The Skinny and the Fat

In case you didn't know, I sometimes, to take my mind off of the real world, read People.com. I giggle and laugh a lot at what people find newsy or interesting. The obsession with the royal family, that Honey Boo Boo child and, of course, any new hook up or break up. It feels like fantasy.

But another element of People that has always bugged me has been the size of people. And what I don't understand is how People can go on and on about how thin Matthew McConaughey has gotten for his movie role as a person living with AIDS and be blind to how they praise women for that which they illicit concern when it comes to men.

Apparently for men this is okay:

But this dramatic change is not.

But for women, the norm is this:

In all honesty, I get excited when I see women who look more like this:

They're fit. Crazy fit. And I can't wait to get my foot back so I can be that way again, too. Because holy cow, has my body had enough of sitting. And I want to wear my old pants again. 

So as we get closer and closer to me going back to a regular life, I am getting excited. I start to see my friend Kari for workouts on Tuesday and Thursdays. I still go to Physical Therapy on Tuesdays and Fridays. I work on Mondays and Wednesdays. I attend Rotary and volunteer at Carrie Busey on Thursdays. My weeks will be full again. And I am so excited to get my life back. 

A Change Up -- Sort of

Carle Weight Management closed last week, and I had been looking around for a program that would help hold me accountable, but not be quite so hospital driven. I've been doing a lot of cooking on my own, which is good (when it's dinners) and which is not so good (when it's cookies). It's not that everything doesn't taste fine, it's that I consume a lot more when desserts are in my house.

So, I needed to implement some environmental controls. I needed to take a look at what was in my cupboards and recognize that if there is a container of honey, I will devour it a tablespoon at a time on a LOAF of bakery bread in 14.2 seconds. If the honey isn't in the house. I don't touch MacTroll's bread. (Hence the reason I could never be vegan.) Anyway, you know you've hit rock bottom and that you have a trigger food when you're putting tablespoon after tablespoon on top of some lame 35 calorie Healthy Life wheat bread... and you've eaten 5 pieces because it's not feeding you want you want. But you also know that you can't dish out what you want, because you'd totally slam that entire loaf, which is a lot more than 175 calories total.

It's like if you use a lot of substitutes, you forget what the real thing tastes like. And the next time you reintroduce it, it's like having an orgasm. Food hits some very passionate parts of me, and it's been hard over the last few years recognizing that those emotional wants don't die out, just because you deny them for 9 short months. They stick around for when life hits you with mega change. And then you realize that in the most ideal situation, you were able to conquer the food cravings. But in a harder life situation, you caved -- some times. And it was enough not to gain it all back but to gain enough of it back that you're within 10 lbs of losing your Onederland status.

I didn't realize it had gotten that bad until today, when I showed up for the 7:30 a.m. Weight Watchers meeting. It's odd, really, being a person who has lost a ton of weight and showing up in a class where almost no one outside the leader has gone past the 10 percent mark. I kept that information to myself. I didn't learn anything new, but I did have someone weigh me, and I did recognize that feeling of wanting to do well versus beating myself up for messing up and then promising to start all over again the next day.

It helps when your leader was a WW drop out around 10 times before it finally clicked and she was successful. She's been keeping her weight off as long as I've been keeping the majority of my weight off. I have questions I want to ask her when I'm more comfortable. 

I'm going to probably switch to the Sunday 8:30 a.m. class down the road, just simply because I like not having to wake up at 6:30 a.m. to get there at 7:30 a.m. It's a bummer that the meeting place moved to the opposite end of town, but I'll live. I just can't walk or bike over the interstate overpass. I'm not comfortable with that.

I checked out their oatmeal because it was on sale, but when I saw that it had 39 percent fiber based on the added chicory root (inulin), I put it back. Holy cow, I would be passing gas all day long. I loved the HMR oatmeal, mostly because it had 60 percent of my day's worth of iron, and as a girl who can't ever have enough iron...I think I may order some packages online.

So, here I am with 25 lbs to get back off. It'll be interesting since I'm scheduled to have my surgery on both of the peroneal tendons in my right foot on Sept. 13, am force feeding a cat 4 times a day, have X-man underfoot for another month and am traveling twice, including a 3-day journey to Montreal. But I went with the plan that is the least restrictive about what goes into my mouth... so the choices regarding nutrition are entirely left up to me.

Okay, I'm wandering downstairs to cook some peas, carrots and tempeh with miso-almond sauce, which according to the recipe builder at Weight Watchers is 8 points per serving. It feels weird after dividing everything up into calories based on carbs, protein and fats on Loseit to suddenly just use these program numbers which are based on the same information (and fiber), but not really know what it means. I guess in a while it will be like visiting Canada. I can't remember how to convert the weather from F to C, but I know what the temperatures feel like when I'm there, so I don't leave unprepared for the weather.

The other odd part about this, is that I feel like I'm doing it by myself this time. Last time, I had a whole group of folks going about the same quest, except we all had much bigger numbers to lose. I don't feel quite as desperate this time. It's not all or nothing. It's just a kind of continual goal. It'll get there when it's ready to get there, and not a moment sooner. But I guess that's how life is working these days... Maya... California...Food... It'll turn out the way it'll turn out and all you can do is prepare, plan, execute and hope for the best.

Body Talk

My body doesn't usually draw attention to itself. It usually likes the idea that it can actually camouflage me by, ironically, being overweight. It's like a natural defense mechanism brought on by lack of formal exercise and failing to cook every night from home so that crap food runs are made every now and again, which would be okay if every time I ate out, I didn't think of it as a reward system. But I don't feel like blogging about my emotional dependence on frozen custard, pasta and Pirate Booty right now...

Instead I want to talk about the breakdown... the fact that after spending a harrowing 2 months as a working single mother while MacTroll saved the technical world from peril, my body has heaved around a squirrelly, fighting 35 lb toddler who is as stubborn as his mother (and has a right hook slap that brings us both to tears as we struggle to do something as mundane as put shoes on in the morning). Usually I just ignore the aches and pains and continue with my overwhelmingly over-planned days. But woo doggie is my body talking this week... it's been fighting me to go to sleep every chance I get. Kind of like that first trimester of pregnancy where you find yourself never getting out of bed or showering or even caring about food. 

Today MacTroll took X-man to school. So after they were out the door at 8:30 a.m. I came upstairs and put my head down. The next thing I know the phone is ringing and it's MacTroll. I bark, "What are you doing? The point of sleeping in is not to be interrupted."

There's silence at the other end. "It's noon."

"Holy shit."

I got up, had left over tacos for lunch stepped outside to see if I could bring myself to mow the backyard. Too cold. Too wet. Too -- unmotivated. So I headed back up to bed, where I planned some meet ups, am writing this blog entry and am seriously thinking about napping before we celebrate Miss Thang's 3rd b-day over at FCC this afternoon.