Please Keep Trying!

It’s funny that in this day and age I can look up and see a silver-lining in the crap-storms that rain down on us in our lives. I was called a Pollyanna for it (I laughed so hard when I heard that). I’m not blind to the negative, nor do I gloss over it, but I don’t dwell it on it either. What I do is make the choice to be grateful for what I do have and make the most out of what was given to me. Why focus on what can’t be changed?

I wasn’t always a positive thinker. I was actually quite negative and judgmental; ask any friend or family member. I had a habit of projecting how I judged myself onto other people, making them the ones who judged me. I wasn’t the one who was judging me and breaking me down, it was everyone else. In turn, I did unto them what I perceived was being done unto me; made assumptions on their character based solely on their looks.

People around me started to look downright evil. I kept reflecting my self-image onto everyone else. Nothing was right, nothing would ever be right, and it was everyone else’s fault I was fat. My negative self-centered “victim ideology” eventually took its toll in the way of emotionally eating to soothe the “judgment” being passed on me daily. Some of the judging was factual; the “Oh my god, look how fat she is,” was kinda damaging. That made me project even more.

This projecting not only reflected away any hurt, but also kept me from any retrospection. Everything caught up with me the day I had the epiphany I was the one who made me fat. Instead of setting me free, unfortunately, it clamped fetters of a different kind on my self-esteem. Now, everything was my fault.

I already had a complex of blaming myself for the little things in life; dinner’s late; I’m so sorry! The house wasn’t super shiny; God, I f*ed up again! I then added onto this already raging inferno the sin of being morbidly obese.

I tell people there’s no punishment greater than the ones we heap on ourselves. I made myself miserable for two years punishing myself for the massive wrong I had committed; mentally flogging my ego and self-worth. I had nothing. There was nothing. There would always be nothing. I deserved nothing.

Then I had another epiphany: not everything is black and white. Most things are shades of gray, and seldom as horrendous as we project them to be. I realized, yes, I made me fat, but I’m making me skinny. Thank you for this moment!

I began to mentally tally the things which had formerly been “failures” and started placing them in between the two extremes of “good” and “evil”. I became grateful for the things and people who make a small difference in my life everyday.

I tell my folks, thank you, whenever I can. I tell my husband how wonderful he is and how grateful I am we met. I try and express my gratitude to my best friend for always being there. I soon had this massive list of positive things in my life. I became rich literally overnight.

Being able to express gratitude gave me the internal reinforcement I needed to lose the weight with a positive attitude, versus the negative one I had before. I reasoned, I have so much good in my life, I must deserve to be happy. If I was truly as bad as I judged myself to be, why would I be surrounded by so many wonderful things?

The thing I’m most grateful for, is learning the ability to say thank you in some way, to everything in my life, no matter how it affects me. Thanks!

I tried to make an appointment yesterday to get Leftie (my torn left knee) checked out by an orthopedic surgeon. We won’t have our new health insurance until February 1rst, but I figured, hey, I could at least make an appointment now, especially since it takes weeks to get in. Well, first doctor I called was booked till March, the second one till April. The third doctor’s office I called informed me to shove it till I had my insurance number, which I won’t have until the 1rst, which is on Friday.

It doesn’t seem like that long of a wait, three days, but anyone who’s ever made an appointment for any specialist will tell you time is of the essence. If you want to get seen quick, every day, nay every hour counts. Not only can I not make an appointment now, I need to get a frick’n referral from my primary doctor. What primary doctor? I haven’t had health insurance for three and a half years, and the insurance I have now is catastrophic. I couldn’t make an appointment with a primary doctor even if I wanted to; no insurance number. Balls.

I was so close to having actual hope that my left knee would get fixed and it was cruelly taken away. Now I have to stew and wait and work and stew some more. This bastard meniscus has been nothing but trouble for six months. I can still workout, but not as hard as I used to, nor can I go down steep stairs, practice taijutsu, ride a bike, run, hike, jump, dance, or you know, live.

Leftie is actually a chronic offender, as it’s been torn before, back when I was morbidly obese. That time, I fell on the ice and the two hundred plus pounds tore the cartilage like a banker tears up a bad check; horribly and beyond self-repair. I had to get arthroscopic surgery and it healed up okay afterwards. I was back to wobbling my lard around after three weeks of lounging around. Since exercise and I weren’t to meet for another three years, I didn’t mind the bed rest.

Rightie felt left out however, and got ripped up pretty badly on the Stairmaster. It’s funny, when that happened, I had begun going to the gym, but I still wasn’t at my fattest. I was unable to exercise for six months, and Rightie healed up on its own (poorly and slowly, BTW), but I had gained another forty pounds because of it.

When Leftie II: Revenge of the Meniscus occurred, I was practicing taijutsu in the park with my senpai. It was my fault. And it wasn’t even a spectacular move. Taijutsu doesn’t have flashy high kicks or super sonic moves. I liken it to tai chi with attitude.

It was one bad move, one misplaced foot and not enough hip movement, but it was all SNAP! After it happened, I knew. I knew. I knew what pain awaited me, I knew I didn’t have the cash to fix it, but I didn’t know if I ever be able to get back on my feet after a second tear.

Hells yeah to stupidity and stubbornness, aka, perseverance!! I was too dumb not to stay in bed for six months and too stubborn to accept I’d been laid out. I tried to go back to taijutsu but, oh, no, believe me, practicing was a sweaty, painful bitch. I did go back to exercising. I did do that. Just not as hardcore as before.

Leftie still acts up, its still a pain, but I think it’s healing. I might not need surgery, but I’d like a professional’s opinion. I believe in my heart of hearts, Leftie knows its time has come, and the countdown has begun for its demise…3.2.1. Insurance!!

When visitors come over, for some reason, some of them expect to eat at a table filled with udon and sushi. They’re disappointed if they realize they’ll be eating foods, with a twist, they can make at home. I don’t eat Japanese foods every night. How boring would that be!

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Japanese cuisine. I have one of the best stocked Japanese pantries in the area, and my freezer is filled with seafood, abura age, mochi and anko. If someone were to pop over now and demand an authentic meal, I don’t believe I’d disappoint. But making it every night? I honestly couldn’t do it.

However, every night, I do eat similarly to Japanese cuisine. I love almost all ethnic cooking, and even a few American down home recipes. I eat a wide and diverse variety of foods, from Indian to Mexican. I simply apply the basics of Japanese cooking to other recipes. Traditionally, the Japanese would eat tofu, seafoods, rice, and lots of vegetables at their meals.

If I wanted to eat a “Japanese-Italian” meal, I could use TVP “meat” for the tofu, noodles for the rice and add as many veggies to the mix as possible. Viola, I just made a meal following the basic pattern of traditional Japanese ingredients.

In today’s world, where the Far East is thankfully no longer referred to as the “Orient”, soy products are becoming a part of our food vocabulary. There’s soy milk in most grocery stores, along with tofu and the ever wonderful Gardenburger and Boca brand “meat” products, made from soy protein.

One of my secrets is I try and bulk everything up with vegetables. I can sneak a bell pepper or carrot in many things without people catching on to my nefarious deed of subvertly cleaning their arteries. If I’m serving kitsune udon, I add a bigger portion of spinach to my bowl compared to the abura age and noodles. In a stirfry, I tend to use very little seafood and more veggies and tofu. For my enchiladas, my ratio of vegetables (onions, peppers, spinach) to beans is pretty high.

I have a large food repertoire and I don’t eat Japanese cuisine every night. I enjoy a diverse selection of foods ranging from pescetarian to vegan, from Middle American to Middle Eastern. Eating healthily is like working out: you should never get bored with your routine!

I started my book yesterday. I told someone the other day how hard it would be to write this book, and not because it’s a book. Writing for me is fairly pain free, thankfully. It’s having to relive how I became who I was and made me who I am that’s hard.

Some people gain weight because they don’t care what they eat; as long as it tastes good, screw health. Some people don’t know any better and/or have learned bad eating habits from themselves or other people. Then there’re those folks who use food as a substitute for something else, usually psychological or emotional. My weight gain was because I fell into all three categories, like I’m sure many people do.

My problems started at an early age when I was told to eat everything on my plate or else. OK, I need to make this food disappear to go out and play? Is that all? Presto! The food is gone and I gained another pound, but playtime is good to go! That wasn’t even a fraction of the experiences which ultimately made me as heavy as I was, but the incident is still crystal clear in my head, down to the smells, temperature, and clothes I was wearing. It’s a start.

The chapter I started yesterday actually goes back to my childhood, when bad habits were learned or a price was paid; a steep price. I had a decent childhood, in my opinion. I traveled the globe thanks to my father’s career as an Air Force officer, and I was indulged in my interests. However, it was tempered with some really, really dark times. If I balanced out the good and the bad, the bad far outweighs the good. By far.

The good times were great, though. I was introduced to Nature by my father which in turn helped me become the person I am now. That’s the one thing I always carried with me from that time; my love of nature and the earth. Everything else was burned on the bonfire of the past. Seriously, one day I gathered all the deadwood in my head and heaped it together:

Oh, this is a huge piece of “Hey fat ass!“, and whew, I ‘ll need to cut this “You better get good grades!” into smaller kindling. Then, Whoosh! I torched my experiences. I haven’t forgotten them; the ashes are still there, and they still evoke some modicum of emotion, but only if I really focus on some particular. Otherwise, I can look back and gloss over those bad bits, and even condense the good bits into one happy big experience. This book is a big homage to “Lest we forget.” Even if this thing never gets published, it’ll do me more good than years spent talking to therapists about my youth.

I’ve been researching plastic surgeons in the area, and researching if my new insurance going into effect in February will cover any part of the body contouring surgery I’ll need.

Sadly, most insurance companies will not cover excess skin removal due to weight loss. I figure the companies got fed up with forking out the dough to Bariatric surgery patients who lost hundreds of pounds in a short period of time. People who lose weight too quickly have much more skin to deal with than say, someone who safely and healthily loses it a few pounds at a time.

Body contouring surgery is an umbrella phrase encompassing different surgeries which target different areas of the body. Brachioplasty, for example, is a surgery to remove the excess skin under the arms. Abdominoplasty focuses on the tummy area.

These surgeries aren’t cheap and they’re not without risks. An abdominoplasty (aka, lower body lift), which is the surgery I need the most, costs on average, $7578. That’s not including the fees for the facility, the anesthesiologist, the operating room costs, the hospital stay, or lab fees. Kinda depressing, especially since I need three other surgeries.

I averaged out how much it would cost me for everything I needed done and came up with a price tag of $50,000. Ouch. Hmmm, down payment on a house or skin removal….

It’s a safe guess I’ll only be getting two surgeries per year, due to cost and healing time. It takes about two months to heal up from many of the surgeries, well enough to return to strenuous activity. I can’t see going back under the knife two months after a prior surgery anyway. Surgery is traumatic, and takes its toll, no matter how healthy a person is. Which would mean I’d be finished with all the weight loss details by the end of 2010, maybe. Who knows?

This is mostly conjecture at the moment. There may be some sliver of a chance my insurance may cover some of the costs. Something would be better than nothing.

To all those reading this blog who are only fifteen or twenty pounds overweight, please heed my warning, lose weight now or you’ll have a much bigger, and much more expensive problem to cope with later on.

Perhaps, like I thought, you believe you’ve mastered your weight issues. Perhaps you think, as I did, you have everything under control. And perhaps, unlike me, you can walk away from a significant weight gain unscathed. If you’re fifty or more pounds overweight, the longer you stay at that weight, as I did, the worse you’re troubles will be down the road.

The biggest issue facing anyone who’s lost massive amounts of weight is the loose skin hanging off the now lithe frame. For me, the skin issue has become the biggest problem facing me now, both emotionally and physically.

It affects me physically and emotionally by raising my pant size, despite my weight loss. Imagine dropping twenty pounds, and expecting to be able to slide a pair of size 10s on with ease. Then imagine realizing you actually went up a pant size. Then imagine breaking down in the store when your best friend solves this conundrum for you be stating, “Gravity’s a bitch.“, i.e. all the loose skin is falling down and collecting at the belly and thighs.

The gross bits are how the skin gets easily irritated and itches like hell. Or how it gets caught in a zipper. Or how I have to shove my tricep skin through the armholes of a shirt, not unlike stuffing meat into a sausage casing. Sounds putrid and nasty doesn’t it? It is, and it makes me feel all the work I’ve done is for nothing.

The problem isn’t the fat any more, it’s the skin. The skin makes me look like I’m wearing deflated inner tubes around my ass, belly and thighs. I have no idea if I can even lose any more weight or if what I think is weight is merely skin masquerading as pounds.

I can no longer gage my progress by the traditional means of scales, tape measures, body fat meters, and pant sizes; all have been massively skewed by the skin. One day, the scale shot up ten pounds, but my face and upper body were actually much, much thinner. WTF?!! Then, my pant size went up to a 14 when I was a 12, but my top size went down to a 6. All the while, my upper body dwindled and grew thinner. My calves and and triceps became more defined and I could see my ribs when I lay down and the skin flowed to the side.

The solution to this wholly damaging problem is surgery. Body contouring surgery to be exact.

In an eerie twist, a reader posted a comment about this very subject, which I was having an incredibly tough time with yesterday. I was researching surgery options yesterday and became upset with what I found. I’ll post my findings in a second part sometime this week. I’m having a really emotional time right now, what with feeling like a pile of overstretched balloons. I’m allowed to have a “fat” day; I’m calling in my “fat” day right now…

Going into the Y today, I was stoked to try out the new weight lifting regime Biff had shown me on Thursday. First, though, it was time to tackle my interval workout on the elliptical.

Amazingly, my muscles haven’t screamed in protest nearly as much as I initially thought they would. In fact, they didn’t complain one bit the past three times I’ve done the interval training. However, Leftie (my torn left knee) had a few words after my workout. My knee hurt rather badly considering I’ve been healing up well since I first injured it in July. In response to the sharp creaky jabs Leftie’s been directing my way: Shut up! Damn it Leftie, just shut up!!

About when Leftie started yammering, Rightie (an old knee injury in my right knee) added her two cents. Gaaa! Silence you bitches! Don’t make me break out the Vicodan on your asses!

Then the abs started their symphony of pain. You’re all against me! All except my gluts, hamstrings, quads and calves. They’re down.

In a show of solidarity, my upper body sided with my lower muscle groups and staunchly said nadda as I worked them out in the free weight area.

It was a brave show on my part (for me, mind you) to even enter the free weight of my own volition. The equipment reminded me of a dark, iron forest, like the kind featured prominently in children’s tales of horror (yes, Babes in the Woods is a horror story; ask any child who’s read it).

I honestly wanted to pretend I had wandered in there only to tie my shoe, and then run back to the assisted weight equipment when no one was looking. It’s true. I wasn’t as familiar with the area as I wanted to be and knew I’d drop weights or violate some unspoken free weight taboo.

I felt as though the men huddled around the equipment were from some superior tribe, judging my worth to even approach the bench press: “Verily, she doth only lift 15 on the flat press, she is weaaaaakkkkk!”

Yeah, well, 15 or 115, I still mastered my fear of failure and looking like a newbie doof in the free weight area. I stayed there for 30 minutes and finished my routine. I even asked a few people for a some pointers, giving away my total newbie-ness.

Who cares if some meat head gives me (what I think) is a nasty smirk. I don’t lift for him. I don’t lift for the tiny gal next to me who (I think) looks at me funny for easily curling 12 when she’s struggling with 5. Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care. I should spend less time thinking what I can’t do and projecting my assumptions, and more time doing, then I can achieve more with my goals.

It just goes to show you some pain isn’t even physical. Fear is painful. It builds and builds and builds until it paralyzes you as thoroughly as any injury. I got out of my comfort zone and confronted my fear. No one likes to do that, but I have so much at stake, I don’t care how painful something is; if it needs doing it gets done.

They say no pain, no gain. I couldn’t agree more.

Oh how I hate that term: “Everything in moderation.” What does that even mean? Isn’t that such an absolute statement, “Everything”? Does that mean I can snort coke off a toilet seat in Grand Central Station if I only do it once a year? Does it mean I can euthanize endangered species if I only cull the ugly animals? What the hell does that mean?

According to what I’ve been told my whole life, “everything in moderation” means I can smoke a cigarette a day (it’s only one cigarette, c’mon), I can eat fried chicken once a week, I can drink one soda per day and three beers in one go really aren’t that many. Yeah, about that, can I smack the first person who ever uttered that statement to me? If I only do it once, it’s done in moderation.

The reason I have this hateful attitude towards such a seemingly benign phrase is the way it can undermine a person. It lays in wait as you figure, “This Whooper™ is something I eat only once every two weeks. It can’t hurt. Everything in moderation.” You know what happens in reality? That Whopper™ gets eaten once a week. Then twice a week, then every other day. I would tell myself, it’s only once a _(insert time period here)__, when the sad fact was it wasn’t __(insert time period here)___ but much, much more often.

There really are some people who do partake of unhealthy foods only once in a great, great while. However, I challenge anyone to find a handful of people who strictly adhere to “Everything in moderation.” I bet folks will be hard pressed to gather concrete proof that such a practice is adhered to regularly by those who claim to do it. Saying, “I know someone who only does blah blah blah once in a great while,” doesn’t count. Talk is cheap.

This is why I started writing down everything I ate. Everything in moderation became a joke after I reviewed my eating habits.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned these past three years it’s: “Most things in moderation, many things seldom and some things never“. What are most things?

• Dairy (I’m lactose intolerant so this is a biggie for me)
• Eggs
• Grains which aren’t whole, including white rice

What’re seldom things?

• Fried foods (I eat fried foods twice a year; I’m bad that way)
• Sugar
• Wheat products
• Added oils

Never is a long list for me:

• Alcohol
• Processed meals, i.e., TV dinners
• Trans fats (even if the packaging does say 0%, if I see “Partially hydrogenated oil” it doesn’t get bought)
• Sulfates
• Nitrates
• Corn syrup
• Mammal and poultry meat
• Anything with an ingredient list done in 4 point font so it fits on the label

To this day, I’m still struggling with a few of these self-imposed no-nos. My main ones are wheat products, sugar and corn syrup. In other words, snacks. I’m hoping that over time I’ll break my subtle addiction to crackers, cookies and candy, all of which usually have at least two of the above.

Traditional Japanese desserts have become an alternate addiction to most snack foods. Since they’re made with beans, seaweed, chestnuts, fruit, sweet potatoes and rice flour instead of chocolate, cream, gelatin, butter, shortening, and bleached wheat flour, I don’t feel as guilty about being hooked on them then I would if I were hooked on Twinkies™. Japanese desserts do contain sugar, make no mistake about that, but if they’re made at home, the amount of sugar used can be controlled without loss of flavor or texture.

What I did was to slowly switch one unhealthy addiction to a slightly more healthy one, and then switch again later, and then again and again. Finally, I saw I’d given up more than I realized and had gained healthier habits.

Moderation for me began with changing how I perceived food. Then I changed what foods I ate. Beans for dessert is where it’s at! Screw chocolate! Anko forever!!!

It’s hard to keep trim in the winter; it’s too cold outside to be as active as we should be, and it’s too easy to munch down on heavy carbs and meats. Unfortunately, it’s also tempting to chow down on comfort foods, which are basically carbs, meats, or both. I used to love the traditional comfort foods my mom would serve up on an icy night. And what’s the ultimate winter comfort food to me? Easy: Chicken and dumplings.

Divine are the fluffy clouds of biscuit dough floating in a delectable broth of diced up bird. Yuumm. I don’t actually miss the chicken, though, and I surely don’t miss eating dumplings made from trans fat heavy Bisquick™. What I really miss is the flavor and the dumplings. You can recreate both without the chicken or the Bisquick™, yet still have all the down home goodness of this traditional American comfort food with this personal recipe:

Ingredients

For the Soup:

• 8 cups vegetarian or vegan “chicken” broth or 8 cups water mixed with 3 Tbs. powdered “chicken” broth
• 1 1/2 cups vegetarian or vegan “chicken” pieces (we use VegeUSA’s™* “duck”)
• 4 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 carrots, cut into rounds
• 1 large potato, with the skin left on and diced
• 1 Tbs. parsley
• 1 1/2 tsp. basil
• 1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. salt, (optional)

For the Dumplings:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 tsp. sugar (may be omitted)
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 3 Tbs. trans fat-free vegetable shortening**
• 1 Tbs. veggie-based butter (we use Smart-Balance Light™)
• 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream or soy sour cream
• 1/2 cup plain soy milk

Directions:

1. In a large pot add the broth, “chicken”, veggies, and seasonings, bring it all to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes on low heat.
2. Make dumplings by whisking together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and black pepper.
3. Cut shortening into dry ingredients until well blended.
4. Melt veggie butter in microwave and combine melted butter with soy milk and sour cream. (This makes a fantastic, guilt-free buttermilk substitute.) Add “buttermilk” to flour mixture, blending thoroughly.
5. Gently knead the dough in the bowl a few times.
6. Drop golf ball-sized pieces of dumpling dough into soup until the dough is gone. Cover the pot with a lid and simmer on low for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 Servings

This tasted sooooo good. It was much better than I remembered. David (my wonderful husband) and I were stuffed after one bowl, but we kinda sorta managed, against our better judgment, to put away another serving. Fake meat and loads of veggies make for one hearty meal!

*VegeUSA has an impressive line of dried, inexpensive fake “meats”. Thanks to Buddhism, meat alternatives such as mock “duck”, “beef” and “chicken” are sold cheaply at most Asian markets. I say this often and with all seriousness: “God bless Buddhism!”

**Crisco still isn’t good for healthy cooking. It now uses fully hydrogenated soy bean oil, which is just as god-awful as the partially hydrogenated crap. Don’t be fooled! I always check labels.

Difficulty: Very Easy | Time: 40 minutes | Ingredient Availability: Moderate

I crawled outta bed at 6:00 this morning in order to make my 7:00 YTP appointment at the YMCA (the Y for short). I work my best at nights and consequently work late and get up late, but this needed to get done.

I was to meet “Biff” to discuss a new weight lifting regime to build up additional lean muscle mass. By new regime, I mean totally new, to me. I was finally going to learn how to lift free weights. Confession time: Free weights frighten me. I see the occasional woman in the free weight area and they’re usually doing light exercises with low weights. However, I mostly see huge, sweaty, grunting men bonding over massive chunks of iron. Scary.

Biff listened as I told my story for the umpteenth time: Need lose more weight, lost much weight already, need new improved routine. When I told him about my “obese” moment with the body fat meter, he scoffed. He informed me the only real test which would be most accurate for my situation would be the one where they dunk a person in water. Boy, was I warming up to Biff!

He showed me a whole slew of exercises for every area of my upper body. I could choose any three to do out of the five exercises specific to a muscle group, a total of fifteen exercises in all. He said I should never get bored with my routine. Too true.

Then we worked on abs. I complained even if I built up stronger abs, no one would see them because of the extra skin from the weight loss. He gave me a good admonishing for that one. I should be incredibly proud of what I did, he said, and still keep working towards my goal. Fine, but I’m still irate that I won’t have clue what my tummy will look until after I go under a knife.

After that, it was time to try out on the eliptical the new interval training, which was comprised of two minutes doing my regular level and incline and then doing two minutes with a much steeper incline and a higher resistance. Oh lord! Pain and wheezing like never before!

I swear I greased the rails of the machine with the deluge of sweat gushing from my pores. I was panting like a pooch in a Midwestern August. The electronic tunes from my I-pod were the only things cheering me on and keeping me going. I’m in good to great shape, but I pushed myself harder than I had in two years.

After my 30 minutes were up I almost fell off the damn machine, but managed with a little grace to slide down and wobble to the wipe down station. I cooled down, did my stretches and shuffled outta the Y. I barely made it up the stairs to the apartment and spent a good 20 minutes under a hot shower, mostly because I was too wiped out to shut off the water and get the day started.

Crap, I know I’m going be hella sore tomorrow. I’m happy though. It almost feels like I’m starting fresh with my routine, which I am, but it’s like the freshness of Alpha and not of Beta, which is what this is in actuality; a Beta run. Who cares what you call it I feel so good right now, I don’t mind I’ll bedridden for two days.