9 posts tagged “health”
This is cross posted from A Healthy Appetite. It will be a little redundant for some of you, sorry.
We moved back to Louisville a couple months ago. We were very lucky and landed exactly where we wanted to be. Our neighborhood is incredible, absolutely incredibly. It's terribly walking and biking friendly and we try to take advantage of that as much as we can. We walk or bike to the bread shop, the coffee shop, the grocery for small items, and of course the farmer's market every week. Ah, the farmer's market. At the same time my eating habits have changed for health reasons my eating habits have evolved because of food politics and philosophical issues. Those two things combined have given me some pretty strong guiding principles about what I eat, what I don't eat and where I get what I eat. In a nutshell my food philosophy is "eat as much local, seasonal produce as possible. Eat organic whenever possible. Eat more whole foods, less processed foods. Bake with really excellent ingredients. Support farmers and sustainable agriculture by buying direct from farmers whenever possible. Supporting farmers includes supporting meat and dairy farmers so buy humanely raised and slaughtered meat products and humanely cared for dairy and egg products."
So each Saturday morning we walk to the farmer's market and load up on whatever is good and fresh. Then we build our week's menus around those fresh items. Obviously we don't eat farmer's market produce at every meal but it does make up the bulk of our meals. It's glorious.
Being back home in Louisville gives the opportunity for more fresh, local produce than we can shake a stick at actually because we're now quite close to my family and the farm country I grew up on. In the past two weeks two different aunts have come to visit, each with bags full of fresh veggies from their farms. Between the two of them (I'll be seeing them both this weekend), the farmer's market, and our own backyard tomatoes we buy very little product from the grocery store and we eat glorious fresh vegetable based vegetarian dishes at almost every meal.
From this embarrassing wealth of fresh riches comes fabulous lunches and dinners including this Summer Vegetable Saute that I made last night for dinner. I didn't measure the vegetables exactly so I can't give you exact nutritionals but a good estimate is 90-100 calories per cup of veggies so 2WW points if that's your bag.
Summer Vegetable Saute
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small eggplant
1 small red onion
2 yellow squash
1 small zucchini
1 bell pepper
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained (I used diced tomatoes with peppers and onions)
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Dice all vegetables into small but not tiny pieces.
Over medium heat saute minced garlic in oil. Add bell pepper and onion. Cook for about 3 minutes until onions start to soften. Add all of the remaining vegetables. Cook for 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, stir the tomatoes and vegetable mixture really well. Add your salt, pepper, and oregano. I can't even give you estimates on the amount because it's completely dependent upon taste. Just experiment until it tastes well season to you.
Cover pan and cook on low-medium heat for 5-10 minutes depending on how much firmness you want your vegetables to have and how cooked you want your tomatoes to be.
Serve over whole wheat pasta. 2oz dry pasta is 4 points so if you have 4 points in pasta, 2 in veggies you've got a really hearty, really delicious dinner for 6 points. Since there are only 2 of us we ended up with a good amount of leftover veggies.
In just a few minutes I'm going to take 1 fat free tortilla, 1/4 cup 2% Mexican shredded cheese, and 1 cup of these veggie leftovers to make a simple and tasty veggie quesadilla for lunch. Yum.
Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how I'm seen now that I've lost 132 pounds. How I see myself, how strangers see me, how my family who saw me at my heaviest now see me, how my family who saw me heavy but not nearly my heaviest see me now. Used to be, save very, very few exceptions, I was always the fattest person in the room. There was a certain...comfort isn't the right word but almost a feeling of comfortable acceptance. "I am the fattest person in this room. I don't have to compare myself to anyone else, I don't have to do anything. I am what I am and this is what it is." Now, I'm mostly not the fattest person in the room. A lot of times I'm the person in the room who can bench press the most, knows what vegetables are currently in season, and walked anywhere from 1-4 miles before the other people in the room got out of bed. Clearly that's different from being the fattest person in the room. Clearly I don't miss being the fattest person in the room but I do somehow miss knowing where I am in relation to people. I can't look at myself and see how I look in the context of other people. Would strangers describe me as fat, heavyset, thick, healthy, strong? It doesn't really matter. I guess I'm just curious.
All of this coincides with moving back to Louisville, where I'm so much happier, so much more content and so much more confident. So do people treat me better because I'm 130 pounds lighter or because I treat them better because I'm happier? Are people more friendly because they aren't repulsed by my appearance or because people are just nicer here. Many questions but not so many answers when it comes to strangers. Family is a little clearer.
At my brother's wedding I saw a lot of family members I hadn't seen for a long time. There are very varying degrees of long time though. So I hadn't seen in 8 months, some I hadn't seen in 4 years, some I hadn't seen in 9 years, some I hadn't seen in over 15 years. Some of these people have been present in my life at moments where I was getting bigger and bigger. The ones who saw me at my heaviest and hadn't seen me since I started my healthy lifestyle last year seemed to only want to talk about my weight. I had an aunt who repeatedly demanded I tell her the number of pounds I'd lost. As we've discussed I'm not comfortable with that (though I tell you people freely enough don't I?) so I repeated my stock answer of "a little" over and over to her. She wasn't terribly amused. She didn't ask anything else about my life, our new house, my photography career, nothing. This massive weight loss is apparently the only thing about me that interests her at all.
Family members and family friends who hadn't seen me in 15 years didn't ask about it at all. They commented that I looked wonderful but I chalked that up to the terribly cute outfits I was wearing for all wedding related hoopla including fantastic accessories. Family members who saw me when I was 130 pounds heavier said I looked great but the only meaning I took from that is that "you look so much better 130 pounds lighter" instead of "you look pretty in that skirt." Did they mean either of those things? I don't know, that's just how I instantly took it.
Perhaps the most interesting exchange at the wedding was with a male cousin I hadn't seen since my grandmother's funeral many years ago. I was quite heavy at my grandmother's funeral maybe 30 or 40 pounds less than my heaviest weight. So let's say a hundred pounds more than I weigh now. Since I last saw him this cousin has gone completely bald and gained a significant amount of weight. The baldness threw me. I didn't pay much attention to the weight, until he brought it up. He came up to me and said something about he didn't know I would recognize him. I said well yeah the bald head threw me off for a minute. He sighed and said "yeah there's that and the extra 30 pounds" in an almost apologetic manner. It was a short exchange but one that never would have happened a year ago. No one apologizes to the really fat girl about their extra 30 pounds.
Some family friends told me I looked like I did in high school, others said they would never have known me if we passed on the street. The interactions I liked best were the ones where my weight didn't come up at all.
I've now lost 132 pounds. This summer has been an interesting time for my weight loss/healthy journey. At the beginning of summer I was losing a crazy amount of weight a week (like 5-7 pounds a week) because I was doing so much work around the house and particularly the yard but not eating anymore than normal. Then came family visits, friend visits, headfirst diving into the Louisville dining scene, a couple Maker's Mark nights, and the hot sign being on at the Krispy Kreme. So then the scales stopped moving. Even when the number on the scale wouldn't budge I knew I was making good progress in my health goals. My upper body strength has grown significantly (bags of mulch are heavy), my overall fitness level is higher, and I'm just really active on a daily basis. So though I can't say I wasn't frustrated when the scales wouldn't budge I knew it was just a plateau that I could work through and not the end or the beginning of anything. Now the scales are moving again, our eating out is back to a normal level and our healthy eating habits are right back on track. I should mention that earlier in spring I had set a min-goal of reaching the 130 pounds lost mark by my birthday. Clearly I've exceeded that and I couldn't be happier about it.
Speaking of birthdays, it is that time of year again. On 27 July I turn 31. Hmmm. I don't have a lot of thoughts or emotions on turning 31. This time last year I was in such a depressed, miserable place emotionally, physically, psychologically, it's good to now just be back to "yay a birthday. Presents, dinners with loved ones, cake, good times." instead of "my god I'm 30 years old and a complete and total failure." Definitely an upgrade.
At this point I've lost 126 pounds. I can't remember if I said this or not but when I started this journey I didn't really have a goal weight I wanted to reach. I threw out a number here and there but truthfully I didn't really care about that number. What I cared about was a clothing size. I wanted to be clothing size X. I don't know why I focused in on that particular clothing size but I did and I'm currently one size above clothing size X. That means I should comfortably be into clothing size X by the end of summer. But as I mentioned in last month's update I feel good and comfortable in my own skin but I still want to be significantly smaller, leaner, stronger and more physically fit. I thought that the number I was throwing about and clothing size X were at about the same point. They aren't. I'm one size away from clothing size X but 56 pounds away from the number. The clothing size and weight were quite close together in B's case but she's several inches shorter than I am and I'm just bigger overall. So in general there has been about a 50 pound difference between when she's in clothing size Q and when I'm in clothing size Q. That doesn't mean anything of course, it's just interesting to know that numbers on a scale can't be the sole motivating factor for anyone because our bodies are each so very different and one weight on me looks and feels very different on someone else. I've always known this but it's a good reminder. I got another kind of good reminder this week too. A reminder of why I don't like to talk about these things with most people. This week someone commented that I'd lost a lot of weight. I said "Yeah, a little." She said something like oh it's much more than a little. I smiled and started to move on. Then she pressed and said "So has it been really, really hard?" I said "well there has been hard work of course in terms of exercise but the actual change in lifestyle has not been that difficult. We've found that we very much enjoying eating healthily, we very much enjoy exercising, we very much enjoy being smaller more fit people. So in that regard no, it hasn't been that difficult. I don't feel like I'm constantly working or that I'm deprived at all." She smirked and said "Well you'll get to a point where it will be much, much harder to lose weight. You'll see." What? What am I supposed to do with that? You assume that I want to lose more weight, you assume that I want to be skinny, you assume a lot and you just seem petty. You don't ask if I feel good, you don't ask what kind of exercise I like, you don't give any useful or supportive comments. Don't ever bring this topic up to me again. Ahem, moving on.
We used the gym at our apartment complex in Indianapolis so since we've been in Louisville we have been treadmill and elliptical machine-less. We have the machines we're going to buy picked out and the space all ready for them we've just not been to buy them yet. However a lack of exercise has not been a problem since we got here. Our house has two stories, sits on hill on a street with a hill, surrounded by other streets on a hill (seriously we're in a valley), has a ton of yard work to do (including mowing the hilly yard with a reel mower), our neighborhood has lots of stuff to walk to and we of course have our beloved new bikes.The routine has been to walk 2 or 3 miles each day with a 2 mile or so bike ride thrown in with lots of house work to do during the week. During the weekend those same 2 or 3 walking miles, same biking miles but lots and lots and lots of yard work. You know it's hot in Kentucky during the summer right? I've been sweating and working and working and sweating and loving lots of the minutes of it. Not every minute you understand, but lots of the minutes of it. My arms are quite sore today from mowing the yard yesterday. Quite sore.
So I'm confident that we'll continue our healthy eating (we're biking to the farmer's market tomorrow morning, yum) because that's what feels good to us and what we like to do and we'll continue exercising (walk, bike, treadmill, etc on the way) and even expand our physical activities (we're looking into some canoe/kayaking options, and both really want to try skiing/snowboarding this winter, and I may want to take up golf again, walking the course naturally). So even with size X right around the corner I think my weight is still going to go further down. I don't know how much further down it will go though. The BMI index says I've got a long, long way to go but I know there isn't much fat left on my hips. Seriously, my hip bones are close to jutting out at this point. If I get to a point where I have to exercise like a crazy person and starve just to lose more and more weight as opposed to just feeling good and healthy then that's the point where my weight is going to stay. Like I said above, the number can't be the thing. A healthy weight for me isn't necessarily a healthy weight for you. I hope that a healthy, comfortable weight is about 56 pounds from now but maybe it's 40 pounds from now or maybe even 60 pounds. I don't know but I know that I look good, I feel good and I'm strong and active. That's what's important. If I don't ever break that additional 56 pound mark but I look good, feel good and am strong, active and healthy then that's A-ok.
Did you catch that last part where I said I looked good? That's a self-confidence thing. My self-confidence was gone for the 4 years we lived in Indianapolis. We've gotten reacquainted here in Louisville and we find that we like each other very much. Here's the thing about me and Louisville. When I'm here I'm "The best, cutest, quietest most confident version of" myself. And I sometimes "wear lip gloss." Here the cute dyke at the cafe flirts with me and I flirt back a tiny bit before letting it be known that I'm completely taken. Here I go to the coffee shop by myself and hang out and chat with strangers. Here I'm joining a book club. After the Indianapolis book club fiasco (anyone remember that?) it's shocking that I'd be up for joining one ever again but here I don't have a single reservation about it. It meets next Sunday afternoon at a cool coffee house and the book is "This Is Not Chick Lit." Here I find it easy to connect with an artist I met online and tell her truthfully that she sounds cool and I hope B and I can be friends with her and her partner. She says she feels the same way. We're meeting for coffee in a hour at a cool lesbian coffee house. Here I find it easy to be honest and earnest about a documentary photography project I'm working on and not care if someone gets it or not, thinks I'm silly for doing it or not. It's my project, it's work I want to do and I'm doing it. Fin.
That's what I'm like here. That's who I am here. It is the real me. The me that's been buried. Buried under excess weight. Buried under Indianapolis' cold winters and frosty people. Buried under a layer of unhappiness I didn't really understand. Buried under low self esteem and extreme self doubt. This all sounds a bit melodramatic doesn't it? That's cool though because the real me is a bit melodramatic.If you've only known me during the Indianapolis years then we definitely need to get reacquainted.
Hello there, it's very nice to meet you. Enough about me. What do you think of me? Bwhaaa, I kid, I kid.
At this point I've lost 115 pounds. Otherwise known as a small person. The pants I bought yesterday are the same size pants I was wearing my freshman year in college. These pants are not small by any means of course but I was quite happy my freshman year in college both in general and with myself. I wasn't obsessed with any feelings of hatred toward my body and was comfortable at my size. So it's odd to be this size again and yet feel so different. I feel good in my skin but I'm acutely aware that I'm still much larger than I want to be at this point in my life, at least 65 pounds larger. When I was this size before my eating habits and lifestyle were bad to say the least. I exercised never, ate horribly, and consumed a great deal of alcohol. Before having a cocktail with dinner last Sunday I can't recall having an alcoholic drink since Christmas.
We're eating out right now much, much more than we normally do because we're trying to hit our favorite Indianapolis restaurants (all 2 of them) as much as possible before we leave town. The move is less than two weeks away and I'm really stressed with all the details but I'm keeping my eating in check and exercise a lot. Our new house is a half mile walk from a park with 6 miles of hiking trails, a nature preserve with 3 miles of walking trails and 9 public clay tennis courts. We're 1.25 miles walking distance to the farmer's market and .75 miles walk to the coffee shop I almost lived in during college. We're really, really excited to get settled in and have a really, really fantastic active lifestyle and life down there.
As crazy as it sounds sometimes my goals of being a smaller, healthier person and someone who eats a very natural, healthy, sustainable diet are at direct odds with each other. French Vanilla Splenda for Coffee is a prime example of this struggle. There's nothing natural about vanilla Splenda. Though it may be derived from sugar in some mysterious scientific way it's a chemical sweetener with chemical vanilla flavoring added. It doesn't seem like the kind of product that someone who just switched to organic ketchup because she's trying to cut the copious amounts of high fructose corn syrup we're being fed out of her diet would use does it? But use it and love it I do. I keep track of what's going into my body everyday and I know that every bit of food fuel counts both positively and negatively. Obviously using a natural sweetener for my coffee and tea would be desirable if my only goal was to eat a natural diet. But the extra calories that sugar and other natural sweeteners give me run counter to my goals of weighing less and becoming more fit. For the same calories a natural sweetener would give me in my coffee I can instead have a nice serving a fruit (a blood orange this morning in fact) or vegetables. Like the Splenda the natural sweetener would be giving me no nutritional value but it would be giving me calories. So in this case I choose the chemical alternative over the natural one.
If the French Vanilla Splenda didn't taste so good in my coffee this might be a harder decision for me but it's really, really good. If you've no qualms about chemical sweeteners and like a hint of vanilla in your coffee then I can't recommend the French Vanilla Splenda highly enough.
From A Healthy Appetite
My life (and my mind) is in such a strange state right now that the most positive/interesting new development is my search for new glasses and the eye doctor's assertion that if my left was as deficient as my right eye, instead of being 20/20, I would not be able to pass a standard driver's license eye exam without glasses. That's very interesting since my primary use of glasses has been while reading/writing/knowledge work stuff to prevent headaches because my left eye is perfect and my right eye used to be slightly less than perfect. Apparently it's really less than perfect now and my left eye is trying super hard to overcome that and thus the return of the headaches and need for new glasses. Imagine how wonderful or exciting life must not be right now if this is the story I've chosen to tell you.
I've lost 67 pounds since August. I've still got a lot I need and want to lose but 67 pounds is a pretty sizable number & it's made a pretty significant difference in the way I look and feel. When people who haven't seen me in a while start to comment on my weight loss I really try to change the subject. I'm not sure why, but I'm really not comfortable discussing it in person. I think perhaps because this is primarily about health for me and not appearance whereas I think most of the people commenting have the opposite focus. It's all about how I look and not about how I feel. One exception to this is my mother who frequently says "I know you just feel great don't you?" and I answer truthfully that yes, yes I do feel great.
If I can't change the subject the conversation usually takes a well-worn path. First it's the "how have you lost so much weight route?" to which I respond I eat well, exercise regularly and try have a healthy lifestyle. That doesn't satisfy many people. It's all I've got though so eventually they give up. Until it's time to eat. Then comments come out about how oh they bet I don't eat this or that and how they could never give up such and such and how food x is their absolute weakness. Again, I don't have any real response to this so I just eat whatever it is I want to eat and move on.
I've been thinking about these conversations a lot though. I've also thought about two pieces of writing that were very helpful and inspiring to me when I was making the decision to actively start losing weight and transitioning to a more healthy lifestyle. These pieces are Lance Arthur's Fat Headed and Ariel Starling's Fat is a Feminist Issue. I've decided (partially based on emails I've received) that perhaps some more detailed and personal answer from me about what I'm doing will be helpful to someone else at some point. So I gave it some thought and here is what I came up with.
So I've been on The Plan since July, actively weighing myself weekly since August and exercising very regularly since August as well and I've lost 53 pounds. Since my starting point was so high I've still got a long way to go but this is good progress and I'm pleased with how far I've come. I still don't find The Plan restrictive or hard and whether I like to exercise or not I still hit the gym 3 times a week and still walk at least 2 miles a day in addition to that (ask me about the dog stroller I know own).
A conversation today with George helped me firmly decide that yes I'm going to SXSWi. I'm nervous and excited. I hope I can keep up my progress with The Plan so that a) I'll be more comfortable on the plane (skinny seats and all) and b) that I'll feel a little bit better about myself. I'm not shy but I'm not terribly good in social situations either. I used to be but then somehow I lost a whole big chunk of my self-confidence.
