Foodie Friday: Magic Pop

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!

Solving for X

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.

Lost Kitten

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.

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

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.

Looking for the Lightning...

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...

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.

And now for something completely different...

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!

Someone Like Me

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?

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.

Good News, Bad News

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Every time a bell rings...

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

How Sara Got Her Groove Back

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.