What if you are hungry?

I had a large breakfast!

My friend says that she has a large breakfast and she means 1/2 cup of yogurt, 1 tsp of chia seeds and a cup of coffee with non-fat creamer.

NAH. This was eggs, taco meat, country potatoes, cheese, tomatoes, onions and peppers in a skillet. Then we went immediately to watch a movie. I HAD to have popcorn and Blue Dew. I wasn’t hungry. That’s just what I have with a movie.

I find myself getting hungry in my car. When I’m off to an appointment or an event or a meeting, I don’t get 2 blocks from my house before my tummy rumbles. I might get a tinge of hunger at home if it’s 11:30 and I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I eat breakfast because that’s what you do in the morning. Just like that’s what you do in the movie theater.

I was on a diet once where you don’t eat unless you’re hungry. No problem, I thought. I had breakfast about 11:30. Then I had a nap…2-3 hours! I got some work done, then I had some leftovers about 6:00, and stayed up until after midnight. I ate when I was hungry and there was no real schedule. My naps got more frequent and longer (!) and I seemed to be more foggy-brained. I started losing things, and words wouldn’t come to me (names, days, the last half of a sentence that seemed like it would have a point 10 seconds earlier.) I became very short-tempered. Oh, and I gained weight!

Then I was on this restrictive diet. It required a very strict regimen. Everything was scheduled. Wake-up time, eating time, a choice of 1 or 2 foods for each meal, exercise time, what exercises I had to do based on the day, and bedtime. I was tired all the time, sore all the time, and hungry all the time. I was also short-tempered, frustrated, and depressed. Oh, and I gained weight.

Now what’s interesting about both those scenarios was that it didn’t matter if I was hungry or not, the foods I was eating were healthy, and the portions were small. For the last 10 years or so, I have been on a 900-1100 calorie per day diet. I should have dropped a ton of weight, and I gained instead. No, I didn’t cheat on my diet, and no, I didn’t lie in my diary.

Now some folks I’m talking to eat when they’re bored, some when they’re emotionally upset, and some when they’re lonely. I eat chocolate because I love chocolate. I eat pizza because I love pizza. I eat asparagus because I love asparagus. There are just a few foods I don’t eat. I like the taste and the texture. I like to experiment when I’m cooking.

I went on a KETO diet in September of 2021, and I dropped 25 pounds by January 2022. Yay Me! But I haven’t dropped any since then. So I rejoined the Keto community and I’m reading all these horror stories about people and why they eat. Some are in serious condition with their diabetes, some are having heart problems and kidney problems, and some would spend their time in their bedroom alone watching soaps and in severe depression.

It occurred to me that maybe what was hungry was not their body, but their emotional self or their soul. How do you feed those?

How would you?

Well, something’s working

I went to England last week. My weight before I left was 210, and my glucose levels were averaging about 110 per week. On the jet, I had chosen “Diabetic” meals when I booked the flights, so that’s what they thought they gave me.

To understand what diabetics need, I compiled the list of things to avoid when you’re diabetic. The key is avoiding carbohydrates which can come from starchy or sugary foods:

1. sugary drinks
2. transfats
3. White bread, rice, pasta
4. Fruits
5. fruit-flavored yogurt
6. Sweetened breakfast cereals
7. Flavored coffees
8. Honey, maple syrup, brown sugar
9. Dried fruit
10. Packaged snack foods such as pretzels
11. Fruit juices
12. Potatoes, especially fries

All of the diabetic meals on my flights included potatoes (12) and bread (3) of some sort. 2 of the snacks consisted of packages of pretzels (10). I had melons and strawberries (4) for lunch and dinner. I had a brown sugar glaze (8) on the carrots and teriyaki sauce on my chicken. The salad had a fruity dressing (4). I got strawberry yogurt (5) as a snack. So the difference between my diabetic dinner and the normal one was that mine tasted like cardboard.

Then I got to the summit location: Stanbrook Abbey near Worcester. The buffet had English bacon which looks like ham, sausages, baked beans, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon (!), mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, hash browns, cheese, cold cuts, and tea. I didn’t have the hashbrowns or the mushrooms (except that 1st day). Then lunch had some sort of small meat dish with potatoes or pizza or pasta. Dinner consisted of either chicken breast and sides, or beef in some sort of casserole.

Needless to say, it was difficult to avoid the carbs. In fact, I messed up on every meal except breakfast. BUT, my glucose numbers were below 100 4 days in a row. Does that make sense? I was eating 3 meals a day instead of 2, and I was eating the wrong stuff, yet my numbers were DOWN. Hmmm. Well, calories are calories. There was no way I was going to get home from England weighing the same as when I left. 😦

But Jennifer and Andra waved their magic wands and declared that anything eaten in England stayed in England. HA! So I had linguine carbonara. I had shepherd’s pie (once with beef, and once with chicken…they have strange flocks here, apparently. I had potatoes, bread, or pasta every day, but even with all those carbs, I was below 100 in my glucose levels all 4 days of the summit! Something was strange. Then I got home and my glucose levels had climbed up to 167 one day. The numbers are below 100 again now, though.

What was the result of that fiasco that was my diet during this week? I was still at 210 lbs. on 4/11. And I was at 205 lbs. yesterday, 2/14. ???!!!!!

I don’t know how to process this information.

If you want to eat right, move.

Yes, I’ve started a new eating program. It’s supposed to help me keep on a KETO diet and avoid raising my blood glucose measurements which are averaging about 150 when normal is below 100. So I signed up for this program to help me make smart menu choices.

I spent $60 on two meals yesterday. And a lot of the things on the grocery list were prohibitively expensive. I spent over $10 for 3 cups of ground flaxseed meal. I had to have fresh asparagus. I was bad and cut up a single Roma tomato instead of buying 16 cherry tomatoes for $5. I bought frozen cod and that gives me 4 meals for $15. I have to start an herb garden to have fresh parsley, basil, sage, dill… I wondered if it would kill me to use 3 rings of a white onion instead of a red one because they specified red, and there weren’t any available at the store.

If I buy peanut butter, it has to be organic without added sugar and comes in a tiny jar 6-8 oz for $6. I had to have organic mushrooms, a specific type of garlic, almond milk…

And the almond milk you get is 98% water. Well, I guess so is milk from a cow. It costs $6/gal and about $2/gal for cow’s milk. Oh and healthy? Look at the ingredients: Organic Almondmilk (Filtered Water, Organic Almonds), Sea Salt, Tricalcium Phosphate, Gellan Gum, Organic Locust Bean Gum, Vitamin A Palmitate, Ergocalciferol (Vitamin D2), Dl-alpha-tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E), Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12). Oh and check out cyanocobalamin: The most common man-made form of vitamin B-12 (cobalamin) in supplements is cyanocobalamin and although this form includes a cyanide molecule, it is very safe. … Even at a very high dose, it would provide about a thousand times less cyanide than is toxic, and the cyanide is excreted in the urine. This milk is to be preferred opposed to the unhealthy but organic milk from a cow.

Check these ingredients (prepare to be shocked!) Organic Milk, Vitamin D3.

ANNNNYYYWAY, in order to eat “healthy” I have to spend 2x what I normally do in order to get the specialty items.

To be fair, I was expecting to have to spend 1-2 hours preparing these specialty meals, but they only take 20-40 min. If I wanted to get everything on my list, I’d have to go to some specialty food store across town or have it delivered (which adds a whole bunch to the cost.)

Here’s the thing. Very few of these ingredients can be found for a reasonable price in your local grocery store. Heck, I can find foods from Guatemala and Mexico and Taiwan and Nairobi but I cannot find red onions today. So to have a steady supply of the ingredients for my new menus, I have to move to NYC, or LA, or follow my daughter Jo around to her favorite food stores in Pittsburgh.

How did we Rounds kids ever survive my mom’s cooking? She didn’t weigh anything. She didn’t spend hours reading labels and looking for plant alternatives and low sodium and low carb and high protein and…

Getting Back to Normal

Measurable Progress applies in this case! More people falling ill or fewer? More people surviving or fewer? More people reconnecting with each other or everyone more isolated? How are we progressing? Are the steps we’re taking producing any results?

People are self isolating, self quarantining, except to go to the store and buy more toilet paper. I understand it now though. How many of you waited until you got to work and had your first 15 min break to use the bathroom? Ya, uhuh. See? We were all peeing on company time and using the company toilet paper. Who knows how much toilet paper you have to have to compensate for all the times you now have to go to your own bathroom? And all you folks that went to the restroom in the restaurants? And the movie theaters? And the doctors’ offices? We were unprepared to have to purchase our own toilet paper and of course we panicked! Did they do the math? “Honey? How much do you use every time you go?” “You mean you want me to count the sheets?” “Well…yes?” “And how often do you go every day?” Gets out calculator. Dang! We’d better stock up!  And of course, since we never take our calculators to the grocery store, we don’t know how many 2-ply or 1-ply sheets per roll and how well they, ahem, do the job.

What else are we unprepared for? Breakfast at home instead of in the car? Nobody brown-bagged their lunches at work. You’d have to label them and protect them from getting stolen. Wait, colas cost that much in the store? What a rip off they charge that much in the vending machine!!! Actual food for dinner? You CAN have all your favorite foods delivered to you, but those delivery charges will really mess you up! You gotta save your money now because they don’t need you and so they won’t pay you. Oops? We were supposed to save our money BEFORE everything got shut down and we all lost our jobs? How were we supposed to do that? OH and BTW, glasses or cups work great for getting water from the tap. Free water instead of paying for it? Well DUH! If you can tell the difference between filtered, mountain stream water from the pristine pipes in Detroit and the stuff coming out of your sink, well, you have a better palate than I do! And it means less plastic in the landfill or the oceans.

ANYWAY, we all want to get back to Normal. Or do we? What is normal? Is normal just something we’re used to? Will those working from home really want to go back to the office? Will they really want to get up and dressed and spend money on gas and drive-thru to sit in a stifling cube all day? Why go to a building where it takes you 15 min to get to the bathroom when you can work 6 feet from the bathroom at home? Why spend an hour in rush traffic twice a day instead of just moseying into your office in your sweats? Aren’t you more relaxed and less distracted? If you have kids and a spouse and pets at home, those can be managed, the quiet is unsurpassed. With no place to go, it doesn’t matter what the gas prices are. HAHAHA!  Take THAT OPEC! You can watch movies at home with the very best cub scout popcorn. You can cook with your spouse or SO. You can be adventurous and have stuff other than pizza and burgers.

Now even important meetings can be done remotely, and you can play solitaire during the boring parts. Check your email, change your status on FB. Just click your clicker when you need to.

Here’s the thing though.

NORMAL is the petri dish that made all this corona virus so virulent. Work this problem out. Find ways to be more efficient and actually enjoy the quarantine. Revel in your relationships with your spouse and kids. Enjoy the quiet. Work in your garden. Work puzzles together. Teach your kids how to play Monopoly and other board games. Get off your phone. Limit your time on the computer. Make a NEW NORMAL! It cannot go back to the way it was. The only way to put the worms back in the can is to get a bigger can. Once people have had to be innovative and resourceful, they may not want someone thinking for them. Once people have tasted self reliance, will they want to be dominated and made other-reliant again? Some will, some won’t.

What will you do? What is your new normal?

Another program, up in smoke

Weight Loss programs.  Lose weight!  Keep it off! Small steps, small goals. You gotta believe.

So I tried it. They give you little inspirational messages daily. They talk about your perception of food. They talk about psyche tips to help you overcome mental barriers. They encourage group support. There are manuals about exercise and food choices. Recipes. Coaching. I bet this works for most people.

Those that participate in the group discussions are frustrated that they’ve only lost 4-5 pounds in the first month. Some have lost 8-10 pounds. You have to weigh yourself every day. They give you a great incentive program…just walk 300 more steps today than you did yesterday. Ding! You’re at 10,000 steps! Woohoo! So why wouldn’t this work?

One of the things I’ve heard over the past 18 years is that “this program/job/self-improvement/learning system doesn’t work.” And over and over the people who run these programs/learning systems, etc.,  say it works if you work it. Ooops.

The one thing they stressed yesterday was that mistakes, setbacks, falling off the path are just that, not character flaws. Just like in music. This one student I was working with messed up her left hand going to the wrong chord repeatedly. Every time she got to that point in the music, she would panic and play the wrong note and say, “I’m so STUPID! Why can’t I GET this?! I’m hopeless!” I asked her why she was giving herself this rule? “What rule?” The rule that at this point in the music you MUST screw up. “I always mess up there” is a stupid rule to make.  Practice this part, erase the circle, and say to yourself, “I’m glad I solved that problem. Now it’s my favorite part of the song!” So when the program doesn’t seem to be working, it’s because I’m not working the program. It’s not a character flaw, it’s a consistency problem that I do not choose to fix. Well, that’s a dumb idea.

Sooooo, 4 weeks and have not lost a single pound. Not 1. I’m still at 2000 steps, not 10,000. It does NOT matter if I average 900-1200 calories a day. If I eat the wrong stuff, I don’t lose weight, I just get tired at weird times of the day. It doesn’t matter if I go to the gym and do 6000 steps and do a weight-lifting circuit if I don’t repeat the process the next day.

What can I conclude? There IS a character flaw. At this point in time, it is easier for me to distract myself from a plan than to work it all the way through. This can have a detrimental effect on every project I have chosen for myself.

1. Conference Handbook
2. Transcribe some music
3. Clean and remodel the house
4. Develop a rose garden
5. Run a music business
6. Run a financial business.
7. Blog

So, TODAY and every day, my mantra is “Finish something today!” Even if it isn’t the full project, finish a part of it.

That’s a BIG breakfast!

• 2 poached eggs
• bacon
• low-fat yogurt with berries and granola
• muffin

“WOW!  OMG!  How do you eat that much!  That’s a HUMONGOUS Breakfast.”

What? No. Ultimate Skillet at Village Inn is a humongous breakfast. 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages, grits, fried apples, 2 biscuits, gravy, and butter and jelly at Cracker Barrel is a big breakfast. I never have the ultimate skillet or the meat lover’s special. Why what do you eat for breakfast?

• “1 tsp of chia seeds
• 1 cup of almond milk”

Wait that’s it?

“I can barely finish it all.”

The guide says eggs are ok, whole-grain toast, fruit, and broccoli for breakfast. Broccoli? Really? Give up bacon and get broccoli. (By the way, that poached egg breakfast was 1186 calories. It is about 14 calories short of my whole day’s allowance!) Give up hamburger and only have chicken, fish or turkey. Never have sausage!  You can eat as much as you want…as long as it’s green. The “green” designation is food that has a low-calorie density. So 5 grapes and 5 raisins have the same calories, but 5 raisins would not make a dent in your hunger, and 5 grapes, due to the water, would.

I committed to this program. What a fool. I can’t commit to anything. 2k steps/day? Depends on the day. 1 day it’s 800, the next it’s 6000. 3 meals and 3 snacks? Today it was Breakfast (not chia seeds and almond milk I assure you!) and a peach.

I’m always Hangry. I’m also frustrated. My coach hasn’t met with me yet, and I don’t think she will. I asked a couple of questions…well, made a couple of observations and now she won’t talk to me. After 1 abysmal week…over and under my calorie count, completely the wrong foods, inconsistent walking or exercising ( they don’t give you credit for pulling staples out of the floor) and now a crappy attitude, I was UP 2 pounds. Diet, Exercise, Psychology. This really works! Except on me. But, the beginning of every day, I weigh in, beat myself up for weighing more or less exactly what I started, eat breakfast and discover I’ve used up all my calories for the week, and then listen to my tummy rumble for the rest of the day. But you’re supposed to count your foods and estimate your portions and only have what it says on the list. BUT with the exception of today’s breakfast, that is exactly what I’ve been doing. I find myself more tired and irritable after my nearly imperceptible lunch. A peanut butter sandwich is never to be eaten. Why? Because it’s a RED food, you are allowed 380 calories of red foods and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is 388… my whole allowance for the day. I can have one sandwich OR 2 pieces of bacon OR one hamburger patty, but not all of them. Actually, the sandwich is more high-calorie than the bacon or the hamburger.

If a typical breakfast is 1 tsp of chia seeds and 1 cup of almond milk, why bother? Drink a cup of weak tea and just call it. But don’t pour any milk into your weak tea. Milk is a red food too, btw, but almond milk is ok. (Ever try to milk an almond? Just about the time you’re on your 12,000th almond, it kicks the bucket over and you lose your whole cup of milk!)

Now go for your 10k step walk every morning, have a nice cup of salad with salmon slices on it. NO SUSHI!  There’s rice in them there rolls. NEVER rolls or muffins. No cheesecake, no pudding, no icecream.  AND YET, they say, “Oh it’s perfectly fine to go off script once in a while! You can’t deny yourself all the time.” And then they deny me all the time. But it’s insidious. “YAY!” my program gushes. “You logged all your foods and it’s under 1200 calories!” It makes no mention that though it’s under 1200 calories, I ATE ALL THE WRONG FOODS! 380 Cal of Red foods?  I had 888. 250-500 calories of Yellow foods? I ate 298. 0-800 calories of Green type foods? I had 58. Completely upside down. And I wonder why I’m 2 pounds heavier on less food and more exercise.  Silly me.

I think it’s hopeless.

 

How it feels to be clinically dead…

I say this in jest.  Measurable Progress was supposed to be about my journey down to my ideal weight.  It hasn’t been going well.  I have tried nearly everything to reduce my weight, and of course did tons of research.  I know my gut bacteria is fine.  I know that diet pills and the extra “energy” you get from patches is just adrenaline or caffeine that boosts your metabolism…amphetamines.  Legal speed, but speed.  I hate pills.  I’ll drink coffee or tea or pop (which has WAY too much sugar and tastes awful without it.)  Spending a lot of time at the gym makes me sore and fat instead of just fat… Nothing seems to work. Then I was looking at folks at the gym, and at church, and at my club meetings.  It seemed that they all breathed faster than I did.

When I sit or sleep next to my husband, I breathe once for every 4 of his.  Yup.  So I looked it up:  Normal breathing–respirations per minute–are 12-18 in a normal person over 12 years old.  12-18/minute?  How many breaths do you take in a minute?  I’ll wait.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

So?  How many did you come up with?  16?  14?  Good for you. Realize it’s probably not accurate because you know you’re being observed so NOW you’re paying attention to your breathing.  If you’re over 24 breaths per minute, you may have problems…go see your doctor!!!  If you’re under 8 breaths/minute, you may have problems…go see your doctor!!!  My doctor says my thyroid is fine, my heart rate is about 60 bpm and though there’s a slight murmur, I’ve had it all my life.  However, he hasn’t addressed my respirations which are…(drum roll)  take a guess.

.

.

.

.

Would you believe, 4/min?  I inhale over 2 seconds, then exhale for about 13.  Low is 8, if you’re a trained athlete.  Mine’s 1/2 that.  So A) I’m on opioids, B) I have a brain tumor, C) hypothyroidism, D) toxins or E) a head injury.  As far as I know, I don’t have a brain tumor.  Definitely no opioids, or toxins or head injury, and doctor said my thyroid is fine.  The only conclusion is that I’m dead, and my body hasn’t decided to quit breathing altogether. 

When you exercise a lot…running, working on a farm, athlete, construction…you lower your metabolism because you strengthen your heart.  Running forces you to breathe from your diaphragm.  Marathon runners and elite athletes are supposed to be breathing about 50-75 bpm while active, but it doesn’t say what their resting respirations are.  They have to breathe rapidly to get rid of the CO2 which is the byproduct of lactic acid that builds up in the muscles during exertion.  If they don’t breathe quickly, things begin to shut down because the lactic acid builds up the acidity of the blood and that tends to make the brain a bit nervous.  Fast breathing usually happens in the torso rather than deep in the diaphragm.  The upper part of the diaphragm in this case basically flutters.

When they finish the race or the activity, they bend over to keep from fainting, and have to force as much CO2 from their bodies as possible, so they employ deep diaphragmatic breathing.  Bending over is a bad idea as it inhibits the diaphragm from expelling as much CO2 as it needs to, but that’s neither here nor there.

Their lung capacity grows as they get more fit and their hearts get stronger.  That lowers the resting respiration rate.  But still not below 8-10 bpm.

If I exercise really hard (like those evil interval training exercises!) I can get my heart rate up to 150+ for about 10-15 min.  Then when I stop, it only takes about 5 min for my heart to go back to its 60, and my breathing to return to its 4 and that’s normal for an athlete.  I’m not an athlete, or a dancer, or a laborer.  What does that mean?  My metabolism is very very slow.  That indicates that since I cannot work out 5 hours a day like I did when I was teaching dance, if I eat over 1000 calories/day, I gain weight.  Solutions anyone?

Progression

If it moves for, it’s pro, if it moves away, it’s con.  But not every Pro has a Con.  So a Proverb doesn’t have a Converb, but a procession does have a concession.  Wait… hmmm. A procession is a group of people moving in an orderly way.  A process is an orderly set of steps.  But a concession means to give up something.  Both have the root word “Cession” which means giving up something.  If you look at it, it’s 2 sides of the same situation.  Process–moving forward to take ceded land, and concess–ceding the land to the processors.  What does that have to do with popcorn and hot dogs?  The ball games and the movie theaters allow you to have food as long as it’s theirs.  Otherwise people would sneak food in.  So understanding that people watching their shows or games want to be eating while they do this, the establishments concede that it is better for them to offer food that patrons must buy on site than allow people to bring in picnic baskets or illicit food sellers to sneak in and sell it on site.  So now they have a Process:  confiscate all incoming food, including water bottles, and sell food for people to consume on the premises.  Yes, they check your handbags.

You can have a Promotion but not a Conmotion…That would be demotion instead.  You can have Protection, but not Contection, Propagation but not Conpagation, Proliferate but not Conliferate.  Of course, to be fair, Proliferate has a different basis…proles meaning offspring.  But you can see my dilemma.  Of course there’s the old joke:  The opposite of Progress is… Congress!  It wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t true…

So for me to Progress, something else has to give.  That isn’t the case when you’re trying to reduce your weight.  Because face it, if you lose weight, you’re always looking for it afterwards and usually you find it.  All of you out there that are trying to get back to a normal weight, ok, a lower weight, ok, a really lower weight (2 pounds doesn’t count), and maintain that new weight, you and I have to CONCEDE something.  In fact we have to concede a lot.  We have to give up couch time for movement time.  We have to give up eating for fun for eating for sustenance.  If you’re only expending 1200 calories a day, you can’t consume 2000.  You cannot eat food you’re addicted to, such as bacon with everything.  

I’m so disappointed I never tried bacon shakes…Ok, no, I’m not.  You have to give up something you have for something better…even if you love the thing you’re giving up.

Is what you’re getting better than what you have?  Will you feel better?  Will you be able to shop in the sections that don’t include tents when looking for clothes?  Will you be able to go up and down stairs, run after kids and grand-kids, bend over to pick up dropped objects, get into and out of chairs and couches and vehicles?  Does that have any significance to you?  Do these things mean more to you than the couch time and the addictive food you crave?  That’s the big question.  Put another way, I cannot progress unless I move BACKWARDS.  This is the hardest part of any self improvement program.  (Hmm do Programs have Congrams?)

In order to improve yourself, you have to be more aware of what you do that keeps you from improving.  Is it your language, your stance, your abilities, your skills…?  What do you have to give up to go up?  If going up means more to you than staying where you are, you will be willing to give up to get there.  If you are more comfortable doing the things you do now or being the person you are now, and going up means giving up something you love for something you like, Don’t do it!  You will be unsuccessful.

WTH

What if things go wrong.  You can count on things going wrong actually.  They’re very consistent.  You have a plan, you execute the plan, the plan goes off the rails, you throw the plan out.  Those are Captain Cold’s rules.  He then gets trapped in a room with a giant shark/man mutant from another dimension (Demention?  from crazy town?)  He does get rescued in time though.

I am on this weird journey to make Measurable progress in getting fit.  My 1st entry in this blog was March 6, 2014.  OMG.  I was 208 pounds then.  I’m 218 now.  Since that 1st entry, I have looked for the right combination of exercise and diet that would get me down to about 140 pounds which I haven’t weighed since my youngest was born…143 pounds plus or minus.  I remember that weight because I was 143 pounds going into the hospital as a pregnant lady, and came out weighing 143 pounds AFTER the child was born.  How is that possible?  He was 7# 4 oz.  I should have weighed at least 7 pounds less coming out!  That was the beginning of this strange journey into obesity.  Hahaha!  I can blame my boy!  Nope, that won’t work.

I cut myself down to 1200 calories a day.  I have been at 1200 calories a day for 3 years.  I have tried cutting out chocolate, then bread, then carbs in general, then colas, and at one time I existed on soup for a week.  Of course that was because I had a terrible respiratory virus that precluded me from eating solid food.  I couldn’t keep anything down but soup.  I do not recommend it.  I have exercised cardio and strength training 5 days a week with a trainer 3 days of those days, and I have exercised on my own taking occasional walks and going to the gym to work on the tread mill once a week.  I have been told I’m eating too little.  I have been told that to really lose the weight, I have to go on an 800 calorie diet and take supplements.  I have been told that all I need to do was portion control.  I have been told that all I need to do is start a running regimen.

In the course of this journey, I have had a 1/2″ kidney stone, I have broken my hip, and I have suffered all sorts of indignities that go with being too big.  I especially hate shopping for clothes.  “Here, try this tent on, the circus won’t be back until spring.”  I cannot physically get into a swimsuit because I cannot bend over to get both my feet in.  It doesn’t work like underwear.  I used to love swimming.  I used to love dancing.  I’m winded going up to the sidewalk of the gym.  I watch all the weight loss commercials and think to myself, well they wouldn’t work for me.  I think the laws of physics and biology bend around me.  I think I have ranted on this before…if you eat less and exercise more, you use more calories than you take in and you lose weight.  Unless you’re not eating enough, then they pile on.  If you are awake really late at night because you have something on your mind, and you’re moving, you’re using more calories, right?  But if you don’t get enough sleep, you gain weight.  So the laws of physics apply to every situation except when they don’t.

I HAVE NO VICES!  I do not overeat.  I do not smoke.  I do not drink.  I do not commit adultery.  I do not gamble.  I might be addicted to Longmire, but I don’t think that’s a vice since it has a definite ending point.  And yet…  I cannot find the energy to clean, or cook, or garden, or walk or dance or swim because I am so big and it takes so much effort.  I get depressed because I know I DO have 6-pack abs, but they’re so insulated that no one can see them.  I used to dance 5 hours a day.  I used to hike 10 miles.  I used to go on bike rides all over.  I used to march and play a horn for an hour a day.  I used to chase 5 kids around.  I used to be a pit pop who moved the percussion instruments on and off the field and in and out of the trucks.  I used to set field props for band contests.  I couldn’t do any of that now, even at gunpoint.

And now, I have another physical issue.  I don’t want to be in a state of always having to do something to fix something.  I don’t want to take medicine for the rest of my life.  I want it fixed.  When the light bulb goes out, you replace it.  You don’t have to monitor it every stinking day to see if there is something that MIGHT go wrong with it.  When you replace a broken window, you do it and it’s fixed.  There is no daily activity you have to do to make sure the fixed window hasn’t degraded into a broken window.  When you break a bone and they reset it, it heals and then EVERY FREAKING DAY you have to exercise the muscles around it so you can continue to use it for the rest of your life.  Because once it’s broken, it’s ruined.  Nothing will ever be right about it from that point on.  If you have a kidney stone, EVEN AFTER YOU’VE PASSED IT, you’re likely to have more.  The kidney is ruined and nothing will ever be right about it from that point on.  If you’ve gained weight, by whatever means it has happened, your metabolism is ruined and it will never be right again.  Every day, you start from 0.  It’s like Forrest Gump if he were in the Outer Limits. He starts his cross country run, runs for 25-30 miles.  He goes to sleep and wakes up the next morning in his bedroom.

As a good friend of mine says, “Oh Well.”

Water

Water you up to?  Not much, you?

Hahahaha!  I crack myself up.  (cues laugh track)

I was looking on my bottle of tea for ingredients.  It SHOULD say water and green tea.  It doesn’t.

Water, Citric acid, Hexametaphosphate, Natural flavor (why would you have to ADD natural flavor?  If it isn’t added, why is it listed as an ingredient?) Green tea (there’s the tea), ascorbic acid, potassium sorbate, phosporicacid, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, pectin, and calcium disodium EDTA. And what is EDTA?  Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. (That’s ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid)  It is made from a concoction of poisons and chelation chemicals:  formaldehyde, sodium cyanide, and Ethylenediamine.  Yummy!

Back to water.  It has been pointed out to me that I might be suffering from chronic dehydration.  Chronic?  It means I’m consistently drinking stuff other than water.  Think of it this way.  You’re making bread.  It calls for flour, sugar, milk, salt, butter and yeast.  That’s fairly straight forward isn’t it.  Milk is liquid.  Substitute 2/3 c of dry milk and 1 cup water.  Now…Here’s where the fun begins.  Try substituting 1 cup of tea for the water.  Now try 1 cup of coffee.  Oooo!  how about a cup of kalua!  Wait.  1 cup of Mountain Dew!  I like Mountain Dew, let’s make it 2 cups!  Yum!  In any case, you’re not going to get bread out of this recipe.

The body craves water.  Simplest form possible.  If it gets something other than water, it first has to clean it to get the water out.  That’s an extra step.  When you pollute the water with flavorings and extra chemicals to maintain its color and addict you to the secret ingredient (High Fructose Corn Syrup),  you don’t get as much water as you need out of the concoction.  Your nerves need water to make sure the electrical impulses are not short circuited.  Your brain needs water because it’s the brain and it knows what it wants.  Your bones need water to lubricate the joints.  Your blood needs water so it doesn’t get too thick.  OK, so no, I don’t exactly know why all these systems need water, but they do.  But I don’t drink nearly enough water.  I bet you don’t either.  You drink sports drinks, and pop, and milk, and tea, and beer, and wine and juice.  But you don’t just drink water.  Oh we make a big deal about carrying our water in little bottles with labels that say “this here water is pure as the driven snow and melted down from a glacier in Nova Scotia…or from the tap of Mrs. Livingston in Rockwell, Ill.”  We drink the water at the gym and where ever we think someone will see us being healthy.  Then we go home and have a 2 liter Mountain dew with our pizza.  Or we have 1/2 a case of beer with our steak and potatoes.

I want to try an experiment.  Let’s get as many people to do a WATER ONLY September.

1. Take your measurements and describe your well-being before you start, and then at the end of the month.  Let me know what you discover.
2. If you drink anything, it has to be water.  No tea, coffee, fruit drinks, diet drinks, pop…just water.  I think the standard amount is related to your weight.  I may be way off base, but figure 1 oz of water for every 2 pounds you weigh.  So if you are 100 pounds, you drink 50 oz of water a day.
3. You can have soup and broth, but it doesn’t substitute for water, it would be in addition to water.

I will collate the information and let you know the results in October.  It could have revealing results.

Update. This was published 3 years ago. I am still waiting for a response. Any response. I managed to do 3 days without drinking anything other than water. It sounds like a good experiment now that as of 4/27/20 we’re quarantined to our houses. We’re not as likely to drink pop with our lunches, and more likely to be fixing our own food. It should be healthier food and water.

I am going to reissue this challenge. Water-Only May. Your only drink must be water. Follow the steps above and write them down!

I will collate these results and let you know in June what happened.

.