Update on what I've gained

Well, it's been 3 years since I last posted.  Here's what I've been doing:  2013 was my yoga year.  I got trained as a yoga teacher and it's been an amazing experience.  I also taught yoga (just a little), moved to another town, and gained some weight back.  So, yes, I'm even chubbier now.  But yet I'm still pretty happy.  I don't know why, but I just refuse to feel that bad about it.  Yes I want to lose it, but I also want to enjoy my life.  I will get it off eventually.  I keep exercising: doing yoga, walking, and lifting weights. I've also cut way back on my consumption of meat and dairy.  So I do eat a lot of healthy food and my skin looks good.  I think you can tell how many fruits and veggies someone eats by their skin glowiness.  When people eat mainly meat, dairy, white flour and sugar, their skin looks grayish.

Since 2012 I've also tried Juice Plus (it did nothing but give me gas), learned to make yummy raw foods at a "Raw Trainer" training, worked out with a personal trainer, and learned a bit about mindful eating.  I can LEARN all I want to, but the LIVING it is a totally different story.  The part of me that wants to lose weight is controlled by a different part of my brain than the part that sees pizza and goes, "Eat that as fast as you can NOW."  Our base animal programming is hard to overcome.

I have books by doctors, and by raw foodies and vegans. I've sought advice from personal trainers, wellness coaches, and psychologists, even looked into what the field of ayurveda would recommend I do to lose weight (I'm a "kapha" btw).  I don't understand why there isn't a BA or MA in Personal Weight Management, and why insurance companies don't help with the costs of losing weight and maintaining that loss.  Helping people lose weight with the power of knowledge from multiple disciplines is what's needed in this country.  There should be a profession that brings together the science based information of what works for weight loss and maintenance from all the relevant specialities: Nutrition, exercise, and psychology.  Then all aspects of the obesity problem can be addressed.  Each overweight person can then be helped wholistically.

Minor Setback

I just got back from visiting with family and my weight is up 4 pounds!  I'm mad and frustrated, and frankly, blaming somebody else.  I have a family member who loves to cook, go out to eat, make sweets, and buy candy for others.  He is a bad influence, and not on just me.  It was a really nice visit except for this one aspect.  In spite of doing tons of walking and yoga, I gained weight.  Maybe what I need to remember is that there was lots of laughter and fun, and a terrific view of the ocean.  I can't let a little temporary weight gain overshadow all the good stuff.

Now that I'm back home, the work on getting it back off starts right now.

Getting My Kids to Eat Healthy, or Who Needs Sanity Anyway?

One of the challenges to having a healthful life has been to get my kids to eat healthy.  My older daughter loves any form of cheese and starch:  mac and cheese, pizza, grilled cheese.  And chocolate—she’s seriously addicted.  My younger daughter craves anything with sugar in it.  Even the “healthy” foods that she eats have to be pretty sweet:  yogurt, cereal, soy milk.  Not surprisingly, she’s also had a lot of problems with cavities, about which I have enough motherly guilt sitting on my shoulders to almost crush me.  The only meat they really like is the unhealthy, salty, smoky kind.  On the positive side, they’re both good fruit eaters, they eat mostly whole grain carbs, and they’ll eat certain vegetables when we press them to.

Every weekday, I walk up to my youngest’s elementary school to walk her home from kindergarten.  Recently my daughter came home from kindergarten with Easter candy.  She asked me if it’s OK to eat it. I said “no” and she proceeded to suck on the jellybean in her hand.  Then she told me that at least the teddy grahams in her basket aren’t so bad.  Funny, I thought, I could have sworn they were cookies.  She asked again if she can have some of the treats once we’re at home, and I pretty much lost it.  I’m just so tired of dealing with the subject.  And why do other people think it’s their business to give my kids candy???  That’s my business.  And if they say to check with me before eating it, then I get to be the bad guy if I say “no”.   Fun, right?

I’m at the point of beginning to dedicate a lot more time to finding and cooking super-healthy foods they will actually eat.  I’ve tried some raw recipes, like berry soup with nut cream, and “cookies” made from dates and nuts ground together.  Not much luck with winning them over with those.  Sometimes I think it’s an impossible task, kinda like the two big tasks for a stay-at-home mom are cleaning your house and raising your kids and the two are diametrically opposed.  If you have kids living in your house, they are probably making it messy, right now this very second.  Likewise, children seem diametrically opposed to really truly healthy food, if they’ve had a taste of the bad stuff.  Trying to accomplish two opposing tasks at the same time is enough to drive any mom bonkers. 

Subscribe and/or Comment, Please!!!

I just viewed the stats concerning my audience for this blog, and was really intrigued to see that people in Russia and Germany have been reading it.  Wow, that's so cool.  I'd love to hear from you!  I'd like to get some cultural perspective on the subject, since I know that America is a leader in the world for being a fat-inducing society.  I'd imagine it might be difficult to be overweight in another country, though, where it's not so common.  Or even if you're just here in the U.S. and you enjoy my blog, please join up, or comment once in a while so I know you're there!  Thanks.

Be an Exercise Hedonist

Fortunately, I have always enjoyed exercising.  I have to give my parents credit for instilling that in me.  Thanks, mom and dad for throwing me outside when my backside seemed glued to the chair in front of the TV.  Even at the point in my life when I was heaviest, I would sometimes do aerobics, walk to work, walk my dog around the neighborhood and the park, and play games like kickball with the kids I worked with.  Occasionally well-intentioned people would encourage me to exercise, assuming I didn’t because of my size.  But I was, and I probably would have been even bigger had I not.

In recent years, I’ve tried P90X, the Body for Life method of lifting weights, Zumba, Jazzercise, yoga, as well as various classes at my gym.  And from all these, I’ve realized this:  I am not a masochist!  I don’t need the aching knees, and the feeling old because I need a nap in the afternoon.  One class I tried at my gym was called Anaerobics, where we would exercise one muscle at a time for what seemed like 5 minutes each.  Doesn’t that sound like fun (imagine my voice dripping with sarcasm here)? 

What I do like is awesome music (hence my love of dance), moving my body, and feeling strong and sexy. Back when I did Jazzercise, I would actually get a feeling of euphoria.   Euphoria beats feeling like a creaky old woman, IMO.  If I get bored I try something new.  This summer I’m going to try getting back into biking, and maybe even lap swimming if I can learn more skills beyond my standard doggy paddle! 

My Battle Scars

Do you ever find your own ugliness fascinating?  OK, let me explain what I mean.  I don’t think I’m an ugly person overall, but the skin on my tummy is pretty darned ugly.  I have battle scars from this war of the bulge I have fought for so long, and from two pregnancies.  That skin has been through the wringer! 

I can see why women get tummy tucks.  I’m sure lots of women feel the same way I do about their abdominal skin.  But I will never forget an episode I saw of the TV show, “Dr. G:  Medical Examiner”. It was about a mom who had lost weight and decided to go under the knife to fix her loose tummy skin.  Horribly, she died from the complications of her tummy tuck.  I hope I never want to risk my life for vanity.  Losing weight for me was about being healthier and hopefully having more time on this earth with my husband and kids.  And I’m not one to want to wear a bikini again—they were never in the cards for this one-piece girl.  Lastly, and very fortunately, I am happily married to the man I’ve been with since I was 18.  He knows where my battle scars come from and they don’t seem to bother him.

So, I don't want a tummy tuck, but I do have an idea that some may find strange.  For some reason, I’m interested in examining my stomach even more closely. My idea is to take close-up photographs of the flesh there in the hope that they will look like landscapes—maybe even beautiful or interesting ones. To quote Jason Mraz’s song, I’m going to try to see "The Beauty in Ugly”. Maybe I can transform my feelings about my tummy skin this way.  Someday, if the photographs turn out in a satisfying way, and I work up enough courage, I’ll post one here with a follow-up blog entry. 

P.S.  A friend just posted this picture on Facebook, the same day I posted this blog entry.  This is NOT my picture.  But it's beautiful.

Be Wary of Weight Watchers

I joined Weight Watchers for the first time in 1990, and have rejoined many times since then.  Sometimes I had success on the program and sometimes not.  I’ve joined with friends and by myself.  The most I ever lost in one go was about 20 pounds.  I used to think Weight Watchers was the best weight loss method out there.  But I no longer think so.  I do like that they weigh you in, and give you rewards ranging from applause to key chains, if you lose weight.  It’s nice to have that accountability and get praise after working hard to lose weight each week.  And they give you a new blank journal every week to write down what you’ve eaten, which is proven to help people lose weight.

But over the years, I’ve seen an increase in their emphasis on processed food.  The first time I joined, there were either no, or very few of their foods for sale on the premises.  Now there are racks of it.  Last meeting I went to, there was even a segment where people talked about their favorite processed snacks, and brought in their empty snack bags for all to see, like an unhealthy version of show-n-tell.  Ick.

Weight Watchers Magazine bombards you with images of food.  The booklet they give you when you first join contains pictures of luscious desserts (I ripped them out).  The meetings are usually discussions on food-related topics and recipes.  Should an organization dedicated to weight loss really be doing this, when the rest of society is already tempting us with these images and messages?  For Pete’s sake, can we focus more on exercise, or the psychology behind successful weight loss, maybe even the freaking weather?????  The bottom line is that they are a company dedicated to making money, and unfortunately, I believe they are more concerned with that than about people’s health.  Reinforcing overweight people’s obsession with food, and encouraging them to eat non-nutritious salty snacks that they will probably lose control with, is, in my opinion, unethical.