It's another week gone... Sunday came in a flash of sunlight and is disappearing quietly into the West. I had an early supper, leftovers from yesterday's roast, which is part of the pleasure of a roast after all- the leftovers.
Today we held the Baha'i election to choose the deligates from this Unit who will vote for the National Assembly. Exercised my vote if nothing else. Well, my spirit was uplifted too- not sure if that counts as much as leg lifts but it sure feels good.
My friend Michelle is trying to convince me to go to the pool with her or at least to the gym. For a few reasons I am balking... one of them is money, another one is not relishing letting myself be seen in gym clothes or a swim suit and the other... well, that's between me and my fungal infection.
I really want to thanks GLoria McCluskey for the outdoor exercise machines by the Sportsplex. If you haven't tried them, they're awesome and they're free. I haven't used them this winter but plan to get back to them when it's not too cold... so maybe Michelle can do Aquasize and I can watch her through the Sportsplex windows at the pool while i use the outdoor rowing machine across the street. We can wave at each other,and mouth encouragement.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
It's a mind-wipingly cold but brilliantly sunny day. Saturday is market day, and we are lucky here in downtown Dartmouth to have two to shop at. At the Alderney Landing Farmer's Market, I bought a pork roast on sale from Aunt Leola (I think the name of the farm is Meadowbrook) , whole wheat bread, parsnips and local cold-pressed canola oil. Also a pair of homemade mittens from Romana. At the Harbourfront Market, potatoes, and milk at Moffat Pharamasave's low price of $3.33/2 litres. I love to be able to shop for groceries in my neighbourhood, though we don't yet have a grocery store ( I'm hoping for a Pete's Frootique or a Co-op).
This afternoon it's off to see my nephew... all 34 lovely pounds of him. When I think about how many nephews it would take to equal my current weight I am aghast. But at least I'll be walking to see him- that's a good 20-30 minutes round trip.
My efforts to control my portion sizes are meeting with some success. I stick to one plateful at supper time and am consciously decreasing the carb portion of the meal and making sure i get my veggies. I am also trying to eat more slowly, which my family has been telling me to do for ages. I think I need to slow down generally- too often I am trying to do a number of things at once, and am barely able to concentrate on any of them. I've noticed that whether I'm praying or vacuuming or getting dressed, I approach everything like a steam engine ploughing through snow- with never a minute to digest what I'm doing in the present moment. It seems that slowing down could help solve a lot of problems on this planet. Ironically, it might even help me lose weight. When I walk, I get pins and needles in my feet and pain in my leg if I go too quickly...
so I am able to walk farther if I just slow down. If I eat more slowly, I feel more satisfied with my meal and give myself time to feel full, so will eat less. It sounds good, if counter-intuitive, and worth experimenting with.
And now it's time to fold laundry, eat soup and take a little nap before heading out into the cold again....
This afternoon it's off to see my nephew... all 34 lovely pounds of him. When I think about how many nephews it would take to equal my current weight I am aghast. But at least I'll be walking to see him- that's a good 20-30 minutes round trip.
My efforts to control my portion sizes are meeting with some success. I stick to one plateful at supper time and am consciously decreasing the carb portion of the meal and making sure i get my veggies. I am also trying to eat more slowly, which my family has been telling me to do for ages. I think I need to slow down generally- too often I am trying to do a number of things at once, and am barely able to concentrate on any of them. I've noticed that whether I'm praying or vacuuming or getting dressed, I approach everything like a steam engine ploughing through snow- with never a minute to digest what I'm doing in the present moment. It seems that slowing down could help solve a lot of problems on this planet. Ironically, it might even help me lose weight. When I walk, I get pins and needles in my feet and pain in my leg if I go too quickly...
so I am able to walk farther if I just slow down. If I eat more slowly, I feel more satisfied with my meal and give myself time to feel full, so will eat less. It sounds good, if counter-intuitive, and worth experimenting with.
And now it's time to fold laundry, eat soup and take a little nap before heading out into the cold again....
Friday, January 29, 2010
Well, winter is here in spades... or snow shovels. We got dumped on last night and everything is wonderfully white. My Dad called to say how beautiful it is... and this is the guy who, at the age of 76, shovels his own snow. I got a little exercise vacuuming the stairs but last year I gave up shovelling the driveway... I'm just too overweight to do it without inviting a heart attack.
Yesterday I didn't get around to posting. I did a bunch of walking in 5 minute chunks that probably added up to half an hour. I also ate moderately, except for the whole bag of popcorn I demolished after spaghetti supper at my friend Stanley's home. Evenings are the hardest, as everyone, even the skinny butts among us, know. The drive to snack feels like an evolutionary imperative... or magic. "If you do not eat this bag of cookies before midnight, you will turn into a punpkin pie, and someone else will eat you." I can get quite anxious at the thought of not eating again until the morning. That's why dieting often feels like a cage and myself, a pacing tiger inside it.
When I was 14 or 15, I was bordering on anorexic. My mother worried about me, but I knew I was in control. I was so strict about my eating that I would exercise hungry and go to bed hungry, soothed by the thought that I could eat again tomorrow. That didn't last forever. At age 16 I was depressed and binging at night, and I packed on the weight. My pubescent tendency to overweight resumed control and I struggled my way through my adolesence and 20's, never able to become as thin as I desired.
Now at age 41, I've spent more than a decade watching my weight blossom out of control. I can blame it on the meds (one of them increases appetite) or my genes (my mother too is a large woman) or on upbringing (ditto). Mostly, I think that it's a misguided interpretation of personal freedom. I eat therefore I am free. Free to eat whatever I want whenever I want. But like other freedoms that are taken to the extreme, overeating has become a danger to my health.
My hope is to become more moderate in my exercise of freedom, and more moderate in my self- flagellation, so that losing weight doesn't become painful either physcially or psychologically. Hopefully this blog will help me stay on track... becasue fear for my life doesn't seem to be enough.
Yesterday I didn't get around to posting. I did a bunch of walking in 5 minute chunks that probably added up to half an hour. I also ate moderately, except for the whole bag of popcorn I demolished after spaghetti supper at my friend Stanley's home. Evenings are the hardest, as everyone, even the skinny butts among us, know. The drive to snack feels like an evolutionary imperative... or magic. "If you do not eat this bag of cookies before midnight, you will turn into a punpkin pie, and someone else will eat you." I can get quite anxious at the thought of not eating again until the morning. That's why dieting often feels like a cage and myself, a pacing tiger inside it.
When I was 14 or 15, I was bordering on anorexic. My mother worried about me, but I knew I was in control. I was so strict about my eating that I would exercise hungry and go to bed hungry, soothed by the thought that I could eat again tomorrow. That didn't last forever. At age 16 I was depressed and binging at night, and I packed on the weight. My pubescent tendency to overweight resumed control and I struggled my way through my adolesence and 20's, never able to become as thin as I desired.
Now at age 41, I've spent more than a decade watching my weight blossom out of control. I can blame it on the meds (one of them increases appetite) or my genes (my mother too is a large woman) or on upbringing (ditto). Mostly, I think that it's a misguided interpretation of personal freedom. I eat therefore I am free. Free to eat whatever I want whenever I want. But like other freedoms that are taken to the extreme, overeating has become a danger to my health.
My hope is to become more moderate in my exercise of freedom, and more moderate in my self- flagellation, so that losing weight doesn't become painful either physcially or psychologically. Hopefully this blog will help me stay on track... becasue fear for my life doesn't seem to be enough.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Obesity blues
Well, it's been another one of those days... slept for the afternoon, having had a short walk in the sun, my first in many moons because of the leg pain and pins and needles. I'm hoping to make it a regular thing. My dad has beat me to it. He considers walking his job these days, and I think I'm going to have to follow in his footsteps, literally. I probably weigh twice as much as he does, and have been told in no uncertain terms by my gp that I need to lose weight. It's not that I don't want to apply myself, just that it has seemed such a trivial occupation when I have important things to do like napping and trying to find matching socks. But it is important enough I guess, if I want to live past 50.
The question is then, do I want to live past 50? Somedays the answer is no, but I am generally curious about the future, enough so to want to stick around. I'm kind of holding out for the flying cars. But in the very ugly language that describes various degrees of overweight, I am "morbidly obese". I am hopeful those words will not be written on my tombstone, or the plus size urn that contains my ashes, but chance are they will be the horrifying subtext if I don't do something about it, now.
I don't want to be buried in a piano case, the way the fattest man in the world was in the copy of the Guiness Book of World Records from my childhood. I don't want to have to keep doing two loads of laundry to an ordinary-sized person's one. It's fine not to lay a guilt trip on myself about the way I eat and don't exercise but it's also totally pointless to deny the fact that I am endangering my health and life by continuing along my habitual path of least resistance. Already my breathing has been affected, my ability to move about, my stamina, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and lipids.
So maybe this blog will be about all that. Well we'll see. Maybe I'll decide to turn it into a blog about where to find the best fish and chips in all of Nova Scotia. In which case I'll see you later, in the afterlife.
The question is then, do I want to live past 50? Somedays the answer is no, but I am generally curious about the future, enough so to want to stick around. I'm kind of holding out for the flying cars. But in the very ugly language that describes various degrees of overweight, I am "morbidly obese". I am hopeful those words will not be written on my tombstone, or the plus size urn that contains my ashes, but chance are they will be the horrifying subtext if I don't do something about it, now.
I don't want to be buried in a piano case, the way the fattest man in the world was in the copy of the Guiness Book of World Records from my childhood. I don't want to have to keep doing two loads of laundry to an ordinary-sized person's one. It's fine not to lay a guilt trip on myself about the way I eat and don't exercise but it's also totally pointless to deny the fact that I am endangering my health and life by continuing along my habitual path of least resistance. Already my breathing has been affected, my ability to move about, my stamina, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and lipids.
So maybe this blog will be about all that. Well we'll see. Maybe I'll decide to turn it into a blog about where to find the best fish and chips in all of Nova Scotia. In which case I'll see you later, in the afterlife.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Once again with feeling
It was a turkey soup kind of day today. It's sloshing around inside me like it could sink the Titanic. I spotted a typo from yesterday- "too" instead of "to". It figures. I try not to reread my stuff because it makes me cringe, which is why typos abound. In case you are wondering this blog is not about anything in particular. It's just a better habit than picking my nose, and hopefully at least as entertaining.
It occurs to me that it's possible to feel bad about almost anything, from the saddest to the happiest occassion. It's all in the approach. Some people have a peculiar knack for feeling great and those people are either your best friend or your most annoying accquaintance. As for me, I like the people who are up and down like a yoyo and yet manage to summon the optimism to keep going- the sweet bipolars. And those who, with no regard for any obstacle in their way, keep going with whatever project they are occupied with now- the opposite of bipolar, they wear their mood like a unibrow - and still manage to stay generous to the naysayers. Does it remind you of someone? I hope you know who you are.
It occurs to me that it's possible to feel bad about almost anything, from the saddest to the happiest occassion. It's all in the approach. Some people have a peculiar knack for feeling great and those people are either your best friend or your most annoying accquaintance. As for me, I like the people who are up and down like a yoyo and yet manage to summon the optimism to keep going- the sweet bipolars. And those who, with no regard for any obstacle in their way, keep going with whatever project they are occupied with now- the opposite of bipolar, they wear their mood like a unibrow - and still manage to stay generous to the naysayers. Does it remind you of someone? I hope you know who you are.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Typos from hell
Hi there
I'm a brand new blogger who has all but divorced her website (www.annaquon.ca) If you've visited it recently you'll probably have noticed that I haven't. Blogging seems easier, quicker, and more likely to be something I'll commit to. Maybe that's what second marriages are like? I can hope. Also, typos- which I am prone too- are much easier to fix here at the Blot Spog. So here goes. Meet me here tomorrow and I'll share a little more....
I'm a brand new blogger who has all but divorced her website (www.annaquon.ca) If you've visited it recently you'll probably have noticed that I haven't. Blogging seems easier, quicker, and more likely to be something I'll commit to. Maybe that's what second marriages are like? I can hope. Also, typos- which I am prone too- are much easier to fix here at the Blot Spog. So here goes. Meet me here tomorrow and I'll share a little more....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)