My Weight Loss Journey - Part III, Getting Obese

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Where last we left off in my weight loss journey, it was the early aughts.  I'd lost nearly 40 pounds doing Weight Watchers®, hit a plateau, struggled, started re-gaining, went to Mexico with a friend with a killer body and she went shopping at Zara and I still didn't fit into anything even though a size 12 isn't that big, so I just gave up on the whole watching-what-I-eat-and-exercising thing because that's always an effective way to get to and stay at a healthy weight.

Ugh.

Gaining weight is one of those insidious things that just kind of creeps up on you until you look in the mirror one day and say 'what the hell happened?!' I managed to stay a size 12 through a trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest in 2004. (Sidebar: this 10-day trip was done with two carry-on size bags.  This was back in the day when you could still fly with full-size shampoo, keep your shoes on during security check, and bring two fairly large carry-ons.  How did a fashion plate such as myself accomplish a 10-day funfest with such small bags? The garbage.  That's how I did it.  I packed clothes that I could happily part with, knowing I'd be acquiring new pieces; at the end of each day I'd toss what I'd worn that day into the trash.  It was AWESOME.  I felt very clever. And while I've never repeated such a feat I always pack as many nice-but-unnecessary things as I can when I travel.  This is super hard for business trips and trips to cold places, but give it a whirl - you may surprise yourself.)

I was a size 14 a year later when I went to Colorado. (Note that these were wide-leg Lucky 240s, the first pair of jeans I'd ever bought that cost more than $35.  They were $90 in 2003 when I was in Vegas on business and a friend I met there convinced me to try something other than The Gap; the Lucky store associate was so kind - I was marveling that I fit into a 10 but freaking out at the price so she cut 20% off the tag.  Remind me that I need to do a post on how to negotiate when shopping for clothes.  Hint: just ask. Anyhow, I'd bought the larger 12s at the local store shortly before heading to Europe but by the time I went to Colorado I could only find 14s on eBay and was a little concerned because that's as big as they got. Spoiler: I got bigger.) That trip sucked a little. I was with three slim girls I worked with, and I huffed and puffed trying to keep up with them, and I had a super hard time bending down to tie my laces and my long wool coat barely buttoned.

Then life got really wacky. My dad was diagnosed with brain cancer; prognosis: 44 weeks. My employer wasn't too keen on me taking two unpaid days a month to fly cross-country to spend time with him before he died so I quit my six-figure job with the fancy title. (And I will never work for a small privately-held company that isn't compelled to offer FMHLA.) I promptly took a vacation to Alaska where my expanding waistline continued posing challenges to my traveling enjoyment. (Note: tour operators that use twin prop planes for hour-long sight-seeing tours do NOT like having fatties throwing off the balance of the plane. And it's uncomfortable for a big gal - those planes are not spacious.) 

I spent the next year bouncing between Texas and my parents' home three hours' flight away. And I was unemployed for 16 months. It freaked me out. I didn't have unemployment because I'd quit my job (well-played, douchebag former employer). But somehow I survived, and found contract work in 2006. By the time my contract was up in early-2009, I was a size 16. 

This time I was almost giddy to be out of work.  I'd survived it before, and this time I was going to enjoy myself. I spent a lot of time meeting friends for lunch, because I could. 

Found my third new job in five years, and I weighed 190; I'd re-gained everything I lost in 2002 and then some, over a period of 7 years. By then I'd discovered Chico's Travelers Collection - perfect for the fatty-in-denial: unstructured, elastic waist, wide legs.  Everything a girl needs to make herself feel stylish-while-obese. Remarkably, I felt really good about myself. Part of that was having a boss who was pushing 400 pounds.

Alas, said 400-pound-boss was also a raging narcissist. If you've ever worked for one of those, it's nucking futs. 

By the time I was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, I tipped the scales at 225. I was up 90 pounds in the 17 years that I'd been in Texas. That's the equivalent of a newborn calf.  But it didn't happen all of a sudden.  Even with the year or so of losing a lot and looking good, that's an average gain of a little more than 5 pounds a year, or about half a pound a month.  I'm telling you, it's slow and insidious that weight gain thing.

And a funny thing about cancer (because cancer is hilarious). I talked in an earlier post about losing my hair (it wasn't that bad) but let me tell you cancer did NOT make me lose weight. I had six rounds of chemo, and for each round my tastebuds would stop working for two weeks. Most people would say about their meal, 'hey, this doesn't taste like anything so I'm just not going to eat this because why?'  Not me! No sirree, I was all 'hey, this doesn't taste like anything but perhaps another bite with a lot more salt will be delicious. No? How about THIS bite?'

The only thing that kept me from getting even bigger was radiation. Since my abdomen was getting nuked, my intestines were getting cooked a little bit and becoming more susceptible to bugs. I wound up getting some mad intestinal infection and food poisoning at the same time and lost 25 pounds over a very short period of time. But then chemo started up again, and so did my weight.

So this is what I looked like in 2013, a year after my cancer treatment was done:

Me in 2013.  I am obese. 

I have officially spent way too much time detailing how I got super-fat. There's still a couple chapters to go in the story of My Weight Loss Journey. But let me give you a bit of a spoiler/happy ending...this is what I look like now:

Me in 2018. Size 8 jeans. How'd I do it? Hint: Weight Watchers®

To be continued...

A Recipe for the New Year - Turkey Soup (aka How to Recover From a Big-Ass Meal)

 FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

This is what you eat after a fabulous steakhouse dinner

You know what makes me crazy? Going to some blog to get a recipe and having to wade through mountains of someone else's bs before getting to the recipe.  So here's the recipe.  My personal mountain of bs follows.

TURKEY SOUP

• 1 pound ground turkey (find the leanest you can get)
• Diced celery (I dunno, a couple of cups? 3 stalks? Whatever makes you happy)
• Diced onion (I dunno, a couple of cups? One onion? I usually use white onions because they're sweeter and they are prettier in soup than red onions)
• Garlic (to taste, maybe a clove or two?)
• 2 big cans of stewed/whole tomatoes
• 1 box of chicken broth (I'm sure you could use beef or vegetable broth - in case you haven't figured it out, there's a lot of improvising/personalization you can do with this recipe)
• 1 regular can of tomato sauce
• 1 can sliced mushrooms (you can't pay me enough to eat these by themselves but they really add to the flavor of the soup)
• 1 little can of tomato paste
• A big squirt or two of ketchup
• A diced green pepper (or two or three, whatever makes you happy)
• A splash of Worcestershire
• A splash of hot sauce (I don't do spicy foods at all but this splash doesn't bother me and really I feel like the soup needs this)
• Seasonings (to taste - cumin, oregano, basil, a bay leaf, whatever makes you happy; me personally I just use a bunch of poultry seasoning)

Brown the turkey with the onions and celery and garlic then dump in the crockpot (note: crockpot liners are the bomb; I still wash the pot after, but cleanup is so much easier with the liner).  Add everything else.  Put on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.  I added black beans for grins and it was lovely - I bet kidney beans would work too. This time I didn't have green peppers on hand and didn't really miss them.  This makes enough soup to feed an army.

OK here's the personal mountain of bs:

I ate too much last night.  It was wonderful!  For the past several years I've spent New Year's Eve at my favorite steakhouse with my besties.  It's a prix fixe five-course menu.  I had:

• Crab cakes (pretty healthy choice)
• Dressing-on-the-side salad (another healthy choice)
• A 10-ounce medium rare filet mignon (not too unhealthy but the butter they melt on top that makes it soooo deliciously naughty)
• Naughty vegetables (this year it was mashed potatoes and asparagus in butter sauce - serving size healthy but offset by the two pieces of buttered sourdough bread)
• Dessert which this year was a turtle pie: Oreo-crusted chocolate ganache layered with pecans and melted chocolate, extra caramel sauce and whipped cream (I got a bit more than halfway through before I gave up in pain - tucked the leftovers into Mama Boops' bag so I wouldn't be tempted by the salty sweet goodness which would then drive me to the See's candy hidden in the freezer

Y'all, I couldn't sleep I was in so much pain.  I stayed up until 2a to give my body a few hours of digestion, but every time I rolled over in bed the contents of my over-full stomach sloshed to a new side and threw me off balance.

Between the food in my system and the water retention brought on by a meal like that I officially weigh +3.2 pounds more than I did yesterday.  And IT WAS WORTH IT!  It was good, I had a great time, I wore a dress I hadn't worn in 17 years (the last time I wore this dress was October 2001 at the Sydney Opera House in Australia where I fell asleep in the third row of a sparsely-attended performance and was mortified because I'm sure the performers could see me with my chin(s) tucked in my chest and my eyes closed not to mention the snoring). And I know how to recover.

In the past I'd think I needed to 'punish' my body for overeating by starving myself.  I'd make it to about 2p and by then I'd be ravenous and would eat everything in sight, I'd be back in physical pain but now with an added layer of mental anguish from failing to fast and, well, you get the idea.

One of the many things I've learned on Weight Watchers® is that an all-or-nothing mentality is not helpful (oh excuse me, they rebranded and are now Wellness that Works® and much as I'd love to be all superior-minded and snarky about that I really can't because this journey is about so much more than weight).  When you can't do whatever at 100% (like fasting for a day after a big meal) the feeling of failure and defeat is demoralizing - so much so that throwing up your hands and walking away from your long-term goals feels like the only option because after all if you can't do whatever at 100% for one freaking day (fasting) how could you possibly ever succeed?

So eff that.  For real.  All-or-nothing sucks because no one is perfect and sustaining that 'all' is, for most mere mortals, just not possible.

I knew I was going to have a big-ass meal (and enjoy it!).  And while I underestimated the ensuing discomfort I know how to recover and counterbalance. These overnight 3.2 pounds will not be gone tomorrow but this time next week they will be gone plus a bit more.

When I've had meals like this, I know my body needs its magic elixir:  water. Water helps move that food through your system, keeps you from getting too cranky, keeps your skin and hair looking fabu, and does wonders for your metabolism. 

I don't always drink water in its natural form.  I'm one of those rebels that counts coffee as water (there's a very rational school of thought that says the caffeine in coffee is a diuretic and therefore deletes water rather than adds it - I say it's still a water-based beverage.  Harumph.). And yesterday I made a crockpot of this delicious soup and put, like, three giant containers of it in the fridge (yes I could also freeze it but my freezer is full of other things like the hidden See's candy and I hate wanting something then having to defrost it because it delays my satisfaction and doesn't taste the same which mitigates my satisfaction which then leads to more eating.  Know thyself!).

So I started my morning with my usual cup of joe.  And for the record, my usual cup of joe is two 8-ounce pods of the strongest brew I can find for 50¢ or less (I usually get a 31¢ pod - this requires a whole separate post) plus a packet of Swiss Miss With Marshmallows.  So yeah my joe is really a mocha java.  And it's delicious. Yes I drink black coffee when I'm out for breakfast and don't have my beloved Swiss Miss.  No I never drink decaf. And for the record McDonald's Americano is amazing.  

I digress.

I left off with starting my day with my morning mocha java.  And believe it or not I eventually got hungry.  How that happens is mystifying given the amount I ate last night, but it happened. So I turned to my turkey soup which - you guessed it - I count as hydration. I threw in some black beans, microwaved a bowl, and I'm happy now.  Still uncomfortable, but happy, hydrated and satisfied.  This will also be my dinner, and maybe even my breakfast tomorrow if I'm still happy eating the same thing so much.

And that is how I recover from a big-ass meal.  I make sure to have lots of liquids and healthy yummy food that is easily ready to shove into my pie-hole. I'll probably take a walk to keep the blood circulating and get some fresh air (the spaniels will join me and like that too - bonus!) but I'm not going to punish myself by trying to starve/fast and I'm for sure not going to do any marathon exercise sweat-fest.

C'mon folks, don't punish yourselves for having a little fun.

My Weight Loss Journey - Part II

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Picture this...it was Sicily, 1927...  Kidding.  That's from one of my favorite shows, The Golden Girls (note: if you, too, like The Golden Girls, you can get shot glasses and play drinking games whilst watching reruns).

Okay, for real.  Picture this... it was Sydney, Australia, October 2001.  You don't really have to picture it because I've done it for you:

I'd started off in Texas in 1994 at 130ish pounds, and by October 2001 I was up about 50 pounds from that. Yes, 50 pounds.  I stunned myself, really. That's the kind of weight gain you read about in magazines.  Or blogs.

Anyhow, what's 50 pounds amongst friends, right? I didn't let it stop me from a bucket list vacation to Australia, where a friend and I climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, went to the aquarium (where I learned that male platypi are deadly - they have a claw on their hind flippers that is full of poison; I swear everything in Australia is trying to kill you), the Taronga Zoo (got to hang out with koalas in their eucalyptus-filled enclosure; did you know Hugh Jackman used to dress up as a kangaroo, and that I harbor a massive fangirl crush on Hugh Jackman? More on Hugh Jackman later), the Sydney Opera House (where I slept through a beautifully-staged opera, yay jetlag), Manly Beach (got shit upon by a seagull, that rat bastard) and Bondi Beach.

It was a great trip (despite being shat upon) but I was wearing Eddie Bauer jeans in a size 12 and I remember distinctly telling my friend at Sydney Harbor I needed to take an escalator instead of the stairs because my jeans were too tight.  Ugh.

And despite feeling fat and uncomfortable, I kept getting bigger and found myself three months later at 186 (have I told you I'm only 5'2"?). I don't know what prompted me (was it the Duchess of Pork commercials?) but for the first time I joined Weight Watchers®. By then the low-fat thing had passed, but they had 'points'! I could go to their website and log what I was eating - each food had a 'point' value and it was like a game to see if I could stay in my 'point' budget.  I was also supposed to track the number of servings of fruit/vegetables, glasses of water, and servings of calcium - more games to challenge myself with! And you could 'earn' a few 'points' for working out which meant...drumroll please...eating more!

The whole gamification thing was perfect for me: I'm abnormally competitive (THAT'S a long story, but suffice to say Mama and Papa Boopsandbugs had high expectations of their children) and I love-love-loved meeting the various daily and weekly challenges. And lo and behold it worked! The weight melted off, and I loved the way I felt, the way I looked and what clothes I could wear.

I returned to Australia in October 2002, going to Cairns (The Great Barrier Reef) all by myself.  I'd alternate a day tour on the water with a day tour in the rainforest.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  I weighed 162 then.  Thank you, Weight Watchers®!

I kept up with Weight Watchers® for about six months after this trip, and got down to about 155 and a size 8 for a hot minute. And I mean HOT. I looked and felt great, was wearing the cutest clothes, and then took a business trip to NYC in January 2003.  All of a sudden it was restaurants every meal for ten days.  And there was a crippling snowstorm (like, over a foot of snow - the drifts were taller than me), so not a lot of walking around the city to burn off what I was eating.  I was also away from a computer (back in the days of desktops!) so I couldn't track my food really well.  And there wasn't a ton of time to use the hotel gym. And blahblahblah excuses upon excuses.  The weight started creeping back.

In May 2003 I went to Cancun for the first time.  I'd re-gained about 10 pounds, but I felt great.  I played in the pool and the ocean, I went jet skiing, snorkeling with squid, snorkeling in Cozumel. I wore swimsuits and shorts and dresses, I danced on the bar in some club... Life was good.  Who needs Weight Watchers®!

But going to Cancun with a friend that looks like THAT does awful things to one's self-esteem.  I remember her delight in finding a Zara, and my crushing despondence that even at this relatively-low weight I STILL couldn't fit into their clothes. By the time I returned to Texas I'd chucked all pretenses of tracking what I ate, I stopped going to my personal trainer, my new boss was stressing me out, and by February 2004 I was close to the weight I started at two years prior.  Who needs Weight Watchers®? Apparently I did.

Gah. It was another ten years before I got control of my weight again.  But that's another story.