As I scrolled through my Facebook and Twitter feeds I started to believe that the complexities of life and their resolution could be boiled down to an image and catchy phrase. In the midst of a particularly complex year, I wondered if perhaps I had somehow missed the meme that was meant for me. It was in the search for this elusive simplicity that I came up with my three W's: walks, whisky, and wine. Simple and catchy, easy to remember. I love an alliteration, and they work in alphabetical order. The trick was keeping the three in balance. But then things unraveled as they sometimes do. I won't go into the details here since some of it involves people beyond myself and this is neither the time or place. And honestly, who wants to read about any of that? Those who need to know, know, the rest of you fill in the blank space with your unraveling story or stories of your choice. Suffice to say, if I could start my version of 2016 in, say, August, I'd be happy to let most of January - July go. While were at it, most of 2015 didn't need to happen either. Unsurprisingly, the balance of my W's did not last long. The wine and whisky overcame the walks and three W's became two. Two W's does not resonate quite as well as three. With time I discarded the W's and tried the ABC's of alcohol, bagels and chocolate although not usually all at once. No alliteration, but still keeping things in dictionary order. In case you were wondering, I don't think the W's or ABC's resolved much at all. This time, I'll start from scratch and avoid the alphabet.
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This weekend I tried to imagine myself as a character in a novel.
WARNING: Unless you have an over-inflated or, at a minimum, a very healthy sense of self, don’t try this exercise at home. Why? Watch and learn. As my sister-in-law pointed out, we are now middle-aged. (Thanks, M.) I don’t mind my age, it is just the term middle-aged that weighs me down maybe because it reminds me of bleak descriptions from sixth grade history class of the time period bearing a remarkably similar name. That’s where my character sketch started, and it went something like this: White, middle aged woman, breadwinner, mother and wife. Dressed in sensible, though expensive, shoes and sensible clothes of a more economical variety. Overweight, having not regularly exercised in 20 years, which she is quick to point out are the same number of years as she’s been married. Read whatever you’d like into that coincidence of fact. Since we compress the memories of the past, her younger years are remembered with great fondness. Adventure and travel filled, with a sense of wonder and fearlessness. Childhood teasings and awkward teenage years now only a blur. Carefully edited memories stand in stark contrast with the now endless monotony of adulthood. Past dreams of making world peace a reality discouraged daily by reading news feeds and the inertia of inaction. She remembers reading about such characters when she was younger, solemnly swearing never to go down that path herself. Oh, did your eyes start drooping? Sorry about that. It would keep going, but the author just told me that the publisher has put a hold on the project. Footnote: Maybe next weekend I'll be a more positive protagonist. FYI: It is very cathartic to write about oneself in the third person. I don't remember the exact year. But I do remember that one year my father decided he wanted to find the perfect recipe for a brownie. He wanted the end result to be shiny on the top and chewy on the inside. He tried a lot of variations. Some came out cakey, others chewy but not shiny. Night after night or maybe it was week after week? Anyway, he made a lot, and we happily acted as taste testers. I suspect that one night he finally arrived at the perfect balance of ingredients because he has never since baked a batch of brownies.
---- Two of my friends, or so the story goes, were debating the merits of homemade brownies vs. box brownies (a mix). The end result was a bake-off with a subsequent taste test. No one could tell the difference. A tie? --- The next story is not mine to tell. Nor will I tell you whose it is to tell to protect the parties involved. In fact, it may not have happened because the original narrators were unreliable at the time. After partaking of some pot, munchies were often the predictable outcome which led frequently to the baking of brownies. Being high and following directions do not always make the best companions and one night at a critical moment nobody remembered the sugar. "Life's brownies," they agreed, giggling to one another, "because life is not always that sweet." ---- What? You want my favorite brownie recipe. Gee, gosh, I thought you'd never ask. I went as far as the NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Baking Cocoa container. Right on the side they have the recipe I use. I am so lazy that currently I have the empty Nestle box in my cupboard so I have the recipe on hand in case I buy a different brand of Cocoa Powder. I know it is on the internet too. Where do you think I went to cut and paste the following recipe? Ingredients 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, melted 2 tablespoons water 2 large eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour 3/4 cup baking cocoa (the NESTLÉ® company would most certainly tell you their's is the best) 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional) Powdered sugar (optional) [if you don't have powdered sugar, you can make some by putting regular sugar in a coffee/nut grinder or in a food processor] Directions PREHEAT oven to 350º F. Grease 13 x 9-inch baking pan. COMBINE granulated sugar, butter and water in large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture. Stir in nuts. Spread into prepared baking pan. BAKE for 18 to 25 minutes (sometimes a little longer) or until wooden pick (I use a metal fork) inserted in center comes out slightly sticky. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut into bars. Fat people know they're fat. Don't worry, I promise you, they do. They don't need fat shaming. They can get enough fat shaming just walking into most department stores trying to find clothes that fit. Who cares if the clothes actually look good, you're actually just content that it sorta kinda fits.
In case you don't know you're fat, you will because any time you lose any weight, people mention it. [This is not necessarily a good thing. Recently I had two different friends who had lost significant amounts of weight and both times it was health related, not in a good way.] And if you don't lose weight, if it is my mom, she just asks if you need a nap. I guess fat just looks tired. I just figure we need to start saying, "It's really good to see you!" and leave it at that. Seeing "get fit" pictures of lots of skinny people doing fit things does not inspire a fat person -- or at least not me -- to go join in. All you do is look at those pictures and think, "Nope, not me. They are obviously targeting someone else." Getting fit takes true bravery from a fat person. I takes more than just a go to the gym impetus to work out because gyms are scary places potentially filled with fit people who know what they are doing. Even if they don't, they look better in their ignorance. If you are fat person in the gym, you think that everyone else thinks that you are there to get skinny and they're there to be fit. There is a difference somehow. Dieting is hard because dieting means thinking about eating or not eating. To avoid dieting means making an actual diet change which is easier if the world around you cooperates by not bringing donuts into the office. There are places to go where it is easier to be fat. The best place to go when you are feeling fat? IHOP. I don't go there very often, but each time I have gone, I have always found fatter people. I am not necessarily then the thinnest in the room, but have yet to be the fattest. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For What It's Worth As I mentioned in a previous post, I judge fat people. However, since starting to write here I actually find myself doing it less often. I noticed this in particular the other night when I was at a concert at my daughter's school and I found that I was not the only large woman in the audience. I also didn't know everyone in the audience because she recently changed schools. I was a stranger checking out all the other strangers. On another occasion I would have found judging each and every one on their body, wondering why the fat ones or the too skinny ones weren't making better life choices. This time I didn't fall into that pattern. My family has skin that seems to get every skin thing possible - fungus things, strange red things and most commonly, eczema. Did you know that eczema means "very dry skin?" This makes me wish I had become a doctor. How cool to state the obvious by giving it a different name and getting paid for it. Yeah, that would be almost as good as being a sports' announcer and getting paid to say, "Well, X team just has to make more baskets than team Y to win this game." No $@#$%% kidding. Anyway, back to the dry skin. We have tried a lot of different products with varying degrees of success. One day my aunt suggested coconut oil. I looked in the skin cream aisle and found a measly amount of coconut oil skin cream for a relatively high price. Then I moved into a food aisle and discovered Lou Ana Pure Coconut Oil. It actually works pretty well. Never tried it for cooking. I love re-purposing! When I was little, my siblings and I had lice. With that very strong insecticide that has been banned for agricultural use, we defeated those little buggers. Last summer when we were struck with lice (no, not my siblings this time), I was not deterred and stayed calm. Once again evil insecticide to the rescue. What I had not realized was that since that prior lice experience these critters have gotten resistant. What is one to do? Once again, back to the food aisle. It turns out several hours of mayonnaise (not the low fat kind) in said lice ridden hair does the trick. And no, I did not waste Hellmann's on the lice, I just went for the generic brand. The lice are not label conscious.
I think 30 days are up, or should be. Conclusion? This is not an area where I show a lot of grit. However, creativity for short cuts? Oh, yeah. I did do something most days through the 30 days which is actually unusual for me. A small victory there. And I discovered a few things along the way.
I can plank longer in the evening than in the morning. Planking makes me get hot. (think temperature, not sex) Rest days actually do something. After a rest day, I could often push past a previous limit. Being able to read the timing device while I plank is very helpful. Saying the "ABCs" is the scope of my mental abilities while planking. Life can be broken down into 5 second intervals. Am I now miraculously lithe and strong? No. 30 days are still only 30 days. The future will tell whether I have set something in motion that I will continue. How do things look on the scale? Well, I have not lost any more, but I have also not gained back what I initially lost. I am up to day 23 on the plank challenge. They have not been 23 consecutive days, but I am plugging away. Today was 180 seconds, more commonly known as 3 minutes. I usually plank in the morning when my brain is even fuzzier and doing the math can take a couple of tries. I can plank for 65 seconds or so until I succumb to the half plank. Today even the half plank seemed like too much so a few strategically placed breaks were needed. Energy still expended.
If you haven't noticed, it has been really cold in many parts of the US this week. (Whoa, pardon the lack of transition sentence.) When you live in a place that does not get this cold except for every 20 years or so, you don't tend to have appropriate apparel. You also don't have enough snow removal equipment nor ways to warm the diesel school buses in the morning. A little bit of snow + a lot of cold + a typically warmer climate = no school for 1 week. I still had work, never fear. On a late night, wee morning stint at work, I wrote a little ditty, a la Winnie the Pooh. Cold, bone cold Too cold to be fun cold Plain cold cold Should I add a tiddle-dee-dum? or tum? I did find a silver lining. 30 degrees? Balmy. Why was I talking about the cold weather? Oh, yes, exercise. I am happy to report that I exercised more days than not, but the hibernating instinct is very strong. Final thought. Did you know it was 94 degrees in Panama this week? I am not a person who has a musical soundtrack through her life, although I quite admire those who do. Growing up, the radio station that dominated our house was NPR. Morning Edition, Evening Edition, All Things Considered, A Prairie Home Companion provided the soundtrack of my youth. When I was in Panama the US military was still in the Canal Zone. This meant that there was one radio station from the Zona. Up on my hill in the Azuero Pensula I got great reception even though the life in the Zone couldn't have been further away. They played a range of programs, among them being the familiar programs from NPR. I can't begin to describe the delight I felt listening to NPR as I looked out at the unfamiliar world I inhabited. Now back in the States I live in an area where it is not uncommon for a perfectly clear radio station to lose its reception when the topography changes. This means that my car radio is set to four different radio stations that receive NPR. As I drive along I switch around until I find the one with the best reception or the one that is not fundraising at that moment. Drives my family crazy, but the person who drives controls the radio.
Driving and listening to a radio program is great until you reach your destination and have to leave your car halfway through a story. I started downloading podcasts of This American Life and Planet Money so I could have a more complete listening experience. This final step, a technological leap for me, leads me to the elliptical. At one point my sister told me that she spent twenty minutes on the elliptical. Since I apparently like the number 20 – 20 seconds of plank, 20 minutes of elliptical – and I knew of an elliptical machine to which I had access, this seemed like the solution to cold weather and the exercise dilemma. The first day I spent one minute on the elliptical and instant boredom set in, I had to get off and walk the other nineteen minutes. Then came the eureka moment. Planet Money always runs about 15-20 minutes and I had several episodes that I had not listened to. The next time I confronted the elliptical I came prepared with an episode keyed up to start. Appropriate soundtrack in place, what could possibly go wrong? Week 2: Two weeks in. Up to 60 seconds on plank. I stepped on my good enough for government work scale today. I think I can safely say 4 pounds and if I shift to the right a tad maybe I can claim six pounds of success. Always better to go conservative or I might be tempted to celebrate with a bowl of ice cream or a chocolate bar. Let’s go with 4. When we talk about fat people, it is always the other and usually an unidentified other. Once I get to know someone well and count him/her among my friends, I am not terribly concerned about their body shape. Whether or not they are short, skinny, pretty, fat, tall, ugly are not important concerns about what makes a good friend. So someone being described as "fat and lazy, etc" only comes in a conversation of either a fat person who I also happen to dislike strongly or someone I don't know in the first place. "Wait," you are thinking at this point, "but I thought you were a fat person." To which I respond, "Yeah, but fat people are judgmental as well and we live in the same universe as the skinny people. Plus, I don't think of myself as one of the fat people when I am thinking mean thoughts about them. I just think of myself as me and the outside shell is just a secondary necessity."
So, I have been thinking about my friends, those who also happen to have a few extra pounds to count on and what I appreciate about them. I can't really group them since the fatness is not why I am friends in the first place. But I did come up with some qualities that I realized I have been unconsciously appreciating about the fat part of the fat people in my life: 1. They generally give the best hugs. Hugs are important and some softness to lean into is preferred. 2. They never talk about the last marathon, triatholon, Iron Man race they recently ran of which they therefore feel compelled to give a blow by blow description. 3. If I am angry with them, I never have to go deep when I want to figure out how to insult them. I just can stick with the surface, "you fat (fill in the blank)" and I can be pretty confident that my insult will stick. "Skinny B__" does not resonate as well and it only works for women. I like more gender neutral insults myself. So easy. 4. The best kind of fat people have a true appreciation for food. A passionate conversation about food is much better when shared with a fat person. It never quite rings true with a skinny person because with them there is always this tone of judgement and sacrifice around the food topic. "I love...but I can never..." is a skinny person's idea of a food conversation. That's not passion, sorry, and mostly annoying. 5. Since you aren't limited to conversations around the latest exercise fad or the foods you're not eating, then the opportunity for conversations around more interesting topics is a possibility. This last point only works with those who have truly embraced the fatness and are not spending time telling you about their newest diet, health issue, etc. I have no love for that. Weekly update: So it is Sunday and time to report in on my week. Still trying to do the plank. I am up to 60 seconds. I may have to take baby steps between the 60 to 90 second mark. 5-10 second intervals rather than the gaping abyss of 30 seconds. I have made it a couple of days to do 15-20 minutes on the elliptical. That will need a post of its own one day. Here is a teaser: How are Planet Money and exercise related? It has been bone cold and then rainy and rainy some more so I got my first walk in this morning. I was feeling pretty smug as I weighed in this morning. Eating healthier, a few more steps in a day, lots of clicks on the keyboard, all of this should bode well. I stepped on my scale and had a smile on my face since my handy dandy recently dusted scale told me that I was 2-3 pounds lighter than the previous week. Then I shifted my weight and, boom, it went back to last week's weight. Shifted again, a different read. What did I learn? I have a scale that is "good enough for government work," as one of my former professors used to say, but would not be very convincing before a wrestling match. Well, this is not about weight, it is supposed to be a about a more mobile and fit self. Right? Right. And don't go on with "muscle weighs more than fat," I haven't been exercising that much! The conclusion: I may have lost weight, I may not have lost weight. I don't think I gained weight. I may decide to get a new scale, but, knowing me, probably will stick with what I have. |
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