Tuesday, 24th of August 2010 at 09:14:22 AM I have made a grave error. Very grave! I have named my BODY FAT after my old fat bitchy cat, Schubert. I am trying to lose one Schubert (about 17 and a half pounds) because that’s what I gained as I lay in the bed, post surgery, eating post surgical mac-n-chee with pounds of post surgical butter. I forgot that Schubert’s main qualities consist of being old, fat, bitchy, hating everyone and everything on the planet except me and kibble, and – here we come to the key -consistently being in the exact place I LEAST want him to be.
YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN
This is not an isolated incident. Remember The Old Fat Cat Step? Sara gave it to me so Schubert could get up on the bed? Yeah, so, the Old Fat Cat Step sat by the bed for a SOLID WEEK, and Schubert would come around at 2 or 3 in the morning and stand right beside it and scream to be lifted up onto the bed. So, on Saturday, Scott MOVED the Old Fat Cat Step so we could strip and remake the bed. Laundry day, doncha know.
Sure enough, that VERY NIGHT, I hear Schubert shrieking that he wants up on the bed. I sit up blearily, and THERE HE IS, standing on the TOP STEP of the Old Fat Cat Step, which would be perfect! Would be a MIRACLE! If only the Old Fat Cat Step had not been ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROOM. I had to get up and go GET his sorry ruffle-butt from the step and put him in the bed.
Now the Old Fat Cat Step is back in place, and HIS attitude is, “I tried that. It didn’t work for me.”
What possessed me to name my BODY FAT after this ornery animal who does everything contrary-wise and balefully, with maximum resistance. Brilliant. True to form, the Schubert-fat is acting just like the Schubert-cat it is named for, sitting in the one place I TRULY do not want it. In this case, my butt.
Three weeks of making significant changes (Week 1, I upped my exercise back to my old pre-surgical levels. Week two, I committed to eating five portions of fresh fruits and veggies a day, and eating them FIRST, so as to make the portions of what I ate AFTER be smaller because I was fuller. Last week? Full on WW, with all manners of tracking, and I had an A+ week) and the day BEFORE I weighed in, the scale CONSISTENTLY and EVERY DAY said I was down just over 3/17ths of a Schubert.
No, I am not using these properly. Don't be silly. I am a cat. I just came up here to poop.
The very next day, after my sad little loss was recorded, the Schubert-Fat relented and agreed it was really only 14/17ths of its former self, but I already had had to record it as 1/17th of a Schubert the day before. Which means next week, I will have what looks like a DRAMATIC and UNHEALTHY loss and Weight Watchers will YELL at me instead of giving me my rightful smiley icon.
Part of me wants to REALLY lose my temper and go after my Schubert-fat with a flensing knife screaming I WILL SHOW YOU. But that seems painful. And psychologically unlikely. After all, I am still sitting here blogging, and guess where Schubert-CAT is. Did you guess “sleeping on the very Sacred Paper Calendars that you desperately need to update before you screw up and miss a speaking engagement?”
You did? Give that lady a balloon.
[...] Tuesday Redirect Tuesday, 24th of August 2010 at 09:17:06 AM Today is Tuesday, so I am over at Five Full Plates, where the focus is getting FIT AND HEALTHY, so of course *I* am…talking about my cat. var [...]
I took your good, sound recommendation for South Beach and added that to my workouts and now I’m down 9 pounds in a week. I don’t freaking care if it’s unhealthy weight loss (it’s not, i’ve got plenty to spare), I’m just happy it’s moving. So thanks for that. You know, we stubborn people just have to be more stubborn than the inflated parts of our bodies we’re trying to shrink. You can do it, Joss.
Back when I was doing actual WW meetings, the one thing they stressed was do not, absolutely do not weigh yourself every day. It will make you nuts or at least made me nuts. So now I am doing WW online and weighing myself just once a week. It is definitely worth my sanity to keep away from that scale the other 6 days.
I found WW to be the very epitomy of the worst way to eat. It seemed to enforce the eating of non-foods. You want chips? Here’s some fat free chips! You want sour cream? Eat fat free sour cream. I don’t think cows excrete milk in fat free form and I don’t think there is any such thing as fat free fat to fry ones chips in. This stuff can not really be food, but food-like substances created in a laboratory. And then there’s soy milk. Really? Milk? NO WAY. This should be sold in the juice section of the grocery store where it belongs. There are no soy mammaries in which milk can be produced on the soy plant; maybe with a little genetic engineering.
I do know that you can successfully WW AND eat real food. I just don’t want to.
Beki I LOVE YER PROFILE PIC!
Beverly — I hear you, but I have learned that I do better, mental illness number-wise, if I weigh every day. It’s just what works for me, and if I do it, then it is done and I don’t THINK ABOUT IT—otherwise. I obsess. Now you say, “NO!!!! YOU???? OBSESS????” and try to sound convincing….
Tenessa—I don’t eat that crap. You are right, it ain’t nat’ral! and the idea here is to live longer and be healthier, not die early and have a great looking corpse for weeks because of all the weird chemicals and preservatives I ate before dropping dead.
For me, WW is about eating a TON of low points food… stir fried veggies and fruit, and SMALL portions of lean meat and cheese and whole grain carbs like whole wheat couscous and my fantastic bread machine bread.
IT IS HARDER! Because in order to stay on plan and not get bored or be miserable, you REALLY have to COOK a lot more and use herbs judiciously and make things that taste good.
I have an awesome WW scale that I can enter my goal weight, then each day (yes, I am an every day scale devotee, too) it tells me:
A) My current weight
B) The change from the last time I weighed,
C) how far it is to my goal.
Weighing-in tips:
A) ALWAYS weigh NAKED, yes, stark naked. Underpants weigh more than you think….
B) Weigh BEFORE getting in the shower. Hair holds as much water weight as one over-saturated calf. (As in part of the leg, not the actual animal……….)
C) of course, weigh first thing in the morning….even before the first cup of coffee. 8 ounce cup of coffee ingested = 8 additional ounces on the scale if you haven’t had time to pee it out!!
Now, after despensation of such wonderful advice, I am guiltily forced to admit what a fat-ass hypocrite I currently am. Right now, at this very exact moment in time, I am glorifying in the smell of brownies baking in my oven. Brownies bad! And not just brownies…..I had the audacity to glop little mounds of cookie dough on top of the brownie batter placing it in the oven. I shall lie to myself and pretend they are DIET brownies because I will not put icing on them.
I think the weigh-in yelling via computer was the thing that put me off virtual WW. When I went in person, the people knew me, could see that I’d only had ounces, or no movement the week before, and I could say, “Yes, and it’s going to happen like this every 4 weeks” and the woman on the other end would nod sagely and that would be that. Getting advice from a computer that doesn’t know when to nod sagely and can’t see a murderous look? Sucks.
About 3 years ago I decided to start weighing in every day. It helps me. I can see much earlier if I’m getting off track, and I know when I’ve sabotoged myself. (Weekends, when I cook more, eat more, have an extra 3 glasses of wine…) Now there’s no wondering, “When the heck did _that_ happen?”
I also found out that excercise shows up on me pretty much 2 weeks to the day after I start it. So now I know the excercise I do today will be the pound I lose in 14 days. It would be nicer to record today’s excercise this Friday, but at least I know it will be on there.
HA Julie — it’s even SADDER than that. I don’t just want ADVICE, I want affirmation from my computer program. I am TRAGIC.
MMMMMM COOKIE BROWNIE HYBRIDS.
Scott is COOKING BACON as he and the kids are having breakfast-for-dinner. The whole house REEEEEEKS of BACON. I am leavign to have dinner with a book club but the smell is drivign me MAD with meat-fat-lust.
Well, you know, if I was getting affirmation from the computer, I’d probably be checking in every three minutes like a cheese-doped rat….
I still don’t know why, when I had a C-section, couldn’t they have snuck a big scoop o’ my belly fat out with that scalpel.
First, thanks for being so honest! Even wonderfuly talented southern writers struggle the way non-talented southern writers do! I used to be workout crazed and swore I always would be, that was ten years ago now! I’d be happy just to walk my dogs without getting winded and, yuck, sweaty! I find myself dwelling on getting back in shape frequently, and am hopeful I’ll guilt myself into it soon. Thanks for sharing!