Mistakes, I've made a few...: SparkPeople Series #4

Mistakes, I've made a few... (January 21, 2009)

Boy have I made some dieting mistakes in my life! The first would have been sneaking my mother's Ayds weight reducing candies. Someone called me fat at school. Mom was using Ayds on her diet plan. I stole several of them and ate them. I don't remember getting sick. I probably did. I do remember Mom beating me within a fraction of my life and sending me to my room. (For you young people, loving parents used to smack us a bit back in the day. If it was as bad as they say now, I wonder why so many of us survived it to become happy and seemingly well adjusted.)

Flash to adulthood and the mistakes started piling up big time. I remember being on a first year teacher's salary in Waeldar, Texas, bringing home less than $600 a month in the early 1980s. Just the same, I was paying around $20 each for cans of Cambridge Diet powders. I started with the chocolate. Then I learned about the soup one. I can't remember what it was called. I think it was some kind of cream of chicken or something like that. It tasted horrible to me, so I started adding some seasonings to it. Then I got to thinking how good it would be with some grated cheddar cheese on top. Well, one thing led to another and I was eventually enjoying chunks of chicken, crackers, cheese, and whatever else I had in the house with that $20 soup base. I actually started to gain weight on that stuff!

Then a few years later, I moved to San Antonio. I found SlimFast at the grocery store for a whole lot less than that Cambridge Diet powder. I also found Alba, the instant and very low-cal milkshake powders. I started combining SlimFast with Alba. Then I added a banana. Then I wanted a more chocolaty taste, so a few squirts of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup started making their way in to the mix. I think, by the time I gave that one up, I was adding a scope or two of ice cream. Yes. I gained weight that time, too.

I moved right into my next brainstorm... POPCORN! I could buy those huge bags of already popped popcorn that people would buy to sell at carnivals and concession stands. I had a small bowl or two in the evenings. Pretty soon, I was buying two of those huge bags each week and eating HUGE bowls of it all evening long. Between the buttery flavoring and the salt that made me retain water, I gained weight on that one for sure.

Then I got married. Eating with a spouse is a major adjustment. You don't skip as many meals and suddenly find that you've blimped up. I started waking up in agony every morning. My back was killing me, but as soon as I got out of bed, the pain was gone. I went to the doctor and she said, "Of course your back hurts! You're too fat!" Then she put me on a diet like Oprah's. It had a different name though. I can't remember which of us was on which one. They were called Optifast and Medifast. Mine cut me down to an extremely low calorie level. I couldn't eat anything besides the horrible tasting shakes and bouillon. I dropped weight so fast people thought I had cancer or something. Then I got a call from the doctor's office. They basically said, "Stop, drop, and get your butt in here!" You had to have weekly blood drawn on that diet. That particular day, the doctor didn't like the results. All of my levels were totally out of whack. I remember her nurse hooking me up to an IV and saying, "Wow, that was a close one!" The doctor took away my diet, and I gained all that weight back the next day. Okay, not really the next day. I was seeing if you were paying attention! It took a few months. Unfortunately, it is all well documented in photos for the world to see. My first child (You know... the one you take pictures of.) was born shortly before the diet. The photos of me holding him during the first 6 months will break your heart. I get progressively bigger.

Next came carrots. They started selling those prepeeled and washed baby carrots at the grocery stores. I liked them. I liked them a lot. Whenever I was hungry, which was often, I would go get a small bowl of them and munch away. I started eating more and more of them. Then just about the point where I was buying two five pound bags per week, my wife said, "Your nose is orange. What did you get into?" Sure enough, when I looked in the mirror there was a very obvious orange tinge to my nose and ears. I gave carrots up cold turkey. I don't think I gained any weight during that disaster, but I did have gas a lot.

Fiber was a fun one too. I decided I needed more fiber in my diet. I think I was on some kind of plan. I can't remember. Anyway, I bought some high-fiber cereal at the store that was shaped like square Cheerios. I can't recall the name. It tasted more like oatmeal cookies to me than cereal. I also bought my first box of Fiber One. I ate so much of them that first day, that the fiber completely plugged me up, the exact opposite of what I was expecting it to do. Now, I'm going to give you too much information again. Skip on down, if you can't take it. The process of finally passing all that fiber rubbed my butt so raw I couldn't even wipe for the pain. Sitting was uncomfortable. I was a little panicked. I knew I could never go to the doctor, bend over, drop trow', and say, "Hey, Doc. Check this out!"

Okay... Even I'm bored now. I'm going to finish with one last one even though that means skipping my experiences with several other fads and diets including the Atkins diet. This last disaster took place at Weight Watchers. It was the beginning of my second year there. I was down about 60 pounds. I may have gained a little back already. Weight Watchers introduced the Core Plan with great fanfare. It was a list of foods that you were allowed to eat as much as you wanted to feel satisfied. Yeah, right Weight Watchers! That was what I had been doing my whole frapping life! I saw avocados on that list and went hog wild. I ate avocados with every meal. Some days, I just stood at the sink cutting them in half, pulling out the seed, sprinkling them with salt, and eating them with a spoon. I must have eaten at least 5 a day! Add that to the other things like brown rice that I just loved eating, and before you know it, I was gaining back every pound I had lost. I went right back to counting points, but the damage was done. I never did it honestly after that. I pretty much created my own system for recording points which had nothing to do with what I was really eating. Portion control? Nope... didn't worry about that anymore.

So you see, I can truthfully tell you that I have tried many different approaches to losing weight. Somehow, however, I sabbotaged every last one of them in some way or another. I pray that this time, I will be more honest with myself, and stand out of my own way. I think it will happen. It has to happen. I don't want to lay dead on the floor like my mother until I am at least as old as she was when she died.

Giving Up My Favorite Foods: SparkPeople Series #3

Giving Up My Favorite Foods (January 19, 2009)

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my health lately. That's what lead me to becoming more active on this site. I joined back on August 14, 2008. That's all I did other than look around a little. A buddy of mine mentioned it while we were having a beer at our favorite hangout. He knew that I was interested in that kind of thing since we both entered Weight Watchers at about the same time a few years ago. I went to meetings. He did it all on line. We both lost weight. He kept it off. Any way, in looking over my "health life" recently, I decided to start a fresh battle with my weight (a final skirmish, if you will) to finally get myself healthier. That's what brought me back here.

I have come to the realization that, just like everyone else, I have to give up my favorite foods if I am going to be successful this time around. After a lot of deep self analysis, I have identified what they are. Unfortunately, I am one of those unlucky people who eats his grief, eats his boredom, eats his stress, and eats his worry. My life has been so affected by these meals, that they must be my favorite foods. I need to try and give them up.

I've mentioned in one of my earlier blogs how I hired a personal trainer for 13 personal sessions. The week after they ended, just when I was mentally and physically prepared to continue a great workout regimen on my own, my nephew died when my sister's house burned down. It was like having the rug pulled out from under me. I stopped working out completely, and spent the rest of 2007 eating my grief. I put on almost 40 pounds in the process.

My mother passed away unexpectedly on August 27th of last year. Even though I was actively training to walk a half-marathon in November (which I did), I ate enough grief to undo any weight loss that the three months of intense marathon training should have given me. In fact, I actually put on 20 pounds. We threw a party for Mom on December 27th and spread her ashes at a beautiful ranch in Llano, Texas. It gave me the closure that I needed. I still miss her terribly, but I am no longer going to eat my grief because I am on a diet now. You don't eat your favorite foods when you are on a diet.

In a very similar fashion, I am going to work myself out of eating my boredom, stress, and worry. It will be hard giving them up, but I'll learn to eat other things to take their place.

Do you have favorite foods getting in your way?

Too Big for the Mall: SparkPeople Series #2

Too Big for the Mall (January 15, 2009)

I have been too fat for the mall for a while now. You might not know this, but most men's stores rarely go to 3X or higher than 44 inch waistes. Only a rare few of them have a Big Men's department, and when they do it is usually not that great.

Big and Tall stores usually cost more. I guess it's all that extra hardware needed to support clothing up to size 12x. The ones on the Intranet are significantly less expensive, but you spend a lot of time returning poor quality and poor fitting merchandise.

Stores like K-Mart and WalMart which do sometimes get up to the 3X area have another problem all together. They sell clothes that an old man like me would look silly in, especially at my size. If they do have something I like that should come in my size, some other fat guy already bought it up.

Speaking of those other fat guys, where the heck are they getting their clothes? I have never seen a naked fat man in a restaurant, store, or picking up his kids at school. They have to be shopping somewhere. I've seen some fatter guys than me wearing some really nice grown up clothes that fit them really nice. If I do get up the courage to ask them where they got something (which almost never happens), they look at me and say that pathetic line that makes me so ashamed of my gender, "I don't know where my wife got it."

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong. I know. I'll pass the problem off like the other fat dudes. Tonight I'm going to give my wife a great big hug, look longingly into her eyes, and say, "Honey, buy me some new clothes this weekend." She'll do it, too. However, I'll be wearing them to the hospital to get something heavy removed from my head the next day.

Oh well. I should just stop worrying about it. I can let my fat clothes hang on me until I can shop at the mall. That won't be for awhile anyway. These that I'm wearing are pretty snug. But when it does happen, watch out skinny people! I'm going to blast through that mall on a shopping binge like you've never seen. It kind of makes me sad, though. In this economy, I'll have to use up my youngest son's college fund to pay for it. What would he rather have- a totally acceptable highschool education or a naked Dad dropping him off at the dorm? See... No worries.

Dog No More: SparkPeople Series #1

I am going to move some of my SparkPeople blog posts here. Why? Just because I want some of them here.

Dog No More (January 13th 2009)

You know, I have been like that proverbial dog returning to his vomit for as long as I can remember. That's true in most areas of my life, as you will see.

Take organization, for example. I can clean out my dresser drawers and rearrange them neatly. I will adhere to the new arrangement for awhile, until one day I just realize that my drawers are a mess and need to be redone.

Same with my van. I will enlist the aid of both sons to scrub it clean at the beginning of each summer. We even steam clean the seats and carpets. I empty the console of all refuse and wipe everything down with some of that Armor-All stuff that makes it all nice and shiny. Then, all of a sudden, I'll be driving along and notice that the inside of the van looks like the city dump. I don't see it happening. It just magically transforms from nice and clean to an absolute mess.

Historically diet and exercise have been no different for me. I'm telling you that I sat through nearly three years of Weight Watchers meetings. I lost about 70 pounds. I loved it. I was one of those self-righteous little point counters. One lady at work once said, "Shut up about the points and let me eat in peace!" I was that bad. Then one day it just dawned on me that I had gained 50 of the pounds back even though I went to the meetings and weighed in weekly. For nearly a year I thought I was playing with 5 pounds. You probably know that game. One week you lose five pounds, the next you gain seven. Then you lose five pounds the third week, and gain seven again the fourth. That basically means that you're gaining a pound a week! I honestly did not notice the whole picture. I was too involved in "oh goody, I lost 5 pounds, let's celebrate at that Chinese buffet with the all you can eat pot stickers!" Oh, SNAP! It's those binges at the Chinese buffet that make me look like Buddha in my motivational nudie video. I get it now.

With exercise it's even more pathetic. I make a plan. I get started in a gung ho manner. I buy work out clothes. I buy workout equipment. I pay for 13 personal trainer sessions at Spectrum. Then one day someone says something like, "Hey, Jim. Are you still walking all those miles each week?" Instantly, I realize that I haven't walked farther than the mailbox in more than three months. Nope, I'm too busy laying on the couch (like that dog I mentioned earlier) with a wash basin sized bowl of Doritos resting on my belly. WOOF!