Impacts

Staying true to at least one thing in my life, this post will address an impact of being fat (as promised in my last blog.) In fact, it will address more than one impact. As with the size of my bod, I've got more than enough to go around, why be stingy?

It's after midnight. It's another one of those nights that I flat ate too much and can't even think about going to bed. My stomach hurts. An impact on my life of "being" fat (I'm talking lifestyle here) is PAIN, actual physical pain! I had a late dinner. The food was not unhealthy, I just ate too much - probably twice what I should have. And I drank wine with dinner, probably twice what I should have. Then, since I was tipsy from alcohol, I decided to have some ice cream. Man, tomorrow (no right after I post this) I'm throwing the rest of the fricken ice cream in the trash!

I actually wish I could be bulimic. I'm guessing people who are bulimic want to be skinny so bad they are propelled to expel food from their body. Unfortunately, I'm not really all that motivated by skinny. It's too vague a concept in my life. Still, I'd kind of like to be bulimic just so I could relieve the pressure in my belly. But I'm too much of a coward to gag myself.

I looked it up. Bulimia is defined as "an eating disorder marked by excessive eating binges followed by self-induced vomiting." I just have excessive eating binges. That doesn't even qualify as an eating disorder. What up with that? It should. It could be called Fullimia - an eating disorder marked by excessive eating binges that gorge the stomach to the point of discomfort and nausea, but short of vomiting, self-induced or otherwise.

I looked up obesity too. All it said was "very fat." Man, fat people get no respect! Obesity is most certainly an eating disorder. Guess I'll have to go drown my sorrows in antacids.

Another impact of the fat life is disappointment with a capital D. Disappointment. I'm disappointed in myself for punishing my body with food. I'm disappointed that Fullimia doesn't get eating disorder status and that obesity is not taken seriously. I'm disappointed that I sit in front of the TV and stuff my face all evening. My Pathways to Health goal for the week was to not eat after dinner. I now find I can't even tell when dinner is. It seems to start in the evening and lasts until I go to bed, unless I'm too full to go to bed. Then it lasts until I'm sick from stuffing my face. Very disappointing.

On the positive side, writing this has just now helped me formulate a new plan. I'm going to eat meals at the table instead of in front of the TV. The physical location will help establish meal boundaries. I believe this is a good plan. My chances of success are 6.5 (but I'm not going to revisit it because it's a perfectly good plan.)

One final thing I want to report is the experience I had the other day at an eye exam. I haven't had an exam for about three years. My eyes have been bothering me a bit. I seem to have a harder time adjusting to oncomming lights when driving at night. Particularly my left eye at times feels like I'm getting pink eye or something. I thought perhaps age was catching up with me or my glasses are just too scratched up and need new lenses. Turns out my left eye prescription has changed, not alot but just enough to cause all the symptoms I have been experiencing. New lenses and I'm good as new. That part was a relief. The part that was not so great was the glaucoma test. The result was fine, but I had to sit upright and lean my head forward into a swing arm apparatus. It was very awkard because the top of my belly just below by bust bulged out (further than my bust) and hit the bottom of the appartus. This made it difficult to rest my forhead against the frame. I stretched my neck to position my head properly, but was conscious of my bulging belly the entire time. It was embarassing and uncomfortable. Another impact of fat is unhappiness.

Calories

I walked SIX miles this past week. Woo Hoo, great success with the plan I made in my Pathways to Health Class. As well I went to Curves three times this week, including today. They post a trivia challenge each week. This week they asked a question, the answer to which is "Calories." It got me thinking it may be time to start thinking about food. Hummm, not sure I'm ready. I still have half a quart of ice cream in the freezer.

I left my Pathways class early today to go to my grandson's basketball game. He had a great game! I'm happy I was there to witness it and to cheer him on. Attending the game required me to leave the class before we did goal setting. Nevertheless, I decided my goal is to maintain my exercise regime AND not to eat in the evenings after dinner. Maybe I succeeded - if sipping wine and grazing on food all evening, i.e, munching periodically on slices of pizza and then eating ice cream, all counts as a very prolonged dinner. Can dinner last three hours? Somehow I don't think so. Strike one.

I think I need to come to terms with the impact fat has on my life. Next post will examine that.

With backstory

Twitter only allows 140 character. I find it's an easy place to register a quick observation or reaction. I decided I'd periodically collect my tweets that relate to the topic of this blog and share them here, together with any elaboration that seems pertinent. Last night I made the following tweet (which, by-the-by, did keep food out of my mouth.)

Tweet: Grandbabies wore me out. House is a mess. Tempted to eat. I'm going to bed, straight to bed. Do not stuff face. Do not collect 200 calories

Backstory: Daughter volunteered at a fund raiser and I got to watch my almost 3 year old grandson and just 1 year old granddaughter for several very long hours yesterday evening. Everyone was tired and had their best qualities stashed securly away. Hubby still recovering from surgery was of limited help. Grandson had his usual runny poop "accident." (so gross I have to shower after cleaning him up!) Granddaughter was her usual spirited self. How spirited? Suffice it to say, my husband has nick-named her Osama.

Tweet: Felt SO good to exercise I'm going to do it again - 2 days in a row! Maybe I can turn it into a healthy addiction! ? (2 days ago)

Backstory: I decided to clock milage to determine where to park that was at least 1/2 miles from Curves. Turns out it's a Safeway parking lot. I can park, walk to Curves and work-out, then walk back. This allows a full mile of walking AND I can pick up things I may need from the grocery store. Parking at a food store is not an issue. I have consciously decided not to worry about food yet. I'm just integrating exercise into my life. Happily, I'm finding it is effecting food choice. I just don't like how some foods and how too much food makes me feel. Also, while the addiction reference was a joke (not really), I appreciate I have issues with finding a sustainable balance.

About addiction, that is, being unbalanced, I got a lesson from Gil. Gil is my hyper Pathways to Health partner, the guy I had to call to check on progress. His plan was to exercise every day doing one of a myriad of classes he attends: thi chi, yoga, sufi dance . . . I don't remember what all he mentioned. He rather arrogantly said his confidence level on a scale of 1 to 10 was "10." "It's stuff I do all the time, it's what I do anyway, so I'll have no problem doing this." Ha! I called and he immediately started laying track, building a cross continental express line of excueses for why he would not do even 1 day of exercise this week. As a supportive partner I said, "I think there may be a lesson in this for you Gil." Perhaps cutting yourself some slack, aiming for more modest achievements and not holding yourself to such high standards will ultimately improved both your rate of success and the qualilty of your life. (Duh!)

I then proceeded to apply that very lesson to myself as I explained (reinforced) my success for the week. Taking to heart the Pathways to Health recommendation of being realistic in one's goal setting, my plan was to add one mile of walking to my exercise routine. In two days I had already walked three miles. I told him about the steep road that climbs the hill across from my house. It's a vigerous workout. I did not walk that hill. Walking to the top and back is about a mile and a half but I find I must stop at least twice, my heart really gets to beating and I gasp for air - something that never happens at Curves or on flatland walks. When I stopped going to Curves back when, it was because I was going to get fit by walking this steep hill - a real workout. I did do it a few times, but IT WAS HARD and I found I took every excuse to avoid it until I was doing nothing at all. This time I did not try to incorporate this challenge. I decided I'd look for something that I could actually (even easily) do. The flatland walks are pleasant and I can feel the difference they make. My plan is to keep this up. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give my chances of success at least a 7.

Stupid stupor

Since my husband's appointment was really early this morning, we decided we'd go to breakfast after. We went to this place that kind of combines restaurant styles. They use organic foods, grass fed beef, etc. But they serve it up in massive portions and with lots of (veggie?) oil and salt.

We decided to split a breakfast wrap and pancakes (for something sweet with coffee.) No, it was not the healthiest choice and yes, it was too much (even though we didn't eat it all). But that's not what I felt the need to write about, except as it figures in the "reminder."

The amazing part of the experience was this guy we saw sitting at the table next to us. I looked over and saw this basketball player sized huge guy shoveling in plates of food, enough to cover most of the table. He had a huge plate of pancakes - a stack that literally filled the plate. Another plate was covered with biscuits and gravey. And yet a third huge plate was entirely covered with crunchy fried hash browns and strips of bacon.

I turned to Jon and mouthed "oh my God!" Jon said, "well, he's a big guy." He was too. He was at least 6'5 - no taller, with a broad build. I actually think he probably is a basketball player (center post) for the local college team. No exaggeration, it only took him about 10 mintues to devour everything on the table. I pray he has good genes or his heart is in for some rough waters ahead. But for now, the guy looked completed healthy. And he was not at all fat.

Seeing this guy, combined with feeling good myself after eating a very fattening breakfast but then exercising and walking 2 miles reminded me - it is not just about what you eat. Food is fuel, some of it better for you than others, but not fattening if the output matches or exceeds the input. Duh! But food for me has been a drug and I am just beginning to awaken from my stupor.

I go out walking

So I went to my Pathways to Health meeting yesterday. Hard to believe it's already been a week since the first meeting and since my last post. Since the first session, we lost a couple people, gained a couple others. One of the others was a women in her late 80's with severe Osteoarthritis. Over the years she's had 4 joints replaced but managed to maintain an active lifestyle until 7 months ago when her hip went south. Now she's in misery and has lost much of her mobility. She figures if she can get the #!/* medical establishment to authorize a hip replacement, she'll be good to go. And when she goes, she goes.

I ended up paired with her to discuss what about our condition makes us feel difficult emotions. I have to admit, I felt right on the border of silly. There I was whining about my weight when half the folks in the group are as big as me but have put on weight because of some serious underlying condition. Obesity doesn't even make their list of chronic conditions they are trying to address. But even so, I plowed ahead and identified the following "whats" about being fat that contribute to difficult emotions: (1) discomfort - like when I eat too much and feel sick or my belly actually hurts, or when my pants become too tight and create a big red mark where they pinch my midriff; and (2) lack of mobility. For example, I can't do child's pose because of stiffness in my back and because my huge belly gets in the way. Blow up a large beach ball, hold it at your belly and they try and lay flat against the floor with the ball beneath you. Physically impossible. Also, I have recently found that whenever I would think about traveling I would dismiss the idea, feeling that I'm just getting too old.

Yeah, yeah, this causes difficult emotions. The old lady experiences frustration and anger at the medical establishment. I experience these emotions too, but I realized I don't really have anyone else to direct the emotions at. Nope, no doctor is forcing me to sit on my butt or eat too much bad food. (How distressing! Is beating yourself up an emotion? Perhaps a cookie would make me feel better.)

Then to top it off, my 80 (maybe even 90) something partner tells me that just last year she was traipsing all around China, all by herself!

After the partnering activity, we went on to discuss physical activity and ended by making another action plan for the week. I decided to maintain my plan of working out at Curves at least three times a week. As well, I added that I would also walk at least one mile this week. We had to partner again to call each other to check on how we're doing on our plan. For this I partnered with some hyperactive retired guy with a host of problems. But then, from across the room, the old lady says she'd also like to call to check on my progress. "Uh, well . . . sure, ok. Guess I'll get lots of support this week."

This morning I drove my husband to an appointment. While waiting for him, I decided to take advantage of a break in the rain and walk. I walked well over a mile. I figured I might as well get that requirement out of the way so I could report progress when all these people call to check on me.

When I returned to the car, I noticed my tire was going flat. I took my husband home and then drove in to get the tire repaired. While waiting, I walked a half mile to Curves, worked out and then walked a half mile back. P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S!

I notice that with just this much physical activity, Curves and walking 2 miles, I can feel the oxygen entering my body when I breathe. It feels like energy. It feels good. It feels better than a cookie.

Learning to Cope (Realistically)

My husband had surgery to repair an old hernia repair. Scar tissue build up was causing him misery. They went in, removed the old plug and cleaned up a mess of scar tissue. Modern/less intrusive mesh was inserted and a couple nerves snipped and buried in muscle tissue. This time he is taking time to heal and being proactive in his recovery. On the recommendation of a friend (my one and only reader) we contacted a masseuse who is experienced working with scars. She's now been out to work with him a couple of times. She's taking it easy on the scar, but helping both of us to understand connective tissue and how important it is to pay attention to the entire body even when attending to one particular problem area. Happily, she has my hubby considering how to adjust his work patterns to minimize a host of physical pains he has been dealing with for years. Just listening to her describe how a single issue can impact many other areas of one's body (and life) I was motivated to take action.

I decided to "celebrate what's right with the world" (to infringe on a trademark) and quit self-imposing barriers to a healthy life. Monday, while eating too big a lunch at a local restaurant, I saw an article about a free Pathways to Health workshop that assists with dealing with chronic conditions. There were 8 or 10 examples given of chronic conditions. When I got to the 3rd one I have (obesity, high blood pressure, anxiety) I decided I was going to sign up. I did.

Just signing up for the workshop motivated me to visit Curves to try it out for a week. I was previously a member of Curves but my branch closed last year when the economy went south. I hadn't been attending regularly anyway so I opted not to transfer to a different branch. I don't find Curves to be a vigorous workout. However, after just one work-out on Tuesday, I was reminded that I do find the work-out increases my energy and stamina and decreases stiffness and pain. (Why did I quit going?)

Yesterday I attended a meeting on that on-line class I'm developing. I arrived with a list of my course lecture topics that I'd sat down and put together after deciding I was done wallowing. I'm back on track. I also attended my first of 6 Pathways to Health sessions. We identified our chronic conditions and discussed their impacts on our lives. We then made a discrete, achievable action plan for the week. Mine is to attend Curves at least 3 times this week, in the morning for at least 30 minutes each time. We had to assess what we thought our chances of success are. If they are not at least a 7 out of 10, then the plan is probably not a realistic one and we should reconsider our plan. My estimate was 9.5. I'm doing this!

By the evening, I was sick. The cold my husband had begun complaining about the day before finally hit me. I felt tired. I sneezed. My nose started running. I went to bed by 11 (early for me). I got up this morning and found that although I do have a bit of a cold, I wasn't particularly symptomatic. Last week I would have played it safe and stayed home. This week, I went to Curves! First day of the rest of my life!

Food is an opiate

Twitter Niece: "Am feeling dejected after another 'Thanks but no thanks' Agent letter. So... Pepsi anybody? Pepsi is like Prozac."

Twitter Me: "You and I need new strategies for dealing with dejection cause we get FAR too much dejection for our waist lines to handle. '.' "

Celebrate What's Right With The World Video

Ok, I've been wallowing in something. Bogged down, stuck - like glue. The weight/health thing is not the only place in my life where this is happening. I'm supposed to be developing an on-line course addressing law and politics. Just like I know how to eat healthy, I know the law/politics subject area. In both instances, I am RESISTING. My heart is not singing.

Today I got an e-mail directing me to the video linked below. It's a National Geographic photographer talking about his enlightening encounters with the beauty that exists all around us. "You won't see it until you believe it." Watching the video is like guided meditation. Very calming, nourishing even. Worth the 20 minutes.

Celebrate What's Right With The World Video by Lazarus! - The Resurrected - MySpace Video

As I watched, I realized I LOVE photography and I LOVE creating traditional items related to my native heritage. These are activities I can lose myself in. These are activities I can find myself in.

Developing a "healthy lifestyle" and developing an on-line course are chores I have signed on for that take me away from the things I love. At any rate, this is how I am approaching (resisting) them. After watching this video, I realize I need to adjust my vision - see it in a way that lifts me up instead of dragging me down.

I'll have to sit with this a bit. Literally, I can feel a lightness in the back of my skull. The video kind of shook things loose, made me dizzy. Like the earthquake we had yesterday (6.5 undulation.) Everything is still in exactly the same place, but it has all been moved about.

Next . . .

"You're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. You're the only one who knows." ---Pema Chodron

Small world. I'm still getting familiar with how this blog thing works. I've clicked "next blog" a couple times and gotten Japanese teen bloggers.

Well, I finally read what the feature is supposed to do, i.e., take you to bloggers with similar interests. Hum, maybe that's the connection to foreign teens -- self-absorbtion. At any rate, I've posted a few times since I last checked out the next blog feature, so I clicked it again. This time I was taken to Epizoodiks, a southern writer's blog. Guess since I don't post pictures, I must be interested in writing. Well, lots of words on Epizoodiks. The blog has existed for several years and has many interesting links and features. I decided to follow just so I could find it again and try and explore some of the features. As well, the Pema Chodron quote is from the Epizoodiks blog. I almost laughed when I saw it. Seemed both poignant and ironic. Clearly false, yet right on the money. Very buddist indeed.

I just blogged about what a psychic told me. (I'm not fat I'm psychic and the fat will fall away as I open and release the heavy protection I carry.) Of course, another name (Buddhist lingo) for all that heavy psychic protection I am fortified with is e-g-o. I agree with Pema, holding on/resisting/struggling are ego based behaviors that make life hard and breed unproductive behaviors. I agree I continue to do these things. I don't agree that I'm the only one who knows. Here I agree with the psychic. My protection is pretty dang visible to anyone who even glances in my chubby direction.

Since I "committed" to changing my ways, I've been doing terribly - holding on, resisting, struggling. (Ha! Proof positive of how bad I'm doing, I'm judging myself.) I procrastinate about everything, I'm not exercising, I have silly emotional confrontations with silly emotional people, I make long lists of things to do and then sit on the computer and waste my time on Gameyola. (Do you have any idea how long it takes to collapse 350,000 squares and then try to beat your own score!) To make matters worse, among other things today I fueled my body with an egg mcmuffin, followed by bagel with cream cheese and a donut for lunch, and Mexican food with a glass of wine for dinner. And just because it's one of the few remaining worst foods in the world not yet listed, I admit I had an ice cream sandwich (Skinny Cow) for dessert. I'm blogging because I feel too full and uncomfortable to go to bed. I feel like I should have one of those midevel Christian leather whip/strap contraptions so I can just flog myself.

Oh my gosh, as I read this it sounds desperate, depressed even. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm not psychic or Buddhist, maybe I just have a disease. I'd chalk it up to seasonal affect disorder but I don't think that applies to all four seasons . . .

atwitter

Today my niece made the following tweet:

Day three of serious running and sweating at the gym... Sore and thirsty (used to be how I felt after a night out!)

I replied as follows:

Good for you! I'm resolved to getting fit 2010 too. So far my strategy of sitting on my butt & getting up to eat isn't working.

Getting to know me - the 411

As I start this blog, I am fat. Oh my god, just saying that is obscene. “I” am not fat. “I” am light and beauty, albeit surrounded by fat, enough fat to qualify as officially obese. I’m the gal that sits on the couch and eats while watching the Biggest Loser. I’m the gal that diets for a solid week to drop the five pounds I can manage to put back on in only two days. I’ve got wardrobes in three sizes - less fat, fat and disgusting. I’m presently at the high end of my fat wardrobe.

I’m 55 years old and although I’ve experienced normal weight, I have been fat most of my life. I kid you not, my earliest memory, from when I was only 2 years old, is of my grandmother’s breadbox. Another blast from the past I remember quite clearly is getting weighed in kindergarten. Another girl, who was easily a foot taller and five pounds heavier than me, made a point of walking up to me and declaring, “I am the fattest kid in the kindergarten class.” Just like it was yesterday, I recall responding with an air of defiance, “Well, I’m the second fattest!” I was a 70 pound kindergartner. In third grade I wore sweaters even on warm days to cover how the sleeves of my dresses pinched my beefy arms. In 6th grade, back in the Kennedy fitness days, back when during fitness tests all the girls stood in a circle around you to provide a “privacy screen” (ha!), I recall the humiliation of struggling but not managing even one single sit-up. I never hopped a fence or played on the monkey bars.

Finally, in eighth grade, saying she was not going to watch a fat daughter graduate, my mother took me to a pill pushing “diet doctor” who gave me an envelope of pills that allowed me to drop over 30 pounds in about three months. I didn’t stay on those pills long but I ultimately ended up staying within “normal” weight ranges until I started having children in my 20’s. With each child my weight increased. Three kids, three twenty pound weight increases.

I am 5’ 4 1/2”. My all time heaviest weight was 218 pounds. About five years ago I went on the South Beach Diet and dropped 36 pounds in just a few months. Nice accomplishment, but still 18 pounds too heavy to qualify for health insurance!

I know what healthy eating is and I know how important exercise is. Even so, over the past few years, my weight has adjusted back up nearly 20 pounds. I say “adjusted up” because the creep up has involved the loss and gain of probably a hundred pounds. Diet, lose 5 to 7 pounds, binge and regain 6 to 8. Every fat person knows the story.

Now I have both obesity and age to contend with. Bending is a challenge because my belly gets in the way. Nonexistent muscle tone and joint stiffness sometimes make the simple act of standing up a slow and incremental process. I suffer from chronic back pain and bad knees require care in movement and restrict some activity. I’m the only sibling of five that does not (yet) have diabetes. Unable to say no, I join my husband in drinking far too much wine and eating too much too late in the evening until I am downright uncomfortable. Ok, I admit it, sometimes my stomach actually hurts.

But enough of all that. You get the picture. This blog will focus on how in the heck I managed to end up in this shape and how, despite a lifetime of obesity, I become fit, active and trim.

Shhhhh

I watched The Secret with a friend this afternoon. She'd never seen it before and I seem to have forgotten what the Secret is. Well, now I remember. So I sat down and not only did I visualize myself as fit and trim, I FELT it. It feels like my entire body has been in a cast for most of my life (even my head) and the cast was cut off. As it fell away, I had to reach down and hold onto the chair so my comparatively weightless body would not float off like a helium balloon.

Apparently, attitude is everything.

This little exercise brought to mind a psychic reading I had a number of years ago. I asked the psychic why I'm fat and what I need to do to lose weight. She said "you look fine to me. I don't think you need to do anything." (?!) Then, even though she wasn't, she proceeded to tell me that it is not at all uncommon for people with psychic abilities to be heavy. I remember to this day, she said, "you're not fat, you're psychic." (Yeah well, tell my knees that.) She told me the extra weight is just a form of protection. As I open and release all that psychic armor/protection, the weight will just fall away." I think that must have been about a decade ago. Since then I've read dozens of self-help and spiritual books, tried meditating, did about 4 years of therapy. Apparently, all to no avail. Guess my armor is still up cause nothing is falling away.

Emotional Brakes

I'm furious! It started over gratuitous, unnecessary remarks in a brief phone conversation with my FRICKEN CRAZY daughter. There was a real subtext for the tension, but the actual conflict involved a stupid trading of barbs.

The interesting thing, from the perspective of this blog, is the physical reaction I experienced. I felt the rush of adrenaline, flight or fight. Although for me, it was all about the fight. I was pissed! Fortunately, it was a phone call which she ended because she also was pissed. With no opportunity to fight, I had to figure what else I might do with the sick, out-of-wack blood sugar sensation I was experiencing. I called and spoke briefly with my other daughter (who was on the phone with Crazy). She suggested we just lay low and not speak to each other for a bit while we cooled off. Otherwise we would probably say mean things we would later regret.

Now I know there are many and real issues associated with each button we carelessly pushed in our brief conversation. Not sure how we ever really deal with them, or if I really want to. But, I notice that emotions STOP me in my tracks. I became unable to continue what I'd been working on, still can't. So, to change what I usually do (which is probably to start eating something), I'm taking a walk - right now.

A New Year, A New Day

The new year seems to be a time of assessment. Everyone is looking back on the year before, realizing an entire year of life is gone forever. We assess - am I happy with me, am I where I want to be? Suffice it to say, if you are a fat person, invariably the answer is NO.

Well, "Hello, my name is F.A.T. girl and I am a fat person." Writing that feels a bit like the opening to an AA meeting. As it should I suppose. I am a fat person anonymous.

I decided to start this blog to explore and support lifestyle choices and changes. I decided to keep it anonymous so I could be as brutally honest as my journey requires. (And I can be brutal.) But as well, I've had enough therapy to know that the sorry details are of little consequence. My struggles and unhealthy patters are actually rather universal.

Last year I tried starting a journal. I called it Fits and Starts. After a few months and very few entries I ended it as follows:

"I think I need to rename this document 'Fats and Rolls.' Nuf said."

Invariably.

So this year, I'm taking a more public (even if no one reads this) and committed approach - I'm blogging. No private, hidden, secret, pretend endeavor this time. This time my effort is out in the world.

And just to keep the journey and my attention focused on the positive, I'll disclose right up front - F.A.T. stands for "fit, active and trim." That's where my attention goes from here on out. For those times I roll around in my history of lard - my mean brothers actually called me Larda as a child - it will be to explore the pains and barriers that keep regular old fat shrouding my light and bogging down the grace of my movement.