Fun . . . for a while

Well, I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy--busy GAINING BACK ALL THE WEIGHT I LOST!  This is now the second time in a year I've managed to lose 13-15 pounds and gain it all back in a very short period of time.

I must admit, the eating has been fun.  Ice cream and chocolate are really, really good.  A new frozen yogurt store opened up in town and their "Original Tart" flavor has become a new favorite of mine.  We went on vacation, back to the water park in Texas (it was great, this time we took my big kids, along with my son-in-law and my son's long-time girlfriend) and not having to worry about a diet while we were there was nice.  Then home, and back to recreational eating:  Potato chips!  Bagels!  Butter!  All most enjoyable.  Relaxing, soothing, almost . . . drugging.

But, now my upper arms are plump and sausage-like and my thighs are again rubbing together.  And before I grow out of all my clothes again, I'm going to have to do something.

But what?  Weight Watchers?  OA?  A combination thereof?  No eating after 6 pm (unrealistic with our schedule, actually)?  Cutting out white flour and sugar?  A brain transplant so all the skewed neural pathways that make me a compulsive overeater are no longer an issue?

I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  I need to do something.  I'm 50, almost 51, and unfortunately these overeating patterns are pretty ingrained by now.  I've been this way all my life.  It's just now I can't get away with it like I could when I was younger, when I could eat a pint of Haagen-Dazs before bed every night, go for a two-mile jog the next day and weigh 50 pounds less than I do now. Seems incredible.  Now I know what people meant when they said, "I just look at fattening food and gain weight".  Because the weight gain, once I get off my diet, is astonishingly swift.

I will report back . . . once I figure out what to do. 

Five Pounds in Four Days

Well, I guess I really did gain 5 pounds in four days, which is physically impossible, because after (thank God, and I say that reverently) getting back on plan after a few not-so-on-plan days, I only lost a pound.  What this means is that I lost 13 originally, gained 5 in the four days I was out of town, and now a week later I’ve lost one, which gives me a net loss of 9. 

It’s terrible that I could negate what amounts to a month worth of weight loss effort in less than a week (and I still don’t think it’s possible, but I can’t argue with the numbers at this point).  But, in the good news, I’m back on track and hope I see continued improvement.  I can’t gain any more weight!  Not an option! 

17,500 Calories

I did NOT eat 17,500 calories in four days.

Things were going so well.  I was down to 164.4, I’d lost 13 pounds!  Then I had to go on a work trip for four days.  I tried to stay on plan and actually didn’t do that badly.  But, whether it was the few alcoholic drinks I had or the restaurant food or the general stress of travel, when I got back after four days I had gained FIVE pounds.  FIVE!  I weighed 169.4 the morning after I got home.  And I walked or rode the light rail everywhere, so lack of exercise wasn’t a problem.

 Conventional wisdom holds that it takes 3,500 calories over your daily requirement to gain a pound, so that means that I had to eat 17,500 EXTRA calories in four days to gain that much weight.  Which I of course did not do. 

The only thing I take from this is to not pay too much attention to the scale and stay the course, because many factors could cause weight fluctuations.  But the weight watchers website yammers at me if I don’t weigh at least weekly, and then if I’ve had a particularly “good” day or feel slim, I’ll weigh more frequently, or I’ll “weight cherry-pick”:  my weigh-in day is Friday but if I weighed a few ounces less on an illicit Wednesday weigh in, I’ll log THAT weight on the web site.  Oooooooooo . . . .  End result, however, is that I've become inordinately focused on the number on the scale.

 But, a momentary slip into eating some sugar while exhausted in an airport (and after having had a cocktail) waiting for a delayed flight home has awakened the sugar beast and I am back on the sauce.  It is incredibly addictive to me, and I’m not sure I have the wherewithal to stop right now.  I woke up tired, I’ve slogged through my day with little energy and I have a rough week at work starting tomorrow.  I can barely move my fingers to type! 

Not sure what to do.  13 pounds was pretty good.  It was what I lost the last time I tried this, last fall.  But something happens around the two to three month period and I fail.  It seems like I’ll never drop out of the 160’s ever again.  I certainly don’t want to gain the weight back, especially not with our water park vacation coming up in a month, but right now, the cheap grocery store Neapolitan ice cream left over from my daughter’s pool party is calling my name.  Must set it on the counter to soften . . .

Will report back!

Happy Birthday

Weigh-in this morning—down 12 pounds total.  Down to my annoying mid 160’s set point.  This is a crux for me, because I seem to settle in at this weight range and it hard to drop any more.  I’ve noticed I start losing resolve around this point in the process as well.  I’ve been on my weight watchers PLUS no sugar or white flour plan now for about two months.  It is very challenging, but being off the sugar and white flour is actually helpful—fewer cravings. 

But it is still not easy.

Good news—my 7 year old successfully completed first grade and is going on to second.  She scored quite well on her standardized tests—the first time we’ve gotten official confirmation that she is intelligent.  That sounds weird, we knew she was smart, but to actually see the 99^th and 98^th percentiles there on paper warmed my parental heart!

More good news—all my lantana came back this spring and all but one are blooming.  I don’t know why this makes me so happy, but every time I pull into my driveway and see the bright colors blooming on the verge it just cheers me up.  Every plant has a different color of flower, so it’s quite a sight.  I’ll post a picture soon—but it’s hard to get the total effect because the plants extend sort of a long way.

 We don’t know for sure when our kittens were born but we think it was around Memorial Day, so I’m going to post a before and after picture to celebrate our kittens officially becoming CATS.  Did they ever get big, especially the sickly male kitten who seemed to be on the verge of death there a few times.  Now they’re surly and blasé and march around like they own the house.  I’m glad they made it, they are a nice addition to the household.  Happy birthday, Boy and Girl (Fergus and Merida, April Fools Day and Earth Day, Cocoa and Butter, and other names du jour)!

Kittens when we first got them (Boy on left, Girl on right)

Kittens now (Boy on left, Girl on right)

The Black Lagoon

The weather is warming up and I started feeling like opening up the pool, so we peeled off the pool cover last night and this is what was underneath:

The BLACK LAGOON.

Looks refreshing and inviting, doesn't it?  Makes you want to jump right in!

We will spend much of the weekend trying to clean this nasty swamp up and do all the various start-up-the-pool chores.  We do our own pool, I just don't feel that this is a service I can really afford to pay for.  The pool is unheated so it's only a three-month pool.  Or three and a half months.  We open it in late May and it's pretty much too cold to use by September.  It really only gets decently warm in late July, the rest of the time you are lowering yourself into the frigid water inch by inch.

Haven't figured out a pool heating solution yet.  Though we have ideas.

In the weight loss front, down 9.8 pounds since I started back on plan in late March.  This is very good!  Weight is 167.2.  I haven't lost enough to be able to wear different clothes, and the new bathing suit I got doesn't look ANYTHING like the model iwearing it in the catalog did, but it's still better than where I was two months ago.

Upcoming hurdle--business trip to Salt Lake City where I will be without a car, staying downtown, and at the mercy of whatever food I can find there.  INCREDIBLY boring training but necessary.  I guess I can see if the hotel room has a mini-fridge and try to bring as many non-perishable plan food as I can.  NOT going to lose this momentum!

Life in the Bed of a Pickup Truck

Didn't lose any weight this week, but then again, I didn't gain any, so my total lost in Round 2 is 8.6 pounds.  Trying to up the exercise and water intake to see if that helps.

Still doing the dual diet:  no sugar or white flour AND doing Weight Watchers Points Plus program.  It's pretty hard, but I don't want to get weight-related diseases.  My blood lipid numbers were trending in the wrong direction last time I saw my doctor, but I'm not diabetic or even pre-diabetic so that was good news.

Went camping with the Girl Scouts at City of Rocks State Park (which I love) and thought I'd post a picture of our very comfortable accommodations: 

This is my dad's pickup truck with a pop-up bed camper.  It has a sink, two-burner gas cooktop, and a heater.  It also has lights.  No bathroom facilities.  It comfortably sleeps three, in an emergency you could theoretically get six folks in there.  I have spent many happy nights in this camper in many great locations, the best of which was when I climbed my ONE fourteener, Mt. Elbert in Colorado.  The upper bunk is splendid for one and still works well for two.  You can avoid the expense of motels when you have something like this, though of course you can't shower in it.  But the sink allows you to wash your hair and take a sponge bath. 

This camper is appropriately named Casa Segunda (second home). 

Will post more on weight loss efforts.  Still hopeful I'll get there. 

Back!

Okay, I’m back.  I didn’t want to post because I had been gaining but after getting back to the weight I was when I started weight watchers back in the fall, I got back on the plan again.  However, this time I’m doing it slightly differently.  Actually, not slightly, with a MAJOR difference.  I’m following weight watchers with its cruel and draconian 26 points a day limit, but in addition, I’ve cut out sugar and white flour because they are such triggers for me.

My work clothes were getting frighteningly tight (I had actually grown out of my favorite winter work dress) and I was eating candy in bed so I had to do something before I hit 200, which was getting close (when I got back on plan I was up to 177).  It is super hard to be doing this but staying away from the sugar and flour ironically makes it easier overall because the insatiable desire for more and more and more sugar seems to get circumvented somewhat when I just avoid it.

 Again, trying to get to 137 (my goal is actually 138 because at 138 I can wear a size 6 and feel and look good) but according to the weight watchers web site 138 is still overweight for my height so I just put in the highest non-overweight weight it would let me.  That makes roughly 40 pounds to lose, which I figure should take a YEAR. Ouch, that hurts to write that, but a year is unfortunately pretty realistic because if you figure after the first few weeks where you lose a couple of pounds a week, weight loss settles down to about a .5 to 1 pound loss a week (realistic for someone my age), which makes roughly a year to lose 40 pounds.  I’m walking more and doing my hard exercise video less because of my knees, and just trying to be moderate in all things—exercise, eating, life in general.    

 Math.  If it takes roughly 3500 calories to lose a pound, that means I have a calorie overage of 140,000.  So over the next year, I have to create a caloric deficit of 140,000.  Of course this is hugely oversimplified and a lot of factors affect this, but it’s a good way to look at it.

Diet and exercise.  I’ve decided that I want to avoid medications and procedures at all costs.  I have a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks and I hope my numbers are good (not weight, but blood lipids, blood sugar, thyroid, etc).  So if she wants to put me on any medications for anything, I am going to ask if I can try diet and exercise instead. 

I'll be posting.  And by the way, I'm down 6 pounds from the end of March when I started back on the plan. 

Maladaption

I just can’t do it.  Once I lose control of eating, it literally takes MONTHS to get it back. After the free-for-all December, daughter’s wedding, the holidays, long winter weekend in a snowy tourist town  and trying to ease back into work after being off a lot, I am completely out of control.

I wake with resolve.  No sugar, no white flour, no junk food today!  I try to be gentle with myself:  you can eat as much as you like, just no junk.  Things typically go pretty well until late in the afternoon, when the demanding brain chemistry kicks in and wants junk, NOW. No negotiating.  Eat <insert random junk food du jour> now.

I’ve gained back much of what I lost, so laboriously and slowly, over the fall months.  I can feel rolls of fat on my back—eu! 

At least I’m still exercising, but I don’t have that wonderful feeling of the fall where I was getting stronger and feeling like I could do the hard hikes and backpacks again.

Why is it so hard?  I dislike being so heavy, and I know it is very bad for my health, but I just can’t stop. 

I want to stop. But sometimes, it’s the only thing that gets me through the day.

But in the good news:

I found out what is wrong with my knees.  I have patellofemoral syndrome, which basically means that the tendon connecting my kneecap to my thigh bone is pulled out of alignment, which results in not only contact between the two bones but also disintegration of the cartilage.  So that explains the horrid crackling sounds and pain.  The orthopedic doctor has sent me for physical therapy.  At first I was skeptical, but I went to the PT clinic and what a revelation!  Apparently my outer quadriceps is much stronger that my inner quadriceps, which has resulted in the misalignment!  There was more talk of weak hip flexors and gluteus medius and tight iliotibial bands, but that is still over my head right now, but what matters  is the condition can be fixed!  I have exercises to strengthen the inner quads and, if I do them, I can alleviate much of the problems associated with the condition! 

Quick aside:  it took forever for me to get this diagnosis.  I was told first that the crackling sounds were “air in the joints”.  I finally got a knee x-ray which indicated “evidence of arthritis”.  When asked what I could do about this, I was told “nothing”.  Finally, after I complained more, my doctor grudgingly gave me a referral to the orthopedist, telling me she was only doing this because of my weight and that she didn’t want me to have any reasons not to be active. 

Gee, thanks.  But I did go to the orthopedist and to the physical therapist and I’m so happy I did!  And my (quite common) condition has nothing to do with my weight, it’s just a maladaptive response to the type of exercises I typically do, which tend to strengthen the outer quad only. 

Another aside:  no one ever believes I exercise, because even when I’ve been significantly thinner than I am now, I never have that fit “look” about me.  I guess I don’t get great muscle definition.  But over the years, many people have expressed surprise that I exercise.  Guess I just look soft and squishy.  But honestly, at 50, I don’t care whether I look like I exercise or not.  What matters is that I do it. 

Maladaption.  Hmmm.  Thinking while I type here, but perhaps that’s what happened with food.  Somehow food became an adaptive coping mechanism to deal with <insert random life stress> and over time, it sort of spiraled out of control and became maladaptive. 

I can overcome it with great effort, but it’s not easy and it’s ALWAYS my default mode.  And I’ve noticed that it tends to become worse and worse the longer it goes on. 

Hmmmm.  Thinking. 

Will report back.

Alien Pod Plants

A few months ago, one of my double-lobed brain plants (Lithops) split into a narrow four-lobed plant.  It was very strange, and I posted a photograph of what happened:                                                            

Weird.  Really weird.

                

Now, something even stranger is occurring.  The two-lobed base of the four-lobe plant is cracking open and new lobes are emerging from within.  I still can’t tell how many lobes will be growing out because the cracks in the existing plant are very small and I certainly don’t want to mess with this delicate, touchy, weird plant.

Note crack with emerging something at base of lobes.

Closer view. It looks like another lobe, or lobes.

It’s like the movie Alien-a body splitting open and something emerging from within.  These plants are really the strangest things I’ve ever seen.  It’s hard to believe they are native to Earth.  But they are, as they come from South Africa.  Very, very strange.  

On the diet front, after a free-for-all December (which was super fun), I'm going to start back on the weight watchers today.  For me, getting back on track eating-wise really is a (difficult) withdrawal process, so wish me luck!  

Late December Events

So many wonderful things have happened since I last posted! First of all, my daughter was married in a beautiful outdoor wedding on a crisp, clear Friday, December 21.  With family and friends present, my son walked her down the aisle to meet her new husband in a low-key, relaxed ceremony.  It was followed by a fun reception at the same venue as the wedding.  The whole experience was great:  driving down to El Paso on Wednesday in a terrible high wind-brownout condition dust storm to pick up her dress (running into tumbleweeds, dodging swaying 18-wheelers and me almost choking on a double cheeseburger while driving 70 mph on an interstate were highlights), the Thursday rehearsal and rehearsal luncheon, last-minute shopping for wedding supplies, discovering that the right foundation garments really can make you look better than you actually do, preparing flower girl baskets with rose petals and  going to the salon to get our hair and makeup done before the wedding, sipping mimosas and eating doughnuts and fruit salad, driving the bride in full regalia to the venue . . . it was just fun, and I hope my daughter had the wedding she always wanted.

Christmas was low key but nice, my little one enjoyed her gifts and my son came over to visit and we entertained ourselves by watching You Tube videos of scary roller coasters.  Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster and X-Scream, I will never darken your waiting lines!  I would die of fright!  It was fun.  What was really great was that my cousin David in Austin called Christmas morning and offered us his three-night stay at the Lodge at Cloudcroft, a historic hotel up in the Sacramento Mountains.  Somehow the logistics just weren’t going to work for them, and the room was paid for, so I said YES and my husband and daughter and I drove up on Friday and had a great time.  Highlights included a fine dining experience Friday night in the fancy hotel dining room with live piano music, unexpectedly running into my brother-and-law and his girlfriend at breakfast the next morning (neither of us knew the other was going to be there so it was quite a surprise and a coincidence), ice skating at the town rink (outdoor, low rent and with bumpy, cracked ice but still fun), going tubing in the mountains (rent tubes, snow boots and bibs, drive into the national forest to a designated tubing area and go for it) and seeing my little one gradually get braver and braver as she kept starting her tubing run on progressively higher and steeper hills, dinner and good conversation with my brother-in-law and girlfriend at a horrid bar/café filled with loud drunks, hitting the town tourist trap shops, hiking on a great rails-to-trails trail that told the story of the old “Cloud Climbing Railroad” that went from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft and featured  overlooks with benches and interpretive signage of dramatic views, scary track cuts through rocky outcrops and old trestles, checking the weather forecast, realizing we were about to get snowed in so checking out of the hotel late Sunday afternoon instead of the planned Monday morning and hightailing it home to beat the weather.  It was just a great trip, fun for young and old, and I am so grateful to my cousin for offering it to us.  He knew Cloudcroft is a less than two hour drive for us, as opposed to a plane ride and car rental for his family, and I was happy to accept the offer.

The only disappointment I had this holiday season was that I wanted to do at least one backpack and one long hike, but my dad got sick and my other hiking buddy was out of town, so neither happened.  Oh well, I still have two long holiday weekends (MLK Day and Presidents Day) before the February-May "holiday drought" and if weather and schedules permit, I hope to get out again very soon. 

Succulents:  they are all inside and not particularly happy about it, but with temperatures dropping to 20 at night, they wouldn’t make it outdoors.  I moved the big dish garden and the kittens forgot about it for a while and it recovered slightly from being crushed and bitten by kitten bodies and teeth, but it was rediscovered and I awoke one morning to find the poor plants in a dire condition.  I was crushed (ha ha) realizing the toothpicks had been ineffective in dissuading the kittens from getting in the plants, but then I had a flash of brilliance, a solution that should work, which has been implemented and cannot be described, only pictured, here: 

Take that, kittens!

So, in all the fun and exciting times, holidays and time off work, I have not kept to my diet at all, in fact, I have eaten copiously of holiday junk food, and now I’ve got to get back to it.  I had gotten down to 163 and change, not sure what I am now but I’m sure it’s back up to 170 or so.  Not to worry, I kept up my exercise and feel good and I think I can get back on track.  It’s back to work tomorrow, back to a normal schedule, and I think I can do it.   I've been reading some research about how the prefrontal cortex of the brain governs poor decision making regarding eating and I may look into solutions for prefrontal cortex issues to help with my food problem.  I know someday "they" will disover that sweet and fatty food is just as addictive as narcotics.

Happy New Year, it's good to see 2013!