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.