Category: change

will watching weight work ?

So I never thought in a million years I’d join a weight-loss and -maintenance program, but I have. Since one can do it from the privacy of his or her own home, I gave it a shot. I signed up for the three-month initial program and will track my progress on these pages.

I don’t know what to expect. Will it be difficult (I assume it will be) and will it impose on my lifestyle (I would guess it would)? I still cook for a family of four, so I can’t eat what I want when I want for dinner without having to prepare two separate meals, so the program I’m following allows participants to eat real food as we count points for food totals and exercise. It sounds like a reasonable plan, I don’t have to attend meetings (there’s online support), and I don’t have to buy prepackaged meals, which I’m sure would taste like cardboard and the portion sizes would suit no one bigger than Barbie.

My niece (and Oprah) signed on to this program recently and my niece has already shown improvement after just a couple months. Of course she’s in her early thirties and has yet to have a baby, so her body can’t be compared to mine apples to apples, but it’s nice to see her results. Like me, she loves to play board games and this is a game of sorts. Participants go onto their personal web dashboard and type in what they’ve eaten for the day and what type of exercise they’ve gotten. The dashboard will tally the points, letting participants know how much more exercise they may need for the week or how much less food they should sock away. More exercise equals more food and vice versa.

It might be fun to see if I can meet the end-of-week totals and reach my goal weight. My goal is to lose fifteen pounds–those nasty fifteen that, honest to God, seemed to materialize overnight once I hit fifty. I also want to stop looking like a dark-haired female Michelin Man. As I uploaded photos from the past year to my computer today, I was shocked to see–on a 22-inch HD computer screen no less–just how big around the middle I’ve gotten. We don’t carry weight well in my family at all. It all settles around the middle and under the neck. (Why couldn’t we have gotten saddlebags and big thighs instead?) The estrogen from menopause sends fat to the midsection already, so I didn’t need my family’s apple-shaped physique to add insult to injury, but what are ya gonna do? It is what it is. And hopefully, it won’t be there for long.

I never thought these “diets” worked. I was a busy young woman who had trouble finding time to eat and therefore had no trouble keeping off the pounds, but I would watch other coeds and coworkers struggle through these programs. The weight would be lost, then come right back on, and the women would be miserable while trying to stay on course and not cheat. They would talk about the weigh-ins as if they were comparable to being sent to the guillotine. I was happy I was able to regulate my weight by eating well or not eating enough in college, with two or three part-time jobs at a time along with a full course load to deal with. That was followed by multiple jobs after graduating and then by running around after the babies and being too poor to buy goodies in my mid to late twenties. When my thirties hit, the weight began settling in, but I still could fit into a size small or medium. By baby number 4, I was in my late thirties and it was harder to lose the pregnancy weight and then keep the pounds off.

Throughout my forties, I and a couple friends would do a weekly three-hour hike up and down mountains and I was able to maintain my weight sufficiently. But by my fifties, menopause made weight loss much harder and my friends became too busy to go on a weekly hike. Now we’re lucky to get two in a year, while we used to go every Wednesday morning, come rain or come shine, for years on end.

I’m still a bit cynical that this program will work, but I will try my hardest to stick with it. Once in a while it’s good to be proven wrong.

not dressed up and never ready to go

Why is it that women my age who are stay-at-home moms or who work from home never have anything to wear when going out? Maybe because, like me, they’ve spent most of their lives buying for and caring for others so they become last on the totem pole for getting anything new. And yet along with the kids, our bodies change a lot over the years–and in the same way the kids’ do, by increasing in size.

I started having children in my midtwenties and finished in my late thirties, so I know that the “baby weight” you put on when you’re still young and have a decent metabolism is a lot easier to shed than when middle age is knocking at the door and carries a key to let himself in.

My husband’s and my anniversary was a couple weeks ago and fortunately we chose a restaurant that was a 5.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 in fine-dining experiences, meaning we didn’t have to dress up all that much. Still, before I knew we’d be seated on patio chairs, I tried to find some clothes in my closet to make myself look relatively nice. All the clothes I tried on, though, either didn’t fit (bad planning by my former twenty-three-year-old self: our anniversary is only three weeks after Christmas!) or looked awful on me–but mostly they didn’t fit, which made them look awful on me.

Yes, I’ve put on more than a few pounds since saying “I will” back in 1985, but still, I’m not John Goodman in a dress–I’m not that heavy. I just have nothing that is flattering to wear at this stage in my life. Where do I clothes shop? Old Navy, Target, maybe GAP, and almost always online, but I work from home and wear comfortable clothes 24/7, meaning sweatpants in full and calf lengths, shorts, jeans, short-sleeved T-shirts, long-sleeved T-shirts, 3/4-length T-shirts. . . . Why, just looking at me now you’d find me decked out in an Old Navy short-sleeved T and capri workout pants. This is my attire du jour, but it works for me. I work from home, I walk the dog on my break, and I cook dinners that are often made in a wok and splattery. For heaven’s sake, I’m not going to run around in Stella McCartney–or even Paul McCartney, if he were to get into designing clothes.

I’d like to look like Tina Fey or even Amy Schumer but I’m edging toward Rebel Wilson, who, in my opinion, is as beautiful (just a little rounder) as the other two comics. There’s nothing wrong with being heavy and I know how hard it is to keep the pounds off or get rid of them once they’re there, but for me, I don’t want to be the frumpy fiftysomething. I want to be fit and able to wear whatever I want and not have to try on top after top that’s too, too tight. If I had a career outside the house, I’d have some business casual clothes to pick from on evenings when I go out (which usually amounts to one or two times a year), but I don’t leave the house much and when it’s time to go out I put on something I wore to church on Sunday. If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for everyone of this world.

The other night my daughters and I went to a Vino and Painting class at a bar in a trendy neighborhood (and yes, I fretted about what to wear). It was my Christmas present from one of the girls and it was a lot of fun (though I’m a bit too competitive to be painting among other people, but that’s another story). Other than having a great time with my adult kids, it reminded me that I’m maybe ten or so years away from being able to do things like that all the time. Having married at a younger age than my daughters are now and having given birth to them both by the time I was the age of my younger girl, I never had a young adulthood that didn’t involve changing diapers, reading picture books, and falling into bed exhausted every night. I missed out on the bar scene and a lot of the dating scene, having begun dating my future husband a week after turning nineteen and having gotten married a month after turning twenty-three. And the pre-marriage years were filled with he and I both going to college full-time and having either multiple part-time jobs (I) or a job requiring thirty to forty hours a week (he). We went out once a week at best and it was usually out to a cheap dinner, often using a coupon, and maybe a movie.

I look forward to having time to go out at night once in a while in my later life, take in a movie, get a nice meal, go to a play or concert, check out the latest museum exhibit, simply be free to be you and me. I just hope that by then I have some decent clothes to do it all in.

 

 

new year, new me

The tree is at the curb, the lights are put away, and a new year is here. It’s time to make some personal changes as well. Or is it? It’s estimated that 40 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions–and just 8 percent achieve what they set out to do. That makes for a lot of Americans who don’t want to change, know they can’t change, or give up on changing. What’s with us, people?

I, for one, always have good intentions in January but to start the year with a list of “I will”s seems too bandwagon. So I traditionally start to make my life changes during Lent, the season of preparation commemorating the forty days and forty nights before Jesus’ death and resurrection. I don’t want to mess with the Lord so I tend to stick with my “resolutions.” And it usually always works, probably because Sundays are not included in the forty-day count, meaning they’re cheat days. Every period of sacrifice, whether it be a diet or repentance, should include cheat days to give us sinners something to look forward to weekly before getting back on the wagon.

So what will my Lenten observances be: overall, being a better person, but this includes taking better care of my body (daily exercise and staying away from sweets and fats) and taking care of my soul by not losing my temper and by being kinder to others. If I can stick with that for Lent, I can usually carry it into the late spring and summer. Before I know it, I’ll have lost five pounds and become less stressed out.

There are no statistics I could find on how many keep their Lenten observances, but I’m guessing the number is a little higher than 8 percent, because when you’ve got the Big Guy watching over you, you are less likely to give up. Or at least that’s how I see it–plus cheat days are built in. God thinks of everything!

 

 

 

have a little faith

Faith. It’s when we believe and trust that positive outcomes will happen. If we don’t have faith, we don’t have hope.

Sometimes I need to have a little faith.

My son was in an auto accident. No one was hurt. It wasn’t my son’s fault. But it was my vehicle and it’s never a pleasant thing to hear that your car, which you weren’t even driving, was in an accident. And no matter who caused the accident, it’s still an inconvenience to have to take the vehicle, assuming it’s even drivable, to a body shop for an estimate, deal with the insurance agency, file a claim, hope that the other party’s story corroborates with yours or the claim may not be paid at all, and if you get the repairs done, be without that vehicle for up to a week or more, or if you don’t, live with an ugly gash in the side of your car forever.

This time we were lucky. This time the person whose huge, new Dodge Ram pickup hit our not-such-a-slouch-either SUV was woman enough to admit fault and deal with the consequences in the proper manner. Why is that surprising? Well, we’ve had several occurrences where the other party didn’t have insurance, wasn’t even a legal driver, and/or caused a hit-and-run accident, without leaving as much as a note on our damaged vehicle. Those times, you’re stuck. There’s nothing you can do unless you want to pay out of pocket for the repairs or file a claim against your own policy. Usually, it’s not even worth the trouble because the costs are exorbitant even going through the insurance, since your rates will increase or you have a deductible that still means a good chunk of money will come from you before the balance of the costs are covered by the agency.

So if you’re going to be in an accident, you hope it’s the other person’s fault and he or she admits to it and that person has an up-to-date policy with a reliable insurance company that pays for the repairs. I should have been happy that this accident ticked off all those boxes, but, being me, I wasn’t. When my son told me what happened, I wasn’t level-headed, calm, and adult about it. I got angry, I became accusatory, and I was upset because this vehicle is supposed to be mine to drive and not my son’s (he lost his own car in an accident a year ago and never replaced it), and I knew that I would be the one who would have to deal with the repercussions, not my son, not my husband, but I. And I was right.

But I was also wrong, because I thought it would be a horrible ordeal that would be time consuming, emotional, and dreadful, and it really wasn’t. Yes, I had to make the appointment for the estimate and take the vehicle in on a Saturday morning while my son lollygagged in bed, and, yes, I had to make the call to the insurance agency and file the claim. And yes, I will have to field the calls from the body shop (who just now rang, by the way) and listen to service reps who try to convince me to get the repairs done and not pocket the check, but it’s nearly over. (It will be when the check in my name arrives in the mail–and the phone calls stop.)

So all in all, as far as auto accidents go, this one was fairly simple. I’ve got to remember all things do not have to be incidences of Sturm und Drang. Yeah, I’ve got to have a little faith.

where do i start?

I cannot believe so much time has passed since I last sat down to type words into this blog. So much has happened that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

The meat of it, though, is mostly bad: My mother passed away. One of my dearest friends passed away. Then my mother-in-law passed away. It’s been a lot of pain. It’s been a lot of tears.

I was in the midst of all of it too. I wasn’t a bystander waiting at the curb a good distance from where the action occurred. I was rolling in the mud. I was toiling in the muck. I was in the hospitals, the nursing homes, at the chemotherapy infusion centers, in the hospital cafeteria explaining to two preteens that their mother has cancer and, by the way, I can’t tell you this but she will die sooner than you’d like. I was at the graveside. I saw the flames and felt the heat from the crematory.

I wish I could erase 2013 and 2014 from my life, to not have to live through the pain, feel the sting of hot tears running down my cheeks, and most of all, not have to say goodbye to three of the most influential people in my life. But it happened. It will happen to all of us. It would have been a bit easier if it didn’t happen all at once. And if there weren’t casualties left behind.

But I’m still here and I will share my thoughts and my voice. I am still here.

still pinching pennies, but it’s getting better . . . we hope

My husband has been at his job for nearly two months. It’s hard to believe. Because the company insurance plans won’t kick in until he is employed there for three months, I’m still paying the health insurance premium on my individual coverage plan for the self-employed. It’s over $1,100 a month, which is a ridiculous amount of money for people who rarely if ever see a doctor. I go for my annual checkup and a mammogram every couple years (though my doctor would like me to go annually). My sons haven’t seen the doctor in well over a year. My husband is the only one who checks in with his physician on occasion. And he takes a daily pill for high cholesterol. But that’s it.

The job is going a little roughly, as there seems to be much more to do than hours in a day to do it. The other employee who was hired at the same time as my husband to do the same work was let go after just three weeks. (This firm, we’ve learned, is notorious for its turnover rate.) But my husband, being the hard worker that he is, is sticking with it. He’s earning his keep, and then some.

I’m in a bit of a lull with my work, but the pace should pick up later in the month and into November. I look forward to that, if for no other reason than to pay for that health insurance bill. I cannot wait until that’s behind us and I can start banking my earnings instead of paying for services we don’t even use.

In the meantime, I count our lucky stars that my husband has found steady employment (a friend of ours has been looking for five months) and we haven’t had to change our lifestyles too much.

 

not goodbye, but so long

Most years end with a great majority of us compiling lists of personal resolutions that we hope to accomplish in the coming year. Whether we make lists or not, to the man, we give some thought to the upcoming year and what it may hold for us: a new love, maybe; a new job; the hope of an illness being successfully treated or one we fear may be there never appearing. Or maybe it will be a grand vacation, a milestone birthday to celebrate, or a new material good that we’ve desired for some time.

Whatever it is, these thoughts tend toward the positive, as well they should, because each year presents the hope of something not only different, but better. I am anticipating some big changes in 2012 myself, some, I’m sorry to say, that I’m not welcoming. For one, my younger daughter will be moving out of the house on the first of the year. Even though she’s 23, to me she is still my baby girl, and I will miss her companionship, a companionship I’ve had on a daily basis for the past 23 years. Her sister moved out 14 months ago, and she still comes over at least once a week for dinner, so it’s, to quote “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?,” not goodbye, but so long. Still, my older daughter’s schedule is more 9 to 5 than my younger girl’s, and I fear I’ll see even less of her than I have this past year, which brought her her first full-time job and a steady boyfriend.

Also new in 2012 is raising this little bundle of energy we call Woody, a golden retriever we brought into the family almost a month ago. At 12 weeks, he’s quite a handful, but I’m seeing signs of maturity as we work with him on a daily basis to get him to learn what he should know to be a good ol’ dog one day. Even though his presence is more positive than negative, I still have been confronted with myriad responsibilities since he arrived on the scene. I’ve had to rearrange my life to fit into his, for one, although it should be the other way around. But here I am, daily getting out of bed when he wakes, whether I’m tired or sick (or sick and tired), because he needs to be fed and brought outside. And here I’ll be, working in an area of the house where I don’t typically work in order to be in the same room with him in case he gets into something he shouldn’t. And there I go, taking him for a walk or outside to play or “use the facilities,” because he needs to get his exercise or relief so he doesn’t drive me crazy when I need quiet time.

I wonder what I’ll do in the upcoming weeks when my workload gets extremely busy (think straight eight- or ten-hour days with not even a lunchbreak away from my desk) and I’m the only one here to take him outside or on those necessary walks. How I’ll manage is beyond my imagination at the moment. By then, I’m hoping he’ll have adjusted to being out in the yard by himself for significant periods of time without his getting into every bush, putting every rock into his mouth, or digging to China, although I doubt that will be the case. He’ll also likely want that necessary companionship that his breed tends to desire to be happy dogs. So, I’m anticipating some stress-filled days.

Other changes? With one child out of the house, we will have a vacant room, and I look forward to setting that up as an office and guestroom, which, with four kids, we’ve never, ever had. Assuming I’ll get a break from the puppy and be able to get to that quiet place to work, I look forward to having a room of my own in which to not only work but to get away.

I also have a mini trip planned with my best friend of 37 years. We just hit a milestone birthday in December and we are going to get together to celebrate in a city midway between our homes. This is a big deal to me, because I don’t get away very often (as in never). I look at this trip also as one in a series of pleasurable things I plan to do for myself. As a mom for nearly 26 years straight, with one minor child still to raise, I have never put myself before my family. So, I hope to try to enjoy myself more in 2012.

Whatever the year brings, I wish for no heartache and no stress and a year of positive thinking and a sense of humor. Even if circumstances don’t change and I muddle through 2012 much the same way I did ’11 and ’10, at least I’ll view what life churns out with a good attitude and a great laugh, which can make all the difference in the world. So long, 2011.