Monday, August 31, 2009

Hunting For Health in a Sea of Cellulite

I'm in the mood to celebrate today. Despite the sudden bulge in weight that I had in the middle of last week, I stepped on the scale this morning and saw that in addition to losing the two pounds I'd put on, I'd lost another. All because I'd redoubled my efforts instead of moping and inviting my friends Ben and Jerry over for a pity party. If I had, I'd really be Phish Food about now. (Okay, you can say it. Ow.)

So now I'm going to share my secret. Even though it's not really a secret, given that my sister told me the same thing about... two months ago.

The exercise did it.

Eating healthier and putting less in your body is a start, but if you're still taking in more calories than you're burning in a day, you're just gaining weight more slowly. Which is sort of like piling up a couple of sandbags when your house is flooding, but then shrugging and saying "good enough," going inside, and reading a book as the water starts to wash over the floorboards. (If you need a mental picture to accompany this one, just think of that flood insurance commercial with the little dog floating away on the coffee table.)

Okay, okay. I know what some of you are thinking. Well, easier said than done, Jami. I can't do any of this. I have to catch my breath just getting into the car. Forget running or any of that. Well, I can tell you from experience that I do understand. But the fact of the matter is that everyone has something they can do. Not doing it just because you think you can't is only going to make the problem worse. That's what I've been learning, at least.

A few years ago, my aunt, who was losing weight at the time, gave me a DVD of Leslie Sansone, who has a walk-at-home program. At first I mentally turned up my nose. I didn't like exercise videos, I didn't like those perpetually cheery-meets-vaguely-condescending people grinning at the front of the room like they can actually see you sweating like a pig and stumbling all over yourself when they say "beautiful! Just eight more..." But then I actually tried this DVD. And to my surprise... she didn't annoy me nearly as much as normal. Even better, here was a program that was great to start on. (I should be getting paid for these product plugs...)

It's not focused on doing the moves perfectly, since it's based on walking in place. If you can't do those moves (like knee lifts) you can keep walking instead. So long as you keep moving to the rhythm. And since it's at home, you don't have to go outside and deal with people staring -- thus preserving your pride for another day. Plus, there's additional upper-body movement, giving you more than a walk. And if you feel like you're dying, just stop the DVD. No need to pull out your cell phone and call for a ride home because you can't make it.

Now, of course this isn't the only way. If you like walking outside, go for it! If you like swimming... here's a great opportunity to work out without gravity getting in the way. (It's like defying the laws of physics without having to pay for the NASA equipment.) Go out, shop around. There is something that works. Most Targets have decent fitness aisles for reasonable prices. Catherine's and Lane Bryant have some pretty spiffy activewear. (See? There I go, plugging again.) Can anyone else think of suggestions for exercise or where to get things that will help on the way? Maybe if we pool our resources, we can remedy the preconceived notion that fitness is only meant for the peppy aerobics bunnies and rippled gym rats.

After all, I've always stopped my efforts because I thought it was impossible for someone of my size. "I'll never be able to do what they do." "This is only designed for people who are already skinny, not people who actually need it." "I'll be a laughingstock if I join a class." "God, I'm dying after two minutes, how can I make it through fifteen?"

But here's the thing. Fitness is created for all people. It's just that not all people walk this earth on equal footing (literally.) Fortunately for us, fitness isn't created equal either. It's not that it doesn't work for us, it's just that we have to find different things that will work. It is out there.

I just didn't know where to look before.

Friday, August 28, 2009

I'll Have To Pencil That Into My Schedule (Or: 'Tis Only a Flesh Wound!)

My life has officially turned upside down.

On Tuesday, I head out to (another) training set for my position, until the tenth, at which point I'll be driving with my co-workers and director out to the site where I'll be working for the next eleven months. A few days later, a couple of friends will be helping me get everything moved from place to place. Which means that I have to get my life packed into neat little boxes in the next three days -- complete with packing popcorn, bubble wrap, and the occasional crunch of something fragile being murdered by its fellows within the depths of the cardboard.

It used to be that when times like this would come along, my attempts at losing weight would be the first inevitable thing to go. When I was writing my Master's thesis, I would barely emerge from my room for days at a time, only coming out when Katie or Tasha decided to drag me by the feet -- or else when sanity threatened to pack up and leave for the Bahamas. "I have to get this done," I'd say, "I don't have time for anything else. My future is on the line here. If I don't finish this, I don't get my degree."

I can't even count the number of times I used those words to excuse myself from nearly everything, especially my weight-loss. This was why I passed up the T'ai chi class. Going on daily walks. Going to the gym. My friends started to believe that I was a vampire -- and I don't mean the kind that glitters in sunlight.

And, inevitably, the chairs in the food court started being more uncomfortable. I wasn't able to sleep as well on the mattress (don't you hate it when you can't lie down without some extremity becoming hopelessly numb? I'd lie down, my leg would go numb. So I'd turn over, and the same leg would go numb. I never did figure out the logic of this.) This gradual upturn due to my "Master's-thesis stress" was what eventually led my weight to top out at the highest number I had ever seen on the scale.

Now, faced with a similar situation (though if packing takes a few more months, I'm really behind schedule), I realize that my future is on the line. But the worst-case scenario for if I don't slim down and become healthy is a lot worse (and a lot more permanent) than if I don't get these boxes packed. It was a lot more important than graduating on time. It's been a lot more important than all of these silly things I've been putting in front of my own health all my life.

In short, nothing is more important than my health.

Nothing.

I didn't abuse my italics key for nothing. See, I get the feeling that we all do this. I do. My sister does. My mother does. My friends do. And I can tell, because when I put losing weight off in order to prioritize something else, you know what they say? "It's okay, it's understandable. We've all been there." Well, maybe it is understandable. But ladies (and gentlemen), that doesn't make it acceptable!

It's sort of like that scene in Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail with the black knight. For those of you who haven't indulged in British nonsensical comedy, King Arthur is traveling with his men through the forest, and he comes across a knight clad in black armor, who challenges him to a duel. Arthur kicks his ass (I think literally at one point.) He slices off first one arm (this has such intentionally horrible effects that it can't possibly be interpreted as gory.) The black knight picks up his sword in his other hand and shouts " 'tis only a flesh wound!" Then the other arm goes. So the knight shouts a challenge at a bewildered Arthur and begins to head-butt him, charging forward. Eventually, Arthur walks away from the helmet (head inside) of the knight, who is still shouting at the king's back.

See? I told you it was nonsensical. (And probably on YouTube, for anyone who dares to look.) And I really never thought I would ever compare weight loss to Monty Python, of all things. But come on! We're sort of like the stupid Black Knight. We charge forward, ignoring our own health, until time and poor health gradually kick our asses. And as each round we ignore it draws to a close, it becomes progressively harder to win. All the time, we're belligerently ignoring our fate, shouting "it's not that bad! I'll handle it later! 'Tis only a flesh wound!"

Heh. Let's stop kidding ourselves.

There is never a better time to start (or keep up the work) than right now. The longer we put it off, the worse it gets, and the steeper the mountain goes. So instead of pretending there's nothing wrong or that we don't have time, let's be realistic. Let's reattach our limbs, dust ourselves off, and get to the real fight.

...I never said it was a perfect metaphor.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Shooting The Scale Is Not Cathartic

I had a disappointing day.

You see, since I was at that orientation for the first part of this week (which actually went impressively well, thanks to a smile and a gung-ho attitude) I didn't get a chance to weigh in on Monday like I usually do. But I'd sort of been looking forward to it, because I was so proud of how I'd done the last three days or so. I hadn't eaten between meals, had decent portions, plenty of fruit and salad, and drank nothing but water. I even went on a mile-long hike (a good portion of which was uphill.) So I stepped on the scale, expecting to celebrate a significant drop.

But the only thing to drop was my jaw.

I'd gained two pounds.

Somehow, I managed to maintain enough control of myself to not throw the scale against the wall. (I didn't refrain from tossing a few choice words at it, however.) How on earth did this happen? I'm still not sure I know. I didn't even take seconds, opted out of dessert... was it the multvitamin I'd forgotten to pack? Suddenly, I was depressed and full of frustration at the fact that it took so much effort to lose six pounds, and nothing at all to destroy my progress. I didn't even know what I'd done wrong. (Come to it, I'm still not entirely sure.)

So what do I do in this situation?

My first response was to sit down and cry for a minute. I only cry when I'm angry, you see -- and I was pissed. But it was probably a healthy thing to mourn the loss of progress, the frustration, the dead end. And for a minute, I wanted to give up. Okay, more like twenty minutes.

But here's where I have to stop and pay attention to my own progress: my first response was not to eat. I was so angry at myself that I decided instead to exercise. To make up for what I'd done. Sure, for a moment I regarded it as fitting punishment. But slowly, as I worked, that wore away and I felt better. The endorphins started to flow, and I calmed down. I felt better. And then I looked at the bucket list we put together, and remembered that if I stopped, I would never get to have any of these things if I copped out now.

Another positive point? I realized that I am feeling full after smaller amounts from eating less at that retreat. So I may have gained weight, but I've gained an extra tool to help me be more effective later. And because I exercised my stress and disappointment away, I had more energy to be active throughout the day, effectively helping me to use my frustration to redouble my efforts.

Maybe it wasn't such a disappointing day after all.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Like a Bucket List, Only Without the Bucket

This post is a little early, since I'm off early tomorrow and will be gone until Wednesday night, and I'm not sure if there will be internet access or not. So if the next one doesn't come in until Thursday morning, please forgive me. It's a three-hour drive.

I would also like to take a minute to do a shameless plug! My friend Beth from college is also doing a weight-loss blog, and I wanted to point it out. If you'd like to check out this bright-eyed soprano's chronicles of weight-loss (and yoga!), you can find it at http://basggetskinny.blogspot.com . I know. Smartass musicians have to stick together, right?

****
I've spent a lot of time thus far taking note of how easy it is to get caught up in all the things I can't do. How spectacularly bad I am at all things physical and how this tends to absolutely run my life. And this is all true. That frustration starts out as a productive thing, pushing me to go further and do better, because I'm afraid that I'll always be like this if I don't do something.

That said, the frustration is a horrible place to stop. It's far too easy to turn that around into self-loathing, depression and all that other crap your therapist says is bad for you. So I decided to try something. What if, instead of saying "damnit, I can't run a mile without stopping, poor me, boo-hoo, etc. etc. pity party," I said "you know, it'll be really nice when I can run a mile without stopping."

Semantics, right?

I know. I don't like the "feel-good-I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing" stuff either. It feels like a product Richard Simmons is trying to sell me in order to rub in the fact that I physically cannot hug myself (without drowning in a sea of arm-fat.) I always end up feeling like the people who always try to put a good face on things end up ignoring their real feelings and so they always look happy, when in reality they are neglecting their feelings so much that they end up more unhappy than normal. They just fake it better. Some of my family was like this, and I never knew if what I was seeing was real. But I do believe that there's a difference between this super-extreme perma-cheer and trying to put a positive spin on a negative situation.

So here's my idea. I started a list of things I want to be able to do when I'm healthier. Things that, admittedly, I can't do now. But this way, instead of focusing on the fact that I can't, I'm re-routing it so I can look forward to being able to do it in the future. It's sort of like having your own personal bucket list, only without that part where you die in the end.

Now, if you want to do the same, note that the list can include anything you want it to. Everyone is different. What are you interested in? What is that one thing that slaps you in the face when you're out in public? Put down whatever you like! (Though a word to the wise, if there are PG-13 things in there, keep it in your sock drawer instead of on the fridge. Fewer awkward questions.)

Here are some of the things I'm looking forward to:

-- Shopping for clothing that isn't plus-sized.
-- Taking full-body photos without cringing and cropping.
-- Not having to ask for seat extensions on airplanes. (Also, not being one of those people that people hate sitting next to on planes because they take up all the space.)
-- Being able to wear heels (theoretically.)
-- Learning to fence.
-- Being able to see my navel without an act of contortionism.
-- Not being afraid to go to the doctor.
-- Not walking funny. (Let's face it, I waddle a little. Sort of unavoidable.)
-- Keeping up with my nephew.
-- Going out with my friends and not having to worry about holding them back.
-- Sitting in a booth in a restaurant without leaving table-marks on my stomach.
-- Rock climbing/hiking.
-- Wakeboarding/snowboarding.

See? Most of these things are so little, but they make a difference to me. And that's what matters. I have many more. There are a million reasons to make this choice. That's the beauty of this sort of thing. There isn't a reason in the world to not work toward this goal. Leastways, not any that make a lick of sense if you really stop to think.

So I have a favor to ask. Help me add to this list. Even if you just have one idea, put it down! Chances are, someone else has been there. I know it seems cheesy and screams "life coach," but that doesn't make it wrong. So just bear with me, because this is the sort of thing that makes the fight personal, that makes it matter.

And if it's not personal... if it doesn't matter... what good is it?

Friday, August 21, 2009

Why We Put the "Die" in "Diet"

Dieting sucks.

There's no point in trying to deny it. It involves hunger, sweat (and the smell that comes with it), and tears. Toss in a little bit of blood, a whole lot of telling yourself "no," and that strange low-calorie substitute that can claim fame neither as butter nor as margarine... and you've got yourself a regular fun fest. Even this afternoon, it was really hard to go for that chicken salad when I wanted that mushroom burger. And I love ranch dressing. Fries, chicken, salad, pizza. You name it, I put ranch on it. Well, I did, anyway.

Let us all stand in a moment of silence as we respectfully mourn the passing of an age.

It's really easy to get caught up in all the things I can't have. Goodbye, chocolate. Au revoir, ice cream. Sayonnara, all things pastry. Helloooo, carrot sticks.

At least, that's how I always thought of it before, and I think that's a lot of the reason it failed. Now I confess, I've lost my first six pounds, and it hasn't been on my own. I decided to go through Weight Watchers. No, this isn't a plug -- unless someone from the company is willing to pay to make it one. (It's the student loans, they make me desperate.) What I like, though, is that it's making me do all the work, but educating me in how to do it. Because I finally realize a profound truth.

I am a nutrition and fitness moron.

It isn't a put-down, it's just a simple fact. So why try to lose weight on my own? It's like asking me to do surgery on someone when I only vaguely know what a scalpel is. It doesn't work, and it makes a mess. In the end, I suffer and get discouraged, thinking that I'm a failure when really I just didn't know what I was doing. This isn't to say that you should trust everything you read. (After all, what else made Atkins so successful but people just taking others at their word?) But I am succeeding thus far because I am taking the opportunity to educate myself and re-evaluate my ideas of what a diet really is. And my not-so-riveting conclusion is this: dieting sucks.

Thus I end exactly where I began, but here there's a new twist: dieting doesn't do any good! All it does is teach you that health is a hellish temporary state where you deny yourself everything you want in punishment for being fat until you shed the pounds -- at which point you stop and say "okay! Good enough!"

Which is sort of like cleaning your house once every five years when you can't take it anymore.

In my case, as I've said before, it requires a full-on perspective change. I don't think in terms of "I can't have this." If I do that, it becomes sort of like swearing to Tom Sawyer. He wanted to more and more when he wasn't allowed to. But when he could, it wasn't so important anymore. If I try to deny myself something, I'm setting myself up to splurge and overeat. Instead, I'm going for the "eat smart" approach. The one that says "if I'm craving ice cream, I can find something smart and measure out a half cup." (Dreyer's sugar-free slow-churned is fabulous, for example.) Or "I'm hungry. But if I don't eat, I'll overeat later. So I'll have something small and filling now. Like fruit." (The more water content something has, the more filling it is.) So I'm actually making changes that are positive for my body in the long run (as opposed to losing weight whatever it takes), and I'm a hell of a lot less moody doing it.

In fact... I actually feel good.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen: The 2x4 of Motivation

First off, I apologize for not having written in the last week or two. The more discouraged I get, the less I write. The less I write, the less I do. The less I do, the less I lose. And the less I lose, the more discouraged I get. It's a vicious cycle I've fallen into lately.

Therefore, I really do think I should write. It solves the whole problem, if you look at it by that logic.

So the goal is to get this going on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule so I don't overload anyone (including myself) but I still have a commitment to make so that I'll be on time.

Yes, I'm aware that it's Tuesday.

****

I have one of those multi-day orientations coming up next week for work. Now, I've experienced many of these, particularly in the last six or seven years. Leadership summits. Undergrad orientation (heh). Scholarship conferences. Two week-long orientation sessions when I studied abroad. Grad school orientation (which was the best of the lot of them, mostly because they offered wine. This is common practice, as it soothes the nerves of the perpetually disgruntled and overworked intellectual elitists known as grad students. If your field has an -ology attached, they offer even more wine.) But I digress. The point is, I've never liked these things. I see their value, but I still find myself wanting to counterfeit a jury summons just to get out of them. Why?

Because orientations are designed to showcase their participants in an effort to get everyone acquainted. But since we don't want to ruffle any feathers, we're going to build camaraderie by leveling the field with some easy, fun activities that everyone can do. Like the Funky Chicken. Slightly embarrassing, but we're all doing it, so it's fun, right?

Not at 300 pounds. At that size, there's no way to dance the Funky Chicken without feeling more like the Funky Albatross of the group. The scavenger hunts around town (or even around campus) do me in after about fifteen minutes. And sometimes, when they include really interesting things (like the surfing lessons in Australia) I have to sit out altogether because there simply isn't a wetsuit in my size. Sorry.

And of course, none of this bodes well for making first impessions. In the end, I spend so much time hiding or compensating for my weight that I never actually get the chance to showcase my strengths. Things like my charisma, my intellect, and my off-kilter sense of humor have been irrevocably silenced because I'm too afraid to speak up for fear of looking like a fool or drawing attention to my unappealing form. I spend these times people-watching, learning the ropes by proxy. Safer, but inevitably lonely. It doesn't help, of course, that this shoots me in the foot. I remember the end of several of these events where at the end of the week, I shake the hands of the other participants and go to wish them well. The general response? "I'm sorry, what's your name again? You were here for the whole week? Really? I'm sorry, I didn't notice..."

Yet we wonder why there's such a correlation between obesity and low self-esteem.

I don't talk about this out of a desire to be a cynic, a downer, or even a disgruntled grad student. In all actuality, I wonder now if blaming this discomfort on my weight hasn't all been a crutch. A defense mechanism to keep me from looking foolish, or else a scapegoat for when I do. You see, I generally operate on the assumption that when one person first views another, their eyes go from general to specific. A short fat woman. And then things like hair, eyes, and the food stuck between your front teeth come into play. So, based on that, I assume that I'm somehow at a disadvantage when making first impressions because my physical form isn't appealing. Then, when forced into physical activity (something at which I fail spectacularly) in front of strangers... I lose my nerve because I think I've lost all hope of making a good impression.

And so because I'm embarrassed or frightened at being out of my element, I actually shut off all those good attributes I talked about before in an effort to blend in. And then I blend in so well that I could be singing "Mr. Cellophane" from the musical Chicago.

And it's all my own doing. Well done me.

This is where the "remix of perspective" comes in. If I assume that losing weight will make me into a more confident, vibrant person, I've got a serious case of logic dyslexia. Being a confident, vibrant person will help me lose weight.

Don't believe me? Try this on for size.

The only people that actually make positive changes in their lives are the ones who care enough about themselves to do so.

Tough love, isn't it? But whether I like it or not, it's true -- no matter how I look at it. And it's a hard one for me to admit, considering that I think of myself as a charismatic, confident person. It hits me right in the gut to think that maybe I've been hiding behind my weight, using it as an excuse to not have to step up.

I was going to end this post with something quasi-profound, but I think I need to take a bit more time to ponder the full implications of what I've just said.

I wonder if it's possible to choke on your own moral fiber.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

No Cure for the Swimsuit Blues

It occurs to me now that I jumped on my own personal bandwagon a season too late. Back in DC I had athletic classes I could attend (I remember now actually passing up a T'ai chi class due to my Master's thesis), friends to work out with, free access to a gym -- and weather that was barely brushing 80 at its finest. Now, as I struggle to find ways to exercise by myself in triple-digit temperatures... I realize that my timing was probably a bit off.

After all, summer is the dreaded swimsuit season. And if I'd just started a season earlier, I might not dread putting it on quite so much. But there's nothing for it now. Day four of the new regime, and the summer barbeque is tomorrow. Complete with the traditional donning of the dreaded swimsuit.

Oddly, with this on the horizon, I kicked it up a notch today. Almost as if I expected it to actually make me drop twenty pounds before tomorrow. It's amusing to see that the things that I never let bother me before (i.e. how I looked in a bathing suit) are now so horrifying now that being this size has become a temporary condition rather than a permanent fate. Before, I got past it. I had to, because it was just one of those things. And if I didn't deal, I'd never do anything I wanted to do. But now I almost want to hold myself back.

A lifetime of being overweight and now I develop terror at the thought of swimming in public? Did my synapses just not fire all these years or something?

Talking to a friend about this, she said that it made sense to be stressed when the status quo was changing. And when I stopped to think, the situation reminded me of nothing so much as a little kid drawing a picture for their parents, yelling "don't look, Mommy, don't look! I'm not done yet!" Though I hope to be a little better-drawn than anything rendered in Crayola, it does feel a little like that. I secretly want to hide away and not show anyone until I consider myself "ready" to be seen.

But if that was the proper course, I would not be seeing my sister, who's been on this track for nearly a year and has dropped 55 lbs so far. (So proud of you.) And I probably wouldn't be able to keep trying. After all, I'm doing this for me. For my health, for my confidence. But the people around me give me extra incentive. If I never had to worry about being embarrassed around people I cared about, why would I feel inconvenienced enough to make a change?

I wouldn't.

I'd have a perfectly good excuse to sit on my ass.

So in other words, ladies, quit it. Don't be like that. (Or, a la Riggs in Lethal Weapon 4: "Don't be a don't-be, Rog. Be a do-be.") Ahem. Point is, we're never going to get the juice to get off our asses and make that change if we don't get out there and see why we need to. If we hide away and pray no one will notice, no one will. And neither will we. And we miss out on a whole lot of living in the process.

So this summer, let us don the swimsuit with pride and shake our groove-thangs with the best of them (though perhaps not at the same time.) Let them stare, let them look. Let them admire our courage for it. (After all, even if you're a size 2, very few women actually like their bodies.) And if they judge? So what? That only means that we have more confidence for it. That we have enough self-respect to live our lives instead of hiding.

It all comes down to one thing, mushy and clichéd as it might sound. Without the confidence and self-respect to live our lives to their fullest potential... that perfect body is worth absolutely nothing.