Snake Oil Pellets

I had three hormone pellets (estrogen, testosterone and I believe, progesterone) inserted in the subcutaneous fat of my upper left buttock 8 days ago.  This miraculous treatment is supposed to infuse me with energy and make me feel GREAT!  The benefit of the pellet method, rather than cream or pill, is that there is a constant dose of beneficial hormones released, so there are no differing hormone levels that may make the treatment less effective.  The promotional brochures, the video on continuous loop in the doctor's waiting room, the testimonials--all indicate that this treatment will erase all my ills.  Joint pain, hot flashes, night sweats, fatigue, low libido, mood swings--all the maladies of menopausal life will be GONE!!!

Something has to give.  My hormone levels verify that I have definitely gone through menopause.  I have gained a massive amount of weight and am almost 200 pounds (I'm 5'2").  I experience crushing depression.  My default state is tired.  Cognitively I am shot:  I cannot remember what I have said from one minute to the next.  Really. I literally forget what I am conversing about when I am conversing.  This happens at work, too.  The hot flashes seem to have stopped, but other than that, I feel dreadful.  I lumber around.  I am lazy.  I am managing to keep up with the laundry and do some minor straightening, but other housework is just beyond me.  My bathrooms are grimy, my kitchen disgusting.  Litter boxes overflow and reek, floors are sticky and spotted, dust thick.  I still exercise, which I find miraculous, but it doesn't help me maintain my weight and it makes my hip joints ache and my knees creak.  Arthritis and weight, or just arthritis, I have no idea, it just hurts.  I exist, rather than live.  I have put all my hope on this hormone pellet treatment, because going on the way I am now is just unacceptable. 

Except . . . when they tout the pellet therapy (About the size of a grain of rice!  Easy to insert!  You will feel better than you ever have!) they don't tell you that after they insert them, they will be writing you several prescriptions--for oral hormone pills!  And that you will be expected to purchase SUPPLEMENTS!  Yes, bottles of vitamins, or some sort of proprietary blend of something, without which the pellets will not be as effective.  These supplements and oral hormones must be taken on a STRICT schedule. And the pellets will wear off in 3-4 months, so you have to keep getting your hormone levels checked and once they get low, you get new pellets inserted! And of course (and I knew this going in), insurance doesn't cover this treatment so it is all on my dime.

So, the jury is still out.  It's only been eight days, and so far, I don't feel any different.  The supplement part of this treatment plan makes me suspicious that this is nothing but a bunch of SNAKE OIL.  But, I trust my doctor completely, he's been my doctor for almost 15 years and he's been a good one, and I don't think he would steer me wrong.  And, like I said before, something has to give, because living and feeling the way I do now is just not going to work.

I'll check back in in a few days.  As they say, don't give up before the miracle.  And maybe these pellets in my butt will be the miracle I have been waiting for.

I Got Fat

I wrote this piece a few days ago about being fat, and my relationship with weight issues and my body for my entire life. 

 

I Got Fat

I was one of those incredibly annoying adolescents and young women.  You know the type: mincing around in a 110-pound body, I would complain incessantly to anyone who would listen about how “fat” I was.  Yes, in all fairness, I wasn’t skinny, and my hips and thighs did have some ripe curves (in retrospect, I must have been luscious).  But when 113 is your “fat” weight, and you have reached an adult height of over 5 feet, there is really nothing for you to complain about.

Yes, I was horribly irritating but some of it I came by from the less-than-stellar influence of my family.  My dad seemed to have a horror of fat, and made no secret of his scorn and derision for the overweight.  My mother was very pretty and obsessed with her body.  As a Connecticut housewife in the late 60’s-early 70’s, she worked out incessantly at a ballet studio, wrapping her legs and torso in saran wrap (!) before donning her leotard and tights and heading off to the “gym”.  She did barre work, and even strength training work with weights, decades before it was common for women.  She would diet restrictively—there were ketone strips on the back of the toilet when she was on Atkins (yes, Atkins actually came out in the 1970’s), Ayds candy, swordfish galore when she was on Weight Watchers, diet pills that were actually speed, you name it—then binge on sweets and puke it all up.  A spoon sat at the ready on the toilet tank, for quick and easy gagging when she needed to throw up.  I remember vividly her lying on the couch, sobbing, holding her leg in the air and railing about her “fat” thighs.  Nice healthy body image modeling for your ten-year-old—not.  It’s amazing I didn’t become bulimic.

I was actually on “diets” most of my childhood.  Always on the high normal side of the pediatric weight curve, my mother was told by the doctor, “she’s fine, but don’t let her gain any more”.  With her penchant for “health food” and nutrition, I would bring a lunch to school of cheese and fruit while my friends enjoyed white bread sandwiches, little bags of chips and Ding-Dongs.  How I longed for those foods!  But no, my food intake was determined by whatever diet or fad my mother had adopted at the time.  Adele Davis (brewers yeast, kale) lasted particularly long, as did macrobiotic (brown rice!).  My friends laughed at my lunches, and I wished I could eat “normal” food. 

At almost 13, I got a major slam to my body image.  My parents had divorced and my dad remarried, to a young widow with two small children who was also obsessed with her body.  It was truly her main topic of conversation.  She taught “Slimnastics” for the local YWCA and played tennis all the time and was extremely critical of my (completely normal and not overweight) early teenage body.  She had been a cheerleader and had had a 21-inch waist, and my pubescent straight up and down body was deemed somehow inferior.  I took her exercise classes, listened to her brag about her great body and how many men had admired her when she went to the grocery store that day, and became even more warped when it came to my body image.  Of course, pictures of me during that time show a completely normal -sized adolescent, but because I wasn’t a wasp-waisted hourglass like she had been, I was somehow “fat”. 

By my late teens I had a cute figure (small breasted but curvy and strong with what I’ve been told was a magnificent rear end) and weighed in the 105-110 range but I was completely on the I-Hate-My-Body bandwagon by that point, restricting my eating, exercising, and talking incessantly about it.  At 5’2”, I was never going to look “willowy”, and my sturdy body didn’t look conventionally “skinny”, but I had a great body.  That I had absolutely no appreciation for.

My 20’s were just as bad.  I started running and adopted the Covert Bailey “Fit or Fat” plan and became pretty lean.  I had my first baby at 23, gained 48 pounds during pregnancy and lost it all through breastfeeding and running.  Pictures of me taken at that time show me with a body free of fat, my abdominal muscles in stark relief under the skin of my fatless abdomen, but with monstrous, lactating breasts.  And of course, a horrid 80’s perm.  And other than taking care of my baby, exercising and making sure I didn’t consume a gram of fat consumed my days.  And it worked—I weighed 108.

After I had my second child at age 27, I weighed 135 at my six-week post-partum checkup.  I was absolutely HORRIFIED at such a massive weight.  I remember confidently telling my (also appearance-obsessed) grandmother once that I would NEVER weigh more than 125 pounds, EVER, in my entire life. Oops. After that baby I stayed in the high 110's, low 120’s for years.  I exercised.  I counted fat grams.  I could wear a size 4 or 6.  And I bemoaned my “fat” all the time.

I was a horrid, self-absorbed boring person who probably made the actually overweight want to slap her.  Or maybe deck her.  I cringe to think of it now.

As I got into my 30’s and started my professional career, I started to inch up into the low 130’s.  I was very distressed by this, but I could still wear size six cute little business suits and I was still the annoying not-overweight person who bemoaned her “fat” all the time.  I did The Firm exercise videos and took up in-line skating.  I was very fit.  My stomach was flat, my legs muscular, my core strong.  But was I grateful?  No!  I always wanted to be thinner, thinner, thinner.

I did the really twisted thing that many young women do. I bonded with other women through complaining about fat, dieting, exercising and being completely body-obsessed.  I could always strike up a conversation with a woman I didn’t know at a social event by commenting on caloric content of food, how I “shouldn’t eat that”, or by bemoaning the arduous exercise I would have to endure in order to burn off whatever treat I had eaten. My friends were all the same way.  Fat grams (later, net carbs). Eating chocolate chip cookie dough and then taking long, long walks to burn it off.  Dieting all week and going out together for a big Dairy Queen Blizzard on Friday nights. Hating our bodies, which were vigorous, healthy and fit, and at the same time competing with each other to be thinner, fitter.  I remember when my dearest friend lost a lot of weight during her divorce and became thinner than me, I wasn’t happy for her.  I was insanely envious.  I didn’t even want to look at her.

I started to really gain weight after a “nervous breakdown” in my mid-30’s and being put on lithium, a mood-stabilizing medication known for causing weight gain.  I ended up weighing in the 160’s.  It was a nightmare and it seemed like I couldn’t do anything to stop the weight gain. I’ve never regretted taking the lithium because I believe it saved my life, but it did seem to start me on a trend of settling at a higher weight than normal for my height.  I finally lost most of the weight after I went off the lithium and starved myself, and by the time I was in my late 30’s, early 40’s, I had stabilized at 138 pounds. 

138 is technically, actuarially, overweight for someone 5’ 2”.  But I was healthy, fit, and still wore a size six.  I considered my foray into the 160’s to be an anomaly, a blip on the bell curve of life, and it truly didn’t occur to me that I would ever weigh that much again.  And you know, I started to realize that some people actually were overweight, and that talking about real or imagined fat all the time was really, really boring.  And irritating.  And self-absorbed. Plus, I had teenage children by then and real life issues and there were more important things going on.

That’s not to say that I didn’t still think about it—all the time.  But I didn’t TALK about it—as much.

Having a mid-life baby at 43 kicked my weight back up again. But I lost it—most of it.  I think I settled into the low 140’s.  But it was good enough for me.  I could wear my pre-baby clothes. I could wear a size six suit or dress to work.  I could wear tank tops and shorts—even in public!  I felt fine and it was a good enough weight.  But it was not to last. 

As I sit here writing this, I weigh 190.  My arms are fat (when I was younger, I didn’t realize that arms could even GET fat).  My shoulders are fat. My once-A cup breasts are massive DD’s.  My mid-section is rolled with fat, my lower abdomen scarred and sagging from c-sections and a bowel resection surgery for colon cancer.  My sagging abdomen touches my thighs when I sit down.  I try not to look at my thighs—they bear no resemblance to a normal human-shaped leg.  They are ripply, huge, and rub together from my crotch to my knees.  My calves are still relatively normal looking, but definitely bigger than they used to be.  My face is round, I have a double chin.  I keep my hair longer than I used to in order to try to balance my large body with my head.  Sometimes I retain water and I can actually feel my skin being pulled taut by the extra volume—mostly in my upper arms, neck, and face.  It’s embarrassing to run into people I haven’t seen for a long time.  I am wide.  Shirts don’t button properly and pull at my chest.  Short-sleeved t-shirt sleeves roll up over my arm fat and bunch under my arms. Many of my tops just don’t even fit anymore, or don’t come down far enough over my stomach, revealing pasty white midsection rolls, because my chest has gotten so big.  I also don’t look at my once-spectacular rear end, but I imagine it is huge and misshapen and ripply with fat.  I can’t even see my crotch area any more. I haven’t seen my pubic hair in years.

I don’t know what happened.  Sure, I eat too much, but I don’t eat enough to weigh almost 200.  Gamely, I still exercise: hiking, riding my bike, taking long walks and doing exercise videos.  My poor knees creak and my hips ache and my jeans wear out where my thighs rub together, but I still plod on.  The exercise helps my overall health—my lipid profile is good, my blood pressure lower than average, I have no blood sugar issues--but it doesn’t do anything for my weight.  I’m not a candidate for gastric bypass because I’m not morbidly obese, only obese, and at my weight you have to have co-morbidities (high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, etc.) to qualify for the surgery, and I don’t.  Except for being fat and having had a brush with colon cancer, I’m the picture of health.  And after colon cancer surgery, I don’t really want to have elective, non-essential surgery that will alter my digestive tract even more.

I chuckle at my 27-year old horror at weighing 135 six weeks after childbirth.  Even if I ever lose weight, I doubt I’ll ever see 135 again—or even 145.  I’d be ecstatic now to get into the 150’s. 

I look at my old body-hating buddies on Facebook. (Not stalking, we are “friends”.) I am the only one who has gotten fat.  I marvel at their triathlons, marathon-running, epic bike rides, one of them even does those new acrobatic workouts.  They look great.  I wonder what they eat.  I wonder if they’re still obsessed with their bodies. Once you’re over 50, as all of us are, it takes a lot of work to maintain a body like that.  I think.  I actually wouldn’t know, because I got fat.

My 77-year old father who is as lean as a whippet, exercises for HOURS a day to maintain his fitness.  It’s basically his job. My mom, 73, just restricts her eating.  She isn’t fat either.  At family reunions, I am always the fattest one there—by far. 

But, I have found that there is still life after fat.  Life continues and I still get out of bed every day, even though I’m FAT!  Imagine that! I still enjoy being out in the mountains, marvel over the beautiful sunrises and sunsets of the desert southwest, get joy from my family, enjoy a hard hike up a mountain peak, a job well done, a good book, a symphony concert, and the contented sighs of my tired dogs after I’ve taken them hiking, and I feel grateful and good (most of the time).

What caused this weight gain? Who knows.  Middle age, working motherhood (my mid-life baby is now 9 years old), work stress, menopause, hormone imbalance, bouts of deep clinical depression, Stage III colon cancer, chemo—I’ve dealt with all these things over the past couple of years.  I take the bulk of the responsibility for being fat.  I certainly tend to use food for comfort, recreation, relaxation.  I probably eat too much most of the time.  But I exercise and I KNOW I’m not eating enough to weigh this much.  It’s like my body has turned on me.

Young women who are obsessed with their bodies never dream they will become fat.  They claim to fear and dread it but deep down, they are convinced it will never happen to them. They are too knowledgeable about nutrition and exercise and diet and they are certain that they will be in the same shape at 45 as they are at 25.  And some may very well be.  But I imagine that it will take single-minded devotion, hours of exercise and some serious food restriction.  And when life gets hard, or you have a health issue or just get older, even that devotion may not be enough to maintain that low weight.

Do I wish I wasn’t fat?  Of course.  Do I hate running into people I haven’t seen for years?  Absolutely.  Do I still think about my body and how fat it is?  Yes! All the time! But are there worse things than being fat? Yes, most definitely. In some ways, I have a better body image now at age 52 than when I was young and thin. I think more about how my body functions than how it looks. And I’m not going to starve or exercise obsessively to try to lose weight.  And if I never lose weight, and am always this way, I can live with that.

You could say I am the loser (no pun intended) in the body competition with my friends over the various stages of my life.  They all seem to be thin (even my body-obsessed mother and stepmother, now in their 70’s, are still thin).  I am the only one who got fat.  Is it karma for being such an annoying, self-absorbed little twit when I was younger?  Maybe.  But I think I have gained some perspective, lost a lot of my hubris and narcissism, and learned how to be a better, more compassionate and balanced person. 

At least I hope I have.

 

Banana Smoothie

I'm flailing.  Trying everything.  Went to a Meeting on Monday night.  Back on the Shr*nk Yo*rself website yesterday (darn my Windows phone, I can't get their wonderful Pock*t Hung*er Coach app because it only works for Android or Iphone.  Not that the PHC app would even work for me).  Reading OA literature.  Reading other weight-loss books.  Just flailing.  I weighed more than EVER when I was at the doctor's office on Monday.  The number is too terrible to even type, let alone utter.

Right now I'm reeling from having to drink a horrid 'banana smoothie' for the CT scan I had this morning.  It was actually a barium solution but a dreadful banana flavor had been added to it, I guess to make it more palatable.  I had to drink one bottle at 6:30 am and most of the next one at 7:00 am.  Then, right before I went into the CT donut machine, I had to drink the rest of it.  It was horrible.  I'm still having residual gags just from remembering the taste and texture of the vile liquid. 

However, the label of the barium solution bottle did amuse me greatly.  It portrays a bunch of bananas, realistically rendered, carefully shaded--a work of art.  However, next to the lovely artwork of bananas, sort of down and to the left, barely fitting on the label and placed as if it was an afterthought, is a crude, anatomically incorrect rendering of a digestive tract.  The juxtaposition of these two images struck me as quite amusing and I got plenty of chuckles just looking at the label.

That is until this morning, until I actually had to drink the Readi-Cat Banana Smoothie Barium Sulfate Suspension Solution.

Fortunately, the CT scan went smoothly, no allergic reaction to the creepy iodine solution being injected into my veins, and the CT scanner is way less claustrophobic than the PET scan machine. 

So, no real progress on the eating front, yet.  But I'm not giving up.  Few clothes fit.  In fact, I'm wearing a 12W sized blouse this morning. Not a 12, a 12W.  Must get it back.  But going through my recent health challenges, having to fast, or eat a modified diet, or drink large amounts of various vile solutions in preparation for various tests makes it very hard to stick to any sort of regular eating plan.

 

Here is the barium solution label that amused me so greatly.  Note the odd juxtaposition of images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annus Horribilis

It has been a horrible year.  Starting in late August 2013, my 75-year-old father, the Mysterious Septuagenarian, developed a massive chest infection that required him to have brutal, barbaric chest surgery to clear out all the gunk, then be on IV antibiotics for weeks.  He was in the hospital for 11 days, and we weren't sure if he would ever "get it back".  He did, through hard work requiring great effort, and he is back to climbing fourteeners and being his normal self.  Thank God, and I say that reverently!  But it was a horrible few weeks.

Then, in December 2013, I found out I had a malignant tumor in my sigmoid colon.  Right before Christmas, which is a terrible time to find out you have cancer because everyone is off work and getting test results, let alone doctor's appointments, takes a long time.  I finally had surgery to remove the tumor in January, but as it had spread to a lymph node, I had to have six months of oral chemotherapy which finally ended in late August of 2014.  I tolerated the chemo pills pretty well, but it was still a big deal.  I am still awaiting an appointment for a scan and a 'scope to see if we got all the cancer out or if I'm going to need additional treatment.

Next, in mid-August, my mother-in-law sickened from complications of diabetes, was put in home hospice, and ended up passing away in early September.  She was a strong woman who raised four children successfully and kept the family going after her husband suffered a crippling stroke and then succumbed a few years later to lung cancer.  It's been very hard on my husband and his siblings, because she was their rock and her last year of dementia and decline was very traumatic for all of them.

Finally, last week my oldest had an ectopic pregnancy scare, which thankfully ended up being just a cyst, but it scared us all to death and she suffered, not just from the physical pain but also from the emotional turmoil, as she and her husband really want a baby.

So, August 2014 to September 2014 have been very difficult for the family.  My eight-year-old has had to go through all this as well.  Somehow we all manage to get up in the morning and keep going, but it has been hard, so hard.  Other things have happened that aren't blogosphere fodder but have worsened the burdens we have carried.  It has been a true Annus Horribilis.

But in the good news, my eight year old is healthy and adjusting to the rigors of third grade, I still have a job, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my scans will be clear and I will be deemed an offical Cancer Survivor. 

Begone, Annus Horribilis.  We need some happy news around here. 

This is a picture of my cat sleeping in a dog cave bed.

You Saw it Here

I had three good sugar-free days.  Then I messed up last night, eating some Whoppers, which weren't even GOOD!  They were semi-stale.  The chocolate coating was waxy. 

I'm retaining water and my feet and ankles are puffy.  Even my arms feel puffed, they sort of stand out from my sides in an odd way.  I don't think they could have gotten fatter that fast, so there is probably retained water in my arms as well.

My poor mother-in-law died day before yesterday.  I believe a major cause of her death was complications of diabetes. 

I'm 52 in a few days.  I'm never going to look really good again, so it's time to focus my efforts at fixing my eating problem towards protecting my health.

I don't know that much about diabetes but it seems like a terrible disease.  One to NOT GET. 

I had/have colon cancer, which may be diet related.  That's big.  Major stuff.

I decide today that I will not let the slip-up last night ruin my efforts.  Today is a new day to eat well.

So, today I will eat well.  Oatmeal for breakfast, salad for lunch.  Bean burgers for dinner, if my husband feels well enough to make them.

You saw it here.  I'm not going to be "off and running", as is my usual behavior, after "messing up" last night. 

Posting a picture of my dogs, happy in their secret pond during a walk. I may have major eating issues, but at least I don't mind exercising. 

Happy Dog 1 and Happy Dog 2 in secret pond

It's Serious, Folks

Eating this way is going to kill me.

My poor mother-in-law lies, desperately ill, in a hospital bed right now, from a constellation of problems caused largely by the fact that she has Type 2 diabetes.

I have to stop eating this way.

My body sends me subtle signs when I'm pushing the boundaries of sugar consumption, and I'm to that point again.

I must get off the junk. 

It doesn't matter if I had a tough childhood or if my husband is distant or my job is stressful or the house is a cluttered wreck.

Life is hard enough without making it harder by suffering with AVOIDABLE health problems.

Must stop, now.

Get it back!

2014 Update

Well, a lot has happened.

Weight-wise, I'm back up to new heights of fat-ness.  Probably heavier than I've ever been.  I lumber.  My upper arms are ripply sausages.  My legs have moved into fat lady territory, they don't have any regular leg shape to them any more.  And my midsection is just thick and stout, there is no other way to describe it.  Just big, big all over. 

I think I went through menopause because if being fat wasn't enough, my face has taken on the appearance of a crone.  And my neck  . . . lets just not talk about my neck.

But my health  . . . my always great health . . .  is no more.  Back in December I was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer.  Surgery in January.  We think they got all the tumor but one lymph node was positive for cancer so I've been on a regimen of oral chemotherapy for the last six months.  I call it Chemo-Lite, because I haven't lost my hair and it doesn't make me sick to my stomach.  It does, however, cause neuropathy in my hands and feet (feels sort of like dull shards of glass in your hands, weird) and makes my eyes red and itchy, like an allergy attack.  And I'm not very peppy. Usually I'm okay but sometimes I get pretty tired.  For the past few months, the only exercise I've been getting is walking my dogs, usually for about 45 minutes.

I try to act like I'm normal but I'm really not.  In fact, I've been off of work for almost two months on the orders of my doctor(s) and I can't go back until at least mid-September.  I don't miss work, but I do miss the people I work with.  But my 8-year-old and I have had a great summer together.  She was happy not to have to go to summer program and we had some good times.  She's back in school now, but I can pick her up at the dismissal bell and she doesn't have to go to after school program, which she loves. 

So, I can do pretty well eating-wise for a while but I always, always, always blow it.  I couldn't even sleep well last night due to all the butter pecan ice cream I had eaten forming an immovable lump in my stomach.  Ugh.  And now that I'm older, I've noticed that my body is much less tolerant of my poor eating habits.  I won't go into detail, but my body lets me know in unpleasant ways when I've been hitting the junk food too hard.  And I'm terrified of tipping over into Type II diabetes.  Which is completely avoidable, if I could get my eating act together.

Must. Do. Better.

I always felt that if I could get some down time, just some time to breathe, that I could get my eating on track.  But I've had several weeks of down time and no, I haven't gotten my eating on track.  At least not for any significant amount of time. 

There is no magic bullet!  There is nothing for me to do but to just do it, to quote Nike.  Just don't eat the junk. Actually, just don't do it is probably more appropriate in my particular situation.

So, I'm back with my First World Problems and Middle-Aged-Fat-Lady angst.  More to follow!

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! 

Long Nights in a Tent

Updates:

Strangely, on Friday I weighed 163.6, which is lower than I've been in a long time, probably a year at least.  It's strange because I've only been semi-dieting.  The only thing I can think that has caused this might be the extra exercise I've been taking, or mayabe I'm eating less overall without realizing it.  Whatever the reason, I'll take the weight loss!

Chilly weather foiled my backpacking plans for this weekend, but because I have an entire week off (to get ready for my daughter's wedding and also to use leave that will go away at the first of the year), I'm planning a challenging trip for Monday and Tuesday.  My dad read me the trip description and it sounds really hard, and long, but I'm going to give it a try.  Winter backpacks can be trying, not only because of the cold but also because the days are so short.  Living in the southwest, backpacking in the summer is un-doable unless you get up to high elevations because it's so hot here.  But when the sun sets at 5 and you know you're in for 12 hours in the dark tent, it can be disheartening.  I've never figured out a way to comfortably read in a dark tent (getting in a comfortable position with a decent light source on the reading material without the benefit of pillows, lamps and side tables is hard) but that doesn't mean that I don't keep attempting it.  I wish I could be like my dad, who somehow can enter a tent at 5 pm and sleep blissfully until the sun arises the next morning . . . I awaken numerous times, thrash around trying to get warm without being claustrophobically contained in my sleeping bag, lie awake thinking about scary things, and am generally miserable.  However, getting out of the tent in the morning and seeing a the beautiful wilderness scenery makes it all worthwhile.

Succulents limping along, they don't seem to like being inside for the winter, but it's getting toocold at night to keep them outside.  Our climate just has too many temperature extremes to successfully plant the little guys in the ground, so they must remain in containers and be moved around as the days get alternatively too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.  However, I'm not ready to give up on any of them yet. 

 

Ineffective Toothpicks

So, I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks, mostly due to being busy, but I will try to catch up.

Weight:  still bouncing around in the mid 160’s.  I can’t remember the last time I managed to stay within my weight watchers point range for a day, but I am still tracking and weighing and I think that alone is preventing me from gaining a ton of weight.   At least I have an awareness.  And I’m exercising, which brings me to my next, great topic:

 Backpack:  I got to go on a GREAT backpack in the Gila Wilderness near the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  As it was over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to go for two nights.  I won’t describe the entire trip here, but highlights included hiking across a gorgeous grassy mesa that was reminiscent of the Serengeti with its swaying golden grasses and miles-long vistas, camping in a floodplain by the east fork of the Gila River next to what had been vast fields of flowers, now dried and brown but taller than my head, and hiking out the last day down the middle fork of the Gila River and coming upon an actual hot spring, hot water gushing from the canyonside, steaming in the chilly morning air.

My companions were my dad and a good friend of his named John, and my dog Murray.  This was only his second backpack and by far his longest, but he did well, carrying his dog pack, trudging along stoically, and once it was time to sleep, climbing into the tent and staying still all night long.

 Thanksgiving:  had a nice time with my kids and soon-to-be son in law.  We cooked, my daughter made her famous brined turkey, we had rolls and green bean casserole and real mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole, homemade whole-berry cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing with celery and onions, and my daughter’s made from scratch (even the crust) harvest apple pie, a delicious variant on apple pie that includes cranberries and raisins in addition to sliced apples.  It was a lot of fun, the big kids took all the leftovers, and the next day I burned off the meal by backpacking 7 or 8 miles, I can’t remember.  The entire trip, spread over three days, was about 16 miles.

Getting it Back:  The backpack wasn’t super steep or hard, but being able to carry a pack 16 miles over three days has really boosted my confidence in my physical abilities and I want to do more, harder backpacks and hikes.  When I’m doing my weekly A mountain hike, I’ve started doing it the long way again (haven’t done that in a while) and I’m generally feeling stronger.  This is good.  Too bad I still am 30 pounds overweight.

Succulents:  I had moved my split rocks, baby toes and big variety plant dish garden back outside not only due to mild weather but also because my male kitten was systematically eating the plants. (He didn't die so I guess they aren't poisonous). This was especially annoying because not only was he eating the flower buds on the baby toes plants, he was eating leaves off some really gorgeous plants in the dish garden, rendering them limp and scraggly.  The baby toes has continued to flower, and it is downright bizarre to see a big, wide daisy-like flower emerging from the strange, translucent lobes of the plant.  Another bud is emerged as well, but has not opened yet.  The dish garden is starting to recover, but alas, a forecast cold front and much colder temperatures will require that I bring it back inside today.  Not only was the kitten eating the plants both kittens were lying down in the dish garden, further crushing the plants.  We tried putting sharp toothpicks in the dirt to keep them out, but that was ineffective.  I would awaken in the morning to find the toothpicks on their sides and obvious evidence that they had been laid upon.  I am going to have to figure out a way to protect it  . . . will report back.

Dots

Things are NOT going well on the diet front. Over the last couple of weeks I have found myself unable to stay within my point range and yesterday I actually ate some candy. Dots.  Many of them.  Like I used to do, mindless stuffing of face with sweet nuggets of gumminess.  And I even hid the box under my pillow so no one would see, but of course my observant 7-year-old noticed them.  Busted!

I know from sad experience that a weight loss so painfully eked out over an 11-week time frame can be regained in two weeks (or less!) if an eating frenzy is allowed to occur.  I believe I know what has caused this to happen, and there isn't really anything I can do about it.  But stepping back to observe my behavior over the last two weeks has indicated to me that something definitely changed, and the urge to overeat is incredibly strong.  "Will power" just isn't cutting it.  Something takes over that is overwhelmingly powerful and demands that I just EAT.

But I'm NOT going to throw in the towel, as in times past.  I have worked diligently to lose the 12 or so pounds, I feel much better, clothes fit better, and life is just better overall without overeating.  So, even with Thanksgiving coming up, I will continue to track my points, log my exercise and consider this just a blip in a weight-loss effort that will probably take about a year.  And then there will be maintenance, of course.

In good news, I'm going backpacking Friday-Sunday, in the Gila wildnerness.  I have a five-day holiday weekend and after cooking dinner on Thanksgiving and hanging with my kids, I will pack up and meet my dad at the trail head for what should be a fun trip.  18 miles round trip, with a pack, and access only to the food I carry with me should help to break the overeating cycle, but sometimes it backfires.  Example:  I went on a six-day backpack to Wyoming several years ago.  Backpacking for six days at altitude requires a lot of energy, and thus food, so I ate heartily on the trail.  Problem was, when I got back into civilization, my body wanted me to continue to eat heartily, and I did.  End result--I was 20 pounds heavier 3 months later.  Ugh. I even broke the zipper on my wedding dress--but that's another story.

So, I will have to watch for that pitfall, but I think the trip is going to be great.  If the weather holds.

In succulent news, my baby toes has a couple of new flower buds but I think it wants more sun, as this picture indicates:

Poor flower stem on baby toes plant seeking sun (window to left)

its's always hard in the winter to know where to put my succulents to keep them happy.  With these delicate little guys, just a slight difference in sun angle can make a big difference.  I have kind of a dark house, and very little windowsill space that isn't in the direct attack zone of my big dog's tail, which is a unique and powerful weapon, or accessible to little kitten teeth.  All I can do is place the plant, not move it (they don't like getting schlepped around at all), and hope for the best. 

My support stockings have not yet arrived.  I even called to inquire about them.  That's fine with me!  They can get here months from now and I won't mind!

Will report back . . .