good things

Guest Bloggers: The Fabulous Fatties Sit On A Ball!

I recently read an article that described how people who fidget more tend to be a lot thinner. I found this very intriguing. I tend to be pretty restless, especially when sitting. So I was especially interested in reading this post on Weight Loss With The Fabulous Fatties’ blog. (we are doing a blog post swap!) It’s pretty funny too, but truly useful for weight loss!

It’s Saturday and I (Angie) am working, or supposed to be, but apparently I am blogging. Has anyone with a desk job tried to sit on an exercise ball while at work? A couple years back I was seeing a nutritionist who recommended I try this. I didn’t at the time, but have done it a few times more recently, and am in fact sitting on a sleek silver exercise ball as we speak. I recommend everyone this this as it does use some muscle’s for balancing (legs, stomach and booty). Oh… I just had a great thought! I am renaming this exercise ball to my blogging ball and I will force myself to sit on it when ever I am blogging or twittering.

However, this advice does come with a WARNING!

Do not reach for items out of your reach, the ball will roll and you will fall flat on your face.

Do not try to scoot the ball, it does not have wheels like your cushy office chair and you will fall.

People will look at you like you are crazy! Now I am used to this type of reaction from people. One lady I work with calls me her “eccentric friend” but some of you may be more sensitive than I to others reactions.

Co-workers will probably steal your ball when you leave your desk to go potty and you will have to hunt it down, which unfortunately decreases productivity. Bit of Advice: always check the supply closet first!

When standing up do not scoot your ball back you will fall on your head and have a minor concussion. Most employers will expect you to still work with a minor concussion.

Do not lean forward to get a closer look at your computer screen while on the exercise ball as you will face plant into your desk and get a bloody nose and possibly some mouth bleeding.

If you suck in your gut and sit tall while on the exercise ball you will get tired at a quicker rate.

I’m just sayin’ sit on the ball with caution!

Have a FABULOUSweekend and eat a brownie for me, preferably one with chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and pecans. I had a skinny friend once tell me nothing tastes as good as thin feels. I think she believed that so I never shared my brownies with her!

Thanks for the great tip, Angie!!

And for those of you for whom a ball does not provide enough fidgety movement, you can always try Ellen’s Hawaii chair!!

April 26, 2009 2

Shopped Until I Dropped

I had a really, really intense and unique (for me) experience today. I went clothes shopping for… seven hours!! It was craaaaaaazy! My friend A., who is totally a clone of Stacey on What Not To Wear, offered to take me clothes shopping and hold my hand and give me advice since I am such a total deer in the headlights.

A. has taken me shopping a few other times in the past ten years- but those times, it was because I was feeling hopeless about being overweight and she was trying to show me that I could still find things that looked decent even if I didn’t feel great about my body. This was the first time that I have gone shopping – I think in about thirty years – where I actually got any pleasure from it.

My relationship with clothes is almost as complicated as my relationship with food! Basically, my “before” wardrobe consisted of everything that was either black or brown, shapeless, drab, with no “adornment” (A’s word). She used to describe my clothing as “mouse-colored pajamas.”

I owned (until today) four pairs of shoes. A pair of Dansko clogs for everyday, a pair of really ugly slip on sandals for warmer weather, a pair of Uggs for super cold weather, and running shoes. THAT IS IT. My feet are really really wide, and my arches are flat as pancakes, and most shoes out there are very painful.

We spent two hours in the shoe department alone, and my head nearly exploded. But I did prevail and I actually bought three pairs of shoes – that fit me, were comfortable and actually nice looking. Here is one of my new pairs of shoes. Check out the little gray and pink flowers! They look sort of sandallish, but guess what – they are really clogs in disguise. Which is why they feel magnificent.

It’s funny. Our plan was to meet around 11:30. I figured we would shop for maybe half an hour, have lunch, shop for maybe an hour more tops, and that would be MORE than enough. When I was staggering around with 20 pieces of clothing about an hour in, and said, “I think this is plenty,” A. just looked at me and laughed. Clearly she was just getting started.

I probably tried on fifty pieces of clothing. My main objective was to purchase a festive outfit for our friend W.’s wedding celebration party tomorrow. (the actual marriage took place a while back, this was a post-wedding party) Casual, but festive. It’s going to be at their house and yard, where they have goats. Not super formal by any means.

As we passed by a rack of dresses, A. pointed out this navy blue Cleopatra kind of dress with all sorts of gold “adornment.” I nearly wet my pants from laughing. “Yeah RIGHT!” She ignored my close-minded attitude and swept it up, putting it onto the three foot high pile in my arms.

When I literally could not hold up the quantity of clothing any longer, we went into a dressing room and I started trying on things at a manic pace. My friend sat and “evaluated” each outfit, why it “worked,” why it didn’t. It was truly a revelation. For one, I never had any concept of what might look good on me – my motto was, the bigger and floppier and more nondescript, the better. But here she was talking about my shoulders, my “waist,” (ha ha ha!) my legs and butt and all of it. And I started understanding more about myself and why certain things actually DID look better than others.

I tried on the gold-adorned Cleopatra dress. She said, “O my god, that looks great!” and I had to take a double take in the mirror. It actually did not look bad. But ME? Wear a GOLD-ENCRUSTED dress?

Let me pause here and say that I HAVE NOT WORN A DRESS IN FIFTEEN YEARS. I have one dress that I bought for a wedding fifteen years ago, and it is so ancient and ridiculous I have had to swear to both my daughters that I will never wear it again and not in their presence.

So here I was wearing a gold-adorned Cleopatra dress. And pigs were flying past the dressing room door, and hell was freezing over. But hey, Barack Obama is now president. ANYthing is possible, right?? 🙂

I bought the dress. Along with a bunch of other things, some of which I adore more than I can say. I bought some Romanesque sandals to go with the Cleopatra dress.

I am going to post pictures. Yes I am! But I realize that these pictures will not have much impact unless I post my “before” pictures first. I’m going to do it. So here’s the befores. You’ll see the Cleopatra outfit tomorrow, and then the rest of the clothes later next week. Macy’s (where all this debauchery took place) is having some crazy storewide 25% off sale (YAHOO) but the catch is that you can’t actually HAVE the clothes until April 29th. Don’t ask. I don’t understand really, but I was willing to do that since I saved a bucketload of money.

The one thing we did NOT do was visit the makeup counter. Another place where I get incredibly nervous and feel like I am eight years old and playing grownup. We’ll have to save that for another time.

PHOTO UPDATE: Here are my hideous “before” pics, along with some pics of the Cleopatra dress.

April 25, 2009 13

foodbodyheartmind

Last night I went to the second session of my meditation class. I love this class so much. I have gone to several meditation classes and retreats before, and always ended up feeling like it wasn’t for me, or I wasn’t doing it right, or something. It didn’t fully click somehow. But this class, and this teacher, clicked from the moment I walked in the door. I love this place in downtown Oakland. The teacher fills me with a sense of calm. Her voice is just amazingly soothing, reassuring, peaceful. The sound of the bell at the end of the meditation is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard.

Last week, when I went for the first time, it was a Monday night, the night before I went to my first diabetes class and started using my blood glucometer. I was wound up tighter than a spring. I was anxious, distraught, grieving the loss of my innocent health, and just a wreck. But I knew that I needed this. I knew that stress is one thing that has a definite affect on blood glucose levels. It also has an effect on weight loss – if you’re stressed out, your cortisol levels rise, and that makes you gain weight, or unable to lose it. So I felt like coming to this meditation class and learning how to de-stress was as important as taking my medication or exercising.

I loved it pretty much immediately. Sitting there, I felt like my heart was breaking and I was just opening up in all directions. I felt like I had found an absolutely essential little sanctuary in time and place. I needed it.

Last night the teacher opened with this poem by the poet Kabir, and that was it – I started tearing up right away.

You know the sprout is hidden inside the seed

We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.

Let your arrogance go, and look around inside

The blue sky opens out farther and farther

The daily sense of failure goes away

The damage I have done to myself fades

A million suns come forward with light

When I sit firmly in that world.

Whoo. Right? That line – the damage I have done to myself fades – just made my heart start pounding. The damage I have done. I really feel that now, the years that I overate and didn’t take care of myself. The tendency to want to blame and punish myself for getting to the point of having diabetes. It makes me want to howl sometimes. But then that other word – fades – is also true. It’s fading. With every thing I do to be good to myself, it fades. But wow, it is there.

The thing that I love about this meditation class is that it is all about love and compassion. Because I think truly that that is the key for me, it is the ONLY WAY out. Because when I was eating more than I needed, for so many years, it was because I was chasing love (in all the wrong places), I was hurt and rejected-feeling and all the food in the world couldn’t make that go away (although believe me I tried). And so while counting calories and points and exercising is all good and important, I don’t think there’s a shadow of a chance it can work unless I find a way to live with more love and compassion, for myself and for others.

April 14, 2009 7

No More Excuses

Not too long ago (not long at all!!) a day like this would have been one giant excuse not to exercise. It’s raining outside. My trainer is out of town. My running buddy is sick.

But I really wanted to get going on the 3rd week of Couch-to-5k. I remembered that back in the day when I was training for a marathon with Team in Training (this was 9 years ago, and I WALKED the marathon, didn’t run it), we would train even in heavy downpours. NO MATTER WHAT. I got a really great waterproof jacket then, and I still have it. It’s still waterproof!

So I put it on, put on a baseball cap and went down to the muddy little track at the bottom of our hill. I was sad to get my beautiful new white running shoes muddy and wet. But heck.

I set my iPod to C25K Week 3, Day 1 and set off. After the first lap I was still cold. But by the halfway point I was totally warmed up, pumped up, jacked up and ON. It was great. My glasses got all steamed up. (do I need to get contacts again??) I did a little 3 minutes extra at the end and was DONE. It felt so good. The rain felt nice and refreshing. I got in my car and it also got all steamed up. Came home, showered, felt great. STILL feel great.

The thing that I don’t remember when I’m making all the excuses is that THIS feels so, so, so much better than THAT.

April 9, 2009 7

Beautiful Guiltfree Dinner

I soooo enjoyed my dinner last night. We had company over – my husband’s cousin and her hubby – they are wonderful people, and I was really looking forward to hanging out with them. I decided to make our family favorite teriyaki/wasabi salmon, this asparagus and brown/wild rice salad someone pointed out to me on Twitter (I love Twitter! It’s like a recipe box at your fingertips!), a big mache salad with avocados and feta, and a lemon tart with real whipped cream. YAY. Oh, and they brought some amazing wine they’d procured during their weeklong trip through Napa.

I didn’t worry about the points or calories of any of these items. I had had a good run/walk in the morning. I had gone to Weight Watchers and had lost 2.6 lbs since last week. I knew that everything I was eating was super healthy (except maybe the lemon tart!).

I enjoyed every single bite of my dinner. I didn’t overeat, I didn’t obsess over “going over” (which, had I counted, I probably did) I know that today I’m doing another Couch to 5k AND I’m going to be rowing in a “parent row” for my daughter’s crew team. THAT should be interesting!! And I’m going to resume my regular good eating today. It’s all good.

Is it possible that I’ll gain weight from this one dinner, at the end of this week? Somehow I really don’t think so.

March 29, 2009 1

My Experimental St. Patrick’s Day Feast

I’m a real sucker for holidays. And after reading about Michelle Obama’s St. Patrick’s day celebrations, I thought, we are going to have a St. Patrick’s day FEAST! Whole Foods was having this big SPD extravaganza, so I went down there and basically went wild. (no, I did not cook all of this myself, in fact not one bit of it!) I got:

corned beef and cabbage
mashed potatoes
roasted root vegetables
turkey shepherd’s pie
beef stew
Irish soda bread
Guinness Stout (for hubby, I don’t drink beer of any kind)
cute little mini cupcakes with green sprinkles

I also made a lovely mache salad when I got home. (my only contribution to the meal!) I think my family was a bit stunned by the spread. It looked awesome!

I had a plan. I was going to taste everything, not eat anything I didn’t love, and savor in small amounts what I did love. Oh, and attempt to put down fork in between bites. That is a TOUGH HABIT to break, people. I don’t think I’ve unclenched my fork-holding fingers since I was about… two.

So. First off, the corned beef wasn’t very good. It was brownish rather than pinkish, which is what I recall it’s supposed to be. I didn’t like it. STOPPED after one bite. Then, the root veggies, which were so colorful and pretty. But they were undercooked and hard. One bite, done. Didn’t even go to the cabbage; I don’t eat it unless it’s cole slaw. Ate a bunch of mache salad because it was super fresh and yum! With french feta crumbled in. OK, on to the beef stew. YUMMMMM. Heaven. MMMMMMM. Ate it very very slowly. Ate a bite of turkey shepherds pie. GOOD. Focused on really enjoying those two things. Took a little mashed taters to mix with the yummy savory gravy from the beef stew. MMMM. Decided to pass on the bread because I knew I’d want butter, and then I’d go all “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” on it.

The other family members tasted the cupcakes before I got to mine. The review was “dry, and the icing is funny.” NO THANKS. I didn’t even taste it.

So ultimately, I really had a bunch of salad, about a cup of beef stew and 1/2 cup of turkey shepherds pie (and 2 TB of mashed potatoes). Also had a big glass of sparkling water. So I finished just FULL. And happy that I had had a yummy dinner. And not gross feeling!

My goal was to “thoroughly enjoy a special St. Patrick’s Day Feast and STILL LOSE WEIGHT this week.” Weigh in is on Saturday, but I am feeling pretty darn good.

I have to run now, but just want to give major props to Dinneen at Eat Without Guilt for even introducing the concept of eating like this. It was an amazing and new experience!!

March 18, 2009 2

Assessment: Two Months Today

Two months ago today, on January 17th, I got my wake-up call and thus began my… what? My New Life? My Healthy Journey? I keep trying to think of how to describe it. I think I shall call it my Turnaround. Also Turnover. I began turning over all of my old habits, thoughts, fears, activities (and lack of) and really trying to examine what got me to that point. It’s been a very busy two months.

Here’s my little self-assessment after two months have passed. In the tradition of the maddening “narrative progress reports” that my kids used to bring home from school, because the poor little darlings were’t thought to have enough self esteem for letter grades:

What’s Going Well:

Well, I’ve actually lost 16 lbs! That’s no small potatoes. And I intend to keep going. I’ve been through a plateau or two, and a day or two of discouragement, but the trend is steadily downward. And that can’t help be encouraging.
I haven’t had a major bout of Emotional Eating since Jan 17th. I can’t even describe how shocked, incredulous and frankly moved I am by this. Previously I would not have thought this possible. I truly have found ways in which to ride out the emotions, write them out or talk them through. And they have passed. In the many times that I’ve dieted in the past, THIS part was never really addressed. So it’s huge. HUGE, I tell you.
I am pretty happy most hours of most days. Which I can say has not been true for YEARS. I mean, I used to have some happy moments in what were either “regular” blah or downright bad-feeling days. NOW, I have moments of absolute ECSTASY within days that are mostly happy or at least content, with little blasts of unhappiness now and then. I don’t know whether to attribute this to the endorphins from exercising, to the fact that it just feels comfortable and nicer to be smaller and fitter, or the fact that I am channeling my emotions properly rather than using food. Probably ALL of the above.
Most importantly, I think I am improving my health. I have been able to discontinue my blood pressure medication that I have been on for over five years. I think I’m going to have more improvements when I next see my doctor in April. I’m moving in the right direction.

What is Going Better But Could Be Improved:

Low-level anxiety that This Cannot Possibly Last.
Insecure in my new habits (this is echo of first point)
Probably too much focus on the scale

What Needs Major Improvement:

Eating breakfast. I’m getting tired of eggs, not wild about many other breakfast foods, etc. I KNOW it is the most important meal and that it jump starts your metabolism and all that! I really need to work on this one. I am going to experiment with eating lunchy/dinnerish foods in the morning and see if that helps any.
(more echo of point one) “Breakfast like a queen, lunch like a duchess and dinner like a pauper.” This is what I’ve read repeatedly but still dinner is THE MAIN EVENT around our house. I wonder how much it would help if I could actually implement this style of eating. We did eat like this in Latin America, where the main meal is at noon, then dinner was more like what we’d call a “snack.” And I did lose 26 lbs while living in Central America, but that was probably the hard labor and turista. 🙂

Conclusion: All in all, things are going shockingly well. I have to say that I am cautiously optimistic. But nervous, you know, because I’ve never done this before.

March 17, 2009 12

Good Day!

My home scale showed the lowest number yet this morning, which happens to = the number that is on my DRIVERS’ LICENSE. YAY!!!! I am halfway to my weight-loss goal. 🙂 I think I can safely say that the “step it up” approach was a good choice.
Went to Weight Watchers, (SO much better to go on a Saturday morning than Sunday morning), lost 2.0 lbs on their scale, and got a star for losing 6.2 total since I joined up with them. (I had already lost 10 on my own before going to WW) My inner five-year old was very pleased with the star, and the applause.
About to go for a walk in the nice cool woods. (edited to add: it was so cool out, and my iPod was so hopping, I ended up racewalking 60 minutes and jogging 20! and it felt great)
Going to celebrate by making daughter’s favorite chicken pot pie tonight. Just calculated the points at the WW site and realized that a serving (INCLUDING PIE CRUST) is only 4 points!! Woo hoo!!! It’s back on the menu rotation. She’ll be thrilled. Now what I have to remember is to only have one serving (rather than 3) and to NOT serve it over a big heaping mountain of rice. 🙂

March 14, 2009 8

Great Workout + Another Happy Clothes Moment

I have a much biggest post I want to write today but not sure the schedule will allow. But I did just have a happy moment I have to share!

I had this really nice blouse last year, one of my favorites. It was dry-clean only but somehow it got tossed into the washer. AND the dryer. It shrunk down tiny tiny. There was no way I could squeeze into it. I wrote it off. I made a note to one day donate it somewhere or give to one of my small friends. 🙂

WELL. Today after I got out of shower, I was standing there perusing my closet. I put on some black pants. Then I glimpsed my long-lost pretty blouse. I wondered… could it be possible?

IT FIT! IT FIT! IT FIT! I am wearing it now. I am doing the happy Snoopy dance.

In other brief news, I had the best workout this morning. Normally I do two circuits of this rather grueling workout, with my trainer. I usually have to rush off after that (it takes an hour total) and besides, I’m pooped. And usually I work out with just him. (which is great) But today the gym was very busy and these two guys, whom I have worked out with in the past (more than a year ago) ended up showing up at the same time. We all worked out together. I was so pumped!! It just boosted my energy 100x more to have two other people to work out with. So I told my trainer I had some extra time, and I wanted to do 3 circuits. His eyes popped out and he got all happy and psyched and so the three of us did three. I was really happy. I had done more than I thought I could do. I was about to leave, and this one guy got this gleam in his eye. He goes, “Four?” And I just knew I had it in me. I could feel my engine revving. “Yeah!” So we did the fourth circuit and I was so adrenalized and happy and proud and full of energy. It was a long, intense, two hour workout. I felt so happy when I left.

Then I came home, showered, and put on my shrunken shirt!! Hee!!

Much better day than yesterday.

March 6, 2009 2

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eat, move, think, feel

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