On the Way to ONEderland

Chickens Roosting, etc.. etc...

2012-01-23T17:22:00.016-05:00

We are finally home from the wintry trek to upstate NY -- a blissful week without TV, cellphone service or a DVD player on which to dutifully play all the pilates workout videos I had hauled along. But who am I kidding, right? I wouldn't have done them anyway.

Consider this a show-and-tell recap of my vacay and attempts to not gain 20lbs while hibernating in the north country, where it's all too tempting to wrap up in a shawl and cuddle on the couch all day.

Here's what it looked like when we arrived. Definitely wintery -- that's a bit of a flurry going on.
Naturally, my source of entertainment immediately became food. I decided to bake a blueberry pie -- the one I mentioned in my prior post. Of course, I had to make the crust too. It's not a good idea to do that if you prefer to remain ignorant of how much butter is in a crust. Holy crikey, it is A LOT.
What is a pie without a glass of wine with dinner and some cheese? So we had to make the drive to Woodstock to hit up the local shops. You'd think having all grocery-type stores a solid 30-minute drive away would make me eat less. Sadly, that did not prove true.
With all that fat bubbling away in my veins and arteries, it was no hardship to brave the cold the next day for some skiing. Except it was more like mudding, because there wasn't much snow! Everything you see here is man-made, from the snow machines at night. Still, we did some runs.
From this angle you can really see how sad this resort looks -- the mud was ankle-deep in the parking lot and huge brown patches showed up all over the slopes.
On the way home I had to take a peek at this cosy place -- who can resist a smoking chimney and a sign that says "Antiques"? Sorry for the fuzzy image; our windshield was dirtier than I thought.
Had some aches in the knees after my hard day on the slopes (that would be about two hours of afternoon skiing in an extremely laid-back fashion), so I decided on a medicinal soak in the hot tub while the sun went down. The wine might have been flowing a bit freely at that point, too.
Knees were so stiff the next day it was all I could do to hobble around this lake on a flat, 2-mile walk. Cold, windy and unpleasant, but the Catskills light was fascinating; it changes constantly.
To warm up, a drive to the nearest town, one I had never seen before. It was a welcome and cheery sight, with it's brightly-colored shops on a quaint little Main Street.
Found an old-fashioned general store -- built like a log cabin of sorts -- that sold an old memory. We used to get these as treats in the general store in my tiny town when I was a kid. Of course, we'd plunge our hands right in to grab what we wanted, no matter how often the adults told us to wait. Hygiene was not a factor at that age.
It's probably also not hygienic to have a cat sleeping in a box in your general store in the front window, about six inches from where customers self-serve their coffee (and pour the milk, likely spilling drops here and there) but what kind of cat-lover would I be to complain?
Not sure these poor guys get the same loving treatment; saw them on the way home and it almost put me off the idea of our spaghetti-and-meatball dinner. Must rethink trying vegetarianism again.
Couple of Bambi-like creatures showed themselves as the late-afternoon sun warmed up the grassy slope near a busy bridge. Hope none of them tried to cross it later.
The next day we took a loooong walk around the local reservoir -- freezing cold, and blindingly bright. Still could not really use my knees well. The left one in particular was too stiff to bend.
Whatever little bit of walking we did that day wasn't enough to burn off this baby. Can you believe this is just ONE pancake at Sweet Sue's diner in Phoenicia? We have to ask them to just bring one (it's for M, not me), because the real serving is THREE. Can you imagine that? THREE!
The knees are slowing getting better but have been dicey for almost two weeks now. Tonight for the first time I will go back to the gym and have a bit of a row on the machine and see how they handle it. I haven't done yoga since the trip either and am feeling like crap. I'm at that stage in the post-vacation when you can no longer ignore that your pants are feeling tighter and buttons are straining. Time to roll myself back into a regular routine, as much as the injuries will allow, anyway.

Since returning my eating has been pretty good, except I'm too prone to nibbling at night on cheese. A habit from our time at the cabin that needs to go back to the country.

And a Happy New Year!

2012-01-05T11:23:00.002-05:00

Did anyone else happen to read Tara Parker-Pope's long and mostly depressing opus on the dreaded Fat and how hard it is to get rid of it once you've gotten it?

It's lengthy, and goes into detail about the big F, and -- surprise, surprise -- reaches no real conclusion except that losing weight and keeping it off requires constant vigilance, and will always be harder for some people than others (thank you, genetics).

Even as I type this I am in the kitchen making a blueberry pie. Why? Because there's no way I can go through life denying myself the joys and pleasures of cooking, and baking special treats for my family. Yes, I may be overweight, but dammit, that's no reason for me to be perpetually punished!

We are up in the Catskills cabin for a week (yes, a week!) of vacation. We are going skiing, hiking and walking amid the snow and single-digit temperatures. And it is so fun, and so amazing to feel that I can do all these things (neuroma aside) that I could not do 70 lbs ago.

I will always need to eat small portions and count my calories. I will likely always struggle to make working out a DAILY part of my life (I need to work on this most of all). I will always have to remind myself that a blueberry pie, once made, has to last a week and can't be eaten in one or two massive binges.

I can live with that. That, to me, is doable. These are things I can strive to achieve at every meal, every day. Worrying about why my body doesn't want to drop weight isn't going to help me.

I have to believe -- have to! -- that working out regularly, leading an active lifestyle ON TOP of working out, and eating small portions and healthy foods will help me regulate my weight. Probably not where I want it, but better than where it is now. Otherwise, my choices are too much to contemplate: a life of complete restriction and penury (and I can never live long with strict self-denial anyway), or a constant cycle of binge/punish, binge/punish, flavored all the while with self-loathing and shame. It's not going to be that way for me.

So, for those of us lamenting some Christmas gain (hang tough Jenn!), it's time to get back into the regular routines. Forget the naysayers and ignore the articles that tell you it's impossible -- just impossible! -- to control your weight. There are hundreds of people online right now with blogs who are proof that it's otherwise.

Will have pictures soon of our wintry wonderland up here -- it's so beautiful.

Christmas Is Nuts

2011-12-20T17:41:00.006-05:00

We're supposed to be grateful for gifts on Christmas, but I must be honest and say that I'd like to give the two people who sent over HUGE plates of cookies last week a punch in the nose.

It's been really hard to not lose my sense of perspective completely around here recently, because it is one party after another, and the free treats keep rollin' in. We had one huge lunch last week, and I managed to (just barely) hold myself back from demolishing the dessert. I ate a third.
As God is my witness, I will never gift anybody food for Christmas again. I know people just want to be caring and generous, but really...do they really think most officer workers need this sort of a treat? It. Does. Not. Help. Anyone!

Until recently, thank goodness, it's been warm enough to bike. See the rack below at Union Sq.
While on my bike I had to stop for a shot of Lincoln Center, all done up in Christmas lights.

And one of Columbus Circle, which is gorgeous! The good news is, these lights make me feel like walking around, so even when I don't bike or hit the gym, I've still be strolling as much as the neuroma will allow. Not that it's been enough to offset the crazy Christmas food damage!
Now that Christmas is in the air, weird Santa Claus types pop up everywhere. Behold this one on the subway last weekend.
Before I sign off for the holidays (rushing to visit the rellies later this week, gone for several days), I share with you this video of a steel drummer in the subway. You can't really tell from this grainy video, but he got the most amazing sounds out of his drum. He's playing Christmas songs and they sounded fantastic in person! I got a quick snippet and then stopped, but the video picks back up again. It's long, for those who really really love carols!

Happy Hannukah, and Merry Christmas!!!!

I'll Take It

2011-12-12T12:34:00.002-05:00

Well, that's two pre-Christmas weekends down. One more to go.

Weekends are a bit looser for me, generally speaking, as it's often just running around to do errands and trying to convince myself that we do not need to stop at every corner shop for something to eat. The possibilities for damage are endless.

Made it to yoga Saturday, but whatever minimal calorie burn was achieved (have been gutted recently by two articles stating that yoga doesn't count as a significant workout) was immediately offset by lunch in a Chinese-food diner. It was the choice of my friend's 12-year-0ld daughter, who I was babysitting. She is as long and lanky as a bobcat, and eats whatever she wants.

Later that night, we had Indian with a group of friends. While I was able to keep from overeating at lunch, I had about 15 bites too many of the Indian food. My choice was a good one -- simple grilled chicken. But with the accompanying rice and the naan, drizzled with tamarind sauce...well, I got a little piggy.

Made the gym yesterday for a rowing workout, which was good, but allowed myself to pick up a container of dark chocolate covered almonds while shopping, which was bad. I ate several handfuls last night, and had some again this morning for breakfast (made my heart pound something fierce after I ate them with coffee).

Will I never learn that some items aren't worth touching? The minute they are in your hand, they're in the cart, and then inevitably they're in your mouth. Those almonds fit that description for me, without a doubt.

I'm now virtuously eating a lunch salad of mixed baby kale and arugula, with sliced squash, mushrooms, red peppers and broccoli with tuna packed in olive oil (but not the oil itself) and a smattering of sweet curry sunflower seeds for extra crunch.

No yoga or workout tonight, more's the pity, but I have time to trek up the 18 flights of stairs to the office this afternoon. Gasp.

I sound like a steam engine, I huff and puff so much. And yet, I still managed to startle a couple having an early morning make-out session in the stairwell last week. Ahh, love and fitness -- the movies make attaining both seem so damn easy!

Making Some Lists

2011-12-08T10:32:00.004-05:00

It's so easy to forget that one good choice can often lead to another...
Small victories and triumphs, strung together, are often more important than one big win....

So far this week, I have:

worked out every day.
discovered I can walk the 18 flights up to my office anytime I want.
eaten to plan 95% of the time.
fed myself healthy meals and snacks when hungry.
resisted the pull of frustration and negativity the one night I ate off plan.
focused on being positive and loving myself, ie coaxing myself into the gym because it will make me feel better and banishing the voice that says, nastily, "You have to go to the gym because you're a big fat lardo."
reminded myself that above all else, I want to be strong and fit, no matter what I weigh.

Things I need to be aware of:

Just because I've pulled myself back on track, I am not magically going to drop a size.
When I start working out and eating right, I feel really good. I somehow expect that to immediately transform into my looking really good too.
If I catch a glimpse of my ample posterior in a mirror/window reflection, I should concentrate on how much firmer and muscular it looks than three years ago, NOT on how big it is, overall.
I don't have to go to every Christmas party that I'm invited to. It's ok to be choosy.

That's it from Ish-land today. Hope you are all having a good week!

Ask Me No Questions...

2011-12-06T10:47:00.004-05:00

and I'll tell you no lies. Isn't that how the old saying goes?

In this case, however, I can happily tell the truth!

Fellow blogger Beej asked if I made good on my promise to myself yesterday to hit the gym and give myself a challenging workout on the rower.

I did!

However, it was not quite as challenging as it could have been, but it wasn't me wimping out, I promise.

On the way into work yesterday morning, a lady in a taxi cab (I will call her a lady but really in my head I think of her as an unconscionably oblivious dingbat) decided nobody in the world existed but her, and threw open her cab door without bothering to look out the window first.

You can guess who was passing by on her bicycle -- ME! The lady hit me hard with the door, right as I biked past the stationary cab, smashing my left thigh and knee (of course it would be the knee) and knocking me into the side of the city bus on my right (knocking my right knee hard against that).

I was more furious than hurt, and she was very apologetic, but really...I can't forgive such stupidity on a busy city street. Had that bus been on the move, things would have been very ugly. You would have to call me Squishmael instead of Ishmael!

Anyway, I biked into work, dutifully went to the gym as planned, and gave myself a decent workout. But being mindful of the knees, I didn't go all out. Still, worked up a nice sweat. That rower is effective -- getting the abs, legs and arms engaged all at once is a nice trifecta.

Later that night I went to yoga, and that hurt. It hurt bad. New note to self: don't bike, do 25 minutes on the rower AND go to yoga all in the same day. I could barely hold downward dog and I kept getting charley horse cramps, which make me squeal in pain and that does not go over well in a quiet yoga class.

My legs were so heavy I had a hard time getting up the stairs to my apartment last night. Today my knees are both sore, and I've got bruises on my left side where dingbat, er...the lady, smashed me with the door.

Aside from that , all went as planned. Thanks for asking, Beej!

Oh, guess who was on my train to work this morning? Mercury, the winged messenger of the Roman Gods (Hermes, if you're Greek). I guess this is what all the kids are wearing these days.

Experiments in Living

2011-12-05T11:13:00.008-05:00

This is the day I take my lunch hour and go to the gym. I've been telling myself I'm going to do it for two weeks now and have yet to make that thought a reality.

Today's the day. At 1:45, I'll leave for my lunch hour, cross two blocks and go into my gym for a quick rowing session. I'm aiming for anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. But I'm going to have to push myself -- it can't be a leisurely affair.

Finally got a picture of my breakfast of champions. It's not a great shot (bad lighting) but dang...that lox in the morning with tomato is goooooood!

Convinced M to come to beginner yoga with me on Saturday and he actually liked it! To celebrate he made one of his favorite (decadent) dinners that night. That's a plate of catfish, sweet potato, green peas and corn. I had to push it all together to get it into the shot (ignore the messy apartment in the background please). Looking at it the next morning made me realize that I still tend to over do the portions on "special" (ie moments when I feel like I'm cheating) occasions.

The next day we had to take a long walk to try and mitigate the damage.I call this picture, "How many cranes to hang the moon?"

Sunset on the Hudson River is gorgeous. These are the piers that are built up all along the west side, and people stroll, fish, jog, whatever.

This little guy caught my eye on the shoreline. How he got over there I don't know -- there are two lanes of major traffic to cross. But he looked pretty plump and happy.

He was hunting, too! He didn't pay any attention to us, but took off after some poor creature he saw in the rocks.

I'm not sure, but I think this is where Harry Potter stays when he comes to town.

I tried to catch the way the path looks as the sun goes down and the traffic streams along on the left, but my cell doesn't handle low light well enough to do it justice. Believe me, when the sun goes down this path is DARK, and if you don't have a bike light, coming home on it late at night is perilous! I speak from experience on that front.

By the time we got done, my feet were sore, my knee hurt and I was more than ready to call it a night. I really wish there were a way to magically just be 50 lbs lighter -- I don't want to whine, but damn! It takes so much effort just to not *gain* weight that sometimes losing weight seems like an impossible dream!

Bought a new yoga shirt yesterday to encourage myself (and, er, make the process a little easier on the teacher, who happens to be male and has to deal with the rather astounding amount of cleavage that pops out of my baggy t-shirts when I downward dog).

All the meals are planned for the week, salads are made in advance, snacks are planned. Fitness has been incorporated into the planned schedule, and the battle lines have been drawn. Let's see if I can be a good little soldier for five days in a row!

Must. Not. Succumb.

2011-11-28T16:20:00.011-05:00

Am going to eke out a win today if it kills me, but afternoon sleepy-time/munchie-time is getting me down.

My eating was supposed to be a thing of beauty all day, given that I carefully planned my week's meals on Sunday, and then even stepped into the kitchen to pre-prep my lunch salad last night so I would have *no excuse* for eating off plan.

My delicious breakfast was scarfed before I remembered to snap a pic for posterity. But it was a slice of Swedish dark bread, a schmear of (full-fat, gasp!) cream cheese, a sliced tomato and a piece of smoked salmon (aka lox). I forgot to eat my nectarine.

I find the fattiness of the lox and cream cheese with the chewy bread gets me through the morning feeling just fine, thank you very much.

All was according to plan, including biking to work (hey, it's freakin' 60 degrees today!), and eating my pre-made lunch:

It doesn't look like much but I'd already decimated a good chunk before I snapped the pic. It has greens, carrots, mushrooms, guacamole and some turkey.

I was even able to get a bonus bike ride in (not much tho, just about 5 blocks for an errand), and am now anxiously waiting until 6pm when Yoga starts.

This is where things have veered just a little off plan.

My late afternoon snack was an apple and peanut butter. And I ate the apple, and then didn't stop eating the peanut butter. This bad boy just donated an additional 500 calories to the Ishmael Wide Hips Fund, I reckon. About 3 extra spoonfuls got into the gob before I came to my senses and shoved it away.

The good news is I am no longer hungry, and that snack has to get me through an hour of yoga and a solid 40-minute bike ride home.

This is one of those things that you have to balance out, a bit. On the one hand, a few extra spoonfuls is not the end of the world. On the other hand, it was peanut butter -- full-fat, high-caloried peanut butter! Couldn't I have overindulged with more fruit, for a change?!

I will not let that get me down. Soon I will be biking home, and I will feel totally different than I do right now. In the meantime, until I can get to Yoga, I'm going to go get myself a cup of tea, drink some more water, and annoy my colleague.

Last night we had a dusky walk around the reservoir -- this picture doesn't do the scene justice, but it was gorgeous.

Stress: What do we do without it?

2011-11-26T18:45:00.006-05:00

Isn't it kind of nice to be stressed sometimes? It's like a thousand possible decisions have been taken out of our hands.

You can't commit to going to spin class on Thursday, because you're just so stressed out! You can't plan your meals for the next week because you are busy, busy, busy! How in the world can you know if you'll be free to run a 5k in March -- and train for it -- when you don't even know where your boss is going to send you on assignment next week? Right?

That used to be my life. Now I have a new job. What do I miss? My stress.

Stress is what kept me from feeling sad. Stress is what kept me from asking myself why I was eating too much. Stress kept a lot of feelings at bay.

This Thanksgiving, I experienced a real lack of stress. To tell you the truth, there was so little stress, it kind of stressed me out! What was I supposed to worry about...when there was nothing to worry about?

I can find a lot of things, of course. There's always cause for concern in this world, sadly.

But right now, my job is to focus on me. What have I been hiding under all my stress?

So I made one of these:

It's got apples, and brown sugar, and lemon, and a lot more brown sugar. I make it once a year, at M's special request. And we've been eating it, slowly, piece by piece, for the past three days.

And we are taking a lot of walks in Central Park, mainly because we can see this:

But I think my favorite might be this. It was taken with a crappy cell phone, but it was a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend day, and I don't think our walk could have been more perfect.

My goals are simple: walk as much as I can, eat small bites and even smaller portions, and find at least one reason to laugh each day.

Tomorrow is another chance for a good day. Probably won't be perfect, but I can make it a good day.

Still Kicking

2011-11-07T23:06:00.002-05:00

Not literally, because of those darned neuromas, but... metaphorically, don't you know.

So, my bloggie friends, I have changed jobs. It's been brutal. Because change..well. You know. It's change. Not slow, bloody-takes-forever weight-loss change, but one-week-you-are-here-and-now-you-are-not change.

It's been hard. My job has dominated my life for the past five years and I will admit that without it I am somewhat...er, at loose ends. I wish I could say I'd filled that void with constant exercise, but that would not be the truth.

However, I have been forging ahead, in spite of myself. There is a great yoga studio just one block from my office. Now, I'll tell you a secret: I don't really like yoga. I like to say that I do, and I get great pleasure from thinking about yoga, and going online to look at yoga classes, and generally pretending to myself that I am a yoga lover.

But when I get to the classes, I'm always the biggest, sweatiest person present, and the poses f***ing hurt sometimes, and my arms and legs shake in the most embarrassing way.

But I'll be darned if I haven't developed an appreciation for the classes at Yoganesh, my sore knees aside. It's pretty darn awesome.

I'll try to come back soon. But if I'm MIA for awhile again, it's just because I'm trying desperately to forge a new path for myself outside my chosen profession. I'll adjust, but it will take a some time. Meanwhile, the damn neuromas are still making my life a misery. Can't stand 'em.

The Long and Winding Road..

2011-09-21T15:42:00.002-04:00

leads to the cupboard, apparently. I'm back after a crazy few weeks in which M and I did what was meant to be a brief vacation in Virginia with his family, then a brief vacation with my family near Miami, and then returned home in time for 9/11.

Due to factors beyond my control -- an older relative suffering a fall and breaking a hip -- things went topsy turvy and we've been running hither and yon for what feels like forever!

In the middle of this was 9/11 to negotiate -- always a bit tricky -- and the usual life choices and challenges.

I'm struggling to pick up the exercise where I left off, but am fairly deflated and depressed by ongoing irritation in both feet. Apparently my Morton's neuroma is not gone and likely will never be gone. It stopped bothering me for a long while -- but of course, I'd stopped walking/running almost entirely. Not my usual dashing around during the day, but my prolonged walks for, you know, weight loss and everything. But the minute I tried to do longer than a mile, BOOM, the pain and irritation came right back. Ditto when I tried a short run, and ditto on the elliptical, which despite being low-impact seems to bother my feets. Dammit all to Hades!

Am clinging to a mantra of "reframe, reframe, reframe" because otherwise I will slide down into a deep pit of despair. When really I shouldn't, because I've gotten through some really tough moments without throwing caution and good habit to the wind and chowing down.

I'll get more into details later, but let me just say I got invited to a down home BBQ in Virginia and it was everything you'd think it would be and I left marveling at the fact that there are ANY people down South who aren't 500 lbs.

Blink. That Was My Summer.

2011-08-18T08:47:00.004-04:00

It's mid-August. How did that happen?

A quick recap of the last few weeks:
-a bashed thumbnail that is now black and disgusting
-a banged knee from tumbling in surf
-a wrenched back from a budget bus trip to Boston
-a cold from said trip to Boston
-one truly wicked bout of gallbladder distress caused by an epic night of red wine, boursin cheese, fruit tarts and ...you know it's coming... more cheese (manchego). I was sick for two days. Lesson learned.

But let's count many glorious NSV (non-scale victories) as well:

Nephew was dying to go to the beach, so we hit Ogunquit Maine (scenes from my childhood) and dang it all if I didn't put on my old bathing suit and enjoy myself in the water in all my flabulous wonder. Doesn't hurt that in Maine many people are generously built - there's no way you can swim in 60 degree water otherwise! But it was a wonderful day, and I determined that I wasn't going to waste one single second worrying how I looked. Nephew and I just laughed and swam and had a ball.

At Fenway Park, my fave ballpark of all, and I managed to tame the demons and not drink a huge beer or scarf hot dogs all night, or french fries. Held myself to one hot dog -- that was dinner, a planned treat, and (nails digging into my palms sometimes when vendors passed by) I made it through the night.

Can't explain it, but pants still loose. With nephew here, there was minimal gym time, no biking because he had a sprained ankle, and lots of treats not normally in the house. But... something was going right.

And one last thing, not really related to weight loss but relevant nonetheless, a job possibility is on the horizon. More money, better hours, but taking me into a different track of journalism. Scary choice, but maybe one I should pursue? Thinking deep on it.

I'll be back with a more complete post soon, just wanted to say I hope everyone is well and enjoying summer. Except for my epic binge, which was part of a French dinner party, I've been striving hard hard hard to hold on to my "small portions are everything" mantra. So far I think it is helping/working.

Two more quick notes -- I have a new follower. Hello and welcome A New Poison! And I won an award! Thank you Kirstin at Just Weighing in and Moving On. She gave me the versatile blogger award, which I've never gotten before. That means I should share 7 things about me you don't already know. Here goes:
1) I still have the guitar my parents bought me when I was 10, even though I only got 2 lessons and then my teacher developed meningitis. Ack! I can't play, but can't bring myself to throw it away.

2) Probably the happiest moment of my day is when I climb into bed and get ready to fall asleep -- I love that feeling of stretching out and drifting into slumber.

3) I don't "collect" cats like some crazy cat ladies do, but I can't stand to see hungry or hurt felines (or any animals) on the street. (I think you all knew that tho already;-)

4) I can still bend over and keep my legs straight and put my palms on the floor. But I can no longer touch my big toe to my nose liked I once could. I regret that.

5) The Dalai Lama and I both contributed stories to the same book in 2002, so he and I are co-authors in a short story anthology.

6) I am famously short-tempered when tired or hungry.

7) I will let M get up and do the dishes on nights when he has cooked even though I feel very guilty about it, but on nights when I cook, I always remind him that it's his turn to do the dishes. Gosh, that makes me kinda awful when I write it out!

Weighing In

2011-07-26T21:41:00.002-04:00

Quick update: the wedding was a blast, my outfit was a hit. I was unable to avoid all cameras and saw some photos of myself. I could have zeroed in on a million flaws, but in the end I just kind of shut off the negative part of my mind and focused on how cool the bright tangerine color looked on the beach at sunset.

The drive up and back was wearing, the food was good but I ate too much. The tornado nephew is back (he sprained his ankle badly - requiring a cast -- on his SECOND night at camp. Sigh).

Am I on track with any weight loss? No. Am I holding on tight to as many good habits as I can? Yes. I have not -- so far -- gained back too much of the weight I lost while sick, but I do think I've gained back some. But that's to be expected, I suppose. When you don't really eat for six weeks, then start eating again... I guess there's a change no matter what.

More soon, once I get a minute to update.

Summer-Summer-Summer Time....

2011-07-11T19:04:00.003-04:00

We're really feeling it today in NYC -- so sticky my super waterproof sunscreen wouldn't stay on.

The tornado nephew has gone to camp, so peace is restored for two weeks, and then he's here again for two weeks.

While he was here I ate, in no particular order, too much calamari, waaaaaaay too many cashews (seriously, about a week's worth of small servings, but over 24 hours), one burger with fries (I took the bread off, but ...er, the damage was done, and why can I never learn to leave some fries on my plate? Both the nephew and M did, but not me -- I shoveled every last one down my throat), and a small serving of ice cream with a wee bit of Sara Lee pound cake.

I did have the fortitude to have M toss the remaining ice cream this morning. We got back from the nephew's camp late last night and it's a miracle I didn't dive into the remaining dregs right then, but I held off. This morning M said, do we want this? And I had the strength of mind to say no, take it away!

Cashews are now officially off the menu for the rest of the summer. When the tornado nephew comes back, I'll have to limit the ice cream treats -- he loves to walk down to the corner at night for a snack.

Wedding this weekend, and I broke with my usual habit of buying a big floppy dress to hide my many, many sins. I have chosen a bright coral top that has one shoulder exposed (whoo hoo!) and is on trend with the "color blocking" style in fashion now (so I hear on the tee vee). The bottom half is a light skirt.

I hope that this will be slimming and exciting all at once, and that I won't look like a heifer rolling around on the beach. I'll report back and let you know how it goes!

Jersey Snore

2011-07-07T10:33:00.004-04:00

I feel like I'm living a bizarre mash-up of crappy reality TV shows -- I'm equal parts Desperate Housewives and Jersey Shore.

It's gym, tan, laundry all the way, except I can never tan and actually spend more time avoiding the sun than bronzing in it... but yeah, aside from that I might as well be Mike "the Situation" Sorrentino, because my life is naught but a thoughtless series of bland, repetitive acts. It might be worth it if I had his abs, but I don't!

Gym, laundry, more gym. More laundry. Add in plentiful heaping doses of ennui, plus the fact that I recently got my hair done, and you have the Desperate Housewives angle.

Yawn. My summer so far has been boring. I am boring. At least I am getting some gym time, but it's in 20 minute spurts. I just can't work up the enthusiasm for long bouts anymore. I force myself to do 20 -- as hard as I can on the machine of my choice -- then I cut and run.

Things will change soon, whether I will it or no -- the tornado nephew arrives tonight!

Tour de Food, ...er, France

2011-07-03T12:08:00.005-04:00

Read an interesting article this week in the WSJ -- an American cyclist is doing the grueling Tour de France bike race on a vegan diet.

Two factoids leaped out at me as I read: these bikers burn through an amazing 8,000 calories a day, and boy, do they protein load!

What I wouldn't give to burn 8,000 calories in a day... could my body even do that? I'd probably collapse.

The story caught my eye just because I'm still trying to find the right protein/veggie balance post-surgery. Morally speaking, I'd love to be a vegan -- I just can't stand how most animals are treated on industrial farms. But physically, my body seems determined to make me a meat-eater!

Whatever I eat, I'm trying to live by the golden rule -- it's not what you consume, it's how much you consume that really matters.

When I saw what the vegan bicycler eats as part of his Tour de France diet, I once again realized my sense of food portions is way, way, way off.

Yes, he eats a lot, but nowhere near as much as I would have thought. Of course, the portions aren't given in the article, but still..... doesn't seem like 8,000 calories to me!

Those who want to can read the whole article here, but below is a list of what he eats on his bike -- what do you guys think? Is it a lot of food? (I know it is a lot of food, but for an 8,000 calorie burn, I mean).

Breakfast:

Oatmeal with black strap molasses; whole food optimizer; cacao nibs; nuts; cinnamon; two tablespoons of coconut butter; an apple; hemp seeds and flax seeds

On-the-Bike Snacks:

Six Clif Bar Z bars (vegan); two Clif Bar shot blocks (vegan); two Clif Bar gels (vegan); dates; six to eight bottles of special team race drink

On the Bus, Post-Race:

White rice with maple syrup and cinnamon; vegan protein shake;

two bottles of special team recovery protein drink; goji berries

Before Dinner:

Vegan protein shake

Dinner:

White rice or pasta; salad with leafy greens; vegetables —including broccoli, spinach, carrots and beets.

Dessert:

Fresh fruit and a vegan protein shake before bed

Know Thine Enemy: Potato Chips

2011-06-23T10:17:00.003-04:00

A new study from the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the quantity of food you eat is the biggest factor in weight gain, and nobody can eat just one potato chip. Ergo, the potato chip is making America fat. Behold the AP article below (emphasis added by me to my favorite line):

LOS ANGELES – Blame the potato chip. It's the biggest demon behind that pound-a-year weight creep that plagues many of us, a major diet study found. Bigger than soda, candy and ice cream.

And the reason is partly that old advertising cliche: You can't eat just one.

"They're very tasty and they have a very good texture. People generally don't take one or two chips. They have a whole bag," said obesity expert Dr. F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer of the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

What we eat and how much of it we consume has far more impact than exercise and most other habits do on long-term weight gain, according to the study by Harvard University scientists. It's the most comprehensive look yet at the effect of individual foods and lifestyle choices like sleep time and quitting smoking.

Weight problems are epidemic. Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has tripled in the past three decades. Pounds often are packed on gradually over decades, and many people struggle to limit weight gain without realizing what's causing it.

The new study finds food choices are key. The message: Eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts. Cut back on potatoes, red meat, sweets and soda.

"There is no magic bullet for weight control," said one study leader, Dr. Frank Hu. "Diet and exercise are important for preventing weight gain, but diet clearly plays a bigger role."

Doctors analyzed changes in diet and lifestyle habits of 120,877 people from three long-running medical studies. All were health professionals and not obese at the start. Their weight was measured every four years for up to two decades, and they detailed their diet on questionnaires.

On average, participants gained nearly 17 pounds over the 20-year period.

For each four-year period, food choices contributed nearly 4 pounds. Exercise, for those who did it, cut less than 2 pounds.

Potato chips were the biggest dietary offender. Each daily serving containing 1 ounce (about 15 chips and 160 calories) led to a 1.69-pound uptick over four years. That's compared to sweets and desserts, which added 0.41 pound.

For starchy potatoes other than chips, the gain was 1.28 pounds. Within the spud group, french fries were worse for the waist than boiled, baked or mashed potatoes. That's because a serving of large fries contains between 500 to 600 calories compared with a serving of a large baked potato at 280 calories.

Soda added a pound over four years. Eating more fruits and vegetables and other unprocessed foods led to less weight gain, probably because they are fiber-rich and make people feel fuller.

For each four-year period, these factors had these effects on weight:

• An alcoholic drink a day, 0.41-pound increase.

• Watching an hour of TV a day, 0.31-pound increase.

• Recently quitting smoking, 5-pound increase.

People who slept more or less than six to eight hours a night gained more weight.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and a foundation. Several researchers reported receiving fees from drug and nutrition companies.

"Humans naturally like fat and sweet," said Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, who had no role in the study. "That's why we always tell people to eat their fruits and vegetables."

Pi-Sunyer, who also wasn't involved in the research, said the study gives useful advice.

"It's hard to lose weight once you gain it," he said. "Anything that will give people a clue about what might prevent weight gain if they follow through with it is helpful."

The federal government earlier this year issued new dietary guidelines advising people to eat smarter. This month, it ditched the food pyramid — the longtime symbol of healthy eating — in favor of a dinner plate divided into four sections containing fruits, vegetables, protein and grains.

Close Encounter of the Bear Kind

2011-06-21T21:02:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy few weeks full of adventures!

Apologies to my 37 followers and (hopefully) other readers for disappearing -- have been caught in a whirlwind of work and fun, pretty much in that order.

After a sudden trip to Atlantic City for work (I won ZERO money at the blackjack table), it was off to upstate NY for a trip to check out my nephew's summer camp, and then back for another rapid-fire week of work, and then back up to upstate NY for a weekend at our friend's beautiful Catskills cabin.

Sandwiched in between there have been bike rides aplenty, and one scary bout of food poisoning that almost had me back in the hospital (luckily I rebounded and the ER doc decided to send me home).

I was healthy enough this weekend to travel to beautiful Fleischmann's in the Catskills. I had perused several hiking books in advance and was really excited to try a 4-mile hike to an old farm way up in the mountains. Driving out there M and I both commented on the area's extreme remoteness....

We should have paid heed to our instincts, because not 30 minutes into our hike, who did we meet? Momma Bear and her two cubs.

These are not the bruins we met (I grabbed this pic from TripAdvisor) but the cubs were just about this size. We had been moving silently up the trail when we heard a sudden rush of movement about 30 feet to our left -- it was Momma Bear sending her cubs up a tree to escape us. We were obviously a dire threat to them, in her mind.

It. Was. Scary. O..M...G. She stared us down and growled about three times -- short, panting, angry blasts. M started to run up the hill but I grabbed him and said, sotto voce, "Do. Not. Move."

Thank the Ursula Goddesses, she decided we were harmless and looked away. We chose that moment to melt backwards down the trail. If she had charged at us, we would have been goners. There was a stream about 10 feet behind us, and I whispered to M that if she ran at us, we would sprint to the stream and try to pelt her with rocks.

After viewing this, I realize we would never have made it to the stream -- those bears can move.

It only took this one encounter with the wilder side of Mother Nature to send us mewling back to our fancy cabin, complete with hot tub. We stayed there for the rest of the weekend!

All is well otherwise, health is good. Check in with you all soon.

Zen and the Art of Bicycling

2011-06-07T22:02:00.005-04:00

Long bike rides are the best therapy in the world (sore bum excluded, of course). Today I took a long one after work, all the way up to the George Washington Bridge that crosses the Hudson into NJ.

There's a pedestrian path to go over the bridge, and from there you can bike up the highway to upstate NY. I have a friend who goes as far as Nyack. I can't do it though -- I have too much vertigo to make it across that span on foot.

Here it is, in the distance, and as I approach up Riverside Park and into Washington Heights.

Got there at last! Phew. Quite a ride. I tried to just be zen, not stress about work, and enjoy the moment. I came home and wiped out the rest of the cashew nut butter. Thank goodness it's gone, and thank goodness I was at least self-aware enough to buy a very small jar -- I knew, deep down inside, it was going to cause me problems. Now it's gone, and it's going to be a very long time before I get more.

I'm still on my upped protein intake and, funnily enough, I think it's helping me lose weight. !

Even M said to me this morning, as I was bending over to pick up something the cat knocked over (that is NOT my most flattering angle), "You look like you've lost some more weight."

For now, if eating more protein (in smaller but more frequent meals during the day) is working for my body, I'll keep rocking it. The more weight I lose, the faster I can be at the "Dodge the Boss" game I play at work everyday!

Toxic Shock

2011-06-06T19:23:00.004-04:00

What does one do when there is a person in one's life -- not a close contact, yet someone who wields considerable power over one's daily life, (i.e. a boss) -- who is really toxic?

Does one -- and that one would be me, obviously -- chuck all sense and practicality and march out the door in righteous indignation? (The most appealing option to my non-pragmatic side).

Does one recall the recent, unexpected medical situation that would have bankrupted her if it had not been for the insurance provided by the job she currently holds? (The job that brings her into contact with the toxic avenger?)

Seriously folks, I can't deny that the difficult work situation is only becoming more difficult. I have a supervisor who is full of anger, in general, and prone to viewing everything as a personal challenge to his authority, and it makes for an unbearable work environment at times.

It's really time to try and move on, and I have to achieve this ... life's too short, and all that. It's a cliche, but it doesn't mean it's not true.

The stress makes me eat. Today I bought a small jar of cashew nut butter, knowing as I did it that it would be an epic mistake. I just got it home and it's already almost half way gone. Bad, bad judgment.

I did a long bike ride today, and I'm trying desperately to keep myself from going way way out of control. I can't let one Toxic Avenger in my life throw me off track. But wow....I'm not kidding when I say this person is really, really sick, and I struggle to not let his disease take over my working life.

Manhattanhenge!

2011-06-01T11:23:00.004-04:00

Every summer on certain dates the sun lines up perfectly with some of the city's biggest, widest boulevards as it sets over the Hudson River. It makes for same darned purty evenings.

This is not my picture, to be fair, but I would have snapped one if I could have gotten my hands free. I was biking home in all this glory last night. I'm trying to get off my derriere and get moving more, and so far so good with the bike. It's such a joy to be on it again, and pushing myself to regain some fitness.

I really huff and puff a lot, but I think I can feel my strength returning with every ride I take. I am also trying to lay off the wine, which is not easy for me because a friend of mine recently returned from Spain with a truly delicious bottle of Rioja that he gave me...one taste, and I was hooked.

Naturally, I tracked down a wine store in Manhattan that carries it and have been indulging all too frequently. Must battle down the wine demons!

Next Manhattanhenge: July 12.

Hiking Tomorrow

2011-05-29T19:04:00.002-04:00

Here I am, podgy as usual, but still drain free and healthy!

Something important I've learned in the last 10 days: raw veggies and I are no longer friends.

The split looks to be long-term, I'm afraid. Last week I ate some cauliflower with my lunch salad, along with my daily apple, and oh lordy, did I pay for it.

It seems, looking back, that whatever underlying condition was giving me difficulty in January and February -- sending me to the doctor -- still exists. In between times, we found out that my gall bladder was faulty. But not, it would appear, at fault for my dicey digestion!

So no raw veggies for me. Isn't it funny that when I could eat raw veggies with impunity (in my wild youth) I hated them. Now that I love them, I can't eat them! It's back to proteins, bready carbs and thoroughly cooked veggies in small doses.

Aside from my adventures in digestion, I'm doing fine. Fatty foods (naturally) don't bother me in the least, so I can consume all I want of fried calamari. I just can't eat the garnishes!

Tomorrow we will go for a hike. My first since the surgery. Also hit the gym today for my first real workout. It was a slow and gentle 45 minutes on the stationary bike.

I'm working hard to control my eating and hold on to the smaller portions that became comfy while I was sick. Not easy, but doable.

A friend of mine has been doing WW and it's really starting to show. She looks great. That, in turn, makes me jealous. She's in the honeymoon phase of weight loss, when it all seems to make sense and it happens fairly easily. Every week her clothes fit better and her face/hips look slimmer. It's making me green with envy. I admit it: jealousy is currently my motivation. Let's see how it works.

Back soon with pics if our hike tomorrow is photo-worthy.

Gone, Daddy, Gone

2011-05-20T08:55:00.003-04:00

The drain is gone.

Two days with no drains and I have not collapsed in a sudden rush of built up bile pain, nor has my stomach undergone an alarming swelling. So far, so good!

The drain removal wound up being a non-event, mostly because I accidentally caught the tube on the corner of a small table as I put my gown on in a changing room, moments before being called to the radiology room for removal.

I didn't realize it was caught and boy, I gave it one heck of an accidental yank. When I hobbled into the procedure room, the doc flipped up my gown, raised his eyebrows and said, "This drain is pretty much out already."

A couple of snips, snips on scar tissue and sutures, and that puppy was history!

Now must go back to exercise. Someone kindly sent home a box of chocolates with M last night. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw they were some weird kind of German pralines with brandy inside. Not to my taste at all...or so I thought.

By the time the Office was over, I'd figured out how to gnaw a corner of a chocolate, drain the brandy out (gag -- it was like 100 proof, I swear) and eat the rest of the dark good stuff. I ate the whole box, which luckily (being European) was fairly small. Still, I'd say it was a good 8 or 9 bite-size pieces. Aaarrrrrgh!!

Could the End Be Near?

2011-05-17T08:29:00.004-04:00

Today is the day I go in for what I'm 99.999999999 percent sure will be my final drain assessment. If it's not yanked out tomorrow at the latest, well... I'll eat my favorite Boston Red Sox cap.

Finally I have some good news to share: since last Tuesday my drain output has dwindled down to essentially nothing. I collect a teeny tiny amount in the bottom of the bag -- like 2 ccs -- in the morning and at night. It's such a small amount it doesn't even bear writing down in my drain log (and yet, as I recently discovered, even 2 ccs of yucky bile makes one heck of a stain on beige pants!).

My first week back at work went pretty well. I bore up to most of the strain without difficulty, but I found myself getting tired and overwrought a few times. It's funny, but some of my body signals are still out of whack -- when I'm hungry I don't get hunger pains, I start to feel tired. When I'm tired, I get super cranky and emotional in a way that I usually do not.

Friday night an ugly scenario loomed when my two bosses -- who had showered me with promises of easing back into work and letting me set the pace when trying to lure me back -- apparently had forgotten all about our deal and were hounding me terribly over some copy (that I had not even written). Long story short, I got so angry at how quickly they had pushed aside their promises to me (as soon as they became inconvenient for them) and I could feel tears welling as I sat at my desk....and I suddenly just had an epiphany right there: "You need to go home, right now," said a voice inside my head. "Go home and take care of yourself."

I am still angry at their selfishness and willful obtuseness, but I'm proud of myself for pulling the plug on the whole nasty situation and getting myself out of there.

Anyway, my strength generally is good, and with the drain output down to nothing and no discomfort elsewhere in my stomach, I think it's time to yank this sucker!

I also really need to get back to more exercise. I don't want to ride my bike with a long dangling drain (scary!) but since my food intake has soared of late, and I've discovered that I can easily tolerate all sorts of formerly forbidden foods (chocolate, avocado, olive oil, even small portions of fried food) I really need to get my butt moving a lot more!

By the way, can I just say that this story, which happened to another NYC-based weight loss blogger, is my worst nightmare?

One of my worst fears when I was heavier was how I was going to navigate seating on airline flights. I am SO GLAD, even if I'm still far from svelte, that flying is no longer one long dance with humiliation for me.

The Power of Protein

2011-05-05T10:07:00.004-04:00

Nothing terribly exciting to share from the sick bed -- except I think I no longer qualify as sick and I no longer stay in bed all day.

Am swallowing as much protein as I can without overdoing it, and it's making a tremendous difference. Within 48 hours of upping my intake, I felt my strength increase significantly.

The bile output to my remaining drain is dwindling, but not as consistently as I would like. But hey, at least it seems to be heading in the right direction. Healing is not always a linear path, I guess.

I'm reaching the danger zone of becoming just a lazy slug-a-bed instead of a recuperating patient. It may be time to gradually ease back into my job, and try to resume some of my normal activities, even with this annoying drain poking out of my side.

If I keep limiting myself to slow walks and afternoon naps, well.... I think it won't help me regain what's still missing of my strength. At the same time, I still get a bit tired after too much activity.

I'm going to talk to my boss and see if we can find a way for me to go back to work but take it easy for a week or two. Nothing dramatic, just that I can leave early sometimes if I need to, and avoid some of the crazier assignments that would have me running around.

Otherwise, I know that I'll start to get bored and depressed at home now that my mind is not constantly focused on feeling better. I am feeling better, thankfully! So... time to stage a return to the real world, methinks. Plus...I'm scared that if I continue to hang out at home, I'll gain back a ton of weight. I'm eating well...so that danger is very real. Is it sick of me to be thinking of that when I should be focused on eating enough to heal? I have twin worries in my head about it -- I want to get 100 percent better, but don't want to pack on the pounds.

Cloud, Meet Silver Lining

2011-04-29T19:30:00.003-04:00

Scene: Me, in my messy bedroom, attempting to clean up the chaos of six weeks inattention. Suddenly I spot my heretofore still-too-tight skinny jeans in a bag of clean laundry. I gasp. Against all my wishes, they've been washed!

These are the jeans that I wore over and over for the longest time (far too long to admit publicly) because I was scared they'd be incredibly tight once out of the dryer. But M, being the doll that he is, made sure I came home to clean clothes when I left the hospital.

Overcome by compulsion. Must. Try. On.

Fear holds me back.

Compulsion wins over fear.

Jeans slide on. Easily. I take them off, check label, make sure they're right pair.

Yup. Will the magic hold if I slide them on again? Yup.

It's not worth the pain and suffering I've been through these past weeks.... but hey, at least this damn gall bladder disaster got me something!

Now I just have to make sure I don't eat myself back out of them while I'm recuperating at home, banned from the gym by Dr. No.

Dr. No

2011-04-28T18:08:00.004-04:00

Here's the good news: the most irritating drain was removed on Tuesday. Yay!

That means I can bend over again and do all manner of things I couldn't do before because the nasty thing pinched so terribly.

The bad news: the other drain remains, and tests show that the hole in my bile duct does too. Drat the little bugger, it's being so stubborn about closing up.

After the procedures I went home and soon developed a nasty temperature that turned into a 101.5 degree fever. Very uncomfortable night. I gave myself a break the next day and just rested. I felt like a sloth, but I also felt like my body needed it. I was white as a sheet all day. Feeling better now.

The doctor who performed the drain analysis on Tuesday (not my surgeon) casually said that since the hole wasn't closing and the drain was still collecting a lot of loose bile, the next step would be to run a long needle through my liver and attach a new drain from a different angle.

I cannot believe how easily doctors throw out these things like it's no big deal. I know they do a million procedures a day and most go just fine, but as my present situation shows, things can go wrong at anytime.

When my surgeon called me that night to see how I was feeling, he told me that he was going to line up a liver catheter (what they call it) for this Monday if my situation doesn't improve.

I really couldn't believe he was signing off on another semi-invasive procedure for me. Not a week has gone by since the surgery that they haven't done something to me. I decided I had to put up a fight on this one.

It's not always easy for me to remember that I have some control over what goes on in this process. Although I've gotten wiser over the years, I'm still your classic "good girl," the one who does what she's told. It's not innate for me to challenge authority, especially the type that comes packaged in the (mostly) male world of medicine. For me, doctors have always been vaguely menacing, not to mention dispiriting and soul-sucking, with their constant emphasis on weight, weight, weight over all else.

But I pushed those old reactions aside, took a deep breath, and simply said "No." He was a bit taken aback, but he handled it well. I told him I wanted a break, and felt that I needed some time to rest.

He launched into a discussion about how they do that procedure all the time, it's really nothing to worry about, it sounds worse that it really is, nothing would go wrong, etc etc. When he was finished I very politely reminded him that he had told me the exact same thing about gall bladder surgery. That shut him right up -- but to be fair, he was very cool about it.

So, out of this has come some very interesting information. I think I mentioned earlier that the docs were worried about my protein levels, which they said were very low. Protein is essential for healing, and since I'm not healing as I should, this is a key element, I think.

Doc revealed that the lowest number on the protein scale that would be considered normal is 13. Anything under that suggests malnourishment or starvation. My number was .... a bloody 5. I couldn't believe it when he told me. I had no idea it was so low.

I'm now eating some protein every 3 hours, whether I'm hungry or not. Even if it's just a few bites of turkey, it's better than nothing. And I have more protein drinks to choke down.

I wonder if that lack of protein was part of the reason I hit a bit of a weight loss plateau...? It's true that I like to pretend I'm a vegan/vegetarian, because it helps me focus on fruits and veggies, and over the past few years I've stopped eating a lot of meat. But I do eat it sometimes, so I wouldn't think I am that deficient. It's a bit of a catch-22 for me, because I feel like when I eat a lot of meat, my cholesterol goes up. But it probably would help my weight loss if I added more lean protein to my diet.

So, live and learn, and consume protein. That's my lesson for the day. I hope to someday soon have good news to share, and be able to get off this broken record of gall bladder despair. I'd much rather be writing about running 5K races, gorgeous hikes and rocking it out in the gym. Some day soon, if my luck finally changes for the better!

Not Quite Drained ... Yet

2011-04-22T17:59:00.002-04:00

My visit to the doc did not go as planned Thursday.

I had high hopes that both drains would be removed and I would be free of the little monsters clinging to my insides and banging their stupid bulbous heads against my legs when I walk.

Doc said no. Apparently I am not sufficiently drained. Funny. Doesn't feel that way to me -- I feel like an empty juice box that someone keeps sucking on.

I try to eat, but very little appeals to me. I know, I know... six weeks ago I'd have been overjoyed by that. Now it feels strange and unhealthy. I eat one small yogurt and am stuffed for hours. I don't get hungry again after I have breakfast, but I know I need to eat regular meals. It's a chore to eat when you have zero desire for food.

Yet I am slowly getting stronger, I think. The stairs don't wipe me out as they did last week. I can walk a little longer, and I don't need to take a massive nap after every outside foray.

But I still sleep an incredible amount -- like 12 hours a night, with a few interruptions, and a good 2 hours again every mid-day.

Latest target for drain removal: Tuesday. But only one drain will come out, Doc says. The other will be "repositioned." At this point, it's been in my body over 2 weeks. I predict a lot of pain with this procedure. Ugh.

Happy Easter weekend everybody.

Just Call Me Homer

2011-04-19T15:37:00.004-04:00

Because my hospital odyssey is finally over, and I'm back home.

Apologies for leaving you all hanging, but I just couldn't summon the energy to update from my hospital bed.

I was there for 10 nights and 11 days, and it was almost too much for me to handle. I think that was the loneliest experience I've ever had -- and it wasn't from lack of visitors. It's just hard to be far away from your family and be sick -- and I mean really, really sick. Like wake up at night and wonder if you're ever going to be yourself again sick. Wondering if you'll ever be able to eat again, or walk normally again, or have normal "plumbing" again. It was a very scary ordeal.

I'm not out of the woods yet. I am home with two disgusting and painful drains in my stomach. I hope they will come out soon, but don't know when it will happen.

The docs kept me in the hospital because I kept spiking huge temperatures overnight. I'd be up in the day and be fine, then as soon as I went to sleep -- zoom! My temperature would pop right up to 101 and higher. They finally decided -- even though I had two drains pulling old, leaked bile from my stomach -- that I needed more pumping, and various torture procedures involving sharp needles and tender parts of my belly followed. There's nothing grosser than watching a doctor pump nasty liquid from your stomach while you are (not sedated) under orders to hold completely still.

Finally they sucked enough of the old bile that was rife with bacteria from me, the temperatures stopped, and I was allowed to leave. I was sent home armed with yet another round of antibiotics -- I've been on them for the past two weeks -- but promptly broke out in a terrible itchy rash, so the doc said I could ditch them (thankfully!). The rash is awful; it mostly bothers me at night, of course.

I am so wiped out from three weeks of not being able to sleep or eat that all I do is snooze. If I walk 4 blocks, I will sleep two hours. I try to eat, but I can't get enough in me to get my protein levels back up to where they should be. Docs sent me home loaded with special nutrient drinks.

In between naps and snacks, I try to baby talk my damaged bile duct into healing so I don't need another surgery. I hope it's listening!

Somehow in all this I did gain weight -- but I still hope it's just weird hospital water weight. My legs are so wasted compared to how they were before I went into the hospital. I think I lost about two inches of muscle from my calves! I don't see how I can be heavier, but I am. It's the most bizarre thing.

Who knew such a simple surgery would come so close to killing me? Twix, I gather you had a rough time too. It's been awful. I just have to hope that now that I am home I can mend myself and gain back my strength. Otherwise, a very uncomfortable surgery looms in my future.

Updating from the Hospital

2011-04-09T15:58:00.006-04:00

The wall calendar across from my hospital bed says it's Saturday, April 9. I guess it must be, but how we got here from March 29, I don't remember at all.

You know that .00001 percent chance that a lapro gallbladder removal won't be successful?

Well, blog world, that's me. I'm your nearly zero percent chance of failure.

Before I start dishing out the drama, let me say I do believe I will be fine .... hopefully soon.

But yes, right now I am in the hospital, I have been for several days (this is also my second admission since the original surgery) and I'll be here for at least a couple of more days. If any of you have spent time in a hospital, you know it's just not fun. In some ways, I'm glad I've been too sick to notice anything for most of my stay. Now I'm finally getting more alert and .... well, it's not pretty.

So, to the good stuff! What happened, you ask? When last I left you I was on my way to the doctor's office Friday, March 25, a few days after what we all thought was a successful gallbladder removal and a fairly normal recovery. My biggest worry was how the gas they use in the procedure had bloated up my belly.

Doc said I was healing nicely, told me to keep moving, sent me home. I did as he said, didn't go to work Saturday, but felt like I would be ready by that coming Tuesday, the 29th.

Slowly, over the weekend, I noticed a gradual shift in my recovery. Things seemed to be headed in reverse, in a way. Where I'd had less and less bloating, I started noting more and more. By Monday, I was fighting intermittent but very definitive waves of nausea. I'd only barely started nibbling solid food Friday, and by Monday night I'd stopped eating again.

Monday night, sitting on my bed reading with the cat beside me, I suddenly felt a small little furl of heat up my belly. That was my only warning, and then the flare was an inferno. A raging, searing pain hit me in my whole stomach, and I shot off the bed, eyes wild, and started pacing, figuring, wow, I must have the most awful post-surgery gas in the world.

Twenty minutes of that, with no abatement, and I thought, I'll take pain pills.

Promptly threw them up. OK, I figured, stomach can't handle those right now. Don't panic. Keep walking.

It finally eased after about an hour, and I collapsed, grateful, on the chair. Thank God it's over, I thought. Hah.

The same thing happened, again and again and again all night long, roughly every few hours, and the vomiting grew more severe, as did the pain. It was like someone was running a blowtorch over the inside of my stomach, burning me from the inside. I couldn't keep down any pain meds, and by morning I was a mess. M bundled me into a cab, and weeping and grimacing, we got to the doc's.

He said it would likely clear up, was some loose bile, gave me different pain pills I could keep down, and told me to drink gatorade and call him in the morning. The pain pills knocked me out, blisffully, and if I timed things right I could keep down about 1/2 of what I drank. But Wed the 30th, I was thinking I couldn't handle another day of this.

The doc thought so too. Come back in, he said. That meant I had to get myself back there again alone, since M had left for work already. Thankfully he'd laid out clothes for me, and what I couldn't get on (socks, bra), I left.

Back in his office, sweaty, stinky, numb from painkillers but with the agony clenching away at my gut, the doc sent me for a radiology exam. You know... the one where you have to drink six cups of disgusting barium.

Let's just say it was a terribly experience for everyone involved, me and the tech staff, who were incredibly helpful and understanding. Once they felt I'd kept enough down, they did the test quickly and as painlessly as possible, but I was still barely able to stay on my feet after all was over.

I'll fast forward here, there are so many terrible details to note -- some as commentary on our medical system --but this will take hours if I don't move along.

I was admitted to the hospital once the test showed a definitive leak of bile from the damaged duct. I spent a horrible night undergoing surgeries for another procedure, and the next day was under general anesthesia again for a stent placement. Another night to recover, then I was discharged Friday April 1. Yes, what a fool was I.

We all thought the problem was solved and things would resolve gradually. I did start to feel better as the weekend progressed. But by Sunday night, things were headed South again. I still couldn't eat anything, and then I got diarrhea, and more pain, and .... oh, just awful distress. I was exhausted, and still recovering from the last bout, so my body gave out very quickly. Also, my stomach seemed to be swelling -- it was so tender and distended. By Monday, my knees were buckling briefly before going steady everytime I got up from the chair or bed. I couldn't bear to have anyone touch my stomach. I called the doc, he said take Immodium AD, and call me in the morning.

I said ok, popped another pain pill, laid down to find a comfy position, and a few hours later (needing the bathroom), realized I couldn't get up from the bed on my own. I had to wait for M to get home from work to help me sit up.

Tuesday, I went into the doc's office. I don't know how I got there, I really don't. I hobbled like a 90 yr old. Octogenarians held doors for me when I tried to get into the facility I needed.

The doc looked at me, called for a wheel chair, and send me down for ANOTHER barium exam. The only way to know for sure what's going on, he said.

More torture later, and we had our answer: stent repair didn't stop leak, and the belly was dangerously full of fluid.

I was back in the hospital. This was April 5 (I think). But before I was even wheeled to my room, my doc sent me to an imaging center where two docs laid me out like a sixth-grade frog dissection project and implanted two drains -- one on other side of me. They're in there still, drawing and sucking.

Incredibly weird to be awake but numb (ish) while they push really, really, really long tubes into you. Weird and gross and kind of miraculous too.

Once that was down, without pause, I was wheeled into another room, put under general anesthesia, and a second stent repair attempt was made. We shall see if it holds.

So, while this went on the lab guys ran my blood and found elevated white count (sign of poss infection) and I came out with a temp/fever and a "tacky" heart rate, so I was stuck in special sort of recovery room. I vaguely recall young residents appearing in the wee hours, whispering and scribbling about peritoneal cavities and sepsis and fevers.

Two days later, I'm mobile but limited because of the drains, and the painful areas where they are still stuck in, but I'm a normal temp, a normal white count, and am moving on to more and more solid food. Only a few more days will tell if the second stent repair worked -- the drain closest to the damaged duct is still producing a lot of fluid every few hours. That's either a sign there was a huge build up there (likely) or that the leak is still a problem (time will verify).

I have to wait, relax, and be patient. Hopsitals are hard places to be when you no longer really feel sick. But I need to heal, so I'm holding on and trying to stay busy. I'm still very tired, not quite myself.

By the way, SOD says I gained 20 lbs in past week here -- that's from all the fluids they shoved into me. Slowly going down (I hope!).

More later -- must rest now.

Must Share

2011-03-25T11:50:00.002-04:00

Today I got an accurate sense of just. how. awfully. bloated. I am.

A few months ago I ran into a store to buy a jacket because it was unexpectedly cold and I wasn't adequately dressed, and I saw one on sale for $14.

Naturally, the jacket was in a size smaller than I usually wear, but I got it anyway, because just a few days earlier I'd found a different style jacket in the same size and it fit fine.

The new coat did not fit. Well...to be clear, it fit my shoulders and waist. It did not properly fit my pear-shaped lower half. I could zip it, but across the hips it was uncomfortably tight.

Fast forward to recent times, when I've been on a severe low-fat diet and kind of not eating much, thanks to the gall bladder. At least once a week I've taken that jacket out and tried it on. It's gotten bigger and bigger on the shoulders and waist -- and slightly, yes, slightly, looser around the wide hips.

On Monday, the day before my gall bladder surgery, I tried it on again.

It fit! It was the loosest it has ever been around the hips (with clothes on underneath) and I could have worn it out that day and nobody would have raised an eyebrow. I'd like it to be just a little bit looser, but even I recognized that it fit me better than it had.

Now then. What do you think I tried on this morning? And do you think it still fit?

No it did not!!! I couldn't even get the zipper to meet! I measured a three-inch distance from one side to the other across my lower belly. OMG!

The puffiness will be gone soon, my doctor assures me. But until then, just call me Puff, the magic non-dragon.

Made It

2011-03-24T16:56:00.004-04:00

Gallbladder surgery was exactly as advertised = quick (to me) and pain free.

Recovery, not so much. Surprising amount of pain from the gas they pumped into my stomach to separate organs. The better to see them, doc said. That's fine by me, but Oh Lordy! The last thing I expected to wake up with was a massively distended, swollen belly.

Am surviving. Thank Goodness M was there and took the next day off too. I was really shocked by the pain, and the gobs of percocet the docs lobbed at me. The cure for the gas is to get up and walk, yet the more percocet one takes, the less one feels like getting up to do anything (and the more constipated one gets, as well).

In any case, I am decidedly on the mend. Now I am in my warm apartment, wrapped in a frowzy bathrobe pacing the floor like some modern day Mrs. Rochester. (I'm dying to see the new Jane Eyre movie.) It's impossible to get outside (two flights of stairs plus nasty weather) so I pace, pace, pace, nap, nap, nap, pace, pace, pace in an effort to rest and get the gas and anesthesia moving out of my system. Suspect I will feel very good indeed once the worst of the gas is gone.

Worst moment of the whole thing? Cab ride home from hospital. Delusional being that I am, I somehow thought I'd float out in minor discomfort and just hop in a cab. Instead, I hobbled out, bent over in pain, fighting the urge to vomit everywhere, and was treated to your usual 20-minutes of cabbie hell in NYC rush hour traffic. Start, stop, swerve, brakes, pot hole. I finally had to cry to the driver to please take it easy.

M said I was the whitest he'd seen me all day when I finally got out at our house. He grabbed my elbow because he thought for sure I was going to keel over. He wanted to take me back to the hospital, but no way was I getting back in another cab!

Learning moment in all -- do not send your friends flowers when they are recovering from an operation. It's a very, very nice gesture.... but who do you think has to get up to answer the door?

Thanks everyone for all the good wishes and for checking in. I'm ok, or I will be, once these next few days are over.

Casual Sunday

2011-03-21T10:03:00.012-04:00

T minus two days and counting! Soon the gallbladder will be no more (and hopefully the weird stomach problems I've been experiencing will be gone too).

I've had a good weekend, but not enough working out. Saturday is my "rest day" officially, since I go to work early and am home late.

Sunday I *should* have gone to the gym, but we went to see a Korean documentary on WWII comfort women used by the Japanese Army .

(Believe me, that was not my first choice for a sunny Sunday afternoon, but M loves Korea and its history, so I dutifully went along, and in exchange he'll go to La Boheme with me later this year).

The filmmaker, a 72-year-old self-described "grandma" was there, and she did a Q&A after the showing that was even better than the film. Lovely to see strong and powerful women of all ages flexing their creative muscle. I found her quite inspiring.

I left the film thinking how much I would like to nosh on some delicious Korean BBQ (sigh -- anything can set off a craving, can't it? ). We settled for a light snack of Thai food, with me being very mindful of the fat content.

This place, Regional Thai, was right around the corner from the theater.
Cute, isn't it? This is what it looked like yesterday, although the front windows were closed because it was a touch brisk for full open-air dining.

Inside, it's lovely and calm.
As a bonus, we both remembered part way through our meal that this is where we had our second date, over nine years ago! Wow. Amazing that both our relationship and this restaurant have lasted!

We were able to navigate the lunch/snack pretty easily. I had decided to stick to the small, steamed appetizers, and M was leaning toward a small rice and shrimp dish. Then I saw the lunch special, for $6.95, was two appetizers and a rice dish with shrimp -- and I thought, "I don't care if we do look cheap and the waiter rolls his eyes at us, we'll just get the lunch special and split it."

That's what we did, and the waiter didn't sneer at us (to our faces, at least) and we didn't get Thai coffee even though it's gorgeous and sweet (too much fatty cream) and we split our very light lunch in quiet contentment.

It truly was small -- the appetizer portion that I got was one steamed vegetable dumpling (and only one) and a steamed spring roll full of flavorful fresh greens.

M's shrimp and rice was also good, albeit a touch greasy. I had a few spoonfuls but was scared about the potential for gallbladder rage later once the grease worked through my system. That helped me put the spoon down after my few bites. (And yes, I did feel some irritation later from the dang GB).

Then we grabbed the subway to meet some friends at the Museum of Design. There was a so-so display called Global Africa Project that had some interesting pieces, but if I'd had to pay the $15 entry fee I'd have felt ripped off (the city generously allows poor ink-stained wretches like me free access to local museums).

It was off for coffee and conversation then (only I had green tea) and a short trot to the subway station to come home for 7pm and dinner (roast chicken, rice pilaf, broc and peas). A great day, in all, but zero work out.

******We interrupt this blog to make an important announcement: the doctor's office has just called and they are pushing my surgery up a day, so I go tomorrow!!! OMG, now I'm nervous/excited and just want this to be over fast. Wish me luck!!

Happy St. Paddy's!

2011-03-17T16:37:00.003-04:00

No green beer for me today, or green bagels, but NYC is feeling very Irish today! I ran out for a brief second this afternoon -- it's almost 60 degrees -- and this is what I saw

Nothing like a NYC parade. (These people are not in the parade, by the way, just pedestrians leaving after its completion.) Dont' have time to say much else, but hope you're all lucky like leprechauns today!

Downward Trend At Last

2011-03-15T14:07:00.010-04:00

It's a sick day in the Ish household. I am feeling ok (just slightly queasy) but M is sick as a young pup. He's got some kind of stomach bug which I desperately hope I do not catch. Probably waaaay too late for that. I guess I'll find out tomorrow, won't I?

OK, enough with the bad news. Here is some good news: I put on my skinny jeans this week and they are finally, finally, finally almost as loose as I remember them being many months ago.

I say almost because I still feel that at one point they were a bit looser -- but it could be the mind playing tricks on me. In anycase, there's a ... smallness (for me, anyway) on some of my body parts that I haven't seen in a long time. My legs look better, my shoulders are straighter and slimmer, even the dreaded pear-shaped hips seem just a wee, wee bit less wide.

I have decided that next Tuesday, the day before my surgery, I will weigh-in and get an official tally of where I am at in relation to my second-lowest known adult weight ever. If I hit that milestone, I need to drop another 25 pounds to get to my lowest adult weight ever.

Er... let me clarify those definitions for you here. When I say lowest adult weight ever, I'm referring to the least I've weighed as an adult since I crossed the 200 mark (on the way up, obviously). So, on previous weight-loss efforts, I've hit these points, only to lose focus and rapidly leap back up to my most bloated state. Now I'm battling to get DOWN to those points again, and hopefully this time stay there and even go lower. Of course, 200 is my Rubicon. Once I cross it, I ain't ever going back.

Having my gallbladder refuse all fatty foods has left me bored and uninterested in eating. It is a new and weird feeling for me to be able to shut the craving door so easily these days. I think it's because my body remembers the pain of my last gallbladder attack (which I thought was acid reflux).

Sunday we were in the store and as we walked by the frozen pizzas I got a rush of "omygosh I would KILL for a piece of pizza right now." (I'm still eating lowfat cottage cheese for breakfast lunch and dinner these days)

Quick flashback to the night I spent curled up in our big brown chair, whimpering, as M said "like a wet dog that's been beaten." Guess what? Craving gone. Right out of my head. In a heartbeat, my interest in that pizza disappeared.

I am going to try and hold on to this new mystery gift, even post-surgery when the doc clears me to begin eating fatty food again! Maybe this should be my new system -- trick my body into thinking of pain in relation to fattening foods!

This week has been light on workouts because of the irritated neuroma nerves in the feet. They just can't seem to quit me, dammit.

But I discovered a neat set of stairs carved into the small rocky cliff in my neighborhood park. They are awesome for running up and down. I've gone several times now. Here's a pic of the circular staircase I start off with:

My workout consists of running up these steps, a walk/jog/shuffle about 100 feet to another set, down those, then back up them to return here and go down these again. That's one set, and I try to do as many as I can without really stopping (just a few seconds at the bottom to catch my breath so I don't get hurt).

I'm up to six sets. Sometimes I stop and do some wall push ups at the top. Doing wall pushups with my elbows out is fine -- I can bang out a decent amount. Woe to me when I tried to do one with my elbows at my side!! Damn, my triceps are WEAK! I could barely do one. It's much much harder.

This doesn't hurt my neuroma, despite the pressure stair running puts on the ball of the foot. I try to go carefully and use my leg muscles to power me up, not momentum. Man, does it get the quads and hammies burning!

It's funny, but 20 minutes of that is more exhausting for me than an hour at the gym on the elliptical. It takes so much more energy to actually haul your body somewhere than to use a machine (not that I am dissing the machines -- it's good to mix it all up, I think). I could feel my abs engaging in a completely new way as I ran up the stairs -- not like it feels when I pump on the elliptical.

Another little challenge that came my way this weekend -- this guy:

Sorry he's sideways -- can't get it to rotate. Yes, Saturday morning I woke up and he was on my third-story fire escape. How he got there, I do not know. He couldn't have gotten up from the ground below -- it's too high. So he must have gotten out of someone's apartment above.

He cried and cried and wanted to come in but M refused. Said he'd go back up to his home soon enough. I did slip him some food, but he didn't eat. I hate to leave any animal in distress, but it looks like M was right. We came home and he was gone -- probably someone upstairs accidentally shut the window not realizing he was on the fire escape and he went wandering. What a cutie!

Footsore

2011-03-09T08:59:00.003-05:00

Had to wear some "nice" shoes yesterday (ie, ones with slight heels). Oohhhhhhhhh, my neuroma is killing me today, in both feet!

If I could pick between gallbladder removal and neuroma, I'd take the gall bladder, even though it requires surgery. It really hurts to have these darned pinched nerves in my feet, and it means no running, and -- for at least a few days -- no walking either. I've got to calm these inflamed nerves down.

I don't know what I did to deserve this rash of bad luck (and yet, things could be far, far worse, so I won't whine too much) but I'm definitely in a phase of things going wrong that make it harder to lose weight.

My plan was to walk to work today since I won't get a workout tonight, but as I sit here -- having taken no more than few steps at home in my nice, supportive Japanese flip flops -- my left foot is throbbing. No 3.5 mile walk today.

It may be time to revisit the foot doc and see if my orthotics need adjusting. Crap! This is not the result I wanted from my fancy new inserts.

Fed Up

2011-03-06T20:41:00.003-05:00

Am very tired of cottage cheese and non-fat yogurt. I'm still pouring it down the ol' gullet these days, but it has gotten old. Very old.

Surgery is the 23rd. In brief, I am happy with my surgeon, my second opinion doc (who I also love) gave it to me no-nonsense and straight between the eyes ..("You won't make it another 60 years with this gall bladder, I guarantee it, so do it now while you are relatively young and healthy..) and he was very impressed when I told him my surgeon's name. So, all things considered, I'm doing ok.

I had to go shopping today for clothes, however, and dragged M along for a critical eye. Folks... despite losing about 60 lbs, shopping is still a horror.

We saw a really cool blue sweater with a white stripe down it (sounds weird, but it looks good), but when I put it on... it was kind of small and it seemed to show an extra bulge in my upper stomach. Not my lower stomach, which is... well, what it is. But my UPPER stomach too. In short, I was a roll factory.

Depression ensued, with much stomping of feet and frustration. Boyfriend calmly pointed out that I was being unreasonable to expect a major shift of weight from just a few weeks of eating cottage cheese (especially when I hadn't worked out a lot and I am still consuming a healthy amount of calories). Damn, I hate it when he is right.

To the gym I went, to lift weights and -- finally -- return to running. It hurt my neuroma, sad to say. I had to quit after 20 minutes. But in that 20 minutes, I ran my little heart out and it felt good.

Earlier in the week I'd made time to go to my nearby park and run up and down the stairs (about 40 steps, not too steep) six times, and do a set of push ups at the top for four out of the six tries.

I'll keep doing it. I was sore for several days after.

Goal: lose 5 lbs a month. Doesn't sound like much, but I counted up. If I can stick to that, I'll be very close to goal by the end of this year. That means getting back on the scale. Oh lordy... not sure I'm ready for that, but if not now, when?

Gall Blabber

2011-02-27T18:57:00.003-05:00

Hmmm, it's been rather quiet around here on the Onederland blog front. For anyone wondering what they might have been missing this week in my life, here's a snapshot of what I've been talking about:

gall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladdergall bladder.

Gall. Bladder.

In an effort to spare you all redundancies, I've avoided my blog this week. I am boring.

I sleep, dream, and eat gall bladder these days -- and that last one you can take literally, as I'm on the weirdest food intake plan of my life in an attempt to soothe the riled bile beast in my stomach.

Good news is -- you can't eat any fat when your gall bladder is angry. Bad news is, I probably still have to have surgery.

I'm subsisting on zero fat yogurt (with blueberries for breakkie, and cinnamon and nutmeg, delicious) and low-fat cottage cheese for lunch and dinner, with a few veggies and fruit bits thrown in for good measure.

I eat the same amount of calories as before the G.B. went ballistic, so I'm not drastically dropping weight. (You know that I secretly fantasized that I would, even tho the gallbladder has NOTHING to do with weight control/loss.)

The other positive in all this is that wine, thank the Ambrosia Goodness, has no fat. Praise be.

If it weren't for a few glasses of tannin and resin now and then, I'm pretty sure I'd be a calcified calcium deposit by now.

Doctor's appointment for Tuesday, with the surgeon, in which I fully expect to be told that we are on like bacon for a Da Vinci style laproscopic removal of the G.B. Will see if I can possibly milk a week off work for this.... another possible upside to this situation.

Truth is, even though I can seemingly control the worst of the tummy pain by avoiding fat as much as possible, that seems to be taking quite a toll. I am so tired all the time, and get fuzzy headed at the end of the day.

I have always read that healthy fats are truly essential for the body -- now I really understand what that means! Without them, the body just gets extremely tired ... I've suddenly sprouted insanely dark circles under my eyes.

Thanks everyone for the information, good cheer and good wishes! I'll be back soon.

Surgery

2011-02-19T19:40:00.002-05:00

Against my heartfelt wishes, it looks like I'll be going under the knife.

After proving myself a miserable failure at a HIDA exam this Thursday (despite THREE attempts at getting radioactive dye into my gallbladder), my doctor decreed that there's a blockage in the duct between my liver and gallbladder.

A sonogram shows nothing, but the HIDA test was conclusive: the gallbladder is not getting any bile from the liver (meaning it's backing up and slowly giving me jaundice, which makes me feel like I'm a W. Somerset Maugham short story).

The docs want to rip my poor, inoffensive, and otherwise un-inflamed gallbladder out because this one nasty duct has gone rogue. I don't quite see the point, but also realize it would be unwise to continue to irritate my liver.

I'm very unhappy at having this situation imposed upon me; I'll admit to being vain over my general heartiness and good health. This makes me feel like I've failed in some way.

It would be nice to ignore the doctors and symptoms and pretend this is nothing, but I'm in near-constant pain on my right side. Not bad, but .... ever-present. It will only get worse, I know.

There's nothing for it but to grit my teeth, get a second-opinion out of general common sense, and then submit to the obvious. I am feeling rundown in a way I've never felt before, tired and draggy. My skin is dull, my hair kind of flat. In short, I'm far from my normal self.

I hate the idea of surgery, even laproscopic, and really hate that I'm still so big and having to deal with doctors. ( I feel like they are all judging me and blaming me for my health problem because I'm overweight, even if they don't say anything directly to me).

Eating is all kinds of weird b/c of the gallbladder situation, but I'd say it's .... well, it's ok. I probably am eating a bit more than I should (the ache increases when I get hungry, to very painful levels), but am making good choices. Still, it's calories at the end of the day that count.

I've been warned by my docs about a low-fat diet, which I bristled at because really, how do they know I don't already follow a low-fat diet? I get quite paranoid and touchy around doctors, don't I?

V-Day!

2011-02-14T18:16:00.004-05:00

Was out and about early this morning for an assignment and came across this scene. Young love in action.

The poor fellow, who you can't see, was bravely standing out in cold and winds with this mega-bouquet of red balloons. He waited a long time for his lay-abed girlfriend to get up, come outside and find him.

I had to give the guy points for staring down everyone who was tempted to snicker at him as they passed by. The girlfriend was rendered speechless when she saw him.

We are headed out tonight to a dinner party at a friend's house. Should be fun, but fraught with danger. Another friend (on WW, no less!) decided to bake macaroons and red velvet cupcakes to bring as dessert.

There will be wine, cheese, and then some kind of spaghetti for dinner, I'm told. I plan on eating some cottage cheese before I go so I am not hungry. I find that if my appetite is dulled it's a lot easier to turn down food, even alluring things like cupcakes. Of course, sometimes being around them but not eating them sets off a binge later, but .... I'll worry about that when I start to feel like it might happen.

I wanted to share this picture earlier in the week but couldn't get it uploaded. Knicks vs. the Clippers. Was a lot of fun! I didn't know basketball games were this entertaining! And the seats were great (even tho very high up) and only $10. Can't beat that!
Jeremy Sisto was there from Law and Order, Tracy Morgan from 30 Rock and one of the Sopranos guys. They were shown on the jumbotron screen (I would find that very embarrassing) from their courtside seats!

The cool thing about this night was that I was very rushed, coming from work, ready to eat something but without time to go find a healthy option. In the end, I grabbed a nathan's hot dog (but didn't eat the bun) and an order of fries, which was thankfully small, and ate them with no regrets, and no guilt. When at the ballgame, one wants to have fun, not stress and stress and stress over things they cannot change.

I didnt' think about food for the rest of the night. Victory for me, even if the Knicks lost.

Happy V-Day, everybody!

Super Fast

2011-02-11T11:17:00.009-05:00

Rushing to pump out some end of week details, a la the old Hot 100 Friday Updates.

Strange week in which many of my grand plans for major workouts had to be altered at the last minute, and yet I more or less stayed on track eating-wise, and faith-and-begorrah I might be fooling myself, but the skinny jeans are feeling just a wee bit looser this Friday. First time I've put them on in over a week.

Monday was not a great day, Tuesday was very good, and I was able to walk to work and hit the treadmill later with nary a complaint from my naughty neuroma. I am ecstatic!

The temptation is to jump back on the treadmill (with better shoes, this time) and start running again but I am fighting it. The neuroma is not gone -- I can still feel it twang from time to time when I walk. It's just mitigated by the orthotics. I have every hope it will eventually make like a dodo bird and disappear forever, but I know, deep in my heart, I should not start slamming my feet into a treadmill right now.

On my other medical situation, the tummy, a sonogram reveals the presence of ... gallstones. Go figure. (The way they teach this in medical school, I have learned, is that gallstones usually can be found with the five f's: female, fat, fertile, forty and fair. Give or take a few years, I qualify on all counts.)

However, there's no evidence yet that the gallstones are bothering me, or causing my digestive drama. So... more tests to come this week. My pain has subsided considerably since I stopped eating raw veggies for lunch. But it flares now and again, depending on what I eat.

There's more I want to say with pictures, but I will have to upload later as I'm at work and Big Brother watcheth!

More tonight, and I look forward to visiting your blogs to see everyone's progress. Thanks for al the kind comments re: my medical malfunctions this week. Really helps cheer me up!

I Hate My Stomach

2011-02-07T21:29:00.007-05:00

It's on strike. Has been since Saturday night when I ate a lovely piece of homecooked salmon, some mashed yams and asparagus.

My fancy-schmancy stomach decided it didn't like something in there, and so M and I had to suffer through another, er...symphonic night.

On Stupor Bowl Sunday (that one's for you, Polar's Mom), I had a small breakfast (orange pepper omelet and a few bites of bacon), then hit the gym, and then later in the day had Chobani yogurt, a handful of M's croutons (which he is not supposed to bring in the house but does anyway) and a banana.

I ask you, is there anything in there to rage about? NO! My stomach is a spoiled, whiny teenager. It doesn't like bananas now, apparently (it probably still loves the fattening croutons tho). I was gassy and bloated all night, and again this morning. I've had enough already!

Doctor's office called, I have some results back it seems but don't know what they are yet.

So, in the midst of my digestive angst (which is not necessarily making me eat less, it's just that I worry more about what I'm eating), I went shopping on an emtpy stomach.

And I got very hungry. And some items fell into my shopping cart that really had no business being there.

Thankfully, when I got up to the checkout counter and spread out all my goods, the visual array of my choices hit me right between the eyes. There were mushrooms, chard, beans and all sorts of good things, right next to two chicken quesadillas, three pre-made meatballs and a packet of chocolate chip cookies.

I had to swallow my embarrassment and tell the counter clerk to please set aside the cookies and the quesadillas. I felt kind of silly doing it, but he didn't bat an eye.

It was a good thing I didn't bring all that food home. My stomach would have killed me.

Tonight I made this recipe from NYTimes Recipes for Health: Mushroom and Greens Gratin (the next time I have 4 hours to kill I'll make the Slow Cooked Beans and Kale). I didn't have the right cheese (I used Asiago) and I only used two eggs instead of three, but it turned out nice and crispy and fairly flavorful.

At this moment, this has NOT hurt my stomach yet. Praise be. I hope it calms down. I'm really starting to think there's something seriously wrong with me!

Saved by Michael Jackson

2011-02-06T16:54:00.006-05:00

Got to the gym today despite complete lack of enthusiasm for breaking any kind of sweat or accelerating my heart rate.

It was blah city today. I just couldn't motivate. After 30 listless and boring minutes on the elliptical, I was about to pull the plug.

Then, through my earphones, a voice started whispering. It was a man. The words weren't clear, but I was compelled to listen. It was a message, just for me: "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, Ish."

Alright, I added the Ish, but it did seem like Michael Jackson was speaking directly to me. He popped on the video screen, all swiveling hips and elfin moves.

This sent me off on a long, stream-of-consciousness sort of thought about how much I like to dance, and how fun it is to dance to old Michael Jackson songs, and how much I enjoyed dancing at my friend's wedding last year.

Then I remembered I've just been invited to another wedding this summer, and I thought about how I won't wear such high heels that I almost kill myself dancing, and then I thought that hopefully I will be able to find a better dress than the gray sack I wore last year, and so on, and so on....until, suddenly, I was energized again!

I finished my hour and did my lifts and toddled home and now am preparing to go to a friend's for part of the Stupor Bowl. Just downed a big bowl of Chobani to keep hunger at bay. There are sure to be loads of snacks. Boat loads. My plan is to ignore them and haul M out of there as fast as I decently can. We have a low-cal supper planned for when we get back home. There's really no need for me to eat there at all.

Happy Stupor Bowl, everybody!

Living in the Land of Make Believe

2011-02-03T22:35:00.008-05:00

Got a rude awakening this week, my friends. A very nasty little reminder why SOD (the scale of doom) has been relegated to the cornfields for the past six months or so.

I know for many people SODs are valuable tools. For me, SOD is something invented for the Spanish Inquisition. It is a torture device that never gives me a straightforward answer. One day it's up, one day it's down.

It's like when women were thrown in water to see if they were witches. Any of those who floated (as I surely would have!) or could swim were obviously in league with the devil, and yanked out to be burned at the stake. Those who sank and drowned...well, death was the price they had to pay in order to be declared innocent.

Either way, there was no good answer. That's what SOD is like to me.

After getting a glimpse of the GINORMOUS number at the Doc's office last week (rationalized away by the big snow boots and clothes I wore) I climbed onto the gym scale on Tuesday night. I shouldn't have gotten on at night, of course, and in clothes....but still, I was shocked.

According to that scale, I've not lost one pound since..oh, November! Now I know for a fact that my pants are much looser. I have gotten comments from non-family members that I've visibly lost weight. So W.T.F???????

I hate SOD. Hate. Not getting back on for weeks and weeks.

But where's the make believe in all this? Well, I admit to suffering from a common dieting disease: fairy-taleitis.

You see, fairy-taleitis makes me think that I can take off pounds at a magical rate, and that the scale will instantly respond. Fairy-taleitis also makes me overestimate the impact of the days when I do eat "clean" and go to the gym, and underestimate the impact of days when nibbles sneak in and my movement is nil.

It's so much easier in the land of make believe, isn't it? Until you try to bring your pretend world and your real world into synch -- that's when the gray matter explodes.

Despite my momentary loss of confidence, I stayed on track this week. Tuesday night's little shock therapy moment did me no good, I will admit. I teetered on the corner of Hopeless and Despair for a good hour or two, before convincing myself to head on over to Tomorrow is Another Day Street.

Happily, I was able to walk to work once this week in my new orthotics and the report is positive! A few funny feelings in the toe, but overall very good. I have hopes of the twinges going away completely very soon.

Would you like to see a picture of my walk this morning?

OK, one more.
So the feet are holding their own, and the tummy is too. That's because I haven't eaten any veggies for about two weeks now. Doctor's reports expected soon, can't wait to see what the mystery results are. At this point, I'm beginning to think I'm just old and can't digest vegetables anymore!

Patterns Emerge

2011-02-01T09:24:00.004-05:00

Every wondered how somebody can gain/lose, gain/lose the same...oh, I don't know, 8 to 12 lbs over and over again without somehow breaking through?

Turns out it's pretty easy to do. You just amp up your focus for a few weeks, and then, after about a month (or a little less) when clothes start to get looser and you are finally close to back where you want to be, you lose your long-game mentality.

Your focus gets a little lopsided, a little fuzzier. You start allowing yourself things that you didn't before. A lot of "just this one time" and "Oh, a bite won't hurt" starts to creep in.

Worse, some of the gym emphasis slides away. It's hard to keep up the intensity (to say nothing of general consistency). This is where I'm at now. Just starting to close in on the loss to get back to my second lowest adult weight ever (which is, sadly, not that low) and I'm sabotaging again.

I've been doing this for over a year! Time to make it stop. This is the time that I generally wander a little bit off path and take the foot off the gas pedal. What has to happen for this time to be different?

Well, I need to stay strong on the simple things: write down what I ate every day and what I plan to eat the next day (noting any deviations) make it to the gym 5 times a week, and make time for some extra movement during the day (as simple as a 10 minute walk around the block). My eating rules -- no eating while standing, 20-minutes for each meal (min) and a 9-inch plate -- are to be followed with no exceptions. Wine has to be for the weekend, in small amounts.

Otherwise, it's porker city for me, for sure.

Medical update: I got my orthotics yesterday! So far so good. The worst foot, the left one, feels much better already. The right insert is a little weird, but hopefully will settle soon and feel more natural.

Tummy was poked and prodded yesterday. I should talk to the doctor in a few days and find out if my gall bladder (which digested a chocolate chip cookie and fried fish fine on Sat night) is sickly. As long as I don't eat veggies, I'm fine. Oh, the irony. I spend a year + training myself to eat healthily and this is the thanks I get.

By the way, Jackie at www.midlifemyway.blogspot.com, thanks for visiting my site. I've tried several times to leave you a comment but I can't seem to enable the feature on your site. I click on comment, but nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?

The Gall of It All

2011-01-28T21:42:00.003-05:00

This is going to get a little graphic, so the squeamish among us should avert their eyes. Nothing X-rated or sexy coming (more's the pity). No, it's all...uh, more digestively related.

I've been to see a doctor about my "condition."

What's that, you ask? Well, it's what I thought was a common occurrence among people who eat a lot of veggies and beans. Ahem.

I've tried Beano, I've tried Gas-X. I've tried homeopathic charcoal caps. And yet still there are moments when I could fill in for the entire tuba section of the Boston Pops. I could be my own Macy's Day Parade balloon with all the self-produced nitrogen.

At a certain point, one has to accept that the "condition" is just not normal. That is to say, even on a diet known to produce tremendous flatulence, there is a Rubicon to be crossed. When you surpass the maximum average output known to mankind and begin to match that of a cow -- a ruminate creature with FIVE stomachs -- then you know you have a problem.

According to the tummy doc I consulted on Wednesday night, it's my gall bladder. Exactly what -- inflammation, a stone, actual gall bladder disease -- we don't know.

Actually we don't know that it IS my gall bladder. But now I have to go through a battery of tests to find out. All I can say is ICK.

If my alternatives weren't so crap -- basically spend the rest of my life as a walking, human Whoopee Cushion -- I'd gracefully bow out of this.

I hate having to undergo pokes and prods. But if there's one glimmer of hope that one day I can regain the ability to digest even a simple salad, I must pursue it. My diet right now consists of yogurt, cottage cheese, and...er, yogurt.

Positive notes: My newfangled orthotics are here! Going to a fitting on Monday. They came in a few days after I read a NYTimes article on... (you know it's coming) how useless orthotics are for foot problems. Riiiiiighhht. Tell me this after I spent $400, you jerks.

But I will try them, because it can't hurt and they are paid for.

And because my stomach hurts, I will go get my blood tests and sonograms and everything else the doctor wants. But I draw the line at an endoscopy and/or colonoscopy right away, because there will be no intruding into the inner sanctums until I'm convinced it's medically necessary.

Other Positive Note: the skinny jeans definitely are looser this week. Still not quite as loose as they were last Xmas but better than two months ago. I'm a few pounds away from being back where I was.

That. Is. GOOOOOOOOD.

On a bad note, the stupid stomach doc weighed me at the end of the day, after I'd eaten, with full clothes on AND massive LL Bean workboots borrowed from my nephew that weigh at least 4lbs each.

I swear, that doctor is lucky he escaped the examining room alive after that disaster.

Will be checking in with all of you over the weekend. Hope everyone is well!

Master Fat Madness

2011-01-25T22:37:00.004-05:00

Tonight, a longstanding kitchen mystery was solved. It is something I wish I had never seen -- something that cannot be unseen.

M has long had a habit (that I've never condoned) of gathering leftover bacon grease and storing it in (what used to be) a favorite coffee cup. He sits this goupy gelatinous mess in a corner of the kitchen window. At certain points, it disappears. And then returns.

I assumed when it got close to full he disposed of it in the trash, and then started anew. I never asked, being kind of grossed out by it, but figured he had to collect the grease somewhere because it was too hot to immediately throw in the trash after he cooked his bacon. And I just figured it wasn't a good idea to send such glop down our pipes, so that's why he didn't dispose of it in the sink.

Well, the veil has been lifted and the full horror of the fat revealed. He has been putting it in our food!!!!!

Yes, apparently this is a "thing" done by many big chefs and most Southern households. One collects all the grease from cooking meat (and other offal) and stores it, to use as flavoring or rendering in other dishes. Real chefs throw grease in from whatever they are cooking -- a mix-and-match of all types of fat (aka, 'master fat').

Tonight I caught M dabbing some of his disgusting brown fat goop into my spinach, onion, garlic and mushroom mixture. Oh, the humanity!!! And the calories!!!

I wonder how many extra calories in brown fat I've consumed every time we ate M-prepared quinoa, beans, or anything veg-related? What kind of a nut does that?

It reminds me of the time my friend couldn't figure out where all her butter was going. It seemed to fly out of her kitchen. Finally she realized her foodie husband was slathering everything he cooked in the stuff. She gained 5 lbs while he lost a ton of weight -- turns out he'd developed Type 1 diabetes and kept losing weight no matter what he ate, even a pound of butter a day.

So, I can go back and recalculate my calories for every meal eaten over the past year or so, or make sure M understands he is NEVER to put brown fat on my food again.

To top it all off, my weekend in Boston was great but I burned almost zero calories (that with long bus rides up and back). The only time we moved was ice skating at the Frog Pond (so beautiful).
I checked how many calories I burned...about 230. Yeah. About the same amount of calories you'd find in a tablespoon of brown fat.

But overall, the trip was grand. We had so much fun, and I didn't overeat. Struggling back into the regular routine, sans master fat (I hope).

Travelin'

2011-01-22T09:16:00.003-05:00

Off to Boston today!

Visiting a friend, doing a little ice-skating on the Boston Commons Frog Pond, trying not to freeze my a** off. It's supposed to be about 11 degrees tonight in Beantown.

M is coming too, and we've got reservations at what promises to be a cute little place on State Street called The Beehive.

It's an up and back trip in 24 hours, but we discovered the bus ride round trip is only $56, and I like a good relaxing road journey that lets me sleep, read, and day dream while looking out the window. M will be snoozing as soon as the tires start turning, I'm sure.

Plan for this low-key weekend is to stay calm, eat lightly and not stuff myself (ie lose control). Luckily the friend I'm going to visit has had her share of weight problems in the past and recently dropped about 40 lbs from her 5'4 frame by much hard work and controlled eating, so I know she's a mindful eater who won't be putting out cheese and crackers for people to snack on. Thank Goodness, because on a cold hungry night, I could hoover up a nice wedge of brie or manchego.

The mantra this weekend is mindful living -- I want to go visit my friend b/c she's had a rough year (illness in the family, crappy boyfriend break up) and although you can talk all you want on the phone, sometimes making an effort to show up once in a while makes all the difference.

BUT.... (here it comes) that doesn't mean I can take my mind off my own goals. I must carry my weight-loss persona with me at all times. In fact, I will break out my magical cape, and wrap it around me for the weekend.

Resistance! Persistance! Insistance!

See you all Sunday. Have a great day.

Not a Bad Day....

2011-01-19T21:11:00.010-05:00

Scrounged up a couple of assignments that allowed me to stay in my own neighborhood for a change. That meant I did not have to go into the office and dodge barbs from my rage-a-holic boss. Yay!

Started off my morning by walking 8 blocks north and three blocks east to my first interview of the day. One of my favorite photographers from the newspaper was assigned to work with me, so that was a big bonus. We did lots of walking for the story, about a section of Manhattan that's undergoing a big zoning change. Sounds boring, I know, but real estate is always a sexy topic in NYC.

It took several hours and lots of talking (my throat was sore!) and it was cold with a light drizzle, so around 1pm we were ready for lunch. There's a brand new restaurant in my 'hood that's just opened, I've been dying to try it and lunch is always better than dinner for me at "hip" places because I really can't stand crowds when I'm trying to eat (or shop).

We trotted over to the Red Rooster and snagged a seat. The minute I spotted this salad, I knew Photog and I were going to split it for a starter. Pickled beets, chopped hazelnuts, arugula and manchego. Sounds nasty, right? But I knew it would be delicious, and ohhhhhh .... it was.
Thankfully, it was also very small. The pickled beets (the pink stuff) were sweet, not pickley, and the arugula spicy, not bitter. The manchego flavor was hard to find, so for me that was a lost ingredient -- why put it in the menu description if you can't taste it? -- but it could be that Photog scooped it all up before I found some. I let him eat the bread and 2/3 of the salad and took about 1/3.

Then it was time for the main dish. I abstained from the deep fried chicken, the baked deep-dish greens and mac-n-cheese, the burger and fries. Instead, it was pumpernickel, cream cheese, gravlax (Swedish smoked salmon), dill, with a smidge of avocado, sweet horseradish and onions.

A sandwich for the ages. I ate it all. It was divine. I could not believe how satisfying the flavors were. I am newly in love with pumpernickel.
I even managed to refrain from ordering a Negroni beer (but Photog did), although it took a moment to impose my will upon myself. When the waitress came with the dessert menu I politely refused to take it. Why look when you're not buying? Did not want to even crack that window of possibility.

More walking all afternoon for a different story in same area. Got in some good extra movement. Got hungry again around 5pm, so ate an apple with some hummus.

Even with the walking, I still felt that I still had to go to the gym, so at the end of the day I dragged myself there for 40 minutes on the bike. I didn't get the settings right or my bike was mechanically off in some way because I couldn't really work up a sweat. Didn't feel like a "good" workout, you know?

Home for dinner, and I kind of snacked on some barley while I was cooking -- that's not good. I feel a little like I overindulged this evening.

Officially dinner was kale, with about 1/2 a cup leftover quinoa, heated with sauteed mushrooms and onions, some black beans, and cod with panko bread crumbs. But I have to count the several bites of leftover barley I ate too, dang it all.

Honeeeesttyyyy...is such a lonely word...

2011-01-18T22:36:00.009-05:00

except in the blogosphere, where honesty is popular and gets you cool things, like the Honest Blogger award I just got from Polar's Mom.

Thanks, Polar's Mom! (By the way, *totally* agree with everything you said about Freddie Mercury. Genius). I'll get to my honest statements in a minute, but first, an update on my week.

My post-holiday austerity plan has hit an unexpected snag. My stomach is acting up. Waaaayyy up. I don't know why, but I suddenly seem to have lost my ability to digest a simple salad. For the past two weeks I've been hauling greens with me to work for lunch, and boy.... it's been ugly. And painful. Gastroenterologist appointment this coming week. Stay tuned, those who are digestively obsessed (like me).

The good news is that I'm still walking, still going to the gym and have tried to push myself onto the elliptical as much as possible in the past two weeks. The skinny jeans are not as loose as I want them to be, but they ARE looser. Even the curmudgeony b/f, now known as M, has admitted as much.

Shopping on Monday, and for some reason I was driven to take a picture of my shopping cart as I waited in line to pay.

What do you think? Too much food for two people for a week? Be honest. There's definitely a lot of cat food! Note the Digestive Gold enzymes prominently in front -- my latest attempt to soothe the bacteria beast in my gut.

I also have a ton of Chobani in there... some guy had his long, skinny hands on the last big tub of plain no-fat Chobani, but couldn't make up his mind. He kept lifting it off the shelf, and then setting it down, then lifting it up, putting it down..I held my breath the whole time. The minute he actually released it fully and let his hands fall to his sides, I rushed up and said "I'll take that if you don't want it." I'm pretty sure I startled him into handing it over, but I was in a panic. With my stomach mounting total rebellion, there's nothing I can eat if lose my Chobani breakfast.

The brown wrap package in front is some flounder, by the way.

So, 10 honest things about myself:

1) You know from my last blog award posting that I'm not a fan (speaking personally, of my choices) of surgical interventions for weight loss (ie gastric bypass or lap-band surgery). But would I ever have surgery to get excess skin removed if I get to the point where I have a ton and I don't like it? Hell. To. The. YEAH!! Hypocritical of me? Probably. But I say, cut the damn skin off.

2) I spent waaaayy too many years of my life waiting -- hoping -- for the things and experiences I wanted to magically arrive at my doorstep, rather than going out there and making those things happen. I still sometimes default to this passive mode when stressed or depressed.

3) I made a conscious decision about two years ago to become an optimist. Not Pollyanna, but a positive thinker who deals well with reality.

4) My love for my cat is generally considered abnormal by friends and family. They are jealous. And wrong.

5) If I won the lottery, I would love to build an orphanage in Haiti with a school attached. And an animal sanctuary in upstate New York, and a fund to save wild horses in the West. And many many other things animal and children related.

6) I hate my hair. Not the color, because that's easily changed. No, the thin, flat, stringy texture. I can make peace with many things about myself, but can never get past my stupid hair (thanks a lot for the crap follicles, Mom).

7) Part of me is secretly disappointed with my entire weight loss performance over the past year.

8) If I lost my job tomorrow (bizarre how excited I get at the thought) I would become an NYC bike messenger! Seriously, I have long thought that I should get a more active job and that would help me shed more pounds.

9) My favorite thing about M is that he will hug me anytime, anywhere, for any reason or no reason, even if I'm sick as a dog and spewing things, or crying like a banshee and have a nose full of snot, or fresh from the gym and dripping with sweat. (He probably prefers to hug me at other, cleaner moments, but he's manfully stepped up to the plate many-a-time.)

10) I can beat many men at arm-wrestling. Yes, this is true. Started in grammar school, never stopped. Most recent victory: Christmas 2009, gave my 32-year-old macho colleague a lesson he'll never forget.

Note on #10 -- I swear I'm not a carnie freak, although I am very strong (a doctor once called me an 'outlier'). I think the weird ability to arm wrestle well is due to a unique family build. My legs have really hefty Samoan-size thighs, while my calves are like Babe Ruth dainty. Same structure on arms -- long, upper arms, short stubby lower arms. I think it gives me extra torque or something. That's my theory, anyway.

And 4, 3, 2, 1..... Roll Camera!

2011-01-13T21:48:00.009-05:00

Two super-friendly and awesome bloggers gave me an award! It's my first ever and I gotta admit I'm pretty thrilled. It's like winning a bloggy Oscar (at least, it feels that way to me).

Best part is, I get to ask myself the questions. But don't worry -- I promise to be as hard-hitting as Barbara Walters on one of her weepy, interminable, badly-lighted Oscar Specials.

First, let me officially thank Fat Angry Mom, who tagged me with the Sylish Blogger's Award, and Polar's Mom, who slid in not long after with the same award.

I'd take this chance to lob 14 probing questions at myself, but given my tendency to ...er, wax on at great length, I think it's better to stick to 7, and keep 'em simple. Otherwise, we'll be here all day!

*****Cue music, lights, as Barbara Walters and her interviewee face the cameras****

1) Q: Why don't you have any pictures of yourself up here, Ish? (Barbara Walters leans closer..) Afraid to show yourself?

A: You know Barbara, the truth is, I work in media and I've had first-hand experience with just how shallow that world can be. I remember that on what might have been, oh, my third day starting as a reporter at my new job, one female reporter (skinny and gorgeous, of course) was laughingly telling some other reporters near me about the strange-looking woman she had interviewed for a story. She laughed and laughed, poking fun at the woman's appearance, and loudly repeating the words "fat girl" over and over. Suddenly she realized I was sitting right behind her, and even though she wasn't talking about me at all, she suddenly dropped her voice and began whispering everytime she said "fat girl." It was confusing and painful for me -- she was acting the way people used to about cancer 30 years ago, when it was the word never to be said out loud. I suppose she was trying to be sensitive -- I guess to her anyone who was my size could only feel shame when the word fat came up, even in a general context. Most of my colleagues are amazing and lovely people, but there are appearance-driven individuals all around. I have no desire to have my private struggles made fodder for water cooler gossip, or passed around the fishbowl of NYC media life. Better to stay anon, I say. Plus, on a more serious note, sometimes people take issue with articles I write. I have gotten crazy death threats at work, and I just think it better not to have too many images of me floating out there. However, if one of my bloggy friends truly can't go on living without my picture, e-mail me and I'll send you one.

2) Q: Fascinating (and quite long). Tell me, Ish, what do you most like to eat after a hard day's work?

A: Right now I'm all about Chobani zero fat, plain yogurt. Can't get enough of it.

3) Q: Why is your name 'Ishmael'?

A: Actually, Barbara, it's Call Me Ishmael (strained smile follows). It's the opening line to "Moby Dick," a novel I think appropriate to my struggle not just for the whale imagery, but because it's about chasing down a dream relentlessy, obsessively, with fierce determination. One might also say that obsession drove Ahab mad and destroyed his life, but I kinda coveniently overlook that part.

4) Q: (Barbara tilts her haloed, softly-lit head to the side)...What keeps you up at night?

A: Besides hunger, you mean? Aside from worrying that someone I know or love will get sick or hurt, I probably have two main anxieties with me at all time: that I'll never really lose enough weight to get where I want to be, or won't be able to keep it off, and I worry that I'm not doing enough in my career.

5) Q: Weight is such an issue in Hollywood. Yet you never opted for weight-loss surgery. Why?

A: Barbara, I'd only ever admit this to you (on national TV, for the ratings), but I have considered surgery! (Barbara sits back in triumph as shocked gasps from a faux-audience are piped in by producers). I have thought about it many times, especially lap band surgery. But everytime I read about it, I'm stopped by one thing: both types of weight-loss procedures demand that you commit to making better food choices, eat less, move more. I don't need surgery to do that -- I can do it on my own.

6) Q: If you could change one thing about yourself that would make your weight-loss journey easier, what would it be?

A: That's easy. I'd be a morning workout person. I want to be, I wish that I were. It just doesn't happen.

7) Q: What's the most important thing you've learned so far about weight-loss?

A: It's an obvious thing, maybe, to people who are "normal" and not food addicts. But it's taken me a long time to realize that food can't make me feel better about myself. Wine can't make me feel better about myself. Only I can make me feel better about myself.

Stay tuned for ongoing Barbara Walters interviews with the following bloggers, who have been given the Stylish Blogger Award from Call Me Ishmael:

The Fat Mom
Roz
Michele
The Ninja
JW
Congrats! You've all gotten the Stylish Blogger Award!

A Few Things I'm Happy About

2011-01-11T21:37:00.004-05:00

-- Planned ahead for this week and cooked two sweet potatoes and one butternut squash to use up for vegetarian dinners for myself and the b/f. Also did a batch of barley, to break the quinoa rut.

-- Walked to work two days so far this week, with minimal foot pain. Foot doc said yesterday it looks like I irritated all the soft tissue and bursal sacs (not sure I'm spelling that correctly) with too much pounding (er..that would be my short-lived period of running 5ks on the treadmill in too-tight sneakers). He surmises that the soft tissue inflammation pinched my neuroma nerve. Now, two months later, the inflammation is easing, and hence, so is the nerve. I'm not pain free yet, but every day it gets better. I got orthotics anyway, because he said it would be a good way to protect from further damage.

-- I have not had any off-plan wine since coming home from the holidays, and I have greatly reduced what is on plan. And believe me, there hasn't been a day in the past week when I haven't thought longingly of going home, flopping into my big chair and sipping on a nice glass of red.

-- Back to writing down what I plan to eat, and keeping track of every variation from the scheduled intake.

-- Got up and went outside today after lunch and walked around the block about 8 times. I had to make phone calls and it suddenly came to me that I could do it from cell while I moved, rather than sit at my desk. Also gave me chance to stop at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. My friend who passed was Jewish, but I don't think she would mind that I had a quiet moment for her in a Catholic cathedral. It is on Fifth Avenue, after all, and she loved to shop that street!

Sometimes you gotta take a few minutes and remind yourself of what you're doing right. Right?

Cheer Up Time

2011-01-10T20:40:00.002-05:00

Decided it was time to go through the ton of photos and videos I took over the Xmas holidays and New Year's and post something a bit more upbeat than my recent news.

Check it out below -- I apologize in advance for the vertigo-inducing camera work here. It was just after midnight and the ball drop. The one shot my nephew had wanted me to get -- the ball dropping -- was lost when the camera crapped out at the worst possible moment. So what you see here is the aftermath, and my very overwhelmed nephew trying to play it cool for the camera. He'd been dancing like a mad hatter (appropriate, given the free hats that were distributed courtesy of Nivea hand cream), but stopped as soon as I turned the camera. Ahhh tweens! Then he took it from me, hence the last 30 seconds of constant twirling.

Bad News Sunday

2011-01-10T10:22:00.003-05:00

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but Goodness, yesterday was awful.

My friend passed away sometime overnight or early Sunday morning. She was 35.

As I said before, we were not super close -- but she was a very lovely young woman, and it's very hard for me to believe she is gone. She fought her breast cancer with every weapon she had -- and her ammo was humor, rage and sarcasm.

This morning brought news from another dear friend, who lost her best friend from age 4 on Sunday morning. She dropped dead of a heart attack at age 43 -- left behind three kids.

The woman who died of a heart attack at age 43 was trim. My friend who died of breast cancer was trim -- and a real gym rat before she got diagnosed.

Obviously we don't know what kind of genetic hand these women were dealt -- and that is probably a major factor in both these outcomes.

But it's a little scary to be confronted with these realities. They are rather close to home, if you know what I mean. I take for granted my strong, healthy body that -- except for an unbelievable ability to pack on the pounds -- has never given me a serious problem.

I want to lose weight for many reasons, but I rarely think about it in relation to my health in any concrete way. Obesity is a major factor for many cancers, including breast cancer.

The next time I feel like sloughing off and skipping the gym, I'm going to think of my friend, and my friend's friend. The next time I get the urge to eat some fatty, fried food...I'm going to think long and hard about whether that's what I really want.

Yesterday, as I talked my friend's brother and gave my condolences to the family, I thought about how much I love my friends and my family and my not-so-special life that I've carved out for myself here in NYC. It's not much, but I'm blessed every day to have someone to love, an interesting job to go to, a cat to curl up with, a family that is proud of me and cares for me. I know my friend had the same love and support in her life, and that she didn't want to have to leave them and say goodbye. Who would?

I'm off to the foot doc's office, and then... yes, I'm going to drag myself to the gym.

Mind on Other Things

2011-01-06T22:24:00.004-05:00

It's been two days now that I've been eating "clean" and trying to add in more regular exercise.

Two days.

Like a kid in the backseat, all I can do is whine "Are we theeeerreeee yet?"

Sigh. No.

But I have stuck to my austerity plan for two whole days! That's two days I didn't have before. The plan is my usual eating habits, but a more veggie-filled lunch, and a smaller-portioned dinner. The hardest part is the last part -- I always have trouble controlling that evening meal.

I have to pull myself back to the here and now almost continuously. My mind keeps racing ahead -- six months, eight months, asking, will I be where I want to be then? It's a real effort to wrench myself back and ask, "are you where you want to be now?" Never hurts to reiterate that arriving at the magical "there" place depends utterly and entirely on what I'm doing now.

In my mind I have a picture: we visit my family again in March, and I am fit and light enough to go kayaking with my dad. I didn't go over Christmas because I was secretly sure that I would sink the kayak. Can I really get to the point where those fears will be banished forever? I want to believe it -- but I can't quite convince myself.

I want to get down to my almost lightest adult weight ever -- it's where I was this spring, about 20 pounds ago. Then maybe I can be brave enough to take the next step. I got a boost tonight when I worked up the courage to put on my skinny jeans -- which I half suspected would no longer fit me at all. They still fit -- and almost exactly the same as before Christmas.

There's no rational explanation for this. I definitely gained some weight over the holidays. Maybe the rush of skiing and ice skating while the nephew was here helped burn some extra pounds. Either way, I'm sure if I didn't start my austerity program, those jeans would be popping within a week.

My apologies for this rather flat post. I wanted to put something up, but my heart is elsewhere tonight. I'm thinking of a young woman I know -- someone I once worked with -- who has been putting up a very brave fight against breast cancer for over three years. She was 33 when diagnosed, and went through a radical mastectomy, hysterectomy, chemo, multiple procedures and more... only to be told last year that the cancer she thought was eradicated had returned. We were not close friends, but after she moved back to her parents for health care reasons we kept in touch via Facebook and through her blog, which is hysterically funny even though it deals with the raw reality of her fight with cancer.

I've just gotten word that her latest treatments for the second bout were not particularly successful. She fell ill over the Christmas holidays. Yesterday her family put out a call for prayers for her -- she is in bed, in and out of consciousness.

I have been humbled by her spunk in recent years. I complain about having to get out of bed to go to the gym. She turns her chemo visits into fodder for a humorous blog that brought together cancer fighters and survivors from all over the world. I moan about pinched nerves in my feet. She made light of her double mastectomy with a tongue-in-cheek photo shoot and had the chutzpah to post her pics online.

I want her to be whole and well again. I want her to be at peace. Life can be damned unfair.

January Boot Camp

2011-01-04T22:43:00.002-05:00

Time to get tough again -- the party is waaaaaaaaay over.

I'm declaring myself in an austerity phase for the next three weeks. My goal is the same as it was at the end of 2010: take off 35 lbs.

To that end, it's back to writing down my food plans every day, going back to working out daily, even though I still can't walk to work as I used to. The neuroma won't quit -- but I'm committed to finding a way around it. Right now I sit here with one toe throbbing in my left foot and another toe throbbing in my right foot. Not fun at all!

I should be writing a freelance article right now but instead I'm reading blogs and flipping through a vegetarian cookbook. I just can't summon the energy to go to work.

The nephew has returned home and things are going slowly back to normal -- whatever that is. We did manage to slide into Times Square in time to catch the countdown and it was crazy, crazy fun! I don't think he knew where to look first or how to react to all the joie de vivre. And he got very excited when some rapper named "Pit Bull" walked by us in the front section. We had a great time, and even fit in some ice skating in Central Park Saturday evening, and more skiing on Sunday. I am sooo wiped out.

I have much more to say, but I've got an alarm to set for an ungodly early hour of the morning. I walked to work today and it really irritated the neuroma nightmare, so I guess for the next few weeks (until I get my special orthotics) I'll have to hit the bike or the elliptical at the gym. I'd much rather walk to work and fit in a gym visit in the evening, but .... that's not on the table right now. I'm working on accepting my injury and moving on.

More soon, hope everyone is well!

Haaappy New Year (and a Hot 100 Update)

2010-12-31T19:17:00.002-05:00

I'm back in NYC, finally!

Thanks to a kindly ticket clerk at Delta, we snagged the last three seats on a flight into NYC on Wed night. That put us in town in time for the b/f's memorial service for his mom, planned for Thursday...only to be told by the church that it was going to have to be moved to Friday (today).

We rolled with the punches, and flew back Wednesday, and used Thursday -- a beautifully sunny day -- to go skiing with my nephew, who got to come back with us for the New Year. It was his first time ever, and he did great. And I love showing him that his ol' Auntie can still schuss with the best of them, even if I'm heavier than the average skier.

Today was the memorial service, and it was emotional and sad, but full of beautiful memories. We were so blessed to make it back in time. When I first learned our flight was canceled (on Dec. 27) we were told we couldn't get a flight back until 12/31!

On my Hot 100 goals: let's just say...I am still working hard on all of them. My skinny jeans might not fit after the week I had at home. No binging, but I am sure I gained some pounds. But it's nothing that can't be reversed, and it will be reversed.

Mr. Neuroma is still here, but I'm slowly gaining the upper hand. The temporary foot insert helps, and I will get official ones soon. I hope maybe to resume walking to work -- a sure fire way to take off the pounds.

I need to get back to weight-loss portions and I instituted that already. Today at the memorial service we were served greasy chicken, even greasier mac-n-cheese, and barely edible green beans, plus cranberry cake for dessert. I took a few bites of each, then stopped eating. Not worth it.

Tonight the plan is to try to use my press credentials to slip into Times Square for the ball drop with my nephew in tow. They may refuse us, I'm not sure. I've been there many times covering the ball drop for a local radio station, and it's pretty cool. I would love to give him this once-in-a-lifetime experience (we don't have to wait in line and can move freely around the Square once we are in the press zone), so fingers crossed.

Happy New Year everyone!

It's a Blizzard!

2010-12-26T21:48:00.003-05:00

Luckily, not the kind sold at Dairy Queen that contain a gazillion jillion calories.

Unluckily, the kind that closes airports like JFK -- which is now shut down while a record snowstorm blankets NYC. That means I'm stuck and unable to fly back as planned.

Things were crazy hectic over the holidays, but in a beautiful way. Despite my b/f's recent loss, we had some fun, a lot of quality time with family and everyone got really great gifts this year. That's kind of a record for us, since we usually somehow cross signals and someone ends up not getting what they wanted.

If I could just fly back as scheduled, it would have been the perfect trip.

I will have to institute a serious austerity plan when I return to take off the few pounds I am sure I have gained down here. I did sample (and in some cases more than sample) all the goodies that were abundantly at hand over the past five days.

A few times I ate past the point of comfort and got unhappy with myself. I also ran smack into the full-length mirror in the bathroom while exiting the shower. What I saw in the mirror sent me headfirst into a sort of anxiety attack/major depression ... but I fought it off.

What hit me hardest was the sense of futility. I saw a lot of loose skin and other unavoidable signs of long-term obesity, and I saw how much farther I have to go on my journey. I felt so powerless.

But I fought it. Hard. I can't change myself overnight. But I can change. I have changed. I just need to keep on changing.

As a reminder to myself about how far I've come, I took pains to note down how different my reactions were to food this year during the holidays. Emotions weren't a factor -- probably for the first Christmas ever in my life!

I ate when I was hungry, mostly. Other times I ate or snacked for flavor -- because I wanted a taste of something. I was able to keep that pretty much under control (ie, a bite or two, then moving on).

Sadness, nostalgia, guilt, anger, happiness (you know, the general holiday family gathering gamut) weren't factors. It just felt so different for me. And so much better.

So I have changed. I just can't seem to get the outside to catch up to the inside, dammit!

Big Wheels Keep on Turning...

2010-12-20T21:22:00.003-05:00

Ahh..If only I had Tina Turner's legs. I'd be one Proud Mary indeed! But my big wheels DO keep on turnin'..and proud Ish keeps on burnin'. Oh yes. We're rollin' .. rollin'... rollin on the (Hudson) river.

Things are gradually lightening up here at Chez Ish, evidenced by the fact that the b/f , while still mourning his recent loss, joined in for a rousing rendition of "Proud Mary" as I tried to remember the lyrics to the song for this post.

I felt like I was rolling along today, as I ate my normal breakfast, rushed out of the house to go to the doctor (not the foot doc, just a check up) then to get a facial. OK, totally self-indulgent, but I needed an hour of pampering.

Then I had an hour to kill until my hair appointment (and that is not as self-indulgent as it sounds b/c my last hair cut was in August), so I walked the 30+ blocks to the hair dresser.

That's only about 1.5 miles, but given Mr. Neuroma, that's the longest I've walked for WEEKS!

It was pretty much pain free, thanks to the temporary inserts my doctor gave me. I can walk almost like normal now, but it's only a partial fix until I get real orthotics. Then I'll be back on my stride.

But the Proud Mary moment....yeah, that came when I walked to a pizza joint known to me through work, had a single slice of veggie pizza, and walked on even though I was still hungry. I knew that if I just gave myself enough time, I'd feel full.

It took a good 20 minutes, but eventually...it happened. Then there was a shopping trip in which NO VEGAN CAKES were purchased, and many a sabotaging thought was shot down before it could blossom into real destruction.

Christmas cometh.... with a nephew demanding that I make all my grandmother's cookie recipes, the ones she brought from England (seriously, she used to make like 10 different types of cookies) and the b/f demanding another apple pie.

BUT! I've wrested control of the majority of the cooking for Xmas dinner from my lard-loving brother, and the b/f and I will be in charge of making just about all of our feast. My arteries rejoice at the news.

As I get ready to fly to my parents for Xmas, I am trying hard to maintain my focus on moderation. It is the key to my success. If I can be moderate in all things, I can be happy.

Thanks again to everyone who gave us good wishes. Yes, Roz, you are right. I've already gotten a glimpse at how touchy Mr. Neuroma is -- he does not like downward dog, for example! I'll have to devise a neuroma-friendly series of stretches for the New Year.

Hot 100 Update # 12

2010-12-17T21:55:00.006-05:00

I think this is update #12 anyway -- kind of lost track. Yet I know there are only two Friday's left to the challenge. Scary!

This week....
1) I ate at weight loss portions -- most of the time. This afternoon I overate on multigrain snack chips. I immediately felt so full and uncomfortable. Salad for dinner.

Overall, despite a difficult few days, there's been no comfort eating (besides this afternoon), no extra sweets, no binging, even though my routine was thoroughly disrupted.

2) Lose 25 lbs: holding steady, doubt I've lost any thing this week.

3) New goal: thanks to Mr. Neuroma, I can't continue with my 5k jogs. However, the foot is healing, thank goodness. Steve suggested I pick a new goal, and that's a very good idea. This isn't for the rest of this challenge, but for the New Year: I'd like to start my day with some kind of yoga, stretching or calisthenics to get the heart pumping. Can be as simple as some push ups, a few downward dogs or whatever I feel like. But I hope to incorporate a few moments of physical exercise and mindful concentration into my day every morning.

Thanks for all the kind wishes, everyone. I stood by my lovely partner Wednesday as he stared down into his mother's eyes and stroked her face and her hand and said goodbye. I hugged him as hard as I could after and I went with him to pick up all her things, and I wish there was something more I could do but at times like this really the only thing you can do is be there. And I'm grateful that at least I've been able to take off from work and be there for him.

Another Goodbye

2010-12-15T17:49:00.003-05:00

Woken up by a phone call from local hospital in town where the b/f's mother lives -- she was taken in this morning non-responsive, and sadly, passed away about 9:00 am.

Natural causes, it appears. Was fine at 7am, fell back asleep and when someone checked her at 8:15am, she had no pulse. Can think of worse ways to go.

Crazy, sad day, more sad days to come, I suspect. Mostly sad for the b/f. His dad died in Sept. 2009. This is where it's really hard to be an only child, I see. He has to shoulder a lot on his own.

We're so tired, a long day with arrangements. Is it awful of me to note that despite all this, the special pads the foot doctor put on my tootsies this Monday seem to be really helping my neuroma? Silly thing for me to be crowing about, in the circumstances, but the mind often finds comfort in the mundane.

Hope to be back in time to update for Friday. Be well, all.

I Resemble That Remark.....

2010-12-12T12:03:00.002-05:00

So I'm out yesterday in horrifically crowded midtown Manhattan, running to pick up our lunch from the deli near work (I had a grilled chicken salad with slice of pita), when I notice a family of four coming at me on the street.

Mom, walking stiff-legged and rapidly several paces ahead of clearly irritated husband who is hauling two young kids along with him by the hand, turns to hiss something at him that I can't hear over the traffic.

Dad, whose face is quite red either from exertion (he's really got his hands full with the two young kids) or rage, or because like me he turns colors in the cold weather, completely loses it.

"For God's sake," he bellows at her, "if you want a damn pretzel then just go ahead and have one! What is your problem, you maniac?"

Hot 100 Update # 11

2010-12-10T21:24:00.002-05:00

Tired, long day at work, pardon my brevity tonight (although maybe it's a welcome change from my usual verbosity!).

Goals:

1) Weight loss portions at every meal: YES, by the gods, I am clinging to my "normal" sized portions. Forced myself to PUT. DOWN. THE. FORK. several times this week and just slow down on the eating. Really helps the brain catch up to the tummy.

2) Former goal: run a 5k. That's not working due to injury. Steve suggested I change to something else (er..he is exceptionally smart or am I realllllly dumb?), which is a great idea. What will it be? No clue, but will let you know as soon as I figure it out.

3) Lose 25lbs: Hmmmmmm..... eating-wise, I have many NSVs. To whit, on assignment Thursday, BITTER, BITTER cold, resist buying a huge pack of cashews in bodega when hunger strikes at noon. Seriously, one bag was 600 cals, and it wasn't even that big. I love nuts, but whoa.... got the single serving of 180 cals to tide me over.

Lunch was four hours later with skinny photographer. He took me to his favorite pizza joint. I got a whole wheat veggie slice. It was probably hugely caloric, since it had two types of cheese (feta and mozzarella) and avocado on it. And it was delicious.

I made do with one piece. And the follow up victory came later, when I was going to eat the frozen burrito I had planned for lunch. It was about 5pm and I was hungry'ish again, looking to nosh and I was talking myself into eating the burrito.

Then I said, hold on...you had breakfast, you had cashews, you had pizza. Even though you are hungry, you don't need to eat a 370 calorie burrito. Save it for tomorrow.

And I did!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Trading Onion Rings for French Fries

2010-12-07T22:55:00.008-05:00

We went out to dinner tonight with friends. Nice evening, nothing super special, just a regular ol' evening between some busy thirtysomethings who don't often get to see each other.

It was a restaurant we know well -- a modernized version of a French bistro. The b/f and I have our routine down pat here.

He orders the filet mignon that comes with frites (delicious and crispy). I get the seared tuna salad with artichoke hearts and other good veggies. And a side of onion rings.

When the food comes, I give him the onion rings. Those are his.

He takes my bread plate and puts a little bit less than half the frites on it. Those are mine.

Sometimes I'll filch an onion ring too, if I really want it.

This way I get *some* of the fried sides, but am automatically portion-controlled.

If I want frites and an onion ring, then I have no bread, no appetizer and no dessert. That's the deal.

Two years ago....well, this wouldn't even have occurred to me. One year ago, I would have done it, but gritting my teeth and consciously fighting to make the "right" choices for myself.

I never would have believed this at the beginning of my journey, but practicing good habits does get easier. Portion control can be automatic.

It's true that tonight wasn't a supremely low calorie dinner, but it's a dinner that kept me from overeating, feeling deprived, or somehow "punished" by the genetic Gods who don't want me to be able to enjoy yummy food.

Maybe I blog a bit too much about these kinds of moments -- I am kind of quick to pat myself on the back! But if you are anything like me, you'll know what a joy it is to be confronted by food and feel at peace.

When it happens, it's so magical I'm like a kid at Disney Land.

Now, if I could just hang on to these habits on Monday afternoons, when I seem destined to raid the Whole Food vegan cake section. Something about being home and relaxed on that day makes a binge hard to avoid.

Got to the gym yesterday, the feet held up great. BUT..today, had to do more walking than I wanted. The feet did NOT hold up. Both are twingy, with nerves popping all over the place.

But the good news is the pain and irritation was less than it was two weeks ago. Tomorrow I will stay off them as much as possible.

Thanks to everyone who visited my blog! Nice to see your digital faces!

Adapt. Or Die.

2010-12-05T22:21:00.003-05:00

I'm feeling dramatic tonight, as you no doubt can tell.

I'm taking an offensive strategy toward the aggravated nerve in my left foot because (I hate to say this) I've started having the same symptoms in my RIGHT foot as well. And I refuse to let this stupid neuroma knock me off both my trotters.

No moving beyond the minimal for my two days off. I will not walk on this foot (and now feet) unless absolutely necessary for 48 hours.

Funny to say this, but can you imagine how frustrating it is to NOT be able to move when all you want to do is walk, run and work out as much as possible to make your goals before Christmas? I'm going meshuggeneh over here.

But part of the problem with an inflamed nerve in the foot is that you are always irritating it, my doc said, every time you take a step. So I'm not taking any extra steps, just for these two days and I will hope and pray it makes a difference.

That doesn't mean I can avoid the gym. No...a different strategy is called for. I went to the gym and did a combo of bike and rowing. Finally figured out how to get a good bike workout: crank up the resistance level and do the alpine challenge.

It keeps pressure off the tootsies and (if you believe the machine count at the gym) I burned nearly 500 cals. Walk there is 1.5 blocks, so just 3 blocks there and back.

Feeling weird things in the feet -- lots of tingling and burning spots and throbbing nerves. Can only hope that's a sign of healing, since I don't have the same pinched feeling I was getting with every step.

This injury is annoying and debilitating. But I am grateful it is nothing more serious. I don't wish to underplay it -- if it develops into a chronic condition I may need surgery, and I really hope that does not happen. It's not life-threatening at all, but could be (already is to a large degree) a serious complication to my lifestyle.

Still...it could be worse. Much worse. So I'll count my blessings, put my feet up in an attempt to reduce any swelling to the nerve, and think good, positive thoughts.

Somehow don't think it's possible that my athletic career can go down in defeat this way (hahah -- get it?), but if so...I'll have to find other ways to keep myself active.

Adapt or die. Right?

Hot 100 Update # 10

2010-12-03T13:04:00.006-05:00

Well, well, well. We meet again, December. Temptation and good cheer coat this month like honey on a glazed ham.

Taking heart from Steve's Hot 100 post, I am determined that December will not lure me into sticky-fingered complacency. I will not slide into that mental place that says, 'Oh, it's ok, it's the holiday season.'

It's not ok. It's not. January looms ahead -- and I do not want to greet the New Year weighing more than I did last year. Even if it is *only* a few pounds, it is something I strongly DO.NOT.WANT.TO.SEE.

Let me say again how grateful I am for the Hot 100 challenge. It got me going again before I'd really clicked in to the passage of time and how close we'd gotten to the end of the year. It's such a fantastic concept and I can't thank Steve enough for all the work he puts into it. He makes it fun too, which I really appreciate.

My Goals This Week:

1) Weight loss portions at every meal: It was a struggle to return to my more controlled eating habits after Thanksgiving, but I've been doing pretty well this week. One thing that helped: I made sure to switch back to my "small" plate this week for dinner (after a weekend of using the larger plate that we got out for Thanksgiving). I am pleased that I enforced that rule on myself again after a few days of using the big holiday plates. It really hurts my sense of portion to have a larger canvas, so to speak. Being a Jackson Pollock type eater means I'll fill every inch. Too bad I'm not an Impressionist eater -- all light and shadow and essence of eating!

In anycase, I'm sticking to my portion rules, and my no eating standing up rule and my no eating muffins from the coffee cart rule, and so on.

2) Run a 5k: oh toe, why do you hate me so? I won't bemoan this situation all over again here. Walked to work once this week, and the toe let me know that it was way too soon. Made it to the gym, however, and did the dreaded stationary bike. Hateful, but I brought my kindle and read away the hour. Would vastly prefer a long walk or a short run, but is not meant to be.

I am adjusting and accepting that this isn't going to change overnight. I must be resilient, and deal with it.

3) Lose 25 lbs: I feel that I have had a bad setback with this annoying bloody nerve injury and a week of loose eating during Thanksgiving. Still.... one must soldier on. This is how it goes, right?

My stupid skinny jeans are still not as loose as I want them to be. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe they were never as loose as I thought they were!

Could I have dreamt it? Or maybe I just wore them so long without washing them that they felt exceptionally loose? Anything seems possible now because the damn things simply will NOT fit the way I *think* they once did!

The Advice Never Ends...

2010-12-01T14:49:00.004-05:00

I should be working today and not fiddling on the Internets but this NYTimes article was too good not to share (and it's short).

One of my favorite pieces of diet advice came from a friend who periodically ate only lemons and sometimes would go home at night and inhale an entire bag (a big one) of unshelled peanuts. She ate the shells. That's a lot of fiber.

She would lecture me endlessly about losing weight, but saw nothing disordered in her own eating habits.

What's the funniest/weirdest bit of eating advice you ever got?

Channeling Sting

2010-11-30T21:21:00.005-05:00

Hum along with me now. The Police, circa...what? 1992? Every step you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you?

Switch the words "watching you" with "zinging you" and this song could be sung by the STUPID NERVE in my foot -- to me, every day, as I try to walk to work.

Yes, the dratted thing is still here. It is the nerve that can't shut up.

At the doc's office yesterday I decided against a third cortisone shot. Jury's out on how effective they are anyway, and I think I got all the improvement possible from that technique. Doc said to begin walking on it again..and essentially, if the pain's not too bad, just live with it.

But definitely no running. I tried to run 20 feet for a bus Sunday and every time my foot came down it felt like someone had stuck a hot wire under the nail of my fourth toe. So yeah...gonna stay away from that for a bit longer.

I took a chance and walked to work today and I wish I could say it didn't hurt, but it did. However, not as badly as it did three weeks ago. When I got to the office I detoured to Duane Reade and bought $5.99 gel pads to put under my feet.

It actually made a difference! Not enough that I thought it wise to try and walk home again (another 3 miles) but a small difference. I'll wear them from now on.

Eating: Today was pretty good. Maybe too much dinner, but otherwise right on plan. Fighting a sore throat, but am determined I will not get sick.

Yesterday, believe it or not, I had planned for a binge. Yes, you read that right -- planned for it.

I ate a tomato and a small chunk of feta for breakfast. The general idea was that I would buy a pumpkin pie (5 inches) at Whole Foods after my doc visit. I actually went and looked up the calorie count (240 a slice) and had calculated that if I ate nothing else that day except pie, I wouldn't get too far over my calorie count.

Yeah. Am I a genius or what?

The plan simply didn't materialize when I got to WF. The holiday buzz is wearing off, thank goodness. I just couldn't rationalize it when it came time to pick up the pie and put it in my cart.

Go, resistance muscle! At least I'm building strength somewhere!

Going to ice the foot nerve and take a cold pill. Sleep awaits.

P.S. Am still employed, and so far the editor we accidentally pocket-dialed hasn't said a word. Figure he deleted it without listening or he listened and decided to cut us some slack. Either way, I'm just keeping my head down and avoiding eye contact for the rest of the week.

Still Here

2010-11-23T12:33:00.003-05:00

Have lost the Internet again at our house for reasons unknown.

That's made me an absentee blogger at a time when I'd really benefit from being connected to the community, but I'm hanging in there.

Toe is still not cooperating, but the pinching is less severe than two weeks ago. That's a good sign, right? I do wish it would just go away completely.

Monday passed without any cakes, vegan or otherwise, thank goodness. I was strongly considering getting one, I will confess. But luckily, nothing appealed in the store and common sense prevailed. I was searching high and low for a 5-inch pecan pie to take home, but none were to be found.

Tons of 5-inch apple pies, 5-inch blueberry pies and others. But I wanted pecan. There were a ton of 9-inch pecan pies. But a sane voice reminded me again and again that a 9-inch pecan pie was NOT something I needed to bring home.

In the end, it was nothing. And I survived the day just fine.

Thanksgiving is upon us. We are having friends over and while we are skipping gravy, stuffing and many other things to try and keep it as healthy as possible, I read this today and my heart sank.

Looks very close to what we'll be serving, minus candied yams, gravy and stuffing!

Thanks to everyone who came to my blog and suggested ways to work out without bothering my toe, or just to say "chin up." I'm trying to push through the frustration and stay focused.

Hot 100 Update # 8

2010-11-19T22:20:00.002-05:00

Baaaad week.

Regular readers will know I had a couple of rough days. Thank you all for your comments and support.

I did not run a 5k this week, courtesy of my injured toe/nerve.
I did not keep to weight loss portions at every meal this week.
I did not have any NSVs to indicate I'm closer to my 25lb loss.

In short, a real pain in the a** week.

I bought new sneakers tonight and am hoping this helps right my nerve/toe.

As much as things went wrong this week, there were also things that went right. I did not give in to every craving, I did not go crazy and stuff myself to the gills. I overate a few times, and veered off plan a few times.

Truth be told, I've had worse moments. And I've had better. Much, much better.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Confession Time

2010-11-17T11:02:00.007-05:00

Something is wrong this week and I'm having a difficult time putting it right.

I'm frustrated.

Not being able to walk to work is seriously messing with my head. I'm eating too much. I'm bored. Cranky. Just a touch emotional at all times.

Deep down, I know I'll be ok. I'm in a funk for a variety of reasons and I'm trying hard to deal with it as best I can. But this morning I had a thought: even though I know that I WILL emerge from this this bad stretch, I don't want to come out the other side any heavier than I am now. I'm upset and emotional and drained. But I do not want to gain any weight because of it. I should say any *more* weight because I'm pretty sure I've put back on a few of the pounds that recently fell off.

When I started running my 5Ks a month or so ago (thanks to the Hot 100 Challenge giving me a butt kick), it felt like a new world opened up for me. At last, I thought, I am ready to start weight loss again after more than a year of holding steady.

Why was I holding steady? I don't rightly know. But the fact that I held at my usual adult weight is a clue -- I wasn't really ready to drop the extra 50 or so pounds I've been carrying around since my teen years. It would be a real change. When I dropped from morbidly obese to obese, that was ok. The next step feels different.

All my life I've felt powerless to control my weight. I'm scared that I can't change enough to keep my weight off.

The podiatrist this week said it's possible I don't have a neuroma but something else instead, because the pain and tenderness is popping up on a toe metatarsal, not on the nerve. He gave me another shot and more instructions to stop walking/running and even doing the elliptical.

I'm going crazy without being able to walk a few miles every day. I want to climb the walls.

I hate riding the bike at the gym -- it hurts my back, I don't feel like I'm getting a workout and it makes me miserable. Nonetheless, I'm going to suck it up and get on the damn thing because another week like this will put me over the edge. And Thanksgiving is coming, and that's going to be a big eating day (mostly vegetarian -- check out this list of awesome recipes from NYTIMES).

This weekend was in control up until Sunday and Monday. Then it all went to hell, especially Monday. I went to Whole Foods and ate, in no particular order, a piece of chocolate vegan cake, a small apple tart, a small lemon tart and a small blueberry tart. When I say small, I mean more than a single bite, but quite a mini-pie).

I felt sick as a dog later, didn't eat dinner, and just wanted the whole day to be over.

Yesterday started out ok, but I got very hungry in the afternoon and got home and ate croutons I didn't need and several pieces of laughing cow cheese I didn't need and just was not in a good head space at all.

Since I can't really go do a good pounding workout, I feel fat and bloated. I really need to run a few miles to clear my head, and I can't.

I just hope this passes soon.

Run to the Light....

2010-11-14T11:27:00.005-05:00

I broke doctor's orders last night and walked from 47th Street to Washington Square Park -- that's about a mile and change, maybe 1.5 total. It was a leisurely stroll, but my foot/toe are jumpy today. Very annoying.

But worth it, because it was a balmy night, and I was with an old friend in town for the weekend who had spent two days doing the GREAT SAUNTER.

It's a 32-mile walk around all of Manhattan. If -- when -- my toe improves, I'm going to do it too.

I miss walking. It makes me sad to be relatively immobilized during this beautiful time of year -- not yet wintery cold but cool enough to walk for hours without getting sweaty.

Dusky walks are my favorite, because the city slowly lights up and you discover new things you've never seen before, to whit the light installation I stumbled on in Madison Square Park.

The shadows are people passing along Fifth Avenue, about 200 feet behind me. I don't know how the artists rigged it so spectators can stand in the park, between the lights and the people on Fifth Avenue, and not block the shadows of the street traffic.

But they did it -- and it's pretty cool! I tried to turn the camera to get the street behind, but that didn't work so well. There's some chatter from people around me too, but I couldn't ask everyone to shut up while I filmed.

Beautiful day today, so it's gym, then walk in park (gently b/c of toe) and then I've managed to arm-twist the BF into coming to see a French film with me, Inspector Bellamy. The only possible dark spot on this day is that I'm risking going into an NYC movie theater -- could exit with bedbugs! Am seriously contemplating bringing some of the plastic casings our dry cleaning comes home in and using those as buffers on the seats.

Have a great Sunday everybody.

Hot 100 Update # 7

2010-11-12T22:01:00.011-05:00

Lordy, what a week. I shall go right to the goals and then indulge in some social chatter.

1) Lose 25lbs: I am determined not to get on the scale until the end of the challenge. But I am loving every NSV that comes my way. This week, the skinny jeans (that were looser three months ago) are ever-so-slightly baggy around the upper leg. It's a small but noticeable shift. Even the boyfriend commented (bless him). Also, an orange shirt that I bought months ago that was always just a bit tighter around the hips than the shoulders was donned yesterday for the first time in several weeks. It was discernably looser around the hips this week. Yay, and yay, and (thank the lifestyle-change gods) yay.

2) Run a 5k: if you count about 4 miles on the elliptical, then I stuck to this goal. Went to the foot doctor Monday, learned I have a mild neuroma, not much to speak of thankfully. But still had to suffer a cortisone shot and no walking or running all week. By the way, mucho gratitude and kind hugs to all who sent me good wishes -- nothing cheers me up like seeing new and old commenters on my blog. Thank you!

Didn't walk this week (much) and did elliptical on Wednesday (which annoyed foot). Very mild exercise this week, which led to.....

3) Weight-loss portions at every meal: Monday was not good. I didn't binge, but I ate emotionally and without making good choices. A couple of small vegan cakes were on the menu, and then a very late-night snack that I truly didn't need. Not my most stellar day. BUT....I rebounded fairly well. Monday was off, Tuesday was tough but I white-knuckled through, Wednesday and Thursday good, even without being able to walk to work or do my running, which made things really hard for me. On top of all else, it was a very hormonal week, and I found myself getting weepy and angry over things I would normally shrug off. When I get like that, working out really helps. But I couldn't do things as I wanted this week, so I was frustrated.

Yet, had a dinner out Thursday night with a friend and chose very well (pictures below). Ditto at the event we went to after, a really brilliant evening listening to a live storytelling competition. It's done by a group called The Moth.

I encourage everyone to download and listen on podcast if they can -- fun stories. But nothing compares to a live storytelling competition. It's exhilarating! And the storytellers were great. Some clearly had live performance experience. Others were just Average Joe's who wanted to tell a story and were nervous and excited and so so so brave for getting up on stage. Was such a lovely night and a nice change of pace for me.

And while my friend got a slice of carrot cake for the performance, I did not. Thank goodness it was so dark I couldn't see what she was eating. That really helped.

So here are some pictures from where we went to dinner. Food Network buffs might recognize it from an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

Schnipper's! It's a family joint, despite the glass cage effect. It's right on the corner of 41st and Eighth Avenue, so well located near Times Square and the Port Authority bus station. They do organic burgers, dogs, sandwiches, tacos (fish and chicken) salads and more.
We decided to split an order of fish tacos and an arugula, avocado and goat cheese sandwich. Everything was fresh, fresh, fresh. You order your food, they give you a stick with a number on it that matches your receipt and you go sit here, putting your stick on your table, until a server brings your order...
If you look verrrry, verrrry closely at this picture, you'll see a man in a brown jacket, glasses, with brown hair in the middle of the room facing the camera (but not looking at it). He's the fourth person directly in line behind the blond girl whose back is to me. That's Michael Musto.

Who is he, you ask? Well... he's a NYC insider celebrity, a nightlife columnist for The Village Voice who does a weekly article called La Dolce Musto. It's all about theater and clubs and NYC and he's been doing it for over 20 years. When I first moved to NYC I took an unpaid internship at The Village Voice and he was the "established" writer we all tiptoed around. He's nice, unassuming and incredibly shy. He also rides around NYC on a bike at all hours and in all weather and does not wear a helmet.

We went around the corner then to B.B. King's to enjoy the readings at The Moth. Here's a shot of 42nd St near Eighth Avenue at approximately 8 p.m. on a Thursday night. Sorry it's blurry.

And here's a sign of the place itself.
To sum up: a decent week. I wasn't perfect, but .... I was able to handle my moods, rebound from some bad choices and struggle through a change in routine without a major binge. I can live with that.

The Podiatrist, Part 1

2010-11-08T19:17:00.002-05:00

For the next week I can't walk (for any length of time) or run. Elliptical is ok, the bike is ok and the rowing machine is ok. And probably lifting weights is ok, although I didn't ask about that.

Not ok is any kind of impact activity.

I never thought I'd say this, but I might go insane if I can't walk to work all week long. Not only is a good bit of exercise, it has turned into quite the stress management technique as well! I shall miss it more than I ever thought possible.

The good news is that the doc found no evidence of an extremely bad neuroma. Apparently the fancy-schmancy running shoes I bought a month ago to start running in are too narrow across the toe. I've pinched a nerve and now it won't be obedient and go back the way it should be.

I got a quick and unpleasant injection of cortisone around my toe and uncomfortably close to the nerve. Felt very weird. Two x-rays taken, and I'll go back in a week and see how things are.

With any luck, the niggling pain I have now when I step a certain way will be gone.

OK day today. Am not in the best of form. Lots of work stress this past Friday and Saturday and that has still dragged me down a bit, I suspect.

Hope everyone is well. A more cheerful update to follow soon, I promise.

A Quick Note of Outrage

2010-11-07T15:19:00.003-05:00

I hadn't intended to post today (I'm anticipating a loooooonng post tomorrow after my podiatrist appt), but could not let this go by without comment.

Have any of you seen this article in the NYTimes? It's linked here but I'm posting it below as well.

It makes me feel violated and outraged and just really really frustrated all at the same time. In a nutshell, it's a revealing look at a GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED (that means paid for by you and me and other US taxpayers among us) marketing group known as Dairy Management.

Dairy Management uses taxpayer funds to aggressively promote the consumption of dairy products, especially cheese. It's behind successful promotions that have doubled the amount of cheese on Domino's Pizza and in some Taco Bell food too.

It's part of the very same government agency that's supposed to be coming up with way to control America's obesity problem!!!!

Oh, the irony of it all. One government agency tells us to consume cheese in heaping quantities, while another arm of the same agency tries to get us to limit our saturated fats!

Here's an excerpt -- pay particular attention to the bolded graf at bottom.

Working with some of the largest food companies, Dairy Management has also pushed to expand the use of cheese in processed foods and home cooking.

The strategy is focusing on families whose cheese “habit” outpaces their concern about the health risks, Dairy Management documents show. One study gave them a name: “Cheese snacking fanatics.”

Wow. Just wow. Here we are fighting for our lives, and the government is busy pushing fatty food for better profits.

And what is a government marketing agency doing spending its money helping for-profit companies like Taco Bell and Domino's anyway?

Article below:

While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese

By MICHAEL MOSS

Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.

Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.

Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits. “This partnership is clearly working,” Brandon Solano, the Domino’s vice president for brand innovation, said in a statement to The New York Times.

But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino’s, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.

And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture — the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.

Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.

Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat; an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk.

When Michelle Obama implored restaurateurs in September to help fight obesity, she cited the proliferation of cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. “I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options,” she told the National Restaurant Association’s annual meeting.

But in a series of confidential agreements approved by agriculture secretaries in both the Bush and Obama administrations, Dairy Management has worked with restaurants to expand their menus with cheese-laden products.

Consider the Taco Bell steak quesadilla, with cheddar, pepper jack, mozzarella and a creamy sauce. “The item used an average of eight times more cheese than other items on their menu,” the Agriculture Department said in a report, extolling Dairy Management’s work — without mentioning that the quesadilla has more than three-quarters of the daily recommended level of saturated fat and sodium.

Dairy Management, whose annual budget approaches $140 million, is largely financed by a government-mandated fee on the dairy industry. But it also receives several million dollars a year from the Agriculture Department, which appoints some of its board members, approves its marketing campaigns and major contracts and periodically reports to Congress on its work.

The organization’s activities, revealed through interviews and records, provide a stark example of inherent conflicts in the Agriculture Department’s historical roles as both marketer of agriculture products and America’s nutrition police.

In one instance, Dairy Management spent millions of dollars on research to support a national advertising campaign promoting the notion that people could lose weight by consuming more dairy products, records and interviews show. The campaign went on for four years, ending in 2007, even though other researchers — one paid by Dairy Management itself — found no such weight-loss benefits.

When the campaign was challenged as false, government lawyers defended it, saying the Agriculture Department “reviewed, approved and continually oversaw” the effort.

Dr. Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health and a former member of the federal government’s nutrition advisory committee, said: “The U.S.D.A. should not be involved in these programs that are promoting foods that we are consuming too much of already. A small amount of good-flavored cheese can be compatible with a healthy diet, but consumption in the U.S. is enormous and way beyond what is optimally healthy.”

The Agriculture Department declined to make top officials available for interviews for this article, and Dairy Management would not comment. In answering written questions, the department said that dairy promotion was intended to bolster farmers and rural economies, and that its oversight left Dairy Management’s board with “significant independence” in deciding how best to support those interests.

The department acknowledged that cheese is high in saturated fat, but said that lower milk consumption had made cheese an important source of calcium.

“When eaten in moderation and with attention to portion size, cheese can fit into a low-fat, healthy diet,” the department said.

In its reports to Congress, however, the Agriculture Department tallies Dairy Management’s successes in millions of pounds of cheese served.

In 2007, the department highlighted Pizza Hut’s Cheesy Bites pizza, Wendy’s “dual Double Melt sandwich concept,” and Burger King’s Cheesy Angus Bacon cheeseburger and TenderCrisp chicken sandwich. “Both featured two slices of American cheese, a slice of pepper jack and a cheesy sauce,” the department said.

These efforts, the department reported, helped generate a “cheese sales growth of nearly 30 million pounds.”

Relentless Marketing

Every day, the nation’s cows produce an average of about 60 million gallons of raw milk, yet less than a third goes toward making milk that people drink. And the majority of that milk has fat removed to make the low-fat or nonfat milk that Americans prefer. A vast amount of leftover whole milk and extracted milk fat results.

For years, the federal government bought the industry’s excess cheese and butter, an outgrowth of a Depression-era commitment to use price supports and other tools to maintain the dairy industry as a vital national resource. This stockpile, packed away in cool caves in Missouri, grew to a value of more than $4 billion by 1983, when Washington switched gears.

The government started buying only what it needed for food assistance programs. It also began paying farmers to slaughter some dairy cows. But at the time, the industry was moving toward larger, more sophisticated operations that increased productivity through artificial insemination, hormones and lighting that kept cows more active.

In 1995, the government created Dairy Management Inc., a nonprofit corporation that has defined its mission as increasing dairy consumption by “offering the products consumers want, where and when they want them.”

Dairy Management, through the “Got Milk?” campaign, has been successful at slowing the decline in milk consumption, particularly focusing on schoolchildren. It has also relentlessly marketed cheese and pushed back against the Agriculture Department’s suggestion that people eat only low-fat or fat-free varieties.

In a July letter to the department’s nutrition committee, Dairy Management wrote that efforts to make fat-free cheese have largely foundered because fat is what makes cheese appealing. “Consumer acceptance of low-fat and fat-free cheeses has been limited,” it said.

Agriculture Department data show that cheese is a major reason the average American diet contains too much saturated fat.

Research has found that the cardiovascular benefits in cutting saturated fat may depend on what replaces it. Refined starches and sugar might be just as bad or even worse, while switching to unsaturated fats has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.

The department’s nutrition committee issued a new standard this summer calling for saturated fat not to exceed 7 percent of total calories, about 15.6 grams in a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet. Yet the average intake has remained about 11 percent to 12 percent of total calories for at least 15 years.

The department issued nutritional hints in a brochure titled “Steps To A Healthier You!” It instructs pizza lovers: “Ask for whole wheat crust and half the cheese” — even as Dairy Management has worked with pizza chains like Domino’s to increase cheese.

Dairy Management runs the largest of 18 Agriculture Department programs that market beef, pork, potatoes and other commodities. Their budgets are largely paid by levies imposed on farmers, but Dairy Management, which reported expenditures of $136 million last year, also received $5.3 million that year from the Agriculture Department to promote dairy sales overseas.

By comparison, the department’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, which promotes healthy diets, has a total budget of $6.5 million.

Although by law the secretary of agriculture approves Dairy Management’s contracts and advertising campaigns, the organization has become a full-blown company with 162 employees skilled in product development and marketing. It also includes the National Dairy Council, a 95-year-old group that acts as its research and communications arm.

Dairy Management’s longtime chief executive, Thomas P. Gallagher, received $633,475 in compensation in 2008, with first-class travel privileges, according to federal tax filings. Annual compensation for two other officials top $300,000 each.

Mr. Gallagher, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was described by board members, employees and food industry officials as an astute executive and effective champion of the sprawling dairy industry.

“He’s a big thinker,” said David Brandon, former chief executive of Domino’s. “A very creative guy who thinks big and is willing to make bets in helping to drive the business on behalf of his dairy farmers.”

Disputed Research

“Great news for dieters,” Dairy Management said in an advertisement in People magazine in 2005. “Clinical studies show that people on a reduced-calorie diet who consume three servings of milk, cheese or yogurt each day can lose significantly more weight and more body fat than those who just cut calories.”

With milk consumption in decline, Dairy Management had hit on a fresh marketing strategy with its weight-loss campaign.

When the campaign began in 2003, a Dairy Management official said it was inspired by newly relaxed federal rules on health claims and the ensuing “rapid growth of ‘better for you’ products.”

It was based on research by Michael B. Zemel, a University of Tennessee nutritionist and author of “The Calcium Key: The Revolutionary Diet Discovery That Will Help You Lose Weight Faster.” Precisely how dairy facilitates weight loss is unclear, Dr. Zemel said in interviews and e-mails, but in part it involves counteracting a hormone that fosters fat deposits when the body is low on calcium.

Dairy Management licensed Dr. Zemel’s research, promoted his book and enlisted a team of scientific advisers who “identified further research to develop more aggressive claims in the future,” according to a campaign strategy presentation.

One such study was conducted by Jean Harvey-Berino, chairwoman of the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont. “I think they felt they had a lot riding on it,” she said of the weight loss claim, “and felt it was a cash cow if it worked out.”

“I’m a big promoter of dairy,” she added, noting that her research was also paid for by Dairy Management.

But by 2004, her study had found no evidence of weight loss. She said Dairy Management took the news poorly, threatening to audit her work. She said she was astonished when the organization pressed on with its ad campaign.

“I thought they were crazy, and that eventually somebody would catch up with them,” she said.

Her study was published in 2005, and at scientific meetings she heard from other researchers who also failed to confirm Dr. Zemel’s work, including Dr. Jack A. Yanovski, an obesity unit chief at the National Institutes of Health.

But in late 2006, Dairy Management was still citing the weight-loss claim in urging the Agriculture Department not to cut the amount of cheese in federal food assistance programs. “The available data provide strong support for a beneficial effect of increased dairy foods on body weight and body composition,” two organization officials wrote, making no mention of Dr. Harvey-Berino’s findings.

Having dismissed the weight-loss claim in 2005, the federal nutrition advisory committee this summer again found the underlying science “not convincing.”

The campaign lasted until 2007, when the Federal Trade Commission acted on a two-year-old petition by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an advocacy group that challenged the campaign’s claims. “If you want to look at why people are fat today, it’s pretty hard to identify a contributor more significant than this meteoric rise in cheese consumption,” Dr. Neal D. Barnard, president of the physicians’ group, said in an interview.

The trade commission notified the group that Agriculture Department and dairy officials had decided to halt the campaign pending additional research. Dr. Zemel said he remained hopeful that his findings would eventually be upheld.

Meanwhile, Dairy Management, which allotted $12.4 million for nutrition research in 2008, has moved on to finance studies on promising opportunities, including the promotion of chocolate milk as a sports recovery drink and the use of cheese to entice children into eating healthy foods like string beans.

An All-Out Campaign

On Oct. 13, Domino’s announced the latest in its Legends line of cheesier pizza, which Dairy Management is promoting with the $12 million marketing effort.

Called the Wisconsin, the new pie has six cheeses on top and two more in the crust. “This is one way that we can support dairy farms across the country: by selling a pizza featuring an abundance of their products,” a Domino’s spokesman said in a news release. “We think that’s a good thing.”

A laboratory test of the Wisconsin that was commissioned by The Times found that one-quarter of a medium thin-crust pie had 12 grams of saturated fat, more than three-quarters of the recommended daily maximum. It also has 430 calories, double the calories in pizza formulations that the chain bills as its “lighter options.”

According to contract records released through the Freedom of Information Act, Dairy Management’s role in helping to develop Domino’s pizzas included generating and testing new pizza concepts.

When Dairy Management began working with companies like Domino’s, it first had to convince them that cheese would make their products more desirable, records and interviews show. It provided banners and special lighting for the drive-up window menus at fast food restaurants, recalled Debra Olson Linday, who led Dairy Management’s early efforts in promoting cheese to restaurant chains before leaving in 1997.

By 1999, food retailers and manufacturers were coming to Dairy Management for help.

“Let’s sell more pizza and more cheese!” said two officials with Pizza Hut, which began putting cheese inside its crust after holding development meetings with Dairy Management, according to a memorandum released by the Agriculture Department.

Derek Correia, a former Pizza Hut product innovations chief, said Dairy Management also helped find suppliers for the extra cheese. “We were using four cheeses, if not six, and with a company like Pizza Hut, that is a lot of supply,” he said in an interview.

And unlike with its advertising campaigns, Dairy Management and the Agriculture Department could point to specific results with these projects. The “Summer of Cheese” promotion it developed with Pizza Hut in 2002 generated the use of 102 million additional pounds of cheese, the department reported to Congress.

“More cheese on pizza equals more cheese sales,” Mr. Gallagher, the Dairy Management chief executive, wrote in a guest column in a trade publication last year. “In fact, if every pizza included one more ounce of cheese, we would sell an additional 250 million pounds of cheese annually.”

Working with some of the largest food companies, Dairy Management has also pushed to expand the use of cheese in processed foods and home cooking. The Agriculture Department has reported a 5 percent to 16 percent increase in sales of cheese snacks in stores where Dairy Management has helped grocers reinvent their dairy aisles. Now on display is an array of sliced, grated and cubed products, along with handy recipes for home cooking that use more cheese.

The strategy is focusing on families whose cheese “habit” outpaces their concern about the health risks, Dairy Management documents show. One study gave them a name: “Cheese snacking fanatics.”

Hot 100 Update # 6

2010-11-05T21:08:00.002-04:00

My not-so-better half is out for the night. Ahhhhh, sweet solitude. Very long, difficult day, capped off with a corker of a headache that started late afternoon.

Without further ado, my update this week:

Goal # 1: Run 5k. As regular readers know, I believe I've developed a swollen nerve in my foot, a condition called Morton's Neuroma. I'm trying not to panic and worry and freak out. I have a doc's appt on Monday and you can be sure you'll get a full update. Long story short, I ran a 5k on Monday but it was pretty painful. I walked 6 miles Tuesday and 3 miles Wednesday plus the elliptical, but it took some teeth-gritting to get it done. By Wednesday night I had to ice the bottom of my foot it was so painful. I didn't run a 5k Thursday. So I'm one down this week, unfortunately.

Goal #2: Weight-loss portions at every meal: Fell off the wagon on two meals this week, both involving pasta (go figure). Sunday night after our Halloween walk I way overdid it on the yummy spaghetti and meat sauce made by the B/F. Not a binge, but an overeat.

Thursday night I made pasta at the B/F's request. Again, I overate. There were leftovers, which I polished off tonight, but I definitely ate past fullness because it tasted good. No other reason.

Goal #3: Lose 25 lbs. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to drift into fantasy land and start imagining that you've lost oodles and oodles of weight? I did that one night last week while walking home. My mind started whirling and I began to wonder if, when I next get on the scale, it might show a really really big loss. This is how I set myself up for disappointment -- unrealistic expectations. I seem to feel I'm owed a very big reward from even just a few days of clean eating and exercise.

In truth, from the way my clothes fit, I think maybe I've lost 6 to 8 lbs over the Hot 100 challenge. Maybe. In anycase, my goal is a very achievable 5lbs a month. So.... I'm doing my best, I really and truly am.

In other NSV's, tonight I left work late and exhausted and had to walk to the bank, then to the store for cat food. With the B/F out on his own, there was not hot dinner waiting for me at home.

Strangely enough, I felt barely an urge to buy something decadent and "splurge" at home alone. Despite the exhaustion, the headache, all the excuses I could summon for buying a "goodie" and burying myself in it when I got home and could sit down on the couch, I just didn't do it.

I was curiously numb to the idea. It surfaced a few times, but with no real force behind it. There was no crushing desire to wrestle with. My honest-to-God reaction was just "Meh." I knew I could grab something gooey or hot or fattening and eat it -- but I wasn't going to feel any better if I did. It wasn't even a struggle, I'm happy to say (but I'm far too aware that it may be different another time).

So it was leftovers for me, and I quite happily reheated the leftover spaghetti (made with broccoli, sauteed garlic in olive oil and sprinkled with feta), threw in spinach leaves to use them up, and a wee bit of diced chicken we hadn't eaten up earlier in the week. I was fed, and the fridge was clean.

Steve asked tonight about our favorite Hot 100 blogs. Truth be told I have many. There are so many I love! I'll list some another time -- I'm just too wiped out tonight.

Catch up with all you Hotties soon!

Words You Don't Want in Your Vocabulary

2010-11-03T21:53:00.006-04:00

Here's a big one: Morton's Neuroma.

Apparently it was once featured on an episode of "The Golden Girls." I did not know that, but a friend of mine who strangely LOVES to watch those reruns (she's 32) mentioned it to me. You can't imagine how wonderful it is to learn you're sharing an ailment with a TV character nearly twice your age.

So, I've had some strange nerve pain in my left foot for the past couple of weeks, off and on. It started when I bought a new pair of sneakers. It gets worse when I run my 5ks, then dissipates a bit (until I run some more). This Monday is was excruciating. I barely got through the 5k. And it's been painful to walk every day since.

Whenever I have weird pain, I go to the Internet, of course. It tells me I likely have Morton's Neuroma, which to me seems a fancy word for a pinched and inflamed nerve in my foot.

Podiatrist appt on Monday. I believe I caught it early, it's probably not severe yet and I hope to be able to treat it easily and make it go away forever. Inflamed nerves, once upset, don't like to calm down, apparently.

Steve also added to my vocabulary growth this week with his list of antioxidant foods.

Turns out I don't eat any of them!

So I bought this:

This is a pomegranate. I confused it with a papaya and made a stupid comment about it on Steve's blog. Papayas are one thing, this is another.

Apparently you go through a lot of work to open this cute little sucker up, and then you just eat the seeds. It's a strange fruit.

Then I got these:

Of course I already knew what a pecan was. But I added some four-letter variations to the name when I realized that a small handful of these bad boys equals about 200 calories. Whoa!

All antioxidant foods should be calorie-free (or at least very low). I think we need to make it a rule.

I also decided to get wiggy with things in the mushroom section. Instead of nice buttons, cremini, or even shitake, I got these. They're called Earwood Mushrooms. Or Tree-Fungus Mushrooms. I keep calling them Earwig Mushrooms -- and apparently yesterday in the kitchen I asked my b/f to "hand me the earwig muffins," which shows you where my head is at.

I was so hopeful they'd be good. Instead, kind of blah. Better in the yummy Thai soups where I first saw them. Not so good with eggs in the morning.

So, lots of new words to roll around my tongue, and some anxiety over the alleged Morton's Neuroma. Having just started to run, I'd hate to have to stop again. But I also don't want this to worsen.

For now, it's the elliptical for me, where the nerve nags but doesn't shriek.

All Hallow's Eve

2010-10-31T19:10:00.003-04:00

I love Halloween. The colors, the smells, the crisp bite to the air.

What's more Halloweeny than a headless horseman lurking in the graveyard of the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow?

I can't think of a thing. Only needed Ichabod Crane to emerge from the shadows to be complete.

We went to Sleepy Hollow to hike today in Rockefeller State Park. It was gorgeous and sunny (but brisk). We walked/hiked about 5 miles through the woodsy lanes, surprising a couple of wild turkeys and one young deer.

At one point, when the B/F told me he planned to make spaghetti for dinner, I began to jog (got to make room for those carbs). Sadly, I can jog at about the pace the much taller B/F walks. I'm definitely a plodder.

But it was fun to plod along side him for a mile or so. Great day. I leave you with these photos. Enjoy!

HOT HOT HOT

2010-10-28T22:14:00.009-04:00

Yes, it's Hot 100 Update #5. I don't know why Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot" song popped into my head. Perhaps because of Steve's confession last night that he associates people with songs -- and he likes hot peppers, and started the Hot 100 contest. So apparently, that's his song -- in my head, anyway.

I've had a wonderful time cruising among your blogs this week -- I've found lots of inspiration and motivation and plenty of thoughtful commentary that encourages me to delve deeper into my own mental blocks regarding weight loss/food addiction.

Right, to the goals:

#1: Eat Weight Loss Portions Every Meal: I have worked harder on this in the past four days than ever before. It requires me to REALLY slow down when I eat, and that's always a challenge for me. I am trying with all my might to STOP EATING when I'm about 80 percent full.

For lunch now I'm eating small, organic burritos that have 370 calories. It's a decent amount of calories, I think, but the portion is very controlled. It's a deliberate training technique -- I challenge myself to make that burrito last as loooong as possible and enjoy it thoroughly. And when it's gone, it's gone.

I am not "full" after I eat it. But I am no longer hungry. I am trying to live in that state now, and be comfortable there. It does not feel comfortable to me yet. Or, I should say that physically it does, but emotionally and mentally it has the opposite effect. I feel anxious, a little nervous, I feel like something is missing.

It takes a lot of concentration to redirect my mind to something else and forget about eating more so I can feel just a little bit fuller (I have nothing else to eat, so I can't anyway!). But if I can distract myself for 10 minutes, the urge to stuff more goes away on its own.

Monday night we went to my friend's event (the one I was whining about) and on the way home we looked for a place to eat. We ended up at a Shake Shack, a gourmet burger joint that only sells burgers, hot dogs, fries, milkshakes and beer and wine. Fun, no? I vowed to drink only water, and that's what I did.

I was relieved to see when my cheeseburger came it was small -- very good portion control. Ditto the fries. I ate my meal slowly. It was good. And I wanted more. How hard was it to get up and walk away? SOOO hard. So very very hard. For inspiration, I came home and read The Daily Diary of a Winning Loser.

Sean has some great thoughts on how to handle food addiction and food freedom. He should know -- he went from over 500 lbs to the low 200s!

Goal #2: Run a 5K: I missed last week because of the hiking fall. This week I did two 5Ks (yay!). The first was Monday and I thought I'd smoked it. Seriously, the machine said I came in under 40 minutes and that I did my last mile in under 12 minutes.

Well, that was not what a different machine told me Thursday morning when I got up early to go to the gym for run No. 2! At the same rate of speed, this machine said I was doing about a 15-minute mile. Whoa. Big difference. I thought it strange that I was suddenly a Speedy Gonzalez on Monday. Bottom line: I ran two 5Ks. That's what counts.

Goal #3: Lose 25 lbs. A month ago I bought a light jacket in a size that usually fits my shoulders and bust but not my hips. It fit all over. I got excited. On Sunday I bought another, different light jacket in the same size. It fit my shoulders and bust. It did not fit my hips. ARRRRGH! These hips! I assume it's a different style and cut and all that, but I will be so excited when I lose a few more inches from the woolly mammoth hips. That said, the skinny jeans are slowing getting looser, back to where they were four months ago.

By the way, what does NSV mean? Good luck Hotties -- look forward to reading your updates!

A Guilty Silver Lining

2010-10-27T09:12:00.002-04:00

Is it a sign of diet-obsessiveness that my English friend had to cancel her family's trip to NYC this week and the kids (and she) are totally heartbroken and I am secretly relieved?

Not relieved that they aren't coming -- I really wanted to see them all. But relieved that the onslaught of food and drink temptations I was anticipating aren't going to materialize at all. Yeah, deeply, deeply relieved!

This weight-loss thing is just so much easier when everything is under my control. And that makes me try harder to control things and want more and more control over my schedule and rituals.

But, that way madness lies, methinks. Life's not really in our control (at least all the time), is it? And I need to remember that I CAN handle situations outside my usual food routine. That's one of my major non-weight-loss goals on this journey -- get rid of my fear (and longing) for food, and let it all just be .....well, food.

Checked out some Hot 100 Hotties last night! Lots of good stuff out there. I met some new faces, checked up on some old ones. Everybody looks to be doing well.

Yesterday was a very clean day for me with good exercise. I'm trying to use my lunch hour to walk around a little bit ever since reading that article that says Americans walk the least of all industrialized nations.

My Fellow Animals!

2010-10-25T11:36:00.006-04:00

I am 99.9 percent sure we were the only people to show up at the Animal Farm Sanctuary walk yesterday with the odor of bacon and fried sausage wafting in our wake. The b/f will do many things for me, but sacrificing his Sunday morning fry-up is not one of them.

I guess it's sort of hypocritical for us to attend (and gleefully participate in) a walk to help a sanctuary for abused animals, many of them rescued from really awful, gross conditions on industrial-style farms.

But even though we are not hard-core vegans, we do care deeply about animals being kept in humane conditions. Items like meat, butter, and cheese are not staples in our diet by any means, but occasional add-ins, and when we do buy some, it's only from local, animal-friendly providers. I try not to eat them mindlessly like I used to -- not just in terms of quantity, but in understanding where these foods have come from.

Ok, we're not perfect, but we're striving to be less empty-headed about what we consume, so we showed up yesterday (which is half the battle in life sometimes, or so I've always been told). It was a gorgeous, crisp and sunny October day, and we got there just in time to start the march around the park.

Lots of kids and families and calm banner waving. This was not a screamy "in-your-face" event but a low-key, groovy kinda thing.

It's hard to tell from the picture but I'd say there were several hundred folks who turned out.

After we gathered in Colombus Circle for our free vegan lunches! Yum. The b/f refused to try the seitan sandwich, being his stubborn self, but I finally coaxed him into taking a corner bite, then he took another, and another....well, half the sandwich finally went down his gullet. There was also pirate booty chips, organic chocolate squares, vegan cookies (very calorie-laden - I checked) and some neat 100 cal treats from "Live Foods." They were like yummy granola bars but with spirulina and raw sprouts in them; it really tasted good tho, which can only mean they packed them with some sort of sugar.

The Grandmaster of the march was John Salley, a Brooklyn born former NBA star who is a vegan. He gave a hilarious speech that had everyone laughing, which was a nice change from the overly serious and ranting tone some of these events can exude. We can be thoughtful, gracious earth companions without completely losing our sense of humor, right?

In the end, we got our t-shirts! I love t-shirts that have a memory attached.

Was a great day, overall. We walked home, so about 5 miles walking in all, I'd say, at a rather sedate, middle-aged pace. Was feeling like it was a good amount until I read this article: Americans Don't Walk Enough.

Got to run to gym now, then Whole Foods for dinner items, then home hopefully for a nap because I have to go to an event tonight (no food, thank goodness) for a friend that I really don't want to go to but must because it's one of those times when you must show no matter how annoying or inconvenient it is for you. And I'll probably enjoy it when I get there, right?

Hot 100 Update # 4

2010-10-22T19:51:00.002-04:00

Can't believe how fast this challenge is going. Do we really only have 60 or so days left? I think I've somehow slipped a gear and gone into dog years -- everything is going seven times faster than usual (except the weight loss, drat it).

To the challenge at hand:

1) Build up my endurance to run 5k: no additional 5k runs this week, although I had at least one planned. After the (ahem) incident on our hike upstate, I apparently strained some stomach muscles as well as bashing my arm and wrist. Was very sore all week. I did get in extra walking, but would have liked to at least hit the elliptical machine once. But... these were conscious choices I made due to injury, not flake-out or laziness, so I'm not going to dwell, just glad I'm healing and ready for a new week!

2) Weight loss portions at every meal: This was a toughie this week. I can't honestly say that I did it at every meal, especially while we were up in the cabin. What I can say is that I kept a firm grip on what I did eat. Yes, I would have liked to cut myself off a few bites earlier on a couple of occasions, and I snacked more than I would have liked. Yet, I didn't consume an entire cake (which I've been known to do) or a whole bag of chips, etc etc. I did keep reminding myself not to go really really far overboard, and it helped. I'll call it a qualified success.

3) Lose 25 lbs: I'm measuring by my clothes right now, not the scale. Put on a black shirt this week I haven't worn in a while and it was definitely bigger on me. And not just on the shoulders and bust, but actually looser around the woolly mammoth hips that Mother Nature insisted on gifting me with. That, my friends, is a pleasant surprise! I'd like to keep going on this though and get my skinny jeans loose on me once more, the way they were a few months ago when I weighed....you guessed it, 25 lbs less!

Challenges ahead: The food-loving British friend and her always ravenous family arrive this week. Several dinners out and all manner of things.

Goal is to get back to the running, which for some odd reason always makes me feel thinner, even when I know that logically one can't run a mile and lose 10 inches. But what does logic have to do with weight loss anyway?

Let's go Hotties! I'll be checking updates and taking names this week!

Photo-palooza!

2010-10-18T21:31:00.006-04:00

We're back from a weekend in gorgeous upstate New York, all in one piece but not without war wounds!

Right -- let's get to it. I would give myself a C- on the eating front this weekend. It wasn't as awful as it could have been, but there were moments that got away from me.

I read Cindy's blog while I was upstate and she talked about the importance of fighting back against eating cues that send us into a feeding frenzy. It immediately dawned on me that going to the cabin sets off many cues for me -- namely, that we are in a beautiful, big log cabin, much bigger than our apartment in NYC, and the joy of being in a big kitchen, with so much space to move around and cook sets off both me and the boyfriend.

It brings me back to my rural New England childhood and our cozy house in the woods. Before I counted calories or worried about what I was eating. And I think the B/F has the same response -- we just go a little crazy when we get up there.

Here are the brass tacks. A late, late, late and rainy, dark drive up Friday night meant getting dinner close to midnight at the local diner. Grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, with a small order of fries -- not as terrible as they sound, as they were baked, not fried.

Saturday it was cold and rainy. To the Sheep and Wool Festival! Check out these guys -- who are obviously not sheep. There are a surprising number of Llama and Alpaca farms in upstate New York.

So, some of you will remember that I mentioned a certain craving for Apple Cider Donuts. When we first got there I could not find any -- although I did see the same food cart selling fried pierogies that I saw at the Garlic Festival. Ick! Almost as gross to me as Cotton Candy, which is really the one childhood treat I could never bring myself to eat. As we walked around the stalls and vendors, I began to panic. Could it be that there was not one single Apple Cider Donut to be found?

And then...

Turns out they had simply sold out when I got there. A second batch came in as we strolled around and I luckily found them.

I had one, although it was VERY hard to hold myself to just that. They were smallish, for donuts, which is good. To answer questions about what they are (Peridot and Dr. Fit to Fat asked), they are simply donuts made with fresh apple cider, and rolled in a combo of brown sugar, sugar and cinnamon. Ohhhh boy.

The next day the sun dawned and it was time to work it all off with a moderate hike up to the Giant Ledge. The hike was sort of steep, but not too bad. The challenge, however, was the footing. It was rocky, very very rocky, and muddy and slippery. And in places we had to use hands and feet to avoid sliding downwards. Check it out.

The first part was gorgeous - Ichabod Crane country.

Then it started to get very vertical, although someone kindly cut out some stone steps for part of it.

When we got to the trailhead, there was a fire engine and paramedic team standing by. Turns out a hiker had hurt himself part way up, and given the intense rockiness and steepness, it was quite a feat to organize a way to get the man out.

It was more than little disconcerting to come across the rescue team as we hiked up the slippery terrain!
.

Finally we got to the top -- and the views were amazing, and totally worth the effort (which took quite a toll on my bad knee, I must say). Here I am, catching some rays and my breath.

So all that remained was to refuel -- pears, prunes, a little trail mix, water and a ham-n-cheese sandwich (made and carried by the handy boyfriend) -- and walk back down. Easy, right?

Except downhill is often the most challenging. You're tired, a little unfocused, thinking about what comes next -- hot tub and dinner, in my case, and it's all too easy to take a tumble or a misstep and turn an ankle. Or worse!

As I picked my way C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y downhill, around the muddy and slippery leaves, I kept replaying over and over to myself the horrors of putting a foot wrong. Above all, I dreaded the thought of having to say my size or weight to rescuers deciding if they could carry me out or have to call a helicopter. I would, naturally, require a Shamu-sized lift out via whirly-bird.

This is what I navigated for the hour-long trek down, as I chanted "don't fall, don't fall, don't fall."

Of course, only one thing could happen, right?

I fell.

Thank goodness, it was a simple slip. I didn't hurt a knee or an ankle on the way down, but did smash my palm and and forearm onto a rock. I don't mind telling you that the pain shot right through me and I saw stars! It was a corker of a landing. The b/f said I went down in slow motion and had a look of abject terror on my face (because I was thinking for sure I'd blow out a joint).

In the end, my poor palm took the worst of it.It doesn't look that bad, but it was a nasty scrape and it hurt like the dickens.

Once the pain subsided, I immediately started entertaining thoughts of taking a week off from work due to my terrible sprain. Would love it!

But alas, turned out to be nothing but a wee wrenched wrist, a bruise and a scrape. Not enough to warrant medical leave!

Right, so enough of the drama. On Saturday I ate not too badly at the fair, but over-indulged a little that night (chips and salsa). Not too much, but more than I had wanted.

Sunday night, after a day of hiking, we had a lovely dinner of roast chicken, but again I over did it. Most of the time I was restrained, but the weekend was one long struggle. I kept hearing EVL's (evil little voices) telling me to EAT, EAT, EAT!

I would say that all things considered I did ok. The point being that nobody is perfect, and some days the temptations are less .... well, tempting than on others. This was not one of those times, but it could have been way, way worse. And I now have an excuse to buy new hiking boots. I never would have fallen if I weren't wearing sneakers!

Hot 100 Update # 3

2010-10-15T07:33:00.002-04:00

It's Hot 100 Day! Everyone knows how much I love this part of the challenge, so without further ado...

Goal 1: Run 5k. Done and done. My first breakthrough came on Monday, and me and my gimpy knees were pretty much fine after my first slow 5k on the treadmill. Then I had to go and over do things with a yoga class that gave me a painful deep tissue stretch down the backs of the thighs (hurts still today). But I am more flexible -- I think the teacher stretched me about an inch! Too much downward dog pressure on the knees, tho - they were inflamed afterwards.

I tried not to panic and did only gentle bike riding and elliptical for the next two days. Then Thursday morning, I set my alarm and got up early (hate, black hatred, for the early morning wake up), and stumbled to the gym. Slowwwwwly eased into running, and I did my second 5k.

I really did not want to do it. I ran an average 14 minute mile (better than Monday), I think because I wanted so much for it to be over. I started at 15 minutes, but did my last two at 13:38.

Goal #2: Eat weight-loss portions at EVERY MEAL. Still going strong. Dinner is my most challenging meal. I sometimes grab an extra bite or two when I return my plate to the kitchen. But that's only happened twice. I try hard to not make any extra, just a small dinner for the two of us. Doesn't always work. Also, I think I may sometimes eat too much fruit in the day -- did you know that four prunes have 110 calories? I use prunes and walnuts to stave off the 5pm shakes....so easy to over do that, too!

Goal #3: Lose 25lbs. I'm still not on the scale, because it messes with my head. My skinny jeans -- the ones that were super baggy on me last spring and tight two weeks ago -- are slowly getting looser. They are still tighter around the hips/legs than they were, but looser around the waist than Oct. 1st. Progress. But if I get on the scale and see I've lost only 2lbs (all too possible, given my Clydesdaleness) I will weep.

IN other news...our weekend upstate looks like it will be a rainfest. A Nor'easter is moving in and we are forecast for three days of wind and rain. Crap! That could be dangerous if it means nothing but lazing around the house. That leads to snacking.

As a backup, am bringing my workout DVDs, some books and my Kindle. Oh, and a rain poncho. Nothing says I can't walk in the rain. Last night I had to bike in the rain, and I survived.

How are you Hotties doing? I'll check blogs over the weekend.

Sailing Along

2010-10-13T21:01:00.005-04:00

Ahoy, matey. Trouble ahead.

Things are still going well this week, but as I sat down this morning to discuss future plans with the long-suffering B/F, it hit me: I have a hella challenging couple of weeks right around the corner, starting with this weekend.

One of the bitterest, most depressing, most evil little facts of weight loss that I have learned oh-so-heartbreakingly over the past 18 months is that two weeks of progress can be undone in an instant.

Well, maybe not an instant. But over weekend? Heck yeah.

We are going upstate again Friday night for a few days. That's the really good news, because we love it up there!

The bad news it that the last time we went up there a month ago my eating got totally out of whack, trail mix and chips and cheese were consumed, plus a huge dinner one night, and -- let's be real here -- our moderate little hikes didn't come close to burning the kind of calories I was eating. I wiped out a 2-lb weight loss in two days (and then some).

So we've made plans. I asked the B/F, who went out and bought a special type of salsa in anticipation of blue corn tortilla chip-eating after our hike, to please only put out a portion of chips for him and me, and then hide the rest. We aren't buying any cheese. We aren't going to the local diner for mammoth pancakes and egg platters. We have planned small meals. Luckily the B/F naturally eats "normal" portions. I'm the one who keeps shoveling it in without thought.

There will be wine. There is just no way I can hike all day, then come home and enjoy an outdoor hot tub without a glass of red. No way.

That's planned for, however, so I'm cool with that. But I have to be on high, high, HIGH alert this weekend. Oh, and did I mention the county fair? Yes, there will be one, full of fried things no doubt. I think I can meet any temptation, except apple cider donuts (if they're fresh).

When I get back, there's a big works drinks and dinner thing Tuesday night, then a week of a dear friend visiting from England with her hubby and kids. They are major foodies, and we are already booked for two dinners, a brunch, and I'm supposed to go along for a night of beers and bar food at our old frequent hang out.

We used to sit there and eat fried food and slurp the Stella Artois. I don't do that anymore; she'll have to make do with me sipping red wine and skipping the fried foods.

But I've got to stay sharp, or these things will sneak up on me. I can handle some variations, I can absorb a few extra bites or drinks here and there. I cannot -- CANNOT -- handle a major setback. I would be so so so disappointed in myself in the aftermath.

No. 1 rule: weight-loss portions no matter what I'm eating.

So far this week, on plan eating. Wondering if perhaps I'm eating a leeettle bit too much during the day. Will consider that.

Hit the gym Tuesday and today for elliptical sessions, 1 hour each. Rode my bike to and from work each day. If all goes as planned, another 5k tomorrow morning.

Rock on, folks!

Run 5k? Check.

2010-10-11T19:33:00.005-04:00

One Hot 100 Goal is down. Today I ran 5k.

It wasn't an official 5k. There was no race or cause or banner or anything. Just me and my treadmill, plodding along. But it was great! I would sound more excited, but I am actually exhausted right now.

To celebrate my first 5k jog in..oh, 15 years, I came home and made lunch. This is normally what I eat for breakfast, but today it was my mid-day meal.

Can't tell you how good it tasted. Fresh tomato with spinach and a piece of low-cal mozzarella cheese and scrambled eggs. You can't see the eggs because I wasn't patient enough to wait for them to cook before taking the picture.

Then it was off on my bike (pedaling verrry slowly and gently because of my sore knees) to the Guggenheim for the Chaos and Classicism exhibit (lots of Picasso and Manet and Monet works). I didn't stay long; it was crowded. One of the joys of NYC is that working press get in free to all museums, so I never feel like I have to absorb every little thing of an exhibit. I can always go back. I'd have taken a picture of the Picassos, but they frown on that. Here's the lobby though, looking up.

After that, it was to the park on my trusty blue bike. I found a nice spot, and stretched out on the grass to chat with a friend. Then, under the 70-degree sun and bright blue skies, I took a wee nap. Only about 20 minutes, but it was nice.

Here's what my bike looks like when you lie down next to it.

After that I rode back to the gym. I had decided to take a 5:30 pm Hatha Yoga class. I did this because over the weekend I visited a lot of Hot 100 blogs (they are all so great!) and I saw a lot of posts about injuries -- many of them running related. I think that injuries are a byproduct of an active life. Chances are if you work out a lot, no matter how careful you are, a few injuries will occur. But nobody wants them to, least of all me!

So when I jogged this morning I did it very lightly, striking flat-footed more than on my heel, which is very jarring. I kept my knees soft and supple. I felt no pain. But I figured a yoga class would help with extra stretching of the legs.

Ow. Ow. Ow. That yoga class HUUUUURRRT! I am always shocked by the strength required to do yoga. After a few downward dogs to cobra and back, OMG, I was dripping sweat.

I've just gotten home and it's pouring rain. Glad I missed that. I'm once again icing the knees, but as a precaution more than anything. They are slightly inflamed, but no pain. I hope to soon muster up the energy to hobble to the kitchen to make dinner (dover sole with pesto sauce and broccoli).

Doing that yoga class was a bit of overkill and I am beyond exhausted, but it's a good feeling. I'd summon up an exclamation point if I weren't so tired. :-)

Me to World: BRING IT!!!!!!

2010-10-10T22:32:00.003-04:00

Do you all remember way back when, to the night I brought the B/F to a special screening of Discover Channel's Life series?

Part of that series featured a tiny little baby ibex, which is a kind of mountain goat that has an incredible ability to cling to sheer, rocky cliffs (places you would think no four-legged creature could climb).

The segment on the ibex, narrated by Oprah at her soothing best, was a bit of film that caught a Mama ibex trying to come down off a safe mountain cliff to a river below for water. Her babies were following her, but one got distracted by something, and fell behind.

Well, you know what happened - and it played out in a huge theater, on a massive screen with a live orchestra booming out a "Bum-bum-bahhhhh" soundtrack, right in front of my horrified eyes. Yes, a fox -- a wily, hungry predator -- came loping out of nowhere, looking to catch the baby ibex and eat it for dinner.

I was writhing in my chair, covering my eyes as much as possible, and gnashing my teeth for the baby ibex, which made a desperate, galloping run back up the mountain, away from Mama, as fast as its little legs could carry it.

According to Oprah's dulcet tones, the ibex was only two days old, and operating solely on instinct. Man..that fox had it almost in its jaws so many times. I was wrung out like a wet washcloth watching it all unfold.

Just when the starving red fox (and I felt bad for him, too, poor hungry thing) was about to snap its jaws on the baby ibex's neck, the feisty goat to a flying leap and ended up with all four hooves clinging to an impossibly steep bit of rock, jutting waaay far out over the cliffside. It was so vertical that even the lightweight fox couldn't get out there without slipping. The fox hung there, right above the ibex, just inches away from snapping its fangs around its neck, totally frustrated.

And that little ibex, quickly realizing that it was safe -- at last, after a heartwrenching, terrifying uphill sprint -- suddenly stamped one of its tiny front hooves several times, right in the fox's face.

"Bring it!!" the ibex seemed to be saying, taunting his would be executor with the evidence of his own sure-footedness.

I have always remembered the image of the baby ibex giving a big "eff you" to the fox. I try to think of it when I'm confronted by food I don't really want to eat but part of me wants to eat just for the heck of it.

It's a race for survival -- and to the victor go the stamping rights.

This weekend, while I have not been perfect, I have much to stamp my feet about.

On Saturday, I was preparing to go to work as usual, and packing some kiwi and a frozen low-cal burrito for lunch. But I had two burritos left over from what I'd bought for the week. Take them both, I suddenly thought. You always get hungry around 5pm -- eat the second burrito then.

Folks, I had them both in my backpack and was out the door. Then I thought, "Why are you bringing another burrito? You have one, and two kiwi, and you are going to a friend's house for dinner tonight, so why tempt yourself?"

As much as I constructed a narrative in my head for why I needed that extra burrito and how it would be ok to eat the extra 370 cals because it would keep me from overeating later, I knew it was just a lie.

I took it out of the bag, put it back in the fridge, and went to work.

Later, I went for a drink after work with friends to kill sometime before the dinner party. I had one glass of wine, and split a plate of sweet potato fries. I did not order a second glass of wine even though everyone else got a second round, I did not clear the plate of sweet potato fries even though I wanted to, and I did not touch the jalapeno poppers that my friend ordered as a second appetizer. It took some concentration, but I just kept telling myself, "you are on your way to eat a dinner."

Finally my B/F arrived and we went to my friend's house. The irony here is that she is a great cook, from Italy, and since she moved to NYC 8 months ago we have been promised a fantastic home-cooked Italian meal. Yet every time they invite us over, it's take out. Go figure!

I was prepared last night to FINALLY get this gorgeous Italian pasta meal...only to be served once again takeout sushi and Chinese food! I had to laugh. It was really very good though, and I ate carefully and slowly. I had more sushi than Chinese food, but I limited my intake of both since I wasn't really starving anymore(because of the sweet potato fries).

I would change one thing: I ate too much avocado dip with tortilla chips (it was on the table when we arrived). I didn't eat a lot (compared to a year ago), but I wasn't hungry enough at that point to justify eating them when I knew a meal was coming. I ate them b/c they were there.

Our hostess served four desserts, but everyone just got a small bite of each. I liked that -- way to make it easy to portion control!

This morning I had to go to brunch with an old friend. I didn't snack beforehand, ate only a garden omelette (lot of veggies) with one piece of multigrain toast, no butter, and only a few bites of the hashbrowns that came with the eggs.

I left a piece of toast and 90 percent of the potatoes behind - and it really wasn't that hard to do. Unheard of for me!! In the past, I'd have been salivating constantly about the food available to me that I wasn't consuming. It would have been painful to leave it behind. This time I was able to disengage without too much effort -- it cost me a bit, but before long I was happily chatting with my friend, and then we were gone and the food was left behind. Sooooo much nicer than what would have happened before.

Now. Let's put all the cards on the table. It suddenly occurred to me that I've been able to hew to small portions so well recently because I haven't been working out a lot -- maybe appetite is easier to control when you aren't burning all those extra calories? I scared myself a little, thinking of what would happen when I do go back to the gym (tomorrow, by the way)...? Will I be ravenous and unable to control what I eat?

I hope not. I hope to be an ibex, clinging to my rock in the face of deadly destructive fox fangs and sending out a big "screw you" to those who would knock me off my perch.

Hot 100 Update #2

2010-10-08T22:22:00.005-04:00

Is it bizarre that I really look forward to the Hot 100 Update? It is, I truly swear, the highlight of my week. Sad, perhaps, but true!

First things first. If you haven't gone over to Beej's site recently, check out his new recipe for a cheese & onion frittata.

Also, let's say hello to some Hot 100 Hotties! These are folks who've come a visitin' to my blog since the challenge started:

The Ninja
Karen
Shannon
Half of 360
Tammy
Dr. Fat to Fit
Thanks for coming over folks, especially Dr. Fat to Fit, who had surgery last week! And of course, thanks to all my beloved regular visitors who are much appreciated.

So, on to my week. How did I do? At the risk of sounding smug, I think I did passably well.

1) Running 5k: I didn't have a chance to work on my running, thanks to my cold. But I got in several long walks, and allowed my knees to heal a bit. Now they only hurt when I go upstairs, and just a wee bit. I will be back on the treadmill soon, and I think the running will progress well.

2) Weight-loss portions every meal: miracle of miracles, this is still on track. I think the closest I've come to going off was two extra bites of yam and beans the other night at dinner. It doesn't sound like much, but it broke several rules, so I have to note it down. If you read my blog earlier this week, you'll know I had a day of eating nothing but fast-food, but still kept the portions and calories in hand. That's just unheard of for me. I'm writing down what I eat every night, and planning for the next day, and "no hunger, no food" is my mantra.

I also changed up my lunch routine. Now I bring an organic bean burrito to work, 370 calories, and then I supplement with a little salad. This way I can know for sure what calorie ballpark I'm in. Small lunch, small snack, small dinner.

3) Lose 25 lbs: I'm still not on the scale. However, this morning I walked into the bathroom at work, which has a full length mirror (unlike my house) and realized my clothes were swimming on me. Now, this isn't as dramatic as I'd like it to sound; both the shirt and pants I had on were voluminous on me to begin with. But they were definitely MORE voluminous this week than they were two weeks ago. I am not getting on the scale yet, but I have a plan: I will weigh myself on the day I try on my skinny jeans and find them sagging off my skeleton. I hope in another two weeks.

Hope everyone is doing well on their Hot 100 goals. I'll be checking your blogs this weekend!

Could I Be Normal?

2010-10-04T10:16:00.002-04:00

I'm always asking myself what life might be like on the "other" side of weight loss.

Not the skinny side, per se, but the magical Shangri-la where food is no longer an issue. Where food doesn't have to be measured, trimmed and chopped so that it can then be corralled into a smaller size on your plate. Shangri-la is where you can just glance at a serving of food and say, that's too much thanks, let me get rid of half of that. Or look and say, that's just right, thanks, and eat only that portion, despite what other temptations might float by. It's magical because there's no struggle with yourself, no urge to eat more, no battling those "fill-me-to-the-rim" urges.

I never quite know which Ish will rise up when I'm confronted by a food challenge - will it be binge eater Ish? Controlled Ish (who tends to be something of a despot)? Stuff-yer-face-then-feel guilty Ish? Vigilant Ish (my favorite one, obviously)?

It's a scary feeling.

With any luck, that scary feeling will dissipate the more I focus on my portions. It must, right?

I am pleased to report that in the midst of an awful terrible day on Friday (I was sick and on a long, boring assignment in NJ in a torrential downpour), I did something I never thought I'd be able to do.

I spent the entire day with no eating options other than fast-food, and still got my calorie count in under 1,800.

I fought off lots of over-eating and binge impulses, and kept telling myself it was ok to eat at Wendy's (and Burger King later), but I just had to control how much I consumed. Start small, eat slow was my mantra.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner was fast-food, and by simply keeping everything small-sized, I got through the day.

Late that night, driving back through the Holland Tunnel, I felt sick as a dog from all the crap food. But that's another story. I was quite pleased that for one day, I'd slayed the mythical food dragon and made it to Shangri-la.

Hot 100 Update

2010-09-30T08:32:00.002-04:00

Time to check in on the progress of my Hot 100 challenge! Actually, I'm not sure if we are to update today or tomorrow, but I've got the time this morning so I'm weighing in.

Not literally, because I can't trust my wonky bathroom scale anymore (the one that erroneously said I gained 54 pounds over the summer -- die, SOD, die).

But a quick look-see at how I'm doing:

Goal #1: I'm still sticking with the running, although it's been truncated this week due to nasty weather, a bad knee and foot, and yet another effing cold (just a small one, thank goodness). My knee has been sore all week still, but I gently pushed through it, aggressively iced the knees (not frosting Peridot!) and took some anti-inflammatory ibuprofen. The foot problem came from new shoes that I bought -- cross-training shoes to run and walk in! Yay!

Except the shoes gave me big blisters and a serious sharp pain under my toe as I walked. Upon reflection, I'm going to have to keep my big Frankenstein walking shoes for walking to/from work, and carry the running shoes with me for the moments I'm on the treadmill.

To that end, I bought myself a new backpack to haul my extra stuff around. Funny how one purchase always leads to another. But it's been great so far, and in a weird way, it helps me to stick to my plan. You bought it, you better use it, right?

Goal # 2: Eat weight-loss portions at every meal: wow, I'm pleased to say that this has been going pretty well. Yay! It's not easy for me, but I've really been focusing hard on keeping it small, eating slowly and spacing my meals out better. I have stuck to my usual 300 to 400 calorie breakfast, but added a small portion of fruit later in the morning, a bigger lunch -- about 600 calories -- but broken into two meals. One about 1pm, another one about 3 or 4pm. This has helped me stave off my usual 5pm blood sugar drop, but to be extra sure, and to power my evening workout, I've taken to eating a handful of chopped walnuts and some fruit (actually prunes this week!) before I leave work.

In turn, I do believe this has helped me tone down the overeating at night. I get home hungry for dinner, but not wolfishly ravenous. We have lightened up on the carbs at night -- even though we always ate healthy quinoa instead of rice/cous cous, it's still a carb and all too tempting to load up on it.

Goal # 3: Lose 25 lbs. So, I have no actual proof on this one, but I believe I'm on my way. Because of my idiot scale, I have to weigh at my gym, and since I'm rarely there in the mornings now the only time I can weigh myself is at night, obviously not the ideal time. Sometimes when I change things up and start working out a little harder, I show a stall or a gain on the scale -- usually just for four or five days, and then it will drop. But if I get on now, it very likely won't have budged, and that depresses me. Right now I'm going to stick to holding to my good habits and get on the scale in the next few days.

In other news, I'm very unhappy at having a niggling cold again. What is it about me that makes me so prone to these things? They always start out the same -- ear ache, then soreness in the throat on that side, then pain in the lung and some congestion, then a few days of sinus problems. It always starts on the right side and spreads -- although this one is holding firm on the right side b/c it's very light.

Is it possible that my weight loss efforts are making me more prone to colds? I eat a ton of fruit, but maybe I need to add multivitamins or more vitamin C.... I've taken to throwing Arame seafood into my dinner, surely that will help too. In anycase, boosting the immune system is my shadow Hot 100 goal!

This weekend I plan to spend time checking out everyone else's Hot 100 blogs. Let's go Hotties!

A Garlic Extravaganza

2010-09-27T13:19:00.005-04:00

Check it out folks -- garlic galore at the weekend Garlic Festival in beautiful upstate New York. What a fun way to pass a sunny Sunday, if you discount the rather tedious two-hour drive each way to get to Saugerties from NYC.

I headed up bright and early with some friends on Sunday for my first ever garlic festival. It was great to stroll across a big field, kicking autumn leaves and bits of stray hay with my feet until we got to the very crowded entrance. This festival is so big that the state troopers have to come out to direct traffic! There were tons of people, all eager to sample the gorgeous garlic fare sold by organic garlic farmers. It was quite rustic and homey and fun -- and full of food, of course.

There were all kinds of samples to eat, many of them garlic aioli and mayo and mustard or pesto and chutney and cheese and on and on and on. The sample sizes were small, but I still had to keep an eye on how many nibbles I had because it was all too easy to nosh on endlessly, all morning long.

There were some things that I was easily able to pass up!

But others, like garlic chocolate chip cookies, were all too appealing. Seriously, it tastes much better than you would think.

The real danger came at lunchtime. We had gotten up early and so I missed breakfast, but had a banana and small portion of cheese to tide me over on the ride up. We got there around 11am and immediately started sampling, so I wasn't all that hungry when we wandered into the food court around 2pm for lunch.

I guess because this was an outdoorsy festival I expected healthy options. Boy, was I wrong! Click on this picture to blow it up - do you see what I do?

Everything was fried at most of the food stands -- fried garlic is still fried garlic, and ditto for artichokes and ravioli (which I will admit to sampling when my friend got some, but it was gross. A ravioli is just not meant to be deep fried, and then covered in a slimy melted butter and garlic topping, itck).

The garlic theme was everywhere, as you would expect, but I passed on the garlic ice cream, the deep fried garlic cloves and especially the roasted garlic covered in chocolate, but my friend tried it.

I strolled forever looking for something that was a small portion. Everything I saw was huge -- and I mean HUGE. One place sold massive bowls of freshly fried potato chips, another sold Greek salads that used a mountain of feta cheese. I lamented that the b/f wasn't with me, because I would have gotten a veggie quesadilla for us to share. That was the healthiest option I found, but the portion was immense.

I knew if I ate it I would be sick, and I knew if I bought it I would eat too much. In the end, I just bought one slice of pizza with whole roasted tomatoes and basil on it and a few splotches of mozzarella cheese. It was the portion size I wanted -- one small slice, and looked like a fairly healthy choice. When I look back on Sunday, I'm pleased with myself. I was able to be in the moment and enjoy what was offered without struggling, but I picked my indulgences carefully, instead of just losing control and stuffing myself. I was in the moment, but also aware of my larger goals; relaxed, but in control at the same time. I wish every day could be like that!

I was able to make it through the weekend without a binge. Yay! I attribute my success to not buying any temptations and bringing them home. I just ate what I had normally planned for dinner and kept the portions in hand. I'm really relieved that's over!

The bad news is that my knees are still sore from the hiking/jogging, and so I'm resting and icing them still. It's been a few days since I worked out and I want to get back to it, but it's not worth causing a permanent injury. I've got to let them heal a bit.

Hot 100

2010-09-23T11:14:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again! Hot 100, here I come.

My goals are simple:

1) Build my endurance until I can jog for five miles
2) Lose 25 lbs
3) Eat weight-loss portions EVERY MEAL

Of all of these, I think that # 3 is perhaps the most important. It's the behavioral foundation of my long-term goal of learning to be satisfied with less food. Eat less to weigh less, as the old saying goes.

This week I drew particular comfort from something that *Bitchcakes* wrote about. For those of you who haven't checked out her blog, Bitchcakes is a fiercely independent and out there weight-loss blogger who has achieved tremendous things, and is incredibly dedicated to working out. Her energy levels are awe-inducing.

She recently made her goal weight -- something that, try as I might, I just cannot ever truly believe will happen to me. I want to believe it, I make every effort to force myself to believe it, but ... always there is fear and doubt.

This week she spoke about handling a binge, or a less than perfect day. It helped me recover from a less than perfect day on Monday and then on Tuesday, as we returned from the Catskills. It was stressful to return to the city, get caught in terrible United Nations traffic (thanks Ahmadinejad) for the General Assembly, and have to rush around trying to get back to work and unpack and go shopping and return the car. It set off a mini-binge.

I truly wish it hadn't happened. But it did, and there's no taking it back, or changing it. Yesterday I suited up and biked to work, and then made sure to hit the gym on the way home. It wasn't a great workout (low blood sugar, but more on that in a minute) but it was something. And I jogged again, even though my knees have been stiff and creaky since the mega-hike on Sunday. Those steep downhills are murder on tender joints!

I biked again today, and will run again today, I hope. Even if it's just for 10 minutes, and then back to walking. I can run for much longer (albeit it very slowly) but my knees are somewhat inflamed still.

I am having a problem sticking to my weight-loss habits for longer than 3 or 4 days at a time. This is not good. I need a long time "clean" to start dropping weight again. I'll never make progress if I do great for the weekdays and lose it on weekends. It's a terrible cycle -- work hard to lose 1 or 2 lbs all week, then blow it every weekend. Ugh, I hate it.

This weekend has more challenges. The b/f will be gone for business. That means I'll be home alone Friday and Saturday nights. I should be happy at this -- full control of the kitchen, for once! Instead I'm worried. In the past, any change in routine has meant a binge.

There's something about having nobody home that incites me to go too far -- nobody's watching, you see. I've planned a big activity with friends for Sunday. It won't involve much physical activity beyond light walking, but it's much better than sitting at home alone. And I have to get up very early on Sunday, so I am hoping this will reduce the temptation to stay up late and stuff myself on Saturday.

Forewarned is forearmed.

If I can get through the next four days without a binge (or even just over-eating) I will declare a major personal victory.

On another note, I'm having a problem getting through the afternoon without a major blood sugar drop, usually around 5pm. I like to leave work, bike home and hit the gym for a while, and many times recently I've had to curtail parts because of dizziness. I've experimented with Luna bars, Kashi bars, apples, even some nuts, but I find it hard to get something in me that gives me the long-term kick I need (and isn't high calorie). The other problem is that even if I eat a Luna bar, say...and it gets me through my workout and home, I'm so starving by the time I get there that I can't wait for dinner and start snacking while I prepare the meal.

Last night I ate two slices of mozzarella low fat cheese and a serving of cottage cheese when I got in because I was about to keel over. I'd had to stop running because I was so weak feeling. I guess if that was all I ate for dinner it would have been ok, but it wasn't. I had some swordfish and Brussels sprouts too. It all adds up.

Anyway, any suggestions? What's a good thing to eat in late afternoon for a long power snack? Preferably under 250 calories. I'd do some kind of nut butter, but forget it..I can never stop eating that once I start.

Country Life

2010-09-19T20:05:00.006-04:00

**PIctures added 10am Sunday***
We are in the Catskills for the weekend, yay!

A long overdue break from city life. It's been too many months since I've had a real vacation -- one where I rest and do nothing that I don't want to do (within reason).

We hiked up Overlook Mountain today, it's about five miles round trip -- 2.5 miles straight up, and 2.5 straight down. The path is well tended, wide and with some loose gravel over rocks and stones. Very easy, if slightly one-note (I preferred our last crazy hike, which had dips and streams and tree trunks to climb over). At the very top -- about 1,400 ft elevation -- is an old abandoned hotel, or the remnants of it, and a tall, six-story fire tower that affords incredible views into four neighboring states.

This pic below is the sign-in station, run by weekend volunteers who hike up the mountain, sit in chairs at the summit and answer questions. Oh, and they bring nice homemade treats, as you can see here. They were slightly burnt, but I ate one anyway (of course).

Alas, I can't speak to the amazing views because I got three flights up this slender, steel structure and the vertigo kicked in. I panicked, got overcome with that horrible hollow feeling in my stomach and legs and knew I couldn't go on. I backed down. The b/f went all the way up, but he couldn't brag about it, because he was the one who started whimpering and whining halfway up the hike and wanted to quit. Hah! I said no way, Jose. We started this, and we are finishing it. And we did, with him scowling and gasping and going on like he was about to expire on the spot. He's a bit of a drama queen, if I haven't mentioned that before.

I found the hike up to be quite easy, in that you didn't have to worry much about where you put your feet, and I worked up a real lather, but felt great the whole time. At one point I was walking backwards up the hill to give my knees a break and nearly stepped on a huge black snake. It chose that moment to slowly ease across the path. The b/f actually spotted it and gave a shout, preventing me from smishing the poor thing (and scaring myself out of my own skin, I might add).

Despite the b/f pouting, we did have a good time, and the view from the top was spectacular, even without scaling the fire tower rather precariously perched on a big slab of rock way up top of the mountain.

I found the way down excrutiatingly painful. My knees were killing me and I'm icing them now.

All the walking today was grand, but I am afraid I have not been doing well food-wise on this trip.

I was down 2 lbs this week when I got on the scales before I left, and I was proud to have a loss even after my mildly indulgent French dinner last week. I had all sorts of plans for this weekend, and everything went out the window on Saturday as we traveled up here.

We got stuck in a massive traffic jam getting out of the city -- and that was after a 60-minute delay getting the car, and dropping off keys to the cat-sitter.

So what should have been a 9am start was really more like 11:30am start. We'd planned to stop on the way for a healthy breakfast (I'd had two bananas around six o'clock that morning to tide me over) but that wasn't going to happen at that point.

We sat in traffic for so long we were about to go crazy, so I ran into a Dunkin Donuts for coffee and the healthiest choice they had -- a biscuit with sausage, no cheese, no eggs. It was 260 cals. I figured it's better than a donut, which would have no protein and leave me hungry again in all of 20 seconds.

Proof positive that I get hungrier faster than other people -- by 1pm I was starving again. The b/f was completely non-committal about eating lunch. I hate it when I'm starved and others are not. Mind you, I'd also eaten two bananas that he had not. He'd had the sausage biscuit and nothing else. I would have eaten one of his arms at that point but he needed both for driving.

I grumpily abstained along with him. Not smart. By the time we got settled in the cabin, I was ravenous. I scarfed two big protein bars when we went to buy groceries -- a vain attempt not to shop while hungry. We didn't do too badly, but I got trail mix...you know, for my big hike today. Except I started eating it last night. Trail mix is very fattening, and I had several handfuls.

Then I got into the cheese with dill we bought...oh god. So good. And some tortilla chips with homemade salsa our host left for us. My eating was so out of whack that when the boyfriend finally finished cooking dinner around 9pm, I ate the entire massive portion even though at that point I was no longer hungry at all and had to groaningly stuff in the last bites (it was a huge steak and potato dinner). I ate to a point of fullness I never want to experience again....but still had trouble shutting off the eating impulse!

Finally I just went to bed. Today (so far) has been better, starting with a proper breakfast, and I made sure to bring a low-cal homemade sandwich on the hike with fruit and trail mix. But I limited the trail mix intake, given my problems last night.

It just goes to show... it doesn't pay to get too hungry. Nothing good can come of it.

We're about to have dinner tonight, squash, lean turkey burgers and salad. Then I will definitely be ready to hit the hay.

Yes I Can

2010-09-15T09:25:00.004-04:00

Monday was one of those days...

There was nothing wrong, exactly, but I did not feel right.

I was teetering on the brink of a "poor me" session.

Poor me because houses don't magically clean themselves...

...bills pile up no matter what you do
...life throws you curveballs in the form of phantom bedbugs
...your loving partner can sometimes drive you crazy
...things just aren't "easy" because you want them to be
...and being a grown up can really be no fun at all, some days, but you know you should be grateful for all you have and all you can do, and you feel guilty for being such a baby.

I climbed on to my treadmill at the gym nonetheless for a lackluster walking session. As I moped along, a figure appeared in the corner of my eye: a stranger, just another person doing her thing, except her thing was running on the treadmill.

She bounced along, ponytail swinging.

I wanted to run too. But the excuses came ...

...I don't have the right sneakers
...I'm not wearing the right clothes
...My knees can't take it

But then I decided that day -- right then -- was the time. I knew all the reasons why not to do it, but there was also a very good reason to do it: because I can. I can do it.

So I ramped it up (gently), and started picking up the feet. And I jogged, and I kept jogging, and in the end, it was a 40 minute gentle run, just about three miles. Slow and steady.

I'm going careful because of the knees. I did nothing more than a gentle walk the day after, on Tuesday, to avoid strain (I had to ice a lot Monday night). But folks, inside my heart is the voice of Forrest Gump:

"From then on, anywhere I went, I. WAS. RUNNIN!"

Eating update: lunch out Tuesday was phenomenal, salade nicoise, no potatoes, one half slice bread, dressing on the side, no drinks, just water and iced coffee. Later, cottage cheese and raspberries to keep hunger at bay, and dinner out was also pretty good, a small slice of goat cheese/tomato appetizer with salad on side and sea scallops on pasta (small amount of pasta) and a shared blueberry tart for dessert. It was a lovely French restaurant, invite from friends from France, and the restaurant has a new thing that I really like: on the menu for entrees you can ask for a regular size entree or a small plate entree (more like an appetizer size). Isn't that smart?

At the Gym

2010-09-13T11:52:00.002-04:00

I hit it hard on Sunday and was really very proud of myself.

Even though I gained some weight this summer, I must have biked enough to keep the worst of the out-of-shapeness at bay, because I didn't find it overly challenging to get right back on the elliptical at the same settings as three months ago.

Or I was slacking three months ago! That's another thought.

I have some residual back stiffness from the intense pumping yesterday on the elliptical but nothing too terrible.

My eating was pretty good this weekend, but I am still working my way back into weight-loss mindset. There are some challenges looming this week, but I think I can handle them: lunch AND dinner out on Tuesday.

The lunch is easy; salade nicoise is my choice. Dinner I don't know, but my goal is to stay away from the alcohol. No wine -- that's been a real bugaboo for me this summer.

Workouts every day is the goal, if I can manage to wake up early enough!

9/11

2010-09-11T09:08:00.002-04:00

This is the day, more than any other day, that I can hear the painful wisdom behind my grandmother's favorite saying:

"Never regret growing old. It is a privilege denied to many."

Last night I had to meet a 9/11 family we are writing a story about.

I sat for about three hours with the mother, sister and aunt of an FDNY firefighter who was part of Engine 33 and who died when the North Tower came down.

These stories don't get easier to write as the years go by, they get harder. The losses are deeper. People cope, but there are things they can't forget.

It's too sad to talk about really. People die unfair deaths all over the world every day. It's important to know that, but it doesn't make it any easy to bear.

Working

2010-09-09T13:15:00.002-04:00

On my lunch break, quick update to say my computer is on the fritz. No idea what happened, woke up the other day and it wouldn't boot up, blinking lights all over the place, rush to the repair shop.

Except I can't rush anywhere this week until Sunday, so it's sitting at home like a forlorn paperweight.

(I sneak read all your blogs while I'm at work on my lunch hour, but shhhhh! that's a secret).

But of course, my ego imagines that the world at large is simply dying to have the latest Ish update. The show must go on! The audience is everything! (This is what happens to you when you work in midtown near the theater district).

In brief, a spring has returned to my step this week. I'm working very hard to lose the weight I gained this summer and get back on track to take off my other 25, hopefully by Christmas.

Walked the reservoir once this week, bike riding every day (and really biking, not just peddling along) and a visit to the gym last night. Weird and strange to walk back into it after three months away. I used to go every day. It felt so familiar... and yet it had been such a long time.

Before long, felt like home again.

SOD played a nasty trick on me yesterday (which actually is probably why I returned to the gym).

I haven't touched the scale in weeks. So I put it down and said hello and gave it a gentle tap in the middle, per the instructions. Then I stepped on.

Oh, how sweet. SOD said I lost 16 lbs. Yeah right. Sell me a bridge why don't you?

I figured it was just getting warmed up, so I waited, tapped it again, and hopped on.

Up 36 lbs, SOD said. "*$*%&*$ You," I said.

Did my dance again, and hopped on once more. Up 41, and when I waited two minutes and got on again, up 42 pounds, SOD said.

Fifth and final time, it said I gained 54 lbs.

That's when I hissed at it and jumped away. Evil Satanic thing, messing with my head.

The funny thing is that it *DID* mess with my head. Could I have gained back all that weight and be in denial? I did really get scared.

But there's no way I could fit into my skinny jeans if I had gained 36 or 54 pounds -- and I can still fit in them. They are slightly tighter than they were three months ago, but they fit. I don't have to struggle to pull them on (however they definitely were a LOT looser earlier this summer).

Finally I let the more neutral gym scale decide: up about 10 lbs, which I already knew. And I hope it's actually a little less, since I was weighting with clothes on and after eating a big tub of cottage cheese. But either way, this I can handle. Thirty-six pounds I cannot!

So, all systems go as I ramp back into weight loss. I hope to be posting a loss on Tuesday, or at least a no gain. Assuming my computer works and I can post, that is!

A Fool and Her Burrito Are Surprisingly Parted

2010-09-06T17:36:00.005-04:00

Sometimes you have what you want right in your hand, and the cruel Gods of fate conspire to take it away.

And just when you're ready to curse the unfeeling universe and gnash your teeth at the sky, you realize you're better off without it.

At least, that's what I hope. But I'm pretty sure that I'm better off without eating burritos, intense hunger aside.

My lesson in weight-loss philosophy (or is this weight-loss theology? I'm not sure) began with a long bike ride this morning downtown. For sustenance I had a slice of bread and a bit of cheese (that was breakfast, really), then when I got to where I was meeting friends, I had two teeny tiny poached eggs (no butter AT ALL, dammit) on a wee crisp of toasted bread (maybe half a slice, if that).

Then I biked all the way back uptown, stopping to do the week's shopping. I was just going to buy the usual stuff, but then I saw so many sales going on that I thought, ok, I'd better take advantage.

This is probably a city person ritual, but every few months I do a super big purchase of heavy goods, like cans of beans, tuna fish, olive oil, vinegar, water, kitty litter, etc... and have it all delivered. Then I go a few weeks just buying produce and perishables until the staple supplies run low and I make a big buy and have it delivered. Try as I might, I just can't bike home with all that stuff.

So this quickly became a big purchase because so much stuff was on sale and I figured why not stock up? It took longer than I thought, and I began to feel the first little glimmers of a low-blood sugar situation about halfway through the process.

I decided I could hold out until I got home for something healthy. But I hadn't counted on the massive Labor Day lines. By the time I got close to the checkout line I was starting to shake. Luckily I was right by the prepared foods section. I looked at the rows of pizza, pre-cooked quiche, sandwiches (yucky and unappealing) and spied a bean burrito in a wrap.

Well, I figured that was the best of the lot, so I grabbed one. And after I paid for my groceries and left them in the hands of the teller, I exited Whole Foods with my burrito in my hot little palm, fully intending to snarf it ASAP.

Side note: why is that the hungrier you are and the faster you want to shop, the more young kids there are in the grocery store accompanied by parents who just can't quite seem to realize that their adorable offspring are a bloody pain in the ass when they block the aisles? I'm all for kids, but a child raised without consideration for others I can definitely do without.

Anyway, that's probably the low blood sugar talking, but I practically ran out of the store, threw myself on my bike and ravenously unwrapped the top half of the burrito. I kept the slippery plastic wrapping as a barrier around the second half so I could protect it from my germy fingers while still eating it.

Not very smart, as it turns out.

So there I was, rather dangerously riding with one hand free to steer and apply brakes as needed, and the other clutching a burrito applied all too frequently to my mouth.

It was GOOD. But I doubt very much it was healthy. Simply put, it tasted too much like a high-fat treat to be low-calorie. I am sure those beans were refried or something like that. I will admit to being naive in the general sense of the word, but I've long ago given up pretending things are low calorie when they are not. If you are going to eat something, eat it, I say. But let's not blur the picture with self-delusion and lame justifications.

So I chomped away at the burrito, registering that it wasn't a really low-cal option, but too hungry to stop eating it.

I was three big bites in and already sensing a lessening of the weird hollow feeling that indicates a sugar drop is coming when I saw a big bump ahead that had to be navigated.

I put my left hand down to the handlebar, still holding the burrito, and carefully wound my way over the curb and pothole.

Only I hadn't accounted for the effect of trying to squeeze my brake, hold the handlebar and absorb the big shock that came from dropping about three inches from curb to street again.

The burrito completely fell out of my hand when I hit that street. SPLAT. Or, as Fonzi might have said a long time ago, Splatamundo.

It happened in a heartbeat. One second I was fiercely clutching my six-dollar burrito. The next, it was gone.

I didn't even stop. It wasn't going to be salvaged. The damage was irreparable. I knew it right away. Let some carnivorous squirrel reap the rewards, or a hungry doggie. I peddled on, the empty plastic wrapping fruitlessly held in my hand.

But within a few peddle pumps, a strange feeling of indifference stole over me. I lamented the waste of six dollars, to be sure. But I was no longer starvingly hungry. Those three bites had helped a lot.

So what did it really matter that I had lost the rest? Maybe, just maybe, it was a boon from the all-knowing Gods. That burrito was surely loaded with calories, and since I'd had enough, wasn't that all I needed to eat?

As the old saying goes, which I've quoted here before, "Enough is as good as a feast."

I guess sometimes the universe does hear us. I've been caterwauling about how I want to learn to control portions effortlessly, and today I got a very vivid, physical example of just how it is done: drop the food when you've taken the edge off your hunger.

It's as easy as that: Just drop it, and move on. Thanks for the philosophy lesson, Life. I think I like it.

Life Without Internet

2010-09-03T07:36:00.007-04:00

It's like living in the Dark Ages when your Internet goes down. We might as well have lost all contact with the outer world, I felt so cut off!

Don't know why it crashed but it did. Woke up this morning and it was back, like a Christmas Miracle in September. Such a relief.

I've been unable to blog about several weird things; namely my last 24 hours.

Working my way back into weight-loss habits (not maintenance) and it's been hard.

HARD, folks! I still haven't found time to get back into the gym, although I've been biking a lot, and working on portion control A LOT.

There's so much to catch up on...things I ignored for months...that I'm still so busy every day. I look back and think, "Gosh, this time last year I was in the gym and biking to work AND making time to walk the reservoir once in the morning. How did I do it?"

It was my main -- and only -- priority at that time. That's how.

So I'm trying to push myself back into that mindset. Weight LOSS mind set.

I read something in a book that has become my new mantra: Discipline is remembering what you want.

Yes. For me, that's what it is. I want to be able to go horseback riding with my nephew and not worry secretly that I'm killing the horse. I want to be able to go kayaking with my nephew or white-water rafting and not be afraid I'll sink the boats. Or that I look a fool.

That's what I want. More than an extra bite, an extra portion, an extra glass of wine.

So, in the last 24 hours I had to dash to one party, talk to sources, tossed back two glasses of wine (didn't have to do that but did it) but successfully fled when the bar snacks appeared. Dashed 100 blocks north to Washington Heights, went to another source party, drank water, then one beer, and again fled as soon as the snacks appeared (awful fried things -- like fried empanadas or something --- I took one look and ran the other way).

Discipline is remembering what I want.

I got home, ate something healthy (veg chili with quinoa, made by the lovely BF) and tumbled into bed.

Three hours later, approx 3a.m., a huge blaring sound rips me awake. Smoke alarm.

Yes, the crazy man who lives down and across the way fell asleep with something on the stove, it smoked up and set off the fire alarm.

Everyone had to evacuate while firefighters came. It was a small fire, but the smoke was really awful! When we opened the door to flee down the hallway it came billowing up, thick and dark grey. The BF lost his head a bit, rushing around in a panic.

If I hadn't been trying to catch the cat and stuff him in his box it might have been funny. As it was I could have done without the boyfriend trying to drape a wet towel over my head so I could breathe on the way out. Good idea, except he nearly suffocated my by dropping a thick sopping towel on my face while I was bent over wrestling with my six-pound psycho cat, who was determined not to go into his carrier.

It was very wet, and very drippy. When I got outside I looked down and my shirt was drenched. As was the cat. Poor thing.

OK, gotta run!

Who Am I?

2010-08-30T21:39:00.002-04:00

According to a certain Parks Department worker who can't seem to keep from shouting at me as I bike past him in the morning, my name is "Big Momma."

That's right - that's what he shouts at me every time he sees me.

"Big Moooommmmaaaa!" He yells it across fields, even. I'd like to kick his teeth in, except I realize he's actually doing it as an expression of appreciation. He waves at me, smiles, gives me thumbs up, pumps his fist and so on.

Is it really so hard for people to believe that larger folks can be very fit and active? The other day he gave me a big grin because I made it up a small incline in Central Park. I felt like bashing him over the head with my bike lock -- I'm hardly so out of shape that I can't peddle up a minuscule hill!

Anyway...I feel like I am finally climbing out of a strange sort of entombment. Buried alive, if you will. For the first time in about....oh, six months, I don't have a deadline looming over my head. I shipped the last extra project off today via e-mail, and heaved a massive sigh of relief.

Now I have to fight my way back into my "normal" routine. It's been a summer of tension and distress; not without its pleasures, but a lot of challenges.

Who am I? Big Momma, I suppose. For the moment, at least. Time to change that perception of myself and get back to when I felt like Lean, Mean Momma. And I want to drop two jean sizes by Christmas.

So...there's the gauntlet, well and truly thrown.