…and the weight just fell off!

Monday, January 16, 2012 at 6:07 pm (Writing by Ear)
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If I read one more person’s story about how they quit eating sugar or wheat or meat or dairy — or all four — or started walking or gave up pop or got a divorce or took up belly dancing “and the weight just fell off,” I’m going to, well, I don’t know what, but the point is, I’m tired of reading that.

In my experience, nothing I do will make weight “fall off,” short of lopping off an arm or leg with a chainsaw. Not that I’ve tried that, but I’m pretty sure it would work.

However, no amount of diet modification, calorie counting, dread-inducing exercise, mind-over-matter attitude, spiritual awakening or ANYTHING I’ve ever done has resulted in weight “just falling off.”

Maybe if I was significantly overweight to begin with, this shedding would happen. But losing 5 (or maybe 10) pounds has been next to impossible for as long as I’ve needed to.

Yes, 20+ years ago, I followed a strict low-fat diet for health reasons, and I was pretty darn skinny. But I was pretty thin when I started, so that hardly counts.The diet didn’t make me feel any different, so I stopped.

Yes, I did a pretty strict diet for a few months a couple years ago and lost weight. It made me look old (ummm, I didn’t really need to lose weight in my face and neck, thank you), and it was a drag since it was virtually impossible to find anything to eat at restaurants — at least the restaurants we frequent.

Yes, every Lent I give up something — most often sweets — and I do lose a few pounds. Maybe 2 or 3 over the course of 6 weeks. It comes right back on when the sugar-fast is over. Like, say, at Easter brunch with my in-laws.

Yes, I go on exercise kicks. Exercise makes me ravenous, so I eat more. No weight loss through exercise. Ever.

Yes, I often try to eat four 400-calorie meals a day. A 400-calorie meal usually seems like a snack.I think I just had one — light whole grain flatbread tortilla wrapped around a few tablespoons each of hummus and cottage cheese and a handful of spring mix with a cutie orange on the side. I’m busy now thinking about what else I can eat. Preferably something that starts with potato and ends with chips — even though I know we don’t have any because I ate them all a couple days ago.

I often think I could be REALLY happy just eating 1600 calories a day of junk. Potato chips mostly, with some chocolate occasionally to balance out the salt with sugar. Maybe some nachos once in a while.

I also love healthy food — brown rice, tofu, roasted veggies. I could live on that, too. But Mike can’t, so I’d have to make 2 different meals all the time, and it’s enough of a drag just making one. But, yes, I was thinner when I lived alone. And no, that weight-loss tactic is not on the table!

So that leaves me where I am. Needing (OK, wanting) to lose 5-8 lbs. Trying to watch what I eat (I know it’s an issue of quantity rather than quality, most of the time). Trying to force myself to exercise a few times a week. Feeling frustrating that short of following a super restrictive diet that makes me unhappy, those skinny jeans will likely stay buried in my drawer forevermore.

And that just sucks.

She looked as if she had been poured into
her clothes and had forgotten to say “when.”
~ P.G. Wodehouse

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Life in a million little pieces

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 2:24 pm (Writing by Ear)
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I spent a good part of my morning sitting in the car dealership waiting for some recall-related service work, watching Boomer Esiason (seriously?) cohost Regis & Kelly and listening to the old guy next to me burp repeatedly (and not excuse himself — sorry, age doesn’t make that OK). It was good to get back to my office, even though it’s shred-fest time. Every year I go back and shred my tax info from 8 years prior. So this year, I’m shredding my 2004 work life.

I dread the annual shred, which takes several days to make sure I don’t blow up my shredder and never fails to leave little bits of paper all over everything, no matter how careful I am.

Like sands through the hourglass (and paper through the shredder), so are the days of our lives.

Anyone else remember that? I grew up watching soaps — some of my earliest memories are of having to take an afternoon nap (until I was 6 and in first grade!), during which time I was not allowed up until 3:30 or something. I used to crouch at the top of the stairs and listen for one of the soaps to come on (could have been Days of Our Lives, could have been Another World), so I knew it was OK for me to get up. Of course, I’m sure the daily nap “for my own good” was really so my poor mom could lie down and rest for a bit between doing the wash (worsh), cleaning, cooking, etc., etc. for our family of nine.

It’s interesting, though, as I shred old check stubs and such, to see what I was working on “back then.” In 2004, I was working with a company who managed its contractors through an outside firm, so I have many stubs from an intermediary I had forgotten all about and can’t even recall which client the work was for. (Which is a little scary, since 8 years is not that long ago.) And I was living in a different house and Mike and I were only dating. OK — so now it does feel like a long time ago.

I’m also having the usual post-holiday, “Oh my God I’ve got to get rid of some of this crap!” anxiety and scanning the house for things I can toss or donate. While I see plenty of things, most are not mine to dispose of (ahem) so will have to stay. But it bothers me to know that we could empty this house of half its contents and never miss them! Attic stuff, basement stuff, closet stuff, drawer stuff — so much stuff. It’s suffocating. [Make that “stuffocating” — brilliant, Mel!]

But now I’m merely procrastinating. It’s time to get back to the shredding, de-Christmasing, thinking about exercising, halfhearted organizing, and general life contemplation that are as much a part of January as playoff season. Oh. Wait. That didn’t work out so well either.

You have succeeded in life when all you really want
is only what you really need.
~ Vernon Howard

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Another kind of “heart healthy”

Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 2:21 pm (Writing by Ear)
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So, just when you bemoan jerks that bounce $5 rebate checks, someone comes through to restore your faith in humankind — and give new meaning to the word.

It didn’t dawn on me until two days later that I didn’t seem to have the cocoa-roasted almonds I’d bought at Sam’s Club the other day to give to my neighbors for Christmas. I searched my house. I searched the trunk and back seat. I checked my receipt to verify I had, indeed, purchased them as I thought. Yep, there was the $9.98 charge. But no almonds anywhere.

Nuts.

I took a long shot and decided to go back to the store and see if by chance someone had found my almonds and turned them in.

“I know this is a long shot,” I said to the woman at the Service Desk at Sam’s. “But did anyone…?”

She grabbed a binder from under the counter and started flipping through it. Evidently, people must lose or leave stuff behind often enough that they have to track it.

She was starting to shake her head no, when she suddenly perked up and said, “Were those Emerald almonds?”

“Yes!” I said.

“Go get another one,” she said. “Someone turned them in.”

No way, really?

Some people are such good souls. Far more than those who are, as my friend aptly put it while commenting on my last post, “jagoffs.”

Sure does wonders for one’s heart health — far beyond what the almond ads promise.

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

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