be true”. I will call a spade a spade (or a douche bag a douche bag, as the case may be) when appropriate, but I will also be truthful without being an ass about it. For instance, I will never tell anyone they have an ugly baby. The appropriate response to “isn’t she adorable?” is never “My God, if that showed up at my bedside in the middle of the night asking for a drink I’d fling holy water at it!” The correct response to that question is “She’s so sweet, you must be so proud!” The choice to be kind and still be authentic is one that I’ve worked to make whenever possible in my life. So that’s why I caught my breath a little when I went on to read this:

”Hopefully you are as kind toward yourself as you are toward others; hopefully your inner dialogue with yourself is as laced with positives as are your conversations with those you love. This may be an issue. Some people speak kindly and believe what they say about others, but their kindness toward others comes in part as a comparison with their more hostile feelings about themselves. You may want to check this out. There's an easy test: do you use the same vocabulary toward yourself that you use toward others? If not, why not?”

That was truth all right. Kindly stated, no less. When I take that test, I fail. Miserably. Compassion for others is a trait that comes naturally to me, the impulse toward kindness isn’t an affectation, it is a part of who I am. I can’t imagine meeting anyone on the street and looking them up and down and declaring them disgusting, or ugly, or unlovable, or pathetic. But I’ve stared into the eyes of my reflection and thought all of those things and worse. I can give just about anyone a break for behavior that makes the rest of the world cringe because I believe that it’s unfair to permanently judge otherwise good people by their worst moments, yet I will replay my own moments of shame on a giant drive-in screen in my head and judge myself harshly for them long after the moment has passed.

For most of my life, I’ve bought into those things that so much of the world still believes go hand in hand with obesity. Fat people are undisciplined, they’re weak—and as a result they are disgusting, unattractive, and pathetic. When I step back and look objectively, I realize that I am NONE of those things. It’s time for me to take the golden rule, flip it on it’s ear, and start treating myself the way I treat others. I’ve been practicing this lately, and while I’m no Stuart Smalley yet, it’s getting easier to look myself in the eye and realize that I like what I see.

Do you use the same vocabulary toward yourself that you use toward others? If not, why not?

Do tell…

Someone Like Me

2010-08-18T11:05:00.000-05:00

This will probably come as a surprise to most of you, but I have a tendency to over think things sometimes.

(Pause for exclamations of shock. None? Really? Ok then.)

This propensity toward mulling is tempered with an oddly compatible impulsive side that pops up seemingly out of nowhere to put an end to the ruminating and just make a decision already. One day I’ll be thinking to myself “Gee, I’d sure like a new throw pillow for the chair in the living room” thus kicking off weeks (or months, or years) of looking at the pillow selection whenever I’m at the store, scanning the pages of magazines for pillow related inspiration, scoping out fabric for the purely theoretical pillows I could (read: never will) sew myself, until one day I’m walking through Target and upon seeing a pillow that looks absolutely nothing like I’ve been imagining all this time I’ll throw it in the cart, take it home, and voila! Pillow problem solved. I sum up this particular offshoot of my crazy like this: I don’t always know what I’m looking for, but I know it when I see it.

And this is how, in a rare burst of self-esteem, I decided that I was ready to start dating again. Never mind that I haven’t been “out there” in over a decade, or that I’ve rarely even been “out of the house” for a significant portion of the tail end of that same period. Never mind that 39 year old neurotic fat girls aren’t exactly in high demand in the marketplace, or that I don’t have the foggiest idea what the young people consider “dating” these days. These were thoughts I’d spent months mulling over, imagining the consequences to, weighing the pros and cons of, and putting off for consideration later. Then one night about two weeks ago, a switch clicked in my mind and I sat down with my laptop and credit card and signed up for a major internet dating service (I’m not going to name names, but I’ll give you a hint: It rhymes with “Bee Flarmony”).

As soon as I made the decision to give this whole dating thing a go, it was like an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. About ten minutes into filling out the (LONG) personality questionnaire and contemplating what to write on my profile and which pictures I would upload, that same weight came crashing right back down with a vengeance. Why had I thought that this was a good idea, again? Did I really believe that with thousands of pretty girls in the metro area looking for love that anyone would give me a second glance? Would it be a better use of my $300 to pay a random guy on the street to take me to a movie, or would $300 even be enough to convince him to do so? What the HELL was I thinking?

It was then that the rational part of my brain, the one that so often gets slapped down by the emotional whirlwind it shares my skull with, spoke up and told me to get a hold of myself. I’m not exactly a troll, after all. In fact, on paper I’m almost a catch. I’m raising a terrific kid, I own a home, I have a job I love, I’m smarter than the average tree stump, I have a good sense of humor, I am kind and articulate and have all my teeth. All those things combined are part of a decent package…it’s the wrapping paper that makes me doubt that anyone will ever want to open it.

There’s not much about myself that I really dislike. I am confident in my abilities and talents, I know my strengths, and I can even make a list of attributes that I am proud of without having to pause too many times to think about it. There is only one issue that causes me to doubt all the other things I know to be true. Whatever hand I’ve been dealt, the Queen of Fat is always in play, and when I lay my cards on the table it trumps them all. It always has.

It’s not impossible to find love when you’re overweight. I’ve done it before, and statistically I tend to believe that I’ll do it again. But I know that, despite all the feel-good rhetoric to the contrary, it can be a speed bump in the process. Fat can be a deal breaker for some people, and even when you do click with someone and you start to believe that maybe the weight isn’t an issue, it can still be the unspoken barrier to full fledged romance. Or the spoken one, for that matter.

Case in point: Years ago I was dating a guy that was a heck of a catch. He was smart, funny, mentally stable, and I liked him a lot. And, because wonders never cease, he liked ME. We’d only been dating a short time when, while we were out to dinner one night, we were discussing what a good time we’d been having with each other over the few weeks since we’d met. He said some very complimentary things to me, and then followed it up with the fact that in the past he’d always dated really pretty girls, so when he first met me, it was—and I quote—“hard getting used to someone like you”.

I remember that moment so vividly that even recalling it now 14 years later my chest gets tight and my mouth goes dry, and I’m right back there sitting across the table from a man that had basically told me that I was OK for a fat chick. The difference is that the woman I am now probably wouldn’t have smiled brightly while she died a little inside, she wouldn’t have nodded like she totally understood what he meant and could see how he felt that way, and she certainly wouldn’t have thanked him for giving a “girl like her” a chance and made pleasant conversation for the rest of the meal before going home and bursting into tears and never returning his phone call again. At least I’d like to think she wouldn’t.

But the truth is that, in some respects, I’m still that girl at the table that night hoping that it’s not too late to find someone willing to take a chance on “someone like her”. The difference is that this version of me is a little older, and a whole lot wiser. Or at least a little wiser, anyway. I know now that I have a lot to offer the right person, and that the key word in that phrase is “right”. As I look through the profiles of men who have been deemed to be compatible with me, and of the men who have made contact to learn more about me, I realize that I have developed some pretty high standards in my old age. I require more from a partner than their mere ability to take a chance on “someone like me”. I want to find a man who is looking for someone just like me. He’s out there somewhere.

I hope.

Pete and Repeat were sitting in a boat, Pete fell out and who was left?

2010-08-15T22:47:00.003-05:00

A reading from the book of Scales, Chapter 8, Verse 14:

"Blessed is she who is faithful in the counting of her points and does move her larger than average booty over the land on a regular basis. She is secure in the knowledge that for her faithfulness she shall have the promise of numbers that diminish with each week she endures. And lo, on the seventh day, Sara didst step upon the scale to claim the fruits of her labor, and did see a number not smaller, nor larger than the one she had seen seven days hence. What a kicketh in the groin."

Seriously, universe?

I'd tell you in great detail exactly how I feel about this week's non-event at the scale, but it turns out I already did that about 4 inches south of here, so I'll wait while you read my last blog entry again. Go ahead, scroll down and feel the frustration all over again. Done? Ok then.

I've had a great run since that May morning when Weight Watchers welcomed back the prodigal daughter with open arms (but no feasting, because have you SEEN the nutritional information for fatted calf? CRAZY!), and I suppose that statistically I was due for a week or two of tribulation. I'll keep the faith, and my nose the grindstone, secure in the knowledge that this too shall pass.

Into every weight loss journey, a few maintains must fall. Can we declare these my "few" and get on with it already?

Whine over. Resolve rebooted. Game on.

The scale, she is a cruel mistress...

2010-08-13T18:08:00.001-05:00

Seven days ago, after a solid week of Points counting and daily bouts of vigorous activity (which I performed in temperatures akin to those at the bottom of an active volcano, I’ll have you know. It’s been so hot I haven’t taken my dog out walking with me because it’s just too dangerous to expose her to that kind of heat what with her inability to sweat and all. My safety, however, isn’t an issue as I happen to be a gifted perspirer and maintaining a protective layer of sweat at all times has prevented me from bursting into flames. So far. Stupid global warming.), I stepped on the scale with a positive attitude and a smile for the Weight Watchers employee behind the counter and was rewarded with the following sentence:
“You stayed exactly the same as last week.”

To which I shrugged and replied: “Bummer. Well, whattaya gonna do, huh?”

That’s what I said out loud, anyway. My internal dialogue was somewhat less philosophical. While my face was all “Hey, those are the breaks!” my brain was sneering, stomping it’s imaginary feet into the dirt, and cussing like a longshoreman. Nothing? At all? I bet if I’d stopped to use the bathroom before weighing in I could have eked out* at least a tenth of a pound. I had JUST weighed myself at home before I left (Yes. I weigh myself occasionally during the week, and I know some people don’t do that and have many, many opinions as to why it’s a bad idea that range from sensible to holier than thou. I’ve heard ‘em. I get it. Don’t judge me!) and according to my scale I was down nearly 2 pounds and the two scales in my life are generally 100% in sync. And while we’re at it, I should mention that even my expected 1.whatever loss wasn’t exactly making me jump for joy in the first place, so ending up with a big fat goose egg for the week left me a little on the bitter side.

I know this is a silly attitude. I know that the five seconds we step up on the scale each week is just a snapshot in time, a single frame in the thousands—millions, really—that make up the rest of our lives. I know that my weight in that same five seconds isn’t always a reflection of the work I put in the seven days that preceded it. I know that sometimes the scale doesn’t cooperate no matter how well your week has gone, or how much you deserve to see a payoff when you step on it. I even know that there is one week every month when that most blessed gift of womanhood wreaks havoc on my system in ways too numerous to mention (but not too numerous to track on the iPeriod app!) and that last week was that very week for me. I know all of that. But right that second, when the sting of unearned disappointment was fresh, I just didn’t care.

I slipped on my flip flops, stepped away from the scale, and started toward the chairs in the meeting area when the thought entered my petulant little brain that I shouldn’t stay for the meeting that day. Since I hadn’t gotten the validation I deserved from the scale, surely the best way to retaliate would be to refuse to sit down and participate in a conversation about a program that clearly didn’t work like it’s supposed to, stomp off in a huff and let them watch my big behind sashay right out the door thank you very much while I rolled my eyes because THAT WOULD SHOW THEM!

So I began digging through my purse for my keys, my sunglasses slipping down off my head while I juggled that week’s meeting materials and my water bottle in one hand, while using my other hand to plumb the depths of my handbag for the keys that I suddenly realized weren’t there because I’d left them on the counter in my haste to run away from that hateful little bucket of bolts that had taken a pin to my good mood balloon seconds before. So I walked over, slid the keys toward me, and the lady behind the counter asked cheerfully “You’re staying for the meeting, aren’t you Sara?”

And just like that, I was.

I’ve been doing this for a long time. And the truth is that I’ve learned to accept that I’ll be doing it forever. And as such, with forever being such a long time and all, it’s probably likely that not every day is going to be hearts and flowers and slow-motion romps through fragrant meadows. Some days are going to be harder than others, and I’m going to have to let the rational, mature Weight Watcher inside me grapple with the holy terror of an inner child who still believes that not being able to eat all her points each day in Hostess cupcakes is like so, TOTALLY unfair. On that morning, that particular battle ended with a stern look and a whispered threat to the little girl who took over my body temporarily instead of me having to take her whiny self outside and pop her on her ample bottom.

They say in Weight Watchers circles that sometimes you need the meeting and sometimes the meeting needs you. I needed the meeting that day. I needed to remember that I really believe all those platitudes about the scale only being one measure of our success, and that in the end the number it reads doesn’t matter as much as we think it does. I had a really good week last week. I had another one this week. If I’m doing what I should, then the scale will pony up the goods. Eventually.

But just for the record: Grrr.

*Editing note: I originally used the phrase “squeezed out” in this sentence but it skeeved me out when I read it back.

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky...

2010-08-03T23:41:00.001-05:00

I believe that we are all essentially the product of our experiences, and that as our lives progress the memories of where we’ve been and what we’ve learned combine to form the core of who we are and help to steer where we’ll go next. In my nearly 40 years on this earth, experience has let me to believe in a few fundamental truths:

Number 1: If there is someone or something in your life that your family doesn’t like (assuming that your family is functional and good for you), then you can be assured that in nearly every case, they are usually 100% right.

Number 2: If you’re going to accidentally wear your shirt home inside out after a night involving activities of a questionable nature, it’s best to make sure that it isn’t one with shoulder pads sewn into it.

Number 3: There’s something wrong with me.

I was talking to my therapist the other day (which is good, since that’s what I pay her for and all. I suppose I could sit in her office and silently crochet for an hour, but that seems like a waste of $120 and since I only know how to crochet one thing I don’t know what I’d do with all the resulting pot holders), and she was grilling me about my childhood. And by “grilling” I mean she was asking me pointed questions in a polite tone. And by “pointed” I mean normal questions a therapist might ask when presented with a patient who says she had a good childhood but still manages to be moderately bat-shit crazy in spite of that fact. And by “moderately bat-shit crazy” I mean that despite all evidence to the contrary, it turns out she doesn’t think very much of herself. Where, she wants to know, does this stem from?

The truth is that I did have a normal childhood. I had two parents who loved and supported me, very little in the way of chaos (unless you count that ten pound bundle of joy they brought home from the hospital when I was six and have always liked better than me), and certainly no abuse or trauma in my past that might have been the sparks that lit the fire of self-doubt. There are a lot of reasons people grow up with an impaired sense of self-esteem, but none of them seem to apply to me. I was not berated tirelessly for my faults, my family situation didn’t force me to assume responsibilities far beyond my age, and I didn’t suffer indignities at the hands of those who were supposed to love me and protect me. I got good grades, I won recognition for my talents, and I managed to eventually grow into a responsible adult in charge of raising another human being who happens to be a pretty great kid. There just isn’t any reason for me to doubt my value as a person. Except one.

It always comes back to the fat, doesn’t it?

I’ve spent about 35 of the last 39 years struggling with my weight. I’ve written before about some of my experiences as an overweight kid and all the ways that my parents tried to help me shed the pounds. I am adamant in my insistence that there was no malice in their efforts, and that every attempt to help me slim down was made out of a desire to make my life better. But it turns out that even my sincere belief in the purity of their intentions doesn’t change the fact that, from a very early age, I knew that there was something wrong with me. Something that needed fixing. Something that was so bad that they’d do nearly anything to change it. Something that I could fix if I just wanted it badly enough and worked hard enough that I could give it to them…and I never could.

Somewhere along the line, the knowledge that no matter what else I was or how much I achieved, the fact that I did it in a body larger than anyone else I knew became the mitigating factor to every achievement (or failure) I racked up. The fat became the cornerstone of my self worth, the broad and wobbly foundation upon which all the other things I am have been laid. My weight has been a defining force in my life, a barometer of my greater success over the years. It’s how I’ve judged who I am, and what I deserve…and I didn’t even realize it until recently.

Do not mistake this revelation as an indictment of my parents in any way. They are wonderful people who continue lovingly support me as they have my whole life. There are millions of people with legitimate parental grievances to air and I won’t pretend that I am among them. The truth is that my feelings about my weight and how it’s defined my life are much less about them than they are about ME. I am a muller, a thinker, a dweller of thoughts. Plant a seed in my brain and I’ll nurture and fertilize it until it grows in to a sturdy plant with deep roots and an impressive canopy of branches…but I just might look up and realize that I’ve been fostering a weed. I’ve been mulching and pruning and watering this sucker for decades, it seems. What a colossal waste of time.

Its time tend to the rest of the garden, to see what else might be hiding under that big fat weed’s leaves just waiting for a chance in the sun. I think I’m ready to find out.

Good News, Bad News

2010-07-28T19:27:00.005-05:00

Ok, internet—let’s play a game of Good News, Bad News. Which do you want to hear first? I always want to get the bad news out of the way so that the good news is like a little present you get for sitting through the stuff that sucks, so away we go!

Bad News: I’ve had a ridiculously stressful week since my last post. Know what you get when you combine family health issues, work stress, and a little revisited relationship drama for garnish? Crazy Casserole, that’s what.

Good News: I’m still 100% on my weight loss game. SERIOUSLY! Turns out a heaping helping of Crazy Casserole daily doesn’t have as many calories as you’d think. Looking over my emotional balance sheet, it turns out that I’ve freed up enough margin to handle everything life’s tossed at me lately. So far.

Bad News: I have been slacking in the workout department. Digging around in my big bag of excuses yields the following:

My walking partner is my dog who is terrified of both thunder and fireworks, so she’s spent most of July hiding in my closet instead of at the end of her leash.
The average ambient temperature the last few weeks has been just a degree or two below that of the surface of the sun, so one could theorize that I haven’t been slacking so much as avoiding heat stroke.
I don’t have a gym membership, so I can’t exercise indoors. (Which happens to be a lie straight from the pit of hell, because I totally DO have a gym membership but lately I’ve preferred outdoor exercise and thus have to consider the $34.99 I pay each month as less a membership fee than a voluntary fat tax.)

Good News: I recognize that my excuses are crap. Turns out I really miss working out (well, I miss the part after the first 10 minutes of repeating “God I hate this” over and over in my head) and am making a concerted effort to get out for a walk every day—even if it’s a little treadmill time at the gym or a 15 minute jaunt around the neighborhood, with our without canine companionship.

Bad News: I’m still fat.

Good News: I never got as fat as I once was, and I’m not as fat as I was just a few months ago. I am down a full size from where I was in May, and these clothes are starting to get a little big so I predict it won’t be long before they’re relegated to the goodwill box and replaced with the next smallest batch of garments in my closet.

Bad News: I’ve been avoiding owning up to the numbers on the scale, purposely talking around them and hinting at my current weight here in the vaguest of terms (example: the BN/GN that immediately precedes this paragraph) in a vain attempt to maintain some semblance of my dignity.

Good News: That ends today. I’ve spent countless breaths and bytes extolling the virtues of honesty in this weight loss game, and everything I know deep down in my fat-girl soul tells me that it’s easier to fight the good fight out in the open, so in my continuing effort to suck it up and keep it real, I present you with the following photographic evidence:

Bad News: Posting that wasn’t very much fun.

Good News: It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was kind of liberating. Yes, weigh 313.3 pounds, but I don’t weigh 383.6 pounds anymore. Yes, I used to see a number that started with a 2 just that many years ago, but I am confident I’ll see that number again soon enough. Yes, I wear a size 22, but I don’t wear a size 24 like I did in April, or a size 28 like I did way back at the beginning of my weight loss journey. I’m still learning that the number that hateful little bucket of bolts coughs up each week isn’t who I am, it’s just a snapshot of five seconds of my life on 1 day out of thousands. It’s simply data, one tiny piece of information that is part of a larger picture, and it exists whether I shout it to the world or not. So, world, consider yourself shouted at.

Bad News: I’m ending this post because I’ve got no more bad news to report.

Good News: See “Bad News” above.

What's Hunger Got to Do With It?

2010-07-19T15:15:00.000-05:00

One of the very best things about Weight Watchers is that there truly is no food that is off limits. Since the program is centered around the POINTS system where each food is evaluated by their calorie, fat & fiber content, literally any food you can name can be worked into the plan. And it’s not even cheating!

This flexibility is the reason that WW is the only plan that has ever made sense to me. You see, I refuse to live in a world where a burrito the size of a Chihuahua or a cheeseburger on a grilled buttered bun isn’t an occasional option in my life (the operative word being “occasional”, of course. If anyone tries to sell you a magic pill that allows you to eat these kinds of things every day and still lose weight, prepare for disappointment. Or explosive diarrhea. Probably both!).

The ability to still eat the foods that the typical diet declares forbidden makes Weight Watchers the only plan that I have even a hope of following for a lifetime. If, every once in a while, I want to eat a grilled sourdough melt sandwich, crinkle cut french fries, a couple of fried cheese curds, and then indulge in the world’s finest Turtle Sundae, I CAN. And that’s how I ended up in a booth at Culver’s on Saturday night, wiping ketchup off of my chin with a greasy napkin and engaging in the following exchange with my 15 year old son:

Me: That was delicious. Are you ready to order ice cream?

Son: Nah, I’m not hungry enough.

Me: I didn’t ask if you were hungry, I asked if you wanted ice cream.

Son: What’s the difference?

Me: What’s the diff…who are you, anyway?

Son: I’m your son, Mom.

Me: I HAVE NO SON!

And that isn’t even the first time we’ve had nearly that exact same conversation. It boggles the mind that any child of mine could reject food (especially ICE CREAM) on the basis that he “isn’t hungry”. In my world, whether or not one is hungry has very little (or nothing, even) to do with the decision to eat.

Hunger isn’t a feeling I’ve been terribly well acquainted with in my life. I don’t know if I’m just missing the synapses that appropriately fire the “I’m hungry” message from the stomach to the brain, or if I have too many of them so I always think I’m starving. It could be that for most of my life I just never stopped eating long enough to really BE hungry.

I’m inclined to believe that there’s some truth in that last theory, to be honest. I vividly remember one day early on in my weight loss journey when I was busily working toward a deadline on a work project and I started to feel strange. My stomach began to ache, and as I continued to push on I found myself rubbing at a pain in my temples and getting a little light headed when I went to stand. I worried that I was coming down with something and began to panic, when I glanced over at the clock and realized that it was nearly 2PM and I’d worked straight through lunch. It dawned on me that I wasn’t sick, I was HUNGRY. I took a few minutes to eat the lunch I’d packed, and a la peanut butter sandwiches--I was cured!

There is a school of thought that holds that they key to fighting the obesity epidemic is to learn to eat more intuitively, to let our bodies tell us that we need to eat, and to recognize the clues that reveal when we should stop eating. I’m told that people without food issues do this instinctively, that they listen to their bodies. I listen to my body too, and if you put your ear up to the screen and remain very, very still I bet you can hear it right now saying:

“FEED ME! I WANT CHEETOHS! HEY, GOT ANY MORE STRAWBERRIES? WHAT ARE WE HAVING FOR DINNER? REMEMBER THAT ONE TIME WE HAD CHICKEN FRIED STEAK IN THAT TRUCKSTOP IN ALABAMA? THAT WAS AWESOME. LUNCH WAS LIKE TWO HOURS AGO, IS IT TIME FOR A SNACK YET? CAN I HAVE THE WATERMELON NOW? PLEEEEASE? HELLO UP THERE, PAY ATTENTION TO ME!”

And that’s pretty much what I hear every day. All day. Oh, it changes up the material now and then, sometimes it’s not quite that loud and every once in a while it throws in some stuff about how well I’m controlling myself and how much better life is now. And then there are the days when it speaks in hushed tones, when it hisses that I can try to ignore it, but sooner or later I’ll give it what it wants, that the food will make things right again. The yelling is a pain, but the whispering feels louder sometimes.

I wish that my body was trustworthy enough to listen to. I wish that it was easy for me to instinctively eat just as much as my body needs to function well, and no more. But if wishes were fishes, well let’s face it, I’d eat ‘em. But wishing my obesity away hasn’t been a particularly affective technique for weight loss in the past. I’m not sure my relationship with food will ever be easy or that my instincts where it’s concerned will ever be normal. My body may always speak to me the way it does now, so maybe instead of learning how to listen to it, I need to learn how to talk to it. To reason with it, to cajole and guide it in the direction I need to go to really honor it. How to ignore it if necessary. To give it what it needs instead of what it thinks it wants.

Like a Culver’s turtle sundae, for instance. My body REALLY wanted one the other night. It told me all about the reasons it should have one, it quoted my remaining points for the week and did the math and gave me it’s best “come on, you know you want it!” speech, it pouted and frowned and whined about how I never let it do ANYTHING fun…so I told it to hush. And you know what? It DID. And it turns out that self-control tasted just as good as that sundae might have.

Maybe even better.

Every time a bell rings...

2010-07-15T18:14:00.001-05:00

It’s no secret that I hit a bit of a rough patch in the last few years. It seems perfectly logical to me that we refer to difficult times as “rough” because it does feel a lot like someone is forcibly dragging you, barefoot, over sandpaper. It smarts at first, becomes excruciating quickly, and the longer it goes on the more it wears you down. And that’s why getting to say the following sentence feels like an amazing gift, a privilege in fact:

Life, my friends, is good.

I’m smiling again. Writing again. Wearing color again. I’m LIVING again—and it feels great. Just the other day I was telling a friend that it’s like I looked up one day and the little storm cloud that’s been following me around was gone. They smiled and said “It’s time for you try out your wings.” So that’s what I decided to do. Literally.

Last night I faced down a fear that has plagued me for the better part of 20 years. It was a step so bold that the decision to finally do it had taken on mystical significance in my mind. I have suffered for my resistance to cross that line and agonized over the possibility of finally taking the plunge.

Janeane Garafolo once said that there are two kinds of women in the world: those with shapely upper arms, and those with matronly upper arms…and never the twain shall meet. At my highest weight, I fell firmly in the matronly category, add in some weight loss (and gain, and loss) and an already touchy underarm situation went from bad to worse. Skin that was once stretched tight with fat has been slowly morphing into a wing like structure (affectionately termed “bat wings” by the fat-fighting community) that keeps on waving even when I stop. I’ve become a devotee of the ¾ length sleeve, and acquired an impressive collection of shrugs and sweaters and wraps and shawls to drape over anything that has less than adequate sleeve coverage. But yesterday afternoon, when the mercury topped out at 111 degrees in the shade, I threw caution to the wind, and....

I went SLEEVELESS!

Well, perhaps “threw caution to the wind” is an overstatement of my zeal. The decision was easy to make, but the execution required a little moral support. I called my sister in law for some cheerleading and minor commiseration (because she has lovely upper arms, no matter what she says) complete with a few texted photographs of the offending arm flappage. We decided that if I felt more comfortable keeping my upper arms at my side that I could totally get away with just moving them from the elbows down, kind of like T-Rex. I then quizzed my 15 year old son about whether or not my uncovered arms would be embarrassing to him, which earned me eye rolling and several variations of “of course not!” (note to self: raise his allowance). I took a few pictures to commemorate the event:

This one wasn’t so bad, really. I mean, I’m certainly larger than I’d like to eventually be, and my hair hadn’t been styled since 7:30 AM, but from a purely arm-focused perspective I don’t look deformed or anything. As long as I don’t start enthusiastically flapping my arms and pretending I’m an airplane, no one will have to see this:

I was understandably less thrilled with this photo. I told myself that I didn’t HAVE to post this one here, but it didn’t take long before I decided that I would. My arms are getting flappy for sure, but striking that exact pose is probably only going to happen if I’m held up at gunpoint or spontaneously break out into “the robot”, and the chance of either of those things occurring at a Wednesday night marching band show seemed somewhat unlikely. Plus, in the event that there was an emergency that required us to evacuate the area, I could spread my arms and coast off the bleachers to safety a la a flying squirrel! But at the end of the day, those are my upper arms. And they’re only going to get worse.

I have spent most of my life disliking my body. I have scrutinized its glaring imperfections in the mirror, and averted my eyes to that same reflection just as often. I have wished it was leaner, longer, less lumpy, or more attractive. I’ve liked how I look, only to have that feeling stolen by photographic evidence to the contrary. I’ve bemoaned the negative aesthetic consequences the positive changes my weight loss has earned me. And you know what? I’m tired of it. My ever increasing bat wings aren’t terribly attractive, but that same skin wasn’t exactly fetching when it was stuffed tighter with fat either. Pick your ugly, I say.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hating my body. I don’t want to have every good change I’ve made be mitigated by new insecurities. And I certainly don’t want to spend even one more scorching hot summer under long sleeves because I’m worried that my upper arms might offend the world at large.

And so it happened that at 6:15 PM, on July 14, 2010, I left the house with my arms on display for the world to see in all their naked glory. It was a little scary at first, but that fear was quickly replaced with a feeling of liberation. Turns out it WAS time for me to try my wings. I did it, you know what? I’m probably going to do it again. Soon.

And if anyone has a problem with that, they can kiss my big, fat, white ARMS!

So who else is ready to fly? If you’re up for the challenge then bare those arms, smile for the camera, and tell me ALL about it at skinnysara@cox.net

52

2010-07-14T11:46:00.002-05:00

52 is a strangely random number to have cultural significance, don’t you think? It’s the number of cards in a deck, the number of weeks in a year, and how many white keys there are on a piano. Add a “B” and it turns into a mighty war plane (or a kooky but bitchin’ Atlanta based house band). Exhaustive research (a.k.a. 5 minutes of exercising my master googling skills) reveals that 52 is the atomic weight of Chromium, and the name of the only fully licensed bathhouse in Newcastle’s vibrant “Gay Quarter”. It’s the 66th & 67th (and 172nd and 173rd) digits of pi, the percentage of marriages that will eventually end in divorce, and the Psalm where David uses the simile “like a green olive tree in the house of God” to describe himself (I don’t know what it means either). The number 52 even has its own Facebook page, is the title of a comic book, and is the numerological value of the word “INFINITY”.

52 also happens to be the number of days that I’ve been back on my game. IN A ROW! Which, given that for nearly 14 times that number of days that came before I couldn’t seem to stay 100% on program for even two days (heck, sometimes two HOURS), makes that whole “infinity” numerology reference seem pretty accurate.
It was 52 days ago that I woke up ready to get back down to business, and it’s been 52 continuous days of practicing the mechanics of weight loss. 52 days of journaling everything I’ve eaten, increasing my activity level, and making mindful choices. 52 days of being back in control. And it feels good. Really, really good.

It turns out that 52 days is long enough to see some real progress. On day 7, I saw my first payoff at the scale. On day 18 I graciously accepted the premise that pizza is an entrée and not a full meal and enjoyed one slice for dinner. On day 20 I realized I was already using my inhaler less than I had been just a few weeks before. On day 36 I didn’t break a sweat while hooking my workout bra (resistance bands have NOTHING on that lycra monster!), and on day 51 I was comfortable enough with how things were going to change the status of this recent leg of my weight loss journey from “fluke” to “status quo”.

From day 1, I’ve been enjoying a level of commitment that has been what my battle with the fat rarely is: EASY. I’ve spent 52 days back on program without having to wrestle my natural inclinations to the ground. I’m not sure just who to thank for the relative peace of the last 52 days, but I’m not sure it matters why the sailing has been so smooth thus far.

I think that the biggest mistake we can make in this whole weight loss thing is buying into the idea that it’s finite in nature. If we believe that we’re working toward a magical finish line off in the distance that marks the and the beginning of a new life, then our weight loss efforts are a temporary discomfort that buys our admission into the fabulous life that the fat’s been denying us. It seems so simple: be good, get to heaven. Conventional weight loss terminology encourages this mindset: Follow a set of rules, reach your “goal” and then sail on into “maintenance”. We throw in a little lip service about the key to weight loss being permanent lifestyle change, but deep down we’re pretty sure once we shed the weight that we can kiss this weight loss thing goodbye and finally start to LIVE again.

For me, giving up the idea of the imaginary finish line was the death of a dream I’d had since my very first diet attempt way back in the second grade. It took me nearly 30 years to realize that if I kept waiting for three magic numbers on the scale to appear before living my life, that same life was going to pass me by. It occurs to me that maybe the prize isn’t at the end of the road, but at every stop along it. I don’t know what waits for me at day 60, or 420, or 6,932. But I know that day 52 feels a lot like success to me, and that it’s the first day of the rest of this journey. 52=Infinity indeed.

Elephants never forget either...Coincidence?

2010-07-07T16:25:00.001-05:00

I have this theory that 90% of being smart is simply having a really, really good memory. Intelligence is essentially the ability to retain information, be able to recall it at a moment’s notice, and then to see how it relates to all the other things you know. It’s being able to connect those random facts into meaningful chains of information and then relaying those connections to the world that makes someone sound so gosh darn smart.

Now, I’m not the smartest girl on earth but judging by my “smart=keen memory” theory alone, I just might be smarter than your average bear (and for proof, I offer our shared affinity for all things that come in pick-a-nick baskets!). Genetics blessed me with a brain that stores copious amounts of information away for future reference. Those same genetics did not, however, provide me with a particularly reliable system for cataloging and classifying that data. It seems to me that the space in my noggin that stores to the lyrics to every song I’ve ever heard, the position on the page of pivotal sections of various novels and textbooks, and every line uttered in Monty Python movies might be put to better use for things that are potentially lucrative. Like, say, physics equations or blackjack card counting. Or where my car keys are.

So it should not come as a surprise that there is a substantial percentage of my brain that is devoted to foods gone by. I went out for lunch the other day with a friend and she hesitated while placing her order, unable to remember what ingredient it was that she wished them to leave off her pizza. At her pause, I chimed in “She’d like you to hold the mushrooms, and bring her a side of ranch dressing too, please.” When the waiter left she laughed about how I knew how she liked her pizza better than she did, and wondered how I remembered that. Easy, I told her. It involved FOOD, and I never forget a meal. She shook her head at what she recognized as another manifestation of what I call my “food-crazy”, and told me that she couldn’t think of a single pivotal moment in her life that she associated with the food she’d eaten that day. I told her that my food memories could fill volumes.

I don’t recall anything specific of a childhood trip to Baltimore other than it was the first time I had freshly steamed shell-on shrimp at a stand by the harbor. I don’t remember a thing about the Phillies game we took in one summer other than that the hot dogs came pre-dressed with mustard and were a soggy-bunned disappointment. I assume that New York’s Grand Central Station was an impressive sight to behold, but I was too busy enjoying the bagel & cream cheese I’d gotten on the way in to notice. The reason for a business trip to Chicago years back escapes me, but I do remember that I had the best Caesar Salad I’ve ever eaten. The meal I had at an Alabama truck stop in college remains the standard by which I’ve measured every other Chicken Fried Steak since, and I could rank from memory the cake at every wedding I’ve ever attended from best to worst (or just “not best” because, come on, there’s no such thing as bad cake). And once, I ordered a baked crab pasta dish at a restaurant in New England that my 13 year old self turned her nose up at when it arrived, and I fervently wish that I could have that moment back as an adult because I just KNOW I’d love every bite of it now. I vividly remember the first time I consciously overate, and I clearly remember countless times I’ve fought NOT to eat whatever was in front of me. I could fill scrapbooks with anecdotes about what I ate, when I ate it, and how I’d like to (or not to) eat it again.

This leads me to believe that there’s an extraordinary amount of my grey matter that’s sole purpose is remembering what I’ve put in my mouth over the years. Extraordinary in the most literal sense of the word: More than is ordinary. My brain, it would seem, is hard wired toward a food obsession that I’ve struggled with for most of my life. And this could be a pretty depressing revelation for me. Except that it isn’t.

I believe that fighting the good fight against the fat each day is a noble and never ending pursuit. But I also believe that there is a lot of power in the concept of surrendering to the forces that drive my food issues as well. If I accept that, on some level, my relationship with food is inherently a little on the crazy side, then I can also accept that it will probably always be that way. And that means I can stop wishing it wasn’t that way, and start learning how to work toward being healthier and slimmer with the full knowledge that my brain will never be “normal”. If it is what it is, then I am what I am, and I don’t have to hate myself for it, for being ME.

I’m learning that accepting the nature of my relationship with food doesn’t mean that I have to accept the obesity fostered by it. I can work against my nature on a daily basis, and I can also work with it. I can channel my laser focus on all things food toward my weight loss goals, try new strategies for shifting that obsessive energy away from behaviors that keep me fat and into new habits that honor my body and spirit.

So that’s what I’m going to keep doing. One day at a time, one meal at a time. I’m meeting a friend for conversation with a side order of my all time favorite tuna salad sandwich today for lunch. And if you ask me later how it went, I’ll be able to tell you ALL about it…well, all about the sandwich anyway.

How Sara Got Her Groove Back

2010-06-30T09:40:00.002-05:00

So I’m an accountant, and believe me, no one is more surprised at this than I am. It was never on my list of things I wanted to be when I grew up, but when I stumbled upon my aptitude for the field it turned out to be a happy accident. I look back on the circumstances that sent me down this career path and I’m satisfied that no matter how I got here, it turns out that I am exactly where I should be.

The basic principles of Accounting are simple and finite. Debits equal credits. Revenue minus expenses equals profit. Even when the details get complicated and confusing, at the end of the day the rules still apply, and everything makes sense. I’m attracted to the order of it all, the way that messy piles of data can be sorted and categorized until they create the certainty of the bottom line. Being able to find the patterns in the chaos is comforting to me, reminds me that there is nothing so complicated that I can’t eventually untangle it.

Sort of like life, really.

The longer I live, the more I’ve come to believe that the same basic principles of accounting apply to life at large. It’s a little theory I call “Emotional Finance”. I think that each of us has a finite amount of mental energy to spend, and we’ve got to use it to deal with all the everyday (and extraordinary) crises and obligations that life sends our way. Whatever energy we have left after the emotional bills are paid is our profit, our “emotional margin” that we can spend however we like. And until recently, I just didn’t have any.

One of the first costs I cut when my margin ran in the red was my focus on weight loss. Don’t let the diet commercial testimonials fool you; this weight loss stuff isn’t effortless. It takes concentration and an extraordinary level of dedication to fight against your very nature on a daily basis. It can be as rewarding as it is exhausting, but make no mistake about it: the daily fight against the fat is HARD WORK. And it’s never-ending. Some days are easier than others, but I firmly believe that there is no cure for obesity at this time, there is only the constant, vigilant management of the condition. And constant vigilance comes at a price, one I just couldn’t afford to pay for a while.

Then a few months ago, things began to change. Life eased up a bit, and my emotional balance sheet started to look different than it had for a long time. I found my emotional margin steadily increasing, and while I watched the balance in my energy account increasing I started to think about all the ways I wanted to spend it. I thought about the things that made me happy and I told myself that when I had enough saved up to feel comfortable that I’d turn my attention back to those pursuits. And one day, I checked the balance, made a withdrawal, and bought back my life.

It was six weeks ago when I walked back into Weight Watchers, stepped on the scale, saw the number on it, and got back down to business. I’ve spent the last six weeks back in control, and remembering just how good that feels. I’ve watched weight decrease each week, and I’ve felt my confidence and resolve increase proportionately. I’ve celebrated my new successes, and forgiven myself for the failures of the past.

So I’m back on my game. And believe me, no one is more surprised about that than I am. I look back on the circumstances that got me to this point on my weight loss path and I’m satisfied that no matter how I got here, it turns out that I am exactly where I should be.

Hello, by way of 5 things:

2010-06-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

1. I’m alive. And let me tell you, folks, all things considered that feels like a victory of gigantic proportions. (Note: The previous comparison was not a veiled comment on my current measurements. We’ll get to those later.)

2. I’m starting to feel like myself again. Or maybe I’m starting to feel like some new version of myself, one that hasn’t been around in a long time, or ever before. I can listen to music again. I can read a book without realizing that I’m not paying attention to the words on the fifth try through a paragraph. I can get out of bed each morning and not spend every minute thereafter waiting until I can crawl back into it. I feel better, just like everyone said I would eventually. Stupid everyone and their being right and stuff. ;)

3. I don’t really want to talk about it here. Yet.

4. I’m back on the Weight Watchers band wagon, and tearing up the road. Seriously. After the chaos of the last few years abated, it turns out that all that energy I’d been diverting to just keeping myself from exploding into a million little pieces could be channeled back into working toward my weight loss goals. I’m feeling stronger, remembering how nice it feels to be in control, and…

5. I DO want to talk about that. Here. Now. If anyone’s still out there, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed me. So…Hello. Again.

Silver Lining

2010-02-23T21:37:00.000-06:00

Hello friends.

So it’s been a while. I’ve got a pretty solid excuse for my lack of attention to my little patch of cyberspace here, but since this is (in theory anyway) a weight-loss blog and not a talk-about-my-crazy-and-sordid-little-life blog, you’re just going to have to trust me that my energy and focus was needed elsewhere for a while. In my quest to get my life back (or just get one, period) I’ve been thinking about the things that make me happy, that define who I am and what’s important to me. On the list of places I’d like to divert my newly freed up time and attention to, it turns out that I’m still surprisingly passionate about this whole weight loss thing, and to putting that passion into print. So away we go!

Again.

If there is a silver lining to this little storm cloud that’s been following me around, it’s that it’s given a real boost to my weight loss. I’m not recommending crushing depression as a reliable diet plan, nor do I endorse panic attacks as a particularly effective form of cardio, but it’s hard to look at a 13-pound net loss this month and feel like it’s a bad thing.

The phenomenon of “emotional eating” is something that is bandied about in weight loss circles, and the concept that we cannot hope to control what we’re eating until we define just what’s eating us has become conventional fat fighting wisdom. I think that there’s a lot of truth in the idea that there are a myriad of reasons people overeat that have nothing to do with actual hunger. I’ve engaged in a few (read: a zillion) of them myself. So it’s somewhat strange to me that this most recent round of emotional distress has all but extinguished my desire to eat. Anything. At all. And on the off chance that there is something that the thought of chewing and swallowing doesn’t sound abhorrent to me, it turns out that I’m not terribly interested in more than the first few bites.

I know this probably isn’t going to last. And if the cost of a severely diminished appetite is abject sorrow, then I’m not willing to pay that price long term. I’ll take fat and marginally happy over slightly less fat with a side of massive despair any day. I figure that when I start to feel like myself again I’ll probably have to accept that my intrinsic set of food issues is part and parcel with the deal and get back to the business of beating them back with a whip and chair.

But just for today, I’m going to stop asking the gift horse to open up and say “ahh!” and be thankful that I’m not chasing down my problems with peanut butter brownies, chili cheese dogs and #25 enchilada platters…yet.

Which "one" are you?

2010-01-29T11:54:00.003-06:00

I sometimes think my life is a great big study in contradictions.

For instance, I am a relatively emotionally intuitive person. I read a room, and the people in it, pretty well (if I do say so myself). Even when there is every appearance of contentment I can usually sense if something’s not quite right and alter my approach to the situation given the mood of the other players involved. It’s a trait that served me well in my life (and one that, as I read it back now, I suppose can either be seen as a useful instinctive gift or an indicator of sociopathic tendencies, but that’s a pretty fine line of distinction, don’t you think?) and that basic intuition helps me to see how I can best fit into the world around me.

But when it comes to judging the physical nature of that same world, it’s a totally different story. Let’s just say that if I decided to ditch my life and become a carnie that they’d better not let me man the “Guess Your Weight!” booth unless their goal was to give away big inflatable hammers, plush sponge-bob toys, and decorative mirrors etched with AC/DC album covers to just anyone who happened to pass by. I’m notoriously incapable of accurately judging things like height, or weight, or even age in other people. I can’t count how many times I’ve judged someone to be a certain size only to find that I’m WAY off in my estimation—in either direction. I find myself consistently surprised when other people reveal their weight, finding that my own estimation of that number is usually wildly off from reality. I also suffer from the delusion that everyone on earth is the same height I am, and am often amazed when I look at the person standing next to me and realize that I can clearly view the top of their head or when I see my own shoulders standing well above the crowd in photographs. It can be a little disorienting.

I’ve often said that I suffer from fat-blindness, a condition characterized by an astonishing inability to see myself as I appear to others, but as my body has changed (in both directions) over the last few years I’m getting better at seeing myself more accurately. Yet there are still times when I’m unprepared for cold hard reality.

For example, I have a friend I’ll call Jennifer (because that’s her name, and all) who is about as big as minute. She’s an adorable little pixie of a thing that stands all of about 5’2” (And you can trust me on that since I just verified that via the source—though she did try to get me to say she was 5’5”. We all want to be something we’re not, don’t we?) and I could carry her around in my pocket if I was so inclined. A few months ago, Jennifer and I were out running a few errands over our lunch hour in her sparkly little mint green Prius (which she’s named “Julep” how cute is that?). Apparently a friend of Jennifer’s told her that they’d seen her out and about that day and asked “Who was that gigantic person in the car with you?” She went on to tell me how they thought it was funny to see the contrast between Teeny-Tiny-Jenny and the Big Broad Giantess in the seat next to her. She did not tell me this to hurt my feelings, and I suspect that the contrast between us was striking to see…but I confess that it’s been rattling around in my brain like a BB ever since she told me.

Intellectually, I’m not unaware of my stature. At 5’11” in bare feet (and given my propensity for wearing heels most days) I’m already going to stand out from the crowd. Add a lifetime of being overweight and a strong personality to the mix and I can imagine that many people (and some Japanese cities) could be startled by my approach. And yet I forget that because my size is the single most identifiable thing about me that it’s naturally the first thing people notice about me, and that’s totally normal. I do the same thing, and I bet you do too. In just the last 24 hours I’ve described other people as the “tall guy in IS” and the “pretty curly red-head in legal” and that “little blond kid in your class” without hesitation. All that hooey we pass around about how we’re not defined by our bodies is more or less touchy feely BS, really. It’s just that some descriptive traits are more emotionally charged than others, being the “fat one” (or any less obvious derivative thereof) is one that—true or not—stings a little.

As I look over the last few years and why I am still committed to continuing the life-long battle against the fat, I am reminded that the holy grail of weight watchers everywhere is not the desire to someday be something that we’re not, but to finally be seen for all the things that we are. If we can take the fat out of the mix, then we just might get the chance to be the “tall one”, or the “blond one”, or the “one with the green-eyes”, or smart, or pretty, or anything but the “fat one”.

Which one are you? Which one do you want to be?

F'ing Skinnies! (or: I love the smell of hatred in the morning...)

2010-01-26T15:47:00.007-06:00

What the hell is with all the anorexic people in this world?

I see them sometimes when I’m out and about. I watch their frail bodies stagger uncertainly through aisles, watch them strain while pushing shopping carts that probably weigh more than they do. I see their sharp elbows poking through the sleeves of their shirts, their size zero pants hanging off of emaciated pelvises, their withered cheeks hollow and gaunt. I watch them stand in front of the frozen food cases in the supermarket, see them obsessively checking the calorie content of one low calorie item against another and I can’t help but roll my eyes and think “Yeah, like you are really going to eat either one of those, you bony freak!”

I even see them on TV, crying to Oprah or Dr. Phil about how hard their lives are. Some of them even say they have a disease that makes them starve themselves, and I want to scream at the screen “Here, I’ve got a cure for your ‘disease’, it’s called a SANDWICH. Try one, you skeleton-headed witch!” They sit there and talk about how hard it is for them to eat, how they think they’re fat, when the truth is that they’re just stupid. Everyone knows if you actually EAT food, you don’t end up weighing 88 pounds and dying of malnutrition. I mean, they KNOW they should eat, and yet they don’t do it. It’s not that hard, moron. Open your mouth, insert food, chew, swallow. For Christ’s sake, babies and farm animals can do it without being taught. I, for one, have never had any problem eating food so I don’t see why they can’t do it like everyone else.

I think they should round up all the people with this so called “disease” and put them on an island where they’re all chained to a 24 hour buffet so then maybe they’d be forced to eat something for a change. Then we wouldn’t have to look at their disgusting wasted bodies or listen to how we should feel sorry for them because they can’t seem to get their shit together already. Why don’t you quit your whining, get your head out of your non-existent asses, and GAIN SOME WEIGHT, you skinny freaks!

(Cue the angry mob with the torches and pitchforks.)

Ridiculous, right? Who in their right mind would ever say that and think it was appropriate? Anorexia is a serious, debilitating, life altering eating disorder. Rewrite it to rail against obesity, though, and that's A-OK.

(I know, I know. Understated, I’m not. But I’ve never claimed subtlety as a strong point.)

I was doing a bit of research early this morning for the blog entry I meant to write today, when I happened upon a web page that’s been burned into my retinas ever since. I hesitated at first to even post the link, but in the end I decided that when you have the choice between ignoring hate and looking it in the face, it’s always better to know your enemy than not. There are some very angry people out there, and I'm pretty sure they’re just the tip of the iceberg. These are just the folks who took the time to put fingers to their keyboards and post their deep thoughts for the world to see, and for every one of them there are thousands of others who are thinking exactly what these people said out loud. I bet that there are more sites out there (like, say, hundreds) that are full of exactly the same kind of sentiment.

At least I assume there are, but the truth is that I just couldn’t bring myself to actively search for them. I didn’t read every entry on that page. I didn’t even read a tenth of them, but I suspect I didn’t really need to. Despite my general stance that I am rubber and they are glue, the hate behind the words (atrocious grammar and spelling aside) clings to my skin with a sticky familiarity, and as hard as I’ve been trying to brush it off all day I just can’t.

I’ve been fat my whole life. I have also been smart my whole life, too. I am not ignorant of how the world sees obesity any more than I’m unaware of the conventional formula of “eat less + move more = smaller ass” for weight loss. But since fat is my reality, and one that I’ve been both fighting against and examining closely over the last few years, it’s hard for me to fathom how a world that has found so much compassion and understanding for nearly every other behavior-related affliction on earth can still muster up the kind of CAPS LOCK HATRED that sites like that one encourage.

Obesity threatens people in a way that few things in this world do. Our extra bulk reminds people of their darkest fear that self control is tenuous at best, and that we are what happens when weakness of character is allowed to run rampant. Believing that the fat is a simple foe that strong people can keep at bay helps to remind the people who hate us that, whatever else they might be, at least they’re not fat. It must be a comforting thought.

I believe that my obesity is complex in nature—and that for every logical and simple factor that contributes to it there is something that defies easy explanation at play as well. I also believe that, for the time being, they world at large doesn’t believe that…yet. So I won’t let those people be the only voices that break the silence surrounding obesity. Will you?

Victory, Victory, that's our cry....

2010-01-25T15:03:00.003-06:00

Last year, in a fit of self-help pique, I gave my email address to a company that specializes in workplace professional development literature publications. On purpose. In exchange for this information, they agreed to send me a daily email (and they were seriously about the “daily” part, like EVERY freakin’ day. No holiday, weekend, or international tragedy is going to keep them from depositing a little electronic sunshine in my inbox, lemme tell ya.) that begins with an inspirational quotation which, miraculously, always segues perfectly into a sales pitch about their featured pamphlet du jour that’s just a click away from being mine-all-mine. I don’t look forward to this daily bit of wisdom with the same leap of joy that fills my heart when my favorite weekly excel newsletter pops up in my unread items, but I’ve come expect a little nugget of wisdom waiting for me every morning.

Interestingly, this is not quite as lame as it sounds. Sure, there have been (many) days when the quote seems a little trite, or peculiar, and once even totally inscrutable (it was in what I assume to be Mandarin, with no translation beneath it. I shit you not.), but every once in a while I find myself nodding after reading it, and maybe even right-click copy/pasting it into a file I keep on my desktop for just such material. So when the familiar address appeared in my inbox this morning, I double clicked and read this:

“Consider keeping a Victory Journal. Just like a photo album, your Victory Journal can become a great collection of snapshots of positive experiences and a living reminder of your power to achieve. And with such a clear record of all your daily wins, successes, triumphs, and achievements, you’ll slowly build a strong sense of self-worth and a foundation for expecting success.” --Pat Croce

Naturally, my first thought was: LAME. Like I’m going to sit down and write all about my goals and what I’m doing to achieve them, or reflect on what’s gone well in my life, on the little “victories” that I’ve claimed, or what I’ve learned from my failures, or how I can apply those lessons to what comes next. Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? What are we supposed to do then, huh? Type it all up, post it on the internet, and let everyone we know (and everyone we DON’T know for that matter) read it and tell us what they think of it so we can go and read their war stories and…umm…wait a second…

Well color me lame.

I’m not saying that this blog is exactly a “victory journal” (mostly because I don’t know if that phrase is copyrighted and I don’t have the bank at present to fend off an infringement lawsuit, and partly because I think “victory” might be overstating the nature and quaility of the content most of the time) but I suppose it is a record of the wins I’ve earned in my battle with the fat. It’s also a record of the losses, and even of the draws. And writing about my journey has been an overwhelmingly positive experience, a way to break the deafening silence that surrounds obesity. Even when it isn’t pretty, writing it all down seems like a victory all it’s own.

So just for today, I’m letting my lame flag fly and declaring that for January 25, 2010, this blog is officially my Victory Journal, and I claim the following victories in that spirit:

Today, I didn’t lick out the inside of my yogurt cup to make sure I got every damn calorie I accounted for out of that container.

Today, I admitted that what I’d been telling myself was a teaspoon of powdered coffee creamer was more like 3 of them. Or 5, even. I logged the extra calories and got on with my life.

Today, I stopped being a wuss and didn’t reach for the slacks that are getting embarrassingly too large just so I wouldn’t have to find out for sure if the smaller slacks fit me yet (FYI, they do!).

Today, I remembered that celebrating even the smallest of victories leaves a better taste in my mouth than wallowing in my defeats ever has. Yum.

So how about it, folks? What victories are yours to claim for today?

please don't look up, PLEASE don't look up....

2010-01-19T17:09:00.004-06:00

Have you ever been out and about, minding your own damn business, when out of nowhere—walking directly towards you—is someone you haven’t seen in a while? Someone you might have been avoiding at one point but it had been so long since you’d bumped into them that you were pretty sure that you never would so your guard was down and you didn’t even consider that maybe this day (of all days), when you hadn’t even bothered to put on mascara or make sure your sweatpants du jour weren’t the one’s with the hole in the crotch that was only noticeable when you were taking purposeful strides across the room kind of like you are right now, and your brain is all silently screaming “PLEASE don’t look up and notice me” and then (probably because you just wished they wouldn’t, because the universe is a bitch that way) they totally look RIGHT AT YOU and you try too look all surprised while you greet each other with forced cheeriness and exchange excited “Oh my God, it’s been so long! How ARE you?” greetings that lapse into an awkward silence that lingers on for a minute while neither one of you can figure out exactly what to say next?

This is totally like that.

I’ve been away for a while. I’ve got reasons (some of them really good ones and some of them like pages out of a “Mad Libs: The Excuses Edition!” activity book), but for the moment I won’t bore you with them (because hey, a girl’s gotta keep a little something back for future material, right?).

I will tell you, though, that I’ve tried going this fight alone. I’ve tried keeping my silence under the auspices of keeping my head, tried holding my thoughts and while I held my breath…and it doesn’t work for me.

I’ve started this entry about 30 times only to wuss out and walk away from the keyboard because at a time when I wasn’t really sure of anything what I DID know was this: If I was going to come back, then I was REALLY going to come back. I wasn’t going to say I was coming back only to crawl back under the covers and go back to sleep again. I wasn’t going to pull out my six-guns and aim them at the fat girl staring back at me from the mirror unless I was prepared to pull the trigger. I wasn’t going to do this all half-assed until I could be sure that I was ready to get off my whole ass and get back to work.

It took a long time, but I’m back.

Internet! I haven’t seen you in so long. How ARE you?

Over The Hill

2009-09-17T18:48:00.006-05:00

This past February, I turned thirty eight years old (in the Happiest Place on Earth© and with Tom Cruise by my side. No kidding, I swear!). People tell me that being in my late thirties hardly qualifies me as elderly, but I confess that I don’t really believe them. To me, the litmus test for “old” is simple: You are old as soon as you no longer understand the young people—and I don’t. I don’t particularly care for much their music, I don’t get their clothing choices (how do they even keep their pants up when the ‘waist’ falls below their butt cheeks? Is this the reason for the triangle stance they’re always lounging in?), I can’t STAND texting lingo, and I think most of them could use a haircut for God’s sake. If that doesn’t qualify me as old, nothing does.

But even if 38 doesn’t qualify me for the senior citizen coffee discount at the local Burger King (which my 63 year old parents take unholy advantage of, I might add. My mother has actually gotten up early and driven to BK to pick up coffee for herself and my Dad all the while ignoring the perfectly good coffee maker in her own kitchen. I suspect it’s because the local grocer doesn’t give her 25% off of her bag of coffee beans just because she happened to be born in 1946.), there are still some venues in which I’m definitely not a kid anymore. One of them is right here in the blogosphere.

I started my website (http://www.skinnysara.com/) in late 2006, and that means that as weight loss bloggers (or “floggers” as we’re sometimes known) go, I’m practically a geriatric. Do a web search for weight loss related blogs, and you’ll turn up approximately a kajillion sites. Start clicking on them, however, and you’ll soon realize that the vast majority of them fall into two categories:

1. Relatively new blogs by people who are in the first several weeks or months (or days, even) of their current weight loss effort, and

2. Pages long abandoned with their last entries a static reminder of better times.

Given that weight loss is generally impermanent in nature, it makes sense that the websites it inspires are equally so. If statistics say that only about 3% of us will ever achieve the holy grail of weight watchers everywhere by taking (and keeping) the weight off, then it’s probably safe to assume that some 97% of weight loss bloggers will disappear along with the success they had at the scale. I understand this, but it still makes me sad.

One of the most insidious side effects of obesity is often the loneliness that comes along with it. The internet broadened the definition of community to a global scale and helped to bring people with common interests together in a way that has never been possible at any other time in history. It’s been an especially welcome tool for the weight loss community, I think. Since the fat is off limits for discussion in nearly every venue of polite society, it can be really hard to feel like you’re not the only person on earth who is dying beneath the weight of that silence.

For me, the internet finally gave me a place that I could look out over the crowd and see my own face staring back at me. I have taken so much solace, inspiration, and solidarity from reading the blogs of other people battling obesity. I revel in their successes, I am angry for the injustices they face, and I am heartened by the fact that they’re out there writing down all the things that we’ve never really had a place to say out loud before. And when they fade away, it makes me sad.

Most blogs are started in the early stages of the journey, in those first heady days of success when it feels like we’ve finally got this whole weight loss thing figured out and we’re anxious to share our secrets of success with the world—to tell them that if WE can do it, so can they! In our weight loss childhood we’re full of the hubris of youth, the certainty that our goals are in sight. It’s a force to be reckoned with, one that is powerful simply by virtue of the fact that it hasn’t been tested by reality yet. But when the fall comes (and make no mistake it WILL come), it often catapults us right into the next phase—a little something I call the weight loss “adolescence”. Our bodies are changing, often faster than our minds can catch up to them, and of a sudden what was once so easy feels a little awkward. What we once knew for certain, suddenly doesn’t seem so simple anymore. It’s a rough period. One that, frankly, most of us never make it out of. And it’s been the death knell for many a weight loss blog. When we stumble, when the high we’ve been riding (and writing) out starts to wane, many of us just stop talking. Our blogs become ghost towns, our past successes frozen in time and our silence speaking volumes about the present.

I understand how it happens, how we’d rather say nothing than admit that all those things we were so very sure about turned out not to be as fool proof as we thought. I’ve taken a hiatus or two myself over the last three years because it’s hard to admit when we struggle, especially when we’ve been so sure that we never would again…and said as much, to the whole world. It’s sometimes easier to fade away than to admit that we just weren’t as infallible as we thought we were. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, though. I wish there was less shame tied up in stumbling and that our setbacks and spectacular wipeouts could feel less like failure and more like progress. I wish we could learn the lessons of adolescence and finally grow up and realize that there is truly no end to this journey, no final battle to be won.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a well written, if somewhat pointed, post on a newer weight loss blog filled with broad stroke assertions and the hubris of youth with a note that said “I’ll check back in a year and see how they feel then”. It made me smile. I regularly read some young blogs and all the hope and joy and certainty…and I don’t resent it. I do envy it sometimes, though. I try to soak it in. I use it to remind myself what power there is in new success, and how easily it can slip away.

When I started blogging, I promised myself that I wouldn’t do what so many of my heroes had done before me. I wouldn’t fade away when things got rough, and I’d do my best to try and accept that if I’ll be battling my obesity the rest of my life then it’s a pretty safe bet that the fight isn’t always going to be an easy one. So here I am, bruises and all, still fighting. Over the hill? Maybe. But I can see another one in the distance, and another after that—and I want to make my way up and over all of them.

(Read today's other Theme Thursday posts here)

Theme Thursday: Trying Out a Different Drummer

2009-09-10T09:22:00.007-05:00

I am not a morning person.

I do not say this in the annoying, kitschy, self-deprecating cartoon-strip thought bubble way with a dramatic roll of my eyes and a wacky expression (Yeah, I’m looking at YOU, Cathy--“Ack!” indeed.), but with the quiet certainty of fact. In my 38 years on earth I can say without exaggeration that there has never been a single morning (Nope, not even Christmas morning or the first day of summer vacation) where my eyes popped open with the sun and I immediately bounded out of bed with a smile on my face and a can-do attitude ready to greet another bee-you-tee-full day!

My day invariably begins with the jolt of the alarm clock and the subsequent shushing of that clock via the flop-armed slap of the snooze button (though a lifetime of this habit has given me an extraordinarily firm grasp on all mathematical operations involving 9 minute increments) followed closely by a groan and/or a sigh and the eventual settling in of a grumpy resignation that laying in bed for just one (or nine) more minutes isn’t an option and I haul myself out of bed to begin just-another-damn-day.

But although I know this about myself, it doesn’t stop me from occasionally believing that I can work against a lifetime of droopy eyelids and train myself to greet the pre-dawn hours with not only vigor and glee, but a healthy dose of cardiovascular activity as well.

While I am an evening exerciser by nature, every so often I’ll read the accounts of those who wake up at the ass-crack of dawn and lace up their running shoes and meet the sun and all about the benefits in energy level, metabolism, weight loss (and sex appeal, and intellect, and income level, and magical powers…) and I’ll decide that I’ve been doing this all wrong. I vow to change my ways, to fight my nature and set the alarm for an hour far earlier than any self respecting night owl should ever see upon waking, and to get out there and reclaim mornings as MY time. I vow to start a new routine of early to bed and early to rise…and I sometimes (read: hardly ever) even make it past the first day!

I’m on week two of my current morning exercise experiment (which is amazing, since I rarely make it to DAY two) and I have to say that I’m finally realizing that all those promises about my body getting used to the change in it’s regular rhythm and beginning to appreciate the many benefits of A.M. activity is pretty much a load of crap. Ok, maybe it hasn’t been a TOTAL loss, but it hasn’t been exactly enriched my life much either. The time I’ve ‘saved’ for other activities in the evening is mitigated by the fact that I’m too tired to do any of them because if I’d like to sleep for more than three hours in a row I actually have to go to bed earlier. All the extra energy I was promised doesn’t seem to be materializing either. So tell me, morning people--Where’s my payoff? Huh? HUH?

One of the best things about this weight loss game is that there is an abundance of information out there from various experts and fellow fat-fighters about all the ways in which we can make ourselves more successful in our quest for better health. Unfortunately, one of the worst things about this weight loss game is that the aforementioned abundance of info can sometimes be a minefield of contradiction and complication. It seems like everyone’s got an opinion about, well, everything. When we should eat, what we should eat, what we shouldn’t eat, what exercise works, IF exercise works, what supplements to take, why we should avoid supplements, surgery that might help, why that same surgery is a tool of Satan, drink green tea, don’t eat fruit, pray to the skinny gods, stand on your head, swallow this pill, balance on this ball, wear this magnet, cleanse your colon, blah, blah, BLAH. It can be a bit mind-boggling at times. If I tried to incorporate all the diet advice I’m bombarded with on a daily basis you’d eventually find me curled up in a ball in the hall closet tangled up in rubber resistance bands babbling incoherently about high fructose corn syrup through acai berry stained lips and crying because I ate a handful of cheerios after 7PM.

Ask 100 successful losers for their very best weight loss advice, and you’re likely to get just as many different answers. How do you know which one is the right one? Hint: They ALL are. This weight loss stuff is intensely personal, it’s complicated and multi-faceted and what one person adopts as gospel just might be blasphemy to the person fighting the fat along side them. Since all that shtick they’ve been handing us for years about they key to permanent weight loss being permanent lifestyle change has turned out to be totally true, it makes sense that we might not all march to the same drummer. The longer I do this, the more I believe that the key to finding what works is to keep trying things until you find what works for YOU, that magical combination of elements that helps you find your own routine, helps you settle into the rhythm that feels right to you.

Me? I’m still working on finding my groove, and for now that means that my iPod is charged, my shoes are laced, and the dog is leashed up by 5:30 AM so that I can leave the house and put one foot in front of the other, up hills, down slopes, and over the land until my feet settle into a beat that makes me forget that how damn early it is. I stand on the front porch and look out into the dark and get ready for the day.

Rhythm? Check. Music? Check. Could I ask for anything more?

How about 9 more minutes of sleep…

(This was my take on the Theme Thursday topic of "Rhythm". You can read the other posts here)

Simple Pleasures...

2009-09-09T17:15:00.005-05:00

We had a terribly boring dinner last night. Seriously, while edible, it was also bland--the kind of meal that you can barely even remember well enough the next day to describe it in any detail, appetizing or otherwise. In retrospect, the only adjective that perfectly describes it is B-O-R-I-N-G. And maybe the (non)word “Meh”. And the very fact that it was so unremarkable is what makes it noteworthy enough to tell you all about it.

Every so often I am seized by the realization that, as a citizen of a country that is a study in excess, I need to take steps to simplify my own little corner of this gimme-gimme world. Generally this manifests itself in two distinct ways:

1. I go stomping through the house armed with a hefty bag and an attitude and pick up the assorted flotsam that’s found it’s way into my cupboards, closets and various flat surfaces. If it can be pitched, I pitch it. If it can be donated, I bag it up. If I need it, it’s granted a reprieve and put away for future use. At the end of this exercise I torture myself by dwelling on just how much good will (read: hot fudge sundaes) I could have bought with the cash we spent on yesterdays essentials that somehow became today’s trash. Then I get over myself, enjoy all the pretty order, and get back to the business of accumulation.

2. I get out a pad and pen and take a detailed inventory of everything in my cupboards, pantry, fridge & freezer (and my super secret stash of goodies in the Rubbermaid tub out in the garage. Shhhh. Tell NO ONE.) and vow that until we’ve gone through all the food we already have in the house, we’re not buying any more.

This is not particularly a hardship, mind you. At least not at first. I have a somewhat liberal view of what constitutes a ‘staple’ food, and so am rarely without the fixins for an impromptu feast on hand at any given moment. Drop by my house unexpectedly for dinner and it’s a good bet that I can probably whip you up something tasty enough that you’ll be glad you stopped by. I thank my Sam’s Club membership and all that time I spent in culinary school for my propensity never to be without all the basics of a damn fine meal. But those same things, combined with a food issue or two that I happen to possess, also means that I often find myself with more than enough on hand to feed us for weeks at a time, and I’m seized by the need to use it all up before accumulating more.

So after purging my kitchen of what has passed it’s prime (like, say, a cake mix that expired in January 2007 or a long ignored box of hamburger helper that I remember having before we moved into the new house in December 2006) and armed with a detailed list of what’s on hand, I set about using it up in creative and delicious ways. The first week or two is pretty much status quo as the old favorites make their way through the rotation. As fresh produce supplies are dwindling (thank you Debbie Meyer’s Green Bags! Can’t live without ‘em) the menu gets a bit subdued as bags of frozen veggies are hauled out to round out unremarkable meals. It’s also about this time when you start serving up all those things that someone pleaded with you to buy only to realize that maybe the fact that they are sold by the gross should have been a hint as to the adjective that best described them (I’m refering to YOU son, and the horrible mini-taco appetizer fiasco. Yes, I know they taste like unwashed feet, but they were 12.99 so I’d develop a taste for toes if I were you).

When the cupboards and appliances start to get noticeably bare, the fare becomes hit and miss as tends to happen with forced creativity (Hmm. What can I make with pork chops, frozen ravioli and sugar free tapioca pudding mix?) until I’m eventually facing down an ancient can of sugar free cherry pie filling and an unopened box of frozen spicy black bean veggie burgers and dreading the possibilities. That’s when it’s time to make list and head out to start accumulating all the things we’ll finally be eating when the whole cycle repeats itself in a few months. Ahh. The Circle of Life.

We’re well into phase two at the moment, and after the last onion had been chopped two days ago and there was nary a can of condensed soup in sight, last night’s dinner of steamed rice, frozen green beans and grilled marinated chicken breasts made it’s way to the table. It was a fine dinner. A serviceable dinner. A sensible dinner. A simple dinner. A dinner that most people would happily consume without a second thought. It just wasn’t a typical dinner. Not for me, anyway.

There are people in this world who view food simply as fuel. A necessary part of their day to be consumed and converted to the energy they need to live their lives. I’m not one of those people. Food isn’t incidental in my life, it’s not a pleasant diversion—it’s an event, a sensory experience, an fascination and a thousand other things it probably shouldn’t be…but it is. I’m convinced that while I will likely never be cured of my obsession with food, part of learning to manage my obesity is in learning to make food less important in my life.

As I prepared last night’s dinner, I found myself ruminating on the ways it could have been better. A handful of fresh chopped parsley, chicken broth, some caramelized onion and a teaspoon of chopped almonds would have turned that steamed rice into a damn fine pilaf. A sprinkle of parmesan would have livened up those beans, and a peanut-sesame marinade whipped up on the fly would have made that plain old chicken breast delectable. But, alas, my rapidly improving Old Mother Hubbard impression wouldn’t allow for those kinds of tweaks. And so I sat down with a sigh to my boring meal…and you know what?

It wasn’t half bad.

I enjoyed the food, the company, and finished the meal with a satisfied tummy—and palate, surprisingly enough. I wasn’t tempted to lick my plate, I didn’t find myself coveting what needed to be boxed up for lunch tomorrow. It wasn’t an event, it wasn’t a sensation, it was just a meal. Sometimes food is just food.

Who knew?

T.G.I.C.F.

2009-09-04T11:23:00.004-05:00

In a world where the corporate dress code is increasingly a charming relic of the past, my office seems to be one of the last holdouts. In the last few years we’ve seen a few relaxations of the strict business professional atmosphere, most notably the recent abolition of the mandatory hosiery rule and the inclusion of open toed shoes on the list of acceptable footwear choices. So when we get a chance to get our denim on (at the cost of a $5 donation to rotating charitable cause), there’s nary a suit or skirt in sight. Today we get to participate in what many workplaces celebrate on a weekly basis: Casual Friday!

As a fat girl from way back, I have to admit that the love affair this country has with jeans was somewhat lost on me. While I could find jeans in my size, I also found the very nature of denim heavy and constricting (not to mention the fact that the inner thigh friction swish of denim is WAY louder than that of softer fabrics) and not particularly comfortable most of the time so I rarely chose them over more forgiving garments that didn’t hug every curve (read: lump). As I lost weight, though, I started to appreciate the magic of a good pair of jeans. For the first time in my life I wasn’t relegated to whichever pair I could fit over my ass and still manage to button—I had choices. I could try on different cuts, different leg styles, find the right rise for my newly discovered waist and hips. It was a whole new world.

Unfortunately the jeans I’d finally learned to fall in love with simply don’t fit me anymore (I believe that it’s somehow related to the 40+ pounds I’ve gained, but I can’t be sure) and I gave in a few months ago and bought some new jeans. Jeans that were not one, not two, but THREE sizes larger. I reconciled myself to them by asserting that they were only a temporary fix and I’d be back into my beloved smaller jeans…eventually. It turns out that I’m moving in the right direction, and my current fat jeans are starting not to fit--getting loose enough to be annoying, but still not loose enough to be unwearable.

So when I put them on this morning I found that even a trip through the dryer (which I never would have DREAMED of doing at my highest weight) wasn’t enough to shrink up the extra give in the waist and so I had to reach for the old staple of my thin wardrobe that had rarely seen any play as of late: a belt. I pulled my favorite (and only, for that matter) old worn wide brown leather belt (which I didn’t even buy in the fat women’s section of the store! Sure, it had two “X”s in the size, but still—REGULAR section!), threaded it through the loops on my jeans…and realized pretty quickly that it didn’t fit. I’ve got jeans that are getting too big, and a belt that’s too small. Son of a bitch.

After a few deep breaths I managed to fasten the belt using the first hole and was still able to breathe, so I hastily slipped on my shoes, herded the kid out the door and drove off to start the day. The morning passed uneventfully enough for a while, and after my first cup of coffee made it’s way through my system I stopped off in the bathroom and one of those sideways strange angle glances in the mirror stopped me in my tracks. My ill-fitting jeans cinched by and ill-fitting belt have combined to create a perfect storm of unattractive consequences.

It wasn’t so long ago that I clearly recall looking in that same mirror and liking what I saw. My size 18 jeans hugged in all the right places, elongated my legs (which always seem too short for my 5’11” frame and need all the help they can get), held in place firmly by my belt onto my newly defined hips visible beneath a soft long sleeved white t-shirt under the super cute red fleece vest hung fashionably over it and the toes of my sleek black shoes peeked perfectly out from beneath the boot cut hem that barely skimmed the floor.

But today I saw a different woman staring back at me. Swollen feet stuffed into loafers disappearing into jeans that covered Lumpy thighs and a baggy crotch below a round stomach and a roll of fat above a too-tight belt that pressed just enough through the cotton of the simple v-neck shirt over it to announce it’s presence to the world. I wanted to flee the building, grab my purse and use my cell phone on the way home to call in “fat” for the rest of the day, climb into bed and cover my head and have a good cry about what I’ve become. I really, really wanted to do that. But instead I took a deep breath and went back to my desk and told myself that since I already had my big girl pants on literally I might as well hitch them up, metaphorically speaking, too.

Then an hour ago life, as it often does, decided to add insult to injury and Mother Nature bestowed upon me a wardrobe malfunction of the variety that necessitates changing one’s pants as practical matter. So I came home, put on some non-jeans work appropriate attire, and sat down to tell you all about it. (Lucky you!)

So here I sit, infinitely more comfortable, but feeling defeated nonetheless. But I’m also determined that the next casual Friday will be less of an ordeal. I’m finally back on track and the scale is heading in the right direction, and today helped me remember where I want to get back to—and beyond. Everyone needs a nudge in the right direction sometimes, and today was just the kick in the pants I needed.

Lather, rinse, repeat...

2009-09-02T15:01:00.004-05:00

I’ve been a little stressed lately. Ok, a lot stressed. But while the atypical shenanigans afoot in my life lately might be making my head spin like the Tasmanian devil, you’d likely only notice this if you looked very, very closely—and only when I didn’t know you were looking. While I might be fairly well known for having a penchant for the dramatic in some (read: many) situations and will fight ferociously for the well being of those I love (or hell, who I barely know if I detect the faint whiff of injustice in the air), I tend to hold my emotions pretty close the vest when something is bothering me. This has always been my M.O. according to the people who raised me. My father tells me that even as a very young child trying to get me to divulge what may or may not be bothering me was a lot like performing dental work on an unwilling patient, like say a raccoon. With rabies.

There is, however, one relatively reliable barometer of my mental status at any given time. If you want to know if I’ve got a lot on my plate, then just look to see how much I’ve got on my plate.

I admire those people who, when the going gets tough, fall squarely into the “tough get going” category. When there’s a crisis to be tackled at work or in the life of someone I love, I am totally one of them. But in my own life, when the going gets tough—the tough go to Long John Silvers. Or at least they did last night.

I didn’t set out to engage in fried fish therapy, mind you. In between drop off and pick up duties I actually intended to stop for a few things at the store and then hit the gym. Instead I wolfed down up a #7 seafood lovers platter with a side of clams and then took a nap (which is pretty much the same thing, right?). I could tell you that I felt bad about it at the time, but it would be a lie. Despite the fact that I’m not really even a fan of Long John Silvers (seriously, I think they should cut out the middle man and just replace all their dining room seating with toilets), every bite I took of that meal had exactly the effect I desired, each mouthful dulled the rising panic within me and left me calm and sleepy and tired enough to forget about everything that drove me to eat it in the first place. It was a familiar feeling.

Looking back over my life and at how my weight has fluctuated through the years, it’s not terribly difficult to see a pattern emerge. When harmony reigns, the balance in my life is reflected in my eating patterns and my resolve is strong and sure. But when that balance is thrown off kilter, the ground feels less sure beneath my feet and I find myself stumbling around trying to regain my footing while old habits seep out of the cracks in the foundation that seemed so strong just moments ago. I find myself reaching for food and the comfort it brings, the hazy calm that settles over me with each bite, with each swallow, with each sigh of relief that comes when the gaping hole inside of me has been filled up for the moment. Never mind that it won’t last, or that the low that follows will spin me farther into despair. All that matters right then is that temporary comfort is better than the alternative.

When the fog lifts, it occurs to me that the first step to restoring balance in my life is often taking control of my weight, and restoring my power over food usually snowballs into giving me the energy to deal with the things that threw off my balance in the first place. When I look back to see what lessons I can take with me for the next time things go haywire, it frustrates me because the line between cause and effect is blurry. Balance equals control, chaos upsets control, loss of control makes chaos worse, rock bottom chaos leads to regaining control, control facilitates balance (lather, rinse, repeat). The chicken versus eggishness of it all makes my head hurt.

So when I woke up at 5 AM with a headache, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Neither was that familiar feeling of self loathing it brought with it. I spent some time kicking myself for what I’d done, mentally listing and re-listing my sins and calculating the damage, thinking about how long it had been since I’d done something like that. As I lay there in the dark I asked myself if this was as low as I needed to go, if I was ready to be in control again. Turns out I was. So I got up, brushed my teeth, put on my sweatpants and went to the gym.

I feel good. The darkness is lifting, and what I couldn’t face last night doesn’t seem as scary today. I feel in control, like I’m ready to find balance again.

Lather, rinse…

The Cone of Silence

2009-09-01T07:35:00.003-05:00

Obesity is a lonely business. Because the most visible thing about us is often the very last topic up for conversation, we don’t often get the chance to talk about the fat in any meaningful capacity. We’ve erected a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ barrier around the subject, drawn a chalk line of propriety that we rarely allow to be crossed even in the most appropriate of circumstances. Whether you’ve always been the fattest person in the room, or you live in a world where you’re one amongst many, there’s not likely to be a whole lot of conversation about that fact encouraged, or even allowed.

But the great equalizer of our time, the Internet, has changed that. It turns out that there are literally millions of people out in cyberspace who are learning every day that they’re not alone in their battle with the bulge. There are approximately 1 gazillion weight loss blogs to be perused, and countless weight-related online communities with thriving memberships offering something for everyone on the subject. For me, finding a group of people who looked like me and were facing obesity on the same scale as my own was an unexpected gift, and being able to look out into the crowd and see my own face staring back at me was a singularly freeing experience.

And yet I’ve found that, like most things, too much solidarity isn’t necessarily a good thing, and everything I’ve gained by finding a place where I finally fit in is sometimes offset by the occasional loss of perspective that comes along with it.

My favorite weight loss message board is one that was created to give a home to those who are struggling with morbid obesity and face the monumental task of losing hundreds of pounds to achieve a healthy standard goal weight. It’s a very welcoming community, and the positive nature of the board is an attractive draw for many who call it home. Every once in a while, someone will show up on a fact finding mission asking for advice about their friend/spouse/loved one who has a severe weight problem. I have no real problem with this phenomenon, and although there are those who resent the occasional sightseer, I give most people the benefit of the doubt. Just today, someone popped in to ask advice about a loved one who’s weight has gotten so out of control they can barely move and are having difficulty breathing, but yet refuses to engage in any conversation about their weight problem. Tough stuff.

I sat back for a while and waited for the inevitable onslaught of responses that would advise the questioner that obesity is a very personal issue, that her loved one already knows that they’re overweight and reminding them of that fact is just being cruel, and it was only polite to speak about their weight when invited to, remembering that until someone is ready to lose weight that any criticism will likely only make things worse. As I visualized the admonitions about unconditional love, I found myself getting really, really pissed off. Not at the person asking the question, but that they had to ask the question at all. What is it about obesity that makes us still treat its discussion as an etiquette conundrum instead of the serious, dangerous health issue that it is?

What if this same person had told about how their loved one was starving themselves to death, that their weight had reached such a low number that they could barely move their wasted limbs and that their breathing had become visibly shallow and labored beneath their emaciated rib cage. Would we be talking about preserving her self esteem and remaining silent on the subject? Would we encourage the questioner to love the dying woman unconditionally because weight is a personal issue and that she already knows she’s anorexic, so to bring it up would be impolite? Would we tell her to sit back and wait until her loved one was ‘ready’ to help herself?

HELL NO.

We’d be telling her to batten the hatches, dial 911, alert the medical professionals, call in the troops and stage an intervention to let this poor soul know just how much danger she was in and how it was affecting the lives of everyone who loved her. There would be ambulance rides and tearful pleading and declarations of support heaped upon her like a tidal wave, and we’d applaud as it crashed into the shore.

But when fat is killing someone, we tell everyone to just back off…with love. And I think that’s crap. It’s unjust. It’s patronizing.

Morbid obesity isn’t a lifestyle choice. It’s not a “personal” issue. It affects the quality of life of every family member and loved one around us—and yet we demand they remain silent on the subject. How often have we required those who love us to bite their tongues about the choices we’re making, had them sit right beside us as we devoured more and more of what was stealing our breath, our mobility, our very lives? How many times have we raised a hand to halt them telling us their fears, have we warned them against expressing the anger our out of control habits have caused them with just a look? And how often have we felt justified in doing so, in proclaiming that we’d do something about it when we were ready to—and not before? How often have we demanded their support in our weight loss endeavors, only to prohibit them from showing disappointment in our failures?

There is a piece of conventional wisdom we always throw around that says that no one will ever be successful at losing weight unless they are doing it for themselves. I disagree. I believe that some of the most powerful motivation we ever have under our belt is the desire to do right by those we love. And just maybe the gap between “unwilling” and “ready” can be bridged when someone precious to us has the guts to say, “I love you. I’m scared for you. I don’t want you do die.”

The enemy of change is silence. Obesity will never be elevated above a mere character flaw unless we allow the conversation to begin. So let’s start talking.

Dear Abby...

2009-08-28T14:50:00.003-05:00

Hello friends.

First, let me apologize for the radio silence of late. I’ve spent a long week tending to the home front, including (but not limited to) a bizarre and painful eye injury that my 14 year old son brought home from school Monday afternoon, and between visits to the ER, the pediatrician, the opthamologist, and the pharmacy frankly there just wasn’t enough energy left for me to tend to my blog. Or the laundry. Or the lawn. Or my hair, even. This little patch of the web is rarely far from my mind, though, and even in the midst of the chaos of the last several days I found myself knee deep in topical material.

As we sat in the various waiting rooms with little else to do than look around at the other people waiting there with us, it struck me just how very aware I am of the fat-content of any room I enter. I’m forever scanning the area, sizing up my obesity in relation to those around me. How much more room am I taking up than the man sitting on the other side of aisle? How much more comfortable am I than the woman struggling just to fit into the chair three seats away? How much area on this bench does my ass take up and how much space does that correspond to on the empty bench directly across from me? It’s an endless game of proximity and relativity and I’ve been playing it for as long as I can remember.

This is how I noticed a little girl I’ll call Lauren (because that’s what her Mom called her so I assume it’s her name--and because I doubt that her fundamental right to privacy is impinged upon by my mentioning her first name to the tens of readers who stop by my little patch of cyberspace) and while I don’t usually spend copious amounts of time intently watching little girls in public places, on that day I did. She was a lovely little thing, about 10 years old I’d guess with thick dark hair pulled up in a ponytail secured at the back of her perfect little head by a pink ribbon. Her blue eyes sparkled against her creamy complexion, and her white tank top covered her slim tummy where a pair of pretty plaid shorts peeked out from beneath the hem and below that her long, coltish little girl legs that seemed to go for miles before terminating in sparkly pink flip flops. As she flitted around first sitting, then standing, then pacing, then flopping back down in her chair (which, for the record, could have seated three of her comfortably, yet still didn’t leave me enough room to wedge my purse in next to me even with the aid of a handful of Crisco and a shoehorn) I found myself transfixed by just how…normal…she was.

I grew up fat. There is photographic evidence of a perfectly normal looking little girl who has my eyes and freckles and dimples all over my parents house, but after about the age of 5 ‘normal’ moved out and ‘fat’ took up residence, and it’s been squatting on my land ever since. I have no memories of those lean years, and to me it seems as though the fat has always been a part of me. I’ve always been bigger than anyone I know, and I’ve never been unaware of that fact. I’ve spent my life watching little girls just like Lauren. I’ve looked on with fascinated wonder at how easily they move through the world, how they were slim and lithe where I was broad and bulky, at how the clothes they wore certainly didn’t look like anything that came with the words “pretty plus” on the label. I used to watch them for clues about what it was that they knew that I didn’t, trying to decipher the whispered secrets of skinny girls that I just couldn’t hear no matter how hard I listened. I watched them live their lives in perfect little bodies that they seemed to take for granted, all the while living mine in one that I could never, even for a moment, forget about. I watched them and longed for what they had. I wanted to be like them, even when they made it clear that I never would. All these years later, I’m still watching.

Lauren was clearly getting exasperated with all the waiting she was being made to endure, and with a level of drama that only little girls can sustain for any length of time, she sighed her impatience to her Mother who responded by telling her it wouldn’t be much longer. Lauren rolled her eyes and asked “Well, can we at least still go to Dairy Queen after?” When her mother said that they probably wouldn’t, Lauren asked “Why not?” to which her mother replied (and I quote):

“Because you don’t want to get fat like Abby in your class, do you?”

Lauren thought for a minute, shook her head, and said “No way.”

And that’s when the nurse called her name…and they were gone.

And in that moment, I felt like I was 10 years old again. I don’t know Abby, but I sure feel like I do. I wonder if she watches Lauren too, if she wishes that she looked more like her. I wonder if she knows that she’s the warning that her classmates’ mothers use to discourage their daughters from eating ice cream. I wonder how many times in the last 30 years the name “Sara” has been uttered in similar cautionary tales. I wonder if Lauren knows how lucky she is in her own skin, if she has it in her to be kind to Abby despite just how much she doesn’t want to be fat like her. But mostly, I wonder if Abby is OK.

Dear Abby,

Where ever you are, whoever you are, you’re not alone.

Love,
Sara

No Jury on Earth...

2009-08-21T09:15:00.002-05:00

...would convict her. At least not one that I was on.

Let's give 'em something to talk about...

2009-08-18T19:00:00.004-05:00

Yesterday on his wildly popular weight loss blog, “Jack Sh*t Gettin’ Fit” posted an open letter to a morbidly obese couple that he ran into a few times while on vacation last week. The author has a big following, and I find his posts are often good for a laugh, or a sigh, or a kick in the pants. This particular post was an interesting read. Angry, passionate and well written, it was filled with blunt observations about the eating habits of the couple and as well as some uncharitable assumptions about other aspects of their lives and the effect of those things on their children. It certainly sparked some lively conversation.

Among the responses, it would seem that most people were a member of one of two distinct factions:

1. That was awesome and you’re my hero!

Or,

2. That was hateful and you should be ashamed of yourself.

And me? I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. The truth is that I know exactly where angry diatribes like that one come from, and I also know how much validity there was in the content. It can be really, really hard to watch other people making the same mistakes that you’re ashamed to have on your own resume—especially when you’ve finally found something that’s helping you rise above those old habits, when you’re pretty sure that you’ve finally made progress toward beating your own demons and you wish that everyone else would wake the hell up and get with the program already. Hubris is a natural consequence of success, and the feeling of power that comes with control is a force to be reckoned with.

When I read Jack’s letter, I admit that I understood where he was coming from, that I nodded my head as he called out the trappings of obesity and how it affects those closest to us and that what is touted as a personal lifestyle choice is often anything but. But I also admit that I found some of what he said cruel and spiteful, and that while the subject matter didn’t give me pause, the spirit in which it was conveyed did. Maybe I felt so conflicted because I saw myself all over that letter.

I saw myself in the anger it conveyed, in the calling out of truth without remorse. I saw myself in the disgust over the choices the couple made, in the confidence in the choices I was now making and how much better off my life was as a result. But I also saw myself in the faces of the couple he wrote about, in each movement from plate to mouth, in the way it feels to have others scrutinizing your choices, in the assumptions that others make about you behind your back, or right to your chubby face. I’ve seen those scenes play out from every seat in the house, and I’ll be damned if I can pick which one had the clearest view.

One of the very best (and most frustrating) gifts that this ongoing weight loss journey has had in its hands for me is a heaping helping of humility. I’ve felt the almost cosmic power of unshakeable self-control, and I’ve felt the despair that comes with losing my grasp on it. I know that very often the behavior that I find the most objectionable in others is usually what I can barely stand to look at in the mirror. Jack’s open letter to that couple brings home to me just how powerful both feelings are, but it also cautions me not to forget that “they” aren’t the only ones out there judging us by our actions, but that “we” are ever watchful as well.

I’m glad that he posted that letter, and I’m glad that I read it. I believe that breaking the silence that surrounds obesity is key in the fight against it, and that when it’s easier to talk about the fat it’s easier to fight it. And people sure are talking…

How Low Can You Go?

2009-08-11T18:42:00.003-05:00

WARNING: There’s a silent killer on the loose. Preying on fat girls all over the world, it whispers to them, affirming their darkest fears and convincing them that their deepest insecurities are all 100% valid and that no matter how they try to improve their lives none of it matters because at the end of the day it doesn’t change the fact that they’re just…not…worth…the work. Despite efforts to banish this murderous beast, it can’t be stopped. The media writes about it, experts raise their voices against it, but in the end it’s proven itself such a powerful foe that it can stop those it haunts their tracks. What is this foul force, you ask? I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to keep your wits about you. I’ll say it’s name, but you MUST NOT SCREAM. It is…

Low Self-Esteem.

Wait…where are you going? Why aren’t you shaking uncontrollably and nearly weeping? Where’s all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, huh? I just told you the number one cause of all weight related suffering as reported by millions of people in countless chat rooms and weight loss blogs and you can’t even muster up an appropriately terrified or sullen expression in return? Aren’t you scared of it at all?

Hmm. Me neither. Try as I might, I just can’t figure out what all the self-esteem fuss is about. Which is odd, given the almost reverent tone that is so often attached to discussions about the relative level of it each of us possesses and how that impacts many of our decisions, both food-related and otherwise. We’ve come to believe that having it in abundance is necessary for success in this world, and that not having enough of it is the reason for so many of our failures. If we just had a little more of it, we might believe that all the hard work it takes to achieve our goals was really worth the effort. If the world was nicer to us, we’d like ourselves more and if we just liked ourselves more, then we’d believe that we deserved the best life has to offer. We could have better, richer, fuller lives…but tragically, our Low Self-Esteem just won’t allow that to happen.

Forgive me, brothers and sisters, but I just drew the bullshit card from the deck—and I’m throwing it down on the table.

Just what is self-esteem anyway, how did ours get so low, and where do we get ourselves some more of it? After some intensive research (consisting of five minutes of googling) I’ve found that the concept itself is pretty simple. According to Merriam-Webster, self-esteem is defined as ”a confidence and satisfaction with one’s self”. At face value, it’s a wonder that everyone on earth isn’t bitching and moaning about not having it. None of us are confident all of the time, and only the most tiresome among us is consistently 100% satisfied with themselves and their lives. But amongst Fat America, self-esteem levels seem to be much lower than the norm. And the truth is that I understand why.

Make no mistake; it’s tough to be fat in this world. There are days when it takes all your energy to simply exist in a society that doesn’t understand you, often openly reviles you, and certainly isn’t built to handle you. In a world that reduces our weight to the result of a character flaw, I can see why so many of us lack confidence in ourselves, and how every failure we’ve had in managing our obesity chips away at what is left. I believe that, for many of us, it can erode away our self-esteem and leave us feeling less powerful than we are.

But I also believe that we often use our lack of self-esteem less as a reason for our honest and earned weight loss failings than we do as an excuse for not really trying at all. It’s one thing to genuinely suffer from a deeply wounded sense of self-esteem, and another all together to repeatedly call out that same phenomenon as our Achilles heel. In my mind, it’s the classic Catch-22: People who are truly crazy don’t know they’re crazy--and it seems to me that people who suffer from cripplingly low self-esteem generally don’t walk around talking about just how low their self-esteem is.

I understand self-loathing. I understand moments of self-hatred. I even understand reaching out within our unique weight loss community for reassurance that our darkest moments don’t define us, for someone to tell us that the worst we see in ourselves isn’t the core of who we are. I’ve been there, and I am so grateful for this community and the mirror that I’ve found within it. But I sometimes think that because we’re so willing to offer up bravos and affirmations touting our intrinsic beauty and goodness to each other in the name of building up our confidence that it can sometimes be counter productive. It’s a way to artificially fill up our self-esteem meters with kittens and rainbows and warm fuzzy intangibles instead of recognizing that it’s called SELF-esteem for a reason. It’s not something we’re born with a bank of as our birthright or that other people can give us, but something that we have to work for. We earn it each time we make a choice that honors our goals, and each time we pick ourselves up after we stumble. And the more we earn, the less willing we are to give it away to the next person who wants to take it from us.

Motivational speaker Ron Brown said something at a dinner I attended a few years ago that’s stuck with me ever since. Looking into the audience he pointed to someone near the stage and said “If I come over there and knock you out of your chair, that’s on me. But if I come back tomorrow, and you’re still rolling around on the floor, that’s on YOU.” There’s only so much good that we can do by standing around and telling each other that we’re good enough, and strong enough, and pretty enough, and talented enough to get up off the floor when we’re ready to…but sooner or later we have to quit rolling around and get back in the chair, even if it means that no one tells us what a great job of sitting back down we did.

Let’s continue to build each other up, to offer a hand to those who need it—but remember that affirmation is a partnership: One of us offers a hand, the other one reaches up and takes it. Let’s encourage each other to look within ourselves for what we want so desperately to believe—that the hard work is worth it. And so are we.

Let Them Eat Cake...

2009-08-10T18:35:00.004-05:00

There's a piece of cake in my trashcan.

Ok, ok. There's most of a piece of cake in my trashcan. Like seven-eighths of a piece. Or maybe three-fourths. Definitely two-thirds of one, anyway. At least.

I didn't set out to have cake for breakfast. I was perfectly content to go about assembling my old standby meal of yogurt topped with fresh sliced strawberries sprinkled with Fiber One cereal. But as I was heading back to fill my coffee cup, a coworker announced that there was leftover cake by the coffee bar--and not just ANY cake, but leftover WEDDING cake (And seriously, is there any cake more delectable in the whole world than white wedding cake with white icing? Call me a pastry purist, but I say a definitive no!). I walked over to it, sniffed the air and took in it's heavenly scent, and then told a coworker who was busy cutting a piece for herself that I'd pass, but I'd have one later if I still wanted it. To which she replied by taking a bite of the cake and making yummy noises and saying that I really should eat a piece now because it was crazy delicious.

She had me at "Yum".

So I cut myself a small piece (and by "small" I actually mean "of diminutive size" and not "small compared to, say, a concrete block or a baby rhinoceros"), took it back to my desk, took one bite, and then set it off to the side. As that first bite melted in my mouth, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and for a moment I forgot that it was 8:10 AM and I was eating two day old dessert from a party I wasn't invited to and just reveled in the cakey-goodness. I took a sip of coffee (to cleanse my palate, of course) and then lifted another bite to lips and thought..."Hmm. Well, this is OK I guess." Bite number three settled itself on my tongue and I found myself thinking "The frosting's a little too grainy, and the cake is moist but not terribly flavorful..." and in the seconds before my fork descended to scoop up bite number four my brain completed a complicated formula that compared flavor payoff to caloric content, and I found myself laying the fork down, picking up the plate, and tossing the rest of the cake into the aforementioned trashcan.

It's still sitting there as I type this, completely in tact (less the three bites I forked out it) where it slipped off the paper plate as I tossed it in there and came to rest on the bottom right hand side of the bin liner. Nary a crumb out of place, it lies next to a banana peel, a kleenex, about ten used sticky notes, and an empty blueberry yogurt container that were all tossed it after it as the morning progressed. I know all of this because out of the corner of my eye I can see it at the bottom of the trash can, the little red rosebud perched in the center of the creamy white icing that was spread over moist white cake as it looks up at me like an angry, unblinking eye. It's been staring at me ALL DAY.

It wasn’t that great tasting, it wasn’t so tempting that I couldn’t bear to throw it away several hours ago, and it currently has a sticky note that says “stop loss” with three exclamation points on it embedded in the bottom corner of it’s frosting…and yet there’s a part of me that wants to reach down, grab it, and shove that creamy fist full of trashcan cake right into my mouth. “But Sara, it’s in the TRASH,” you’ll argue, “and that’s just GROSS!” Yeah, well, you’re right—but sadly the mere fact that a food has a current status of garbage isn’t always enough to dissuade me from thinking about eating it (or actually doing so, for that matter). Sometimes I wish that my particular brand of crazy wasn’t of the variety that had me arm wrestling with discarded confections all day, and that there were often more impressive victories to report than “Today I didn’t pick the cake I threw away this morning out of the trashcan and eat it 7 hours later!”

But for the record, I didn’t.

Paging Mr. Power, Mr. Will Power...

2009-08-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

I was talking to my Mom the other day, and she was lamenting (as she is wont to do) the state of her current weight and the plans that she had to send that number into decline. As we rehashed the finer (and familiar) points of calorie intake and physical activity, I thought to myself that if the Department of Homeland Security came across snippets of our conversation out of context in one of their now totally constitutional and not at all invasive phone sweeps, they might mistake us for knowledgeable nutrition and weight loss professionals instead of just a fat girl and her mom who could stand to lose a few pounds herself. After all, we talk a very good game—full of strategies and buzzwords and clear and concise plans for putting that know-how into action. Mom remarked, not for the first time I might add, that she knows exactly what she needs to do…so why doesn’t she just do it already?

Well gee, Mom. Isn’t that the sixty four thousand dollar question?

I bet if you asked any group of overweight people how to lose weight that 99% of them would be able to write you a 1,000 word essay filled with factual information and conventional wisdom on the subject without having to crack a book or pen even a single footnote. While there may be that 1% of the obese population who just recently woke up one morning and realized for the first time that they might indeed have a bit of a weight problem, most members of Fat America aren’t on their maiden weight loss voyage once they’ve reached adulthood. The concepts traditionally involved in weight loss are painfully simple: Eat Less + Move More = A Smaller Ass. I know this. YOU know this. And yet most of us can’t seem to stick to that formula for any meaningful length of time. What is wrong with us that we can’t do what we know we should? How can we see so clearly what needs to be done, but turn around and make choices that are in direct opposition to our goals? Where, we wonder, is our willpower?

It seems that some scientists are wondering the same thing, and it turns out that they’re starting to figure this whole willpower thing out.

I read a fascinating article in Psychological Science about the science behind self-regulation and the concept of willpower. You see, I subscribe to several scientific medical publications and peruse them frequently for light reading material to amuse myself when I have a moment of free time between Mensa meetings or while using the bathroom. Or I might have heard about the article on the radio this morning and then googled it. I forget which. The article states that in a world where lack of willpower & self-regulation is at the root of many societal problems (obesity, addiction, consumer debt, violence, infidelity, crime, etc.), the science of willpower has become a priority for scientific study.

Over the years, many psychologists and biologists (and neurologists, oh my!) have been working to learn about the various ways that human beings regulate their behavior. Self-discipline is one of the hallmarks of humanity, and the ability to make choices that defer immediate gratification in favor of the promise of a future payoff is one of the central characteristics that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. And yet most of us have trouble in some area of our life with regulating ourselves as much as we’d like to, or as much as we think we should. And when we find that we can’t rein ourselves in, we blame our lack of willpower for the failing.

In the weight loss world willpower a precious commodity, something that we long to have a good supply of, but too often seem to lack completely. We envy in it in others, we ask each other how we can get more of it (like we’re secretly hoping that someone knows the name of a guy who hangs out in back of the local Burger King and sells it out of the trunk of his car or something), and lament how we once had it in our hands it but it slipped through our grasp. We admire the people who have it in abundance, and we kick ourselves for letting ours fade away. And no matter how much of it we have, we always want more.

According to scientists, willpower is a lot like a muscle. We can choose to flex it, but it takes effort to exercise it—and just like any muscle that’s not used to being used regularly, it gets sore. Each individual seems to have a finite amount of it to use at any one time, and each successive situation that requires us to call up on our willpower can tire that muscle out. As I read this theory of willpower as muscle, it seemed to make a lot of sense to me. I know that, for me, my ability to control my behavior with food seems to be directly related to how much control I feel I have over the rest of my life. When my world is in balance and things are going swimmingly I have no problem calling upon my willpower to turn down a high calorie delicacy that doesn’t fit into my plan because I know that doing so will only keep me further from my goals. But if my world is in chaos, if I’ve already had to talk myself out of listing my child on Craig’s List under “Free Teenager, You Haul him away, you make my day!”, or had to stop myself from yelling at the jerk in the Jetta who cut me off on the expressway that morning, resisted the urge to tell a frustrating coworker exactly where they can put that last minute emergency request of theirs, and had to pry the third smallest piece of a set of hand painted nesting dolls that my parents brought me from their trip to Russia a few years ago out of a 70 pound Labrador Retriever’s jaws…then my ability to turn down an offer of “Hey, let’s go out for Mexican!” in favor of grilled chicken breasts, steamed broccoli and whole wheat cous cous is severely impaired. My willpower is no longer a shapely and taut muscle to flex for the world, but is sad and limp like a dunked cruller. (Mmmmm. Dunked Crullers.)

But if willpower is like a muscle, the big question is: Can we strengthen it through exercise? Interestingly enough, the answer seems to be yes. We can work it like any other muscle to make it stronger and more efficient for use in the future. Those of us with food issues can do exercises like tracking our food intake (Yep—turns out there’s a method to all that much lamented food journaling stuff they keep telling us is key to our weight loss success), through practicing our responses to difficult situations (Visualization, not just for hippies anymore!) and by repeated use of willpower in lower stress environments (that whole “fake it ‘till you make it” shtick might not be just an annoying catch phrase after all). And some studies also suggest that merely observing other people exercising self control helps us to make better choices in our own lives. (This means I can count catching up on my favorite weight loss bloggers' adventures each day as exercise. Hooray!)

It encourages me to think about willpower not as a trait that I just don’t have, but as a tool that I can develop. My willpower muscle might be flabby and lack tone, but I’m working to strengthen it, to move it and shake it and give it definition so that I’m no longer ashamed of how weak it is, but confident enough to show it off to the world. I think I can make that happen.

And then I’m going to do the same thing with my butt…

How It Happens

2009-07-30T23:30:00.000-05:00

(orignally posted here)

I’d like to send a special shout out to all the first time visitors (and kisses to my returning visitors, too!) who breezed by my little patch of the web yesterday. I’m not sure how it happened, but July 29, 2009 was a banner day here at skinnysara.com with over 300 unique users clicking in. I started this website because I was tired of the silence surrounding obesity, and I was hoping that that there were other people out there who were too—and I haven’t been disappointed! Breaking my silence and starting a conversation about the fat and everything that comes with it and what it takes to fight it has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life, and I am so glad to have found you all and to still be here and still be talking.

It’s an uncomfortable dialog for most of us, because it turns out that living with obesity and talking about obesity are two completely separate endeavors. When we go out into the world, we wear our condition not just on our sleeves, but stuffed tightly into them. Our obesity is the most immediately visible, identifiable thing about us…and yet we’d rather just not talk about it thankyouverymuch. I sometimes think that because we cannot hide the fat from the world that we compensate for that by clinging fiercely to our intellectual and emotional privacy on the subject.

But I believe that the enemy of change is silence, and the world isn’t waiting for us to get comfortable, they’re starting to talk about it now—and I figure that those of us who are intimately familiar with the subject should probably enter the conversation. Case in point:

On the front page of the Omaha World Herald this morning is a story about the efforts of local fire & rescue officials to purchase emergency equipment to accommodate the increasing number of severely obese people they are called upon to help. The article (you can read it here) discusses possible plans for adding a special ambulance to the fleet that has an integrated winch, a larger compartment and a reinforced floor to accommodate larger passengers. They also talked about newly available stretchers with higher weight limits and hydraulic lifts, as well as detailing several creative ways that fire & rescue crews have been forced to transport obese patients. Plans to acquire both a forklift and a construction crane that would be ready in an on-call capacity were also mentioned.

I am getting better at reading articles like this without my insult-o-meter rising immediately to stack-blowing status and having smoke shoot out my ears. I accept that obesity is not exclusively a personal matter, but a medical issue worthy of scrutiny and a societal issue that must be addressed. The article in question deals with the subject matter in a dignified and fair fashion, I think, and the questions of how to deal with a growing severely morbidly obese population need to be answered. It is estimated that that there are currently over two million people in this country who weigh 550 pounds or more and the inevitability of the need for medical attention for them requires us to do some planning. I read the article with interest and empathy, all the while knowing that many people would see it and feel much differently about what they read.

The hosts of my favorite morning radio show read the article too, and their reaction was what I expected it would be. Some shock, some horror, a little bit of snide joking, a smattering of serious head bobbing, and a nearly total lack of understanding of obesity in general. This doesn’t surprise me, because the truth is that the most of the world doesn’t understand much about obesity either. Even those of us who live with it don’t know much about it beyond the idea that fat people eat too much. Medical science is just beginning to do some real research into the condition, but still has yet to elevate obesity above the status of a mere character flaw and lend credibility to the idea that there might be more complicated causal factors involved than “too much pie”. The radio personalities commented on the major themes of the article, pontificated broadly about the “obesity epidemic” in this country, and then settled on the real question that was weighing on their minds:

How, they wondered, could someone let themselves get so big?

I understand why they don’t know how that could happen. Part of being able to blame someone’s weight problem exclusively on their own slovenly nature and inability to control oneself with food is believing that morbid obesity could happen to anyone. That way, they can point out that they know how to stop themselves form eating too much on a regular basis, so we can all assume that everyone else should be able to do the same.

But the truth is that not everyone has the natural potential in them to be morbidly obese. Many, many people on this earth are blessed with bodies that don’t long for food the way that mine does, with brains that don’t spend their days and nights consumed by the thought of it. Most people aren’t even physically capable of eating enough food on a regular basis to gain an extra 100 pounds (or 200, or 300, or 500) without making a concerted, directed (and kuh-RAY-zee, I might add) effort to do so. To them, the idea of ever letting your weight spiral out of control the way that so many of us have is, literally, unthinkable.

But I do understand how it could happen, because I know how it happened to me. I’ve been overweight for the majority of my life. When I look back at my progression from normal sized little girl to morbidly obese adult, it is interesting to me to see just how fat I wasn’t, comparatively. I’ve joked that if you stacked up a portrait of me for every year between the ages 6 and 36 and used the edge of your thumb to reveal them in quick succession you’d have a flip-book that could be titled “Girl gets lips stuck on bicycle pump”. What started out as a minor weight problem grew incrementally with the passage of time. Later in my life, as I crossed each line I drew in the sand of the weight I said I’d definitely never go higher than, I drew a new one a few pounds higher. And when I crossed that one, I drew another, and another, and another, until one day I was so scared to see whether I’d crossed that line…that I stopped looking all together. And that’s how I imagine that it happens for many people who weigh so much that they’re no longer able to leave their homes. I think they woke up one day and realized that the unthinkable had become the status quo…so they just stop looking. I can see how it could happen to them. I can see how it could have happened to me.

More importantly, I can see how it still could.

So there you have it, Big Party Morning Show on-air personalities. That's how it could happen. Any other questions?

I'm Fat as Hell, and I'm Not Going To Take it Anymore...

2009-07-28T11:18:00.000-05:00

Last night as I rounded the last corner before the homestretch at the end of my evening walk, I found myself in possession of that enviable post-workout energy spurt, the feeling that even though I’ve just purposely taxed my muscles and cardiovascular system with heavy footfalls over hilly terrain for 3 miles, I actually feel better than I did when I started. It doesn’t always happen that way for me, I admit. Most days I find that the first 15 minutes of my walk are spent trying to quell the internal bitching that runs on a constant loop in my brain, a steady stream of various versions of “This sucks!” that I have to work to silence, reminding myself that they’ll pass soon enough once I find my rhythm and the audio book du jour sucks me into the story it’s telling. Most of the time my post workout moments are spent in equal appreciation of the fact that I did what I set out to do, and that it’s done with for the day.

But last night I felt downright buoyant, sucked into a great story being broadcast from my ear buds (you can have my iPod when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers!), and decided to take advantage of that feeling and stay out for a bit longer and enjoy it. I eyed the flower beds and deftly pulled the weeds that were sprouting out from under the mulch, I added some river rock to the strip below the downspout in the front yard to facilitate drainage, and I unrolled the hose off of it’s reel and set about positioning the sprinkler to give the front yard a good soaking as the sun went down. As I worked to make sure that the arc of the spray was exactly where I wanted it, I bent down to adjust the stops.

As I fiddled with the sprinkler head, I saw a car as it came to the corner of our street and turned in the direction of my house. The aging Honda’s windows were down, and as it turned up the street toward me, the car slowed. I looked toward it and saw the three young men in the car glancing at each other, and then at me. As they passed by, the driver leaned out the window, and gave an exaggerated wolf whistle and the two other men in the car began to laugh and one yelled out “Work it, Fat Bitch!” before they all three burst into giggles and sped away.

Acting instinctually, I responded by raising my arm and displaying the second finger on my right hand in a prominent way to them as they drove off (classy, no?), while watching their car disappear over the hill. When they were out of sight, it took a few moments before I realized that I was still flipping the bird to the empty road. It occurred to me that I’d better check to make sure that none of my neighbors were standing upwind of me right now, lest they mistake my rude gesture as meant for them. Thankfully, I found myself the lone figure standing outside. I would like to tell you how little the events of the previous minute or two affected me, how I shook my head at the silly little boys and their childish insults, and then set back about the business enjoying the post-workout high that I’d earned that night. I’d like to, but I can’t. I was too busy standing in my front yard trying not to cry.

This is not exactly my first experience with this kind of unsolicited vocalization. In my 38 years on this earth, I have had countless encounters of a similar nature with the peanut gallery. I’ve been the victim of drive by moo-ings, had diet advice directed loudly in my direction (helpful things like “Why don’t you lose some weight, fat ass!” as my 12 year old self rode by on my ten speed), and heard perfect strangers mutter unkind things about me under their breath (or at the top of their lungs). I’ve been passed notes that expressed their displeasure about my physique, and even received strange hand written notes about new weight loss products in the mail. People have been able to convey to me just how offensive the very presence of my fat body was to them without them having to say a word, and I’ve been judged and derided in public with more arched eyebrows and disgusted smirks than most averaged sized people will ever seen in a lifetime. The unapologetic hatred that obesity unleashes in so many people is such a common phenomenon that you’d think that I’d be used to it by now, that I could laugh it off as societal ignorance and go on about my merry way. You’d think.

A few weeks ago, on the recommendation of fellow weight loss blogger Diana, I added the movie “Disfigured” to our Blockbuster Online queue. Just last week, it showed up in the mailbox and I popped it in the DVD player and sat down to watch. It’s a charming little indie flick about the unlikely friendship between two women, one obese and the other anorexic, who meet at a fat acceptance group meeting (While not a cinematic tour de force, it was certainly a worthwhile use of 2 hours of my time and I think it would be an excellent conversation starter, check it out).

In several scenes during the film, while the obese woman is out for her regular walk near the beach a homeless man taunts her with jokes about her weight, berating her and even calling for others standing by to call the coast guard, because “we got a beached whale” up here. And each day, she bites her tongue choosing to walk on by despite his continued taunts. Finally, one day she can stand no more and asks him what his problem is. He tells her that he’s simply exercising his first amendment right of free speech, and she screams back at him “Oh really? Well, you live in a cardboard box, you’re just a smelly, broken down, homeless, drug addicted, alcoholic, stinky, scabby human disaster area!”

He looks back at her and responds, “Maybe. But at least I’m not fat.”

And if that just doesn’t say it all, then I don’t know what does. I believe that my obesity scares the crap out of people, makes them confront their own worst fears about what it might be like to lose the tenuous control they have on their own bodies and lives. Hating me is easy, it helps them believe that no matter what disappointments their own life has handed them or how grievous their own failings are, that it could always be worse. There are so many loathsome, horrid things that a human being can be. A terrorist. A serial killer. A pedophile. A wife-beater, a child-killer, an ex-NFL player serving time for running a dog-fighting ring.* A liar, an adulterer, a crazy communist dictator who oppresses his people. You can be stupid, or cruel, or insane, or a drug addicted homeless man, or even a twenty something, inbred, 1996 Honda driving fool with a talent for whistling and a loud mouth…but count your blessings because it could be worse: You could be FAT.

As I stood there last night and stared up at the now deserted street, it occurred to me that the quality of what I was feeling wasn't as familiar to me as the situation that prompted it was. I wasn't standing in my yard with my shoulders slumped and holding back tears of shame. I was standing with my shoulders back, my chin held high, and the tears that threatened to fall down my cheeks were tears of rage, of anger over a lifetime spent believing that every good thing about me was mitigated by the fat on my body. I'm not willing to believe that anymore. So I stood there for a moment longer, my arm still oustretched in a one finger salute--not at the car of buffoons that was long gone by now, but at the whole damn world.

*special thanks to my friend Bill for correcting my sports association faux pas.

Sometimes You're the Donut, Sometimes You're the Hole...

2009-07-23T14:09:00.001-05:00

Approximately 30 feet away from my desk is a gigantic cardboard box full of deep fried dough, powdered sugar, icing & glaze in various shapes and configurations. I'm not sure how I offended my higher power today that made him toss this little test of will into my life but whatever it was I'M SORRY ALREADY, OK? Can't I just rattle off a couple of novenas or do three good deeds so we can call it even? Did you have to go all old testament on me and put some obstacle in my path that I've got to hurdle to prove that I'm steadfast in my quest? If so, then did it have to be donuts? I've got a perfectly good 14 year old boy at home that you could have asked me to take up to a mountain top and sacrifice as a test of my obedience, and I thought that the pimple on my left cheekbone might already qualify as a mild plague of boils, but NOOOooooOOOOooo--you had to pull out the big guns and send deep fried breakfast pastries my way. Thanks for that.

The irony here is that I don't really care too much about donuts. It's not one of those foods that I'd knock over a 4 year old to get to if we were both reaching for the last one (but if that kid was eyeing the last Wheatfield’s caramel pecan roll or Nathan's hot dog, then he'd better be wearing a cup and a helmet). Donuts don't generally tempt me to distraction, with three exceptions:

1. A cream-filled, chocolate iced donut from Krispy Kreme. And before you ask—no, bavarian cream won't do--just the fluffy stuff. I have standards.

2. A raised cherry blossom donut from Pettit's. So yummy, and I maintain that their pinkish tinge and hint of cherry flavoring allows me to count them as a fruit.

3. A chocolate iced "Old-Fashioned" from Winchell's. Sometimes I like to kick it old-school and have been known to purchase and eat two* of these in a sitting.

But despite my lack of (general) affinity for donuts, the box of them on the coffee bar is consuming my every thought. After actively avoiding them for the first half hour of their existence in my world, I finally strolled back just to take a look at them. And maybe have a little sniff. Or two. Or seven. I looked over the offerings and was pleased to see that there wasn't anything there that made me feel like I needed to drop my face directly into the box and go bobbin-for-pastries. There were a few melted-looking glazed donuts, a cinnamon twist or two, a couple of fruit filled rounds with white icing, some cake donuts with sprinkles (have I ever mentioned that I loathe sprinkles? I like the idea of them, and I love that you can match your dessert item to your decor with just a flick of the wrist, but chewing on those waxy little pellets is about as appealing to me as grating a votive candle over a stack of hot pancakes. Even the most perfect cookie ever made, the Eileen's Frosted Sugar Cookie, can be rendered inedible by the addition of a handful of sprinkles smashed into their heavenly, light-as-a-feather-creamy-as-a-dream almond flavored icing. So sad.) and one pathetic looking smashed cherry danish. I closed the box lid and walked back to my desk not feeling as though I was depriving myself of anything notable.

And yet, here I sit, writing about the donuts that I'm not eating. What's up with that?

I suppose that it's not so much that there are donuts back there that I'm not eating that's bothering me--it's that there's food of ANY kind in the room that I'm not eating that's got me all distracted and fidgety. I bet that if I was a recovering crack addict, I probably wouldn't be able to happily ignore a big pile of cocaine on the coffee table just because I'd rather smoke my rock than snort it. Sometimes I can't even handle the idea that there are kit-kat bars in a closed cabinet in the far corner of the room, or that there is ice cream in the freezer in the garage, or that there's a fiber one bar in my bottom desk drawer that I'm saving for later because if those things are where they are then they're not in my mouth which, as far as I'm concerned, is where anything edible should be.

This feeling will pass, and the truth is that just putting fingers to keyboard has helped to quell the rising panic that close proximity to uneaten food often causes me. There is also truth in the idea that not eating what I could eat if I wanted to can send my personal-power meter up a tick or two higher than my self-loathing meter thus tipping the scales toward the whole experience spurring me further on toward my goals. All those fringe religious groups who tout self-torture as a growth tool would nod along with me when I assert that sometimes victory is sweeter when you don't emerge from battle unscathed, and you get to point to your bloody lip and say "yeah, but you should see the OTHER guy!". I'm a little bruised but, for today anyway, I win.

Sara: 1 Donuts: 0

*read: four

Wanna read more?

2009-07-22T12:00:00.002-05:00

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