A NEW KIND OF SCROOGE

                There is a change at my house this Christmas Season.  Oh, the trees are up and the lights are twinkling, there are presents still hidden here and there with bags of wrapping paper, tape and ribbon ready to be applied.  I watch my favorite Christmas movies before I go to bed and the Christmas cards are still rolling in.  But there’s something missing; the kitchen is hollow and the counter tops empty—no twenty five pound bags of flour and sugar, no shelves filled with dried fruit, chocolate chips, white chocolate, butterscotch, caramel, peanut butter chips, no almond bark or bags of nuts by the pound.  There are no festive tins and cans to be filled with candy and cookies and no boxes for gourmet cakes with holiday flair.  This Christmas, there is a scrooge in the house who is selfish and insisting on change.  She’s rolled her sleeves up and taken on a healthy outlook, declared war on sugar and carbs and aligned herself with fresh fruits and vegetables.  She’s traded her apron for a sweat suit and a pair of tennis shoes and put away the cookie sheets and pulled out the vegetable steamer.  The whisk and candy thermometer are locked away in the drawer and instead of spending hours going through Christmas cookie and candy recipes, she’s online researching healthy alternatives for butters and oils and trying to find recipes that use Stevia.   The skinny husband is waiting for the list that he’ll take to the store to bring home the ingredients to transform into delectable treats and the stunned daughter keeps lifting her nose to sniff the now empty air that only affords the smell of lean meats being grilled or new vegetables steamed or sautéed.  I’m sure it’s overwhelming for them, to be denied of their must have merry munchies, and they are hopeful that the Scrooge will fall asleep and be visited by three spirit who will convince her to go back to her fattening festive frivolities.  But I believe the Christmas angels are watching with designed interest as the lady of the house forsakes the sugar gods and bosses of the cakes and moves on to find her lost treasure—her health. 

                Every Christmas tradition in my family has been connected to food.  People in my family have been known to gain ten pounds just in Christmas week alone and those of us with good genes manage to keep their holiday package to a pooch here, a pot belly there, maybe a bit of a jiggle in the arms and legs.  But to some of us, the sugar stains us with baggage that goes way beyond a ten pound pouch.  I wish I understood why some can eat bags of sugar with no effect and others need to be wiped off of the walls after consuming a quarter cup. Yet there are the ones who are fueled by the sugary treats to go on to host a ravenous beast who can eat the state of Texas with a cup or two of coffee.  I, unfortunately am the latter of the three, a fact that I have known for some time now, but somehow in the past few years I’ve lost the power to tame the beast.  I read a book called “Sugar Blues” that changed my mindset about 12 years ago and I determined to end the power sugar had over me.  I managed to hold it at bay for seven years, it was the best I’ve ever felt.  I was not thin, but I was a nice size 14, full of strength and muscle.  I had energy and was very active.  The only sweets I allowed myself were fruit and even lemons were sweet to me.  A sprinkle of cinnamon over my soy lattes added sweetness and cherry or grape tomatoes were like eating candy.  What happened to that success?  It was ambushed by one single Christmas cookie.  I was spending Christmas with my family in New Orleans and my sister in law had made some cookies she couldn’t wait for me to try.  My mother told me not to hurt her feelings, ‘eat the damn cookie’, she’d told me.  I did not, I held my ground.  But my mother, unhappy with my stubbornness, resorted to the age old supremacy that she’d used on me as a child, she gave me ‘the look’.  Now there are few things that get to me, put a lump in my throat and make me shiver with alarm; the look is one of them.  It was the method of control she’d used over us to get us to be nice, settle down, share—you know the look.  The one that said you may walk out of here smirking, but when I get you home, your butt is mine!  I cracked, incapable of withstanding the powers that be, and took the cookie.  It was a good cookie, you know the kind that is crispy on the edges, yet chewy in the middle?  Full of delightful chocolate chips and pecans and topped with a deep, dark chocolate drizzle?  My plan was to chew the cookie, make a few oohs and ahs and then spit it into napkin.  But it got to me, the ooey gooey texture, the sweetness tantalized my taste buds and for a moment, I was sugar seduced.  One cookie turned to three and I decided that didn’t hurt so I’d have a few pieces of fudge, just for the day, I’d go back to being sugar free in the morning.  By the New Year, I was sugar crazed!  Pancake for breakfast drowned with syrup, iced coffee concoctions at least 3 a day, cookies, cakes; I kept gummy bears in my car at all times.  I started to have acid reflux again, candida, my blood pressure went up, high cholesterol—need I say more? 

                I have often resented that cookie—it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back, the Trojan horse that wrecked my kingdom.  You would think I would have resisted cookies for all time, but I didn’t.  I was like a junkie with his stuff, miserable but satisfied.  The years that have past have brought me some heartache and loss and my joints gave way and in two years I found myself so big I could be considered a wide load in traffic.  So just like the festivity of the holiday season and the temptation to take just one bite stole my sugar free success, I am bound and determined to get it back with the same sentiment.   Sugar is not the reason for the season, I should not have visions of sugar plums dancing in my head and my house is not made of cookies held together with royal icing.  I have to have a better foundation than this, and this Christmas, while the world waves peppermint canes at each other and pounds one another with fudge and cake, I will make a change and I will get my healthy back. 

                There are so many other facets of the holidays—the music, the fellowship, the giving—I choose to focus on them and make this the best holiday ever. 

The Almighty Scale

So here it is weigh day, the day of accountability the day to see if all my hard work and determination and OCD behavior has paid off. I’m excited to find out, but at the same time I’m scared sick. Why is that? I know I’ve worked hard, I’ve eaten all the right foods, done all my exercise. I made friends with vegetables and flushed my body with 2 liters of water every day. I haven’t had pasta or rice or potatoes, I pitched the sugar, gave up the bread, made cookies and didn’t eat a one, upped my exercise from two fifteen minute sessions a day to an hour at one time--why wouldn’t I lose weight? It’s perfectly logical to believe that the scale is going to reflect my hard work, but I am afraid that in spite of it all, I’m going to get on the scale and it will disappoint me. I tell people all the time, a pound is not necessarily fat--could be fluid, muscle weight. I get on my soap box and preach ‘don’t let the scale own you!’ all of the time, it’s just a number, your success should be measured by your actions, your accomplishments, your attitude. So why does that number mean so much? Because it is the number that has been used for a century to determine who is pretty and who is not, who is healthy and who is at risk, who wears a bikini and who wears a swim dress; who is allowed to ride the mini bike and who needs a plus size scooter. When the weight is going up the scale yells at us--”Get off of me, you fatty! You keep gaining weight and pretty soon you’ll have to get weighed at the Vet’s office!” It assures us that we are growing and gaining and not in a good way and we need to get rid of the excess. And when we take the plunge, when we make up our minds to work at losing the weight we report in on a regular basis to see what the scales tells us--if we lose it slaps us on the back and says “good for you! Aren’t you special?” But if we gain, it slaps us across the face and calls us a failure. Is it any wonder that I see people at my weigh ins back up to the scale and not want to know how they’ve done? It’s a way of surrender, of telling the scale “you win, I can’t take the suspense or the beatings any more.” So what do we do, do we beat the scale silly and trash it? God knows that’s what I’ve wanted to do many times, but would it truly do us any good to become a scale abuser. And no matter how we try to get around it, at some time we are going to have to get on that box with the numbers to determine where our weight is. So here is where I sit, wondering if it is worth it to starve myself until my weigh in, which isn’t until 7:00 pm tonight because I’m afraid of water gain or to put two pounds of food in me and get charged with 2 pounds? Or do I just face the fact that I am doing this thing for my health and I need to know where my weight is, losing weight is such a motivator but then again, not losing is such a pain. I know that in the long run it will all level out, and while I don’t want to go through the agony of defeat, I really do want to know if I’ve got reason to celebrate. So I will drink my water and try to divert my mind for the hours that separate me and my weigh in time and when I get on that scale I will hold my breath and wait for the numbers to stop spinning, and hopefully I will walk away with a smile on my face.

IF THE SHOE FITS...

 

 

    I have always loved shoes. When I was a kid my mother bought us shoes that we called "ugly shoes" they were not cute, they were not feminine, they were ugly.  When I got a job and could buy my own shoes, I couldn't wait to buy fun, cute and adorable shoes.  But there was one problem--I was a size ten and size tens were not glorious shoes back then so I was forced to wear clobber shoes, better known by my sister and me as "ugly shoes".  My life went on in the ugly shoes, and one day a new shoe store came to the parish, it was called "Shoe Town" and it became one of my favorite places to shop.  There were rows and rows of shoes and all the way to the back there was half a rack of not so bad almost normal looking and sometimes 'cute' shoes.  One payday when I had some money to blow, I found myself at that half a rack gazing at my choices when suddenly I saw shoes that were past cute, they were fabulous!  Oh yes, they were long and required a bigger box, but they were bright red patton leather and shiny.  The design was genius and the scoop from heel to the toe was so elegant, I couldn't want to put them on my foot.  As fast as my hands would work, I pulled them out of the box and was sitting on that little bench trying them on.  I held my foot out in front of me and tears dampened my eyes--they were glorious!  I had never in all my twenty years, seen such a beautiful thing at the end of my leg.  They made them look stylish, elegant and glamorous.  I turned my foot ever so slightly and let the light catch the glitter of the patton leather--I was  gorgeous!  I couldn't wait to get up and sasshay around in them.  But turned out, those bright and shiny shoes were not so easy to stand up in, much less walk around in.  My ankles buckled as I rose from the bench and as I fought for balance, I realized standing in heels took poise and feminine skill, so I flipped my hair back and summoned my Marilyn Monroe and prepared to be a vixen.  Well, let's just say my inner vixen was no match for these shoes, I had a pain in my arch and fell to the floor.  Yes, my first time in beautiful shoes, the kind I'd been dreaming of for so many years put me on the floor and made me look like a puddle of flubber with two spikes protruding from my feet.  I got up and tried to walk, but no matter how I tried, I could not make it in those heels. 

 I cried about those shoes; back then I was more than chunky and trying to fit in with the skinny people was hard for me. I couldn't wear the short shorts, I couldn't do spaghetti straps, or tube tops, I could not fit into blue jeans and I wasn't working the mini skirt too well, either.  I couldn't fit into the mold of the average girl who was wearing a size ten and under, but I could fit into those shoes and they made me feel hip and modern and, well, not so fat. 

   Today I look at cute little sundresses and halter tops; knee high boots and leggins; bikinis and 2 piece bathing suits and realize I'm still forced to window shop.  Do I really want to wear a bikini?  Heck no, I'd have to lose a lot of weight to fit into one and I know that will happen, but once I get there will my 50 plus body look good in strings?  Uh, I don't think so.  What I'm really looking for now is to be able to shop with my fashion sense and not have to worry about size sense--is this appropriate for a woman of size?  Will these boots fit around my massive calves?  Just how big will that skirt make my bulging butt look, I wonder?  I want to be able to see a dress that makes me get all giddy and be able to say, "I want that!"  and be able to buy it with no question or fear of it not coming in my size.  I want to be able to go into a store and not have to look for special sizes, and I want to lose the fear of worrying about what the sales person is thinking when I ask "does this come in my size?"  I still love heels and I know that my knees and back will not allow me to wear the spikes, but I still look forward to buying a pair of shoes with a little heel on them that makes me look smart, chic and sexy that will allow me the thrill of sashaying about feeling like a superstar. 

I was one of seven children and my mother would make huge pots of food to feed us.  Every day when I came home from school I was hungry and I remember pushing my chair to the stove and going for it:  I'd dig into that pot and fill my plate.  Later when I was trying to figure out why I ate so much, I was faced with a portions challenge--this skinny little girl with a registered dietitian degree sat some utensils and dishware down and told us to show her what a serving was.  She cautioned us to be honest and so I complied.  When I was finished serving up my portions the room was full of gasps and Skinny D was shaking her head in surprise.   "You're eating too much," she  surmised.  Oh my, was I excited, she was a genius as well as psychic.  I was given a set of cup and spoon measures and told to buy a food scale and oh so relieved to finally realize the error of my way.  Like I was going to go straight home and have a half cup of pasta and a teaspoon of mayonnaise.  I did give it a whirl, though, I did the measuring thing and saw how much I needed to eat and was faced with the frustration of knowing I'd rather not eat pasta than to just tease myself with a half cup.
       The first time I successfully lost weight I did it with a fast; I drank coke and iced tea and had an occasional cup of soup.  How I survived that diet I'll never know, but the 68 pounds I lost were most welcome, but when I tried to maintain the weight, I just couldn't--and when I tried to go back to the fasting, I got sick and because of my low blood sugar, I was given to fainting.  So I knew that would not work, once the weight came back I had to find a way to get it off again, but unless I was fasting, I was not losing weight. My habit of large servings and too much condiments did me in every time.  So I finally realized I had to learn how to eat small quantities of food or find foods that I could eat large quantities of.  That's when I discovered free vegetables, fresh, raw green leafy vegetables and how can I forget the wonderful cabbage soup that I could eat endlessly?  I managed to find food for the bottomless pit but soon it lost it's luster and I found a new passion--recipe modification.  I started with guacamole, how could something so green be so fattening as my beloved avocado?  I was going to a party and I wanted to wow my church friends with a light and delicious right and nutritious chips and dip so I got to work.  I made guacamole with peas--that's right, green peas thrown into a food processor with all the right seasonings and spices and when I served it that night with my freshly oven toasted tortilla chips they were a hit.  I even put a little post-it sign on them letting everyone know what the calories and fat grams were and did the church women love me that night.  They beat a path to me eager for the recipe.  I discovered two things that night--green peas were really good masked as a Mexican dip and I wanted to give that modification thing some work.   I did such a good job I won awards for several of my recipes when I entered them in the Health Styles Way to Health recipe contests.  So now that I am making a run for health, I'm determined to get my recipe modification mojo back.  That means I will be sharing some of my favorite holiday favorites on here starting with my favorite cranberry creation--cranberry pineapple chutney.

One 16 ounce bag of cranberries
1 can of pineapple chunks (in it own juice)
1 cup of orange juice
1 small package of cherry sugar free gelatin
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of grated orange zest

wash cranberries.  Place berries and all of the ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Once the cranberries start to pop, lower the heat and let simmer for eight minutes.  Take off of the heat and let cool.




 

Letting Go

When I was a young girl, my school went to visit the International Trade Mark building in New Orleans, Louisiana.  I had never been so high in my life, the elevator ride alone made me sick and when we got to the top of the building I was petrified with fear.  Everybody walked out on the rooftop with thrilling remarks but all I could do was grab hold of a pole and hang on for dear life.  Once someone realized what was going on with me, they tried to talk me out of being afraid but I was lost in the trauma, I could not breath, talking was out of the question and I thought I would die on that roof.  Two teachers and a security guard later, I finally got the courage to swap my death grip on the pole for a tight grip on the guard and he led me into the building and safely down the elevator.  I swore I would never go in a tall building again and couldn't wait to get back to the country where two floors was the maximum.  But when I got my first job it was in the city and on the tenth floor; of course my desk was right next to a window.  Heart pounding, sweat beading, clammy hands and green skinned I prepared myself to be fired.  I knew I'd never make it until lunch time much less the end of the day, my fear of heights was so drastic.  But I was lucky, the woman sharing the office with me recognized my plight and gave me some good advise.  She said, "honey, sometimes you just have to let go of your fears and fly with the wind."  I didn't like her advise or her choice of words, it was like she was inviting me to open the window and fly with the breeze. I was too afraid to function and was willing to call it quits but little Miss Let Go and Fly taped paper on the window so I couldn't see out and moved my desk away from the window and I made it through the week.  One day, as I set there fearing the impossible-thinking the window would break and I would fall through it, I started to realize how silly I was being.  I thought the only thing standing between me and my fear of heights is that skinny piece of paper, what kind of protection was that?  I was still engaged in a death grip on that roof, fearing the space between me and the ground, and there was no guard to carry me downstairs to my safety.  So I forced myself to think calmly and rationally and by the time I got my first pay check, I was able to let go, I took the paper down and instead of  fearing the fall I pretended to take flight--for all of a moment I was a bird flying through the air liberated--free to mount high upon the wind.  It was a good thing and it enabled me to keep my job and continue to work on the tenth floor.  I can compare so many things to that incident on the top of the World Trade Building.  I realize the thing that paralyzed me was not the height of the building, but my fear of falling.  In my life I have been haunted by many fears and they have indeed impaired me and held me back keeping me from doing so much.  When I look back on my life and realize the boxes that fear built around me, the limitation, isolation, confinements--I realize I have missed out on so much.
          In life we either stand still or we move on.  Sometimes events are so horrific they keep us imprisoned; the pain, the injury the effect of the assault is so heinous it throws us into a state of shock and depression is eminent.  Sometimes we get angry and bitterness makes up the bars that keep us bound.  In other incidents, we are paralyzed by the pain and the fear of being hurt again.  But whatever makes up the chain that holds us down, there is only one person with the power to set us free.  The key to letting go of the tragedy of the past that devastated us is in our hands.  Reality tells us that we cannot avenge ourselves, the more we try the deeper we dig ourselves into a hole of oppression that keeps us down.  The hope of punishing our villains is vanished once we realize that the act of tearing down and destroying has a double blade and the harder we try to serve our enemy a dish of revenge the more injury we heap upon ourselves.  Once we are capable of coming to a point of acceptance, we are given the ability to let go and once we do, we are free.
     I've let too many things stand in my way, too many fears entangle me, too many hurts immobilize me. I have been so depressed for so long I didn't realize the damage it was doing to my physical person and my emotions were so tied up in just trying to survive I couldn't enjoy the thing I was trying to save.  Now I'm faced with a very large hill to climb and the way up will not be easy, but I will not allow myself to slide down any further.  I am not as helpless as I was led to believe and I know I have the power to change.    I am letting go of the fear and I am jumping into the winds of change.

Until the Pain of remaining the same is greater than the Pain to change, you will choose to remain the same.

Out of seven children only two of us got the fat gene.  I never could understand it, didn't think it was fair but sometimes life blows.  I was a shy kid--painfully so, afraid to say anything for fear of being laughed at, fussed at or simply ignored.  I was a husky girl, a big boned teenager and a plus size bride; by the time I was thirty I was just fat.  I was content, though, married to a man who loved a woman of size, who loved to eat and never complained about anything.  Fear is my greatest motivator and when I found being fat complicated my health at 35 I got scared enough to lose one hundred pounds--it made me a super star.  I became a recipe modifier, I changed one thousand calorie per serving cakes into three hundred calories master pieces; I was a motivational speaker and had more invitations than I could handle, I was the first fat person ever to teach aerobic classes and designed fitness programs for people in wheelchairs.  I had such a passion for weight loss and fitness and made so much noise I was featured in the newspaper and magazines and had guest spots on television.  But in time, I sank into a hole in life; confronted with arthritis and injuries I became immobile and when my daughter became ill, I lost all contact with what I wanted and lived for taking care of her.  Pretty soon I was stinking depressed and had grown into a mammoth monstrosity with enormous challenges that had once been easy and natural like gardening, biking, walking.  By the time I realized I was in trouble, I was morbidly obese and the health care professionals I reached out to were not so kind.  I was told many unkind things and soon I was not only afraid to seek medical advise, I was afraid to leave my house.  What happens to a woman who goes from being healthy, active, useful, energetic and full of life to just being there?  One day the power went out and I was forced to see my reflection in the dead screen of the television and that's when I realized how very much I had changed.  I had fooled myself into believing the reason I could not walk well was because of the arthritis in my knees and back but the truth of the matter was that I was just too fat.  I waddled, I jiggled --to go twenty feet made me out of breath.  It was a sad realization.  I made up my mind in November 2011 that I needed help so I signed up for the Bariatrics surgery at Ohio State University.  I made the orientation, did the physical evaluation, the cardio clearance, the sleep study--but when I went for the psychiatric evaluation I failed it, the psychiatrist said I was too depressed and my care for my daughter conflicted with my care for myself.  He wanted me to spend three months with a therapist but I couldn't afford the co pays so for six months so I sought help from a friend of mine who is in school to be an exercise physiologist.  In all of this time, I did not lose a pound, in fact, I continued to gain about a pound a week, it was frightening.    Finally in September 2012, I went back to the Bariatrics Program and the psychiatrist approved me for surgery, but told me I had to complete a three month weight loss program with them and lose ten per cent of my weight.  And so my journey began, I made up my mind to save myself.  I started my program in November, just two days before Thanksgiving and was told it was a bad time and perhaps I'd like to wait until January.  What?  Put my life on hold for another two months?  No thank you.  I made a commitment that day to go forward and that night I sat on the computer working with a calorie analyzer discovering what the calories were in the foods I'd prepared for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Now that was a scary thing--nothing was less than four hundred calories and my baked macaroni was almost nine hundred calories for a little block!  I told myself I could eat, but I would not go overboard but being aware of what I was eating was a real eye opener.  I had managed to fool myself for the past two years, convincing myself that I was fat because I could not move, Lord knows I did not eat enough to merit my fat index but I was wrong.  I realized in that week that I was fat because of the fast food, the butter, the mayonnaise, the lattes, the frapachinos, the desserts I only had two servings of.  I realized I was responsible for my mammoth monster, not the arthritis or the depression.  Poor choices, laziness, letting things go--it was on me.  That's when I decided to pay attention and start making some wiser choices.  One of my favorite quotes, "Until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain to change, you'll choose to remain the same."  I have struggled with this for years and only now have I realized that I have the power to change only one thing--myself.  My strength is gathered, my hope is back and I am ready to do what was once deemed impossible, take my life back.