That'll Learn Ya

     Remember long, long ago (about a week) when I said we’d discuss the concept “burn more calories than you consume”? Yeah, about that… I’m thinking that will have to wait a wee bit longer. This week I think we’ll chat a little about falling down.

     I bet you’re thinking, “uh oh.” Uh oh is exactly right. The scale has gone in the wrong direction this week. Am I discouraged? Yes I am, a bit. Am I surprised? Sadly, no I am not. I have let a few things slide over the last ten days or so. For someone like me, a person who seems able to gain weight merely by being within shouting distance of a bakery (I think I attract cinnamon bun fat molecules like a magnet), letting things slide is a dangerous thing to do.

Here’s what I didn’t do this week:

1. I did not track my food intake. My nifty shnifty phone doo dad sits idle.
2.  I did not “eat smaller”. In fact, I baked cookies and ate um… a lot of them.
3.  I did not merely skimp on exercise; I did not go to the gym for a solid five days.
4. I did not weigh in daily. 

     Yikes, right? I didn’t just stumble there; I fell flat on my face! By not doing all the things I know I need to do, I’ve managed to lose ground. I’ve let myself down. But focusing on mistakes or giving up because of them is, in the grand scheme of things, kind of silly. No one has died. The world hasn’t ended in a fiery ball of flame. All that has happened is that I have messed up a smidge. And you know what? That is ok. Life goes on.

     So now I will open up my phone app, log in today’s weight, and today’s meals. Tonight I will go to bed at a reasonable hour, set the alarm for an unreasonable hour, get up early, walk the dog, and then get my ample backside down to the gym. And away we go!

How about you? How do you handle it if you fall off the wagon?

Kate's Wild World of Dieting

     People of a “certain age” may remember Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlon Perkins or The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. I do not have a burly assistant named Jim who wrestles alligators, nor do I have a French accent, but welcome to The Wild World of Dieting with Kate Hayes anyway.

     Over the years it seems as though I have been on a mission to personally attempt the greatest number of weight loss schemes possible. I have done Weight Watchers (three time drop out), Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, and a couple of other expensive programs whose names I can’t even remember, but one of which replaced two meals a day with a virtually inedible pudding. I have used Slim Fast and a Chinese herbal tea that kept me chained to the bathroom for two days (TMI, sorry). I have tried the Atkins, South Beach, Cabbage Soup and Starvation diets. I have tried low fat, no fat, high protein/low carb. Nothing ever seems to stick. Full disclosure: I once worked for NutriSystem, which is sad. I was even part of a study at OSU involving fat gals over 40 that handed out some nice swag. I haven’t tried hypnotism or voodoo, but the jury’s still out on this, my latest and certainly most public attempt.

     Jeez, you must be wondering, what the hell is wrong with you? You must have figured something along the way. Well, I have. Almost every legit program has you keep a food journal. The idea is to log everything that you eat, what time of day, and sometimes emotions to see if there are pitfalls there that are hindering success. My problem here is follow-through. I’m good for about three or four days, then poof! I’m done. Typically what happens is on Day One I drag out my food scale (purchased during one of my Weight Watcher’s attempts) and measuring cups and spoons. I record everything faithfully, right down to the spray of Pam in the pan and the exact number of almonds in the afternoon snack. Additionally, all snacks are recorded and logged at the appropriate time. Day Two, I’m still weighing but not necessarily measuring, and I’m not as precise in my recording. The ½ & ½ going into the coffee is recorded, but the amount is eyeballed. The snacks are all lumped together at the end of the day. By Day Three I’m writing down the foods but not necessarily the amounts. By Day Four, I’ll usually only record as far as lunch. There never is a Day Five. But many people find that journals really are useful. Luckily in these days of smartphones, there’s an app for that! A quick peek at the app store on my phone shows a couple dozen free journals. One I particularly like is My Fitness Pal. It has graphs, charts, goal setting, and nifty doodads such as a bar scanner. So instead of tediously writing out each and every food, you can scan the bar code on the label and voilà! The app figures out all the calories, etc. That’s pretty handy for a lazy butt like me, I'm never without my phone, and I'm finding it much easier to keep track (made it past day five, at any rate). 

     Something else I’ve learned is that conflicting and confusing information about diet and health abound. Guidelines change as new research comes to light, so it’s kind of hard to know what’s what. The US Department of Agriculture, for instance, urges us all to eat healthfully, and they issue guidelines as to how we should do that. But those guidelines change periodically in accordance with what the newest science reveals about nutrition. Remember the Four Basic Food Groups? (or the Basic 7 if you go back that far) More recently we have had the Food Pyramid, then the new Food Pyramid, and now we have MyPlate (http://www.choosemyplate.gov/), an easier graphic to understand. Even within various paid plans there can be misunderstanding. Weight Watchers®, for instance, has a great thing going with their Points Plus™ program. It works for lots of people. But if Joe Schmoe chooses to spend all his points on Peanut M&M’s just because he can, then even Weight Watchers® becomes a diet bust for this guy, who is clearly an idiot who’s missing the point (no pun intended).

     One thing that has been a consistent road block for me is portion control. I don’t think that most people have a clue as to what correct portion sizes look like. When you read about portion control, you are told that a serving of protein is about the size of a deck of cards and a serving of fruit should be the size of a tennis ball, among other things. I know that’s supposed to give you an everyday reference, but I don’t find it to be particularly helpful. Adding to the confusion is how portions and sizes are named, which can be misleading. An order of small fries at a fast food joint today was considered a large back in the day. They didn’t have what we consider to be large or (yikes), super-sized. Even the average dinner plate is larger today than in the past. I read somewhere once that they are 30% larger than they were 30 or 40 years ago (Honest to goodness actual science-guy info here.) Many of us are loyal members of the Clean Plate Club and our eyes, rather than our stomachs, tell us when we’re full (more fun with science!); we are easily consuming much more than we should every day. Even if we’re eating healthfully, too much of a good thing is still too much. One of the learning tools the researchers in the study at OSU used were realistic-looking and appropriately portion-sized food shapes (finely crafted in a polymer resin). It was surprising even to me, a food weighing and measuring veteran, what actual portion sizes looked like. They seemed so teeny! Have you ever measured out a cup of spaghetti?  It’s easy to see why knowing how much to eat in one sitting is such a sticking point with people.

     So what I’ve taken away from my many, many attempts to lose weight lo, these many decades, boils down to a few simple-sounding concepts. Be aware of what and how much you're actually eating. Write it down. Use paper and pen, a phone app, whatever, but you might be surprised at how many pretzels you're absent-mindedly scarfing down at your desk during the day. Educate yourself about proper nutrition. How much does a person of your age, height, weight and gender need to eat? What kinds of foods should you be eating for optimal health and weight loss? Finally, size matters. Keep an eye on the size of the portions you eat. What you think of as one serving may actually be two (Think about your average bagel. It can easily be two or more servings.) 

     I am not following any particular plan these days. I eat pretty much when I’m hungry and I’m eating healthfully but I’m also eating less and I’m eating smaller. Portion control! If I want a treat at the end of the day, I have a treat. But it’s one cookie instead of three or a kid’s cone rather than a regular. I'm also tracking it to make sure I'm getting all the vitamins, etc. that I need. Will the same thing work for you? I don’t know. It’s really still a work in progress for me. Cooking for the family, for example, presents a big challenge – I tend to nibble while I cook. But about 16 lbs. are gone so far, so something is going right.

      Next time we'll discuss something even more basic: burn more calories than you consume. While we ponder that, I will leave you with this story arc from one of my all-time favorite comic strips, Bloom County, by Berke Breathed.

Tightrope Walking

     Well, I’m back. My brain apparently took a vacation, went to the circus, and has remained there all summer. For a while there I thought it had run away for good, and all I could think about was The Big Top. I had a whole circus-themed blog piece going, but it was just too over the top. So I had to start from scratch, which is not easy when your brain is still at the circus and it’s hot, and you’re not at the beach, and all the neighbors are on vacation, and the bathroom needs to be cleaned, and you hate cleaning bathrooms… (I did say there’d be whining. You were warned.) I’m still sort of in love with the original circus concept though, (In particular the Illustrious Illusionist, the Astonishing, Enigmatic, Illogical, Obfuscating, and Underhanded Obstructo Vitare.)

     Trying to become a more compact version of one’s self really is a sort of circus high-wire act, I think. In these terms I see a shiny, spangled performer on a tight rope, many, many, many feet in the air, no net in sight. They might be doing this while riding a unicycle and juggling several bowling pins. The pins may be labeled “family”, “work”, “social situations”, “emotions”, “hormones” or “whatever”. A wobble to either side would be the end of the performance, with the Tightrope Walker plummeting into a pit of self-pity, doubt, disappointment, pointy rocks, spiders and Lean Cuisine.

     It’s pretty clear that in order to get from one end of the wire to the other, a few things are necessary. Finding balance is one. We start out on platform A and our goal is to get to platform B without falling or dropping any of the bowling pins. In order to reach the other side successfully it is essential that we keep our balance which is, of course, much easier to say than it is to do. We want to lose weight but we also want to eat blueberry pie and we don’t have time to exercise and we have families and jobs and dogs and bad knees and gardens and tons of excuses obligations that get in the way.

     Finding and maintaining balance is easier when we have encouragement, another important aspect of our tightrope act. A couple of Lovely Assistants on the platforms at either end can help the whole process appear seamless. One gently pushes you at the start to give you a little momentum, the other steadies the unicycle while you dismount, and they both cheer for you from start to finish. If you freeze up in the middle, start wobbling or look as though you may fall, the Lovely Assistants will shout encouragement from either end to keep you going. Family and friends are almost always our most loyal and vocal Lovelies. Our families help us stay on track, sometimes by abstaining from Chunky Monkey ice cream for a while just so we won’t be tempted. Our friends tell us that our hard work is paying off. A spouse may toss out the random “you look really good” which just might make us rethink the fried macaroni and cheese appetizer.

     While encouragement is important, it isn’t quite enough to help us achieve the original goal, which was to get from Platform A to Platform B with the bowling pins still spinning and a person still on the unicycle. We need support to do that. If we install guide wires or use a harness we’re likely to feel more secure, which gives us the confidence necessary to successfully cross from A to B. We worry less about falling (or failing), and concentrate more on the process. Sometimes we just need someone else to catch the pins so we can keep our balance. Support can come from different areas. It can be a professional organization like Weight Watchers, a television show website with an online community, or a neighborhood moms’ group. But support doesn’t have to be anything formal or pre-arranged. It can be as simple as a daughter taking over the occasional morning dog-walk freeing up gym time for dad or a husband who gets up early for a power walk with his wife. Maybe a son cooks dinner a couple nights a week while mom goes for a run or the neighbor serves only low-fat munchies at their next cocktail party. It all helps.

     So, you may wonder, just what does this all mean? Do you want to join a circus and wear sequins, Kate? (um… no. Sequins are not flattering.) As we are all aware, it can take a lot of oomph for anyone to attempt a diet and exercise program in the first place. In order for any program to be successful, a person needs to create balance between their quest for fitness and everything else in their universe. And to do that, encouragement and support are needed from family and friends. Rocket science it ain’t. Next time, boys and girls, perhaps we will visit the carnival fun house and have a look at those magic mirrors!

     Incidentally, my current weight loss is somewhere between thirteen and fifteen lbs. Weight loss can vary by day, barometric pressure, or pastrami Reuben consumption.