Question for today.

Is my desire to be thin a God given desire?

Side Lined

Over the past week I have been dealing with some pretty severe pain. The doctor thinks that I have a pinched nerve in my neck. There is arthritis and degenerative disc disease going on for sure, as seen on the X-rays they took. I will be getting an MRI on Saturday, but won't be able to see the doctor again for results until the 18th of July. The orthopedist is concerned about possible nerve damage due to the weakness in my left hand and arm.

This has been a real trial for me. I have had to deal with chronic migraines most of my life.  And that is difficult. I had a bout with sciatica a few months ago, and that was awful, but thankfully it responded to steroids pretty quickly. This particular issue is not responding to steroids or various medications yet. I am sleeping at night in a recliner and spend many hours awake and battling pain. On top of the sensation that my left arm is being hit with a hammer, the skin on my arm, back and hand has developed hyper sensitivity. It feels like it is on fire, or like it has been scraped and is raw and bleeding. I keep expecting to look in the mirror and see my skin red and raw, but it looks normal. The doctor told me that this is part of the pain that comes with nerve involvment.

I live with a heating pad and and ice pack being used simultaneously on my arm and neck. I long to sleep in my bed, but find that I can't bear to lie flat for long. I can sometimes lie on my back a few minutes, but will find that after a while, the pain builds. Lying on my side (my usually sleeping position) is out of the question.

Unfortunately, I have turned to food even more so over the last week. I suppose in an effort to cope with the pain. But, news flash...food doesn't help. Duh.

I have a new empathy for people who deal with debilitating, chronic pain. I do hate feeling like an invalid. I have prayed for my friends who are suffering with more earnestness this week, as I begged God to take away the pain.

Right now, I must just try to get through this the best that I can. I will continue to pray and continue to wait for healing. I will choose to look for things to be grateful for....a good recliner to sleep in, medicines that take the edge off the pain. Ice packs and heating pads. A family that is sympathetic and willing to help when asked. For a swimming pool that I can float in and sometimes get a small amount of relief in. And mostly a God who I know hears me, and is with me even in the midst of the pain.

In the meantime, once again I am going to work at eating only when I am hungry, and to move away from using food as a comfort. It is not comforting. It only makes it worse, and I know that carrying all this extra weight is only hurting me more. Is this what it takes for me to finally "get it" and stop overeating? I don't know. But for now, since I can't exercise, I must just learn to live without the momentary pleasure of eating just to eat, or to distract me from my pain or discomfort. I will chose to turn first to God for comfort. It is a long, long journey. But I will begin now.

Grocery Store Disney Land

I had an "interesting" experience Saturday. We are on our yearly vacation to my hometown (Wilmington, NC). And I was running errands. I stopped by a grocery store that I used many years ago when we still lived here. It has been updated several times. This last update was a doozy.

As I walked into the store, I took in the strange wooden siding in the front in place of the usual picture glass entry, and the smiling greeter at the door cooking brats on a grill. I am not sure, but I think he was wearing a checkered shirt and cowboy hat. I say I am not sure, because I didn't particularly notice at the time, but think that based on what happened over the next few minutes.

I walked in and found the new interior very bright and airy. Nice. Then I noticed a few echoes of a barn motiff...a hay bale here. A scarecrow there. As I walked toward the back I began to notice a metallic sound. Bank, clonk, bank, clonk. Whoosh. I looked around wondering if a train was at the depot, or if they were still renovating the back end. I noticed a huge working gears decorative border above the meat counter and realized it was from there. A sort of Country Bear Jamboree kind of thing. I didn't see any singing bears though. Maybe they only came out on the hour. I was thinking to myself that I could not have worked here with that racket constantly in the background. How odd. But the oddness was not finished yet.

As I walked around I got busy searching for the item I went in to purchase and made my way to the front to pay. As I rounded the corner, I noticed a 6 foot chicken accompanied by his handlers. Not trying to act amazed like the out of town rube that I was, I continued to the register. I heard behind me pieces of their conversation.  "Not scary", was one phrase I specifically heard, and I thought perhaps there might be a toddler near by, but when I looked around only the adult employees were there and then, as if on cue with my glance, they began a loud chant about a hoedown and something about your hometown store,  and finished up with an enthusiastic YEEE HAA! I was almost the only customer in the store at the moment, so I assume it was on my behalf. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to square dance on my way out of the store or not, so I made a quit beeline for the door, past the lady in the balloon and corn hole corral.

I left wondering when it became a thing to turn grocery shopping into an experience. In my day you were lucky to get a free cookie or balloon for your kid at the more upscale stores. Now it has become a ADHD paradise. A day in disneyland while you shopped for bologna and milk.

Yeeee Haaaa!

Off to see the Wizard

A kind friend wrote me a note after reading my last blog entry, all concerned about my mental state. She empathized with me, and shared my feelings, so it was a great, encouraging note for me. And not once did she mention a straight jacket or anything. I told you on my first post to watch the crazy happen as my blog continued. I must have had a premonition.


Crazy has been happening to me. I could feel myself unraveling like a wound up rubber band. I could feel the despair and self loathing rising to a fever pitch. And yet, I just sat inside myself, saying to myself, "Self, you are a nut case".

Sometimes I am. Maybe it is part of being female. Maybe in my 50's I'm finally going bonkers. Maybe I need to move to Peru or go see the Wizard of Oz or something.

I've been playing around with this and that method of losing weight. Cutting carbs here.  Counting calories there. Hoping for a miracle to happen here, not treating random stomachaches in the hope of weight loss there. None of it seemed to work well. Crazy is just too powerful of an ailment for the usual treatments.

Maybe I could find an electric fence for some homemade shock therapy?

I am kidding. Really I am. I know I am not really crazy, not much anyway,  but I am slowing driving myself crazy with this whole weight issue. Why am I making such a federal case out of this? Mostly my ailment is in my own mind. The mind is a powerful thing to lose. Or something like that.

I know that the one thing that has worked for me as I look back over my lifetime of dieting...and there has been a lifetime of it, believe me, is eating less. Way less. Way, way less.  As in less than normal people. Not at the level of anorexia or anything, but definitely less than the standard american diet of  1800-2000 calories per day. Probably more in the 1000 calorie level per day. Cue the sad, melodramatic music here. Or at least play 'Somewhere over the rainbow'.

Maybe I damaged my metabolism over the years. Apparently making moderate, sane changes to my diet is not sufficient for weight loss. And I really need some weight loss. Really.  I'm not feeling exactly comfortable in my own skin here.

6 months ago I lost about 15 pounds by simply eating less. Way less. I was eating with hunger and fullness, but something had turned inside me and I didn't want much food. I was probably eating somewhere in the 1000 calorie per day range, and I was doing great. I wasn't "counting calories" per se, but I was simply picking at my food in a way, and really, really being careful not to eat when I wasn't really hungry, and going slow when I did eat. Maybe I had a virus or something. Nice virus, how do I get it again?

Then I got sciatica in my back, which was not too much fun. Followed up nicely by a knee injury. Followed a few weeks later by two surgeries, one for the knee and one was a bladder sling). And what I chose to do in the midst of all that difficulty and angst and feeling sorry for myself was eat to make it better. And eat. And eat some more.  But somehow it didn't seem to make it better. Go figure.

I gained back the 15 I had lost. Then I added another 10 pounds just to be sure that 15 was on for good. And now I am worse off than before. Heavier than I have ever been and not really liking it much at all. Understatement.

So what do I do with myself? "Self, you need to get with the program". Am I listening? I sure hope so. What program? I don't know, but certainly get off the program to keep gaining weight while I figure it out.

I've gotta find a way to eat less again. Way less than I want to. I am praying about this too. I am looking to God  to help me find the path out of this pit. I know He can do it. And frankly, I know I can do it too. Faith. I must built that faith back up again. I must stop ruminating on the cobblestones of my mind, and start listening to Him again. Trusting and being obedient. Walk out of Crazy Town, starting now. Right before we go on vacation to the beach. Yeah. Great timing, right? But at least I know it is not based on my outer circumstances, but on God working on the inner me. He is able if I can find the courage to believe again.

And I do believe. I do believe. (Sounds familiar, isn't that what Peter Pan told the children to do to make Tinkerbell fly? Or was it the Cowardly Lion hoping that the flying monkeys would disappear? Either way, that was the moment something happened, right? Right?

Oh well, I'm off to see the wizard. Nah, not really. But I do have a mighty God. And He  has some kind of answer for me, if I can open up my mind and heart to hear Him.

A Long, Rambly Post

Saturday, my husband and I took a little road trip. We live in central Virginia, so we headed toward Virginia Beach with our dog Louie. Our plan was to check out First Landing State Park, but when we got there it was packed with no parking available. So we went a couple of miles further to Fort Storey, which has a Chesapeake Bay beach and an Atlantic side beach. Since we are military we were able to get on post.

We went to the bay side beach, which had luxurious green belt of trees and plants all about on the walk down the pier to the sand, and it was very pretty, with only a few people there. However, we soon found out why. The deer flies...the biting kind that seem to plague Virginia through the month of June were doing sentinel duty. They are sneaky little rascals. They'll buzz around a few minutes, dive bombing your head, and then one would find somewhere to latch on and bite...at which point a dozen would suddenly appear like sharks scenting blood in the water...causing me to scream like a little girl. Well, I exaggerate...a little. After a while I simply felt a bit panic stricken and hunted, and a bit like I was being held prisoner while those flies plotted my ransom note. I went in to the water where I stayed...with the water up to my neck to protect me from their attentions. We probably stayed there about 45 minutes.  But only because Alan had taken Louie up the beach for a jaunt before we realized how bad the flies were, so I was stuck waiting for him to get back, plotting revenge all the while from the chilly depths of the water. It was also "fun" hauling all our beach stuff half a mile back to our car.

So after that little adventure, we decided to go across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to see what we could see on the other side. This is a 17 mile bridge across the bay, and it is beautiful. It is pricey too...$15 each way. But once we got to the other side, we decided to check out a little town called  Cape Charles. I can't tell you how charming and almost magical this little town is. It is off the small highway, and on the way really to nowhere. So you are riding along a country road, take a left and find this little insular community of gorgeous, rehabbed Victorian, Craftsmen and Colonial Revival homes. Everyone of them looks like a potential bed and breakfast. There are small sleepy streets with golf carts being driven at approximately 80 miles per hour by intent little old men, and grandmas riding their bicycles in white polyester pants. There was a beautiful, silky soft white sand beach, and turn of the century row of storefronts on Main Street with galleries, coffee shops, an ice cream parlor and a single venue theater. It was gorgeous and peaceful, and we could not figure out how it sustains itself. In a strange juxtaposition, there was a cement factory across from the bay and across from the lovely main street, but despite that, the area seemed way more genteel and well heeled than a factory could supply. I had the odd sensation that I'd stepped into some sort of Stepford town, but it was beguiling.  I would love to come back and stay overnight.

Today we went to Williamsburg to bicycle.  We went to the original Jamestown Settlement, which is on an island, reached by a causeway. There is a 5 mile loop around the island and it is gorgeous...the last time we came it was cool and a little drizzly. The road is quiet with few travelers, bordered by dense tree and plant growth and occasional glimpses of the James River.  Today the weather was gorgeous but those darn flies found us and swarmed us the deeper we rode into the island. I ended up peddling for all I was worth to get out of there. My face was the color of a tomato and I was relieved when we got back to our car (8 miles total). I felt a deep hatred in my heart for those little buggers,but they made good trainers. I don't think a drill sergeant could have made me pedal any faster.

So it has been a fun, though buggy, weekend, with lots of exercise. I'm feeling disgusted with myself, though. I am definitely not losing weight, despite all the exercise. I need to do something to make normal, reasonable changes in my diet...but I'm not sure what. I want to be normal, I want to be healthy. I want to lose some weight without making myself crazy, even if it is slow. Is that possible? The last couple of mornings I have eaten a high protein, no bread breakfast (eggs and some fruit), and I do seem to do better with that, but by lunch, I find myself turning to my old processed carb choices. I think it is mostly habit and convenience, and lack of ideas for what to make myself. A sandwich is the old faithful standby. For years I have wanted to try cutting out highly processed carbs and so much sugar to see if that was helpful, but I don't know if that is the right path or not, and I've always talked myself out of even trying it. I am not about to try and follow an "Atkins style" diet. I guess I'm just thinking more mediterranean...without so much bread and sweets. I wonder if eating a higher percentage of protein, with plenty of veggies and some fruit would be helpful?  Like I said, I want to eat and maintain a normal lifestyle. I tend to go overboard with everything I do, but when I don't know the "rules" I feel all adrift. Maybe I could try eating a whole foods diet in the main, and somehow still manage to allow myself to eat "off plan" on occasion. Maybe it is a matter of building new habits and seeing the high sugar, high processed stuff not as forbidden, just as not everyday choices. I don't seem to go overboard with things like rice, pasta or potatoes. Its the bread and sugary treats that call my name.  I have been doing a lot of thinking about this. I know I need to find a path that is healthful and sane, one that I can follow by eating when I am hungry and not eating emotionally. I just don't know if I am capable of infusing common sense in my eating routines. Isn't that silly?It smells of a lie I have taught myself to believe. Why should this be so hard? Habit is a mighty magnetic thing.

Learning (again) how to notice

Lately I have found myself paying attention. Paying attention not to the inner me…I’ve always done that. I’ve always listened to the inner dialogue, the constant self-check. The inner critique. At times it has been worrisome, exhausting. Yet, it is an intensely important aspect of my make up, of who God created me to be. It is just me, and I accept and embrace it.

But over time I have forgotten the child-like wonder in the world outside of me. I forgot to take the time to really enter into the physical world. Being a visual person, I have always noticed beauty, but entering into the physical goes beyond just sight, though sight is am important conduit of information.

It is when I am out doors, doing my two favorite activities…bicycling and swimming…that I find it easiest to enter into the physical dimension, and take it in with a sort of meditative enjoyment. It becomes almost a prayer, in a way that I have never prayed before.

Lately I find myself noticing how my legs feel when I am pedaling my bike. The weight of humidity on my skin, or the delight of days when a crisp wind blows and the sunlights chases in and out among the trees. I notice the sound of my steady, even breathing. The pull of the hills as I ascend and the whoosh of delight when I coast. It is good.

I enjoy the blessing of having a swimming pool in my own backyard. I never thought I’d have that, and yet it is a source of constant delight for me in the summer months. I love the way the sunlight flickers through the water. I enjoy the caress of cool water on sun warmed skin and the release of tired muscles. I emerge from the depths and feel the soft breeze against my face. My dog races around the pool, intensely interested in my play. I splash the water to entertain him and look up and notice the glory of large, crystal drops of water falling down on my face like magic. I dive into the turmoil of water, and feel the tickle of tiny bubbles rushing toward my face in the pool. I find myself laughing as I throw a water sogged tennis ball for Louie, and watch him race with glee to catch it before it lands, white feathery tail swishing with delight.  I smell the clean scent of the slightly salty water. I hear the birds scolding from the safety of their leafy homes. 

I have discovered a child like joy in the process of noticing the outer world that I had forgotten over the years when I was paying too much attention to the inner world. It is good to notice. To breathe. To feel. Those are gifts from God. Why did I forget?

And yet, I see the irony of how I am taking in these observations, meditating on them, and making them part of the inner landscape. My natural habitat. And that’s ok too. If my inner world becomes too sterile, it is enlivened by the addition of the outer world, and its rude, basic, gorgeous reality.

I am thankful to God for helping me to notice. We lose so much to preoccupation with our inner selves, and with adult worries and ruminations. Noticing the world brings gratitude. Noticing and enjoying is a prayer. 

A Boy Named Bear

Yesterday I had the fun task of bathing suit shopping. (Said with gritted teeth and a fake smile on my face).

Bathing suit shopping is not my favorite pastime. And I don't care who you are, I really don't know any women who admit to liking it.  Probably because if any woman said she enjoyed bathing suit shopping the rest of us would promptly clobber her.

So, I am choosing a few likely numbers to try on (likely not to satisfy me that is). And a woman appears in the vicinity with her two children in tow. One is a world weary, approximately 11 year old girl. It is her job to follow mom and her kid brother around and keep him in check. Which she does by repeatedly telling him that, "He is not going to get a toy if he don't behave!" Mom starts out authoritative, if kind. "Bear, stay near momma", she warns sweetly. "OH, does Bear want to hold momma's bag? THANK you, Bear. Bear, come back here and pick up that bag."

Bear is a 3 year old boy with a clearly healthy enjoyment of exercise.

So momma take her selections into the dressing room, and then leaves him with sis a moment to grab one more suit. His sister viciously tells Bear that 'she is glad he ain't going to get no toy.' Bear seems unimpressed with the taunt. Sis locks Bear out and Bear begins banging on the door. "Girl! Lemme in!"

By this time I have secreted myself in the other dressing room with my choices and begin to try them on, desperately hoping that Bear won't start crawling under the dressing room doors in his pursuit of physical education. I speed change between suits, rejecting each and every one, while listening to the ongoing dialogue between momma, sis, and Bear.

At some point, Bear's nickname is dropped in favor of his given name, Darrin. (I wonder if he was named after mean Darrin or nice Darrin...you remember, on Bewitched?) In between warning Darrin/Bear to "Come back here, put that down, sit still, Momma is almost done, and DON"T eat that, and stop licking the mirror, Bear!", Momma is also commenting on her bathing suit choices, and which one, in her words,  "hide the jello legs and tummy bulge best". Sister is recruited to critique the suits, and is apparently about to take a photo of momma, who emphatically tells her to desist. Bear runs back and forth, providing punctuation phrases to every suit Momma tries on. "How about this one? Bear, come here!" or I don't feel as fat in this one. Darrin...watch out for that rack!" or What do you think Sissy? Darrin, putthatdownbeforeIwhoopyourhide!"

At least I didn't feel alone in the self loathing department, and Bear definitely made for a more entertaining swim suit session.

God bless young mommas and their little Bears. I think she found her suit. I hope so anyway. I'm not sure Macy's could handle any more time with little Bear.

Rules, Shmules.

I’m essentially a practical person. I counted calories religiously for 2 weeks. Lost a couple of pounds in the first few days, only after that to see one of those pounds come back on and stay there…occasionally hovering slightly up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think much of a weight loss method that works like that. So over the last 3 or so days, I have had to think on this and consider some making some changes. But what changes? How do I do this?

When I was a child, I didn’t know the first thing about diet rules and weight management. And I didn’t care. Food was for when you were hungry…and then you wanted it now. If you weren’t hungry, food didn’t interest you. I remember once being told to finish eating a roll on my plate…and then throwing up right at the table. It wasn’t me being ornery…I just simply was full and literally couldn’t hold it down. (Strange, I don’t remember my dad ever forcing me to eat more than I wanted ever again.)

Of course, like most kids, I loved candy and sweets. I’m sure I would have been happy to consume any sweet morsel offered me at any moment, but those instances truly were rare treats, and I never had the option to eat them to excess. Those opportunities  didn’t happen all that often, and even so, I was very active. I easily absorbed them with no change in my body. I may have even run around more afterwards. In fact, yes. I am sure I did. I was a hyper little kid.

Then, over the years I heard an increasing number of rules. “Finish your plate!”  “Don't spoil your appetite!” “Don’t eat dessert before dinner.”  “You need three meals a day with all the appropriate food groups.” Later, I dove into dieting where I learned that food had these interesting things called calories and carbs and all sorts of technical sounding information. If you limited those things, weight would magically drop off. And it did in the beginning. A fascination for diets was born. A new game! Ha! All I had to do is follow the rules and win! 

Diets are like crack for rule following girl such as myself. Once you try it, you are hooked on the rush…the power! 

I’ve always loved rules. My husband laughs at me because I always want to know the rule and to unquestioningly follow it. If it is posted on a sign somewhere, there must be a perfectly good reason for it!, all thought out by the people that come up with rules and laws. I’d follow a road sign right into a creek and still wonder if I was the one who messed up!

I love to play games and want to know and understand the rules from the beginning. I was never one for cheating at Solitaire. What is the point? If you are going to cheat, then don’t play. 

Rules are so neat and tidy. If you do ‘x’, then ‘y’ will follow. 

That is, until the last few years of one diet fail after another. Over and over I followed the rules of this or that diet, expecting weight loss to systematically follow. Over and over I failed, sometimes it was because the rules were too challenging, but more often it was because the rules were not producing the promised results. What alchemy is this? If I follow the rules and don’t get the product, then I’m going to quit that game. What is the point?For that is another little tidbit about me. I am competitive! I like to win.

One way I thought I was a rebel was that I weighed myself everyday, contrary to conventional wisdom, and I was rather proud of this little uncharacteristic rebellion. But the truth is that weighing myself everyday had become an unwritten rule I have followed for quite some time. I have stubbornly resisted the naysayers who say not to do this.  I thought…well it helps me. But today I wonder, has it?

I have let fear rule my thought life. I told myself, if I just give up diets then I’ll be as big as the people on My 600 Pound Life. My family will leave me. People will hate me and stare at me and throw things at me. God will wash His hands of me.

Ok, so maybe I have blown my fears up a little out of proportion, but there is some truth to some of them. Being out of control of your eating will lead to greater and greater weight gain. Which leads to worse health issues. Which impacts your family and thus your relationships.

But here’s the kicker. All that might be true. But how has weighing every day, trying countless diets, counting calories, and obsessing over it every day of my life worked out for me? 

I have only steadily gained weight through the years of these behaviors and right through those fears which were supposedly keeping me in check. Fear has loomed large. Guilt and shame take up a lot of real estate in my head. And the weight just keeps ratcheting up. I have gotten to the point where I don’t even believe I am capable of sustained weight loss and being at a comfortable weight again. Where did that thought pattern come from?

So now it is time to try some radical changes in my mind and in my behaviors. 

For one, I need to lay off the scale. I mean really. It’s not helping me. If I am losing, then I tend to either celebrate by eating, or get all excited and get even stricter on my diet, which leads to self sabotage eventually.  If I gain, then I feel like giving up. Again, more self sabotage.  How does this help me? I have been seeing a  wise counselor lately, and we were discussing this issue today, and she said that I should only get on a scale if I am prepared to be kind to myself, and when I have stopped giving a little machine the power to change how I feel.

I need to stop counting calories and being all rule “follow-y”. Seriously. It is not helping. It just makes me feel deprived and “diet-y” and when I don’t get the results I want, then I feel hopeless and quit. That’s not working for me either.

I need to go back to listening to my body and work on not using food for anything other than nourishment. I knew how to do that as a kid, and for a few brief times in my life as an adult. But I have forgotten how to trust my body. Even some of the very good tools I learned about giving my hunger a number on a scale and keeping it between those imaginary numbers is a danger for me right now. Because it is a rule that exists outside of my body’s need. And heaping guilt on myself for now following the hunger/fullness number scale system doesn’t help me either. It’s time to question all the rules I have blindly followed, without abandoning the principle. The principle is to eat when you are hungry and not to eat for emotional reasons, but the numbers I name my hunger levels elevate the principle to a blind rule.

My counselor (who happens to have specialized in eating disorders) told me today that normal eating is not necessarily the same day by day or meal by meal. Some days or times you might eat lighter than usual…sometimes a little more, but the average is that you eat when your body needs food, stop when you believe you have had enough, and if you occasionally have an event where food is, you might even… gasp… have some food when you are not hungry!! The hallmark of normal eating though, is that you don’t eat for emotional reasons, but that if you sometimes eat even when you are not hungry, your don't feel guilt. You move on, and in kindness to your body, you wait to eat when you are hungry again.

Most of the time, normal eating should look the way it did when I was a healthy, but skinny, kid. I couldn’t be bothered with food if I was having fun or busy. And when I was done eating (full),, I stopped…with no regrets, and no desire to keep shoving it in. (Watch out if you were the one who urged me to keep eating…bleck!)

Even the old idea of writing your food down and trying to live by all the latest wisdom in the diet world is right now a danger for me. Food journals and their numbers, diet rules…where have they gotten me? It’s time to try kindness and common sense. To choose to listen to my body…really listen. And I don’t mean listen to appetite, but to my body. And learning to trust that, for example, when I eat nothing but carbs for breakfast it will leave me hungry an hour later (when it may not be convenient to eat), but that including eggs in my breakfast will keep me going for a while. This is something I have learned over the years about my body, and I should pay attention to that little nugget of wisdom, because it is not a rule…it’s an observation.

So I’m going to try this. What have I got to lose? 

Hope

I've been pondering a lot of big thoughts lately. And I haven't hurt myself yet, so I think it is safe.

If part of my purpose is to grow faith, to learn to hope, then I must guard against the enemies of hope.

It is so easy to talk yourself out of anything that requires investment. Investment of time, energy, money. But most of all hope. Hope is the currency that we all find ourselves short on in the face of discouragement or difficulty. You have to continuously grow hope. Foster hope. You can't bank it for a rainy day. You have to spend it--the more thoroughly the better. It can't be hoarded away. It won't survive being locked up or kept safe. It must be thrown upon the waters. It thrives on danger and wastes away when guarded.

Hebrews 11:1-3 says,

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the people of old received their commendation.  By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.


That's the thing. God wants us to live with hope. To grow in faith. It is the currency of heaven. The very nature of spiritual things. God himself called the world into being out of nothing. There was no hint of creation before He brought it into being. It came from no visible glimmer, no former pattern. And when we dream, when we hope and have faith, we must learn to not look around for the obvious. The low rumble that warns the train is coming, the flash of light around the bend in the tunnel. NO! We have to believe things that we can't see. We are called to step into a dark tunnel in hope, trusting the One who tells us that though it is never SAFE to hope, it is what we were made to do.

We, like Eve, are tempted to take the path of knowledge. We want to know things. To gather information and then, be our own god by deciding how to proceed. But God invites us instead to live by faith. It is not that we aren't to use our brains, or to be wise...but how much more heavily do we rely on what is seen over what is unseen? I don't need training to follow my brain, but I very much need practice in living by faith.

Even something as simple as eating sensibly requires faith and hope, built upon a bedrock of truth. Though faith is the assurance of things not seen, it is also built on Truth. When my assumptions are lies, then hope is built on a sandy foundation. I must build my hope on truth...and more specifically the very Truth, Jesus Christ.

So it is wisdom I seek more than knowledge. Truth. And after I have discovered truth, I am required to build my hope on that truth. To disregard temptations to abandon the truth, to resist the discouragement that teaches me to cease hoping.

Ultimately my goal is heaven, but right now, I must live this life here  on the earth. And for some reason, God knows that I need to learn faith, hope and love. I can't even please him without Faith, so, it is best to get busy!

So today I will practice hope. I will hope that by consistent, daily healthy choices, my body will respond in time. Even though I am seeing no sign of it happening yet. The scale is stubborn--I waver after almost two weeks with between 1 and 2 pounds loss, and I am tempted to ditch the whole thing. But I am choosing hope today. I know...the truth is I have made big changes in my diet and exercise. I must foster hope that those changes will bear fruit in time. In spite of the evidence not seen. I must also be grounded in unvarnished truth. It won't do to let lies come in and undermine my hope. I must ferret out the lies and faulty beliefs before my hope is built on a sure thing.

Exercise, otherwise known as Breathing Hard, is good for you.

I have been enjoying my bicycle since I have pretty much recovered from my knee surgery almost 2 months ago.  I got in 6 1/2 miles today, and it took me about 42 minutes. And I went uphill...both ways! Well, I did have a few hills. And I did breathe hard and I got a little sweaty. So that means that I did good, right?

Seriously though, I do enjoy my bike. I like to go fast. If I'm going to be exercising I like the sensation of the earth moving past me at a decent clip. It somehow seems more laborious to me if the road moves slowly under my feet...or even worse, walking on a treadmill. You get nowhere on those things! And I have to think I'm getting somewhere...and the faster the better. (And yes I do have a bit of a lead foot in the car, more's the pity).

But losing weight is not something I can speed up. There is no quick, easy version to switch to in order to make the road to thinness whip by me, hair floating in the breeze. At times it is a slog--a slough. It is sometimes a thankless, monotonous task that seems to go nowhere fast. I know that persistence is the key here, but it is so hard to keep going against along a slow, tortuous meandering slushy way...dropping a pound here...a few ounces there, gain a few ounces at times for no explicable reason, lose a little more the next week. You really have to take the long view and do your best to not think about the pace. It is what it is. Might as well accept it.

That has been one of the areas of weakness for me over the years. I lose momentum and cannot content myself with minuscule losses, or pauses, or even reversals when I am doing everything right! So I give up, gain weight, and then have to tackle it at a later date. Ah the insanity!

And that is how it seems to be for me now. I have dropped maybe two pounds over the past week. I say maybe, because sometimes it goes up a pound and sometimes down. But I do weigh a little less. It is just that since I don't see the scale moving steadily downward, I'm tempted to think this is not working! After all, I've given it all this TIME. I've been good...where's the instant, constant and steady payback?

But losing weight or overcoming any hurdle in life is somethings that needs HOPE to feed it. Faith. You have to believe, in spite of current evidence, that making sane, healthy changes in the way you eat and move will make things change for the better in time. That even if it is slow, so very slow, it will come.

I have to work on building my hope. To discard the negative voices and have the boundless faith of a child again.  How do I do that?

Crack for the Menopausal Woman

After a day off from blogging, I'm not feeling particularly inspired to write cleverly today. Still plugging along with my eating plan. Making better choices with my eating. Maneuvering successfully through the minefields of restaurant meals, and even a dessert buffet at my end of the year gathering for my English as a Second Language students.

But today I bought a package of Godiva caramel crunch bars, my kryptonite! They are little chocolate bars filled with chewy caramel and sea salt sprinkled liberally on top. I am pretty sure they were manufactured by little magical elves who are bent on keeping me heavy and hooked on their version of crack for the middle aged woman. One bite and I'm down for the count. So I haven't had that bite yet. It is on the shelf just out of my reach, but not out of my mind. The thought of it has danced entrancingly around my mind like a cartoon bubble cloud. I know I shall eat it. I must, I must!

Ok. So I plan to eat it. And I will eat it. It shall be mine and shall come to nestle safely in my tummy, all warm and happy. It is simply no good to anyone on a shelf, just taunting you like that. So I will teach it a lesson and consume it and then I will win. Er. Well, sort of. No, not really, but why does it seem like a victory as I contemplate having it for my very own precious?

Do I need to be one of those people that don't keep certain foods in their house? Or should I remain of the opposite camp of far kinder and gentler folk who believe in keeping stashes all over their house in case of emergency. (You know, a craving emergency.)

Hmm. I've always kept my stashes. For me it is worse to want something and not have it near and then wind up eating something that only whets the appetite for the craving but still leaves you longing for the thing you were dreaming about.

I don't know. It's something to think about, I guess. But for now I plan to enjoy that little morsel, and just write down the calories in my little app and keep on rolling.

Cue the ominous music.

It's Not Me, It's You

Have you ever thought that maybe you've been living your life on auto drive? That maybe you were so focused on one way of doing things that you never stopped to think it could be done differently? Should be done differenly? That maybe, gasp, there is a better way to go? Or that maybe you have been traveling a rut so long that you can't see over the ridge to a beckoning vista beyond?

We all like to float in the stream of accepted dogma. No one likes to go against the stream for long. We at least like to find our own tribe and swim along with them. It's like this with politics, and philosophy, and especially religion. (That's why relationship with God is so much more challenging than just following religious rules.)

So it is with diets. We align ourselves with people who are following the same plan, touting the benefits of our own chosen method like zealots on the mission field.We like the neat rules, and spend a lot of time bending our minds to happily acquiesce to them. I spent a very long time frantically looking for something that was "right" in the world of diets. But maybe there is not one "right" way. Talk about a paradigm shift.

Maybe you just have to pick something you can live with and stop second guessing yourself. Do ya'll second guess yourselves? Am I doing that? Wait, maybe I shouldn't do that. GAH!

The bottom line is that, no matter what eating plan you land on, we all find that we have to give up old habits, and learn new ones. We have to soberly make choices in a new way, and give up being careless. Maybe the real problem is not that I couldn't find a plan I could live with...it was that I didn't want to give up being a careless eater.

That's what I miss. Carelessness. It is so relaxing to be careless. For example, when you are not following a plan, you can mindlessly nibble your daughter's chocolate pop tart pieces that she left on the counter. (Why does she do that? Was she standing at the counter eating and then suddenly found something more compelling going on? Why can't I find more compelling things to do than finishing a chocolate pop tart?)

Mindless eating. Oh the joys. But is it really a joy? If you are doing it mindlessly, how can you be enjoying it? I mindlessly clean toilets, but don't find that I am compelled to find more toilets to clean.

There are many things I do in a day that are rather mindless. And that's probably best considering the toilet cleaning analogy. But eating shouldn't be one of them. After all, if you like doing something, shouldn't you give it your attention?

So, now I have to P L A N. I have to write things down. I have to make choices between this or that, rather than just eating all of this and some of that, and a little more of this. But let's face it, when I was doing that it didn't make me feel good at all. Most of the time I was eating on autopilot, and would come up out of my food trance thinking, "Did I really just eat all that?"

Oh well. Even when doing something mindlessly, we are constantly making choices. Maybe I can eventually learn to mindlessly eat the right number of calories? NAH. I know that ain't gonna happen. So I have to choose to be mindful in the area of eating. And that's ok. 'Cause I like to eat, so why not pay attention to one of the pleasures of life?

That is why I am liking the simplicity of counting calories. There is only one number I need to concern myself with...the caloric content. It's not a perfect system, but if you are on a calorie budget, you do steer more toward healthy choices, since they are the ones lower in calories. And with lower calories you also automatically cut down on saturated fats, sugars, carbs...the whole enchilada. (Hm, enchiladas...maybe I can figure a low-cal version?)

I've gotta go put that chocolate pop tart in a baggie. And in the pantry. In a box. Out of sight.

So this is my life now, huh?

I am getting into the swing of things. I have noticed that the hardest moments are when I am hungry. (Duh). But no, it is not really that simple. The thing about counting calories is that every bite you take subtracts from your daily allotted total. I'm all about addition baby...don't much like subtraction.

But you start off with x number of calories per day, and then you set about eating, and that means subtraction. I could play around with semantics and say I'm adding up my calories, but when there is a limit looming at the end of the day, you know very well you are really subtracting.

 I am eating real food, with a few diet-y choices that I happen to like to smooth out the edges. I eat fried eggs and toast for breakfast, something left over from last night's dinner for lunch, and then I try and make a good meal for the family most evenings. So far this week, I've made Caprese chicken, spaghetti, and tonight chicken tortilla soup. All very good and reasonably healthy. My meals (making smaller portions) tend to be around 300-500 each. I throw in a few low calorie snacks to round out my day...and I find that I am eating a generous number of calories per day, with no real deprivation. The weight loss will be slower than if I reduced them to 1000 calories per day, but I'm just tryin' to keep it real here.

I do so hate to see the diminishing number of calories on my LoseIt! app. But I'm learning to relax, there really are plenty to work with in my day, and I can make it through comfortably if I am reasonable and sane in my choices. And I'm learning to not make any sudden decisions to ditch the diet an hour before I eat. Those moments when you are getting really hungry are when your mind seductively whispers, "Why don't you do this diet thing another day?"And then I realize, I'm going to be doing this for a long time. Really forever. There is no such thing as starting another day, because all the days I have left will leave their mark on my body, whether I chose to acknowledge that or not.
It's best to make peace with the fact that, like money, I have a limited amount and if I don't want the consequences of overspending (money or calories) then it's best to put it down on paper and stick to it.

Things My Cat Told Me

I'm not really a cat person. I have a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Louie who occupies the special place in my heart reserved for furry things. But I do have a cat named Mishka that I like. He is weird. Truly. I have watched him sit and stare at a blank wall. Of course, you have to wonder about me watching a cat watching a wall. But...oh never mind. I'm weird too. I admit it.

Now, Mishka doesn't actually talk to me. That would be really weird. And probably unbelievable.  But I know what he is saying most of the time. I remember when he was a kitten and I took him to get neutered. He said, 'AWEEEMEOWWWAWA." Which means "I am going to kill you when we get home." No, he actually didn't try to kill me right away. Cats know that revenge is a dish best served cold. He cashed in on his threat about 6 months later when he latched onto my hand with teeth and claws as I gave him a bath. I can still feel that bite 4 years later, and I haven't bathed him since. We began to understand one another at this point. Since then I always take him to a professional groomer who always tells me how well behaved he is for his bath. Mishka always smirks at me when she says that.

He's not always malevolent. Sometimes he comes and sits on my lap and puts his head on my shoulder and purrs happily. This worked out pretty well until we got Louie. Now whenever the cat gets in my lap, Louie tries to come join him, and then the fun games begin where I try get away while they play the game, 'ThisIsMYMomAndYouNeedToLeave'. It is a game for three players, but I don't usually like it much.

Last weekend we took a trip home and I boarded Louie. My cat does not like to be boarded. He is an inside/outside cat, which means that he goes inside or outside every time the door opens. So when we take a short trip, we prop the door to the garage to give him shelter, and leave him plenty of food and water and he is much happier out than when we have tried keeping him indoors for days. (I know this because if he stays in too long he pees on my favorite chair in order to tell me not to do this in the future.)

So as we were preparing to leave, I had the kids make sure Mishka was out of the house before we locked up. But by the time we were pulling out, I wondered if he had somehow made his way back in, so we stopped while I called his name to see if he appeared. He did not answer me or come to me, but as I walked around the house I saw him sitting in the front behind a bush, staring accusingly at me. I know what he was saying. "So, you are off again on a fabulous trip and think that I will not notice your absence, do you? I will remember, my lady. Oh yes, I will remember." At this point of the conversation, he casually flexed his extended paw and licked it to dismiss me, but he and I both knew the message had been given. We both know what a long memory he has.

So what does all this have to do with dieting and weight loss? Weight loss plans are like cats. They speak their own language, fill you with dread, and eventually deliver on their promise at some unknown future date. I am three days in and I have heard whispers of hunger, promises for the future, and a good bit of staring at blank walls for no obvious reason. But the scale finally dropped down over a pound, so I'm pretty sure that means I'm winning. For now.

Dieting is not always fun, but what can you do? Diets seem to have more than 9 lives, and I'm pretty sure if they could talk they would try to be the boss of me. Which is kind of the point. Where is that cat, anyway?

OCD is Alive and Kicking

I spent a good amount of time setting up my blog and rewriting my first post and then editing and editing again. Pretty soon it will be perfect. And then I will go arrange my soup cans alphabetically. Nah. Just kidding. I think. Why do people do that? Should I do that? Do you do that by brand name, or do you start the alphabetizing all over with each brand? How do you decide which shelf to put them on?  Left to right, up to down?  Or is that too left-brainy? Wouldn't it look prettier by color? Hmm...now we are talking!

I kid. I'm not that OCD. Just mildly. Well maybe moderately. How do I get off this topic?

I spent a whole day following my calorie plan. I even came in under my calorie budget! I weighed in this morning and am down two tenths of one pound. Celebrate! Should I be weighing daily? Maybe not. Why do I do that? Could it be my OCD tendency? Do I care? Why should I care? Then again why should I not care? Shall I make a list of pros and cons? Am I driving you crazy? Am I crazy? STOP the madness.

Seriously though, I have found daily weighing to at least keep me grounded in reality. Although it is interesting how you can get to the point where you see the pounds climbing daily and can keep telling yourself that you MUST start losing weight for a ridiculous number of days. And still be mildly surprised that the weight is not magically inching downward. And it is amazing how easy it is to say to yourself...well, maybe tomorrow I'll start a new eating plan. Or after this event, or after that weekend. Maybe I was not as grounded in reality as I like to think? Ya think?  Of course I have not been grounded in reality. I have been grounded in Creative Overthinking and Carefully Constructed Willful Ignorance.

I read a comment somewhere that has resounded in my mind over and over in recent weeks. It was something like this..."you are not fat, you HAVE fat". It is a new thought that I am trying to program into my mind. To identify yourself as fat or even as a fat person is programming yourself with a lie, or at best a twisting of reality. I am not fat. I have fat that I'd like to lose, but it is not me. It is flesh. It reflects a period of years of bad choices, and emotional eating, but it is not my identity, who I am or who I am meant to be. My body is my earthly habitation, and I can work to make it a comfortable one or not...but it is still only an outward shell for who I really am. The person God created and interacts with is not simply my physical self, it is also the inner me. My physical body is a combined result of God's original gift coupled with the sum total of my reactions to the material and spiritual world around and within me. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus is to be Lord of all...yet my body unfortunately does reflect the years of choosing my own way. Thank God there is grace and forgiveness. Otherwise I might be tempted to believe I should just give up. He continually whispers a reality check if I open my ears to listen.

Speaking of comfortable or not. I wore a pair of pants yesterday to substitute teach in that I have not tried on for a few months. When I first put them on it didn't feel too bad.  A little snug maybe, but I figured it would hold in the extra girth in a more flattering silhouette than another choice. (Exhibit A: Carefully Constructed Willful Ignorance)  An hour or so later I felt like my organs were being pressed upward into my rib cage. The waist band cut into my middle like a vise, and I felt like 3 pounds of sugar packed into a two pound sack. Definitely not comfortable. And reason number 281 for getting some weight off. I used to want to lose weight only so I would look good. That was back when I was slim enough not be be really physically uncomfortable. And though I don't deny the desire to look my best...my motivation right now is to feel comfortable in my skin and in my body. I remember feeling light and "bendable". I can still bend, but it ain't pretty or comfortable.

So, I march onward, in the attempt to remove the Carefully Constructed Willful Ignorance and exchange it with reality. Real reality. Really real reality. Ok. You get the idea, right?

How to start, how to start.

They say the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. But when you have a large hunk of pounds that you'd ideally like to lose, that is a rather daunting prospect. Especially when you're "50 something". And a slow loser. And have a track record of the last 15 years of yo-yo dieting, with mixed results but an over all steady weight gain of of an alarming number of pounds. Mixed result. Yea. Let's call it that.

It wasn't always like this. I was a rather petite teen and a somewhat average to petite young woman. I started "dieting" at 12 when I weighed 105 pounds, so I was seriously deranged then. Oh to weigh what I weighed when I first thought I was fat!

The morning weigh in revealed a brand new, shiny high. I have been avidly and with great interest watching that number edge up over the last 4 months. I was 20 pounds less back in December, and I was just beginning to feel better and have hope of continuing onward. Then I had a couple of surgeries and was not able to exercise...and hey, if you can't exercise there's only one thing you can do...EAT!

So now reality forces open my squinting eyes, and I realize that if I don't start controlling what goes into my mouth, my weight is just going to keep going up. And I'll end up with diabetes. And then I'll die. Well, let's face it, I'm going to die anyway, but I don't want the diabetes part. Plus I am really tired of sore knees and squeezing into my jeans (but refusing to buy the next size up) and not enjoying clothes shopping at all. I want to make a change, I just need the courage to do it. And to stay with it a very, very long time.

I realized that since writing has always been my thing, why not blog about it and have some accountability that way? If you know I'm doing this and I know you know, then maybe I'll stay focused. I will try to be honest...well honestish, anyway.

My plan? I have mulled over this for years now. I have tried Weight Watchers on and off again many, many times.  Eventually I gave up every time when my weight loss  stalled.  The last time I tried it, they had gone to "smart points" which consists of a formula that strips every ounce of joy out of dieting (smirk), which for me means sheer torture that you have to pay for. No thanks. If I'm going to torture myself I want to do it for free.

I have had success with Intuitive Eating on and off over the years, but then something always happens to pull me off that track and put me firmly back on the track of Emotional Eating. Which is like intuitive eating but way more entertaining and less successful. I've tried low carbing for about 3 hours, but I like bread and also feeling like a normal human, so...

I tried liquid only fasting for a day once when I had to have a colonoscopy. And though I love jello and gatorade as much as the next girl, it is not an experience I'd like to repeat on a regular basis. And I have actually fasted for a day or so for spiritual reasons...but it is not really the best weight loss plan since you eventually have to stop fasting. (I have discovered that eating regularly is part of life for some curious reason).

So I am just going to try (again) the good old fashioned basics of calorie counting. I started with calorie restriction as a slim and stupid teen, and it worked quite effectively for 10 years or so, and honestly, though I didn't really need to lose weight back then, it sure did work better than any other method I've used since. Back then I used a 1960's era booklet with a woman in a leotard smiling encouragingly about her 1000 calories a day diet of cottage cheese and Tab cola. I did that religiously and lived to tell about it.

I'm going to use an app on my smart phone to track my food. I chose the "Lose it!" app, which seems to be pretty easy to use...and I'm just using the free version. I'm not even sure how many calories I will end up shooting for daily, but I tried inputing my weight and my desire to lose a pound a week, and it gave me a end day of 200 years from now. I exaggerate the end day. But it is A Very Long Time Into the Future.

And the truth is, I likely don't need to lose all the way down to my former happy weight. Weighing what I weighed at age 35 sounds alluring and delicious and like A Very Good Idea, but I am nearly 52 now and haven't seen that weight for 16 years. Getting down that low may make me look like a tiny crone. And though I will admit that tiny crone trumps roly poly old lady, I might be fine as average middle aged woman in the normal range-ish.

I may try and go lower in calories later, but we'll start with those initial diagnosed daily calories for now. And I plan to up the activity level little by little. See how sensible I plan to start? You can watch the crazy take over later..