Fatty Fights Back

WTF? - My 2013 WLSFA Meet 'n Greet Experience - The Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:11:00 +0000

MacMadame's patented guide to conflict resolution.

This is a difficult post for me to write. It's difficult for a number of reasons one of which includes my childhood.

I grew up in a family that was full of secrets, dysfunction and feuding. It was too much drama for me and I reacted by becoming pretty much allergic to drama. People start feuding and choosing sides and publicly pointing fingers and I'm outta there.

I am the one who is friends with everyone even people who hate each other's guts to the point of where people are afraid to be in the same room with them. I am the one who invites who I want to be there to my college graduation or my wedding and if this one isn't talking to that one, I shrug and say Not my problem.

The other reason writing this is hard for me is that I'm going to not only choose sides publicly -- not only am I making it my problem -- but I'm also going to criticize an organization that goes good things. This is something I have been trying very hard for the past two years not to do.

But I need to, I think. It's time.

So here's the deal... two years ago I went to my first WLSFA's Mother of All Meet 'n Greets. I was so excited about it. I loved the cause. These people raise funds so that people who can't afford it can have Weight Loss Surgery (WLS).

While my family has had my financial issues these past couple of years, I understand how lucky I am. When I discovered that my insurance excluded WLS, it wasn't like all my options were gone. I still had plenty. I eventually just paid cash for the surgery -- I didn't even have to go into debt.

It's wrong that I had to do that. It should have been covered by insurance. But I had options that so many don't. There are people out there for whom surgery is a life and death matter and they can't get surgery. That's wrong times 10. And one way to help those people is by donating to the WLSFA.

So I decided to run a little fundraiser. Not a big one, not a four figures fundraiser, but a little one. I figured I could have raised maybe $225-250 with my fun little fundraiser. And I was happy and excited to do so. I was also happy and excited to go to this event even though it was in Vegas, a town I hate.

I collected my supplies and I plotted and planned and I talked to Antonia, the President (CEO?) about logistics. And was met with a great lack of enthusiasm for my fundraiser.

I was surprised. I mean money is money right? And I wasn't doing anything crass or anything, like selling sexy calendars that might offend some.

But I got the distinct impression that my fundraiser was of supreme disinterest to The Powers That Be. I decided, like I always do with the drama and the feuding, to just ignore the negative vibes I was feeling and plow ahead.

But my fundraiser never really got any traction especially with no recognition from the organizers. Luckily Melting Mama (Beth) from the Bariatric Bad Girls Club (BBGC) got on board when she saw what I was trying to do and helped me scare up some takers during the actual event.

I ended up raising a whooping $22 dollars, but it would have been less without Beth.

I also did not have a particularly wonderful time at the event. I didn't have a bad time. But there were a few things that happened that were off-putting. I was going to blog about it but I didn't want to put people off the organization especially as not all of what bothered me was their fault.

Then, when I got home, Controversy Erupted. Someone blogged about this one who blogged about that one and then everyone was blogging about how everyone else sucked. Naturally, I did what I normally do when it all turns into a big drama-fest. I shut the hell up and ignored it all. I didn't even mention in my blog that I'd been there.

I also decided not to round up my donation to the $225-$250 I had hoped to collect, but only round up to $25, and I did not end up becoming very active in this organization as I had originally planned. For one thing, I realized that this group would quickly drive me mad with their disorganization and poor editing skills, even if they had made any attempt to include me or use my talents which they had not.

There was also a certain lack of clarity in how grant recipients are chosen, who exactly is on the Board vs. the Advisory Council and and a few other things that didn't quite raise red flags with me at the time, but gave me an unsettled feeling.

So I sent them my check and walked away. I didn't go to the next year's event, but went to my kid's school's annual camping trip instead. And organized the food for it and joined the Board of my tri club and signed up to be co-chair of the Concessions committee for my kid's Theater Group. The WLSFA's loss was every other organization I belonged to's gain, I guess.

Fast forward to this year.... My kid is in a new school so there was no camping trip to conflict with the event. I hadn't gone to any other obesity/WLS-related event in the two years that passed due to scheduling conflicts and/or finances. I was missing people and wanting to get together with my online friends and Mr. Mac lurves Vegas almost as much I hate it and it was near our anniversary and ... at some point I signed up.

I bought a ticket to the event, we got plane tickets so we wouldn't have to drive ten hours both ways (splurge!), I reserved a room in the hotel, and that was that. However, I did not pay the extra $100 to attend the Carnie Wilson lunch, I did not buy any raffle tickets, and when the BBGC decided to sell those rubber bracelets as a fundraiser, I .... did not buy any.

I claimed it's because I don't do rubber bracelets. And I don't. But I did donate to the BBGC rubber bracelet fundraiser for the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) -- I just made Melting Mama swear she wouldn't actually send me any bracelets! So the truth was that I just felt uncomfortable giving the WLSFA more than the bare minimum of my money.

I went to the event with the idea that I was going to socialize and have fun and nothing more. I wouldn't make myself hear all the speakers (given how some of them had upset me last time). And I would concentrate on friends and not the disorganization and the squirreliness and, as you can tell from my blog posts about the event, I basically had a good time, in spite of the stupidities with the food and a few other things. I didn't regret going either and was even considering going next year because there is going to be a cruise and I love a good cruise.

But now that we're home, again, Controversy has Erupted. Again.

It seems the WLSFA has thrown Melting Mama (and others from the Bariatric Bad Girls Club?) out of the WLSFA, or at least off their Facebook page, and she has returned the $1000 check that the BBGC presented as part of the event. (I believe I was thrown of the Facebook page as well but I may have just unjoined one day when my News Feed was particularly bloated. I tend to do that.)

Why did the WLSFA do this? Well apparently because Beth violated some "Participants Code" with her behavior at the event. Except I was there and I call bullshit. Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit!

Beth attended various events at the convention and hung out with her friends. I talked to her at various times throughout the event. I went to dinner with her Friday night. She wasn't drunk. She wasn't loud. She didn't even ask a single question in the Dr. Yoni talk. She was pretty low key the entire time. She did not cause a single stir at any time during the event. Not once. She didn't even dance at the party on Saturday night. (I did.) Or show cleavage. (I did!) Or anything really. She was just there.

Now I did not follow her around the entire time. It's quite possible that she did something outside of the event that upset someone. But outside the event is outside the event. Doesn't count. End of story.

Also, since I wasn't following her around 24/7, it's possible that she had a conversation here and there where some individual didn't like how she interacted with them. To which I say to that individual or individual(s):

Grow the fuck up. Seriously. Grow. the. fuck. up.

Do not go running to "mommy" to say "ooh, that Beth Badore is a meany. I asked her something she didn't want to answer and she didn't." Or "I told her that Gays were going to Hell and she said Gays are Great and there is no Hell." Or whatever the heck it was that set you off.

Because whatever it was, if there wasn't a big dust-up about it, then it wasn't important enough to ban someone and return the donation that their organization made.

And speaking of that donation... if you don't like a person, you have to separate that from their organization. The Bariatric Bad Girls Club, as a group, did nothing wrong either. Some of them came to the event and represented their (our) club with t-shirts and stuff. They were well-behaved. They attended events. They had fun. They raised money for the cause and they presented you with a check. That's it.

Even if Beth had done something to deserve banning (which she didn't), that has nothing to do with the donation. Nothing. The donation was from the club, not personally from Beth.

In fact, organizations are supposed to have criteria for who they will and won't accept donations from. It appears that the WLSFA even has some some sort of criteria at least when it comes to corporate donations. BBGC is a corporation (or close enough), so it should fall under those guidelines, I believe.

But, of course, when you go to the website to read those guidelines, this is what you see:

Typical.

Turning down donations randomly without being able to point to a particular criteria is bad form and exactly the sort of squirrelly behavior that put me off two years ago and caused me not to throw my weight behind this organization.

Finally, I feel compelled to say that I am neither naive nor am I all fan girly about the BBGC. I belong to the Facebook group. As a long-term post-op, I find the group helpful and, because I get something out of it, I do try to give back. But I've gone through long periods where I don't visit much and I resigned as an Admin ages ago because I didn't like some of the way things were run. I did wear Skull earrings on Friday in support, but I never wore my BBGC t-shirt. I don't agree 100% with everything that goes on there, just as I don't agree 100% with any group.

I have also been on the Boards of many, many groups, all non-profits. I have owned my own business. I understand how these things work. I have dealt with hard problems such as suspected embezzlement, Boards not following the law, and disruptive members. I have dealt with the issue of how to deal with members who volunteer a lot yet are troublesome. So I've been there.

Therefore, my opinion that the WLSFA has handled this entire situation very badly is not based on "How dare you be mean to my friend Beth, who is perfect in every way?!" but on actual experiences with these sorts of situations. Lots of experience.

I realize by writing this post, I have opened myself up to criticism and to attack. I expect to now get a ton of comments and private messages telling me that I am wrong and also that I don't know what "really" went on and if I did, I'd change my tune.

But I don't see how knowing some details of what set off the WLSFA or what the specific complaint against Beth was will make me change my mind that the WLSFA is not well run or that you don't return a donation from an organization unless you have a problem with the organization as an organization.

I also don't think it will make me change my mind because my complaints with this situation go so much deeper than who said what to whom and who had the most visible t-shirts (BBGC, hands down.)

As an example, I would draw your attention to the 2012 990 form filed by the WLSFA with the IRS, in particular this section:

What is occupancy? According to the IRS, this is what that line is about:

Line 16. Occupancy. Enter amounts for the use of office space or other facilities, including rent; heat, light, power, and other utilities expenses; property insurance; real estate taxes; mortgage interest; and similar occupancy-related expenses. Do not include on line 16 expenses reported as office expenses (such as telephone expenses) on line 13.

In other words, it's the rent that WLSFA pays for their offices. Except WLSFA has no offices. That's stated right up front on the 990 form where it says:

Yep, the address of the organization is the address of the CEO. So when you donate to WLSFA you think your money is going to pay for WLS for people who deserve it. But, in fact, some of it is going to pay the CEO's rent. Rent she'd have to pay anyway even if the WLSFA did not exist.

Maybe that's okay with you. Maybe you think "Oh, Antonia does so much for the WLSFA that she deserves some of her rent paid for." And that's okay. Some people think like that. BUT... It is not okay with me. I completely disagree with this.

It's legal, of course. But it's not cool. Not cool at all.

Speaking of expenses, as you can see here

on their 2010 taxes, WLSFA list revenues just under 60k and expenses of almost 40k. However, on their 2011 taxes they have revenues of over 125k -- so about 2x a much -- but their expenses have grown to almost 100k!

So instead of having twice as much money for grants, they had only about 6k more. I'm sorry, but that's crazy. There is no reason for expenses to climb like that.

Remember these expenses do not include the costs of the surgeries. It's only the day-to-day costs of running the organization and putting on the annual convention. Which will grow a bit as the convention expands but not by more than 2x as much.

I have run a business, as I mentioned, and I have been a Director at a small business and had a six figure budget to run -- bigger than WLSFA's budget -- and this is backwards. Instead of your expenses growing exponentially as your revenues grow, there are supposed to be economies of scale.

Therefore, the more I poke at the publicly available financial statements for this group, the gladder I become that (a) I haven't given them much money and (b) they gave the BBGC their check back!

Now that money can be donated to the OAC instead and it might actually go somewhere useful. Like changing the law so that insurance companies can't exclude weight loss surgery any more so that everyone who needs it can get WLS and not just a handful of people that they wave their magic wand and bless.

I wrote this last night and decided to sleep on before I published it. I wanted to make sure I could stand by it and that it served a purpose besides fanning the flames of a bunch of High School Drama.

As I read it over this AM, I have a thought. Why did I know to go look at the WLSFA's financial statement? Because at the event Melting Mama told me she was concerned about their finances.

Then we get home from the event and she gets told she's been banned from WLSFA's functions for violating their participants' Code of Conduct. (Which is also not on their web site, by the way.)

The penny dropped for me. THAT is what she did that "caused harm to members". She let the cat out of the bag that things behind the scene are not all on the up-and-up with that organization.

And now I have too.

Flying with and without planes - My 2013 WLSFA Meet 'n Greet Experience - Day Three

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:49:00 +0000

Arriving at Bootleg Canyong

On the third day, I rose again... too early. This time I had no shopping to do or anything really so I wandered around trying to hook up. With friends, people. With friends. Get your minds out of the gutter!

I finally ran into some of them at Starbucks. We chatted and gathered and all went back over to the convention together. Where there was plenty of food. I got very excited until I realized there was plenty of food because they hadn't opened the food lines yet. When they did open them, I jumped right in though having learned my lesson from Friday. There were signs everywhere "Take 1 piece of quiche". Hmm.

The breakfast was actually kind of boring. We ate quiche, drank tea, and had a raffle. I had to leave early to go zip lining. Zip lining!

Hiking to the first line

I had arranged for someone to babysit my raffle tickets. Our arrangement was that, if I won something, she'd mail it to me unless it was a Click Bike. Then she got to keep it as I have two bike already and don't need another one. I thought it was a good arrangement. We didn't win a Click Bike though. Or anything else as far as I could tell. Oh well.

The quiche was good, by the way, and I did actually get a piece. Apparently they ran out last year.

I rushed off to go zip lining. The arrangement was to meet at the Excalibur for some reason. A big group of us was supposed to be going. Mr. Mac and I took a taxi there but when we got there, there was no big group. I was stressing big time over the whole thing, convinced I was missing our group who must all be just around the corner leaving without me, and also not being sure we'd get back in time to catch our plane.

In the end, Mr. Mac stayed in town and I was driven out to Boulder City by myself. Our "big" group of zip liners turned into me and two gals I didn't know who drove themselves out. Plus it turned out I didn't have to be picked up at Excalibur after all. I could have been picked up at Ballys where we were staying. Well, geez!

Wheeeeeee! Wooooooo!

I was nervous about the zip lining. More than I expected since it consists of two my favorite things -- being up high looking down and flying through the air very fast. I think I was probably nervous because I am not always a trustful person. Or maybe I do trust -- I trust other people to be incompetent. I also know that even with the most competent people, sometimes stuff just happens.

But the guys who took us up the mountains were cool and set us at ease. And I had a good time getting to know my new friends from the WLSFA convention too. One had lap band and one was sleever like me and they both were runners and we talked about our races and stuff and enjoyed the scenery.

The first line was actually kind of tame and I was slightly disappointed. But the second line was totally awesome. It has a part where you were zipping and then the bottom dropped out of the canyon so suddenly you were much higher than when you started.

Zip lining is awesome!

There were four lines in total and each one was slightly different. We got to 'streamline' too.

I paid for the photographer to take a lot of pictures since I only had my iPhone with me and you can't really take pictures while you zip anyway.

At the end, I barely did make it back to the airport in time. If Mr. Mac had come with me and we'd had to go back to Ballys to fetch our luggage, there was no way we'd have made it so I guess it was good he'd stayed in town. But I think he would have enjoyed himself out there even though he wasn't allowed to zip line (they had a weight limit). I'm pretty sure he was bored out of his skull at the airport.

All done

I barely had enough time to buy some goodies for my work team and get myself some dinner/lunch before we got on the plane and flew home. We arrived without incident, picked up the car at the offsite parking and headed home, my second (and possibly last) WLSFA Meet 'n Greet under my belt.

All in all, in spite of the fact that I don't think the people putting on this conference are remotely organized and they run the whole thing kind of like a big club to which I never feel particularly invited, I actually had a really good time. I met some new people, caught up with some old friends, got to hear two really good talks, got to dress up in my gorgeous thrift shop dress, had a fabulous early anniversary dinner with my wonder husband and got to go zip lining.

Oh and I received a job offer and managed not to punch out any timeshare sellers.

What more could I ask for from a trip to Vegas, my least favorite place in the entire country?

Prom Day - My 2013 WLSFA Meet 'n Greet Experience - Day Two

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Wed, 22 May 2013 07:49:00 +0000

They gave us a good table because it was our anniversary.

After going to bed way too late, I had this plan to sleep in. I wasn't intending to do anything before Dr. Yoni Freedhoff's talk at 10:00 am anyway. But wouldn't you know it, I woke up at the crack of dawn and could not go back to sleep. I finally gave up about 7:30 am and got up.

I was dressed and at the convention by 8:30 am. I met some new people, visited the vendors and picked up some more swag. Then, at 9:00 am, I decided to hit the shops on more time trying to find a necklace for the evening's event. And maybe a new purse. I didn't manage it before I had to run back to see Dr. Yoni.

I deliberately got there early so I could meet him and chat with him beforehand. We had a nice chat and I met his wife too. I teased him about being a doctor with fans. Because I am a fan. He took it pretty well.

His talk was fabulous. Well worth the price of admission. I'll blog about it later as I think it deserves its own entire post.

Then I met up with another friend, this one from the Bay Area, and tried one more time to get me a necklace. This time I managed it! I spent as much as I normally spend on a fancy dress though. But that's okay because I only spent $8 on my dress. Thrift Towne! We hurried back but missed the group picture. (That happened last time too.)

Then it was time for lunch and I made my friend sit with me so I'd have someone to snark with. The "speaker" was Dr. Garth Davis, a bariatric surgeon, and his sister who has a lap band. (That he put in even though I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to operate on your relatives.) They were going to do a cooking demonstration and I knew from other sources that Dr. Garth had recently acquired Vegan Religion and was doing things like telling his WLS patients they only needed 45 g of protein a day. I figured, since I can't drink on Topamax, I needed someone I could do the :cough:bullshit:cough: thing with if he went down that path.

It was was just as well I had Snarky Sylvia because instead of a demonstration, he gave a lecture full of cherry picked data and misrepresentation of studies. At some point I abandoned the :cough: part of the :cough:bullshit:cough: routine and was just going straight to bullshit. It was that bad. It was bad I just left in the middle and went shopping again.

It was very much a dessert day.

But before that, I made my table's eyes bug out and their head explode. Not at my language or quoting of studies to contradict an actual surgeon. But because we got to the table and there were all these plates of desserts. Including these delicious looking fruit tarts. There weren't enough fruit tarts for everyone to have one and I really wanted one. Plus I wasn't sure exactly what would be served in terms of quantities and I was worried I wouldn't have room for them. So I had one before lunch was served.

Apparently we aren't supposed to admit we do things like that. I shrugged and explained my philosophy about eating one bite of everything that I'd be disappointed if I didn't get to eat it and then eating my protein. And then I enjoyed my dessert, every single bite. A few people joined me and the rest pretended we didn't exist. It was interesting to watch.

Then, they served this incredibly tiny serving of some sort of vegetarian chili. It has TVP in it. I am not a fan of fake food so I was underwhelmed though the chili was acceptable, probably because it has black beans in it. (I love black beans.) But there was so little. Except what I didn't realize is that this was the entree. I was still worried about not being able to fit everything in. So I only ate half.

Then they brought out a salad. An extremely small fennel salad. I had never had fennel before, that I remembered, so I ate it with curiosity. It was okay. But very, very small.

There will also rolls but they weren't anything special. Bread has to be pretty damn special before I waste my calories on it and this bread did not cut it. Plus I'd already had dessert.

Then I sat and waited for my entree. Which never came. That was it. Salad (more raw vegetables). Sugary desserts (more dumping for RnYers), Bread, another thing that tends to give WLSers trouble and chili, which was a good choice for us, but there wasn't enough of it.

Once again, I was pissed but this time it was for a different reason. It was because part of why I didn't enjoy this event two years ago is that it felt like a big clique, one where I was not made to feel particularly welcome. (I had tried to run a fundraiser for the event and had been not encouraged in anyway and got the impression that my money was not even welcome, just for starters.)

The whole thing with the food being not appropriate for people who had WLS was because Dr. Garth was a member of the clique and he was vegan so we had to be too. If he had gotten Paleo Religion instead, we'd have all been eating slabs of meat and vegetables with berries for dessert with no dairy or grains. The food wasn't selected with us in mind -- we who had paid to attend this event -- but due to some convoluted social hierarchy the subtleties of which escape me, but whose existence was quite clear.

After one last bit of shopping, I returned to the Pacific Ballroom for a workshop tat was supposed to be geared to long-term post-ops but ended up catering to newbies (that always happens) and finished visiting all the vendors so I could get my 10 free raffle tickets.

Told you she was a Goddess.

Then I raced off to get ready for the evening event and to go out to dinner with Mr. Mac. He had made an early reservation at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant so I could have the chocolate plate. I love the chocolate plate. I'd been dreaming about it since I signed up for this convention, in fact. Plus the food there is divine.

I still didn't have a purse but I figured I'd be wearing my outfit so it would be very clear if the purses I'd been having trouble deciding between actually went with it or not.

I did my best to put on my make-up once again. As with the day before, I had make-up issues though. Now, I'm not much of a girly girl but I do actually know how to put on make-up. What I don't know is how to buy make-up. I usually just go to Sephora and buy what they tell me. Well, this time they led me astray. Plus my blush wasn't the color I thought it was and my daughter had "borrowed" my make-up brushes at some point and I never got back my blush or power ones so I was trying to put the setting powder on with an eye make-up brush!

I survived but I wasn't happy with the result. In particular, my eye make-up was too dark and I had no concealer either so the face was spottier than I liked. Oh well, I was going to Paris.

I ordered a chicken dish that was very good. Mr. Mac had the filet mignon and it was excellent. He also had the potatoes au gratin. I had a bite even though it's not the sort of thing I normally eat. They were perfection. They were like a dream. They were so good I actually sent a message back to the chef to tell him how good they were. I've never done anything like that before either.

Also, in the middle of dinner I ended up checking my email and ... I got the job I wanted! I was so excited that pretty much nothing that happened after that was going to ruin my mood. Not that anything bad happened, but if it had...

After dinner, I went back to the convention for their Sat. party. Since I'd just eaten, I had no idea if the food was good or plentiful. I do know there was still a lot of bread, fruit and raw veggies but there also seemed to be some meat at least.

They announced some award winners. That part was weird for various reasons. I am not big on awards. They are fun to get but they are often arbitrary and popularity contests. I have always been particularly mystified as to how the WLSFA picks it's grantees and decides what they are going to award to whom that year. So I didn't pay a lot of attention.

Let's be honest, we were all waiting for Carnie. As in Carnie Wilson of Wilson Philips.

Carnie Wilson has had WLS, is somewhat famous for it, is a funny speaker, and has had very public struggles. She is the Ambassador of Hope for the WLSFA. This is actually a somewhat controversial choice to some people because they'd rather see someone like Al Roker who has been more visibly successful, with minor struggles, not major ones, and definitely not a revision patient!

Personally, I was very curious as to what she had to say. Would she whitewash her experiences? Would any of it resonate with me given how different my own experiences had been? Would she say "fuck" a lot?

"Sisters" with matching earrings and stuff.

I have to say I wasn't disappointed. In fact, it was much better than I had imagined and it made me sorry I hadn't paid the $100 to have lunch with her on Friday. I bet she was a hoot there. She was here but also very inspiring.

She also made me realize that sometimes I can be a judgmental beoych. Because I was totally judging her before due to some of the public statements she's made and also forgetting that just because someone is famous doesn't mean they don't have feelings and fears just like the rest of us.

She talked about her own journey and being fat as a kid, dating, deciding to having WLS, researching, having it, having plastic surgery after losing the weight, not being in a good place then, starting to not follow the rules and drink with her meals and then finding out her stoma had stretched and now she never felt full.

This happens to people especially those who had WLS as far out as she has. One of my friends had this happen to her. Our surgeon put a band over her bypass, just like Carnie has, and she has done really well with it and I don't judge her at all. But I was judging Carnie and assuming she'd fail because of course she couldn't possibly have done any research or be doing this for the right reasons.

And maybe she isn't. I mean anyone can say anything, right? But I think, like all of us, she's a person who is going her best.

Then the party kind of broke up. They did play dance music and some of us did do some dancing. But that part of the evening didn't really take off. Mostly people ran around getting their pictures taken with their friends and chatting. I was tired as I'd been going to bed late and getting up early for days plus I was excited about my new job and wanting to see Mr. Mac so I went back to the room to "internet" and stuff.

End of Day Two. On to Day Three.

This is why I hate Vegas - My WLSFA 2013 Meet 'n Greet Story - Day One

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:30:00 +0000

The best meal I had all day

I was in Vegas for a convention put on by the WLSFA, an organization that raises money so that people who can’t afford it can have Weight Loss Surgery (and sometimes Plastic Surgery after massive weight loss). This was the fourth of their annual Meet and Greets. I had gone to their second (What? There was nothing about it on the blog. Um, yeah, I know. More on that later.)

Mr. Mac had absolutely no interest in the convention but he wanted to go to Vegas (why?) so he was with me. We left the kids home. First time we left Mini-Mac without parental supervision for an entire weekend, too. It was less stressful than I expected.

Because he lost his job and because I had been told my contract on my job was not being extended past the end of this month, we seriously considered not going. But the plane fare and convention tickets were paid for and non-refundable. In those situations, it is generally better financially to go than to throw so much money away. Though of course the cash flow can be tight during the actual event.

I hadn’t been in Vegas for even an hour when I wanted to punch a kitten. More than once.

It started on the way into The Strip from the airport. The taxi driver took the long way around and ripped us off. One of the things I hate about Vegas is that I feel like people are constantly trying to rip me off. And here I was being ripped off as soon as I had set foot in the place.

Then, once we got to the hotel, these people from Wyndham Hotels kept coming up and “greeting” us and getting in our way in order to sell us timeshares and just generally being royal PITAs when we were trying to find the Registration Desk and the elevators to our hotel room and I came perilously close to punching one of them out. Luckily for her, I was able to get to our room before that happened.

In the meantime, I had been interviewing even before the news about my contract and when I got the news, I put my search into overdrive. I mean I put my resume up on Dice.com. At which point, my email and Google Voice mail started exploding. I even went on a job interview on my way to the airport!

By the time I left for Vegas, I had one firm job offer with an official offer letter and one other job offer kind of dangling in the wind as an almost, but not quite sure thing and definitely not official yet.

As I told my friends at the convention, I felt like Molly Ringwald in an 80s movie being asked to the Prom by two guys with exactly the sort of drama you find in such movies.

So all this was going on and Vegas was being Vegas, with the annoying timeshare people and the cheating taxi drivers and the wind whipping up so hard that night I thought the roof was going to cave in and I couldn't sleep. My first night in Vegas as stressful to say the least.

The next day, I woke up entirely too early given how little sleep I'd had the week before and couldn't go back to bed. I made plans to meet an online friend for outlet mall shopping and Mr. Mac and I went to the cafe in the hotel for breakfast. They were having a cheap breakfast buffet but it was a typical hotel breakfast buffet, not a typical Vegas buffet. Which is just as well since I really can't eat that much at any one time making Vegas buffets not cost-effective for me.

I then registered for the convention and picked up my Goodie Bag. My was it stuffed with Goodies. This convention has its issues but not giving good SWAG is not one of them.

At this point, I had given up on the outlets -- to complicated to get to without a car -- and had decided to go to one of the malls on the strip. I was having trouble meeting up with my friend so I went back to the registration room and said:

Hey, who wants to go shopping with me?!

That's when I kidnapped the Goddess Adriana. Okay, technically she was a VSGer from SoCal and not a goddess, but she looked like a young Linda Carter from Wonder Woman. Only prettier. She was about 2 months out from sleeve surgery, had never been to a WLSFA convention and really didn't know anyone. No problem, I know lots of people, so off we went!

We headed off to the Fashion Show Mall, came back to swoop up Lisa, a charming woman from Texas, who I we finally hooked up with after all, and then end up never leaving Macys. I got the shoes and earrings I needed for my Saturday night dress before we just about passed out from hunger and went to a place called Ras for a very late lunch.

Ras had Hawaiian cuisine but, unlike a lot of Hawaiian food, it was not mediocre. I had some sort of chirashi which is different kinds of sashimi with avocado and cucumber over a bed of rice. I ate most of the seafood and a lot of the avocado and some of the cucumber and I was stuffed.

Then we went to Paris to try to find berets. And pearl earrings for my outfit. And black leggings. I did get the earrings (and later the leggings) but they no longer sell berets in the shops of gay Paree. At least not the Vegas version. It was mildly disappointing at the time.

We all dispersed at this point and went up to our rooms to get dressed. The theme of the opening reception was A Night in Paris, which was fairly open ended in terms of dress. My goal was too look like a young girl about to jump on the back of a Vespa and ride off for a night on the town with her boyfriend. I think I came close in spite of the lack of beret (and not being happy with my make-up). There were quite a few people with berets too so I'm kind of glad, in the end, that I didn't have one.

However, something happened at the reception that really set me off. There was a LONG line for the appetizers. I hate waiting in line like that so I waited for the lines to level off before getting in it. But as soon as I got to the table, the waiters came out and wheeled it away! It seems the food had already run out. There was something about bringing in another one, so I was hopeful but I waited and waited and .... nothing.

Eventually I rummaged around in my purse and found a protein bar. I also cursed at myself for having taken the beef jerky out of my purse earlier that day thinking that brining beef jerky to a party was rude. They did bring out another table later but it was all raw vegetables and fruit. No cheese or anything with protein in it.

Those of use who had had nothing went up and got something and we were joking about not wanting to take more than three grapes because there were still people behind us who hadn't gotten anything. In the end, we all took just a little and when everyone had gotten something we went back and got more. But raw vegetables and fruit do not really hold you and do not a dinner make.

They are also not particularly WLS friendly. While I was okay with them, many who have WLS can't eat raw vegetables comfortably afterwards, and a significant minority of RnYers dump on fruit. So the food was inappropriate as well as sparse.

This brought up all sorts of memories of attending this conference two years ago and having a less than stellar time. In fact, I made a decision then to just not blog about it at all because I didn't want to discourage people from contributing to the charity which has done a lot of good for people who can't afford WLS. But I was unimpressed with the convention or how the organization was run and did not feel like my participation or energy was welcome by the organizers. So I just decided to shut up and leave them alone.

This year I went with the idea that I would go for the people, give them my $200 conference fee, but not much else, and not have very high expectations for the official convention. Yet, we hadn't even made it through the first event and already my low expectations were not being met.

Not to mention being hungry makes me cranky.

The evening's official entertainment was "meh" with a few exceptions including two excellent singers and a professional comedian. People started leaving in droves. I did my best to stay through the whole thing but near the end I had to pee so I missed the last number of the MC. It wasn't really my style anyway.

This hairdo looks tasty.

Then a bunch of us went out to dinner since most of us hadn't gotten anything to eat at the official event.

While we were standing around waiting to be seated, I ran into Mr. Mac! We rushed excitedly towards each other like two BFFs who hadn't seen each other in 10 years and were meeting at our High School reunion, not an old married couple who had been together just a few hours before. We were catching up on our evenings (And they didn't even feed me!) when another one of those annoying Wyndham people came over and practically shoved herself between us asking "Can I help you?"

I turned to her and I said "NO!"

She actually had the nerve to get huffy and say "It looked like you had a question." I gave her the same look I give my kids when they are trying to get away with crap and she slunk away. If two people could have looked less like two people who had a question, I don't know who they could be.

Mr. Mac joined us for dinner. He had dessert though since he had had dinner at a normal time. Then we went back to the hotel room and everyone else went off somewhere to have fun.

Naturally when we get back to the room I smell like cigarette smoke because Vegas is one big ash tray. Plus it's hard to go to bed when you've just had dinner. But I did eventually drift off and I just hoped that the next day would be less annoying.

I had a feeling it would be since I was really looking forward to one of the talks. (Part Two tomorrow.)

The best race report ever - Wildflower Olympic Relay

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Sat, 11 May 2013 07:43:00 +0000

I raced! First time in over a year. Even longer since I raced when I should have and was healthy! (vs. racing when I shouldn't have and wasn't healthy.)

Since I'm basically only swimming, I formed a relay team and I did the swim leg. This seemed reasonable to me but I should have known the whole experience was going to be bizarre when I had so much trouble forming a team to start with. I got a biker almost right away but I had a heck of a time getting a runner. I was about to give up when I said we could do the Olympic distance (6.2 mile run) instead of the Long (13.1 mile run). My biker really wanted to do the Long course (56 miles) but the difference in the swim is only .3 miles and I figured shorter was probably better for me anyway.

I had thought that no one would want to spend the money and time to just do 6.2 miles but it turned out that people who were doing the Long course wanted to do a recovery workout the next day and so I had my runner! He kept saying "I hope it's okay if I'm not fast" and I kept laughing. I had no idea how fast the biker was. But I knew I had gotten horribly slow. I am doing .9 miles in as much time as I used to do 1.2! You can't swim one time a week and not work out the rest of the week and be as fast as you ever were. I can't anyway.

Unscientifically proven to make you faster!

Anyway, I was so excited to be racing and at Wildflower, my favorite race. I organized a tent contest for my club and challenged people to beat mine for the grand prize. I had twinkle lights and grass skirts for my table and a palm tree cooler and even a portable fireplace and a rug! It was awesome.

Then for the Long course race, we were on the bike and the run course so I fried up some bacon and I was passing it out to the runners as they ran by. Watching their reaction was hysterical. Most of them laughed. A few looked a little green around the gills. A fair number grabbed my bacon like it was a little slice of heaven. I passed out almost four pounds before I ran out!

I would have run out sooner but some other tri club was giving out bacon just half a mile down from me! At first I was annoyed that they were stealing my thunder. But apparently they didn't know how to make bacon while camping because their stove kept turning off and they'd get the runners excited about bacon and then not have any. Plus theirs was chewy, not crispy. Unlike my wonderfully crispy and always available bacon. So HA to them!

Also: BACON

A few people were rude about my bacon. One said "I"m a VEGAN." I said "Then you better not eat my bacon!" like may bacon was too good for him. And two said "What's with this bacon shit?" I didn't say anything but, really. Why not just not take the bacon? It's not like I was running them down and tackling them and forcing bacon done their throats. Mostly I was just saying "Go [Club Name]. Have some bacon!" and "Unscientifically proven to make you faster!" and laughing. And ringing my cowbell. And sweating. Because it was 90 out.

The next day, I was tired and wondering how I was going to race. Plus it was cold and windy and threatening to rain. What extremes of weather! It's part of what makes Wildflower so Wildflower, I guess. I also had no biker! Internet access is horrible up there so we didn't figure out what was going on right away but my biker's house had sprung a leak and he'd been up all night dealing with it.

But it turned out okay because someone else who had done the Long Course the previous day offered to bike for us. So team Don't MES with Us became team Don't MCS with Us. Heh. And my new biker kept saying "as long as you don't expect me to be fast" and I kept laughing. We decided we should really be Team Recovery since we were all recovering from something -- me from injury and them from doing a Half-Ironman.

As we were getting ready, everyone was saying how choppy the water was so I revised my estimated finish from from a horrible 45 minutes to an atrocious 50 minutes. And ran down to the water to do my first race in over a year!

At first, I had to pee. I had planned to do it during the warm-up but the water was so warm compared to the air that I stayed out too long and had to scrambled back and didn't have time to do it. So I figured I'd do it during the swim. Except the water was so choppy and kept slapping me in the face. So I had to concentrate on finding a rhythm and didn't have any brain power left for peeing in my wet suit.

And then some bozo in a kayak ran me over! Um, Kayak Lady, you are there to keep the swimmers safe, not take them out. To be fair, she was embarrassed and asked me if I was okay. Since she hadn't drown me, I said I was okay and kept swimming.

I got to the first turn buoy and turned and there were TONS of swimmers all hanging on to the buoy or a kayak for dear life. They had caps from my wave and the wave ahead of me and the one ahead of that. I was startled but I figured "Hey, at least I won't be last out of the water!" and I kept going.

At the next buoy there were still a lot of people hanging on but not quite as many. By the next one, there weren't any and also all the faster swimmers were gone and I was by myself. I kept going but at some point I saw a buoy to the right and I thought I had to turn. It was odd because you turn at triangles not round buoys but oh well. Then I hear someone yelling and a kayaker comes tearing after me.

This one wasn't trying to run me over though. He just wanted to tell me I had turned too soon and I had to keep going. I said "That sucks!" but I was laughing.

The next thing that happened was that some gal in a pink cap came out of nowhere and passed me -- doing the breast stroke! Damn, I hate that! I really, really hate that!

Fortunately, I gathered my wits about me and decided that, if that SOB was going to swim faster than me doing the freaking breast stroke, the least I could do was draft off her. So I did. I drafted off her for the entire rest of the leg which was quite a long way. I suspect she wasn't happy about it but I didn't care. It's a race!

Okay, I cared a little. I felt a bit bad every time I tapped her toes. But not bad enough to stop.

Then we got to the next turn buoy and BOOM she was gone. I didn't see what happened but I assume she decided to return to freestyle stroke. I sighed.

Then I was half way across the short leg and I saw a yellow cap hanging on a buoy. Yellow! That was way before my wave (turns out 25 minutes before). Wow. But of course yellow cap decides right then and there to let go of the kayak and pass me. I found this almost as annoying as Breast Stroke lady. Sigh again.

I turned at the next buoy and now I had the long leg back and that's when things became more like a normal triathlon. For one thing, I started passing people!

I forgot how bad a lot of triathlon swimmers are. I am not a fast swimmer. But I am steady. I can go forever and I'm not afraid. This makes me a middle of the pack swimmer in triathlon. I'm even slower than normal now, but I still have all the other pluses and they were now aiding me.

The water was still choppy but, because I wasn't afraid, I'd found my rhythm. Those other swimmers must have worn themselves out fighting the water and now I was passing them. Whee!

Oh and the best part? I passed BREAST STROKE GIRL! Bwahahahaha.

I got to the end of that leg and made the one left turn back to the boat launch. I saw a Navy cap ahead of me. Hey, I thought. I don't have to bike and run but Navy cap does. I will go nuts and pass Navy Cap, I declared! I went nuts, increasing my cadence and kicking like crazy and ... I didn't pass Navy Cap, but I closed the gap. Plus, Navy Cap started 5 minutes ahead of me so I technically beat her. Or something.

I got out of the water, still having to pee, and RAN up that boat launch. I was supposed to be met at the top by my runner so I didn't worry about running out of steam. But he wasn't there. And the ramp was LOOONNNGG. I just completely pooped out. Because I am so out of shape.

So I kind of crawled back to our transition spot at that point. Gave the chip to Biker Chick. And collapsed.

Eventually I also peed. And drank some Fluid Chocolate Wave Recovery Drink.

Then we all hung around and talked to the other teams and met some new people and heard their tri stories and shivered a bit and had a grand time.

Eventually Biker Chick came back, slightly after she thought but it was windy and it was misting off and on so I wasn't surprised. She was still very fast by my standards. Runner Guy took off, we calculated when he'd be over the finish line, and went off to cheer for our friends until then.

Biker Chick told me all about all the people she ran down on the bike from our club and passed and how much fun that was. She passed people who had a 20 minute head start on us (because of my crappy swim)!

There was one gal she couldn't quite run down though. That's okay... Runner Guy passed her! He was also happy. He said his run was redemption for his crappy run the day before.

So I was happy, Biker Chick was happy and Runner Guy was happy. It all worked out. Oh and we came in second. Out of two. Well, 3 teams signed up in our category but one never showed up. We beat a bunch of other relay teams though. And our biker beat their biker and our runner beat their runner. So much for "don't expect me to be fast!"

My actual finish time was 51:11. A horrendous time under ordinary circumstances and almost, but not quite twice as slow as the other Mix Masters team. But I was definitely not last.

Swim: 51:11 2/2 Mixed Masters, 60 / 93 Relay Teams, 1983 / 2150 Overall

Fake cool vs. real cool - The Story of Mike Jeffries

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:08:00 +0000

My face scares small children. Buy my clothes.

A firestorm of controversy erupted today when an article appeared in the Business Insider claiming that Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, didn't want fat people wearing his clothes. Now, the article didn't actually quote Jeffries on this. But his attitude towards who he wants in his clothes is hardly a secret. In a 2006 interview on Salon.com, Jeffries was quoted as saying:

In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

Not to mention, the store does not carry any clothing in a size larger than a 10 except for a few XL and XXL in Mens, presumably for beefy body-builder type guys. So, whether they said so in an official document or used offensive language to do or not, selling clothes only to smaller people is clearly their business model.

If you are bracing yourself for a big tirade about fatty-hate, you can relax. I'm not planning to do that. For one thing, no clothing store can be all things to all people. It's cost prohibitive. Chico's doesn't carry my size and neither does Lane Bryant. That's life. They all pick who they want to sell clothes to.

But the real reason I'm not going to rant is that I think Mike Jeffries is kind of sad and pathetic.

He thinks he's one of the cool kids, but he's not. Because cool kids, really cool kids, the ones with a "great attitude" and a "lot of friends," don't give a crap about all the stuff he thinks is so important. They certainly aren't obsessed with wearing a certain kind of clothing. They also aren't so worried about what other people think that the idea that someone who isn't "attractive" and "all-American" might wear what they wear keeps them up at night, as it appears to do for poor Mikey.

Cool kids, in fact, do not shop at Abercrombie and Fitch. In my not so humble opinion. They shop at Thrift Shops. Or maybe they go to H&M where the company recently used a "plus-size" model for a swimsuit ad, not to make some big statement or with lots of fan-fare and a big press release, but just because.

Jeffries reminds me of those kids from the "other" fraternity in Animal House. They had to torture the nerds because deep down they were insecure. They looked on the outside like they had it all. But at home their dads belittled them or even beat them. Or, even if they had perfectly nice home lives and weren't living with some secret, they deep down thought they didn't deserve the life they had and that, somehow, if they weren't careful, people would find out. So they had to date the 'right' girls and god-forbid they were seen being nice to a dweeb or a nerd just in case someone thought that maybe they were a dweeb or a nerd.

I imagine Mike Jeffries as being like that. In Jeffries case, he has these "standards" for "beauty" that you have to meet to work in his store. Standards he doesn't actually meet. That must really kill him every time he looks in a mirror. Maybe the fact that this store is doing well makes up for it now, but here's the problem with catering to the fake cool crowd:

They are fickle and mean. The "new" A+F will be in for about 2 seconds and then it will no longer be "cool" to shop there. The fake cool kid will find some new trendy store to ooh and ah over.

That's because the real "cool" kids are all listening to Mackelmore and they think paying $120 for a pair of cheap, not very well made jeans is being "swindled and pimped" and they won't do it. They'll by a cheap pair at JC Penneys, rip them themselves and then paint them to be Galaxy Jeans. Like my kid and her friends do.

So when Mommy Blogger, Jen, of PeopleIWantToPunchInTheThroat asks "Are you cool enough to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch?", the proper response is:

Hell, no! We're WAY COOLER than that!

Brain doc gives me some perspective

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 02 May 2013 03:59:00 +0000

Yesterday I saw Brain Doc for an official follow up. We had an unofficial one via email when I was raised from 25 mg to 50 mg of Topamax.

For this one, I was of mixed feelings about going up to a higher dose. When I first went up to 50 mg, I had some scary side-effects and was adamant I wouldn't go up any more. But then they wore off. Unfortunately so did the medicine. Well, not "wore off" but it didn't seem to be as effective the past couple of weeks.

So we talked about it.

I went in frustrated and came out hopeful. Brain Doc pointed out that six month ago I wasn't doing much of anything and now I'm swimming and even doing a race this weekend. Of course, I was fixated on what I couldn't do and how I wanted to be walking every day at work that I wasn't swimming but that I couldn't do that and swim twice a week. He was more impressed that last week I swam two times.

He did say I need to lay off the Tylenol and Advil. Taking it a few times a week is okay but not six (or more) times. Most weeks I don't take it that often but I do have bad weeks where I kind of depend on it.

We talked about whether to up my medication dose. He said he was looking to me for guidence on that. I said I was looking to him. We would have been at a stalemate but he did say the symptoms I'm having -- the tingling hands and feet, the scatter-brainness, the loss of appetite -- are the most common and the most mild and he fully expects them to go away when we taper me off.

In the end, we decided to up my dose to 75 mg, not a complete doubling. They don't make that dose in a single pill so I'm taking 1 50 mg and 1 25 mg pill each night. I started last night and already I feel better. Of course, it could be a coincidence as my levels tend to roll a bit -- like biking rolling hills. But I'll take it.

I'll try this level for a while and see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to continue with this level of activity but have less pain and then I can consider adding more activity in.

Did the Boston Bombing make you think about starting to run?

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:38:00 +0000

A friend of mine postulated that the recent events in Boston would spike an interest in running. I'm not so sure that's true. I do think it might motivate some people who are already running to run more or maybe renew their resolve to qualify for Boston.

There was an article saying that there was a big spike in interest in qualifying for Boston. They showed a graph based on Google searching. However, I searched for "Boston Qualifying Times" right after the bombing and my main motivation was to check a fact for my blog post. So I'm not 100% sure those Google searches necessarily translate into direct interest on the part of runners. It would be nice if it did though.

On related note, the "running industry" has launched a new coalition, dedicated to "encourage donations and running resilience following Boston tragedy" It's called Run Now and you can read more about it here:

http://running.competitor.com/2013/04/news/running-industry-launches-run-now-coalition_70954

To which I say: there's a running industry? I guess that makes sense. There's a dairy industry and a beef industry so why not one for running. I guess I thought of running as something you just do.

For those who want to get into running who haven't been before, I can't recommend the Couch-to-5K program enough. This is the program that got me to run when I thought I wasn't capable of it.

If you want to help kids get into running, there is a lot of organizations for that including Girls on the Run. They have an event right here in the Bay Area in May.

Other programs include Kids Run the Nation and Kids Running.

And, if you already run, be sure to Run for Boston.

My Quest for the Perfect Protein Bar

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:27:00 +0000

I'll give you the short version of this review:

Quest Protein Bars = Monkey's Ass

Oh, you want more details?

I have been trying to find a good protein bar since, well, forever. A lot of people dis on the humble protein bar including me. For one thing, most of them have more carbs than protein! But they work for me in a lot of ways.

-They are around 150-200 calories which is a perfect amount for a snack and okay for a meal replacement
-They have around 12-15 grams of protein per bar which is as good as anything I've found to snack on
-They fill me up in a way that a lot of my other snack choices do not
-They are convenient and portable

But for those 12-15 grams of protein, you often are getting 15 or more grams of carbs and at least half of them are usually sugar. If the bars aren't full of carbs and sugar, they are full of sugar alcohols! (Sugar alcohols make me gassy.)

This is why I keep trying the Quest protein bars. First of all, they have 20 grams or protein, not 12-15 grams. Secondly, while it has a similar carb to protein ratio as the other bars, only 2-4 of them are sugar. Most of the rest are fiber.

This makes the Net Carb people ecstatic of course. Only 2-4 net carbs! Except the whole "net carbs" concept is somewhat questionable. Also, there are people who doubt the stats on the bars and don't believe they really have so few grams of digestible carbs.

Though one of the reasons they give for doubting the stats is that a bar made up of 17-19 grams of fiber wouldn't be edible.

Um.

Seriously, when you first unwrap them, some flavors are like unwrapping a brick. People say they are better if you microwave them for a few second. I have tried this (10 seems about right) and they do soften up. Now instead of eating bricks, you are eating a soggy, gritty former brick.

I've also been told that some of the flavors are better than others. I've tried about five different flavors now. I didn't realize monkey's ass came in so many variations! But, hey, I still have five more flavors to go. Maybe I'll run into one that's actually delicious at some point. Or at least edible.

In the meantime, I'll stick to the sugar-y Luna Protein bars or the fart-inducing Oh Yeah! Good Grab bars. Both taste good and have okay, if not optimal, nutritional stats. At some point, taste does matter and the trade-off with those bars is worth it to me.

Great Scott - That was fun!

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:06:00 +0000

A while back I heard about this one day triathlon clinic being put on in the area by Dave Scott. Yes, that Dave Scott! Not only is he a great triathlete, but he coached my all-time favorite, Chrissie Wellington, and also, unlike a lot of great triathletes (that's right, Mark Allen, I'm looking at you), I actually agree with a lot of his training methods.

Dave Scott and his new triathlon minions

Of course, I wanted to sign up right away but, with my head issues and not actually working out at the time, it seemed kind of silly to spend all that money and not be able to do most of the workouts. But I kept my eye on the announcements and a few weeks before the seminar, they announced a 'seminar-only' option. I was in! Of course, when it came down to it, I talked myself into signing up for the whole thing. After all, I was swimming again so I figured I'd just feel my way through the non-swimming, non-seminar parts.

The first session was "running" and strength training. We didn't actual doing any running -- which is good because I can't do that without major head issues -- but we did talk about form quite a bit including learning about something called the transverse abdominis (TA) muscle. I swear I had never heard of it before (even if I probably have), but knowing about it is going to change my (triathlon) life.

Then we did a bunch of exercises that worked on various muscles involved in biking and running especially the TA and the glutes.

I was doing pretty well at first but then my head started to tickle. I should have stopped then, but I was having fun so I ended up waiting until it itched. They were working on some swimming form stuff then and it was fascinating and I'm sorry I missed it, but my head kept getting worse and I was starting to get concerned that I had screwed the pooch and was going to have to go home.

However, the next two sessions were seminars and lunch. The session on putting together a training program was interesting. Nothing about putting together a plan was particularly earth-shattering but there was a lot of information about doing what I call "speed work" (that's not really what it's called) that was immensely helpful including how to know your lactate threshold, how to structure these kinds of sessions and progress them and a lot of other information that I'm going to use next season when I concentrate on improving my speed.

The nutrition session was combined with lunch and I will not go into a lot of details since I plan to make a series of blog posts about most of it over the upcoming few days. I will say it's probably one of the few sessions on nutrition aimed at endurance athletes that didn't induce major eye-rolling from me. Mostly because it wasn't all carbs, carbs, carbs. In fact, his formula for figuring out how much protein you need gave me exactly the right range based on my own research. (That has to be a first - for some reason traditional nutritionists are afraid of protein.) I learned a lot.

Me and my new best friend ;)

After lunch we had a session on the bike. Oh my, did I give the absent-minded professor a run for his money on this one. First of all, when we got there, I couldn't clip in. And my bike seemed all wobbly. I finally figured out that my bike shoes were for my Look clips which are on my trainer bike, but I had brought my Gios which has SPD pedals. D'oh!

Luckily, I have an extra set of everything in my car including an extra set of bike shoes with SPD clips.

Once I solved that problem, I was able to figure out that the legs of my trainer weren't snapped totally into place and that's why everything was wobbly. Can you tell I never use my trainer?

After 30 minutes of biking, not going to a harder gear when told to, but doing everything involving form, my head had definitely had enough so I got off my bike (in order not to be tempted to do more) and sat in the shade leaning on a fence. Where I kind of fell asleep! At this point, I had worked out more in a day than I had in the two weeks prior and it was starting to show.

But I was okay for the swim session. Between my mini-nap and generous doses of Advil and Tylenol throughout the day, I was able to do the entire swim session. Whee!

I have been swimming most weeks since late Feb. but it's all been in open water. With a wet suit. This was my first coached swim. I kept SINKING! That shattered my illusions that my swim form hadn't deteriorated during my long time off. I also found out that I cross my arms when I stroke. I was crushed, because at some point I had figured out I was doing that and I thought I had fixed it. Not only had I not, but the problem is much worse than I thought. Ugh.

I also found out that instead of trying to lift my butt when I feel my legs sinking, that if I engage my TA, my butt lifts itself! Only in a much better way that doesn't put stress on my back. In fact all day, whenever I had form issues, I would "engage my TA" and it would help. I do feel like that one tidbit was worth the entire price of admission.

After the swim, we had a big gap before dinner so I ended up taking a shower in the lovely Decathlon Club locker room and then went home to drop off my bike and other equipment. (I had forgotten the key to my bike lock and didn't want to leave it unlocked for hours in the parking lot.) I had enough time to take another nap and I sure needed it.

As a result, I was late getting back to the dinner. So late that the only seat left was next to Dave. What a hardship to sit next to the guest of honor. (heh heh)

Michelle working on dinner for us

Dinner was delicious -- I had the salmon and some chicken -- and then we got our pictures taken with Dave and he showed a video and gave a talk. The talk was inspiring and fun and the video was fun. It reminded me of watching Ironman on tv back in the 80s and thinking "I will NEVER do that." I bet the year I watched was one of the ones that Dave won.

The final event was autographs but I don't really "get" autographs. I will never forget this day and my house already has way too much crap in it so it doesn't need another piece of paper with someone's signature on it. I did think about having him sign my GoTRIbal tri top that Chrissie signed, but I decided not to mix my memories. Anyway, it was getting pretty cold, so I booked.

Today I slept in and mostly sat on the couch because I'm beat. I'm also excited. For one thing, I think I can start doing some strength training. I need to both for my core, which is in horrible shape, and my bones, which are not as strong as I'd like. I think I can do really short sessions without aggravating my head, maybe 15 minutes here and there.

I think I might be able to do some trainer sessions with the bike too. Though I hate my trainer. Which is probably why I left it at the club and didn't even realize it until now -- more than 24 hours later. Sigh. (Stupid Topamax and it's short-term memory impact.)

You are more/less beautiful than you think

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:41:00 +0000

There are two videos making the rounds of the web today and I am having an atypical reaction to both of them.

The first is the Dove campaign video and it shows an "experiment" where some women describe themselves to forensic article and then another woman who doesn't know them but has spent some time with them does the same. The two pictures are hung up side-by-side and the women are brought to view them. They choke up because the one drawn from the stranger's description is supposedly prettier than theirs.

The video ends with "You are more beautiful than you think."

This video is on my feed everywhere being posted by men and women with "you have to see this" and "this made me cry" so I watched it and... it didn't make me cry.

First of all, I absolutely believe that society trains women to hate their bodies and never be satisfied no matter how good they look. I see this all the time every where I go. It's in this cartoon. It's in my Facebook feed. It's in the media when celebrities like Jessica Biel get Photoshopped. (Yes, apparently Jessica Biel, as she actually is, isn't pretty enough for Glamour UK magazine. Un-freaking-believable.)

It's the entire premise behind "Fat Talk Free" Week/Month. It's definitely a premise behind the Dove video and I think the idea that we need to break free from that way of thinking is what has moved so many women.

What has me ambivalent is the underlying hidden messages Dove has sprinkled throughout the video. For example, when one woman describes herself, she says she has a fat, round face. The video is clearly edited so that we are to think this woman is describing herself negatively and I'm pretty sure the woman thinks that too.

But that's only true if you think fat round faces aren't as pretty as thin rectangular faces. I don't think that. I think they both can be pretty and both can be ugly. It kind of depends on the person.

Another women says she has a lot of freckles and again we're supposed to think that she's being hard on herself. But freckles are cute!

And in some of the final images, the women do look sort of deranged in their self-described version, but my first thought was "what a crappy forensic artist" and not "that woman hates herself." (Ha, I bet that wasn't the reaction Dove was going for!)

Plus, to be honest, in a lot of the side-by-sides, I really didn't see a big difference and I have to wonder if most of the difference was because the artist was instructed to make the second pictures smiling and the first serious, just like dieting programs make the before pictures in black & white with the person not smiling on purpose.

I guess I'm cynical that way.

In the meantime, remember what your mom (or Grandma or some other wise woman in your life) once said to you when you fretted over your looks? If you are pretty on the inside, it shows on the outside. Yeah, I know it's a big cliche. But it's also TRUE.

I guess I think that's a better message than "your face isn't as round as you think" or "you don't have as many freckles as you think" and I wish Dove, which has had some great ad campaigns in the past, had focused this one more in that direction.

Now, what about the other video? It's a parody of the Dove one using men and, I admit it, it made me laugh. But I did actually tear up a bit too.

Really, MacMadame? A parody video made you cry. Yeah, it did. I guess I'm kind of a sappy cynic.

In this video, the guys describe themselves as if they are movie stars when they are ordinary guys. (Their self-described portraits are of Brad Pitt and George Clooney and the like). Then the women describe the same guys as if they are extremely ugly and weird looking (which was funny but kind of mean) and one even mentioned that her assigned guy looks like he SMELLS. (Okay, I laughed at that. Because he did look like he smelled.)

The guys come back to see their side-by-sides and they look very upset that the stranger-described portrait makes them look like an evil dweeb from Lord of the Rings. That's when I started to get uncomfortable.

Now, these guys are clearly actors so I knew they weren't really upset. But they are good actors and the look on their faces kind of got to me a bit.

I think it shows that people are people and just want to be liked and thought well of by others. So, yeah, I laughed at their self-delusion, but I also felt sorry for them and that made it harder to find the video as funny as everyone else did.

Or maybe it's just that it's a weird week and it's made me overly sensitive.

So, yes, you are more beautiful than you think, but not just because you are hard on yourself but also because there's beauty in everyone even if it's not traditional beauty. Unless you think you look like Brad Pitt. Then you're a dumbass.

Okay, unless you are Brad Pitt. Then you aren't a dumbass; just kind of scruffy. But beautiful, of course. Because if fat, round-face freckled ladies are beautiful, then I guess Brad Pitt is too.

This is what a "normal" BMI looks like

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 06:17:00 +0000

112 - Sept 2009

Before I had my surgery, I used to get an argument with a certain someone on the web with a screen name of Jachut. She would constantly declare that a BMI of 24.9 was healthy and any BMI above that was not. Period.

I liked Jachut a lot and I loved her no-nonsense attitude about exercise and eating and how she didn't sugar-coat things or fool herself. But, on this one, she was full of shit. Period.

That's because BMI has absolutely nothing to

125 - Nov 2010 (IMAZ)

do with individual health. It's simply a formula that takes your height and weight and makes a ratio out of it. It was invented in order to put people into groupings (called populations) for the purposes of studying them.

114 - July 2009

The idea is that you can't put people into meaningful groupings based on raw weight because a 225 pound 5' tall person is in a very different weight category than a 6' tall person who weighs the same.

BMI was created to make a guestimate of how overweight or underweight a person is, but it doesn't take into account body composition or frame size so the categories are very rough estimates. And, again, they have nothing to do with an individual's own health. Statistics are not predicative to an individual anyway.

123 - April 2013

I don't actually think that means BMI is "meaningless" as some people will tell you. It does a good job, within it's limitations, of putting people into those gross categories so you can study them. Since that's what it was created for, that's a good thing.

But you need to be careful if you try to put too fine a point on it and make distinctions that aren't there -- like the difference between 24.7 and 24.9 or 24.9 and 25.1. Because there is no study that proves that people with a BMI of 24.4 are, on average, healthier than people with a BMI of 24.7.

113 - May 2010

In fact, at some point after looking at a bunch of studies, the experts in charge of such things got together and decided to change the ranges. So some people went to bed in the normal category and woke up in the overweight category, so to speak. Did they become unhealthy overnight? Of course not. Their individual health remained whatever it was before the categories were redefined.

To illustrate the wide range of weights that are covered by the "normal" BMI category, here are some pictures of me at various weights, all of which fall into the BMI range of 21 to 24.9.

As you can see, in some of them I have some pretty thin body parts (even if the whole is fine) and in some of them I am actually pudgy. Even sometimes at the same weight!

But they are all technically normal, if all you look at is BMI.

117 - Feb 2010

115 - June 2009

So what are we seeing here?

The ones I find the most interesting are the ones in the 120+ range. At Ironman Arizona, I'm 124-125 depending on the day and I'm almost as thin as I was at 112-113!

I'm not quite as thin because I have muscle covering some body parts that are a bit over-thin otherwise. You can't really see it because I have clothes covering my chest in the 120+ pictures. If I didn't, you'd see that my chest doesn't have that chicken-wing look at the higher weight that it does in the banner at the top of this blog. (However, right now I'm starting to get that look again because I can't lift weights. Grrrr.)

125 - Sept 2012

Otherwise, I pretty much look the same as I do in the Nov 2010 picture where I'm 125 and the picture taken last weekend where I was 123. I think maybe I have less "junk" around the middle at the lower weights. But it's hard to say because I have a lot of loose skin in that area and that obscures things.

129 - Jan 2012

But then we look at the pictures of me at 117 and I do think I look heavier than at 112-114. Also, some of my 125 pictures are pretty pudgy and we won't even talk about my 129 and 130 pix!

Okay, yes we will. I can't resist telling this story:

I met some people right before the 129 picture was taken who I hadn't seen since the summer of 2010 when I was 115-116 and looking similar to my May 2010 picture. Guess what they said? Oh, you look so much better now!

130 - Feb 2013

Um, really? Sorry, but I don't think so. I've got these arranged by size, not weight and there's a reason that picture is next to last!

I'm much happier with how I look in both the IMAZ pic (125), the Wildflower Training Weekend pic taken last weekend (123) and the Team Altered Reality pic (112). Yes, there's a 12 pound difference within those pictures. The difference is muscle. I was in much better shape at IMAZ than I was at Bike MS.

So there we have it... many different weights all in the "normal" range but some clearly overweight, some on the thin side and some "just right." I hope you find it enlightening.

Yesterday was the worst day

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 08:19:00 +0000

I had a great weekend and was having a good time at work when I got a text message... did I know if a friend had gone to Boston to run the marathon?

What?!

I jumped onto Facebook and my email and that's how I found out that someone had set a bomb off at the Boston Marathon, killing three people (though it was two at that point) and injuring hundreds (only 20+ had made it to the hospitals by then though).

I was in shock. I still am somewhat, but it's finally starting to wear off a bit to the point where I can take stock.

My first thought was to figure out if my friend was okay. Our club went into overdrive tracking everyone down and two members had no start times. We figured that meant they weren't there. My friend had no start time. But I knew he was planning to go. We had talked about how that meant he couldn't go to the training weekend because he would be in Boston and I know he wasn't at the training weekend because I was there!

Finally, my brain kicked in and I realized he had sent me an email at what would have been part-way through his race so clearly he wasn't there. It turns out he had a conflict and decided not to race at the last minute. Another club member also cancelled at the last minute. So we only had three club members racing. Two of them had already crossed the finish line so they were easy to find, but the one stuck behind the finish line took a while.

On the news, they said those runners were kind of hysterical because they had family waiting at the finish and they couldn't get to them. Obviously, we weren't hysterical back here in the Bay Area, but we were concerned. But eventually "our" guy checked in to our Facebook group and then everyone was accounted for.

I flashed back a bit to Tiananmen Square and how my mom was here in CA for our wedding and how she'd call back East every night to talk to my step-dad and they'd confer and then one of them would FAX some number in China and send off newspaper stories and how it took days to find out that his mom had made it safely to Hong Kong. (She had set off for the train station on her bicycle the day that martial law was declared.) If we'd had Facebook and texting back then, it could have saved us a ton of worry.

After we tracked everyone down, it was time to read the news and figure out exactly what was going on. I wasn't really getting any new information, but I couldn't stop watching. I finally had to give up and turn off the tv so I could do my taxes. (Which still aren't done.)

I have to say that I have lived through a lot of public tragedies including 9/11. Most of them were upsetting on various levels, but few rocked my world as personally as this one. I think it's because I felt a personal connection with the victims and also with the witnesses, the volunteers, pretty much everyone onsite.

First, I knew people in harms way. Not friends of friends or anonymous people via work. But real friends who I interact with on a regular basis. Some of whom I'd be quite devastated if something had happened to them.

Even the ones I didn't know personally, I feel connected to. My club puts on two races a year and I'm a "Lead" for one of them. I have worked the finish line at several races. I have run a ton of races. I have friends who photograph the finishers at races. I've stood around and chatted with the police officers and the guys in the med tents and cheered for the finishers when I've not been racing and talked to the other spectators.

The criminals who did this weren't targeting generic humanity. They were targeting "my people."

Not only that, but in the Fall of 2009, I ran my first Half-Marathon. I was stunned to finish in 2:11. According to some of the race pace calculators, that would put my Marathon finish around 4.5 hours. At the time, the Boston qualifying time for my age group was 4:05 and I began to dream of some day qualifying for Boston.

If I hadn't hurt my head, I probably would have qualified this year. The qualifying time for my current age group is now 4:10. The first bomb went off at 4:09.

So, unlike with other tragedies, when people say "that could have been me" but it probably wouldn't have been... that really could have been my kid waiting at the finish line for me, but instead getting ripped in two by shrapnel.

And that freaks me out and that makes me mad!

The other thing that makes me mad is people saying things like "we need video cameras at the finish line" and that "security wasn't very good" at the event. Well that first one makes me mad because it's just stupid. (If you've ever set up for a race, you'd understand.)

But the second one? They are talking about changing what I love about racing -- the close-knit community where you can leave your stuff lying around and not worry about it -- and turning it into an experience closer to getting through airport security.

So I am more determined to qualify for Boston than ever. Only this time I intend to actually race. Because no freaking coward hiding backpacks in trash cans in a crowd is going to scare me away. That's not how I roll.

My brain is made of swiss cheese

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 03:46:00 +0000

Okay, it isn't really. But a few weeks ago, when I first upped my dose of topamax (aka dopamax), it sure felt like it was. It was kind of scary, actually. I decided then and there that even if the new dose wasn't enough to cure my brain that I wasn't going to up it again. It just wasn't worth it.

However, as has been the case with this drug all along, this side-effect also wore off. So my brain doesn't seem remotely swiss cheese-y now. Then again, it also doesn't seem to be working as well either. I'm not sure what to make of that.

I guess it's time to see the neurologist again. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if our COBRA is turned on. We did get the forms but I'm not sure if Mr. Mac turned them in and we haven't gotten our new ID cards.

In the meantime, my head did okay during our recent trip to Vegas. I had a few times when I was kind of raring to get back to the hotel room because the noise was just a bit too much but it was nothing like the trip to WDW last year where I would go to a theme park and an hour later be curled up in a little ball in pain from the noise. I even saw two shows without much fuss, just some Tylenol and some Advil here and there.

It's when I came back that things took a turn for the worse. I tell ya, it's my job. It's literally killing me! Except I think it's not actually my job this week. It's probably Wildflower Training Weekend. Planning and executing a weekend camping trip for 100+ people is a lot of work and getting 4-6 hours of a sleep a night and having to deal with crisis after crisis is stressful.

But once the weekend actually starts, it should be fine. It's just getting there that's killing me!

Raining on your Easter parade

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:47:00 +0000

It was supposed to rain today and maybe thunder. I've lived in California long enough to ignore that and schedule an open water swim anyway. I leave in 45 minutes and the sun is shining. In the meantime, I am watching Les Mis. Because it's Easter and at our house the Easter Bunny doesn't bring candy but MOVIES!

When I was a kid, we were Catholic and Easter was one of the big holidays. I have to admit, it didn't really resonate with me, not like Christmas which even today remains my favorite holiday. But it was still a big deal. I remember hunting for our Easter candy all over the house. And finding some in July.

I remember getting a new outfit every year and going to church all dressed up in our Easter finery including a new dress, new shoes, new hat and purse and sometimes even a jacket. I've seen picture of myself and my two sisters with our matching outfits. We were cute, but in a sort of scary Children in a Horror Movie way.

I do remember the candy. I remember getting a chocolate bunny and eating the entire thing in one sitting even though it make me sick. I remember getting these chocolate eggs too. They had some white stuff in the middle and a coconut flavor. I don't remember much of the rest. I know there were jelly beans but I'm not all that keen on jelly beans except the licorise ones. My sisters didn't like the licorise ones so we often traded.

When I had kids, I wanted them to share in these traditions. But I didn't want them to grow up with my food issues. So I made a decision early on not to emphasis the candy. Mr. Mac's family also had its traditions and his Easter egg hunt wasn't for candy but for plastic eggs full of coins. So we did that and I made baskets with a small amount of candy -- definitely the traditional chocolate bunny and the jelly beans and maybe some Hershey's kisses or something else to round it out -- and a large amount of TOYS.

Then, as the kids got older, the toys got older too and turned into CDs and DVDs.

So this year, I've got an adult -- MacBoy is 21 -- how did that happen?! -- and a High School student -- and none of us are even believers any more. So I asked Mini-Mac if she wanted to do anything for Easter this year and she got excited and asked for a CD.

"Remember how you sometimes gave us a CD in our Easter baskets?" she said. They didn't have the CD she wanted at Target, hence Les Mis. But I think she's happier with Les Mis.

When I was making this decision to not load up my kids with chocolate, I wondered about it. Was I somehow depriving them of something special? Was I being one of THOSE parents. You know the ones -- they have some cause that seems more important than letting their kids be kids.

Of course, I'm too lazy to take it to extremes and when I think about what was in my kids' baskets, it was still a freakingly large amount of candy by some standards. But still, there's this idea that all this stuff is part of a normal childhood and, if you don't give it to your kids, they are missing out somehow. So I fretted. But stuck to my guns.

One of the hard thing about being a parent is that you make decisions and don't get to see the result for ten to twenty years. That's why I was happy to see Mini-Mac so excited about getting a CD and to see that I hadn't warped her in some way by going against the grain and not doing a traditional Easter with a ton of candy.

Okay, Les Mis is almost over and its time to go swimming and the rain is coming back so I better hurry. Hopefully it won't rain on our Easter open water swim or at least it won't thunder.

Yes, Mr. Mac, triathletes do pee in their wetsuits

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:42:00 +0000

Last night I was "watching" the news with Mr. Mac when something on there caused him to say "Triathletes don't pee in their wetsuits!"

After I stopped laughing, I explained that we certainly do. He didn't realize that liquid passed through them, apparently.

Today I went swimming. In my wetsuit.

At which point I realized that even though normally I pee in that thing like there is no tomorrow, especially when it's cold and I need to warm up, I hadn't actually done that this season. Today, I not only did it, I did it while swimming!

This caused me to realize that even though I've hardly swum at all in the past year and a half, I actually haven't lost too many of my skills. It took me a while to learn how to pee while moving but I didn't have any trouble doing it today. My kicking technique is much better than it was the last time I did coached workouts too. I'm moving my hips a lot more as well. I do think I'm lifting my head more when I breath but I think I'm getting better at that just with swimming once a week.

People told me my fitness would come back faster than I acquired it to begin with. I had my doubts about that but so far it seems to be true. Six weeks ago, I did my swim workout and barely survived 20 minutes of swimming, if that. I went really slowly, did breast stroke for a lot of it, and also a lot of talking and coaching. The next couple of times, my back was killing me but over time I've gone from barely swimming 20 minutes to swimming over 40 minutes, really swimming the entire, with hardly any back issues. This is with no other workouts of any kind let alone other swim workouts.

I have committed to swimming on a relay team for Wildflower in May and I was worried if I could get up to 1.2 miles by then. Well, I'm already within 10 minutes of the time it will probably take me. I just need to add on .4 miles and get a bit faster and I'll be there.

I also haven't got a killer headache that will take me days to recover from as sometimes happens the night after swimming. Which is not to say I did't get a headache a few hours after the workout. But it went away pretty fast for a change.

By the way, I promised earlier to write almost every day and I haven't written in almost two weeks. It's not one of those "I've been too busy" or "I have nothing to say" things. I have plenty to say. Absolutely tons to say. Most of which I don't feel like I can say for various reasons. But I will do a bit of a catch up:

-Mini-Mac is having issues at school that I might Vague Blog about at some point because of how they relate to shame which relates to how we deal with obesity as a society
-MacBoy is having issues with his meds and almost had to be hospitalized for being underweight. He's doing better now that they took him off the med that upset his stomach and I might blog about it because of all the food issues it brings up
-Mr. Mac lost his job and, with it, our health insurance.
-The state franchise tax board finally figured out we owe them more for 2009 than we both originally thought and we may not have saved enough for our 2012 taxes though we did save as much as we'd planned which is a miracle of sorts.

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of my own issues including some people meddling in my business that I may get into at some point and job issues I won't talk about online.

Also I'm up to 50 mg of Topamax and I will blog about that very shortly.

Proof that it's all exercise

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 03:46:00 +0000

Today I did not officially "work out." I did go down to USA Production's South Bay Duathlon and volunteer. I was on my feet from 5:45 am to about 12:15 am. I was handing out packets, running around looking for people who had answers to my questions, and later on I was bending down taking off timing chips and picking up water bottles out of a kiddie pool full of ice to hand out. Earlier in the day, it was cold, cold, cold, so I was bouncing and dancing to the music and waving my hands trying to keep warm. I was also screaming (Go, SVTC!) and cheering and chatting with friends.

I had a blast and when I came home my BodyMedia FIT showed the following:

Apparently being a volunteer takes a lot of energy! No wonder I was so hungry.

As you can see, I'm on target to burn a similar amount to the days when I'd go for a medium run or a short bike ride. In fact, I burned a little more today than yesterday when I officially worked out by swimming (side note: swimming!)

I had a conversation once with someone who was beating themselves up because they weren't making time to go the gym every day. They described an enormously busy day that included volunteering at their kid's school and chasing after toddlers. Then they said they were too tired to go to the gym followed by "but I know that's just an excuse."

But is it? It is if their volunteering included sitting on their duff all day and their "chasing" after their toddlers involved parking them in front of the tv, then, yeah, it's an excuse. But if they were shopping and dancing and chasing them on the playground, then they might be burning 2000 calories a day too. In which case, they can go to the gym to do cardio or strength training (which have other benefits) some other day that isn't quite so busy and cut themselves a break.

At least that's what I told her.

Clearly, if one of your goals of working out is to burn calories, then just having an active life can do that without formal exercise. You don't have to go to a gym, take a Zumba or Pilates class or go for a run. We do those things for other reasons besides burning calories -- though the calories burned are nothing to sneeze at either and can be part of the motivation.

There used to be a time when we mostly all moved around just as part of our life. Now often we mostly don't. So then we take up hobbies to make up for it. It sets up these weird dichotomies, I think. Ones where we think dancing isn't exercise but walking is but only if we deliberately take a walk in special workout clothes with a sports watch that records our pace.

One thing I like about my Bodymedia FIT is that it can jerk me out of that kind of thinking by showing me that going for a run but then sitting in front of the TV for the rest of the day is the fitness equivalent of running errands. Sometimes it's a bit shocking in fact. Not today. I knew today was a burning day. But other days when it's more subtle and I need a little kick in the fitness pants.

Regrets and rewriting history

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 03:03:00 +0000

I have always believed that, since you can't change the past, you should avoid getting caught up in what you should have done and just figure out how to do better in the future. However, sometimes you can't really avoid what I call the "shoulda, coulda, wouldas".

I've been that way about weight loss surgery. I feel like I've gotten my life back so I keep thinking "why didn't I do this sooner?" I'm in my fifties so I'm already at the point where most people are slowing down and I want to be speeding up. I keep thinking about what could have been if I had done this sooner.

However, I was playing around with my online medical records the other day and I realized that I could plot out my weight vs. my height starting in 2000 and that the first time I had a BMI of 40 was the Fall of 2006 and it was just barely 40 at that point. A year later, I was up 20 pounds and firmly in WLS territory. Which means I was only eligible for weight loss surgery for about two years before I got it, at least in the 21st Century.

Looking back over my entire history of my weight, as I have been doing as I've been writing my memoirs, I realize there where three periods in my life when I was flirting with a BMI of 40.

I entered my 20s at around the same weight I am now. I slowly creeped up until I was flirting with 200 at the end of my 20s. When I got engaged around age 31 and decided to lose weight for the wedding, I weighed in at around 207 which was just about a BMI of 40. But it was the late 80s and weight loss surgery was much more dangerous and only for the super morbidly obese (often 200 pounds overweight) and I was 5'1" then so my BMI wasn't quite 40 anyway. So I lost almost 70 pounds via Nutri/system and gradually gained it all back.

The second time I hit 200 was in the late 90s and this was the first time I had a BMI over 40 because had gained back all my weight plus 10 pounds putting me at around 217. We were thinking of having a second kid and there was no way I was getting pregnant at that weight given how miserable I'd been the first time when I'd gained up to 198 during the pregnancy. To start bigger than I gotten the first time as unthinkable. So my choices, as I saw them, were to lose weight or not have any more kids.

I kind of wish I had done it then but the sleeve wasn't around -- just bypass really as even the band hadn't been approved for use in the US yet -- and I was convinced I could lose it all via Jenny Craig just like I did the first time. So I signed up and lost down to 173 when I found out I was pregnant. I ended the pregnancy even lower than I started (yeah, me!) but quickly (or so it seemed) climbed back up. That was my memory anyway.

The graph told a different story. It seems it took ten years to get back where I started plus ten pounds. Which is precisely what happened the first time.

So, to recap:

20s (1980s): slowly went up to 207 - not eligible for WLS and risk-benefit analysis didn't warrant it
30s (1990s): dieted down to 138, slowly went up to 217 - eligible but bypass didn't meet my own risk-benefit analysis
40s (2000s): dieted down to 173, slowly went up to 225 (though 228 was my highest recorded weight) - finally worth it, so:
50s (2010s): had weight loss surgery, dieted down to 112, bouncing around 120-130, happy!

Bottom line: maybe I should have done it before I had my daughter, but it was still a time when the only choice was bypass, aftercare wasn't that great, and a lot of people who had bypass at that time regained a lot of weight and/or ended up with permanent neurological damage from malnutrition issues from getting pregnant but not taking the right vitamins and minerals.

When you look at it that way, it's hard to really think that I should've had weight loss surgery in my 30s and if I would've, I could've won my age group at some Ironman and gone to Kona. I mean it might have gone down that way, but the odds weren't quite in my favor like they were since I waited. This is assuming I could have even found someone to do it.

Hating exercise

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 08:06:00 +0000

I'm working on my memoirs and I'm up to 2009. I just wrote about the first time I experienced a Runner's High. Therefore, it's ironic that I came across this article about how humans are supposedly hard-wired to hate exercise.

Actually, the article doesn't say that all humans are hard-wired to hate exercise. That's just the catchy headline designed to make you read the article which is about something completely different.

What the article actually talks about is the differences between those who seem to love exercise and those who hate it. Since I'm also working on a presentation about changing our attitudes towards exercise, I was hoping for some great insights or some recent research to help my audience. There really wasn't anything earth shattering but it was still an interesting article.

The main thing I got out of the article is that many people are exercising too hard. That's because even things like going for a short walk is too hard for them. So they do something that is supposed to be "easy" and they are pushing beyond their intrinsic range of physical ability which makes them hate the activity and want to stop. I see this all the time. I even see it among triathletes who don't seem to know how to back off and so end up frustrating themselves.

The idea is that we all have this thing called a "ventilatory threshold" which is the point where the release of carbon dioxide exceeds the intake of oxygen. For most of us, this threshold is around 50-60% of our maximum capacity. But there is a lot of variation between individuals. Sedentary people may hit it at 35% while an elite athlete can go as high as 80%.

In the obese and extremely unfit, something like cooking dinner might be enough to push you to your ventilatory threshold. In one study, obese women got there with only one minute on the treadmill. So, if you think you hate exercise, try doing less and going slower and see if that helps!

Other aspects that can help you enjoy or hate exercise include things like listening to music (helps), viewing pictures of green trees (helps) vs. red stuff (hurts), and how you interpret the physical sensations of exercise such as buildup of lactic acid or increase in body temperature. Some interpret as these sensations as signs of a good workout or signs of making progress while others just find them uncomfortable. I think it's clear which one leads to liking exercise.

Another big factor for some adults is feeling competent at the exercise you pick. If you feel incompetent, you aren't going to enjoy it. Other critical factors are whether you feel you have a choice and whether the activity fosters something called "social relatedness." Which as far as I've been able to determine just means whether you feel connected to other people when you do it.

So... it sum up: find something you love, that lets you connect with people, feel competent, and do it outside or while listening to music and take it easy at first and build up from there.

Debunking the Diet - A new series by Luna

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:35:00 +0000

I got a present in my email today. It was a link to this video:

I love it for a number of reasons including the fact that there is lots of science showing that it doesn't matter what time you eat your calories but how many you eat. That means that this series might not be as full of stupid and mediocre dieting advice as a lot of them are.

Plus I thought it was entertaining.

As for myself, I have found times when I was snacking uncontrollably at night. Sometimes it was because I wasn't eating enough during the day. But mostly it was because I was mistaking other feelings for hunger.

That said, I generally find myself slightly hungry right before bedtime and, if I don't eat, I can't sleep because it's distracting. So now I just plan for it.

Usually I have protein hot chocolate. 60 calories, 15 g of protein and, hey, it's hot chocolate! It always fills me up and helps me sleep. I'm drinking some now.

Is there a cure for obesity?

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:41:00 +0000

In a recent article, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff writes "There is no cure for obesity". The article makes many great points. My favorite is when he says:

Your best weight is whatever weight you reach, when you're living the healthiest life you actually enjoy.

I first read about this concept in Self Magazine. They call it your Happy Weight. I see too many folks being themselves up because they either can't get to or can't remain at some theoretical "ideal" weight. I say you have to accept what you are willing to do to keep your weight under control and just let go of the rest.

He also says in that article:

If you're on a diet that leaves you regularly hungry or having cravings, you're going to quit. If you're exercising beyond the point of liking it, with the hours or the effort a source of dread, you're going to quit.

Our shared affliction, the human condition, simply isn't good at letting us live lives of unnecessary, perpetual suffering. So even if you do manage to lose boatloads of weight through misery, since suffering through under-eating and over-exercising is wholly unnecessary, the suffering, and the losses, won't last.

Again, I can't argue with this. It's something I often tell people on weight loss sites when they ask for weight loss "tips and tricks." This is my life, I tell them. There are no tricks.

Dr. Yoni then says:

And for obesity, there is no cure, only ongoing treatment.

This is where we part ways. The thing is, Dr. Yoni is a bariatric doctor who doesn't do bariatric surgery. He's speciality is non-surgical methods of weight management. So, basically, the stuff that doesn't work. (Which must be frustrating for him.)

But surgery does "cure" obesity in the sense that it changes our body's set point and changes our hormones that control appetite and satiety. It really does repair our bodies.

I have seen this in my own life. Before I had surgery, my body fought me hard to stay over 200 pounds. When I started tracking my food and drinking more water and taking walks at work and eating more protein, I did lose weight. But what I could have stood long term would have only put me about 20-30 pounds under where I was.

After surgery, my body is very comfortable at a normal BMI. Even with this stupid post-concusions syndrome and not being able to workout, I only went up about 8-10 pounds at my highest. I think I might have ended up around 135-140 if I hadn't started on the Topamax, but I don't see how I could have gotten any higher because my hunger wasn't having me eat 2000-2500 calories a day, which is what it would have taken to get back up to the weight I was pre-op.

I wonder if I'll have the nerve to bring this up when I meet Dr. Freedhoff in May? (He's going to speak at this year's WLSFA Meet and Greet. I'm very excited to meet him.)

I do have to say that I may disagree on this one aspect of the article, but the rest of it is spot on.

I also really love that there are doctors in Canada who specializing in figuring out what actually works and doesn't work when it comes to dieting. Dr. Yoni is one and another blogger I admire, Dr. Arya Sharma (who also says there is no cure for obesity) is another. There don't seem to be their equivalent in the US and I think that's our loss.

Every time I see you, you're smaller

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 03:39:00 +0000

Someone said that to me today. It's been YEARS since anyone has said that to me.

Of course, early pre-op easily I heard that ten times a week. This time I had more trouble accepting it. Probably because my scale says I haven't lost that much weight. I'm at 126 which is down from my absolute highest of 134 which I saw for one day before the number scared me into going back to logging my food. But I'm pretty sure I was more around 130 the last time this dude saw me.

And it's not like I've been working out and gaining lots of muscles either to make me smaller without the scale moving all that much.

However, I look in the mirror and it looks like I'm a lot smaller than four pounds would account for. So, as usual, the scale can suck it. Ha!

Anyway, I'm thinking about doing some sort of workout this weekend. It's probably too cold to go Open Water Swimming again but I don't belong to a gym any more so I can't swim in a pool. I haven't been walking at work at all lately as my head has been bothering me too much so I supposed I could just go for a walk.

I did just point out to someone else that running errands can burn more calories than an official workout. But it's not the same. I want to really workout because of the mental aspects of it.

Aftermath of the swim

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:23:00 +0000

My tri club is starting up this seasons New to the Sport program and I was hoping to be a regular participant as a way of getting back into training. But I'm not really ready. I did attend the first Open Water Swim yesterday.

OH. MY. GOD. It was FREAKING COLD.

Air Temp: 33 F
Water Temp: 51 F

I have never in my life swum in water that cold.

Because it was so cold and I was trying to take it easy, I spent most of the time buddying up with two new people who were having trouble breathing. I assured them this was normal and gave them all my tips for surviving.

In case you are interested these include:

Warming up before the race so you get used to the cold before the race.

Swimming with your face out of the water and keep trying to put it in the water until you can.

Doing the breast stroke.

Breathing slow and easy and taking your time.

We did all those things and then the real coach swam with Purple Cap for a while and I got out because I still can't swim more than about 20 minutes without getting tired.

As far as I can tell, I don't think doing this swim set me back in the Head Injury department. My head hurt today but not any more than it normally does on a Sunday that I go grocery shopping and stay up all night the night before to watch figure skating on the internet.

So I'm going to do it again in two weeks when the club has their next Open Water Swim. Yeah me!

The war against diet soda

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:41:00 +0000

I well remember a time when diet soda didn't exist. It's not that women weren't always on diets because they were. Or at least it seemed that way to my ten year old self with my yo-yo dieting mom. But artificial sweeteners hadn't been invented yet, I guess.

One of the first diet drinks I remember was Tab. It was sweetened with saccharine and it tasted kind of bitter. But we forced down the Tab because we were told that if we replaced our regular Coke with Tab that we'd save so many calories a week and that would lead to losing 10 pounds a year!

After a while we got used to it, too. I came to enjoy the bubbles and the crispness, in fact. I didn't lose 10 pound a year though. It didn't impact my weight at all. I wasn't the only one whose weight wasn't impacted, either.

But now, apparently, the same experts who told us to drink diet ida are telling us that it's evil. It causes obesity! It causes Type II diabetes!

Except they seem to forget that correlation is not causation. While they scramble to come up with reasons for why people who drink diet soda are fatter than people who don't and are more likely to have Type II diabetes, the media has run away with this data.

Did you know that drinking diet soda increases your risk of getting Type II diabetes by 33%! No, I d on't know that and neither does anyone else. People who drink diet soda are 33% more likely to have Type II diabetes but we don't know why.

One very likely explanation is that the population that drinks diet soda is heavily skewed towards the overweight and there has been shown to be a correlation between being overweight and Type II diabetes.

But what about that study that showed that the body reacts to artificial sweeteners just like it reacts to insulin? Isn't that a possible explanation? It is. Except most of the studies of insulin secretion and artificial sweeteners have been done on rats or mice or on very small samples of humans (like 20 to 40 people). In some studies, the artificial sweeteners did give the rats an insulin response but in others they did not.

When extended to humans, this response did not seem to happen. Thought it's misleading to say "artificial sweeteners" as if they were all basically the same. Even so, if you go down them one by one, and look at what data there is out there, it's not particularly compelling except when talking about sugar alcohols.

It is known that humans do have an insulin response to sugar alcohols. (Plus, they make me fart!) So... sugar alcohols are evil... Sweet 'n Low? Not so much.

Anyway, I'm not going to run out and start drinking diet soda. The bubbles bother me. Plus it tastes "chemically" to me now, just like it did when I first started drinking it. I do have one occasionally when there aren't other choices that please me, but it's pretty rare.

At the same time, I'm not going to jump on the "diet soda is evil" band wagon. I think the jury is still out on that one. Whatever the mechanism is that is causing the correlation between diet sodas and obesity and diet sodas and Type II diabetes, it's still unknown.

My team lost, so now I must cry

noreply@blogger.com (MacMadame) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:14:00 +0000

I'm a lot sadder about the 49ers losing the Super Bowl than I expected to be given that I kind of had a feeling they would lose. I also expected them to start off a little slow as every game I've watched this season has been like that. (Maybe it's me -- I don't think they are like that when I'm not watching.) But they sure took a very long time to find their groove. To the point where I almost gave up on them. Then again, the entire game was very strange -- full of weird mistakes, questionable calls, and a power outage. At the Super Bowl. Crazy.

What does this have to do with weight loss and health and all that stuff that I normally write about? Well, football is definitely exercise, but really what I say has more to do with food. Namely:

Super Bowl Parties!

Something I hate about this time of year is that people are at war with food. By "this time of year," I mean from just before Halloween until just after Valentine's Day. During that time, my inbox and Facebook and message boards are blowing up with "helpful hints" for how to "get through" this time.

Now think about this... late October through mid February is almost four months. That means, judging by what I see around me, some people are at war with themselves for about four months out of the year. That's one third of the year. That is a really long time to be fighting with yourself.

To be worrying. To be lurching between abstinence and over-indulgence. To be beating ourself up for for what we do and don't eat and for how much we do and don't exercise. To be making resolutions we don't keep. To be going on a diet and falling off the wagon. Over and over.

I used to participate in this "magic" time of year with enthusiasm. I did all these things. But now it just seems kind of sad to me and not how I want to live my life. But I don't want to be fat either. So what to do? what to do?

I think part of why I want off the Holiday War Merry-go-round might be because I hang out with a lot of what I think of as "normies" now. These people aren't perfect. They sometimes eat too much. They don't always exercise. But mostly they don't have weight problems and they mostly eat healthy and they mostly workout. They also mostly don't obsess over what they eat and mostly -- and this is a big one with me -- they don't play a lot of mental games with themselves to justify bad behavior.

Watching them live for the past four years has been enlightening. I definitely want to be like them when I grow up!

Before today's Super Bowl, I read my weight loss and weight loss surgery message boards and saw a lot of messages about how to "survive" today and also Valentine's Day which is coming up. I've seen suggestions such as losing a few pounds before the big day so you can "eat whatever you want" that day. I've seen suggestions for making special versions of your "favorite" foods, many of which sound kind of disgusting. I've seen suggestions of just ignoring these special days altogether -- hiding out at home and pretending they don't exist.

I have to admit that I've done all these things in the past. Well, okay, I didn't do the "lose 2 pounds ahead of time" thing. I did the "eat whatever you want and not do anything to counter-balance it" variation!

But now I kind of don't get it. At my Super Bowl party today, I brought Cake Pops. Yes, mine have less sugar than the ones at Starbucks. But they are still cake covered in chocolate. There were other baked goods and also chips. But there were also home-made pizzas that were full of vegetables and turkey chili and a veggie plate and fruit salad and even a regular salad. Most of the people were eating mostly healthy, but they all had at least one piece of dessert too.

So I just did what they did. I was faking it a bit. Part of me wanted to eat every kind of baked good even the ones I didn't really like just because they were there. Part of me wanted to eat chips because you are supposed to eat chips when you watch football. Except I'm not really fond of chips and definitely not of any of the kinds that there there. And I ate a lot more baby carrots than I probably should have because I felt an overwhelming urge to munch at various times.

But mostly I watched the game and talked to people and only went and got food when I was hungry instead of hanging by the food table, nibbling away non-stop like I used to do.

I also made myself not log and not count calories and just try to eat to my hunger and not sweat it. That part was really, really hard. But I forced myself to do it.

I logged when I got home. The damage wasn't bad at all. I was a little light on protein but I didn't go over my calories (as far as I could tell -- that kind of food is hard to count as it's two corn chips here and a dab of sour cream there and did I eat 15 baby carrots or 13 and where they medium or large?)

I would love to get to a point where all of this was more natural. Where I didn't have to do the logging. Where I didn't have to work so hard at the party to reign myself in. But I was kind of proud of myself too. I didn't feel at war with myself and I'm not going to wake up tomorrow hating myself for what I ate.

Sometimes I wonder how many of my normie friends are secretly fighting to be normies like I am. I bet some of them are. I know most of them aren't though and I'm a little bit jealous. But mostly, knowing they are out there, gives me something to aspire to.