Tissues for Body Issues.

Well, you knew I'd weigh in on this. 

First of all, this is absolutely jacked up about twenty different ways from Tuesday, however, it was not that big of a surprise.  Socialite has a child who is clinically obese.  Socialite doesn't want her daughter to be obese, for whatever reasons she has.  Socialite makes daughter lose weight by twisting a popular method with her own brand of guilt and destructive comments.  Daughter loses weight and receives goods and mother's approval plus a picture in the Shape issue of Vogue.  Mother thinks daughter is a new person, a "thin" person.  Seven year old daughter is thinking and verbalizing, "Was I not me before all of this? And was that not enough?"   It's jacked up beyond all recognition and now Mom has a book deal.  Deah Gott in Himmel.

All I can say is at least Dara was honest about what happened.  Yes--it was probably out of some sort of twisted pride but at least she told the pretty hideous truth. And dear little girl:  you are not the same person you were before you lost weight--you have a whole new set of things and experiences that have added to who you are and your understanding of our society's and your family's expectations, because of your parent's actions to bring about a new "thin" you.  I am glad you may be spared juvenile diabetes.  I am, however, very sorry about how your mom went about what she did.  There were other less destructive roads to get there. 

*****************

This article is timely because the topic that keeps coming up for me lately is body image.  I have now determined that I have no rational or objective manner that allows me to understand how I look.

Body image issues can definitely be part of a passed down heritage within families.   If you've been teased as a kid, one of the things you will fear is that your child will have to face the same particular demons you did.  In my case, it was being the fat kid.  I remember actively vowing to myself long before I ever got pregnant that I would raise a child that would have a food/exercise balance so they wouldn't have to face what I had to during my school years.   

Oddly, it is the one thing I never needed to lose a moment of worry over.  Left to his own devices, Pook eats healthier than I do most days. He's naturally active, a decent athlete and I have to encourage him to eat because he's really on the lean side.  (He is, however, teased and bullied by his peers for other reasons.  I am starting to think you don't get to dodge the meanness of children to your child as a parent, be it for weight issues or learning issues or just because they're different.  Kids are pack animals and they can be horribly mean.  All you can do is love your child and try everything you can to intervene appropriately and let them know you think what is happening is *not* okay and that you value them and try to give them some tools to get through it.  Overall, you just try to let them know this, too, will pass.  You hope it does pass  You hope they do move forward and realize, "God, those people SUCKED."  Because they did.)
    
 For the record:  being obese as a child is not fun.  From about age 10 to about age 16, I was the fat girl. Elementary school was the worst, though. Being non-athletic and a voracious reader didn't help either.  I hated to exercise.  Hated it.  I was bad at it, I was slow, I was awkward. Therefore, I was made fun of.  It's the way that works when you're in grade school. 

My parents never berated me because of my size.  They were worried about it, but they never berated me and reading this article brought home my gratitude for them full force.  My mother, who taught me how to shop and dress, did a good job of keeping me looking nice and age appropriate while dealing with the fact I was not a small size.  Still, shopping stung.  I remember shopping in Sears and Pennys and looking at all the pretty little dresses and just going straight to the back for the largest size.  Most of the time, it didn't look right or wasn't big enough for me to wear--this was the 70's.  You had to go to the "hefty" section and there wasn't much of one for girls.

 However, my mother is a rock-star when it comes to shopping.  She never gave up and always found things that made me feel pretty to wear.  It was a long and tedious process which meant shopping was never an "in/out" experience for us.  My mother understood I had to try everything on as she had a curvy girl that was already over-developed by the end of sixth grade.  She had to downplay the rack and keep me from looking like Lolita or like a sack of potatoes.  She got it and thinking back on the creativity and perseverance it took to get me looking as good as I did then,  I marvel at both her tenacity and love.

When the torment of elementary school ended, the conditioning was in place so I picked up the slack and berated myself privately about how I looked throughout high school and college.  I went to both CCHS, UNC-G and NCSA with some extraordinarily pretty people, both men and women.  Thinking about all the pretty on the NCSA campus in particular,  I'm amazed I didn't walk around with sunglasses on all the time from the sheer beauty of you all.  (Y'all bitches were gorgeous!  I mean GORGEOUS.  You still are, too, all of you, always to me, my lovely both inside and out brothers and sisters in the arts.  It was a privilege to serve with you and I blow kisses all of your ways. )

And of course, I picked acting as a career.  I was told by teachers, by peers, by agents I was in possession of both a character body and face--that I would grow into my commercial look.  That was absolutely correct.  At age 46, I am now into my look.  However, at 25  I interpreted that to be, "You're not that pretty and your boobs are too big.  Next."   Then when I got really thin around age 25 over a summer of going vegetarian and not having a lot of money to eat from outdoor drama wages, I did get cast in a few things so obviously, this theory was true.  The years passed--I gained weight and the confidence went and then lost weight and it came back and then gained weight and whoops, back to zero.....and so forth.

And now there is today.  I'm in pretty good shape for me.  I eat well, I exercise.  I am a lot of sizes down from where I was almost 2 1/2 years ago.  Yet......

Recently, I was in a play.  I saw pictures of myself in that play.  Guess what my first response was to those pictures?  Mmmhmmm.  After 33 pounds down, after 21 inches lost, my inbred response was, "Oh my.  I look so fat."

So, the fact is, I have realized there is a strong possibility I will never be satisfied with the way I look.  Ever.  I am not in possession of a lens that allows me to see myself as I am and certainly not one that doesn't do anything but magnify flaws.  Years of distortion--of negating my own looks, of telling myself I am not enough the way I am--it's not going to allow me to really see to have a self-image with any sort of objectivity. 

And what makes this all sort of ironic and crazy is a huge body image changer is in the works.  I'm scared, I'm excited, I'm nervous and I want it to happen so badly yet it is something that is so ingrained in who I am, I don't know how I'm going to look or feel.  You see, I saw the plastic surgeon last week.  He confirmed I'm an excellent candidate and we're moving forward  on pre-certification through my insurance for a breast reduction.

The sole official driver to pursue this surgery was the chronic back issues.  I am dealing with back spasms of some sort every day.  Injuries to the back in recent years are having a hard time healing because of the weight I carry around all the time on the front.  I'm now having some back issues that probably stem from all the tension within my upper back caused from toting these things around all day every day.  The strap creases are to the bone now so my hands go numb when the strap hits the wrong spot on my shoulder.  Since I've had my child, I've done my breast feeding so I don't need breasts as tools any more.  They have become, literally a burden. 
 
Throughout all of the weight loss and conditioning, I've been waiting for the cup to go down. (I thought it had but it was just the fit of the particular bra.) Only the strap size altered--I was measured not too long ago and like most women out there, I found out I was still wearing the wrong size bra.  I went to two places--each result was the same--the cup size was up.  It's either a 36DDD or a 36G.  And you know what?  For someone who's barely 5'4", that's just too damn big. 

And now, if approved by the insurance (and even after the surgeon's and my GP's reassurance that I am a person that will qualify for this , I am not convinced, I am too nervous to even hope, even by writing this I think I'm going to jinx it all) the surgeon recommends that I go to a C cup as I will want to have curves since I'm used to them.   He is thinking he will take at the least 700 ccs of tissue from each breast, or as he said, "In human terms, about a pound and a half each."

I cannot fathom this.  I cannot fathom how I will look.  I cannot fathom how I will be able to move or what I can wear.  I have no understanding of what this really means anymore.  I think I was a C cup for about 20 minutes in college.  Post-thirty, I have no idea what this will be like.

This, of course, leads me to think maybe I am making a mistake--maybe it would be better to live with taking cyclobenzaprine and back pain and numb hands.  Maybe if I get a reduction, I will not be me anymore, much in the way this little girl expresses to her mother her concerns over her "new" identity.  Big boobs are part of the persona.  I have tried for years to love my body for the way it is.  I actually saw a plastic surgeon about this last year and outside of having a horrible experience with the particular surgeon, I just decided I'd lose more weight, I'd accept my body as it was, I'd embrace the need for multiple athletic bras during high impact classes and that my dress size would always be a size or two larger than my waist size to accommodate the up-top freight.  Maybe I should accept the way I was made and love myself for how I am.  Maybe by altering a distinctive part of my body, I will not be attractive or worse, I will be out of proportion. 

And then I remember:  I *am* currently out of proportion. I think about the slipped disc.  And the back spasms.  And the elastic marks at the end of the day.  And the sheer pain at the end of a tri-fit class where we've done a zillion jumping jacks and pounded hard for the past 55 minutes.  And then I think of what it would feel like to do that without that much weight.  I think about rock climbing.  I think about getting a really good swing off a golf driver because I can get my forearms together in front of my chest.   I almost let myself think of a strapless dress--almost.  I cannot bring myself to not think about no more back problems or pain yet. Not until things are more certain because that....that would be.....

I have no words for what that would be.  None at all.  It is too big.  It is too much. 

So to not think about that, what I ponder these days during the early spring twilight are two lines of thought:

1)  When you change your appearance, does it change you?  It shouldn't--but does it?  When you are seen differently by the world, when you perceive yourself differently, are you still the same as you were before? 

 2)  If the miracle occurs and I am really a good candidate for this, will this end the self-image issues for a while?  Or is that early conditioning just too far in place to ever move out further than that?  Is the lens broken forever?

Because here's the thing.  I would like to get a good lens.  I would like to be able to see myself as I really appear and not through the filter I've developed over a good many years of what I liked to think of "tough self-love" which was really just me beating up on myself constantly.  I would like to be at peace with my self-image--good, bad and indifferent.  I would like to be okay with how I look.  And that leads me to the last question:

In this society, in our culture that gives this abusive mother a book deal and a article and picture in Vogue, a magazine that contains ads where impossibly thin and beautiful women are airbrushed to be even thinner than their cigarette smoking/celery licking/near starvation selves are---do we have the ability to have those pure lenses anymore?

I'm not so sure.  Not at all.

It's all about the fine print.

I've been a bit quiet lately--lots going on with work, home, schedule, you name it.  Since I last wrote, I unofficially taught my first Zumba class (the boy scouts are right:  be prepared), work has gone on its ear, my son was diagnosed with ADHD and had the flu, I was cast in a play and a dance concert and scheduled my Zumba certification day.  Oh, and applied to a local college to start exploring getting my degree in nutrition.  The State of Ohio demands certification, so local may not be possible as it will have to be Cincy or Columbus for the RD, but one step at a time.  Right now it's just about seeing if it's feasible. 

So---yeah.  Bizy.  Backson. 

All of this means stress because as many rewarding things that there are, change is coming fast and furious.   The change in schedule is hard, but we're getting through it and I'm trying to be cognizant of all the go-go-going on the boy.  So far, we're doing pretty well and yes, there are many rewards to all of this--it's just change.  The trick is rolling with it and prioritizing.  Oh, and forgiving yourself a few things along the way.  That part I have a hard time with because I'm generally too busy beating myself into a guilty pulp over what I haven't done yet in a day.  Let it go.  Let it go. 

So outside being overwhelmed, things are going swimmingly. I do feel bad as my friends and family as of late have had to watch the beliigerent look cross my face at any fad diet I hear about.  (I have a whole post on hCg and how getting a shot that fools you into thinking you're pregnant and then limits you to 500 calories a day may *not* be the most prudent method to lose weight but hey-boy-howdy, I'm sure it does work---that is until you start actually eating again) however, I'm trying to keep my very developed opinion to myself as yeah, it can be obnoxious. 

With that said, I was listening to the radio on the way in to work this morning and I heard this NPR story on added fiber in food.   Now I'll chime in. 

Every day, I am cognizant of the fact I am far from a perfect parent.  Far from it.  Most days, it's a miracle my son makes it to school prepared and ready to go and home at night in bed with his pajamas on.  Our house isn't clean enough, we are always running from place to place, we've moved three times over the past six years and there have been a lot of big ups and downs for us.  Even as we're slowing down into a new phase, life is still more general chaos than not.

However, since becoming cognizant of what is in the food we eat, I have been determined to pass this on to him; to teach him to know what real food is and how to identify it.  This means my son and I have been having a recurring discussion whenever we go to the grocery that goes something like this:


Boy:  Mom, can we get (insert cereal/packaged food/drink)?


Me:   I don't know.  You tell me


(Boy turns over the package to look at ingredients.  I generally move in closer to look for myself.  What we're looking for is generally there but sometimes not. He does tend to be a beacon for advertising.)


Me:  What does it say?


Boy:  There it is.  High....fructose...corn syrup.

Me:  So, should we buy this? 

Boy: No. 

Me:  Why is that? 


Boy:  It makes you sick? 


Me:  (I want to say "Probably," but I do tell the truth.)  Scientists don't know for sure.  There's no long term study on how this stuff affects our bodies because its sort of a recent thing.  But we do know it isn't good or nourish our bodies--it processes corn which isn't really high in vitamins to make stuff sweet and adds lots of calories we don't need.  So, no.  We're not going to buy it. 

 (He looks up at me every time at this point.  He's waiting for me to ask the next part.  So I do.) 

Me:  What could we buy instead?  Something that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup that's still good??

Boy:  Coconuts!  We know what's in coconuts!

And so we do and he always has an alternative.  That night, we buy coconuts and there is joy because coconuts mean tools and smashing and juice all over the kitchen.  Coconuts are fun.  And then we get to the Spaghettios and the conversation starts all over again, only this time it's not only about the HFCS because yes, it's there but also about my other favorite ingredient which can be either "Flavoring" or "Artificial Flavoring."  Then the conversation steers more towards, "So if they have to add flavor to it or create fake flavor, what do you think it really tastes like?"  Sure enough, back on the shelf it goes.

I know, I know.  My poor boy.

Anyway, I have wondered for a while how he is receiving this.  I figure there has to be a backlash of sorts--something like when he gets old enough to head off to college, he'll eat nothing but Doritos and Red Bull for about fifteen years.  I do try to tell him that HFCS is in a lot of things we'd never guess and that reading is a way to be aware.  Fact:  it is nearly impossible to live a life free of the stuff in our society and its in the most unexpected things, like Kroger Whole Wheat bread.  In fact, there seems to be a correlation  between less expensive foods and HFCS content from what I can see.  Anyway, where the boy is concerned, I figure all you can do is mitigate and hope he doesn't completely chuck it out the window when independence beckons. 

But then there's this:

He went to the grocery with a family friend of ours the other day and as he went through the aisle, told her they should pick only food that contained, "vitamins".  She said he was reading the labels.  Thank heaven she wasn't offended at all--in fact found it pretty cool.  "We're eating healthy," he told her.  "We need to choose healthy things." 

So he's trying.  He's taking it with him and that's good.  It got me thinking, though because he's reading ingredients, but for a long time, I know I focused on the information at the top and not the actual list of what was in the product.   In fact, I had a conversation with an acquaintance recently who was considering going on the hCg diet (and I won't even start on that today, I just won't although apparently I want to)  where they told me they always read the boxes when buying food.  I asked them what part was read.  The response was, "The carbs, the fat and the calories. That's all I need to know--I don't read the fine print."

Yes.  Those things are important for sure. So are the actual ingredients--very important.  And that's the point:  READ THE FINE PRINT.  The food machine devils lie in those details we scarf down so willingly.  The carbs, fat and calories are important--but the actual ingredients of what we eat?  They matter, too. 

It wouldn't be my blog without a gross generalization so here we go:  it seems a lot of people don't like reading the fine print.  I don't.  It takes time and effort and understanding. Apparently, I'm not alone, either.  Elizabeth Warren can vouch for that in the world of credit card deals that state in pages of obtuse fine print the bank is going to hose you if you pay late or has the right to raise your interest as much as it wants.  The new Consumer Protection Agency is working on simplifying those offers so that people do understand what they're signing on for through all the legalese designed to keep the banks rich and their borrowers hooked. 

Well, it's the same with food. 

Yet the food machine corporations who pay divdends to their stockholders, strive to keep food processing cheap with sometimes questionable production processes (ammonia in beef, the creation of chicken nuggets, ohohoho, it makes you shudder) made more palatable with shiny packages covered in buzz phrases like "whole grain" and "fiber rich" and "omega 3".  These guys don't have any interest in consumers reading the fine print.  In fact, they'd prefer it stayed fine.  It's cheaper for them that way and they don't have to change.

In the NPR story,  they state the latest food production buzz is to state your products are fiber rich.  So, the manufacturers of highly processed foods up the fiber in their products through the techniques described in the story, which are far more unnatural than just throwing a handful of oats in the batter.  When the newly "3 grams of fiber rich" product hits the shelves, the consumer, with the impulse to buy, sees the banner and says, "Well, see, it has fiber, it's not so bad!"  We, like Fox Mulder in that show I used to love, desperately want to believe. 

But,  if we read the fine print (and I took  the chocolate mini-wheats they have pictured on the blog that declare they contain "whole grains" and "fiber"), we see the following:

Ingredients are listed by quantity of what is in the product.  So this has "whole grain" wheat.  Which, by the way, is just wheat. The second ingredient in this cereal is sugar.  The third ingredient is chocolate.   Kinda negates the whole fibery goodness, doesn't it?

(In truth, this one isn't so bad on the HFCS front.  It's got BHT, though, and for those who don't know, this is a nice overview of BHT.    Yes, the jury is still out on its long term effects and it's in a lot of food.)

In comparison, some foods have nothing to hide.  Here's a picture of  McCann's quick cook Oatmeal which by the way, is both a real whole grain and contains fiber naturally.  Here's the ingredients.     

Irish Oats.  That's it.  Put some honey on it and it's sweet. (I was going to take a picture of the honey bear's ingredients, but there wasn't any listed because, well....it's honey.)

Corporations are interested in selling us things. They do that by packaging and playing to the taste sensors that light up our brains.  In a real sense, the manufacturer is giving us subliminal permission to buy a product we know may not be good for us simply by adding a "whole grain" or "added fiber." It takes a split second to get us off that teeter-totter of indecision and put the item in our cart and they help us get it there.  The statement of it potentially containing something that is supposed to be good for us, no matter how it got there, is enough to allow the consumer to feel *justified.*  If we took the time to read the actual ingredients--to stop that impulse and educate ourselves--would we buy the product?

Perhaps.  Sometimes what we want outweighs what we know to be in our best interests.  I did it yesterday when I ordered a pizza instead of cooking.  The fact the pizza tasted terrible didn't stop me from eating a slice.  I wanted convenience.  I chose it.    In fact, I've been struggling lately a great deal with wanting to comfort myself with food again for lots of reasons, mostly stress related.  Then I remind myself this is for life and move forward.  I think about my son in the grocery, reading labels.  I think about the coconut on top of the microwave I need to crack open and share with him for dessert tomorrow.  

So here's a challenge, dear friends, from me to you:  for the next two weeks, read your food.  Read all of your food.  Don't take the manufacturer's word for it that it's good for you.  Read it and find out for yourself.   Nutritional information is important, but so are the basic ingredients. If you don't know what the ingredients are, look them up.  If you still don't know what they are, then make a decision if you want the food or not.  You may and if so, that's fine.  But then again, after a week or so of reading fine print, you may find it strangely compelling how delicious oatmeal and honey begins to sound.

Bucket Lists and Motivation

I am making a bucket list. 

It’s funny—in the last ten months the need to get some things done has consumed me like grass in the path of a California brush fire.   Hardly a day goes by without the hamsters in my head staging a conference call about a project I have come to think of as “FUTURE PLANS.”  Metaphorical Furry and Slurry have come up with quite a list so far, too, powered by endorphins, brown rice and the occasional Gigi’s Cupcake to set them really on a roll. 

So, what’s on the list?  Quite a lot of varied proposals as Furry and Slurry aren’t in the business of doing impractical editing.  These items are different from my “TO DO LIST” that includes non-negotiable things like:

Send the Boy to college
Fix the screens and doors and kitchen floor in the new house.
Lower the BMI another 2% over the next year.  

On this FUTURE PLANS list my hamsters have compiled, there are items that are straight forward, provided I take the time to get the education and/or do the work. These sorts of items have numbers because they can be checked off once accomplished.  They are in no particular order; they are things that can be done when I have time to do them.  These are things like:

1. Learn to make decent Pho.
2. Plant and keep a nice flower garden.  

Other list items are predictably travel related and annotated in my head with caps, stars and swirls to illustrate the potential for magical adventures the idea of them bring:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

TRAVEL TO L.A./COLORADO/GRAND CANYON/DUBLIN/B.C./LONDON/INDIA/JAPAN SEE FRIENDS, DO THINGS, TAKE THE BOY.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Others FUTURE PLANS items wind like the roads that would take me there and are not written with such emphasis as they seem further away, less likely, but are still too vital to completely remove from the list.  This sometimes makes them hard to read.

W    k        U        a        K     B    s       C     m

    a     e        p         t    2    a    e       a      p

Others on the ambition/career portion of the list fade in and out of focus, some days appearing fuzzier and far away while other line items appear crystal clear and just within reach. 

Zumba Certification

Audition for a show in an open call. 

ACE certification

Degree in Nutrition

Make the BIG IDEA happen

Finish the book.

Some FUTURE PLANS start with parenthesis as if they are half an idea.  They end with question marks and remain all in italics as if they  are shy about even being considered as a potential and realistic goal. 

(go to burning man?)

And others...others can’t be written down for long.  They appear then disappear like the Cheshire cat, leaving only the residual of a lines-on-imaginary-paper smile to show they once were there.   I know about them but they refuse to take a place of permanence on the list.  They are *not* *quite* *there* yet.

This FUTURE PLANS list?  It’s long.  LONG.  The ones written above are some of the bigger line items, but there are many more for as anyone who has ever met me can testify, my head is a busy place.  

The issue for the most part of doing all these things (outside financial resources and time and I do not count either because if you want to do something, really want to do it, these things can be made to appear) is motivation. 

I have trouble with motivation.  Let me correct that:  I have no trouble with motivation that arrives on the surge of an initial impulse.  My initial impulses are great.  Where I bog down is on the long haul between Make-It-Happen-Topeka and Goal-Accomplished-Fort Worth.  On the goal-reaching stretches that go on for miles, where there is no excitement and only the routine and regimen of moving towards something, my momentum hitches and sputters,   When the road gets rough or the way isn’t clear and I’m going to have to blaze a trail or make a new way,  it is in these stretches my impulse loaded engine slows to a stop and I find myself  beside  the side of the road of My Best Intentions with a buck in my pocket, out of gas and low on spirit.   

When this cycle reaches this conclusion,   I follow the ritual of blown-out impulses and put the demoted goal in a pretty, decorative mental strong box for safe keeping; a sort of hope chest for ideas that just didn’t happen.   I do take the box out now and again.  Sometimes, upon re-examining the ideas, some impulses spark back to life, but if things bog down, then back to the box the ideas go, either in a rush or more commonly, with reluctance. 

The logical part of me (there is one, actually) condenses the phenomenon in the following SQL-esque manner:   

If IMPULSE =OVER

then

MOTIVATION = GONE.

(End)

The sole exception of this pattern in my life is current experiment under way to continue to live a lifestyle free from Type II Diabetes.  .  This time, I actually was successful at accomplishing a goal.  Of course, then I found out the goal was actually a journey which continues onwards and will for the rest of my life, but that’s fine.  I’m here, I don’t have medication, WINNING.   

It helps to keep the engine chugging remembering diabetes doesn’t take time off because I need to carbo-load.  Hell, this disease is so deep in my genetic code, even with everything I'm doing now, I still might not be able to avoid it.  Still, that doesn’t mean squat—well, actually it means a bunch of squats but not in the metaphorical sense of the term.  When the motivation lags, some meditation on adding needles and insulin and medication to the daily routines usually turns it around. When truth-based scare tactics don’t work, the thought of the Boy going through life with a healthy-as-possible mother and one less thing for him to worry about usually does the trick. 

And now there is this list, filled with asterisks and italics and bold fonts to highlight ideas.  Things to do.  Things to accomplish which ties back to a night in a bar in Chicago in 1994.  I had met this fantastic artist, Paula Killen.  She was doing her one woman show at the Goodman and my boyfriend at the time was the sound designer so we ended up hanging out with her during the run.   She was and is a brilliant writer and monologist; one of those beings that burns so bright energy radiates off of her in waves.  In Chicago winter, it was good to hang out near Paula because that fire she had in her belly to create just kept you warm inside.  It inspired you.   

   

Anyway, we were out at a bar—maybe the Map Room, definitely not Marie’s Rip Tide that night--and I said something in a rather wistful, little-dog-scratching-at-the-door-to-be-let-in manner along the lines like I had always wanted to do new plays or develop a one woman show.  Her response was straight and to the point.   “Well, why don’t you just do it?”  No bells.  No whistles. 

Just do it.

Just do it?  Not wait for permission or to receive validation? It rolled off the tongue so easily.  So you mean, you just do the work, get it done, make it happen?  My 28 year old self twitched at the idea.  You mean, I don’t have to wait  until all the circumstances were perfect?  Just...do it? Like the Nike ad?

Yes.  Just do it.  Make a decision.  Go with it.  Get it done.  It's that simple.  

And now, twenty years later, with this list swirling up from my mind’s eye like smoke in a magic mirror on a regular basis, the same statement faces me. Why don’t I just do it?   Why don't we all, no matter what the "it" is?

I have thought and thought about it and finally determined there are no compelling reasons not to do everything on the FUTURE PLANS list.  Everything.  One at a time until my time runs out, whenever that is.  Maybe I get to one of them.  Maybe I get to all of them and start a new list.  Some will be harder than others.  There’s no reason not to try. 

 

There are lots of reasons we don’t do things.  Lots and lots.  We tell ourselves we can’t because it’s not easy or convenient or affordable or practical.   We tell ourselves we can’t because of ties that bind.  I agree there is a level of responsibility to it all, especially as a parent.  For me, the lights have to stay on, food must remain on the table and the relative safety and stability of all beings within my care must be ensured, with the health and well being of the Boy first and foremost.   The TO DO list must be maintained.   

However, it makes sense now that the FUTURE PLANS doesn’t have anything to do with the TO DO list. For many years they were tied--it was all about the ultimate goal instead of the journey to get there, the enjoyment of the now.  Taking it a step at a time—setting a goal and working for it—having a compelling need to accomplish it even if it’s just “this is something I want” is reason enough to get through the Topeka to Fort Worth haul. 

 

So, yeah.  I have a bucket list.  I have FUTURE PLANS. What I'm learning is to take it one step at a time and keep going until you get to the end which sometimes turns out not to be the end but the beginning.  Then maybe you have something. Or better yet, maybe you'll just have the journey and most of the time, that's where the best stuff happens. 

  

That's enough to keep one motivated.  That's enough to make me say, "See you in Fort Worth."

If you ever wanted to try an exercise class and haven't--

--last night, in our 6 p.m. Zumba class in Yellow Springs, along with the 40+ all shapes/sizes people attending, there were no less than seven children under thirteen and one woman in a wheelchair who came and took the class.  The woman in a wheelchair did the arms only and worked up a good sweat.  Her daughter, who was deaf, did the class by watching and feeling the downbeat from the music. It was both humbling and made of awesome all at once. 

 So if you've ever wanted to take a class or feel intimidated by them, try it.  Work to the best of your ability; you don't have to do the whole thing perfectly or be the best in the room or do everything high impact like the instructor. (As one of my favorite class teachers to date said once:  "Low impact does NOT mean low effort!"  You can get a great workout and by marching and lifting your knees, really stretching on side movements and working your lower body by getting lower instead of adding bounce.)  The important thing is to take the class if you want to take the class.  If you take it more than once, you'll get better at it.  

A bunch of children, including a deaf child.  A woman in a wheelchair.  Like the commercial says, come on:  just do it.   

Well, I am a sanctimonious asshole.

What the title says. Therefore, a few things: 

1. I have no hard answers or solutions to pretty much anything.  Physically, I know what works for me but there’s a lot more to learn.  Things keep changing.  More on that later.
2. Getting healthy in any way is in my limited experience not a one-size-fits-all sort of thing.  It is intensely personal and malleable.  It is also incredibly fragile.   It’s one of the reasons why I started this blog and also why I think those diet industries make 60.8 billion a year.  
3. Mother Teresa is an inspiration.  I sure as hell am not.  In fact, most days, I’m a poster child for HSM (Hot Shitty Mess.) It’s a miracle my son has survived to be almost 10 with such a mother.
4. These observations I have are solely my opinion.  I am an expert at nothing.  As I educate myself, I will share because knowledge is power.   I realize that by taking on controversial subjects, I attract wrath. Take what you want and leave the rest.   Take nothing at all.  Or tell me to go to hell, if you want.  It’s just my opinion and I am often wrong.   
5. My writing is not intended to prod or poke or make fun of or put down anyone else's efforts towards health.  Anyone who is trying to grow healthier physically, emotionally, socially, financially or any other "–ly" should be applauded and supported.  Whatever motivates them to start and persevere is an awesome thing.   I am 100% behind them.  
6. Where weight loss is concerned, I adamantly do not believe in diet industry driven programs anymore as sustainable measures for long term physical goals.  I think they are great jump-starting tools and that’s about it.   This is my own personal conclusion.     
7. With that said, if a diet program sustainably works for you, that’s great.   Again, this is fragile and personal.  One size does not fit all. 
8. I have thought about this blog for a very long time.  In doing so, I have had many conversations with many, many people in the last six months about this subject.  My dissatisfaction with the media portrayal and the marketing of weight loss couple with the dissatisfaction I hear from those I encounter along with my own personal dissatisfaction with results in the past is the driving factors here.    

So for any who took offense or thought I was criticizing or who wanted to knock me down a peg, I’m knocked.  Mea culpa and true apologies offered.  It is my sincere and humbled hope they might be accepted. 

******************

I considered naming this blog, “Things No One Tells You” but settled on the more incendiary title because it’s what I tell myself about everything most days.  Still, “Things No One Tells You” struck a chord  because I’m doing the perio-menopause thing.   I have been for about two years.  And you know what?  A lot of what is happening, has happened to date, no one warns you about.   As a dear woman I love to pieces wrote me this morning, “Who knew your giblets are the boss of everything? And I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!”

It scares me, this looming iceberg of uterine change that from all telling disrupts your life from the ground up not for a month or so, but for years.  Women get through it every day, of course.  For some, it is simpler than others.  For some, there is wreckage in its wake.  Here’s a fact:  menopause and its’ inevitable outcome scares me.  It seems to me that I just found a me I’m vaguely happy with upon the brink of potentially this incarnation going away again. I am scared I will not be able to sustain a healthy lifestyle through menopause.   

No.  Strike that. I’m terrified.  

I also fret about changes other than the proverbial “change of life.”    Life change scares me for it has derailed me in the past for long periods of time. 

<navel-gazing portion of blog>

I had lost weight a number of years ago before my wedding, (which is where the name SYHGOYA comes from as I lost twenty pounds in about three months by exercising and eating a strange diet.  My friend, Su said she and I should write that book and had a good laugh about it.) Then I lost my job, my husband was denied entry to the US after going to renew his visa because he had married a U.S. citizen and had “intent to immigrate,  I got pregnant on a visit to Canada to see him.  He re-entered the U.S. a week before our son was born. 

And during that time, even with an excellent support network in Chicago, stress took its toll.  High stress job.  Bills on one paycheck. Being pregnant, all on its own.  It was in my third trimester I decided Oberweiss ice cream was good for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Therefore, I was 198 pounds when my son was born, up from 150 lbs at the start of the pregnancy.   And for me, breast feeding did not take that weight off.  The truth is, I did nothing to help it off either.  Ice cream is still good during post-partum and well into the first year, too. 

The next eight years brought a series of crazy changes.  Motherhood.  Premature hyper-tension.  Moving from Chicago to Ohio.  A dream job that became a nightmare.  Separation from my husband. Unemployment.  Divorce.  Single Parenting.   Navigating a new dysfunctional and highly political work environment requiring a 3+ hour commute each day.  A new unhealthy relationship. Foreclosure.  Lawsuits against mortgage giants.  General insanity. 

(Note:  I look at that list and think, “Jebus.  Really?   That sounds like a bad Lifetime movie of the week.”  But yeah—all of that happened.  Still, we had a lot of fun during it. My life has been pretty good to date, even all the definite crap of it withstanding.  Also, 95% of the nasty situations I encountered I had a hand in creating.  If you make questionable decisions, questionable things happen.  It’s a fact. No pity there.) 

There was no question that in the “healthy living department,” I was completely derailed.  Food was the only constant.  It was my offering to myself and to those I loved.  Cooking was something I wanted to excel at as it seemed I was struggling with everything else.  So, food was comfort.  Food meant love.

 

I did attempt Weight Watchers a couple of times during those eight years—lost 15, gained 20, lost 10, gained 22.  I was never serious about it though and I knew that while I did it.  I wanted to lose but knew I couldn’t sustain.  I simply did not want to give up the one thing that offered consistent pleasure.  I remember thinking, "Man, I can't wait until I lose this so I can eat again."  Oh and there was no exercise.  Really at all. I left too early and got home too late. 

Then in 2009, after attending a reunion, reading an article and seeing a picture, when all seemed to be out of control, I started controlling food.  That’s the truth of this.  Then, a new job came, a half an hour commute began and I started working with people who talked about going to the gym and I realized I could do that now.  So I tried it.  This time, it stuck.

   

</navel-gazing>

The point of all this is I have derailed many times in my life from health simply from the circumstances of life. My current big focus is financial health these days.  It’s a monster in my life of my own creation and one that has to be slaughtered all on my lonesome. 

Still, I’m afraid it will happen again.  The only thing constant in life is change and I do fear something life-wise will happen and I will lose the ground I’ve fought for over the past two years.  So.  Yeah.   Gotta love the hard light of reality, right?

I want to know how does one keep up when the unexpected comes into play? These circumstances happen all the time to people more disciplined and better equipped to deal with crisis than I.   Me?  I have no answers.   Question of the day:  does anyone else?  How do you mitigate changes?  And how can you stay on track?

So Who Am I? And What is This?

I have noticed a trend. 

As of the last year, when watching the news and talking to friends and family, a theme is coming up over and over again.  When put through the media, it starts like this: 

"Lose weight and keep it off the way the stars do!" 

"Tired of diets?  Need to fit into those 'skinny jeans?'"

(insert image/voice/footage of ridiculously paid celebrity spokes person) "I lost weight using Blah Blah Blah program and you can, too!"

In conversations, it begins differently.  If I see someone I haven't seen for a while, it generally goes something like the following: 


"You look great/Wow, look at you/some sort of exclamation of surprise at my physical fitness to date."


(I say thank you.  I work hard at health and appreciate when people notice.) 


Then, within five sentences, sometimes even in the next breath, 2/3s of the people I encounter state one of the following ideas:

1. They need to go back to the gym. 
2. They know they need to lose weight.  (Sometimes they actually apologize for their appearance. It's awkward and there's nothing I can say to make them feel better.)
3. They don't like the way they look/feel at their current weight level. (Sometimes they look great.  In fact, I'll have been thinking, "Damn, they look good and about to reply and then it's all,'Oh, I feel awful/look terrible/am so fat/insert your derogatory comment here.'")

This happens *all the time.*  I've been asking around to other people to see if it happens to them and it seems this is my own thing that's going on.  Regardless, it's always surprising. I've wondered actually if I'm leading them to it so I've been monitoring my conversations with those I see to make sure I don't anymore.  I don't mention anything about it and then it comes up.  It can be absolutely maddening. 

I also have noticed I have more and more conversations with people I love where we touch on the topic of their dissatisfaction with their own level of appearance and fitness on a regular basis. They tell me they know what they need to do, they'll do it their way, they want to step up the workouts, they are counting points or working a program--all variations on the endless theme of "IIIIIIII don't like my booooody" society teaches us to sing from the earliest of days.  

And you know, I get it.  I do.  I was a picked-on, bullied fat girl who got thin from about her senior year of high school until my early 30's when a nightmare relationship took me down a spiral greased with pizza slices and butter-coated everything.  I was 44 years old when I made a decision to become myself again after living thirteen years, with a brief two year stint around the time when I got married and before I got pregnant with my son, clinically overweight and nearing obese.   So I get it.  


This is what I do not get:  

Per the CDC, as of  2007-2008: 

• 33.9% of U.S. adults over the age of 20 are OBESE. 
• 34.4% of U.S. adults over the age of 20 are OVERWEIGHT  
• 18.1% of adolescents, ages 12-19, are OBESE
• 19.6% of children, ages 6-11, are OBESE. 
• 10.4% of children, ages 2-5, are OBESE

BUT 

• In 2010, the diet industry made 60.8 BILLION DOLLARS hawking their solutions for helping people become thinner. 
• There are various studies and statistics that show 95% of all people who lose weight through dieting gain it back. 
• The average diet cycle per year is 4; meaning those who want to change their appearance will start diets at least four times in twelve months.  

Obviously something isn't working but goodness-gracious: some people are getting rich.  


All of this has me got me thinking about so much.  For instance:

• As a consumer, food has changed so much in the past twenty years that what we think we're eating may very well not be what we're eating at all.  
• I've personally experienced some real craziness ever since the moment I decided to unpin the Type II Diabetes target off my size 16 butt.  From dating, to perception, to dealing with food issues--I've looked it in the eye at one point. I'm sure there will be more, too, and writing always helps.
• What does it really mean to make the changes to live healthy in a culture that promotes quick and easy and impermanent instead of health and self-empowerment?  And how on earth do we raise healthy kids in the midst of the corporate food machines? 

See, I'm 46 and in the best shape of my life (which on update:  which is relative for me and not for Shape Magazine.  I still require airbrushing.)  The thing is:  I'm not done yet.  This is not a diet.  This is a lifestyle.  Life is to be lived and not denied and I'm tired of seeing people throw money down the diet machine maw, myself included.  I want to figure it out--how we can change the perception from "quick fix" to "really wonderful sustainable life style change" and hell, I'll use the internet to help me do it. 


The fact is there is only one way to get healthy. That's to live healthy. And please remember that "healthy" is a relative term defined by the individual and not by society.  I know those who have suffered disabling disease that still maintained a "healthy" lifestyle during their sickness with support and help and through their own personal strength and commitment to their understanding of health.   

The point is, our culture would have us think otherwise. Our culture believes in quick fixes, in teaching us to look outwards instead of inwards for solutions we already have.  In my opinion, it's time for the inmates to start running this asylum, to take back the dieting-night, so to speak--to teach ourselves to live with bounty and in grace instead of deprivation and need. 


So yeah.  I think that's enough for today to start.  So shut my hole, right?

A Note to the Title of the Blog:  Yes, it's called Shut Your Hole.  Get Off Your Ass. I can see where this might be offensive to some.  However, I use this not only as a reference to portion control and exercise but also as the phrase I tell myself when things get hard.  I require tough self-love.  I do not coddle.  

To break it down:  

Shut your hole = stop complaining/whining/giving excuses.  
Get off your ass =  Get moving/take action/affect change.


Sometimes it means moving mountains.  Other times, it means I need to put down the cookies and go to the gym. (Eh, it happens.)  Regardless, it works in every situation.  


Every single time.