Tag Archives: eating disorder

Food Issues Aren’t Child’s Play

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Remember the playground?

When your parents parked the car, or when the bell for recess FINALLY rang…where did you run first?

I was all about the swings.  Unlike the monkey bars, they didn’t require much athletic ability, and they didn’t scald the skin on your thighs like the metal slide did on a hot summer day.  Didn’t we all pinch our fingers in the chains at least once when we were lost in the challenge of swinging hard enough to fly all the way around the bar?

(I recognize that some of you are too young to remember a playground that had actual safety hazards.  But back in MY day <hitching up suspenders> we didn’t have plastic coatings over the chains.  We had shiny metal slides that heated up to skin-blistering, egg-frying temperatures in August.  Seat belts on the swings?  You have GOT to be kidding.  And we had NONE of that sissy-boy recycled-tire mulch at the bottom of the monkey bars.    We had good old-fashioned DIRT.  Soft landings = soft adults!  Got a boo-boo?  Pop that sucker back into joint, rub some gravel on it and get back outside!)

Anyway.

As adults, I think we look for that same thrill that the playground used to give us.  We all need to find our fun, right?

Some of us look to extreme sports (100-milers.  The Ironman.)  Others look to death-defying activities.  (Bungee jumping, anyone?  Skydiving?  That’s a big helping of NOT ME.  But you go on with yo’ bad self.)  And a few get way too absorbed in the drama of politics, Big Brother, or Facebook.

Some of us get a little lost looking for that playground thrill.  That’s where things like gambling and alcohol come into play.  And for me, obviously, food.

Recently, the hubs and I went to our local State Fair, where they historically feature diabetes and obesity “on a stick.”  (Delicious, delicious diabetes.  OMNOMNOM)  You can find something for every palate – pickle juice Popsicles, chocolate-covered bacon, funnel cake, and deep-fried everything from candy bars to cookie dough – even butter.  (But butter sort of terrifies me, so we are NOT having any of THAT.)

I joke occasionally that the State Fair is “the one day I allow myself to eat.”  Now, I’ve been trying desperately to get these last ten fifteen five few pounds off, and I’ve been trying to not go all eating-disorder starvation crazy about it.  For the last four weeks, I’ve conscientiously eaten 1200 calories a day and gone for a run 3-4 times a week, with long bike rides on the weekends.  Balanced.  Healthy.  Right?

So I knew the fair was coming up, and I know I like to eat fair food, so I decided to just have a day of “screw it” and eat what I felt like eating at the fair.  One planned afternoon of once-a-year treats.

And eat I did.  I had:

  • a blueberry/honey/chipotle muffin (they were gluten-free, so I had to try one)
  • a scoop of chocolate raspberry wine ice cream (fabulous)
  • a beer-battered fried brat (also gluten-free!)
  • a “triple peanut threat” milkshake (peanut butter, Reese’s pieces, and Butterfingers, which probably aren’t gluten-free, but my throttle was jammed firmly into don’t-give-a-s#it gear at this point.
  • a chocolate-coated pecan nut roll (gluten?  WHO CARES SUGAR SUGAR SUGARSUGARSUGARSUUUUUUUGAAAARRRR)

Now, that’s a lot of food, but trust me, in past years, when I didn’t need to worry about not eating wheat, I’ve done a LOT worse.  (Add not one, but TWO, orders of deep-fried cheese curds, and probably a chocolate sandwich, which YES, is as good as it sounds, and maybe some sweet potato fries with a small lake of ketchup.)  So, given that this was a planned indulgence, this wasn’t TOO bad for a full day of food, especially when you’re walking all day, too.

Right?

Right  If I’d have STOPPED there.

I had been having quite a time on the monkey bars, enjoying the view up high, until I slipped, fell hard, and whacked my elbow on the unforgiving pavement.  THUD.

Unable to do anything halfway, I gave moderation a hostile middle finger and ate half a king-sized pillow bag of popcorn once I got home.

And, despite sticking religiously to my diet for the rest of the week – zero weight loss.

Well, what did I expect, exactly?  I guess I should feel lucky that I didn’t gain from my dalliance with debauchery.  I know that one day off from diligence – one bad meal, actually – will cost me (I wrote about why here.)

But I also know it’s dangerous to dance close to the edge of that oh-so-slippery slope.  Because with eating disorders, there is no “just once.”  There’s no minor diversion.  No day off.  It’s black or white.  All or nothing.

It’s kind of ironic, actually.  I mean, when you’re starving yourself (alternating with periods of stuffing yourself senseless) you spend a lot of time on a scale.  And if you’ve ever waded in past your knees in the eating-issues pool, you have a food scale, too.

The scale.  A symbol of balance.  A precise measuring device calculating, gram by gram, the distance of an object from zero.  Calculating the mass between the amount of space you take up and the amount of space that’s acceptable to occupy.

Physically, you’re constantly working with this instrument to find balance.

Yet, when it comes to the food?  Mentally, we can’t get off the seesaw.  Up.  Down.  Back up.  Quickly down.  One minute, you’re briefly at the top, and in the next moment, you’re bouncing painfully off the ground when your partner bails from the ride.

It’s all or nothing.

And we all know how it SHOULD be, right?  Mentally, we should strive to be balanced, aiming mightily for that elusive “moderation” bullseye, while physically, the scale should be an occasional, twice-a-year checkup at the doctor’s office.

My relationship with food, and my weight, should look like this:

But it feels more like this (except picture the elephant tumbling @ss over teakettle to the ground in a thunderous crash):

Or this:

Or, more accurately, this:

Somehow, I need to move myself to the center of the seesaw.  It doesn’t HAVE to be all-or-nothing, right?  Most people eat when they’re hungry, stop when they’re not, and don’t burn up so much freaking mental energy on this stuff.

They just DO it.  It’s like breathing.

It’s not so automatic for me.  I have to keep reminding myself to find my balance.

Keep shifting to the center.

Try to balance.

Fall.

Get back up.  Rub some dirt on it.

Try again.

<sigh>

Anyone wanna go back to the swings with me?  Let’s leave all this food baggage in Mom’s purse on the ground, and just rock back and forth for a while.

If I lean back, and point my toes to the sky, I’ll go higher and higher, alternately reaching for the moon and gently floating back to earth, not having a care in the world.

For a moment.

See Saw, Margery Daw

Katie shall have a new master

But she shall lose just two ounces a day

Because she can’t starve any faster

Liebster, Revisited: Part 2 of 3: High School Never Ends, Cars, and Christmas Trees

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This is a continuation of my last post, where I started responding to sonofabeach96’s  nomination of me for a Liebster Award:

liebster3Because I’m the verbal equivalent of Niagara Falls, I couldn’t get it all into one post.  So here are three more of the questions…and three more long-winded answers:

What were your high school days like?  Good, bad, or indifferent and why?

On the surface, high school wasn’t that bad.  I wasn’t really bullied.  I had friends.  I was involved in every music activity our small district had available.  I got excellent grades.

But it’s hard to reminisce about high school without noting, as a point of reference, where I was with my eating disorder.  It’s like having a sterile, undisturbing stock photo of a smiling family set inside a dusty, chipped, weather-beaten picture frame.

The story’s in the setting, not the scene.

Ninth grade started with a bang, because <dramatic pause> I met a boy.  When you’re fourteen, this is typical.  When you’re fourteen and chubby, and he likes you back, it’s life-changing.   He was older (by one year – oh, the SCANDAL!) and was (of COURSE!) as thin as a rail with a sky-high metabolism.  (Seriously – weren’t they all?)  I coasted through most of freshman year with a lot of “firsts” – first kiss, first date, first formal – and, for the first time since fifth grade, didn’t focus too much on my weight.

I ended my first year of high school wearing a size 11 and weighing about 145.

And then summer hit.  And with the heat came last year’s clothes that were way, way too small.  And by August, I was appalled to discover that my marching band uniform had shrunk.  Significantly.

Now, as an adult, I can objectively look back and see that truly, I was pretty much “normal.”  Probably a bit chubby, especially compared to the track stars and cheerleaders.  But surely I didn’t stand out as the fattest kid in the class.  I understand intellectually that I didn’t look all that different from my classmates – to this day, when I occasionally page through an old yearbook, it never fails to strike me how downright NORMAL I appear.

But at the time?  I was FAT.  And Something Had To Be Done About That.

I knew all too well what worked.  I quit eating.

I started tenth grade a good 25 pounds less than I had ended freshman year.  I walked into my first day of my sophomore year with my size 7 jeans hanging off me.

Bolstered by success and compliments from my classmates, I kept going.  I kept going despite occasional blackouts.  Despite a blood pressure of 80/40.  Despite lectures from the school nurse.  Despite missing family meals.  Despite peer praise turning to worry.  Despite bodily functions ceasing to exist.  Despite my (new) boyfriend begging me to eat.

I finally settled in at just barely over 100 pounds, logging every calorie and measuring every morsel of food (including mustard and Crystal Light – I was hardcore, bro).

This was my existence for the next two years.

Outwardly, things looked to be great – I was thin, I was active in music stuff, I had a boyfriend who loved me dearly and was going to take care of me ALWAYS, and as long as I controlled my body and the food I put into it, I was safe and secure.

Then, during my first semester as a senior, my boyfriend – my first love, the boy who swore he’d marry me one day and would love me forever – unceremoniously dumped me.  (Because college, ya know.)  Suddenly, after over two years of coasting in the shade, the sun was beating down on me, burning off the fog and forcing its bright, harsh light directly into my eyes, commanding my pupils to constrict as my eyes ached from pained, constant squinting.

With absolutely no idea how to cope, I started to eat.

Once the dam broke, it was impossible to stop the flood.  I gained fifty pounds the last half of senior year, as I filled the time with extracurricular activities (read: boys) trying to find my self-worth while simultaneously feeding my starving soul with anything I could get my hands on.  (Unfortunately, I was feeding it the equivalent of onion rings and Twinkies.  But I had to start somewhere.)

I left for college in the fall with the Bright Future of weighing 170 pounds and having absolutely no idea what to do with my life.

So…yeah.  High school was…high school.

KatieSeniorPic

And here I am, twenty-five over twenty years later, still wrestling the same pigs and getting just as dirty.  True, I have cuter shoes and no boa.  But still….

What was your first car? 

The first car that was actually MINE was a 1991 Chevy Lumina.  I’d love to say it was a sweet ride, but the only people to say that about this car is the bluehair-and-Bingo set. 

I mean…just…gaaaah: 

Really makes a statement, doesn’t it?  In addition to its edgy, bad@ss look, it also featured a speedometer that pegged at a hairnet-blowing 85mph.  Which is totally un-American, and un-German, and un-everything-under-age-seventy.

So why did I have this?  Well, as is the case with most first cars, I wasn’t actually involved in picking it out.  It actually came into my possession courtesy of my now-ex-in-laws.

See, my former mother-in-law cleaned houses for a living – generally for the elderly.  Consequently, they often paid her in either quarters, baked goods, or castoff clothing.

Still, she persisted.  We think she was hoping that someday, one of her clients would kick the bucket and mention her in the will.

That never happened.

But, since most of her customers were in their late eighties, they did hop the heaven bus to harp lessons on occasion.  And, as the stereotypes dictate, they often left behind an older, low-miles vehicle – which she’d then volunteer to buy, at a bargain price, from the grieving family.

I kid you not.

(I guess it’s a small reward for choking down loaf after loaf of soggy, well-intentioned pumpkin bread.)

At the time, my then-spouse and I were newlyweds – and I had finally, after years of resistance*, learned to drive.  So we needed a second car, and this one met all of our requirements and qualifications (read:  it ran and it was cheap.)  It wasn’t exactly hip and trendy, but it was only a couple of years old with less than 15,000 miles on it.  SOLD!  I drove that sucker into the ground, tooling around in it until we eventually popped out some offspring and traded it in for a minivan.

*Side note:  I didn’t actually learn to drive until I was 24.  Why?  Well, if you asked me directly, I’d tell you, as I flipped my hair and narrowed my eyes coyly, “I always had a boy or two to drive me around.”  That was partially true; I also had an older brother and a younger sister who were more than happy to play chauffeur.  But the truth?  I’m hopelessly uncoordinated, easily distracted, and a champion procrastinator.  Plus, I wanted to spend my babysitting dinero on clothes and shoes, not gas and insurance.  Priorities, ya know.

What is the one thing that grates on your last nerve?

OK, there is NO WAY I can only pick only one thing.  I talked about a few Things I Hate in the Love/Hate Challenge (which took me SIX posts.  I am ridiculous.)

But out of all those posts, there was one thing I missed that absolutely drives me to shoot fire from my face holes and rant in unholy tongues.

It’s Christmas lights that BLINK IN SECTIONS.

They don’t twinkle.  They don’t flutter off and on to music.  They just ALL flip on and off AT THE SAME TIME, like some idiot minion is half-wittedly turning the switch off and on, off and on.

Off.  On.  Off.  On.

These are usually at the house that’s hung just one string, usually lining a roof or a window. Or part of a roof.  Or half a window.  Or until the string of lights just ran out.

THEY’RE LIGHTS THAT DON’T EVEN TRY.

And please note – when I say “you didn’t try,” I have a pretty high threshold for what I consider gallant effort.  Witness our family Christmas Tree a few years ago:

frogpoolnoodletree

Shout out to Problems with Infinity (http://problemswithinfinity.com/) – see? SEE?!?

Yes.  It’s a stuffed frog and a pool noodle.  BUT IT SAYS “TREE” SO IT’S LEGIT.  And I didn’t have to step on a single needle.  I WIN.

This tree is creative and unique (and affordable, I might add!)  But lights that blink in sections?  It’s like Christmas just gave up.  It’s Christmas sadness.

Don’t be that house.  Don’t be the Holiday Spirit Slayer.  Leave your lights on, in all their energy-sapping, glowing glory.  Your neighbors will shovel your walkways and bring you cookies, and there will be world peace and harmony.

Or, at least, I won’t have to violently hurl the Fruitcake of Christmas Past through your front window.

You…Should Take the Segway….

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As far as earworms go, this is a decent one to have.  🙂

So in my quest to get outside of myself a little bit and try new things, I stumbled upon the opportunity to try out a Segway.

Wait…a what?

A Segway is basically an electric scooter – except it doesn’t have a seat.  You stand on this contraption and lean backward or forward to make it go or stop.  The thing is designed with computerized sensors and gyroscopes that somehow sense your motions and respond accordingly.

Which I read as “the computer will SMELL YOUR FEAR and laugh maniacally as it pitches you violently to the ground.”

The Segway whistles innocently as it searches for a place to bury the body.

It looks pretty menacing.  And, for the record, the dude who bought the company in 2010 was promptly thrown off a cliff by one of his products.  TRUE STORY BRO.

But, on the other hand, thousands of people ride these things every year.  I see Security zipping around the airport and the mall on Segways all the time.  And many major metropolitan areas have local tours, given while riding Segways.

So…how bad can it be?  If you can chuck a group of jet-lagged novices on these, and generally have a reasonable expectation that you’ll end the tour with the same number of people you started with, it’s gotta be somewhat safe…right?

I located a local Segway tour and signed myself and my son up.  (My daughter wasn’t all that interested.  Plus, this way, if my son and I perished in a terrible Segway fire, there’d be someone to inherit my jewelry.)

My son was mildly interested in trying the Segway. He was decidedly less interested in the tour itself, however.  (He’s 15.  Can you blame him?)  Most of the available tours feature historical sites – “historical” coming from the ancient Greek word meaning “boring crap your grandpa won’t shut up about” – so I decided to sign us up for the sculpture tour, instead.  I figured that was our best bet – buildings might not be all that exciting to a teenager, but an unusual sculpture might get at least a “blink and shrug.”  Or just a blink.  (Like I said, he’s 15.  I set my expectations accordingly.)

The day of our tour was hot – it was about 90.  (Which I actually love, because I’m always cold.  I recognize that pretty much everyone else is dying when it gets that hot, but I just stand outside and soak that shiz up.)  Because it was stupid hot, my son and I were the only two people signed up for the tour that day.  BONUS – undivided attention!

There are a few things you have to do before they’ll let you tool around on the Segway.  Those bad boys can zoom up to 12.5mph, so safety first, right?  You have to watch a safety video, put a helmet on, and…um…something else I think I missed because I was finishing level 432 on Candy Crush.  Then you can take off on the official tour.

But before they make you invest all that time in safety, they give you a quick trial on the thing, to make sure you aren’t a complete lost cause on the balance front.  (Which is nice, because generally, gravity hates me, and sometimes, when I’m trying something completely off the rails like, I dunno, WALKING, the ground jumps up completely at random to slap some sense into me.)

(Hmm. I wonder if someone called ahead and warned them about me.  Maybe that’s why no one else was on this tour.)

So I was introduced to my Segway.  Her name was Eunice.

SegwayEunice

After a quick primer, they had me hop on and try some quick maneuvers.

I got on, and enthusiastically leaned forward.

And promptly ran over the instructor’s foot.

My son was not amused.

You can HEAR the eyeroll....

You can HEAR the eyeroll.

My son is a natural athlete (with a KILLER arm, by the way #mombrag) so he was fearlessly flying around on the thing in no time.  Being a world-class klutz, I wasn’t quite as confident.  But, after a few minutes, I was deemed passable.  (Clearly, the bar was so low, I ran THAT over, too.  And I never fully got the hang of standing still, so every time we stopped for a quick explanation on a sculpture or sign, I sort of coasted back and forth.  Sometimes gently into a wall or a stop sign.  I’m sure I appeared mildly drunk.  I’m sure they’ve seen worse.  I mean, tourists.  Right?)

The tour was pretty cool.  I’ve lived in this city for nine years (!!) now, and saw a million things I’ve never seen before.

We crossed historic bridges:

SewgayBridgesegwayintocityexplored some of our city’s many bike trails:

segwaybiketrailand checked out some…art, I guess?

segwaysonspooncherryYeah…this is called, creatively and literally, “Spoonbridge and Cherry.”  Because it’s a bridge that’s a spoon, and there’s a cherry on the end.

SegwaySpoon

This is located in an 11-acre sculpture garden outside a local “modern art” museum.  Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about art – but some of the displays are…well….Last time I was there, they had a wall of salt and pepper shakers.  Like Hell’s Yard Sale.  Which I would have understood if they had CALLED it that, but it had some other lame name like “Modern Salt Shakers of the Century.”  And the time before THAT, there was a whole room dedicated to the variant shadings of cubism and graphite.  Which means SOMEONE DOODLED ON GRAPH PAPER WITH A PENCIL.

I will never understand art.

I tried, I really did.  I studied the sculpture for a moment, cocking my head and squinting intellectually.  Cupping my chin in my hand, I pondered aloud how the tonality of the structure might be modified if the artist had chosen to represent the cherry with, let’s say, an olive.  I remarked that the timbre would quickly shift from whimsical and insouciant to somewhat disillusioned, yet sophisticated.

Glare from my son.  “MOM.  No one eats olives with a spoon.”

(Actually, I do. At midnight.  When no one is looking.  But apparently, that’s still a secret.)

The rest of the tour passed without incident.  And by “without incident,” I mean that we had to take an off-road, unplanned detour down a pedestrians-only, bar-lined street, DURING HAPPY HOUR, due to road construction, and I crashed soundly and resolutely into a bridge.  Which caused the tour guide (YES, the one whose foot I flattened) to solidly rearend me, sandwiching me between himself, Eunice, and the wrought-iron guard rail.

Hil-freakin-larious.

In my son’s words: “Dude.  You were going straight, and you just didn’t TURN, and BOOM!”  Soooo descriptive.  And helpful.  I cannot WAIT until you get your permit, buster.

I suppose he may as well learn that I never go out with anything less than a bang.  <takes bow>

P.S.  Yes, that’s me in the pictures.  (Well not the maroon T-shirt; that’s my son, obviously.)  I’ve added and deleted these photos several times. I may delete them again after I hit “publish.”  Because I hate pictures of myself; I can’t look at one without scrutinizing what’s too big and too lumpy and too much and too everything.  And then I wasn’t going to point OUT that it was me, because that’s calling attention to the whole thing, which means you are totally going to go back and click on the pictures now.  Right?  But part of the reason I’m here is to deal with my food and body issues – and normal people wouldn’t think twice about posting what SHOULD be perfectly innocuous pictures of something fun they did, because it’s NOT about the size of my azzmatazz, but about the event, and if I hadn’t SAID anything, no one would even have THOUGHT to check out the width of my thighs.  So this whole paragraph is mental anxiety vomit about me TRYING TO BE NORMAL, which defeats the point entirely, but there ya go.  I get a Participation Trophy for showing up, right?  :-/ 😉

Losing Weight Is Hard. Because Math

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If you’ve ever embarked on a weight loss journey, you’ve probably encountered several  folks who have attempted to provide tips and advice.  I bet you’ve heard – or even uttered – some of these gems:

“Oh…just cut back on the carbs/fat/sugar.”

“Eat less processed food.  That’ll do the trick.”

“Walk for an hour a day.  The weight will fall right off.”

“Drink more water.”

“Lift weights!  That just melts the fat away!”

“Don’t eat after 8 PM – those calories stick right to ya.”

I’m going to tell you right now that most of these folks are well-meaning (OK, maybe just nosy) – but entirely unhelpful.  Because while these tips are certainly useful if you want to incorporate healthier habits, they won’t take anyone from obese to svelte.  And they certainly won’t take twenty pounds off any female.

If losing weight were as easy as taking a daily walk, we’d all be in shape.  Yet nearly 35% of Americans are obese.  Let that sink in a minute.  THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT of us aren’t merely overweight – we’re obese.  And if you’re between the ages of 40 and 59, that figure rises to nearly FORTY PERCENT.  40% of that age group is obese.

Because I like pictures, here’s where all the fat people live:

Courtesy of http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html

<insert obvious joke about moving to West By-God Virginia so I can be the slimmest woman with the best – and most – teeth.  I’d be a freaking SUPERMODEL, yo.>

So now I’m going to tell you why losing weight is so dang hard.  And I’m talking about women – especially women over 40 – here.  (If you’re a dude, yes, I KNOW you can lose 5 pounds this week by replacing six of your french fries with a banana.  GO AWAY before I bite you.)

This actually came up in conversation this week while I was talking with my company’s CFO.  He mentioned his wife’s weight struggles, and his “helpful” suggestion of exercise.  (Fortunately for him, we have good dental insurance.)

Since he’s the CFO, I thought laying out the numbers might help him understand what women truly have to go through to make any noticeable dent in their weight.

We’re going to do some math here, folks.  Bear with me, though.  This is gold.

For my food and activity tracking, I like to use the free tool MyFitnessPal.  It has a huge database of foods and the calories they contain, and it syncs nicely with MapMyFitness, so my calories burned and calories eaten are all in the same place.

So let’s open up MyFitnessPal and see what it has to say.

I enter my age, my height, and my weight.  Next, I input my activity level.  I have a desk job, and a 45-minute commute, so I guess “sedentary” will cover it.

And my results….

To maintain my weight, I can eat 1450 calories a day.

<blink>

If you know anything about calories, you know that ain’t a lot.  I’m of pretty average height and pretty average build, and my daily caloric allowance to MAINTAIN my weight can be consumed in one moderate meal:

McDonald’s:  A Bacon Clubhouse Grilled Chicken sandwich (610), medium order of fries (340), and a small chocolate chip frappe (520).  (1470.  I didn’t even get any ketchup.)

Red Lobster:  a half-order of the Crab Linguini Alfredo (1030!! for half!!), a Cheddar Bay Biscuit (160), and a garden salad (70) with French dressing (180).  (1440.  I had to skip the drinks…I guess I could afford a lemon wedge in my water.)

These are not unreasonable meals.  I certainly know I can pack away a heckuva lot more in a day.  But by selecting one of these, I’ve spent my ENTIRE caloric allotment for the day IN ONE SITTING.  (And yes, I know there are better choices available.  The point here is that these are not inappropriately obnoxious plates of food, and if you’re not absolutely militant about knowing what you’re eating, the fat ninjas will jump you and tattoo themselves to your backside.)

Isn’t this FUN?!!  Let’s try going on a date.  How about:

Applebee’s:  Split an order of Spinach and Artichoke dip (980) and a Blue Ribbon brownie (1670).  Drink one light beer.  (Which is kinda pointless, right?  But that brings you to about 1430.)

Don Pablo’s:  Eat no more than eight tortilla chips (191 calories for 13) while waiting for your order.  Split an order of Buffalo Wings (752) and a plate of Chicken Cantina Nachos (1059).  Drink two Slenderitas.  (211 each.)  It’s not a very interesting date, but you munched 1445 calories while listening to him drone on about beating his mother on World of Warcraft.

That’s an entire day’s worth of calories right there, folks.  IN ONE DATE.

Depressed yet?  Because there’s more.

Let’s now shift our focus to actual weight loss.

Remember, to MAINTAIN my weight, I get to eat 1450 calories a day.  That means that if I want to LOSE, I actually have to eat less.

But how much less?   Well, we know you need a 3500-calorie deficit to lose a pound.  So, to lose a pound a week, we’d need to cut 500 calories a day.  (3500 / 7 = 500.)

<beep beep> Back up the truck here.  I get 1450 calories to MAINTAIN my weight.

1450 – 500 = 950. (Or a medium Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard at Dairy Queen.  BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS YO)

But wait a sec….we’ve all heard the guideline that you shouldn’t eat fewer than 1200 calories a day.  Frankly, it’s extremely difficult to get the recommended nutrition you need on 1200 calories – not to mention most of us get dangerously hangry and will bite your head clean off the clavicle.

Let’s be real – for most of us, a daily allowance of 950 calories is just not gonna happen, at least not on a regular, sustained basis.  You might be able to keep it up for a week or so, but eventually, your body will force you into survival by shoving you face-first into a deep dish pizza.  So let’s try to be somewhat moderate here.

1450 – 1200 = 250.  250 * 7 = 1750.  So by eating 1200 calories a day, I can expect to lose a half pound a week.

Yippee.

If I have five pounds to lose, that means I have to stick to 1200 calories a day, EVERY DAY, for TEN WEEKS.  (Two and a half months.  Pretty much an entire season.)

I don’t think I have to explain the level of discipline required to stick to this for ten weeks straight.

But let’s interject some real life here.

How many of us have gone into the weekend with steel resolve, only to be swayed by the mental chant of “I worked hard all week, I deserve a TREAT!” on Friday night or Saturday?

Because we’re being moderate, let’s allow ourselves a small indulgence.  How about, after resolutely following our diets for six days straight, we have a little Saturday treat? You know I like ice cream – let’s get a two-scoop sundae from Culver’s.

There goes 1040 calories of the 1750 deficit.  (And it was delicious.)

So now, I have a 710-calorie deficit for the week.  (1750 – 1040 = 710.)

Which means it will take me NEARLY FIVE WEEKS to lose ONE pound (3500 / 710 = 4.93) ….and to lose five pounds?  TWENTY-FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS.  (3500 * 5 / 710 = 24.65)

Yes, folks.  If I eat 1200 calories a day, with the SOLE exception of ONE two-scoop sundae cheat a week, it will take me SIX FREAKING @#($@#$ MONTHS to lose FIVE POUNDS.

Oh, wait, though – I can add exercise!  Ooh, that’s gotta help!  Right?

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a runner.  Four days a week, I have a not-insignificant run of 3.5 miles. And I’m not slogging along, either – I’m doing a 9.25 minute mile.

So…3 miles at a jog, with a quarter mile warm-up and cool-down walk. Let’s put that into MyFitnessPal.

303 calories.  (1 1/2 Pop Tarts.)

So if I manage to get out of bed and DO this four days a week, I’ll have burned off the equivalent of one pint of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk.  (Which, according to the label, has 1200 calories and is designed to serve four people.  To which I say HAHAHAHAHAHA)

In other words – if I run four days a week, I can eat 1450 calories a day + one pint of ice cream and MAINTAIN my weight…or I can lose ONE pound in just under three weeks by eating 1450 calories a day and RUNNING FULL TILT four times a week.

Are you seeing how freaking ridiculous this is? 

And we haven’t even added any complicating factors.  Thyroid issues.  Hormones.  Water retention.  Leftover Happy Meal fries.  Muscle loss and the metabolism slowdown that comes with aging.  And the fact that the more weight you lose, the fewer calories your body needs.

Is it any wonder that so many of us struggle with our weight, and with food? 

So, fellas?  If a woman you care about is frustrated with her weight, don’t tell her to hit the gym.  Don’t remind her that ice cream is fattening.  And for the love of all that is holy and good, do NOT tell her that she is anything but absolutely beautiful.

Just tell her that you love her, no matter what.

And give her a hug from me while you’re at it.  Because I’m right there with ya, chica.

Sunshine on My Blog Page Makes Me Happy

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Anyone else remember that song?

When I think of John Denver, I either think of Sunshine on My Shoulders, or, peculiarly, Kermit the Frog.

I’m not entirely certain why my brain equates John Denver with the Muppets. I know he was featured on the Muppet Show a few times, and this was the early 70s (which where my formative years, NOT because anyone I knew was smoking anything suspect.  Then again, I was a kid; what did I know?)  Although John Denver appears to have had a full life and career outside Kermit’s world, it simply doesn’t exist in my brain.

Anyway…sunshine’s on my mind today.  Both Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly and Nikki at Undiagnosed Warrior nominated me for the Sunshine Blog Award (so I get TWO pretty things to hang on my wall!  And they’re ORANGE!  My fave!!!)

sunshine-blog-awardsunshine-awardDA RULES:

  • Thank the person who nominated you in a blog post
  • Answer the 11 questions set by the person who nominated you
  • Nominate 11 blogs to receive the award, and write them 11 new questions

So that means I have TWENTY-TWO QUESTIONS to answer.  Yowza.  This could take awhile….

What is the most important thing to you?   I probably am supposed to say something poignant and sentimental here about my kids and the hubs. 

Realistically, though, the longest item of focus in my life has been my weight. 

Wow…that’s kind of…pathetic, isn’t it.  (Not a question. A statement.)

But I guess if I’m being honest here, my weight is something I’ve kept a close eye on fairly consistently for…<does quick math> THIRTY-THREE-FOUR FREAKING YEARS. 

Yikes.  That’s kind of an eye-opener.

Seriously – I need to think about this for a bit.

Do I really want this to be my legacy? 

<shuts laptop and goes outside to mow lawn and contemplate meaning of life vs. weight loss>

OK.  I’m sweaty now, and have clippings stuck to my neck.  (There’s probably a fetish site for that. NOT GOOGLING.)  Burned 300+ calories, have well-manicured lawn, and am no closer to setting life goals.

Ah well, it’ll grow back and I can try again.  <shrugs>

<tucks into rest of post>

If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be?  Back to bed with my coffee.  Ahhhhh. 

As far as physical places go – I would love to take an Alaskan cruise, although I’m a bit iffy on the whole cold-weather thing.  I really want to spend time on the west coast – mountains AND ocean and ginormous trees, and lots of wine.  What could be better?  (Also will take recommendations….HINT HINT)

What’s your favorite thing about blogging?  Camaraderie.  I love my new invisible friends!  

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?  I crack myself up.  🙂

What has been your biggest challenge in life so far?  I think the hardest time in my life was my divorce.  It’s like breaking a Fabergé egg.  You have this thing (marriage) that you’ve worked up in your mind to be beautiful; to be treasured and protected – and you have to smash it on the ground and sweep up the pieces, reordering them into something that will never resemble the ideal ever again.  You and your kids WILL get to a point where things are OK…but it won’t be the Fabergé egg.  That no longer exists.

Whoa.  Deep. 

Do you believe in love at first sight?  Only with shoes. Everything else needs to be tried on and worked into the wardrobe, and sometimes, no matter how fabulous he appears to be on the rack, he just doesn’t work with your lifestyle.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?  Hopefully I’ll be a grandmother and taking FABULOUS vacations out west!  (No pressure, kids.  Even though I have fed and diapered you since birth, and have sacrificed <sob> SO MUCH for your happiness….)

How many languages do you speak?  What languages do you speak fluidly? English only.  Although I used to understand Spanish fairly well – I’ve worked in a few bilingual facilities; between that and four years of high school Spanish, I often only needed an interpreter one way.  (However, no amount of language training can prepare you to explain how an HSA works.  Heck, it’s nearly impossible in English.)

What do you think is your best post so far? Link it.  I’m picking two, because I’m a thug rebel like that.  Why I Hate Deer is one.  The other is a little darker but I needed to get it out of my head:  Frosting

What’s your favorite quote?  “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” ~ Paulo Coelho

If you could recommend one fellow blogger for me to follow, who would it be and why?  Click on Problems With Infinity.  Quirky humor AND PICTURES.  LOVE.

Favorite vacation spot? Sadly, I have no idea, as I haven’t been on one in over ten years….

Favorite time of day?  Evening.  I’m not quite the night owl I used to be (thanks for NOTHING, societal norms) but I do my best thinking after 4 PM.  Or maybe I just LOOK good in comparison because by that time of day, everyone else’s battery is pretty much drained.  Ha.

Ocean or Lake?  Mountains. 🙂

Dogs or cats?  I’m a cat person. You can read about my eating-disordered cats HERE.

Favorite season?  Notwinter.  THAT TOTALLY COUNTS.  Fall = Football, Summer = Warm, Spring = Flowers and End of Winter.  All good, all not winter. 

Zodiac Sign? Both sides of my brain are firmly Gemini. So is the hubs. Makes life interesting, if you like seesaws and being randomly off-balance.

Exerciser or Couch Potato? Genetically, a couch potato.  I do exercise, but it’s always a chore.  It’s like brushing my teeth – I may never LOVE it, but I’ll DO it, because I don’t like what things look like when I don’t.

How long have you been blogging?  I started this blog 2/4/15.  It’s been six months and over 50 posts – wow, that adds up!

Camping or Hotel? This is much like asking, “buy new shoes or stab self with fish hooks?”  I love indoor plumbing.  I do NOT love schlepping 100+ pounds of crapola from house to forest in order to sleep outside when Man has invented PERFECTLY GOOD devices for this in sheltered areas. 

Nor do I relish the thought of hauling all the sweaty linens, dishes, and shelter, with freshly accumulated dirt and leaves, back home to have to clean and put away.  Seriously – hauling half a week’s worth of groceries kind of sucks.  You want me to carry my bed, my food, AND my roof around the wilderness?  Just thinking about that makes me too tired to actually go outside.  HOW IS THIS FUN? 

And there’s no WiFi.

I seriously think y’all who enjoy this are just pretending.  I simply cannot wrap my head around it. 

Favorite movie?  Again, I have two.  While I normally lack the attention span to sit through an entire movie (two hours?  Kill me) there are two that I’ll watch over and over and over again.

First:  The Incredibles.

blah blah

(Weird glitch isn't letting me caption this. Photo from http://movies.disney.com/the-incredibles)

So many gems in that one.  I seriously overuse “You got me monolouging” and “WHERE.  IS MY SUPERSUIT” and “Abort! Abort! There are children aboard!”  And I reference Bob’s opinion of incessant graduations ALL.THE.TIME.  Go HERE and read ALL the quotes.   It’s totally a scientific sociological specimen.  100%. Seriously.  WATCH THIS.  Now.

You also need to run out and go see Hitch.  BECAUSE IT’S HILARIOUS.

Photo from http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/hitch/

Every adult in the dating world needs to watch this – after you do, you’ll feel strangely better about the whole mess.  I promise.

This is another one with so many relatable quotes I can’t even.  “Don’t need no pizza.  They got plenty of food there.”  BEST QUOTE ON BAD DANCING EVER.

See?  Now you’re intrigued, aren’t ya.  GO WATCH IT. It’s on Netflix and it will TOTALLY brighten your day.  Like sunshine.

Passing the torch along to eleven bloggers who do a nice job of spreading light.  I won’t be offended if you don’t take this challenge on.  Just know that you brighten my day.

<barf>

  1. theGoodVader
  2. Happiness, Health, and Hypnosis
  3. sonofabeach96
  4. fattymccupcakes
  5. karmasarma
  6. Mermaid in a Mudslide
  7. This Little Diary
  8. Cat in the Cactus
  9. Remember the Good Stuff
  10. a funny thing happened when I was learning myself
  11. surviving the specter

YOUR QUESTIONS:

1. Describe to me, in detail, your favorite pizza.  (Bonus points if you can make it sound sultry.)

2.  Congratulations!  You just won a boat.  What do you name her?

3.  INTRUDER ALERT!  Someone’s breaking into your house!  What do you grab to fend him off? 

4.  What is your least favorite household chore?

5.  A stranger hands you $100 and one condition:  you have to spend it on something COMPLETELY frivolous, or a puppy dies.  What do you spend it on?

6.  Say something spiritual about doing laundry.

7.  What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten (on purpose?)

8.  What’s the oldest thing in your fridge right now?

9.  Describe your sleeping space. 

10. Thrill rides:  Yes or no, and why or why not?

11. What’s your favorite joke?

That oughta do it, for now. The sun is setting on this post.

<gong>

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 4: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE

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And here we have part four of what was, for most bloggers, a simple challenge:

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

(Really, this is getting ridiculous now.  Part FOUR?!?  Stand up and flush already!)

Like I said in my last post, it’s hard for me to condense “hate” and “love” into a compact form – it doesn’t do the words justice, ya know?

So do you think we can wrap this thing up here and ship it out?  Place your bets, peeps.  <dealer spins>

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order)

PART FREAKING 4:  ALL ABOUT COFFEE

Coffee and I have such a long relationship, it gets its own post.  YAY COFFEE

7.  I love coffee, but hate when people pretend to love it.

Coffee and I have been seeing each other regularly ever since high school (really, isn’t that where most haunting life rituals and obsessions get started?)

I first picked up the habit to meet a dual need of 1) keeping warm yet 2) not ingesting any additional calories.  Every woman in America who’s ever flirted with dieting or food issues knows that coffee is pretty much calorie-free AND that caffeine keeps you both awake and kills your appetite.  Also, I’ve mentioned before that I have Raynaud’s Syndrome, and keeping your hands warm when you’re trying to play clarinet and march around a football field when it’s sleeting presents its own unique challenge.  (I usually failed.  But as long as you keep marching, nobody cares.  You can’t really expect a clarinet to be heard in a stadium filled with 90,000+ drunken fans, anyway.)

I drink my coffee black.  If you truly love coffee, you will too.  Adding sugar, cream, and sprinkles to it means you are drinking dessert. It’s a coffee-flavored milkshake – THIS IS SO NOT THE SAME THING AS COFFEE.

Now, don’t get me wrong –  I have NOTHING against dessert here, folks.  There’s a time and a place for it.  Just don’t lie to me and pretend you are drinking coffee.  Because you are not.

This is like the Pizza Lie, which I also hate.  If you tell me “we’re having pizza”, this will lead a gal to have certain…expectations.  Such as red sauce…maaaaaayyyybe white.  But there will be sauce on the crust.  There will also be cheese. No cheese = NOT PIZZA.

And there may be toppings within the realm of socially acceptable parameters.  Cured meats?  Sure.  Ham, chicken?  Also OK…but pushing it.

Veggies?  Slow down there, cowboy – there are a few that are OK, but this ain’t a free-for-all.  Feel free to chuck on onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, even olives, if that’s what puffs your sails.  But when your pizza starts to look like a not-so-cleverly disguised salad, YOU HAVE CROSSED A LINE.  Broccoli?  Oh hell no.  Cauliflower?  You’re joking.  Arugula?  I may have to stab you.

And don’t even TRY to pass off Thai Stir-Fry, Taco, or Cheeseburger as “pizza.”  That is food on a crust.  It may be edible.  It may not suck.  But it is not pizza.  Just like milkshakes who once participated in a flash mob with coffee ARE NOT COFFEE.  They’re…acquainted – a third-degree connection on LinkedIn at best.  But firmly in the category of Not Coffee.

8.  I love my coffee mugs, and I hate tiny coffee cups.

In my twenties (OK, and my thirties…and maybe a couple times last week) I drank a LOT of coffee.  This did not go unnoticed by my coworkers:  At one of my first jobs, the boss had handmade pottery mugs made for each of us for Christmas one year.  Everyone received a normal-sized mug except me.

Mine held HALF A POT OF COFFEE.  SCORE.

I drank three cups of coffee a day at that job.  (That’s a pot and a half, for those of you who haven’t had any coffee yet today, and/or don’t math, or both.)

Now that I’m older, and need to work a little harder at things that used to be easy (Sleep? I’m giving you the death stare) I’m down to just one cup of coffee a day.  (It’s about 24 ounces.  BUT TOTALLY COUNTS AS ONE CUP, just like when you pick the biggest slice of pizza in the box and count it as “one slice” on MyFitnessPal.)

For my daily commute (40 minutes without traffic – attempting this without a shot of caffeine is a hay bale on the NOPE farm) my mug of choice is a Bubba Keg, one of the only travel mugs out there that both holds a sufficient volume of coffee AND fits in a standard car’s cup holder.  Which doesn’t sound that significant, but you’d be surprised how hard THAT combo is to find.  I have a few older versions of this one:

BubbaKeg

Buy one at shopbubba.com. Really, go do it.

When I’m at home, and can get up for frequent refills (because cold coffee is just a black vat of sadness and disappointment) I rotate between these mugs:

coffee mugs

Note my champion photo editing skills. Snort.

From left to right:

A.  I got this one from a friend about 15 years ago as a gift.  I haven’t been in touch with her for at least 10 years – the only reason I keep it is because it’s incredibly sappy and, like, totally ironic to use first thing in the morning when I legit want to punch people smack in the happy.

B.  I bought this in NYC when I went to my FIRST BROADWAY SHOW EVAH.  My true soulmates will know which show this is.  The rest of you can no longer Drink With Me even One Day More.  Also note that this mug was from the ORIGINAL tour – not the recent refresh that generated the movie.  Which means that this mug is older than some of you reading this post right now.

This kind of blows my mind because that means this mug has survived <counting furiously in my head> FOURTEEN MOVES.  That’s gotta be some kind of physics miracle.  I mean, doesn’t everyone break at least six coffee mugs when they move?

C.  I got this from a local church as a welcome/guest gift around move nine.  I love the message – who can’t benefit from a reminder that they might be loved? – but it also sort of irritates the hubs, due to him being an avid nonbeliever.  So this is the mug I use most often.  Heh. (Hey, cut me some slack.  I’m reaching for this BEFORE I’ve had any coffee.  It’s either passive aggression or a body count.)

Anyway – the point here is that there are PLENTY of coffee mugs out there that hold more than a shot of java.  Hotels and conference centers of America?  I’m raising my eyebrows and pointing finger-guns directly at you.

You’ve noticed this, right?  When you have the “privilege” (read: lost the office Fantasy Football pool and ponied up by “volunteering” for conference duty) of attending an offsite training session, seminar, or conference, you’re rewarded with hard, unforgiving chairs in a room with the ambiance of a meat locker and the treat of mystery chicken in secret sauce for lunch…and to top of the indignity of it all, they serve a sad excuse for coffee in little baby-sized cups.  Your grandmother, upon spotting the array, would have picked one up, shrugged, and stuffed it in her purse to repurpose as a thimble.

Seriously, when you have an audience that has been involuntarily restrained for four, six, EIGHT FREAKING HOURS in a freezing-cold, mind-numbing coffin of monotony, is there some sick and twisted delight that meeting planners take in ordering coffee cups that would be an inadequate helmet for a window-bombing sparrow?

I don’t ask for much.  But at 8 AM, when faced with a full day of detailed, riveting Powerpoints and presenters who obligingly read them aloud to you word by word, GIVE A GIRL SOME SERIOUS JAVA or someone’s gonna get cut.

Hmm.  I guess I hate conferences, too.

I get to go to a couple of these a year.  You’ll know if I’m ever at one you’re attending.    I’m the chick walking in ten minutes late, muttering obscenities to herself while balancing three miniscule cups of coffee to the last remaining seat in the front row.

Feel free to introduce yourself.

AFTER the cups are empty.  AFTER.

So…I’m not quite finished yet.  Dealer is collecting chips from those of you who bet red.  I think one more post will do it.

And today’s nominee for this challenge….Walking After Midnight.  Because she hasn’t posted in awhile.  <poke poke>  😉

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 3: Ride Away from the Fat Wagon

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So about…uh…two weeks ago, Chelise from Caterpillar to Butterfly nominated me for the Love/Hate Challenge:

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

And this challenge has dragged on for awhile, partly because I procrastinate, partly because it’s summer, partly because I haven’t been traveling (so I haven’t been stuck in an airport with absolutely nothing to do but dodge creepers, germs, and crappy food), and partly because I can’t keep it short once I DO start. (Like here in this post I already have over 100 words and I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED ACTUALLY SAYING ANYTHING YET.  Man, I am exhausting.)

Part of the problem:  If I feel passionately enough about something to LOVE or HATE it, there is NO WAY I can explain that in less than a bound dissertation.  I mean, if you truly HATE something, how on earth do you adequately describe THAT in under 200 words?  Or under 500?  If it’s only one page, isn’t it more like “slight irritation”?

Anyway.  Taking another swing at the verbal piñata and makin’ it RAIN, baby….

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order) – PART 3:

6a.  I hate butter.

I can hear the <whoosh> of people rushing to click “unfollow” now.  Yeah, I know.  It’s pretty much un-American to not like butter.  But hear me out.

It’s Oprah’s fault.

I was a fairly normal, butter-loving kid, who grew into a butter-eating teenager (well, when I was eating at all; at that point, if I remember correctly, I was in the middle of my 900-calories-a-day diet.  So I was quite aware of the calorie bomb that is butter – but I still ATE it, because sometimes ya gotta.)

It was November 15, 1988 when everything changed.  That was the fateful day that, despite a schedule chock-full of band, choir, AP classes, and boys, I just happened to be home from school, and just happened to be watching TV, when Oprah strutted out on stage with a black turtleneck, size 10 Calvin Klein jeans, and…this.

Anyone else remember this? (If your answer is “No, I wasn’t born yet” – shut it.  You can watch the clip HERE.)

As a teenager who, at the time, barely moved the big weight to the three-digit notch on the doctor’s scale (slam some water and wear boots and a sweater so the school nurse gets off your back, you know the drill) – this was life-altering.  I was HORRIFIED.  The Radio Flyer Lardcart was a GIANT DEATH WAGON OF BUTTER that, in addition to being un-heart-healthy and just plain nasty, WOULD MAKE ME FAT.

And ever since then?  Every stick of butter brings me right back to…

Mmmmm…don’t you want some TOAST right now?  <gag>

Looking back on this now – with the perspective and experience of twenty more years of dieting since then – some thoughts/observations:

1. Oprah lost the weight after four months on a liquid diet.  I seem to remember it was Medifast, but I can’t find a source to confirm.  What she DID share:

“I had literally starved myself for four months, not a morsel of food, to get into that pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans,” Winfrey recalls.  “Two hours after that show, I started eating to celebrate, of course, within two days those jeans no longer fit!”

1a.  It took you TWO days to grow out of those?  Color me impressed. I can bust a button in a week, but two days is ACHIEVEMENT, yo.  Not that Oprah is known for doing things halfway.  But still.  !!

2.  It’s a little mind-blowing to realize that you can be one of the wealthiest, most socially dominant women in the WORLD, with every resource and support available to you, and still not have whatever it takes to have a normal relationship with food.

That’s…powerful, yet humbling.  Depressing, yet oddly reassuring.  I mean, if SHE struggles with this…doesn’t that give me permission to, I dunno, maybe not beat myself up quite so hard if I can’t do it?

Folks, this is Oprah.  She can do ANYTHING.

And she’s just as human as the rest of us, putting on her pants (and Spanx) one mortal, flawed leg at a time.

I don’t know whether to high-five her, or give her a hug.

You can read Oprah’s Weight Loss Confession here.  It’s a little stilted, and I detect the faint smell of false bravado from her accounting of it all, but what struck me was this quote from her trainer (Bob Greene):

“She didn’t really learn how to be happy. I think she learned more survival tools and not how to be happy,” he says. “That’s where Oprah has a lot of work to do.”

Well.  Huh.

That’s why I started this whole blog dealio in the first place.

Because that’s where I have a lot of work to do, too.

3.  Size 10?  Are you kidding me, Calvin?  They’re AT MOST a 6, prolly a 4 nowadays.  Gotta love vanity sizing.  <eyeroll>

OK.  On to a “love”….

6b.  I love riding my bike.

Generally, I support the principle of physics that states, “An object on a comfortable sofa stays on a comfortable sofa.”  (Or starts to LOOK like the comfortable sofa.)  Suffice it to say I’ve never really been a fan of exercise.

But I’ve always loved to ride my bicycle.

My first bike was a hand-me-down from one of my cousins.  How it worked in our family was that you learned to ride on THIS bike:

schwinn

Note: Not actual bike. Pic borrowed from http://ratrodbikes.com where some dude named “dogdart” was selling it. But he’s in PA so it COULD HAVE BEEN MINE YO

…and then, on your 10th birthday, you got a 10-speed bike – NEW, from the little bike shop downtown, which incidentally was owned by the dad of a girl who rode my bus and sat next to me in band, and we weren’t really friends because she was popular and I was fat, so she was only my friend on the bus for the four years her parents forced her to play clarinet.  And her dad was also my parents’ tax accountant, and eventually he went to jail for tax fraud or something, and his daughter dated the high school football captain who ended up calling her a slut and breaking her heart, so I guess being popular isn’t all glitter and unicorns.

But I loved that bike.  It looked a lot like this one:

Photo from http://www.sweatershoppe.com/

Also not actual bike. Original is currently mummified in my parents’ basement. Photo borrowed from http://www.sweatershoppe.com/

That bike was my ticket to freedom.  It was my getaway car – I’d hop on that thing and be off on an adventure.  It wasn’t unusual for me to take off for four, five hours at a time, just riding along, stopping to pick wild blackberries on the side of the road or catch crawfish at the creek.

Later, when I got a speedometer, I got to see how far – and how fast – I could go.   I grew up in PA, which is very hilly – those gears came in handy, and the payoff was zooming downhill, at 30mph.  (Without a helmet.  Between that, riding in the back of the station wagon without seat belts, and sleeping in death-trap cribs, how did anyone survive childhood in the 70s and 80s?  Never mind roadside pesticide blackberries, copperheads under the rocks at the creek, and generalized Stranger Danger.)

Once I got to high school, I quit riding so much.  But years later – after college, marriage, two kids, and a painful divorce – I got a gift:

Actual photo. You can tell by the craptacular background.

Actual photo. You can tell by the sucktacular composition and the general lack of housekeeping.

It was another hand-me-down bike…but it was in pristine condition, purchased by a friend who had more money than ambition (she also smoked a lot and drank a lot – while I don’t judge, I suspect this hindered her desire to hop on a bike.)

I didn’t use the bike much at first; it sat largely unused for several years.  But recently, I’ve rediscovered the sorts of things you can explore while you’re escaping from the world for awhile:

Lake1

At the top of a hill in rural Wisconsin. A REALLY BIG HILL. #worthit

bikeflowers.

Like a little firework burst.

bikeflowers2

I love these. They’re like little snowballs. IN SUMMER.

swans

Tucked behind a small bend.

On a bike, you’re not focused on exercising.  The goal isn’t necessarily to burn calories.  (Yeah, I track them.  When an hour of hard riding burns off like four Oreos, you take credit every calorie you can get.)

When you’re standing on the pedals to kick a hill’s butt – when you’re flying down the other side, drinking in the thrill of the speed and the relief of the breeze – when you’re taking in, free of charge, all that nature has to offer – you’re not worried about the size of your thighs and the bulges around your waist.  You aren’t beating yourself up over the amount of space you occupy.

You can just…be.

You’re free.   At least for a little while.

Even if it’s temporary – even if life keeps me tethered to a lot of heavy, messy, cumbersome things –  I’m so very thankful that I can remember what it feels like to fly.

Six down, four to go.  Light.  Tunnel.  ONWARD!

Today’s victim select recipient is Mermaid in a Mudslide – she has such a variety of topics, I suspect she’d be all over something like this.  Plus, her posts make me smile.  🙂

The Courage to Change, The Patience to Persevere, the Guts to Grow

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I am thankful today to have not one, but two, nominations from the gracious Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly.  I’m thankful because these awards and challenges give me something different to think about – and therefore WRITE about.  They give the repetitive, demanding voices in my head a new sound bite to discuss.  They’re a nice respite from thinking simultaneously about how fat I am and WHAT IS THERE TO FREAKING EAT IN THIS PLACE YO

Sigh.

This first nomination was super-sweet of Chelise, because while I’ve been trying to pull myself out of a lifetime of food issues, and sometimes I feel like I’m making progress, it’s certainly not been a beeline target.  More often, on good days, it’s like I’ve been sitting on a precarious perch in a dunk tank, blissfully oblivious to the pool of denial swirling below me, until life lobs a hefty, matted tennis ball squarely at the target, sending me plunging back into the muck and leaving me to clutch at any floating debris I can find.  Sometimes it’s a life preserver; others, it’s a crocodile.

Two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes, all we can do is keep treading water and looking for a safer buoy to cling to.

But that’s what makes us courageous – it’s the ability to keep going.  It’s what gets us through the day, worn and weary, but alive.  It enables us to get out of bed the next day to face the same demons and confront the same pain.

Yeah, sure, some days we don’t actually GET out of bed.  And that’s OK – because we’re doing we need to do to recharge for the next battle.  We’re still breathing.  We’re still alive.

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t rest.  Being brave doesn’t mean you don’t admit you’re tired.  I mean, even heroes need to take a break from saving the planet once in a while.

Being strong just means you don’t quit.  Every valiant knight and crusader has felt fear – they just haven’t let it stop them.  And sure, occasionally the bad guys – anxiety, fear, hopelessness – temporarily take us down, but the joke’s on them, because we’re slowly, gradually learning from each and every battle, bruise, and scar just how to throw a carefully placed sucker punch right back.

There are a lot of folks on WordPress who struggle with a variety of things. In reading the challenges of others, you see incredible strength.  It’s inspiring.  It’s contagious.  You also see the heartache – the beauty and the pain in the raw, unfiltered honesty.  And that’s where we all support each other – if we all lean on each other in a circle, nobody falls down.  (Or we all fall down.  Especially if wine was involved.  But at least we do it together.  And it would be freakin’ hilarious, as long as no one spills the wine.)

couragetochangeaward

The “Courage to Change” Award

  • I want to acknowledge that it takes courage to put ourselves out there for the world to see.
  • It takes courage to work through the pain that binds us.
  • It takes courage to make changes in our lives.
  • It takes courage to leave behind everything you have always known (mentally, emotionally & sometime physically) and do things differently.

Courage is:

  • the ability to do something that frightens one
  • strength in the face of pain or grief

The guidelines for this award:

  • Award it to whomever you chose and let them know
  • No questions to ask
  • No questions to answer
  • If you receive the award, there is nothing you have to do but KNOW others support and believe in you! However, I hope you to pay it forward and encourage someone who is on their own personal journey to freedom (from whatever they may be struggling with).

My picks for the “Courage to Change” Award:

Nikki at Undiagnosed Warrior and Cass at Indisposed and Undiagnosed – these two young, strong women are very talented writers who have been kind enough to share their quests to get diagnoses for debilitating, undiagnosed illnesses.  Their strength, their perseverance, and their tenacity as they struggle to get well are amazing.  They are brave and show continued courage.

Zoé at gathering the pieces of me – I have said it before; this is some of the best writing you’ll read online.  Her writing is art; it’s poetry, and it’s raw and beautiful.  She has been incredibly inspiring as she outlines her struggles to be well.

THANK YOU, ladies, for putting it out there.  You help me, you help countless others – you make WordPress a better, richer place.  We’re all in this together – lean over when you need to.  I pray for peace, healing, and laughter for you every day!

Next up:  The Love/Hate Blogger Challenge!  (Thankfully.  I can only take so much of this warm and fuzzy goo.  Tree’s dry, no more sap for awhile.)  😉

The Liebster Award! a.k.a. Cube Cat, Aliens, and Grammatically Correct Memes

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I am embarrassingly late in responding to this generous nomination from Chris at Surviving the Specter.  Which is actually OK, as I am never on time for anything.  If I’m ever on time, or early, please assume what you are seeing is an alien apparition of me, and blast me to confetti with lasers.  For the planet.

Anyhoo….the award.  Chris was kind enough to link to some history behind this, so I’m stealing that to share, too.  GO TO HERE FOR HISTORY KTHX

liebsterpicSo, like all awards, this one has some rules, too:

liebsterpic_001OK, if we’ve met…that is too many rules.  And I get to the middle of #2 before I suddenly remember it’s been a REALLY long time since I made pie, and speaking of pie, my cat is so fat that he’s no longer round…he’s…a box.  I know cats like to SIT in boxes, but…WHOA MY CAT IS MAGICAL AND MORPHED INTO A SIZE 14 NIKE AIR BOX

OllieboxAdmittedly, without the swoosh.  Seriously, though, the dude needs backup lights.  I’m a terrible cat momma.

<slap> Focus.  RULES!

OK…did #1 already.  Here are Chris’s questions for me:

1.   In what state and/or country do you live (if outside the U.S.)?  I commute daily between the state of Confusion and the state of Denial.  Geographically, I grew up in PA, but nine years ago, moved here:

stay-for-the-car

 AND EVERY JANUARY I QUESTION MY SANITY.  <sigh>

2.   What is your favorite genre of music and THE band that goes with it?
OK, there is NO WAY I can pick just one.  What I like depends on the barometric pressure, the moon phase, and how much I weigh today. 

When I sing (did I mention I’m in a band?) I love ballads and good, throaty jazz.  On the radio I love P!nk and Ed Sheeran – I totally want to fix up my daughter with him, so they can have a flock of adorable redheaded baby girls and start a traveling quintet.  (She’s seventeen; it’s almost legal.  I just want what’s best for me her, ya know?)

3.   What is a life quote of yours?  I posted about this before – it’s also my favorite shirt:

shirtfront4.   Where do you find solace?  Like that corny Johnny Lee song, I look for it in all the wrong places – at the bottom of a giant bag of popcorn, inside a cereal box, in the arms of Ben and Jerry.  I don’t ever FIND it there (you’d think I’d learn to look somewhere else first….)

Where I actually FIND it varies.  In nature, it’s around water, or around giant rocks.  Sometimes it’s at the end of a run, hike, or a bike ride.  Sometimes it’s on the clearance rack at the shoe store.  Oh – and in butterflies.  Seeing a butterfly makes me feel peaceful.  I have convinced myself that butterflies are spirits coming to check on me to make sure I’m doing OK. (Sorry, Grandma, for bouncing you off my windshield the other day.  Love you.)

5.   What are three triggers you have?  Well, if I’m in *that* mood, I can make anything a trigger.  But through therapy (and wild guesses) I have identified some common triggers that make me feel fat AND give me an insatiable desire for ice cream, popcorn, and an entire jar of peanut butter:

  • Feeling irrelevant among my loved ones (especially the kids when they don’t “need” me.) 
  • Feeling self-conscious or un-confident. 
  • Any of HALT:  Getting too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.  Or hormonal.  But that ruins the cool acronym.  THALH?  HALT-H? (uh, no, that sounds like a hemorrhoid cream.  Let’s just stick to HALT and assume hormones are in the mix.)

6.   Insert your favorite meme in the space below- Well, it’s NOT the one above.  That one just makes me sad.  And cold.  I like this one better:

helltoupee(Note that I got the little booger thing over the E there.  I keep it classy, yo.)

7.   What is a coping mechanism you use to combat your mental situation? I do my best to take care of myself – getting regular exercise and adequate sleep (or trying; some nights it’s more like “well, just lie here and rest….SHUT UP, BRAIN, your ONLY JOB for the next seven hours is to BREATHE.”  Suffice it to say it doesn’t always work.  OK, it hardly ever works.) 

I also try to remind myself that it’s cyclical; I know Sunday nights will be bad, as will every 4th or 5th week.  I just keep repeating to myself, “In a few days, this will be better….” over and over again.  I really should write myself some Post-It notes or something, right?

Oh, and I swear.  A lot.  Violently, rapidly, and voraciously.  F#@% YEAH!

8.   When you sit down to write a blog post, where does your inspiration come from?  Alien probes, subliminal messages from the government, pesticides, and high fructose corn syrup.  Or the hubs, my Facebook feed, funky shoes, and my cats.  (I’m not anywhere near as deep as a Pennsylvania pothole.)

9.   Right here, right now, say something to the person who has hurt you the most, beginning with, “I promise to…”  I promise to not junk-punch you if I ever see you again.  Mentally (as I mentioned elsewhere today) I’ll be dumping week-old clam chowder on your head, but I promise to appear to be cordial.  You KNOW that’s generous; I suggest you take it and back away slowly.

10. What one regret do you hold onto that you wish you could let go of?  I sincerely wish I had been kinder to my college boyfriend. 

He was my first relationship after a badly broken heart, and I used the relationship with him to play out all my anger, anxieties, and frustrations of the prior one.  I relentlessly messed with his head and repeatedly broke his heart – simply because my former boyfriend had broken mine.  Essentially, I used the poor guy to get my revenge on my prior love.  I know it was a crappy thing to do, but I was far too broken myself to recognize it. 

So Dean, if you’re out there, I’m sorry – you were a decent fellow who always deserved so much better. 

11. What’s the most valuable piece of advice someone has given to you?  “You miss all the shots you don’t take.”  Apply for that job, ask that guy out, bid on the shoes!  The answer is always NO unless and until you ask!  

OK, so now I have to list some folks to take on my questions list.  I’m sure you’ll find this stimulating and thought-provoking.  <snort>

  1. What is your favorite shoe?  (If you can’t answer this, we cannot be friends.)
  2. You won a million dollars.  What random gift would you send me?  (Wine is never the wrong answer)
  3. If you were going to go to a deserted island, and could only take three things, WHY WOULD YOU GO IN THE FIRST PLACE?
  4. What’s the scariest thing on your bucket list – and when are you doing it?
  5. What movie, song, or comic book hero most closely represents YOU/your life?
  6. What did you want to be when you grew up?
  7. You have to give up one of your five senses.  Which do you sacrifice and why?
  8. You have a seven-week sabbatical from work – paid time off.  Whatcha gonna do?
  9. What skill do you wish you had?
  10. What do you find most intimidating?  Most motivating?
  11. Do you believe in ghosts, spirits, the afterlife?  Why or why not?

NOMINEES:

whereshappy

tatisgalaxy

sinsandsecrets

peaceof8

8 + 3 = 11 so I think we’re all done here.  School of Close Enough gives me a B+, so…peace out, y’all.  🙂

What Your Incessant Quiz-Taking Says About You

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Unless you live under a rock – one not equipped with satellite internet – you’ve probably stumbled upon a veritable potpourri of assessments, quizzes, and tests.  My social media streams are absolutely polluted with them; trying to purge your feed of their appearance is as productive as attempting to cure Rapunzel of head lice – no matter what you pick, spray, smother, block, and hide, MORE JUST KEEP HATCHING.

Most of these are “entertainment only” (read: meaningless time suck) and have become a bit of an invasive species, subject to a quick “share” and “forward.”  (Even on LinkedIn.  Come ON, people, that’s the ONE corner of the internet that should be a save haven from “Which Kardashian Is Your Style Icon?”)

But others are actually somewhat – and surprisingly – insightful.

1.  The Glorified Horoscope.  These are the zebra mussels of the internet.  Once your social media stream gets infected, you either have to burn all the boats and set fire to the ocean, or just try to wait for it all to eventually, slowly die off.

You’ve probably experienced this:  one of your Facebook friends takes a quiz, and “shares” the results, inviting you to take the quiz, too.  By day’s end, roughly 42% of your friends have shared THEIR results, and the thing spreads like a bad stomach bug, barfing all over your NPR newsfeed and obscuring the new pictures of Pluto.  Just when you think it’s petered out for good, your mother’s results pop up on your feed, and then all of HER friends get in on the game.  Sigh.

These quizzes claim, in a matter of minutes, to offer you valuable insight and self-awareness as to

<insert mystical music and cloud of patchouli>

~WHO YOU REALLY ARE~

Yes, it’s true – in moments, you can find out which character from Friends you are – AND which one you should date, or what your taste in seashells, color patterns, or flowers indicates about what’s really going on inside your noggin.

We all know that these are nonsense, right?

Well, apparently, Monica was spot-on marrying Chandler, and lily lovers are wickedly independent and have killer shoe collections.  I mean, HELLO! <ring ring> Validation calling!

(Okay.  I took a few.  Don’t judge.  You know YOU wanted to.)  <runs to the interwebz to find out the correlation between Shredded Wheat and my penchant for backpacks>

The beauty of these things is that they’re as substantive as cotton candy, and the descriptions are written in such a way that a good hunk of them can pretty much apply to anyone.  Like daily horoscopes and fortune cookies, they’re closer to “one size fits all” than any piece of clothing can ever claim to be.

2.  I’m psychic and/or magical.  There are some other “quizzes” that claim to

<cue filmy scarves and hammered dulcimer tones>

~READ YOUR MIND~

Here’s one example:  Pick Pocket Money Trick.  Use this on your friends and you can MAGICALLY guess how old they are AND how much change they have in their pockets!

MAGIC.  I’m sure Ellen’s people will TOTALLY be begging you to be on her Tuesday show. <eyeroll>

People – this isn’t “neat” or “clever.”  IT’S MATH.  If Common Core focused on teaching THIS kind of logic, maybe we’d be raising a society of rational human beings instead of a plethora of entitled, egocentric, everyone-gets-a-trophy, forever-on-Mom’s-insurance-and-cell-phone-plan progeny.

But I digress.  Because I’m a geek (see Shredded Wheat, above) I actually convert these things into algebraic equations FOR FUN.

So here we go.  Let’s say I’m 29 (SHUT IT) and that I have 76 cents in my pocket.

  • Age (A) = 29
  • Coins (C) = 76

We also know that the answer is a four-digit number – so “the first two digits” means your age times 100 – this pushes your age into the thousands and hundreds column, and  will leave the last two digits (the tens and the ones) for coinage.  Our formula looks like this:

((2A+5)*50)-365+C+115 = 100A+C

Let’s solve the parenthetical expression on the left:

100A + 250 – 365 + C + 115 = 100A + C

Now let’s math out the numbers that don’t have A or C on them – 250-365+115.  Guess what that equals?  ZERO.

100A + C + 0 = 100A + C

See?  Wasn’t that fun?

Side note:  I was a math major for a whopping three days.  Still got it.  <strut strut>

If the above was complete gibberish to you – well, you probably have other talents.  Like maybe you can parallel park, or get past level 452 in Candy Crush.  Or maybe you’re just really pretty.  🙂

3.  Insightful Personality Assessments.  If the above just isn’t doing it for you, there really are some fairly useful tools out there on the Interwebs to help you learn more about yourself.  I swear I’m not feeding you some HR brainwashed psychobabble here – these can be extremely helpful to your own spiritual (and career) development IF you are open and receptive to understanding:

  • more about yourself and how you respond and react to others.  (Good AND bad) AND
  • how your <ahem> unique quirks and foibles are perceived by others, AND
  • how others react to YOU, and modifying your approach in the spirit of furthering communication.

In other words, everyone’s different – and different is OK.  Coexist and all that.

Most HR folks – or employees occasionally subjected to HR folks outside of annual benefits enrollment – have probably taken some form of Myers-Briggs-based assessment as part of “professional/career development.”  If you haven’t gotten your “letters” (i.e. ENTJ, INFP, etc.) yet, you can take a simplified version of this test at 16personalities.com.

Although I don’t love this methodology (because in one session, I (deservedly) was given the nickname “Steamroller,”) I took a whack at it.  It’s highly subjective, of course – but interesting all the same.

What am I?  The Debater.  What I found the most interesting (read: accurate):

ZOMG I DO THIS TO THE HUBS ALL.THE.TIME.

I also learned:

  • I rip apart arguments JUST FOR FUN (see algebra above…yeah.)
  • Arguing both sides helps me understand them better.  But I more do it because it amuses me.
  • I sometimes hurt people’s pwecious widdle peewings….and I don’t really care.  (And this can damage relationships.  Uh.  Duh.)
  • I’m not a huge fan of conformity or grunt work.  (Really – are there people who live to file?)

To be fair, this wasn’t really earth-shattering.  I’m pretty self-aware – flaws, pits, and all.  But it feels somewhat…I dunno, validating?  to see that I’m not a walking freak show.

(THERE ARE OTHERS.  BE VERY AFRAID.)

Chris from Surviving the Specter got me thinking about these assessments the other day.  His blog led me to The Enneagram Institute, where you can take the RHETI (Riso-Hudson Test.)  If you only take one quiz on this page, TAKE THIS ONE.  It’s quick,  free, and pretty thorough for the price!

What I like about this:  There’s TONS of detail in the explanation/description of your “type.”  Also, if your scores are close, there’s an entire section on “misidentifiers” – so you can see if #2 or #3 really fits you better.  I had one score just barely above three others, which were tied – and reading the misidentifiers helped validate my label.  (This seems to be my lot in life….I guess it comes from my need to argue every side of things, being The Debater and all.)

So here’s my rainbow: HybridPersonalityWhat I learned:

* I have a basic fear of being trapped, and need to sustain some freedom.  Interestingly, when I was a baby, I HATED my playpen.  Mom would plop me in there and I’d scream and cry like I was being stabbed.  But, interestingly…if she left me in the room with the playpen, with the side DOWN so I could get in and out by myself, I’d happily crawl in and sit in there and play ALL DAY. Hmm.  No metaphor THERE.  </sarcasm>

* I’m not terribly intellectual, but my brain moves really fast.  (Again, no huge enlightenment there – I’m reading Cosmo, not Tolstoy.)  Often, it won’t shut off.

*  When I’m stressed, I become critical and perfectionist-ish.  <picks up megaphone> Cue the eating disorder!

* I have chutzpah.  THE SITE SAID SO.  And “chutzpah” is one of my favorite words on the planet.  Coincidence?  I THINK NOT.

The details of my type (Type 7, The Enthusiast) are here, but don’t read about ME – go get your own test done.

I know these tests are oversimplified. I know it’s silly – bordering on ridiculous, really – to think that all of planet Earth could be categorized into eight or sixteen or even 1600 “types.”

But if you’ve ever taken the time to find out what your finger length or your wall color “says” about you – why not invest a few minutes in discovering what you “say” to others?

Rather than comparing yourself to a fictional character or a zoo animal, have a look in the mirror.

Study what you see.

Get to know YOU.

Warts and waterfalls, flowers and flaws.  All of it.

Be fabulous, just the way you were imperfectly, wonderfully made.

I mean it.  Or I will totally find you some more algebra to do.  I HAVE MATH AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT.  Heh.