mizducky's migrations: a weight management blog with attitude

Gone on temporary hiatus for health reasons

Hi gang--

You'll recall, a couple of posts back, that I mentioned confronting some potentially momentous health issues. Well, the tests are pretty much all in now, and alas I'm going to need to go in the hospital for some major (and rather serious) surgery.

Unless something really weird happens, this surgery will be going down a week from today--Monday, August 7th. I'll probably be in the hospital for a few days afterward recovering, and then home for more recovery--they're telling me it'll probably be a good six weeks from date of cutting to when I'll be 100% again. I'm hoping and assuming that I'll be fairly functional (i.e. ready to get back online) after the first week or two, but I honestly won't know for sure until I get there.

So, between all that, and the fact that the gory details of that surgery are kind of off-topic for this blog, I'm going to be putting this one on hiatus for a little while... okay, maybe if and when I'm feeling up to it, I might log in here to make some disparaging comments about hospital food. But I seriously suspect things will be pretty danged quiet on this blog for the next few weeks.

Those of you who *would* like to know all the gory details, and to keep tabs on how I'm doing, I invite you to follow my personal LiveJournal. Just about all the posts on that blog pertaining to my operation are/will be set to "friends-only,"  so you will need to have a LiveJournal account and request that I add you as a friend to view them. The easiest way to do that is to add me to your own LiveJournal friends list; I'll be checking my LiveJournal every day between now and the evening of August 6th, and if I see you've "friended" me between now and then, I will "friend" you back. How's that for a deal?

I do fully intend to continue my healthy eating patterns throughout this latest blip in my life--and I also am fully intending to come back to this blog once I'm sufficiently on the mend. In the meantime, once again I will gratefully accept any and all thoughts, prayers, or whatever other spiritual/philosophical positive energies you might feel moved to send my way on August 7th and afterward. In the meantime, y'all take care of yourselves too, and enjoy that healthy attitude!

Peace out,
/the duck

Weekly weigh-in: a day early

I've got other news that's sufficiently momentous that I'm going to give it a post all its own. But meanwhile, here are the latest numbers:

• Today's weigh-in: 269.0 lb
• Change since last week: -0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 65 lb

I've come to realize that if I go to weigh myself in the afternoon as I did today, as opposed to first thing in the morning, that my weight is a little higher than it would be otherwise. Between that, and recent health issues (of which more in that next post), I'm not at all sweating the fact that I've registered only a half-pound loss since last week.

So ... stand by for that promised next post.

Weekly weigh-in -- plus: request for positive thoughts

Well, at least in terms of weight management my bod seems to be cooperating with me once again:

• Today's weight: 269.5 lb
• Change since last weigh-in: -3.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 64.5 lb

So whatever blip caused last week's plateau, seems to have ironed itself out. And lookie! I've passed another little milestone: I'm now below 270 lbs, a weight I haven't seen in ages and ages.

Meanwhile ... I have a little favor to ask of those who read this blog.

You see, I am currently in that uncomfortable life-situation familiar to many, that of waiting to receive the full results of a medical diagostic procedure. I don't want to get into too much detail right now, but suffice it to say this is one of those medical situations in which the possibilities are significant that it could be something relatively easy to deal with, but the risks of scarier things are not negligible. And you know how these situations go: the initial tests were apparently inconclusive, so now I'm waiting for the followup examinations and etc., and in the meantime I'm just trying to hang out and not freak out. Especially given my hugely high level of trust in the Medical Establishment (insert glyph of deepest sacasm here).

So, my request to you readers: to simply keep me in your thoughts, and whatever spiritual or meditational disciplines you might observe, while I wend my way through this latest wicket in the medical steeplechase. Many thanks--it really means a lot to me.

Diet beverages that (sorta) don't suck--heat wave edition

My attitude with regard to diet industry food products has admittedly been kind of schizoid. In general, I don't trust the diet industry or its wonder-foods any further than I can throw their staff nutritionists. The quality and taste of the products mostly suck, and the artificial ingredient lists put me off. However, there are a handful of products I use anyway:

• some, like The Laughing Cow's light cheese, because they actually do taste pretty damn good;
• some, like certain brands of non-stick cooking spray, because they actually serve a useful purpose and are inoffensive in flavor;
• and then there are a few items that I just use anyway because ... well, maybe because I'm just a desperate sucker.

Into that third category fall all sorts of diet soft drinks. I try to avoid the damn things, because these beverages have some of the most intimidating-looking ingredient lists on the planet, and no redeeming nutritional value whatsoever ... except for their water content, and since getting my full cemplement of fluids every day is a continual struggle, I have given myself permission to drink any beverage that makes that fluid intake even a little more enticing.

My latest diet beverage enthusiasm, however, is perhaps a new nadir for me. Someone on eGullet was going on about those diet beverage powders, like Crystal Light and the like. At first blush, they sounded pretty unappealing. Still, the weather was heating up, and I was getting really bored with iced herbal tea, so the next time I shopped at a mainstream supermarket I checked out the stuff. Lemonade--pink or white--seemed to be a popular flavor choice, but it wasn't turning my crank. But then I spotted what was alledged to be a strawberry/orange/banana combo, and curiosity got the better of me.

Verdict: well, the stuff does taste totally artificial, and very sweet; the banana aspect of the flavor is probably the only thing that saves it from just being that proverbial "bug juice" known to kids in summer camps everywhere. The banana flavor also masks the Nutrasweet aftertaste better than some. But you can't really call this a high-quality beverage.

And yet--damn, the stuff's addictive. Especially in the recent heat, when I really need to not neglect my fluids but just find it a chore to keep up, this new-style bug juice has really made it easy. I've been going through pitchers of the stuff without blinking an eye. Ghod knows what it's doing to my kidneys ... although a long-time local resident assured me that it was probably no worse than San Diego's rather "crunchy" public water supply.

Another brand of diet soft drinks that doesn't suck too badly are Hansen's Diet Sodas. Hansen's is a brand of "natural" soft drinks known for interesting flavors like strawberry/kiwi and and key lime. Their diet sodas also feature interesting flavors, and are sweetened with Splenda, which I find has less funky aftertaste than Nutrasweet (your mileage may vary). Various local supermarkets also have store brands of "natural" diet sodas (now there's an oxymoron) with interesting flavors, usually bottled in clear plastic so that you can see the pop is also clear (they at least didn't bother with the artificial color, whoopie).

Meanwhile, I understand that the name brand soft drink manufacturers keep on bringing out more and more variants, no doubt to entice others who, like me, get easily bored with beverage. But they've totally lost me with their bazillion variants of already-established flavors (what the hell, I thought Fresca was just supposed to be grapefruit flavor). I did drink a cherry-vanilla diet Dr. Pepper the other day ... I like Dr. Pepper, but this stuff was too over-flavored even for me. And way over-carbonated.

Who knows--maybe I'll get sufficiently overdosed on all this over-flavored crap and go back to herbal iced tea--or maybe even just plain water, how's that for a revolutionary idea? But in the meantime, I'll keep swilling down the swill, figuring that at least in this weather I deserve a break from totally-doctrinaire healthfulness.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Nutrition Theory - Dietary Therapy - Five Element Foods

Link: Traditional Chinese Medicine Nutrition Theory - Dietary Therapy - Five Element Foods.

I was Googling around, searching for info on various foods considered by various traditional medicine systems to be cooling in hot summer weather, and stumbled across the above link. I had previously been exposed to traditional Chinese medicine's nutritional precepts as adapted by Annemarie Colbin. The above-linked description gives a fuller explanation, with lots of links to related topics all over the parent website (hosted by an accupuncture clinic in Massachusetts). Fascinating stuff!

Weekly weigh-in -- scale madness

The past couple of days have proven to me--as if I really needed any further proof--that my decision not to own a bathroom scale was very wise indeed.

I went by my HMO's office yesterday for my regular weekly weigh-in, climbed on the scale, and--horrors! I had gained a pound!

What the fuck? I swear I hadn't done anything in the past week that could have accounted for that, my first backwards step since I started this whole project. In fact, I could have sworn there were weeks I was a lot more loosey-goosey with my food, and I not only lost but lost big. So what the hell was going on?

Rather than reasonably considering that question, however, guess what I did instead?

I went to use the bathroom, came back, and weighed myself again ... and with my shoes off this time.

Not only is this a primo example of stupid-ass dieter-mentality behavior, all this gambit gained me--or should I say, lost me--is a single pound. So instead of being one pound up, I was a net wash for the week. Plus, now I felt kind of dirty for having tried to "game the system."

And could I leave it alone? Hell no! I knew I had one of my monthly followup/aftercare sessions from my HMO weight loss program the following day--that would be today--so I resolved that I would weigh myself again, one more time, and call that my official weight of the week. Nevermind that in-between I had a truly bizarro day in store foodwise: I was scheduled for a CT scan, so I had to spend most of yesterday before the scan fasting, and then had to drink about a quart of that lovely barium milkshake they give you so that your innards will glow in the dark properly. Oh yeah, and as the techs warned me, that barium crap gives you one king-hell of a case of the trots afterward ...

So, fast-forward over all that TMI stuff to today. I go into my HMO's office, weigh myself again ... and this time I'm half a pound up from my official weigh-in of the previous week. Even after being forced to fast the previous day, and then having, erm, cleared out my system rather thoroughly thereafter.

The scale-gods must be crazy.

So ... I dunno, I think that, just for my sanity and the sake of honesty, I'm going to go with today's weight like I resolved I would. Either my memory is playing tricks on me and my food was sloppier last week than I though it was; or my bod is in another peri-menopausal cycle and I'm retaining water; or my lower level of exercise due to the heat wave is starting to have a negative impact on my weight management; or the scale at my HMO needs to be recalibrated again (it's gone verifiably out of whack before); or maybe it's sunspots. Whatever. In the larger scheme of things, a half-pound gain isn't going to kill me. But I am going to be super-careful-clean about my food this coming week just to be sure.

And I'm also going to see about some hot-weather work-arounds on the exercise front. Yeah, this is a heat wave, but it's not like summer in SoCal is particularly mild under normal circumstances, y'know? So I'm gonna blow off exercise for the entire summer just because it's hot? I sure as hell hope not!

Anyway--there, I've come clean about my momentary lapse in sanity, and I feel a lot better for it. So, having gotten all that off my chest, here are the official numbers:

• Today's weight: 272.5 lb
• Change since last week: +0.5 lb
• Cumulative loss: 61.5 lb

Sigh. Onward and upward ... or something like that.

Random stuff that's been turning me on recently

Too hot to think of grand all-encompassing rant topics, so here instead are a few bits and pieces that have been making me smile:

• Blueberries: I was shopping in my local Food-4-Less yesterday, and spotted blueberries at $2.49 for a full-pound plastic clamshell box. Usually it's something like $2.49 for a tiny half-pint container, so of course I had to buy the cheapo berries. I quickly remembered how much I adore these little balls of beauty--some were tart, and some were meltingly sweet, and all of them were totally yummy (note the use of the past tense there--between last night and this morning, I've basically inhaled them all already). Blueberries are also low in calories and packed with anti-oxidants, but the main thing is that they taste so goooooood.
• Fixing my pressure cooker: my housemate innocently ran my pressure cooker, lid and all, through the dishwasher. My concerns about this were proved when I next went to use it, and the damn thing wouldn't hold its pressure at all. Now I had carefully saved the instruction manual, but of course I saved it in some really safe place that I can no longer remember. A bit of traipsing around the web, though, finally revealed that one of the safety interlock thingies in the lid of my Manttra pressure cooker is designed to give out under overly high temperatures--like when the pressure in the cooker goes too high ... or when subjected to the super-hot water in a dishwasher. But all's well that ends well--the replacement part cost maybe four bucks with shipping, and Manttra got the part to me in three days. There was a certain amount of expletives involved in taking the lid's pressure-interlock mechanism apart, fiddling with all the fiddly bits, and putting it back together again. But I tested the cooker out, and voila! it works again! Housemate is now on alert not to put the cooker lid in the dishwasher, and I feel absurdly pleased with myself for my little bit of detective and fixit work.
• More personal dance therapy: I went to hear one of my friend's bands play this past Thursday night, and once again enjoyed another spate of free-form dancersize. This time I managed not to damage myself so much that I was hobbling around like an old lady the next day. But I did note that I really need to get myself some better dancing shoes. All my current footwear has really fierce non-slip soles, mainly because with my crappy joints I became really paranoid about slipping and falling and banging myself up even more. However, non-slip soles are definitely *not* what you want when trying to boogie on a good hardwood dance floor. In fact, a shoe that grips the floor is the worst thing in the world for putting unpleasant amounts of torque on one's knee joint while attempting to shake one's booty. So I am now forced--forced, mind you!--to go buy more shoes. I'm so heartbroken about this (insert glyph of maniacal laughter here).
• Speaking of being forced to buy more stuff for myself ... I've now not only lost enough weight that I really desperately needed to buy some new smaller clothes, but now some of this new smaller clothing is starting to fall off me too. I am trying my best to shop the sales and discount joints as much as possible, but I also want to honor my newer, smaller bod by not clothing it in crap. So I'm treating myself to a few nice (but still bargain) things. All I can say is, my church's rummage sale organizers are really gonna love me come October!

Semi-off-topic: New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way: Alternative Approaches for Women 30-90, by Susan S. Weed

Link: Amazon.com: New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way: Alternative Approaches for Women 30-90 (Wise Woman Herbal Series, Book 5) (Wise Woman Ways): Books: Susan S. Weed.

Okay, this book isn't about weight management as such. But it is about health issues vital to me as a 49-year-old woman who is definitely in the first stages of menopause. And it's also about sane and healthy alternatives to the brute-force bang-it-with-a-crowbar approach of the modern Western medical industry, which is totally on-topic for this blog.

As you may have noticed from this blog's sidebar, I am already a serious fan of Susun Weed and her woman/Goddess-centered, organo-groovy approach to alternative health. In this book she turns her considerable expertise and dreamy-groovy attitude loose on the subject of menopause, and it's proving to be wonderfully helpful. Not only is this book chock-full of practical advice and home remedies for all sorts of menopause-related issues physical, mental, and metaphysical, but it's also marvelously reassuring. I've been slowly working my way through it, and I find even just reading the thing to be great therapy. Buy it and let your crone-self get it on!

Weekly weigh-in--plus: feeding a crowd healthily

Well, I could whine about the heat some more, and how it's still making it a royal pain to cook and exercise. But then you'd be fully justified in whining at me for complaining about a fact of life in Southern California. So let's just skip all that and get to this week's numbers:

• Today's weight: 272.0 lb
• Change since last week: -3.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 62 lb

You'll notice that I breezed right through the big six-oh milestone without so much as a blink of an eye. Don't think for a minute, though, that I'm taking that for granted--on the contrary, I'm especially glad of my continued progress given that I've been eating out rather more often than usual this past week. I always try to conform to the almighty food plan as much as possible even when in restaurants, but there's no denying that it's a good bit more challenging than when I'm at home and have total control over recipe content and portion size. So--nice to get the positive feedback that I'm still right on track (despite the weather--whine whine whine giggle).

Meanwhile, one of those eating-out experiences still involved my own cooking. I have volunteered to supply the eats for the after-services coffee hour at my church one service a month, and my first go at it was this past Sunday. The woman in charge of the Church kitchen has been on a one-person war for the past year to stamp out the stale doughnuts and cookies repasts of the past, and I was more than happy to join her in this endeavor--especially since it allowed me to sneak in some healthy foods as well. What I presented last Sunday:

• Homemade hummus -- so simple, and so good! Either boil up some dried chickpeas till nice and soft, or rinse and drain some canned chickpeas. Mash well (but leave some lumps and texture)--by hand, blender, food processor, mortar and pestle, or whatever means necessary. Add to taste all of the following: tahini (Middle Eastern toasted sesame butter--you can substitute a good-quality natural peanut butter in a pinch); lemon juice; mashed raw garlic; fresh-ground pepper; extra-virgin olive oil; salt. Mix well; thin as needed with water, reserved bean juices, or more lemon juice till it's spreadable-to-dippable consistency. Optional: add some finely chopped parsley, cilantro, or green onions to taste.
• Homemade yogurt dip -- this is a super-mild version of an Indian raita, and also dead simple to make. Start with good-quality yogurt--whole milk is preferable, but lowfat will do. Peel, seed, and coarsely grate a big cucumber; let drain in a colander for awhile. Beat the yogurt with a fork to loosen it up, then mix in the cucumber plus a couple tablespoons of minced fresh mint; season to taste with ground cumin, paprika, and salt.
• Along with these two dips, I presented wedges of white and whole-wheat pita, plus a variety of cut-up fresh fruits and vegetables: cucumbers, zucchini, jicama, celery, carrots, papaya, canteloup, banana, grapes.
• Oh yeah--I did also have a tray of chocolate wafer cookies for those whose sweet tooths would accept no substitutes.

People totally inhaled all the hummus I brought, and also made significant dents in everything else. Cutting up all that produce before serving was a bit of a chore--I may well take the kitchen manager's suggestion next time and get some pre-cut produce. Or not. The pre-cut stuff is so much more expensive than just buying the whole items from the ethnic groceries.

Anyway, the first experiment was definitely a resounding success, and I'm already considering my menu for next month. How about a big bowl of my pico de gallo chopped salad madness, with a bunch of seasoned baked tortilla chips? Sounds good to moi!

Weekly weigh-in ... was actually a day early

Because the HMO office with the super-accurate scale where I (still) weigh myself was going to be closed today for the holiday, I actually weighed myself yesterday ... and then the day got so hectic that I didn't find time to post.

So ... herewith, the latest numbers:

• Current weight: 275.0 lb
• Change since last weigh-in: -1.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 59.0 lb

Again, not bad, considering the heat has really discouraged me from getting any meaningful exercise. Though I did go out dancing Saturday night, and again last night. Alas, I really overdid it with the butt-shaking thang last night especially, so today I am hobbling around like the walking wounded I am. But it sure felt good at the time.

Happy holiday, folks ... off to take a nice long soak in the tub ...