This spring I rented (? is that the word?) a plot in  the Hercules community garden.  This was a considerable leap of faith, since my home planting efforts usually began well but ended up with sad dry sticks as I would forget to water.

This community garden not only has plots for individuals, but for the school and the Girl Scouts, too. I have my own 3 x 20 plot, and I had intended to do square foot gardening to take advantage of every square inch.  Little did I know that it would be the plants taking advantage!

My plot has turned into a jungle of squash, kabocha, and corn.  I had broccoli, but I tore it up because it was so bitter. I have a few eggplants in there, and some peppers, but it’s the squash that is running wild.  I have 4 patty pan squash plants (the ones that look like flying saucers), 3 kabocha plants and two jackolantern pumpkins, and they have totally taken over.  I’m definitely going to use Babs’ squash recipe for stir fry!  I’ve done something similar for a pasta sauce:  saute onions, garlic and red pepper, add eggplant and squash, and some herbs and crushed tomatoes.  Nums!

The kids love coming to the garden and seeing how big everything has gotten.  Sam even bit into one of the squashes

Is my kabocha ready yet?

(though he didn’t want me to actually slice it up so he could eat it). Next year, I’ll start earlier and put up some of the towering tomato cages that my neighbors have to contain the plants that grow 5 feet tall!

Thanks to my Twitter friends who encouraged me to start this garden… it’s a real joy to nurture the food that will nourish us.

I’ve been hanging out at this liminal point weight-wise for quite a while.  Part of me would like to be “done” and on maintenance (scare quotes around done because are we every done?), but part of me thinks that’s an insult to the person I was, and there was nothing wrong with her, or with who I am now, for that matter.  I don’t expect an easy resolution here!

What I’m focusing on instead are attitudes and behaviors I want to try to be happier and more satisfied with my life.  So, for my birthday, I’m trying out yoga.

I’ve been feeling anxious and irritated, and using food to try to medicate those feelings away.  I was trying to use regular exercise (elliptical, walk/jogs, classes) to help mitigate those feelings, but that exercise was feeling mechanical, something to get through.  Music was something to motivate me to move faster and to distract me from what I was doing with my body.

All well and good, and I’m sure it was good for me, but it wasn’t doing anything for my irritation and my cravings.  I decided to try yoga.  My understanding was that yoga wouldn’t do much for calorie burning, but my goal was to quiet the mind, not burn the fat.

I’ve tried three classes so far, and I’m shocked–I think it’s helping in quelling the cravings.  I’m a total skeptic when it comes to what I consider woo woo stuff, and yoga is the ultimate in woo woo in my book.

But yesterday, there was a chocolate cake in the office kitchen.  I was very hungry, as I was eating lunch late.  Instead of eating the cake, I really wanted to eat my lunch (my kabocha lentil tagine-yum!).  I told myself after I ate that, if there was something left I could think about it then.  Sure enough, there was one piece left when I returned to wash my bowl. I passed it by.  It was still there later, and I still didn’t go for it.

I have NEVER passed up on cake in my entire life.  I was the kid who swiped frosting flowers off of my sister’s birthday cake before we sang happy birthday.  It wasn’t hard; it just wasn’t what I wanted.  The power of yoga, or new mental perspective?  I don’t know.

The other thing I’m trying is a pressure cooker!  My DH got it for me for my bday.  It’s sitting on my counter, all shiny with its sticker still on it.  I’m so excited!  I’m reading all these cookbooks to figure it out.

I ordered two pressure cooker cookbooks from Barnes and Noble, which I’ve grown to like better than Amazon.  The prices are close, same free shipping after $25, but it’s FAST-I got my books the next day, whereas Amazon takes a week just to ship my stuff.  Well, one of them.  The other one, mysteriously, was a book about Hawaii.  Is Barnes and Noble trying to tell me something?

So I’ll try something in my new cooker soon… gulp!

What new things are you trying?

I’ve been unmotivated.  I stopped writing.  I stopped exercising as much as I should.  I was eating too much sugar.

I’ve been traveling a bit lately, and it’s always hard to stay on track when I’m out of my environment.  For one of my trips, I had an expense account, so heck, why not get an appetizer?  That chocolate caramel pyramid?   Yes “free” food isn’t free, but it was tasty.

But I’ve gained 10 lbs.  I’m exploring how I feel about that.  Is it the number on the scale I care about?  Not really; I didn’t much care about that when I weighed (literally) 100 lbs more.  Do I care about what other people think?  No, they haven’t noticed, or if they do they haven’t told me, which is fine.  Most of the time, when I’m worried about what other people think I realize I’m really projecting on to them my own feelings.

Given I don’t care about the scale or what other people think, why start working on weight and health again?  I’d say this is the upper limit of what I personally feel comfortable carrying on my body.  It’s harder to get my legs up kickboxing, and the fat moves in ways that are disconcerting when I’m moving.

If I gain much more weight, I’d have to buy new clothes, and I’m really tired of shopping for clothes (I know that’s hard to believe!).  When you’ve had to replace every single scrap of clothes in your wardrobe several times, it just gets old.

But most of all, I’m not enjoying being controlled by my cravings.  I’m sick of always being on the lookout for the next treat.  What a boring life, if that’s all I have to look forward to!  I’m tired of being insatiable.  Food just can’t do what I’m trying to make it do, whatever that is.

I’ve realized that the exercise helps me regulate my mood so I don’t crave sugar and carbs so much.  I’m committing to at least 30 minutes of something every day.  What are you committing to?

Things I’m wondering about…

Why is a raw sweet potato 4 WW Points, but a cooked one 3 points?  Would anyone eat a raw sweet potato?

If you have only tried eating artichokes dipping the leaves into something fatty, try them all on their own; I don’t think they need anything to make them taste fantastic.  All I do is put a little lemon juice on them before cooking so they don’t get too discolored.  I make a few at a time, so they’re ready whenever I am.

If you’ve never prepared an artichoke, they can be a little intimidating–when was the last time you ate a thistle?  But they aren’t hard; I found this video that shows how to trim them and get out the fuzzy choke.  How do you like your artichokes?

Point Tracking Bracelet

Many years ago, Weight Watchers used to sell a point tracking bracelet.  Each bead was a point, with larger beads for every 5 point.  As you used your points, you moved a charm around.  It was a great idea, but they weren’t very pretty.  Thea, a member at my meeting, decided to make her own!  It’s hard to see how pretty it is, but she has very nice beads she picked herself with silver beads for every 5 points.  She has a little movable charm that she moves when she uses her points.  It’s pretty, personal, and can be an anchor-no losing the point booklet, or forgetting to count her points!  I think it’s fabulous!

Affirming Passwords

Since you’re on a computer, I know you have a million passwords.  And if your work is like mine, you have to change them every two weeks (ok, not that frequently but it sure feels that way!).

A member suggested using affirmation phrases as a password!  That way, every time you type in a password you are telling yourself something wonderful to counter all the negative self talk.  Are you fantastic?  Make that your password! And who can ever run out of wonderful things to tell herself?

No, I haven’t posted in a while… I haven’t gone anywhere, but I haven’t been in that reflective state lately.  I’ve been annoyed by all the spam comments, too.  So if you’re not a spam bot, let me know how you’ve been doing!

Here’s the pic my husband took for the after photo:

There’s no way I’m going to beat that finalist I heard about who lost weight in order to be able to donate a kidney to her kid.  Who can beat that?

I keep promising everyone I’ll post recipes and I’ll do that soon!

The upshot was that our foods contain more sugar than ever, and it’s harder to get sugar out of our environment.  Eating sugar does help us feel better for a short amount of time, but ultimately an addictive cycle sets in that requires us to eat more sugar to get the same effect.  And sugar substitutes might produce the same effects.

It’s taken me a loooong time to pull out of my sugar addiction; really, I can’t say that I have totally.  But it’s a far cry from what it used to be.  I used to make homemade fudge (and it was damn good!).

Making my own food has definitely helped; I’m not getting a dose of corn syrup at every meal.  But I still want some sugar after lunch, and I usually have a Skinny Cow bar after dinner.  Not much, but I wonder if I’m keeping the addiction alive.

How do you deal with sugar?

No.  He had a snack at school.

What kind of a snack?

Cereal bars.

Three of them.

My son is 6.  Even given he’s a growing boy, three cereal bars is a LOT of food.

I told him so, and will tell the after school teachers that maybe unlimited access to the goody of the day isn’t such a good idea.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I wonder if I need to be concerned.

After all, I started fairly young, too.  My mother tells a story about the first time she gave me a peanut butter sandwich.  I liked it so much I begged for another, then promptly puked it all up.

Now, this story did not presage a life of bulimia, but I didn’t get to be so fat without relishing food, in large quantities, whenever I got an opportunity.  I was the kid who swiped frosting flowers off of birthday cakes–before we sang Happy Birthday.  Oh, and it wasn’t my cake.

I don’t want to give my kid a complex, but I also want to teach about healthy limits.  I’ve read about those crazy moms who are always after their kid to eat less, even though the kid is fine.  But I wonder what would have helped me find those healthy limits when I was a kid.

What would you do?

The backstory: after losing 110 lbs on Weight Watchers, I’m at a point where I’m feeling happy and healthy.  I’ve met my personal goals for weight loss.  Weight Watchers lets you come for free after you’ve maintained your goal weight for a certain amount of time.  These “lifetime” members get the support from other members for maintaining their weight loss, and can inspire them as they lose their own weight.

There are two ways to become a lifetime member: your weight can be within what the BMI says is healthy, or you can get a letter from your doctor saying a different weight is appropriate for you.

I haven’t lost enough weight to get to the BMI range for my height, and I haven’t after 2.5 years at WW.  I probably could, but I’m happy right where I am.  I’ve made a huge number of lifestyle changes, and at this time don’t feel like making more.

I thought that my regular doctor, who was on Weight Watchers himself and lost weight with the program, would be sympathetic.  But at my annual exam, he argued that based on statistics, people who are in the “normal” BMI range are healthier than those who aren’t.  Even those like me who have good cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. are more likely to hurt themselves when they fall because the weight makes them more top heavy.

Huh?

It’s hard to argue with someone who’s fully clothed when you’re wearing a paper napkin.  And he’s right, statistically speaking.  But there are statistics, and then there are the needs of individuals.  And this individual is DONE!

Fortunately, my gynecologist agreed with me!  At my visit yesterday I told her my plight, and she took mercy.  I now have a letter saying an appropriate weight for me is 170.  I finally feel like I’ve got some agency back!

As great as this news is, it doesn’t mean I can go on lifetime yet.  During my months-long hissy fit, I gained a few lbs I need to lose to get to that 170.  And Weight Watchers has you do 6 weeks on maintenance before you’re officially lifetime.  After that, if you go too high over your goal weight you need to pay.  Now THAT would be motivating for me.

So chocolate chip cookies?  Not interested.  Peanut butter sandwiches?  Nuh uh.  I’m on mission!

But I’ve got a little boot camp back!  How?  Kids joined basketball, and their practice is right at bootcamp time!  I’m more excited to sweat than I care to admit.