So. . . long time no post, and the whole "eat better thing" went by the wayside for quite a while, eh? As I keep telling my son, persistent practice makes perfect performance, but I don't seem to be living by that rule.
And it shows, especially when you go to your annual physical! I made some changes recently - all good, and none instigated by the physical. Actually, I forgot I had the physical scheduled, which is funny because I have it every April (since I have 3 family birthdays in April, I figure that's the month I'll be paying attention - not!). Anyway, I finally managed to give up sweet tea (again) and carbonated beverages (again) and now I drink mostly water or fruit juices, with the occasional coffee and alchoholic beverage thrown in. I've also reduced bread/pasta/cake/cookies - since Dad began his diagnosed struggle with celiac disease, I have rightly or wrongly come to view wheat products as poison. So not only do I think "hmmm, this is probably fattening" when I eat some of that delicious brown bread at the Longhorn Steakhouse, I now think "Hmmm, this is poison" if I eat a cookie. That doesn't stop me eating the cookie, but it does keep the total cookie consumption down. Since I've never been much of a sweet eater, the cookie/cake thing isn't hard. And I dropped about 5 pounds over the last couple of months, which was very nice. It was kind of like a drop in a bucket, really, but it was something.
Meanwhile, Spring Break happened, and my kids spent most of the week with my mom, living the GF life. The GF life turned out to be harder for the Boy than for the Girl - the Boy is a noodle freak, and has recently discovered the Joys of Ramen. The Girl is omnivorous, which means that if it's not tied down, she'll eat it and if it involves chocolate/sugar/fat/junky stuff, that's even better. The Girl is tall for her age, and large for any age - she doesn't jiggle exactly, but she's in a ladies size 7 underwear, and wears ladies size 14 petite pants. And she'll be 10 in four days. She is what folks down here would call "thick." Or perhaps "juicy." Generally, she sports a little bit of a tummy - except that when she came home from the 'rents for that week, the tummy was almost gone. I asked her what they did differently, and she said that she ate Papa's food and just ate less than usual. Wow, huh?
So there we are - a daughter with weight issues at age 9, and son who is underweight, and a husband who weighed 95 pounds when he joined the Marines at age 19 and who has remained on the same Marine weight gaining eating plan ever since, even once he got Dunlop's Disease. (That disease in which one's belly has "dun-lopped" over one's belt. Although he has become more mindful of portions lately and has dropped 20 pounds since New Year's - jerk.) And then there is moi, who has been gaining about 10 pounds decade since age 23, occasionally more, and who has realized only recently that my butt has gotten bigger for the first time ever - that traditionally is not where I gained weight, so hello, estrogen-related weight gain! Menopause, I see you in the distance!!!
So, the physical. I like my doctor tremendously - she does everything for me but Pap smears, for which I go to the gyno who did my colposcopy because. . . well, I dunno. I'm used to him, I guess. He's the only other man in my life who gets to take a gander at my hoo-hoo, and that's once a year if I am lucky. My doc is elegantly slim, small, fine-boned, quick and sharp and really quite nice. So we get in there, and we review - it's been a while since I've seen her, and she wants to make sure she's up to speed on me. She goes over my bloodwork - sugar is normal, triglycerides are "magnificent" (88), bad cholesterol is "wonderful", good cholesterol is "a little low - eat more fish and exercise." I have a funky liver enzyme, which apparently I got from my dad, so next time I go in I will have another look at it and see if I am ever in danger of having my portal vein get clogged up and my life essentially ruined. Then, we get to my vitals. She does some calculations and advises me my BMI is 32, while high normal is 25, and she wants me to lose weight. I ask her for a ballpark figure. She checks her little charts and says that to get someone my height to 25, I'd have to weigh max 160.
At this point, I threw my head back and howled, laughing, hooting and nearly crying because it was so funny. "BWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!" She merely looked at me - I guess folks don't usually laugh in her face when she tells them to do something that will help them.
Chicas, I weigh 204 on a good day, and that's AFTER dropping 5 pounds. I was edging up and up and up and freaked out when I got on there one morning and it said 213. So, my Dr. has just told me to drop about 45 pounds and get down to a weight that I haven't seen in almost . . . lessee, I weighed 140 when I left college, and 170 when I got pregnant with Noah, so that's somewhere between 1992 and 1996 - prob. weighed 160 when I married Stoopid. So that's be in 1994 - I haven't seen 160 since I was 24. SIXTEEN YEARS AGO. Heck, it makes me want to start laughing all over again.
But the doc advised me that she was not kidding, when I stopped to draw breath. I chuckled a bit more as I advised her that it would be wiser to consider something within the realm of possibility, but she insisted that 160 is possible and told me to exercise and join Weight Watchers. Now, y'all know me - if I join WW and they tell me I have 18 points a day, what's going to happen? Yup. My Inner Rebel is going to come out and insist that I eat 24 points a day, just to be a bitch. It's immature, I admit, but it's a fact. I have control issues. The doc and I discussed this and other things at length - she was very kind, once she realized I was generally laughing at myself and not at her. So, we'll see. We'll see.
1 comment:
Hmm. Well, I totally empathize, b/c what I weighed at 24 isn't looking too doable either, and I don't even really want to go that far. I'd just like to fit reliably into the one size smaller pants that I still have in my closet that have become too tight in the last year or two, and it just gripes me. When I went down to Florida I lost maybe three pounds--that's two more pounds than I have managed to take off (and gain back plus one) since I started to try to lose 5 pounds after Christmas. I didn't do much while I was down there, since we were there for the funeral, but I did not drink alcohol or have dessert until the last night, and just generally couldn't snack b/c I was in a hotel and running around. That's the only difference I can think of. So weird, but also unsurprising, I guess, so, I suppose my glass of wine and my 1/2 cup of low-fat ice-cream is the bridge too far for my metabolism. Well, that, and sitting on my ass in front of the computer a lot all winter, and most of the spring. If I've got to rev the metabolism back up, and apparently random bouts of activity (ie. going to the gym a few times a week, but not a lot lately) doesn't cut it when one sits on one's arse for 8-12 hours, I guess I'll be putting together the DIY standing desk when I get back from this weekend, or at least when I get back from GA.
So, anyway, clearly you need a plan, and WW *is* a plan, so why not use it as one...ie. a means to an end that you decide to invest some effort in for your own sake, and not some sort of Big Bad Boss. I mean, it's just points--you put them together however you like, with an eye out for good and broad nutrition. The numbers game is simply an easier shorthand, that spares you extra time and effort number-crunching--basically it allows you to be your own nutritionist with something like a manual or cheat-sheet.
If you aren't into meetings, don't go--do it online for more anonymous support. I don't think a good counselor would start you out on some sort of drastic low-point, practically starvation diet anyway--that would be counter-productive in every way. Probably you'll figure about what you tend to eat now, and come up with a number below that to start out with, that won't shock you or put your metabolism into slow-down, but will get the ball rolling. They might recommend one or more step-downs to something that might work faster, but in the end, consuming less calories and burning more energy than you do now, will cause you to lose weight. Slow or fast, the point is to be on the path, yes? And you've already started down it by choosing to do exactly the things any dietitian would suggest. Although I'm not going to advocate completely the "bread is poison" line--but that cutting excess sugar and calories is a good idea--including reducing bread or other carbs if you tend to eat a lot of it, as most Americans do. Most Americans don't need to eat all the junk that they do.
And good on you--you can do eeeet!
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