Still Life with Ambivalence

I've had a drink (or two) daily since resigning, again, not to drink on weekdays. A little harm reduction strategy that's vexing me, it seems. As I write this, I'm anticipating the Bulleit rye on the rocks I ordered from the bar. I'm attempting to be gentle, neutral to myself about this, rather than using it as an excuse to lash myself. One or two drinks in an evening is not a grievous offense to my own physical health, after all.

It is definitely something I want to get ahold of, though. It's frustrating, and anxiogenic, to set an intention for myself and feel the compulsion to break it. To feel, and then to gratify, the compulsion. It's the same exact feeling when I stay on Facebook past the time I intend to log off, or put off a task I intend to do. There is a very natural, it seems, feeling of anxiety, shame, and dread in not following my intention, in violating my sense of what's best and most healthful for myself. The gratification of the urge is momentarily pleasurable, sometimes even glorious, but it's eventually replaced by an even greater sense of anxiety and shame, and, then, by whatever consequences follow, like deprivation of sleep, or acidy stomach in the case of alcohol or coffee.

I'm sure this has all been written about before, but it's good to articulate the patterns to myself. I'm successfully feeling neutral and curious while writing this, which is really good.

Food, Glorious Food!

It's been three months since my last update claiming I was going to commit to a new eating regimen, the regimen I've been thinking about for years. But I've actually been doing it for a week now, and it's starting to feel really good. I've cut way down on meat and the use of oils for cooking, I've totally eliminated dairy, refined sugar,* and alcohol, and seriously increased the amount of fiber and complex carbs in my diet. So I've basically been eating legumes, nuts, brown rice, fresh veggies, fresh fruit, multigrain breads and cereals. Tonight I had my first meat in about six days, some chicken breast that I poached instead of adding oil for pan-frying. I don't want to be this acetic all the time, but I'm trying to do two weeks of this sort of cleanse, and then introduce some cheese back in, and some weekend-only alcohol. I've been having digestive icks with some kinds of dairy, and I'm trying to be sparing with it. But it seems like cheese is way less the culprit than ice cream.

I've noticed a couple cool things over the last week: eating less, but healthier, food seems to be satisfying my appetite more than my usual food, without making me feel uncomfortably full. Specifically, I gather that the higher-fiber, less calorie-dense foods are filling me up and keeping me pretty happy about not eating as much as I normally do. This is the first time, maybe ever, that I've noticed this.

The other totally cool thing I realized today is that, even though it was an emotionally hard day for me (money stress and an intense supervision session that completely wrecked me for most of the afternoon) I retained the distinct feeling of not wanting to put unhealthy things in my body. Normally I would've dove into a burger on a day like today, or gotten Chinese food, heavy on the traife meats, but I stuck with my snack of almonds, walnuts, and raw cauliflower and I was fine. Don't know how long this'll last, but it's feeling good.

I will say, though, that whole wheat tortillas can suck it.

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*Had one lapse: my tea at a fancy tea place was sweetened with natch evaporated cane sugar. But it sure was yummy. Thanks Mag!

Regimen Anew!

Alright. Back to the drawing board again. I weighed myself this morning, and I'm now 227 pounds, a full 7 more than when I started this blog, and about 12 pounds more than my top reasonably-comfortable weight of 215. Still not the heaviest I've ever been (which would be 235) but way too much, nonetheless. I'm bursting out of all me britches, and this can't stand. So today, I start fresh. No judgments, no guilt, just a healthier plan for eating and upping the weekly biking/walking mileage. I'm still really ambivalent about giving up the gym membership, even though I haven't been regularly using it for months. Mainly, the excercize is going to continue to come from biking, which means more miles from commuting and pleasure rides. Now that summer's gearing up, I really have no excuses for not doing it.

So, the food. Repetative as this is, I need to re-articulate, to myself and the world, I guess, what my regimen will be:

* Less meat - particularly less fatty and cured meats. Lean meats and fatty fish are fine. In fact, I'm trying to get better about Omega-3 fish oil supplements as well. Fish is the protein source I've been shortchanging myself on the most since Astrid became a vegetarian, and I'm not sure why. Need to eat more of it.

* Less eggs and cheese - though not total elimination. Mostly, I want to reduce the number of egg yolks I eat in a week.

* Indefinite moratorium on deep-fried foods (good bye chicken strips and french fries, for now at least)

* Way more fresh veggies and fruit

* Way less simple refined carbs (white breads, pastries, et al)

* Less refined sugars, or almost total elimination. I may continue a regular small square of dark chocolate, but otherwise, gotta ween.

* More whole grains to replace refined carbs.

* Slightly less alcohol, but not too concerned about this one, as my drinking is pretty controlled already.

* More agua.

Ambivalent about Ambivalence

It's been about, well, pretty much exactly, a year since I started this blog (among the proliferation of blogs I feel somehow compelled to maintain). I've only written about 20 entries, though, and I'm wondering if I'll continue to be vigilant and brave enough to keep this one up. I'm toying with the idea of re-posting my AFG entries over at Toothpick Labeling and just making the weight/health issue part of the umbrella of that main blog. There's a way in which it feels kind of compartmentalized over here by its lonesome, and I fear that my physical health is already over-compartmentalized in reality; it doesn't serve me to virtually wall it off as well. On the other hand, giving the subject of my weight, the state of my diet and exercise, and the emotional issues all tied up therein, its own forum, free from the clutter of other obsessions (relationships, trivial nonsense, the daily grind, et al) may be only proper for allowing myself the space to explore the space I take up.

All this to say, I haven't written anything here since Thanksgiving, and now it's fucking March, 2009, and I weigh about 6-7 pounds more than I did this time last year when I started this thing and declared that I wanted to lose a bit of weight. What has happened in the last year?

- I started this blog, in an effort to become more mindful about this topic in my life.

- I joined a gym and got into a fairly regular exercise regimen for, say, about three months. Guess what: the last time I went to the gym and the last time I blogged here were roughly the same day, marked by the annual turkey feast of gluttony.

- I've been biking way less than I was, when compared with my biking of two to three years ago. This mostly owes to the changes in my daily schedule that were brought on by being in grad school, and then my internship starting, and then my grad program transferring to a very un-bike-friendly location, and then three out of the last six months being both unemployed (read: unmotivated and depressed) and kind of soggy outside. And, oh, my bike broke and I went about a month to two months without one.

- my patellofemoral syndrome is really acting up lately, and my whole body feels out of whack. (In addition my my left knee, I'm feeling chronic dull discomfort in my left hip, lower back aches, neck stiffness, and occasional tingling in my right shoulder/arm which seem to be related to the back and neck tightness.) All these physical ills would improve with more exercise, even if I don't lose any weight.

- Less work = less money, which means I can't go to a chiropractor for the above issues.

- Less money theoretically should mean an upturn toward healthier eating, since Astrid and I have been cooking at home more. And we got gifted six months of the organic box delivery, so we've had a load of fresh veggies in the house, too. The other piece of this is that Astrid went vegetarian in July, so we've been cooking way less meat in the house, though I still do when I'm on my own for some meals. I don't know if the net impact of all this is that I'm eating better or not. The jury's still out.

So it hasn't all been bad, it's just been a lot to handle emotionally in the last year, and eating too much is my big coping mechanism, so there you go. Hmm...that makes me think that keeping this blog alive for a while may yet help me, in that I can always shoot out a quick entry instead of grabbing the chips and salsa.

Anyway, guess I'll keep AFG around. There are a number of topics I'm tossing around for possible future entries; I just have to motivate myself. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading...if you're still out there!

Good Eats

Been eating pretty healthy the last couple weeks. Lots of veggies, no fried food ('cept tortilla chips, which are mandatory when eating at a taqueria!) and the most important thing: I've been stopping when satisfied instead of busting my gut. If I can just get this one thing down and stick to it: I never have to overeat. Just because food is there doesn't mean I've gotta eat it. It's like listening to really bad lesbian folk music: just because they're dykes doesn't mean I need to support 'em. It's a nasty habit, indeed. So, I dunno how I got up to 224 - maybe it was water weight - but I'm back at 220. Already my pants feel less constricting.

Getting Strong Now

Alright, so after a bit of research and much inner-struggle, I decided on the mega-corporate gym down the street, 'cause it was the cheapest membership fee I found (after haggling), and it's the closest gym to my house, which ostensibly provides less of a barrier to my getting there. On taking the tour of the place, I saw a good mix of men and women, a few other fat people, and numerous people of various ages and body shapes that would not be commonly viewed as "gym-bunny"-types. So I felt as comfortable as I possibly could being in such an environment. I've gone twice this week so far, and have actually enjoyed it. And after exercising each day, my body has felt much more relaxed and serene than it usually does when I'm just sitting around.

So far, I really like the recumbent bike. It's a good way to get the heart rate up and work up a good sweat while staying pretty comfortable. No stress on the back, and very little stress on the knees. I also like clocking the miles that I'm biking. It's less intense and less calorie-burning than the elliptical, but I'm finding it's a good starter machine for me. I tried the elliptical for the first time today, and I'm a bit baffled by it right now. I know the swooping leg motions and corresponding arm swinging will make more sense after I get more familiar with it, but it was a bit overwhelming on first try. I also started feeling a great deal of stress in my left calf muscle after only about five minutes on it, so I quit at that point and went back to the recumbent. Then I did some crunches and a bit of weight lifting. I also made sure to do some stretching both before and after the exercise.

My lovely friend G. showed me around the gym today, and introduced me to various workout equipment. That was pretty cool of him to do. It is so intimidating being a fat girl at the gym, and then on top of that, not having any idea how all these machines work. So tip of the hat to G. - thank you for being so supportive!

Just by way of logging what I'm doing at the gym, right now, it's just about 20 minutes of cardio and then as many crunches as I can do (maybe 10) and then 10 reps of very light weight lifting to tone each different arm muscle group. I expect I'll increase all these numbers as I progress, but I'm starting off very easy.

So I'm no longer a gym virgin. Woo-ha!

Regimen Revisited

On almost a daily basis, Astrid and I declare, sometimes while we're eating a grossly unhealthy meal (like last night's chicken strips at Bagdad Café), that "tomorrow, we start the Regimen!" The Regimen, in our couple mind's eye, has something to do with exercising more (or at all!), keeping up on grocery shopping so we have healthy stuff to cook at home, and eating reasonably. It's not a big deal, and yet why is it so hard to stick to? So last night, we declared the Regimen to be on again, and so far today I feel renewed committment to it.

I weighed myself this morning, and I'm now 221. Given my bike situation, it's not shocking that I've plateaued and gained another pound, but the main culprit right now is the decadent eating. In light of not having a bike, and also wanting to get into a more disciplined exercise routine in general, I've been contemplating joining a gym for the first time in my life.

As a fat girl, I've always feared gyms: why would I want to invite public ridicule upon my bouncing flabby body sweating on the elliptical machine? It brings back the terror of adolescence, when kids would make fun of me in P.E. class, and invokes the present-day fatphobia I still receive from strangers in public, like whenever I get called "fat-ass" while riding my bike too slowly for some shithead driving behind me. So the terror is historic, and current, and all too real in my experience. I'm 100% positive that other fat people stay out of gyms for exactly this reason. It's part of why the gym franchise Curves was invented, but I can't support them, what with the founder being a right-winger and giving significant contributions to anti-choice organizations. The other thing is that, well, I'm pretty fucking poor at this point in my life, and paying $30 to $60/month on a gym membership that I may or may not utilize seems like a very risky idea.

I'm going to check out the membership options at a few gyms in the neighborhood, and I'll report on my findings. I'm curious not only about fees and the amenities I get with my money, but I'm also very interested to get a sense for how their staff treat fat people, and what other fat folks have experienced at these places. Any tips on SF upper-Market, Lower Haight, and Mission area gyms would be welcome feedback for me.

Onward Ho - the Regimen begins (again!)

Sometimes I do; sometimes I don't

We did a check-in during class tonight, in which we were supposed to share something about self-care: where it's at for us right now, what we want to be mindful of for ourselves as we engage in our clinical work and return to classes after the ordeal we've been through (see the other blog if you don't know the ordeal to which I refer.) I talked about how I'm taking multi-vitamins and fish oil supplements now, which I'm truly happy about. But it was a veneer to mask the real thing I'm not doing to care for myself: I'm nowhere near where I want to be in terms of eating healthfully. That couple-week stretch of eating well has given way to the usual pattern of eating satisfying but non-nutritive crap and eating too much of it. Sigh. Then my amazing new teacher told us she recently joined Weight Watchers. I didn't have a negative reaction to this because, A., my teacher is fierce and serene in the best combination of those qualities, and even said she could facilitate WW meetings better than their group leaders, fat and all! and B., WW is actually the one diet plan in the whole universe of the $40 billion diet industry that doesn't turn my stomach, so to speak, because it's actually a way for people to learn how to eat balanced, healthy meals and change their eating habits. So anyway, this isn't an ad for WW, but it's just to say that, damn, I didn't use that opportunity to be "out" about my contemplation of losing weight and my struggle to eat healthier.

On the flip side, I was the only one in class who commuted by bike, and that's something I can be pretty proud of, even if I ate a can of Chicken and Stars soup upon arriving home. ;)