The 80 Pound Weight

I put it on, I can take it off

There is the most enormous task left to outline for this coming year. It is one that needs to be accomplished within the year. It needs to be attended to with the utmost degree of seriousness and concentration. Last year I told myself I was going to lose a lot of weight and I didn't. I wimped out fast. When I look back at the year I can see that I was immediately thwarted by bucket-loads of stress, money issues, moving, two mortgages and then the job hunt. I was deeply depressed and worse than that I lost all sense of self control and hope.

I didn't have good stress relieving tools worked out and available. It's easy to see why it didn't work. It's easy to also say "Well, you look fine. Don't worry so much about it." But don't. Don't give voice to any excuses for me. I don't need more excuses for how I got here.

The reason it's important that I lose 80 lbs this year is because carrying so much weight is hard on my feet, my joints, and most dangerous of all: my hips. My back hurts a lot and I am now prone to embarrassing skin conditions that no woman should ever have to admit to. I get out of breath easily. My feet hurt. I can't see my hoo-ha. All clothes are uncomfortable. Bending over to tie my shoes is becoming quite a comic act in which I fall over like a fat bear. I can't wear my own aprons and I only have about three pairs of pants that kind of fit which I wear all week and which are looking quite shabby. I can't afford to buy more clothes and it depresses me to consider making clothes for myself.

My self esteem is like a little tiny raisin that has been stepped on in the kitchen and is currently squished into the sole of my shoe where it makes little sticky sounds every time I take a step.

I have lost 40 lbs before and I didn't do it by using: diet pills, special diets, gizmos, supplements, substitute sugars, diet drinks, or giving up alcohol and cheese.

I achieved it by: exercising vigorously 3-4 times a week for an hour, not eating seconds, counting calories periodically, eating smaller portions, not snacking, not eating late, controlled amounts of cheese (measured to keep myself modest), and not drinking 4 out of 7 days of the week. Basically it was a simple equation of ENERGY IN/ ENERGY OUT.

I weigh 245 lbs right now. An all time high. I need to lose 80 lbs because I feel healthy and good about myself at 165 lbs. C'mon, you can all agree that that is hardly a skinny goal. 165 is a reasonable weight at which I can fit between a size 14 and 16 size which is reasonable to me. I couldn't give a rat's ass about being in the single digits. It isn't about being able to compare my size to anyone else's. It' s my own meter I am comparing myself to. I know what I felt like at 165.

I felt like I could probably stand to lose 10 lbs but I didn't feel a great deal of motivation. because I felt good. I enjoyed that I could find clothes that fit pretty easily and that my stomach didn't create it's own shadow. I could wear lots of stripes. And did. I could enjoy getting dressed up which makes it so much easier to boost my confidence when it's running low.

If I give myself one year to do it I will need to lose 1.55 lbs per week which is not out of the range doctors consider safe.

Here is my outline:

• Lose 1.55 lbs a week for a year.

• Drink alcohol only 3 out of 7 days of the week.

• Consume no more than 2,300 calories a week to start off with. The number can be lowered as progress is made.

• Exercise at least 20 minutes a day. Make it longer as stamina increases.

• No eating after 7 pm. Not because Oprah says so. The reason is because if I'm eating after 7pm it is almost guaranteed to be a cheesy item that I don't need.

• One day each week is a splurge day. Mostly for use when visiting and eating dinner with friends so that I don't have to be the obnoxious one asking if they could please make a less delicious and indulgent meal.

• Drink plenty of water. (4 pints is sufficient)

• Only weigh self one day a week. No obsessive checking please. Pick a day and stick to it.

I know I can do it. There are some finer details I will outline for myself later. Tomorrow I work all day so I will probably sit down on Sunday and outline for myself a list of ways I can reduce stress instead of drinking beer or grabbing my Tillamook. As I mentioned before I am going to be getting a tub that is deep enough to take relaxing soaks in and hopefully we'll have it and have it installed within the first month of January. I have a lot of other ideas but this is one I know will make a huge difference for me.

There is so much more wrapped up in this "diet" I need to be engaged in. I hate how much I've become a snacker when I didn't used to snack much at all. I love it when I'm comfortable enough in my own skin and body that I can put clothes on in the morning and not think about what I'm wearing again all day. Now I feel my clothes cutting into me and it bothers me- all-day-long. It's symbolic of getting a lot more under control than just my weight. A certain amount of self discipline has been gone for so long- self discipline is so important for caring for your mind. Having the strength to do things for yourself that will help maintain balance.

When I feel that my drinking and eating are reasonable and comfortable I feel so much more capable in general.

Don't encourage me to not tackle this one fiercely. Don't encourage me to downplay how important this is. I am not a person who has ever had an eating disorder. I don't have body dysmorphic issues. You don't have to worry about me developing crazy obsessions about food or thin-ness. So please don't, in trying to be helpful, tell me I'm just fine the way I am. I don't want to have to get a hip replacement before I'm 50 years old.

I want to walk into my 40th year a much lighter person who is ready for whatever is next. I want to get to 40 and have reclaimed the strong person I know I am. I want to arrive at January 6th 2010 wearing my Peace apron and knowing that I never have to stop wearing cherries and pom poms again.

I have always looked forward to developing my style as I age and I've spent the last four years becoming a person I don't recognize and whose dreary clothes have made me cry a whole lot. I imagine myself aging like Lauren Bacall, but in technicolor. I want to wear capes when I'm fifty and pencil skirts with work boots. I will enjoy getting older if I can enjoy seeing what new sartorial boundary I can stretch next. Clothes give me flight and they make me happy.

It's time to set the stage for a great new chapter. So I consider this year my dressing room year. I'm changing for a different role. I'm redressing and changing out of this body into the one I left behind.

Except the slightly gimpy hip. Nothing to do about that.

I enjoy getting to commiserate with old ladies about my hip trouble. They always think I don't know what it's like to feel the change in weather in their hip. Ha. I love messing with them!

This is something I am perfectly capable of achieving and I will do it.

The Way She Used To Wear...

I decided to dress Headless Helen as myself, the way I was.

If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, please read the post below.

No, I haven't turned into a sad sack of potatoes. It just occurred to me that even though I can't dress myself in my actual style, Headless Helen happens to be the exact size I was. Only her boobs are bigger than mine. So I can show you all who I really am. Or was. Was/am. Because this is still how I'd dress if I could choose what style to wear.

This shirt is one that I love but never got to wear because a friend gave it to me after I was already too big to wear it. I keep figuring that I'll be able to wear it some day and keep it, tag and all.

Now you know. Now you can see. Maybe I should just make clothes for Headless Helen for the rest of my days and live vicariously through her 32" waist line.

Maybe not. That really would be pathetic.

The incredible shrinking fiber

Lisa and her family came over yesterday in a mutually beneficial gathering, as most gatherings between good friends are. I was relieved of my duties as sole entertainer for the six year old set, and Lisa got to use my upright washing machine for her felting project. I am super charmed by felting in all it's forms. My first introduction to it was through my friend Lucille who makes hand felted fairy dolls. That is the kind of felting you do with barbed needles that you poke into soft drifts of fluffy wool to stiffen it into shapes. It's a very dangerous craft.

Lisa's felting projects involved knitting bowls and purses and then shrinking them in hot soapy water with a good deal of agitation. (Many people who stop in at my blog are already old hands at this kind of felting, I am posting the process for my own benefit and interest because this is my first time seeing it myself.)

So here is Lisa stitching up the seams for what will become a super cute little purse.

This purse is a much larger one which, as you will soon see, becomes much smaller. This one turned out to be a little too wide and not tall enough to be a convenient purse shape, so Lisa is working on options for improving it. We have included the ruler to really give you the sense that we are serious scientifically minded people around here. We're not just going to tell you how much wool shrinks in agitated hot water, we're going to PROVE it to you. Which is exactly what you were hoping for on this lovely Sunday morning.

This is a tense moment in the project, the moment when things go in and will never be the same again. Lisa included some jeans in the wash because the heavy material helps in the felting process. I love how my camera flash has white washed my washer so that you will think I actually keep it clean. Uh, which I do of course.

Lisa is not at all obsessive compulsive. No, she is checking on her project every 69.2 seconds because she is a dedicated crafts person. Here is the little hand bag, not quite ready. In this photo you can observe the stitch definition. The object of this activity is to have the fibers shrink and tangle enough that stitch definition disappears.

We decided to recruit her husband Mark to lure her back to her lentil salad. But luckily, we didn't have to resort to timing the intervals between her visits to the washer, chaining her to the table in between times to keep her still. (Felting is exciting, it's difficult to sit in an aura of zen-like calm when you have such amazing things happening in the laundry room.)

So here's the giant bag. Much smaller now. (Aren't you glad we included the ruler? Because otherwise I doubt you would believe us that this bag shrank several inches. Only habitual sweater shrinkers would believe us.) (I admit to being a sweater shrinker. I will damn myself further and admit that laundry is still one of my greatest shortcomings. I truly suck at it. Yet I maintain the dream that one day I will become so good at it people will ask me how I get my shirts so clean and soft.)

These are the two bowls Lisa knitted. She's actually already made several cool ones. They will now need to be blocked in order to dry in the appropriate shape. Chick enjoyed the smell of the wool and copped a few licks. Here she is inspecting the bowls for possible spontaneous movement.

It took a while but we did find good containers on which to block the felted bowls. I can't wait to see these bowls on a counter with fruit in them. I think Meyer lemons in the green one, and bananas or green apples in the multi-colored one.

This little bag won the beauty contest in tonight's project. It turned out to be such a nice shape and size and the color combinations (to both of us) are quite tasty looking. (I often think of colors in terms of their edibility. When I was dabbling with oil painting as a teen I told my mom, who is an amazing artist, that I wanted to internalize some of the paints because the colors just seemed so delicious. She confessed that she often felt that way too.)

Watching Lisa knit so many great projects, and now to see how cool felting is, is kind of difficult because it makes me want to get out my knitting needles and get to work. Knitting, for me, is one of those extras that I don't have the brain space for currently. When you get in a flow with an easy project, it's not that difficult, but I just haven't got any room for any extra projects. I'm hoping that this summer I will have contract sewers in place, that our store will be running more smoothly and prosperously, and that we will have our T-shirt collection and canning jar labels mapped out. Then, maybe then, I can start knitting again.

Not like Lisa though. She is quickly becoming a skilled artisan. She's already learned to use multiple needles, to do some cool stitch details, and to increase and decrease like a pro. All I want to do is a few scarves, a couple of knitted blankets, and my real dream....is to make a shawl/poncho like the one the grandma wears in the movie "The Secret of Roan Innish".

On another subject: all that pasta..... I've heard a couple of protests about all the pasta and how tantalizing it looks and how one cannot shed pounds while eating pasta. So true. (But remember, I'm trying to dry pasta to store for later, not to eat it right now.) It just so happens that I have bought (and received) 125 lbs of various dried beans. I don't even know how to cook beans from scratch. I mean, I can cook the lentils and the split peas no problem, but black beans and kidney beans...not so much. In the past when I've tried cooking them they either never get done enough to eat, or the second they are tender enough to eat they turn to mush. So the next cooking segments will be all about beans: a great high fiber, low fat, and tasty filling food.

So Chelsea and Matroskin from Helsinki: I am determined to count calories all week. Because it's very important that I lose a few kilos of fat so that I can join Bitter Betty in the vintage pattern wardrobe fun. I have a LONG* way to go. So the challenge this week will be making good food that is not going to glue itself to my bones. Clearly, soup will have to be on the menu. But what about some Angelina style huevos rancheros with only a tiny bit of cheese instead of the truck load I usually must apply to all foods?

Chelsea has given me some ideas on cooking beans well, so I will attempt her method today and report back on my most scientific findings.



*Just so we're all clear what a LONG way to go means to me: at least 50 lbs just to be able to fit in some of my vintage patterns. That's what I call long. And even when I get there (notice I said "when" and not "if". That's very optimistic of me.) I will still be on the chubby end of normal. I just want us all to be clear that I'm not making a mountain out of a paltry ten pounds or anything. But hey, if Anna Nicole Smith could do it, why not me? All I need is a lot of methadone, trimspa, and various other pain killers and narcotics.