mizducky's migrations: a weight management blog with attitude

Weekly weigh-in: still plateauing--thank goodness

Today's numbers:

• Today's weight: 208.5 lb
• Change since last week: 0.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 125.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.79 lb

Especially given my rocky mental state and skirtings with disaster this past week, I'm totally happy to be still plateauing--as opposed to, say, going up in weight.

Hopefully a bunch of the stress I've been under will go away once I get past the big choral concert I'm performing in this coming Saturday. Although there's further stressors down the road, involving packing for a move across town--I loathe packing and moving with a passion that knows no bounds. But the move itself is ultimately a good thing, because it'll be a nicer living situation with nicer housemates--so ultimately it'll mean less stress in the long run.

I also think I may be having some new little weirdness in my menopause going on. This morning I was moody and depressed for no very good reason I could identify, and I had several different major hotflash spikes. Up to now my menopause has been extremely mild--yes, I'd have hot flashes, but they were so gentle and short that they were almost no bother at all. Who knows? A certain amount of estrogen gets stored in, or even produced by, adipose tissue; maybe my bod is in the process of metabolizing a deposit of fat that's just loaded with the stuff and it's messing with my mind as it works its way out of me.

I just have to watch, though, because feeling blue is another stressor that could start colluding with my Lizard Brain to mess with my food.

Okay, that was close

Man, I just came this close to willfully blowing a hole in my food regimen. I had bought a one-pound hunk of very nice steak on special. I had planned that half of it would wind up as leftovers. I came home this evening after a very long, very stressful and emotional day, and I seemed to be handling it pretty well ... and then I proceeded to try and rationalize eating the entire steak for dinner.

I got way close to doing it too. As in actually sitting down to dine with the whole steak on my plate, and no intention of stopping.

But stop I did. I couldn't make myself finish it. I started eating beyond what would have been my typical dinner portion, and ... I just ground to a halt. No big huge recriminations of guilt or anything. Just a feeling of "no, you don't want to do this to yourself." I actually started to get a physical sensation of slight over-satiation, such that eating any more would feel less and less pleasant. Is this mind over matter? Am I actually finally making some progress in retraining my food behavior at a really deep level?

Maybe I am ... but at the same time, I don't think I want to make a habit of testing my behavior modification in this manner. The stressful day that I had just gone through: that kind of thing is a known trigger for binge eating. I need to watch out better when days like that happen in my life--or else one of these days I may discover that my behavior modification isn't as sturdy as I might wish it were.

So--I'm pleased that I recouped, but concerned that I got as far as I did before I recouped, and glad that I had this little behavioral wake-up call.

Weekly weigh-in: status quo, and the quo is pretty hectic

This week's numbers (from yesterday's weigh-in):

• Yesterday's weight: 208.5 lb
• Change since last week: 0.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 125.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.82lb

I'm plateauing, and I'm okay with that ... for all the reasons I have mentioned in the past.

As a matter of fact, as my boss at SanDiego.Eats.It pointed out just last night, it's pretty damn impressive that I'm maintaining the food regimen even while doing the research for restaurant recommendations. Though part of the secret is that I mainly write up Asian restaurants, health-food/vegetarian restaurants, cafes, and other light-dining type joints. But yeah, I'm way pleased that I can have a life and still stick to the regimen.

And speaking about having a life ... my life continues to be way hectic, so my posts to this blog may continue to be relatively sparse for the next few weeks. But if you're interested in one of the things that is keeping me so busy, and you happen to be in the San Diego area, you are heartily invited to come hear me sing with the San Diego Women's Chorus on the evening of Saturday June 2nd at First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego. I've even got a solo! I'm not freaking out yet, but I think I'm just in a state of denial! And if you can't make it, do please beam some nice supportive sing-on-key don't-forget-parts energy in my general direction that evening. Thanks!

Experts warn of detox diet dangers - Chew On This - MSNBC.com

Link: Experts warn of detox diet dangers - Chew On This - MSNBC.com.

I hope it goes without saying that I, too, think crash-fasting for any reason, including to lose weight, is not a very smart or healthy idea. In the short term, all you're doing is pushing water weight around; in the long term, you're doing damage to the body by depriving it of substances it needs to keep running and rebuilding itself.

I do, however, sympathize with the desire to cleanse one's system of accumulated toxins and other chemical crap--and I chide the author of this article, and the sources she quotes, for not exploring that further than she does. Yes, as the pundit she quotes says, we do already have built-in systems for purging toxins--the kidneys, liver, lungs, and skin--but we could do a lot better job of helping those systems out than we do.

And that better job does in fact involve a kind of fast--but not a fast from all foods whether nutritive or no, especially not one accelerated by laxatives. Rather, what we really need (and I'm stll far from achieving this yet, though I'm closer to the goal than I used to be) is a long-term fast from as many artificial-chemical-laced foods as possible, gently aided by lots of fluids to help the kidneys do their work, and lots of fresh natural foods--including plenty of roughage--to help our GI tract and the rest of our metabolism do their work. If we could just consume like that, we'd be well along to cleaning out all sorts of crap from our system.

Obviously that kind of "fast" is going to be a harder sell for a lot of people, because we're an immediate-gratification society and the only-eat-real-food "fast" takes a lot longer than the short-term miracles promised by the flush-fast literature. But ironically, even the dieting industry is ambivalent about how long it takes to do things the old-fashioned, slow way--otherwise, why the hell would Optifast exist??

As a matter of fact--hey, while these experts are so busy fulminating about fasting schemes put forth by "alternative" health pundits, how come they don't even breathe word one about the hazards of medically sanctioned fasting programs like Optifast?  Hmmmmm ... a little blind spot with regard to their colleagues in the applied-science biz, you think?

Weekly weigh-in -- plus: mystery solved/hectic life

Okay, so today's numbers:

• Today's weight: 208.5 lb
• Change since last week: -1.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 225.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.85 lb

So I think I figured out the culprit in my diet that was causing me to retain water like crazy. It was those damfool artifically sweetened powder drink mixes I was using. You know, the Crystal Light clones. They were one of my few concessioned to chemical-laden diet foods, because I need to stay well-hydrated but I find water so deadly dull to drink. But on a wild hunch last week I switched over to iced herbal tea (brewed myself). And voila, things started loosening up considerably--not only with the water retention, but the constipation too.

(Um, sorry, forgot to issue the TMI alert there. But hey, if y'all are reading this thing you're probably okay with it--I mean, what is all of this about if not coping with the nitty-gritty aspects of human biology, nu?)

So now I'm on the herbal teas. I had tried them in the past, but at the time I'd eventually bored of them too. So we'll see how long I last with them this time. Maybe if I keep hunting down interesting herbal tea combos ...

In other news, life has suddenly gotten way hectic again. Let's see, what-all do I have going on now?

• Choral group I sing with has got a concert in two weeks
• As new co-chair of my church's lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender affinity group, I've got a whole bunch of new committee meetings to attend and end-of-fiscal-year administrivia to tend to, plus advance planning for Pride celebrations
• Interviewing/negotiating for yet another side-gig
• Other household stuff I'm not at liberty to discuss yet, but which will definitely cause a certain amount of life-upheaval
• Plus all the other normal activities of daily living, working, etc.

So I'm probably going to be doing only my weekly weigh-in-plus-observations post for the next few weeks, until stuff simmers down to a dull roar again. If y'all wouldn't mind thinking positive high-energy thoughts on my behalf, I'd be quite pleased. Thanks, and stay tuned ...

Weekly weigh-in -- plus: imbibing a better burger

Weigh-in was yesterday, but yesterday was also busy, so here are yesterday's numbers today:

• Yesterday's weight: 210.0 lb
• Change since last week: +0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 124.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.85 lb

For some random reason I was really retaining a lot of water last week--I could tell by the way my ankles were noticeably attempting to swell up in the evenings. Although thankfully, it was only a fraction of the way they used to bloat up when I was at my top weight. I'm also running a tad constipated, another characteristic of my bod attempting to hold on to fluids.

As to why: I think I may have overdone it with the salty foods last week ... it's also possible that, despite my best efforts to stay well hydrated while I was out of town, I wasn't keeping up as well as I should, and my bod decided to do a boomerang effect when I got home.

No biggie either way, because the plateau I'm establishing here is consolidating around that four-pound drop I did before I headed out of town. Which means another possibility is that my bod is simply working to catch up with itself after that drop. Meanwhile, I'm fully back to my home routine, so I expect things should even out again in a few more days.

In other news, I got in a huge chunk of walking exercise yesterday, puttering around the weekly farmer's market in Ocean Beach. I even "treated" myself to a big burger at Hodad's! Interestingly, even though Hodad's burgers look huge, the bulk of that volume on the single burger is actually all tomato, onion, lettuce, and other veggie accoutrements. As long as you get the single and not the double, and skip the side of fries the way I did on this occasion, an occasional burger is actually pretty darned reasonable.

Now if I do find myself craving a big sloppy burger but have shot my allotment of splurge slack for the week, I still have options. For instance, there's a vegetarian cafe in town by the name of Veg N Out that specializes in meatless versions of that very foodstuff, piled with all sorts of different inventive toppings. They make a damn fine loaded hotdog too--and they appear to have cracked the code on how to make a tofu dog really taste great.

Now obviously, a lot of my readers live far from San Diego and can't access these places. But the likelihood is strong that you can find similar joints where you live that can accommodate you similarly. So--no need to feel deprived of favorite food pleasures, just find a work-around and work it out. And enjoy!

Introducing: "Dear Ducky"!

Over the years, many people have asked where the "Miz Ducky" nickname came from. Well, you can blame it on my brother, who is quite the character in his own right. Back when we were both in college--not the same college, in fact our respective schools were several states and several hundred miles apart--my brother would write me these hysterically funny letters which of course I had to read out loud to all my friends. One of them he happened to begin with the salutation "Dearest Ducky"--no particular reason why, I think he just liked the alliteration. The moniker was a hit with my friends, and thus was Ducky born ... eventually morphing into Miz Ducky, or "mizducky" in online forums.

Which brings me full circle to my handle's latest morph: a "Dear Ducky" advice column feature on this here blog right here.

I'll start it real simple: if you've got any kind of question relating to the topic of healthy weight management (including food, cooking, exercise, psychology, cultural and political ramifications, you name it), simply click on the "Email Me" link just under my photo in the upper left-hand corner of this blog page, and drop me a line. I will run the question, and my response to the best of my ability, as a post in this blog--and if I don't know the answer, I will say so and perhaps suggest some other resources to check out.

Just a few groundrules with this concept:

1. First and foremost--I am not a trained health professional, nor do I even play one on TV (although if I did, I'm sure I'd be a helluva lot nicer than that Dr. House dude, though perhaps just as ornery in my own way). So anything I write in answer to your questions--and for that matter everything in this blog--is strictly my personal opinion based on my own experience, and is not meant to be any kind of Official-Type Prescriptive Advice. Be sure to take everything I say here with several big handfuls of salt--and always check with a medical pro you trust. (And if you don't have one you trust--do please find one!)
2. Play nice. Remember, mean people suck. Any email I get that is in any way nasty, flame-baity, inappropriate, spammy, or otherwise makes my little shit-detector go off will simply get sent to that Big Bitbucket In The Sky. I know none of you who are regular readers of this blog would do any such thing, but ... well, you know how the Internet can be ...
3. My default will be to keep your queries anonymous. If you supply a pseudonym for me to use, I will use it; if not, I'll use initials. And I'll omit your email address. If you really really want me to include your real name and email, please say so explicitly. Otherwise--your identity's safe with moi!
4. I may have to edit your question for brevity's sake. If you read my edit and feel that I left out something crucial, let me know. Or even better, keep your question concise so I won't have to edit it!
5. The rest of you can feel free to chime in with suggestions of your own by commenting on the post. Again--play nice!

There ya go! Now let's run this baby up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.

Weekly weigh-in: home from my travels

The numbers:

• Today's weight: 209.5 lb
• Change since last week: -0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 124.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.89 lb

Especially given that I spent last week traveling and staying out-of-town, I am more than pleased with this half-pound weight loss. Usually when people go on vacation, they behave as if their "diets" went on vacation too--Goddess knows I've fallen afoul of that mindset in the past myself. But as I've said innumerable times already, what I'm doing now I don't consider a (temporary) diet but a (permanent) lifestyle change, and it's great to see that mindset pay off. I did allow myself a couple of nice dining experiences, but I didn't go all obsessive over them the way I might have done in years past. And that felt totally okay.

To be sure, there were many situations I was in that were not particularly temptation-generating. The time I spent in airports or on planes, for instance. The air travel food boondoggle was indeed as bad as I had anticipated. On all but one flight I took, they didn't even have real food for sale--just snacks. And none of those snacks were particularly health-conscious, either (I'm sorry, but trail mix is not health food, but a disaster of fat and sugar). I was at least able to find fruit and salads in airport concession shops, but man, what sad-ass excuses for salads and fruit they were! The one time I found a smoothie shop I was overjoyed. That may have been the healthiest meal I had while in transit. But I did at least come up with one coping strategy: selecting tomato juice as my free in-flight beverage. If I can't get decent solid vegetables to eat, I could at least drink some.

Certain parts of my visit were kind of food-challenged too--mainly because this was a trip to visit with my sister's two young sons, and when your hanging with a rambunctious nine-year-old and five-year-old, the food choices don't tend to be very haute. In fact, I had the dubious honor of being taken on my very first visit to Chuck E. Cheese--all I can say is: oy. Let's just say that little boys care little about the quality of the pizza they inhale; and Chuck E. Cheese seems to care even less about the salad bar they make the parents suffer through.

Meanwhile, I was delighted to find that I could make it all around the airports on my own, without having to resort to a wheelchair ride; and I fit into the airline seats with no problems, even while I heard passengers all around me comment that the American Airlines seats seemed to have gotten even narrower than those on Southwest Airlines planes. Didn't seem to miss my CPAP machine either. This trip is clearly a win on all of those fronts.

But totally aside from the food issues, this trip reminded me all over again why I dislike air travel--I've just seen a couple too many made-for-cable-TV documentaries about airline disasters, so that now I can't seem to get through a takeoff or landing without running an entire disaster movie scenario in my head. Plus even my newer slimmer bod still finds airline seats a major pain in the ass (literally). So for various reasons I expect not to be flying again any time soon. But still, it's nice to know that my ability to cope with air travel has improved dramatically.