It's the beginning of a New Year and I have determined to carry on with my blog despite my, what failure? to obtain my former objective. This seems a good way to process thoughts and I am devoting the blog to the world of writing. I am supposed to have a book come out this spring. I am heavily into edits. I have chosen to use this site to document some of the things that happen around my professional life (such as it is) and post the musings, reactions, events, criticism etc, etc around the said upcoming book. I guess today I'm thinking about totally re-writing the ending. I received a critique from my brother David suggesting, in his own obscure way, a new scene to end the book, something that would help clarify my somewhat sketchy themes. Now a new ending at this late date is tricky but I'm going to start playing with that idea as I dutifully change the perspective from first to third person, a daunting task but do-able. I've told my publisher Karen I'd have the manuscript to her by January 15th so that's where I am with that. Oh, and the other thing, the 50 thing? I must have meant 15. I'm happy with 15. I'm aiming for 15 more but, like a writing career it's gradual, gradual. So may this book be better than my last books. May this blog be better than my last blog and hopefully it will encourage or inspire or simply be a venting spot for someone who dares to put it out there.....MM
The fall from grace, the fall to grace, the fall into acceptance, gratitude, love? So much to think about beyond the body. So much to think about when the body fails. I've had too much news of the bodily decline type to continue this blog in any real way. Friends ill, friends dead, friends scared by the failure of the body...Yes, 50 is a time of change, that which we have taken for granted begins to betray us.
Is this code? Is this just Margaret a little on the blue side? I don't think so. I am going to continue my quest for a healthier body weight. I am going to continue to honour my physical self. I am going to attempt to be more active, more aware of what nutrients go into my physical vessel. I believe I will continue to loose weight, gain strength. And I will continue to be accountable for the rest of the year. I wish I could tell you that I am slim and 148 pounds. I can't but I can tell you there is a compassionate, intelligent, generous woman walking in my skin and I am going to continue being proud of her for the rest of my days. I'll post some real numbers in the next little while but for now, so be it. M
I'm back at my blog after a long hiatus. What with the gym downsizing, summer upon us and my trainer disappearing I let a little bit slip. Well, may be a lot. HOWEVER -- I'm back at it maybe a pound or two up but head for my next twelve, count 'em 12 pounds before December 14th. That will give me a 25 pound weight loss - fifty percent of my original goal. Does it feel like failure? NO. It feels like the beginning of a journey that will take a little bit longer than I expected but will never the less lead me to good and true places with in myself. In two days I meet with my new trainer Stephen -- I've seen him, fit fit and fit!! It may take a while to re-ajust and get completely back on track but I am game. Kids are back in school. I didn't go to the gym for almost 10 weeks and I'm still holding steady (I think) More on that later. M
The results are in!! I've lost 14 pounds of fat and gained 4 pounds of muscle. Does that mean I've lost 18 pounds?? I don't think, so but the measurements look good -- triceps eleven units smaller (cms?) Biceps 19 units down, subscap, whatever those are, less eight. I've lost 15 units on my chest, 12 on my thighs, and four on my calves. My fat mass is down and my lean body mass is up. I'm no longer obese (how I despise that word) I'm now simply overweight! YIPEEEEEEEE. I'm so proud of myself.
Right now, my legs are like jelly having done a 45 minute spin class but, you know what,? It's a dizzying joy to be headed in a healthful direction.....cardio, bring it on, weight training, lets go, spin spun fun, I'm becoming addicted to exercise. (Talk to me tomorrow, right now I seem to have a spinners high.) Thank you Korezone for so much support. Spinning is like nothing else, it's churning legs and dripping sweat and then you have to notch it up 10 percent. It's pushing beyond your limits and challenging yourself. It makes you weak at the knees and light in the head and fully, truly alive. I LIKED it. My sitz bones are going to be complaining tomorrow but for now its all good. It all very, very good. M
Things are in a muddle here in fat-city. The wonderful women at Korezone are moving to a new space with no membership, whatever that means; my trainer Ashley is moving to a new gym: my weight watchers tickets are all spent and I'm going on a holiday for much of July. I'm also seriously re-thinking my project.
I've decided it will become the 50505050 Project, the first 50 standing for 50% -- Fifty percent of fifty pounds in fifty weeks at the age of fifty years, it's a perfect out for something that I have found extremely challenging. If indeed, this were my new objective, I'd be right on track, maybe even a pound or so above my objective of half a pound of weight loss a week. And you know what? Given my lifestyle and how hard I've been working at this, I think that might be a more realistic objective.
I'm also think about the old adage that muscle weights more than fat and I'm interested in that because I have definitely gained muscle. In fact, I'm so interested I've asked Ashley to do a half way BMI measurement just before she exists the gym. Tomorrow she's going to get those old callipers out again to pinch the flab and determine how much has turned into rock hard muscle. Then I'm going to go to my first ever spin class to ride my bike 45 minutes and sweat off the excess...it's gonna be a good day! I actually like exercising now and I don't want to loose the strides I've made toward becoming healthier.
I look better, I definitely feel better and although I'm not the imagined 22 pound down on week 22, I'm still pleased with my progress. Hey, a woman has the right to change her mind. If I can loose 25 pounds in 50 weeks I'm going to be a very happy camper. Onward, I say, onward towards a more realistic goal. M
Maybe I should have called this the TwentyfiveFiftyFiftyProject or, better yet the HalfFifty/Fifty/FiftyProject or maybe the FiftyFiftyOneHundred Project, Who knows? All I know for sure is fifty pounds is a hell of a lot of weight to shed. I'm down almost 15 pound since I started and I'm feeling the difference. I bought a pair of size 12 capri pant two weeks ago. That felt fine, yet, I'm not yet prepared to discard my vision. Currently everything is a little up in the air now with the gym downsizing and all the uncertainty around that. It might be a good time for me to shake up my programme, however, try kick boxing or running again or something different. I'm closing in on the half way mark and I'm feeling a bit behind but I'm not going to let that matter; the behind I'm feeling is more muscled and less flabby than the one sashayed 21 weeks ago....it's all a matter of perspective. m
Week twenty! Have I lost a pound a week as I anticipated? No. Have I been faithful to the gym? Yes. Am I fitter and stronger? Yes. Have I been really careful with the food that goes into my body? Sometimes. And that, my friends, is the ticket. Success in this weight loss game is 80% food. And food (and wine) have been a struggle. I've joined weight watchers, but unless you're going to follow the program it's really an expensive fool's game. Every week I promise myself it will be different and I will write down the food I eat and calculate the number of points I have and stay within the 25 point range and every week I last a day or two and then I let the writing down slide and the number of calories jumps and the number of points I've consumed becomes who-knows-how-many the next time I step on the scales. So I have to change that behaviour.
To date I have lost 14 pounds and I'm proud of that and I can tell my clothes are fitting more loosely. I eat breakfast every morning, something I never used to do, and I'm usually on top of things until around 4 pm. the witching-hour!! Then it's snack snack snack....Today, just for one day, I'm going to be more mindful around that time. I know my enemy and they say that is half the battle...the other half is subduing the enemy. Today, strength training and cycling. Oh, and no cinnamon buns....M
Week nineteen and I'm 13 pound less than when I started my little adventure. Last week it was 14 pounds down, which is close to 15 pounds down, which is a bit of a benchmark.If only wishing were weight loss.....
I'm writing this post just before i go to the gym. My exercise sked, which I've been very faithful to for the last few months, is yoga Monday, Wednesday, Friday and strength training Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Since I got my new-to-me bike last week, a beautiful 1976 red, three speed CCM with a honking' huge wire basket, I've been peddling to the gym, weather permitting. I cycle from Mill Creek to Oliver square, a distance of at least 8kms. That adds a half hour of cardio to either end of my workout, three time a week so you'd think I'd shrink away to nothing...
Except for the damn potato bread!
Imagine potato and bread in the same crusty loaf. Now, imagine it hot from the oven. Have I ever mentioned that bread, besides being the staff of life, is also the sabre of diet destruction? I ate half a loaf of potato bread yesterday. H-A-L-F A L-O-A-F (say it fast and it sounds like something only liposuction could combat). It was over time, that consumption, granted, but it was consumed without enough thought and with no small amount of guilt. Did I enjoy that bread spread thick with butter? Yes.
Yes and NO. This morning I made my regular breakfast -- oatmeal with three tablespoons of yogurt. I ignored the damn potato bread. The damage has been done, but that doesn't mean I'm going to carry on with the crime. I fell off the wagon but I've climbed back on. The half loaf (four [and a crust] slices) will mean at least an extra work out. Possibly two or three. I've learned that it takes 3400 calories to make a pound. That means conversely that you have to monitor your intake by 3400 calories to shed a pound. I've been bouncing up a pound/down a pound for the last three weeks. It's like being on a trampoline and I'm starting to get dizzy.
I want to hit that magical 15 pound mark and I'd like to do it before the end of May. It's important that I do, just so I can see my way forward and carry on.
The Tree Stone Bakery, on 99th street, makes the best potato bread in the world. Go there. Have a loaf. Until I can learn a little more about self control, I'll be steering my red CCM clear of the place. If you see me on my bicycle with a baguette in my basket, snatch it out and stick it in my spokes, please. Daily bread be damned. Give us this day, our daily oats...Amen, so be it. More positive news next week.
M
My weight is up, not much, but some. I'm also fragile at this time of the month so I'm trying not to let it get to me. This time, a month ago, I was crazy upset. The scales moved up and up again and then plunged, 4.2 pounds in one week. So I have faith that this is, again, the case. I continue to be committed to exercise, I continue to monitor my intake, I continue to believe this is good for me and, as the Weight watcher people say: Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.
Last night we were invited to a chicken wing feed, something called the spring wing-ding, at a neighbours house. There were 22 types of chicken wings!! Twenty two types!! I made Margaret's diet chicken: Calories on the Wing. I baked the wings, peeled off all the meat and fat, boiled the bones until they were bare, laid them on a serving tray, surrounded the bones with cucumber and sprinkled the whole affair with parsley. I won a prize for nicest presentation! And I didn't eat any wings. I have faith in bones. I want my bones to show. Away I go, in faith...Margaret
I'm afraid to hop on the scales. I've been avoiding it. Liquid calories have been poured down my throat by some malevolent force beyond my power. I've been in the throes of the burgundy Wine Goddess and, I'm here to report she is one e-vil dame. And fat.
We bid on a high end dinning experience to support a local charity some months ago and, lo, we won! A five course meal with paired wines, in a very upscale restaurant. Hummmm, five courses, five glasses minimum! But if only it were five....Needless to say after all the courses were consumed all six people poured our liquid selves into a shrunken taxi cab and continued the drink-fest as the notorious Commercial hotel where I --thankfully -- was mindful enough to start downing the club soda with lime. The damage, however, has been done and today, in the sober light of Monday morning, I am afraid to step on to the scales... How could I undo what I have worked so hard to do??
This Wednesday is weigh-in at WW so I'll just skip the scales until then, modify my intake and keep up the exercise. I'm off to yoga now, to purify and cleanse this somewhat poisoned temple. Oh dear, if only a glass of wine were a single glass. It's when it's two or three that the sensible me slides inside the oaky Chardonnay, slips into the sensuous Shiraz, toasts the berry and leather and blah blah blah notes of a seriously delicious Cab. Sav....and I become one serious party girl, calories be damned. Maybe AA rather than WW might be a better support group. Nah, I'll just try thinking more, rather than drinking more and, I promise, even if the scale are tipped upwards, I'll report back. Just not quite yet.......
Margaret
I have just spent four days at Jasper Park Lodge. For those of you who don't know it, JPL is a posh Fairmont property nestled in the Northern Canadian Rockies. I went with my husband. He was in a conference and I was "wife of...", not a role I'm very good at for lots of reasons, and we won't talk about the heated argument over oil and gas drilling vs environmental damages to Mother Earth. Suffice it to say, I need to learn to zip it when I'm with people who make their livelihood doing resource based work.
The Lodge is beautiful. But the challenge was copious amounts of food and drink. Besides building pipeline and drilling leases, this group of surveyors really know how to lay it on in the eating and drinking department.
Today, back home, I was nervous to get on the scales. I was afraid I may have gained back the 13 pounds I'd worked so hard to get off, but I'm pleased to report, NO, I have remained the same despite eating and drinking more than usual. And here's how I did it...
I only ever tasted desserts, one taste, enough and that way I never felt deprived. I substituted extra veg for the potato or rice portion. I asked for " only a drizzle of hollandaise sauce on my fish, please, " and I tried to totally avoid the bread basket that circulated first at each table.
Sitting down in a lovely dinning room and eating with strangers helped too, as did dressing up for meals. It slowed everything down and just helped me enjoy not just exquisite food, but fine and interesting people and the mountains all around. And, yes, I did a real full-fledged work out in the hotel gym complete with my weight training and cardio!!
The last night -- at the ball -- I danced. And oh, how I danced. So there are strategies for things like this. I walked, thought about calories vs exercise, danced my feet off, did a really good work-out on Saturday afternoon, and generally had a good time. I didn't shedweight but, hey, I didn't gain any either, and I feel energized to go back at it. Onward...tomorrow is crash week.
And for those of you who are posting comments, thank you. I love the encouragement.
Margaret
Ok. It's hard to lose weight. That is the one thing I know for sure and, for me, anyway, it hasn't been a steady downward drop the way I imagined. It's more like descending a staircase...with lots of landings. Plateaus have plagued me since I started this endeavour, but I'm okay with them now. I've lost about 12.5 pounds in 15 weeks and that's not too shabby. It's starting to show on my old body, too, and certainly in my motivation. I'm thinking...can I be down 20 pounds by the end of June? Can I? And my answer to the Universe right now is "Yes, Yes, Yes!!" I have an August wedding to attend and I LOVE weddings. I have a periwinkle silk dress with a broken (read: damages, actually, honestly, read: split) zipper. I wore that dress for my Nellie McClung book launch in 2003 and it hasn't fit since, although I've tried it on a number of times just "to see" (hence the - ahem - zipper). Well, now (or in a few more pounds) that beautiful little summer wedding dress is going to fit like a charm. I just know it. I'm confident now that I will wear it again. I'm even taking it into the tailor today to have the zipper fixed. Why not? Love is in the air and silk against the skin feels like nothing else. It hasn't been easy, these last, what, three and a half months, but the rewards are starting to appear. Wearing a beloved old dress again is just one of them. Feeling more energetic is another. Feeling optimistic even when the scales aren't moving is another. Steady on, steady down, that's my new modo. Later
Margaret
I've turned a corner. At least I think i have! I went to my WW meeting after deciding I would eat more and lo, I dropped four point two pounds. In one week. It made such a difference to my attitude. Suddenly I feel like this thing is actually do-able. I think I'm about 12 pounds down from my starting date but because they are slow coming off and because I feel like I have worked really hard to loose each and every one of them, I have a sense that this will be weight lost for good. Good-bye, gone type of weight loss, rather than the "I'll see you (plus your damn friends) in a few months."
And here I must tell the story of the silk pants.They are blue grey, quite lovely, purchased, oh a good five or six years ago. I really like them. I call them my cigarette pants. I'm not sure why.Maybe because they're raw silk, maybe because of the cut, tapered at the calf and stopping just above the ankle, I don't know. Maybe just because I feel elegant and sort of classy in them. They are also pants one would only wear in the spring or summer but this time last year, Easter morning, indeed, 2009 I put on my elegant blue silk cigarette pants and saw to my dismay that my thighs were touching the outside of the fabric clear through the lining. My legs looked like sausages packed into casing. The blue spring silk lovely trousers were put away last year until....last week, when, again, to my surprise, I tried them on and lo, two full inches of fabric between my leg and the outside silk fabric. They didn't exactly bag on me but they did fit and with room to spare. I wore those blue trousers to church Easter Sunday and I got about three comments: "You've lost weight. You look great" etc etc. And even though I haven't lost weight quickly, I've toned up the muscles that have to hold all that weight. And, it feels good. I'm well on my way now. My mantra is "Put only good things into your body."
Ashley gave me a new routine.I've stepped up yoga from twice to three times a week and I'm even getting out on the running trails once in a while. It's spring and there's a spring in my step, because I feel prettier, more alive. The body that houses my spirit feels like it's just had a good spring cleaning and it's putting energy into my step and light into my eyes. Away we go into the whirlwind world of feeling good. It's all happening and I am glad. Namaste.
My mood is much like the landscape these March days – gray and brown, monotone, flat. It’s that in-between season, not fully winter, certainly not spring. April will bring more of the same. We should expect some snowstorms, some bouts of beautiful weather. It’s an unpredictable time and it mirrors my unpredictable mood.
I’m thirteen weeks into my program. I haven’t lost thirteen pound. I am, however, closing in on a solid ten, and by solid I mean that I can count on the fickle scale registering a ten pound loss every time, not nine one week, eleven the next, eight the next, which is how its been going since the beginning of this month. So thirteen weeks of hard work adds up to about 10 pounds. It’s not great, it’s also not bad.
Ashley will be changing my program at the end of this week (Thank goodness) and now I understand how the same routine can become so boring. She also has me doing more cardio this week, which is good. I can feel the pounds melting off with the running more than I can with the weight lifting. I’m moving forwards, slowly, slowly and even though it’s hard and I wish I’d never made this so damn public, I’m glad I have because it’s that very thing that keeps me from quitting.
I’m noticing small changes in the way my clothes fit. I’m hoping by summer I will be down a size or two but I’m trying not to project into the future too much. I need to stay in the now, keep sweating it out and be grateful for the progress I’m making.
M
This Monday past I started weeping at the gym during one of my training sessions. It came like a wave and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The tears streamed down my ridiculously red face as my trainer stood aghast. It was, well…it was bad.
I’ve since had time to consider what the tears were all about and I figure it’s because loosing weight at 50 is not like loosing weight at 20, 30 or even 40. Like me, the pounds have become more stubborn. They are clinging to me like 30 year old adult children floating on the basement davenport, refusing to leave the nest. But more than that, I am not, I repeat NOT on the schedule I anticipated would be easy. One pound a week, I thought, would be a snap. At least at first. But, quite frankly it’s not and I’m behind and I’m mad at myself because I am doing everything right.
In fact when I monitored every solitary food item that passed my lips last week and dutifully wrote it all down --- ALL of it, every single grape and dollop of skim milk -- and the scales didn’t budge, I felt devastated. I also freaked out when the weight watcher leader told me I wasn’t eating ENOUGH food!! Then I got a parking ticket and spend the rest of the afternoon at a funeral ….It was that kind of a week.
If it wasn’t for this blog and my truly public commitment to health, I might quit. Instead, what I am going to do is modify my expectations. I’m still going to aim high but if I don’t loose a pound a week – say I only loose half a pound a week – I’m still losing, right? I’m still on the downward slope, my BMI is still dropping. But I am going to go a little easier on myself. Not food wise. Not exercise wise, but pound wise. I’m going to work towards overall fit and health – physical and psychological health -- and that means obsesses a little less about the numbers game.
More (or less of me) later, M
Life happens in the weight loss world. People take unexpected trips, holidays unfurl a bit earlier than expected, plans are hatched and acted upon and ones weight continues to drop while their careful exercise scheme stays firmly in place (and who said I wasn’t a fiction writer?)
Gentle readers, if you exist, I must tell you paragraph one is only half true. Yes, I’ve been away, and yes, I neglected my blog for almost two and a half weeks. Has my weight changed since my return from the inglorious Abacos where I imagined myself hauling lines with knotty forearms and swimming masterfully through the surf to dine on the sun soaked foredeck of our sailboat on freshly caught fish and lime juice?
Well, yes and no. My weight loss did not continue during my vacation but (here’s the good news) I have done something about that besides returning to the gym, browner and plumper.
If I am indeed in week ten of this one-pound a week odyssey, I am behind in my weight loss journey. I did not loose more then a few ounce while away. I also did not drink lime juice exclusively. An exquisite three-rum punch is to be found at any number of Tiki bars on the outer islands of the Bahamian archipelago. And yours truly has sampled them all. Have you heard of sweet potato fries? Say no more…
I am proud to confess I didn’t gain weight. But I didn’t loose weight. I just stayed the same. I am eight and a half pounds down according to a number of scales (the gym, my own bathroom, friend’s homes, houseware departments of large stores, produce scales in supermarkets --how much does my arm weight today? -- and my new favorite, baggage scales in large airports) and that’s what I was when I left.
Here is the difference. The good people at the gym who are assisting me in my fitness regime have all told me that toned muscles, which I’m definitely developing, are heavy beasts. They have also informed me that exercise is only 15 to 20% of the strip-down equation of successful weight loss. Food, that stuff I put in my mouth, is the other 80 to 85% of the calculation and portion control is what I have successfully avoided up until now.
Last Saturday morning, knowing full well that eight and a half pounds is not ten pounds no matter how you stretch it, and fully aware that I am behind in my weight loss goals, I joined Weight Watchers, the self help group for fatties who need to re-learn the basics of food consumption.
I have joined WW before. In fact, after the birth of my second child I lost a good 38 pounds on the program. To this day I don’t understand why I quit the program three pounds shy of my ideal weight.
Or maybe I do. I think, back then in my trembling 30s, I had a fear of success. I think the fat that surrounded my body affirmed my maternal state, shouted out to successful motherhood, and the hot curvy babe that almost emerged that one summer many moons ago, quickly became afraid of the attention her non-mothering body was attracting. All this is theory. All this is in the past.
Suffice it to say, I may now have the perfect combination. Less food (Weightwatchers)/More exercise (Korezone)! I can only hope this predictable combo plus my 50-year-old world be damned determination is the key to the 50 pound public declaration that sometimes threatens to choke me. So far, it looks good. Stay posted. I’m still on course for success. M
I'm still letting the scales dictate my mood. If they're dropping, I'm smiling. If they're not dropping, I'm gloomy and defeat-ist. Even Ashley, my Korezone trainer, noticed: "The only thing stopping you is your head," she said. "It's all up here." And she tapped her skull.
And, of course, she's right. But besides the pep talk, Ashley also gave me some extraodinary information about muscle, the stuff I'm building by pumping those #$%^&;* weights and doing those terrible reps and those $%^&&;**(!@ crunches and those horrid machines, which, by the way, always make me feel better about myself and my day.
So here's what she said.
Muscle weights more than fat. Yes, I've been told that before but Ashley really explained it. It takes more calories to make a muscled body move than it does to make a fat body move. So, if you have muscles and you move -- just everyday movement, walking talking sleeping (the easy stuff) -- it takes more energy to do and therefore more calories. If you are muscled your metabolism speeds up but your weight dosen't go down as fast as it would if you weren't building muscle.
I have a lot to learn. I know that I'm not doing enough cardio work, the actual fat burning stuff like running and sweating but I'm enjoying the muscle stuff and the yogo stretching stuff, too. I'm contemplating joining weightwatchers when I get back from my holiday (which I'm also a bit worried about) but we'll see how it all goes. To date, in six weeks I think I have lost somewhere between six-and-a-half to eight-and-a-half pounds. It's up and down, like that, day by day. Sometime my muscles weigh more, sometimes less.
Am I discouraged? The answer is sort of the same, sometimes yes, sometimes not. To be perfectly honest (and what else is there?) I thought the weight would fall off faster. I thought the thrice weekly workouts and twice weekly yoga classe would do the trick. Count 'em, that's five workouts a week as compared to maybe one post fifty workout. In someways, it has done the trick. My clothes are fitting looser, my double chin is less wobbly. Something is shifting but I'm not quite sure what it is yet. It could be my attitude or my sense of self. Will I still loose 50 pounds in 50 weeks? Well, so far, I'm right on course and that's the way I intend to stay...
Stay tuned
More muscled Margaret
Remember that triumphant nine I bandied around so freely a week or so ago? Remember that number of pounds that slipped effortlessly from my frame before the first month was up? Forget it. It isn't so. The number, as we stand today, is closer to seven. Seven, still a good number, seven, still something to be happy about but not nine, nein nine. C'est la vie.
There, after mixing my French with my German I will reiterate what I initally said at the beginning of my blog/post -- This is not about numbers. (Bare with this post and you'll be treated to a real mixed metaphor). Numbers be damned. I'm finishing up week five of my committment to health and, guess what? I feel healthier. Some of my clothes fit a bit better, some of my joints seem a little more lubricated, even my muscles feel bigger. I feel better for doing this good thing for myself. No, I'm not going to drop weight quickly. In fact I might not reach my goal at the end of fifty weeks, but I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to continue to move my old bones in new ways. I'm going to go to the gym as much as I can. I'm going to continue to be inspired by the gals at Korezone who have made a lifelong committment to fitness and are sharing it with others.
One of the owners said to me recently: "Isn't it amazing that we live in a world where people call it a luxury or an indulgence to talk care of the vessel that holds our spirits." (OK, she didn't say it quite like that, but you get my drift) And how true it is. My vessel is pretty lumpen right now. If my old body were a house for my spirit it would be pretty ramshackle, pretty sprawling, a little on the run-down side. The walls would buldge with old unread newspapers, the floor would tilt, the roof would bag, the veranda would be certainally askew but, so what? My spirit would still welcome people. And it still will, as I fix up the broken stairs, patch the roof, steady and straighten the old walls. I'm fixing up my house that is my body that is the container for my heart. I want the outside to reflect the inside. More later. Right now I have to cook something for my family. Something hearty and healthy and satisfying. And the change will come, slowly, slowly, it will come. M
...weak for wine, weak for pasta, weak for popcorn with real butter, weak for sad movies, weak for workshops that keep one away from the gym, weak for avocados, weak for mayo, what the heck, weak for bacon, weak for feeling sorry for me sad sad self and the results? A week of not so great results.
Whatever the scale said on that triumphant day last week, whatever was trumpheted all over the internet and the boastful blog-world, reverse it, subtract two or, God forbid three and. let's just carry on. That's the ticket in this game, carry on....
Tomorrow is Febuary 1st, a new month, new new page on the calender. We are all weak, we all fail to one degree or another. I refuse to beat myself up. I look forward to tomorrow and, no, I don't go to the fridge tonigh and comfort myself with food. I'm still ahead of the game. I'm still in the playing field and, you know what? I'm still going to win. I'll deliver more concrete information mid way through week five. It's all a'coming and my arms (firmer, less flabby) are open wide. Bring on the new month. Damn the poundage. Bless the air that I breath, the people that I love, and moving right along, I look ahead to the future. Move, move, move. All with gratitude, all with love, and with particularly fond memories of Craig, who crossed over this time a decade ago but whom I swear I saw in NYC last September, arm-in-arm with his lover.
M
Nine. That's the number. Nine. Nine-nine-nine. I have lost nine pounds and, yes, that is on Korezone's own Ikea scale, the one I used to loath and today, like the fickle woman I am, love! (Ikea people, put your logo on my blog, sell more happy scales).
I can't write much today because there is too much other stuff going on, but I do want to say a word about time and money. First of all time: You have to make it happen. The Korezone gym folk are on the other side of town from me. It's a drive, well, a 20 minute drive sans traffic. It's not that far. And I do make time because everytime I go through those doors, I'm greeted by a friendly, fit person who knows my name. Yes, they are young, yes, they are lovely, no they don't have too much in common with a chubby, middle-age lady, but they are kind, compassionate people who care about my fitness and strenght. In fact the Korezone mottos are "Strenght from Within" and "Share the Love," which they are good at doing.
I have yet to post a definative number. I don't yet have a photo. What I have is this:
I chose to go away this weekend for a writing workshop and to see some friends. It was out of the city, a new experience, heightened as they are by fresh faces, fresh ground, the excitment of being "out and about." And it was good...
Like all journey's coming home should be the best part. And, yes, it was.
I saw those dear, dear faces my husband, my three children through the fog of the pasta pot, perking away, white sauce simmering on the stove, all creamy and caloric. Now how can one, coming off a long and difficult highway, complain when they walk in the door to supper already made? How can one? No one must be gracious, peel some vegetable, place them on the table and join their family in whatever they have prepared, be it cream, flour, butter, white pasta, or some other rich and thigh inflating concoction. And so I did. Both biting my tounge and salivating like a wild animal (yes, it is possible to do both of those private mouth acts at the same time) I tried to heed my husbands advice to "just take a small amount." And, to some degree it worked. I ate mindfully if not entirely happily. I would have been all right, too, if I hadn't kept adding wine to the already potent mix of pasta and deliciously flavored fat-sauce. I will say no more except to say tomorrow is another day. Tonight, with Mother the fat Nazi back, it will be poached fish and steamed beans and if you're good, very very good, a side of wild rice. Balance, balance, balance and no one ever said it would be easy. Tomorrow is the last day of crash, three sets, endless repetitions, and a promise to step on their loathsome scale and come in with an "end of week three" weigh-in. More later from Sabotage City and the Filler' up Vineyard,
M
There it was when I came downstairs this morning, a perfect, golden loaf of white (gawk!!) bread. Perfect. Still warm, crusty on top, beautifully aromatic, and, yes, calling my name: “Margaret, Margaret,” it wooed. “Cut me open. Come. Take. Eat.”
My husband made the bread last night. It wasn’t a problem last night. Last night my talking loaf of bread was just gluey gunk with yeast, a mass of white dough, not unlike the image my mirror has presented me with of late. (But, please, for your sake and mine, quickly erase that image.)
The challenge presented itself long after the bread had morphed into its own lovely breadiness. The challenge was hunger and morning and the knowledge that homemade bread spread thick with butter has always, and likely will always be, my comfort food.
What to do, what to do, what to do???
It’s not about the scale; it’s not about the numbers. The scale is not your friend. Do not let the scale dictate, for it will always lead you astray. Muscle weights more than fat. Muscle weights more than fat. Repeat after me: it’s not about the scale, muscle weights more than fat.
End of week two, and I don’t know if I weigh less than I did after the end of week one because the scales in my beautiful, light filled bathroom are different (read: lighter, happier, smarter) than the horrid, high, ridiculous scales at the gym.
I am trying not to think about the scales at the gym which have wiped out my triumphant 4.7 pound weight loss of the first week and replace it with an overall 5.1 pound weight loss at the end of this week. That would mean, this week I lost less than half a pound, but as I mentioned I am trying not to think about it that way.
If my goal is to loose one pound a week on average, I’m three pounds ahead of the game! Yes, that’s a better way to think. I’m three pounds up on my necessary per week weight loss.
Here I should say what I’m doing with my physical body. I have settled into a somewhat regular schedule at last. I am going to the gym to do weight training Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays. The knowledgeable folks at Korezone insist there should be a rest day in between strength training. A rest day is good. Very, very, good.
So far, so good. I just thought I should check in. Write down a few thoughts before they get away from me. One thought is my core. When Ashley, the personal trainer girl (woman? yes, she is a woman! just not an old crone like me and anyone else who has crossed the five-oh threshold) told me to engage my core, I honestly had to wonder if I had one. And that's what I'm seeking. A core. A core without the fleshy apple around it. Not a skeleton (that will happen soon enough) but a core, what I deem essential self. It's in there, I know, but it's long been buried. How many of us bury our essential selves under projects or work or deadlines or words or children or partners or, indeed, even the culmination of too much food, flesh? Somehow we are all afraid to be as big as we can be, and I mean that wholely in a metaphysical sense. Perhaps I am big physically because I am not big spiritually, or emotionally, or intellectually? Perhaps those are thing I am still afraid of. What about sexually? Do larger woman disguise their sexuality in flesh, or is that simply society telling us that sexuality is the negation of flesh and only thin, trim, fit women are allowed to have a good old-fashioned swampy romps?
One thing is certain, lifting the weights makes me feel strong. Going to the gym, I still avoid the mirrors for the most part. Sometime I see myself and I don't cringe because I like what I'm doing. It's like sculptin. My body is the block of marble and slowly I'm taking away, taking away until I find the form beneath. I can see it, sort of, who I want to become. And it's still me but smaller, healthier.
It’s working! I knew it would work, at least for the first few weeks!! (How did you guess, I've been down a similar road ?)
I am not sure it will still be working weeks from now in the deep freeze of February, or the flat monotone of March , or dripping, dog shit surfacing days of April and ever after. But, for now, it is working and I am here to say what is working, how it’s working and a little bit about the way I’m working.
I plan to write once a week, a reflection on the seven days spent, the successes and failures and up and downs of this journey. The title to this blog is key. The first 50 is what this writing is about. It’s a number, it’s a unit, it is what I have carried around on my hips and my belly and my backside and my upper arms (oh those bat winged upper arms!) for the last, oh, 15 years at least. It is the amount of weight in good old fashioned pounds I am attempting to loose in the course of the second 50 of the title, the time frame, the parameters of the project. Fifty weeks isn’t quite a year, but it’s close and the final 50, my age, is the why behind this reckless public muse.
I turned 50 two weeks before the turn of the year, thick in the season of eat and drink. A careful look in the mirror the morning of that milestone birthday gave me pause, to put it mildly. In fact, a look in the mirror-- a good, hard, naked-body, naked eyeball look, in a full length upright mirror – arrested me, stopped me dead in my tracks. I’m not talking cardiac arrest here, not yet, anyway, but rather a stock-still take stock shock.
