Not Your Mama's Diet Not Your Mama's Diet We're a fat married couple in our mid-thirties with four skinny kids who just moved from the suburbs to the country. Dying young isn't in the master plan, so we're going to grow organic food and raise chickens and find our inner Brad and Angela! Articles
Expert Advice
2008-01-03 19:49:00 I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, but I did make a commitment to blog for the next 365 days. What was I thinking!?I did tell myself I wasn't going to give up. I wasn't going to abandon this blog, no matter what, even if I didn't find a way through the maze of my food and eating issues. My struggle and thoughts had to be useful, even if I failed... to me, to someone, somewhere. As I'm writing this, the 2008 Nutrisystem ad is on TV: "I went from a size twelve to a size two!" Feh. Lady, I'd love to be a size twelve. But I don't want to do it eating Nutrisystem food. Yuk. Over the holidays, my sister said her new goal was to be 120 pounds by next Christmas. She's not that heavy - she has, perhaps, twenty pounds to lose. But that launched a discussion of weight, and eating, and diet (all while we were shoveling in dessert). She's been doing Weight Watchers - but not the meetings. Just counting her points. "It's a great way to keep track of your food!" she claimed. "I k... More About: Advice , Expert , Pert
Whacked!
2008-01-02 23:59:00 I think my thyroid is going all wacky again. I can't sleep at night - serious insomnia. Then I'm falling asleep in the middle of the day. And I get hungry very fast - like my stomach is crawling up my throat. It comes out of nowhere, and I have to eat. Like right-freaking-now. Like yesterday. I made an appointment with the doc to have it checked again. Maybe my meds need to be adjusted?Or maybe it's my blood sugar? Eek!I'm going to step on the scale again this week. I'm scared. Not today.How's that for avoidant? :P More About: Whack
New Year's Resolution
2008-01-01 23:53:00 Nope. Not gonna do it.No resolutions to break here.I'm just going to keep on keeping on... one day at a time.There just aren't any easy answers. Diets don't work. And Weight Watchers is, without question, a diet. So is everything else out there. I'm going to have to find my own way. Still struggling. Wondering what's next. More questions than answers. Maybe that's a good thing? More About: Resolution
Promise Land?
2007-12-27 19:07:00 There's a post on Chewing The Fatz today titled Diets Don't Work - Or Do They? It illustrates an interesting point about the blogosphere that I'm discovering as I take this journey - it's fairly polarized along the "diet" and "nondiet" lines. There are those who insist that "Diets Don't Work!" - those are in the Fat Acceptance crowd. And then there are those who are trying the diet thing, whether it's Weight Watchers (who lately claim they aren't a diet) or South Beach or Dr. Phil or even getting weight loss surgery, and blogging about their success (or failure.) And some are succeeding (or have succeeded.) The latter pretty much proves the point, doesn't it? Diets work. Eat less, exercise more, and you lose weight. Maybe not as much as you want to, as fast as you want to, but it does eventually work. Create a calorie deficit, and your body mass goes down. Which seems to imply that the problem doesn't lie in the question "Do diets work or not?" - it goes much deeper than th... More About: Land , Promise
Merry Christmas from my Twisted Sense of Humor...
2007-12-24 16:17:00 Me and my twisted sense of humor actually finds this amusing. Especially the stockings! :oMERRY CHRISTMAS!(Click the picture to see the artist's site) More About: Christmas , Humor , Sense , Merry Christmas , Merry
Time For a Cat Nap
2007-12-23 17:40:00 Okay, are we all so enamored with the bio-medical model of the universe that we really believe this crap?Honestly, if I could sleep my way to thinness? I?d be ninety-nine pounds by now! I sleep ten hours a night. And can sleep twelve if I want to. And could STILL take a nap mid-afternoon - no problem. Harley says I?m part cat. And considering my general aloofness, dislike of water, and sharp claws, I tend to think he?s right.Meow.Well I?m off to make a Banana Split cake. And a Nieman Marcus cake. And Jello. And our Christmas cookies for Santa. Then, I think, I?ll take a nap! More About: Time
Shrunk
2007-12-22 23:12:00 My new jeans shrank. Dryers are evil.I don't want to entertain the thought that I've gained any weight. I've decided I'm not stepping on a scale until after the New Year. That's my Merry Christmas gift to me. Not a denial, not an avoidance... just a break from the stress of the numbers. Of course, my jeans have decided to remind me anyway. Grr.Denim sucks.
Toto, We're Not In Kansas Anymore...
2007-12-20 22:50:00 This whole "diet" thing is messing with my head. Not that it hasn't been messing with my head for years. Since before I can remember, really. Has it become such a complete part of my psyche that I'm never going to be able to get rid of it? I hope not... but I can't seem to get the mentality out of my mind, no matter what I do.Diets are based on scarcity, restriction, and deprivation. They talk about accountability to some authority that isn't your own. They want you to spend your life counting, recording, writing it all down. It's all about the numbers, the scales, weighing and measuring, counting steps, counting calories, counting the minutes until you die... Is this really the way I want to live?I seem to exist in two states: dieting and waiting to diet. Dieting doesn't last very long, I admit. A few weeks. Months at most. I certainly haven't ever done it long enough to call it a "way of life" or a "lifestyle." Most of my time has been spent dreading the upcoming diet, shov... More About: Kansas , Toto , Ansa , Not I
Blizzard!
2007-12-16 19:20:00 Yes, I said Blizzard . And not the Dairy Queen sort, either!Since Linda over at Pointing the Weigh asked, I thought I'd post pictures of our SNOW!The weather outside is frightful...But the fire is so delightful...And since we've no place to go...Let it snow! Let it snow!Let it snow!We actually have a Blizzard warning in effect, because the wind is blowing the trees back and forth like twigs at 50 mph. We've got 10 inches so far, and it's still falling and isn't expected to stop until tonight. But the kids are having a blast on our six acres!Remember when you had that much energy? I know one thing. Harley's going to get a lot of exercise today shoveling. And we're going to take a walk in the woods later, across the creek. Maybe I should wish for snow every day?
Lazy Is As Lazy Does?
2007-12-15 23:37:00 Lot's of talk and thinking and feeling and heartfelt intention, but no action.Hell, you'd think I was lazy and undisciplined, like a good fat man is supposed to be.Yet, while it's true that I got away with murder in just about every facet of my life because everything has been easy for me to either excel at, or to simply get by with a "C" average when I'm uninterested, I do have a couple of post grad degrees, I get up and go to work everyday, etc... I know I'm not actually lazy and undisciplined...well, maybe a little undisciplined, but only because I rely on my ability to intuitively understand and respond to whatever comes up without much effort.I want my intuitive understanding to be enough when it comes to food, eating and being healthy. This seems to be the only thing in life that I'm continually thwarted by in such a big way.I suppose it points to the thing that is deisgned to wake me up and show me I'm not really in control, the particular cosmic 2x4 that keeps hitting... More About: Lazy
Codependents R Us
2007-12-15 21:29:00 Harley and I met on the Internet, back when AOL was charging by the hour and people ran up $1200 Internet bills. Me included. When I met Harley, I was in a disintegrating marriage, and he was a psychologist with a lot of knowledge about relationships. He tried to help me fix my marriage. Can you imagine? I think he's glad he failed. :)After my marriage fell apart and Harley and I started noticing each other in a more-than-friendship sort of way, we did what any self-respecting fat person on the Internet does in this culture. We lied. I was a 5'5" redhead... and that's where the truth stopped. I was a svelte 120 pounds, long of leg and rather busty. Well, the latter is true, but I can thank overly developed adipose tissue for it rather than a propensity toward a D-cup. Harley claimed he was a 180 lb backpacker, hiker and camper. Welcome to the Internet World of Wishful Thinking. We never thought it would go any further than a little Internet fling. We felt safe pretending to be wh...
Joy to the World
2007-12-14 06:23:00 I'm tired, but I can't sleep. Insomnia is a very strange phenomenon. And a recent one, for me. I could always sleep. Like a rock. Through a nuclear explosion. No problem. But not anymore, apparently.Now I'm up in the wee hours, pecking away at my laptop while Harley snores beside me. I always fell asleep before Harley even started to snore. At least I know he doesn't have sleep apnea. There's looking at the glass half full, right?The wind is blowing hard outside, whistling past the windows, and I'm thinking all of those wee-hour thoughts. Like George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, wondering if everyone's life would have been better if I'd never been born? I don't have any icy rivers around here to jump into... which is a good thing, because I'm pretty sure I don't have a Clarence waiting to jump in after me, either.I got a Christmas card - first one of the season - opened it up today to the message: "May the new year bring you great joy." Joy. Wow. What in the hell is ... More About: World , The World
Intuitive Eating
2007-12-11 17:35:00 I read Geneen Roth years ago. Had a wonderful therapist for a while who was all about "Making Peace with Food." And now Tribole and Resch have brought the idea of intuitive eating into more mainstream thinking. It certainly makes sense to me - although I have a problem trusting that it will work. Go figure. I know I'm passing a lot of the "food rules" on to my kids that I was taught as a child. We were never allowed to open anything. Especially the peanut butter. But that rule went for anything - bags of chips, pop, whatever. We were never allowed to take the first or last of anything. We weren't allowed to eat anything without asking first. We weren't allowed to eat anything too close to dinner. You had to eat your dinner in order to get "dessert." You had to take at least one bite of everything on your plate, even if you knew you didn't like it. You had to sit at the table with everyone else to eat dinner. There was no food allowed in our rooms. My god, the rules about food we... More About: Eating
Pink Elephants
2007-12-09 18:30:00 I like to pretend pink elephants don't exist. I'm quite good at it, actually. I seem to have a knack for conveniently "forgetting" things, behavior, patterns. Ask Harley about my movie watching. I will "forget" a plot of a movie, so I can watch it over and over with nearly the same amount of enjoyment. If it's something I've only seen once and haven't seen for years, I will only vaguely remember the details. When I was married to my ex, he had affair after affair. He was one of those guys who could convince you (or at least, me) that he was invisible even though he was standing right in front of you. I spent a lot of time second guessing myself in that marriage, thinking I was insane. Finally, I wised up. It took me years, of course, but eventually, the evidence piled up so high that I couldn't ignore it anymore. But a pink elephant has to be pretty big, bright neon, and make quite a mess before I'll notice. I'm pretty sure I know why. It's easier for me to live in denial a... More About: Pink
Emotional Bypass
2007-12-08 10:36:00 I am a walking couch-potato cliche, I know - a fat woman sitting in my living room watching Oprah and eating chocolate. The show? "Suddenly Skinny." How could I not tune in, right?Gastric bypass - the thing I've been fantasizing about as a magic bullet - apparently bypasses the stomach, but it doesn't bypass the reason you were eating to the point of morbid obesity in the first place. If you can't eat your feelings anymore, what do you do? I've often thought weight loss surgery must act as some sort of catalyst, speeding up the process of dealing with the pain and fear and anxiety the compulsive eating tries to cover. Makes sense, right?It had occurred to me, too, that perhaps you might find something else to be addicted to, if you couldn't use food to cope. But that's not the fantasy in my head. The fantasy is that being thin makes people happy - that it would make me happy. It's supposed to make everything okay again. Thinness is the "answer." Isn't it?I didn't know, thou... More About: Emotional
Diet Girl's Scavenger Hunt Entry!
2007-12-07 23:52:00 Okay, here are our entries for Diet girl's Scavenger Hunt ! We couldn't agree - go figure! So we have two entries for each item on the list. THE LIST Queen B's Bicycle entry Harley's bicycle... reference... entry...Queen B's Bald Man Entry Harley's Bald Man EntryQueen B's Elvis EntryHarley's Elvis EntryQueen B's Greek yogurt entryHarley's Greek Yogurt entryQueen B's wedding dress entryHarley's Wedding Dress EntryQueen B's Letter D EntryHarley's Letter D EntryQueen B's Letter G EntryHarley's Letter G EntryDid we win, did we win? :) More About: Scavenger Hunt , Cave
Playing Games
2007-12-07 20:21:00 When I was in school, there were only a few "fat kids." I didn't get heavy until I hit puberty, but after that I was one of the fat girls. In our entire high school of 2,500, there were probably only 5 or 6 of us. That's a pretty small percentage. I stood out like a purple cow in a herd of black and whites. Today? The statistics say 15% of adolescents ages 13-19 are overweight. So in the 80's it was about 2%. Twenty years later? 15%. And it seems to be increasing exponentially.What's wrong with this picture?I know there's been a lot of attention focused on this topic. Every other television or radio show talks about the obesity epidemic. Kids are getting diabetes and have high cholesterol and all sorts of ailments doctors didn't see starting until mid-life. There have been lots and lots of theories about why we're getting fatter, as an entire culture. Most of them, I think, hit the tree, but miss the target. And I think most of them miss the target intentionally - because the... More About: Games
Eliminating the Options
2007-12-06 21:34:00 Harley got the job.Can everyone say hallelujah?Yep. Amen. It's more money, the benefits are less than half of what we're paying now, and we're currently only managing to cover Harley and me. The insurance with the new job will cover everyone (including the kiddos) for half the price. Can you say WOOT!!? Yeah. That's what I said, too.The only thing is the deductible. I hate deductibles. It's $1000 for a family, so that means $1000 out of pocket. January is going to majorly suck. The other thing is it will not, under any circumstances, cover weight loss surgery. The insurance we have now will cover it, but only gastric bypass (no lap bands), and only when you've "failed" a 12 month weight loss program. Which means, it eliminates the possibility, at least while Harley's working this job. In the back of my mind, I've kind of been entertaining the thought, ever since the doctor mentioned it. It feels like such a quick fix, an easy out. A way to get thin without having to do any o... More About: Options
Going to Extremes
2007-12-05 19:40:00 Harley pointed out last night that we do a lot of "starting" and not a lot of "continuing" with this whole "diet" thing. And he also said we tend to begin going gangbusters and then sort of... peter out. Or conveniently "forget"... oh that's right, we were supposed to be eating low-carb weren't we? Oh, well, let's just order pizza... we won't eat the crust. Yeah. Right.It's both good and bad having someone doing this thing with you. It's great support, but it can also be much easier to sabotage. So the current plan is to not go gung-ho jumping off the diet cliff this time, cleaning out the cupboards and going out to spend $500 on food like whey protein and almond flour that I'll never use anyway... I'm tired of thinking and saying, "This time it's going to be different." This time is the same time. The only time. It's a long, continuous process of trying to figure it out and find something that works. No more "this time's" no more "No more's" either. Extremes have been, ... More About: Goin
Whoever Said Life Was Fair?
2007-12-04 13:42:00 Harley and I are so different when it comes to food.Before we lost our friend, D, to breast cancer, we all used to sit around and talk for hours about - well, everything. But one of the things we remarked on was how similar our psychology was around food, and yet how differently it manifested in the world. D was bulemic and had been since she was thirteen. She had also been anorexic at one point. And had ballooned up to 180 pounds and then the bulemia "fixed" her weight problem. That's where she got stuck.Harley and I - we're compulsive overeaters. I wouldn't vomit by choice even if you offered me a million dollars and promised me a lifetime's supply of chocolate. Harley thinks vomiting is ridiculously stupid - why would you waste the food you just ate? He doesn't "get" anorexics and bulemics. I do. I get the inclination, anyway - I'm just not in for the actual acting it out. But even though we have the same issue, Harley and I, we eat totally different things to get where we ... More About: Life , Fair
Doctor, Doctor, It Hurts When I Do This...
2007-12-04 01:02:00 Went to see a new primary care doc last Friday (3 days ago). Thin, pretty Romanian woman. With grave concern she soberly told me that I was going to die from diabetes complications and obesity if I didn't lose weight and manage my blood glucose levels better. I was shocked. Exploded the cuff on the blood pressure machine when she told me, I did. I just couldn't understand why no doc had ever told me these things before! Why hadn't I read, somewhere in the literature, that people actually died from the complications of uncontrolled diabetes and morbid obesity! Why, I was flabbergasted, floored, shaken to my foundations! I had been liberated (yet again, for about the umpteenth time since I was a small boy) from my ignorance! I was free---free---freeeee! Finally, I could book that scuba expedition, buy that kayak, put that big order in with my broker for Speedo stock!Fact is, addicts are never motivated by death, fear of death, or loss of this, that or the other. I'm an addict. I... More About: Doctor
Off to See the Wizard
2007-12-03 15:40:00 I'm a smart girl. I've got a bachelors in mumblemumble and a Masters in blahblah. I know quite a lot about nutrition, actually. I know the basics, of course: eat less, exercise more. But I also know all the other stuff, about transfat and omega 3's and 6's and good carbs and bad carbs and mixing up your exercise and... well, all that stuff. I'm not stupid. I listen, I pay attention, I'm teachable. I learn. I've managed to pull a near 4.0 in a college degree program and write a Masters thesis.So why is it that, when I decide to change my eating habits for the better, because all the logical signs point to doing so, I start out with the best of intentions, and end up with this:What is this, you ask? It's a plate that used to hold the rest of my fourteen-year-old son's birthday cake. I ate the rest of the cake last night. After my best-laid plans changed, and we ended up taking the fourteen year old out to dinner (to celebrate his report card - all A's and B's for the first ... More About: Wizard
King Harley's Monthly Photo: December 2007
2007-12-03 03:07:00 Before photo, front: December 2007 Before photo, side: December 2007 More About: Photo , King , Mont
Change of Venue
2007-12-02 16:13:00 Every other Sunday, I take my seventeen year old daughter out to a restaurant after I drop her fourteen year old brother off at their dad's. Usually, we go to Big Boy. It's cheap, it's convenient, and more importantly, I love their waffles - and their hot fudge ice cream cakes. Can you say "carb addict," boys and girls? I knew you could!So this week, we're changing venues. There's a local restaurant called Friar Tuck's that offers not only lo-cal/low fat choices on the menu, but light "desserts" as well! Woot! I'm totally into the idea of being able to indulge while not OVER indulging. I've eaten there before (years ago) so I know their food isn't bad. We'll see how the daughter takes to the idea. She loves the Big Boy spaghetti, so I imagine this is going to go over real easy - like a pregnant pole-vaulter! We shall see. Mom's got the $$, so mom chooses the place she spends it. Seems fair, right?Better choices. I'm learning. More About: Change
Queen B's Monthly Photo: December 2007
2007-12-02 10:26:00 Okay, here it is: My bathroom mirror, in all it's toothpaste-spattered glory!Taa Daa!I know. Impressively messy, isn't it?And here it is again! In case you missed a spot... Those, by the way, are my new 28W jeans. I'm hoping not to wear them long (I don't mean like, right now... ew! 'Nuff of that, this isn't a s-e-x blog, and while I'm sure there is actually a site somewhere on the Internet that might appreciate hearing about the mating habits of two human whales, I'm not volunteering my services in the name of science or anything else, thankyouverymuch!) What I mean is, I have a closet full of 22's hanging patiently in the back behind all those dreaded summer sleeveless tops that would like to see the light of day again. The birthday cake I had yesterday on my occasion of my oldest son's 14th birthday (I have two children from a previous marriage - they live with their dad) isn't going to help me in that future endeavor, however. That much I know. I'm a sucker for cake.... More About: Photo , Queen , December , December 2007 , Mont
Fat Phobic
2007-12-02 02:50:00 There are a lot of things that being fat keeps me from doing. I won't be scuba diving any time soon, or riding roller coasters, or even riding a bike (those seats are killer on my behind!) And I know there's a lot of judgment about overweight people. I've been subject to it enough in my life to know.But somehow, there's something wrong with denying someone the right to adopt a child - their own blood relative - because of their weight. An adoption agency thought it would be a good idea to disrupt the life of this baby and place it with another family for adoption based on someone's appearance!? This family was clearly committed. The 550 pound man underwent gastric bypass and has dropped 200 pounds. But should he have had to? I just don't think so. Are they going to deny a baby to a diabetic? Someone in a wheelchair? Someone who's blind? Deaf? Black? White? When does it cross the line into discrimination?As far as I'm concerned, this just goes too far.
Shopping
2007-11-29 19:54:00 I went shopping yesterday. I went shopping because I now have only one pair of pants that fits. One. My thighs have destroyed all of my others. I think I could power most of the Eastern seaboard with the friction caused between my thighs rubbing together when I walk. :)I hate clothes shopping. I hate the thought of spending outrageous amounts of money on clothes made overseas by people making pennies a day. I hate that the clothes fall apart withing months. I also hate not being able to go into secondhand stores with the hopes of finding anything that might fit me. Not an option.Because, as I discovered yesterday in the Plus side of Fashion Bug, I'm now a 28W. I have never been a 28. The highest I've been was a 26. The lowest, at least in adulthood, was an 18. I miss 18. But 28? There's just no higher to go. Yes, there's the elusive 30/32, whatever that is. I hardly ever glance at that size, thinking, "Oh, that's not me." But it could be. It's just the next size up. Another tw... More About: Shopping
Waking Up Is Hard To Do
2007-11-29 01:56:00 Welcome to my part of our weight-loss, health, diet, eating blog.This may be a little unorthodox. Just a warning, not an apology.I'm an addict, but I'm also a lot more than an addict. I deeply feel that each one of us is truly a particularly formed and miraculous manifestation of god, of the source from which we came, to which we will ultimately return, and which we are a unique expression of in this present moment.I wish I treated myself as if that were true. I'm very smart, yet I don't fully grasp how it is that I treat myself as less of a person than I treat others most of the time. My calling in life, and my current occupation, is to help others really feel the truth of who they are, their divine source and nature, their unity as part of all that was, is and will ever be. I do this with other addicts whose substances of "choice" are drugs and alcohol, and with people dealing with various forms of mental illness, from the severe to the amusingly neurotic. I feel hypocritical ... More About: Hard
The New Math
2007-11-29 01:18:00 I can easily make excuses for myself.Monday was the one year anniversary of my best friend's death. She died of metastasized breast cancer. I miss her very much.I've been really, really sick. But it doesn't change the fact that I haven't been eating like I want to. Well, I take that back. Clearly some part of me wants a Big Boy and fries and a hot fudge ice cream cake, because that's what I had for lunch. And that was AFTER I went to the allergist (and found out I'm allergic to both dogs and cats and we're going to have to give up ours) where I weighed in at a whopping 280 pounds. Um... wrong direction, scale!Now, granted, my period is due any minute now and I always gain five pounds before. Always. Like clockwork. So perhaps this is that five... which means I'm really down two? Hey, it's the new math!But instead of getting all down on myself and stopping on the way home to buy a load of junk food to binge on tonight, and a pizza to throw in the oven for everyone else... I ... More About: Math
Dr. Evil
More articles from this author:2007-11-29 00:48:00 So I went to the doctor today. Since we just moved to a new house, way out in the country in the middle of nowhere, we had to switch doctors. I knew I was in the country when I saw their "rates" posted on a sign in their office, and it listed "House Calls." No kidding. Really? Doctor P. was nice enough. She asked all the usual questions. Then she got to the big one. "What are we going to do about your weight?" "Ummm.... nothing right now."She actually laughed. Not a bad sign. We went over lab results. Cholesterol clocked in at 263 - although it was down from 302 about six months ago, since they now have me on a cholesterol meds. My blood pressure is fine, but my fasting glucose was 115, and she felt it should have been lower. So while I'm not diabetic - it's really only a matter of time. And considering my family history, I know what's coming.My father has high blood pressure, high cholesterol (it's been tested over 500 before), is obese, has had a quadruple bypass and corotid a... More About: Evil 1, 2, 3 |
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