Puttin' On the Brakes!

I'm sure you readers understand -- we all feel this way in early January: Christmas frenzy is over, and we're ready for a Long Winter's Nap. Well, I am anyway. I'm well past 55 years old and not prone to leap up and do all I used to do. I was a true slug today. 
* I edited only part of a chapter in my book.
* I painted half of a picture for another book.
* I took a bath.
* I tagged along with Adam to the grocery store.
* I fed my chickens. Does that count?
* Oh, I did some laundry.

See? Some of you are going to work every day. Yikes. I can't imagine doing that again! 

Here are a few photos from the week. Adam is working hard at his new Youtube channel, "Dogs, Diets, and Recipes." He's learning the techy details of making those videos that look so easy when you watch them! He's cooking healthy foods, and more importantly, we're not cheating and snacking.

Last night we had a plate of veggies: grilled broccoli and cauliflower,
fried okra and squash, dressing, and half-mashed potatoes.
Approx. 480 calories

Tonight we had a "meat and two": a lean 3.5 oz. of ribeye,
and oven-roasted broccoli and potatoes: approx. 530 calories.

 I'm painting cards, but slowly, because I don't return to the farmer's market until March. No hurry, thankfully.

I'm truly torn about whether to feel guilty or pleased with myself for resting so much. I haven't launched back into my weekly duty schedule of music and meetings. Perhaps I should enjoy this brief quiet time while I have it. It's so tempting to become a hermit and stay home forever.

Next week I will be in West Virginia visiting my mother again. She is doing so much better. We have some activities and visits planned. Thanks so much for reading, friends! 

The Ugly Truth About Weight Loss

Adam and I lost lots of weight a few years ago. 

Adam lost 66 lbs., and I lost 31 lbs., and we looked good, if I do say so myself!

May, 2015. We were already beginning to gain it back again.

We started reducing our calories significantly on June 1, 2013, my birthday. So ... we had pictures!

We were tubby. One year later, June 1, 2014, same restaurant, we were much improved:

Of course, it helps to have smiling faces. But we've got the records and numbers to prove it. We looked better because we'd lost weight. The photo at the top, from Philip and Kara's wedding, is one more year along, May, 2015. Already, we were struggling to keep our weight down. The weight loss regimen that had worked so well for a while, was failing. At first, when were dieting together, we'd sometimes say, "Wow! This is great! This doesn't really feel hard! I can't believe we waited so long! We can eat this way the rest of our lives and attain any weight we want to!" Ha! Adam's goal was to weigh 165 lbs., and he truly believed he would just keep going down until he got there. Why wouldn't it work that way? 

We were eating very carefully. On a food log on his iPad, Adam entered every morsel he put between his lips. We looked at that old food/weight log again last night. We didn't stop dieting, and he didn't stop exercising. Why did it fail? I remember well when he'd come back from his daily 20-mile bike rides, wondering why he had plateaued on his weight loss, why he was again gaining weight slowly, even though he was riding more than before, and he was still logging his food, weighing himself daily.

We watched a video last night by Dr. Jason Fung that quite clearly showed us why our calorie-reducing plan failed, why it's designed to fail. If you struggle with this painful reality, please watch it. Find out why cutting calories and increasing exercise will not work because the human body is not designed that way. It's not "calories in/calories out." It's "fewer calories in/your body stores it up and rebels and shuts down your metabolism/gain the weight back." Yeah.

Fung is a kidney specialist and cancer doctor who advocates fasting. He has many other videos and a book too, so you can find out more about his theories of how the body works, and why our usual diets let us lose weight and then regain it.

He talks about insulin, obesity, metabolism, and fasting, and how the body stores fat. And it makes good sense. Adam noted in himself that the caloric intake that allowed him to lose weight back in 2013 will now cause him to gain weight. His metabolism has slowed so much, he can't lose weight unless he goes on about a 1300 calorie/day diet. That's insane!

When you've been morbidly obese -- a weight that is killing you -- and you lose lots of weight and feel great, it's crushing and depressing to gain it back and feel helpless about it. The feeling of failure, the disappointment of family and friends, the decreased mobility, the daily food restrictions that accomplish nothing -- it's all horrible. So we are ready to hear what Dr. Fung says.

I've never fasted. I've never been convinced that, as a spiritual discipline, it would accomplish for me what it is supposed to, although I'm happy for those who find it useful in that way. But perhaps for losing weight again, it would be useful. I'll keep you posted. If you have any thoughts on this, please comment. I have so many friends who've dieted, lost, and regained. I have one friend who had the surgery Dr. Fung mentioned, and she has kept off her weight. I have one friend who's lost lots of weight and seems to keep it off with huge amounts of exercise. Other than those two, I really don't know anybody who's lost weight from being morbidly obese, and kept it off. (I'm not talking 15 or 30 lbs.; I'm talking 50 - 100 or more lbs.) I have many friends who've had the failure we've experienced.
Here's a second video where he talks more about the fasting concept, if you're interested:

What Kind of Eater Are You?

Adam and I watched a fascinating British documentary a few months back, and the content has stuck with me. It was a first-of-its-kind scientific study done with 75 obese participants, trying to understand exactly how they over-ate, and why they ate as they did.

For breakfast pAdam made chocolate biscotti with white chocolate and pistachios. 

Here's a link to the BBC page about the study that was done. And here's a link to a Daily Mail article about it, if you'd like further reading. I tried to find the documentary itself on Netflix and Youtube, without success. But if you can find it ... watch it!

Basically, they discovered three kinds of over-eaters: Feasters, Constant Cravers, and Emotional Eaters. They even have a quick online quiz you can take to help you find out what kind of over-eater you are. If you're not obese, and not over-eating, don't bother. Here's the quiz.

What they discovered made so much sense to me, and it continues to inform how I understand my own eating patterns. I'm a Constant Craver. Basically, if there is food around, there's a little part of my brain that stays fixated on the food and wants to go fiddle with it. I'm not actually hungry. I don't really want to eat the food that much (although since that's what you do with food, of course I do eat it). I like to fiddle with food. Here's their description of my eating type:

"And the third group, the constant cravers, were those whose genes drive them to eat. They are more grazers, they don't eat huge amounts in one sitting."

I'd always claimed that my obesity wasn't my fault because I don't overeat -- in other words, I don't sit down and eat like a Feaster. You know Feasters, those people who can sit down at a buffet and eat three times as much as other people. And apparently they don't even feel very full. The scientists in this study found out why. Feasters have a gut hormone that doesn't function well, a hormone that tells the brain, "I'm full. Stop eating now." They also found a biological reason for why Constant Cravers eat as we do.

I'm not a Feaster. Adam is a Feaster. I'm a grazer. I like food to be around. If I never ate another full sit-down meal again, I wouldn't miss it. I'd much rather eat my meals in little bits, all day long. I find that kind of eating to be comforting, satisfying, enjoyable. I like to nibble off of little plates. I like to make pots of tea and fiddle with them. I like food that's in little bites. I like to eat with my fingers. I like to be involved with my food. I like to eat while I'm doing other things (like movie-watching, knitting, reading, facebooking ... even if it's inconvenient and I spill on myself). 

After I eat a meal at the table -- all the calories I'm supposed to have for the next five hours, sadly -- I'm in a stuck spot. What I really want is to have eaten only half the meal, and have the other half to nibble on later, over a course of hours. I realize that now. What made me fat is that for years I'd eat that whole meal, and when the Constant Craver gene kicked in two hours later, I'd go get something else to eat, just a little, even though I was not hungry. Doing that for 25 years can put some weight on you.

So this morning I left a few bites of biscotti on my breakfast plate, for later. Because I know myself. And as soon as the early bites of biscotti weren't giving me the same satisfying feeling as the very first bite did, I knew it was time to stop and save some for later. And because I'm no Feaster, not only was that easy to do, it was pleasant. I had something to look forward to.

Yummy biscotti for later

I'm not a Feaster. I'm most certainly not an Emotional Eater. When I'm highly stressed, I can't eat at all, thankfully. But I nibbled my way to obesity. If you're overweight and you'd like to understand why, and perhaps begin to do something about it, take the little quiz above. Find the 3-part documentary and watch it. And knowing yourself and your tendencies, begin a new eating plan that works with your tendencies, instead of fighting against them. Some diets work best for Feasters (like, eat a big meal at noon, and try to cut back in the evening; or eat three solid meals each day but don't snack!) and some diets work best for Constant Cravers (like, it's best to eat six small meals each day -- have you heard that one?). As a Constant Craver, I have to be careful what I nibble on: low calorie, healthy, tasty, food that is satisfying to the palate and takes time to eat. 

Perhaps this will be helpful to one or two folks out there. I hope so.
(I'll ask Adam where he found the videos, and post that information here if you can watch them on line.)

It's Nice to be Home :)

Let's begin with somethin' pretty, ok?

Yes, that looks suspiciously like a rose -- perhaps some improved type of camellia -- not sure, but it's blooming right here in Oriental!

Just down the road is a tree bursting with life and loveliness ~

Is this a fruit tree? Apple perhaps? I'm so lame when it comes to plant life!

Right next to that rose bush/tree was another magnolia. This one has much darker blooms, so perhaps it's a Port Wine Magnolia, as one of my readers noted.

On the flip side of the weather world ... when Julia and I drove home Tuesday, we found fog, frost, and ice as we approached the high pass at Old Fort.

Every tree, every branch encased in frost and ice ~

And way over in Greensboro we found heavy ice and snow on the ground and roofs. They'd had quite a storm!
This morning Adam made a pan of quick biscuit-type cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Yummm. He baked them in a spring form pan, which gives nice high sides and is easy to remove for plating and serving.

I had a reasonable (small) serving and loved every bit.

You don't have to give up yummy foods when you lose weight. You just need to have them less often, and have smaller portions.

By the way, I've reached my first major goal in weight loss. I'm under 200 lbs. for the first time in well over 10 years. I weighted in at 197.2 this morning. That's exciting! Adam's been riding his bike like a crazy man and enjoying that too.

Enjoying the Cast-Offs

Adam is on Cloud Nine today. We went shopping yesterday for clothes -- smaller clothes -- and at last he has shorts that don't look like skirts! Here he is, sporting his 38" shorts, and his shirt, size LARGE. I don't even remember when Adam didn't wear an X-large shirt.

 I told him he tends to stick his tummy out when I say, "Stand up straight." Haha!! He says he's feeling downright dapper :)

 Here's the "before" photo, nine months ago, the week our lives changed significantly. That was 60 lbs. ago, for him.

 I'm proud of him. And I love his new look!

 Since he'll be in these "new" clothes only temporarily (until he loses yet more weight), we shopped at Goodwill. Shorts were $1.39 each. While he shopped, Julia and I had a lark in the shoe department there. I found these crazy sandals. I rather liked them. I put them on and enjoyed them about five minutes, which was all I really needed. I know full well that I have about 8 pair of sandals already that I love, and my heart has no room for more! So I put them back on the shelf.

Julia had another creative brainstorm. She loves the peeling-paint, "shabby chic" look. She remembered we have a old dinghy, rotted and falling apart, in the garage, ready for the burn pile. But the back of the dinghy was still in one piece. She wanted it for the headboard on her bed.

She kept the distressed look, but checked online to find ideas about how to paint it. She liked the birds-on-a-telephone-wire idea.

She's not done yet; she wants more birds on more wires. And it won't work as a headboard, we think. But she'll put it in her room somewhere, that's for sure!
There's a reason I offer you no outdoor photos ... sigh. The weather is awful. Cold. Windy. (As in, gale force and river warnings) Wet. Miserable. Tomorrow should be sunny and 60º. Here's hoping!

Food Tidbits

Just a few odds and ends I thought you'd like to know.

Do you wonder about all the wax they put on our grocery store apples? I do. I've washed and scrubbed apples before eating them, but I know the wax is still there. It bugs me. So I started scraping my apples before eating.

And yes, if you scrape the sides of your apple with a paring knife, you will get wax, lots of wax. In fact, you can scrape and scrape, and the wax is deeper than you think. I hate to contemplate all the nasty germs and such that are stuck to that wax, in all its travels.

Adam and I eat so many more apples now that we've come up with a faster way to cut them. Instead of the traditional pie-cut method into 6ths or 8ths (I particularly dislike trying to cut the core out of each section, trying to cut in a curve, you know?), we stand the apple on its bottom and cut straight down, as near to the core as we can without getting any core. Rotate 90º and cut again. Works lovely!

This is an afternoon snack I should eat more often.

Speaking of things I eat often, here's that sandwich I usually eat for lunch. Bread/provolone/lettuce/cranberry marmalade/turkey. It's voluminous, but mostly lettuce. I'll admit, it doesn't last me until suppertime, thus the need for the apples and peanut butter!

In Dollar General the other day, we noticed this on the Christmas sale rack -- half off, for $1!

Adam and I immediately recognized these candies from our childhoods, and wanted them purely for nostalgic reasons. Julia was enthused also; it's candy! They're not much of a temptation for me because I'm not that fond of hard candy, but it was fun to see them again and try a few.

And speaking of temptations, I do have something to relate. Below you see two temptations: cheese biscuits on the left, and potato chip cookies on the right. The potato chip cookies in particular are lethal for me; I adore them. And unfortunately, they seem to last forever without going stale or bad. These are the last two of a good-sized batch that my friend and cousin, Tammy, sent to us all in mid-December.

Sadly (or happily?) for me, no one else in the family is fond of them. I do believe, except for the one time I desperately tried to get the church family to eat them by taking the tin to a snack one Sunday, I ate Every Single One. It's a rough job, but somebody's gotta go it!! haha :)
But I succeeded in eating them slowly. It took a month. I allowed myself one or maybe two each day, and sometimes went for several days without one. I could successfully leave the tin on top of the refrigerator and not touch it. It was hard. I did the same with the cheese biscuits.
Strengthening one's will power to resist food requires presenting oneself with temptations and successfully withstanding them. This is the part of weight-loss that I enjoy, because it's a challenge to my will, and I am SO up to challenges to my will! Ha! For once in my life, my innate stubbornness and refusal to back down actually help me do something right.
I even have the ability to stare down a food I really love and throw it in the trash. See below:

Alright, that was a nasty trick, making you look in our trash can. But on the left you see a clump of delicious monkey bread, tossed out by me. Adam made it for church, and some was leftover. Julia ate a little, but Adam and I decided it was dangerous to have about the house. I enjoy the act of taking something like that, looking it square in the face, and throwing it away. It's a small victory, even a petty one, but a victory nonetheless.
It's a victory to leave the cookies in their tin too. I'm glad I didn't have to throw them out! Yay! It would pain me to throw out potato chip cookies, truly pain me. So, it's handy to have resistance power as well.

Losing Weight II

Back in October I wrote a post about our weight loss. I don't want to harp on it. It's not the biggest thing in our lives. But I've been amassing thoughts on the subject, and it's time to put them on paper, so to speak. Here they are.
Reflecting on fat people -- I find myself looking at fat people and wondering what's in their heads. I've been there. Honestly, I'm still there. I have at least 30 lbs. to go, to reach a reasonable weight for me. But I look at fat people in public and I wonder what's stopping them from getting their act together, realizing they have a big problem, and doing something about it.
And then I think, "How would I have felt if someone had thought that about me, 22 lbs. ago?" Would I have felt hurt? Angry? Indifferent? Indignant?
These days, judging people is definitely OUT. It's the mantra of the young generation now: "Don't judge me!" It's socially unacceptable to look at anyone and make any judgment about their condition, their behavior, their choices. Basically, everyone is just fine as he is, and nobody has to change, unless he's a child molester or something that offensive.
What does that say about fat people, about being overweight? There's quite a push these days to look at fat people as perfectly normal. They're just as attractive, just as active, just as healthy as anyone else. There's nothing abnormal about them. We are supposed to overlook the extra 200 lbs. as if it weren't there. The weight doesn't alter them at all -- at all -- from what they would be if they didn't have those 200 lbs.

Except, of course, that it's a lie. The weight makes a huge difference in all aspects of life. How they view themselves. How others view them. What they can do physically. What they can do emotionally. Their relationships of all kinds. Their health. All aspects of their lifestyle -- how they sleep, how they walk, how they breathe, even whether they have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Yep.

Being fat impacts your whole life, but it's so painful and so horrible (because it's inside you ... it is you) that you quickly enter into a permanent state of denial. You tell yourself lies. Here are a few I told myself:
1. I can't run or walk anymore because I broke my foot 13 years ago.
2. I shouldn't drink anything in the evenings because it makes me get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
3. Blue jeans are uncomfortable; why does anybody like wearing them? Crazy people.
4. I'm not an over-eater. I stop when I'm full. I don't really snack much. I can stop eating anytime I want.
5. I know exactly how much food I need to live, and that's really all I'm eating.
6. The aches and pains I'm feeling are natural for a woman my age. I'm getting older. I shouldn't expect to do what I used to do.
And on, and on. Since losing 22 lbs (and I have more than that to go!), I can now walk around town. My foot doesn't hurt. My legs and knees don't hurt either. It was only my fat that caused those pains. It was my fat that necessitated getting up in the middle of the night, or in the middle of a movie, to go to the bathroom. Just fat. You want to hear some of Adam's lies? They're even funnier:
1. He lost 2" of height because of degenerative bones and bad joints. He thought he'd diminished from 5'11" to 5'9". Until the doctor told him he was still 5'11".  Why did he think he'd lost 2 inches? Because he was wearing pants with 2 inches less inseam ... because he was wearing his pants so much lower ... because his belly was so big .... Yep. It was easier for him to believe he had lost 2" of height, than to admit that his weight was changing how he was wearing his pants.
2. Arthritis and bad rotator cuffs were giving him severe pain in knees, hips, and shoulders. He thought. Until he lost weight. As he lost weight, he noticed that these pains diminished. Now he can throw a pine cone for Sandy to chase, over and over. His shoulder doesn't hurt. He used to sleep on the floor because he had to take the pressure off his bad shoulder. Now he's back to sleeping in the bed -- the pain came, not from the shoulder, but from the excess weight he carried around.

100 extra pounds does horrible things to your body, and the sooner we all admit that to ourselves and each other, the sooner people will begin doing something about it! Guys, it's not about beauty really; it's about health. It's a life or death issue! How many physical conditions that plague people would be eliminated if they determined to lose weight? Adam and I wish we could tell couples how much it enhances your intimacy, when you remove 75 lbs. of fat that's between you -- but you can't tell that to people because it's too personal. But it's important!

Adam is going from 274 lbs. to 165 lbs., Lord willing. He's currently at 219.6 lbs. I started at (gulp ... I hate to say it in public) 224 lbs. Yep. I was that fat. They told me I carried it well, which is just another enabling comment, I'm sorry to say. My goal? I don't know. I'm currently at 202.4 lbs. First goal is to get under 200. Second goal is to hit 170. After that, it's all gravy. I'd like to get to 159. That's a healthy weight for me. If I'm feeling so much better now, I can't imagine how fabulous I'll feel then.

I'm not exercising more. In fact, I'm exercising less because it's winter, rainy, and cold. Adam is walking a lot more. He's losing faster, but he has more to lose. Frankly, all I'm doing is being brutally honest about how much food I put in my mouth, and what I put in there. Here's what I eat, generally:

Breakfast:
4 oz. orange juice
one cup of homemade chai tea
1 egg fried in butter
2 pieces of buttered toast
1 Tbl of cranberry marmalade

Lunch:
a sandwich that consists of 2 pieces of toasted bread, 3 slices of deli turkey, huge amounts of iceberg lettuce, 1 slice of provolone cheese, and more cranberry marmalade

Supper:
Whatever Adam makes for us. He serves the meal on my plate, and I eat only what's on the plate. He usually portions up 3 oz. of protein, 5 oz. of starch, and as much veggie as I can eat. Often there is bread.

I eat apples for a snack, with natural peanut butter slathered on it. Or I might have a cookie (one, not seven), or a piece of toast. I drink water, other than at breakfast. I never drink sodas. We eat vegetarian suppers several times each week. We still cook with butter, drink cream in our tea or coffee, and use sauces and such on our food. I don't consider there to be any food that I "can't" eat.

The crux is this: when I'm tempted to eat something I don't need, I must face myself and realize that I'm being tempted to do something that could kill me, something that damages my body, damages my marriage, damages my children, my church, my relationships, and makes me a poor witness for my Savior. Each time I resist the urge to eat unnecessary food, I strengthen myself for resisting in the future. I'm building habits, behavior, and conquering old, damaging ones. At this stage in my life, eating is something I use only to nourish my body -- a certain number of calories are all I need. Eating is not for pleasure, or comfort, or reward, or entertainment. No excesses allowed.

That menu plan above may not look like much food. It doesn't take much food to live. The extra chips, burgers, leftover pizza, sodas or coffees, "special" meals, massive servings in restaurants -- I now view these as the enemy. If you're fat, they're your enemy too. They're not the pleasures of life; they're killing you.

When I reach 159 lbs., I'll still be over 50, a bit saggy, and no prettier. But I'll be a more fit and energetic wife, mother, daughter, and friend. You can be too. One bite at a time.

WARNING: Food Post!

Adam reached his 50-pound weight loss goal. Every 25 pounds, he treats himself to a date with me at a restaurant. We choose to eat at Paula's, an Italian restaurant in New Bern. I like their atmosphere, and the food is pretty good. Adam ordered the seafood platter:

I enjoyed my favorite, baked ziti:

Julia went out on a limb and ordered a calzone instead of her usual mozzerella sticks.

And you may ask, "Weight loss? With those meals? How in the world can you hope to keep losing weight if you eat that way?" And you'd be right to ask. Here's what we did:  Adam asked for his large to-go box to come with his meal. Then he separated all the seafood from all the pasta and sauce. He ate the seafood (which doesn't do well left over and is low-cal), and he saved the remainder for lunch the next day. I did the same with my ziti, and Julia didn't have a chance of finishing that whole calzone.

Not only does this method allow us still to eat our favorite foods, it spreads the cost of this meal to cover two meals, so it's both a diet win and a pocketbook win. I'll give you one guess, however, which leftover still sits in the refrigerator, days later.

Yep. Julia's. That's why she's actually skinny, and not trying to lose weight :)

(Note: If I disappear on ye olde blogge later this week, and fail in completing my every-day-blogging for November, it's because we're moving to the new house and do not yet have internet access there. Sorry! I'll b back!)