drop the fork

Oh, Yeah, Now I Remember . . .

One cardinal rule of life is, "nothing ever stays the same." This applies to everything, including keeping your weight down. Life has a way of throwing curves at you, when you least expect it. And even the most benign of circumstances can lead to big changes in your maintenance routine. Follow along with me whilst I sketch out my latest challenge.

Our second house is pretty much finished. Renovations are largely done, and hubby and I have been spending most of our weekends there . . . .dragging belongings up from the basement (and cleaning off the construction dust), taking furniture deliveries, and enjoying the splendid new kitchen. This kitchen is a DREAM . . . I designed it that way. Tons of counter space, porcelain tile floors, monorail and bulkhead task lighting, counter seating. No, I don't have a Viking stove, or a SubZero fridge, but the appliances are new, the stove has a power burner, and the whole space "works." And it's cheerful as any space can possibly be: white walls, blond wood, and primary color accents (red, blue, yellow), down to the counter appliances (fire engine red) and the wall phone, clock, and miniblinds (bright yellow).

Who wouldn't want to cook there? It's better than the kitchen in my main house. Seriously. I’m sure I'll be doing more cooking here, than there. More entertaining, too.

So, as you might guess, I've already put the kitchen to good use. Though I have tried to stock the freezer with lots of frozen veggies, as well as frozen fish and fruit, the city markets have been singing their siren song. Cat-head crabcakes. Fabulous fried chicken. Take-home Italian specialties. Mmmmmmm.

In addition, the city where this house is located is one of our favorite places to play. Tons of good restaurants, with new ones coming on line all the time. We eat out about half the time, and cook the other half.

And did I mention the wine bars? And the wine collection we're accumulating at the new place?

Oh, and I don't have any bikes at the new house, not yet. Too cold, and the basement is still a construction mess. I have no gym membership in this city, either.

Are you getting the picture?

Too much food, too little exercise. A place I definitely don't want to go . . . but could, if I'm not careful.

Take last night, for example. We spent the day out, and ended up at one of our favorite wine bars. I had 2 glasses of white, the caribbean catfish entrée, and (yes, oh yes) a fabulous dessert: grilled pineapple atop fried dough, covered with a chocolate ganache.

I was a bit stuffed by the time I left the restaurant.

Not only that, but an old, old friend visited me during the night . . . indigestion.

I have GERD, and if I eat too much, too late, I can get sick. It's one of the reasons I finally joined WW . . . I actually do not enjoy that overstuffed feeling, knowing what it can lead to.

Last night, I must have forgotten. (Two glasses of wine may have had something to do with it.) I got a pretty good reminder, though. "Oh, yeah," I thought to myself, while sitting up in bed, trying not to moan, "THIS is why I don't like to overeat."

Sometimes a little kick in the pants is a good thing. I think I won't be doing that again for a while. (And yeah, I DID enjoy the evening out. No regrets there.)

In the meantime, spring is coming, I'll get a couple of my bikes over to the new house, and I'll explore ways to use a gym in my "second city." I've already bought an exercise mat and more Therabands . . . it's only a matter of time before I'll be able to set up a bike trainer.

Maintenance doesn't just happen . . . you have to work at it. And it requires more than a little flexibility, as well as the ability to adapt with changing circumstances. This is a change I actually didn't anticipate, but I'm working on getting through it.

More reading:

Flexibility and a Healthy Weight

Motivation, Daily Action, and Self-Talk

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Get Over It

[The following essay is fueled by prednisone. Pred makes me more plain-spoken than usual. You've been warned . . .]

Let me paraphrase a quote I read recently on the Weight Watchers message boards. It echoes many similar quotes I've seen over there:

"I don't want to always have to watch my weight. I like to go out and have a good time. My girlfriends tease me about being so GOOD and eating just salad. It's just not FAIR."

Lesson number one: get used to it, honey, because that's what it takes. Watching your weight, that is. NO ONE gets a free ride. Even skinny girls get older, put on weight, expand in the middle and wonder what the hell happened. Trust me on this one. I've been around a while.

Those people who can eat buckets of food every single day and don't gain? They don't exist. Well, maybe on some other planet. I can't say, haven't been there. But here on Earth? Nope. Not in the long run. They may escape the fat genii for a while, but eventually, time and overindulgence take their toll.

So, there's not really anything for you to be jealous of. The world is actually fairer than you think. Folks that eat a lot? They have big butts. Or they acquire them. A Starbucks barista I used to talk to once told me about her customers. Those coming in every day and ordering the venti-double-fat-lattes . . . well, they grew bigger every day. Surprised? I'm not.

No one gets a free ride. Not in the long run.

"But," you say, "my family, all my friends tell me that it's not NORMAL to [count points, watch what I eat, eat healthy stuff]."

Lesson number two: do not confuse NORMAL with HEALTHY.

It is NORMAL in today's society to not watch what you eat. It's also NORMAL in this society to be overweight or obese. That doesn't make it HEALTHY. We are killing ourselves with too much food and not enough activity.

Well, OK, now that I've scared you, let me tell you the good news.

Lesson number 3: you can eat right and still have fun.

You don't have to wear a hair shirt and stop bathing to eat right. All you have to do is learn balance.

Getting back to those skinny folks: you think they're eating buckets of food every day. Actually, they're not. Consciously or unconsciously, they are balancing their food intake. They eat more some days, less other days. Here's an example: my insurance agent is a woman in her . . . oh, mid-years. (Older than me.) Skinny, looks great, never heavy a day in her life. She told me that she watches what she eats, very carefully. She knows, for example, that if she goes for the big entrée at dinner, she can't also have the dessert.

OK, so she doesn't watch her food as closely as I do, obviously. She has a natural (or early-learned) talent for balance. Or, her body works better than mine does, in terms of all those complicated "satiety" signals that help us know when we should stop eating. Whatever it is, I do what she does, but in more detail, because I am, unfortunately, not as talented.

My approach is to eat mindfully. I eat basically healthy, but I do enjoy myself, and indulge every now and again, enough to keep from feeling deprived. The days of stuffing peanuts in my mouth without a care are long gone, baby. If I eat it, I'm aware of it, and I record it. I may eat more some days, but I balance those days out with eating less other days. Follow me around for a day, and (depending on the day) you may wonder how I keep my weight down. But follow me around for a week or two, and you'll see how I balance it out.

It's not that formal; it's really a seat-of-the-pants approach that works for me.

And it, or something like it, can work for you, too. You have to develop it, day by day, the same way that I did. Custom-tailoring always fits best . . . in clothing, in bikes, in food plans. And here, you get to be the tailor.

So, go on. Give it a try. You can learn to eat more sometimes, less at other times, and thereby enjoy your life (and also fly under your friends' and family's radar screens). Weight Watchers calls it flexible restraint, and it's actually the key to long-term weight control.

This obesity thing: we'll never be cured, y'know. But we can manage things pretty damn well. In the long run . . . that's all that matters.

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On a personal note: the prednisone is doing its job . . . I now feel like I was never injured. This time, it was worth the aggravation of taking it.

But I still can't wait to be done with it. Yes, it does make you more hungry. Yikes.

Oh, and apologies for using even more "all caps" than usual.

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