March | 2014 | Weighty Matters

Why Slow Is Great

by Mary Stella

I’m back from my fun-filled road trip. It was a long day, with the long drive and all, but fun too. I’m tired but I just had this great realization. I’m afraid that I’ll lose it out of my brain if I wait to write this post tomorrow.

I posed my sea lion picture so some family and friends could see it. A cousin that lives across the country sent me this wonderful email of congratulations and love and also some of the things he realizes. He talked about being inspired to witness my “slow and steady commitment in a world where immediacy is pitched, pawned and prevalent”.

I’ve read his email a few times and just now, when finally having a chance to respond, I had a big “aha” moment. I need to stop whining and ~~bitching~~ complaining about how long it’s taking me to lose these remaining 30-40 pounds.

These months have been incredibly important, I would even call them vital, to my overall recovery. They are giving me the time I need to really learn how to consistently live a life in recovery from my eating disorder. Because I continue with this effort day after day; because my journey hits speed bumps sometimes; I am fully integrating the techniques, the mindset, the tools that I need in order to sustain the weight loss and overall healthy lifestyle.

What if I’d lost all 200 plus pounds non-stop without ever hitting a slow down? I don’t know if I would have developed the new habit of consistently exercising. The commitment to creating a physically fit body might not have grown. It could have been one of those temporary efforts like I’ve made so many times in the past. Instead it feels real. It feels part of me.

Same thing with gradually learning to make healthier food choices — not just in the small stomach restriction of quantity and volume, but the slow experimentation with different foods, with different ways of cooking, with embracing healthy meals.

Tonight’s realization is so amazingly healthy for me. I love it. For the first time, I am free of resenting the plateau and the slow weight loss. Each day is a day of progress. Each day makes me stronger. I am so grateful!

Body Matters My Progress The Past is the Past

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Road Tripping

by Mary Stella

I took a road trip this weekend. I love baseball and spring training is underway. A lot of pro teams, including my Phillies, train on the west coast of Florida. Every year I’ve thought about going but never have.

This year I found a date, bought a ticket, and made the plan. The drive takes about 6 hours but with nice weather and good tunes, I didn’t mind.

Even long drives are more physically comfortable with my weight loss. I can sit with greater ease for longer periods of time. At my heaviest I think the sheer weight of so many extra pounds wore on my body internally. I know that my legs would sometimes tingle so somewhere inside the circulation was impacted. The small of my back would begin to ache.

Not so these days. I still make sure to stop once or twice and walk around a little. Overall I’m simply more comfortable than ever before.

I was good with my food in the trip, too, and didn’t indulge in crap. Got a chuckle at dinner. I stopped in a burger and brew restaurant. The burger was excellent and I ignored the roll. The servers had tee shirts on that read, “I’d be a vegetarian if bacon cheeseburgers grew on trees.” Yes, I’m a carnivorous omnivore. I laughed.

When I got to the hotel I decided that my body would thank me if I exercised after the drive. I changed into work out clothes and went to the fitness room for treadmill time.

I know it’s weird but I watched Diners, Drive Ins and Dives while I walked. Nothing like walking to burn calories while watching people eat loaded plates of delicious, if not always healthy food. 🙂

I persevered for an energetic 45 minutes and felt pretty pleased with myself for putting out the effort.

This morning I slept a little late for me and then turned on the tv. The morning news was airing a live shot of friends and former coworkers of mine who are sea lion trainers. Even though I knew this, I didn’t connect that we’d sort of be close to each other.

My baseball game wasn’t until 1 so I asked at the desk how long it would take for me to get to their park. It turned out to be closer than I thought so off I went to surprise them.

Friends, it isn’t everyday you get to log your first 5000 steps in a day walking around a zoo! What fun. It was also great to see my friends doing well with their new venture.

After that I took off for the game. Beautiful afternoon for baseball, made even better by a win by my team.

Whenever I leave the Keys I do a little shopping. There are simply too few stores in the Keys for some of the things I prefer so going off the rock is an opportunity not to be wasted. I found a great mall with every store I’d hoped to find. In between Sephora, Soma, Crocs and Bath and Body Works I also took time for dinner before calling it quits.

When I got back to my hotel I felt like I’d enjoyed a full, fun and active day. However, I didn’t feel like I’d adequately exercised. Sure I’d topped 11,000 steps but my body didn’t feel worked. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to visit the treadmill again. Now, after 30 minutes, I am happier about my day’s fitness effort.

I’m chilling in a chair while I type this on my phone. Tomorrow, I head back home. I’m going to leave early enough to stop at the beautiful, long Skyway bridge. I’ve never gone there except to drive over it but I know there are walking/fishing expanses. Might as well take advantage of it for my morning walk, don’t you agree?

I’m going to try to upload a few pictures. Hopefully it will work from the phone.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

General Musings My Progress

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Things I Love Right Now

by Mary Stella

I have a guilty pleasure. I like to occasionally buy a little soap opera magazine. The only soap I watch is General Hospital and I’ve done so for decades. The DVR records it daily and I watch when I get home at night. I like reading about the show, the actors, the storylines, what’s coming up, etc. One of these magazines has a feature where the editors/writers name the Five Things They’re Loving Right Now about a certain show. They also name the one thing they could do without.

In the spirit of this feature, I started pondering about five things I love right now about my journey, my progress, myself. Yes, I’ll also pick the thing I could do without. Here we go, in no particular order:

Whenever I’m going on a trip, whether for a weekend or longer period, I love that I automatically pack exercise clothes, walking sneaks, and my iPod. These items are now as necessary as any other wardrobe item or my cosmetics and toiletries.

I love the I’m increasingly more open and willing to choose healthier alternatives in my food. No more turning up my nose at natural, organic peanut butter (I purposely buy without added sugar.) or fat free plain Greek yogurt. Sure, let me use spaghetti squash instead of pasta under my red sauce for an Italian food fix. I’m sampling a greater variety of less processed foods, too. A friend shared something she heard from a television or celebrity doctor — she can’t remember which one. He recommended that one strong step to eating healthier is to avoid food items that are advertised on television. Sure, as with anything there are some exceptions – like quality Greek yogurt — but think about what products you see most often in commercials.

I love that I no longer take over-the-counter pain relievers every day any more. My left knee will never be 100% but it doesn’t throb or ache at the end of every day. My whole body doesn’t hurt after a full day at work. At my heaviest, I took the equivalent of prescription-strength non-aspirin pain relievers every day, sometimes a few times a day. Now I don’t even think I take them once a month.

This one might be a little shallow, but forgive me, okay? I love that I’m no longer the heaviest person I know, the heaviest person at work, the heaviest person I see most days. When you’ve lived most of your life as the most overweight person present in any situation, it wears on the self-esteem. Having that weight off of me, literally and figuratively, lightens my spirit.

I absolutely love that I can both see and feel definition in my muscles. Sometimes I have to move around a bit for the definition to be obvious because of some remaining flab or saggy skin, but my muscles are toned! I not only feel stronger, I feel powerful. Booyah!

There are more things, of course, but these are the ones that most strike me today. Now for the thing I could do without. That would be how reactive my body is to carbs. We started this week with me annoyed because I ate a few carbs and my body decided to hold onto four faux pounds of water weight. I stayed with my plan and flushed them away, then lost an additional half pound so far. This makes me happy, but the fact that it was necessary still ticks me off.

So, my friends, what are five things about yourselves or your lives that you love? It’s okay to share the thing you could do without, too.

Body Matters General Musings NSVs The Past is the Past

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Instead of Eating

by Mary Stella

Compulsively eating or binge eating were my go-to behaviors when stressed/upset/angry/sad/fearful/pick-an-emotion for so long. Developing another strategy and coming up with different coping behaviors is an on-going effort. There are always better choices, but making those choices when I’m in the midst of the emotional reaction or situation is always a big time challenge.

The fact is that I really don’t “need” those old behaviors in order to cope. Binge eating or chowing down on chocolate or some other sweet doesn’t really make it easier to cope. A candy bar never solved a problem.

I need to remind myself of that every time I’m tempted to relapse into disease behavior because of an upsetting situation. The candy bar, handful of cookies, half pint of ice cream or whatever won’t solve the problem. Thinking that they’ll help me cope is a convenient, comfortable lie. Not only will they not make me feel better, eating them in that compulsive manner usually makes me feel worse.

Today I had tons more stress over some things at work than is normal. I can’t tell you how many times I remembered that there were still plenty of cookies, brownies and pastries in the kitchen and heard my brain say, “You need one. Go get it.”

I don’t need one, or six. That’s the truth. What I needed, and worked for, was to not compound the upset by binging out on sweets. I drank water and hot tea. I got up and took a walk. I focused on the tasks at hand. I vented a little. In short, I did whatever else I could instead of acting out by eating. At the end of the day, I was still stressed by the situations and workload, but I definitely felt better about it all than I would have if I’d eaten junk.

The long and short of it all is that there are countless other things to do instead of eat. Remembering this before I eat, is the key. It goes back to being mindful and making the most appropriate choices to foster my recovery.

General Musings

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Fighting Back – Day Two

by Mary Stella

Thanks to the no-junk-carbs, healthy foods, lots of fluids approach yesterday, I’ve flushed two pounds of the evil water weight out of my body. Two more to go and I’ll be back on track.

In the midst of this I had the “Oh Yeah”, mental head smack, “D’oh!” moment. I really am supposed to eat like this all of the time while I’m still on the reducing phase of my weight loss journey. It’s not like I’ve been awful, playing fast and loose with my food plan, but clearly I have not been as “rigorously honest” with the effort as I thought. In retrospect, I will cop to what I know realize was some form of denial.

I wasn’t bingeing. I wasn’t completely immersed in compulsive eating. I was probably eating more like I will as a “normal” person. Eating well-balanced, healthy meals, indulging with a few treats here and there, but not going crazy to the point where I kept gaining pound after pound after pound.

The thing is that I’m not yet in the phase where this is the way that I should be eating. I still have weight to lose, so I was stalling my own effort. There is a LOT of great news in this realization. Just the fact that I actually can eat like a so-called “normal” person is encouraging. I’ve never been able to do that for a sustained period of time. ***I hate the term “normal person” or “normal eating” but, unfortunately, I can’t think of better, more appropriate terms right now to convey what I mean.*** I’ve now been on this journey for more than two years and, overall, I’m doing great! This gives me enormous encouragement that when it’s time for me to transition to maintenance and the future lifestyle of eating, I’m going to continue to be successful.

This eliminates an enormous fear. Deep in my heart, I’ve been almost afraid to believe that I will not gain back all of my weight. I’ve been terrified that I will revert to the old pattern, the way that I did every single other time I dieted. I am now cautiously learning to have faith and believe that I truly am converting to a person who will sustain life time recovery. These are not just “for now” changes. I’m in it to win it for the rest of my life.

For now, however, I need to maintain the rigorous honesty of my “losing” food plan. I’m fighting back against the lure of carbs and too much sugar. It’s day two of this week’s fight, and I’m committed to success. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up and commit again. Recovery is achieved by successfully living a series of “One Day at a Time” efforts.

I feel lighter today, not just in body, but also in spirit. I was growing weary of the losing effort. Today I am newly inspired.

Body Matters General Musings My Progress

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Battling Temptation

by Mary Stella

Doesn’t it figure? I’m primed, ready, and prepped to flush the effects of the evil carbs from my system, and the kitchen at work is absolutely loaded with sandwiches, pastries and cookies. I mean loaded. There are three bakery trays of sweets on the counter and the fridge is packed to overload with other stuff. I could barely find room for my lunch tote.

I really did prepare too. I have a small smoothie blender at work and a matching one at home, I put all of the ingredients for a delicious, healthy lunch-time smoothie into the blender cup and brought it with me. I also packed two small apples, for good soluble fiber and, just in case I need a little extra protein, a hard boiled egg. I am ready to battle the water-retention bulge that I suffered this weekend.

The leftover food in the kitchen makes that room the equivalent of an unsupervised, open bar for an alcoholic. I jumped on here to declare my determination not to give into the temptation to veer from my plan. I will not sneak in a cop a cookie. I will not decide that the smoothie didn’t satisfy my hunger and grab a bite of sandwich. I will go into the kitchen for three reasons and three reasons only:

To get ice from the freezer for my water glass.
To retrieve my lunch tote when it’s time for my snacks or lunch.
To use the copy machine.

I can be successful today. I will be successful today.

I’ll let you know tonight how I did. In the meantime, some positive energy from my blog buddies will help. Thank you!

Body Matters My Progress

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I (h)Ate Carbs

by Mary Stella

I’m pretty annoyed this morning. I did great with my 5K walk yesterday, as I posted here. I continued to be active during the day, including walking the dogs before going out to a Chinese New Year dinner celebration with my Tai Chi group. I’ve been so good with my food too.

What happened when I got on the scale this morning? According to the number, I gained two pounds since yesterday. Intellectually, I know this is not mathematically possible. I did not eat 7200 more calories than I expended in a 24 hour period. (3600 calories to a pound X two pounds, etc.) Honestly, I don’t think I can fit 7200 calories in my body in a day. I would have to drink almost nine large chocolate milkshakes from a certain fast food restaurant in order to accomplish that feat of overload.

So what happened? I ate some carbs. Through the course of an extremely active day, I had a small cookie when the race was over, half a biscuit at lunch, a small scoop of rice at dinner, and another cookie at dinner. I just looked up the approximate carb counts of those foods and then added more just to be on the safe side. I can’t make the carb count go higher than 87 grams.

According to the Institute of Health, adult women should consume 45 to 65 percent of their daily calories from carbohydrates. This means women following 1,200-calorie weight loss diets need about 135 to 195 grams of carbs each day. If I’m topping out at 1000 calories a day, I can drop that range to about 113 to 165 grams of carbs a day. I know that needs to include “good” carbs too, like from fruit, veggies and healthy grains.

So, when I analyze my sum total of food for the day, taking into account that I did ingest around 87 grams of “junk” carbs, I still did not drastically overdo on a day when I was super active. (close to 17,000 steps by days end on the FitBit.)

Clearly junk carbs really are the enemy. Apparently, my body is super reactive to them, too. The only logical explanation for the two pounds-in-a-day weight gain is that I’m retaining water. I don’t feel or look bloated or puffy, but I can’t come up with any other reason.

Can you tell that I’m more than a little pissed off today? It doesn’t matter that I know it’s temporary weight. It messes with my head. I become resentful as all get out and ugly, diseased, “You f*&#ked up your plan again” thoughts invade my mind.

Here’s how I’m countering the crappy mind chatter. My knee was a little stiff this morning, but I rolled out of bed, dressed, and took an 11 mile bike ride. I came home and ate the rest of yesterday’s frittata, which I shared with Nat and Pyxi. I then decided that I need to fight fluid with fluid. So, for the next day or so, I’m going to really push liquids. I’ll refrain from carbs, except what comes in fruit or veggies, go with protein shakes or smoothies for breakfast and lunch, and really focus on getting in more water. I’m going to do my darnedest to flush out my system and get my body back on track.

Body Matters My Progress

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My First 5K

by Mary Stella

I love the community in which I live. We do a lot of events to raise money for various organizations throughout the year and they always seem to be well attended and also supported by the businesses in the area. It’s not like we’re a huge metropolis either. We have maybe 8500 full time residents and the “full time” part is questionable. I think there are a fair number of people who claim their home here is their full time residence but they actually spend a chunk of their time elsewhere. Whatever the case, we collectively turn out to support the area events.

Today was the Sombrero Beach Run to benefit KAIR. This organization runs a food bank for low income people and also a homeless shelter and kitchen to supply meals to homeless folks. Every dollar raised is a big help. When I saw friends sharing about the Beach Run on their Facebook page, the announcements captured my attention and I decided to sign up. Not only do I like to support KAIR, but I also liked the message I was sending to myself. I can do a 5K walk! Two years ago, even though I was post-surgery and losing weight, I still wasn’t in good enough shape to walk so far. I sure couldn’t have done it prior to my weight loss surgery. Now, today? A whole different story!

The overall event had several competitions: 10K Run; 5K Run; 15K Challenge for runners who wanted to do both races; and the 5K Walk. A friend who has done the race before assured me there would be plenty of walkers so I didn’t feel strange about signing up for the least challenging competition.

For me, this wouldn’t be a competition at all, really. I wasn’t walking to win. All I wanted to do was walk, complete the 5K in less than an hour, and not come in last. Yesterday, a friend texted me that she was going to sign up too, so I’d even have a walking partner.

Last night, I went to the beach to pick up my number, t-shirt, and goody bag. Can I just tell you that I felt absurdly pleased to be so official? I had to think and plan my food for race day. I opted to eat a protein-rich breakfast and got up early enough to make a frittata with sautéed spinach and shallots mixed in and a slice of very crisp bacon. (My dogs love when I make bacon because I always make a slice for them too.) After eating, I had plenty of time to let the meal settle before putting on my socks and walking sneakers. I pinned my number on my shirt, grabbed my water bottle and headed out.

The weather could not have been more perfect! Apologies to those of you enduring endless snow storms and frigid temps. Down here this morning it was in the low-mid 70s with bright sunshine and a cool breeze off the ocean.

The 10K race started at 8 a.m., more than an hour before the 5K, so there were lots of folks milling around while a D.J. played dance music. A couple of people I know and I danced on the beach to the Electric Slide, the Cuban Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide. Why not? I considered it a warm up routine. What fun to be part of this crowd of people! I knew so many of the folks who were either working the food tents or getting ready to hit the course. The area businesses did a great job. There were platters of cut-up bananas, bagels with cream cheese and various pastries if anyone wanted carbohydrate energy. Other volunteers were grilling hot dogs and sausages and wrapping them in aluminum foil to distribute after the races.

Finally, 9:15 approached and we gathered at the starting line to depart en masse. We were off! My friend and I chatted the whole way and also applauded runners who passed us coming back as they completed the 10K run, and then the 5K. Volunteers and residents along the route cheered and applauded us as we passed and handed out cups of water if we didn’t have any to drink. The energy from everyone was glorious. I was having a blast!

On the way back, I noticed that we’d lagged a little. I think we got distracted by our own gabbing. I urged my friend on and suggested that we should finish strong, so we picked up our own pace. Thanks to that, as we neared the finish line, I saw that we were, indeed, going to finish ahead of the one hour mark. 57:45 to be exact. Best of all, we were far from the last walkers to cross the line! All goals met and I was all smiles. We asked some volunteers to snap this photo as a keepsake.

After finishing my first “official” 5K walk.

When I think back to my life pre-surgery and how walking any distance physically challenged me, I can’t help but feel big time happy and not a little proud of where I am today. I don’t need to be the first to cross the line in my age class to feel like a winner. Just getting out and doing it at all feels like a win. Having fun and enjoying the effort? Bonus!

I’m going to keep my eyes open for additional 5K walks for other fundraising events. I know that I can beat the time we set today. Like I said, we were gabbing and not paying attention to our pace. That’s just a personal challenge that will make it even more fun. In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy the glow from entering and completing my first official 5K event!

Body Matters My Progress NSVs

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Weighty Matters

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Why Slow Is Great

Road Tripping

Things I Love Right Now

Instead of Eating

Fighting Back – Day Two

Battling Temptation

I (h)Ate Carbs

My First 5K

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