Knowing When It's Time to Say Sayonara...

 “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”

Henry Ellis

There are some things I've always thought I'd have a lifetime relationship with:  family, friends, and sugar.  Of those three, I'd have to say that sugar has been my boon companion for more years than has been good for my health.  My, but we have enjoyed some very tasty times together but it, like the other two, is becoming a little too toxic for me to tolerate.  Starting yesterday, I began eliminating as much sugar from my diet as possible for the next couple of weeks.  Day One was not fun.  It was still easier than quitting my 2 pack-a-day cigarette habit 22 years ago, weaning myself off Paxil during the financial crisis in 2008 and raising the teen but still.....I missed my morning Coffeemate.  Or rather, I should say I missed my morning coffee that, with the aid of Coffeemate, had pretty much turned into my morning mocha milkshake.  Hmmm....isn't this how addictions start - first with a teaspoon and then with payloader?  There was also too much bread, rice and pasta so those are gone too - for the time being.  I'm detoxing from sugar.  My knuckles are as white as the stuff I'm trying to quit.  But it's a necessary step - and aren't those always the ones that are the toughest?

Without going into too much detail, I hate to admit that I'm estranged from my siblings.  I realize it kind of makes me sound like a crank but I had to break ranks when my relationships with them also turned toxic.  I have my reasons which I consider valid, but still - a lot of people not familiar with the situation look at me as if to say, "Maybe it's not them - maybe it's you."  I've long since stopped justifying things to people who know nothing about my life.  Let them draw their own conclusions.  My life is much more peaceful without them in it.

And friends?  Well, can you ever have enough?  I'm not a big "collector" of people.  I don't do much if any social networking because I don't have time for it and it doesn't interest me.  But I do have three really great friends with whom I always thought I'd have a lifelong relationship with.  Two of the three have recently had me questioning that second "F" of "BFF", which breaks my heart.  One of them has recently had a horrible health scare which I can understand may have rendered our previously happy-go-lucky friendship somewhat irrelevant in her eyes.  As close as I stayed by her side while she was in the throes of this battle, I know there is now a part of her I can never understand because I've never endured what she has.  This has been a slowing devolving situation and one that seems to be leaving the station without me.  I wish her nothing but the best.

Friend #2 and I have known each other since we roomed together in college some 37 years ago.  She was one of my bridesmaids and I am her daughter's godmother.  We see each other 2-4 times a year and have always enjoyed each others' company.  A few years ago I had to put some distance between us because she seemed to be going through something unpleasant that was spilling over into our relationship - I couldn't talk about my sick mother without her having to "one-up" me about a colleague of hers dying.  And she would insinuate that I was a shallow person who was unaware of my blessings.  Maybe it was a menopausal side effect, you know, like hot flashes, night sweats, hair loss (upper lips the exception) and treating your best friend like shit.  Whatever.  She seemed to get past it after a year or so, and so I thought we were back on track.  Until this weekend.

We met at one of our mutual favorite places around:  our old college campus.  We walked and walked and when the time came to reward ourselves with some locally made ice cream for lunch, that's when things started turning sour again.  For lack of a better term, she began picking at all of my scabs (I DO apologize if you're reading this during breakfast).  Not only did she pick but she also went all Oprah on me - which means she was acting so much more evolved that me; telling me that I haven't reached a point in my life yet where I have let forgiveness come into my heart, and all this other emotional mumbo-jumbo.  I should mention that she too is a flawed person - except that I took the high road that day and kept my mouth shut as to her own failings.  I don't exactly know what the point of her "lesson" was but I found it highly insulting and condescending.  You know the saying - first time, shame on you, second time -  shame on me.  Time to detox here too.

I don't know if all this "purging" from my life is what I should be doing now, but I am getting a lot better at identifying what feels "right" to me - and it feels right to distance myself from some things - and people - in which the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.  It's time to tip the scales in my favor.

Dear Abercrombie & Fitch....

"Whaddya mean I need a 6-pack to shop here?   Don't pudding packs count?"

So you don't want fat people in your store because they don't "belong" in your clothes,eh?  Not cooool enough.  A year ago you didn't say anything to this fat mom when she, in her humble opinion, was paying overinflated prices for questionable quality clothes in your soft core porn-decorated shop for her skinny teenage son.  Apparently you have no problem with taking fat people's money - just the idea of them wearing your clothes.

Our experience that day in your little sandbox of a store was unpleasant enough for us to not return.  You clearly not only want to appeal to the thin and the cool, but also to the vapid, rude, and marginally intelligent crowd as well, if your staff was any indication of your over-all marketing plan.  It takes a long time for high school "populars" to grow up and realize the world doesn't revolve around them the way they thought it did.  Hopefully, by the time you reach the same conclusion, all of us non-populars will have affected your - ahem - bottom line as we spend our dollars elsewhere - as if we just HAD to have your product.  Don't flatter yourselves - you're not that special.

Just sayin'.

Dorothy Wiser Than The Wizard: Or Why It's Better To Be IN a House Than UNDER One

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any farther than my own back yard because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with." 

Wise words, but it was hard for me to take advice from a young woman who didn't possess enough fashion sense to know not to wear bobbie socks with pumps.  And ruby pumps at that.  Sorry Dorothy - but that's definitely evening wear! I mean,c'mon - get a glove and get in the game, girl!

But she ultimately achieved her goal, didn't she?  (Note to reader:  Yes, I know I'm dealing with a fictional character here but, hey, inspiration can come from anywhere!)  And she did it by reminding herself that she had everything she needed within her.  She always had the power, as Glinda reminded her after dragging her through almost every circle of hell.  It always seems the test comes before the lesson in real life, doesn't it?  So it makes perfect sense that we mere mortals will go to the ends of the earth to "discover" that "magic" pill, diet, book, whatever it is that will "make" us lose this weight before we stop long enough to examine our own strengths and talents.  And as many of us have discovered, maybe by pure accident, we do have everything we need to succeed.

Back to basics.  

Such an underwhelming phrase with such overwhelming power.  It's what I've finally found in my own back yard.  When I first started blogging back in 2008, I lost 30 pounds just by watching what I ate, keeping a food journal, exercising every day and checking in here with kindred spirits.  Well, then one tornado after another hit:  my father passed away, my family began disintegrating, my only child was struggling, and before I knew it, I had found those 30 pounds and picked up another 8 of their friends.  And then I began to panic:  In terms of my health and avoiding diabetes, I was in the bottom of the ninth with 3 men on and 2 men out.  My past three blood sugar tests came back pre-diabetic; each one higher than the last, and the next one is scheduled for July.  And I flailed about, looking for that "magic bullet" that would undo all the damage I had done to myself.  My doctor even suggested gastric by-pass, which I actually seriously considered until I learned I'd probably have to start wearing diapers about 25 years sooner than I had originally anticipated (just ask Al Roker).

I don't know what led me back to this path of knowing I already have what it takes.  Maybe I had to let the fire of a quick and easy fix burn itself out.  More likely it was walking through some of those circles of hell myself and coming through it stronger than before, but I'm finally getting back to basics.  I'm keeping a food journal again, I'm striving to eat things with just a few ingredients instead of those science projects that are so convenient, I'm allowing myself more time to pursue the things I really enjoy, I'm blogging again (even if it IS only once a week), drinking lots of water, getting lots of exercise, and reading lots of blogs and books.  And I've also developed a couple of mantras that keep me going.  The first is to have more good days than bad, and the other is to make each day (and myself) a little bit better than the day before.

It's going to be a good day today.

When Bigger Is Actually Better in the Weight Loss Journey

"I once caught a fish wish THIS big!"

 

 

 

 

Big? 

What's a word like "big" doing in a blog about weight loss?

Perhaps it's the pollen that's gotten to me, or the fact that I haven't had a good night's sleep since the Stone Age but yes, "big" does belong in the world of weight loss blogs.  And contrary to what every man you've ever met has ever told you:  size does matter.

This won't be another rant about how my thighs are so big that my ankles haven't said hello to each other since I was 13.  It won't be another snarky joke (altho I do love me some snarky jokes!) about someone telling me they "like the swing in my backyard" or asking if I'd "like some fries with that shake".  I'm not talking about the physical world anymore.  I'm talking about the thing we lost sight of that's encouraging and nurturing our toxic relationship with food.  I'm talking about the dreams we have - or had - for ourselves.

I don't know about the rest of you but I always thought I'd be living a bigger life than I currently am.  Ask any little kid you know what they want to be when they grow up and I'll bet you not a single one of them replies, "Fifty pounds overweight with a bitchin', tricked-out CPAP machine!"  Yeah, me neither - and yet, here I am.

When you (and by "you", I really mean "me" - but allow me this poetic license just this once) lose sight of the things that used to make you happy and excited to get up in the morning, you start filling the hole with ill-advised coping skills - eating, drinking, drugs - you get the picture.  I was never fat when I was happy, but sadly the reverse was just as true.  Life sure can drop a house on you and keep you pinned down until your plans for yourself get diminished to the size of putting one foot in front of the other to just get through the day.  I totally get this because it's happened to me for like the past dozen years.  I had to get off my life path and devote all my energy to saving my son.  And then my life became all about him and what he needed with no guarantee that there would ever be a successful outcome.  Plenty of "professionals" doubted there would ever be one.  And it practically killed me.  But that's what you do when you're a parent - kids in the lifeboat first, everything  and everyone else second.  Happily, he's on pretty solid ground these days but he's still only 17.  "Stuff" is surely bound to come up - but I think pray the worst is behind us.

During that time I kept putting on more and more weight, despite the urgent warnings of what it was doing to my health.  But hell, I knew that - I mean, I do have a mirror and a closet full of clothes that don't fit, so yeah, I get that I'm fat.  Eating was my default setting whenever the stuff hit the fan.  But now that less stuff is hitting the fan and it appears I can get on with my life again, I realize that in that 12 year shit storm, I lost track of the life I wanted to have.  At first I put all my dreams away for later and then practically buried them thinking there would never be a "later" when I could look up to them again. 

But now I think I can - and it's time to think BIG, baby!!  I want to live a life as big as my dreams!  I want to play more tennis and learn to play golf.  I want to be a normal sized person again.  I want to travel.  I want to take a serious stab at writing (and actually have 3/4 of a women's fiction novel written).  Then I want to get an agent and sell a million copies and go on the speaking circuit and make enough dough to pay for whatever health care is going to cost in 20 years.  Yeah - me and a million other writers, right?  Why me?  Hey - why NOT me?!  Think BIG!  Live BIG!  You only get to do it once - but if you do it right, as someone much smarter than me observed, once is enough.

Shaky Foundations and Faulty Wiring

I've been away for much longer than I ever thought.  I guess the most reasonable explanation is that I've been in a kind of renovation phase.  Realizing that many of my coping skills and thought processes were only digging me into a deeper hole, I decided to step back, cry "uncle" and put things right.

Maybe it was just an identity crisis or yet another symptom to be filed under that vague, catch-all "menopause" - but I didn't think so.  It felt more ominous than that, like Oz's flying monkeys duking it out with Hitchcock's "The Birds".  Talk about your creature double-feature.  (My money's on the monkeys)  It felt like I had built much of my life upon a cracked foundation - and we money pit patsies home owners know how costly and devastating that can be.  I kept trying, and failing, to lose this weight, even with the dire threat of my past 3 blood tests coming back pre-diabetic.  Always inching toward and eventually crossing other daunting thresholds like sleep apnea, high cholesterol, fat cells in my liver, and regular stops at Lane Bryant still hadn't shocked me out of my stupor.  Instead of branding myself a loser, which is my usual default setting, I decided to step back - way back, like to the Continental Divide - and fix what was broken.  And because I'd been putting it off for so long, my punch list was longer than the line outside Chucky Cheese during school vacation week.

I searched for and found an excellent "contractor" (no, not the kind you find in Angie's List) who has so far tried to get me back on solid footing.  Daily affirmations, gratitude journals and being less judgmental about myself were the order of the day.  Okay - I get that it sounds like any number of old Oprah episodes but it was - and is - starting to work, but I really have to commit to it until it gets to be second nature.  I also decided to put more things I really love back into my life, like tennis and writing and face-to-face get-togethers with friends, instead of following the crowd into achieving maximum Facebook "friendings" (and yes - those "friends" from Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan are completely legit!) and touting my child's academic success on a bumper sticker.  But hey, it's all about whatever makes you feel good about yourself.  But...and this is a big but (pun obviously intended)...that good feeling has to come from within.  I've learned that outside validation - from whatever source - is never so potent as what comes from within.

There are still some wiring issues and bats in the attic that need attending to.  I've finally figured out that there will - for me - never be just a single, illuminating "A-HA!!" moment that will suddenly have the entire construction crew from "This Old House" at my doorstep ready to do my bidding - at no cost to me, by the way.  I have instead found that inspiration can come from any number of sources and it is up to me to decide which to choose and incorporate into my blueprint and which to ignore.  I especially find Diane's excellent Fit to the Finish blog uplifting.  With every post she brings a message of hope and inspiration - and she should know - she lost 150 pounds and has kept it off.  Other fabulous blogs that I find meaning, compassion and humor in - without fail - are Crabby McSlacker's Cranky Fitness, Shelley's My Journey to Fit (Formerly A Forty-Something's Weight Loss Journey) and Carla's Mizfitonline.  I would also like to mention a book by Martha Beck entitled The Four-Day Win:  End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace.  She tackles the emotional tangles that can hamper our weight-loss efforts before we're even out of the starting gates.  For a lot of us, it isn't always just about eating less and moving more - mind prep has A LOT to do with a successful outcome. 

I will do my best to post more regularly.  I love the blogging community and all the support that we lend each other while learning to do what's best for ourselves at the same time.  Sounds like a win-win to me.

Boston