Quick note on the number

It’s been unsettling not having a scale, I’m used to the comfort of seeing that number every day.  The last reading on my home scale was 152, but two different scales on three different days this week give me 156.  So I have 8 pounds to go until I’m not “overweight” any more, not 4.  Whatever, it’s going to take forever, if I ever get there.   Maybe the scale they have at gyms are more accurate than mine, I never got the same number two days in a row at home.  Maybe this also means that I did start at 199 (from gym), not the 195 I prefer in my mind.  I did an initial consultation at 24Fitness, they likely have not just my starting weight, but measurements.  I should get those numbers, see where I am today.

I’m liking the East Bay, it’s friendlier, less crowded, less hectic.  It’s taking some adjustment, I’m very aggressive, especially driving, for here.  I’ll adjust eventually.  I’m going to make a serious attempt to be social and make friends, but today I am finally taking a break, after way too long spent moving, and going for a hike.  I’m going to go check out some camping spots where we can try backpacking, maybe 2-4 miles into the woods, as a first try.  Camera is broken, so no pictures. 

Farmer’s Markets here have some fine stuff, but major sticker shock for me.  I guess it’s what the market will bear, but I won’t pay.  $3.90/lb for peaches?  I’ve found one market not that outrageous, and I managed to get a large watermelon, pounds of stone fruit, strawberries, veggies, all home on bicycle, in my panier bags.  I hardly need a car at all here, that’s kind of nice.

OK, not so quick a post, but finally I want to thank Jennifer, at Ex-Hot Girl, for giving me a blog award.  Unfortunately, I’m too lazy and cynical to pass it on, and they sort of remind me of chain letters.  I certainly appreciate the sentiment, and congratulations on graduating from obesity to overweight!

Honesty sucks.

I’m getting settled in, sort of.  It’s a tiny place, difficult to get organized.  Last night I went out with two girlfriends to see some music, my new friend from the city, and an old friend from this side of the bay.  Even though the bridge is only 10 miles long, most rarely cross, especially city dwellers.  My friend from this side had WLS a few years back, and I feel for her, and the malnutrtion and other problems that she was telling me how she is contending with.   She is also interested in learning to backpack, so we are going to try that, maybe just hike in a mile or two, then camp.    As two formerly fat women, we can relate on lots of things, though our lifestyles today are very different.    I eat to lose weight, she eats to increase absorption of things that are hard for her to assimilate.  Likely, we’re both used to eating a bit differently than most of our friends, but neither of us are really uptight or rigid in our eating, and as long as I’m not expected to eat a ton of meat, and have access to veggies, I’m usually content to go with the flow.

A big lesson in life:  if you don’t want the answer, don’t ask.  My friend was telling me how when his sister and her fiance split, she had a new man in two days.  She’s 48, and hasn’t gone a week without getting laid in 30+ years.  I realize she’s cute, but I’m no dog, and I never get any.  K, my friend, says I look better than I have in all the time he’s known me, but I’m still not a catch for most men.  Still too chubby.  And also, no bubbly, warm, vivacious personality.  Big sigh.   I appreciate his honestly, I really hate being lied to, even if the truth is painful.   I asked, because I wanted to know.  I think I can lose a little more weight, as many of my skinny clothes are still too small, but I don’t think I’m going to lose a whole lot.   I’m unwilling to give up my rare dessert or ice cream cone, can’t realistically exercise too much more, though I could drink a bit less.    Maybe some of those treats should be more rare than they are.  Moving was stressful, I know I’ve been drinking too much, but now I’m done, though not very well settled.   Judging by the clothes that still don’t fit, though my weight is the same as when they did fit, I need to build some muscles, change my body, forget the numbers.    I haven’t been cooking much, though it’s time to start, now that my kitchen is unpacked.  That may help some.  I still haven’t joined the gym on this side, am resisting for some reason, I think I need to take the day off, go for a long slow hike in some beautiful woods, and reset after a hellish week.

No scale, no mirrors

I’ve officially moved.  Am still trying to organize my stuff, haven’t gotten to the gym yet on this side, will likely do that tomorrow.  Maybe tonight.  I have no room for bathroom scale, so it is gone.  I’ll have to do that at gym.  Nor do I have big mirrored closets, only the vanity mirror, so will have to buy a full length mirror.  This place is so tiny!

Anyway, just busy, not much going on.  I’m finally here enough to start sort of using my kitchen.  I ate on the run for days, it got to the point where I was so dying for fresh veggies that I munched on a head of red cabbage.  Felt insane, but moving was so stressful.   I would like to make an addendum to an earlier post, regarding a friend who I hadn’t seen in a few years, So why aren’t you fat anymore? That friend blew out his knee playing frisbee, had to have surgery, can’t walk for four months.  ‘Nuff said.

I leave my heart in San Francisco

And move to Berkeley, which I don’t love.  SF is great, awesome town, but too expensive for the unemployed, and I see no job in the future.   I’m not a huge fan of Berkeley, but I bought a crappy triplex there about 9 years ago, before I knew better, so now I’m going to go live in it.  It’s about 25% of the size of my current apartment, tough adjustment.  I’m two pounds from my original goal, four pounds from where I’m no longer overweight, BMI speaking.  When I move, I’ll have to join a new gym, and it’s expensive, like $60/month.  My other gym will be $25/year, and I’ll keep it for when I travel, but the one in Berkeley sucks really badly and a good gym is not optional.  I spend at least that much on fruit every month, too.  Being healthy is expensive for city dwellers.

I was reading a post by Attrice the other day on some of the changes she’s experienced over her last year of working on fitness, and I commented that I didn’t really see so much in myself, being that when I got too big to easily ride a bike, I’d lose some, but I’ve been thinking more about it.  For example, I’m no longer the slowest bike on the road.  Nor the slowest walker.  I still can’t do a whole lot of pushups, but whatever.  One thing I do remember about being bigger, is that I was very clumsy.  Always banging into stuff.  I think I was larger than my body image accounted for, I must have gained really fast when I gained.  Not really surprising, considering how much I used to eat.  I burped a lot back then, too, now only when I drink beer or soda.  I know, tmi.

Now that I’m in full on moving mode, eating has gotten sporadic.  I’m eating about one big meal a day, with lots of snacks thrown in, trying to finish food that’s here so that I don’t have to move it.   I’ll be glad when it’s over (by Saturday).  I’m doing two hours at the gym every three days or so, because I have to go or I’ll go nuts, but I don’t have much time, especially because it often leaves me kinda tired, not feeling like packing/cleaning.   Maybe after I move, I’ll just do an hour a day.  What am I going to do with myself?  Not that I do much now.  I guess if I’m not going to work a paid job, I should do some volunteer work.  At some point, unemployment will run out, and I hopefully the job market will have picked up by then.  I don’t want to think about it.    I want to eat cantelope.

Am I done yet?

Never.  This is a “lifestyle”, not a “diet”.  I’m 3-5 pounds from my original goal (lowest I’ve weighed as an adult), and 5-7 from where I’ll officially not be overweight.  Maybe I’ll celebrate by buying myself some health insurance.  I’d like to still keep losing, I’ve still got plenty of chubby left.  I’m certainly not going to go back to bingeing, and I kind of like the health effects of eating a mostly unprocessed diet, lots of fruits and veggies and beans.  Not so fond of the grains, though I eat some, usually in the form of whole grain bread, or brown rice, or whole grain pasta.   This is how I deal with the reality that carbs are easy to overeat, most are so whole-grainy that I just don’t want to overeat them, I hardly want to eat them at all.  Being fairly active, though, I have to eat something, and I don’t like red meat or chicken (bacon being the exception) , anything with sour cream, parmagian, Swiss  or feta cheese, so not only am I health conscious, I’m really picky too.  Thus I have to make myself eat things that I consider healthy even if I don’t love them, because otherwise I won’t eat enough (the fast path to bingehood)

I wonder if weight loss/maintenance is different for people who got fat from bingeing vs people who just have poor diets and eat/drink way too much.  Seems to me that the binger (me, for example) has more psychological work to do, wheras the overeater would be more doing work on the food side, i.e. learning reasonable portion control, to eat less fried, more veggies and salads, etc.  Probably there’s a lot of overlap, both bingers and overeaters need a new relationship with food, and there’s always emotional work to be done to make real lasting life changes.

Anyway, my point here is that when I officially switch from weight loss to maintenance, nothing is really going to change.  Psychologically, things may be different, but I am comfortable with my eating and exercise, and will not change that.  I’ve been thinking about this for a few days, decided to write a blog post after reading a post by Fitcetera last night.  I’ve been sort of reading her blog for a while, but it often made me uncomfortable with the food lists and frustration, that she has decided not to blog about anymore, because she is switching from dieting to intuitive eating.  I love it when this happens, and I am cheering her on.   It’s actually a scary leap of faith, but personally, I think it’s the best way to go (yes I’m biased).  Intuitive eating is just more comfortable, dieting made me neurotic.  There’s often some intense emotional work that needs to be done before it starts working smoothly, but from what I remember reading,  she’s been on it for a while.

Unlike her (and many others), I’m still attached to my scale, but I don’t let it faze me, I’ve been watching it long enough to know it bounces all over the place, and it’s not decimal, so I can only see if it moves more than 3 pounds or so.  Given how long it took once I started doing intuitive eating to start losing pounds, I probably could have skipped the scale at first.  I think they used to, or maybe still do, tell people they may gain weight at first, but I didn’t allow that.  I stayed stable for about three month, then it dropped ever so slowly, and continued dropping, but long story short, I’m down almost 45 pounds and hardly overweight anymore.   But the best part is, I’m not scared of food, I crave and enjoy my exercise (even the weight training), I have no rigid rules to adhere to, I don’t have to count things or write them down, can eat anywhere, don’t have to stress about it.  If the scale is stagnant for too long, I look for non-intrusive ways to cut back (usually the scale stops because I’ve been drinking too much, which I do socially but really wouldn’t miss).  Or I vary the exercise a bit.  Nothing that will throw me off balance.

Just a note on my last post:  I don’t go randomly up to people in parks and tell them how to lose weight.  People who knew me fat now see that I’m not, and want to know the hows and whys.  Unfortunately, I don’t really have any miracles, and most don’t really like the portion control/healthier less processed food/exercise route.  I don’t know why this happens, but they become apologists, want to tell me how they’ve tried everything but for some reason nothing has worked long term, but what I am doing is too weird and completely out of the question.  OK, whatever.  Usually I say nothing, but if they want to jump on me for living a radical lifestyle (ya know-eating veggies that aren’t fried, snacking on fruit instead of chips, and exercising at least an hour daily), I may tell them what I think of their “radical lifestyle”.  I am always surprised to see adults drinking soda, and am stunned that in this day and age people eat processed meat and white bread and  for every meal, rarely a veggie in sight (unless the sandwich has lettuce/tomato).  Why is Atkins so reasonable, but eating one less slice or two of pizza in lieu of a salad so irrational?  I’m not telling anyone to become a raw food vegan, and don’t make a point of commenting on food (my mom did this all my life, very infuriating), just people want to know and then tell me why it’s not doable.

Anyway, point being that I love when dieters come around to intuitive eating.  I still think I’m looser with the food than most, but I exercise a LOT.  After being raised in a non-fat household (skim milk, no butter, no salad dressing, no sugar-but lots of hidden junk like chips, cookies, etc) I now skip the junk, but use real butter, real cheese, real eggs.   I usually drink 1% milk, but this week I spent the money to buy raw, full fat milk, which I will force myself to finish before it goes bad (pricey stuff).  Seems if it’s higher fat, I eat less but enjoy it more.  I think it’s my love of produce that lets me do this so painlessly, I hear WW doesn’t even assign points to most of the food I eat.  Anyway, this post is long enough, and my coffee is kicking in, must go pack and move, figure out something to eat for breakfast, don’t want to bother, but am getting hungry, and my hunger doesn’t fancy being ignored.

bad luck, tough love

If one more person complains to me how they can’t lose weight no matter what they do, while they’re eating a bag of doritos or drinking a coke, I may just tell them why.  I went to a concert in the park, brought my Farmer’s Market catch of English peas, grapes, plums and pistachios, a bottle of water, and a bottle of wine.  Most people in the park were eating convenience food, which I rarely eat, but they’re not bitching about how difficult weight loss is.  Most of them were totally thin.  I guess I’m close enough to pass.  I saw one woman who was briefly a friend, who I dislike and avoid, and she’s gotten very  very large.  Large like you rarely see in this town.

Anyway, I’m a bit irritated about this issue because I read some blog where a woman commented about her gastric bypass surgery.  She had originally lost 150, had gained back about 85.  The next commenter said that she (or he) was about to express sympathy, but had gone to check out bypassers blog, where she went on about the bacon and whatever casseroles, and other such super-heavy food, so it should not be a far jump to see where the weight gain came from.  Then come some FA people to jump on that commenter about how people need to eat fat, and they bet she doesn’t eat clean, blah blah blah.  In my opinion, if you don’t mind that you’re fat, eat whatever and lots of it, but don’t bitch to me about how fucked up your metabolism is, or get a drastic operation almost sure to cause malnutrition in the best of circumstances, eat nothing but starch and fat, and whine about how it doesn’t work.   Yes, I like bacon, and I eat a slice scrambled in an egg with some spinach and mushrooms once or twice a week, but I exercise enough that I can do that, and still lose weight.  I could drink a coke, if I wanted my throat to burn, and wanted that sweet metallic taste, but if I drank one (or more) every day, my weight loss would quickly grind to a halt, if not reverse.  The guy who drank the coke (and drinks a few daily) did Atkins a few years back, lost a lot of weight, then life got in the way, gained it back and more.  He won’t realize that there’s another way, since he can’t give up carbs, he can’t lose weight.  He has no cooking facilities, I suggest he could eat something with more veggies than a salami sandwich occasionally.  Or start eating fruit, he’s got a fridge.  I get nothing but “yeah, but”s.  I don’t bother anymore at that point, no matter what I suggest, there’s an excuse.   Whatever.  I’m almost done losing my weight, not going to listen to bullshit theories, not going to discuss it anymore, since people want to believe whatever weird cultish diet du jour is popular at the moment.  Anything but eating less, especially meat and starch.  That’s too much sacrifice.

Back to move

I had a nice visit with my friend, made it to the gym a few times, did a few hikes, bike rides, etc.  Did lots of touristing.  It was cold and foggy for the most part, and he didn’t get amazing views.  I showed him pics of the views he would see if not for fog, but just not the same.  Anyway, went away, ate randomly, drank often, had fun, no discernable change on the scale, about what I would expect.  Now I need to move out of my current 2 br into a tiny studio, must purge belongings.  Not my idea of fun, but economics says it’s time to go.  Hopefully I’ll catch up on all my blog reading in the next few days.  Here’s a pic of Big Sur, where I spent a warmer (still not hot) few days.

30 hours of summer

It felt just like it did when I was a kid.  I wore a bathing suit, same one from my previous scary picture, about 10 pounds ago:

http://justjuliebean.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/me-exposed-2/

It’s now too big on me, but I don’t have another, and it was just a girlfriend and I.  She was house/dog sitting for a traveling cousin, in a not too far town where the temp >103F (my town today = 67F).  Swimming just isn’t a part  of my life.  Shorts are hardly part of my life.  I sat by the pool, I swam in the pool, I did handstands and somersaults and flips.   I wore a tank top out at night in public, got no strange looks, and I don’t even look too fat even to myself anymore.   Still very far from thin, which isn’t really what I’m aiming for, just not chubby.  Realistically maybe 10-15 pounds more.

I’m changing course a bit.  I did a yoga class today, much easier and more comfortable than it was 40 pounds ago.  I would like to do yoga 1x/week, I like the stretch and blood flow stuff.  I’ve also decided to put more effort into the strength training.  I also do that at least 2x week, but I don’t quite push myself enough to move up in weights, or really progress.  It’s kinda silly, to go and be half-assed about it.  I’m moving to a new town next month, I’ll need to join a new gym.  Life is going to radically change, but honestly, it can’t be for the worse.  Things have been getting a little better recently, but I’m not happy or thriving here.

Tomorrow I have a guest coming, for over a week.  I haven’t seen him in 20 years, found him thorugh Facebook.  Can I leave him and hit the gym an hour or two every other day?  Surely he can entertain himself for a few hours, this is a major tourist town, and he’s here more to visit town than me.  OK, that doesn’t seem too rude, when I look at it like that.  I was concerned, but now that it’s written, it seems reasonable.  Possibly this means a lot of meals out as well, but I think he actually can cook, so maybe we’ll just split the cooking.  That makes sense too, maybe this will be okay.  Wish me well, 10 days is a long time.

So close I can taste it

I’ve been working seriously at this weight loss crap for about a year now.  I set my original goal at 150, and 3 out of my last 4 times stepping on the scale I’m coming in at 153.  I started this year at 195 (the gym weighed me at 198, but I think that was just a spike).  To get my BMI under 25, I need to weigh 148, so that’s 5 pounds.  I think my breasts weigh about 8, maybe I can just chop them off?  OK, maybe not.  I wear size 10 pants, medium shirts.  I don’t hesitate to put on a bathing suit and swim if I find myself somewhere warm.  I am far from thin.

I am more likely at this point to eat too little than eat too much, and have to be careful not to ambush myself.  I don’t have a set pattern of eating, and I tend to make it to the gym 3-4 days a week, which includes 2x strength training, 3-4 cardio, I would like to do more yoga but apparently it’s low-priority, and I don’t have a convenient class that I really like.  I leave the city once a week or so for a real hike, usually 7+ miles and steep.  The rest of the time I bike or walk around the city, sometimes for exercise, sometimes just doing errands or shopping.    I consider these my rest days, and even they consist of  over an hour or two of leisurely exercise.  I like leisurely exercise, and I like the kickboxing because I won’t get my heart rate up there if nobody is yelling at me to do so.  I am lazy by nature.

I spend about $50 at the Farmer’s Market every weekend, and eat so much of this that I don’t worry about the rest of my diet.  I would happily live on fish and fruit, if I lived in Thailand or somewhere where both were abundant and cheap.  Since I don’t, I have to eat vegetables, beans, cheese (yum), grains-whole and processed (meh to both), small amounts of unhealthy red meat or chicken (yuck) and vodka/grapefruit.  I prefer raw veggies, raw fish, but I see the health advantages to cooked, so I am trying to cook more veggies.  I drink once or twice a week, but am such a lightweight that two is more than enough.  Sometimes when I drink I overeat, but in my new way of thinking, that’s probably a good thing since in general I now tend to undereat.  Calorie cycling, yeah, okay.  I’m just lazy and I don’t want to make the effort to feed myself.   I have to make a conscious effort to eat protein, which I could be better at.

I’ve actually been losing quicker than normal recently.  I think there are just fewer occasions for me to eat lots of crap.  For example, I sometimes go to a friend’s house who always has ice cream, chocolate covered almonds, tortilla chips (not as yummy as potato chips), baguette.  Sometimes I eat the stuff, not binge level, but probably 5-600 calories worth.  (If I try to stop myself from eating it, when I actually want it, I’ll eat 1000-1200 instead).  I understand and respect my weak spots.  I exercise enough that it’s mostly irrelevant, but I won’t lose that day or the next.  I have been doing stuff like this less and less.   I think these episodes, and the occasional beer/pizza or other restaurant meal keep my metabolism up.  I don’t consider any foods to be problems (except potato chips), though there’s plenty I won’t keep at home.  I am not afraid of sugar, HFCS, MSG, saturated fat, processed carbs.  I may not seek them out often anymore, but don’t avoid.

On a funny note, sometimes I read these arguments that involve various types of athletes who believe various arguments about nutrition.  They argue about whether carbs are evil, whether people who believe carbs are evil are stupid, how soon after working out you should eat or drink, what you should eat or drink.  Anyway, bodybuilders tend to be the ones who shun carbs, follow rigid rules about exactly how long after lifting they should eat xyz.  Meanwhile, the majority of bicyclists think the obvious choice after a long workout:  BEER!  Hooray for cyclists!

OK, long rambling early morning post.  I’m moving in 4 weeks, is there anything more stressful than moving?   I can live much cheaper where I’m going, have no choice, no job in sight.  I’m finally making friends where I’m about to leave.  Oh well, it’s time to grow up now.

Impulse Control

I have been thinking about impulse control since reading a Time magazine article on it a few days back.  Here’s the link:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1889942,00.html

“In two papers published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, scientists found that preschool-age children who had trouble with self-control and the ability to delay gratification gained more weight by the time they were preteens than those who were better at regulating their behavior”

It’s not really much of a surprise, to me at least.  I would also guess that these kids were also more likely to have drug and alcohol problems.   I am not so good at impulse control.  This is what I’m going to work on next.  I managed to get past this with food (how the hell did I do this?) but I still have my problems, especially emotional impulse control.   A friend blew me off, and apologized, and I still told her she was lame.  Why don’t I just avoid her for a week or two until I’m over it?  Now she’s probably pissed at me.  It’s not like I have enough friends that I can just throw them away, even if they’re lame.  And the worst is my need to talk things out with people I shouldn’t be so close to, like ex-boyfriends.  The problem with being close with ex-bfs, especially if you’re still intimate with them, is that they start dating someone, and then the whole relationship is awkward, inappropriate, and uncomfortable.  I keep wanting to call him, and it’s just philosophy talk, I don’t want to revisit old relationship issues (oh hells no!)  The transition from boyfriend/girlfriend to friends with benefits to just friends and back again is confusing, at best.

Anyway, I’m actually figuring shit out as I approach my goal weight and am trying to put more energy into actually improving my life, not just thinning.  I’m learning quickly, and I hope when I move in another month, from my 2 bedroom in the heart (or armpit, in the opinion of some) of my city to a tiny studio with a huge yard in a more suburban city.  Other than the tininess, I’m looking forward to it.  I love the yard, love the Y, love all the lush greenery, don’t love the guns and drugs, though they’re here, too, just not as visible.

Today I ate breakfast at 8:30, went to kickboxing at 10, walked 2.5 miles each way for a burrito at 2, now I’m making pasta sauce.  I won’t eat again tonight, other than peaches, cherries, purple green beans, maybe part of a Korean melon.  I seem to be on the two meal and lots of snack thing these days.  If I ever get a job, I’ll go back to three, but they’ll be smaller.  I can’t eat again within 10 hours of a burrito.  As for the job, I have a phone screen for a shitty temp job that’s too far away for my comfort, but I can’t be picky.  I think they drug test, which is why I’m dealing with the impulse control thing, I had to give up the weed immediately, and it’s uncomfortable.  I feel compulsion!  Feh.

**Pasta will be eaten for lunch or dinner for the next few days.  Whole grain pasta, I add sugar to the sauce so I can stand it.  Also I roasted eggplant, summer squash, sauteed shiitakes, 2 cans diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato paste.  And about 8 cloves of garlic, herbs, and mirin (my absolute favorite).  For someone who doesn’t think she has a sweet tooth, I sure sweeten a lot of my food.  But, the eggplant is bitter, yeah yeah, that’s it, bitter without it.