My Fat Fatwa: New Jeans and Toxins

Let's get the bad news out of the way: losing weight hurts.  Well at least for me it does, and I imagine for many others it does as well.

A few weeks in and I still have days of depression, and I have had many, many days of pain so far. I have had a tendency to get inflamed joints as it is, particularly in places like my shoulders, ankles, knees, and hands.  The shoulder pain is usually the worst but this time it has also been hand pain.

And I could not for the life of me figure out why, when I'm doing something positive, I was having so much inflammation.

After some research I discovered one word: toxins. Every chemical and pesticide and pretty much every nasty toxic thing can be stored in fat cells. So when you start burning those fat cells, guess what? Those babies empty into your system, travel the length of your body, and inflame various parts of your body. Isn't that delightful?

So the price you pay is fatigue and feeling like crap, and in my case, you have sore joints. And who really wants to exercise with inflamed joints? I can't do it. I always end up making that situation worse not better. So I break out the antioxidants and flood my body with things that will help flush this stuff out. But if the past few weeks are any indicator, this is going to be the norm for me. And I have the distinct feeling that this is the case for many who struggle to lose weight.

So while I watch spokespeople for various programs tout their wares on national television, talking about how wonderful they feel, I would like everyone to know that you can also be doing it right AND STILL FEEL LIKE CRAP.  Don't let the bouncy, perky, people make you feel bad about feeling bad. It's all par for your course.

But it isn't all bad news for me.

While I haven't yet reached my first goal weight milestone on Weight Watchers, I have continued being a loser.

This has meant two monumental things happened:

1) I have now lost a total of 6.6 lbs.  Considering how much I have to lose it may not seem like much, but it's just enough to be losing at just the right pace.

And the happy part is the continuing to lose even tenths of a pound.

2) My jeans were so loose, I had to buy new ones.  It was so satisfying to already have to go down one pants size.  Not that every pair of jeans in that size fit me, but these do. Losing a size already is amazing. And replacing my former jeans was completely necessary. I had already invested in a fun little implement called a "hip hugger" that clips on your jeans and helps them stay up.  And even with that, it worked for a few days and then I continued to have the same issue progressing.

Now these jeans are snug. And that makes me happy, knowing that in the next few weeks, I will likely have these become looser too. But they aren't uncomfortable now. It's a win-win.

So to all of my fellow losers out there, keep on my soldiers. It's a rough battle, but battle on!

My Fat Fatwa: Finding Motivation

I swear, the past twenty-four hours have been hellish.

As far as I knew, Weight Watchers was *not* supposed to feel like this.

Here's the deal: I was expecting to feel obnoxious. I've been at the beginning of a major dietary coup before. I know I wasn't supposed to feel all sunshine and rainbows. But, come on! The problem is, that for a few days now, since I started my campaign, I have been famished. It's not that I am starving myself.  We had a pretty good stock pile of frozen veggies and fresh fruits.  And I have been hitting those like a madwoman.  And no matter how much of those I ate, it wouldn't be terribly long before they would be gone, and I would feel like I hadn't eaten anything at all.  Nothing.  It was freaking awful.

When you go to bed and wake up feeling like you want to gnaw your own arm off, something is amiss. For a while I was wondering if the whole experience was going to be like this.  Am I going to just continue to feel like an emotional wreck? And will people allow me to be grumpy?

Really the happy pappy dieting success people were getting on my nerves too.  Can I not just be allowed to be grumpy?  Can't we all just allow each other to be grumpy at least in the beginning?

I think we should allow ourselves to feel awful without retribution.  Why do we expect that we have to feel one way or another? Why do we feel it necessary to require others to feel happy, pumped, or on fire? I would argue that each individual needs to process an experience individually.

Still, I would like to feel better and not feel like I was ravenously hungry all the time. I was going through all the usual suspects.  I was using all my Weight Watchers points.  That was the problem the last time I tried doing the WW thing about 7 years ago. I would not use all my points and not only would I not lose weight, I'd feel like ass all the time. But that's not the case here. I had been loading on all my zero point, power foods that they recommended.

I was eating better. What the heck was going on here?!!!

Then it hit me: carbs and sugar.

The natural progression, because sugar and carbs have a tendency to scarf up points like nothing else, was to avoid those things. And this is good.  A good transition to make. But my body was obviously going into shock. I was having my own little biological nervous breakdown for lack of scones and sandwiches and things that had sugar and empty carbs coming out the wazoo.

So I got myself a sandwich at lunch.  On a whole wheat, denser and more fiber-filled bun.  A lean barbecue chicken sandwich.  And while I felt a little on the tired side, it was SO MUCH BETTER than what I felt like before.

On top of this, I was able to do a Trader Joe's run, where my family helped me stock the cupboard, freezer, and fridge with an array of interesting foods. I have soups I have never tried before, and multi-rice dishes, and fiber-rich snacks and healthy bread. All ways to round out the diet where I was lacking and get a little adventurous.  I also picked up kumquats (which I had never tried before) and blood oranges (which I also haven't tried.)

Here is my thought: if I have to upend my dietary life, let's try something completely different. Let's do a little culinary off-roading and see what happens?

My Fat Fatwa: Episode One

To start off my blog again, to return to the blogosphere in a dramatic style, I would like to announce that I joined Weight Watchers.

This all began innocently enough. I was watching television with my family, and my dad pipes up and recommends, out-of-the-blue, that I should join Nutri-System.  I pointed out that I didn't think they would have the selection of frozen, pre-packaged foods that I would totally be on board with.  Every commercial featured a cheesy, dairy-filled commercial with milkshakes and the whole nine yards.  As a member of the lactose intolerant this would wage unmitigated gastrointestinal blitzkrieg.  And I'm pretty sure that the selection, while good, isn't good enough to keep me satisfied in the long term.  And I know that the transition from pre-packaged food to real everyday eating habits can often cause issues.

So I pointed out that if I was going to do something like that, I had been more thinking about joining Weight Watchers.  It had worked a little at one time when I attempted it before. Before life got even more complicated, stress had piled on, and everything changed again. 

And so it began.  I thought about it, and decided that I would take advantage of sign-up fees being waived and try to plow into the whole weight loss thing again.  I signed up, and am now in the midst of trying to completely readjust my life.

What I had found most frustrating lately, is the ads, magazines and such. All of the success stories I see on television talk about how easy it was with their plan.  I absolutely refuse to even try Jenny Craig, not only because it doesn't seem any different from Nutri-System, but also because the women look worse than they did when they were heavier.  The after person is supposed to look gorgeous, vivacious and healthy, and invariably the people they choose look less healthy and attractive at the end.  No thanks.

That's awesome that your plan helped you lose 20lbs. Even 35 lbs. Awesome. Actually, you looked great before you lost weight. Now try needing to lose more than 50lbs.  That's where I am.  That's where most of the people I know who try to lose weight are. 

Can we get real here? Weight loss isn't easy no matter which plan you choose. One year I tried doing the South Beach Diet, and felt like I was in an uncomfortable, fatigued fog all the time.  It was awful. Your shake, even if I am lucky enough to be able to consume it, will not bring about lasting change.  

Even calling it a "lifestyle change" seems misleading to me.  Let's lay it all out here on the line.

Weight loss is more like trying to win the Iditarod in a self-made sled made of Churros powered by squirrels.  Or attempting to climb Mt. Everest in a bikini with suction cups on your hands. 

If you watch a show like The Biggest Loser you find people really brutalized in order to lose a bunch of weight.  Guess what? Even if you're not in a gym for hours with a personal trainer and abiding by their plans, it's going to feel like you are being brutalized.

And here I am, by the way, a few days in. If you are like me, are you going to be a happy camper a few days in? I think if you're doing it right, no.  And by the way, this idea that if you just follow this thing or that thing that it will absolutely work.  You know what I think works? Is finding what is closest to something you might kind of be able to do.  That's the best we get. The best we can hope for. Is something maybe that we can do.  Maybe.

I don't think I'm alone. I think the only avenue for change is a glimmer.  Not much to hang our hat on, but let's give it a go.  

Taking the NaNoWriMo Challenge

I have been thinking a lot lately about my future self.  My present self is in desperate need of upgrade and change and breaking free.  This means I've been really trying to get my health in a better place, make my energy levels better, and hopefully be able to increase my overall productivity.

After all, ambition without energy goes nowhere.

So one thing that I have been wanting to do for a very long time is finish writing a book.  I have already written a multitude of essays, short fiction, poetry, articles, and a one-hundred page thesis. What I haven't done is written an entire book.  So, since I have had a goal of writing one particular non-fiction book, I thought I would join the masses, bite the bullet, and become part of NaNoWriMo.

So at midnight tonight I will join some 200,000 people and begin writing 50,000 words in one month.

I had tried this with a novel a few years ago, but had my whole life take over in November, so about two days of writing happened and that was it.

This time, I feel it.

I feel this memoir in me, and I'm going to write it.

And today is the first day toward becoming a professional author.  You know.  That makes money.

That is something I think my future self is going to thank me for.

Don't blame it on your virginity

I am going to say something completely shocking: virginity gets a bad rap.

To give a little background to this, you can blame this latest rant of mine on a provocative Salon.com article My Virginity Mistake by JESSICA CIENCIN HENRIQUEZ.  In this, Ms. Henriquez outlines her devotion to the purity movement as a way of fitting in, and the development of what became her first failed marriage.

The culprit? In her mind, it was abstinence.  As she says:

Had we had sex before our relationship transitioned into a contract, I would have known that there was no passion, no spark, nothing happening between our bodies. I would never have agreed to marry him because sex is a significant part of a relationship and therefore a significant part of our relationship was failing. With the failure of our sex life, I felt like less of a woman, no longer a sexual creature but more of a plant. Sitting there, day in, day out, wilting while I waited for someone to take care of me.

Without having sex before marriage, I blindly walked up an aisle and committed myself to a man who didn’t know me and gave my long-held virginity to someone with whom I had no more chemistry than a second cousin.

However, I believe that this is a complete and utter fallacy. It is so much easier in hindsight to believe that had we taken a different course of action that we would have made a better choice.  Especially since she openly admits earlier in the article that she was 20 years old, and really hadn't built a solid relationship:

The morning of my wedding day, I threw up. Everyone assumed that I was nervous about having sex. I wasn’t. But it dawned on me how much we hadn’t learned yet about one another. We had known each other for three years by this point, but there was so much unexplored territory. So what was I supposed to do when my “aha moment” came as a dress was heaved over my head by seven bridesmaids? Plus, my mother had mentioned no less than 400 times, this wedding was costing them a fortune; I was getting married, there was no way out.

Being 20, and obviously not assured of herself in anyway, she obviously hadn't gotten to know the man she was marrying well enough.  To top it off, she knew the relationship was not going well and had more than just wedding jitters but all of the warning signs that this wouldn't end well.  And she didn't have the maturity to be able to stand up and say I'd rather make this expensive mistake now, rather than having to pay for the wedding and divorce proceedings.

Further, having sex before would simply have been also, giving her long-held virginity to someone unfortunately bad for her. And she talks about how they used to make out all the time, whose to say that even losing her virginity in the back of his Chevy would have ended the relationship?  The problem seemed more a lack of communication. They spent those three years in a sea of hormones but didn't come up for air to discuss anything.

It's far too easy to Monday morning quarterback our mistakes and decide that with this decision it would turn out better, but without a time machine that is completely impossible to predict.  No one knows the actual outcome of the road not taken.  It's the risk we take in life.  And I believe, trading one mistake for another isn't going to do jack.

So the real culprits of her first failed marriage were a lack of maturity and communication.

Blaming virginity is pointless.  The point here should be that sex alone solves nothing.  Relationships are too multi-faceted to rely on one component, and those who want a fully rounded relationship know this.

And there is nothing wrong with believing that our sexuality should be invested in the right relationship as opposed to one-night stands.  If we truly believe in a free society, our sexuality is ours and our body should be ours to do with as we please even when that means waiting for something meaningful. Without being maligned for that choice.

Book Review: Second Suns by David Oliver Relin

When I first received my copy of this book as an advanced reader copy, I had skimmed the cover and dove directly into reading the first chapter.  It was only in a brief moment, when I had set my book aside that I head realized that the author, David Oliver Relin, was dead.

Suddenly, what was once a compelling story, became now also a very bittersweet tale, knowing that while the world now knows the bright and hopeful tales of two doctors, it also is the last story for Relin to tell.

At the end of the book, Relin writes "Some books you want to write. Others you have to write."  You don't have to get farther than the first chapter to realize that there is a sense of destiny that brings the American ophthalmologist Geoffrey Tabin together with his Nepalese counterpart Sanduk Ruit.  Tabin, a bombastic character with a sense of adventure, and Ruit, teaming up to bring eyesight to the blind and innovate surgical procedures to be cheap, believing that everyone should have access to eyesight, not just the privileged.

Through the span of time covered, Relin is very adept at weaving their collective tale as they fight against not just less-than-ideal conditions in remote areas, but also political machinations, in order to ultimately build a base for artificial lenses in Kathmandu that makes it possible for them to spread their practices, and provide sight to people in China and Rwanda.

Some other customer reviews I have seen have argued that Relin's account can get a little tedious at times, and to a certain extent I agree.  However, the profound goodness in these stories covers the majority of tediousness, and Relin overcomes slow points with more engaging anecdotes soon to follow.

All-in-all, a beautiful read that reminds you of the amazing amount of good that can be accomplished to bring light to a world shrouded in darkness.

Things I Don't Get: Time Warner Cable vs. CBS

 If you are like me and live in one of the zones where Time Warner Cable and CBS are fueding, you know that your cable television lineup now no longer includes CBS.

Now, my question is, why don't television and cable executives understand that no good can come of their feud?

Anyone who has any interest in following the evolution of entertainment, knows that the ratings system and structure of broadcast television is changing faster than the antiquated system can keep up with.  Viewers now have options to record or stream content at any hour of the day with many of their favorite programs, or sometimes delay gratification for an entire season and the gobble shows in binge-viewing.  So, needless to say, this does affect an already faulty ratings system that depends upon randomized viewers with boxes recording viewership of live programming.

So, with declining viewership to begin with, what good does it do to play chicken over ridiculous profits? Both sides need to get a clue that the only result will be customers driven away to getting most of their programming other ways.  Either people will get fed up enough that they switch to DirectTV or AT&T U-verse and switch off the cable entirely.  Then once they do negotiate, undoubtedly Time Warner Cable will end up offloading the ridiculous amount that CBS offers onto paying customers who will no longer be able to pay and will quit.

In the meantime, we all have to suffer through radio ads where CBS encourages listeners to call up and demand that Time Warner Cable cave and bring back CBS.  Meanwhile, those of us who have heard the other side, know that CBS is demanding a new contract with a 600% fee increase.  No wonder Time Warner Cable refused to pay.

Normally I wouldn't side with big cable, but when CBS also feels too big to fail as the most watched television network, maybe we all need to reconsider when television and cable networks get too greedy for their own good and send a message to both by fleeing in droves.

For a business model that doesn't want to change, they are only enabling consumers to start an even bigger revolution whether they like it or not.