Tag: weight

The BRAVE Interview #3 October 2016: Sheila Brownlow

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Being BRAVE, Catching women being brave, friends, health, Interviews, The BRAVE Interviews

Here is #3 in The BRAVE Interview series! It’s the Who, What, When, Where, How,  (and sometimes Why) of YOUR ‘one brave thing’! November’s interview is with Sheila Brownlow!

scale

WHO AM I?  Sheila Brownlow

MY ONE BRAVE THING—when, where, with whom:  I have stopped discussing eating, how upset I am at my eating, how much I weigh, whether I am peeved at myself for overeating, how awful I am for not weighing 110 lbs., whined about how I can’t eat like a normal person anymore at age 55, or otherwise wasting time – precious time – talking with my friends, so many good friends….about eating and weight.  Not in person, not online.  For one month. 

WHY DO I THINK THIS IS BRAVE?  I’m at this age/stage of my life where I’ve felt compelled to start every interaction with a justification of how I look and why I don’t look like a 30-year old anymore. It’s not ok to essentially apologizing for myself to start every interaction.  To me it’s brave because I have completely shifted my lens on the world.

WHY:  Because I waste so much time and energy where I could be helping others, learning things, doing things, having meaningful conversations, being supportive, just being in the moment…with all this constant food and weight talk I am taking away from the productive possibilities of my life and my friends’ lives. 

So how do I feel about this?  Well, I miss commiserating, and I’m still working on not “leading” with that foot in every conversation (“let’s talk about food, eating, how much, when, regrets…again?”).  I think I am listening better rather than just winding up to say how upset I am about this that or the other weight thing. 

Can I continue?  I don’t know.  Maybe if we all spent a month on something other than our food and body appearance we could make a lot of changes in the world.

Thank you so much, Sheila!

Working from home, week one

by Karen, posted in family, friends, Life in the cube, Work from Home, writing

At the end of my first week working from home, I thought I’d reflect a little on how it’s all going. There were several things that I knew would be different, but my days are shaping up to be much different from how I envisioned them. One of my friends said that she was worried that she’d be too isolated if she worked from home, since she lived alone. I never thought for a minute that I would feel that way, but it is sort of an isolated feeling to be sitting in your office alone all day, interacting with no one face to face. I mean. there are certainly people in the house sometimes while I’m “at work”, but I’m not a part of their activity, their day. I am APART.

What I thought I’d be doing once I started working from home:

  1. Exercising more, since I would have more time in the morning (you know, that part of the day before you talk yourself out of exercising?).
  2. Writing more. After all, I would be gaining more than 2 hours a day of not commuting and not getting meals packed and unpacked.
  3. Gaining weight. There is actually some walking involved in getting to and from Portland every day, parking the car, walking from the parking garage, taking a few sets of stairs…that would not be part of working from home.
  4. Seeing my husband and kids more.

What I actually am doing now that I am working from home:

  1. Turns out, I actually am exercising more. It will be 4 (maybe even 5!) days that I’ve done some form of excercise (yoga, beach walk, gym) by Saturday, versus the 1 or 2 days in a commuting week.
  2. Turns out, I’ve actually lost 2 lbs. Go figure.
  3. Turns out, I’m actually writing less. I really don’t have much downtime. I’m getting up later in the morning (which will end of course, when my daughter goes back to school in September) and pretty much going to bed shortly after I finish working at 9PM.
  4. I am seeing my family more, which is good. If I could only be right about one thing, I’m glad it was this one. 🙂

I’m missing a few things: seeing my friends at work,  the Wednesday Farmers Market in Monument Square, my audio books, the cupcake stores, Micucci’s pizza…

Pretty much, I’m still working on getting it together here, finding a new rhythm to my days.

The 6 W’s diet

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

I was talking with someone the other day about her desire to lose weight.

She and her friend were working on their weight and following a diet. “Which one?” I asked her. “The 6 W’s diet,” she replied. “What’s that?” I asked. Since I work in the healthcare field, I thought I’d heard of them all, but this one was new to me. “We invented it,” she said. Okay, well, that explained why I was unfamiliar with it, at least.

She said it was the culmination of years of ‘trying everything’ that led to her decision to make up a diet for herself. “It can’t be any worse than any of the ones I tried already,” she reasoned. Also, her spouse had gastric bypass surgery, lost a lot of weight, but had already gained back 25 lbs. “See? Even getting the operation doesn’t work!”

The 6 W’s diet:

  1. Watch the fat
  2. Write down everything you eat
  3. Walk more
  4. Water: drink more
  5. Win!!!!

“That sounds great,” I said, “but that’s only 5. What’s the 6th W?” “Oh,” she said, ” I added ‘wine’ to the list,” she said. “‘Wine’ … or ‘Whine’?!” I asked. “Both!” she replied, laughing, “depending on what kind of day I’m having!”

Makes sense to me.

🙂

The math of less and more

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food

Okay, as you all probably know, I don’t love to exercise. In the spirit of being sprung by Spring, though, I am trying to develop some exercise-program-momentum and keep moving.  Because I don’t have to be at work until noon today instead of 9am (that’s a whole ‘nother story that I won’t get started on here. You’re welcome.) I put my daughter on the school bus and then put my sneakers on and headed out. I used to walk fifteen minutes in one direction then turn around and come back when I was losing weight on the Weight Watchers Program a few years back so that I could earn “Activity Points” so that I could (you guessed it) eat more. I did it 6 or even 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day when I was actively losing, and I continued to do it 4 or 5 times a week when I entered the maintenance phase.

Then November came. Now, November certainly came the past several years as well, but for some reason, this November was different. I stopped walking every day. First of all, it was hunting season. There were plenty of pick up trucks pulled over at the side of the road along my walking route, and you just know that (probably liquored-up) half asleep hunters were out there…armed. That, the freezing temperatures, and the piles of snow were enough to keep me on the bench (read: couch) for most of (okay, just about all of) the winter. The less I exercised, the less I wanted to exercise.

Also, I was (over)confident that after maintaining my weight loss for more than 3 years, I could afford to slack off some. Guess what? That wasn’t true. It was just a lie that I told myself so that I could eat a few more of those cupcakes, those Raisinets, those Peanut M+M’s (that I think we can all agree are the devil!). The more I ate from my favorite food group, the more I wanted to eat from it.

Hello, spring. Uh-oh.  I made a “5 lbs by May” challenge my friend Sheila. I meant to say, “5 lbs off by May”…the Universe has a funny way of delivering to us what we ask (as I’ve written about before)…so I should have been more, um, precise with my description of my goal.

Okay, so let’s try that again: 5 lbs off by May.

Hang on tight; it’s going to be a bumpy ride. 🙂

Put the ‘OM’ in O(at)Meal

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health, Life in the cube, restaurants
McDonald's oatmeal

McDonald’s has a new(ish) menu item. Believe it or not, it’s oatmeal.

I know! I mean, seriously, right?

If I’m going to McDonald’s, I’m going for a quarter pounder (no cheese!), not  “health” food!

But one day I needed a quick breakfast and my nice friend Pauline had given me a coupon for a free McD’s oatmeal, so I gave it a try.

Well. It’s GREAT. All I did was doctor it up some with about a tablespoon of cinnamon. Hey, cinnamon might lower blood sugar and it might lower cholesterol, so what the heck?

McD’s says that it’s available to order all day, so if you’re trying to lose (or just to stop gaining) weight and are short on time, it might be a better choice for a meal than some others available to you. (Note: they add cream to their oatmeal which I would ask them to leave out next time: saves about 20 calories).

Of course, you could always keep a box of oatmeal in your desk at work for emergencies too (if you have access to a microwave, that is. Oh, and a bowl, spoon, and half a cup of water. 🙂 )

Slowing down, turning inward

by Karen, posted in fitness, health

I am finding that as it gets colder and darker outside, I also am getting colder and darker (of mood). I am going at a much slower pace than I have been used to, and the less I do, the less I want to do.
For example, take exercise–please. I mean, I’ve never liked it, but I would still go and do it. Now, I must have long battles with my inner couch potato to get myself to go to the gym even once a week.

  • ME: Got to the gym!
  • INNER COUCH POTATO: No! I don’t wanna go!
  • ME: You have to go! You haven’t been in a whole week!
  • INNER C.P.: No! I don’t wanna go! You can’t make me! It’s only 24 degrees out there! It’s too cold! It’s still dark out! I don’t have enough time! I’m too tired! What I really need is another hour of sleep!

(See what I’m up against?)

Then I have to wonder: is once a week doing even one bit of good? It’s a short walk (hey! would that count as exercise?) from one to none, which is what is keeping me going at all at this point, I think.

Well, that, and Bagel Tuesday*.

I think of all of the things that I’d rather be doing than going to the gym.

  1. Sleeping for an extra hour
  2. Cooking and eating breakfast in my kitchen with my family
  3. Getting started writing my 2000 words
  4. Sleeping for an extra hour (See how tired I am! I’m repeating myself!)

All right, so the bottom line is… guess! Did I go to the gym or not?

*Planet Fitness puts out free bagels, cream cheese, and coffee from Dunkin Donuts on the second Tuesday of every month. Can you guess what my one day a week at the gym is? Heh, heh, heh.

Conscious eating, Part 3

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, fitness, restaurants

So, now that more weeks have passed and I have totally not given the Women, Food, and God  (by Geneen Roth) approach a passing thought until today, I decided to recommit to some of the strategies I have learned along the weight loss way.

  1. Drink 16 oz of water before every meal. This can be excessive, and at times make you feel like tossing your cookies before you even get to eat them, so modify accordingly. If you can only choke down a half a cup, go for it! It’s better than nothing. The theory is that it will make you feel fuller sooner, thereby displacing some of the food that you presumably would have consumed if not for the presence of the water in your gut. Seems like it’s worth a shot.
  2. Green tea. I am down to only a cup per day, two at most. Green tea is tricky because it has caffeine, and blood thinning properties (just to mention, there are other side effects as well)… it may interact with aspirin, the NSAIDs, coumadin, and so forth. . . but just in case it does contribute to weight loss, a little may be better than none.
  3. Throw out the first bite of your cookie/cupcake/whoopie pie/muffin/miscellaneous baked good of your choice. This is from One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer. I’m definitely still trying to work up the courage to try this one.
  4. Check online before you go out to eat to scope out the menu; get tips from WebMD or Weight Watchers on healthy (or at least less bad) choices.
  5. Oh, yeah: that smaller plate thing. Ever hear the saying that “work expands to fill the allotted time”? Well, I think that this rule applies to food too: the amount of food you (think it’s reasonable to) consume will expand to fill the allotted plate/bowl size.

Question to ponder: Does doing the Happy Dance (a la Snoopy) burn off the equivalent of whoopie pie that I just ate?

Book Club at Mekong Thai

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, friends, quest for the best, restaurants

This month’s meeting was at Mekong Thai in Wells. The six of us met there at 6pm and were given a nice table by the windows, which they opened to give us some fresh air (a 65 degree evening in Maine in late October? Booyah!).

Susan is a quick study!

The wait staff was lovely, solicitous, and helpful. Lemon for your water? Sure! Another piece of lemon? No problem! A straw? Okay, at this point even I was getting annoyed with me, but not the waitress…she cheerfully went back to get me another straw.
And not only did she produce the straw, but when some of us expressed interest in the decorative way the straw was presented, she came back to the table with a fresh straw, paper intact, and taught us how to make one ourselves! My friend Susan was actually able to reproduce the effect, so our waitress was a good teacher, having transferred the skill to another in less than 5 minutes.

The great service was evident in other small ways as well, like when I was given a small container of peanut sauce (instead of scraping what remained of my used condiment in the bowl on my plate) to go with my leftovers that I had doggie bagged.

The food was great too. I had checked online for healthy Thai food choices (when eating out) beforehand, and easily found plenty of choices within this framework. I chose the Tom Yum soup with chicken, which was excellent, as was the chicken satay with peanut sauce. The free salad was a nice bonus; it had a mildly spicy peach colored dressing that was great.

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Why am I talking so much about the food, and so little about the book? Well, you may have guessed this: the book was…distressing. None of us liked it much. What was interesting though is that (as Shannon pointed out), we seem to have a much better, involved discussion about books that we don’t like than about books that we do like.

When we met to talk about The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, we didn’t have much to say, other than that it was a good book.  When we met to discuss Lowboy by John Wray, we were all talking over each other, interrupting each other, and in general making a big commotion in the small, otherwise pretty quiet, restaurant.

Hmmm, maybe this should be a go-to destination for book clubs?

Life in the cube

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, health, movies, yoga

I was sitting in my cube at work (hour 10), checking out Mayo Clinic’s website for anything new. I found a video of people working at treadmill desks.

I do not have a treadmill desk. Currently, I sit in my cube (to borrow a line from Sandra Bullock in the movie While You Were Sleeping) for 10.5 hours a day  “like a veal”. I am not burning the 10% more calories that people who are blessed with bad backs and get notes from the company’s contracted physical pherapy associates and are awarded “sit-stand” stations. So I sit, not stand.

I recently attended a yoga workshop led by Judith Hanson Lasater. I learned many things from listening to Judith, including that the optimal angle for the hips while sitting in a chair is 120 degrees. I am currently sitting in a chair at my job that gives me about a 45 degree angle of hipness. Not good.

I attempted to remedy this. I rolled up a blanket and put it on my desk chair which afforded me a hip angle that more closely approximated the goal. I was feeling smug about having saved about $50 on a new cushion for about an hour, when I started noticing that my right shoulder (which was now clearly at an untherapeutic angle) was killing me, thereby proving once again the theory that “the thigh bone’s connected to the shoulder bone”.

Darn! I guess I also need to attend a workshop about shoulders. Or ergonomics. Back to square one.

Women Food and God

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, health

Women Food and God: an unexpected path to almost everything is written by Geneen Roth, who has written many books about compulsive eating and weight. She will be presenting a program at Kripalu in Lenox, MA this September. She has been on the Oprah show and some of her writings are on Oprah’s website as well.  Her recent article is entitled: The Cupcake Dialogues….hello? I mean, it doesn’t even matter what she has to say really: she had me at “cupcake”. 🙂

She also offers a self-guided online retreat.  This gave me an idea…why not try a self-guided- retreat, period? Seems like a (potentially) more cost-effective route (I say “potentially”, because if I really am eating everything I want, well, serving after serving of  tiramisu can really add up!).

So, for August, I’m going to try to live by Geneen’s 7 guidelines for just one month: August.  I wonder how it will turn out?