Lynn's Weigh

X-Amount of Time

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:50:00 +0000

I couldn’t follow the dharma teacher’s guided meditation this morning to save my life. My monkey mind swung from thought to thought, and my body busted loose from every position I put it in, even though I was in the comfiest place in the world: my bed.

I sat up and took out my iPod ear plugs and said, “What? What the hell do you want?”

The answer I got was, “Live now, not later.”

Don’t ask me where that came from because I don’t have a clue. I often wonder if it’s not my past lives coming through (all of whom had obvious issues with patience) saying, “Come on already! Figure it out and let’s move on! Chop chop!” But I guess that wouldn’t really be embracing patience now, would it?

Anyway, I sat with that question and answer for a moment. Then I reached in the nightstand for a pad of paper and wrote this: “When my knee is fixed, when I lose 10 pounds, when this depression leaves me, when I’m done with school…THEN life will be the way I want it.”

Ha! Like some magic fairy is going to come along and make my life great – without any exertion on my part – once x-amount of time has passed?! Fat. Chance.

X-amount of time will pass: One. Second. At. A. Time. And in those seconds, I am.

I. Am.

So instead of a formal guided meditation this morning, which clearly wasn't happening, I broke it down into my own meditation.

I am:

1. A person who needs a knee replacement.

Sooooo….What can I do in the x-amount of time between now and surgery? “Duh…” say my impatient past lives. “You can still have goals!”

I can’t ride my bike and I can’t work out on the elliptical – two things I love to do – but that boo-hooing has put at least two pounds on each of my thighs, I swear. I CAN walk, for cryin’ out loud. Pretty well most of the time, despite the limp. And I can lift weights. And I can strengthen my core. So I set goals: To walk the entire length of my beloved 20-mile bike path twice before replacement, a few miles at a time. And every other week, my BFF Shari will join me, like she did today. So will Al.

Today, Shari, Al and I walked my favorite part of the bike path and I saw some old friends and their babies:

I’ll also pick up the weights again at home, and I’ll hit the gym and talk to a personal trainer. I might even join a yoga class, like I’ve said I’d do for how long now?

2. A person who wants to lose 10 pounds.

Sooooo….What can I do in the x-amount of time between now and when my shorts feel a little loose? PAY ATTENTION to everything I put in my mouth. It worked before, it will work again.

3. A person who is clinically depressed.

Sooooo….What can I do in the x-amount of time between now and the time I’m feeling less depressed? I’ve already started doing something about that (pat on my back).

“I met her in a Kuhn’s grocery store parking lot…” Sounds like a great beginning to a cheesy romance novel, but that would be how I met my AIM blogging friend, Debby. Google maps sent her 20 miles away from where we were supposed to meet, and when she called and said she had no idea where she was (which is totally understandable since Debby lives in California and has never been to Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh motto is, “If yinz don’t know where you are, go home.”), I went in search of her.

“Stay put, I’ll find you,” I said, and typed in her coordinates into my Garmin. (When I was a kid, I wanted to be Uhura).

We were supposed to meet – of course – at a groovy healthy breakfast place, but that was light years away from the grocery store, so we went to my favorite Mexican place, Mad Mex, where we ate pepita hummus, chips and salsa, and chopped salads.

Often, the Internet feels ethereal, so meeting Debby grounded me. I needed to be reminded that real people read my blog, real people write blogs, and real people interact with real people, just not always in person. Having said that, the Internet has a silent surrealness about it, at least it does for me, and I’ve been needing some real-life connectedness.

Last week, I met another online friend, who works at Clarion University, just a few blocks from where I used to live, and yet, we never got our s*it together to meet when I lived there. Melissa has lost over 100 pounds and, like so many of us, struggles with the “Can I/How do I/Do I want to lose more?” question, along with “Who am I now?”

We got along juuuuust fine *grin*

I also went to a Pirates game with my friend Rachelle.

The Bucs are doing great right now, but even when they’re bad, I can’t be sad at a Pirates game, thanks to Michael McHenry and Andrew McCutchen. …sigh…

4. A person who is still in school.

Sooooo….What can I do in the x-amount of time between now and certification?

Study. Finish my final projects. Pass my exam. There’s no room for wishy-washy, feel-good sentiment here. I need to kick myself in the ass and do it.

I. Am.

You. Are.

We all have x-amount of time between now and….when? I will do my best to fill that space with compassion. Fill that space with love. Fill that space with curiosity and questions. I just know I can’t fill that space with the future. It doesn’t exist.

“Live now, not later.” Life is the way I make it. Now.

A Little Story About Mental Illness

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:21:00 +0000

It was 3 a.m. and my sister, mother and I were watching cartoons in a hospital waiting room, anxious for news about Dad, who’d had a heart attack. What began in my stomach as a churning crept upward to my heart, which began beating wildly. The feeling crept to my lungs, which couldn’t complete a full breath. It then crept into my mind, which began thinking, I’m dying, too. Within a few minutes I was on my own gurney and a doctor was handing me a pill.

“You had a panic attack,” he said. “Here, put this under your tongue.”

It was Halcion. Valium with a kick. Within seconds, I was calm. So calm I forgot why I was at the hospital. My sister reminded me and I remember saying, ‘Oh, that’s right,’ and I drifted off to sleep as my sister poured me into the front seat of my car and took me home.

I slept the rest of the morning. When I woke up, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I was groggy and deeply frightened. Did my heart just skip? What did that sigh mean? That I can’t breathe? But no fortress could stop it. Panic returned and my only defense was to slip a Halcion under my tongue. It came back the next day and the next. By the end of the week my defenses were spent and the pill bottle was empty.

For two weeks, panic poured over me like tsunami. I went to every emergency room in the Minneapolis area begging for Halcion, usually in the middle of the night, waking my then-husband, Jason, and dragging the kids out from their beds because I couldn’t drive myself. The last ER physician I saw said I needed to see a psychiatrist and refused to write a script. He sent me home shaking and throwing up.

So I called a psychiatrist. He wanted to explore my past. I just wanted drugs. He assured me I could control my panic through deep breathing. I told him I hadn’t caught my breath in weeks. We were in a shoot-off and I was running out of bullets.

Then came the day at work when my Selectric II typewriter ribbon broke and I began to cry. I cried while I changed it, cried as I typed a memo, and cried when my boss sent me home because I couldn’t stop crying. I cried driving home, cried while eating a grilled cheese and Old Dutch potato chips dipped in cottage cheese (best comfort food ever). I cried when I dialed the phone to tell my psychiatrist I was crying, and cried even harder when he told me he was checking me in to the hospital. A special hospital.

A few hours later, Jason dropped me off at Golden Valley Health Center and I checked in to the psychiatric ward. I’d stopped crying, but I was exhausted. My head felt like a bowling ball and I answered questions with monosyllabic words.

After filling out insurance forms, a nurse led me to a scale in the hallway across from the nurses’ station. I was wearing knee-length knit shorts and a size XXL t-shirt stained at the hem. Tears had washed away my makeup, and my hair was matted to my head. I took off my slip-on canvas shoes with the hole in the toe and laid them beside the scale, like their half-pound weight would make a difference.

The nurse optimistically started the large metal weight at the 150-pound position and nudged the smaller weight higher and higher. The balance arrow didn’t budge. She moved the large weight to 200 and again moved the small weight higher. The arrow bounced a little around 240. For accuracy, she should have moved the large weight to 250, but she said cheerfully, “We’ll call you 249.”

The next day, I spent two hours in group therapy drawing pictures and writing in a journal and feeling completely out of place and ridiculously selfish among people facing electric shock therapy. One woman was the only survivor of a car crash that killed her niece and sister. She’d been the driver. A chain-smoking young man had locked himself in a closed garage and started his car’s engine a few weeks before. He’d been repeatedly molested as a child.

Could I be a bigger baby? I thought as I wrote my name with a blue crayon on a piece of yellow construction paper. We were to draw a “family tree of feelings.” The only thing I felt was guilty for taking up space in a facility meant for people with real problems, and stupid for having called my doctor in the first place. So I’d cried for a few hours? Big deal. People cry.

I took a two-hour, fill-in-the-hole-with-a-#2-pencil psychological test that asked me to answer yes or no to statements such as, “I would like to do the work of a choir director” and “If I could sneak into the county fair or an amusement park without paying, I would.” Were they kidding me?

The next day, a psychiatrist went over my results. She showed me a line chart indicating how I “scored” in regard to various emotions and behaviors. The line was flowing along nicely, indicating I was “normal” here and “normal” there, just as I expected. Then a steep, jagged line rose across the paper like a fjord on the Norwegian coastline. It went all the way to the top of the chart before plummeting back to the middle.

“That’s your anger line,” the doctor said.

“What?” I laughed. “Just because I don’t want to be a choir director, I’m angry? I have nothing to be angry about!”

I explained that my psychiatrist said I had a panic disorder and that a few days ago I couldn’t stop crying and that was why I was there. I just need to calm down, maybe lose some weight, and I’d be fine.

She nodded, wrote a few notes, and gave me Xanax. I promised to visit my psychiatrist weekly for a month and was released from the facility at the end of the week.

The Xanax worked almost instantly and it kept the physical symptoms of anxiety at bay. But the relentless weeks-long waves of panic prior to the Xanax made me afraid of fear and I was scared I’d have another attack at any moment. I needed something to change, something to help me feel normal again. God knows my psychiatrist was no help. He read the hospital psychiatrist’s report and ran with her whole “anger” diagnosis. He wanted me to journal about my anger, even though I insisted I wasn’t angry. But in order to get the Xanax, I wrote in the journal.

He also brought up Bruce’s death and asked me about Jason (domestic violence issues….another blog for another day), but I wouldn’t go there with him. I said there was nothing I could do to change the past, so why dwell on it? He said something about unresolved grief and lack of self-esteem and blah blah blah. Buddy, I thought, all I want is some control of my life.

I discovered the golden loophole a few weeks later when I went to my gynecologist for a routine exam. I told her how anxious I’d been feeling, leaving out the part about the hospital and the psychiatrist, and she diagnosed me with severe PMS. She wrote me a script for Xanax and that was the end of journaling about non-existent anger. I focused my energy on the one thing I knew I could control: my weight.

I joined Weight Watchers, but not before saying goodbye to a few of my “friends” – the ones I knew I wouldn’t be able to “contact” once I was on a diet.

The week before the first meeting, I made Kraft macaroni and cheese with real butter, and I grilled a T-bone steak. I ate garlic mashed potatoes and cheesy hash browns, baked a chocolate cake, and went twice to Dairy Queen for a Hot Fudge Brownie Delight. I poured 2-percent milk over Captain Crunch for breakfast, and made a parade of pasta dishes for dinner. Then on Saturday morning, after throwing out the leftover brie and French baguette, deviled eggs and Hershey Kisses, I walked into a Weight Watchers facility, paid the $8 fee, weighed in and left without attending the meeting. After four weeks, I’d acquired all the basic program materials and stopped going.

“You’ll leave me once you’ve lost weight,” Jason said.

“No, I won’t!” I insisted.

I subsisted on raw and boiled vegetables, fruit, skim milk and plain baked white fish. In my food journal, I checked off every allotted carb, protein and dairy allowed. I ate nothing more. I quit drinking and started riding a stationary bike I bought at a garage sale for $10. In return, I averaged a 3.5-pound loss every week.

I wasn’t angry. Heck no. Just highly motivated.

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May is Mental Health Awareness Month. NAMI is my go-to place for info and support. Mental illness is often a family thing and should not be an embarrassment. Ask for help, whether it’s for you or someone you love.

AIM: Through Thick and Thin

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Writer Rex Harris describes yin-yang as “…a synthesis of mutually dependent polar forces. Each force exists only in relationship to its opposite, each is ‘completed’ by its opposite...”

Take, for instance, a monarch caterpillar. It weighs 8 grams by the time it spins its cocoon. When it emerges as a butterfly, it weighs a mere half-gram. The caterpillar and the butterfly are opposite in composition and yet the same being, existing only because of its opposite.

Caterpillars and butterflies have no understanding of their changing

body structure. They just do what nature intends. We, on the other hand, consciously witness our changing bodies, and not without a great deal of angst and critique. It’s not easy seeing the butterfly for the caterpillar.

I struggle these days with my thick and thin, my yin and yang, my body as one being, yet of differing compositions. There was a point, however, at which I felt balance.

At 300 pounds, I was a size 32 and never dreamed, as I watched my 17-year-old daughter graduate from Army basic training in 2002, that I would fit into her size 7 class As. At 138, I did.

At 300, I refused to get in an aluminum boat and join my husband fishing. At 135, he took me canoeing for the first time.

At 300, a man leered at me and said he “…liked my women big” like me. At 130, Today’s Natalie Morales told me, “Your legs are like toothpicks!”

At 300, I began my journey and read Bob Greene’s book Get With The Program. At 132, I met him in person.

Then, during my first year of maintenance, my body morphed to 125 pounds, a weight at which I was cold all the time and my joints ached. I won’t deny that I liked the litheness of 125 pounds, feeling like a feather and knowing there was nothing to “suck in” in my middle. But I shivered when it was 80 degrees, and reaching for a bowl in a cupboard high up was painful. I also missed my B cups.

When we were discussing our next topic, Lori asked if we had a “settling weight,” a weight at which we are not striving so desperately to maintain. A weight at which our minds were more at ease. I’ve thought a lot about that, and have wondered if I’m at my settling weight – 155 pounds and filling a C cup – or if I’m merely settling for this weight. The truth is that right now, I feel thick, not thin. I was physically more comfortable in the 130s.

So does that mean that the space within 5 pounds of 135 is my yin weight? Is that the weight at which I exist in relation to my opposite and am completed by my 300-pound yang weight? And if that is true, what do I do with these 15-20 extra pounds? How do I think about them?

While I believe I have the power to find and stay at any weight, despite the physical forces of menopause and arthritis, I’m not sure how badly I want to use that power. I feel thick, yes, but I also feel free from uber preoccupation with my weight for the first time in more than seven years. Maybe there is balance within the thickness, just as there is in the thinness of 130-140.

Maybe. But I know me, and I know I need to be mindful of what constitutes balance and what are outright excuses because I’m the queen of excuses. And excuses won’t help me find what is real and true; where I am complete and the butterfly emerges.

Do you have a settling weight or are you just settling? Where do you find balance?

Read what the other AIM members are writing about this topic through the links below.

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AIM: Adventures in Maintenance is Lynn, Lori, Debby, Shelley, and Cammy, former weight-loss bloggers who now write about life in maintenance. We formed AIM to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. We publish a post on the same topic on the first Monday of each month. Let us know if there is a topic you'd like us to address!

Lori @ Finding Radiance

Debbie @ debby weighs in

Shelley @ My Journey to Fit

Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet

A 5-Year-Old’s Marathon…In Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:54:00 +0000

I was one proud Grammy this morning as I watched my granddaughter, Claire, complete the Pittsburgh Marathon’s Kids Of Steel program, in which she not only ran 26.2 miles over the course of the last two months, but she raised $2,505 for the Animal Rescue League of Pittsburgh.

Claire ran 1 mile on 25 days and ran the final 1.2 miles with her dad, the day before the Pittsburgh Marathon, in which he and my daughter are going to run the half. (Daughter as in the one who had her fourth baby just two months ago. She rocks really hard!)

Here’s what the morning looked like:

We arrived downtown and put Luca and Mae in one stroller, while baby Audrey slept in another stroller (they're saying, "Cheese!"):

The finish line:

The medals:

The bananas:

Auntie Carly and Papa Larry making signs:

Audrey with her sign:

Luca on Uncle Ben’s shoulders with his sign:

Mae on my shoulders with her sign:

Claire running for the finish line. She ran in the tutu my awesome running Diva friend, Sondra, made for her. Claire’s all about the high fives:

Claire with her medal:

More of the tutu:

Claire with her mom:

Claire with her certificate and her dad:

It was so encouraging to see so many kids and their parents participating in the Kids of Steel program. Kids of all sizes and economic backgrounds ran their hearts out today, and the crowd didn’t let them down. They were cheered on by thousands of people, and the looks on the kids’ faces as they crossed the finish line was of pure joy. I have no doubt this experience will encourage them to continue running, or at the very least, stay active. They may not understand the physical benefits of exercise, but they certainly got a huge dose of the emotional aspect.

Best

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:22:00 +0000

I saw this sign in one of my favorite breakfast places last Saturday:

It was a good reminder BEFORE I ordered breakfast, especially since I had a hankerin’ for something syrupy. My best wouldn’t have been to order the praline-stuffed French toast or the Indian pancake. My best was to order the egg white omelet with spinach, mushrooms, and smoked gouda. Nothing about smoked gouda would make me whine or complain that I didn’t have something with syrup. Booyah!

I’ve been thinking a lot about what my best is, especially since posting my last blog about depression. Depression can take away your desire to do what’s best and, instead, tell you it’s OK to settle for what’s safe or do what takes the least amount of effort. After breakfast, I thought about sitting around, pretending to write and do homework while actually playing Words With Friends. But it was a beautiful day and the lawn needed to be mowed, so no excuses. I chose to do my best. I got out of my jams and into my work clothes and I cut the grass. Except for the wood tick that embedded in my arm, it was a good morning of mind-cleansing, honest work.

Thank you so much for all the comments, both on my blog and via email, regarding last week’s post. As Sharyn wrote, I wasn’t looking for sympathy. What I got was a LOT of empathy. Many of you have been there, done that, still wearing the t-shirt. It’s not an easy place to be in. Depression can isolate like nothing else. Just knowing we’re not alone can sometimes make it less scary, and together, we can offer each other a hand up out of the dark.

One of the comments wasn’t so kind, but in hindsight, I wish I hadn’t deleted it. Anonymous (of course) wrote: “Uh…..how about an SSRI dumbass.” That stung a little at first, but I breathed it in and gave myself space to explore my response. I thought again, as I often do in difficult situations, of the Buddhist teaching of the second arrow, that when we encounter things like insults from anonymous commenters (when we’re shot with the first arrow), we have the choice of how we internalize that situation. We can whine, complain, or give in and believe ourselves to be dumbasses, thus shooting ourselves with the second arrow, or we can experience the insult of the original arrow and live from within that sting and work out the best course of action that will not further our suffering.

For me, that best course of action – doing my best – was to see inside the comment and to wander into the mind of who would write such a thing, especially to someone who was already feeling pretty badly. What I found there was pain and anger, emotions I am familiar with and could empathize with. To be angry with Anonymous would be the same as being angry with myself for those times I suffer like that. Spending time in that kind of petty anger is a waste of energy. Better to put that energy into something positive, like metta (loving-kindness)meditation, or, as others might do, offering a thoughtful prayer up to God.

My best is not perfect, but I’m not a dumbass.

Another awesome weapon I have in my “doing my best” arsenal is Alice T. Dog. She makes me want to do my best, and to not whine, complain, or make excuses. Walk you in the rain? ….OK…. Throw your Kong even though I’m in the middle of a Mad Men season 5 marathon? ….OK…. Thanks for letting me cry into your scruff, Al. Thanks for always being happy to see me, even when I’m not so happy.


Al, on left.

I took Al to see her sister, Willow, a few days ago. They’ve been apart for six weeks, but Will remembered Al and she was so happy that she wagged her tail for the first time in weeks, her owner, Becky, said. Will is afraid of most everything and everyone, but under her sister’s care for an hour, Will was a little happier, a little more free from suffering.

Alice T. Dog: champion of best.

I See You. I Feel You.

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:49:00 +0000

I woke up this morning, as I have many mornings the last few months, lacking a sense of purpose. Depression does that. It anesthetizes even my most simple of intentions, and I struggle to remember that sunlight makes me happy, if only I would look outside and see it.

It’s been 13 years since I’ve felt this way. Twenty five years since the first time. It’s nothingness and futility, acute dread, and the stinging pain of powerlessness that turns every motion into an Herculean effort, both emotionally and physically. Who knew getting out of a chair could require such debate?

But unlike 13 years ago, I won’t put a down payment on a handgun. I won’t stare into the river and call myself Jezebel. I won’t hide under the sheets with someone who doesn’t love me or numb the numbness with a bottle of tequila.

This time, I’ve packed a more useful toolbox to work through this depression. Notice I didn’t use the words “solve” or “cure.” Solving depression is like grabbing air. Depression is in my DNA, so it will likely return some day. I want to give its reincarnations a fighting chance at being less difficult and shorter in duration, so this time, I’m allowing the feelings in rather than trying to keep them outside. Just like the smell of skunk spray, sadness and worthlessness will find their way inside. Better to keep the windows and doors open to allow fresh air to move about and neutralize the odor.

One of the tools I’ve adopted is reading positive books and reading weight-loss/maintenance blogs (many of which are written by those of you reading my own blog. I’m out there lurking, just not always commenting), and blogs that deal with everyday, real life issues. I read other people’s words for a sense of solidarity, as well as to learn how others cope with their own struggles.

There are two books I’m reading simultaneously. The first is “The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits ofLeading a Compassionate Life” by Piero Ferrucci.

Ferrucci asserts that kindness is a “universal remedy – first for the individual, for we can be well only if we are able to care for ourselves, to love ourselves.” Being kind to ourselves means being honest with ourselves, to recognize a problem rather than to pretend there is none. To illustrate, he tells the story of his son, Emilio, who was going back to school after vacation.

“He did not like the idea at all and was filled with anxiety. To him, the approach of school days was like a monster that threatened him and wanted to squash him.”

As his parent, Ferrucci would do anything to ease his son’s fears, so he decided to give his son something that was considered taboo in his family: French fries from a fast-food restaurant.

“Usually anything that is prohibited appeals to Emilio, especially junk food. I thought I had the ace up my sleeve. But no. Emilio’s reply ought to be chiseled in stone: ‘Dad, you don’t solve problems with French fries.’

“Touche. You don’t pretend problems do not exist, and you can’t solve them with ephemeral distractions. You have to face them with open-eyed honesty.”

My depression won’t go away by ignoring it. Only by saying, “I see you and I feel you” can I begin to dismantle the barbed wire fence that threatens to bloody my life.

One of the blogs I read is Brene Brown’s “Ordinary Courage.” I took Brown’s advice and bought Richie Norton's book The Power of Starting Something Stupid. I bought it because of a quote she included in her review, one that took her breath away:

"People wait. They wait for the elusive day when they'll finally have enough time (guess what? - you never will), enough education (there's always more to know), enough money (no matter how much you make, someone will always have more)…People wait until that fateful day when they wake up and realize that while they were sitting around paying dues, earning their keep, waiting for that elusive 'perfect time' their entire life has passed them by."

Reading that last line, I realized that for the last few months, I’ve been sitting around waiting for depression to leave me, like it’s a houseguest who understands that her boarding pass must be used by a certain date. No, I realized, I have to be the one to kick out the houseguest, to tell her it’s time to go home now. Here, let me do your laundry, help you pack, and drive you to the airport.

Only by engaging my depression can I learn what motivates it, what feeds it. This is my depression and I am only speaking to my issues. I know depression affects individuals in many different ways and often requires medical and pharmaceutical interventions. I do not rule those tools out, but for now, therapy, reading, meditating, and crying (yes, it can be a therapeutic tool, even if it’s an all-day cry) are making a small hole in that barbed wire fence. Someday I will pass through and I will once again intuit that sunshine makes me smile.

Ready!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Alice will do anything for beef jerky or peanut butter. Anything, that is, except go up stairs.

In my ancient house, there are 13 steep and narrow steps to the second floor. One friend says climbing them is akin to scaling a wall. Not an unfair comparison, actually, considering you have to ascend and descend sideways, gripping the handrail like a safety rope.

So if two-legged creatures have issues with my stairs, imagine what a four-legged pup must think. In Alice’s case it’s, ‘Are you KIDDING me?’

I spent two-and-a-half weeks bribing Al with her favorite treats, the ones that make her “sit” and “stay” and reward her for doing her business outside. I would set a bit of jerky on the first step. She’d reach for it, no problem. Second and third steps? East peasy. Fourth step required a bit of stretching, but with a bit of snout and tongue maneuvering, she got it.

The fifth step took some contemplating and some pacing back and forth across the threshold. After she had time to think about it (“How bad do I want that jerky?”), Al would skittishly hoist her back legs on to the first step and stretch just far enough to nab the jerky before running into the dining room to feast.

When I set a jerky on the sixth step, she looked at me from below like, “Um….no, human. That is NOT happening.” Even though every time I went upstairs, she’d sit at the bottom looking up, wondering, no doubt, what was up there, the jerky treat sat on step six for days.

So imagine my surprise last Wednesday at about 9 p.m. when I heard something moving around upstairs. As far as I know, my house isn’t haunted, so I stood up from my desk and looked around for Alice. She was not on her couch or in her crate or sniffing around the garbage can. Windows and doors were all securely shut, so she hadn’t escaped. The only place she could be…

I looked up the stairs and there she was, peering at me from around the corner of the spare bedroom, her tail thumping against the door, like she’d discovered some secret passageway to Nirvana.

I don’t know what motivated Alice to climb the stairs on her own, but I find great inspiration in her actions. No amount of bribing, cajoling, firm tones, soft tones, or words of encouragement from me were going to convince her that climbing the stairs was in her best interest. Only she knew what was right for her and when.

Al slept on her bed beside me that night, and I thought about the 19 steps that challenged me eight years ago. I had to climb them every day to get to my second-floor apartment, and every day I’d look up to the doorway at the top, draw a deep breath, and grab the metal railing. My knees crunched and my hips popped, and my lower back burned, and by the time I go to the top, my head was pounding and I could barely breathe. Then I’d sit down on the closest chair and tell myself, “That wasn’t so bad.”

But it was that bad, and everyone around me knew it. And yet no amount of bribing, cajoling, firm tones, soft tones, or words of encouragement were going to convince me that losing weight was in my best interest. Only I knew what was right for me and when.

Like Alice, eventually I figured it out, but I did it on my own terms and in my own time. Brave Alice and her determination to discover what was at the top of the stairs is no different than me or you or anyone else who finally says, “I’m ready!”

In the process of writing this blog over the last few days, I was fortunate to read Jen’s post, "Transitioning My Eating" (she writes the blog, “A Prior Fat Girl”) about her move to transition her eating from more to less processed foods. She wrote: “A lot of you have been very vocal in telling me I should do this for years. But I wasn’t ready then, mentally or emotionally. I wasn’t there yet. Something changed though…in the past couple months. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching @dietitiancassie’s tweets, and the articles she’s sharing. Or maybe it’s because of the conversations with my co-worker, Darcy, over the past couple months. Or maybe it’s because I’m just ready.”

“Ready” doesn’t always mean “I'm super confident that I can succeed!” “Ready” means ready to take a chance on the process with a hope that the outcome will be in the ballpark of our expectation. And if the process or the outcome aren't what we thought it would be, if our path takes us somewhere else, well, then, we still took a chance because we were “ready.”

AIM: A Girl’s Gotta Eat!

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

This is hardly a news flash for those of you who’ve been reading my blog for the last year: I’m not the tracker and planner I used to be. What might be newsy-ish, is that in and of itself – for me – that isn’t such a bad thing. I was waaaay militant about tracking and planning for years, to the point where I’d panic if I missed adding an olive or a couple of almonds to my food diary.

What I’ve found is a sort of left-to-middle ground, one where I call on my experience with food and the confidence I have in myself to know what’s best and not best for me. (Although, as you will read, I don’t always take my own advice, thus left-to-middle. I’m still working to find that perfect middle ground).

I decided for this topic I’d examine the “What Do I Eat?” portion on my FAQ page, written in 2009, and compare it to what is real for me now. The text in italics is from my original post.

I became a vegetarian after I got to goal in 2007.

This year, I have added fish back to my diet, particularly salmon, scallops, shrimp, orange roughy, flounder and canned tuna. I eat fish roughly three times a week.

Many people have asked…how I get enough protein each day. I strive to get between 55-60 grams of protein a day.

I stopped tracking that stat a few years ago.

I don’t eat “fake” meat (except for Boca vegan burgers) because the sodium content is so high.

That’s still true,

I like to make my own homemade bean burgers and keep them in the freezer.

I like to, but have I lately? Ummm….no. (Note to self: make burgers this weekend.)

My go-to protein sources are:

3 egg whites: 11 g

Cabot 75% reduced-fat cheese, 1 ounce: 9 g

Greek yogurt, ½ C: 11 g

Boca burger: 13 g

Soy milk, ½ C: 4 g

Edamame, 1/3 C: 12 g

Bean burger: 6-12 g

Lentils, 1 C: 17 g

All still true.

As for volume, I eat a LOT of veggies.

Not as true anymore. Where I used to eat up to nine servings a day, I struggle now to consume four or five. It may be because my meds have changed a bit, namely I now take prescription strength iron and B12, although I’ve found no literature indicating these things cause a change in appetite.

Many veggies I used to love just don’t taste the same, and so I’ve had to come up with new and more appealing ways to eat them. Also, salads – once a staple in my diet – don’t cut it for me anymore. I suspect overkill. I got bored.

I usually eat something every 2-3 hours.

This is still true most days. I eat a fairly big breakfast that includes protein (either egg whites or yogurt) and fruit and sometimes veggies. Once in a while I’ll include a grain such as an English muffin or toast, or opt out of the higher protein foods and eat oatmeal or cereal with fruit.

Entirely carb-based snacks leave me unsatisfied. I like to eat a bean burger, edamame, some almonds, a piece of cheese or a hard-boiled egg. Sometimes I’ll have PB2 (Bell Plantation’s dried peanut butter that you mix with water to make it smooth) with a banana. I also love squash. Any kind of squash: butternut, acorn or spaghetti. Leftover squash makes a great snack. For butternut and acorn squash, I mix it with a small amount of reduced-fat butter and maybe a bit of brown sugar. I put butter, pepper and Parmesan cheese on my spaghetti squash.

I want to be THAT person again! OK, so I’m not that far from that person, but I admit it’s been awhile since I’ve bought a squash.

Hummus is a must-have in my house, too. I prefer to make my own, but some store-bought is good, too (particularly Trader Joe’s brand).

I haven’t made homemade hummus in months. I found the Giant Eagle store brand to be far superior to even Trader Joe’s! I keep it in my fridge at all times, along with cottage cheese, something I rarely purchased before.

I also like to have a vegetable soup on hand for a quick snack. Other soups I make are usually bean- or lentil-based and they make good lunches or dinners.

Yes and yes! So…maybe I’m not as far from the old me as I thought.

I limit my fruit intake to two servings each day. My other rule is no more than one tropical fruit serving a day (i.e. bananas, mangoes, pineapples). I also try to limit my grain-based carbs to two a day (reduced-calorie bread, crackers, cereal, etc.), I rarely eat pasta, and I limit potatoes to once a week (I used to eat them 3-4 times a week).

This is actually still very true. However, fruit is another food I lost a taste for, so I don’t always eat two servings a day. I also eat potatoes maaaaybe once or twice a month, although I confess I discovered Kettle Brand baked chips and I do munch on them sometimes…in moderation. I make pasta salmon salad a few times a month, too, and use whole wheat pasta. Otherwise, pasta doesn’t do much for me.

What else that's different from when I wrote “What Do I Eat?” is I socialize more, which means more restaurants, more food on the go, and eating more frequently at friends’ homes. This trend has tried to lead me by the hand to my old ways of eating, and I confess I don’t always resist in the way that would be best for my body. Bread baskets and butter pats, full-fat dressings, a bite here and a bite there of appetizers, desserts, or the meals others are having….all have found their way back into my eating behavior.

But while clearly there is room for improvement in the ways I eat away from home, I am more mindful of these patterns than ever before. A huge improvement in the way I used to maintain any weight loss. I reign myself in faster, tweak my diet quicker, and say no to myself more often.

I’m no longer a slave to food, but a student of food, which is a BIG step further along my path to the perfect middle ground.

----------------------------------

Lori @ Finding Radiance

Debbie @ debby weighs in

Shelley @ My Journey to Fit

Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet

Tag, I’m It! My “Next Big Thing”

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

The Next Big Thing is a blog meme going around in the blog-o-sphere, and Cammy at Tippy Toe Diet asked if she could tag me to keep it going, sort of like Friendship Bread only carb-free!

Cammy’s Next Big Thing is a gathering of goals she’s put under the umbrella of “daring greatly.” She was tagged to continue the meme by Sharon at Midlife Moments, whose Next Big Thing is menopause.

My Next Big Thing will make noise. Literally. And I hope to god my mother isn’t reading this.

I’m going to learn to ~~drive~~ ride this (A reader corrected me saying you ride a bike, both as the person who is in charge of it and the person riding on the back. It seems confusing, but if that's the rule, that's the rule!):

This is the Irishman’s Harley, a 1999 Sportster 883, that I’ve had the pleasure of riding on the back of only once and only briefly because spring didn’t get the groundhog’s memo that it’s supposed to start warming up.

I rode on the back of a motorcycle for the first time two years ago (see “A Mental Miracle”) and went from scared-to-death to badass-in-love in zero to 60. Motorcycle Owner and I only dated for a few more months, so I didn’t get too much additional riding time, but the thrill of the ride never left me.

Knowing this, a friend suggested I take the a Motorcycle Safety Training class after he took it and bought a used Honda Sportster last year. It seemed absurd at the time. Learn to ~~drive~~ ride a motorcycle? Such a foreign concept. As liberated as I am, ~~driving~~ riding a bike seemed like a guy thing. Women rode on the back. But a seed was planted, and like the crocuses in my yard - despite the wicked weather - it will bloom.

One in 10 motorcycle owners are women. Not great stats, but those women are out there, and I am determined to join their ranks. I just have to learn how to ~~drive~~ ride one first, something I know almost nothing about. But, hey, I didn’t know anything about driving a stick shift when my dad took me with him to test drive a 1974 Mustang in 1980 when I was a junior in high school. He drove us to a parking lot, got out of the car, and said, “If you drive this back to the dealership, I’ll buy it for you.” Believe me, I learned REAL fast how to drive a stick.

When I married farmer Bruce, he taught me to drive a skid loader, an old Ford pickup with the stick on the column (the 3-speed “H” pattern), a tractor, and a 10-speed Mack truck. Getting behind the wheel of an enclosed vehicle is always fun. But there are no steering wheels on motorcycles. Or doors or windows or anything holding you in. You shift with your left foot, including your toes, and you brake with your right hand as well as your foot, and people warn you about how dangerous they are and they call people who love motorcycles “organ donors” and you’d think that would be enough to scare me away.

But it doesn’t. This is just the kind of challenge I’ve been looking for. Something so outside my comfort zone that I need field glasses to see it. It also gives me something more fun than my 2013 taxes to save for.

I’ll start small (and used), perhaps a Suzuki Marauder GZ125. It weighs what I did at my heaviest!

Or a Honda Rebel 250

Or a Star Motorcycles V Star 250. Look how awesome she looks driving that!

Or a Yamaha Virago 250. Not sure I can pull off leather pants, but I'll definitely get chaps.

So there you have it. My Next Big Thing. I promise I’ll do everything within my power to stay safe. In the meantime, I’m hoping for warmer weather very soon so I can start riding on the back of that Harley and begin learning all I can about driving it one day.

I’ve tagged Sharon from Gains and Losses: Life ThroughSharon’s Eyes to keep this Next Big Thing chain going. I just know she’ll come up with her own uber cool challenge!

The "C" Word

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:51:00 +0000

Someone once told me I think too much. He meant it as a dis, but I took it as a compliment. “We are what we think,” said the Buddha. “All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

Something I’ve been thinking about and working to understand for quite a while now is “commitment.” How do I define it? How have I succeeded or failed, and why I’ve succeeded or failed? It’s been a difficult and yet, as best I can tell, an honest inquiry.

Commitment is not easy for me. I’ve known this for years. When my husband died, I subconsciously identified commitment with suffering, or more specifically, I believed if I committed to someone, they would leave me. Commitment became less of a promise and more of a tentative maybe, a “let’s wait and see” thing that offered an out if things got difficult, scary, tough…fill in the blank.

This isn’t to say I lack the ability to commit to something. It took a lot of commitment to lose 150+ pounds, and it’s taking even more commitment to maintain. But it’s easier to make a commitment to myself than to others. If I let myself down, I only hurt myself. Letting someone else down not only hurts myself and others, but it spawns guilt, and who wants to live with guilt, right? Ergo, don’t commit too much to someone else.

Since my divorce in 2010, it’s been crazy strange living alone, and at first it was very difficult. But I’ve come a long way since I wrote “Let The Mauling Begin” in May 2011. Living alone has helped me understand myself better and has taught me many things, from the simple (grocery shopping for one, cooking for one) to the more complex (changing the locks on the doors and turning off the main water valve to the house). I was in a relationship for a while, and have recently started dating again, but I’m not looking to commit to anyone, at least not in the long-term. Part of that is my still-exploratory look at my relationship to commitment, but it’s also become clear to me – through journaling and meditation and hours spent talking with friends and Julie T. Therapist – that there’s more of me for me to know. Alone.

However….just because I’m not looking to share a toothbrush holder with a two-legged creature doesn’t mean I don’t want to share space with a four-legged one. A dog seemed a better conduit to embracing relational commitment than the two-legged right now. And so I spent the last few months looking for Alice. I finally found her – through the help of a network of rescue organizations and their dedicated volunteers – at a shelter in Marietta, Ohio, where she’d been placed after being removed from a home with 28 dogs.

I introduced you to Alice last week after I sprained my knee and aggravated my arthritis (see “A New Dog and an Old Knee”). One of the hardest things to convince people with arthritis to do is to move, and I’m no exception. Over the last several months, unless I’m going to my volunteer job or babysit the grandkids, my morning routine is: get up, make tea, sit down, and sit. And sit some more. Then around 10 a.m. I decide…sigh…that I should work out. After all, exercise is something I’ve been committed to for nearly six years! But working out means standing up and…whaaaaa!! It’s easier to sit! Then Alice wakes up and snorts and paws at me, and so I bundle up and take her out, and darn it if walking her doesn’t loosen up the old knee! And because we walk more than once a day, I stay more limber throughout the day, which in turn, makes me more excited about working out.

Who’s a good dog?

I understand that commitment is a choice and a promise – not a tentative maybe – and it takes a conscious effort every day to stick to it, through thick and thin. Have I been happy with some of Alice’s choices? No. But that’s why god invented carpet cleaner. Has she been happy with some of my choices? Probably not, as evidenced by the vomit she left in the back seat of my car. But I’m committed to helping Al be the best dog she can be, and, while I can’t speak for her exactly, she seems pretty committed to making me a better human.

A Day Like No Other

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:06:00 +0000

Today is the 30th anniversary of the day my life changed forever. As many of you know, my husband died on March 22, 1983, when I was 19 years old and our daughter, Carlene, was 11 days old.

I suspect we all have a day or a moment in time that changed us, either by choice or by circumstance. Please, if you feel you can, share your day or moment in the comments below.

Here’s a glance into a few hours of that day, a day so long ago and yet still stings me to my soul:

It was a Tuesday. My Aunt Mavis called the house just before noon. My mom, who was staying with us for a few weeks, answered the phone while I folded laundry and watched “All My Children.” She put her hand over the receiver and asked, “Did Bruce go to town?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I thought he was working in the machine shed. Let me check.”

I opened the front door and called out his name. The sun was bright and the air was a promising 40 degrees. I saw a train stopped on the tracks a half mile from our farm and remembered hearing a whistle blowing longer than usual about an hour earlier. I called to Bruce again. Duke, our German Shepherd, was curled up on the rug at the bottom of the step, a sure sign Bruce wasn’t on the property.

I went back inside. Mom hung up the phone. Mavis heard there’d been a train accident, she said.

My mouth went dry.

“Call David,” I said and turned off the television. David was our pastor and a member of the volunteer ambulance crew.

David’s wife answered and Mom asked her if there’d been an accident.

Please, please, please say no. Please say no. I covered my heart with my hands.

Mom’s face went sheet white.

“Thank you,” she said and hung up the phone. Our eyes met. I knew.

“Lynnie,” her voice trembled. “Bruce is dead. David’s on his way here.”

You know how when you rip off an adhesive bandage and the pain doesn’t hit for a few seconds? The same thing happens when you find out your husband is dead. It takes your brain awhile to understand what you just heard. Even then it doesn’t sink in because the reality is just too big to grasp in the space of a few seconds.

I walked into the kitchen for a glass of water and to turn off the pork chops simmering on the stove. I stared out the window at the south end of our lawn. I thought about the garden I wanted to plant there and made a mental note to remind Bruce to till that up for me. Then David’s car and my brother-in-law’s pickup came speeding around the corner.

Wait. Bruce isn’t here anymore.

I met them at the door. They’d both been crying.

David wrapped me in his arms and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t cry. I wanted to throw up.

We sat down on the couch and I asked Mom to get my wedding ring out of my jewelry box. I’d taken it off a few months earlier because my fingers swelled. My hand shook as she handed me the small band, and I forced it past my knuckle.

“Do you want something to drink?” someone asked.

“No.”

“Eat?”

“No.”

“You’ll need to keep up your strength to nurse.”

“I know,” I said. But I didn’t eat for another day.

I looked down at my body clothed in gray sweat pants and Bruce’s long-sleeved South Dakota State University t-shirt. My breasts leaked like sieves, and I was littered with stitches and hemorrhoids. It was one thing to feel vulnerable because I was overweight. Fat I understood. On my wedding day, my first thought as I walked down the aisle wasn’t, “I’m getting married!” It was, “Oh god, people are going to look at my ass!” But no amount of feeling fat prepared me for what crept through my bloated, post-partum body; a feeling so raw that it settled in my bones like damp winter cold.

From what little experience I had with the formalities of death, I knew people would soon come to our farm armed with casseroles and desserts to pay their respects. Still shaking, I changed out of my sweats and hoped no one noticed I hadn’t dusted or cleaned the bathroom in a week.

A New Dog And An Old Knee

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:34:00 +0000

I wish I could say I did it dancing an Irish jig in a fine pub with a handsome Irishman after putting back a pint of Guinness. But alas, there was no dancing, no fine pub, and no pint. (But there was a handsome Irishman *grin*)

I spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon in the ER learning what I might have done to my already horrific right knee on Saturday night. I’d felt it twist a bit when I stood up from my office chair and turned slightly to put my computer to sleep. (My computer being a rebuilt ProBook laptop, sent to me via my accidental damage warranty, to replace the ProBook that couldn’t handle its liquor. One glass of wine and it was toast. See "Armed and Less Dangerous") It was nothing too noticeable, nothing painful, until I tried to walk and my knee buckled like an asphalt driveway on a 100-degree day. My kneecap moved all over the place, like a silver ball in a plastic-domed cardboard puzzle. I could NOT get that sucker back in place.

When I awoke the next morning, my knee had swollen to the size of a small cantaloupe. To get downstairs, I had to sit and slide. My toes were numb and my foot was cold. It was time to hit the ER.

The doctor said I most likely sprained it and tore some ligaments, but without an MRI, he couldn’t know exactly what was wrong. One look at my knee on a good day and you know it's toast. It’s been living on borrowed time since I was 18 and I’ll be 50 in five months. It's accrued a lot of interest in 32 years. But like an old car you can’t afford to replace, I just keep changing the oil, hoping she’ll give me a few more miles.

We nixed the MRI idea because it would be a waste of time and money. I assumed the doctor would suggest draining the fluid, as I’ve had done many times before, but he said the arthritis and the bone spurs would make draining more difficult and he didn’t want to risk aggravating my knee any further or cause infection. He said I needed to wear a knee stabilizer and follow the RICE principal – rest, ice, compression, elevation.

I waited until he left my room to shed a few tears. This knee dealio couldn’t have come at a worse time. I just adopted a beautiful 18-month-old coon hound/lab mix on Friday. Her original name was Whitney, but she doesn’t look like or act like a Whitney. I thought about Sid, but g-baby Claire said she already has too many Sidney’s in her life (Sidney her best friend and Sidney Crosby, her favorite hockey player). So I named her Alice because I like "White Rabbit" and because her back legs reminded me a little of my great-grandmother Alice’s legs: skinny and slightly bowed.

Except for the three hours I spent out with the Irishman Saturday night, I’ve been with Alice constantly since Friday morning. We’re attached like flies on stink (and she does sometimes stink as her body adjusts to new food…yikes!). Underweight, my job is to help Alice gain 8 pounds, which I’d happily give her if liposuction transfer was possible. Alice’s job is to get me out of the house and be more active. That’s going to be a challenge with a bum knee.

A nurse came in with the brace and she saw me wiping my eyes.

“I want to tell you something…” she began, and I thought, ‘Here we go. Another well-intentioned person who has a friend who has a friend who had her knee replaced when she was 79 and she wondered why she didn’t do it sooner.’ I hear that story all the time.

“I’m 56 and have been an ER nurse for 30 years,” she said. “I’m on my feet for long hours at a time. Several years ago, my right knee started hurting. It kept getting worse until two years ago, I decided to see an orthopedic surgeon. He told me, ‘How in the hell do you expect me to fix something like that when you’re so damn fat?’”

I gasped.

“Yup, that’s what he said. But he replaced my knee and it was the best thing I’d ever done for myself,” she said.

“Wait,” I said, still reeling from her doctor’s comment. “He spoke to you like that and you let him operate?”

She laughed. “He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. I know I’m fat. I have been all my life. I’ve never been thin like you.”

As she wrapped my knee in the brace, I thought about all the assumptions floating around the room – hers and mine – and about how much easier it is to assume than it is to remain curious and open-minded.

The older I get, the more I think I know, when the truth is – to quote Smash Mouth – my brain gets smart but my head gets dumb. This is particularly true when it comes to things I fear, like knee replacement. I recycle old, unexamined thoughts or turn a blind eye to the truth.

Isn't she a beaut? I might be able to get a few more miles out of her (Is there anything a hot bath won't cure?), but I will give knee replacement a little less resistance and a little more thought, especially now that Alice will be needing my knees to keep up with her for the next 13 years or so.

Armed and Less Dangerous

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:08:00 +0000

This is a stock photo. I was too bummed to take a photo of my spill.

A strange thing happened when I tipped a glass of wine on my laptop Thursday night. I didn’t get mad. I didn’t panic. And although it wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve ever done, I didn’t scream and yell and call myself an idiot. I simply assessed the situation with a quiet, “Crap,” wiped up the wine with some paper towels, and went to bed.

The next morning, I called Hewlett Packard (thank goodness for accidental damage warranties), and had a 45-minute conversation with a call center representative located somewhere in Asia. I jumped through a bunch of hoops (yes, I know to plug in the power supply to a working outlet) until the representative decided that my computer wasn’t going to power on and said HP would send me a box in which to return my computer for service or replacement.

While I had predicted the outcome and would rather have spent those 45 minutes doing something more productive, I didn’t stress, at least not in that, “Oh my god, I have to solve this NOW!” kind of way. The coolest part of this not-so-stressed state was that I was able to notice how, during that 45-minute conversation, my mind drifted into thinking it would be a good idea to eat my way through the groceries I’d bought the day before – the hummus and the cottage cheese, the plums and popcorn. I also thought about my last AIM post on what’s different this time, and more of my maintenance story unfolded.

When I started this journey in 2005, I had a one-track mind. I was going to DO it! No matter what! Then I got to maintenance and I was going to DO it! No matter what! But “no matter what” became a divorce and grandchildren and school and additional arthritis issues, and my one-track mind turned into a cornucopia of coping mechanisms.

But what’s different this time is that I was able to identify many of those coping mechanisms and sit with them and not completely fold in on myself. I gained some pounds, but I stopped them from multiplying. Why? Because I finally “get” that I have a “weighted” past and that I have a propensity to gain weight just by looking in a bakery window. I don’t like it, I wish it wasn’t true, but I can wish and not like all I want, but the truth is, I have to pay attention.

AND…and this is most important…I have to care enough about myself to not call myself an idiot when I screw up. Because the reality is: I will screw up and I will respond. But that response doesn’t have to include eating my way through my refrigerator or speaking cruelly to myself. A simple acknowledgment of the screw up will suffice, along with a thoughtful plan on how to improve or solve the situation.

I’m not looking forward to loading all that software back on to my new or refurbished computer, or recreating bookmarks and bookmark folders in Firefox, but I’m arming myself with self-kindness for the task. Self-kindness that involves working out before and probably after, and allowing myself to eat things I’ve identified, for me, as healthy comfort food. Things like hummus and veggies, sardines, edamame (in the shell…finger food!), smoked almonds, Jarlsburg lite, Honeycrisp apples, and roasted asparagus.

And now that I know laptops don’t like chardonnay, I will separate the glass from the computer from now on. Yes, that’s probably obvious to the savvy among you reading, and I’m sure this won’t be my last time around the self-evident block. But I’ll be armed and less dangerous next time.

“Likes walks on the beach…”

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 20:49:00 +0000

After celebrating my beautiful daughter’s 30^th birthday last night at a Japanese hibachi grill, I wasn’t sure the five hours of sleep I got and the daylight standard time thing would put me in the mood for outdoor activity today. But when it’s 66 degrees in March AND sunny, and you live in a place where you’re sun-deprived for nine months of the year, you learn real quick how to put on your big girl panties and get out there, despite your sake headache…I mean, sleep deprivation.

Nothing was keeping me off the bike trail. Well, almost nothing. I’ll get to that in a minute.

I dug my bike out from hibernation and pumped up the tires and attached the bag and the odometer/speedometer computer thingy (that’s the technical term, I’m pretty sure). I attached the bike rack to my spare tire (remind me to ask for a trailer hitch and new bike rack for my birthday this year) and hoisted my bike onto it. Then I spent a minute staring at the strap I use to secure the bike to the rack like I’d never seen it before. It’s only been four months and change since I’d done it before, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember how I threaded that thing around my bike. After four tries, those brain cells came back to life and my bike was securely attached to the rack.

I chose to get on the trail in the small town of Marwood because I wanted to see the cows and turkeys I hadn’t seen since October. It’s also where a relatively open part of the trail begins and thought it was my best bet for a dry(er) ride. I shifted my bike into four-wheel drive – relatively speaking – and started pedaling. I never got above 8 miles per hour, the mud was so thick. My lungs and thighs were working overtime. ‘Killer workout!’ I thought. I was psyched.

Then…wham!

Did I mention we had 10 inches of snow last Tuesday? Yeah…I kind of forgot about that.

I turned around and four-wheeled back to the Jeep. I strapped the bike back on the rack, and then took off in the other direction on foot. I had The Black Keys on my iPod and the sun in my face…I was ready to power walk.

On vacation in southern CA, 2008

I knew right away this wasn’t going to be an ordinary walk. Suddenly, it was 2008, and the bike trail had turned into Topanga Beach in southern California. Talk about wet sand! ‘Killer workout’ I thought, and I was psyched for the second time in an hour.

I walked for two miles as briskly as I could, and my thighs and knees felt every step. They will hate me tomorrow, but too bad, so sad. That's why god created Advil. I need my biking legs back in working order, and the sooner the better. Biking helps me think and work out the mental kinks, and I’ve definitely accumulated some of those over the winter. Have you? What are you looking forward to most as the weather improves and the days get longer?

AIM: What’s Different This Time

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:15:00 +0000

"AIM: Adventures in Maintenance is Lynn, Lori, Debby, Shelley, and Cammy, former weight-loss bloggers who now write about life in maintenance. We formed AIM to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. We publish a post on the same topic on the first Monday of each month. Let us know if there is a topic you'd like us to address!"

---------------

“The more I know, the less I understand
“All the things I thought I’d figured out, I have to learn again.”

From the song Heart of the Matter by Don Henley

I can’t find my darts. I’ve looked everywhere. They’re a pretty metallic blue with a silver band around the middle, and they have a solid grip that helped me shoot a fair number of bullseyes back in the 90s. I was hoping to resurrect those glory days at a pub I discovered a few weeks ago. But alas, my lovely blue darts have gone missing.

When we were in the process of forming AIM, we discussed the “hows” of maintenance. We’d all lost weight several times before and failed to keep it off, so we talked about how the “hows” this time were different. Lori summed it up this way: “Maintenance isn't always hitting the bullseye, but it’s continuing to try with every shot, and sometimes taking a step back to sharpen the darts.”

Maintenance was never something I’d taken seriously. Whenever I got to a weight goal, my first thought was, ‘Finally, I can eat again!’

When I got to goal on March 12, 2007, what was different this time was that I’d spent two years, two months and 12 days learning how to eat rather than merely eating as a means to an end. To some it may seem obvious, but for me I had to learn that it wasn’t smart to celebrate goal with a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard and a corn dog, and that a sleeve of Thin Mints wasn’t a reward.

Maintenance is different this time, too, because I’m not maintaining alone. As much as I’d like to not talk about last weekend’s “white food” high or admit my lame excuses for not exercising, “confessing” my struggles to and celebrating my successes with others who also struggle and succeed keeps me connected to my original intention for starting this journey: to honor myself by living a more healthy lifestyle.

But just as I seek the counsel and camaraderie of people who “get it,” I still sometimes lose my intentions to the words of others who don’t. For instance, I’ve not kept secret on my blog or amongst my maintainer friends my desire to lose the 20 pounds I’ve gained since my divorce in 2010. I mentioned this recently to a few people outside my “weight world” and their response was, in a nutshell, “Why? You look fine the way you are.”

Well hand me the bread and pass the butter! I look OK, so I can stop all this paying attention nonsense! Dessert? Yes, please! I’m tired this morning? Forget the gym!

“As if…” whispers the maintainer inside me.

And that’s what’s different about what’s not different this time.

This time, it’s not about looking fine for other people, or, to a larger extent, merely accepting myself as I am. It’s about taking that step back and sharpening those darts.

I know what’s best for me and I know to not measure my intentions against other people’s expectations. Sure, I admit I take in the comments (“You don’t need to lose any weight!” or, my favorite, “You were too skinny before.”), and I live with them for awhile, maybe eat a little more than I should, but I have the capacity and – more importantly – the desire to reign myself back in, to remind myself of my priorities.

I may have lost my pretty blue metallic darts, but I’ve not lost sight of the bullseye, and that’s what makes all the difference this time.

Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts, and if you haven’t already, check out what my fellow AIM bloggers’ have to say about this subject.

Lori @ Finding Radiance

Debbie @ debby weighs in

Shelley @ My Journey to Fit

Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet

What To Do With Busy

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:35:00 +0000

If happiness could fuel our bodies, I’d be as energetic as my 2-year-old granddaughter, Mae. Audrey’s birth yesterday, while obviously expected, filled me with a familiar yet inexplicable joy.

But happiness is calorie-free, so after taking care of three small children and eating an all-over-the-charts, nutritionally sketchy diet for three days, this nearly 50-year-old body is beat.

Lifting 20- to 50-pound children, climbing stairs, cleaning “accidents” (Mae is being potty trained), washing clothes, washing dishes, washing children…I thought I was in pretty decent shape, but I’ve discovered muscles I never found working out at the gym.

And forget about my resolve to eat healthy. Resolve got tossed out sometime Monday night, like one of those old t-shirts you find obscurely lying in an alley, dirty and torn from the weather and from being run over by pickups and garbage truck; barely recognizable as a shirt. I had the option of eating a salad for dinner last night, but I opted for Tex-Mex Bean Casserole and Frosted Mini Wheats instead. What the…? My only excuse was that it was easier and I was busy.

I’ve been busy before and I’ve managed to stay mindful of my eating. But the kind of busy I’ve been involved in these last three days is a busy way outside my experience. That said, I’m beginning to understand what so many of you tell me you struggle with: how to find the time to make a plan and time to implement your plan. Believe me, I have a new-found appreciation/empathy/soft spot for your schedules and your struggle to do what you know is best for YOU.

When I started this whole weight-loss thing in 2005, my parenting duties were greatly reduced. Carlene and Cassie were grown and living away from home, and my stepsons visited their usual 6 weeks in summer and during Easter and Christmas breaks. I was self-employed and lived with my (then) husband, who was also interested in losing weight. I had personal time and personal space. Time and space to think about and implement my plan.

As you can imagine, today I’m carb-o-blah. Exhausted. Pretty much useless. Happy? Yes. But I’m definitely in need of a food adjustment. A food adjustment and advice.

I would love to hear from those of you who do double/triple/quadruple duty as parents or caretakers or employees or employers. How do you make yourself a priority? How did you learn to work your food and/or fitness plan into the fabric of your busy schedule?

It's an Audrey Rose!!

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:38:00 +0000

Waving goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.

I got the call at 7:30 last night. Water broke, bags are packed, it’s baby time. I threw a bag together and headed over to the Conti ranch.

The kids were still awake and their nervous excitement was palpable. Cassie and Matt left at 8:15 and the kids waved goodbye. The kids and I talked and read books and by 9:30, they were out like lights.

Audrey Rose is a text baby, similar to Mae. Cassie texted me throughout the night with updates on her status. Two centimeters at 2:30, five at 5:00, seven at 6:30.

“My epidural wore off on the left side. I can’t believe you went natural with us. Shit hurts man.” To which I replied, “I had no choice.”

A few minutes later: “Will be pushing in about 10-15 min. 8 cm.”

I knew the next half hour in Cassie’s world would be beautifully chaotic with pushing and panting, doctor’s commands, blood, pain, and sweat. I saw her birth Claire, so I know she births babies with determination and grace. I also knew my son-in-law was giving her 110 percent. And so I sat in the quiet and played Words With Friends and ate a banana and thought for sure Cassie was birthing a boy.

Claire woke up and came downstairs and sat next to me on a stool. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s the baby, a boy or girl?”

I told her I didn’t know yet. She asked for a banana and she showed me how she peels them. Claire had climbed in bed with me at 2:30 and we talked for an hour before she fell back to sleep and did her typical Claire arm dive onto my nose a few times. Queen sized bed and the girl sleeps right next to me. I’d want it no other way.

At 7:15, my son-in-law sent the first photo of the baby: “It’s Audrey Rose! 6 lbs 14 oz!”

I was wrong again. I’m 0 for 4 on grandbaby gender guessing. Do NOT take me to Vegas.

“You have a sister!” I told Claire and showed her the photo.

“Ohhhh! She’s so cuuuute! It’s a really, really pretty name!”

I texted and called family and friends as Claire typed the alphabet on my computer: Abcdefghijklnmopqrstuvwxyz

“Why are people so excited?” Claire asked, as my phone dinged and dinged.

“Because so many people want to know who Audrey is,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, and kept typing.

Luca woke up and was in the bathroom doing his business. Claire went upstairs and said, “You were right! We have a sister! Her name is Audrey Rose!”

“Awwwww….that’s so cuuuute!” said Luca, flushing the toilet.

“Wash your hands!” I yelled up the stairs.

“I did!” he said.

“Dude, there’s no way you washed your hands yet. Wash them!” I said. The water turned on. I won.

Luca sat on my lap as I continued my texting quest. He typed his own line on my computer: jhzg4etreegrfetsgqwhewfhtrthygtyhy56htreh…. Naming each letter and number as he typed.

Matt sent me another photo of Audrey and I showed the kids.

“Are we gonna have THAT baby?” Luca asked. Yes, dude, that’s the one who’s going to live in your house for the next 18 years, at least.

Mae woke up at 8:15 and I brought her downstairs. I showed her the photos of Audrey.

“Mommy’s baby,” she said over and over.

“Yes, that’s Mommy’s baby. Her name is Audrey.” Mae insisted I keep Audrey’s photo on my computer screen. If I responded to something on Facebook, she’d say, “See Mommy’s baby!” and I’d have to bring the photo back on the screen. Like Luca, I don’t think she fully understands that “Mommy’s baby” is coming home to stay on Thursday.

In a few hours I’ll hold Audrey Rose for the first time. If there is ever a more perfect moment than holding a newborn baby, I don’t know what it is.

Today is my father’s birthday. He is 82. He is beyond thrilled that his great-granddaughter shares his birthdate. Dad has understood the precarious nature of life since he was a child. His father died when Dad was 6 and his mother was 9 months pregnant with his brother. There is no more perfect gift to him today than Audrey Rose.

But my perfect gift today wasn’t Audrey. While her being here is awesome and I can’t wait to get to know her, my perfect gift was a text from my son-in-law. I had thanked him for Audrey, to which he replied, “Hey, thanks for Cassie. She’s just an awesome woman.”

*tear* It doesn’t get any better than that.

"I must have done something good."

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:18:00 +0000

You’d think I was the one having a baby this week, not my daughter. Over the weekend, I cleaned everything in my house, down to the shower curtain and the vacuum cleaner filter. Today, I’m roasting squash, cooking beets and Brussels sprouts, and making homemade seasonings, and brown rice and pumpkin pudding. Later, I’ll do laundry and take the Jeep through the car wash. I have homework to do, but right now I don’t have enough concentration to tell you the difference between an amino acid and antifreeze.

I’ve been excitedly nervous prior to each grandchild’s arrival, but this one (affectionately known only to me and the friend that coined the name, “Caboose”) is different. Cassie developed a large subchorionic hematoma in her first trimester and it set us all on edge, especially Cassie (who wrote about it extensively on her blog, Sisters From Different Misters). But her fear and (undeserved) guilt gave rise to a unique resolve that Cassie somehow always finds, no matter what hits the fan. A resolve that radiates outward from the deepest recesses of her soul, the place she processes the things most people would wallow in.

The best example I can give of this is when Cass was 15 and her best friend, Tony, died in a car wreck. It took her years to work through her pain and loss, and her body is a testament to that process. When she got married, she considered using makeup to hide the symbols tattooed on her spine and on her wrists. But she said they serve to remind her where she was and how far she’s come. On her wedding day, she refused to hide or pretend to be something she’s not.

Cassie after the P'burgh Marathon, 2012

Sometimes I think of my grandchildren as makeup gifts from the universe for the ass-kicking I took in my early adulthood. On the flip side, I know I didn’t always make good decisions, either. That’s when I think of my grandchildren as personified forgiveness. But Claire, Luca, Mae, and Caboose wouldn’t be here without their amazingly resilient mother; a girl I birthed, but – in many ways – can’t take credit for. Who she is comes from within. That she is here on this earth, well, all I can say is, “I must have done something good.”

Fueled By Worry

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:52:00 +0000

Grandbaby #4 will be here sometime in the next…oh…few, several, maybe ten days…who knows…which means my phone is never off and always charged.

You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but then, does a mother ever get used to worrying about her children? Cassie has had fairly easy pregnancies and deliveries, but still, it’s difficult to accept there isn’t one thing I can do to guarantee she and the baby will be fine. This isn’t a skinned knee we’re talking about.

And as if worry wasn’t enough, self-doubt joined the fun. Do I have what it takes to be a good support to my daughter and her husband? A good Grammy to four children?

I’ve eaten my way through those questions more than a few times and…you guessed it…I got no answers. Just a sluggish feeling with a side of guilt.

You know the saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees”? Yeah, well, sometimes the answers I seek can’t be found because I’m looking in the wrong place. Leave it to a 5-year-old to be my guiding prophet.

Last night I took Claire to her taekwondo class. On the ride there, she talked about who will be at her house to take care of her when her mommy’s having the baby. She rattled off a list of all the people she wants around her: me, Papa Larry, Grandma Julia, Papa Frank, Auntie Carly and Uncle Ben. She said she wanted to sleep in her bed tent and wanted Luca to sleep in her secret hiding place (AKA, her closet, which has a sheer curtain for a door and lots of pillows inside. No mention of where Mae would be in all this. Luca is her best friend. Mae’s someone she escapes from once in awhile.)

Claire was talking faster than usual and I realized she was seeking reassurance that everything will be OK, that if she woke up one morning and Mommy and Daddy weren’t there, that she would not be alone. And it hit me. I know how to do that! I know how to make Claire feel safe. I’ve been doing it for more than five years!

When I woke up this morning, I made my intention for the day to be mindful of how I was taking care of myself so that I could best take care of the people who need my help. I have no control over how or when gbaby arrives, but I can control what goes in my mouth and my physical activity.

Mae, Cassie, Claire and Luca. #4 is in there somewhere!

So with a bit of new-found courage, I threw on some clothes, ate a sensible breakfast, and headed over to Cassie’s to watch the kids so she could go to her OB appointment in peace. I sat on the couch and all three kids grabbed their blankies and snuggled up around me. I asked Cassie how I’d possibly have room for another baby and she said, “You have long arms. They’ll all fit.” When I got home, I worked out for the first time in two weeks. The endorphins were like long-lost friends. I’d missed them so.

Over the next few days, I will do what I’ve done the other three times: prepare and freeze meals for the family. And when Cassie comes home from the hospital, greeting her on the stove will be a pot of wild rice soup, and in the oven, tater tot hotdish. There’s a place for food to offer comfort. It’s just not a very good counselor.

I’m still worried. That won’t change. I mean, it’s my daughter. But I won’t let worry consume me. I’m letting it fuel me.

Adventures In Maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

During weight loss, we’re rock stars. The scale goes down and people notice. But when the scale stops moving and the compliments wane, we’re more like the roadies, the people who work long after the music stops and the fans go home. No one pays us much attention, but we’re imperative to the success of our former rock star selves.

Adventures in Maintenance (AIM) is Shelley, Lori, Cammy, Debby and Lynn, former rock star weight-loss bloggers who now write as roadies of weight maintenance. Collectively, we have lost 528 pounds and have been maintaining for 24.5 years. We formed AIM because we know what it’s like to take aim at maintenance. The perfect shot is really hard, but you can get close with practice.

As bloggers, we want to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. Although we will continue to write independently, on the first Monday of each month, we will post a blog on the same topic.

One subject, five voices. And you, our readers. There’s a larger conversation to be had about weight maintenance, so we encourage you to add your voice. Let us know what topics you’d like us to address, and when you read our posts, add your comments. Together, we can dispel myths, encourage each other, and take a blogger’s AIM at the heart of maintenance. Look for our first AIM post on Monday, March 4 and the topic is: “What’s Different This Time.”

Allow us to introduce ourselves:

Shelley
For those of you new to my blog, My Journey To Fit, I’m Shelley and I’m a mom to two grown sons, Sam and Max, and wife to Jeff. We’ve been married for nearly 29 years.

I’ll be turning 50 in a few months, and quite honestly, I’m pretty dang excited about that…losing my excess weight has allowed me to BE and DO so many things that I never thought would be “me.” And while I don’t know what is in store, I’m happy to be physically able to take on whatever catches my fancy (and yes, I realize I sounded like a 90-year-old with that phrase).

My blog has evolved over the years, starting with my diet adventure and grudging acceptance of exercise, to the discovery that I liked running (I was the one who said I’d never run…lesson learned, never say never!), along with shopping for clothes (so much more fun now that I’m not relegated to the plus-size department), and my hobbies – I learned to knit last year and have been ~~torturing~~ treating my readers with updates and pictures of my knitting projects. Who knows what’s next?!

Why am I participating in AIM? Well, I stumbled onto a couple of maintenance bloggers – coincidentally, one was Lynn – before I lost my first pound. What struck me right away was that not only had these women, who were as big as me, lost weight, but they were keeping it off. Bingo – that made me realize that this time, if I truly wanted this to be my last diet, I was going to have to do things differently so that I didn’t regain the weight like I did every other time I dieted. Making changes with the idea that they were going to be on a permanent basis, instead of temporary cutbacks, was the key to my success. While I haven’t kept off every single pound I lost, I’ve managed to keep nearly all of them at bay, and I’ve finally realized that I don’t have to eat my way through life to be happy.

Lori
My name is Lori and I write the blog Finding Radiance. I chose that name because that ended up being what I was striving for. Not a specific goal weight or size, but being happy within.

I had struggled with my weight for most of my life. Lost and gained several people throughout my adult years. LOL! I have done many weight-loss programs and most were successful to a degree, but something was missing since I kept putting the weight back on. That something was really learning to love myself and develop a better relationship with food. Also important was discovering exercises that I love. I turned into quite a biker and love strength training!

My blog talks a lot about food because – quite frankly – I love food. The biggest thing for me was learning to let go of guilt about food or feeling like I only had to eat carrots and cottage cheese in order to lose/maintain my weight.

You also will see a lot of the general things in my life. I often post about whatever is in my head, my latest home improvement projects, and my cat (she is very popular) because as a maintainer, life is more than just the scale – and that is how it should be. I do struggle with maintenance at times, but it really never is a perfect road.

I was thrilled to be asked to be a part of AIM because of the deep respect and admiration I have for these wonderful women. There is definitely a hole in the weight maintenance world. It’s like once you lose weight, you disappear from the blog world. Kind of like the Bermuda Triangle for weight-loss bloggers. That needs to change because there is a ton of support for when you are losing, but not much when you are maintaining, and not much is written about what to expect or how to handle some regain or when you start having body acceptance issues. (What? You mean I won't look like a supermodel once I lose weight??). I look forward to where this journey takes us!

Cammy
I'm Cammy, of The Tippy Toe Diet. I started out trying to lose weight at the “chubby” level and eventually dieted myself to the edge of morbid obesity. I spent years (and years!) cycling through one diet plan after another, but I could never maintain any of them for the long term. The repeated failures battered my self-esteem and part of me wanted to just give it all up, but thankfully, some little spark of hope remained.

In 2007, I adopted a different approach. Instead of trying to follow other people’s diets to achieve other people’s ideals, I spent some time thinking about what comprised my ideal. In doing so, I realized that I didn't really care about being thin or skinny or any of the other media-defined measures of success. What I really wanted was be healthier, more vibrant, and yes, a smaller size. More importantly, I wanted to do it in a way that I could sustain for the rest of my life. And, by golly, I wanted it to be FUN!

Recognizing that the completely-overhaul-your-entire-life-starting-this-Monday approach had never worked for me in the past, I implemented changes in my lifestyle slowly, sometimes in teeny little steps. My blog, The Tippy Toe Diet, chronicles those changes – the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t – and continues to serve as a journal of my new explorations. I might have lost 100 pounds, but no way am I through changing! It’s too much FUN trying new things to stop now!

I'm honored and excited to be an AIM blogger because I admire and respect each and every one of the other bloggers and appreciate their points of view. I’m looking forward to learning from them and to sharing my own thoughts, all in hopes that this scattershot approach might be of service to others who are either in the maintenance realm or striving to get there. Our stories, our paths, and our struggles might be different, but our “aim” is generally the same: a healthier and more vibrant life. At a smaller (or, at least, not a larger) size!

Debby
I’m Debby, from debby weighs in. When I started my blog, the byline was “thoughts on weight loss and life.” Recently, I decided I knew nothing about weight loss, and changed my byline to “on living a whole and healthy life.”

Like most overweight people, I have a LOOOONG history of mostly being overweight, with many forays into attempted weight loss, some more successful than others, but all of them with one trait in common: I gained back all the weight PLUS some. And so, when I was about 30, I decided that I would never diet again. And I didn't, for a long, long time. Until one day in 2005, shortly after my 50th birthday, a friend asked me to go to Weight Watchers with her.

At first I turned her down, and said, “But we can be accountable to each other.” After a miserable two weeks of starving myself, I realized I needed a little help, and agreed to go. But this time was different. This time I knew it had to be for the rest of my life.

This time I had the help and support of many friends. I sought out women at work who just lived a healthy lifestyle, and quizzed them on what they ate. I read everything I could find about maintaining weight loss. I read science journals and the latest research, and when I hit a little snag, I hired a personal trainer, who taught me more about eating healthy whole foods than she did about exercise (and she taught me a LOT about exercise!)

It took about two years to lose 100 pounds, and it was only then that I discovered the world of blogging! There was Lynn, in People magazine, and the little box at the bottom of the page said to check out Lynn’s blog on the internet. A whole new world of friends opened up to me.

Since then, maintenance has definitely been an adventure, and these four women have been constant traveling companions. As everyone eventually does, I had a couple of years that were extra stressful, and I regained 25 pounds. It only took two years for me to figure out how to start losing weight again(!) and that is where I am in my journey now. I never stopped working on living a whole and healthy life. And now I have added “aging gracefully” to that work. Its an adventure, that's for sure!

Lynn
I’m Lynn and I blog here at Lynn’s Weigh. When I began this last trek down the scale in 2005, no one but my doctor and I knew what I weighed. Three hundred pounds sounded intangible and scary. But I grew tired of that albatross and so I launched my first website, Lynn's Weight-Loss Journey, complete with numbers and photos, and immediately I felt lighter. My weight was no longer a secret. It was, and still is, what it is: a number. It’s not who I am.

Like my AIM partners, I realized this last time IS the last time because I approached weight loss differently. I finally understood that if I wanted a permanent change in my body, I had to make a permanent change in my attitude. Head before body. And no celebratory Dairy Queen blizzards once I met goal!

As you know (since you're reading this from my blog), I write about life as a nearly 50-year-old mother to four grown children, grandmother to three (almost 4!) grandchildren, writer, foodie, and exerciser, all through the lens of a person maintaining a 150-plus weight loss. There are more than 1 billion websites out there, but our little AIM consortium is just what the ‘net needs.

We Can All Use A Litte "Self-Inspiration"

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:51:00 +0000

I’ve been “should”ing myself crazy these last few weeks. “I should eat more spinach,” “I should go for a walk,” “I should not buy those potato chips.” I don’t know if it’s the winter doldrums or just plain laziness, but asking anything of my body or mind lately is like asking grandson Luca if he wants jelly on his peanut butter sandwich. The answer is always a resounding, “No!” (Followed by a five-minute explanation of why he used to like jelly, but doesn’t anymore, and then making you pledge that you will never, never, EVER put jelly on his peanut butter sandwiches ever again because he doesn’t like jelly anymore. Just peanut butter. But not chunky peanut butter. Just plain peanut butter. And no jelly.)

Recently, a friend was explaining the details of a complex job he was working on, saying that a lot of people in his field go through the motions without ever knowing why. To him, he said, “It’s not enough to know how, but you have to know why.”

In weight loss and maintenance, that inquiry can be reversed. It’s not enough to know why, but you have to know how. I know why eating an apple is more healthy than eating a Pop Tart, but knowing how to choose the apple instead of the Pop Tart requires more skill than simply reaching for and biting into the apple.

Either way, bringing curious attention to both the how and the why is the only way to combat the “should”s. Asking “Why am I ‘should’ing myself up a wall?” is more difficult than mindlessly burying my nose in a bag of Kettle Brand baked potato chips, extra crunchy with sea salt (I don’t care how low fat they are…they are devil spawn), but in the end, a better choice.

I’m going to be Ms. Obvious here: doing the right thing isn’t always the easiest. But planting reminders of what matters most along our journey can help when we run into the “should”s and the resounding “No!”s.

Writing – whether it’s in a journal or a blog – not only gives me clarity in the present moment, but over the last eight years, has left a paper trail that guides me back to my intentions when I’ve lost my way.

One of my blog posts that reminded me why it was imperative that I extract my face from the potato chip bag was, “What Is Your Deepest Intention?” from 2009.

“I had to decide if I wanted to eat my way to an early death or live the healthiest life I could for as long as I could. That decision became my deepest intention.
“Did I falter once in awhile? Yes. But ultimately, I always went back to the intention.
“That intention continues to guide me in maintenance. Without it, I’d behave the same way I always did when I got to some weight goal: by not paying attention to my food intake and slacking off on exercise.”

Creating a volume of writing is like creating a safety net, a place you can fall when you forget that what you’re thinking and doing has all been thought and done before. You just need a reminder that you’re not alone. You have your former self!

If you’ve kept journals or blogs throughout your weight journey, how often do you go back and re-read your words? Perhaps – in the doldrums of winter – you could use a little self-inspiration to help recall the whys and the hows of your journey, too?

Don't Forget The Inside

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:36:00 +0000

A friend said to me the other day that when we met a few years ago, I rarely looked him in the eyes when we talked. I thought about that for a moment and realized he was right. In fact, I didn’t look at anyone directly for more than a few seconds.

What used to be naïve vivacity had – over the years – turned into cautious reticence, and even though I weighed 130 pounds and was three years into maintenance, I felt like a fish out of water when I first moved to Pittsburgh in 2010. Self-judgment, avoidance, insecurities…you name it…followed me like a pack of lost dogs.

Cassie – my daughter with the grandbabies – made it her mission to get her old mother outside her comfort zone, and sent me an email about a yoga class that was starting at a local library.

“Yoga?” I said, sounding vaguely like a tired 2-year-old. “I don’t want to do yoga.”

“Mom,” she said with a sigh. “It’s not about yoga. You need to meet people, get out more.”

But…but…I liked the comfort of my new fortress. I liked sitting on my couch surrounded by my stuff. I knew enough people. Besides, it was hard enough for me to understand who I was. How was I supposed to explain me to anyone else?

Reluctantly, I showed up at Oakmont Library on Saturday morning, November 6, with a yoga mat under my arm and a Xanax under my tongue. I looked around the room. Skinny women with shiny hair, dressed in pink and yellow spandex and sipping water from earth-friendly metal water bottles, gathered in one corner. They laughed and talked and stretched their gazelle-like necks like gymnasts.

On the other side of the room were women like me, alone and wearing loose shirts and crop sweat pants. Dressed in my “Love is a four-letter word” t-shirt, I laid my mat a few feet away from a woman with short red hair and stunning blue eyes. Her name was Debbie and she’d never done yoga, either. Something about her made me instantly comfortable, and when our instructor had us fold our bodies into thread-the-needle and Debbie said, “I wonder if anyone’s ever farted in this pose before,” I knew I’d found a friend who’d get me, crazies and all.

Al Roker, in his book “Never Goin’ Back,” writes about weight loss that “…whatever issues you have will still be your issues. Losing weight will not take away those problems any more than it will make you more popular, funnier or more successful, or fix your relationship.”

Expanding a bit on my blog from last week, “The One About My Ass,” that last part about “fix your relationship,” was and still is true for me in regards to the relationship I have with myself (all of me, not just my backside).

Who I believed myself to be prior to losing weight – years prior…all the way back to childhood – changed very little when I lost weight. By the time I moved to Pittsburgh, I’d figured some things out about food and exercise and how my body and mind responded to this new care I had for myself, but still I sweated and panicked walking into a yoga class.

For me, it’s the whole judgment thing, and no one judges us more harshly than ourselves. I remember meeting my daughters at a restaurant when I weighed 300 pounds and I knew, logically, that most of the diners didn’t notice I was there. But in my mind I imagined everyone thought, as I walked in, ‘Oh my, she’s big.’ And probably a few did, but certainly not everyone. Because I knew I was big and I felt big and I was ashamed of being big, I assumed everyone had those same judgments about me or anyone else who looked like me.

Stepping outside our self-judgments and holding them in conscious awareness is just as important as feeding ourselves well and exercising. The person at the bottom of the scale doesn’t have to have the same insecurities and fears that the person at the top of the scale did, but often it’s only the weight we think we have to shed, not our negative self-perceptions or inner conflicts. Those will somehow magically mend themselves when we get to goal.

I’m glad my daughter urged me to go to that yoga class two years ago, despite my trepidation. While I dropped yoga, I gained a friend. A dear friend who gets me, crazies and all.

We all need a Cassie and a Debbie in our lives. People who support us, accept us, force us outside our comfort zones. But more important, we all deserve the loving acceptance that only comes from within, no matter our size.

If you’re on your way down the scale, or even if you’re already there, don’t forget the inside, too.

Food Is Like Brylcreem: A Little Dab Will Do Ya

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:17:00 +0000

Sally Albright is my hero

All the while I lost weight and during my first few years of maintenance, I was married. Larry supported me (still does…he’s a great friend), and even lost 20 pounds himself. I didn’t have to explain why I was ordering a salad with light dressing on the side or ordering an entrée with a to-go box on the side so I could put half of the meal in as soon as it arrived. He didn’t mind that I asked questions of our server about how the food was prepared or requested the chef to please go easy on (or omit) the oil.

I touched on it in “Throwing Out The 300-Pound Pitch,” but until last week, I never gave any deep thought as to how two people co-exist in Foodland. Dating again, I was more concerned with how to explain the past seven years. And thankfully when I met Steve a few weeks ago and I recited the whole weight loss thing, he didn’t run screaming in the other direction. What he said – with a great big grin on his face – was, “I love to cook.”

Turns out, Steve’s a foodie. And I mean hard-core. He reads Wine Spectator, and studies the cookbooks of Paul Prudhomme (“Chef Paul” from K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen), Anthony Bourdain (oft smart-ass chef and author of “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”), Thomas Keller (award-winning owner of the Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry), Eric Ripert (world renowned French cook and owner of Le Bernardin in New York), and Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, whose restaurant in Pittsburgh – Lidia’s – is on Steve’s date list.

What I first knew about Steve was that he’s a union carpenter and owns a beautiful red Harley. He can match me song for song, artist for artist in music trivia. He wears cowboy boots; drives a pickup; looks smashing in a pair of Levi’s; holds every door open for me; loves his cat, Boo; and can drink a Starbucks latte as readily as diner coffee, and Budweiser as easily as 20-year-old Glenlivet. All of this I can deal with. It’s the butter, the cream, the Italian food that has my maintenance brain spinning. And not just any Italian food. “Good ‘country Italian,’” he said. “You know, that sort of rustic Italian.” Um…no, I don’t know. But I have a feeling I’m going to find out.

I talked to him about how I choose to eat and he assured me that wasn’t a problem….just before he said, with a devilish grin, “But you know I’m your food anti-Christ.”

I’ve loosened the chains a bit over the past two years, but other than using a bit more oil in my cooking and eating whole grain pancakes and consuming a few more sweets lately than I care to admit, I don’t stray too far from the plan that got me and keeps me where I am. When I go out, I order the safest thing on the menu: salad, or occasionally a garden burger, sans the bun. I haven’t ventured into many restaurants that employ several bona fide chefs, and I’ve certainly not dated a capital F Foodie who cooks with butter and cream and makes his own lemon sauce to pour over lemon cake:

Last weekend, Steve and I wanted to go out for brunch. We went online and looked at menus and chose The Cornerstone because it offered eggs Benedict with duck confit. OK, back up. HE chose Cornerstone because it offered duck confit. But I found something that looked interesting, too. A risotto made with wild mushrooms, butternut squash, and kale. After we were seated, I asked our server if the risotto could be made vegetarian. She said, “I’ll as our chef.” A few minutes later, she came back and said, “Why yes, we can make it vegetarian, but not vegan because the chef uses butter.” Not a problem, I said, and yes, I would like a fried egg on top. Toast? No, thank you.

The risotto was the first non-vegetable/non-egg-white focused breakfast I’ve eaten in more than 7 years. It was fabulous, but I felt a bit guilty, and I panicked about my plan for the rest of the day. Subsist on water, an apple, and some edamame for dinner? Walk five miles?

“Shut up!” I told my brain. “You can do this!”

And I did. I enjoyed the risotto, eating slowly and stopping before I was full. Steve didn’t care if I cleaned my plate. He only noticed because I pointed it out.

Remember how I said I was looking for someone who didn’t eat Doritos in front of me? Well let me tell you, Doritos have nothing on mussels sautéed in garlic and wine, bruschetta on French baguette, and bleu cheese dipped in honey. Steve eats these things, yet never pushes them on me. It is I who must be disciplined to eat one or two mussels, a bit of bruschetta, and a piece of bleu cheese. It is my challenge to taste all the flavor these foods have to offer without going crazy and consuming them all.

A few weekends ago, we went to Oakmont Bakery for coffee because What’s Cookin’ at Casey’s wasn’t open yet. I told Steve the story about how, when I was a little girl, my dad took care of my brother and I on Saturday mornings so Mom could sleep. He’d let us dress in anything we wanted (I was a stripes-on-plaid kind of girl) and he took us to the bakery for a donut before we went to the car wash. I always got a glazed donut with chocolate frosting. As Steve was paying for our coffee, he asked the cashier for a glazed donut with chocolate frosting.

My first thought? ‘OMG, I can’t eat that!’

My second thought? ‘Wow…that was really sweet of him.’

We took our coffee and donut to a table and I savored two small yet amazingly awesome memory-filled bites of glazed chocolate donut. I got teary thinking about those days and how much I love my dad. Not once did Steve say, “Come on. Have another bite.” He was just happy that he’d made me happy.

Food can be that conduit to memories, as long as we understand it is like Brylcreem: “A little dab will do ya.” Take the meaning and savor a bite. Leave the rest of the calories behind.

How do you navigate the really good, memory-invoking food waters?

The One About My Ass

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:31:00 +0000

I’ve been on this incredible weight-loss/weight-maintenance journey for more than seven years, and I continue learning more about myself than I thought possible. I’ve met inspiring people – virtually and in real life – who motivate me to think positively, to accept myself where I am in every moment, and to see myself through a different lens, one that’s not focused on weight all the time. I’ve listened. I’ve implemented. And although I no longer weigh 125 pounds, which was insane for me, I remain committed to being physically active and mindful of my food intake. I can stand in front of the bathroom mirror and say, “You look nice, Lynn.”

Then I walk out the door and sometimes it’s like the last seven years didn’t exist.

The more things change, the more the past comes and bites me in the ass. And I mean, literally, my ass (the biting part is figurative).

I’ve never been comfortable with the shape of my ass. When I’m thin, it’s flat. When I’m overweight, it’s flat. I have absolutely no bootie. Paired with long, gangly legs and a thick waist, I’ve never found the perfect pair of form-fitting jeans.

This is a first-world problem, I know. White Whine. It’s like complaining I can’t get cell service in the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. I get it. But still…this self-perception is real and I want to work toward ass self-esteem and move on.

I found this on KnowYourMeme. Blogger Jessica Hagy drew it.

It started in high school. I remember climbing the stairs behind a cheerleader and her boyfriend. The cheerleader was a petite blond with large breasts and a small round butt. Her boyfriend was a football player who often picked her up in the lunchroom and threw her over his shoulders. I was behind the boyfriend who was behind the cheerleader when the boyfriend said loudly, “I’m making a sign for your ass that says, ‘Wide load.’” He laughed and laughed. The cheerleader turned around and playfully hit his arm, but I was horrified for her. Then I was horrified for me. If he thought his girlfriend’s ass was fat, there was no hope for mine.

I became the master of backing out of rooms, or walking sideways when I was in front of someone. After awhile, I did it without thinking. And the times when I had no choice but stand directly in front of someone, I obsessed over how awful my ass must look to whomever was behind me. Self-centered? Yes, kind of. But with a psychological bent that told me I wasn’t good enough because I had created in my head this belief that my ass made other people uncomfortable. Like people woke up that morning and prayed, ‘God, I hope I don’t see a flat ass today.’ Crazy thinking, I know, but seriously, don’t we all have some insecurity that makes us nervous? Cautious of? Hell bent on hiding?

You recall my last blog was about getting back into the dating scene after losing a lot of weight. I had the good fortune of meeting “Steve” a few weeks ago. Yesterday, he invited me to a 30-year anniversary party at a restaurant he’s been going to since it opened. I chose to wear a pair of jeans and a black knit shirt and a cotton jacket that would cover my ass. Only I accidently left the jacket at home because I couldn’t wear it under my winter coat. As you can imagine, and I knew, a lot of his friends and neighbors were there. Steve led me to the opposite side of the bar from the juke box and rest room, introducing me along the way. If I wanted to use the bathroom or play the juke box, it meant I’d have to walk away from Steve and past his friends and other bar patrons.

This is not me being egotistical. This is me responding to years of programming, advertising, and comments from people I thought cared about me that nothing short of a perfect body is good enough. Ergo, I’m not good enough. I’ve worked on those demons for many years and I’ve exorcised a good deal of them, but my 16-year-old insecure self still lives inside and she was all up in my head yesterday.

I fidgeted a bit in my chair, thinking about this first-world quandary, as Steve talked to a few of his friends. They were having a juke box challenge – who could play the worst song from the 60s and early 70s – and I knew exactly what I wanted to play: Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady.” I’m competitive and I wanted to play that song more than I wanted to hide my ass. So I grabbed a dollar out of my purse and I walked around the bar, perhaps a little red-faced, but I held my head high and kept my ass in perspective. I plugged the song in the juke box and when it played, got a great big laugh from the crowd. I didn’t win the challenge, but I rose above the ass-hating, if only for a few minutes.

I logged online this morning and read Tippy Toe Diet Cammy’s blog and I thought, ‘Man…she’s in my head again.’ This graphic was at the top of her entry:

Reality check!

There are a lot of things about me that I’ve learned to love and accept. There are a lot of other things that need work. And I will work. Giving up, while it might linger in my head some days, is not an option.

I had a therapy appointment this afternoon. I’ve been seeing Julie on and off for two years. As I was making an appointment for our next session, she said her schedule was tight next week, so could I be flexible. I said my schedule is usually flexible. “That’s the beauty of me!” I said.

“That’s what you need to tell yourself in all aspects of your life,” she replied.

She definitely got me on that one. And we hadn’t even discussed my low ass self-esteem in our session!

I suspect we all believe things about ourselves that are either simply not true or that might be true, but we view them through a magnifying glass and not in their proper dimension. It can get in the way of our happiness, our goals, our hopes for whatever outcome we want to strive for.

I want a bootie and that ain’t gonna happen without major medical intervention. But more than that, I want to accept my bootie and every other part of what makes up the real me. And as I said before, I’m not giving up. I am who I am. And that’s the beauty of me.

Throwing Out The 300-Pound Pitch

noreply@blogger.com (Lynn Haraldson) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:13:00 +0000

In an interview in 2008, Neal Conan asked Carrie Fisher on “Talk of the Nation” why she wrote “Wishful Drinking,” a memoir about her experience with manic depression, addiction and ECT, particularly given its stigma. She answered: “The thing about telling it is, if I make it a secret, it has enormous power. Then I have to be scared. ‘Will they find out?’ And I’m, like, ‘If you find it out about me, I’ve already got there first, so you’re gonna hear my version.’”

Google my name and it’s easy to find me and my 300-pound truth. I put it out there willingly in 2005, hoping to find kindred spirits, people who were on a path to embracing their own truth about weight. With more than 1.5 million page hits since 2005, clearly there are more than a few of us out there seeking that truth.

I don’t mind telling you I was 300 pounds. You get it. It’s not so easy telling someone with whom you’re out on a first date and you’re ordering a salad and he’s ordering wings with blue cheese dressing and he jokingly says, “New Year’s resolution?” and I say, “Well, kinda.”

The story of me isn’t an easy story to digest, so to speak. It’s one thing to say, “I weighed 300 pounds seven years ago.” It’s quite another to say, “My weight impacts my life every day.” Some women seek tall, dark and handsome. Me? I seek someone who won’t eat Doritos in front of me.

In Pittsburgh, we call it “nebbing.” When you want to find out about someone, you neb. I have one of the nebbiest neighbors ever. He’s forever watching my house. There isn’t a light that goes on or goes off that he doesn’t know about. He’s harmless enough, but it’s a little unnerving having your every move observed.

That’s kind of how it feels when I meet someone new and they find out my name. They’re gonna neb. Heck, I do it, too! But I prefer he hear my weighty truth from my lips and not from a photo of 300-pound me in a purple dress contrasted with the me he has just met. Yes, my blog is my truth and my voice, but for someone who isn’t accustomed to reading weight loss blogs, my blog can be a lot of truth to take in without some prior warning.

While I don’t consider obesity a character flaw, many in this world do, especially the judgy mcjudgers who tease, roll their eyes, and all out hate fat people. So there’s an added chance of judgment I have to take when the “So tell me about yourself” convo starts.

A few years ago, I met someone who, after a few dates, asked me straight up about loose skin. “Do you have any?” was his exact question. My response? “You’ll never find out,” and I kicked him out.

Now while that sounds all bold and Go Me, in truth it was embarrassing and it made me wonder how many other men would wonder the same thing.

It wasn’t long after that that I met C and we dated for about 18 months. My truth became a part of our relationship, an almost non-entity except that he didn’t eat Doritos in front of me. Now that I’m single once more, I’m wondering if I have it in me to, as I wrote in 2011, “…roll my eyes back and throw it out there again,” a reference to that the scene in Bull Durham when Nuke is on the mound wearing Annie Savoy’s garter and he rolls his eyes back and pitches the ball.

My choices are either stay in and hide or get out there and try. I choose to try. After all, I was who I was and I am who I am and the guy up to bat has a number of options of what to do with that curve ball. If it’s to inquire about loose skin, then he isn’t worthy. If it’s to stick around, then I’ll explain the part about the Doritos.