Month #11

The 11th marked the 11th month of my journaling on AOL.  I went back to the very first few entries early this morning while I was trying to stay awake, there was a lot more energy back in the beginning.

To be honest I've just been going through the motions since about the onset of summer.  And recently I've been trying to play catch-up.  I notice myself considering stuff that normally I would have balked at.  We're talking the pills, the equipment, the diets - all the stuff I used to regard with such scorn because I truly feel the diet industry feeds off of the desperation of an increasingly obese nation.

And what's worse I believe that the diet industry actually keeps their clients obese to keep their clientele.  Back when I was about 21 I used to work at Burger King, and our franchise had a maitenance guy who used to drive me UP a tree.  He'd always fix stuff halfway so that he always had to come back and spend hours and hours chewing the fat with the managers.  Everything was constantly breaking down.  The reason it bugged me was because the things that were breaking down got in the way of our business - and fast food work is cumbersome enough as it is.

I regard the diet industry in much the same way.  That's why I despise fad diets so badly.  The most dangerous thing we face is yo yo dieting, and crash diets, fad diets and unrealistic eating patterns "just to get skinny" keep us losing and gaining, losing and gaining. 

Yet here I am, succumbing to the propoganda.  It's insane.  It hit me today while I was doing my Pilates that I don't need all that "magical" stuff.  Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I have always had what it takes to lose weight right within me.  I don't have to spend $50 for some pills to do it for me. 

It just takes me doing what I know needs to be done.  When we went to the mall earlier and were browsing in Spencer Gifts, they had a book called the Ultimate Diet Breakthrough - which had the comprehensive answer to finally lose weight forever.  You open the book and on every single page there were the same two words:  Eat less.

It hit me - that isn't the answer.  On Dateline NBC they're doing a weight loss segment on several high school classmates preparing for a reunion.  Of the 5, the one who hasn't been watching what he ate and concentrating on exercise has lost the least, and the one who watches what she eats and exercises lost the most.  The fad diet, the South Beach Dieter, was next to last.  I believe it's because of the deprivation issue. 

Anyway the lady who is using diet and exercise with the help of Oprah's personal trainer Bob Greene, credits the benefit of exercise - of pushing her limits each time, as why she's lost so much.  Just eating right isn't enough.  Just exercising isn't enough.  It takes both, much as that pains me to say.  I hate exercise, but I read somewhere you have to fake it till you make it - so I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and do the work.  I'm going to have to push my limits.

Today when I did my Pilates and I got to that dreaded rolling bridge I never can do, I talked myself through it saying that I could do it.  And you know what?  I did.  I did every single exercise all the way through - no cheating.

Better than that, I did not just the ten minutes on the exercise bike this morning, but I did fifteen.  Through the whole day of my total calories burned, my activities accounted for ten percent.  I like that number, I think I want to aspire to that number. 

And of course I feel better once it's over with.  It's gearing myself up for it that hurts the most, but once you're doing it you're done before you know it and you actually do feel better.  The endorphins are pumping and I actually do feel in control again.  It's such a nice feeling.  Remind me again why I let that go?

I did have a bit of a low point in the day when I read that some people have already heard from Situation: Comedy that they made it to the next round.  I, as of right now, have heard nothing.  I'm kinda bummed.  When I first heard I was just angry.  Then I went through all the self depreciating bs that I must not have any talent whatsoever if every single contest I enter I get passed over. 

But some time has passed since then and I just reminded myself that I prayed over that script before it went out.  If it wasn't God's will for me to win I wasn't gonna.  It's just not my opportunity.   The more I thought about the more I decided I need to declare a war cry on the writing too.  No more hanging my dreams on the quick fixes, it's time to get my butt in gear and do what I know I need to do even if it makes me uncomfortable to do it.  

So as we move toward the year mark of this journal I'm going to celebrate the progress I've made - 70lbs is nothing to sneeze at - and I'm going to incorporate the things that I've learned from my mistakes along the way.

That is, after all, what they're there for anyway.

Calories:  1677
Fat: 32%
Sat. Fat: 9%
Water: 72oz
Exercise: 10 mins stationary bike, walked 1 1/2 mile, Pilates

DAILY AFFIRMATION:  I need to take my lessons from the past, apply them to the present to sculpt my future into what I know it can be.

 

Just One More Day

I'm a big Nick at Nite fan, I watch it religiously.  I'd rather watch these tired ol reruns than most new stuff, to be honest.  There's something safe in the familiar - like being able to go home again.

My favorite show of the current Nick @ Nite lineup is Roseanne.  I relate a lot to Roseanne, for a lot of reasons.  I think we have the same type of personality - the survive at all cost mentality I'm sure most working class families and their matriarchs must have to get through the day.  I'm not as abrasive as she is, but we come from the same place. 

Anyway we're at the end of the second to last season where Dan has his heart attack.  For obvious reasons I get understandably upset because it reminds me of my Dan and his heart attack.  As I'm sitting here, bawling my brains out, I realize that a lot of what bothers me isn't that someone else has died, it's that I could die.  I know I will eventually, but being as heavy as I am it literally weighs on me with more pressing urgency.  The chamber is spinning, and I'm pretty sure there's more than one bullet in there.

My birthday is coming up next month, my 35th.  I realize that isn't that old, but sometimes it scares me that the clock ticks on and one day I will face what we all inevitably face.  Oprah had Susan Sarandon on her show the other day and they were both talking about how great it was to be 50 and I nearly hyperventilated at the thought.  I brought it up to my best friend who just last Thursday celebrated his 35th, and he said it was easy to feel like you hit your stride at 50 when you've accomplished what you wanted to accomplish. 

That's when I realized that death doesn't scare me.  Running out of time does.  On Roseanne Dan put it beautifully - that we work so hard dealing with things on a day to day basis that we put off other things.  I'll lose weight later.  I'll mend fences later.  I've got time to do all the things I want to do.

And that's just not true.  Before we know it the last grain of sand has passed through the bottle neck and all our intentions mean nothing.  Like my friend Jeannie says - it's the dash in between the date we were born and the date we die that means everything.

I know it seems like I'm preoccupied with death, and that's probably true.  I don't know why it haunts me more than normal people.  Probably because it's had a profound impact on my life by stealing away people that I loved from such an early age on.  I know first hand how Death creeps in when you're least expecting it and pulls the rug out of everything good and normal in your life.

So I started a war against the Grim Reaper a year ago, with the war cry, "You cannot take me yet."  I'm not going to make his job any easier - I'm going to fight him every step of the way.  But since about February and especially since May, I've stopped fighting and started to put things off.  I have enough time to do the things I want to do.  There's always going to be just one more day.

Fear is a great motivator.  That and pain.  Both have managed to kick my butt into gear at one point or another.  But the one thing I know about me is when I decide to fight, my feet dig in and I will not let go until the fight is over and I have won.  Hear my battle cry.  The war continues.

Today I dumped the Lindora plan and went back to eating more nutritionally.  It may be slower, but I know that I can do this.  I know what has to be done, and I know I got the gumption to pull it off.  I've got a size 34 dress that drapes on me now to prove it.  Interestingly enough, today I ate the same amount of calories I did last week and I felt satisfied.  I didn't feel the need to feed.  I think I'll listen to my body - it's not so dumb after all.

But one thing it will not like is instituting exercise.  There's a spy in my camp, and my lazy butt is it.  Since I'm going to stay up all tonight to flip my schedule over, I'm going to do the exercises for Monday through the night - except for the walk, which Steven has agreed we'll do together when he gets home from work.  Winston doesn't know yet... I expect him to jump completely out of his Puggy skin. 

I know as soon as I start seeing true results again it won't be so hard to keep up the momentum.  But starting is always the hardest part.  And my body is very happy that it hasn't been tested to its limits lately.

Little does it know...

It still thinks it is going to have just one more day. 

But now I know that I have to fight to have it, even if the person I fight is myself.

DAILY STATS:

Calories:  1380
Fat: 29%
Sat. Fat: 10%
Water: 72oz
Exercise: None

DAILY AFFIRMATION: I'm strong enough to make these changes, and I deserve the good things that will come from my strength.

It's time for me to "get real"...

as Dr. Phil would say.  I've spent the entire day in a sour mood I've taken out on everyone else because what I wanted I didn't get.  The depression and the deprivation and the sheer willpower not to overindulge was overwhelming.  This is not the diet for me.  Especially when I tried to do the diet to the best of my ability anyway, and barely cracked 1000 calories just so I wouldn't go over my carbs.  I'm faced with either eating things like grains, beans, fruits and vegetables or high fat things like meats, cheeses, low carb dressings, etc.  It's just not going to work for me.  When I can't afford a bowl of grapes because I chose to eat a high fiber cereal and added fruit to my cottage cheese, this just isn't right.

It's time to ditch these fad diets and get back to basics.  The eating hasn't been the problem, I need to get my metabolism running and the simplest, most effective way to do that is through exercise.  If I exercised more, I wouldn't have to watchdog my diet and deprive myself of basic nutrition.  I know this, but I'm uninspired to exercise. 

I need to get off my lazy butt and change my activities instead of race around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to manipulate my body to do what simple nutrition and exercise would do naturally. 

Back in January I was walking a mile a day five days a week, riding up to 30 minutes a day on the exercise bike and doing Pilates faithfully every other day.  That's when I saw my biggest success.  Ever since February my activities have gone steadily downhill - and subsequently so has my weight loss. 

Nothing is going to work consistantly unless I start to work it consistantly.  The more I burn, the more fat I'll burn because I've already created a consumption/burning deficit. 

I'm going to do this smart, the way I know it's supposed to work, and that's what is going to make the difference.  And it starts tomorrow.

According to Practical Weight Loss Site - How To Lose Fat and Keep It Off., I should consume 2600 calories in order to maintain my weight at my activity level.  So we're going to shave 1000 calories off of that (to create a deficit that will equal a 2lb loss - in theory).  This will give me a daily calorie requirement of 1600, with no more than 30% fat. 

I'm going to consume 64oz at least of water per day.

My exercise is going to start off slow.  I'm going to do the bike ten minutes five days this week, Pilates every other day and I'm going to walk a mile at least five days this week.  This is a concrete goal, and I will do that.  This is more important than all the rest.

We'll see in a week what works best - a fad diet or that old stand by, "eat less and move more". 

As of tomorrow I'll do my journal entries at night and my stats will be listed there. 

I'm going to look into carb blockers and metabolism boosters, to see if there's a safe natural supplement to help me in those areas - but other than that it's time to get real with my nutrition.  This high protein diet doesn't feel right and it's certainly not something I can realistically maintain.  This is why diets don't generally work.

I've wasted enough time chasing the moon.  It's time to get back to what I know works, and I'm just going to have to grin and bear it.  It's the only way.

 

The Nap Didn't Help

Well I lost a little but it still shows a gain.  I'm officially at 280 now.

Sigh.

I really REALLY want to binge right now.  You have no idea how much it sucks to starve yourself all week and show a gain.  Yeah the inches were nice but I've always been losing inches.  I want to see those pounds move.

So I'm going to weigh in again on Monday.  That gives this program the entire "week" - where they promise me 6lbs lost.  I'll be happy with anything as I've said, I just want to lose.  Essentially I'm going to give this two weeks and if it doesn't work I'm going back to my own program.  I can tell you right now this one is a recipe for disaster if it doesn't work.

I'll get carb blockers as Tracy suggested, maybe take a natural metabolism booster or something - but all this denial with no results means big trouble for me.  I will binge like there is no tomorrow. 

Now I have to fight this twinge to binge.

 

281. 281!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Frustrated doesn't EVEN begin to cover what I'm feeling right now.  Despite my home scale loss, despite the inches lost, the GNC scale shows a 2lb gain.  A GAIN!

There's absolutely no friggin way it should have been a gain.  I didn't expect a huge loss considering we didn't get to weigh in until 12:45, I'd already been up nearly 6 hours and had eaten lunch and the mid morning snack already, as well as 24oz of water.  My worst fear was that it would be the same.  But a gain???  No frickin way.

I'm so frustrated.  I'm frustrated and I'm feeling mighty deprived.  The first thing I wanted to do - eat.  This is why diets don't work for me, I cannot stand the thought I'm going through all this crap denying myself the food I want and not seeing results anyway.  If I'm going to gain 2lbs, I want to enjoy the food that puts me there. 

I'm going to go TRY to take a nap and maybe try it again after some significant sleep.  Right now all I want to do is eat eat eat eat - and nothing at all good for me.  The fact I had to walk past the El Chico - twice! - to weigh in didn't help matters any.

A three inch loss and a two pound gain???  Someone please explain this to me.

 

Up Early... Like a Kid at Christmas

It's ridiculous really that I cannot sleep in even when a full 8 hours would do my weigh in such good.  The morning scale showed a 2lb gain, which isn't surprising.  I got to bed late with the intention of sleeping in late, but woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.  Part of it was probably hunger, part of it was apprehension of what the weigh in is going to say and part of it was how my mind has been working overdrive over a movie I saw last night.  Hopefully an article I read recently that says the best time to weigh in is after 9am is true and we'll see maximum results.  Whatever the scales say the measuring tape shows a loss of 3" this week - and that's big news considering the lack of exercise.

If you all would indulge me a bit,  I just need to purge this movie from my head.

I laughed when I saw sjburgess's comment below about Steve Perry, because Steve Perry factors very heavily into this movie and why I watched it.  About a year ago my very reclusive favorite singer came out with an interview where he stated that Charlize Theron had written him personally to get permission for the use of "Don't Stop Believin" for the use in a scene of the movie Monster.  I was very excited to learn that he not only gave his permission but also became part of the moviemaking process and even got a Musical Consultant credit out of it.

It was his involvement that made me root for Charlize to win the Oscar, rather than her performance.  Color me devoted.  I wanted to see this movie from the time it was in theaters last year but we don't really see the movies we want to right away.  I finally got the nerve to push it up in my Netflix queue to watch it even though I knew it was a huge downer of a film.

For those not familiar, Monster is the story of Aileen Wuornos, a serial killer from Florida who was executed in October of 2002 - two years ago today in fact.   Aileen was a prostitute and her victims were the johns who picked her up.  It's not a pretty story in the least, and I wouldn't have even watched it had it not been for Steve Perry's involvement.  Which, now, shames me.

The pivotal scene where Don't Stop Believin is used is where Aileen connects with Selby, a lonely lesbian searching for someone to love her - and from that moment on I was a bawling wreck.  To me, Don't Stop Believin was always a song of hope, but I don't think I ever before realized the hopelessness that was there as well.  And that is what is captured in this movie in an eloquent, painful way.  Two people meet, both of whom life has discarded, both of whom just needed someone, anyone to love them - both of whom "payin anything to roll the dice just one more time."

A lot of people probably pan the movie as justifying the deeds of a heartless serial killer.  And indeed I almost didn't want to post about it because you never know who reads this journal and it very well could be someone who was somehow affected (friend or relative of a victim) - but I just had to write about it because it has haunted me all night long. 

I came away from this movie profoundly affected.  Probably because Aileen was a woman and as a rape survivor I can connect with at least part of her pain.  But I think what disturbed me the most was just the pointlessness of the events that snowballed into a very angry woman who was able to kill for profit, for justice and in a weird warped sort of way - love.

It made me want to rush out and find someone who was on that cusp and just pull them in to prevent something like this happening again.

Knowing Dan I have a unique insight on what mental illness aggrevated by circumstances can do to an otherwise loving and good person.   When I met him I was a very optimistic 17 year old who believed that love did conquer all.  And he was incredibly emotionally damaged by the time I met him.  What he had gone through with his family, through his childhood and his adulthood had turned him into an angry young man who believed that each person who claimed to care about him was a breath away from stabbing him in the back.  And, as the bright eyed optimist I was, I just knew if I loved him enough it would fill all those holes and in fact heal him.

But the truth was there was not enough love to fill those holes.  For years we struggled - him with distrust and anger, me with my trademark stubbornness and hopefulness.  It took until I was approaching my 30s to realize, it wasn't up to me to save him.  Just like Selby couldn't save Aileen.  The damage was too widespread.

The difference between Aileen and Daniel first was that Aileen had it way worse than Daniel did.  First off, she was a woman - and from the age of 8 on was taught to be nothing more than a sperm toilet for men.  It was how she survived.  This isn't that shocking, really.  A lot of women who are sexually abused as kids end up sexually promiscuous, some even choose the route of hooking to survive.  There's something that happens when you're violated so young that makes you think that's all you're really good for.  Considering my own attack at age 4 lead me down a similar path (I wasn't a prostitute, but I was promiscuous), I could understand the foundation of her choices.

It lead to a lifetime of being used and discarded, used and discarded.  Daniel had a similar experience, but being sexually used and discarded corrodes your self esteem to nothing.  To beyond nothing.  I heard somewhere that something happens spiritually when you have sex with someone, that you take on more than just a physical connection - but an intensely spiritual one as well.  You end up taking on their spiritual karma or energy just by default - because sex is a lot more than just two bodies connecting.  When you think about the kind of men who would pay a woman on the side of the road for sex and multiply that times the many years she must have done this, it leads to one messed up human being.

Not that this gave her the right to kill.  God knows that's not what I'm saying or even the film is implying.  It's simply shining the light on a very ugly, painful subject to pose the question - how could this have been prevented, and how can we prevent something like this again in the future.

My answer is to never give up hope on anyone.  No one is disposable.  Jesus Christ died for all, not just some, and that included Aileen Wurnous.  Instead of turning away, as it is so easy to do, maybe it's time we look closer and realize that people are more than just their bad choices.  I don't believe anyone is born evil - but the evils of this world can certainly wear off on those who are wounded and damaged as Aileen and Daniel were.

Daniel's story had a happy ending.  I believe with all my heart had he not met me he would have had a lot rougher time of it.  God only knows how far he would have gone in his own desperate journey to find a place where he was loved and accepted.  Instead he found me.  He found someone to believe in him and stand up with him through all the chaos.  That helped to heal some of his wounds and give him the license to become more than his emotional baggage.  I truly believe that anyone who didn't meet him was incredibly cheated out of knowing one of the kindest, most generous human beings ever to walk the planet.  All he needed was someone who recognized that seed and nourished it to grow.

And maybe that was all Aileen needed.  That she did not find thatabsolutely breaks my heart.  If there is any one thing I believe no one should ever be without, it's the unconditional love of someone who accepts you for all that you are, good and bad.  And for anyone to die without finding it is a crying shame.

Maybe this is where the label bleeding heart liberal comes from, but I truly believe that where there is life, there is hope.  There are those who are inexcusably evil, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc - but for the rest I have to believe that the good in people will overcome the bad.  It just takes courage enough to believe and courage enough to love the unlovable.

I'll be back later with a weigh in.  I just had to get that off my chest.

Here's the article about Steve Perry's involvement:

Fan Asylum: Steve Perry

I'm just so proud of him and respect him all the more for recognizing the film for what it was. 

And Charlize?  You deserved that Oscar, girlfriend.  I don't know where you pulled that performance from but a standing ovation for you.  Excellent, excellent performance.

 

Day Five. I Hear the Carbs a Callin...

There is a school of thought that suggests that a protein heavy diet leaves you more sated and less likely to overeat.

I must have failed this school.

Today was my last protein only day I have this week, and as of next week I'll be doing protein only days only once a week.  For some reason I'm starving.  My stomach is grumbling and I'm seriously ravenous.  It's not mental - I'm having a physical reaction.  I'm sucking down water like there's no tomorrow, but nothing is helping.  I almost talked myself into having my cereal early but I thought better of it and finished off my proteins for the day. 

If this is the feeling of my body consuming itself, I guess that's a good thing.  We'll know as of tomorrow morning.  This morning my home scale showed another 2lb loss, registering my weight at 281.5 - which is the lowest my home scale has ever gone.  I'm really excited to see what the scale says tomorrow.

My waking temps again were high, 97.2 today.  I guess there's something to this eating pattern after all.  I even cleaned off my desk today.  I was looking for my voter registration card and I checked my portfolio where I keep all my important records only to discover it wasn't there.  This prompted my cleaning fit.  I cleaned high.  I cleaned low.  But I did not find my voter registration card.  Desperate, I checked the portfolio again and there it was, tucked behind some other papers.  Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

Nothing more on the writing front.  And with no vice to calm my nerves.  Color me fun to live with.

I finally reached a consensus with my fourteen year old.  A breakthrough, or a tenuous truce?  You be the judge.

Actually I make it sound much worse than it is.  On the whole he's a good kid.  He doesn't drink, smoke or do drugs.  He's not involved with teen sex or the gang scene.  I'm still one of his major influences.  Our problem areas are his grades, his attitude and his lackidaisical attitude toward household chores.  One of the things we had been working on was his quick temper and his readiness to solve disagreements with other kids with the use of violence.  Here where we live he's been punished for that by being sent to a Reassignment Center - or RAC -rather than the school campus. 

Turns out last week he got intoa squabble with another kid.  The kid supposedly spit on him while he was under the bleachers goosing his friends during gym class.  Apparently words were exchanged, which lead to a pushing match.  Eventually this kid took a swing on my son, hitting him square in the face.  My son lifted his hands to fight back, but says he thought better of it because he knows if he gets assigned to RAC this year he goes straight to "jail" here.  (Everything stripped in his room except for his bed - no toys, no entertainment, no family interaction and chores without pay).  It's our last ditch disciplinary action that we only give if they don't turn in their work and subsequently fail their classes or physical violence. 

So anyway he decided not to swing back and he went to get the coach to fix the problem.  The coach, who didn't see what went on, sent both kids to the principal because he was getting conflicting stories, and both kids got reassigned to RAC.

Problem is, this time it's not just RAC.  My son's middle school just merged this year with another middle school that closed its campus.  It came with the policy that any kids participating in a fight would be cited, have to go before a city court judge and end up either paying a fine or doing community service.

Anyway my kid feels unfairly punished considering he was the one who got hit.  We agreed, took it to the principal and found out that my son has had several problems with other kids lately, and had raised his fists to another boy he had threatened.  The principal gave him a warning the first time, so he came down with RAC this time.

So this lead to a night long fight back and forth - his thinking the world is an incredibly unfair place where he has to <gasp> do his chores and do it without attitude while he's on seriously thin ice for what happened at school. 

I don't know why I fight with him, if I just step back and give him time alone he generally always gets his act together.  It's just the defiance on top of everything else just put me over the edge. 

Anyway he's on garage duty tomorrow to get out of "jail" - it's his "community service" here at the house.  The only break he got tonight was getting to watch the presidential debate, since it was more educational than entertaining.  He was on his best behavior the entire time, and actually listened to what was said.  He even made up his mind whom he would vote for if he could.  And he will be able to vote in the next presidential election.  I can barely say that without hyperventilating.  It's only one year and three months away from his being behind the wheel of a car.  Someone pass me the paper bag, quick.

Oct. 7

Calories:  1404
Carbs: 96 grams
Water: 72oz
Exercise: None

DAILY AFFIRMATION:  Each struggle defines me and who I was, who I am and who I will ultimately become.