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Valley Village, California 
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Total entries in this category: Published On: Oct 08, 2008 10:46 PM |
Sun - October 5, 2008The Big 2-5Either having a fever is burning fat faster
(entirely possible) or sleeping later means there's less water in my system to
measure when I get up (also possible) but this morning I weighed in at 171
pounds -- 25 down from my top weight.
I'm beginning, at last, to feel it. It's noticeably easier to climb the 4 flights of stairs from my garage to my apartment (it should be, as I have lost the equivalent of a weekend backpack's worth of weight.) More and more of my wardrobe is available to me. People at work are noticing and asking how I've done it. Therefore, I'm approaching a very dangerous time for me. I don't like attention, at least not in person; it feels strange to be the center of avid questions about diet and exercise. Further, the ghosts of the last time I lost weight are beginning to haunt me. I had gotten to about 184, then lost to somewhere in the 150's. At 150-165, I can buy clothes off the rack in ordinary department stores (many carry size 14 petite). I CAN climb stairs without huffing and puffing. So the temptation is to let rationalization take over, and just stay in that range. Never mind that I'm still classified as obese or overweight, never mind that someone who's 5'2" should be much lighter. Never mind that I've had heart problems before, and my body shape is the "apple" shape that portends greater problems. So, yeah, rather than celebrating my success so far, I'm dreading the trip wires I've encountered before. I'm hoping that by writing it down I'll take some of the power out of the fear (just as that horrible picture took the rationalization blinders off how fat I'd become.) Posted at 01:02 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Tue - September 30, 2008Chart for September, 2008 There's
the weight chart for September. The "Flagged" weight was the day that I decided
to stop listening to my body (again) because it was lying to me (again.) It was
telling me that I was hungry all the time, and far too tired and in too much
pain to exercise even the least little bit... So I ignore it. I eat when I plan
to eat, what I plan to eat, and (more recently) I exercise whether I think I'm
too tired or in too much pain, or not (I don't ignore the pain; I avoid making
it worse; but at the same time not moving will, in the long run, make it MUCH
worse.) I once heard a most respected speaker in a recovery group say, "Drugs
don't give me a craving for more drugs. They cause my body to produce the
symptom that only more of that drug will relieve." So it is for me with food; my
body periodically informs me that only sugar/carbs/no exercise will cause it to
stop feeling whatever the heck it is it's feeling. Am I doing this perfectly?
No. Am I a heckuva lot better than I was? You
bet.
So there it is. I think I need not have panicked in August; there is hardly any danger of me going anorexic, for the love of Bob. Posted at 10:29 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Sun - September 28, 2008Update, 9/28/08Let's
see:
9/29/08: Oops, forgot to publish this yesterday... more later. SFL Posted at 07:51 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Mon - September 22, 2008Mixed EmotionsToday the scale says that I've lost an even 20
pounds.
My records tell me that my weight loss trend has been steadily negative since July 13. That I haven't had a sugar binge since then. That I haven't had a carb binge of any kind since late August. That I cleaned up my food completely more than a week ago. And yet... and yet... I lied to myself so thoroughly, and believed my own BS so completely, that at 196 pounds I could look in the mirror and think that I looked good in clothes that were designed for a figure from four to six inches smaller in diameter than I was at the time. When I look in the mirror now, I think I look fatter than I thought I looked then. I am just now enough smaller to HONESTLY fit the larger clothes in my wardrobe. I gotta take those monthly photos I threatened. Something about the photo I posted helps break through the web of lies in my brain. I look at that and say, "Yeah, I looked bad. And yeah, I look better now." And that helps me to think, "Yeah, I felt bad then. And yeah, I feel better now." Still, it's hard to celebrate when I have anywhere from 50 to 70 pounds to go (I don't know exactly; I haven't been in that range for many, many years. I'll see how I look (and more importantly, how I feel) when I get there. Off to plan a Zone-compatible pot of chili at this cool website (found by my Hubby): Zone Diet Calculator Posted at 11:00 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Fri - September 5, 2008Chart for August, 2008 Oh
well, no "progress" picture this month. Things just didn't work out for Younger
Son to photograph me at the appropriate
time.
I'm back to pure Zone Diet eating after three weeks of nighttime carbs a la Radiant Recovery. Struggling with hunger from the night carb just wasn't worth it. I found myself with late night food cravings I hadn't had on the Zone, and no amount of switching food among my various meals seemed to eliminate it. It's taken me a week off the carb to get back to a clean zone diet. Regarding the graph, I flagged Aug. 9 as the day I increased my zone blocks to 13. There was a very gradual decrease in the slope of the trend -- which decrease accelerated alarmingly after adding in the nighttime carb and my food went partly out of control. (No, I didn't flag that day, darn it. Other flags are just interpolated weights.) More of that flatter slope shows up on the early September chart. Regarding the "planned weight" line on the graph, that represents a two pound per week loss rate; it's not an actual plan as such, but a way for me to gauge the slope of the trendline. Dang, I'm such a geek. Posted at 07:50 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Fri - August 29, 2008Official "Before" Picture
Here is my official "before" picture. This is the heaviest picture I've got of
me; it was taken on 7/30/2008, when I was at 188 pounds, according to my
Hacker's Diet log. The moving average weight for that date was 191.5 pounds. I
was as heavy as 196 pounds at the beginning of July, but have no pictures of
that (thank you, Merciful Universe.)
My most current weight is 180 pounds, and the moving average of 182.7. That's eight pounds down from the end of July, and sixteen from my heaviest. I do not want to ever forget how I looked, and how I felt. At my heaviest, I couldn't get my rings off my hands. My "fat pants" were cutting into my waist so that it was uncomfortable to sit for more than 30 minutes. Dragging myself upstairs to my apartment from my garage was a nightmare by itself, let alone with packages in tow. In just two months, my rings no longer stick. I'm still wearing the "fat pants," but they don't hurt. They're not loose yet (heck, the pockets still pull out of line) but I'm beginning to think a belt may be a good idea Real Soon Now. I'm going to have Younger Son take another picture of me on Sunday, to post with my August weight chart. I intend to do this every month for the indefinite future. It's not for you so much, dear readers (why should you care about my fat?) but so that I can't hide from the reality of where my food addiction took me, and how far my recovery has come (or has yet to go, depending on how you look at it.) The adventure continues. Posted at 07:51 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Tue - August 26, 2008Food recovery status 8/26/08A few notes before I dash to
work:
Posted at 08:01 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Wed - August 20, 2008A brief check-in:Knee problems are plaguing my attempts at climbing
the Fitness Ladder. I need to find another strength
training program. Something that consumes minimal time, and can be done
anywhere without equipment would be favorite... Suggestions are
welcome.
And as well, I found that I needed to change my bedtime snack from a Zone diet snack to a bedtime carb as suggested by DesMaisons. Vivid dreams since starting the carb have convinced me that serotonin levels were way low. Photos from San Francisco have arrived-- Younger Son came through! I'm preparing a post, but it's still a rough draft. More later... gotta get ready for work as incredibly perky carpool driver arriving soon... Posted at 07:03 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Sun - August 10, 2008Hacker's Diet Chart for July 2008 Here
is my formal chart for July. I've chosen to use flags to mark linear
interpolation of missing values.
Note the startling drop beginning at July 21, the day after I started the Zone diet. On July 20, I used the estimate of my lean body mass to put my block requirements at 11 blocks per day (approx. 120 calories/block). I nudged that up slightly on July 21 to 12 blocks per day after seeing that at my percentage body fat (large) I needed to allow for more activity. (It just takes more muscle and energy to move all that fat up and down the stairs every day.) I've kept at that level from July 22 until yesterday. Yesterday, I looked at my current charts and trends. Despite bounces up and down, the trend has remained at 2 to 2.5 pounds weight loss per week. Not one diet authority, not even Barry Sears, recommends such a rapid weight loss. Further, I recall from my only supervised attempt at weight loss (after giving birth to Older Son) that the nutritionist was startled at how many calories I could eat and still lose weight... OK, so my metabolism is way high for some reason. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Even though my lean body mass isn't slipping, I chose yesterday to increase the number of blocks I'm eating daily to 13. If after two or three weeks, the weight loss hasn't slowed to about 1.5 pounds per week, I'll add in another block and see how it goes. Posted at 08:48 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Wed - August 6, 2008Progress -- I am now a Sessile Sea PredatorMy trip to San Francisco (pix to be published
sometime next week) seems to have slowed down my weight loss. This is neither
good nor bad, just an interesting datum; I balanced my meals to the best of my
ability, but I still have trouble judging portions when eating out. The nice
thing about working with the Zone diet is the attitude that one is at most
one meal away from "the Zone;" therefore, a miscalculation or even deliberate
slip doesn't mean starting over.
No drama of starting over?? Pooh. Beating myself up over an extra almond and using that as an excuse for a serious cookie binge is one of my favorite sports.  Meanwhile, I've progressed to Rung 2 of the Hacker's diet fitness ladder, which I've named "Sessile Sea Predator." With an investment of about 5 minutes a day (at these levels) maybe I can get enough strength and wind back to go backpacking again someday... Posted at 10:56 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Tue - August 5, 2008Rung 1= Out-of-shape jellyfishThe Hacker's Diet exercise plan has "rungs". There
are far too many of them, ranging from 1 ("Out-of-shape jellyfish") to 48 ("I'm
Batman.")
Despite biking, I started last week at "Out-of-shape jellyfish". I hope to move up to 2 ("sessile sea predator") tomorrow. And my apologies to all real jellyfish and sessile sea predators, who are in much better shape than I. Posted at 11:14 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Mon - August 4, 2008Plain old boring exerciseHiking and biking may deserve their own topic, but
plain old boring exercise, such as the exercise
program suggested in The Hacker's Diet,
doesn't.
On the other hand, I did my entire exercise routine in the middle of the waiting area at San Francisco International yesterday. Pushups, running in place, jumping jacks.... all of it. Plus stretching. And I didn't get a ticket for Gross Fat Bouncing, nor indeed did anyone particularly notice (or they were just too polite and/or astonished to say anything.) This is a new level of courage for me. A gym -- sure! No problem. I figure all those skinny muscular people were fat once; that's why they're there and that's why they're skinny. Bike with my fat hanging off the saddle -- hey, we're all just trying to commute here in L.A. But doing calisthenics IN PUBLIC? My departed mother (maysherestinpeace) would break out in hives. This one's for you, Mom. Posted at 07:54 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Sun - July 27, 2008Food Recovery GratitudeThis started out as a very snarky blog entry. But
as I wrote, I realized how inappropriate that was. Each of the
books/authors/tools that I was being snarky about in fact had provided me with
valuable wisdom. No one of them, however, has provided a complete solution.
Instead of snarling at each thing that was incomplete, I decided that it was
time to acknowledge how much I owed to
each:
Posted at 10:41 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Fri - July 25, 2008Confession time...Yesterday was a bad day in Food Plan Land.
Ironically, it was not eating enough carbs with breakfast (the first time I'd
eaten out on my new food plan. I estimated wrong.) I had
planned my lunch and afternoon snack lighter than usual to allow myself more at
my breakfast out... net result: I was hungry from about 10am until dinner at
7:30pm.
The good news: a) I didn't use this as an excuse to eat everything in sight (and that's a lot at my office... people constantly bring in goodies, and my department has an official Goodie Pantry Pool...); b) after a normal plan dinner I felt MUCH better; and c) this morning I feel WONDERFUL. I'm dancing, singing, blogging.... My lessons: First, balance is CRITICAL. If I mess up the protein/carb balance either way, I'm going to feel it. Second, I am quite possibly better off with a lighter breakfast and a heartier lunch. Third, given how hard a few carb grams hit me and the rate at which I've been losing pounds (v. fast) I may need to INCREASE my total food intake. I will be watching this to see if the rate of losing pounds slows any. Posted at 08:19 AM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | Wed - July 23, 2008Finding my own path.I'm wandering further and further from the Seven
Steps of Radiant Recovery, I
fear.
It's not that I don't believe those seven steps work... I'm just really not comfortable with them. The gradual movement towards cleaning up my food -- it's just Not How We Do These Things in my primary substance recovery groups. Maybe the gradual way is easier/better, but I got sober at a time when no one went to rehab, unless the state put you in the mental hospital. You just didn't use your substance. No matter what. You sweated it out. You called people. You consumed horrible sweet concoctions so that the withdrawal of alcohol/drugs didn't put you into convulsions. While I didn't convulse, I looked like death warmed over, and I didn't sleep for two weeks. Once you're physically clean off your substance, then you start working on emotional recovery so that you don't go back. At least, that's how I learned it. I want my food to be clean, already. And I want a clearly defined food plan that doesn't morph through seven stages, that's flexible enough to deal with almost any eating situation, and yet that gives me enough structure so that I can look at a meal and say, "That's a clean meal," or "That's not a clean meal." And that's what I believe I've found, for me, in Barry Sears' Zone eating plan. Nothing in Sears' work contradicts DesMaison; indeed, they are complements. A Zone-favorable meal resembles nothing so much as DesMaison's recommended eating plan for weight loss (although DesMaison's bedtime potato would give Sears the creeps.) But the advantage for me is that the Zone is quantified. It's clear how much I should be eating, and of what. Yet, it's totally flexible for social situations, and for physical situations (e.g. I either really start working out and need more food, or I become ill, lose muscle mass and therefore need less). I started eating according to the Zone plan on Saturday. I've had no cravings. No hunger. No withdrawal. No crabbiness. Before the infection hit me Monday afternoon, I was singing at work. Yeah, it takes some time and effort to calculate the correct ratio of carbs/protein/fat, but I'm sure it will become second nature soon. And I'm happier, because I KNOW what I'm supposed to be eating, and I KNOW that my food is clean. Now. Not several months from now. Even better, Younger Son has joined me in the Zone. He wouldn't even bother with Potatoes not Prozac; even though he knew he was sugar-sensitive, the concept of a slow detox with accompanying journaling did not interest him at all. But he is full of enthusiasm for the Zone, and that counts for a lot. Right now, my plan is to follow the Zone recommendation strictly for at least two weeks; if at that time I feel depressed, I'll change the Zone bedtime snack to a bedtime potato. As far as I can tell, that is the ONLY qualitative difference between the two eating plans (at least, the final stage DesMaison plan). Posted at 09:35 PM Permalink | | Spoilers (if any) | | |
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