A Year-End Progress Report

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It's that time of year, those days and weeks when nearly everyone is uttering the phrase "New Year's resolution." More on that in next week's post. I thought that before I looked forward, I should take a look back.

Way back in January I made a list of goals. I even wrote them down! Of course, I wrote them in my journal-of-the-time and, once that blank book was filled, I put the journal on the shelf and promptly forgot about it--and my goals. (Isn't that how it's supposed to be done?)

This afternoon, I dug out that journal. You see, before I could say if I met my goals, I had to remind myself what they were. (Are you sure that's not how it's supposed to be done?)

I had eight goals. I fulfilled 3 3/4. Not bad, considering I haven't seen them in eleven months!

Here's how I did:

Goal #1:
Write down my goals in my journal. (Check! Could be the easiest goal I ever fulfilled.)

Goal #2:
Join a gym. (Check! In spades!)

Goal #3:
Earn XX number of dollars as a freelancer. (Nope. Missed it by a little more than 10%.)

Goal #4:
Take a vacation. (Check! Visited Greenville, SC in March.)

Goal #5:
Attend a writer's conference. (Nope. Needed that money for a new furnace instead.)

Goal #6:
Lose at least XX lbs. (Nope. Not even close. Of course, that was before I finally swore off scales.)

Goal #7:
Make a quilt. (3/4 Check. I have the quilt top and backing done. I just have to quilt them together. It should be done by the end of February.)

Goal #8:
Take a class to learn something new. (Nope. Still looking for the right class.)

Of course, there are a number of things I accomplished this year that I hadn't even dreamed about when I wrote those goals. This blog, for one. Completing a 5K, for another. Amazing progress on one of my novels, for a third.

So what if I didn't meet half my goals? I still had a GRRRRREAT year. (I just had to channel Tony the Tiger on that one.) That's why I'm re-thinking the whole goals/resolutions thing for 2012. More on that...next year! : )

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy, peaceful, prosperous New Year!

A Holiday Rhyme

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I had visions of posting a holiday poem this week--
"Twas the Night Before Christmas" with a Hanukkah theme. 
I started on Sunday and finished one verse.
By Thursday afternoon, though, it had only gotten worse.
So into the trashcan my scribbles all went,
along with the intentions that were so well-meant.
Instead I offer a prayer that we say every year:
Thank you, God, for sustaining us and bringing us here.
And a wish for the season, to make this just right:



The I Don't Wannas

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My inner toddler is in rare form this week.  I have a huge case of the "I don't wannas." As in: I don't wanna do any work. I don't wanna go to the gym. I don't wanna walk the dog. I don't wanna get out of bed. (For full effect, imagine all that said in a tinny, whiny voice.)

I'm not sure what's causing this particular outbreak. It could be the cold weather. It could be the grey skies. It could be a let down from my 5K accomplishment. It could be the endless Christmas ads and music and television programs. It could be anything.

What I am sure of is that it is wreaking havoc with what I need to accomplish. Including this week, I have ten deadlines over fifteen business days. With that schedule, there is no time for lollygagging. (Isn't that a great word?)

I have given in a little bit. I've let myself sleep a bit longer in the mornings. I've lowered the intensity of my workouts at the gym. (I can't not go to the gym, though, because that would put me in far too much danger of never going back.) I take frequent work breaks.

But the I don't wanna monster persists. I've tried buckling down. I've tried ignoring it. I've tried telling it to go away. Its response is always the same: "I don't wanna."

Reflections on My 5K Experience

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One week ago today, I completed my first official 5K race. (Hey, that almost rhymes!) Having never watched, let alone participated in, such an event, I had no idea what it would be like. I can sum it up in two words: organized chaos.

When I first arrived at the race, participants were herded between two large chainlink fences that bore a striking resemblance to a corral. Amazingly enough, not a single person said, "Moo!" The thousands of participants (yes, thousands--my bib number was 5210, and I saw bibs numbered into the 10,000s) were funnelled to the start line and set loose on the course in three different groups. I was supposed to be in group 3, but somehow ended up actually crossing the start line with group 1. Did I mention it was organized chaos?

The course covered one of my most favorite places in Southern California: Dana Point Harbor. I once lived down the street from the Harbor and brought Benji to walk there as often as I could. This time, though, I didn't slow down to enjoy the view. The only view I wanted to see was the finish line.

The entire course took me about 56 minutes to complete, a little longer than my treadmill 5K's but shorter than I expected for this race. I was passed by hordes of runners (more about them later) but held my own among the walkers.

By the time I finished the race, I'd realized a few things. This is what I learned:
  • 5K feels like a much longer distance on pavement than it does on a treadmill. (Yes, I know mathematically it's the exact same distance.)
  • Some very strange people participate in 5K races. There were dozens of people wearing rubber turkeys on their heads, a few in the traditional Thanksgiving politically-incorrect garb of Pilgrims and Indians, one hot dog running alongside a ketchup bottle and mustard bottle, and Santa with his reindeer--complete with jingly bells.
  • Runners are snobs. While waiting in the corral to start the race, I heard a runner behind me making fun of people who walk the distance. Other runners who sped past me during the race often bumped me as they ran by. How about an "excuse me" or an "on the left!"?
I haven't decided yet if I'm going to run another 5K soon, or ever. The most important lesson of this experience is that I now know for sure that I can do it. I even have the pictures to prove it!

A Few Words of Thanks

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In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog and especially to those who have left comments, either on the blog or via e-mail. Your support has been invaluable. There have been times when I felt completely alone in my efforts. This blog has reminded me that I am not alone, and that I have more support than I ever imagined I did. For that I can only say,

Thank you!

Going Back to Cali***

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Ten days from today, I will by flying back to California for Thanksgiving Week. To say that I'm a little nervous would be an understatement. I am downright scared to death.

I'm not scared of flying, nor am I scared about the 5K on Thanksgiving morning. (Nervous, yes, but not scared.) I'm going back to the place where I learned to hate myself, and I'm spending a full week there. That's what scares me.

Not so long ago, I would have avoided the feeling, eaten until I felt numb. While I do see that possibility hovering on the horizon, it is not something I consider a viable option. Eating until I feel numb got me where I am. It reinforces all those negative messages that were glued onto my brain. The question is, what do I do instead?

I have tried distracting myself. I've squeezed out another couple hundreds words of my novel. I've thrown myself into work. I've read voraciously. I've quilted until my fingers cramped. Each time, the fear dissipated for a while and then came back.

I have tried doing things that make me feel stronger. I sorted through my closet, packed up four shopping bags of too-big clothes, and dropped them off at Goodwill. I've been cleaning my house five minutes at a time. I've been writing in my journal. I've been running up the stairs--because I can, finally, and to use up some of the adrenaline the fear leaves in my veins. I've been walking Benji as briskly as his little legs can handle.

But the fear remains. Right now, I'd say the fear and I are locked in a game of chicken. The question is, which one of us is going to blink first?


***Apologies to LL Cool J for appropriating his song title

Size this!

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As the weather has started to cool, I've been sorting through my winter clothes--those in my closet and those in my "someday they'll fit" bags. In the process, I made a rather frustrating discovery: size doesn't matter. Clothing size, that is.

I don't if this is true for "normal"/"misses"/"skinny-people" sizes, but in the plus size world, there doesn't seem to be any standardization of sizes. One manufacturer's size 18 is another manufacturer's size 20. One company's XL is another company's XXL. At one store, an XL means size 18, but another store considers size 14 to be an XL.

Consequently, I have absolutely no idea what size clothing I wear. Everything I keep in my closet and dresser drawers fits me. It just all happens to span three different sizes. I have snug jeans that are two sizes higher than my comfy jeans. I have an XL sweatshirt that is baggier than an XXL I bought at the same store. And don't get me started on the bra thing. That's just as bad--maybe worse.

Whatever happened to standardization of measures? By law, a pound is a pound is a pound, no matter where that pound is being weighed. Shouldn't clothing measures be just as standardized? In fact, instead of applying arbitrary numbers like 14 or XL, why aren't women's clothes sold by their measurements, like men's? Then I might actually get around to finding out what my measurements are!

T Minus Five Weeks

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I made the mistake of checking the calendar yesterday and counting the weeks until my 5K. I have five left to go. In some ways, that seems like forever. In others, it feels like the day after tomorrow.

Now the butterflies in my stomach are doing jumping jacks. (Can butterflies do jumping jacks? Maybe they're doing somersaults. Either way, it's darn uncomfortable!) I'm starting to get scared. The ol' "What the h@$% was I thinking?" recording is playing on a loop, with occasional commercial interruptions for Everything That Can Go Wrong.

The logical side of my brain is putting up a valiant fight, reminding me that I can, in fact, do this. I walk 5K at least once a week. (Twice this week!) There is no reason to think I won't be able to walk 5K on Thanksgiving morning.

But my irrational side is loud and persistent, like that pesky little child who insists on interrupting every single one of Mom's conversations. I know in five weeks I'll be able to turn to that pesky little child and say, "HA! I told you I could do it!" but first, I have to get through the next five weeks.

One Woman's Drip Is Another Woman's Deluge

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To someone lost in the desert,  a few drops of water would probably be something of a miracle. I know how they feel.

As I wrote last week, I've been lost in the writing desert, wandering in search of my missing mojo. This week, I found a few drops of water. Not a river, not a stream, not even a brook. Just a few scattered drops, like the light rain that does little more than rearrange the dirt on your windshield. In my case, it was a grand total of 253 words. Like that person wandering aimlessly in the desert, I find those few drops, those 253 words, to be a miracle.

I still haven't found the few thousand words I need to finish my novel, but now I need a few thousand minus 250. Whoever thought I'd be so darn pleased with a weekly writing total of 253 words?


There's a Light....

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...and it's either the end of the tunnel or an oncoming train. Metaphorically speaking, that is. Literally, it's the finishing of my first novel. I'm not there yet, but I see it in my near future---like that proverbial light in the distance.

This week, I crossed the 20,000 word mark on my middle grade novel. The standard middle grade novel is between 25,000 and 40,000 words. ("Middle grade" means readers ages 8-12. Think Little House on the Prairie, Island of the Blue Dolphins, or the first couple of Harry Potter books.)

It's not just my word count that tells me I'm getting close to the end. It's my story, too. I'm down to the last 4 or 5 chapters.

And I'm stuck.

I see the light in the distance, but it's not getting any closer. I know where the story is going. I know what my characters are going to do. I know what they're going to feel. I just can't find the words to explain it all and bring it to life.

Talk about frustrating! It's like when you know the word you want, but it stays just out of reach, dancing on the edge of your consciousness, teasing you with its thumb on its nose. Now imagine five thousand words doing that exact same thing. Welcome to my world.

My characters aren't much help either. I can see them, standing in my peripheral vision, wiggling their fingers with their thumbs in their ears, sticking out their tongues at me. I try chasing them, but they're always a step or ten ahead of me.

For the moment, I'm pretending to ignore them and devoting my creative energies to other projects, like my quilting. I'm hoping the diversions will "unblock" my writing. In the meantime, I'm keeping an eye on that light to make sure it doesn't go away.

Thank you, Steve Jobs

Thank you, Steve Jobs, for the iPod that plays the music that keeps me moving at the gym.

Thank you for iTunes, which gave me most of the music on my iPod.

Thank you for the iMac on which I work and write and play.

Thank you for the iBook that lets me work and write at the library and in the park and everywhere else that's not home.

Thank you for the PowerBook on which I wrote my Master's Thesis and started my novels. It now rests in peace on a shelf in my office.

Thank you for the Mac Classic, which long ago was resigned to a recycling heap in Southern California, on which I wrote my first lesson plans and teaching materials.

Thank you for Pixar, which allowed me to escape into the worlds of Toy Story and WALL-E.

Thank you for your vision and your genius and for this lesson, which I am trying to learn and live by:

"Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
--Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, June 12, 2005 


The Other Hand

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I really should learn to be more specific in my requests. When I asked the Universe last week for something light and fun to write about this week, I didn't mean "make me suffer so I can have something for people to laugh at." But that's exactly what happened.

Whenever I spend too much time writing and typing and quilting, my right wrist lets me know. That's what happened on Monday. After days of (over)work and letter writing and sewing, the tendinitis in my right wrist made a return appearance. This happens about once a year, so I know exactly how to treat it: soak in warm water with Epsom salts, take a pain killer, wear my wrist brace for 7-10 days.

This time around, however,  I had read an article that led me to try an experiment. The article described a study that concluded people who eat with their non-dominant hand tended to eat more mindfully and eat less. I figured, why not give it a shot? After all, my right wrist could use the rest!

What on Earth was I thinking?

My left hand is more vestigial organ than equal partner. Whatever the opposite of ambidextrous is, that's what I am. I step heavier with my right foot. I have better vision in my right eye than my left. I cannot walk up or down stairs unless I take the first step with my right foot. That's how right-dominant my body is. Whatever made me think I'd be able to use my left hand to accurately balance and guide an eating utensil?

Eating Monday's sandwich wasn't too bad, though it would have been more successful if I'd used leaf lettuce instead of shredded. (Lettuce here, lettuce there, lettuce lettuce everywhere!)

Tuesday night's broccoli and baked potato was more of an adventure. Have you ever seen someone try to catch a chicken? The chickens run all over the place, flapping their wings, jumping off the ground, anything to avoid being caught. My broccoli and potato became chickens. The little buggers scurried all over the plate trying to escape while my uncoordinated left hand tried to stab them.

The pièce de résistance, however, was last night's chicken soup. (Another "What was I thinking?"moment.) You know how babies end up with food all over their faces, their bibs, their high chairs, and the floors around them? There's more food on and around the baby than in the baby? That was me eating soup with my left hand. While I did manage to avoid spilling soup on the floor, I wasn't so good at keeping the soup off me, my clothes, or the table. (Laundry is going to be a joy.)

Call me a coward, but I think tonight I'll go back to eating with my right hand.

A Small Victory

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As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I haven't seen many changes in my body or clothing in the last few months. Today, finally, the Universe sent me a small "Atta Girl!"

A couple of years ago, I bought the warmest, comfiest sweaters ever at L.L. Bean. They were my favorites. Wearing them was like wearing a hug. By the end of last winter, though, those sweaters were swimming on me--more like muumuus than sweaters. So I gave them to Goodwill, so they could keep someone else warm.

Today, I stopped at L.L. Bean to buy a new sweater. (Actually, I went to buy slippers--which I did--but I couldn't resist the sweaters, too.) I thought I'd need a sweater one size smaller than my old ones. I was wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

I've never been happier to be wrong. The sweater that fit me best was TWO SIZES smaller than my old ones. And, best of all, it did not come from the Plus Size section. It was a "normal" size. (WOO HOO!)

I still need to buy most of my clothes in Plus Sizes, but wow! What victory to know that I have at least one piece of my wardrobe that's more "minus" than "plus"!

There Are No Fat People on Star Trek

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Actually, that's not entirely true. It just seems that way. You see, the only fat people on Star Trek are villains and aliens.

I'm sure the creators have a ready explanation for that: Star Fleet is a military institution and must maintain certain standards of fitness, etc, etc, etc. But still, what kind of message does that send?

Next week is Weight Stigma Awareness Week and I've been thinking a lot about the messages, both intentional and unintentional, that popular media sends about weight, the stigmas it creates and reinforces. For some reason, I fixated on Star Trek.

So when a widely popular show such as Star Trek features obese people only as villains and aliens, what messages does that send? Not tolerant ones, that's for sure. It says that fat people aren't part of the human race. Overweight people are "Them"; the human race is "Us." It says fat people are bad, evil, can't be trusted. Heck, even outside of Star Trek, movie villains are described as "heavies."

In a 2010 study, researchers asked students to choose which child in a series of pictures was "good" and which child was "bad." The only difference among the children in the pictures was their shade of skin color. The study found that most students chose lighter skinned children as "good" and darker skinned children as "bad."

I wonder what would happen if that study were repeated not with skin color as the differentiating factor, but body size. My instinct says that the larger children would be chosen as "bad" and the smaller children as "good."

We live in a society that proclaims we were all created equal, but it's clear we don't see or treat each other that way. Wouldn't it be nice if we did?

Losing My Balance

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This was one of those weeks in which work consumed my life. I completely lost the "life balance" part of "work-life balance."

I was so disoriented by my quantity of work and the immediacy of my deadlines that I completely lost track of everything else. I even forgot about this blog (until the wee hours of Thursday night/Friday morning, at which point I decided against jumping out of my warm, cozy bed and running down to the cold basement to quickly type whatever my semi-coherent brain conjured.)

How did I go off track? Let me count the ways:
  • I started working before my usual 8 a.m.-ish start time and worked past my usual 5 p.m. quitting time.
  • I worked on my novel for a total of 30 minutes and 100 words. (My weekly average is usually 1,000 words in 2-3 hours.)
  • I did not respond to any non-work-related e-mails or letters.
  • I cut my gym time by 30 minutes. (I usually complete the American Heart Association recommended 150 minutes of cardio a week. This week I barely squeezed in 120 minutes.)
  • I forgot to eat mindfully. I just ate. Once or twice, I even forgot that I'd eaten--so I ate again.
  • I spent my usual nightly reading time catatonic in front of the television. (Don't ask me what I watched. My eyes were more like mirrors than windows.)
  • I skipped my morning journal writing.
Please don't mistake this list or this post for self-flagellation. I am not punishing myself for losing my way. I am trying to be retroactively self-aware.

I'd love to say that I have learned my lesson and that this will never, ever happen again. But I have learned on this journey not to speak in absolutes. This could very well happen again. I am very practiced at being a workaholic. That's a hard habit to break. (Heck, all habits are hard to break. That's what makes them habits!) But maybe now I'll be able to spot the signs of derailment before the train goes completely off the tracks, as it did this week.

In the meantime, I'm off to find that missing "life balance."

A horse-drawn carriage in a race-car world

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Patience may be a virtue, but it’s not always one of my virtues—especially when it comes to myself. This healthy living journey is a prime example. When I started this journey back in January, I had expectations about where I’d be at certain milestones. For my birthday, for example, I had expected to be able to wear a certain dress.

I was wrong.

Said dress was far too tight to be worn. The jeans that were snug back in March are still snug. (However, those same jeans were unzippable back in January. I have made some progress.)

I know I am developing healthier habits. I know my body is healthier because of it. I also know that the path I chose—the path of intuitive eating, the path of focusing on mindset and behaviors instead of calories of food and pounds of weight—is the longer, more circuitous route to my goal. I take as almost as many steps backward as I take forward.

But I want more and I want it now. I want one hour at the gym to melt off a pound and a half. I want to eat a salad and see half an inch melt off my midsection. I want to think about lifting a dumbbell and feel my arm grow stronger. I want to go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning able to fit comfortably into that birthday dress.

We live in a world of instant gratification. We exchange e-mails instead of letters. We use microwaves instead of ovens. We text and instant message and tweet and ping.

Weight loss isn’t built for that world. Weight loss is all about delayed gratification. It means doing the work now to see the results later, whether later is the end of the week, the end of the month, or the end of the journey. It means being patient in a world that fosters impatience. 

Sometimes that really tries my patience.

Please help a library in need

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A change of pace this week.

My local library is a gift. Its resources allow me to do research on their shelves or online. Its book collection provides me with hours of reading materials--and saves my house from looking like it belongs in one of those hoarding shows on TV. On days when it's dangerous for me to be anywhere near my kitchen, I can set up my laptop at the library and work without the risk of falling off my healthy living wagon. It would not be an understatement to say that many thousands of words of my novels were written at "my" library. In some ways, it feels like a second home. I would be devastated if anything happened to it.

I imagine the people in the areas affected by Hurricane Irene feel the same way about their libraries. Water is never kind to books, and Irene left entirely too much water in her wake. (No pun intended.) One library in the Adirondacks lost almost its entire picture book collection. I'm sure other libraries were equally damaged or worse. The Library Journal is piecing together the story. Many libraries are still without power and/or access, so the exact extent of the damage is still unknown.

So please, if you have the resources, help a library rebuild. LibraryThing is compiling a list of Irene-affected libraries. You can visit that list here. (As of this writing, there is only one library listed. I'm sure more will be added as information becomes available.)

Another option is to search Amazon for library wish lists. You can link to a list of library wish lists here. If you would like to donate to a library in a specific city or state, simply follow the link and then enter the place names in the "City or State" box and click Go.

In the words of Henry Ward Beecher, "A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life." Thank you for helping Irene-ravaged communities reclaim their necessities.
 

Boycott This Book!

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Yesterday, I stumbled across a book called Maggie Goes on a Diet. It's a picture book for children ages 4-8. It is due on shelves in October, and it has me all riled up.

Maggie Goes on a Diet tells the story of an insecure, overweight teenager who is bullied and teased by her schoolmates. She decides that losing weight will solve her problems. When she does lose weight, she becomes instantly popular and the school soccer star.

The author said in an interview that he wanted to address the childhood obesity epidemic, that he wanted to promote healthy eating and an active lifestyle for kids. Those are certainly good intentions. I'm trying to incorporate those exact behaviors into my life right now.

But, we all know where good intentions can lead. That's what happened with this book, I think. Despite this author's good intentions, his story reinforces far too many harmful messages. For example:

  • The story implies that it is acceptable to bully and tease overweight children. 
    • It is never acceptable to tease or bully children--or anyone else, for that matter. 

  • The story blames Maggie for being teased and bullied. (It is her fault because she's overweight.)
    • Teasing and bullying is never the victim's fault (even though they tend to blame themselves. I certainly did.) 

  • The story sends the message that losing weight will solve all of your problems.
    • This is called "magical thinking," and it doesn't work. 

  •  The story sends the message that a child should be liked and accepted on the basis of his or her weight. (Maggie does not become popular until she becomes skinny.)
    • To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Children should be appreciated for the contents of their character, not the size of their waistlines. (So should everyone else, by the way.)


    Then there's this:
    Do we really want 4-year-olds learning about diets? Do we want 6-year-olds obsessing about their body image? Can you picture some sweet little preschooler saying to her teacher, "Just juice for me, please. I'm on a diet"? Or some first grader telling her friends, "I need to lose at least 5 pounds--I can pinch a whole inch"?

    It's bad enough that we play these body-image mind games with teenagers and grown women. We don't need to do it to young kids too.