Arguing With the Scale

I reached a new milestone today. I have lost 40 pounds since 9/27/07

(67 pounds since my all-time high in 2004.)

Losing the first 35 of these 40 pounds wasn’t very difficult, but I had to really fight for these most recent 5! In October of last year, I lost 15 pounds; in November, I lost 9 pounds; in December (despite the Holiday bombardment of caloric nightmares), I lost 4 pounds. You can see that there is a loss of momentum here, which is exactly what is to be expected when trying to lose weight, because our bodies are absolutely amazing at adapting to changes in our behavior. This is one of the reasons weight loss is so difficult – because even when we do “everything right,” our bodies sometimes fight against it. Anyhoo, in January I rallied a bit and lost 6 pounds, and this month (February 2008) I eeked out another 6 pounds. I say eeked out because I really had to argue with the scale this morning!

I actually have 2 scales. One is a Taylor, relatively cheap, and it, almost without fail, weighs me 5 pounds less than the doctor’s scale. It seems to be very consistent overall, and I kind of think of it as a Toyota: cheap but reliable. My other scale I received for Christmas 2007, and it is a Lexus of a scale: The Weight Watchers® Body Fat Scale. This baby measures not only weight, but also BMI, % body fat, % bone mass, and % water. It does this by sending a electrical pulses up one leg and down the other. Since I had to input my height, sex, and age, it uses the speed of the electrical impulses through my body to calculate my body composition. This is called BIA. Note: I take all of these readings with a grain of salt. Using scales to find BIA is controversial, but as long as I am using the readings to track trends, and not as gospel, I figure I am OK. In addition to possessing cool BIA technology, the Lexus scale usually manages to match the doctor’s scale pretty much exactly.

Most mornings I weigh myself on both scales. While I appreciate the Lexus and enjoy watching my % body fat dropping as I continue on this journey towards a healthier me, I am rather attached to my Toyota. On days like today, when I am so close to a milestone, I will sometimes weigh myself 5 or 6 times, and since the Toyota scale is more likely to vary by a pound or two, it is usually the one that has to endure this:

I step on the scale…wait…scale reads -39 pounds (-39 pounds since 9/27/07)

I step off…wait…step back on…Scale reads -38 pounds

Me: “No! You just said -39!” I step back off, pick up the scale (gently, of course, it is a delicate instrument!), and place it back down in a different spot.

I step on the scale…wait…scale reads -39.5 pounds

Me: “That’s better, but come on! You’ve said -39 for 3 days now! Give me a break! I have been eating below my calorie goal and I exercised 4 times this week! Give me another half pound!”

I step off the scale…take off my nightshirt (which surely weighs at least 4 ounces!) and take a deep breath before stepping back on.

Scale reads – 39 pounds.

Me: “No, dang it! Not up a half pound, I want down a half pound!” I pick up the scale again and (ever so gently) shake it a little. Then I place it back down on the floor and, in a calmer voice: “I’ll be back.” I leave the bathroom, go get my clothes ready, let the dog out, use the toilet, and start the coffee.

I return to the bathroom, and again I step on the scale…miraculously it reads -40 this time.

Me: “Yes! Yes, yes yes! I knew you could do it!”

The unresponsive scale seems to plead: “Will you get OFF now?”

I step off, and back on once more. -40 pounds. Twice counts in my book, so I mark another tick mark on my bathroom mirror with my dry-erase marker.

Disclaimer: I don’t do this every morning, by the way! These sorts of heartfelt exchanges with my scale only occurs when I am desperately close to a milestone. Whether I am actually losing an extra few ounces by running downstairs and letting out the dog, or removing my night shirt, or using the potty, who knows? But I always take the lowest legitimate weight because that is what works, psychologically, for me.

And whatever works in this process? Well, for heaven’s sake, use it!

Holy Cr*p! I Can Cross My Legs!

I attended a wedding this last weekend. It was a formal wedding, so I had to wear a dress, which is a circumstance I try to avoid. When I do find it necessary to wear a dress, I make it as comfortable a dress as possible. More importantly, I wear the most comfortable flats I can find in my rather shoe-poor closet. Sidenote: I am not at all a typical girl when it comes to shoes. I tend to buy them as cheap as I can and wear them until they are falling to pieces, and fashion? That’s a foreign word to me! Plus, comfort is the #1 most important feature when it comes to shoes. Price is #2, and color is #3. I do own a few pairs of heels, but only because they were bought for a very specific outfit.

It took me a long time to figure out that the main reason I don’t like wearing dresses is because I am overweight. Isn’t it weird how we deceive ourselves? I seem to remember liking dresses ok when I was a kid – maybe I will ask my Mom when I developed the aversion. But I have caught myself several times during my adult life actually saying “I hate dresses. I’m a jeans & sweats gal!” Now that I am spending more time on metacognition, I realize that I told myself this because I didn’t want to face the real issue: my weight!

Anyhow, being overweight makes wearing dresses a pain (Mumu’s excepted, of course). First of all, there’s the issue of shoes, which I already mentioned. Heels are uncomfortable enough if you weigh 120 pounds, but teetering on a couple of ½ inch square pedestals at 275 is an entirely different matter. And there is a lot more weight shoving your toes into that viciously tapered end, which causes painful pinching unless you have the foresight to buy really wide-toed dress shoes, which (if you manage to find any) look pretty darn weird.

Adding to the shoe problem is the pantyhose problem. Personally, I believe that knee-high pantyhose were invented specifically for fat girls who were tired of struggling with the pulling of stretchy-yet-fragile mesh up past all the bulges. The industry would probably tell you it was for women wearing slacks who do not need “full support,” but I know better. I cannot tell you how many pairs of pantyhose I have ripped with my fingers the very first time I put them on – one tries to be careful, but they are tricky! It is easier to avoid ripping and tearing the things if you buy really big ones, but trust me, pantyhose are not a clothing item that qualifies as “the bigger the better.” In fact, I went to an event earlier this year where hose was needed, and I forgot to consider that it was the first time I had worn hose in about 30 pounds, so the pair I wore was actually too big. I spent the evening running to the restroom to hike up my pantyhose (not something you want to do out on the dance floor!) Pantyhose have to actually fit. Of course, another way to avoid ripping hose is to buy the really expensive ones, like Sheer Energy™ but who wants to spend $5.00 on a flimsy piece of nylon netting?

Shoes…pantyhose… these are issues when it comes to dress-wearing for the thin-challenged; but the biggest problem when it comes to dresses is the issue of leg-crossing. Crossing your legs is something most little girls learn how to do before entering grade-school (and even earlier if they are church-goers). When wearing a dress, whether you are 5 or 95, it is essential to keep your legs together and to sit like a lady rather than a basketball player on the bench waiting to go back into the game. You can keep your knees and feet primly together, you can turn both knees to one side and pull your feet back a bit, or (most comfortable of the 3) you can cross one leg over the other. The thing is, when one is overweight, it’s darned hard to cross one leg over the other! And the fatter you are, the harder it is. I don’t remember when I lost the ability to cross my legs, but I couldn’t do it for a very long time. I could put one ankle on top of the other knee – never got so big that I lost that ability – but that’s also an uncool position for someone in a dress. I could hold my legs together primly, but after a few minutes my thigh muscles would start quivering in protest, because after all I was squishing all of my thigh fat against its will! The only ladylike position I could approximate was the knees-together-and-to-the-side-feet-tucked-back-a-little position, and even that wasn’t very comfortable.

So, anyhow, I was at this wedding last Saturday, and we were waiting for it to begin (it started a bit late) and I glanced down and realized I was crossing my legs. Actually sitting one-leg-over-the-other, knees-together, one-foot-swinging-slightly, with my knees crossed! I cannot remember the last time I was able to do that, yet here I was, doing it unconsciously! (I actually think that what made me notice it was the beginning of pain in my knee, because although I am able to cross my legs now, I can’t do it for very long before the topmost knee starts to complain about it.) I elbowed my husband and whispered “Look, honey, I’m crossing my legs!” which naturally he did not understand the significance of, but I had to tell someone, and when you are sitting waiting for a wedding to begin it’s not polite to whip out the cell phone and call your weight loss accountability partner.

It’s things like this that keep me going on the weight-loss journey, because will-power is a ridiculous myth (topic for another time). I mean, wow! I can actually cross my legs! This is actually working and I am actually getting thinner! Maybe once the knee pain thing goes away I will start wearing dresses more often. :)

Trampolines Are Not For The Faint of Heart...or The Fat of Body!

All of my life, I wanted a trampoline. Well, not ALL of my life, certainly, but since I was old enough to have my first experience on one. I begged for one, and begged for one, and begged for one, and I never got one, perhaps because my wise mother did not want to assume liability for the necks of the entire neighborhood! She did sign me up for trampoline lessons at the local Rec Center, where I learned to do cool things like forward flips, doing 180’s on my butt, and so on. But we never had one of our own.

For my birthday a few years ago, my parents and younger brother went in together and bought me a trampoline. It’s a nice one, too, big and round and very bouncy. Because I was living in an apartment at the time, they set it up in my brother’s very large backyard, with the understanding that once I had a yard to put it in, we would move it. On the day of my birthday, I was invited to my brother’s house for a surprise, and there it was! I was so excited! My dream of owning a trampoline had at long last come to fruition! I climbed right up on it and began to jump, jump, jump!

The thing is…um…I was just a little out of shape, a long way from the 10-year-old flipping on the Rec Center tramp, and literally within 5 minutes I was lying on my back in the center of the trampoline struggling to breathe (I’m asthmatic, but trust me, this had to do with fat/muscle, not alveoli.) Wow, not sure if you have experienced this, but jumping on a trampoline is hard when you weigh over 250 pounds and haven’t exercised in years!

“You can come over anytime and jump,” my brother said encouragingly.
“You need to,” my mother added, eyeing my heaving chest and crimson face meaningfully.
“I will, I will,” I panted confidently.

Well, as you might guess, I didn’t. Not much anyway. The prospect of going to another place to exercise (whether it is a gym, a park, or my brother’s house ½ mile away) was difficult for someone who had gotten waaaaaay too comfortable sitting on my bootie. When I was at my brother's house visiting I would make the effort, after all I did not want him to think I did not appreciate the trampoline (which I did, really, it was just. so. hard!). When my husband and I purchased our home in March 2006 we did move the trampoline, and I did make a good faith effort to jump on it regularly (and I really did enjoy jumping on it, too, but...well...it was so hard!).

The bigger problem was that my backyard, which I would classify as medium-small, has 4 very large trees in it, one of which is a Sweet Gum Tree, and another (not sure what kind it is) which drops incredibly sticky sap and seed pods that look a lot like snow peas. As a result, the trampoline, no matter where we tried to place it in the yard (there were really only 3 spots where we could place it, anyway, as we also have a built in BBQ and a huge storage shed), was perpetually covered with sap, spiky little balls, and seed pods. The leaves/needles/seeds which fell from these trees became stuck to the sap and adhered magnificently. (Seriously, the Krazy Glue folks should look into sap.) Consequently, if I wanted to jump on the trampoline I first had to get the push broom and the hose and scrub the trampoline down. This usually took a good 15 – 20 minutes, depending on how long it had been since the last scrubbing, and whether or not the sap encrustations had been baked in by the sun.

Once the trampoline was clean, it was also wet, so I could either jump on it wet (workable, requiring a clothing change afterward, but actually cool to watch because the water is all trapped in the tiny mesh so when you jump it sprays up in glorious patterns as it soaks the lower half of your body), or wait until it dried (an hour or so – if it was warm outside - by which time I had often lost the urge/motivation to jump.)

Ultimately the trampoline went back to my brother’s yard, which is 3-4 times as big and graced by very few trees. My niece enjoys it. And I do too, when I occasionally jump on it, especially now that I am getting thinner and healthier and I exercise on a regular basis. Now I can jump for a good 10 minutes before collapsing for "just a little rest." I can actually breathe now, too, which is always a plus.

Never Eat a Carbohydrate Alone

One of the useful things that I learned in my first Diabetes Education Class (yes, I did say that there were a few useful things I learned) was the mantra “Never eat a carbohydrate alone!” Jane (or Jill) actually said to us, at the end of our second day of class, “If you don’t remember anything else from this class, remember this: Never eat a carbohydrate alone!” And guess what? I actually did remember it.

“Never Eat a Carbohydrate Alone” is something that should be taught in grade school when kids start learning what the heck a carbohydrate is. We have a diabetes epidemic? Well, this is one of those small things that could actually make a big difference. Everything we eat (that contains calories) is a carbohydrate, a fat, or a protein. Of the 3, only carbohydrates cause blood sugar to rise with any rapidity. It is true that protein and fat can be converted into glucose as well, but it takes longer and more steps in the body, so it does not have much of an impact on blood sugar (Article on the basics of metabolism). Carbohydrates have a much bigger impact on blood sugar, and the amount of impact varies from carb to carb. For example, a bowl of white rice, a roll dripping with honey, a bowl of sugary cereal, a nice big slab of chocolate cake slathered with fudgy icing… mmmmmm…chocolatecakewithfudgyicing…

...Oops! Where was I? Oh yes, these are all examples of carbs that will send your blood sugar soaring into the stratosphere. And when you repeatedly soar your blood sugar, year after year, you can develop insulin resistance, and what does insulin resistance cause? Diabetes. Other carbs, like whole grain bread, raw spinach, fibrous fruits, etc. will have a less spectacular impact on your blood sugar. The amount of impact a carb has on your blood sugar is also referred to as its Glycemic Index. Google that term, if you haven’t ever done so. You can actually download a list of Glycemic Indices, which will be very helpful if you are afflicted with Diabetes, or want to avoid being afflicted with it, or have anyone in your life who is in that boat. Heck, everyone needs to download it, so here is a link to one: Glycemic Index. And here is a link to a searchable online database: http://www.glycemicindex.com. And be sure to read what Mendosa explains about Glycemic Load. (Come on, now, stop whining, this is your health we are talking about – educate yourself a little!)

The miraculous thing about Glycemic Load is that it is divisible, not additive. In English that means that if you eat a piece of chocolate cake with a chopped steak, your blood sugar will not go as high as it would if you ate the chocolate cake by itself. Let’s say the chopped steak has a glycemic index of 1, and the chocolate cake has a glycemic index of 40, but if you eat them at the same meal, the impact on your blood sugar will be 20, not 41! Disclaimer: I am not an endocrinologist or a microbiologist, and I am quite sure it is not exactly 41, and I am also quite sure that I am oversimplifying, but what I am trying to get across here is the concept that eating protein with your carbs will mitigate the impact on your body.

Isn’t that amazing? Don’t you realize how important this is? All that blah, blah, blah about eating a varied diet that I tuned out for years and years finally started to make some sense. And I began to understand that my being diabetic had a lot more to do with the way I had been eating than my level of exercise, or even my genetics (although both undoubtedly play a part). I would much rather eat a big serving of French fries than a chicken breast, and I practically lived on Top Ramen and Pizza while I was in college. When I was at my heaviest, I ate the opposite of an Adkins diet. (By the way, I am not promoting extreme low-carb diets either.)

Donuts for breakfast, fast food and carb-laden sodas for lunch, Macaroni & Cheese with a side order of corn for supper – why are we shocked to see a generation of diabetic kids in this country? Look at a typical kid’s meal from our favorite fast food restaurant – cheeseburger, fries, and a sprite: 620 calories, 15 grams of protein, 22 grams of fat (we can talk about that one later) and 92 grams of carbs. That gives Mr. Happy a nasty glycemic index, and although that microscopic strip of meat helps a little, it’s not much. (If you like math, a lot, you can calculate the exact Glycemic Index of a meal this way. And in between these carb-loaded meals, when our blood sugar is supposed to be recovering, what do we eat as snacks? Chips, cookies, candy, granola bars, and so on it goes, right into a premature grave.

So sprinkle some anchovies on that ice cream sundae! Don’t ever eat a carbohydrate alone! Live it, preach it, teach it to anyone you love!
(Thanks, Jane & Jill)

Feet

Jane and Jill talked about feet a lot. Checking your feet, keeping your feet warm, keeping your feet dry, wearing appropriate shoes, clipping toenails straight across, using a filament to check the sensation in the bottom of your feet, never-ever-ever going barefoot inside or outside, having your doctor check your feet, not having professional pedicures, and so on. When I attended another Diabetes Education Class, years later, the teacher also talked a lot about feet. So it must be a big deal. But I have a hard time thinking of it as a big deal, even after 3 very concerned Diabetes Education Teachers told me it is, maybe because my feet are just fine.

I have excellent sensation in my feet. When I step on something sharp (or bumpy, or cold, or hot), I know it, and although I try to remember not to go barefoot, it’s tough because I really like going barefoot. Or in socks. Especially really fun socks with little toe pockets or bumpy rubber bottoms or puffy animals on them. Not such a big fan of slippers or sandles, though. I do have a pair of crocs, which helps me to go barefoot less, but my natural instinct is to take my shoes off as soon as I enter a building (work excepted – public schools tend to frown on barefoot employees).

And it’s not that I don’t get how serious the feet thing is. After all, my father has already lost two of his toes to Diabetes and has lost pretty much all of the feeling in his feet. A guy I know at church is in a wheelchair with no legs below the knees due to diabetes. It’s serious. I get that. And I am certainly not stupid enough to go skipping through a vacant lot with my feet unfettered, so don’t worry overmuch about my feet. I try not to. But I do keep an eye on them.

Jane and Jill (and later, Diane) told me that there were many things to watch for when it comes to feet. Cuts, bruises, cracks, yada yada. They also told me that one sign that you are starting to lose circulation in your feet is that your toes stop growing hair. When I heard this, I was actually happy, for the first time since puberty, that I had hair on my toes! (I know that some people also grow hair on the tops of their feet, but I don’t recall ever shaving the tops of my feet. I'm not sure if I should be happy or not about that, in light of the circulation thing, but as I said before, I'm not all that hairy a person in the first place.)

So, now you know why I stopped shaving my toes. And why I love my hairy toes. Because as long as my toes are hairy, I know that the blood is flowing through them nicely, and that is a Very. Good. Thing. I love my hairy toes. I plan to keep them.

Diabetes Class - Part 2

So, Diabetes Education Class – where was I? Oh yes, “Rah! Rah! You can do it!”

Jane and Jill taught us all about Blood Sugar and Insulin and Food and Testing and A1C and Complications, and gave us a lot of information that I already knew (I was a Biology and Health major in college – isn’t that ironic?), but even more information that I should have known, and didn’t. The thing about learning stuff is that it often does not take hold in your spirit until it applies to you in some way that matters to you. Intellectually, I know that eating fat and sugar is bad, eating veggies and tofu and lean chicken is good; but to actually behave in a way that reflects my understanding of those things is more complicated. I think Jane and Jill knew that most of us knew, basically, what we had done wrong to put us in this position. The goal was to get us all pumped up and excited about changing our behavior in order to mitigate the consequences of our poor choices thus far in life.

I am not going to say that the Diabetes Education Class was useless to me, because I did learn a few things that made a difference, especially down the line, but it is fair to say that I was not in a place, mentally, to get much out of the class. I was still in denial. I was still angry about my diagnosis. And I still believed (wrongly) that I could just tweak a few things and make this all go away.

Plus, the “Rah! Rah!” was very annoying:

Jane: “Ok, y’all! How many of you exercise regularly?”

A few hands go up. Most remain firmly on our ample laps.

Jill: “Well, y’all, exercise is super-important! It makes those little insulin cells open right up, so the sugar can get into your cells. And why is that important, huh?”

Silence. Shifting of ample butts on plastic chairs.

Jill (grinning with her perfect white teeth): “Anyone remember? Come on, we talked about it this morning – why is it important for those little insulin receptors to open up wiiiiiiiiide for the sugar molecules?”

More silence, then one lady (I’ll call her Nancy the Know-it-all) pipes up.

Nancy: “Because we want the sugar in our cells, not in our blood?”

Jane and Jill (very excited): “That’s RIGHT, Nancy! (since they have forced us to wear name tags, Jane and Jill are able to call us by name when they cheer us individually) Good answer! We want the sugar in our cells, working hard to give us energy, not clogging up our blood stream and causing nasty complications.”

At this point I am sure they would wave their pom-poms, if they had any.

And so it went, for two days, after which I went home laden with still more full-color literature on how to manage this irreversible, terribly serious, death-causing condition that Ihad developed.

Rah, rah.

Diabetes Class - Oh Boy, What Fun!

The first Diabetes education class I attended was taught by two very young, very peppy, very thin girls who clearly had never experienced a struggle with weight and were unlikely to in the future. Not that I fault them for that - I happen to not be one of those people who believes you must experience something in order to teach it effectively. Of course, experience can help – a lot, sometimes – but I don’t believe it is requisite. Wisdom comes from many places: experience, observation, learning, God; and very often experience does not result in any increase in wisdom. But I digress. Going back to Diabetes Class: I have no memory of these young women’s names, so to keep things simple I will call them Jane and Jill.

Jane and Jill addressed the process of educating us with what I like to call the “cheerleader approach,” a method that tends not to work with me. I don’t know if I am just a natural skeptic, or if it is my enduring dislike of the cheerleader culture, cultivated in childhood by exposure to cruel and arrogant little rich girls in short skirts, but “Rah, Rah, You Can Do It!” does not tend to have an impact on me emotionally. Disclaimer: I know that this approach does work for many people, and I am not suggesting the method be banned, that it is evil, or that people for whom it works are in some way inferior. If anything, I am at a disadvantage because it does not work for me!

I looked around the classroom and noticed that with the exception of myself and one Hispanic woman, everyone in the class had grey or white hair (or none at all). All of us were fat, and a show of hands (requested by J&J) revealed that all of us were Type II, recently diagnosed. I did not realize it at the time, but I was actually quite fortunate to be there – many people are diabetic for years and years before they are diagnosed, and often the diagnosis is done in an emergency room with a blood sugar over 700. One of these days I am going to write a Thank You note to Dr. V for having the foresight to test me at my age (I’ll tell this story another time, it’s interesting). Anyway, I should have been grateful, appreciative, relieved. But at the time I was only ashamed. I figured the other class members were looking at me and thinking “My gosh, that girl is so young! She must really be in bad shape.”

Diagnosis

“You’re diabetic.”

I looked at Dr. V skeptically from my perch atop the white-papered exam table, swinging my legs just a little. “I’m too young to be diabetic,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“Not really – people are developing Diabetes younger and younger these days.” She did not smile, but wore pleasant neutrality on her face. “The important thing is to start treating it right away – you should be able to reverse most of the damaging effects if you work hard at it.”

“I’m only 36. I’m not thirsty all of the time. I don’t pee all of the time. I can’t be diabetic.” I paused and gave her a sheepish look. “Could the test be wrong?”

Dr. V crossed her arms and looked at me. The pleasant neutrality had begun to wear a little around the edges. “Were you fasting when they took your blood? Or did you eat a dozen Krispy Kremes™ for breakfast?”

“I was fasting.”

“Your fasting sugar was over 200. You’re diabetic.”

I tried once more. “Oh, you mean I am pre-diabetic! 200 is not so bad, right? My uncle had diabetes and he had sugar, like, 700 or something…” I trailed off, noticing that Dr. V’s pleasant neutrality was crumbling like a cookie in warm milk. mmmmmmm…cookie

“There is no such thing as pre-diabetic,” she said firmly, “you are either diabetic or you are not. Diabetic means your blood sugar is too high.” She paused for emphasis. “Yours is too high.”

I went home, deflated, with a stack if informational brochures, 2 new prescriptions, and instructions to attend Diabetes Education Class as soon as possible.

It was the Spring of 2003.

I Love My Hairy Toes

I used to shave my toes. This is a relatively tricky thing, particularly for a fat girl, which I am in the process of unbecoming. Interestingly, my father's side of the family is quite hairy; my mother's more on the hairless side. In general, I take after my mother's side in this respect, but I do grow a little hair on my toes. Particularly on my big toes; and in contrast to the hair on my head, it tends to be black. For a very long time I considered this to be an intolerable thing for a young woman to endure. So I shaved my toes.

Toe stubble is interesting too, so it is important (if you are going to shave your toes) to do so on a regular basis, so that you do not develop toe stubble, which can be embarrassing if you are prone to wearing open-toes shoes (which I am not, by the way, for the record.)

I stopped shaving my toes in the Spring of 2003, and the reason why is what this blog is all about. Or, rather, what it is going to be all about, because this is, after all, the first entry. I should probably warn you that I am very, very fond of commas, so if excessive commas bother you this might not be a blog you want to follow. I am also fond of dashes -- the kind I just used in this sentence -- so be prepared for that, as well.

These are my actual toes, pic taken today (that is my office carpet). I will admit to photoshopping in nail color, since I have not had a pedicure since December. My toes are actually decorated with badly chipped Christmas Red right now. As for the hair, it's a little difficult to see at 72 pixels per inch, but it's real. Click the picture for a better view, if you dare!