All Diets are Meant to Be Broken

All diets are meant to be broken and I have broken every diet I have ever been on. I became a vegetarian but today I ate herb and lemon chicken, mashed potatoes and gray and green salad and it was wonderful. I'll go back on the vegetarian diet tomorrow. From a cholesterol standpoint, the chicken was roasted on a rotisserie so it wasn't fried. But I ate the skin. Is that as bad as the half of a chocolate bar I ate. Who cares?

Free At Last

I got my ultrasound results back from the doctor and I no longer have a blood clot in my leg. I no longer have to wear compression stockings or take Warfarin. It will be much easier to go swimming if I don't have to contend with compression stockings.

Most of the time I accept my weight, except when I try to do prostrations or when my knees hurt after sitting a long time. I don't know if my knees are hurting because of arthritis or because of supporting my weight. It is easy to blame it on the weight.

There was only one woman who was bigger than me at Seminary. Most Buddhists are thin. I had to order a khaki shirt for Kasung duty because they didn't have a shirt in my size that I could borrow. My feet swelled up when I did Chi Gong, forcing me to leave the session early because my feet hurt.

Anyway, I will keep exercising, eating carefully and watching what happens.

Health at Any Size

I finished reading a book called Health at Any Size. It confirms what I suspected all along. If I eat healthy foods and exercise, my health can improve regardless of my weight. I am relieved because most of my concern about weight is regarding my health, not the aesthetics.

I became a vegetarian because of my high cholesterol. I have been a vegetarian for three weeks. I had blood work done and my cholesterol is normal and so is my blood sugar. I feel empowered and definitely less worried.

Living with Fat

I was talking with my sister on the phone yesterday and she asked me if I had explored some more options for losing weight. I said that I hadn't. I told her that I was choosing to do nothing right now except to eat like a normal person and get exercise. I told her I was burned out on the weight loss effort. I've been through Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous and two nutritionists. I have explored Medifast but can't see myself existing entirely on liquids. I have explored bariatric surgery but don't want my organs rerouted. I suspect that even when I eat like a normal person I will put on weight. That to maintain a healthy body weight I have to eat less than normal and this is hard because I get hungry. I'm not ready to get my stomach cut up, to give up carbonated beverages and rice, to take all my medications in liquid form and my vitamins in chewable form. I'm just not ready. So I'm living with the fat and trying not to get fatter. Being fat sometimes feeds on itself. The attitude is "I look like hell, I might as well overeat since I'm fat anyway." So I'm changing that attitude and watching my portions and the type of food I eat. My attitude is "My body deserves healthy whole foods in moderate portions." It could work.

All Those Rotten *@#$holes

Pursuant to my commitment to write in my notebook everyday, I have been reflecting on relationships I had prior to marrying my husband. No specific relationships have been described, only reflections in general terms. As we go through life we are constantly changing as our situations change. I wasn't the same person with one lover as I was with another. So each relationship has a different reason why it ended. I must admit my thinking and logic were fuzzy as I wrote. I came to the epiphany that I did nothing wrong. They were just @#$holes. This is because my current husband is a prince. So it turns out my dream, which I was compelled to pursue no matter what, finally came true at the age of 46.

Listening to Life

This is day two of writing in my notebook each day. Before I thought I had nothing to write about. Now I see there is so much to write about I don't know where to start. I just had to start listening to life. Listen to words spoken and to my thoughts and emotions. I have the writing notebook, which is 200 pages and the cahier, where I write down ideas and interesting quotes I have heard. Then there is the personal journal where I write down what I experienced when I wrote in the notebooks. I have been silent for four years so I'm getting my chops down again.
My father and mother are in Mexico right now. My dad swims in the ocean 6 days out of the week. He said he heard whales this morning "The mother sounded like a foghorn and the baby sounded like a cricket." He was listening to life.

New Subjects

My DVT is healing. I can go swimming again. Having DVT really made me think about how I wanted to live my life. I have been reading Living in the Face of Death, a collection of Buddhist essays on death. The main gist is that we don't know the day or hour of our death so we shouldn't waste time. For me this means practicing every day and I've started to write outside of this blog and my personal journal. I have a 200 sheet notebook and I'm going to write stories, essays and poems every day. Write whatever comes to mind but just continue to write. I have been silent for about four years as I plug away at my technical writing job. Those damn bills.

Deep Vein Thrombosis

When I was on solitary retreat in early December, I thought I would be macho and sit for three hours at a time. As a result, the entire vein in my right leg clotted up. I was diagnosed with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). Fat people are at risk for DVT. This is the first time I have ever had a life threatening condition. Aside from a couple of anxiety attacks I got used to it.

The first week I had to inject lovenox sub-cutaneously and after a week of that, twice a day, my stomach turned black and swelled up with scar tissue. It's been about two weeks and the bruises are fading but there is a lot of scar tissue, hopefully not permanent. For a while the scar tissue was pushing against my uterus and causing cramps.

I wear compression socks and keep my leg elevated whenever I sit down, but I can now walk short distances and can drive. I can't swim right now because vigorous activity might dislodge the clot and send it to my lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. Even the word sounds ominous and it is.

I cancelled my appointment with my nutrionist because weight gain is inevitable without exercise. I don't want to have to drive 20 miles just to see my weight go up. I have to decide whether I want to eat vegetables or not. If I eat vegetables, I will have to have my warfarin adjusted again. I haven't been eating vegetables lately. Or much of anything else.

After years of meditation, I cut certain thoughts and not let my mind go to certain places. However I can't help but think...my body is turning against me and I am just going to get fatter and fatter...and then I cut the thoughts and don't go there.

The Medical Community

Doctors evangelize thinness to the point that I wonder if fat isn't scapegoated. Doctors assume that you are overweight because you are overeating. Not only do they assume that you're overeating, they assume that you are eating bad things with sugar, cholesterol and trans fats. One doctor said that I was so lucky that my blood sugar and cholesterol are in the normal range. It was not luck. I don't eat sugar, cholesterol or trans fats. Why not give me some credit rather than assuming I am just a lucky fat person who eats bad food?

More than just a fat woman

I am more than just a fat woman. I am a wife, swimmer, writer, musician and Buddhist. Losing weight is a full time job and can take up a lot of head space. For just one minute can I forget that I am overweight and do my sitting meditation? Sometimes I am so obsessed with losing weight that I forget my other qualities.

Fashion for Plus Size Woman

I lose weight slowly so I have to live with that weight. I find reading plus size women's clothing catalogs really help me like my body better. I am a fan of MIB (Making it Big), Ulla Popken and Silhouettes. Their clothing is well made and reasonably priced for the quality you get. Avenue and Lane Bryant's stuff is cheap---tends to shrink and pill. 

Junonia is overpriced for the style your getting. Their style is either sporty or dowdy. I bought a fused fleece jacket from them on sale for 19.95 marked down from 49.95. Two years later, the fused fleece is separating and the seams are sprouting holes and I've only washed the jacket in cold water on the gentle cycle about three times. Their apple shaped pants fit well however, and they have sporty chlorine resistant swimsuits. I have had my swimsuit for two years and it wears like iron. Still, I could get a chlorine resistant swimsuit from Vermont Country Store for $40 less than Junonia. With the exception of the apple shaped pants, Junonia caters to a different kind of large woman. The Junonia woman is around 5'6" with big breasts, a defined waistline, large hips and thick legs. Lane Bryant also caters to this shape of woman. Which is great. But I'm not that shape.

MIB has a wide variety of cotton jersey knit pants: tapered, straight leg, wide leg and draped. They have a long option (33" inseam) that I always order. The pants go with everything, can be dressed up for work or dressed down for casual. They use large women as models so you can see how the clothes will really look. Their blouses are rayon or cotton in batik prints and rich colors and are so beautiful they will never go out of style.

If I have beautiful clothes to wear, that fit and flatter my body, I can like my body better. If I like my body, I am more likely to make good food choices. I shop for almost all of my clothes online, because I am tall as well as large. Most brick and mortar stores cater to the plump hourglass shape I mentioned before. and to petite women.

Slacking off a little

I forgot to bring home the forms that I use to write down my food. I have not written my food down for a whole week. I'll start fresh on Monday.

My nutritionist wants me to stay between 1600 - 1800 calories a day. Guess what? Food has a lot of calories and I've had to streamline my food choices. All my dairy products are non-fat and I gave up butter for Smart Balance. I downloaded the Weight Watchers Core Foods guide and follow it for my food choices. I only eat bread once a day (bread is forbidden in the Core Foods program) and eat moderate amounts of unlimited grains like quinoa and rolled oats.

My husband brings home these fabulous bagels from a bakery near our house. My nutritionist says they have the calorie equivalent of four slices of bread, which they do, but I let myself have one on the weekends.

I eat 4 oz of lean meat (salmon, chicken, lamb) once a day and usually have non-fat cottage cheese at night. Three servings of fruit, steering away from bananas and two generous portions of vegetables: spinach, carrots, green beans, broccoli, occasionally asparagus.

Now if I can stick with this plan, I lose weight. But lately there's been some temptation. Pumpkin pie and molasses cookies. I had two slices of pumpkin pie for two days in a row and three molasses cookies on Thanksgiving night. Eating sugar can boost your triglycerides, which is not good. But sometimes I eat first and think later. 6 cookies with orange frosting - Oh my God, my triglycerides! How about those triglycerides.

Some people advocate taking a break but I gain weight so easily. Weight is much easier to gain than to lose. So I have been doing less of those breaks.

Apple Shaped Woman

I am 5 feet 10 and weigh 274 pounds as of this date. I am apple shaped so all of my weight goes to my stomach. People with fat bellies are prone to any malady...kidney stones, diabetes, heart disease, cancer to name a few. Carrying extra weight is hard on my feet. I can stand or walk for only so long. I was thin in my teens, twenties and thirties and started putting on weight in my forties. I am now in my fifties and have been living with extra weight for over 10 years.

I am seeing a nutritionist, writing down the calories, fat and carbohydrate of everything I eat and I swim 4 times a week, usually for an hour. So far I have been beating the odds as far as cholesterol and high blood pressure. What I am trying to do is live with extra weight without hating myself.