Joshilyn Tuesday, 7th of September 2010 at 08:35:22 AM
Some things are worth the calories. Many of these worth it things are found at Cakes and Ale in Decartur.
Teeeeny bit of backsliding at the Decatur Book Festival. I went to Cakes and Ale was ambushed by a gang of crispy-tender quail on a bed of polenta so smooth and rich I KNOW cream was involved somewhere, and it was surrounded by roasted eggplant and tomatoes and figs, then drizzled with balsamic. I was helpless before it, and if you have the SLIGHTEST bit of foodie in you, you would have been too.
Also at Leon’s, home of the Goat Cheese Fondue Frittes, I discovered The Bee’s Knees Royale. It is a dandelion yellow cocktail—- lemon and honey and gin —-that is like having the sweet-tart end of summer in a champagne glass. The Sunday brunch at Café Alsace is a DBF tradition. I got crepes, but I had fruit in lieu of potatoes on the side, and this was because of my extreme and glamorous VIRTUE and not because I secretly do not care for brunch potatoes. Oh. Wait. Did I say the quiet part out loud again?
Look, I didn’t backslide for FRITOS or a hydrogenated oil-clad and waxy Hostess snack cake. These things I ate? They are worth it. A+++!!!!! Would eat again. I remember the taste of those figs and I am not even remotely sorry. AND! Most importantly? I came home, and got RIGHT back on the horse. RIGHT BACK ON. Which is not my usual MO. My MO is, I backslide, I realize I am hopeless, I give completely up and put my head in a feedbag full of the Fritos I have been shunning, and I don’t even LIKE Fritos…
I am trying to be more FRENCH about these things.
And speaking of being more French, I want some fashion. To HAVE some fashion or some ideas about6 it, or maybe even…I don’t know, A LOOK. I want to have a LOOK. I mean, beyond lusting hopelessly after outsize orange leather hobo bags I want to HAVE some sort of internal fashion. Perhaps the 8th season of Project Runway is getting to me…
Mondo should have Wondo
DIGRESSION: And I LIKE Gretched now that everyone hates her. I think she is SUPER, but I never liked Ivy and I still do not. Also, I think that black puff sleeved crotch-strosity Michael C WON with should have gotten him auf’ed. I liked it less than the Pink and Black Lace Prom-monster and Peach’s um….Oh Peach. I can’t dis you. Because you are SO cute and nice. I will just say I liked your dress better than the one that won. But to put that in perpective, I like this hairy bug leg infested ball of slime my cat yacked up better than the one that won. End Digression.
Upshot: I think I would feel better about my less than perfect body if I had a fashion. I want to wear things on my body that I LIKE and which seem to be ME-LIKE, which I have never really felt driven to do before. My idea of fashion is a loose, dark top with jeans. Sometimes, if I am feeling CRAZY inspired, I will put on one of the vintage bead bracelets my friend Anna made me. I want to do better.
Julie says my favorite color is “drab,” but it isn’t just about COLOR. My whole LOOK is best described as drab…I wish I understood clothes and how they go together, and accessories. At DBF, I asked every author who had their own sort of look where and how they had gotten their clothes, and here is the thing—-everyone who looked really COOL to me, really interesting and body-flattered by their clothes, had not bought AN OUTFIT. Not a single one. They would say, “OH I got this top here and this scarf there and these leggings are from ten years ago, and then these boots came from the thrift store near my house, and I made this skirt myself by sewing together my grandmother’s old dishtowels with doll hair yarn.”
NO ONE WHO LOOKS GOOD BUYS OUTFITS. People who look good buy CLOTHES. Then they put the clothes together in ways that look nice on their particular bodies. I never understood that you could DO this. (Yes. I am 42. And I ALSO don’t know how to properly blow dry my hair….I am a complete GIRL-FAIL, I know.)
Me?…If I have to go out in public, I go to Ann Taylor, I look on the mannequins until I find something with a lot of GRAY in it, and then I buy all the pieces that the mannequin is wearing because at least I know they probably GO.
I talked to one woman who looked completely great every time I saw her, and she said such a great line back…she said, “Thanks for saying I have style. I actually have ‘distract from the body.’”
Well call it fashion or distraction, I want some, even though I suspect my body dysmorphia prevents me from recognizing when a single object could actually be flattering when paired with things I already have at home… How do you get a STYLE? Is it a thing you can learn? Or am I shafted? Do you have a fashion or a style? What is it and how do you shop?
I think we need a FASHION challenge here on 5FP, but I am not sure how to structure it…Ideas?
Imma gonna hop one of these in a few hours. Hopefully it doesn't run out of gas, or anything.
I had the feeling ALL DAY yesterday that there was something I’d forgotten to do, as I zoomed around trying to get ready to leave town. I kept checking and double-checking.
Toothbrush? Check. Underwear? Check. Medication? Check. Good books? Check. Bras? Check! (Don’t laugh. I once made my husband turn around and go back because I’d realized we were about to go camping with only the bra I was wearing at that very moment. Whoops.)
It turns out that the thing I forgot was to post here. Um. My bad!
Listen, I’ve been pretty good this week; I’ve walked every single day (!!!) (I know; I can’t believe it, either) and I went ahead and ordered myself some new walking shoes, even, as mine are nearing the end of their useful life. My weight is stable, though I still feel like I’m snacking too much. I may need to make more of an effort to grocery shop for more go-ahead-and-eat-as-much-as-I-want items, is all. (That would be things like grapes, or spinach.) But all in all, I feel good.
Actually? I feel GREAT. Because in a few hours I’m getting on a plane to go see Kira. And yes, my new walking shoes and my workout gear are packed.
Kira Thursday, 2nd of September 2010 at 01:15:50 AM
Aaaaand....GO! Hey, wait, what's that?
Did anyone notice I didn’t post last week? No one noticed, right? The problem was that last Wednesday night my body was preparing for an…event of sorts, one that happens PERIODICALLY, if you follow. But being clueless and somewhat prone to hormonal insanity, I was convinced that what was actually happening was that my life was drowning in despair and forlorn uselessness. I was needed in my bed, soaking my pillow with bitter tears. And then the morning dawned and I opened my eyes and thought “hmm. What was that all about?”
It’s just magical, being a woman.
Anyhow, I didn’t have anything wonderful to share with you because would you like to know what I have achieved thus far? Would you?
I believe the medical term for the advances I’ve made thus far is “jack-all.”
Diddly squat.
Zero pounds lost.
I can’t imagine how this has happened, given that I…haven’t really made any changes. Heh, heh.
But the good news is that I’m feeling strong again. After my earlier bout with mono (MONO! Like an eighth grader or something!), I’ve finally regained my equilibrium, and I’m ready to tackle this again. As a matter of fact, I have started weight training again, and am proud to say that I have successfully achieved soreness. More than once.
So now that I’m feeling like myself again, I started poking around to find a weight loss approach. Because I love my body, and appreciate it just the way it is, and am so grateful for its hearty strength and capable ways, but I am sick of having my belly bounce along in front of me like an amiable shar-pei puppy. For heaven’s sake.
So I started my search in a very scientific manner, and poked through the magazines at the gym. I found an article about some guy who, for a mere 25 THOUSAND DOLLARS will write you your own little book, telling you exactly what to eat and when and he will have personal training sessions with you and the results will be miraculous and wonderful. People lose entire fourth graders worth of fat in a single month and are healthy and glowy and don’t have loose skin. Never mind that if I lost 60 pounds I would be on death’s door, it still sounds AWESOME.
Except I don’t have 25 grand to spend on the diet guru. And all I could find out about his eating program was that it includes things like dandilion greens and acai berries and sweet potatoes. And maca root, which sounds made up. I’m sorry, but i’m not eating dandilion greens or made up roots. I refuse to eat acai berries, on the grounds that they are trendy, and sweet potatoes are fine, but in small doses.
It seems I’m not destined to lose an enormous amount of weight with the diet guru.
But then! I got a notice from the library, telling me that a book I’d requested was finally ready to check out. And it turned out to be a diet book! A REVOLUTIONARY diet book! Perfect!
Except it turns out that the guy who wrote the book is maybe revolutionary in the crazy-head sort of way. He’s certain that I need to meditate and take giant fistfuls of fish oil pills, and my body will decide that it really wants to be thin.
I have spoken with my body. It really wants to eat yummy things.
So I’m back, again, where I started. Sensible diet, sincere exercise. Consider this post my cry of “DO OVER!” and here is what I am committing to:
1 – weight training, 3 days a week
2 – cardiovascular exercise, 5 days a week (this means I will have to actually exercise on the mornings I drop my son off at school, instead of dropping him off and musing to myself about how I COULD exercise now, if I wanted to)
3 – starting tomorrow, I track my eating on FitDay, because just logging it makes me think about it.
I figure those goals are doable. Making changes isn’t easy, we all know, but I don’t think life is ever going to say oh hey, wait, let’s cut Kira some slack, because she would like to lose 15 pounds, and that’s tough. Life marches on, and I figure I should too.
Gray Wednesday, 1st of September 2010 at 01:30:45 AM
Old Forest. Or the woods along the lake where I walked today. My photo.
At mile 78 today, I did FIFTEEN MILES this week. We have about 20 boring miles left in the Old Forest before Old Man Willow tries to eat hobbits and Tom Bombadil shows up. I was kinda slack with weights the past couple of weeks, but I’ve picked them up again. The eating thing was pretty bad for a while, but that’s under control for the first time in ages, and I’ve now lost 6 lbs. Still fat, but slightly less so.
The trees overhanging the lakeside paths have strung leaves on their old cobwebs . The dangling leaves whirled overhead in the breeze like falling confetti that never hit the ground. Hummingbirds, butterflies and dragonflies zoomed blithely past my face like I wasn’t even there.
I went to the lake mid-morning, so the smells were damp fern combined with sun-hot dirt, Monterrey pine, and the perfume of bay laurel. All I heard were hunting hawks, tweeting birdies and the wind whistling in my earrings.
For me the best place to work out is outside, and the best equipment is a good pair of running shoes. But I confess: there are some gadgets that entice me. In fact, if I had money to burn I’d likely get myself an Elliptigo and break my neck.
Truly, there are an astonishing number of wheeled toys that I would be all over if I wasn’t such a baby about fractures and lacerations. I look at these videos and think, WOW THAT LOOKS EASY AND FUN and I could totally do it.
Enter my good friends Dunning and Kruger, the idea men behind the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect (D-KE, for short,) which is an effect caused by an unskilled person (me) who is SO VERY BAD at something (like riding newfangled contraptions) that they (me again) lack the ability to understand how bad they (you know who) are at it, giving rise to “illusory superiority,” (a phrase I am dying to use in an argument one of these days.) To remove or negate this cognitive bias one must inform oneself about the lack in one’s abilities.
Whatever. I think I’d be really great on freeline skates!
If you had unlimited skill and money, what self-propelled wheeled device would you work out on? (Protip: lots and LOTS of videos on Youtube of stuff like this. Many things to covet! Ask me how I know, having just wasted spent several hours on a one-hour post.)
Joshilyn Tuesday, 31st of August 2010 at 09:50:19 AM
Hey, look! A Metaphor!
I come to report that here in week 4 or 5 or whatever it is, I am down 5/17ths of a Schubert. Or, in non-mentally ill parlance, down five pounds. My fat jeans that I was barely wedging my carcass into have loosened and I can wear a couple of tops that have been out of my repertoire since the surgery.
To all this I say, “THBBFT THBBTHTHPPTHTHBBFT.” Which is how Bill the cat used to spell that raspberry/tooty noise that spoiled and disgruntled five year olds make with their tongues when you tell them that they have to clean their room.
Now it is time for you make an aghast face and wonder WTH is wrong with me. Isn’t this what I want? Does this not put me close to third of the way to the noble goal of getting back into MY FREAKING CLOTHES? You are making puzzled eyes and concerned eyebrows at me, and you are right to ask me IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU WANT?
Why yes, I guess so. But not like this. Not in a way that proves EVERYTHING I knew was true is actually true, and indicates that magic is not true. I hoped I was WRONG. I hoped tribes of spectacularly colored Butt Fat Fairies would swoop in, spraying glitter, and whisk my butt fat away if I only did the proper Big Butt Fairy Dance on the night of the new moon and then sacrificed a 5 pound box of Godiva chocolates.*
Here are the awful facts:
Weight Watcher’s works. Indeed it does. Slowly. Steadily. Boringly. Works like a turtle works to cross a mile of meadow to the woods. I count the points and weigh and painstakingly measure and boringly abstain from slathering heaps of butter onto bread that I have cut to be three inches thick…it works.
It works especially well if you do not fall into the WW Snack Food Packaged Product pit. I spend my points on things my friend Julie in the comments called, Food God makes: Bananas and whole wheat couscous and roasted chickens. I do not spend them on those creepy fat free chips cooked up in that oil that may cause “anal leakage” or faux chocolate cookies loaded with Splenda and quasi-hydrogenated light margarine flavored food substitute. I save enough points every day to end with red wine and popcorn or a square of REAL dark chocolate, because otherwise I run mad in short order, but mostly I spend the points on real, actual, TRUE food.
Regular, vigorous, varied exercise works. I can’t just toddle about the neighborhood with my dog, or paddle my elliptical watching excellent violence laden pornography.** I have to go to boot camp. I have to go to the gym and use the machines. Weight training and interval training is making a BIG difference. Yoga makes a difference. This means putting on clothes and leaving the house and devoting TIME to it. And not my working time. My LEISURE time. Time that I COULD be spending watching MERLIN with the kids or reading something delicious or macking on my fine husband.
I keep reminding myself that this is worth it. I want to be healthy. I want to feel the kind of confidence I feel when I know I am in shape. I don’t want to buy a whole NEW wardrobe of size 12s when I have a perfectly good wardrobe I QUITE like built on the concept of being mostly an 8 with some 10 type days.
Self Portrait
I remind myself that LOSING and maintaining are not the same thing. That boring and grindy as this is, it is finite, and that Maintenance includes French Martinis and some days when I say the gym can suck it and sleep in. I slog on, eyeing my chicken to see if it is equal to the size of a pack of cards when I am out, putting my chicken on the (&@^#&@(#ing kitchen scale when I am home. I turtle my way toward the woods, trying to forget that at heart—OH in my heart—I am the rabbit. I am a sprinter, a panter, a fall-er asleep-er in the middle of the race-er, a magical thinker, and a firm believer in the intervention of the mystical Butt Fat Fairies…
No. I will be the turtle. For 12/17ths of a Schubert more. I will be the turtle. I will be the turtle. But don’t expect me not to WHINE about it.
*By putting them in my mouth. Natch.
**Here excellent violence laden pornography is defined as “Season 4 of Dexter.” Which is the best season since the first one. And John Lithgow is a freaking MIRACLE of an actor. And Michael C Hall should have gotten that Emmy.
I am HUGELY SUPERPLEASED to report that I have been a very, very good girl this week. I am prancing and preening and overflowing with virtue and smugness at this very moment. Because I am a walking MACHINE. This past week was a roaring success.
Um, mostly.
Not my actual dishawasher. I'm sure that this one never tried to hurt anybody.
Listen, on Monday, I walked my son to school and then continued on the long way home, and then came inside and calculated my distance and felt all pleased and smug. “I will walk even further tomorrow,” I vowed.
On Tuesday, I walked my son to school and then continued on the long way home, and then took an extra added loop and felt very pleased with myself indeed when I finally arrived home.
(I also ordered myself an armband for my iPhone so that I can feel even more dorky, because it turns out that it’s hard to power-walk and listen to a podcast and wrangle a very excited dog when one is holding one’s phone in one’s hand, particularly if you are maybe also carrying a bag of dog poop. YOU’RE WELCOME.)
Tuesday night I was cleaning up after dinner, and when I went to push the (heavily dish-laden) lower rack of the dishwasher back inside the unit after loading, it… tried to kill me. The rack fell off the track and dishes leaned this way and that and it made a very loud I AM ABOUT TO RIP THE DOOR OFF THE DISHWASHER noise and so I reacted without thinking—I reached down with both hands and tried to muscle the rack back into place.
The rack that was full of dishes.
Something in my back went *twinge* when I did that. It did not feel good. In fact, it felt the polar opposite of good, and after wrangling the dishwasher into submission via sheer will (and a healthy dose of profanity) I had to shake my fist at the sky and bemoan my bad luck.
Because, you see, an hour before dinner? I’d had my monthly chiropractic adjustment. And I’d felt FANTASTIC. But then… the dishwasher. The *twinge*. And then, pain.
I took some ibuprofen and lay on the couch and kept saying to my husband, “But I was JUST ADJUSTED. Maybe I’ll wake up and be ALL BETTER? Because my spine WANTS to be happy?” My husband kept saying, “Yes, dear,” which is husbandspeak for “I am afraid to disagree with you even though you are being crazy.”
All of this is to say: On Wednesday, I didn’t walk. I took it easy and iced my back and took a lot of ibuprofen.
But! On Thursday I walked the same route I’d done on Monday. Not quite as far as Tuesday, but still. My back felt mostly better (yay) but I didn’t want to push my luck.
This morning (Friday) I’m headed out to walk the kid to school and then walk with a friend who is training for a half-marathon, so I don’t know how far we’ll walk, but further than I’ve been going, I’m guessing. (My poor little dog. I hope her paws don’t fall off.) I’ve walked 4 out of 5 school days this week, which I’m calling a WIN. And I’ve averaged a couple of miles each time, so I really do feel good about it.
So! On the plus side, I’m out there, I’m moving, I’m trying VERYVERYVERY hard to make this a sustainable habit. My dog is already hip to the program and begins leaping and whining when I put my shoes on each morning, now. And I really enjoy both the one-on-one time with my son and then podcast time while I’m out.
On the minus side, I feel like I’m a lot hungrier since I started walking more. I’m not trying to lose weight (just maintain) but I kind of feel like I’m constantly snacking again, which I fear is a slippery slope even if the snacks are things like fruit and nuts. Also, there’s the whole dishwasher-trying-to-kill me thing. That’s a fitness hazard I just did NOT see coming.
Gray Wednesday, 25th of August 2010 at 03:43:08 AM
Dear Diary, today I lost three pounds, and punted a gnome. Happy!
Day 1: Today weighed self. Ouch! Worse than I thought. This is the day I begin. I deserve to be healthy.
Day 2: Walked two miles and lifted one set. Go me! Still fat, though.
Day 10: Doing great, no weight gone yet, lifting two sets now . Also? Fat.
Day 14: Down two pounds, increased weights. V. v. good. Kids brought me a treat. Chocolate. Ate it. Patted my fatness.
Day 31: Appear to have shingles. All the pain, fever and sick feeling, but no rash. Fat still there.
Day 33: Didn’t sleep. Didn’t exercise. Suffered. Played a video game all day. Scale blinks my BMI at me furiously. Appears to be a health emergency. Decided that I ought to have some wine and chocolate and stop weighing in. Also, still fat.
Day 40: See day 33 for the last seven days. Some exercise, ate Motrin like candy, but bleh. Ill. Excruciating pain precisely at C3 dermatome area. Dr. can’t diagnose for sure w/o rash. Don’t mind, glad I don’t have rash.
Day 47: Feel much better. Weighed in. Very, very fat.
Today, Day 48: Got up early to work out and write FFP post. Worked out, and promply forgot everything about FFP post. Gave self pedicure, shaved legs to a baby-face perfection. Darling extra daughter came over for gaming session. Got too hot here in the house, daughters and self trekked to see Scott Pilgrim. Ate Raisinets, buttered popcorn and drank Coke Zero. Remembered FFP at 10 p.m. Not only fat, but also suck. Won’t give up! Tomorrow is another day.
Remember when I told you about how cold the summer has been? Today it was 99 degress, but that’s okay, Friday’s high is predicted to be 60 degrees. Oh California, YOU SO NUTTY.
This week I ended up at Farmer M’s, mile 63. Tomorrow I head out after dark to Buckleberry Ferry, hiding in the back of a wagon. Scary. In Real Life tomorrow I have to get up at the crack of dawn to get a couple of miles in before the heat turns up to the “torment” setting.
Scott Pilgrim was so fun. It was full of anime and video game references (some of which I am sure I didn’t get, but I laughed at LOT of them. NO SPOILERS.)
I was thinking about my gaming cred as I wrote this post, and remembered my dad bringing home Pong when we lived in the Quartz Hill house. I went to look up the history of Pong just now and learned that it was only an arcade game until the home version offered in the 1975 sears Christmas catalog…but we moved from that house in 1973.
Dad brought home a tangle of wires and a plastic box from “a guy at work” (he worked for Lockheed then) and hooked it up to our television, all excited and secretive until he turned it on and let us try it.
The controls looked like this Wikipedia pic from late 1975, though I don’t remember there being any graphics on it. He passed away a few years ago, or I’d ask him to tell me the story of how he got a home version of Pong at least two years before there WAS a home version available.
This is the sassypants I play now. Look at her, giving us the rasberry. She is very good at killing things. Very, very good.
In college I went to the local arcade with a little of my tip money. I was cute (also not fat) back then, and the arcade quarter guy would come around and give me red quarters to play (quarters painted red belonged to the house, they gave them out to girls to keep them playing so boys would come in.) My friend Alec and I would play for hours. He’d play Mario and other cartoony games, and I’d play the tank one (the graphics were awesome) and other first-person-shooter games. BLAM BLAM.
The table games were fun, too. The restaurant where I worked (before I got into work-study at school) had red quarters, and late at night after my shift I’d play Caterpillar while my boyfriend (now husband) cl0sed out the bar.
Now we play WoW, but after five and a half years, we’re getting sick of it. (Have dabbled in Lotro and FF, not interested in playing much else.) We only log on these days to run friends though low-level content. I have 100,000 gold saved for the next expansion, so even making in-game money, usually one of my favorite ways to play, is boring. Tera Online has potential, but I don’t expect to be able to play it before 2012 (although I signed up for the focus group testing. Brb checking email again.)
I used to tell people about my gaming, but the looks of pity and disdain finally got to me. But now I’m spilling it all the time at FFP!
Who I will play in Tera Online, if it ever goes live, and if it's actually good.
One time, this dear lady at church and I were on the reception committee together, and we were hosting a memorial service. We sat in the back, behind the kitchen, to take a short break and swap stories. I mentioned that I was going to play a game with my husband later. She asked me if I thought that murdering other players in the game was godly.
I was all “…” and asked her if she thought that playing chess and killing hapless pawns or murdering the king was godly (she and her husband are MASSIVE football fans, too.) Had to remind her that it was a game, and that it was just for fun. (Although, I CANNOT play an undead in WoW. They’re gross, they look like they stink [sorry, Viva] their clothes are tatty, their breasts floppy and their quests are MEAN. Poison a dog! Poison a dwarf! Be mean to people for no reason! My main character is a blood elf, an addict, which is why she’s SKINNY so of course I love her.)
Wii fitness is cool and all, but my gaming dream is for an MMORPG (game where you run around in a world with other people, doing stuff) that is controlled by voice and body movement, like Kinect, so I could work out AND kill stuff. I’d be all over that.
Am I the only middle-aged geek? I know only a couple (some of them YOU KNOW, TOO but I won’t out them. Some of them played MMO’s long before I ever did, and one of them is the best healer I’ve ever played with IN MY LIFE.) What games do you play, if any? And yes, Tetris counts. So does Farmville. Confess!
Joshilyn 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
For example, I came down this morning to organize my 2010 and 2011 Sacred Paper Calendars, only to see my Sacred Paper Calendars had been knocked from my desk and were currently employed as a Snooze Pad for…yeah. That guy. SO I am blogging, and perhaps after this, if I put kibble in the bowl, he will heft his grumpy and enormous girth OFF my calendars and let me update them. *sigh*
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.
But actual weigh in day? The Schubert-Fat asserted itself and puffed and swelled and HOPED ITSELF bigger. On weigh in day, the scale said I was down only 1/17th of a Schubert. I moved the scale around, jiggled it, exhaled before getting on, tried later in the day…Nada.
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?”
Not my actual bed. You can tell that because I'm not in it.
It has been one week since my last post. In that time I have laid around as if my very life depended upon my ability to hold the couch down with my ass. I walked my son to school exactly zero times, and even the dog is beginning to wonder if I ever plan to go outside again.
Sure, I have excuses. Which one would you like? The one where I blame this (minor, hardly incapacitating) cold I’m nursing? The one where it rained every morning this week and walking to school in the rain is a big bummer? The one where I show you how at lunchtime—when I could conceivably take a break, take a stroll—the temperature has averaged 95 degrees? The one where I point out that it was my birthday, you know, and I shouldn’t have to do things I don’t liiiiiike while it’s my birthday? The one where I show you my calendar, point out the deadlines and the appointments and the kids’ endless requirements to be driven here and there for various things?
They’re not very good excuses, and I know that. I feel guilt about it. And then I take a nap until it passes.
I once spent about an hour on the phone with Joshilyn while she hiked around the hills behind her house, trying to convince her that it would be a good day to skip her workout and just take it easy. She maintained that she was taking it easy and that without this tromping around she’d be useless for the rest of the day. I maintained that the number of times she had to stop and cough up a lung were evidence that she should be home in bed, or at the very least, sitting still at her desk. She didn’t hang up on me, but she marched the full measure of her planned path, regardless. She also had a nasty case of bronchitis while this was happening. (It is not terribly surprising that later she ripped out her post-surgical stitches by accident with an “easy” workout.)
Joss and I are polar opposites when it comes to exercise. She loves it; I hate it. She craves it; I have to psych myself up. She insists I can develop an endorphin addiction if I keep at it, but I never seem to be able to maintain a routine long enough that it feels like an important part of my life. I want to believe, but I also fear that I am… just… lazy.
Earlier this year I came very close to developing good exercise habits, but the first time I got off my routine, getting back on it again was as hard as starting over. And once I’d lost my goal amount of weight? Forget it. Vanity, it turns out, is a pretty good motivator. Just general I-want-to-be-healthier inclinations? Not so much.
Do you think some people are just hard-wired to enjoy exercise more than others? Or have I just not hit upon the magical combination of exercise/circumstance/whatever that makes that cartoon lightbulb over my head glow and me jump around exclaiming, “YES! I LOVE THIS!”?
I just realized that it’s my day to post and I have not, because I am stuck in a morass of back-to-school and climbing toddlerhood and Max, my middlest boy, turns twelve today.
I am sorry to fail you like this, so I will leave you with a parting word of advice on how to maintain a healthy diet during a birthday celebration.
Be celebrating the birthday of a boy like this one:
Max, who is a very tender-hearted lion
…who chooses healthy white bean chicken tacos for his birthday dinner, and root beer floats instead of cake. Because I have never in my life been able to frost a cake without generously frosting my tongue as well, but root beer floats? Meh.
Of course, to be celebrating the birthday of a boy just EXACTLY like this one, you would have to come and kidnap mine, because he is fiercely one of a kind.
Tuesday, 7th of September 2010 at 08:35:22 AM 
Now it is time for you make an aghast face and wonder WTH is wrong with me. Isn’t this what I want? Does this not put me close to third of the way to the noble goal of getting back into MY FREAKING CLOTHES? You are making puzzled eyes and concerned eyebrows at me, and you are right to ask me IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU WANT?
