and I wasted all that birth control...

We Begin Again

So, I finally did it: I went and signed up for a weight loss program. I have begun, once again, to watch my weight--or be a weight, shall we say, watcher (like how clever I got to try to foil random searches?).

I went to a local church, went up the stairs (funny, how for-profit meetings held in churches are always upstairs, while non-profit recovery meetings are always in the basement), paid my $15, got my booklets and sat down for the meeting. I calculated my "point" allowance, and was happy to see that thanks to being a) a nursing mom and b) fatter than hell, I get roughly a gazillion points a day. The last time I was a committed WW, I got about half the points I get now. Amazing.

I sat and listened to the leader. Oh, she was cheerful. Optimistic. Enthusiastic. And I hated every minute of it. The meeting was crowded, of course, being a new year and the "free sign up" that's currently available. Nice people, all of them. But GOD how I hated it.

I don't care how excited the leader is about it, this is a DIET and is not a "lifestyle." Who the fuck would chose a lifestyle where you take the calories, fat, and fiber of every food you eat, use a little cardboard calculator to assign it a "point" value, and then write it down in a little journal and THEN go to a meeting once a week where you are publicly weighed and measured.

Seriously.

I knew it was time to go. Unlike everyone else there, it isn't a New Year's Resolution for me (I only made one resolution--to be sure to kiss Tori at least 100 times a day all year. Easy to do). I chose this time to go because Tori has had breast milk for a full six months+, and is now eating solids a couple of times a day. Therefore I can take a small hit to my milk supply, should one happen, with a radical decrease in my calories. I am still trying to pump once or twice a day PLUS do all her feedings on the breast while I'm still home from work (I go back to work Tuesday--sob!). This should keep my supply up fairly well even though I'm eating a lot less.

So far, I've been "on point" for 48 hours. I do feel like I'm hungry all the time, but that's OK. I'm surprised to realize just how much I've been eating. Yikes. I'm hoping to hit my 10% goal by my birthday at the end of April. We shall see.

I find myself facing this, this yet another fucking diet, with a leaden resignation. It's different than the way I've dieted before. Sometimes I've tried to start a diet when I wasn't yet willing (like after I lost the boys). Sometimes I've been ready and enthusiastic and pleased as punch to do it.

But this time, I just know it's time and it's the right thing to do. I really want to be a bit lighter and in better shape by the time summer camping season comes around. I want to have a body light enough to run after Tori with ease when she begins walking. It's time, and I'm ready.

But I'm not happy about it. Just so you know.

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Last night my mom babysat Tori again and Charlie and I got to go see another movie. We chose "Children of Men" because of its excellent reviews and Clive! Owen! is in it.

I haven't read the book it's based on; but as Brooklyn Girl pointed out recently, in the book it was the MEN that were infertile. In the movie, naturally, it's women that are infertile (just in case you weren't sure that Hollywood is misogynistic).

It's seriously depressing. I mean DE-PRESS-ING. But it's also really good. Great acting, incredible story, beautifully filmed. Tough, though. Not sure I could have handled it if Tori wasn't in my life (we both felt the need to run home and see the baby after). So if you are still climbing up the infertility hill, you might want to skip it.

However, it's finally provided something to say to people who don't understand infertility. The movie beautifully captures the loss of hope, faith, and joy that comes with infertility. Every moment of the movie is like an illustration of the grief and rage, apathy and exhaustion, misery and hopelessness that is the life of an infertile.

So if anyone asks you what it's like, just tell them to see that movie. It's perfect.

100 Pounds

That is how much weight I want to lose.

For all the talk of the obesity crisis in America, hardly anyone knows what that feels like. And even worse, the truth is, 100 pounds will only get me back to my pre-infertility, pre-pregnancy number one loss and depression, and pre-pregnancy number two weight. 100 pounds lighter than I am right now still makes me about 75 pounds over the weight I'm supposed to be at my height. I'm 5'2". If you feel the need to get out the calculators to figure out how much I weigh, feel free. I don't feel like posting a number here (don't be rude and post your guesses in the comments either). I hate the number on the scale and feel no need to share it.

I promised myself while I was pregnant that I wouldn't ever diet again. I'd hoped that eating healthily and breast feeding, with exercise, would help to get me started on the weight loss path.

But it's taken me much, much longer to heal than I thought it would (even now, 7.5 weeks post surgery, my incision hurts at the end of the day), so exercise has been hard to do (although I have been doing a fair amount of walking, considering). Eating healthy has been a challenge because who the fuck has time to cook with a new baby in the house? And just as we were adjusting to life with Tori, and I was hoping to begin cooking, the stuff with our mothers happened, meaning we were on the road a lot again and eating fast food and take out.

I now weigh about 20lbs more than I did when I got pregnant with Tori.

When I knew we were going to have a daughter, I knew that I needed to change my relationship with my body. I don't want to be yet another one of the chorus of voices that Tori is going to hear that tell her that she sucks, that her body sucks, and that she is ugly and fat. Because no matter what her number is on the scale, she will be an American woman, and she will hate her body (she'll be a Caucasian American woman, I should add: I read not long ago that nearly 80% of African-American women consider themselves to be a "8" or higher on a scale of 1 to 10). I don't want her to witness me hating my body as well.

I have been dieting, off and on, since I was 11. I know I've written about that before, but I'm still shocked each time I realize it. I have been dieting for over a quarter of a century. And the result? I'm fatter than ever.

That is so fucked up.

Since I was about 16, I've tried to get down to a "normal" weight for my height. Every time I get to be about a size 16 or so, I stop losing. Every single time. So this time, I'm not gonna bother. Size 16 is good fucking enough for me this time. Even a size 18 will do. Fuck the fascist beauty standard! Heh.

But it is clear, all kidding aside, that I am going to need a jump start to get going*. Blessedly, I know all the paths in front of me well. I can chose wisely.

I'll let you know what I decide.

* Although the whole focus of this post is on weight loss, I am begging you---please don't give me dieting advice. I assure you that I know more about food, good and bad, and healthy eating than most dietitians. Suggesting I "stop drinking soda and switch to diet" or "just eat half of what's on your plate" or other such things is just going to piss me off. Knowing how to lose weight and wanting to lose weight are NOT the same thing as being willing to do the work to make it happen. And willingness isn't something one person can give another; I have to find it on my own. So thanks anyway.

Broken

You know how you can find yourself going along and feeling ok, and then something tiny happens, and it ruins your whole day, and you are suddenly standing in front of the mirror trying to put on your mascara while you are sobbing uncontrollably? You know?

Yeah.

I went to the doctor’s office this morning to ask about weight loss medication.

Now before I go into what happened, I want to be clear about something. I realize that THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL. I did not go to the doctor thinking they could give me Meridia and I would suddenly be able to eat whatever I wanted and the pounds would just melt away. I understand that without diet and exercise, taking a pill does absolutely fucking nothing. I went hoping to find something to support my weight loss efforts, nothing more.

I can’t take Meridia. Although my blood pressure is currently normal, because of the preeclampsia, I’m considered too high risk to give any medications to that may—just may—raise blood pressure. Even though I had perfect blood pressure before the preeclampsia, and it’s fine now.

I was surprised to find myself completely deflated by this news. First off, it’s just so disheartening to have to face trying to lose the weight AGAIN alone (you buddies notwithstanding). I’ve done this. I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was eleven years old and all I have to show for 25 years of dieting is FAT (I’ll do another blog entry about how dieting makes us fat, I know, I know). I’ve been in support groups. I’ve gone to therapy. I’ve tried every diet. I always lose weight. I just can’t keep it off.

Additionally, to find that pregnancy basically broke my body was tough. Of course, being at risk for high blood pressure would be a small price to pay if I actually had a fucking baby.

Then I got an email calling me harsh because of something I posted on someone else’s blog, and was informed that this person would no longer read mine because of it.

Standing in my room this morning, facing another day of the DIET, another day without a baby (with the boy’s actual due date looming), rejected by a blog reader, and living in a broken body was just too much and I found myself sobbing.

Living in this fragile state is dangerous and uncomfortable, and now I’m not even using food to soften the edges (although the shortcake I saw in the cafeteria sure looked like it would have helped).

But then you know how you read something and it just totally changes your view point and the sky suddenly clears up and it’s sunny and it’s 60 degrees even though it's February and it’s all not that bad and, hey, even the cranberry water suddenly isn’t too awful?

Well, that happened. First off, my friend and former writing group buddy Julie, who just started her blog, got a nibble from an agent about her novel. Second, my other dear friend Emily posted this incredibly inspiring quote on her blog:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are a child of God; your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela –1996

Third, Sarah’s fiancé Pete started his blog, and it had me peeing my pants, I was laughing so hard.

So, the sun is out, and I’m going to live. I’m following my DIET (surprisingly, I’m feeling ok even with the carb restrictions—the buzzing in my head is normal, right?). Hopefully tomorrow will start off better.

Hey everyone! I'm DIETING!

I was planning to write a post today about how the light and love of my life is totally wrong about public art, but then he brought me roses at work for Valentine’s Day, so how could I do that? Suffice it to say that I disagree with him and think public art may not help people financially but it does soothe the soul and that’s good for folks in the long run.

So as an act of self-love (ha! like that segue?), today is the first day of my new DIET (I’m hoping by yelling the word DIET I’ll begin to believe it).

Now, for the last seven or so years that I’ve been trying to tackle my weight issues, I’ve steered away from the term DIET. I was looking at my overeating as an addiction, so I was treating my food issues with recovery terminology instead of the idea of DIETING. Instead, I had a “food plan” and I was “abstaining” from trigger foods and “abstaining” from deviating from the “food plan.” This was called “abstinence” not DIETING. And we all know how successful “abstinence” is (see: the last twenty years of federally sanctioned sex-ed and teen pregnancy rates).

My therapist is hoping to move me toward a time when I a) love myself enough to eat nutritious and healthy foods all the time and b) learn to “luxuriate” in the my meals, but in the meantime, I want to lose a bunch of weight so I’m DIETING. It’s a DIET because it has an end point, a specific goal. It is not a lifestyle change; the diet I’ve chosen is in NO possible way sustainable for the long term.

After sorting through everyone’s suggestions, the winner is: The Fat Flush Plan. It’s very similar to all of the low-carb or carb-regulating diets out there, in that the initial two-week phase is all about restricting carbs considerably in an attempt to help eliminate cravings (after the initial phase, I plan to go back to Weight Watchers, while incorporating elements of fat flushing).

But it also encompasses a whole bunch of naturopathic mumbo-jumbo that I love. The author is a huge fan of eating lots of good oils (like flax seed oil—ok, so it’s the only oil she seems to like, at least in the initial phase). She’s also really big on making sure you have lots of fiber, and that’s important.

My only argument with it, and with all low carb diets, is that they claim that you get carbs from your veggies—but I took Biology 101 and I know that most vegetables (especially those that any of these diets—Atkins, South Beach, or Fat Flush--permit) store their carbs in cellulose, which is not digestible by humans (if we were gorillas, we’d get fat from big salads). So, technically, you don’t actually get any carbs from those veggies. But whatever, I’ll lose weight, right? And I will get carbs from the (permitted) fruit. Thank god.

So here’s been my day so far: ready?

Before breakfast, a cup of water mixed with unsweetened cranberry juice and a tablespoon of flax seed fiber (yummy…sour AND gritty!). Then I took the dog for a walk (45 minutes, which is longer than she recommends—but try to tell a hundred-pound pitbull he only gets 20 minutes). Then a cup of hot water with the juice of half a lemon. Then an evening primrose oil capsule. Then two eggs with spinach (a tip—brush your teeth after the spinach “omelet”).

Mid-morning, a piece of fruit (pears, apples, oranges and some berries permitted). Lunch is four ounces of protein and some veggies, plus a tablespoon of flax seed oil (with another evening primrose capsule first). Sadly, I didn’t prepare my lunch very well, so I have a bunch of lettuce with some tuna. I made her “salad dressing” to go with it, and that frankly sucks ass. The only saving grace is the cayenne pepper (supposedly stimulates metabolism) so that it at least simulates flavor. There is garlic in the salad dressing and fresh ginger mixed in with the tuna. Yummy…NOT! But all these spice serve a purpose supposedly (it’s actually true; everything she says about spices Dr. Andrew Weil agrees with, and he’s the best source I know for naturopathic mumbo-jumbo).

In addition, I get to drink 64 oz of cranberry water (again, with unsweetened cranberry juice) throughout the day. Goody. You can use Stevia to sweeten it, but I forgot to bring mine to work, cause I’m a dumbass.

All of this is supposed to help “flush” fluid out of your body (unlike most diets, the author of The Fat Flush plan admits initial weight loss is mostly water—but in this diet, that’s the point) and “flush” toxins out of your intestines (I get more fiber before bed). Me and the bathroom are going to become very good friends.

Oh, and I brought lots of CDs to work so I can listen to my favorite music (playing now: Pete Seeger) in order to lower my stress levels and therefore lower my cortisol levels.

Good music aside, I’m sure much crankiness will ensue. Right now, half a day in, I feel ok, but I suspect that is a direct result of some residual effects of the food I ate yesterday—popcorn AND Peanut Butter M&Ms at the movies (why are pb M&M’s so much better than Reese’s Pieces?) PLUS tater tots with dinner (hey, I was, uh, carbo loading).

So, any topics you’d like me to address while I have DIET bitterness?

I really like Charlie’s “slang of the day” feature. Since I have a lower attention span than he does, I’m going to instead include Monday morning movie reviews (since we see at least one movie a week). So here they are.

Million Dollar Baby

Beautiful filmed, incredibly acted, well-written, perfect soundtrack, and MOTHERFUCKING DEPRESSING. In fact, had I known, I probably would have skipped it. All I needed was a movie addressing father daughter issues that was MOTHERFUCKING DEPRESSING. That said, it’s a damn fine movie, and you should go, especially if you’d like to be MOTHERFUCKING DEPRESSED.

Hitch

Horribly filmed, barely adequate acting, not particularly well written, clichéd, formulaic, and MOTHERFUCKING HYSTERICAL. Best news? The funniest scenes were NOT all in the previews. Oh, and Eva Mendes HAS AN ASS. And TITS. Guess what? SHE LOOKS LIKE A GIRL. An incredibly hot girl. Charlie and I laughed through the whole movie. Go see if you enjoy MOTHERFUCKING LAUGHING YOUR ASS OFF.