Weight Watchers Freestyle…A Few Thoughts

I’m not a huge fan of change (the type of change that I, myself, don’t initiate, that is). Of course, I can accept change but it usually takes me a while to come around to it. When I was working, I hated when changes were made to my department; I hated when changes were made to the line-up of people I supported. I hate it when changes are made to programs or websites I use. But, I get over it eventually and just deal. So, having said that, you can imagine my annoyance when Weight Watchers rolled out their new “Freestyle” program – especially when I’d been doing so well on the previous version (I believe they’d termed it “Beyond the Scale”? I don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing. I like to get right into the meat of the situation or plan or…whatever).

While I was willing (albeit reluctantly) to go with the flow, I read many comments on WW’s version of social media (called “Connect”) from people who were really disgruntled. In truth, the new program did throw a few things out of wack. One of the big mistakes I believe they made, which I’ve noticed lately is not used as such a big selling point anymore, is saying that you didn’t even have to count/track all these 0 point foods. That was, in a word, dumb. Tracking what you eat is a huge part of losing weight – studies have shown that tracking your food intake is very beneficial. At the very least, keeping a food diary/journal helps you see what you’re putting in your mouth and gets you to realize that you’ve been eating a lot more crap than you should be. While I’m not a fan of tracking calories or macro and micro nutrients – God, no!!! That’s why I joined WW; they’ve done all that for me – I do swear by keeping a food journal, both on the WW site and in a paper food diary. Well, folks were really taken aback by WW’s notion that you didn’t have to track the 0 point foods. I, for one, want to see what I’ve been eating and I often refer to my diary when I’m looking for some lower point meals I’ve had in the past. For anyone who lives and dies by keeping track of their food intake, that was a stupid thing to use as a selling point to the “Freestyle” program.

The second issue most people had (in many cases, it was the most important issue) was the recalculation of everyone’s daily points. While I understand why they did it – now that there were so many 0 point foods, you didn’t need as many points – it was still a bitter pill to swallow. A lot of people swore that WW only took away a max of 7 points. Wrong. I lost 11 points and I read where some people lost as many as 13. This was huge for me. While I never gave up tracking just about everything I eat, losing that many points really put a damper on things. (I admit that there are a few things I don’t track – a random slice of cheese, an extra slice of bread, and the occasional tumbler of chocolate milk. I’ve been drinking chocolate milk since forever, and it’s not something I’m willing to give up. I have it a couple times a week, instead of every day like before, with 2% milk, which isn’t all that great in terms of points, much to my horror, but skim milk is basically water with coloring so 2% it is. Besides, my son prefers 2% to 1%, as do I, but I don’t have a big enough fridge to fit two kinds of milk. FYI, for one cup (8 oz.) of milk, whole is 7 points, 2% is 5 points, 1% is 4 points, and skim milk (fat free) is 3 points.  Three points for skim milk! You would think that would be much lower, if not 0 points! Anyway, since there isn’t that much difference point-wise between whole, 2% and skim milk, I’ll stick with 2%. After all, I don’t believe you can maintain a weight loss program without letting yourself have a treat now and then. Denying yourself the stuff you love is a sure path to destroying your program. Having it every so often isn’t going to kill you or undo your progress. And yes, it should be tracked. Great, I just shamed myself into tracking my chocolate milk.)

Anyway, back to losing my points to the new “Freestyle” program. At first, I was pissed. I was finally in a rhythm with how I worked my points. I had it figured out in terms of what I could eat and how much and how often I could have it. While I do tend to eat mostly chicken, having the 44 daily points meant I could vary my meals more, have some red meat from time to time or maybe a slightly more decadent dessert than Greek vanilla yogurt or pineapple or berries. Coming down to 33 points a day threw me – while I’d gotten to the point where I almost never used all of my 44 daily points and rarely got into my weeklies, now I had to scramble to figure out how I was going to make 33 daily points work with the rhythm I’d established. Don’t get me wrong, I love chicken, turkey, eggs and lots of different types of seafood and yay for them being 0 points now, but most of the new 0 points foods were all types of veggies, which is great as peas and corn used to cost you, and all sorts of legumes, most of which I don’t care for. But the foods I had been used to eating and was successfully losing weight with were worth the same points as before (and I believe some may have gone up in points).  How the hell was I going to make this work now? Since “Freestyle” came along, I find myself using up my weeklies like never before. WW says they encourage you to use your weeklies but I was never a fan of doing that. Since “Freestyle” rolled out in December, I’ve gained and lost the same damn six pounds. It’s not really moving the scale for me like it has for some of the people I follow on Instagram. That’s frustrating, very frustrating.

Of course, to be fair, I haven’t been well since I was hospitalized briefly at the end of November. And I’m still not sure if my meds, particularly the Trazodone I take for my insomnia, is screwing with my system. I’ve read that Trazodone often causes loss of appetite and weight loss in its users but, of course, I’m not that lucky. I find myself hungry a lot more than before I started taking it, and, obviously, I’m not losing weight as much as before. Not sleeping well also has a lot to do with it although I think I’m finally getting a handle on that. I’ve slept six hours or more each night for the past three nights (yay me!). So, there are a few reasons why I’m not doing as well on “Freestyle” as I was before the rollout, but I am still not comfortable with the program and the fact that I often find myself using my weeklies more that ever before.

In conclusion, what do I really think of the “Freestyle” program? I like that chicken, eggs, turkey, fish and other types of seafood are 0 points. Chicken, eggs and turkey are the easiest and cheapest options to have – I really can’t afford to buy seafood (other than tuna fish) so that’s off the plate for me (no pun intended). I don’t like that I don’t have as many daily points to work with and that I often have to dip into my weeklies. All in all, I don’t think I have a handle on it yet. Because of my health, I haven’t really been exercising and I know that usually helps curb my appetite so once I start working out and walking again, that will be a big help. I’m also trying to get used to the meds and get my sleep cycle back to normal, so there’s that. So, jury’s still out. I’m a firm believer in “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and that’s how I felt when WW rolled out this new program. But, WW has worked for me thus far and, overall, it’s a program and lifestyle I’m comfortable with so I’m sticking with it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get it together soon and get back on the road to onederland.

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

Loose Woman Takes On A Whole New Meaning…

When I started this journey last July, I took a good, long look at myself in the bathroom mirror (I don’t own a full-length mirror. I probably would have avoided it like the plague so it’s just as well). I may have been in denial about how much weight I’d gained but there was no denying that my upper arms were bigger than they’d ever been and my stomach looked like I was in my sixth or seventh month of a phantom pregnancy. The first thing I thought when I saw that was, “Oh my God, I’m going to have a crap load of loose skin once I get to goal.” I think that is one of the major fears of every fat person on a diet. (I don’t really like the word “diet” but it’s easier to type than “weight loss program” or “lifestyle change” every single time.)

I’ve been fortunate. In the past, whenever I had a significant weight loss or when I exercised enough to lose a good number of inches, my skin always managed to bounce back and I didn’t really have anything loose or jiggling (except my damn upper arms, an issue I’ve had since I was in my late teens). But that was then…this is now. In July of 2017, I was 56 years old, had been sedentary for almost five years, and was heavier than I had ever been. Losing weight at this stage of my life almost certainly meant loose skin once I hit goal. I knew that exercise would help tighten stuff up but given what I was seeing in the mirror, I was a little skeptical. Also, at that time in my life, my breathing was so bad, the idea of walking from my building to the corner was frightening. (I did start walking but not until mid-September, when I’d lost about 25 pounds and had been taking my meds for a little over two months.) Once I started walking, I found that my skin was tightening up. I was both very surprised and very pleased. Maybe things wouldn’t be so jiggly after all, but, still, I took that with a grain of salt.

I troll Instagram and look at pictures of people who were brave enough to post selfies of themselves shirtless or in a bathing suit when they were at their heaviest as well as their “after” photos. Some of them have little or no loose skin and I tip my hat to them. They are very lucky. Some of them have a lot of loose skin but they seem to be coping with it. I totally applaud those folks, first for posting those photos – that’s a courageous act in this age of anonymous assholes who have tons of nasty things to say while hiding behind their computers – and second, for pursuing their goal despite the skin that started to hang off them once they’d lost a significant amount of weight.

I read comments from people who are terrified of having loose skin and are talking about having surgery as soon as they hit goal. For a while, once I started losing weight so quickly last summer, I was one of those people. Because I’d lost my first 20 pounds in two months, I was worried that I would continue to lose quickly and wind up with tons of loose skin. Now, mind you, losing weight quickly sounds like a wonderful thing but, given past experience, it’s not, really. Most times, when you lose a lot of weight quickly, the minute you take your eye off the ball and stop following your program, the weight creeps back and it often brings friends. Folks don’t seem to understand that the hardest part of losing weight is maintaining that loss. While I’m not exactly thrilled to be at a plateau and watching my weight creep up by a few pounds because of my issues with insomnia, I’m grateful that my weight loss slowed down after September. I’d rather be a turtle and lose the weight slowly and steadily than be a hare and drop it quick, which could lead to becoming really jiggly and put me in danger of gaining it back because I’ve stopped paying attention. Since I have no plans on dying anytime soon, and it took me a few years to put on almost 100 pounds, I figure I can take a year or so to reach my goal. Hell, I’m already a third of the way there.

So, what am I going to do about the loose skin that I am certain I’m going to wind up with? After all, I’m almost 57 years old now and skin doesn’t bounce back as easily or as much when you’re this age as opposed to someone who is in their 20’s or 30’s. Well, I’m not going to do a bloody thing. If I have loose skin on my stomach or my thighs, clothes can easily camouflage that. My days of wearing short skirts and high heels are long over; besides, because of the not-so-attractive knee replacement scars, I wear dresses and skirts that go below the knee so they aren’t so noticeable. And these days, I spend most of my time in sweats or yoga pants. I’m also not going to be getting naked with anyone in the future so I’m totally not worried about that. My only concern in terms of loose skin is my arms…and that damn wattle under my chin. I don’t tolerate the hot weather very well so I like to wear short sleeves or, when it’s Hell-level hot, sleeveless tops. I have a lot of loose skin on my upper arms now – I can’t imagine how bad it’s going to look once I get to goal. Observe:

This was taken on August 25th of last year. My son and I went to Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY to celebrate his birthday. The day was very warm and muggy so something with sleeves was out of the question, even a t-shirt. It was too hot for anything with sleeves, for me at least. I had lost about 20 pounds in this photo. Look at my arms. Talk about jiggly. Oh my God. If they look like that after a 20 pound loss, I don’t even want to think about how they’re going to be after 150 pounds. Now, as for my wattle, please observe again:

Oh my God! Why is this woman laughing?!? Anyway, I direct your attention to that mess I’ve got under my chin. That is major problem area number two, and I have no way of knowing if it will get better (read: smaller) as I continue to lose weight.

Why, you may ask, am I freaking out about those two particular areas? Because my face and my arms are what people immediately see, especially in warm weather. If I’m self-conscious about them now, can you imagine how I’m going to feel once I get to 195 or below? I don’t give a rat’s ass about the rest of my body; that’s always covered up, for the most part. Maybe once I lose all the weight, I’ll wear shorts, but I’m more of the Bermuda shorts type – always have been – but even more so now because of the scars on my knees. I mean, if I need to buy Spanx to keep the potential jiggling at a minimum, so be it. That’s totally fine. But they don’t make Spanx for the upper arms!!!! Depending on how they look when I’m at goal, surgery may be my only option. The problem with that is surgery to get rid of extra skin on the upper arms is not considered medically necessary and, therefore, is not covered by insurance. If I want my stomach done, the case for it being medically necessary can be made and your insurance will pay. So, for the moment, it looks I’m shit out of luck with that option. Sigh.

Is any of that going to stop me from pursuing my goal? Nope. I’ll just have to live with wearing stuff with short or elbow length sleeves in the summer. Losing this weight, getting healthy and prolonging my life are the important reasons behind this journey. How I’ll look on the day I reach goal is just an added bonus. I’m not going to make myself crazy over it. It took me a while to reach this mindset but here I am and here I’ll stay.

Having surgery to remove excess skin is a very personal decision and not one to be taken lightly. If your doctor can make the case to have it considered medically necessary, great but I would still think long and hard about it. I’ve heard stories about people who’ve regretted having it done. It’s major surgery and, in some cases, a person will need more than one. There’s also the recovery period to think about. And the scars, yipes! Personally, I have enough scars on my body already, thank you. If I could afford the surgery for my arms, I would probably consider it but I’m not going to obsess over it (despite the fact that I obsessed about it throughout this whole post. I’ll get over it, I promise!). Just think carefully and research the hell out of the surgery and the doctor who performs it.

Until next time, remember:  every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

I Feel the Need, the Need for…Sleep

One of my favorite pastimes is sleeping (and that also explains an awful lot). Unfortunately, for the past couple of years, I have suffered bouts of fairly severe insomnia. Part of it is menopause (and to think I couldn’t wait for menopause because I was so done with having my period – well, you know what they say: be careful what you wish for…) and part of it is depression. I’ve suffered from depression off and on for close to twenty years, but nothing bad enough to put me on meds for extended periods of time (until now, that is). However, I lost my mother and brother, on the same day, in August of 2016 and it’s kind of been all downhill from there. I am now suffering from clinical depression and PTSD (I was there when the police found them dead) and my sleep patterns are complete crap. I’ll have a couple or three weeks of normalcy where I’ll go to bed after my son leaves for work – he’s on the graveyard shift – and I’ll sleep through the night, waking around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., just before Chris walks in. But then, for some mysterious reason, I’ll start feeling sleepy later and later until I’m usually awake to greet Chris when he comes home.

According to my handy dandy Fitbit, my son’s Christmas gift to me, for the week ending January 20, I slept a grand total of 36 hours; that was a combination of daytime naps and a few hours here and there that I managed to snatch at night. If you take into consideration that a person who sleeps 8 hours a night, seven nights a week, clocks in at 56 hours, I’m sorely lacking in my zzzzzzz’s. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, not getting proper sleep screws with your weight loss. Yay.

I never realized until this go around with Weight Watchers how important sleep is to your weight loss progress. Of course, sleep is important for your health, both physical and mental, but getting a decent amount of sleep every night helps move the needle on the scale downward. The numbers on my scale have not been going anywhere very often these days, particularly since the end of November, when I was briefly hospitalized for my pulmonary hypertension. I had been on a pretty decent (drug induced) sleep schedule but the hospital stay blew all that right out of the water. I haven’t been sleeping much since then, even with the anti-depressants I was put on in early November to try to help me sleep. Talk about crazy-making!

I know that sleep helps your body heal from the beating you give it in your day to day life and that it helps you brain recharge, but I don’t know exactly what magic it does to help you lose weight (and, right now, I’m too wiped to do the research. It’s 7:16 a.m. and I spent most of the night washing dishes and cleaning up my kitchen. My mind, she is tired – I’m surprised I’m coherent enough to write this blog post. The spelling errors are plentiful, however; I guess that speaks to how fried my brain is. Good thing I proofread and ruthlessly edit everything I write). So, to whatever the mechanics are that allows sleep to help you lose weight, I say bravo! When you’re fighting the battle of the bulge, anything that lowers those numbers on the scale is an ally.

So, I’m going to keep taking my anti-depressants but I’m going to look into natural remedies that I can take to see if I can start sleeping like a (semi) normal person again. It’s not just the weight loss that concerns me, although that’s number one on the list, but I generally feel like shit and I sometimes have trouble remembering things, like what day it is or what I had to eat in the morning or the day before. Lack of sleep is a bitch, my people. It can screw with you in so many ways, both big and little. It’s also a bit scary when you haven’t slept for many hours and you can almost feel your body shutting down on you. Not fun. It also makes you lethargic and you don’t feel like going downstairs to get the mail, let alone take a hike with your trusty little Walking Dude. That certainly impedes any weight loss. So, you’re basically screwed coming and going when you can’t sleep.

If anyone has any non-pharmaceutical ways of helping them get to sleep, please share with me. I’m reaching the end of my rope. I was kind of crazy to begin with (in a good way) but now I’m approaching crazy of the not good kind because I can’t sleep. Lord knows we don’t need that!

Until next time, remember:  every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

 

I’m Not Feeling Well…Can I Have Fries with That?

Despite my rather robust appearance, I am not an entirely healthy person. I have arthritis, I get frequent headaches, my stomach likes to severely rebel on me from time to time, I have problems with my blood pressure (hypertension runs in my family), I grew up with asthma, and, because that wasn’t enough, I now have pulmonary hypertension, which is incurable. But, despite this, I’m still in a better place than, say, my best friend, who has a laundry list of medical problems, poor kid. I often wonder why this good, sweet, opinionated-but-still-wonderful person, a woman who is truly like a sister to me, has to suffer with all these illnesses. It’s not fair. So, yeah, in light of that, I’m doing okay. And I should, by all accounts, be doing even more okay about 100 pounds from now. It’s going to take a little while to get there, though.

What’s the one thing most people want to do when they’re sick – besides curl up in bed or on the couch and binge watch something on Netflix or Hulu? A lot of the time, they crave some kind of comfort food, a food that maybe their mom gave them when they were little which made them feel good (if not necessarily better). Having that food now throws you back to that simpler time in your life. While it may not make whatever you’ve got going on go away, it will take you back to that simpler time and the memory alone soothes you. Unfortunately, most comfort food is not exactly weight-loss friendly.

When I was little, the comfort food I got was a plateful of bacon or a couple of hot dogs slathered in mustard (Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard, as my father refused to buy anything else!). And since I would get sick three or four times every winter, I ate a lot of bacon and hot dogs (that explains so much, doesn’t it?). Now that I’m older, I can totally appreciate a nice, warm cup of soup with a simple small sandwich or salad on the side when I don’t feel well but still have an appetite. These days I rarely cook bacon at home (and even then, I use a microwave. I can’t stand all that bacon grease all over the damn place), and I have finally hunted down the ever-elusive Hebrew National 97% Fat Free Hot Dogs (thank you, Target!). It’s a taste I’ll have to acquire – they’re not bad but they’re not what I’m used to. However, they are ridiculously low in points – 1 frank equals 1 SmartPoint – so I will develop a taste for them to appease the occasional longing for a dog. Combine it with Sara Lee Delightful Multi-grain bread (another low point gem!) and French’s Yellow Mustard, and you’ve got yourself a really satisfying, low point meal.

Now, more often than not, when you’re under the weather from a cold, the flu, a flare up of your pulmonary hypertension, like I’ve been suffering from this week, or anything equally nasty, the last thing you want to do is get out of bed, schlep into the kitchen and start banging around the pots and pans to make yourself something to eat. You don’t even want to be bothered programming the microwave. So, you let your fingers do the walking and you find your Seamless, GrubHub or Uber Eats app on your phone and – voila! – a bacon cheeseburger deluxe with sweet potato fries and a diet Coke are on their way to you. (Don’t act like you don’t know many people think they can balance out a calorie-dense meal by having a freakin’ diet drink!) If you’re watching your weight or committing to a lifestyle change, that’s so totally bad, right? I say no. Don’t lose your shit; let me explain.

If you’re sick, the chances are your appetite is at zero for a couple of days. So when you do feel like eating something more than chicken soup and crackers – and you think you can keep it down (or in) – having some comfort food isn’t going to undo all of your progress so far. Sure, when you next get on the scale, your weight may have fluctuated (and I say “may have” because I’ve had a few days where I wasn’t so good the night before and the number on the scale managed to go down, not up, the next day. It’s weird but it happens, and I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth). That fluctuation could be from a variety of reasons, such as the food was very salty so you retained water or you didn’t go to the bathroom yet, but you’re not going to be 10 pounds heavier, and if you go back to watching what you eat and drinking more water and going to the bathroom, you’ll see the number go down again. If you’re tracking what you eat, make sure to write down your comfort food meal – you should hold yourself accountable for everything you put in your mouth. And, most importantly, forgive yourself and let it go. Tomorrow is a new day and a new chance to get back on track. Having that meal of your favorite comfort food (your “Mommy, I’m sick” meal) will give you a nice boost, something you need when you’ve been feeling like death, but it should be done with the understanding that this isn’t something you can keep doing, otherwise you’re going to go back to looking how you did before the weight loss. And if you have two comfort food meals in the space of a week, like I did this week because I wasn’t physically up to going food shopping, that’s okay. Think about it:  two meals out of the 14 to 21 normally weight-loss friendly meals a person has in a week is not going to permanently derail your progress (unless you go nuts and abandon your healthy ways – please don’t do that). Again, it is very important that you don’t make yourself nuts with guilt over one (possibly two) comfort food meals. Guilt leads to stress, stress leads to eating, eating leads to…well, you get the idea.

Making peace with yourself about veering off course every once in a while is a necessary part of getting your head on straight about this lifestyle change you’ve embarked on. I think that to be successful on any weight loss program, you have to believe that no food is off-limits – but massive portions of food are. If all you want is the taste of a nice cheeseburger, then have the damn cheeseburger – singular – not one of those monstrous triple cheeseburger mountains I’ve been seeing advertised lately. Honestly, who needs one of those things? Even at my heaviest, I never had more than a double cheeseburger and that was a rare occurence. A triple just seems like overkill. Anyway, a cheeseburger and fries or a slice of pizza, or a hot dog with everything every once in a while isn’t a bad thing, especially if you’re at a friend’s house for a party or a BBQ. The keys are moderation and telling yourself you’ll be back on track tomorrow (and tracking what you ate) and making peace with it. Besides, changing your lifestyle and creating a better, healthier you is a process, a journey, and journeys typically take a while. You’ve got time to correct the aftereffects of any little food indiscretions you may have had along the way.

Being sick sucks – trust me, I know – but if a comfort food meal can take your mind off your misery for a little while, is that really so bad? I don’t think so. When you’re sick, you want to take your comfort where you can find it. At least, that’s how I see it.

Until next time, remember:  every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

OPP (Other People’s Perceptions)

I’ve been a big girl all my life. I was born chubby and it just got worse from there. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, the only thing that kept me from looking my true size was the fact that I was big boned and solid. (I’m not trying to blow my own horn or anything like that. Growing up, people were always surprised when I told them how much I weighed because I didn’t look like I was carrying that much weight on my body. Yes, I looked like a big girl, just not as big as my scale said. Case in point, the photo below.)

 

I was 18 years old in this photo, taken in the early fall of 1979, during my first semester of college. Ah, those were the days. I had a waistline, a flat stomach, and only one discernible chin. I weighed about 175, possibly 180 in this photo. Do I look it? I don’t think so.

However, be that as it may, I was still regarded as “the fat girl.” I ranted about this on Instagram back in September, when I was still early on in my journey and had been looking at some old photos (the one above in particular along with this one):

(Don’t let the Slenderman looking thing over my shoulder freak you out. I worked in a men’s clothing store!) This one was taken a few years later and I still weighed about the same. Anyway, here’s the rant from Instagram:

This is me, circa 1982-83. Take a good look. I look pretty average sized, don’t you think? Well, back then, I was called “fat.” I was the fat girl, the fat friend, the girl dudes loved to hang out with but wouldn’t be caught dead dating. People never seem to realize that what you say to a person can torpedo their self-esteem and their self-image. Once I got out of my Catholic school uniform and was taught to dress by a dear friend of mine, I had days when I felt good about how I looked and, looking back at these pictures, I did look pretty good but all it took was a “fat girl” comment by one person to blow that away. I was the fat girl so why bother? Now, 30 some odd years later when I really am fat, I look back at these photos and regret that I didn’t just tell people to piss off and continued to do whatever I did to maintain that particular weight. Gaining weight is as much psychological as it is physiological and the shit that lives in your head does as much damage as what goes into your mouth. I wish people of all ages would realize that and keep their cruel and unnecessary comments to themselves. Rant over 😏

I shake my head when I hear or read about people saying that they don’t care what other people think or say, that it doesn’t matter. Take it from someone who’s had to put up with other people’s perceptions (read that: bullshit) all my life: it matters. It matters when you walk into a store and some condescending bitch of a saleswoman immediately says, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything in your size.” It matters when you go on a job interview and instead of focusing on your resume, the interviewer is focusing on your appearance (and they do it all the time. I have a degree in Organizational Behavior; I know what I’m talking about). Does that piss you off? Good. It should.

How much you weigh and how you look matters when you’ve got a crush on someone and, while they think you are aces and a really wonderful person, they wouldn’t be caught dead dating you. You’re good enough to hang out with but not good enough to date/love/fuck because of appearances, not because you’re not cool. It matters when a little kid makes fun of you and their parent does nothing to stop them. It matters when you take a seat on a plane, bus, or train, and the person sitting next to you gives you a dirty look. It matters because no matter what you do or where you go, you are immediately judged on your appearance and treated accordingly because you don’t fit some deluded image of male or female perfection. So, to those who say it doesn’t matter, I say, go ahead and lie to everyone but don’t lie to yourself. One of the scenarios I mentioned above has happened to you and it hurt like hell, didn’t it? Believe me, it matters.

It matters because other people’s perceptions of you can lead you to do things you wouldn’t do under regular circumstances. I personally put myself in compromising, and in a couple cases, dangerous positions because I wanted to prove that I could be as much fun, socially and sexually, as my thin girlfriends. (I’m lucky my dumb ass came away from that unscathed and not sick.) It can lead you to do unhealthy things in an effort to lose weight so you can be like “everyone else.” It can lead you to being vulnerable enough to allow people to take serious advantage of you. It could lead you to not go out at all and, instead, just sit at home and not live your life. It’s sad that other people’s perceptions can hurt someone that badly. No one is perfect. People need to learn to mind their own business and keep their opinions to themselves.

Words hurt. Words can have a profound effect on a person’s psyche. I never understood why some people think they have the right to offer their unsolicited opinion or laugh at or make an unnecessary comment to another human being, regardless of circumstance. That’s called being a bully, whether they think of themselves that way or not. It is what it is.

Bottom line, don’t say it doesn’t matter because you and I both know the truth: it does. But, you can decide to not allow it to dictate what you do with your life. Acknowledge the hurt that comes from cruel words but try your hardest not to let it derail you from how you’re feeling that day, from whatever goal you set for yourself, from whatever it is you want to do with your life. Deal with it then turn it away. Believe me, you don’t want, in twenty or thirty years’ time, to sit and look at old pictures and say to yourself, if I knew then what I know now. I should have dealt with it; I shouldn’t have let it get to me like it did. I should have acknowledged the hurt then said, that person doesn’t know me. What does that person know? I’m not going to live my life based on what some ignorant people say or believe about me without knowing me. (Same applies to family.) Take those comments and let them make you stronger and more determined; don’t let them shove you into a shell and don’t go out and do stupid shit, like I did. Be you, do you, and make your mark on the world. Don’t wait until you’re in your late 30s/early 40s to wake up and shake it off, like yours truly.

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

 

The Supermarket Rant

I didn’t think I was going to get to this particular discussion so soon but since my son and I are going food shopping this evening, I thought now was as good a time as any. Make yourselves comfy, this may take a while.

Normally, I like food shopping (especially when my pain-in-the-ass son is not timing me). I like to check prices and read labels and all that stuff. Normally. When you’re on Weight Watchers, it becomes a bit more of a chore…a mine field…a nightmare. Why, do you ask? Lemme ‘splain.

During my first go around with WW, I found that supermarkets are not dieter-friendly. Oh, sure, they carry veggies, chicken, fish, low-fat milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese, but dieters (excuse me, lifestyle changers, like me) cannot exist on that stuff alone. We like to eat everything, too, just lower fat, lower sugar, lower calorie versions of it. And we are everywhere. So why is it that most (not all) supermarkets act like we don’t exist?

One day at the end of last summer, we needed a few provisions so, since we were heading back home after being out and about for a while, Chris, my boy-child, suggested we just stop at the neighborhood supermarket and pick up a few things. I was surprised since he himself had said he didn’t like it there because everything was so expensive (he’s a great kid – except when he’s timing me; he will go food shopping for me when I’m not feeling well). However, I really needed some veggies so I agreed. In I went…and I came out spitting fire.

There were almost no Weight Watcher – or any weight-loss friendly – options. No reduced fat cheeses, no low calorie breads, no low-fat or fat-free salad dressings. No fat-free half and half or fat-free or sugar-free Coffee-Mate (an essential if you are an avowed coffee drinker like me). No fat-free Greek yogurt. Hardly any light versions of soups, condiments, or even snack foods. Barely anything I could work with. Thank God they actually had vegetables! When I got back in the car and bitched for a good five minutes about what I didn’t find, Chris just looked at me and said, “Mom, look at the neighborhood.”

We live in Yonkers, New York, just over the Westchester border. It’s an interesting area. On one side of where we live, the neighborhood is dominated by a mixed Latino population. On the other side, it is very mixed between Caucasians, African Americans and Latinos. I like the diversity. However, Chris is right about the supermarket. Because it is located in the middle of the Latino neighborhood, that supermarket, and the smaller grocery stores (bodegas) in the area, cater to that population. But, as I pointed out to Chris, even Latino people try to lose weight. I hate that supermarkets think certain populations are not interested in eating foods that will help them watch their weight and, therefore, don’t offer weight-loss friendly options.

In my search for stores in my neighborhood that offer better choices, I keep coming up empty. When I went to a supermarket above five minutes away, in the more Caucasian dominated part of the neighborhood, I encountered almost the same problem. There were a few more weight-loss friendly options, but not as much as I had thought there would be. Ten years ago, when I was on WW, I lived in the Bronx, in an area that was sandwiched between residential streets and the projects. The supermarket there was a complete surprise. They carried plenty of diet-friendly options. I remember they had low-cal bread, a wonderful selection of light, fat-free, and low-sodium soups, low fat cheeses, non-fat yogurt, and the rare – for that time – low-sodium soy sauce. So, I’ve come to the conclusion that many supermarkets just can’t be bothered offering weight-loss friendly options, regardless of the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. Why is that, I wonder?

There are plenty of people like me, people who are trying to lose weight. But there are also folks who don’t necessarily want or have to lose weight, but they are keeping an eye on their waist lines so they don’t end up with middle-age spread. So why don’t supermarkets understand that? When you watch supermarket haul videos online that are made by people on Weight Watchers or other programs, they shop mostly at Trader Joe’s or Aldi or even Walmart. I don’t have those options nearby (and I don’t drive). For almost two years, Chris and I have done the majority of our food shopping at BJ’s – one of those wholesale clubs – but now I only go to get staples like chicken or Chris’ favorite cereals or the spices and other condiments I like to use for cooking because their diet-friendly options are few and far between (but, given the nature of that store, I kind of understand that…however, it wouldn’t kill them to offer a few more options). But a couple of months ago, Chris and I decided to grab some stuff at Target’s grocery section – and I was pleasantly surprised. They have a much better selection of weight-loss friendly foods than I’ve seen just about anywhere else I’ve gone. Target has now become my “supermarket” of choice; unfortunately, it’s an hour’s ride by bus (round trip) so it’s not practical for me to pop over there whenever I need to pick up a few things. Chris drives me there for our monthly “big” shop and I buy enough to last us – that way Chris only has to pick up milk and bread and eggs in the time in-between. Target’s got the right idea, as do the other stores I hear mentioned in those videos. Other supermarkets could take a lesson…

Bottom line – supermarkets need to step up their game. If they don’t carry weight-loss friendly options because they think these items won’t sell (especially because of the neighborhood), I think they are hugely mistaken. While this might have been the case back in my mother’s day (and she was the ultimate in old fashioned, set-in-their-ways Puerto Ricans), it’s not now. Sure, you’ve got the old-school shoppers who wouldn’t touch a low-fat, low-cal, sugar-free anything because they think it doesn’t taste good or whatever, but you’ve got plenty of more enlightened folks, like me, who are trying to lose or maintain weight and need those options as part of their weight-loss programs. (And I’m not talking about clean eating or any of that – personally, I think doing that is even more expensive than what I’m doing now and stores that cater to that crowd are even harder to get to.) I’m a firm believer in “if you offer it, they will buy.” If supermarkets made it easier to purchase healthier food options, maybe, little by little, we could start chipping away at this country’s obesity problem because people of all ages will be able to make better choices and find some kind of balance. And it would just make food shopping for us lifestyle changers a hell of a lot easier.

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

Winter Threw Off My Groove…

I love to walk. I always have. It’s one of the best exercises one can do (and it’s free!!!!). Back in 2008, when I was on Weight Watchers the first time, I managed to lose 50 pounds in nine months and I lost 25 of those pounds when I started walking every day after work. (Please don’t ask me how I was able to lose 52 pounds in 5 months at the age of 56 while going through menopause while it took me 9 months to lose 50 pounds when I was 47. I’m still trying to figure that one out myself.) However, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both my knees in my late 30s. Walking helped keep the worse of it at bay but despite the 50 pound loss in 2008, I was still heavier than I should have been and my knees started to rebel. By 2009, I was walking with a cane. By 2012, I was in constant pain. By 2013, I had to stop working because I could barely walk (and the weight started piling on because I’d become completely sedentary). In November of 2014, I had my left knee fully replaced. In March 2015, they did the right knee. I was only 53 years old.

But, once I was done with physical therapy, I got my mojo back. I was once more able to walk without the constant and excrutiating pain I’d suffered for so long, and I said bye-bye to assistive devices. In September 2017, once I started losing weight, I started taking long rambles with my dog, the ever-loving Marvel the Schnauzer. This is the marvelous Marvel (aka The Walking Dude) and me during one of our very first adventures:

I started out slow, only going out for 30 to 40 minutes at a time and taking frequent rest stops because the pulmonary hypertension (PH) causes me to become short of breath pretty quickly and it causes my heart to race. However, by late October, I had worked my way up to 2 hour long, 3 mile walks, and Marvel and I loved it. The only (major) drawback is that we live in a very hilly part of Yonkers, NY so I have to choose my routes carefully to avoid big hills and that means we end up walking through the same areas day after day and that can get a little boring. But we did our thing, Marvel and I…until it suddenly turned cold. The cold weather is the kiss of death for someone like me who has asthma, suffers from PH, and still has issues with arthritis in her back and hips. I can work out at home, of course, but it’s not the same. I miss my rambles with Marvel. Winter threw off my groove.

I can’t wait for this cold to abate so I can start walking again. It not only helped my weight loss but my breathing was better and my legs felt terrific. Walking is like one of the most perfect exercises and it’s FREE!!!! You can’t beat that with a stick. And now, to motivate me even further, my son gave me a Fitbit for Christmas and I can’t wait to put it to work. I’ll write a post about that in the future, after I’ve had a chance to put it to good use.

If you’re like me and you either can’t afford a gym or you can’t get to one without having to take two buses to get there, try walking. Fire up your Google Maps and take a look at your area and plot out a few (safe) routes. Then get yourself a walking buddy (human or canine, either will do!) or a good pair of earphones and a great playlist, and get to stepping. In time, it will become one of the best parts of your day. (And it’s FREE!!!!)

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

Goal Setting

I’m not so good at the whole goal setting thing. I can make to-do lists like a boss but goals…that’s a different animal entirely. When I was working in corporate, I used to hate doing self-evaluations because they always asked for goals, and I never really knew what to put down (well, when I was a young and eager beaver I did…as I got older, wiser, and less interested in being a corporate drone, not so much).

When you join Weight Watchers, or any weight loss program, for that matter, they always ask you to put down a goal weight you want to reach. Now, if I were as smart as I think I am, I would set smaller goals, like 10% of my weight or every 25 pounds or something like that. But no, I go the whole magilla – I said I wanted to reach 195 pounds. At the time I joined WW, that was exactly 138.1 pounds away. 138 pounds is a whole other human being. When you’re first starting out, 138 pounds sounds almost insurmountable. But 190-195 pounds is what I weighed when I was in my mid-20s and I was at my most active, my most social, and my healthiest. When I weighed 195 pounds, I took jazz, tap and ballet classes, one class a night. On the other nights, I was out on the town after work with my colleagues and school friends. I ate out at least three times a week. I went drinking and dancing every Saturday night. I worked full-time, took classes, and had my own apartment. I never got tired and for more than three years, I never gained a pound. I wore the same size clothes that whole time. I looked like this:

It kind of irks me that if I looked like that right at this moment, I’d be considered fairly average but back then, this was considered fat, too. Anyway, I weighed about 195 here (circa 1985) and I was happy and healthy and doing my thing. This – or as close an approximation as I can get – is what my goal is.

“Experts” say you should try to weigh within the range of those charts you see on all those weight loss websites and apps and yada yada. I call bullshit. I’m a big girl, meaning I’m big boned, I have a large frame. When I was a teenager and I weighed 150 or so, that was fine but once I was an adult, weighing 150 would have had everyone thinking I was sick. I know that I wouldn’t look good if I went down to 150. I’m not built that way. I believe you should go down to a weight where you were your most comfortable, your most healthy. When I weighed 190-195, I rarely even caught a cold. My asthma was so under control, cigarette smoke didn’t even bother me (this was during the days when people were allowed to smoke in bars and restaurants). I felt good and looking back at some of the pictures I have from that time period, I looked good. This is why I set my goal at 195. Now, once I get there, we’ll see what happens. Maybe I can handle going down to 185 or even 180. But I absolutely refuse to go below 175. That’s my personal preference. The weight charts work for some people and that’s absolutely fine. I don’t happen to be one of those people.

The point of this whole mishegas is this: your weight and your ultimate goal is a highly personal thing and you should be the one to decide what weight you’re comfortable at. If, back in the day, you felt your best at 150 pounds, then that’s what you should aim for. If you were in the best shape of your life at 200 pounds, then that’s what suits you. Your goal weight shouldn’t be dictated by a number on a chart for a large framed woman who stands 5’6″. Your large frame may be entirely different from someone else’s large frame. We’re not gingerbread men; we’re not all cut out the same way. And hey, if you can lose the equivalent of a whole other human being, then that’s cause for celebration in and of itself! Do you and be proud!

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

The Battle of the Bulge

I will admit it. I will confess to scoffing at people who say they didn’t realize how big they were getting. Did they not have mirrors in their homes? Did they not find their clothes getting uncomfortably tight on them? Yes, indeed, I scoffed…until I became one of those very people.

Of course I noticed that I’d put on “a few pounds.” But I was operating under the delusion (not illusion) that it was mostly water weight gain since I was menopausal and my system had gone completely haywire. So, apparently, had my mind. It wasn’t until I saw this photo, taken at the New York Auto Show in April 2017, that I realized something had gone terribly wrong.

I should preface this next bit with this: I rarely allowed myself to be photographed full body (unless I was posing with someone I could sidle up to and therefore hide a bit) because I knew I looked huge in photos, but I love Dodge Challengers and I really wanted my picture taken next to one. (Also, I don’t own a full length mirror. Small wonder why.) It wasn’t until the next day, when I was looking through all the pictures my son and I had taken at the show, that I realized my legs looked like cottage cheese stuffed into sausage casings. I was horrified. There are full length mirrors in the lobby of my building but I’d gotten in the habit of simply glancing at them quickly as I walked out the door. So, no, I didn’t know how big I’d gotten. A couple of weeks later, I tried to put on a pair of dress pants that had always fitted well…and they were now too tight. This wasn’t water weight. This was the real deal. I made a half-hearted attempt at cutting back on my food but that went nowhere fast.

Between January and June of 2017, I found myself having a lot of trouble breathing. It was hard to walk the dog, it was hard to just walk up and down the aisles at BJ’s when we went food shopping. I do have asthma but it is controlled with inhalers. My inhalers were suddenly useless. My primary physician finally decided to send me to a cardiologist to have some tests done, “just to be safe.” In July, that cardiologist gave me the news: I had pulmonary hypertension, it is incurable, and if I didn’t lose a significant amount of weight, I was greatly shortening my lifespan. In other words, lose weight or die. Two weeks later, I heard the same thing from my pulmonologist. I went home, got on the scale and found I’d ballooned up to 343.5 pounds. I didn’t last two minutes on the treadmill during my stress test at the cardiologist’s. This was the medical equivalent of an episode of “Scared Straight.” I started cutting back on my food again and lost ten pounds. I then joined Weight Watchers and have since lost almost 42 pounds on that.

By mid-September, I’d gone from cottage cheese in sausage casing legs to this:

(Please excuse my horrible “selfie face.” I always look like I’m passing a kidney stone or something.)

I was so proud of the noticeable difference in my legs. My pant legs were loose enough to cover the tops of my shoes. I no longer wear those sweats because they’re so big now, they slip down past my waist (I hate that!). Unfortunately, once coat weather began, I stopped taking full length selfies in the mirrors in the lobby because I’m terrified I’m going to get caught doing it by one of the neighbors. My exhibitionism has its limits, people.

I no longer scoff at people’s stories of how they didn’t realize they’d gained so much weight. It happened to me, and it was hard to live it down.

Yay for plain speaking doctors who are not afraid to scare the living shit out of their patients. It makes an impression; it sure got me off my ample ass.

Huzzah for Weight Watchers for offering a program that is really easy to follow and that teaches you how to control yourself and eat in moderation. Nothing’s off limits, but you have to learn to bargain with yourself in order to stay within your points. That little exercise is both eye-opening and educational. I mean, seriously, how much do you really need that triple burger with everything and a side of cheese fries?

And good for me for finally waking the hell up, deciding I’m still important enough to make a lifestyle change – not go on a diet – and hitting the reset button. I’m doing something that will last for what’s left of my life and allow me to enjoy my time here on this big blue marble.

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…

 

 

Four Score and Fifty Pounds Ago…

Well, hello there! My name is Doreen. For those who know me from my Instagram page (@doreengantt), hi! For those who are new to my blog, welcome. Either way, have a seat and buckle up: it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

Please take a good look at the photos above. They are in no way photoshopped or messed with or anything. This is the best representation I have of how far I’ve come on my Weight Watchers journey (so far). As of January 7, I’ve lost a total of 52.1 pounds since July 2017. I lost 41.7 pounds of that on Weight Watchers, which I joined on August 6. The other 10.4 pounds were probably scared off me when my cardiologist told me in July that I had an incurable illness called Pulmonary Hypertension (PH, for short). He told me, in effect, that I needed to lose weight…or die. Two weeks later, my pulmonologist said the very same thing. Neither of them mince their words and thank God for that. So, having just lost both my mother and my brother less than a year before, I freaked out a little bit (oh, all right, a lot) and got on the scale – which was cause for another near meltdown. I weighed 343.5 pounds. How in the hell had that happened? When in the hell had that happened? The picture on the left was taken just two months earlier – looking at that, how did I not see it? I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror every day – what in God’s name was I looking at that I didn’t see what I had become? My world started coming a little unglued in July 2017, and I had no choice but to hit the reset button. And now, six months later, I’m glad I did.

I love Weight Watchers. It’s easy to follow, it makes sense, it’s fairly idiot proof, you don’t have to lose your mind counting macro- and micro-nutrients, and nothing is really off limits – you just have to learn control and moderation. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was cranky (and hungry) AF for the first couple of weeks but once I got past that and I got used to working within my daily points (I tend not to use my weeklies too much), it became really easy, and by the end of my first month, I’d lost 9.5 pounds. The following month, September, I lost 12.3 pounds. By October, I leveled off somewhat and subsequent losses weren’t so dramatic but I did keep losing. December was kind of bad, but not because I gained during the holidays but because I plateaued. It might have been the effects of some new meds I was on but between Christmas and New Year’s, I broke through and lost a little over six pounds. Weight Watchers really works for me and I swear by it.

So, in this blog, I’m going to share my journey so far and the road I have yet to travel (I have another 96 pounds to go before I hit goal and I’ll explain why I chose my goal in another post). I’m going to talk about what works for me, given my unique health issues, what doesn’t work, what foods I like, and what I steer clear of. I want to share ideas and bitch and moan about this crazy journey and hang with like-minded people. I want this, and my Instagram page, to keep me accountable (because I’m gonna lose this weight, damn it!!!). I want to vent my fears about what my body is going to look like after the weight loss (excess skin, anyone?), and, most of all, I want to help others start and continue their own journey to Onederland.

Until next time, remember: every day is a chance to hit that reset button…