Weighty Matters

I’m a water baby and have been pretty much since I was born.   I have lived the majority of my years within minutes, if not steps, of the ocean.  (Exceptions — the year we lived in France and the two years I was away at prep school.)   Although I was born in January, I’m sure my mother brought me to the beach as soon as the weather warmed up enough for her to do so.  At four I was a competent doggy-paddler and by age five I was already doing freestyle, although I’m sure my form improved over the years.

Growing up, every summer we spent most of our days at the beach and I spent as much of those days in the ocean.  Even if we didn’t swim or paddle around on rafts, my cousins and I would spend hours jumping over or dunking under waves and body surfing to shore.  I love boats and fishing.  I think it’s amazing to go sailing, powered only by the wind.  I can happily spend hours on my porch looking out at the harbor.

It is no surprise to me that my favorite form of exercise includes being in the water.  From my early years of loving the silkiness of water on my skin, surrounding me, grew a deeper affection for buoyancy.   When you’re heavy, it’s incredible to feel lighter.  Bobbing with the ocean swells or floating on the surface, it was always a welcome relief to not feel the weight of my own fat sinking me.

Over the years, my excess weight has really affected my knees, particularly my left.  When I reached my top weight last year, it became truly difficult for me to walk even short distances.  Even before that time, I never enjoyed taking a walk as much as I liked going for a dip.

A few years ago, I started going to water aerobics classes and loved them.  Exercising was so much easier when I was embraced by H2O.  Unfortunately, the local classes don’t meet early enough for me to do them, shower, change, and get to work on time.   I couldn’t continue for more than a couple of months although I’d still go if I had a day off on a morning when classes were scheduled.

Last year I decided to put in a small pool in my backyard.  Originally, I wanted one of those endless pools with a constant current to swim against, but the structures I read about didn’t seem to be strong enough to withstand hurricane strength winds.  Since those storms are a real possibility here every year, I reconsidered my options and had an in-ground pool installed.  It isn’t huge.  I can swim a few strokes at a time.  However, at four feet deep, it’s great for doing water exercises.

I’ve devised my own routine.  I take out my iPod and my phone so I can set the timer.  I jog in place for awhile, varying the steps and the speed, singing along to the music.  I do lunges and walk from end to end, forwards and backwards.  I balance my hands on the steps and do extra kicks, or hold onto the side and perform a variety of leg movements, regularly increasing the number of reps.

Tonight I figured out that if I sit on the middle step and use my hands to help balance myself in the water, I can do crunches and other exercises that are good for the abs.

Forty minutes of this combination of activity doesn’t exhaust me, but at the same time my body tells me that it definitely worked.   I’m now pleasantly relaxed!

The key is for me to do this as soon as I get home.  That’s how I did it tonight.  As soon as I arrived, I let Nat & Pyxi out to play in the yard while I quickly changed into my swimsuit.  I didn’t give myself any time to flip through the mail, stall, do a chore or anything else.  Exercising in the pool was my priority.

I’ve been slacking and not doing the exercise on a regular basis.  My goal this week is to exercise tonight, tomorrow and Thursday.  Wednesay night I have Tai Chi class for an hour.  Saturday morning we’re doing a three hour intensive class.   That will give me five solid motion sessions in the week, which is a pretty good goal for me.   It’s important to stick to a regular commitment.  Not only does the exercising do good things for me, but I feel so darned good after I’m done!

In other aspects of water-love, although I shower every morning I have long been a fan of soaking in a bathtub for relaxation.  A few years ago, I started to fear that I’d gotten too big and might get stuck if I went into the bathtub.  I’m pretty sure now that it wouldn’t actually have happened, but I was too apprehensive to take the risk.

I no longer have that apprehension.  I know that, at my current weight, I will not get stuck.  So tonight, after I get some things done around the house, I’ve decided to reward myself with a nice hot bath!

It’s a great way to end the day for anyone — particularly a water baby!

Nineteen weeks post-op today.  Wow.  It feels like so much of my life has changed in less than five months.  I don’t mean just the weight loss, although losing over 80 pounds in this time is a major change to be sure.  I feel so much healthier mentally and emotionally, too.  The changes there have not come as easily as the physical, and they are definitely ongoing.  Most likely, I’ll always need to work on them so that I don’t backslide or relapse.

I’ve blogged about eating out before, but I’m really feeling the topic tonight again.  It’s Wednesday and I’ve eaten out three nights out of the last four.  Sunday evening I had dinner with friends who got married earlier in the day.  Last night and tonight I was out with my visiting nephew and his girlfriend.  Restauranteurs, if you’re reading this, I’m flat out serious about that need for petite plate versions of your entrees.  I learned from a friend of mine who has experience in restaurants that this would probably never work in a smallish market like the Keys, unfortunately.  There wouldn’t be enough demand to make the venture financially feasible.  New York City, maybe.  Something to do with the cost basis of an entree, how many have to be sold for profit, etc.  From my perspective, this is a real shame.

Sunday night, I ordered a filet mignon which was served with a baked potato and haricots vert.  A salad was served first, of which I ate a couple of bites.  Had I not, I would have eaten more of the filet, which was very tasty in a shallot-peppercorn demi-glace.  Suffice it to say that I boxed what I didn’t eat.  That filet lasted me for three meals, the last being today’s lunch.  Even three times weren’t enough for me to finish the green beans and potato.

Last night, the restaurant had an extensive list of appetizers, but most of them were seafood-based or deep-fat fried something — including fried cheese risotto.  I really didn’t want to order a full size meal, but ended up not having any choice.  I went with a Cobb salad, topped with two big pieces of tender grilled chicken.  I took my time and ate a few bites of the chicken with some of the very crisp bacon and blue cheese for variety — dipping lettuce and chicken in a balsalmic vinaigrette.  It didn’t take much to satisfy me and I loaded the vast majority of the meal into a to-go box.

Tonight we went to a family favorite restaurant in town to satisfy barbeque cravings.  Folks, when baby back ribs are on the menu, it’s time to offer full racks, half racks and quarter racks, please.  The half rack, which pre-surgery I would have had no problem polishing off, looked to my eyes like it had come from a mammoth.  Three or four of the ribs, a quarter of the steamed corn and a couple of eggplant fingers and I was full.

If restaurants ever don’t have To-Go boxes, I’m in trouble.

To be honest, I still enjoy going out for dinner.  Everything I order tastes really good, and that’s important.  I eat too little to torture my taste buds with boring, unsatisfying food.  Instead of complaining about the huge portions that make up a typical entree, perhaps I should just rejoice that I can really make the most out of a dining-out budget and flavor-fest since I end up getting three to four meals out of every one that I order and buy.

In other ponderings, I never received anything more than an auto-response form email from Food Network acknowledging that I’d written.   That said, if at any time Food Network premiers a show called Small Bite Wonders, remember you heard it from me first.  I talked about it with my nephew.  He suggested that I could host one.  I’m not a knowledgeable enough cook to sustain a show, but if they had picked out another chef to create the dishes, I could definitely talk to him/her about the food, the needs of the bariatric surgery eater, and other relevant things.  Then, of course, I could be the designated taster — as long as we stayed away from seafood.

I’m still trying to teach myself to like seafood, but early results are not promising.  While away in Boston, I sampled a small bite of my brother’s shrimp.  It was okay.  Last night, my nephew and his girlfriend shared grilled hogfish snapper over Caesar salad and a dish called Volcano snapper — grilled yellowtail snapper topped with a scallop and crab cream sauce.  I first tried a small bite of the yellowtail.  The first instant of chew wasn’t bad, but as soon as the flesh really hit my taste buds, I experienced the typical, shuddering, “eww yuck” reaction.  After a drink of water,  I moved onto the hogfish.  I have friends who claim that hogfish is their  favorite of all of the snapper varieties.  Truthfully, it was mild, not “fishy”, and a little firmer in texture.  This time I didn’t physically shudder or feel my stomach clench in pre-nausea.  Progress?   Umm, ehh, well — let me get back to you on that, okay?

I have to admit that this is more than a little frustrating.   I was sure that I could retrain my palate if I just opened up my willingness and tried.  I would like nothing more than to one day take a bite of deliciously prepared, fresh fish and light up at the flavor the way that I do with foods that I love.  I’m not quite willing to give up the experiment, but it’s discouraging that my tests so far have not yielded promising results.

Maybe I should try lobster again, or something like scallops that I’ve never tried before.   Any suggestions?

Have any of you successfully taught yourselves to eat and enjoy something that you previously didn’t like?  If so, how did you do it?