mizducky's migrations: a weight management blog with attitude

Back in the saddle (yet) again

Hey, I'm back! Didja miss me?

I must say, the past couple of months have been some of the most exhausting, tumultuous, often-frustrating, but ultimately rewarding times I have ever known--and I've known some tumultuous times in my time, let me tell you. To recap, here's what I've been up to:

• For the first time in years, I acted in a play. I played multiple supporting roles in a production of Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, including this one absolutely killer character, a disabled lesbian rabbi in a wheelchair who's the star of her own cable-access talk show, kind of a lesbian version of Dr. Laura. Community theatre, I have found from past experience, has this tendency to completely take over your life--and so that happened with this production. But that doesn't mean I didn't have the time of my life! Plus you would not believe the terrific upper-body workout I got from pushing myself around in that wheelchair!
• The same weekend as the play, I had a major speaking role in my church's annual Lesbian / Gay / Bisexual / Transgender Pride service. I was originally scheduled to be the major planner in charge of the service, but fortunately I was able to delegate that out. But I was still tapped to lead this one liturgy I wrote specifically for the service, and it turned into a really beautiful thing.
• Just last weekend, I rode herd on our church's contingent in San Diego's Pride Parade (yes, San Diego does their Pride celebration a month later than everyone else--I'm not totally sure why but I think it's to not conflict with the major Pride celebrations up in LA, Long Beach, and etc.) We'd chartered a trackless trolley from a local tourist-tour outfit, and then festooned it with banners and streamers and stuff, and then had a contingent of walkers and riders and parasol-twirlers. I am far from the first to observe that trying to organize a bunch of Unitarian Universalists is like herding cats--I luv all you folks, but damn were my nerves shot after that! But all's well that ends well, and everyone had a good time.
• Oh yeah--and somewhere about six weeks back, Mr. E, the elderly gentleman for whom I am live-in caretaker had another major health weirdness. Once again he recovered remarkably quickly, but for a couple of days in there we really thought we were gonna lose him ... and then for a week afterward we were concerned he'd need to go to skilled care. He's about 96% recovered at this point--dude has more lives than a cat. It's just me who's still reeling a little, even six weeks later.

In the midst of all this, my food admittedly got a bit random--hey, you try rehearsing for four hours straight, and then leaving rehearsal to find the only eateries still open are the 24-hour burrito joints. But even with all that, I managed to keep my weight on that same ol' plateau it's been hugging for months now. And with the physical workout from the rehearsals--not only the aforementioned wheelchair-jockeying but also an actual dance number!--I think I may actually have lost an inch or two in body measurements. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure I have--teeshirts that had previously fit snugly are now giving me some ease around the arms and bust. Yowza.

But, in some ways even more momentous than that, I found doing theatre to be a major epiphany for me. At least some of it had to do with how well my parts suited me--it felt like I completely knew how Rabbi Sharon was supposed to be from the moment I cold-read her part in auditions. But even without that, acting just felt so totally right, like something I had been meant to do all along but am only getting around to now. All those frustrated creative juices I used to pour into my preaching, and have only sporadically put to use more recently doing spoken-word, came surging up with a vengeance when I was raging on stage. I dunno what it all means, and I dunno if this was just a fluke and the next play won't be anywhere near this level of epiphany-hood, but I am determined that there will be a next play, and I will follow up to see if this is my calling for the next hunk of my life.

Weekly weigh-in: oops. Plus, losing the cane

Oops--life got hectic, and so did the scale:

• Today's weight: 193.5 lb
• Change since 2 weeks ago: +1.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 140.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.36 lb

Last week I got immersed in a major cooking project, a dinner for eight that I had originally auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for my church. (You can read all about it over here). It was a hell of a lot of fun, and as you can see many of the dishes were surprisingly healthy ... except for the high sodium content from all that fish sauce and soy sauce and other lovely salty condiments. The dinner was this past Saturday ... I enjoyed leftovers for the following three days ... and now my bod is bloat city. Not so bad in my feet and ankles as it used to be, but enough that I can feel it. And I definitely feel it in my hands too, in how my rings barely go onto my fingers instead of threatening to slide off like they usually do. And of course it's showing up on the scale.

Alas, there's nothing to be done except to drink lots of fluids to flush the excess sodium out of my system, and wait for the retained water to follow. I am trying to hasten the liquids release by various natural means. For instance, I just ate some canned beets and their juice as a snack--not only are beets one of the few vegetables that I think taste okay canned, but beets are a natural diuretic. (Plus they make your pee such a gorgeous shade of pink!)

Meanwhile, I have experienced an unexpected and accidental leap forward in my physical exercise progress: somewhere during all the shopping and running around in the past week, I managed to leave my walking cane somewhere. I have no idea where--I just got home and realized the cane was not in the car with me. Now the fact that my knee was so well that it did not remind me that I needed my cane is certainly something worth noting, but it gets better--while I've been sporadically using my backup cane, I've mainly been going without altogether, and while my left knee felt shaky and unstable at first, the muscles around it have strengthened up to match the new load with surprising quickness, and now I seem to only have trouble with stepping down on the left leg while descending stairs.

Mind you, I haven't tested myself walking long distances yet--and I think that, at least for the first experiments, I'd feel safer taking a cane as backup. But already this is a great leap forward. I'd long realized that the cane was causing as many problems as it was solving--allowing the muscles of my left leg to get lazy, throwing my whole body subtly off-balance and thereby spreading stress and pain to other joints in my body. And when you carry a cane, it's all too easy to find yourself leaning all your weight on it even at moments you don't really need all that much support. So I'm really excited at finally reaching the point where I can start doing without the cane again, so that I can quit twisting my bod into a pretzel and take the next step towards healing.

Weekly weigh-in: Happy New Year from the plateau

Back after an impromptu holiday hiatus:

• Today's weight: 195.5 lb
• Change since last weigh-in: 0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 138.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.39 lb

Considering all the various holiday weirdnesses, culinary and general, of the past couple of weeks, I'm overjoyed to still be on that plateau. Sure beats gaining some weight!

I mean, even if I had gained a couple of pounds, I would refrain from personal recriminations and simply set myself to working it off, the same as I always have. But I'm just as glad I don't have to go there.

I do have to note that this year the holiday foods have been calling to me a lot more than last Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/New Year's. And I had allowed myself to give in to that call a little more than last year. So, as I said in the last post, I'm definitely feeling a low-level sense of too-muchness. I can't tell if it's physical or psychological, but I'm really feeling a need to wean myself back off even the modest dose of richer foods I've indulged in.

And it is going to be a weaning-off process. I can now feel that weird, hyper, rushy feeling in my head when I think about food, that if left to run wild could become the seed of a crave/compulsion episode. I suspect only people who have done any sort of old-fashioned dieting would be familiar with this feeling--that somehow the food is "calling" to you, in a way that's as hard to dismiss as a song that gets stuck in your head.

I associate that rushy feeling with my old friend the Lizard Brain, trying to wake up, take control of my psyche, and snap at something--usually, though not always, food! As a matter of fact, now that I write that, I've been uncommonly bitchy over the past few weeks. Maybe coincidence, maybe more related to other stressors in my life than food ... but still something to mind. After all, friends can be very understanding, but even the most loyal friend can stand only so much bitchiness before they haul off and tell you to stuff it.

(For any friends reading this to whom I've been bitchy in recent days--once again I apologize profusely, and be assured that I'm working really hard to deal with my crap. And many thanks for your continued patience with these technical difficulties...)

Weekly weigh-in: the downward creep resumes?

This week's numbers:

• Yesterday's weight: 197.5 lb
• Change since last week: -0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 136.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.44 lb

Dunno if this is another random fluctuation, or another smidge of genuine downward motion, but hey, I'll take it--especially in the wake of Thanksgiving.

Speaking of which, I'm now more-or-less back to my usual food routine post holiday, and that actually feels good. I dunno if this is psychological or physiological, or maybe a mix of both, but my capacity for rich foods has definitely changed. They seldom tempt me the way they used to, and I seem to be sated with smaller portions. And while I enjoyed most everything I tasted, I'm glad to be taking a break from all that heavy food. Could some behavioral reprogramming actually be happening here? That would be wonderfully cool.

Next up, of course, is Christmas/Solstice/Chanukkah/Kwanzaa/general midwinter hoo-haa, with lots more opportunities to test the toughness of the behavioral reprogramming. But I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to rise to the occasion.

In addition, I've got a birthday coming up on December 18th, and I've decided to celebrate by inviting a bunch of folks out to a restaurant--daring, huh? It's a big Asian buffet, though, and I know how to game a buffet to max out on healthy stuff (veggies, lots of seafood), while just sampling the calorie-dense stuff (fried things, sauced things). Plus there should be something there to suit everyone's tastes and dietery prefs. So--fun shall be had ... without excessive damage to the almighty routine. Yay!

Weekly weigh-in: Thanksgiving survival

These numbers were taken yesterday (in other words, the day after Thanksgiving):

• Yesterday's weight: 198.0 lb
• Change since last week: 0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 136.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.45 lb

As faithful readers know, my tendency is to greet plateaus not with dread but with satisfaction, because according to my regimen, as long as my weight isn't going back up I'm doing the right thing. And never was that feeling of satisfaction over a plateau more appropriate than this past Thanksgiving. For I wound up consuming not just one, but three--count 'em, three--separate Thanksgiving dinners, which makes that plateau not a ho-hum, but a hurrah!

So--how did I manage to make through all those Thanksgiving dinners without my weight going up? Three very simple words: moderation, moderation, moderation.

The traditional Thanksgiving dinner tends to be especially loaded with calorically-dense foods: the stuffings, potatoes, gravies, cream-enriched vegetables--and all those desserts! And lots of those foods have heavy sentimental value. I knew it would be unrealistically harsh to tell myself I was going to stick to the letter of my food plan, so I did indulge in most of those foods. However, what I did not indulge in is that other time-honored Thankgiving dining practice: that of gorging to the point of pain.

I took little bitty servings of the nutritionally-dense stuff, and rather larger helpings of the lower-impact foods like (un-sauced) vegetables, green salads, and of course the turkey itself. And I mightily resisted the urge to take seconds, except for the lower-impact foods. At the end of each meal, I was pleasantly full--but in no discomfort whatsoever. Which was especially nice after the third meal, as that was over at the house of some friends with a hot tub. I could just feature trying to deal with a hot tub if I had gorged like I used to in the Bad Old Days. Instead, it was a pleasurable end to a wonderful (if exhausting) holiday.

What also helped was, of all things, my foodie sensibilities. Somehow, all these years of exploring all sorts of foods seem to have left my palate a bit jaded. Don't get me wrong, I still love food and eating--but let's just say it takes a hell of a lot more to surprise and delight my palate than formerly. So, yeah, I sure enjoyed all of the food I tasted--but no dish mesmerized me in such a way that I felt compelled to keep tasting it (and tasting and tasting and tasting some more ... you all know how that one goes!). In fact, I'm now totally content to go without tasting pecan pie again until next year at the earliest--I used to love that stuff, but the one I sampled just tasted like tooth-achingly sweet goo faintly flavored with nuts and caramel. Not something I want to squander precious food allotments on again anytime soon.

So see: being a foodie does not have to be at odds with being a sensible eater--in fact, with the right mindset one's foodie-hood can be turned from a weight-management liability into an asset.

Firestorm healing vibes -- plus: oh yeah, weekly weigh-in

Hi folks--

Yep, I live in San Diego. Fortunately for me personally, I live well within the urban core (University Heights), so I was not in any danger. But of course I know plenty of people whose lives and homes were threatened by the fire, so I've been spending the week helping where I can, staying out from underfoot otherwise, taking care of myself and Mr. E (who was put a little under the weather by all the smoke in the air), and sending out massive positive vibes for the weather to turn so the fires can be shut down by the firefighters, and for all people affected by the fires to receive the protection and help they need.

Meanwhile, in an effort to get life back to something resembling normalcy, here are my numbers for this week:

• Today's weight: 199.5 lb
• Change since last week: +0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 134.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.49 lb

Eh. Especially given all the orders-of-magnitude more earth-shaking life crap that's happening to people all around me in Southern California this week, I'm certainly not going to sweat a little thing like a half-pound upward jog in my weight. In fact, I'm pleased that I did not seize upon the week's emergencies as an excuse to pig out and blow a hole in my routine. Last thing anybody needs around these parts is somebody going into freaked-out bitch mode just because she blew her "diet" in the midst of this crisis. Let's hear it for a sense of proportion!

Continued best wishes for all those affected by, and continuing to be affected by, the fires. This is gonna be a real long haul for a whole lot of folks.

Weekly weigh-in: slowly she inched, step by step ... plus: the "did you just lose some more weight" syndrome

Thought I forgot about y'all, didn't you? Life got hectic yet again. But first, the numbers:

• Yesterday's weight: 201.5 lb
• Change since last week: -0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 132.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.66 lb

Just inching along some more ... or at least I think I'm inching along. Truth be known, my cheap-ass bathroom scale seems to have gone out of whack, so that if I step on it three times in succession it gives me three different readings. Needless to say, this kind of imprecision is kind of crazy-making to my inner diet-obsessive (not to mention my inner science geek). However, the idea of replacing the scale is running headlong into my inner tightwad, who refuses to cough up another chunk of change for another crappy scale, and is absolutely having a cow over the exorbitant pricetags on non-crappy scales.

Sooner or later this situation is going to frustrate me enough that I will break down and replace the damn thing, but in the meantime I'm treating it as another object lesson in the arbitrary nature of that magic number on the dial. Because, as a matter of fact, I'm continuing to get more than enough outside acknowledgement of my weight loss to negate any weirdness generated by my weird-ass bathroom scale. Though sometimes that outside acknowledgement has its own little weirdness factor.

You see, I've noticed this phenomenon: normally people who see you on a regular basis don't make comment on any change from day to day, because it's so slight as to be unnoticeable. But there seems to be some threshold of cumulative weight change that's sufficient to cause those same people to suddenly go "hey, did you just lose some more weight?"

Of course you didn't "just" lose that poundage--you've been slowly and patiently working them off for the past several weeks or months. But to the outside observers, it's only just crossed that threshold of visibly noticeable weight loss. And since they perceive it as having only just happened recently, that's how they phrase their comments. Don't get me wrong--I'm totally stoked to receive those comments, however they happen to be phrased. But I just can't help being amused.

Anyway, apparently I must have recently crossed another of those thresholds of visibly noticeable weight loss, because in the past week I have received a whole new raft of "hey, did you 'just' lose a bunch more weight" comments from people who see me on a semi-regular basis.

Mind you, I think I may have helped that along at least a little by some new clothing purchases--nothing like wearing some jeans that are not baggy for a change to draw attention to the changing contours of one's bod. Of course, if I'm doing things right those new jeans will eventually become baggy in turn, and my continued progress will once more be camoflaged . . . until I cough up money for yet another wardrobe replacement.

And then, I'm willing to bet cash money that I will provoke yet another new round of "Hey--did you 'just' lose a bunch more weight?" Heh. Guess I'm easily amused. Though no less grateful.

Weekly weigh-in; plus: life is doing that damn hectic thing again

The numbers:

• Today's weight: 202.0 lb
• Change since last week: -1.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 132.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.71 lb

Given how hectic my life has been and continues to be right now, I'm fine with these numbers. At least something in my life is being reliable.

Not that what's going on right now is bad--quite the opposite. I'm been masterminding my congregation's les/bi/gay/trans Pride activities, which actually pretty damn worthwhile--not to mention lots of fun. But there's no denying it's also lots of work, and I'm really getting in touch with the fact that my psyche has just had enough of the kind of stress involved in planning and managing large multi-person projects.

I really need to not be in charge of any such projects for a good long while after this, for any number of reasons:

1. Psychologically I'm just not suited for it long-term. I'm way too thin-skinned, way too anxiety-prone. Yeah, I suck it up and get the job done anyway, but the price my body and psyche pay, both immediately and in the long term, is way too high.
2. I've spent too many years postponing my own personal needs (emotional and creative) because I was putting the needs of some other person or organization first. I have unwittingly absorbed some belief that it is "selfish" to lavish huge amounts of attention on something as lacking in utilitarian usefulness as my personal writing and art. I'm tired of strangling myself with this one.
3. And those neglected personal needs include my health regimen. I am still sorely neglecting the exercise portion of the program. Especially now that I'm living in a wonderfully walkable neighborhood, I really need to get with that exercise stuff.
4. Mr. E really deserves a less distracted me.
5. Spiritual stuff: I'm feeling this strenuous call to turn inward. Certainly, my current environment is super-conducive to contemplation. I could really get into a significant chunk of time spent doing quiet nesting/homemaking stuff, writing, and meditating/trancing. Very zen monastery cook territory.

More about that call to turn inward, turn towards healing, and turn towards my art: I'm really feeling that, after several years of not quite knowing where the hell my life was headed, I'm at last beginning to discern the return of some kind of direction and purpose. I'm even almost ready to resume trusting that the universe is taking care of me after all. Letting go into that trust will relieve a whole bunch of stress right there.

The universe hadn't felt trustable for some years, actually. And I feel a serious need to purge a lot of my past angst about that. In fact, I'm ready to move on from lots of my psychological baggage--you'd think, after all the therapy I've been through, I'd be done with much more of it by now. Heh, well that may just demonstrate how much more screwed up I was before therapy. But I guess it's taken all this time to get ready to let go of it all on a much deeper level.

It helps that I'm getting a lot of positive feedback for the creative work I've been putting out recently. I feel really good at how last Sunday's service went, including my credo. Goddess help me, but I love performing my written work before an audience. I gotta sign up to do a whole service during the church year some time. Maybe see if a local spoken word venue I'm fond of would be into this concept I have been playing around with for an open mic based on my First Church of Whoopie concept ...

No, wait, didn't I say I didn't want to be in charge of any big projects for awhile? See how insidious the compulsion is! (Heh.)

Anyway ... so I'm having a good time doing this week's stuff, but I'll be glad when it's done and I can finally give my self the time I deserve. And hopefully I can catch myself before I volunteer for yet another big project that sounds like lots of fun but which will once again take my focus away from my self.

Weekly weigh-in: inching down some more; plus: deceleration

Today's numbers:

• Today's weight: 203.0 lb
• Change since last week: -1.0 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: -131.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.72 lb

My life continues to be hectic, and it won't let up until I get to the other side of the San Diego LGBT Pride Festival next weekend. So I'm extremely glad that my weight loss program is faring pretty well while on automatic pilot.

But in the meantime, I couldn'r resist taking a little time out for some weight loss data geekery. Yes, if it wasn't enough that I'm geeking out with this blog plus tracking my progress in an Excel spreadsheet and graph, I found myself getting interested in how my rate of weight loss was slowly decelerating. So I plotted a graph of the changes in my rate of weight loss over time.

And, yes, that rate is slowly but surely decelerating--which I knew already without making a chart. But now I can see that deceleration. And as that deceleration continues, I expect to see the graph of that function asymtotically approach zero. Geeky enough for you? My high school calculus teacher would be so proud.

But this isn't totally an exercise in pointless number-crunching. This is a fine demonstration of the fact that, for any given weight, there is a daily caloric intake that will maintain that weight at equilibrium, and as you get closer to the equilibrium weight corresponding to your caloric intake, your rate of weight loss will slow asymtotically until you reach equilibrium at that weight.

However, I've noticed that many dieters (and I use that word purposely to connote folks who are operating under society's dieter mentality) tend to freak out when their rate of weight loss inevitably slows down this way. Never mind that it's totally natural--if they're not losing that two (or more) pounds a week, they're convinced something is screwed up.

So they get way depressed, decide their diet is a failure, and go off on a binge, blowing their diet right out of the water. Or they start cutting their caloric intake drastically, excercising frantically, and other strategies to keep their rate of weight loss constant, which extreme behavior over-stresses their bodies, at the very least leaving them feeling like crap--and at worst, provokes the Lizard Brain into emergency famine mode, sending them off on a binge that, again, blows their diet right out of the water.

See, this is one of the dangers of dieter's mentality: you get so focused on those numbers as the sole measure of your success that you'll torture your body in any way necessary to achieve the magic number, and torture your psyche when you body rebels against being forced towards the magic number. Whereas if you listened to your body first and looked at the numbers only later, and only as a quantification of your body's state, you'd be a lot better off both physically and mentally--and a lot more capable of sustaining and maintaining a healthy weight loss.

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.