A Tale of 20 Pounds

I couldn’t wait to see Denny yesterday. We met for breakfast at King’s in Kittanning, even though we were hoping to find some dive in East Brady, which probably exists, but not on Google.

Denny’s a long-time friend of ex-Larry, and they’d been on a “Sideways”-ish tour of the NY and Canada wine country over the weekend. Denny is also my friend, and the thing about friends when you get divorced, they either pick one side of the couple to side with or they throw their heads back and say, “I like you both. I’m not gonna choose or get in the middle.” Denny’s that friend.

When I walked into King’s, Denny was seated in a booth facing the entrance. When he saw me, he stood up, gave me a big hug, and said, “Hey, I was expecting that waif of a woman in a pink shirt! Your face is fuller. You look great!”

What I heard: “Damn, Lynn, you gained weight again!”

The last time Denny saw me I looked like this:

This is what I look like now:

My lowest weight was 125. I am now 145. Twenty pounds in two years. The gain has stopped, and I know why it happened (surgery, menopause, divorce, move, stress), but still…

I sometimes want to be that waif again.

At least I think I do.

And yet….

1. When I gained 10 pounds last year after my knee surgery, my body felt better. I have severe osteoarthritis, and when my body-fat levels were low, I was in a lot of pain. I’ve not been in as much pain at 145. Hmmm….

2. I like my current food regimen and I don’t want to change or reduce amounts at this point. I eat healthy foods, I’m still a vegetarian, but I’m no longer a food Nazi. I police myself, don’t get me wrong, but I let a baguette or full-fat cream cheese or a piece of my daughter’s banana bread fall through the cracks sometimes. I confess: I’m human.

3. This gain has stopped (I’ve stayed the same weight for 3 months) and I’ve fell in love with exercise again. It was a rough summer. My brother’s seizures and my pending school schedule had my undies in such a bundle there was no way to detangle them. Now that things have settled down and I have a better understanding of what’s what, my exercise schedule and nutritional intake are front and center again.

I learned that in times of stress, that when I stay focused on my health, my principles will not fail me. In the last three months, I’ve made the best decisions I could and stayed conscious of everything I put in my mouth. My food plan – culled over the last six years – has become rote. And that is what I think is the key to success. When the diet you choose becomes second nature, and you allow for some latitude and yet reign yourself in when you go too far, you are there. You get it.

My body has a few more curves than before. I’m no longer a waif, and that sometimes makes me sad. But I feel better physically. I’m strong and I look…eh…well, I’m still working on that positive. I look OK. I fell in love with being skinny. Waifishly skinny. That’s a psychological thing I’m still working out.

Today I was driving down Route 28 on my way home from Claire’s taekwondo class. A man – who I’d guess was in his late 60s – driving a late model (1980s?) black Jaguar passed me, and he was wearing a safari hat like the Man in the Yellow Hat from the Curious George books. There was what looked like a book mark hanging from his rear view mirror. He was singing. I imagined the book markish thing was some kind of saying or verse that he liked that kept him grounded. I thought about what mantra I might hang on my rear view mirror, what words would remind me that I am OK here in this moment, at 145 pounds, happy to be alive and singing in my car.

I’m open to suggestions. What mantra do you live by? What words give you strength?

Read More

September 11...

I concluded today - after two weeks of no bike riding - that riding my bike is the number one stress reliever/mood lifter/mind clearing activity I engage in. It surpasses (and please don’t laugh or judge) sex, cooking, and watching reruns of “Frasier.” Spending time with my grandkids is usually really awesome, but sometimes I leave my daughter’s house needing to de-stress, so technically they don’t qualify. Riding my bike always relieves stress.

On today’s ride, I encountered five new things. 1. A woman riding a horse; 2. A Blue Heron. 3. A couple smacking down a dog toy from a tree branch 10 feet off the ground. They used a very big branch and their Golden Retriever was very anxious to have his toy back. I slowed down on approach, and just as I was going to pass them, the man whacked the branch successfully and all was well in their world; 4. This lovely red mushroom:

And 5. This tree:

I discovered it when I parked my bike on a ride back in May and went hiking down the stream that runs concurrent with the trail. I love the bend of this tree and its moss. I imagined it was the the kind of tree the Victorians leaned against to read “Jane Eyre” or “Age of Innocence.” I visited it again today and thought, ‘Hmmm….I need to bring a book along next time.’

I’m feeling less overwhelmed than I was last week because: A. I discovered once again the importance of a to-do list; and B. Prioritizing. My school schedule is a normal school schedule, but the difference between in-class and online classes is that I have to do the “Xeroxing” myself.

Remember how you used to sit in rows in class and the teacher would hand the first person in the row a pile of papers and he or she would take one and pass it back? In online classes, you have to make your own copies. And not only do you have to make copies, you have to determine what’s relevant. Your in-class teacher always did that for you, right? I don’t know what to learn, so I’m learning it all.

Today I experimented with a bean burger recipe and it turned out…well…not so good. The remnants will become sloppy Joe’s tomorrow. I made hummus, too. But the thing that remains with me today (and is in my head more often than I can say) is what happened 10 years ago.

As I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s CD “The Rising,” I – as millions of us in the U.S. and around the world – remembered the uncertainty, the fear, and the incomprehensible grief and loss and confusion of that day. What stays with me the most is the will and the bravery and the ultimate loss.

I don’t know if we’ll ever wrap our brains around that day. Certainly we’ll never understand it. But what I owe every life lost that day is to appreciate and understand the precarious nature of life. To appreciate a tree, a mushroom, or a bike ride, grandchildren and children, and even people we encounter in traffic. I mean, heck, we’re all trying to live our lives as we know them in this moment, same as the folks who died 10 years ago today in NYC, PA and Washington.

I hope you can value your life, at whatever weight you are, and know that you are loved and would be sorely missed if you weren’t here anymore.

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

Read More

Saturday's Alright For...School

It’s been 15 years since I spent Saturday mornings in a classroom. My alma mater – Augsburg College in Minneapolis – offered a weekend program for working adults. I went to school on Friday nights, all day Saturdays and Sunday afternoons every other weekend for four years to get my degree.

I loved Saturday morning classes the most. My kids spent the day with my sister or my parents, so I didn’t have to worry about daycare. There was no traffic, so the I-94 loop around downtown was a breeze. And I could listen to NPR without hearing “Change the station!” from the back seat.

Today (a Saturday), I went to my first Foods lab at my new school, Community College of Allegheny County. It’s there in the photo below, just up and across the highway from Heinz Field (home of the Steelers and Pitt Panthers), which is in the lower left corner.

Foods is a class I’m really going to love. I know my way around a kitchen, so I shouldn’t get too lost. Wait until I take chemistry and biochemistry, though, then you’ll hear some definite groaning and requests for sharp objects to stick in my eye. Thankfully I’m friends with my ex, Larry, who has his Ph.D. in? Ah….biochem.

I’m taking four courses this semester (12 credits), two of which are Fundamentals of Nutrition and Nutrition Assessment. In Fundamentals, I will have to track my own diet. In NA, I will track the diets of three other people. I admit *hanging my head* that I’ve not been the best at tracking my food intake this summer. I start out great most mornings, but by evening, I’m like, “What did I eat this afternoon? Fruit? Yes? Just pop some popcorn for dinner and call it a night. I can’t think.”

This convergence of getting my food mojo back and taking classes in nutrition and food preparation will screw my head on straight again. I didn’t lose it completely; it’s just that the mojo took a hiatus this summer after being thrown that curveball called brother-with-brain-injury.

I admit *hanging my head again* that prior to June 23, I was pretty cavalier about the role emotions and time constraints played in planning, executing and maintaining a healthy diet. I subscribed to the edict: YOU come first. YOU decide what goes in your mouth. YOU are in charge. While these platitudes are true on the surface, they don’t always apply to every situation.

When you’re busy caring for someone else, you don’t come first. When you’re in a rush and pressured to get to this appointment and that, you’re not always focused on what you put in your mouth. Sometimes a cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread is the best you can do in the moment. “Could you throw some lettuce, onions and cucumbers on that, please?” was sometimes my best effort to get in my veggies. Yes, I’m in charge of myself, but autopilot Lynn is still in training. In the six years I’ve been losing /maintaining weight, I’ve not been as crazybusy/stressed as I have been the last three months. I’m adapting. And learning. And forgiving myself for my transgressions…for the most part.

So….Saturday mornings. Driving to the city. No traffic. I get time in a kitchen with people who seem to be fun, including the instructor. And I can listen to “On the Media” with no one yelling for me to change the station. Just like old times.

Can you dig it? Yes, I can.

Read More

"...it's just a moment of change..."

Hello, my name is Lynn, and I write this blog. You wouldn’t know it, given my 2-week absence, but life got (and still is) really crazy. Let me catch you up.

Two weeks ago I went back to Minnesota to catch up on my brother’s health. Marty is still recovering from the series of seizures he had June 23, which left him with short-term and working memory loss. Caring for Marty was the purpose of my visit. Caring for me happened in the spaces in between.

 My care came from, in no particular order:

 • Jack, who is BFF Pam’s 8-year-old son and the one who gives up his Vikings bed when I stay overnight. Since he learned to talk, Jack has asked the most *interesting* questions. My favorite one from this visit: Lynn, do you have handcuffs?

•  The fire pit at Pam and Mike’s.

•   Sand cranes. There were two standing near a swamp early Sunday morning when Pam took me to the airport.
•  John, my high school boyfriend. Our friendship has endured for 33 years. My daughter Cassie calls him her “Should-be Daddy.”

•  Time alone with my mom.

•  Time alone with my dad.
•  Dinner with Mom and Dad. It was fun to hear them talk about their Hawaii years. Dad was stationed at Pearl. They were married there, and Marty was born at Tripler.

•  The fabulous grilled veggie sandwich at TJ’s. (Thank you, Adele and Jackie, for taking me there!)
•  My brother Matthew’s home-grown tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and poblano peppers.
•  Lunch with my niece Michaela.
• Yana, from Israel, whom I’d never met before I walked into the JC Penney’s salon in Maple Grove. She cut my hair and waxed my eyebrows and made me feel pretty again.
• The two pairs of jeans I bought at NordstromRack. Not only were they 70 percent off, they fit perfectly. Unheard of!
• The kind man who sat next to me on the flight out who talked me through take off (my least favorite part of flying).
• Listening to JT Hodges at 6:30 a.m. while getting ready to go home. Click on this link and listen to “Hunt You Down.” That man is seriously yummy *smile*
• Having the entire row to myself on the flight home.

• Lunch with Cassie after I landed. It’s the first time in 4 years (since Claire was born) that I’ve had her alone for more than an hour. We went to Mad Mex, where she ordered fried ice cream for dessert. (Here she is sawing through the deep-fried tortilla. She had 700 calories to spend after spin class that morning.)

• Finding – 30,000 feet above Lake Michigan – my desire to write again. I thought I’d lost it this summer. Now that I’m back in school full time, I might not write a blog as frequently, but at least I know I still have the desire *grin*

Read More

Dating and the FFG – Part 1: Never Assume A Man Owns Measuring Cups

Remember the scene in Bull Durham when Nuke (Tim Robbins) is on the mound wearing Annie Savoy’s garter and he rolls his eyes back and pitches the ball? That’s kind of what it’s like dating 14 years and a few hundred pounds gained and lost since my last date.

In pre-Google days, it would have been a no-brainer. I’d have waited longer than an initial coffee date to reveal that I used to weigh 300 pounds. But fortunately or not, anyone who searches my name gets the lowdown real fast. So when it comes to dating, I roll my eyes back and throw it out there. I was who I was and I am who I am and the guy up to bat has a number of options of what to do with that curve ball.

This is a first in a series of blogs I’ll be writing from time to time about my experiences as a single woman with an overweight past who is dating but not looking for Mr. Right (I won’t walk down that aisle again). The names have been changed to protect the guilty, but my hope is that it will lead to an ongoing discussion with you about relationships in relation to weight gain and loss.

PBF1 (Potential Boyfriend #1) was five months older than me, taught economics at a private college, and liked to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder and walk me around his “man cave”: a white-walled, sparsely decorated condo. He said throwing me over his shoulders was how he would be able to tell if I ever gained weight.

PBF1 said he had all a man could want: a big-screen TV mounted on the wall, a leather couch and chair, and a “summer” car stored in the garage. Because we dated in the winter, I never got a ride in it.

I wanted to impress PBF1 by making him the always homey Wild Rice Pilaf. Seriously. This stuff is love in a casserole dish. I brought all the ingredients to his condo: wild rice, long grain brown rice, butter, broth, broccoli, carrots, onions, and crushed rosemary. As he sat in his leather chair working on his laptop, occasionally gazing over to the kitchen through Ward Cleaver-like eyes (for the record, I was not wearing high heels or a floral dress with an apron), I searched for anything resembling a measuring cup, particularly since I’d altered the recipe a bit and needed the non-ubiquitous 1/3 cup. I found shot glasses, duct tape and six months of newsletters from the condo board, but no measuring cups.

“Um, babe?” I said. “Do you have measuring cups?”

He laughed and went back to typing.

Blinded by the possibility of true love, I missed what should have been my first clue that this guy was NOT kitchen savvy: an eclectic mix of plates and bowls – pieces of what used to be whole sets of dishes, given to him, no doubt, by his mother.

Knocked off my cooking game, I channeled my domestic MacGyver. ‘Hmmmm…How can I make this pilaf work?’ A shot glasses holds about an ounce of liquid. There are 2.66 ounces in one-third cup. PBF1’s coffee pot held 8 cups of liquid. I could fill water to the one-cup line and then divide it evenly into three glasses. But did he have three of the same glasses? Yes, he did! In the bathroom! Thank you Dixie!

The rice turned out perfectly, but the relationship did not, lasting about as long as it takes to cook wild rice. That’s OK. It’s hard to fall in love with someone who doesn’t know what a dish towel is for. Besides, I found out after we broke up – just after Valentine’s Day – that he is married to a woman who lives in a former Eastern bloc country. *eyeroll*

My former therapist said to me, after telling her about this dating disaster, “We all have baggage. We’re just trying to find someone with a matching set.”

“Heck,” I said, “I’d be happy to find someone with matching flatware!”

Read More

The Here & Now

I’m in a new world with all this school, dating and perimenopause going on in my life. These changes are exciting (well, maybe not the menopause part) and I’m keeping up the best I can, but sometimes a girl just needs a day completely alone.

So today I sequestered myself with myself. I got up later than usual and made coffee and drank it in bed and played WordTwist on Facebook. I put on my biking clothes and went on a 17-mile ride. I went to WalMart and bought fruit, a travel hair dryer and dental floss. When I got home, I didn’t shower because I wanted to shave my legs in a hot bath drinking a glass of wine and listening to iTunes and I couldn’t do that at 2 in the afternoon. So sweaty me ate a salad and then made bean burgers to freeze and veggie soup to freeze and roasted a squash that tomorrow will turn into this soup: http://www.joybauer.com/healthy-recipes/butternut-squash-soup-3.aspx.

Between cooking and bathing, I talked to my brother Marty for an hour, as we do every day, and he – as he always does – floored me with his optimism, despite the fact that his life did a complete 180 on June 23.

“I can either complain and be angry and make everyone around me miserable, or I can say, ‘This is the way things are right now,’” he told me. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not enamored with my situation. I don’t wake up and say, ‘Yahoo!’, but I am thankful for the fact that things aren’t worse.”

Coming to terms with the way things are is NOT easy. We all change and morph and grow and recede. We gain and lose and learn or not learn. When I’m paying attention – where I learn about the changes and morphing – I’m in the center of myself. And whether I “get it” is determined on how much time I spend in that center. I find that when I’m most centered, I’m most mindful of my weight and my continued maintenance goal, something that is extremely important to me. But when I get caught up in the every-day craziness, I’m not always successful. That’s why I’m humbled by people like my brother who – while I wish his circumstances were different, believe me – emulate the way I’d like to view life: through that lens of here and now.

I know it’s not always easy. Jobs, family, personal obligations take up so much of our time. But do you set aside time for yourself? And if so, how does that affect your weight loss/maintenance goals?

Read More

The Dog Days Are Almost Over

For the first time in many days, I am alone, sitting in my dining room, which has no table. My stepsons were here for a few days, fulfilling my birthday gift request: that the entire family be together for the first time since Thanksgiving.

The cicadas are singing along to “Dog Days Are Over.” They shed their nymph shells a few weeks ago, leaving brown exoskeletons scattered over my yard – paper-thin and perfectly detailed duplicates of the cicada’s body pre-emergence.

This has been a summer of change for me, and like a cicada nymph, I’ve emerged from an exoskeletal shell and am learning to use the wings I’ve grown in all the summer’s transitions.

I wrote a blog a few months ago about how a friend told me back in March that until I learned to live within the space of my new life with the same strength and determination with which I lost weight, I would be forever grasping for and holding on to bogus and temporary securities. He said I had to let the loneliness maul me, to feel it to my core and to not run away. In time, he said, it wouldn’t hurt as much and I would be stronger.

I took that challenge and allowed the loneliness to wash over me. I was in the middle of the mauling when my brother Marty had his seizure at the end of June. When he was released from the hospital a few weeks later, I went to Minneapolis to help in whatever way I could. I cried when I was dropped off at the Pittsburgh airport July 18. I cried for my brother and I cried for me. I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to go. I was afraid. I had no idea what to expect or if I was up to what waited for me there.

I worked on shedding that fear on the plane while drinking a first-class glass of wine (Literally, it was the wine they serve first-class passengers, since they’d run out of the cheap stuff they serve coach. And for my “inconvenience,” they gave it to me for free. *smile*) So while sipping said wine, I thought about my strengths: A) I am a mother; B) I used to be the secretary for the senior vice-president of a large general contractor (think airports and sports stadiums, many you’ve probably been to); and C) I’m a practicing Buddhist (I always forget that one). I possess super-human organizational skills and a little more patience than I once had, so whatever was waiting for me in Minneapolis was up against a somewhat powerful force. At least, that’s what I told myself. It and the wine helped.

Long story short, I hit the ground running. The mauling continued, but it loaned me (or “borrowed” me, if you’re from Minnesota) some strength and determination. For facing my fear, I was rewarded with a closer relationship with my brothers. Although I’d prefer the three of us hadn’t gained this closeness because of a brain injury, I’m glad for the trust it has created between us and the trust that I developed in myself. I continue to advocate on behalf of my brother and to keep his schedule from 1,000 miles away, and will go back to Minneapolis in a week. Only this time I won’t cry at the airport.

Some of you might remember that last year I was going to go back to school to become a dietary technician. The divorce, the move and the mauling made that impossible. So, too, did a worsening of the osteoarthritis in my knees, wrists and shoulders. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I don’t blog as much as I used to. The main reason is because 1) sitting for and 2) typing longer than an hour is difficult. Dietary tech classes are mostly online and require several hours a day of writing and computer reading, so I gave up on going to school and, while I was at it, blogging, too.

But feeling sorry for myself is not a favorite pastime and it was making my family nuts. It was hard to accept that I needed help, but it was harder to stay locked in self-sympathy. Hmmm…where had I felt that before? Ah, yes, back in 2004, when I understood that losing weight would be a long and life-changing process, but that it would be even harder to stay 300 pounds. I’d shed my skin then, I could shed it again now.

So in May, I called the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation and began working with a woman named Sara, who helped me think through what I wanted to be when I grew up. After evaluating my physical “issues,” she hooked me up with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Institute for Rehabilitation and Research and its Center for Assistive Technology. Last week I met John, a rehabilitation engineer, who took on my “issues” as a challenge to find the most adaptive computer equipment possible. Among other things, he recommended I use this:

Have any of you used speech recognition software before? I’m anxious to give it a try, but I have a feeling it will be like learning a new language. Or maybe it will be like a microwave. Just like, “How did we ever heat up leftovers before the microwave?” maybe in a few months I’ll be wondering how I ever typed without talking.

My friend assured me the mauling would eventually become a scratch and then a gentle touch and in time I’d come out on the other side stronger. In this shedding of my nymph shell, I find myself somewhere between a scratch and a gentle touch, definitely stronger and definitely happier. Sort of like the happiness Florence and the Machine sing about.

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Read More