Actual Lifestyle Changes

 

Every time I come over here I'm embarrassed at how long it's been since I've written or, for that matter, made substantive changes in my life. When I wrote my last post, I was at a fairly all-consuming and stressful job that became much more so over time. My mental health was affected to the point where I started seeing a psychiatrist again for anxiety and depression. I went on another disastrous course of medication, but we didn't get to calibrate it to a therapeutic level before I left my job and lost my health insurance. But leaving that job and its stress made a substantive difference in my overall happiness and quality of life. I made a commitment to better health over the past year, which has included a lot of healing and recovery.

 

A few months before I left my job, I transitioned my diet to what I've been calling "semi-vegetarian." I had a variety of health, environmental, and spiritual reasons for doing it, but it's been surprisingly easy to stick with. I made a commitment to avoid factory-farmed animal products, so the meat I do occasionally eat is free range game or wild-caught fish from my father and brother or meat that I can be assured is grass-fed, free of antibiotics and hormones, and as humanely raised as possible. It has made a noticeable difference in my gastrointestinal health, and I feel a lot more in balance with my place in the world.

 

Around New Year's I read an article about keeping a self-care journal, and it struck a chord in me. I started mine in a color-coded spreadsheet. Each day I've been tracking Mood, Appetite, Energy, Hours of Sleep, Exercise, Ounces of Fluid (using the excellent free version of the Waterlogged app), Servings of Caffeine, Weight, and Menstrual Cycle. I also have columns to check off if I've Showered, Brushed My Teeth, Made My Bed, done my French Lesson (on Duolingo), Meditated (more on that below), Read, and list what Creative Pursuits I do. It probably shouldn't seem like a big deal to check off showering or reading, but in the midst of depression, sometimes it's important to be able to look at a column and see what I haven't done yet that might improve my day.

 

 

I know there are all kinds of productivity and mood-tracking apps (I have been using Clue for menstrual tracking for a while now and especially like it) but for me, it's been most helpful to look at my own sheet and observe the patterns. The image above is the past months' Mood, Appetite, and Energy, where green is average, pink is elevated / high, and blue is depressed / low. Because I am also keeping brief notes on what I did each day, sometimes I can see when a low mood is because I was, for example, doing my taxes and didn't eat until 6pm, versus if I haven't showered in 2 days and have been sleeping excessively. I've already seen noticeable correlations between mood / energy and my menstrual cycle, and I've also seen real improvements in the days after meditation or particularly focused creative pursuits.

 

I started meditation shortly after I left my last job, and it has been a profoundly meaningful new addition to my health / wellness regime. I took a few Learn-to-Meditate classes, read some books, set up an east-facing meditation nook in my bedroom and have also attended several special guided meditation sessions. I am still finding my rhythm and trying to establish a steady practice, but I am encouraged by several neuroscience studies that have shown visible changes to the brain's structure and functioning through fMRIs in as little as eight weeks of meditation. I am particularly hopeful that it will help with the mental health issues that continue to challenge me, or at least give me more awareness of what's happening in my mind.

 

Every so often, but not nearly enough, I've been going running, taking long walks, or using my elliptical machine. It has been way more sporadic and unfocused than I'd like, both for energy and weight loss, but I always enjoy it, so I want to work some kind of activity into my daily routine. I did exactly one Vinyasa yoga class through YOME, and I absolutely loved it, but haven't done it since. This chilly February weather seems like the ideal time to start an indoor yoga practice or take advantage of the weights and kettle bell I have here.

 

I have also been tracking my meals and any digestive issues that arise. I was concerned that the regular GI issues I've had the past few years had become something more chronic, specifically irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease, and it was starting to really negatively affect my daily life. Shortly before Christmas I was discussing it with my mother, who got off the phone to watch a TV show with my father. In the first commercial break, she saw an ad for a nonprescription medication that was supposed to work miracles for IBS / IBD and excitedly texted me about it. I researched the active ingredients and found a different supplement, Heather's Tummy Tamers, which contain peppermint oil along with fennel and ginger. They have been astonishingly effective, especially in reducing the pain and inflammation that I was afraid had just become my lot in life. Taking these pills every day, with a concerted effort to stay better hydrated and eat more fruits and vegetables, has dramatically improved things.

 

One of the reasons I had decided to cut meat out of my diet (at first entirely, and now infrequently and carefully sourced) is that I used to experience days of pain, swelling, and intestinal bleeding whenever I ate meat. I still don't tolerate it as well as fully vegetarian or vegan meals, but I am encouraged that my GI system is healing and responding well to a different diet. Now that I have that better under control, I'd like to make another real effort at losing weight, so I started by just writing down what I ate this past month to see where things stand.

 

 

The overall distribution of my meals from January 4 to February 4 has been:

• 34% vegetarian
• 21% vegan
• 13% contained meat
• 32% skipped

 

This month was a bit skewed by spending more time than usual with my family, who pretty much always serve meat especially now that my brother is on the Atkins diet. I was surprised to see how many of my go-to meals and snacks were vegan. Of course this distribution doesn't tell the whole story, since Oreos aren't exactly the same as carrot sticks and hummus. I also see how many meals I skip, which I am certain contributes to overeating at other meals. So one of my projects this coming month is to get in the habit of eating breakfast and not skipping so many meals. I'd like to up the percentage of fully plant-based meals because I worry I am something of a Carbs-and-Cheese vegetarian much of the time.

 

I have switched from eating mostly prepared meals or restaurant and takeaway food to almost entirely home-cooked meals. I've made a real effort over the past few years to reduce the amount of processed foods I eat, so the meals I cook now are largely or entirely from scratch, starting as much with whole ingredients as possible. This too has made a huge difference in how I feel. I also swapped out low-fat dairy for full-fat organic across the board. Not only is it vastly more satisfying and tasty, but I actually lost weight when I did it, and I noticed a major improvement in my skin and hair. I've found a renewed passion for cooking and learned a lot of new techniques, like making pizza dough and focaccia bread from scratch. I am planning to try pasta, dumplings, tortillas, and empanadas from scratch too - which yes, I know, are not what immediately comes to mind as "diet food," but are somewhat essential components of my happiness.

 

In the past year I've tried all kinds of new vegetables (I know, right? It only took me until I was 35 to cook escarole for the first time), recipes and techniques. Some have been amazing and revelatory, especially Indian and Punjabi dishes, and others have been less successful, but worth trying. I am hoping to learn more Southeast Asian and especially Thai dishes, which should go well with my current eating style since there are so many vegetarian and vegan options. I believe it is possible, through a better balance of plant-based meals and eating more vegetables in general, combined with more mindful portions and most significantly, a big uptick in exercise, that I should be able to start losing weight without really "dieting" so much as continuing the changes I've made to my lifestyle already.

 

In addition to the perpetual weight loss goal, I also want to improve my sleep habits, energy levels, skin and hair, gastrointestinal health, and do as much as I can for my mental health. I'm putting a lot of faith in nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness, but I think it's the best and most sustainable approach for me.

 

This year has alleviated some major stresses, but introduced others. I left a stressful job, but took on the pressure of starting my own business and worrying about freelance work / self-employment. Because I've been working from home I now have more time to cook meals from scratch, but I'm no longer walking several miles during my commute. I've been addressing mental health from multiple angles, but I worry that if (probably when) I have to return to a job outside my home, I will undo the progress I've made. I also get really nervous looking at the column of hours of sleep that call to mind days where 14 or more hours weren't even a drop in the ocean of my exhaustion, and I know that's just not possible with an office job with regular hours.

 

My spreadsheet has been working incredibly well for tracking and improving my daily habits. It's also been a nice motivator itself, like when I'd really like to fill in a square, so I go make my bed or brush my teeth and get an instant boost. I will for sure continue using it and try to check in with myself at least once a month here to see how things are going. I am also considering photographing and posting some of my meals and recipes again, since that information has proven invaluable to me whenever I need inspiration or motivation to eat healthier. I certainly hope it can do the same for others.

 

Eating Real Food, Being Good to Myself

One of the big changes that I've made in my new apartment is keeping my kitchen more or less clean, well-stocked, and ready to prepare meals. I can't pretend I haven't had weeks that seemed more takeaway and leftovers than cooking, but by and large I've done pretty well at owning the food that I prepare.

Sometimes I make really healthy meals, like my current favorite baked eggs with balsamic kale, tomatoes, and cannellini beans (above). I bought a zucchini noodle maker and got all excited about zoodles with shrimp scampi from this recipe before I realized I really don't like or know how to properly cook shrimp.

At least the zucchini noodles came out ace.

More frequently, though, I've been making gemelli with sausage, mushrooms, and peppers in a tomato sauce, with garlic bread and ice cream. Or crepes with chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli in a cream sauce. Or a pasta dish with chicken and sundried tomatoes in a mozzarella cream sauce. Not exactly diet food over here, but the point was to enjoy cooking again and get back into the habit.

At work, I still struggle to make healthy choices for lunch. It seems uncanny that on the day when I am feeling resigned to a salad, one of my coworkers will ask to order Mexican or burgers (we order together and the company pays). It is often challenging to find the least dangerous item on a NYC restaurant's lunch menu, but sometimes I have success.

I'm a big fan of a Beet'wich, but it's hard to convince everyone to order from the place that makes them.

While I am glad that I am not gaining weight and relieved that I'm not exactly at the heaviest I've ever been, I'm also not losing weight, and push is coming to shove.

I got a physical and a bunch of bloodwork done because in addition to my usual mid-February anemia / vitamin D deficiency, I was feeling light-headed all the time and fainting most mornings. My new doctor chided me for being dangerously dehydrated and kept telling me that I'd feel a lot better about myself if I lost weight. (Here I should interject to say that my doctor is kind of dumb and sloppy and I don't plan to stick with her for long. When I said I was concerned that my depression was getting out of hand, she said, "Oh, you are depressed because you're overweight and don't like how you look?" We definitely disagree on mental health and its contributing factors.)

But I do know that getting my nutrition better balanced and my weight within a healthy range will help with depression, both organic and psychological. I am also trying to manage job stress and anxiety better, improve my sleep, and address a few other health concerns.

This week I went back through this blog and picked out a few meals that I always enjoyed and didn't find too tedious to make. I coughed up the $150 for a Fresh Direct delivery coming this Saturday full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy snacks. I'm trying not to be punitive toward myself or officially DIET, so much as to reintroduce healthier meals in place of the rich sausage and pasta fest I enjoyed this winter.

And as odious as I find it in concept, I need to start exercising regularly. The only upside of my previously very long and exhausting commute was that it involved about 5 miles of walking every work day, and that's now cut drastically down to maybe 20-30 minutes a day. I need to use the boon of free time to improve my fitness and not just catch up on Netflix and knitting.

I sincerely hope and believe that this spring will bring good things, starting with small steps toward better health. I am keeping the mantra of Be good to yourself instead of the plethora of negative thoughts I usually have, and it's a much more positive experience already.

Trying, yet again, to develop better habits

On occasion I'll click over here or look at the Blogger icon on my phone, maybe get a comment notification that isn't spam, and I feel like a total fool. "I'm the heaviest I've ever been," I think, "I've basically stopped trying, who am I kidding?"

Then I get good and angry with myself because actually, no, I haven't stopped trying, and it doesn't really matter how many times I try and fail, so long as I get up and try again. (I'm sure I'm paraphrasing someone who put it much more eloquently).

At the end of 2014, after a really turbulent year, I moved into a new apartment. My commute is reduced from 2.5-3 hours each way to about 45 min. I am noticeably, appreciably happier and calmer every single day, and I am delighted to have made such a positive change.

I made a promise to myself when I was looking at apartments: I am going to be happy and healthy in my new home. That sounds easy enough, especially when I've gained 4-5 hours of free time every work day, but it is also incredibly easy to slide back into bad habits, to give up on things and despair, to relent to unhappiness and wallow in paralysis instead of trying to make meaningful changes.

I also made the deal, or compromise really, that happy came before healthy, which is to say I'm trying not to stress about my body (it doesn't help anyway). I'm trying to be positive and enthusiastic instead of beating myself up and getting frustrated. Eventually I know I will have to get tougher and hunker down, but for now the motto is: Come on, be nice to yourself.

Changing lifelong habits and solving decades-old problems won't happen overnight. I realize that I need to be patient and persistent, gradually introducing changes towerd long-term goals.

Step one was finding an apartment closer to work and everything I do in the city. Step two is getting it to be a well-organized and productive space. I'm especially pleased with the progress I've made on the kitchen, namely picking one that I actually enjoy spending time in (my previous kitchen was terribly claustrophobic, and this one is the opposite). I've challenged myself to keep the kitchen clean and usable, so that I can get back in the habit of cooking again.

As much as possible, I am buying ingredients and not processed food. But yes, there are still the occasional cookies, candies, or ice cream. I'm planning one or two large-pot style dinners that I can eat throughout each week, and I'm loading those with vegetables. I'm making green smoothies at night for breakfasts, but if I fall asleep early or just don't feel like sipping spinach the next morning, I'm not giving up if I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast instead.

Once I am comfortable cooking and eating real food, breaking my habit of delivery, eating out, or relying on prepackaged foods, I'm going to segue from pasta or chili to healthier choices. I'm going to try to order more salads and less Pad Thai for lunch at work. And most of all, I'm going to aim for exercising much more than I do (which has been a whopping once on the elliptical machine, for 20 min., dogging it so much that it was no challenge to keep reading my book).

I have roughly 75 pounds I'd like to lose. I'm going to break it into 25-pound increments, with maintenance periods built in. In theory, if I'm doing it right, I will be developing healthy habits as I go so at the end I will just have a healthier lifestyle, and it won't feel like I'm constantly dieting and trying to lose weight. Won't that be nice.

More than anything, I'm going to keep trying.

Keep on doing the same thing

We got our bicycle ride in on Sunday, which was great for the fresh air, quality time together, and overall activity, but brutal on my ass. I mean my actual, anatomical ass, specifically the chubby bits under my sit bones. Yeeouch.

Monday and today gave me occasion to observe that if I keep doing the same things, I will keep seeing the same results. If I don't make time to prepare a healthy breakfast, I'll end up buying a bagel with cream cheese. If I work late and get home with less than an hour before I want to be in bed, I won't exercise.

I tried to improve the dietary side of things at lunch, ordering a small pumpkin and corn bisque and a mesclun salad with cucumbers, mushrooms, an organic egg, avocado, and roasted grapes, but it back-fired. The sort of wobbly intestinal discomfort I felt in the afternoon turned into full GI pyrotechnics by the evening. Feeling queasy and yet empty, I was less than enthused about my "healthy eating choices."

Today was a disaster food wise, as I had a date in the evening (margaritas and chilaquiles at my favorite Mexican place), so I wasn't terribly disciplined the rest of the day. Bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, Chinese for lunch: egg drop soup, a vegetable spring roll, and steamed pork dumplings. I actually ordered vegetable dumplings, as if that makes such a big difference, but the restaurant only had pork.

I meant to leave time for a round on the elliptical machine, but my date went later than planned. I did manage the first day of the Hundred Push-Ups, and we walked a lot on the date. He won quite a lot of extra credit points when I told him about my fitness / weight loss plan. I said he'd understand it all when I'm able to pick him up and spin him around my head. He said he could probably do that with me now, and I joked that no, I'm much heavier than I look (or so I hope). "What could you possibly weigh?" he asked, "110, maybe 120?" Bless his heart, he's a keeper.

December 1, Day 1

I figured December 1st is just as arbitrary a date to start a new resolve toward fitness as January 1st, and while it doesn't have the same cache as kicking off the New Year with a new lifestyle, I'll have a four-week head start on it. Maybe this time it will finally take.

Today started with a roughly 3.5 mile hike with my parents and the dogs. My mother and I challenged each other on the start of One Hundred Pushups, and while my initial number is pathetic, it's a start.

The plan for this afternoon is a bicycle ride around town. I'm concerned that my father may dawdle enough that we don't get to go, so I'll have to push him.

My challenge this week will be making time for exercise every day and not eating atrociously, but it will be difficult because I have a date Tuesday, plans with friends Wednesday, tickets to the symphony Thursday etc. I will have to get good at sneaking in quick workouts when I get home and making better menu choices than "all the pasta and sausage and cream you can fit on a plate."

Sorting Out the Mornings

I did not accomplish all that I intended over my recent staycation, but I got one big thing under control: my mornings. 

I had fallen into a lousy cycle of oversleeping, dressing hastily, eating garbage, and showing up substantially late to work every day. It set the wrong tone for the whole day, making me unnecessarily stressed, cranky, and uncomfortable.

Every day this week I woke up with enough time to prepare a green smoothie, pop it in the freezer while I showered and dressed, then take my time getting ready. Temperature, it seems, plays a critical role in how palatable these smoothies become, and drinking them slowly over my commute has been working out reasonably well.

Five days of green smoothies, being on time, and dressing carefully felt like a good start. My lunch choices were approaching  sensible, and almost every day I ate half the lunch portion at work and the other half for dinner, so the damage from poor choices was slightly mitigated.

I also started keeping a food diary, including a column with notes about the way I felt. I don't think it's a coincidence that the first week I got on track with smoothies, I had gastrointestinal pyrotechnics and discomfort most days. I am trying to tell myself it's just my system adjusting from carb-laden garbage to the nutritional assault of raw vegetables and yogurt, but yikes, I hope it gets sorted out soon.

I am also confronted by the not at all surprising discrepancy between the way I think I eat and the way I actually eat. There were an awful lot of handfuls of chocolate-covered things and chips and salsa for someone pretending at eating healthier. And when I am giving myself permission to indulge, I'm really going way off the deep end. It reads like I'm actively trying to gain weight, instead of the exact opposite.

So, I know the issues and I need to work on them. I flopped on exercise besides my daily 4-5 miles (way too hot this week), I ate with abandon on Friday and Saturday, but I made substantial progress on improving my morning routine. And I dutifully drank my green smoothies every day this week. It may be only a glimmer of improvement, but I'll take it. 

Our Own Obsessions

Even by my standards, this is a really long post. I've got about a year's worth of obsessing to catch up on though, so I'm gonna leave it be.

Like most people who are unhappy with their bodies (or maybe most women?) I have particular areas that are more troubling than others, namely my upper arms and midsection. And like anyone who is troubled by a particular body part, I take great pains to hide mine.

I say that I find sleeveless blouses inappropriate for professional settings (I actually believe this) or that I need to wear sweaters because the air conditioning in my office is so cold (this is also true), but I also know I would be mortified if my coworkers or boss saw my bare arms.

My closet is full of little sweaters and shrugs to wear over sleeveless or cap-sleeve dresses in the spring and summer. And yet I found myself reluctant even to wear the shorter-sleeved ones because the fat above my elbow so clearly draws the eye to the flab of the rest. I found myself going to a doctor's appointment the other day, wearing a long-sleeved button-up blouse cuffed to 3/4 length and jeans, despite temperatures in the 90s. That's an October outfit, not something to wear in a summer heatwave.

So I was idly Googling for clothing styles that minimize upper arms (as one does?) and found myself taken aback by the simplicity of a comment, which wasn't at all mean-spirited, but blunt.

I lost track of the page, so allow me to paraphrase:

You need to stop obsessing about your arms. No one but you sees them. People just see big girls, which they either find beautiful or not. They don't care about how and where they're big - that's your own obsession.

I blushed a little, feeling silly and delusional, as if the right length or cut of sleeve could transform my appearance from dramatically overweight to svelte. Whether I'm wearing a long-sleeved cardigan or not, the overall shape of my body is still far too large and far too round.

And yet, I don't want to put my particular obsessions on display. I don't wear form-fitting sheath dresses because they accentuate the largeness of my midsection where they are too tight. I'm shying away from clingy and solid-colored jersey or knit dresses in favor of prints and a bit more structure. I don't tuck things in because that draws attention to the bulge below my waist. So why should I wear tops that hang my upper arms out and invite observations of just how fat my arms may be?

Dysmorphic Denial

Periodically I put my height and weight into Model My Diet and gawk at the Current and Goal versions of myself.

(The 3/4 side view always gets me.)

I think about how dramatically the facial shape changes, to say nothing of the thighs. I think about how much I would enjoy being my Goal weight, and then I start getting denial-y.

"My legs are much more muscular and less fat than these," I think defensively, "but I guess the arms are about right." I try to tell myself that my hips aren't quite so wide, feel quietly grateful that the virtual model doesn't show cellulite, but continue to believe that no, that's not really the size I am.

The same thing happens when I see other women who wear the same clothing size as me. Currently (and for a while now) I've been a 14, though size 16 bottoms are fitting more comfortably than I'd like lately. Tops are usually size L, but if they're particularly fitted or have buttons that I worry will gap across the bust, I go up to an XL. That's about as big as fits in "standard" sizing (which is to say not specifically plus size) off the rack clothing. The few times a year I find myself in stores, there are almost always groups of women going in the dressing room with me, and because they're not obsessive like me, they're really open about the sizes they're trying on and don't act paranoid about who overhears. Seemingly without fail, there will be a woman who seems much larger than me saying that the size 14 is just too big. Or that she should go down to a medium in this top, even though I would have imagined her wearing a 2 or 3X. Maybe we're wearing totally different styles. Maybe they're talking about 14Ws, which I are a different cut. More likely, I am in utter denial about just what size I am and what that looks like.

Weirdly, though, this dysmorphic denial is supported by a lot of evidence and corroboration. As long as I can remember, my mother and I have pointed out strangers and asked, "Am I that size? Bigger or smaller?" etc. to try to get a clearer idea of just how fat we look (this is a delicate and admittedly very warped dance we do). Sometimes it can be cruel, with whispers more like, "I'm not that big, am I??" My mother is always kind and tries to be objective, but when I point out women who really do seem close to my size, she acts like I'm being ridiculous, saying no they're much bigger in these places, they're not as toned etc.

My best friend, who is quite tall and naturally thin (think runway model and you're pretty close) insists that I am average sized (no, I don't ask her crazy questions or talk obsessively about my weight with her). When I chide myself for lack of exercise or guiltily indulge in dessert with her, she says kind things, "You're not fat, I don't know why you always say such awful things about yourself," and even things that are so sweet they strain credulity, "You really don't have any idea how naturally beautiful you are, do you?"

So then I turn where every obsessive woman my age surely turns when she needs to pick on herself and compare herself to her friends: Facebook photos. Shockingly, I don't stand out in a crowd as "the big girl." I don't even look much larger than my best friend, even though we have half a foot height difference and I outweigh her by at least 60 pounds. Friends who I would definitely say are thinner than me in person actually appear larger than me in photos. Sometimes, I even look small and almost delicate.

And yet, the numbers and measurements don't lie. I may be a proportionate, hourglass kind of fat, but I am without question overweight, teetering dangerously close to obese again. I know that I do have muscles (despite my recent lack of athleticism), but these pounds are packed on somewhere.

Do I just hide it well?

What I'm doing about things

Reality or dysmorphia, I know that I need to lose weight and get fitter. I want to be healthier.

This past fall I inherited a small bit of money from a relative who had struggled with weight her whole life. A few years ago she had gastric bypass surgery, which I suspect resulted in malnutrition and never really resolved the issues she had with food and her body.

It was a very sad and sudden loss that I'm still a mess about. To honor her memory, I decided to use some of the money she left me to purchase an elliptical machine, which I am treating as an investment in a healthier lifestyle.

It's a beautiful machine, set up on a soundproof mat in my bedroom, more or less at the foot of my bed and looking out the window. The plan is that I can work out rain or shine, I'm not limited by the hours of the fitness center in my apartment complex or a gym, and gosh, it couldn't be more convenient, could it?

But I think the amount of times I've used it is still in the single digits, which makes me deeply disappointed and ashamed. I have a plethora of excuses about what's been going on in the rest of my life (I had recurring bronchitis all winter, I had massive job stress and depression issues, my apartment is a mess, I'm constantly exhausted, etc. etc.) but the reality is that I just haven't worked it into my daily routine yet. That seriously needs to become a priority.

My family also took on the health and fitness initiative theme for my birthday and Christmas gifts this past year. We tend to give each other gifts in themes, and this year my family gave me things that made me feel feminine and pretty while out in the world (leather gloves, jewelry, a new winter coat) and helped me pursue health and fitness at home (a Fitbit, a 15 pound kettle bell, a blender to make breakfast smoothies).

Wearing my Fitbit every day, I confirmed that my average commute is still 4-5 miles walking with an average of 20-30 flights of stairs, but analyzing the data, I can really see just how much of my day is utterly sedentary. One day I forgot to turn the Fitbit off of sleep tracking, and it said that while I was at my desk at work, I was "sleeping" with 89% efficiency. Oops.

My mother sent me an ebook of kettle bell exercises, which I skimmed and failed to internalize. I know the kettle bell is an excellent workout, but I need to make space in my apartment to use it, along with the weighted hula hoop, hand weights, and yoga mat.

What I'm saying is that I have all the tools I need, and I just have to use them.

And diet, that too...

The sicker I got this fall, the more garbage I ate. My default meals were pizza and Chinese (even though I've sworn off takeaway as many times as I can remember) and I got in the habit of picking up treats every time I was out.

The combination of weeks and weeks of bronchitis, codeine inertia, taking the bus instead of walking, and eating despicably resulted in 20 more pounds packed on rapidly between the summer and winter. More than 6 months later, I haven't lost any of it.

I'm trying to overcome one of my biggest food challenges by ordering organic food, mostly fruits and vegetables, from Fresh Direct. While New York City has an abundance of farmer's markets and groceries, none of them are a reasonable distance from me, or their hours don't work with my schedule. The grocery that is close enough and reasonably priced enough has a dearth of fresh produce - everything is half-rotten, picked over, and forget about organic (it's half a shelf, and it's dreadful). The "produce market" that is walking distance (if I'm feeling ambitious) has almost no organic produce, and what it does have is way overpriced.

I made the decision that I'm either going to pay upfront, a little extra for hormone-free organic milk, or I'll be paying down the line for cancer treatment, heart disease medication, etc. I've watched too many food industry documentaries, read too much Michael Pollan, studied too much biochemistry, and generally become convinced that our food system is as broken as it is corrupt. I realize this topic is super politicized and people are as vehement about our food choices now as we've been about religion in centuries past.

But the bottom line is that, as much as I can help it, I don't want to consume pesticides, antibiotics, or hormones. I would like to eat minimally processed real food, which mostly translates to meals I prepare myself, predominated by organic vegetables, whole grains, and free-range grass-fed beef, venison, or pole-caught fish (my brother and father respectively provide as much venison and fish as I request). I'm not all sanctimonious about it when I go out for meals (which is frequently) and don't ask friends or family about the ingredient sources in food they prepare. But for the food that I control, I'm trying to make better daily choices - that's where Fresh Direct has been a godsend.

The other sticking point with food has been at work, where we have a uniquely generous arrangement that the president buys everyone lunch, if we order in and eat at our desks. The lunch portions from most restaurants are usually large enough to split in two, to take the second half home for dinner. The trouble comes when I pick something unhealthy for lunch and then have the leftovers for dinner - it becomes two bad choices.

Two of my coworkers (a very thin woman about my age and an athletic guy in his late 20s) decided they would eat healthy lunches starting in the new year. (The guy used to request things like fried chicken or Mongolian barbecue and complain when I suggested somewhere that sounded too healthy.) My third coworker always wants deep fried food, barbecue, or Asian skillet things, which are not notoriously healthy. I get stuck in the middle trying to mitigate between another day of "Oh, I'd just like salad" and "How about Chinese?" It's not pleasant, and I am frequently so busy that I don't have time to eat until late in the afternoon, or I eat my lunch for dinner (nothing like a salad on my commute home at 9pm).

Increasingly, I've been going vegetarian for lunch, unless the meats are advertised as organic, grass-fed etc. (it's NYC - I actually saw one menu that kept listing Grass-Fed Cheese and it took me several times to get how that made sense). I don't kid myself that a curry made with fried tofu is much healthier than a curry with chicken, but I am trying to avoid the hormones and antibiotics in unknown meats. I also find that I am a champion at turning a healthy idea fattening - how about some cheese and avocado in that salad? Not the best choices.

As I've said, I haven't lost any weight yet, but I've stopped gaining and I feel considerably better. Replacing processed foods, sugars, and questionable meats with mostly organic vegetables and whole grains is making my system happier and more functional.

Now if only I can get up to speed on water.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

Breakfast is still a big challenge for me. My go-to is a bagel with cream cheese and a Diet Dr. Pepper. It's not healthy, and it costs about $4 each day.

I had all intentions of becoming a breakfast smoothie convert, using an adaptation of my brother's green smoothie recipe (loads of baby spinach, a banana, a glop of almond or peanut butter, chocolate whey powder, some yogurt, and some milk or chocolate soy milk). They're usually tasty and filling enough (I've been keeping a stash of raw almonds at my desk if I find myself famished and unable to get to lunch) and I can certainly see the health benefits. The trouble is, they're time consuming to prepare (my mornings have become seriously disorganized and hectic) and so easy to skip. A few days I gulped the smoothie down before getting in the shower and felt grossly overfull all morning, so I've learned to pack it in an aluminum bottle and sip it gradually through the morning.

It's too easy to skip a few days in a row and find myself with gooey spinach and nearly rotten bananas. "I'm just blending it all up anyway," I'll think to myself, then end up with something vile-tasting and stomach-churning, which puts me off the whole endeavor for the rest of the week.

In short, the smoothies are a chore, both to make and to consume. Maybe I need to start making them in the evenings and refrigerating them. Maybe I need to tweak my recipe. Maybe I just need to suck it up and deal with a nutritious breakfast, even if it's easier and more enjoyable to eat a bagel on the subway.

The Common Thread

It may not be immediately obvious, but what I see in writing all this out is that one of the biggest obstacles to a healthier lifestyle is actually my apartment. It's been ridiculously cluttered for months now, with tons of laundry, half-packed and half-unpacked boxes, piles of papers I need to go through and shred, closets that I've started to empty out and hastily refilled the wrong way, and things generally out of place everywhere.

The kitchen counter that would be most comfortable for chopping vegetables and preparing food is covered over with things I took out of cabinets and didn't finish reorganizing. I have a lot of dishes to wash and laundry to do. I can't exercise when my living room feels like a hoarder moved in (it's actually just the contents of my closets strewn around impractically), and it's difficult to focus on the elliptical when I know that I am neglecting so many things I should be tidying.

I've never been neat, and I know it's unhealthy to live in such a mess, but it's more nefarious than a stack of shoeboxes that I should get around to taking to the recycling room or a suitcase I didn't finish unpacking taking up a bunch of space in my bedroom. These little clusters of clutter and laziness (or depression or whatever you would call it) are inhibiting my ability to function. And that's really not okay.

Something I didn't really talk about (maybe not at all?) was the relationship I was in from last February through October-ish. It was a pleasant enough relationship that made me happy while I was in it and sad when I chose to end it. He was a lovely man, but we want different things in life, and we had insurmountable cultural differences and incompatible beliefs in the end.

Why I mention it is that just before we started dating, I spent a weekend cleaning my apartment from top to bottom, going all out until every nook and cranny was spotless. Almost all of the time my boyfriend and I spent together was in my apartment (another reason it didn't work out), and for several months I kept things in a constant state of ready-for-company clean. Around the same time our relationship started to fall apart, I stopped taking care of my apartment, leaving the kitchen a mess after I cooked dinner, reverting to old habits of not doing laundry for months at a time (I have a serious overabundance of clothing), starting projects and leaving all the supplies wherever I abandoned them, and by the time I ended our relationship for good, my apartment was well and truly on its way to becoming a disaster again.

I think back on those months fondly, not just with the rose-colored glasses of a relationship when it was good, but of how comfortable and relaxed I was in my own home. When my apartment was clean, my mornings were pleasant and efficient. I was early to work every day (for months now, I've been routinely late). I enjoyed cooking meals because my kitchen was always clean and ready to use. I could enjoy all my little artistic and crafty hobbies without guilt.

The messier my apartment got, the more I would recede. Eventually, it got to where I would change from work clothes into pajamas, eat whatever I could microwave for dinner in bed, and fall asleep watching half a television show on the computer, waking up a few hours later exhausted, the lights still on, and feeling like all I did with my life was go to work and back.

I know that if I had come home to a clean and inviting apartment, I would have been encouraged to cook and eat a real dinner, I would have spent some time relaxing and doing something interesting instead of laying down to watch TV, and hey, I could even have the motivation to exercise if it didn't involve moving a bunch of boxes first.

So I can see plain as day that I need to get my apartment back in order, for my own health and happiness.

TL;DR Summary

• Most people don't see the specific ways I'm fat, they just see that I'm fat. Still, I'm not going to hang my arms out or accentuate the fat if I can help it.
• I am in total denial about how fat I am but I recognize how much I need to address this problem.
• I bought an elliptical machine and have a bunch of exercise stuff that goes shamefully underused.
• I've been changing my diet, not "dieting," and lunch at work is challenging.
• I have to sort out breakfast.
• My apartment is both symbolic of and a major contributing factor to most of my health and fitness challenges lately. I need to get it together.

I hope to have some positive progress to report soon.

One day at a time

This is not a grand reemergence into a thoroughly documented pursuit of a healthier lifestyle (yet). This is the beginning of the things I am doing to get my life on track.

1) Fridge stocked with all organic food, mostly vegetables. I have a solid meal plan for the week.

2) 45 min on the elliptical machine. Properly red-faced and sweaty. Now I just need to do that every day.

3) Washing some particularly gross clothes and dishes. Because my apartment makes me feel distraught when it's not clean.

Plan to spend the rest of the night cleaning, cooking, and grooming, so I can do more tomorrow.

January and I'm on my way

Hooray Sleep!

I realize how busy my past semester became that I didn't even post between October and now. Since then I've turned 30 (I'm surprisingly happy about that?), went through a lot of stress, and hit my breaking point.

An irregular sleep cycle and sleep deprivation was causing more damage than I even realized. I knew it was generally "bad" for me, but I hadn't pinpointed just what poor sleep does to the mind and body. It exacerbates anxiety, erodes attention and focus, contributes to feelings of distraction and intrusive thoughts, and more than anything, messes up the metabolism to the point of hopelessness. Somewhere around final exams, I decided enough was enough. I wasn't going to pull all-nighters anymore, and I resolved to make a regular, healthy sleep schedule one of my most serious priorities.

The first few days of my semester break, I slept like it was my job. Gradually, while visiting my family, I started waking up early and going to bed fairly early in the evening. I was trying my hardest to get on a solid sleep-wake cycle to put my best foot forward (for once in my life). I'm encouraged that since this semester started, I've gone to bed at a reasonable hour and woken up feeling unusually refreshed and energized most days. Several days, I woke up before my alarm, feeling terrific. It is my sincerest hope that I'm able to manage my time and my coursework so that I can maintain this schedule, augmented with even more exercise.

Speaking of Exercise

I also took a serious look at my course load and daily schedule, plotting out times during the week that I would go to the gym at school. The semester started January 18th, and it's probably not surprising that I've skipped more of those intended times than I've made. I tried to make up for the missed workouts by doing double sessions at the next one, but I could see quickly that I needed to find another time and place to exercise.

This afternoon after skipping the scheduled long session to go grocery shopping and clean my kitchen (because I have been living on takeout since the semester started too), I decided to pay the fee to use the gym room in my apartment complex. I had kind of forgotten that I had a gym on the premises because when I moved here, I didn't believe I'd ever find myself happy on an elliptical machine or treadmill, and I'm delighted to see how wrong I was about that. The gym room is open from 6am to 11pm, so it is conceivable to exercise before class (most mornings I have to get in the shower by 8 am and leave by 9), as well as in the evenings. This alleviates the time crunch I was experiencing in the middle of the day, when I might have had barely enough time to exercise, but not enough time to shower and dress again afterwards. Or, more commonly, I found I needed the breaks between classes to finish up homework or make progress on projects, and it does seem more sensible to focus on doing well in my classes.

I will probably still try to use the gym at school, especially for some of the weight machines that my small apartment gym is lacking. I just have to be certain that if I decide to come home and workout here, I'll actually do it, instead of getting settled into my warm, comfortable apartment and blowing the gym off entirely.

Another major advantage of the gym here is that I'm now much more inclined to exercise on the weekends. My general pattern of activity is strong Monday through Thursday, and then I become completely sedentary for the three days that I work on assignments and take care of errands. While I love my commute, I'm probably never going to make it just to use the gym at school, nor would I invent occasion to be on campus on the weekend. But if I only have to put clothes on and walk across the courtyard... well, that seems much more feasible.

In addition to actual at-the-gym exercise (which I hope will become much more vigorous and lengthy soon), I've continued walking, averaging 4-5 miles 4 days or more a week. The clip on my pedometer recently broke, which is giving me a headache, but in reviewing my January data, I see that I've walked (and sometimes hiked) a total of 52.99 miles, for an estimated 5087 calories burned.

January Pedometer Readings

Week 1 (Jan 1-7)
17,674 steps, 1805 of which were at a moderate pace (16 min), estimated 533 kcal and 5.96 miles

Week 2 (Jan 8-14)
26,013 steps, 12,102 of which were at a moderate pace (99 min), estimated 986 kcal, 10.23 miles

Week 3 (Jan 15-21)
52,395 steps, 31,219 of which were at a moderate pace (258 min), estimated 2158 kcal, 22.15 miles

Week 4 (Jan 22-28)
38,796 steps, 13,868 of which were at a moderate pace (119 min), estimated 1410 kcal, 14.65 miles

I'm going back and forth on whether to rig together some repair to this pedometer, to buy a replacement of the same kind, or to upgrade to something more exacting, like one of those combination pedometer/heart rate monitors. Most likely, the lower tech and lower cost, the better for me, since I'm not exactly doing extreme exercise yet. Emphasis on yet.

Another big change is simply one of attitude. I made myself the promise, in the middle of yet another end-of-semester nervous breakdown, "I will not stress out about school anymore." I mean, I know that I have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, and that it's difficult work. I knew that when I chose to do this degree, and nothing has changed. So why stress out all the time? It is entirely within my capacity to stay on top of my work and make it that I don't need to sacrifice sleep, exercise, or my mental health for the sake of academia ever again.

God I hope I'm right about that.

Restored motivation

When I was registering for this fall's classes last spring, I was mainly stressing about the difficulty and time demands of the lab classes I'm taking, so I added in a 2-credit Wellness and Physical Fitness class to round out my schedule. This seemingly blow-off decision has turned out to be a highly fortuitous one because I am finally, finally getting on track with my fitness and weight loss goals.

As it turns out, school is one of the few things I prioritize appropriately, so making my fitness part of a course requirement actually forces me to pay attention to what I'm doing, to treat workout sessions as assignments I must complete, and to take my reflection essays and progress seriously. Thank goodness!

A guiding philosophy

One of the best components of this class is its balanced and well-rounded approach. I had assumed, like many students, that the class would solely consist of working out in the gym once a week (since that is what most college fitness classes are), and I was feeling a little foolish for spending tuition credit on an essentially extremely overpriced gym membership. It turns out, though, that this class is structured around the ideas laid out in Dr Irwin Schwartz's The Awesome Foursome, a book I highly recommend.

The four components of wellness and fitness are addressed in tandem: sensible eating, cardiovascular exercise, stretching, and weight training. It seems dumb, but prior to reading this book, I didn't realize the connection, for example, between flexibility and toning - the more of your muscles you are able to use, the more effectively you can tone them throughout, and as a consequence, the shapelier you can become. Duh, right? And yet, I've gone almost 30 years without recognizing this relationship.

My class has so far introduced a new component each week and integrated them with the others. It was particularly eye-opening to keep a three-day food journal and perform a nutritional analysis on my caloric intake (I'll write much more about that in a separate entry). I'm glad that both the professor and this book don't embrace dieting or any gimmicky weight-loss system (I can't count the amount of fitness-minded people who have blathered on about carbs, and even this summer, I was seriously considering the Dukan Diet to try to drop weight quickly). Instead, the emphasis is on developing a balanced, sensible eating lifestyle, which has been one of my long-term goals around here for a while.

And wow, I love exercise...?

In addition to eating well and living mindfully, the major work in this pursuit is exercise, whose benefits I have long known and yet long avoided. Maybe it's just showing up at the gym in workout clothes, or having the requirement that I can't skip class and don't want to lie on my workout journals. Whatever accountability I needed, I finally have it, and I'm feeling it in my own motivation.

For example, no one will ever know about my deal with myself to take the stairs all the time, even if my class is on the sixth floor or I'm really tired and want to just get on the ferry to go home. But I know, and I've stopped accepting my own excuses. I can finally say, "You spent all that time on a treadmill and you can't walk up 20 or 30 stairs??" and by the time I've finished arguing with myself, it's done.

This week's assignment included developing a workout schedule to fit the aerobic activities, strength/endurance training, and stretching into my daily routine. I will admit: this is a task I've been meaning to do for literally years and came up with so many excuses and contingencies it's absurd. I finally sat down for about twenty minutes, armed with the schedule to a pool and the knowledge of feasibility in using the gym at my school, and I mapped out minimally six times a week that I can work out. Some were blindingly simple: stay for a half hour to 45 min after class to get in an extra workout; others required a bit of planning (go to the afternoon swimming session so I have the evening free for homework and errands). Now that I have my schedule, I need to put it on my calendar and treat it like class or a social commitment I don't want to miss - for whatever reason, if something makes it to my calendar, I'm 95% more likely to do it than if I just "mean to."

My personal challenge will be in maintaining the discipline to actually get to the pool and swim at all my scheduled times, since obviously it would be easier to nap on my couch or knit and watch TV on the internet during that same time. All my distractions and procrastinatory tasks will still be there after swimming, and I have to remember these workouts are something I'm doing for myself because I like myself and I want to be fitter.

Most of all, positivity

The most helpful thing about this class and about this particular approach to weight loss and fitness has been positivity, which I believe stems from a gradual introduction of lifestyle changes and brutal honesty with myself. In the past, I've been quickly discouraged by trying to take on too many changes at once, then abandoning them all as soon as I get stressed out. This time, I can accept that I won't get it all right and I'm bound to slip up and make mistakes, but at least for this whole semester, I am committed to sticking with it, to continuing to show up and talk about what progress I've made and what more I'm attempting.

I am able to tell myself, in almost all cases, "Hey, it's okay. You're working on it," and finally, it's the truth.

Attaining lifelong sensible eating habits and physical fitness is not something that happens overnight or in two weeks if I just start some crash diet and exercise. Yes, I want to drop a significant amount of weight, and yes, it would be terrific if it would happen quickly. But the real reward would be developing the habits of going to the gym, maintaining a schedule that includes exercise and time to take care of my body, and learning how to adjust my eating habits to a healthy but manageable "non-diet" that fits in my real life. Becoming accustomed to muscle soreness and fatigue, as a reminder of the hard work I did at the gym that day, is a real treat and something I've desperately missed since my years as an athlete.

I finally have regained the faith that slowly, eventually, and gently, I will transform myself into the fitter, healthier person I've missed so dearly, and by doing it carefully and kindly, it will become a lasting lifestyle change. I can't even begin to describe the way I am filled with happiness and enthusiasm about it.