Tales of a Deranged Housewife

In Silence

2011-01-12T14:19:00.000-06:00

I am in silence. This means I'm not supposed to talk to anyone for the next few days. I'm even wearing a button on my sweatshirt that reads, "I am in silence." I thought for a few minutes about whether posting here would constitute silence or chatter. And although I'm sure some might beg to differ, I concluded that posting is akin to writing in a journal, which is encouraged while one is "in silence." So here I am.

I'm not sure what there is to report. It's like asking for a description of the house you stayed in on vacation when you just left home. I spent my first day of panchakarma alone in my hotel room with little to do. Eventually I started watching "Fathead" on hulu.com, and although had to leave 45 minutes into the movie, I can't wait to get home and see the rest of it. By the way, watching movies on the Internet is probably something that Dr. D, who's in charge of the show here, would not approve of. After lunch--more porridge, but blessedly containing fat and delivered from an Indian restaurant down the street--I trudged off through the snow and bitterly cold temperatures to Lifespa, about a half mile away.

My intake meeting with Dr. D. went better than I had expected. When we talked on the phone, he laid out his theory on why I was supposed to drink ghee and then eat a fat-free diet during the pre-cleanse period, which made no sense to me. His take is that drinking ghee (dining on a meal made up largely of fat and hardly any carbs) would encourage my body to burn fat, not sugar. This is fine. But my monkey mind asked, "What happens when I eat the porridge, which is almost all carbs? Wouldn't this put me straight back into sugar burning mode?" In our phone conversation, his answer didn't make all that much sense to me, and I brooded over this more than I should have. When I mentioned it to my friend, she wisely asked me, "Why does this bother you?" (I told her I didn't know. Later, I realized that I probably wanted to be right or be validated). During our meeting yesterday, I told him about my blood sugar episodes after several meals and about how good I felt when I ate the turkey. He started heading out toward that dicey area again, telling me how burning fat is very calming and makes our body feel safe, whereas burning sugar leads to some major ups and downs. I buy this part too. I was worried he'd tie the porridge into this framework somehow, but to my relief, he said that the way I felt indicated that I had blood sugar issues and that perhaps it might be a good idea for me to put protein in my diet now, because obviously the swings weren't making me feel supported and would interfere with my cleanse. Whew! Something I can buy into completely!! I told him (being the overachiever that I am and wanting to do everything by the book) that I'd prefer to wait to add protein until I needed it, and he was cool with that.

He also spoke to me about the shield or barrier that I, and everyone else in the world, creates around the true self (or True Self? Ahh, too new-agey). From behind this shield, we try to send out images that are consistent with the person we think we should be, not who we truly are. And we expect to receive things from others in return for these fictions, since we're really doing it for others' benefits. But when we fail to receive the approval or recognition we seek, we suffer an injury that embeds itself in the body and is carried with us in our fat cells until we are able to release it. I have read "Molecules of Emotion" and do believe fear and anger manifest themselves in a physical way (just think of the last time you got so mad you shook, or when you're watching a scary movie and your heart starts to pound). I'm less committed to the idea of carrying injuries through the cell tissue, but then again, I believe that people carry themselves physically in an way that's meant to protect their vulnerabilities but actually exposes those weaknesses to the world. For example, have you ever seen someone who is meek, retiring, and has little sense of self walking around with a rounded back, the spine protecting the heart like a turtle's shell? If I'm willing to go that far, why not suspend disbelief for the rest of the week, trust that my anger and resentments and other wounds are stuck in my hips or thighs or back fat, and see what happens?

He prescribed two Ayurvedic supplements for me to take before meals and gave me my "rounding," a series of yoga poses, pranayama, and meditation exercises that I must do three to five times a day. Each round takes about an hour. The yoga poses all must be held for two minutes (I can take breaks, which is a relief in camel and bow pose) and are probably my favorite part of the whole thing. For pranayama, I do ten minutes of alternate nostril breathing and five minutes of brahmeri, which is surprisingly hard on my injured left shoulder (when I keep my hand raised for too long, my injury starts to ache). Last is meditation, which has never been my favorite. And this is tough--I'm supposed to start with 1-2 minutes of bellows breathing and then sit for twenty minutes meditating. Every time I have a thought, I'm supposed to journal my thoughts, take 15 bellows breaths, and go back to meditating. I can't imagine doing bellows breath for 2 minutes; one minute makes me feel like I'm going to puke or pass out. And then the whole thing with thoughts is driving me crazy. I know I have a monkey mind and my thoughts flit around incessantly. I try my best not to become attached. But when I have to write down every thought I have, it doesn't give me an opportunity to settle into my meditation, and then when I'm done writing, there's more bellows breath. This pissed me off so much last night that I actually ripped the page of my journal when I was writing in it. I really wanted to scream, but I'm staying in a hotel, so that probably wouldn't have been a good idea. This morning, I decided that what he really meant was to write about persistent, attached thoughts instead of those that come and go like drops of water in a stream. That made the meditation much easier in some ways--and harder in others, since stopping to write makes the time pass more quickly (especially when you write neatly in full sentences and punctuate).

After my meeting was massage time. I had two therapists working on me at once, a college boy's fantasy! They started by brushing me all over with silk gloves to exfoliate and stimulate my lymph. This was not the most enjoyable part, since my feet are ticklish and they spent a lot of time there. Next, they applied oil in long, gentle strokes, which was lovely and started to relax me. I was only covered with a bath towel, and they moved it often to get to every part of me, so it was also a pretty intimate and vulnerable place for me to be. Then one therapist left and the other put a big tent over my body, leaving only my head exposed. I had ice packs on my stomach, heart and behind my head, and cold towels on my face. The tent filled with steam but the ice and the towel kept me very comfortable. This was relaxing beyond words. I felt like I was melting. When the steam was over, I had warm oil poured over my forehead (and into my hair) and massaged in for around twenty minutes, and then I spent 15 minutes alone, soaking everything in. All in all, it was a terrific way to spend the afternoon and sure beats kitchadi!

Last night, I had to give myself my first enema. It was not such a beautiful experience. I needed to find a patch of space on my 2x6 patch of bathroom floor to lie down and wound up nestling into a wet towel with my feet tangled around the toilet. The only place to hang the enema bag was on the towel rack, and when it rushed into me, I almost jumped a foot in the air. Whoa Nelly, that's too fast for a first timer! I wound up holding the goddamn thing over my head, fiddling with the tube to get as much in as possible. I was so pissed off by the time it was over that I just wanted to expel everything ASAP instead of trying to hold it in overnight. (For the record, I did manage to hold most of it in till the middle of the night, when I went to the bathroom and "accidently" released most of it).

This morning was more of the same. I did my rounding twice, both times more easily and sanely than the night before. I think not having a rectum full of oil and herbs helped--yes, I jumped the gun on the enema and did it before I meditated, not a good idea. Rounding is not how I would choose to spend my mornings but I do feel remarkably relaxed and at peace when I'm done. I also had another blood sugar roller coaster ride this morning, so walked to the supermarket down the street and picked up a little package of tuna fish, which I just ate for my lunch along with my porridge. I feel much better eating like this; when it's just the porridge, I don't think I can eat enough to hold myself for much more than two hours without giving myself a serious blood sugar spike.

In about twenty minutes, I'm walking over to the office to meet with Dr. D. and to get another massage, this time just with one person. I know this sounds very traveloguey here, and I wish I could post some keen insights here, but really, I'm just as confused as any other newcomer would be. I have hopes about what I will take from here, and have certain fears as well, but sharing them now seems premature. It's much more interesting, I think, when you know where you're going before you begin to tell the story. So there will be a post-mortem at the end, and I hope to keep blogging about any breakthroughs I have on my way there, but today's post is the most I can offer. For now, anyway.

Pre-Cleanse

2011-01-09T14:13:00.000-06:00

When I last posted, I was reeling from the lunch I had with my friend when she revealed her bulimia to me. Since that time, I arranged for a week of panchakarma at the same spa she went to, booked a ridiculously cheap plane ticket to Denver (another sign from the universe that I certainly didn't miss), and then set off on a three week cycle of binging, purging, abstaining, stressing, crying, trying to deal with the kids who were home on vacation, and then repeating the cycle again and again. I also got a nasty virus that surfaced only through swollen lymph glands that rendered me unable to turn my head for two day. I thought it was a hangover for about twelve hours until it didn't go away.

Aside: when I write about binging and purging, it describes a cycle of days rather than isolated incidents. If it's a binge day, whether it starts at nine in the morning or nine at night, it almost always lasts through the end of the day, which sucks, because it sets me up for waking up with a full stomach, which leads to no appetite, which leads to low blood sugar, and, well, you know where it ends from there. Binging almost always leads to purging, too, although there have been episodes where I've been able to sit with a full stomach and not let go of the food, which I suppose is progress, in a small way. Binges last a day or two and are always spaced apart by three or four days of solid, healthy eating. At a minimum. As I wrote earlier, I have been able to stretch things out longer and longer, and going for longer than two weeks is becoming more and more frequent--and less stressful.

But that didn't happen over vacation. Other things going on with my life simply bombarded me with some cold, hard clarity that I simply didn't want to face, so I did what I usually do--turned tail and hit the drugstore for crappy chocolate on sale.

As I spend more and more time in this eating disordered place, I have become less able to process the sugar I eat. I've done a great deal of reading on the subject of insulin sensitivity and resistence, and from the psychological and physical reactions I've been having after binging, I'm concerned that I'm becoming insulin resistent. No surprise there--even though I don't look like the typical diabetes II/metabolic syndrome sufferer, I live the same lifestyle. I just cheat at the end by getting rid of enough evidence so I don't wear it on my stomach and thighs as much as, say, the Biggest Loser contestants do (which, by the way, looks like it got a new shot of life. I loved last week's episode and can't wait to see the new trainers!). Although December was not my worst binge month ever, by a long shot, the depression and lethargy and joint pain and headaches from all the sugar made for not the happiest holiday season. I know going into the new year that if I don't lick this problem soon, I will cause permanent damage to my body.

Plus, it sucks always being tired and depressed and in pain. So panchakarma couldn't have come at a better time.

My panchakarma will be seven days long, but there is a pre-cleanse component that starts in earnest a week before the first day. In my situation, that would have been January 4. But I was so burned out going into New Year's Eve that I decided to get an extra three days of pre-cleansing under my ever-tightening belt. So on January 1, I started drinking (yes, drinking) melted clarified butter and eating a mono-diet of kitchadi, a porridge made from split moong dal and rice.

I was freaked out over the idea of drinking butter. For most of my life, I've had a huge butter phobia. I like it in small quantities, if at all. When I was a child, when my mom buttered an english muffin for me, I'd make her blot the surface where the butter had pooled in the nooks and crannies. If I butter a piece of bread, it usually needs a perfectly even skim-coat that barely glosses the crumb. Clarified butter, I thought, always gave me indigestion, though the fact that I only have it in Indian restaurants (where it's called "ghee") may have something to do with it. But the spa advised me to mix the butter in warm soy milk (gross--I opted for almond milk, which also got the green light) and I took the initiative of adding cinnamon and cardamom. And guess what? It's not bad at all. I'd never pick it over a latte, but the texture doesn't bother me much after a year of chugging fish oil straight from the bottle. And the smell? It's like walking past Auntie Anne's pretzels when they're baking. Another benefit: as the week of pre-cleanse goes on, the doses of ghee increase pretty rapidly. I started out drinking 3 tsp. the first day. Today, my next to last day, I drank 1/4 cup of melted butter. And tomorrow, it's even more. And yes, when I write it out like this, it sounds so nasty, but when the rest of your diet is aggressively fat-free (which it is), the ghee supports this metabolicly-challenged, fat-loving housewife in a kind and nurturing way. For the past few mornings, I've actually been energized, warmed, and filled by my simple decoction of almond milk and butter.

No so much with the kitchadi. This is not what I anticipated. Indeed, the idea of eating rice and lentils for a week actually sounded kind of good. Since I've cut down on carbs so much (except when I binge on them), I don't get to eat a big pot of beans or lentil soup very much. The seasonings make the kitchadi taste pretty good, and I thought it would be a nice change of pace. Was I wrong!! The first day was fine. I let the ghee and milk digest for about an hour, as suggested, and then had my breakfast of kitchadi. Then I had a big bowl of kitchadi for lunch. At dinnertime, I had another bowl of kitchadi. I might have had more as a snack. I can't remember at this point, and really, when you're eating the same thing meal after meal, everything blends together. By day 2, I was having fantasies of eating spinach and actually bought some, along with some cherry tomatoes and cooked up my last kabocha to throw into my porridge. These are all vegetables that support a winter cleanse. But when I talked to the spa panchakarma director about supplementing my mono-diet, she asked a pointed question: was it my body telling me I needed spinach, or was it just the fact that I was bored with the kitchadi. I thought about this. On one hand, it was spinach, not chocolate, that I wanted, so I was predisposed to believe my mind. On the other hand, the kitchadi was so god-awful boring that it was perfectly likely I had convinced myself that I needed vegetables when actually, I just WANTED them. I committed to trying my best to stick to a mono-diet, and she told me that if I felt awful, I should think about adding a super low-fat protein before adding vegetables, especially raw vegetables, which are hard to digest. So I listened and ate kitchadi straight for seven days. Yesterday, which was my eighth day, I crashed. I was foggy, spacey, suffering from sleep deprivation, and lacked the energy to even watch "You're Cut Off" re-runs on MTV (this show is trashier than just about anything on these days. I love it!). I even cried about it. My husband, to his credit, didn't shove me away and tell me that I was being ridiculous and that I signed up for this and was paying for the privilege of suffering. He simply pointed out that I wasn't serving my cleanse by making it hard, and the only sticking point might be the mental issues that could pop up if I caved and ate protein. But around 3 pm, I had enough and savored a hunk of turkey that I had cooked for the family the night before (carving it had been very depressing--no snitching). And let me tell you, that turkey was good. And it was good for me. As soon as I ate it, I got happy and warm and full. I got so full that I didn't even eat the whole piece I had given to myself. And all afternoon long, into the evening, even though I could feel my stomach emptying, I never felt that awful shaky desperation I had earlier, and it would have been possible to have gone to bed without dinner.

But I didn't! And today for lunch, I had a smaller piece of turkey and some kitchadi and I feel happy and satisfied, whereas before lunch, I felt nasty, weak, and tired. Tomorrow I'll be travelling, so it will be more kitchadi, cold this time, but I made it over the hump. It's not just ten days without binging, it's ten days of a revoltingly boring mono-diet. Monotonous diet.

The rest of the preparation isn't quite as bothersome. You're supposed to body brush, oil, and shower in the morning, and then after drinking the ghee, do pranayama (breathwork) and meditation for a little bit. You're supposed to take supplements (I take a digestive aid before meals and something called "anti-anxiety" after meals, although I haven't noticed anything. Valium works better for me). Note I write "supposed," because I haven't been able to do all the meditation and pranayama, but I'm not sweating it. Speaking of sweat, you're supposed to take epsom salt baths every night (which I mostly do) and walk outside every day (which I'm trying to do in spite of the weather). No heavy weights for me. Between a shoulder injury I'm trying to let heal and the lack of energy from my mono-diet, this is not a good time, and I've prescribed myself a two-week rest.

My reaction about having my vegetables taken away from me during the cleanse was striking, and I journalled about it and am speaking about it in my classes. I've spent the past year and half developing a really close attachment to eating lots and lots of vegetables, and although they play an important role in my diet and are very nutritious, I never considered that I might have an unhealthy attachment to them. Yet when I was "forbidden" from eating them (really, there's no forbidden or not--just recommendations), I rebelled and got pissy and tried to rationalize why I should be able to eat them and shoehorn them into my meals while still following the rules. The woman at the spa was right; I was bored with my kitchadi and needed the sparkle and excitement of flavor, texture and temperature that veggies offer. When that's taken away, all the food becomes is sustenance. This was a really valuable lesson for me, and I don't know if I would have learned from it if I didn't live through it first.

The other thing this experience has taught me is how much a high carb diet sucks, even when the carbs are healthy and high in fiber and high-ish in protein. It's so hard to feel full. There's a coating on my teeth that never seems to go away. I feel tired and draggy a lot of the time, except after I eat, when I feel a little bloated. On Thursday morning, I actually got a blood sugar spike from my breakfast, which felt awful; I was so shaky that I went to the gym and did intervals before I taught because I was afraid I'd talk to fast in class. I fantasize about eating a steak and not even cutting off most of the fat, as I tend to do. I've been reading about the Paleo diet and more and more, I want to dive in.

But for now, I'm looking forward to leaving tomorrow. Once I check in to my hotel, I'll dine on--what else?--kitchadi. For dessert, I have to complete the last part of the pre-cleanse: drinking castor oil in orange juice, sucking on fresh orange wedges to chase it, and then waiting for the magic to happen. After leaving the magic in the toilet when you're done (the morning ghee is supposed to have loosened all that shit, literally), I'll get a good night's sleep and start my panchakarma first thing Tuesday.

I want to write a recap after every day. Hopefully if I do, I'll be able to post it. I have let too much of my life slip through my fingers. Recording what I do and think in my time left on earth, while maybe narcissitic and mundane, forces me to examine my life and my actions. Sometimes I see that although the activities themselves are banal, the realizations that arise from the activities are not, and they are mine. While they might not validate my existence, at least they mark the fact that I do exist.

"Coincidence" Doesn't Do It Justice

2010-12-09T15:38:00.000-06:00

Usually, I try to think of a kicky title before I post to direct me in the right direction. But today, words fail me.

My husband had three good friends from college when we met, and when I first moved out to Chicago after we were married, we hung out with these guys and their girlfriends and wives. Although the women were all very nice and I enjoyed the time I spent with them (usually), I never clicked with any of them for more than a few hours. I thought I might become friends with one of them, who I'll refer to as "M." She was a little more edgy than the others and was more impressed by the fact that I tried cocaine in college (it was the 80s--remember "Less Than Zero?") than horrified by it. But after a few failed attempts at a book club, we moved to suburbs a half-hour apart and eventually fell into an every-other-year-and-major-family-events type relationship.

We reconnected at her daughter's bat mitzvah and decided that we were both interested in giving our friendship a second try, so today I had lunch with her. I thought she was going to tell me all about panchakarma, an intense and ancient Ayurvedic cleansing regimen that involves drinking ghee, cleaning your nostrils with a string (too gross to describe), bloodletting, vomiting, and lots and lots of hot oil massages. Panchakarma is to the Master Cleanse what the Hawaii Ironman is to your local fun run. So you could have knocked me over with a feather when, without much ado, she launched right into her thirty year history of bulimia.

I couldn't figure out why she was telling me this. Had my husband, who had seen her husband a few weeks ago, mentioned it? The sheer incongruity of two middle-aged men, especially these two particularly middle-aged men, drinking expensive microbrews and talking about their wives' eating disorders, made me think not. As she told me her story, how she met this expert and how, after her initial phone consultation, stopped binging and purging even before she began her panchakarma, I nodded and listened and jumped to conclusions. Had she guessed? Had I been less than careful the last time I was around her? I couldn't even remember if I had seen her since my eating disorder developed.

M had said that she had only told four or five people her story, and I asked her, why me? She said, "I'm not sure why, but I feel like it's something you'd understand and I just had an overriding need to share it with you." So I 'fessed up to her, too. I told her bulimia is something that I've been struggling with for almost four years and how although I feel like I'm nearing the top of the hole, I'm not there yet and am still backsliding. She's one of those epiphany people who just stop; I'm a zig-zagger who's convinced that someday, the gaps between binges will get longer and longer until they become infinite--almost.

It was so easy to open up to her. I've told very few people about my eating disorder in person. Most of my soul-baring comes online, complete with its comforting cloak of anonymity. I'm not sure how hard it was for M to take the first step. We wound up sitting for two hours, discussing how she's changed and grown since losing the eating disorder, and how her happiness and shift in energy have radiated outward, improving her marriage, her relationship with her children, and her health and outlook on life.

I want what she has. But she is in such a good place that it's impossible to be jealous of her. Instead, she gives me hope. When I think back to what M was like when we first met, her story doesn't surprise me. She was very weight-conscious and often seemed a little off, a little forced. Although I knew she and her husband loved each other, I sensed she was dissatisfied with her life. Little did I know that what she was really dissatisfied with was living in her body with her disease. I'm so glad she shared with me.

M wants me to take my own panchakarma journey. I don't know. I like the path I'm on now, and frankly, the problems with my husband are different than her problems with her husband were. But as she said, getting my head right will at least give me more clarity, even it doesn't give me the answers I want. So I checked out one of her guy's books from the libary and want to try to dig up another that I think I bought about four years ago, when I was in Florida, 3 months into my bulimia.

Another coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

My Tracking Record

2010-12-02T19:00:00.000-06:00

This is what I ate on December 10 last year:

Egg white sandwich on 2 slices low carb bread and an orange
Pumpkin oats and oat bran with egg whites and flaxseed
Turkey chili with a sliced green pepper
Lentil soup plus a little bit of ham on the side
Ceviche (just Trader Joe’s seafood blend mixed with Trader Joe’s mild salsa, the juice of a lime from Trader Joe’s, and a medium avocado from Trader Joe’s. Do we see a pattern here? I love Trader Joe’s, and I don’t even buy the candy there anymore. A lot of the employees know me and say, “Here again?” whenever I come in).
Mixed nuts and a half ounce dark chocolate

Disclaimer: I have no way of knowing whether this entry is true. I tend to plan my meals out ahead of time. I also hardly EVER track my food when I binge (as an academic matter, this would be really interesting but also really depressing. The sheer volume of food I eat during a binge is astounding. I can’t begin to imagine what its calorie count and macronutrient spread would be). So this could have been the plan for the day rather than the day itself. I could have binged early in the day or after dinner. However, the fact that I included the nuts and the chocolate lead me to believe that this was a day of controlled eating, because I usually didn’t plan to eat those foods.

Not a bad day, right? I calculated that I ate 1534 calories, 51 grams of fat, 173 grams of carbohydrates, and 118 grams of protein. This breaks down to 28% fat, 43 % carb, and 29% protein. My net carbs were at 114 grams (Do the subtraction--there’s a LOT of fiber in those lentils and that low carb bread!). There’s nothing wrong with this day of eating. It’s probably a lot better than most people in this country do on a given day and is quite similar to how I ate during the first few months of Lean Eating. Recently, however, my diet has shifted toward more fats and fewer carbs and although my caloric intake remains similar, my macros are quite different, or at least different enough to have a profound impact on my life.

Here’s my meal plan for today:

2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites with baby spinach and a little parmesan cheese
1 scoop whey protein blended with .5 cup lite coconut milk from a can (this is unbelieveably good and solves the problem of protein shakes tasting a little “thin.” The fat in the coconut milk gives my shake a richer mouthfeel and its flavor adds sweetness. The whole thing tastes more like a milkshake than it should. I look forward to this shake and it fills me up like you wouldn’t believe).
Ceviche at a restaurant with my friend. I don’t know how they make it, but I’m guessing it’s similar to mine.
Smoked salmon with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and goat cheese.
Leftover Thai style stir fry with grass-fed ground beef, cabbage, peanuts, fish sauce, lime juice and red pepper.

Post LE macros: 1424 calories (46% fat, 16% carb, 38% protein)

I know my diet is heavier on dairy than many people find advisable, but I’ve never had issues with dairy at all. I use parmesan sparingly and goat cheese isn’t supposed to have a lot of the contraindications that cows’ milk cheeses do. There are plenty of days when I don’t eat cheese, but there are many more when I have multiple meals based around Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. The ultimate bliss is lingering over my morning coffee with enough steamed skim milk to turn it a beautiful dark walnut color. On my coach’s advice, I’m trying to move toward fuller fat dairy, although it’s hard for this diet-brain programmed gal to go there and my palate isn’t used to the richness. I blanched when I saw the calorie count on a tub of full-fat Oikos. When I was still full six hours after I ate it, though, I kind of understood why eating more fat might be helpful. A very small amount satisfies me. It doesn’t make me feel fat, and when I don’t feel fat, I binge less.

Carbs play a supporting role in my diet now, whereas last year, they headed the marquee. During Lean Eating, we limited our starchy carb intake to the three hour window after exercising, when our bodies needed them the most and were best able to absorb them without undue blood sugar spikes. I didn’t quite understood where lentils fell in this continuum, since some people saw them as starchy carbs, others didn’t, and still others felt that it depended on the amount you ate (which makes no sense to me, because it seems like a starchy carb should be a starchy carb whether you eat a tablespoon or a cup). I was also never sure whether a steady state cardio workout allowed me to eat carbs, since the focus was really on strength and high intensity training. But I didn’t quibble about this. I just interpreted things as strictly as possible and ate lentils and beans after my workouts, when I ate them at all. It was hard at first. But over time, I got used to not having oatmeal and low carb bread and sweet potatoes and wraps and squash whenever I wanted them.

Starchy carbs are less of an issue most days, since I’ve been trying to keep my carbs extra-low to help with the sugar cravings. It can be crazy-making at times when I see how many carbs are in the veggies that I like to eat—and not just the sweet ones like carrots and tomatoes, but the cabbage and kale too. I have to channel my coach at times like this. She told me early on in the program that I should eat (not binge on, naturally) as many non-starchy veggies as I wanted to and not worry about their carb content. It’s silly when you take a step back. Why worry about 20 or 30 grams of carbs that are full of vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber? Setting myself up for deprivation will inevitably lead me to dive into TDH’s homemade Microwave Brownie of Desperation. It’s cutting off my nose to spite my face and not worth it.

So even though today’s menu might have fewer veggies than I ate a few months ago, my intake has definitely increased since last year. Cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas are my go-to treats, and I’ve become a master at roasting, which intensifies the natural flavors of veggies and gives them some sweetness as well. Since I’m not as worried about fat, I’ll throw a little more olive oil in the roasting pan, heat it for five minutes, and then throw the veggies on top of the oil, which has become less viscous from the heat and is spread evenly across the bottom of the pan. And now that it's winter, I have my repertoire of pureed soups to enjoy and a computer full of new recipes to try.

The most important thing about the menus, though, is something only I know. It’s not visible to anyone else, and I didn’t even know it was there until I started eating this way. Here’s my secret: Keeping my carb intake low mutes my binge brain. It doesn’t silence it, but its siren song is not as loud and not as compelling. Although I’m not as stuffed after my omelette as I was after my egg white sandwiches, keeping the yolks in my eggs keeps me satisfied for at least 90 minutes longer than the lower fat, higher carb alternative. And as I wrote earlier, I look forward to my protein shakes. They are frickin’ AMAZING. I throw a little instant decaf and a packet of stevia in, and it’s like drinking a Frappuccino (I think. I only had one once, when I was pregnant, and I think I went into glycemic shock then and there).

Last year, I cycled between two to four days of relatively controlled eating and two or three days of uncontrolled binging. These days, my binges, when they happen, tend to occupy a fraction of a day. Once I make it past the two day point (it seems to take that long to get the binge monster out of my system once it’s reared its ugly head), I can go for a week, or two, or three. My goal is to make it through the month of December without binging. A tall order, I know. Even though I’m Jewish and don’t have all of the emotional ties to food during this time of year, I’m still friends with plenty of people who do and who want to share. Plus I love the holidays—gingerbread, pumpkin pie, and lots of chocolate exemplify this month for me. But like I wrote in my last post, I need to set goals. This is a really, really hard one. But it’s doable. I know it is. Lowering carbs and pumping up fat at the same time is what works for me. Doing one without the other is pointless. Doing both of them together has enabled me to contemplate the unthinkable: giving up sugar altogether. You may have noticed that there was no chocolate on today’s menu. Last year, I almost always allowed myself a little piece of something sweet at the end of the day, usually dark chocolate, because I could keep it in the house without binging on it (I still can, by the way). I looked forward to it, probably a little too much. But it was one of the very few treats I could moderate. Eating most foods containing sugar—even honey or agave nectar—was, and still is, like playing Russian roulette. Under the right circumstances, I could have a piece or a bit, but more often than I want to think about, these tastes spiraled into binges before you could say “Jacques Torres.” Yes, eliminating all sugar is considered extreme in this day and age, and for a pastry chef, it borders on heresy. But my bulimia has backed me into a corner, and I’ve developed an addiction that I simply can’t control. Taking the issue of “should I/shouldn’t I” off the table when deciding whether to eat something that might lead to a binge gives me a certain peace that I equate with the yogic aspect of surrender. Once you surrender and accept your situation, it liberates you from suffering.

Leaving the chocolate behind wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be. Not binging sometimes sucks—it’s an easy and familiar release—but what I get from life when I don’t binge makes it worth the struggle. I know my tracking may seem obsessive to some. I read posts like this and think they’re boring, hair-splitting, and bordering on insane. But knowing what I eat and how what I eat contributes both to my illness and to my recovery is important enough for me to check my ego and be insane and boring and hair-splitting for as long as I need to be. Some may say I’m a prisoner to my tracking, but I choose to see it differently. I see my tracking as my path to freedom. So here’s to me finding my moksha (Sanskrit for “liberation from suffering,” for all you non-yogis) during the holiday season. It’s the best gift I could give myself.

Finding My Way Home

2010-12-01T19:35:00.000-06:00

I knew this day would come. I've been thinking about it for a while. In a movie, my first real post in months should be deep, with tons of insight and epiphanies, written in the solemn tone such an achievement merits. But coming up with a worthy subject, let alone writing coherently about it, is just too much. Knowing myself, I'd probably spend the next few months dithering about writing this or writing that, digging myself deeper into a hole of procrastination. I know myself too well.  Good intentions have led to me some pretty unproductive places.

So I'm just going to hop in with both feet, writing a little bit about what I've been doing and what's on my mind: Lean Eating.

Lean Eating was one of the best things I've ever done. I had doubts about it at first; I thought that it would be too simplistic (I'm a professional dieter and weight-loss exerciser, with almost thirty years of experience) and too rigid. I wanted it to cure my eating disorder, not exacerbate it. I didn't know whether it would "work" for me. In all honesty, my goals were all over the place anyway. In public, I wanted a healthier relationship with food and my body. In private, I clung to the hope that I'd be able to see a number on the scale that gave me some wiggle room. And speaking of wiggle, I also wanted to fit back into the beautiful size 2 clothes I bought, mostly because the number on the tag seduced me every time I tried them on, but also because it was the one time in my life that I really spent money on clothes. I felt like finally, I deserved them.

Because I was thin.

I'm guessing that I wasn't much different from many, if not most, Lean Eaters. I'm guessing that most of my cohort came into the game hoping to get thinner, if not skinny, regardless of starting weight. I'm guessing that I didn't fool my coach for a minute (she has amazing powers, including mind reading. I'll write more about her later).

So what happened? Well, let me write about what DIDN'T happen first.

I didn't lose weight. Well, not really.

I didn't get "cured" of my eating disorder.

I didn't get the six-pack I secretly coveted.

When you add it all up, I spent almost a year losing five pounds and about 15-20 inches (measured at eight different places on my body). That means I spent more than $200 per pound and not quite $10 per inch on a program designed to help me lose weight and increase muscle (in my case, that would make me smaller). This was definitely not a cost-effective weight loss/body transformation program for me. So why was it so great?

It turns out that my stated desire to normalize my relationship with food, learn to appreciate (if not love) my body, and revamp my exercise program really WAS what I was looking for. Kind of like finding your heart's desire in your own backyard, right? And six months of practicing the same silly habits over and over again (wax on, wax off) made me crave the continuity of those very habits I rebelled against initially. Despite my fantasies of breakfast at Starbucks with the paper, a grande skim latte and a pumpkin scone, I ate my egg white omelette (protein at every meal) stuffed with spinach and sun dried tomatoes (vegetables at every meal)--and felt better for it. I drank fish oil (12 g. per day) straight out of the bottle, because measuring it in spoons stunk up my dishwasher. I went to the gym whether I wanted to or not, because I knew the stress of not going when I could (and not getting to check off the little box on the web site) would be more unpleasant than the workout itself. And now I feel a little off when I don't have my egg whites, fish oil, or daily activity.

Not every habit was new and difficult. Some are still hard; eating to 80% fullness is next to impossible for me without a food gauge. All I'm used to is not enough or too much. But the habits have become a part of my life. For better or for worse. I could say I'm a prisoner to them, but also that they are helping me become the person I want to be.

After six months of the program, I wasn't ready to leave it behind. I had been viewing it as a contest--one which I knew pretty early on I was not going to win--rather than a program to implement lifelong change. Staying on for an extra five months was the best decision I could have made. The pressure of the end of the official program in July, along with a twelve-day trip to Europe, sent me into a sugar-induced tailspin that showed me exactly how much further I still had to go and that I needed to get my act together, pronto. And so I did. Practicing the habits and exercises for six months had made me familiar with them; now, I had the time and space to think about WHY I was doing them once the motivation of the contest was gone.  When the pressure to transform lifted, I felt--very gradually, over time--more settled about my eating, about what I could and couldn't eat, about what foods (and amounts) served me and what didn't. I practiced sitting with my feelings and even practiced being present during a binge--not a pretty experience. I finally learned that no matter how much I exercised, I would never see low body fat percentages unless I cleaned up my diet.

Maybe most importantly, I learned that when I eat healthy foods in optimum amounts and exercise vigorously and appropriately, I have moments when I love the way I look, regardless of what the scale or the tag at the back of my jeans says.  I learned how to view my body as a functional and powerful instrument, not as a passive ornament.

So although I didn't get skinny again, didn't leave my eating disorder in the dust, and didn't win any of the prizes, I got something much better. I got my life back. I have hope. I can go for weeks without binging at all, sometimes long enough to forget exactly how long. I've lost all of my cravings for spicy, salty food like pizza and Popeye's fried chicken. I don't eat bread most of the time and don't even want to (most of the time). My diet consists largely of animal protein, dairy, non-starchy vegetables, and healthy fats with very small amounts of fruit and starchy carbs. I feel good and satisfied like this. I've learned that most of my binges aren't triggered so much by food deprivation as they are by emotional issues, many of which have nothing to do with food at all. I've had more "a-ha" moments than I can recall.

Now I'm standing with one foot in both worlds. I leave Lean Eating in a few days and have to make my way alone.  Although I'm still working privately with my coach, I know the energy on this newest part of my journey will shift once again. How could it not?  And this is what frightens me a little. In one of those funny coincidences, Sunshine from "The Biggest Loser" summed it up perfectly in last night's episode, when she told Mark that one of the hardest times for her came after the grand finale. "It's hard and you're not going to be used to it," she said. "You're a new person and there's no getting back to normal life. What IS normal anymore?"

I understood her perfectly. I was one person going into Lean Eating, and coming out of it, I'm another. I have to learn how to be the new and improved version of the Deranged Housewife, and I just don't know how she will exist "off the ranch," when the parameters of a program no longer confine her. When you're on a diet, there's always that goal weight off in the distance. You're either on the diet or off of it, but either way, the goal is always there.  When there's no goal, when you've gotten to where you want to be, what else is left? What motivates you to stay on the path you've followed instead of reverting back to your old habits?

I wanted a quick fix for my problems; instead, I got a new direction. I want to continue along this path but I know that I will stumble and maybe even get scared and think about turning back.  Going someplace unfamiliar can be scary.  Sunshine told Mark to set goals.  And so I will, too. But in the end, figuring out a way to get all of this to work WITHOUT goals is my overriding goal. With goals, there's always a striving, reaching, grasping element that is borne partially out of fear. I want goals to be redundant. I want the pleasure of living my life, of taking care of my body, challenging it and nurturing it, to be enough. Any goals or achievements beyond that are just gravy.

And so with those hopes and plans in mind, I step a little closer to the edge, and hopefully a little closer to the rest of my life, one I can live with awareness, with both love and pain, with feeling, and without masking any of the beauty or tragedy with food.

The Prodigal Daughter Returns

2010-11-17T08:30:00.000-06:00

Once the Thanksgiving holidays are over, I will be resurrecting these pages. I purposely stayed away this past year to focus my energies on Lean Eating, which is still going on for those graduates of the six month program who wanted to continue their journeys. The four or five months after the contest was officially over was the time that everything started to click, where I saw improvement and growth in areas that couldn't be measured by a scale or tape measure, and you can be sure I will share that there. So if you were one of my handful of readers in the past, you'll be able to get your TDH fix shortly. And if you're one of my new readers coming along from the LE boards, welcome to my virtual home. It's not as much fun as meeting in a raw food restaurant garden or having chips and ceviche at the city's finest Mexican restaurant, but hey--it keeps me connected. And even if I'm blogging out here in oblivion, as I felt I did so often last year, it's still a wonderfully therapeutic tool for me.

And in case anyone is wondering, the family drama is gone. I finally had my say to my dad and made him listen to me. Once that happened, I was willing to let everything slide, which is what everyone had hoped would happen in the first place. I will not forget what happened and am beginning to learn who I should trust and who I shouldn't, but the fact that you simply don't trust someone shouldn't preclude you from having a warm and cordial relationship in other parts of life, which is what we are doing. I'm a master of window dressing and can be the hostess with the mostess, and for family unity, that's what were doing these days.

So eat well, my dearies. Cozy up with your loved ones, bake up a few pumpkin muffins and a gallon of mushroom soup (hey, it freezes and you'll be glad you had it when it's cold outside and you didn't feel like shopping for dinner that night), play football, ice skate, shop the sales on Black Friday--do whatever it is you do to get into the holiday spirit. For me, I will be eating (not binging) and digesting (not purging), along with some moderate to intense exercise to help ground me, strengthen me, and heal me from a few niggling little injuries. I will be back soon.

Love, TDH

Floating Away

2010-03-18T08:09:00.000-05:00

The oddest thing happened yesterday. I felt great. Amazing. It was an absolutely beautiful day here, the kind of day we wait all winter for. The sky was clear, the sun was out, and it was in the high 50s with a slight breeze. I had gone spinning in the morning, where I ran into an old friend (the one who had complimented me on my guns in the fall). She's started doing Insanity and invited me to join her on Sunday. It looks like I might have found an exercise buddy, since she said she's interested in seeing what I've been doing in the gym on my own. After working out, I had a nice breakfast and headed out to do some shopping in our Indian neighborhood before I took a yoga class from one of my favorite teachers. I didn't feel too full. In fact, I felt a little hungry. But it was okay, because I finally felt good.

But as I was driving, an unsettling feeling began to creep over me. I didn't know what to make of it. It was almost as though I was TOO happy. As though I was going to explode and break into a thousand little pieces and go whirling away because I couldn't contain myself. I felt manic, like an overfilled helium balloon that was struggling to break free, knowing that if I did break free, I'd go up and up and up forever into oblivion. I remember reading "The Bell Jar" in high school. When Sylvia Plath crawled under her mattress to sleep because she needed something to hold her down, I totally got it then and felt like it again yesterday. I needed a good mattress on top of me.

When I got home, yoga wasn't going to happen. I was too scattered. So I had a snack and decided I'd go for a walk in the beautiful weather instead. But that didn't happen either, because a binge did. I think in some ways, happiness, lightness and euphoria are so foreign to me that they are just as uncomfortable as inadequacy, shame, and feeling fat. And although there was plenty about the binge that was awful, at least it anchored me. It made me aware of my limitations, of who I am. It kept me grounded. You can't float away if you're full of ice cream or tired from throwing up, can you?

This is pretty scary. I thought I was leaving bulimia behind me, but it looks like it was just sleeping and it's been along for the ride this whole time. I've done so much work on making myself feel better, but what about those times when I need to ground myself?

One of my all-time favorite lines from a movie is at the end of "American Beauty." If it doesn't bring me to tears, it chokes me up sufficiently that I can't read it out loud. Part of it is:

[I]t's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst.

That's what I was thinking of as I was driving home, loving the sense of happiness and fearing it at the same time. I was overwhelmed. I wish I had remembered the next sentence:

And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.

I sat down to write this today to try to figure things out. When I am really feeling, the words come quickly and I don't have to stop, read, edit, and rewrite. I am looking at this for the first time, seeng the lightbulb going off over my words and thinking that there might be something to this journalling business after all.

I don't need the answer anymore. It was right in front of me the whole time. Next time I feel as though I'm floating away (which I do hope happens often, in spite of how uncomfortable it made me; being happy is a beautifu thing), I will remember to let it flow through me like rain. I will not try to grasp at what I cannot retain, nor will I try to run from something that is unfamiliar.

This is the silver lining. I love saying that every mistake offers us an opportunity to learn. This one was big.

Revenge: Best Eaten Cold

2010-03-15T17:02:00.000-05:00

I'm not a big fan of revenge. I love the idea of it, but in practice, it usually backfires and makes the person seeking vengeance feel even worse. But I've hatched a perfectly delicious, passive-aggressive plan that I think will serve its purpose and completely confuse its victims at the same time.

Let me back up. I finally heard from my dad on Thursday, five days after the whole bar mitzvah debacle. And while it was a relief to get his phone call, it was infuriating at the same time. First of all, I asked him (add weight to the words), "What is going on????" Granted, that's a broad and open-ended question, but I didn't expect the response I received.

"Well, the weather here is pretty good and we're just settling back into our routine." Whaaaat? So I said, "No, how are things going?" "Oh, pretty well. We just got back from Apple School [or whatever it's called where you learn how to use your iPhone. Hey, they're senior citizens!]."

This went on for a few minutes until I realized that in my dad's reality, nothing HAD happened. He was done with the incident and was never going to talk about it again. Actually, I should say never talk about it at all, because he never did. And his failure to mention it was the thing that was most upsetting for me the day it went down.

This doesn't mean that he is of the forgive and forget ilk. No, during the conversation, he brought up something I said to him fifteen years ago. Without boring anyone with the details, it took me a few days to even remember what he was talking about, since he had misconstrued the point I had been trying to make fifteen years ago. What's telling is that he still held a grudge about what he thought I had been trying to say. Unfortunately, instead of talking to me about it closer to the time it happened, he's kept it buttoned up tightly all this time, so it's festered and probably can't be gotten rid of no matter how much I try to clear it up

Which I'm not inclined to do in the first place. It's become increasingly difficult to have a meaningful conversation with him. I'm guessing this has something to do with the marital difficulties I was going through a while back. For him, divorce is almost as shameful as obesity, and it took about a year of seeing me miserable and crying spontaneously for him to come to terms with the fact that I might be happier without my husband. When I would talk to him, his discomfort at hearing and seeing me so unhappy was palpable. I think he developed a habit of interrupting me when it seemed like our conversations might turn serious (i.e. meaningful) because he just didn't want to hear anything other than happy prattle. No news is good news, right? So he will make inappropriate comments and jokes that he thinks are witty, or will interject unrelated anecdotes until I get disgusted and drop the subject. While it keeps us from getting close to one another, it also insulates him from the ugly truth of my life.

Oddly, although I feel let down by him, I'm more upset at myself than I am at him. I've known what he was like for a long time and simply expected more from him than he was capable of or willing to give me. Wanting something you can never have is a sure path to misery. I don't want to go down that road again.

The experience has also taught me a fair amount about myself. Most interestingly, I was talking to my husband about the fifteen year old conversation and how my dad couldn't let it go, how he held it against me and still harbored a grudge. As I was talking, I saw the expression on my husband's face change and realized that I was talking about myself. My husband said and did a lot of really stupid and insensitive things in the past that changed our relationship as we moved forward. And although he would never say or do any of those things now, he is still paying for them by my refusal to let go of my resentment of the person he used to be. They say that you qualities you despise most in other people are those qualities you refuse to see in yourself, and boy, does that describe me to a T in this respect. I do NOT want to be like my dad, caught up so deep in my righteous anger that I let it color my existing relaltionships.

We left off with me asking him (several times, so the context was clear) what I should do. "Nothing," he said. "In surgery, the rule is to always do nothing unless there's something that you need to do." And while this sounds like denial in some ways, it sounds like damage control in others. No one had any idea that my little conversation with J last Friday would erupt into something like this. Who knows what further confrontation could spark? And in this situation, no one is going to be the winner. I don't get to be right in anyone's eyes except my own. I can accept that. Honestly, what else is there to do?

Well, taking that last question as a non-rhetorical one, other than toying with ideas of what I would do if I could go back in time (which doesn't work, as evidenced by Uncle Rico's botched experiment with poor Napoleon), I could plot revenge. How do I get even? Or at least get back? We will be staying in their condo in Florida (while they're away) in a few weeks, and I LOVE the idea of putting sand in the La Prairie face cream, letting the boys used their bathroom (anyone with male children will know what penises and toilets do to a bathroom floor), or swapping her prescription meds around. But I settled on something even lovelier: matzoh crack.

Yes, matzoh crack, the infamous and easy Passover recipe loved by Jewish housewifes (even non-deranged ones) and feared by sugar addicts and recovering bulimics nationwide. Since we will be staying at the condo during Passover, what would be nicer and more hospitable than to leave a VERY LARGE package of something delicious, sophisticated, and FULL OF EMPTY CALORIES AND SATURATED FAT that is absolutely irresistable? Even shiksas have been known to make this stuff (you have to love the idea of matzoh crack being served as dessert at a Christmas party. Even Santa Claus would appreciate the irony). J loves chocolate. She can't stop eating it. She demolished the turtles I brought her over Thanksgiving (as would any sane person). And she will love this. And it will torture her to have it around, but would torture her worse to throw it out. And giving them something this delicious and wonderful will reinforce my postion as a kind and good person would couldn't hold a grudge if it was covered in Velcro.

My moratorium on baking has ended, although I still choose not to do it simply because, as in December, it's like playing with fire. But I'm making exceptions--like making my famous Passover blondies for my sister-in-law who takes the heat off me by hosting a seder for 40 people at her house--and will make an exception here too. At the worst, I'm taking the high road and extending the olive branch. And at best, I will cause distress and discomfort in the most insidious, evil way anyone with eating or body image issues could imagine. The trick will be not eating any myself, but since I prefer the sweet taste of revenge to chocolate in this case, keeping my palate clean should be a little easier.

Note: I just did the math, and actually my moratorium doesn't end until April 15. Is it worth it to break my promise to myself? I will think this over. Since matzoh is on sale this week for $2 for 5 boxes (usually it's more than $3/box), perhaps I should take that as a sign from the universe that God is in favor of my plan. For the God of the Jews is just and merciful, but also vengeful when He is insulted, and remember what happened in one of His synagogues last weekend....

Reality is a Bitter Pill

2010-03-10T06:27:00.000-06:00

My heart has been breaking quietly for the past few days.

What's worse is that I feel like a sap. I feel like someone pulled something over on me. My Achilles heel (one of them, at least) has been expecting heroic things of the ones I love. Everyone, including myself, is constrained by their own world views, their own insecurities, and their own pathology.

I think I've written in here about the fact that my father and I have had some major ups and downs in the twenty-plus years since my mom died. The way I was finally able to come to terms with things (after quite a long time in therapy) was to realize that whenever I had any expectations of him whatsoever--whether it was to pay a bill, speak to someone, or have my back--I would more often than not be let down. I could continue to feel angry and betrayed about his behavior, or I could accept the unpleasant fact that, although he is my father and I love him, he is essentially a weak man who chooses to avoid personal conflict at the cost of his interpersonal relationships. I chose the latter, forfeiting my trust and faith in my father. If he said he was going to do something, I would murmer something appreciative and non-commital, and when he failed to follow through, I was neither surprised or upset.

Prior to my son's service, I spoke to him about not including his wife. His words to me? "I've been trying to get this through her head for years--that's she's not the grandmother." Obviously, this didn't work too well, since she included herself in my older son's bar mitzvah without being called to the bimah or invited to participate in any other way. Therefore, I thought that my saying something to her would have more impact than if he told her what I wanted. Also, part of me didn't trust him to raise the subject at all.

And look what happened.

After I posted on Sunday morning, I collapsed. Once I had everything done for the thirty-plus guests we were expecting, I sat down and realized that I wouldn't be able to attend my own party. I was shaking and wound up climbing into bed for about a hour before going down to meet the guests. And just as expected, no one said a word about things, except for my sister in law. My dad's wife was there, and I'm sorry to say that I couldn't look at her, let alone talk to her. I love the idea of taking the high road, of not holding a grudge, but that didn't happen. My dad did come over to talk to me, but about something that was completely irrelevant to anything that had happened the day before. I think it was his way of reaching out and trying to connect with me in the only way he could, which is by talking AT me rather than talking TO me.

I'm sorry to say the collapse was accompanied by a binge/purge session that lasted for hours. I couldn't stop myself, and it just contributed to my misery.

Why was I so upset? Not so much of because of what she did--that was completely classless and stupid and selfish. She didn't ruin anything and only made herself look bad. No, I'm upset because of the ramifications on my relationship with my father. She lives with him and I don't know what she is planning on saying and doing. I know that if I want to preserve any relaltionship at all, I will have to call them and deal with her in the future, which I suppose I can do. It will be unpleasant, although continuing to insert myself in their life will stick in her craw like no one's business. The closer I am to my dad, the crazier she will get. But in order to do this, I need to come back to the terms I came to years ago--that my dad would rather have a life without conflict than get involved in messy emotional situations.

I wasn't looking for him to choose sides. I know he's caught in the middle of something and just wants it to go away. And one day, this won't seem like a big deal at all. But for me, the easiest way to get things to go away is to talk about them, sometimes more than once. I can't have a conversation with him about this, because all that would happen is he would get angry and defensive and wind up blaming everything on me. I need to let go and move forward. But it's hard.

I called my dad's cell phone on Monday and left him a message about the weekend, just apologizing for not being the best hostess and letting him know that no matter what, I loved him. I told him I wanted to talk to him (he had told me that there were a lot of things about him that I didn't know that he would share with me) since I only know what he chooses to tell me, and I would love to know him better). And then I sent him an email telling him I had left him a cell phone message (he's not the best about checking his cell phone).

I still haven't heard back from him. Yesterday was my son's thirteenth birthday, and he didnt call. I am probably reading too much into this. I am guessing he is busy doing his own thing and, in spite of every sign to the contrary, thinks that things are just hunky-dory with me.

During this whole escapade, my husband kept saying to me, "But would you really expect your dad to do something?" And I had to answer no, I wouldn't EXPECT him to do anything. But that didn't mean that I didn't WANT him to do something. My dad was supposed to be my hero, my white knight.

My forgetting that he is otherwise makes me feel stupid and like someone pulled something over on me. I had forgotten what things are really like. And relearning it this way sucks.

Family Drama Part II

2010-03-07T05:33:00.000-06:00

When we last met, I was getting ready to spend the day playing hostess at a relatively large service and party to celebrate my son's bar mitzvah. Although many people in my neighborhod see this as an occasion to throw money at anything and see where it sticks, it's traditionally a very sacred and serious day. A young man leads the congregation in prayer and at the end of the service is considered to be a man in the Jewish religion. Yes, there's usually a party with a lot of food and entertainment, sometimes a band and dancing, with candy and giveaways at the end, but ultimately, it's about the family and the occasion. It's a happy, inclusive celebration.

I had gone to bed the night before feeling bad about upsetting my father's wife. Although she really had no right to expect to be included as a grandparent in the service, I definitely did not want to hurt her feelings, nor did I say what I did to her out of any spite or ill will. It was just, in my opinion, the right thing to do in order to preserve my late mother's role and presence in the service. I checked with my sister-in-law when I saw her just before the service began to see whether my dad's wife was okay, and my SIL said yes, she seemed fine at breakfast.

The service started out beautifully. My son looked so handsome in his new suit, the family portraits were taken quickly and without any tears or struggle, and eveything was going well. And then... the rabbi called my dad's wife up to say the prayer for Israel.

Two rows behind me, I heard her say, "No." Then she said, in front of 130 people in the middle of the service, she said "I'm not going." I heard my dad start muttering angrily to her under his breath and heard her saying something in response to him. Not really believing what was going on, but wanting to avoid any unpleasantness on my son's big day, I got up out of my seat and started walking up to the bimah. The rabbi looked at me, obviously confused. Then I heard my dad's wife behind me saying, "Okay, okay, I'll do it." She walked up, said the prayer, and walked down. My husband and I kissed her and thanked her on her way back to her seat, just as we had for everyone else we had asked to participate in the service before her. But I was quite upset, and the fact that I didn't want to be upset because it would be giving her exactly what she wanted made me even more upset.

It happened so quickly and relatively quietly that I don't think a lot of people knew anything untoward had happened. My husband, who was sitting right next to me and in on the background, didn't even hear her say anything (of course, this is the man who can't find a gallon of milk in an empty refrigerator, but still). Thank goodness it was not more of a disruption than it was. But it completely threw me off-kilter for the rest of the day.

It is supposed to be a happy and inclusive occasion. The party was all about my younger son, and we all worked together to make sure he was the center of attention. Even my oldest son, who's very competitive with the younger and never gives him a break, stepped aside so it could be about the bar mitzvah boy. For this woman to make it about her, her so-called "exclusion" from a part of the ceremony she never officially joined to begin with, made me feel like she had hijacked the party from its rightful owner.

The rest of the day was emotional. When the rabbi talked about my mom, I began to cry in front of everyone, and it was difficult for me to even look at my dad's wife during the party, let alone talk to her. What was possibly the most upsetting thing, however, is that no one except for my sister-in-law said a WORD to me about what went down. They all pretended it didn't happen. I understand that we all want to focus on the happy and ignore the unpleasant on a day like yesterday, but it would have been nice to have gotten a little support and encouragement. Like I wrote yesterday, I know I didn't do anything wrong, but I felt awful and a little energetic support would have been welcome. I am particularly hurt by my father's failure to say a word to me about what his wife did, let alone apologize for her behavior.

I don't like to hold grudges, but it will be a long time before I will want to spend time with the two of them. What she did is the antithesis of what we try to teach our children in preparation for their b'nai mitzvah--that they are a part of a world, not the center of it, and that there is a type of contract by which they must abide and that the greatest gift and achievement is to give of yourself to make the world a better place. What her behavior did was exemplify taking without compensation and general pissiness when met with not getting one's own way. It just sucked.

People are coming over today for lunch (the final feed) before heading home to wherever. I have no idea what to expect--whether she will boycott my house, whether my father will come, and whether either or both of them will address it. I suspect everyone will continue to tiptoe around the elephant in the living room. I really shouldn't be surprised, since when my mom was dying of cancer, you never would have known it from what my family talked about--same old shit until my mom could no longer participate in the conversations because the cancer was destroying her brain cells. My dad has made his bed and has to lay in it. He is still my father, but as these episodes occur, I lose a little more respect for him each time. She is his partner and I am his daughter, and I don't want to come between them, but I can't imagine him letting me get away with behavior like this anywhere. And I feel a little bereft.

By this time tomorrow, it will all be behind me. And although we had plans to see my dad and his wife for a two day stayover in Florida before we boarded our cruise ship for spring break, somehow, he and his wife got "confused" and decided to go to Philadelphia until the day we left on the cruise, and then booked a trip for Paris the day before our ship returns. I was quite hurt, since I don't see my dad often and wanted to spend time with him. But now I am so relieved that I don't have to spend time with the two of them, to continue to dance in this elaborate ballet of manners that is bullshit.

I don't expect I will be spending too much time in Florida anytime soon.

Family Drama

2010-03-06T06:15:00.003-06:00

My mom died of metastatic breast cancer at the beginning of 1989, when I was 23 years old. It was a long time ago, and although it's gotten easier to have a happy life without her, I miss her constantly. It's no longer a low grade pain that permeates my day but rather something sharp that pops into my head at certain times--when my friend was talking about planning her own mom's 65th birthday party, when I see mothers and daughters out to lunch, or when I'm visiting my dad and his wife and people mistake her for my mother.

My dad's wife is his third wife. His second wife, who he married amid the grief of losing his life partner, was an unmitigated disaster. I'm trying not to project negative energy toward others these days because I'm afraid it will have a rebound effect and stick to me, so suffice it to say that this woman was terribly insecure, was threatened a great deal by me, and took her unhappiness out on others by trying to manipulate them. She did this all with a smile and was quite attractive --and much younger than my father as well--so it took him a while to see him for what she was and get rid of her.

After that debacle, my dad, whose never been very good at navigating his emotions other than anger (he pretends that they don't exist), became understandably gun-shy of marriage and spent about ten years as a widower/divorce until he met his current wife. She was very appropriate for him--same age, a professional woman with grown children of her own, from the same geographical and ethnic background--and I agreed that she was very kind and adored him. When it comes to stepmothers, my second cousin and I once agreed on this: sometimes the best thing you can say is "it could always be worse."

And that's certainly true with J, my dad's wife. She is a good person, a kind person, and I have no doubt that she means well. My father is not an easy man to live with. Aside from the fact that he's getting up in years and requires a certain amount of care and patience, he is miserly about exending this care and patience to others. He is judgmental and snaps at people in a horrible demeaning way when they're trying to help him and he's irritated. He's set in his ways and will not even begin to consider shifting perspectives, even if it's only to consider someone else's point of view. J takes good care of him, organizes their social schedule in a way that makes him very happy, and is a good life partner. She does truly love him and he, in his own way, loves her as well.

Having a good wife around for my dad makes things easier for my brother and myself. My dad is in Florida most of the time, whereas I'm in Chicago and my brother is in LA. We each have families and just can't run to take care of my dad when he gets sick, like we had to do before he married J. J has told us repeatedly that she loves us and loves having us in her life, and has spoken about doing all kinds of things together as one big family, either with her kids or without them.

But.

I get the feeling that a lot of this is lip service. She may truly love us, but I think it's the love you have for an idea of something rather than loving my brother and myself as individuals. She has this picture in her head of the happy stepfamily that she desires so much that she's willing to overlook reality in order to have that picture in her own mind. When I'm around her, I mostly enjoy myself--she's pleasant enough company--but she is one of those people who is too clingy and needy and helpless for me to want to have a deeper relationship with. It's difficult for her to decide what to order on a menu, let alone plan a meal to make at home. The one time she cooked for us, she came home with a piece of fish that she had no idea what to do with and asked me how to cook it, what sides she could make, and ultimately, whether I could just do most of it for her. At times like this, I want to practice tough love (how will she learn if I don't make her do it herself?), but figure it's not my place and suck it up. As a guest in her house, I feel as though it's the polite thing to do. Most of the time, she's my dad's problem.

Now that we're in the middle of my younger son's bar mitzvah (yes, I'm writing at the crack of dawn because I am upset and need to get this out), she's become more of my problem. At my older son's service two years ago, the grandparents were called up to the bimah (the stage) to say the blessing over the Torah. All three grandparents were named--and yet she trailed my dad up there like a little bird looking for crumbs. I was miffed--she is NOT my child's grandmother--but did not want to say anything. It had been done, and getting upset over it would not have accomplished anythying. So I let it go.

However, I knew this was an issue that would have to be addressed for this party. And some other stuff has occurred in the meantime. A few months ago, my dad was talking about how he gifted some of his frequent Marriot points to my step-sister so she could go to Hawaii. A few days later, as my husband and I were making plans to go to Europe and finding plane tickets horribly expensive, my husband suggested asking my dad for frequent flyer miles (he has a ton). Since my dad has always offered to give me miles in the past, I thought it was a great idea. I went to my dad, he generously gave me the miles we needed, and I took care of the paperwork. I wanted to let him know that everything was done and also thank him again, so I called him and left him a message on his answering machine since he wasn't home.

Later that night, I got a terse email from my dad basically instructing me never to leave personal messages on his answering machine. His wife heard the message and got very upset that my dad had given me his miles. "Your kids already have too much," she told him. So apparently, I'm not allowed to call my dad to thank him or talk about certain things around her that might upset her, threaten her, or make her insecure, because my dad will need to deal will the fallout and it's just too much trouble. Remember, these were not her miles or their miles; they were HIS. He has been quite generous to her kids, paying her grandchildrens' tuition at expensive private schools and giving J money to pass onto her kids as allowances because J is phobic about tapping into her own bank account, even though she receives a substantial pension as a retired civil servant.

This incident still makes me sick to my stomach. I hate not being able to thank my dad, or even talk to him candidly when she's around. We've had a rough past and having to think about my words before I say them to him makes it even harder to communicate meaningfully. My dad is not young, and I don't see him as often as I like, and I don't want our last years together to be marred by dancing around issues so as not to bother his wife. The other scary thing, which sounds so greedy and venal, but is a real thing, is that my dad has a sizeable estate. Although J signed a prenup when she married my dad, I don't know how good it is, and I know she will challenge it if he predeceases her. I don't care so much how much everyone gets--it's the idea of losing my only parent, my only true link to my entire history, and not being able to mourn him because I have to deal with all the legal bullshit she's going to create. And I know she will do this, because she's making trouble and getting grabby about his things while he's still alive.

There is nothing I can do about the estate thing. But I don't trust this woman in this respect, and she has certainly not acted like a grandmother to my kids or a mother to me. Like I said, I know she wants to be one, but you have to walk your talk, and she ain't doing this. Having her put herself up there as a part of MY family's inner circle today would have been unacceptable.

So I talked to her last night. I told her that although she was a member of our family and we wanted to include her in the service (she is reading the Prayer for Israel), that she was not my son's grandmother. My mother was the only grandmother my son would ever have, and even though she cannot be at the service, I want to hold her space for her. Seeing three people up there instead of four makes everyone realize that there is a real grandparent who is not there that day and who is missed and can't be replaced. I asked J if she would please do this as a sign of respect for me and for my mother.

I was surprised and upset at how hurt she was. She looked like she was holding back tears the whole time I was talking to her. I don't want her to be upset. But if it's a choice between honoring my wishes and my mother's memory or catering to her fantasies about being a grandmother, it's a no brainer. I just hate that she's sad. I can count on my fingers how many times she's picked up the phone just to call me to say hi, let alone to call my kids. She doesn't know when their birthdays are. She knows nothing about their lives except that they're her husband's grandkids. I am not sure why she thinks she's their grandmother, because the relationship she has with her own grandchildren and my kids couldn't be more different. But apparently, she does think she's a grandmother, and my request to her was a slap in her face.

Writing this doesn't make me less upset, as I hoped it would, but it does make me resolute. I did the right thing. I protected my boundaries and honored my mother's memory. And there is one more story that might bring this into better perspective. When my dad turned seventy, J wanted to throw him a big party. The night of his birthday was somehow inconvenient, so she chose another date. The date she chose was the day my mother died. Many of the guests invited to the party were friends of my parents, people who had loved my mom. I know it sounds dramatic, but my brother and I felt like she was dancing on my mom's grave. We both went to J, separately, to ask her if she could please change the date. Since the party was a week after my dad's birthday, would it really be that bad to make it one or two weeks later? She told me that it was inconvenient and she was sorry but it was not possible. And then she turned to me, and in an effort at what she must have thought was great kindness, sensitivity and understanding, said to me, "Sometimes you've just got to light a candle [what Jewish people do on the anniversary of a loved one's death] and move on."

I was a twenty three year old woman who had lost my mother--my mother who never got to see me married, who never knew her grandchildren, who never enjoyed the travel she dreamed of once my dad retired--and J was telling me to move on. How do you get over the loss of a parent? I don't know. And I don't want to move on. I want to hold all of my memories to me. The fewer there are of them, the more precious they become.

I know she'd deny ever saying this, but say it she did. And I think at that moment, I knew she'd never have the role in my life that she seems to think she's entitled to. Like I said, I like her and she's always been good to me. But there are certain lines that you can't cross, and likewise certain threshholds that need to be met in order to really become a member of my family. This hasn't happened, and I don't imagine it will.

She is not my stepmother. She is not my kids' grandmother. She is my dad's wife and although she's in our family by virtue of that relationship, it's his choice, not mine. So why do I feel so bad?

Temptation Challenge or a One-Way Ticket to Bulimiaville?

2010-03-03T20:18:00.000-06:00

Last night, I settled in for a relaxing night of viewing The Biggest Loser. It was even more of a special treat for two reasons: my younger son was keeping me company (no swim practice for a month! and it was the first night back after a three week hiatus for the Winter Olympics. Although I think the show hit its high point with Tara, Helen, Ron and Mike in the finals two seasons ago, there's always something to enjoy in every episode, even if it's the cheesy audacity of product placements. Honestly, showing contestants going into Walgreens and talking about how they can find everything? How is that different from any other drugstore? Please.

I understand that good television can involve watching others suffering sometimes. Why else would TV's Funniest Home Videos be on for so long? But last night, it went beyond vomiting on treadmills, fainting on beaches, or heart palpitations at night. There was a temptation challenge with a huge prize at stake--the ability to choose teams. Being on a strong team can mean the different between winning the whole show and going home early, so there was a lot hanging in the balance.

And for those who don't watch the show, a temptation challenge is when the contestants have to eat, usually large amounts of foods that they've left behind them when they started their journey. In general, the more you eat, the better you do (or the higher your chances of winning are). I think the purpose is to make the contestants think about exactly what the cost of binging on junk food is. I'm guessing a lot of them are accustomed to eating this kind of food in huge quantities without it registering at all. Doing it for a purpose, with Allie Sweeney drilling the calorie count into your head with every bite, is bound to have some type of lasting impact.

But last night's challenge went a little bit too far. The two contestants battling it out played a game of Memory, where they took turns uncovering two squares on a grid. Each square covered one of a pair of foods, ranging from apples to soft pretzels to layer cake. If one contestant found two matching foods, the other contestant had to eat the food. If the contestant didn't find a pair, he or she had to eat a chocolate chip cookie taken from a huge pile mounded up in front of them. And the catch? Hidden on the grid were two golden tickets, which gave the contestant who uncovered them immunity and the right to choose teams.

Needless to say, things got uncomfortable pretty quickly. As the players went back and forth, there was a period where they were just eating cookies. But as they started pairing up their foods, each person was essentially forced to eat more food than they wanted, without being able to do anything about it. The contestants whe weren't playing were watching in horror as the two players had to put away upwards of 4,000 calories (combined total) before Michael found the golden tickets and put everyone out of their misery.

Would saying this was like watching gladiators fight to the death in Rome be hyperbole? Because watching ths was creating some serious PTSS in me. As the players described how bad they were feeling from all the crap they were eating, I actually felt it. And even though I hadn't binged in days, all I could think about was throwing up. Not necessarily for myself, but for them. I felt their pain, and worse, their shame at having eaten. I know they were doing it for a reason and that might have made it a little different, but it was still a binge, albeit an orchestrated one. And when the contest was over and Michael had won, I looked at the woman's face and knew that if she hadn't taught herself how to vomit yet, she'd be a step closer after this episode.

I didn't think the producers could be more irresponsible than they were last season, when the group raced a mile for immunity on the very first day of the show. Two people wound up in the hospital, one for more than a week. But something like what I saw last night was beyond the pale. There should be a constructive way of teaching people to deal with temptation, not just letting them duke it out in a game of chicken with food.

I'm not sure how I feel about the show anymore. As sensationalistic as it is, I believe that at some level, TBL provides a service. It heightens awareness of the dangers of unhealthy diets and lack of exercise. It provides a platform for change for millions of people. And what can I say about Jillian other than that she's awesome (except for those damned supplements! Girl's gotta make a living, I guess)? But it comes at a price. An uninformed audience probably expects unrealistically fast weight loss based on a world where people cry in frustration after losing five pounds in a week. Little is said about developing the long-term skills needed to maintain losses off the ranch. Even less attention is given to the reasons why many people overate in the first place (although I've noticed that this has been changing in the past year or so, thanks largely to Jillian and, I'm assuming, her therapist mother). I've always heard whispers about disordered behavior immediately before the final weigh-in--fasting, diuretics, intentional dehyration--which makes sense. Drop a few water pounds for a quarter mil? No biggie.

I'm sure the producers could rationalize a lot of my criticisms of the show, and I would give them the benefit of the doubt. But last night was gratuitious and obscene. It served no purpose other than "entertainment" at the expense of two individuals' health, pride, and autonomy. I hope that no one learned the type of lesson that I've been working on unlearning for so long.
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My Field Trip

2010-02-28T12:45:00.000-06:00

Wednesday mornings are usually when I go spinning. I like this class and do it for fun, not to burn calories. But seeing as I am a little bit compulsive, I don't phone it in. No, I bring it on. If I don't give the class at least 90% of my best effort, I figure it's not worth the shower I need afterwards. Last week, I was bonking ten minutes into my ride. See, I had done my killer interval circuit workout the day before (the Triple Threat) and apparently hadn't adequately replenished my glycogen reserves. I made it through the class, but I could only get my heart rate up to 150 instead of trying to keep it down in the low 160s, which is where I like to be. Yes, I am 44, but in pretty good shape. Plus, didn't I tell you I like to bring it on?

This morning, after yesterday's Triple Threat, my legs felt as dead as they had last week. Instead of suffering through another class, I decided to give myself the morning off. Afternoon is devoted to upper body training, which I always find a lot easier than lower body or full body, so there's not a lot of physical activity on my plate for the day. Consequently, I decided to spend my calories and my dollars at Super H Mart Since I'm in picture taking mode, I also decided to record my food for the day.

So here's what I started with: the usual egg white omelette, this morning with spinach, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms and asparagus. No, there's not anything wrong with the color of my camera. I like my eggs well done, even when they're whole eggs and not just the whites. Runny eggs = gross in my book. I don't do well with omelette nature in France, where barely set is de rigeur. On the other hand, when I'm in France, I'm usually too busy sussing out the perfect baguette to care about omelettes natures. But I digress... This morning, I rounded out my omelette with a half grapefruit and some decaf with a perky cap of skim milk. I also had a large cup of tea and my daily glass of water with my probiotics and multi and supplements. And my fish oil.

Later on, I got hungry. No matter how big my omelette is, I don't stay full for more than 2 or 2 1/2 hours unless I add a spoonful of nut butter. I didn't do that today, so I had a little snack in the car of raw veggies and my protein cookie. The cookie was a little too wet and stuck to the wax paper I wrapped it in, so it was less than photogenic. The veggies were gorgeous as usual. Here's an accurate depiction of what they looked like, since I was driving and couldn't snap a pic (translation: I forgot).

Then I took myself to Super H Mart! If you've never experienced it, it's beyond description if you're a foodie and have any affinity whatsoever for Asian cuisine. I think it used to be a Super K Mart that closed and this huge marketplace came and took its place, changing only one letter for a new identity. Unfortunately, the sky and condition of the parking lot are completely accurate, although I couldn't fit the massive piles of grey and craggy snow nearby. Spring doesn't usually come here till April or May, but I don't think most people would object to saying goodbye to this weather.

Walking into Super H Mart is like entering a different country. Sure, you see apples and potatoes and the regular stuff you'd see at any supermarket in Anytown, USA. But interspersed among the prosaic are the exotic.

For example, there are all kinds of greens that I've never heard of, with names that I can't begin to translate. (Okay, I could if I wanted to; I'm sure the internet would be a huge help).

Here's one of the big reasons I come here: to stock up on my beloved kabocha squash. Last time I was here, it was $.39/lb. Now it's $.99. I think this is my last kabocha run till next fall. The season is from late fall to early spring, and I really should find another starchy carb to become attached to before it's too late.

Have you ever smelled or tasted a durian? Anthony Bourdain says it's like french-kissing your dead grandmother. Since I've never kissed either of my dead grandmothers in quite the same way he might have (can't put anything past that Tony; he's a glutton for the spotlight), I claim ignorance of this simile. However, the stink is pretty rotten and difficult to get past if you want to try eating it. It actually tastes pretty good and is a little addictive if you get into that whole pleasure/pain thing like I do. I ate a bunch of durian while I was in Southeast Asia to my husband's chagrin (it smelled up the room in spite of the air conditioning) and later, when I was playing with raw foodism for about an hour last year. It's high in fat for a fruit, and harvesters have to wear hard hats in durian fields, because they grow up on high trees and these spiky suckers are HEAVY!

I don't know too much about kimchi other than I love the way it tastes and it gives me horrible gas. However, I assume that there are kimchi connoisseurs out there, and they would drool over the hundreds of linear feet of kimchi displayed in refrigerated cases here. This is but a small sampling of what's avaible. There's also homemade kimchi and kimchi versions of other vegetables.

I didn't get pictures of the homemade tofu and the extensive fish display, complete with live fluke and sea urchins. I tried to take pictures of the pork snout and pork maw (what's a maw? a mouth? a jaw?) and made a half-hearted effort to look for beef tongue, which has been recommended to me as a lean and tasty meat that's high in protein (fortunately, I didn't find one. Awww...). And for some weird reason, I still haven't been able to figure out where they keep the shirataki noodles in this place. Not that it's a huge issue for me--they are easy enough to find at Whole Foods--but I figure in a place this big, they've gotta have them. Right? I know, they're Japanese and this is Korean, but still... They have every type of ramen and miso made on the planet. Why not konjac root noodles? Oh well... it's another reason to go back.

After a quick stop at the library to return the new Stephen King that was too thick to fit through the drive-thru slot (not one of his better works) and to pick up David Chang's "Momofuku" cookbook (which includes the recipe for the best soup I've ever tasted, the ingredients for which are all at Super H and none of which I bought), I went home and unloaded. Here are my goodies:

Some items of note include seaweed (blue package in the rear of right hand picture). This isn't your normal nori or wakame in a bag. They are little snack sized portions of seasoned seaweed, and if you ever want something salty and crunchy and chip-like without the empty calories, try these. They taste like sushi without the fish and rice, if that makes any sense. Be forewarned that they're high in sodium and fat for what you're getting. But you're also getting all the good stuff that seaweed has, like the chlorophyll and the protein and omega-3's without any of the pain associated with eating healthy. The snack sized packages make it attractive for kids too. There's also a package of frozen octopus that I'm interested in trying (left photo, front, with Korean letters). I've been jonesing for some pasta puttanesca (on shirataki noodles, of course) and throwing in the octopod will jack up the protein without much caloric damage. Plus lots of different types of 'shrooms, my favorite fish sauce (in a plastic bottle), and a package of masago (smelt roe) for my little guy, who eats it with a spoon.

I was starving so made myself a simple lunch of leftover mushroom soup, turkey breast, and an orange. I was still pretty hungry and shaky when this was done, so I added a handful of nuts from my big glass bowl. It's just raw nuts from Trader Joe's with a bagful of salted macadamias thrown in. Funny, I used to hate macadamias and now I can't get enough of them. Same with pecans and Brazil nuts, although neither of them are as popular as macs in my book these days.

Once I stabilized my blood sugar, it was on to the mushrooms. The non-kabocha reason I visited Super H Mart was to try some new varieties of shrooms I had seen on my last visit. I wound up getting fresh shiitakes, oyster mushrooms, hen of the woods (a/k/a maiatakes), and king oyster mushrooms. I've never cooked the three latter kind before and was interested to see how they worked. But first, I had to process the kabocha. I've made it so often that I have it down to a science. First I cut each squash in half. Next, I scrape out the seeds and gook. This used to take me ages until I realized that a melon baller made short work of the process.

Finally, I stick it in a hot oven cut side up for an hour. No oil, no seasonings, no tray. The whole thing comes out really well and when it's cooked, I slice it and eat it like candy.

Moving on to the mushrooms, I was absolutely charmed by the hen of the woods, both by its name and how the spray of mushroom petals coming out of a single base really does resemble some type of bird. Note that this mushroom is known not to smell too great, but I wasn't too turned off by it. I've eaten durian, after all. The oyster mushroom looked very much like the hen of the woods. I wasn't sure about the king oyster mushroom--talk about phallic symbols--but just sliced those suckers into planks down the middle and threw them into the roasting pan with the other mushrooms, a drizzle of olive oil, some salt, peppe, thyme and rosemary. They cooked down really nicely and were done at the same time as the squash.

Then I went to the gym, came home, did some shlepping back and forth with my younger son, and finally came back to this--my spinach soup with Greek yogurt and a slice (or two) of kabocha. This picture is obviously sideways, which doesn't reflect my mental state at all--I was feeling grounded, in fact--but more the fact that I just can't figure out how to rotate it. The computer keeps redoing my rotational efforts. Oh well. Anyway, the whole kitchen smelled wonderful if you like squash. I also snagged a few more nuts from my stash.

All day long I felt like I was chasing my hunger, but I finally got caught up with it. The kids had stir fried pork with Asian veggies, brown rice and lettuce wraps. I couldn't begin to think about eating more, so I had a bath instead. Afterwards, I had a light salad with some mixed greens and veggies, a splash of vinegar, and some smoked salmon. I chased it with the whites from two hard boiled eggs. A tiny square of fleur de sel chocolate from Cost Plus World Market (which is on my Top Ten list of favorite foods, seriously) was dessert, as well as a final handful of nuts. I packed up the kabocha in single serve containers and froze it, and we'll have the mushroom roast tomorrow night for dinner.

I wish I had been less hungry and more energetic today, but I'm glad I didn't binge or overeat when I was starving. Being in exotic supermarkets can trigger me, and I do have bulimic memories of Super H. It's nice to know that I can go there and not lose control (even if I do feel that little voice deep down inside telling me all kinds of garbage about how I could justify a binge). I hope I can find that happy place of balance where eating too much or too little isn't as stressful as it is now. I guess it's just a matter of practice. Today I came a little bit closer by recognizing my body's need to rest (no regrets about blowing off spinning) and eat (maybe some regrets about the nuts, but not really big ones. After all, I think I really needed them).

K.I.S.S.

2010-02-20T12:48:00.000-06:00

Note: In an effort to simplify my life and avoid reinventing the wheel, I've cut and pasted what I wrote on my page at the Lean Eating message board this morning. There might be phrases or references that aren't clear to those not in the program. However, I think the core of what I've written goes beyond any LE particulars and non-LE readers can understand it.

I'm struggling a little bit and wanted to write to give myself a gentle shove in the right direction. When I signed onto the program, I did so with trepidation, knowing that any type of body transformation program might be dangerous or triggering to someone who's recovering from an eating disorder (as I am) and someone who's always had simply horrible body image issues (as I do). However, I saw Lean Eating as something more than about my body (and rightly so); it's a way to transform your thinking about your health, your lifestyle, and your relationship to food. So obviously, I signed up, but I made the promise to myself not to let LE be another diet.

For the most part, I've been able to keep that promise. I didn't join Alaina's 90% club because I know how I have a tendency to be competitive, which ALWAYS backfires for weight loss/program compliance. I try not to chime in on the threads that complain about stuck scales or happily announce lost pounds and inches, unless it's to offer my congratulations. I don't weigh every single week, and when I do, I make sure I'm in a mental place where I can log a number and walk away. I want this to be about the rest of my life, not about getting the body I used to have back.
But over the past few weeks, I sense my thinking shifting. I want to be thin YESTERDAY. I want to be one of the 90% or 100% people. I want to win the money. Heck, I even want to win the cookbook. I want to be the best at something. And I don't like this type of thinking. It leads to black and white thinking, which leads to failure, which leads to relapse. And things are so much better for me now than they were at this time last year, or two years ago, or even two months ago, that I know in my heart that I just need to keep my nose to the grindstone and plug away. But old habits like perfectionism die hard.
I read the difficult easy/difficult hard assignment a night or two early, and it resonated with me. The yoga I practice embraces the idea of walking in shadow, of examining the areas of our life that are a little scary that most people like to keep inaccessible. And I completely believe in doing this--as long as you're ready. I push myself like crazy every time I work out. For me, difficult is holding back when it serves me. But with eating, I have a hard time even knowing what's difficult easy and what's difficult difficult.
If I'm honest, I need to admit that I want my numbers to go down faster than they have. Even though I'm technically not supposed to know or care where I am, I know it's not where I want to be. And so I was thinking the other night about going into the difficult difficult zone with my eating, tightening things up, starting to log my food in my calorie/macronutrient counter again, and seeing what, if anything, would change.
Bad idea. Taking 100-150 calories out of my diet, which was apparently in the 1500-1600 calorie range (remember, I'm short and old) is a lot and meant that I couldn't fill up on cooked veggies and soups like I'm used to doing at dinner. Being not full when I walk away from the dinner table once in a while is okay; feeling like I can't have a salad with my husband if I'm already having a cup of soup is not where I want to go. Yesterday, I was flailing. I felt completely depleted and knew I wasn't taking good care of myself. Plus, I started getting a little nervous about eating my bowl of broccoli with cheese and egg whites. If I skipped it, it would save me more than 200 calories! By the time I realized what was going on, I had already begun to overeat and had to chuck dinner as a 10% meal.
This is okay. I need to remind myself about that. The clean slate is what I need to embrace here. Life is always full of hunger and overindulgence, and I need to navigate between the two of them as long as I'm here on earth. But I'm writing this to remind myself that instead of losing weight, I'd love to lose the tension surrounding eating that I went through yesterday. Stressing over a bowl of broccoli? Totally not worth it!

I know what foods make me feel good and nourish me in every way. I need to stick with those foods, whether they're high in carbs or fat or whatever. The broccoli and cabbage and cherry tomatoes and extra grapefruit or apples are NOT things to fear. They are not what made me gain weight. It's the things that the guilt over eating too many of them drove me to (you know what they are, right? We were supposed to have thrown all of them out? Well, now ALL of them are gone from my house. I learned my lesson).

Hopefully, by writing this incredibly long piece, I'll give myself the direction I need to move forward. I need to remember where I was. I don't want to go back there. My only alternative is to keep moving forward. If someone were to tell me I'd be stuck at the weight I was today with no hope of ever losing or gaining, would I choose to continue eating this way? Maybe. Probably. And as time goes on, I'm sure my answer will become less equivocal. This is a good way to eat. It makes me less crazy about food. I'm never too hungry, unless I start playing games, and never too full unless I let myself get too hungry. It's not so hard once I step away from the mental contortions that I put myself through sometimes.

I'm going to have a good day today. I'm eating proper meals at proper times and am looking forward to a 10% dinner at this amazing divey Mexican restaurant with the best seafood ever. I'll write my eats down here when I figure out what they're going to be. Right now, I'm off to make my beloved egg whites with all the veggies I bought, washed, and chopped yesterday. I can do this.

Misery Loves Company

2010-02-18T11:53:00.000-06:00

Hi, my name is The Deranged Housewife and I have a blog.

Or used to.

I don't know why it's been so hard for me to post here. Sure, I've been busy. I'm working Lean Eating hard, and time spent on the boards there is time taken away from being here or reading other blogs. My son's bar mitzvah is coming up, and although all of the big things are done, the details that I put off till the last minute are coming home to roost. But still...

The fact is that I really don't feel as though I need to get stuff off my chest the way I did a few months ago. I don't want to say that my eating is under control because I'm afraid of jinxing myself, but in many respects....

my eating is under control. Yes, I've binged. And yes, unfortunately, I've purged too. But a purge doesn't always follow a binge these days. And my binge/purge frequency has gone from about four times per week to about four times per month, maximum. And it's spreading out more and more, becoming less and less frequent. Which is good.

Except when you're looking for motivation and inspiration. Ever notice how many great artists were tortured souls? Writing as catharsis can offer some relief, if only temporary. It's a refuge, a place to go to sort out your thoughts, to exorcise your demons, to reach out to others. These days, I'm too pooped from the high intensity exercise or trying to fit in all my new habits or drinking fish oil to even muster the energy to think, let alone think coherently, let alone type.

It's nice not to ruminate, to go back and forth over the same issues, worrying them to death. On the other hand, I really miss blogging. This is my personal space. I enjoy writing on the Lean Eating boards, connecting with the other members, and even forging some nascent bonds. But I won't cuss, make brash political statements, or really open myself up there. The phrase "eating/body image issues" is often substituted for the uglier, yet more truthful, term "bulimia" or "eating disorder." Being there feels like I'm on vacation with my girlfriends; being here feels like I'm home. I can eat dinner in my pajamas, fart, leave the bathroom door open, and even go for days without showering when I'm here. There, if I don't wear makeup and have my hair done, I feel as though I don't quite measure up.

There's got to be more to blogging than kvetching. I'm not saying that writing about my eating disorder was simply complaining. It's a huge thing for me still, and if I ever start to minimize it, convincing myself that I'm over it, that's when I will know I'm treading on thin ice and need to get back into the shit. I hope I can turn to this blog to help me, to give me the freedom I need to find my own way without giving me so much rope that I hang myself. Recovery is going to be a long, maybe permanent, process, and writing about it can keep me on the straight and narrow. I hope my voice can be as compelling when I'm not bingeing and purging as it was when I was.

I need to keep writing, even if it's just about what I do during the day. There's so much I want to do and feel as though time is passing me by. I miss my blog and can't wait to come home to it. I hope it's sooner rather than later.

Cavemen Didn't Have Eating Disorders

2010-02-09T16:44:00.001-06:00

I don't know this for a fact. But it's a logical assumption that if you are living a subsistence existence, foraging for food, never knowing where your next meal is coming from, then the last thing on your mind would be starving yourself, overeating and then puking, or binge eating without giving any thought to rationing food for a rainy day. It was a simpler time. Yes, life was nasty, brutish and short (maybe--again, I'm just making assumptions), but once man's immediate needs were met, perhaps cavemen and cavewomen could relax, enjoy life, and not obsess over silly things like the hair on their heads or their cup size.

But did they? Could they? Marste's comment on a recent post made me think, too:

I've wondered sometimes if certain neuroses are products of idleness somehow. If maybe there's some part of our brain that's evolved to always be working, thinking, worrying about day-to-day, life-sustaining things. Where are the mammoths gathering today? Where are the best berries? The safest place to sleep tonight? I wonder if that part of our brain, when it DOESN'T have those things, somehow turns in on itself and looks for things to worry about and obsess over, and I wonder if that's why we see much higher instances of things like EDs and OCD and even depression in first-world nations. Does that make sense? It's completely unscientific, just something I ruminate on from time to time.

Actually, I have thought about this too, not in the context of cavemen, but maybe in pre-industrial societies, when most people existed to work, procreate and sleep. Women married for economic or political reasons (love matches were rare) and were seen as a means to continuing the family line and not much more. Beauty, if relevent, was fleeting;  if you had more than half of your teeth by the time you were forty (assuming you were even alive), you were ahead of the game. Surely people living in these days had more on their minds than thoughts of a trivial or obsessive nature. And who had time to have an eating disorder?

Except maybe you don't need time.  Nature abhors a vaccuum, and I have to believe that human beings are hard-wired to fixate on all kinds of silly things that, when viewed by someone without any stake in the issue, are pretty ridiculous. It's presumptuous of me to assume that simply because a woman wore pelts and lived in a cave that she didn't have the same love for her children I do, the same inchoate longing for something more from life, the same anger when someone took advantage of her, and the same pride in a job well done. The context may have been different, but it's pretty likely the emotions were the same, and just as real as mine.
Elizabeth Gilbert addressed this universal phenomenon in her book "Eat Pray Love." In case you were one of the three people on this planet who didn't read it, I'm including an excerpt. The author is in India, trying to find spiritual enlightenment, but all she can do this ruminate obsessively on her ex-boyfriend and what went wrong.

I mean--here I am in this sacred place of study in the middle of India, and all I can think about is my ex-boyfriend? What am I, in eighth grade?
And then I remember a story my friend Deborah the psychologist told me once. Back in the 1980s, she was asked by the city of Philadelphia if she could volunteer to offer psychological counselling to a group of Cambodian refugees--boat people--who had recently arrived in the city. Deborah is an exceptional psychologist, but she was terribly daunted by this task. These Cambodians had suffered the worst of what humans can inflict on each other--genocide, rape, torture, starvation, the murder of their relatives before their eyes, then long years in refugee camps and dangerous boat trips to the West where people died and corpses were fed to sharks--what could Deborah offer these people in terms of help? How could she possibly relate to their suffering?
"But don't you know," Deborah reported to me, "what all these people wanted to talk about once they could see a counselor?"
It was all: I met a guy when I was living in the refugee camp, and we fell in love. I thought he really loved me, but then we were separated on different boats, and he took up with my cousin. Now he's married to her, but he says he really loves me, and he keeps calling me, and I know I should tell him to go away, but I still love him and can't stop thinking about him. And I don't know what to do..."

Sound familiar? I wonder whether the thoughts we find so abnormal and obsessive are just a part of our human fabric. We all obsess over different things; even my husband, one of the most rational people I know, has had vacations ruined when we've been away from home and he's been convinced our basement is flooding. Whether it's convenient or not to obsess, whether the time or place is right, is irrelevent. Elizabeth Gilbert was examining love, but I still look at this story and see how we can all overlook global catastrophe in our lives and fixate on minutae. Maybe it seems like we have more control over our little problems (of course we don't--it's as hard to force someone to love you or to JUST STOP EATING as it is to negotiate a hostage transfer or peace treaty, maybe evey harder) and so we choose to devote our energy to them. Or maybe these are the things that are most important to us, even more important than living free from political oppression. And so we find the time and the means to indulge our irrational side.

So maybe cavemen didn't have eating disorders, but if they didn't, I bet it was for logistical reasons (scarcity of food) rather than their focus on other things. I'm sure there were love triangles and intrigues in the caves, and all sorts of petty issues going on. It's what we humans do. Maybe my eating disorder took root so strongly because I'm not tightly scheduled or because I don't work two jobs as a single mom to support my kids. But I'm sure there are people who don't have the time to have an eating disorder who still have one.

We have the largest and most evolved brain of any species. So why are we so obsessive and irrational? It doesn't matter. It's us, it's human naure, and although we can try to evolve and be the best we can as individuals, I think we'll always have to struggle a little against the voice in our heads that whispers nonsense to us.

Just a thought....

Life Goes On

2010-02-07T08:12:00.000-06:00

Last week, I wrote about my yoga student whose uncle was summarily executed in Bangladesh after a sham political trial. She was understandably distraught and weepy during class. This week, she came back. I saw her as I was setting up the room and immediately went over to check in.

She was glowing. I've actually never seen her this happy or peaceful. It was like someone threw a switch and turned her emotional state around 180 degrees.

She told me it had been a difficult week for her, with a lot of ups and downs. But her life had settled around her. School had started, and instead of complaining about her students, as she has done in the past, she is enjoying teaching them and that they were (so far) nice and eager to learn. Her pregnancy is well into the wonderful second semester, when the exhaustion and nausea of the first trimester are gone but you're not peeing all the time and feeling huge like you do in the last trimester. Although she hasn't felt the baby kick yet, she's looking forward to that wonderful moment and I told her about how I could even feel my kids hiccuping when I was pregnant.

And then she said to me, "The other morning, I woke up and felt like it was okay to be really happy again."

Generally speaking, I think there are two kinds of people in this world--those who feel things intensely and those who don't. I am the former. My husband is the latter. It seems like it would be easier in some ways to feel less. Life is full of tragedy and pain, both on a global scale and on a very personal level. If you're less sensitive, I imagine you can look at your hardships, whether they be poverty, illness, or simply a bad breakup with your boyfriend, and assess them in a relatively dispassionate way, mediate them, and move on. For me, the moving on is hard, and if I don't permit myself to feel my pain, it becomes even harder. Non-feelers (for lack of a better word) can be uncomfortable with the expression of pan in ways they don't understand, so if you have a lot of non-feelers in your life, it can make it that much more difficult to do this work. And face it--pain sucks. You wake up every morning wondering how you're going to get through the day, whether your pain will ever cease weighing on you, and if it will ever go away.

But the flip side of the pain is the bliss--those days when you wake up to a world fresh with possibilities that are just waiting to be discovered. When you feel that you are EXACTLY where you're supposed to be in life's grand scheme. When you're energized and things are ridiculously easy to navigate. When you feel like laughing just because you're happy. For all of the troughs we experience in life, I hope there are at least as many peaks, if not more.

My student and I talked about this, how feeling pain made the joy you experience in life more acute. And it's true. If life were always wonderful, you wouldn't know it. Tragedy is the universe's way of making us realize how lucky we really are.

William Faulkner wrote: "Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief." So would I. I can't imagine a life without those days I saw my student experiencing on Friday. Grief is difficult, soul-sapping, and tenacious, but without it, I wouldn't know happiness. I haven't experienced much true bliss for the past few years, preferring instead to anesthetize myself in a fog of sugar and fat. I did this to numb out the grief, but it mired me in nothingness. Now, as the fog lifts, I can see the possibilities in front of me. They were there the whole time, and they'll always be there. I just have to find my way to them.

The Bigger Picture

2010-01-31T20:03:00.000-06:00

There's a lot I want to write about here--funny things, whiny things, emotional things, even things that are deep and insightful and thought-provoking. But today, I need to write about something bigger than myself, something that I'm connected to only tangentially, but something that has affected me profoundly.

At the gym where I teach yoga, I have many regular students. Two of them are husband and wife. They are both in their thirties, college professors, and expecting their first child. Both of them are fledgling yogis, and I have had the privilege of watching their practices grow as I've gotten to know them a little better over the past year. The husband is American; the wife is from Bangladesh, although she has lived here for years and has no accent.

Last Friday, when they came into class, the wife came up to me and told me that she might have a difficult time in class. Since she's in her second trimester, I was concerned about the baby, but she told me that she had an unexpected death in her family in Bangladesh and she was having a hard time coping with it. So I gave her the standard yoga teacher reply--that this was the best place for her, that it's okay to feel sad and to cry, and that she should let whatever feelings she feels come, since it's better to let them wash through than to force them back down.

During practice, she seemed all right, subdued at times, but holding it together. But after class, when I went up to talk to her, she told me what had happened.

Her uncle had been a political prisoner of the government for the past thirteen years. According to my student, he had been imprisoned on trumped-up charges because of his political beliefs, and no one really had any hopes that his story would have a happy ending. But no one was prepared last week when he was tried, found guilty, and executed. He had four children as well as the loving extended family that my student is a part of. She wants to go there, to be with her family in her time of grief, but they're telling her not to come. There's nothing she can do. Her doctor also told her not to go because of her pregnancy. So she's stuck her in her grief, feeling nothing but agony, a profound sense of injustice, and helplessness.

I felt helpless too. What do you say to someone who tells you her uncle has been executed? This isn't supposed to happen in our world, to people we know and love. It's supposed to happen to other people, people we only know about by reading the newspapers, people who are human just like us, but whose humanity is buffered by distance and cultural differences. When there's only one degree of separation between you and this type of atrocity, however, it's impossible to pretend that it couldn't happen to you. Because it could.

I tried to make the appropriate noises. I expressed my genuine outrage, agreed with her family and doctor that she is better off staying where she is, and told her that her uncle's spirit will always be alive within her as long as she carries his memory. She told me she felt better after the class, and I hope this is true. I hope she will continue to come, to feel her grief and move through it. I hope that her new baby will help her to move on, but not to forget.

I spend a lot of time focusing on myself, as we all do. I've had a hard few years, and there have been times when I've wondered whether life is worth the struggle. But when I hear about something like this, I feel a little like a self-absorbed, indulgent, narcissistic whiner. I have my life. I have my freedom. I never thought that I'd ever have to worry about having either of those things taken from me. And I probably don't have to worry. What if I were unfortunate enough to have been born in Baghdad? Or Port-au-Prince? Or Rwanda? Or Myanmar? Or moving closer to home, what if I were a Muslim who was falsely accused of a crime? People have been locked up in Guantanamo Bay for nearly a decade. I can't speculate as to their guilt or innocence, but how horrifying would it be if you were there all this time... and innocent.

So even though I may have an eating disorder, even though I might experience episodes of self-loathing and feeling utterly inadequate and ill-equipped to navigate life, even though I might hate my husband sometimes and be happier when he's away on business than home, my life is pretty fucking great. I know this post doesn't really make a lot of sense. I just felt like maybe I shouldn't ruminate on my own issues for once. We live in a huge, complicated, messy world that has a bigger dark side than we want to believe, and I got a glimpse into it last week.

If bulimia is the biggest thing I have to worry about, I'm pretty lucky.

Looking In The Mirror

2010-01-28T21:12:00.001-06:00

I'm still trying to process the binge from Saturday, even though it's Thursday night and by all rights, I have left it behind. No more binges, and even better, no more desire to binge (except on Sunday when I had a bagel--and not even from my favorite place--in a Last Supper kind of episode before limiting carbs on Monday). I've gotten over the evil number and formulated a fantastic game plan for the remainder of Lean Eating, namely NOT WEIGHING ONCE A WEEK, and it's gotten the approval of both my coach and my therapist--hurray! The exercise feels good, and although I still dread going to the gym, especially on lower body days when I do countless lunges, I'm starting to crave the feeling I get afterwards. I think I've described it as a Valium without the hangover, and it brings back memories of my high school cross country coach, who told me that she loved long distance running because it felt so good when you stopped.

But I still feel unsettled and am not quite ready to put the issue to rest. I whined about the scale all day long--in emails, on the Lean Eating boards, and here. And the fact that I bitched and moaned brought up all kinds of conflicting feelings that, when coupled with the replies I got to my post, compel me to hash it out here further. Let me state that I was not the only one bitching and whining and moaning on Saturday, and I am seeing even more bitching and whining and moaning today, with everyone getting ready for the third weigh-in this coming Saturday.  Of course, when I complain, I'm the tortured, sensitive soul attempting to exorcise her demons, to explain herself, and to find some refuge in this cold, harsh world. When others do it, they're idiots. I want to shake them and scream "Why the FUCK do you castigate yourself for weighing 5 pounds more than you think you should when in the next breath you admit to being a fit, healthy woman who can do five chin-ups--unassisted and in a row?"

Unfortunately, they're no different from me. No, my situation is identical to the other whiners on the boards because we're all in the same stupid boat. And if I think that they're being ridiculous, then I would think I was being ridiculous too, except that I"m too close to the situation and have lost focus.  My perspective is warped and Abby's tough love was enough to shake me out of the trough of self-pity I was wallowing in and get a grip.    It was hard to read the comment, because I want to be the kind of person she sees me as--strong, tough, confident, and honest. On the other hand, I don't feel I am that person, at least not entirely. There is a sizeable chunk of me trapped in that insipid teenage mind--although to be honest, I had not idea how much of that side the post exposed. My best writing flows out of me and rarely requires editing, and Sunday's post was an extremely fast write. I didn't do much editing at all, and probably didn't read it too well for content either. Who would want to relive that?

I still feel a little raw and naked. It's embarrassing to be outed so completely in this way, but hey--I'm the one who outed myself. I'm the one who decided to write, the one who's posting, and the one who solicited comments by adding the box blogger.com so generously offers. But am I ashamed? Surprisingly, no. This is me. I know I'm not perfect. And now the world knows. And I'm glad I'm not ashamed of myself, because if I want to love myself--as I know I must for a full recovery--then I have to love ALL of me.

The first time I told a group of people I was bulimic, I felt flayed in the same way. We were going around in a talking circle and we each had three minutes to say our piece. My teacher, Ana Forrest, is a stickler for speaking your truth, and verbal farts get in the way of the truth, so she will stop you from saying "um" or "like" in the middle of your time. And because I knew what I was going to say, I was unspeakably nervous and the first word out of my mouth was "um." Ana interrupted me, and I said, "This is really hard for me to talk about and I've never really done it before," and then just said something--I was so shaken up that I don't quite remember if I said "bulimia" or "eating disorder," but I didn't tap dance around it and say "body image issues" or "food issues" or some other ambiguous euphemism. I was lightheaded and shaky the rest of the day, and when I came into practice the next morning, I was so uncomfortable that I was in tears for the first hour of practice. I just felt so exposed and so vulnerable, and I HATE feeling like that. When you are not protected, you put yourself at the mercy of other people, and it's so easy to be hurt. Closing myself off and putting forth this incredibly competent, intelligent, and no-nonsense persona keeps me safe.

Except it doesn't. When you pretend to be someone you're not, you create your own prison. Will the people who like the fake TDH still like her if they knew what she was really like? If the answer is no, you're fucked. And if the answer is yes, you'll never find out, because you're trapped in this identiy you've created, stuck living an inauthentic life of your own choosing because you were too afraid to be yourself.

Once I made it through the initial discomfort that morning, there was a palpable shift in my energy. I felt.... cleansed. If I had felt flayed the day before, this was related to it, but in a good way--like a lobster molting an old shell and emerging larger and healthier, albeit with a much softer skin. Vulnerable. Tender. But very much alive, connected to the world, and at peace. It was a feeling that I was completely unfamiliar with, but it was intoxicating. Getting to it was hard, but once I got past that fear and discomfort, the freedom I felt afterward made it more than worthwhile.

"Just because I don't love everything you do doesn't mean I don't love you." Someone whose love I never doubted told me this, and it will stick with me forever. I tend to define myself by what I do--my achievements, my grades, my weight, the numbers of students in my classes, even my final score in "Jeopardy!"--instead of viewing myself as an integrated whole. Making distinctions is a waste of time; every little piece of me I obsess over or ignore or deny is just as legitimate a part of me as my public face.

Which brings me back to perspective. I think the key to reconciling my inherent compassion for myself with the concomitant self-loathing necessitates changing my viewpoint. It's funny--I'm always encouraging my students to shift paradigms, to practice looking at something bad as something good. Everything is relative--a dip in a 72 degree pool could be refreshing if it's hot and humid outside, or it could be uncomfortably cold if it's a cloudy fall day. Once you realize that there are no absolutes--that being a size 4 doesn't make you perfect or a beast, depending on where you're coming from--then you just need to figure out where you want to stand to find the reflection you want. Or even better--just accept that every reflection is contingent on your viewpoint, and none is any more valid or compelling than any other.

I'm starting to confuse myself, and since I'm writing this while my kids are watching TV, it's even harder to concentrate. But to sum things up (and this is really for my own benefit):
1) I need to love myself to get better;
2)  My whole is greater than the sum of my parts;
3) My whole is inherently loveable; and
4) None of my parts, habits, or physical attributes has any bearing on my inherent loveableness (is that a word?).
I think once I get this, I will have it licked.

By the way, the last paragraph is a UNIVERSAL TRUTH. That means that if you're reading it, it applies to you. Yes, you. Is there someone you love who has an odd quirk, or weird birthdmark, or something off about him or her that, far from repulsing you, draws you closer to that person? A flaw is the truffle salt in the soup pot of our lives. It adds that quality, that tang, that differentiates each of us from the other. We can't pick and choose our flaws, but we can do our best to embrace them and see them as just another part of ourselves. Easier said than done, but with practice, who knows what is possible? Step outside of the box. Approach the mirror from a different angle. Breathe. Notice. And try not to judge.

And, at least if you're me, please don't weigh yourself more than once a month.

ISO My Waist

2010-01-26T07:02:00.000-06:00

I've lost my waist and don't know where it went.

The last time I remember seeing it was somewhere between the ages of 42 and 44. It was in the vicinity of my lower ribs and pelvis, right around my belly button.

I didn't give it the love and attention it deserved, and now it's gone and I want it back.

Please let me know if you've seen it anywhere, because I really miss it.

Crying uncle

2010-01-24T18:58:00.000-06:00

Well, it's official. The honeymoon period for Lean Eating is over.

Yesterday was measurement day. This means that I had to weigh and measure myself. Duh. And even though my trip to New York was followed by a brief you're-home-and-have-a-zillion-things-to-do-and-no-one-to-help-and-you're-tired-and-blah-blah-blah binge (and unfortunately purge) episode, it was really minor in the grand scheme of things and I didn't think it would interfere with my progress. And indeed, progress is what I had seemed to be making. Even during the binge, I didn't really want the food, it was the eating--the chewing, the swallowing, the zoning out--I craved. And though I'm not quite so bad--or good, as the case may be--to binge on veggies, my binge foods were largely healthy ones, just heavy on the carbs. I worked out like a madwoman each day I was supposed to, lifting so heavy on Friday that I started to see spots. I felt good. I felt strong.

And then I stepped on the scale and it was like one of those movie moments when the camera zooms so far away from you that you shrink to two feet tall in a matter of seconds. The scale showed--nothing.

Now let me take a step back. When I initially weighed myself last week, I knew that I would not be happy with the number. So I did what any self-respecting chronic dieter would do--I went delusional and decided that since I didn't want to know what I weighed, I would purposely weigh heavy. I weighed myself just before bed. This means that whatever I had drunk or eaten during the day hadn't had a chance to pass through my body, and when I weighed in next, I'd automatically have that extra pound or two deficit that you look forward to at the beginning of any diet (hate that word, but that's what it is, folks).

Except I didn't. In all honesty, there WAS some movement on the scale. In fact, since I'm being ALL honest here, I weighed myself on two scales. Both times. And the first time, the two said about the same thing. Yesterday, the Tanita DID say that I had lost 3 lbs, but the medical scale, who I trust more (the Tanita lies depending on the juice in her batteries or the temperature of the room or whatever. She's a bitch), said maybe 1/2 or 3/4 of a pound. It changed a little each time I stepped on and off of it, which I did for a minute or two. And when I figured that a loss that small, combined with weighing in heavy last week resulted in a big fat NADA on the downward spiral, I went into my own downward spiral.

I would love to say I pulled myself out of it. That I gave myself the proverbial bitch-slap and reminded myself that this is a lifestyle program, dammit, and that I was cultivating good habits and practicing them and doing really really well and shouldn't let the scale set me back. It's a frickin' number. That's all it is. And it's a long program and it took me two years to put this weight on, and I was bulimic the whole time (which leads me on anther self-loathing detour: am I the only bulimic so incompetent to become heavier during her eating disorder?), which I know screwed up my digestion and probably my metabolism as well.

Well, I DID say all this stuff to myself. And I wrote about it and I posted about it on the boards. But there was that nagging little voice in the top of my stomach that was saying to me, "See? This is stupid. You'll never be thin again. You should just eat and enjoy yourself. It's the only way you can really get away from this disappointment. At least you're not a failure at bingeing."

I tried not to listen. But eventually I gave in. I hadn't slept well at all the night before, and being tired makes me crave sweets. Because I had too much work to do for a party I was going to that evening, I couldn't drive into the city to take my yoga class. And although I should have just gone to the gym first thing in the morning, which would have lifted my spirits and empowered me, I didn't--because I told myself that my beloved pull-up assist machine would be more available later in the day (which is true--but doesn't mean that I shouldn't have gone in the morning). But the really dumb thing I did--which I should have known better than to do--was to make those fudge nut balls for dessert for the party. And taste them.

They set me off and the rest of the day was just shot. I did make it to the gym, and was oddly depressed by the fact that in spite of the numbers on the scale and my eating for a few hours in the morning, I DID look tighter. Better. Even--dare I say it?--thinner. Which made me feel even worse for "ruining" everying by bingeing. The rest of the day was a roller-coaster of rationalizations--I'll make it a free day, the nutrition plan on Lean Eating hasn't started, so technically this is okay--which were all stupid. I felt bad, and these days, the only way I have of effectively dealing with my pain is by eating it away.

If I could go back in time--if I had Superman fly around the world fast enough to reverse the Earth's rotation and time turned backward--here's what I would do differently:

1) Take one of the Ambien CRs I have stashed away for emergencies and travelling. I don't like this option because I feel groggy for a few hours in the morning, but at least I know I'll get a good five or six hours of sleep in, which is pretty much a full night for me.
2) Make a meal plan before eating a bite, ensuring that it's heavy on the lean proteins and healthy fats. I was hungry and was trying not to eat too much because of our plans in the evening, and boy did it backfire!
3) DO NOT COOK WHEN FEELING LIKE A BINGE IS COMING! I could argue with myself here and say I was committed to making what I was making for dinner, but the truth of the matter is that I could have breezed into the dinner party with a few takeout containers of hot and sour soup, told everyone that I got too busy to make what I intended to make, and no one would have batted an eye or thought any less of me. By resigning myself to making soup and dessert, placing myself in the kitchen and having to clean up my mess afterwards--oh, how fun... not!--I put myself smack dab in harm's way.
4) If you have to cook, don't cook anything unnecessary or likely to prompt overeating. I might have been okay just making soup. Really, how can you binge on soup, especially a clear shrimp broth? Come to think of it, it would have been the PERFECT thing to binge on instead of cashews, cocoa and dates. Making the chocolate nut balls was a huge mistake, and I should have known better.
5) I should have done yoga. I might have been rushed for the rest of the day, but I could have resorted to option 3 (see above), or just gotten everything done. I had down time. Or I should have gone to the gym earlier and just sucked up the Saturday morning scene. Exercise is a good antidote for the fat-and-uglies, and I know this but failed to take proper precautions.

As an aside, I did measure myself too, which didn't cause any problems, maybe because I don't have the same relationship with my measuring tape as I do with my scale. And I was right--I have gotten a little smaller and tighter--just a little, but it's something. So could the scale be lying? Should I be looking at the bitch Tanita and think I lost 3 pounds from a heavy evening weight to a morning weight? Or should I just throw in the towel for now and opt for weighing myself maybe once a month, maximum, to avoid this type of nonsense? I posted some mealymouthed psychobabble about how forcing myself to face the scale once a week would strengthen me and make me realize that my weight is just a number and has no impact on my success on the program, which I am using to develop healthy habits. But is this true? I don't know. On the one hand, I know I'm stronger than this. I should be strengthening my emotional muscles just as I'm strengthening my biceps so I can handle challenges in life. If I fall apart over a number on a scale--particularly after having such a great and empowering week--then what will I do if something REALLY bad happens? On the other hand, why tempt fate? I'm making small changes in my everyday habits, and why try to tackle everything at once? I'm inclined toward the no-weigh option, just because it's easier. At this point, I don't want to have something else to worry or obsess over. It's just too tiring. When I'm stronger and healthier, maybe I'll be able to weigh myself and not go through such trauma. But hopefully by then, the idea of weighing myself will seem so ridiculous--why would I even need to know that number?--that the issue will have become redundant.

The good obedient girl in me hates to be non-compliant with this part of Lean Eating. But in being non-compliant, I'm actually asserting myself and protecting my boundaries. I was candid about why I was joining and what I hoped to accomplish. If I set myself back by weighing myself, I will defeat the purpose of the entire program by trying to meet just one of its many requirements. So I will opt out. For now.

To date, it's Tanita: 1, TDH: 0. I cried uncle yesterday, but today I'm back stronger. I ate well. I actually ate a little too well, but sat with it, knowing that there will be times when I overeat and that no one will die. John Berardi will not pop out of a closet and yell "Aha! I caught you!" if he sees me eating a bagel more than three hours post-workout.

Tomorrow is a bit of an acid test for me I can deal with orders about exercising. I actually kinda dig it--being told what to do and then going ahead and doing it and kicking butt (unless it's cleaning up after myself). Because I'm doing something. But when I'm told what NOT to do--which is really what diets/food plans are, for the most part--it's so much harder. It takes an hour to do a workout. It takes all day to NOT eat certain foods. And when I'm told NOT to do something, it immediately makes me want to do it, even if I didn't before. Such is the problem here. We've been asked to start playing with the idea, and eventually the practice, of limiting starchy carbs to the three-hour window after your workout. For someone like me, who's made starchy carbs an important part of her nutritious breakfast for years, this is a toughie. There are days when I can be okay with a bowl of Greek yogurt and some berries and nuts, but I do love me some hot oats or egg sammies on low-carb bread. I don't care so much about cheese on my omelettes, but eggs without bread just aren't as filling or satisfying to me. I will give this a try and see how it goes, but I have to confess that I'm starting to get scared. I look at the progress I've made with my eating habits over the past year and recognize that it's been a far from linear path, and that eating this prescribed way is not that much different from how I'm eating now. I give myself permission to add in some carbs in the morning if it keeps me from bingeing. After all, if I'm honestly in this to be healthier, then who cares if eating carbs slows my weight loss or stops it altogether.

I need to maintain my focus. I need to be healthy, get healthy and stay healthy. Although I might have cried uncle to the scale yesterday, that was just one day in my life, and I won't let it beat me again. If that means refusing to go head-to-head with it for a while, so be it. This is hard, but if I can get through it, then I will have accomplished so much, and I want to feel like I can. That I don't have to be a failure at this.

Lean Eating Update

2010-01-21T15:57:00.000-06:00

Deranged Housewife here, running to stay in place. I've been wanting to post on about eight new topics, but can't seem to find the time to organize my thoughts. In the meantime, things are gearing up for my younger son's bar mitzvah in March, the New York laundry is still half-undone, and to top it off, my husband took off in a private jet (yes, a private jet, and the rest of the family is unbelieveably jealous) for a business trip to Seattle, leaving me solely responsible for the evening schlep (i.e. carpool duty, which I loathe beyond words). However, I thought that if I write an update of the Lean Eating program so far, it would kill two birds with one stone; I've been spending a lot of time working the program, and blogging about it could lead to some new insights.

Let me start out by saying that this program is so much more than I thought it would be. I'm a bit of an intellectual snob--well, okay, I'm a complete and utter intellectual snob--and I tend to be very skeptical of internet fitness gurus who have difficulty putting two words together grammatically or who punctuate every phrase with "ya know" or "like." Some earn my grudging respect when their substance outweighs their style, but others will always be yabbos in my book.

Except for John Berardi. For in spite of the soul patch, he is one bright guy, both on an intellectual level and on an emotional one. He put together a tight and well-thought out program and then staffed it with team leaders who are at the top of their game. The women's leader is Krista Scott-Dixon, whose web site is a beacon for female bodybuilders and fitness competitors throughout the world. Lean Eating team members can post questions on the boards, and she addresses them within 24 hours (and I don't think I've ever seen her take longer than 8 hours to respond--yet). This woman knows everything about everything--she can talk about the proper form for squats one minute, go on to provide valuable insights about emotional eating the next, and brainstorm about solutions for individual problems as needed. What's more, she does this all in a friendly, articulate, non-scary way--and all of her sentences are coherent, complete, and grammatical, with nary a misspelled word in sight.

I think I wrote in my last post that I gave her a heads up about my bulimia and she responded compassionately, giving me some pragmatic suggestions for adjusting my approach to Lean Eating. A few days ago, she sent me some additional worksheets to help me establish healthy habits and mediate my emotional eating. Although she encouraged me to be candid about my ED on the boards, which I have (no big announcements, just mentioned in passing), there is no pressure on me to do anything more than what the program recommends. And the pressure is gentle--she makes it clear every day that this is something POSITIVE we're doing for ourselves--no beating ourselves up, starving, overexercising, or pigging out in front of the TV. Just sane, moderate habits reinforced over and over again.

A lot of the approach is based on cognitive therapy. This means that we focus on developing good habits that address the symptoms of our condition, instead of trying to cure the condition itself. Although some people might feel it's akin to treating a brain tumor with Tylenol, I think it has its place; if the symptoms diminish, the underlying condition becomes more treatable (like shrinking a tumor with medication before removing it surgically). The problem I have with CT is that some of the exercises are just... well, stupid. For example, to help us establish the habit of taking a multivitamin and our fish oil every day, we have to make an index card that says "I will take my multivitamin and fish oil every day for the duration of the Lean Eating program," and then read it ten to fourteen times a day. When I told my therapist this, she almost wet her pants. She loves stuff like this and once tried to cure my urges to binge with some type of tapping therapy. But as queer as reading an index card umpteen times a day is (notice how I didn't quantify it, because I know I'm falling short of the goal), it does force you to remember to do the stuff. I'm going to take my fish oil now, in fact....

I'm back. Since I'm on the topic of fish oil, it has played a huge part in LE to date. We are supposed to take 1 gram per percent bodyfat, which is a large dose for most of us. Since it's gross to swallow that many pills, LE recommends just taking the fish oil straight, in 1 teaspoon doses throughout the day (1 tsp. = 5 grams). I dunno--at first, I thought 20 capsules was way less gross than a spoonful of straight oil. But the oil doesn't taste bad (it's more the oily texture that's offensive, and you can hide it in a smoothie, salad dressing, or even yogurt if you are okay with the faint lemony, fishy smell and taste) and it's easier to digest than the pills--meaning no fishy burps. Hard to believe, but true. There are also a host of other benefits to taking all this fish oil. My skin is clearer than it's been in ages, and the dry patches on my arms and legs are going away. I feel less hungry--a teaspoon of straight oil takes the edge off remarkably well. But the best part is that I feel happier and more in control of my eating than I have in a while. I don't know if it's solely attributable to the fish oil or if it's everything I've been doing, but whatever it is, I like it and will continue doing everything the same.

Aside from focusing on the habit, the first ten days had us practicing the workouts we're going to do. LE keeps repeating that this is practice, not exercise. So we do the movements of the exercises--lower body one day, upper body the next--three to five times for one to five sets. How many sets and reps do you think I've been doing? Actually, just the max for lower body; my right shoulder is a little tweaky so I only do three sets of five for upper. (Shhh--I do them weighted.And yesterday, they were weighted heavy.) It takes FOREVER. I'm used to going into the gym, pounding out my intense workout in a half-hour, hitting the cardio machines for 25 minutes of nausea-inducing intervals, and going home. Doing millions of reps with rest in between is not my thing. But I'm doing it--because it's what they're telling me to do.

I sneak in some cardio here and there, just for my own sanity. And I do yoga when I can. But doing everything takes up a lot of time. Hopefully, when we start exercising in earnest, I'll be a little more efficient.

Habits take a long time to stick, so we take things slowly. This means that we haven't even discussed nutrition yet. Hypothetically, I could be eating Cheetos and brownies and washing it all down with tequila (yum!) and it wouldn't be a problem. Of course, since most people on the program are more knowledgeable and dedicated than the average American (let alone the average Biggest Loser contestant), many seem to be following some version of Dr. Berardi's protocol already, whether it's Precision Nutrition or Metabolism Advantage--and I don't even know if there's a different between the two. People are getting impatient and asking the coaches when we're going to learn about nutrition. The coaches tell us to hold our horses and just focus on the fish oil, multivitamin, and exercises. It's actually kind of amusing, if you take a step back.

There's a certain amount of competitiveness and self-flagellation on the boards, as might be expected. One woman was complaining because she could only do two unassisted chin-ups when she was doing seven last year. Two chin-ups is frickin' amazing, and complaining about it makes someone like me, who needs an assist of 25 pounds, feel a little inadequate. There's a lot of negative talk about how horrible the picture-taking or bodyfat measuring was. The people who posted their pictures actually look pretty good (again, no surprise), although it sounds like more than a few women want to lose upwards of thirty or forty pounds. I'm trying to stay away from the competition, just observing and helping when I can, and discussing what I'm concerned with--namely, figuring out a way to make healthy eating habits a natural part of my life and dealing with stress without turning to food. Again, many people at LE are emotional eaters, and some have copped to EDs in the past, so I'm not alone.

Finally, the quantitative parts: bikini photos, measurements, bodyfat analysis and weight. It was painful and at the same time, it wasn't as bad as I expected. I'm not a Gorgon. I did engage in a little bit of game-playing and weighed myself in the evening so I wouldn't have to come face-to-face with my true weight--and then it will look like I've made more progress! Score one for the professional dieter. My husband took the pictures and bodyfat measurements, and I have a sneaking suspicion he finds this all a little erotic (I hate my body so much I don't let him touch me a lot), and in my bikini, I fall somewhere between Jessica Biehl and Khloe Kardashian. Although I have a few folds, I look okay for a middle-aged mom--not hot, but okay. Measurements mean very little to me except bust and waist, both of which had grown--but again, I played games and measured when I was bloated, so of course I measured high. I think we weigh every week, on Saturdays (maybe to keep us in check on Saturday nights?), so it will be interesting to see what my real weight is--or whether I weigh myself on Friday night instead.

The impact of this program on my eating is good, for the most part. I am definitely becoming more aware of my habits, both good and bad. I don't feel deprived, and although I've been having fantasies about freshly baked chocolate chip cookies lately, they're not compelling enough for me to break my promise not to bake till April. When I take on new challenges, I tend to bite off way more than I can chew, so keeping things on a slow deliberate pace is a good thing for me. It keeps me from being overwhelmed and giving up. Some of the ladies on the boards have made really insightful, poignant, or humorous observations, and it's nice to be in a group like this without having to drive in the snow or schedule a meeting every week. On the other hand, some people, even at this early stage, seem completely clueless, whiny or--I hate to say it--backstabby. I'm trying to like everyone until I have a reason not to, but hey--we all form first impressions, right? Having a long-term, but not infinite, plan gives me a nice focus. I have something new to look forward to every day, even if it's a booby prize like Bulgarian split squats.

So while the jury is still out for the final verdict, I'd give the Lean Eating program two thumbs up for now.

To be continued....

WTF??????

2010-01-20T16:15:00.000-06:00

I know I'm not the only one who found it hard to process this, which was on during "The Biggest Loser" last night:

Click here to watch the commercial. I wanted to find a youtube clip but the only one I located was poor quality (someone actually FILMED his TV playing the commercial, which scores him points for effort but doesn't warrant a link.

In the commercial, the mom implies that incorporating Nutella into her kids' diet leads to them eating all kinds of healthy things during the day. While she doesn't actually say that Nutella is healthy, she gushes about being able to spread it on "all kinds of healthy things, like multigrain toast." Given the average American's knowledge of diet and nutrition, which is woefully apparent if you stay tuned long enough to watch the expressions of amazement on "TBL" contestants when they find out a huge slab of chocolate layer cake and whipped cream has more than 1,600 calories, I think it's pretty fair to speculate that the folks at Ferrara (Nutella's parent company) are counting on the typical viewer to continue his practice of making incorrect assumptions and poor choices. And yet, the commercial airs precisely when a lot of those vulnerable to its insinuations will be watching. The paucity of criticism and commentary (which has popped up here and there) is surprising, because even though I've seen this commercial a number of times (maybe every time I watch "The Biggest Loser" perhaps?), it never fails to shock me.

You see, Nutella and I have a long and gory history. I know it inside and out, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's my food equivalent of the really cute ex-boyfriend who turned out to be a psychopathic stalker, the one who was great in bed but who had no concept of appropriate boundaries. We had fun at first. It was even a little edgy and exotic. Back in the day, a lot of people had never heard of Nutella. Those who had were usually sophisticated, well-travelled, and lived in large cities (where it is more easily found). I can't remember the first time I tasted it, but it appeared on the shelves at Costco right around the time I opened my bakery. When Costco shifted its inventory, I just switched dealers and ordered it by the case.

It was so easy to rationalize our relationship. I kept it primarily on a professional level, although we did have a few furtive encounters when I was feeling peckish, sad, or unloved. At the end of a long day on my feet, I'd be too tired to even think about getting dinner on the table and would sup on--and it's embarrassing, five years later, to type these words--Nutella and turkey jerkey. Often. I made layer cakes with Nutella buttercream, layered milk and dark chocolate hazelnut truffle bars (flavored with Nutella), Nutella chip cookies, flourless Nutella chocolate cakes, and even considered Nutella marshmallows before rejecting the idea (FYI, Nutella is awfully high in fat--duh--which doesn't translate well to marshmallow-making).

Little by little, almost without my noticing it, I became more dependent on my little jar o' love. I remember the day I was stuck inside with no way to get out for lunch and made a grilled Nutella sandwich instead of a more sensible omelette. My knees still go weak thinking about it. I became friends with gianduja, Nutella's European and much classier cousin, but couldn't make the break from my white, red and brown jar--mostly because gianduja is so darn difficult to source, and quite expensive even when you do find it. Plus, Nutella had that smooth texture and went down so easy; you have to bite into gianduja, especially if it comes in a 5 kilogram brick. Which it does. Which someone might have picked up and eaten. Maybe. But I digress...

When the bakery closed, I was left with a pile of debt, a boatload of cake pans in just about every size imaginable, and about 2/3 of a case of Nutella (that's 8 jars for the uninitiated). My heart was broken and the Nutella helped ease my sorrow. I graduated to eating it with a spoon out of the jar. First one or two tablespoons at a time. I knew what I was doing. I saw the calorie count on the side of the jar. But it was so good, so necessary. Before I knew it, my tablespoon was a vehicle, not a measurement, and I was scooping out quarter-cupfuls with every dip and downing them.

Our relationship deepened. Sometimes I'd have Nutella with my coffee for breakfast. Sometimes I'd put it in my coffee (not recommended). Sometimes I'd have it instead of coffee. If someone I knew was going to Europe, I forced them to bring me back the 750 gram jars you can find in the supermarket for less than 5 euros--probably the only bargain on the continent these days. When I went to Paris, I saved enough suitcase space to bring back four jars--that's almost ten pounds of Nutella, not counting the weight of the glass it's packaged in--and it was pretty much gone within a month.

But something was changing. The Nutella wasn't bringing me joy and peace any longer. Instead, I was feeling lightheaded, logy, achy, and unwell. Of course, my reaction was to eat even more Nutella to ease my discomfort, which kept me spirialing downward. I needed my fix. If Costco didn't have it and I was forced to go retail, I'd even bite the bullet and do that. Nothing, nothing could fulfill me like that brown goo. I wanted to leave but I didn't. I didn't know what I would do without it. It had become a part of my life, my lexicon, my world. I defined other objects in terms of Nutella: "that's as good as Nutella," "it's not Nutella-worthy," "I want those shoes more than a jar of Nutella." (I didn't say the last one very often).

Just as every relationship has a turning point, so did ours. There was no defining moment, no drama. Instead, I would notice the Nutella sitting in the cabinet for longer and longer periods of time without me touching it. When I did open it, I'd more often than not finish the jar in a few sittings, but the sittings became fewer and further between. And since I wasn't used to the Nutella hangover--because that's what it was, a hangover--the sucker-punch of the blood sugar spike and crash became more and more acute and unpleasant. The love wasn't worth the pathology. One day, I turned my back on it. I'd love to say I never looked back, but that's not true. There are days when I'll remember the joy of breaking the smooth surface of chocolate flavored spread with the tip of my spoon and taking that very first taste--the best one. But the pain of the aftermath is enough to keep me away from it. Amazingly, even during my craziest and most destructive binges, I will avoid the Nutella. It's the only bingey food I have left in my house, and I can't eat it. I'm afraid of it. It's just too toxic.

Just like the ex-boyfriend. Except I didn't need a restraining order for the Nutella.

Which brings me to my point: its toxicity. If TDH, who had a deep-seated love affair with Nutella and will binge on just about any processed food known to man (and since we're being candid here, I still haven't gotten over Little Debbie's oatmeal creme pies, which are quintessential trailer-trash hydrogenated deliciousness, but I'll save that exegesis for another post) believes Nutella is toxic and won't binge on it, should ANYONE be eating it? Sure, it tastes good, but is it safe? I don't think so, and I'm not exaggerating--there's something WRONG about it. It might not have any artificial colorings or flavorings, it might have a smattering of nuts and skim milk, it might not have any transfats, but the synergy of the ingredients has created--in my opinion--a volatile mixture that should be consumed with caution, if at all.
If it's too scary for me to binge on, bearing in mind my pathetically low standards, then it shouldn't form the basis of any meal, let alone breakfast. Giving it to kids first thing in the morning is like playing with fire.

To me, seeing that commercial on TV is like watching an ad for crack or crystal meth.

My Humps

2010-01-13T19:42:00.000-06:00

Q: Whacha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?
A: Fuck if I know.

Sir Mix-A-Lot and the Black Eyes Peas sang about it. Style mags taught us how to flaunt it. And JLo, Beyonce, and Kim Kardashian used theirs to coast to fame. The aughts could justifiably be called the Decade of the Booty. And to my chagrin, I've joined the club.

Yes, this baby's got back.

I didn't notice what was happening to my butt at first, probably because it's behind me and harder to see than my front, which contains so many things (starting from the bags under my eyes and ending with the bunions on my feet) to distract me that I probably just got worn out before I turned around. But once in a while I'd catch a glimpse. It was quite a difference. In my younger days, I was an apple with spider legs and my hips and ass were pretty much non-existent.

Note to anyone reading who has always wanted skinny legs: this is not always a good thing, particularly when you're carrying a lot of weight in your belly. It makes your torso look even bigger and I didn't have a waist until after my first child was born.

My body changed gradually as I aged, as all bodies do, and the excess adipose tissue migrated downward. My hips became more womanly/wide (choice of words depended on what kind of day I was having), my face thinned out, and I lost a little bit of the padding around my ribcage, giving me a more traditional female figure. But my ass stayed flat. And that was fine by me. As far as my body was concerned, less was more--and that went for the supposedly good parts as well, like my breasts. They were always way too big for my liking, although they are really only a B or C cup depending on my weight (and yes, I do gain weight in them pretty first, which might make you hate me more unless you realize that I can't stand it when they're that big. It's one of the reasons I weaned my babies so early--I was too depressed that none of my size large shirts fit). So the fact that my butt was a small and tight constant as the rest of my body grew and shrank was a source of comfort.

When I started gaining weight a few years ago, I didn't notice anything changing at first. Like I wrote earlier, maybe it's because I don't have eyes in the back of my head, or maybe I had grown complacent because nothing had changed before. But I remember one day last winter looking in the mirror and all of a sudden seeing this round thing sticking out that hadn't been there a year before. It was mildly disturbing, but I was gaining weight all over by that time and I attributed it to a combination of too much Nutella and too many Warrior IIs. I fretted, but not in earnest. I could still fit into my clothes.

But since I've been strength training, I've developed buns of steel. Big ones. They're toned and tight and out there for the world to see. And nothing would make me happier than sending them back to the smelter. I know that some women spend hours in the gym trying to obtain what magically appeared on me. That doesn't make it any better. I hate it when my pants pull across the back. I feel bigger than ever and I can't hide, knowing that the one small part of me is now making an appearance like Bette Midler in Las Vegas--loud, brassy, and not to be ignored.

I've been wondering what my problem is, how I can buy into the conventional wisdom of beauty when it's something that I don't possess and reject it when I fit the mold. Maybe it's like Groucho Marx said--I don't want to be a member of any club that would accept me. Or maybe it's body dysmorphia in the sense that I'd rather be skinny than sexy. Oh boy, that's a mouthful there--we'll have to address that another time. I see Snooki from Jersey Shore (please don't hate me) and wish I could have the confidence she has to show off all her curves.

Snarky aside: Of course, what I call confidence could really be utter narcissism and stupidity.

My body is my home, not some short-term rental that I'm staying in till the house I'm building is ready. If one room is too big or shaped the wrong way, what do I do? Do I move, or learn to accept and love it over time? The latter is definitely what I'm aiming for. Just as my flesh settled to give me my waist in my thirties, I know it will continue its downward journey should I be lucky enough to grow old. If I can love my body the way it is instead of fighting against it or wishing it was something it's not, then I can make it my permanent home. I can paint the walls and install built-ins instead of taping up posters and buying plastic shelving from IKEA. Maybe this challenge is my acid test (my ass-id test--groan!). A firm and shapely butt is good--People magazine, Oxygen, and Sir Mix-A-Lot have all said so, and I'm not going to argue with them. So if they're right and I don't like mine, what does that mean? A shifting of paradigms could be in order.

Or maybe I should just buy the next size up in pants and pretend that it's not there anymore.

Old Habits Die Hard

2010-01-12T16:23:00.000-06:00

I'm taking my family to New York City for a long weekend this Friday, and I can't wait! When I was a little girl, we would visit the Big Apple several times a year, either taking the train up from Philly or piling into a car and braving the New Jersey Turnpike and Parking Authority extortionists. It was never that big of a deal when I was a kid--I usually was forced to wear something ruffly and itchy because we'd be going to the theater--but we'd generally do something exciting or interesting too (not that the theater wasn't interesting--it's just that I was so young and went to it a lot that it was nothing special, not like those giant stuffed animals at FAO Schwartz...). And for me, the something special more often than not involved eating. Whether it was footlong hot dogs in a stripped-down vintage car at the AutoPub, chestnuts or soft pretzels on the street, or a box of Junior Mints during the show, I still carry the memories of the food with me to this day.

These days, New York is a rare treat for me. I can't hop on Septa and New Jersey Transit (waaaaay cheaper than Amtrak) and crash on a friend's floor for the weekend. Getting there involves a flight, usually out of O'Hare, which is a journey in itself. Hotels are prohibitively expensive, and my kids make spontaneity difficult. But last spring, I took my older son on a mother-son trip there for his middle-school graduation present, and we had a great time. It's true that I didn't get to do a lot of things I would have had I been child-free, but on the other hand, he made me do certain things--most notably, take the NBC Studio Tour--that were fun and that I naver would have done without him. From that trip, I also learned that buying a plane ticket and hotel together could save a decent amount of money. So during the fall, when I was thinking about family vacations, I suggested going there. We found a date and a great package and will be setting off at the crack of dawn on Friday.

Because this is a family trip, as opposed to a gift for a child, I got to set the agenda for the most part. Hopefully, the weather will comply and we can do some walking around. We'll hit the Metropolitan Museum of Art (so the kids can see where Claudia and Jamie went when they ran away), visit the Statue of Liberty or take the Staten Island Ferry, and wander around in Chinatown, Little Italy and Central Park. Oh yeah--and eat.

On Sunday night, I said to my husband that I didn't want the trip to be about food. I wanted to focus on being in New York with my family and not get sidetracked by planning my days around what I was going to eat. Restaurants are a little scary for me--huge portion sizes and hefty doses of calories are like playing with fire--and although I want everyone to have a good time, I don't want my most-visited site to be the bathroom.

Not an hour later, I found myself on opentable.com and the New York Magazine web site researching restaurants, deciding where we would eat and when. In some ways, I feel as though I'm taking control of the situation, but in others, it's like the situation took hold of me. I've fallen straight into my old habits of being a competitive foodie. You want pizza? I'll go online and figure out where the best in the city is. Oh, and don't forget to put Dylan's Candy Bar and Economy Candy on the list--for the kids, of course. Even now, when everything is done and I feel as though I've compromised by leaving our lunches unscheduled--except for Sunday brunch at Norma's--it's hard to take a step back. I'm really looking forward to the steak au poivre at Raoul's. At the same time, I'm terrified. I'm afraid that once I start eating, I won't be able to stop.

Life as a competitive foodie doesn't really support recovery from an eating disorder. The easy thing to do would have been not to make reservations, to divorce myself from the process. But while it sounds appealing on the surface, I know that I would regret it. Eating, traveling, bonding with my family, and having fun are all wrapped into one big sticky ball together, and taking one of the elements away would diminish the whole experience. I'm not saying this from my little obsessive corner; I believe this is how most people think. Eating is supposed to be a pleasure, and I don't want to give it up. Instead, I want to find a way to keep it a pleasure without having it become something that has to be planned and monitored. I need to learn how to go out and deal with moderate overeating, if that should happen (and it probably will), without feeling the need to purge afterward. If that means making reservations now instead of leaving things to chance, and then obsessing over making the reservations and blogging about it--well, gotta figure that's part of the recovery process. At least I'll be able to check out the menus in advance (and if you're curious, I'd advise you to do the same, or better yet--visit the restaurants yourselves) and walk in knowing that I can order something safe yet utterly delicious, something I can look forward to consuming and not regret afterwards.

I'm actually not stressing about this as much as it may seem from this post. I'm not sure if it's the fish oil I've been taking in massive quantities, the fact that my electrolytes may be a little more stable, or just that I have settled into my non-bingey pattern once again, but I feel relatively calm about this trip. The kids will have their own room and Saturday is supposed to be sunny and in the 40s (warm!!) so we'll be able to walk and I'll be sure to bring the shoes for it. No, I'm writing because I think it's both funny and poignant that I was adamant about the trip not being about food at 7 o'clock and by 8 that same night had booked half the meals for the trip. It's what I do. It's a habit, and maybe not a bad one, but one that I should stop and examine, and rethink if necessary. It just goes to show that despite our best and most sincere intentions, our brain just doesn't want to let go of the familiar, even if that means getting better. It's not a fight against the food, or against agribusiness or transfats, white flour, or sugar. I'm in a war against myself.

But I think I'm going to win. And by the way, I've figured out how to have my candy and eat it too, at least over the weekend. Economy Candy sells to-die-for chocolate in bite sized pieces, and I plan on buying maybe a dozen for myself and having the kids dole them out to me on a piece-by-piece basis over four days. I can look forward to them, enjoy them while eating, and know that there are no more until the next day--or the next trip to New York. Yes, it's a risk, but a controlled one. I'll have my support team with me and if the first time doesn't work, I'll know it was too soon. But I can't contemplate a life completely without Economy Candy and its ilk, and if I need the 21st Century equivalent of a food duenna (hey--maybe that could be my next career! Surely I'm not the only one who could benefit from a constant presence keeping me from getting into trouble), then that's simply the price I will have to pay on my rocky journey toward semi-normalcy.

My Dirty Little Secret

2010-01-10T09:20:00.001-06:00

So.

I've been putting this one off. Even just now, I sat down in front of the computer and spent an unprecedented 10 minutes exploring the finer points of blogger.com.

And the weird thing is that this post isn't about my internet porn addiction, the six arrests on my record from before I was 18, or the orgy we had last night.

That was a joke, by the way.

See, I'm dancing around the issue. It's easier just to lay it out point blank: I joined Precision Nutrition's Lean Eating Program.

When I was younger and first dieting, all I could do when I started a new diet was talk about it. I yakked all day long about what I could eat, what I couldn't eat, what I did eat, how compliant I was, how bad I was, and how thin/fat I was/was going to be. Until the day came (and it always did) when I went off the diet. I was either completely obsessed or in complete denial, depending on what phase of my diet/non-diet life I was leading.

This went on for a tiresome ten years or so until I got sick of the merry-go-round. But I will never forget the shameful, squirmy feeling of having made all of these grandiose assertions to everyone around me about how great the diet was and having to live down their stares (at least in my mind) when the diet failed me and I was back to eating Grandma's chocolate chip cookies for lunch (the packaged, preservatvie-filled kinds. One real grandma never went near the kitchen; the other turned everything she baked into a cannonball). And so even though I continued to diet sporadically--more and more sporadically as I got older, thank goodness--I stopped talking about it. My diets became secrets. If no one kenw I was on one, no one needed to witness my failure when I went off one.

Although I'm sure this silence improved my conversational skills--my dad and stepmother talk about their diets incessantly and I either want to laugh at them, claw out their eyeballs, or fall asleep--it reinforced the fat=shame connection. I stopped calling diets "diets" and started reading Geneen Roth. I would go on cleanses or non-diets with no rules--except there WERE rules: eat only when hungry, stop when full, and eat mindfully. Granted, these rules were healthy and well-meaning, but when you give an obsessive girl a bunch of rules, it's only a matter of time till she turns them into yet another self-flagellating device.

So hopefully this explains why I don't want to announce that I'm going on yet another diet.

Except I am. But at the same time, I'm not. Last summer, I realized that I need to adopt a healthy way of eating that I can sustain through my entire life. In September 2008, my shrink sent me to a dietician who told me to up my protein intake, eat more snacks, and never eat carbs by themselves (always combine with fat or protein or both). It took me months to implement her plan, and I fought against it for the longest time--I was coming from a yoga-influenced environment that touted a vegetarian diet and looked askance at meat eaters, particularly those who ate it multiple times a day. The advice was good, but it wasn't enough. I stumbled across Clean Eating and plunged into that. It was right in line with the RD's advice except a little more specific--smaller meals and larger snacks adding up to 5-6 meals/day, but always with protein. I joined the Clean Eating boards, but instead of competing in challenges and posting pictures and measurements charting my weight loss, I wrote about how I wanted to make Clean Eating second nature, so it could be a part of my life without me getting obsessive about it. I wrote this repeatedly, probably mostly for my own benefit, and it did start to percolate.

But it still wasn't enough. Eventually, I had to leave the boards because I found myself getting caught up in the numbers game and having some really bad thoughts about myself. The boards were really focused on weight loss and calorie restriction and I needed to get away from it. Since I've been blogging, I've noticed that I'm calming down about food. I'm not bingeing nearly as much as I was. I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer; even if it flickers now and then, at least it doesn't go out anymore. I don't think I will ever feel 100% safe around food anymore, and maybe that's for the best, if it keeps me in recovery and out of denial. And that's okay. I know what I need to do, and the payoff is worth it. For example, last night, I overate before I went out to dinner because I was freaking out--there were going to be a lot of people at one table, so I might not be able to get enough of what I wanted, I didn't know what we'd be drinking or how much, and I felt fat. But even after overeating, I kept it down, ate lightly at dinner, and drank lightly afterward. During karaoke, I didn't obsess about food at all, and didn't even really think about running to the bathroom to puke. Taking that option off the table made it possible for me to let go of the bulimia for a few hours and have a good time.

Except I felt fat. I was looking at the other women, comparing myself to them and always coming up short. I was looking at pictures of myself in yoga clothes from a year ago and fretting about how thick my waist has become and how wide my hips are. Feeling beautiful is so empowering and uplifting, and I haven't felt that way for quite a long time. Frankly, my body image sucks and needs some major repair.

I know that doing the work from the inside out is the only way to effect permanent change, but since we're being honest here, the only time I've ever felt that I've looked good, when the little comparer-to-the-other-girls inside my head shuts up for once, is when I was thin. And although thin is a frame of mind rather than a body shape, I know I've gained weight and it doesn't feel good. I can talk a good game about it being the shape of your soul that's important, not the shape of your body, but I just don't buy into it. Not when I feel I'm a good 15 lbs over my happy weight. And so I'm thinking that perhaps a good quick fix for me is to address the problem from the outside in--lighten up a little bit and then work on my body image.

Yes, I know it's fucked up and goes against everything we've all learned about loving yourself. But frankly, the place I'm in right now with my life pretty much prevents me from feeling the way I did when the weight fell off so effortlessly nearly five years ago. I felt so amazing about myself then that I didn't think about food at all except as a source of nourishment that went away as soon as my physical hunger was satisfied. I don't see that happening again. For me, it would be like lightning striking the same place twice. But that's okay. Just yesterday, I read a chapter in a book about a man who had to use statins to lower his cholesterol to get him to a point where he could begin to lower his cholesterol further through diet, at which point he could go off the statins. I view weight loss as this--sometimes you need a little push, a crutch, to gett you moving in the right direction--like training wheels on a bike.

And I am not losing sight of the big picture--recovery from bulimia. I know that once my eating is completely normalized and my body trusts that it will be receiving regular infusions of nutrition, it will let go of the additional weight just as it has done before. I'm a lucky woman in this respect: I have been blessed with a relatively high metabolism, don't hate most exercise, and have built up some impressive muscles for my age. I know that by focusing on being thinner, I make myself vulnerable to that thought's evil twin--feeling fat and ugly--which is what often drives me to binge. So I need to tread carefully. Eating like a normal person and trusting the process will bring me results. They may not be exactly the results I want--I may have caused lasting damage to my body that can't be undone--but I do believe that results WILL come.

Back to Precision Nutrition.... At some point last year, I came across John Berardi's book "The Metabolism Advantage" in my library. It made a lot of sense to me and validated much of what I'd been attempting to do on my own: eat small frequent meals based around complete proteins, lift heavy, and use high intensity cardio instead of steady state aerobics to burn more fat. I liked him and what he had to say and signed up for his emails (although, and I will just say this once, it would be MUCH easier for me to take him seriously if he would just lose his soul patch. There. It's out there. Sorry to be so shallow and judgmental). And through those emails, I found out about the Lean Eating program. It's a six month diet and exercise program (PN would define it differently, but it's really semantics) where you're coached on nutrition and fitness in very small groups. You have to pay, and it sounded way too structured and diet-y to me last summer, so I gave it a pass. But as the January 2010 program approached, I started giving it more thought.

Would it be possible for me to work this program in conjunction with my recovery? To make it more about changing my lifestyle and tweaking my exercise to make it more efffective in burning fat? I like the idea of accountability, and there is nothing in the Lean Eating plan that conflicts with anything I'm already doing. And oh, the idea of abdicating even a little bit of responsibility for my diet/exercise program is intoxicating. I am so used to planning things out, running down macronutrents and calories in my mind and on my planner, stressing over whether winter squash is a starchy carb and whether a drink AND nachos counts as one or two cheats that taking this pressure off myself and having someone around to answer those questions--even if the answer is wrong--would be a huge relief at this point.

I am cynical enough to have reservations about the program, but they're not about whether it works as stated. Rather, they're all about my ability to be compliant with the program, to keep it about positive change and less about weight loss. I've been reading the message boards, and it sounds like I'm on the right track. Even people who signed up for past programs being all about weight loss have written in saying that the most valuable benefits have been the unintended one--the most compelling to me being feeling good about one's own body NOW.

I want that. Next time I do karaoke, I don't want to think about how much bigger my thighs are than the woman next to me or how many calories are in the tequila I'm drinking. I want to think about getting the breath up from my diaphragm so I can hit the higher register notes without sounding screechy.

This blog will not become my Lean Eating blog. Like I wrote above, talking about diet and exercise all the time is just boring. I had a whole 'nother post I wanted to do about "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" that I had to put on the back burner to write about this. This is my home. It's where I can complain about JB's soul patch (oops--wasn't gonna mention that again!) and air my reservations about the program--maybe even bitch and moan and vent in ways I can't do on the Lean Eating boards that they're supposedly setting up. But I will address it periodically, since it will become a part of my daily existence, and wanted to get that fact off my chest this morning--if for no other reason than to force me to sort out my ambivalence about the program and really commit to it further.

I am so cheap and now that I've decided to spend this kind of money--and LE ISN'T cheap, although compared to the cost of therapy or even a down-and-dirty binge, it's quite reasonable--I feel even more compelled to see this through. I had to sign a contract to trust what the LE team says, even if it doesn't make sense to me at the time (oh, how the ex-lawyer loved that one!! Starting thinking about the contract's enforceability and ways to get out of it :) ), and I added a silent provision to stay purge-free for the duration of the program. So far it's working... and it's been five days, many of which have involved alcohol and bagels (although not together). Obviously, I won't trust blindly in the program if I feel it's at a risk to my recovery, but in terms of getting fitter and healthier, I really don't have much to lose at this point. The money is spent, and I don't want it spent for nothing.

So there it is. My dirty little secret. Perhaps it's not as salacious as you'd hoped, but for me, admitting I was going on the program to my husband (who has to take my pix and measurements, which I'm kind of dreading but trying to detach from) and my therapist was almost as hard as coming clean about being bulimic. I need to keep my parameters really strict here, and remember that THIS IS NOT A DIET. This is me being baby-sat by John Berardi and his team for six months to help me set the things I've been learning in stone. To help me more forward in my journey toward a healthier and saner life. If I can do that, I will be set.

Hangover Prophylactic

2010-01-09T09:29:00.000-06:00

It's remarkable how quickly I can feel good. Really good. From the tone of my post yesterday, it was probably pretty easy to tell that my mood had lifted from even the day before. And today, even though I am suffering a bit from post-tequila grogginess (which doesn't officially count as a hangover), I feel amazing. I feel happy. I feel thick, too, but it's not a cataclysm. It's just a fact. I'm on my way out to the gym but wanted to dash this off quickly while the car is warming up.

I know the cycle. First comes the amazing feeling. And then... maybe there's a part of me that feels that I don't deserve to feel this good. That when I feel this good, I need to step into my power and do all the stuff that I put off when I'm in the post-binge hangover/coma. This recipe is calling to me with its siren song; I want to try subbing coconut flour in for the whole wheat to really layer those flavors. I just need to remember that I can't trust myself to bake right now, even "healthy" chocolate chip cookies. And so for lunch today, it will be the leftover salad and if I have a chocolate jones, maybe some of my avocado mousse.

And just in case, if anyone else is a lightweight and needs to know what to do to mediate the effects of a very large and very strong Meyer lemon margarita (probably a good 5 oz. of booze), EAT NUTS. Lots and lots of nuts. You will be very full, and you'll feel guilty about all the calories you ate, but they soak up the tequila like a sponge (at least in me) and then you won't turn to your starchy carbs the next day. Instead, you'll be able to focus on lean protein and fresh veggies so you can further tax your liver the following night before you do karaoke.

A Valiant Effort

2010-01-08T08:23:00.001-06:00

What I used to do. The flowers are sugar. The cake is real.

I love food. I love nearly everything about food--not just the way it tastes, but its texture, its color, its properties. When the feeling strikes, I like to throw myself headfirst into food and lose myself in it. I'm not talking about a binge. When I was a sugar artist, I would spend six hours at a time hunched over my pasta machine, rolling out thin sheets of gum paste and coaxing them into stylized flowers that would draw gasps. I wouldn't know where the time went. It was only when I tried to get the cricks out of my shoulders that I realized how long I had been at it.

This is one of the reasons recovery is so complicated. I can't swear off food. Although it brings me unspeakable pain, it also brings me some of my greatest joys. On the bright side, because I love it so much, I have the ability and inclination to create safe foods for myself that are still delicious.

Having read about the wonderful healing properties of leafy greens on many an occasion, and being inspired by a bunch of red kale I picked up at Stanley's on Monday, I decided to try this recipe I found on epicurious.com. Four forks all around. What could go wrong?

The food prep started out so well that I was motivated to take pictures. The stove? Magic Chef 6300 series, a veritable antique that's been refurbished and treated so poorly that I have to light the burners with a match. The gas company actually turned it off because they felt it was hazardous. Of course, the guy gave me a wink and told me that I probably knew how to turn it back on--which I did. The camera--iPhone. The pan--LeCreuset 12" oval saute. I've cultivated a really nice season on this pan and I love using it. It's big enough to hold just about anything, and its shape allows me to make more than three strips of bacon at a time, a necessity when you're living in a house with three hungry porkophiles.

Here's the kale. Although it's organic, please don't tell my naturopath that it's inside a potentially toxic plastic bag from the drugstore. What can I say? I'm running low on refrigerator space and Tupperware.

This is when I decided to start taking pictures. I loved the color of the stems and thought the whole dish would be beautiful and jpeg worthy. The stems are precooking along with half an onion in some olive oil.

I was afraid I'd have to rummage through the mess above to find my smoked paprika. Fortunately, I took a quick look here:

and found it, tucked away in the back. Score one for TDH!

Adding the kale by handfuls to the onions and stems. Sorry for the blurry quality--I was probably getting so excited about my whole endeavor that my hand was shaking with adrenaline (or attribute it to my cluelessness about all things technological. Whatever).

The finishing touches of raisins and toasted almonds, along with the cinnamon and balsamic vinegar recommended by readers, as well as the ubiquitous salt 'n pepa (ooh, push it!).

Gorgeous, ain't it?

Sadly, in cooking, as in life, the most beautiful things are not always the best. I don't know if it was me or the recipe. Although most bakers are meticulous measurers, I'm not. I've evolved (devolved?) into a pincher, glugger, and sprinkler. So it's entirely possible I overdid it on the paprika. The dish just had a weird smoky taste, but not in a good way. I was so disappointed. The raisins and almonds had made me think it was going to have a North African/Spanish tang, and the whole thing just tasted, well--bad. So it ended up here:

where it subsequently disappeared down the disposal.

There is a happy ending--well, happy-ish. I have written about how my older son seems to have gotten more sanguine about eating his veggies. Putting a plate of this chard in front of him would have been an acid test. Maybe my fail was the universe's way of telling me not to get too cocky. My husband doesn't like greens too much, and as far as kids in my family go, the fewer ingredients in a dish, the more they like it (this translates into no sauces, soups, or stews, which drives me crazy. Chili is a pipe dream). So instead of a healthy exotic recipe, they got this instead:

Leftovers, consisting of brown rice pasta, baked potato, a somewhat ancient frankenfood, and frozen broccoli from my man, Trader Joe

And everyone lived happily ever after.

The Morning After

2010-01-07T08:52:00.000-06:00

I was going to write this yesterday. I meant to, and I really wanted to, and I believe that if I had, it would have had a greater tone of raw desperation than it does now. However, I just couldn't get it together enough to post. Maybe the act of sitting down at the keyboard and revealing myself scared me away.

This is exactly why I need to post. I need to look this ugliness in the face and know that it's a real problem. A SERIOUS problem. I can't pretend it doesn't happen. I can't sugar-coat it.

Although these days, "sugar-coat" is taking on a whole new meaning, one that's 180 degrees from the mainstream use.

On Tuesday, I slipped back into my binge/purge pattern with a venegeance. Yes, I can rationalize it by saying that it was only for the last six hours of the day and that it didn't carry over to the next day or start earlier in the morning, but the pattern is what is disturbing. When I was at the lowest point in my bulimia, I would go out and buy crap--that's the only word for it--to binge on. And I did that on Tuesday. This is not food that most people would enjoy eating. It's what you might find in your neighborhood convenience store, Wal-Mart, or pharmacy (which is where I went). It's full of trans-fats, overly sweetened or salted, and so soft it's pre-digested. It goes down easy and comes up easier. Taste? Aside from the copious amounts of sugar, I couldn't tell you how anything tasted. I was too busy chewing, swallowing, and puking. Or else I was swinging between thinking about what I was going to eat next or flagellating myself for falling into this pothole once again.

But eating calmed me down. It took me away from the stacks of invitations I needed to address and seal, so I didn't have to contemplate the party coming up in two months that I haven't done jack shit for since September. I didn't have to fret over what I would wear and how I would look, which of my family would come in, and who would pull attitude about me inviting their kids or failing to include a member of the family so important I can't remember his or her face. I didn't think about how thick I'm getting around my waist (I can tell myself it's my menopot, and maybe that's partially true, but the metric ton of Nutella I've eaten over the past three years probably has a little to do with it too). I could let go of the stiffness and creakiness in my body that I've been feeling during my yoga practice, as well as the hamstring injury that's lingering and keeps me from getting into my forward folds and splits as deeply as my ego would like.

Except bingeing doesn't FIX anything. It postpones the inevitable, and actually makes it more difficult, because now, not only do I have to cope with the residual anxiety, I have the binge hangover to deal with on top of it. That's why yesterday, when I was suffering from the worst of it, my words would have come more easily.

Or maybe not. Because this is the hard stuff. It's so hard to write it down. I'm so used to being perfect, fabulous, wonderful. Being unhappy, angry, or insecure was always something I was taught was very unattractive. (God forbid any woman in my family should have been unattractive--regardless of her intellect, intuition, or loving nature). And so exposing myself as the flawed person I am is difficult. I KNOW that in doing this, I bring others closer. I become more real, more interesting, more compelling. And yet, it's so SCARY to sit here and talk about my bulimia when I know I'm too old, too smart, and too together to be doing this stupid, self-destructive thing. I don't want to be the one with the eating disorder. I want to be known for my strengths, not my weaknesses.

But instead of wallowing in self-pity and beating myself up over how stupid I am, I want to take this time to really explore how I feel--or how I WAS feeling yesterday--because it was like waking up the morning after, except without all of the fun of the night before. No shots at the bar with friends, no random hookups with cute guys (I'm going WAY back in time here, but it was definitely a fun and memorable time!), no rambling conversations about the meaning of life that make sense to only the people involved in the conversation. No, I locked myself into my solitary obsession, which takes me away from others, and still woke up feeling like shit. My body was bloated from a combination of the sugar and dehydration, I sported a perfect middle-aged double chin (ugh!) and my puffy eyes were dull. My stomach felt like a barrel, and I imagine (although couldn't bring myself to look in a mirror to confirm) that I looked just like a middle-school gym teacher minus the bad perm. I had a low-grade headache most of the day, and worse, I KNEW that the only thing that would make me feel better short-term was more sugar.

Sound like an addiction? Hair of the dog?

Allie from Pimp My Protein Shake had remcommended the book "The Truth About Beauty" to me, which I devoured over my vacation. It's not just about how you look on the outside; what's going on on the inside is crucial and manifests in your physical appearanace. The author, Kat James, wrote about eating disorders as having a strong biochemical component. Failing to address this component and focusing wholly on the emotional issues behind the disorder makes recovery difficult, if not impossible. I've always thought that my bingeing may have something more to it than just a need to escape my present. Yesterday morning--and to be honest, Tuesday afternoon--confirmed that to me. When I began to eat my "treats," the flood of simple sugars entering my bloodstream was palpable. You know when you drink a little too much coffee and you can't "come down?" That's what this felt like, except instead of having a caffeine-fueled surge of energy, all I wanted to do was lie down, draw the covers over my head, and drown in a sea of peanut butter cups and chocolate cupcakes. And then, waking up on Wednesday morning, the first thing I wanted to do was run out to the Jewel and pick up right where I left off.

Except I didn't. Part of it--a bigger part than I probably realize--was that I was seeing my therapist in the morning, and I would have to report to her that not only did I binge, I binged RIGHT BEFORE SEEING HER!!!! Horrors--the good girl breaking the rules! No, I couldn't do that. But I just didn't know what to do with myself. I felt like crap. So what I did is drink a lot of green tea (anti-inflammatory), took all of my supplements, ate a healthy breakfast that was relatively low in carbs and very high in protein with a decent amount of healthy fat, and hung on for dear life until the appointment. Then I kept myself busy till the kids came home, and by then, I was feeling much better. I had to white-knuckle it for a while, but I was able to hang on, which is a step in the right direction.

But that urge to throw myself back into the binge, to make everything JUST GO AWAY for an hour or two so I didn't have to go through the difficult time, was so strong. I know that when my body clears itself of the sugar, which takes only a day or two, it becomes much easier. I just have to get past the complacency, the telling myself "you can have just one/three/five of these chocolates/mints/whatever and stop because you did it before." The fact that I did it before is IRRELEVANT. In three years, I've fucked up a lifetime of body chemistry and it's now dangerous, if not impossible, for me to eat high-glycemic foods. Recovering alcoholics say, "One drink, one drunk," and I need to embrace this credo and live it. There's no moderation for me, not for now at least.

I am an addict.

The stuff that I made when I owned my bakery was kick-ass. I am not bragging. I am my own worst critic and never would have offered anything for sale if it wasn't something I would have gladly spent my money on. Although we didn't have many customers, most of our customers were repeats and regulars. One man told me that my macarons were better than the ones at Laduree. I can't say--I prefer Pierre Herme's macarons, and my macarons were Americanified flavors--but STILL. And now my recipes and skills will have to lie in the closet gathering dust while I try to kick my habit, all the time knowing that I may never be able to go to them again. At least in the same way.

But the important thing is to see this not as taking something away, but as giving myself something. When I eat properly and healthfully, without bingeing, and minimizing the amount of sugar I ingest, I feel GOOD. I feel HAPPY. I feel CALM. These are positive things, and I know how to achieve them. Food tastes so much better to me when I'm in a better place, and I enjoy eating a lot more (although I have TONS of anxiety whenever I go out to dinner--I've become a bit of a control freak about my food and only feel comfortable when I know what's in it). I love my morning oats or egg sandwiches. I love my Greek yogurt with blood orange, pomegranite, and toasted almonds (and a bit of cardamom and orange flower water--mmmm). I love my kabocha with Sunbutter, although I can't eat too much of it because it's starchy. Smoked salmon, once a rare treat, has become a mainstay. And for dessert, nothing beats my clean chocolate mousse, tofu ice cream, or a smoothie.

So life can be good and full without sugar. I can figure out ways to tweak my diet and use my knowledge and skills to bring my ideas to fruition. For example, I'm wondering if it's possible to make marshmallows with agave--how good would they be? Macarons are probably out of the picture for now, but I'm sure there's a way to keep the glycemic load low by using higher-protein fillings instead of buttercream--they're just egg whites, nuts and sugar, so the fat and protein would prevent the freight-train rush of insulin that a chocolate chip cookie might spark. My family is already benefitting from my dietary rigidity. My older son, a former green food-phobe, willingly ate a plate of stir fried pea shoots on Tuesday and sesame sugar snap peas last night. There may be hope for us all.

The most important thing, says my therapist, and I agree, is that I can no longer live in denial. It's not just an unpleasant behavior. It's a mental illness and a physical addiction. I need to respect my body's limitations. Just as I can't go into splits on my left side till my hamstring heals, I have to accept that I can't push the envelope with my eating disorder by buying crap that's on sale "for the kids" or so I can have a little treat now and then. The rules have changed, and it doesn't work that way anymore. I'm moving forward, hoping to have the resolve to stop myself when I feel the sugar demon screaming in my ear.

December 31, 2010

2010-01-03T13:41:00.000-06:00

At the beginning of many of my yoga practices, I set an intent. This intent guides me throughout the next hour or two, helping me focus on where I'm going and keeping me from getting distracted by my oh-so-active monkey mind. I don't always end up where I think I'll be, but having a destination in mind can be helpful (as long as I don't get too attached to the outcome, which is contrary to the principles of yoga and a whole 'nother story).

Self-help gurus recommend visualization, which is a close cousin to intent-setting. When you figure out where you want to be, you don't get as lost along the way. And if you do get lost, you have a compass to help you find your way back--if you choose to. As someone who loves tangential comments, detours, and stopping to smell the flowers (or taste the chocolates), I could benefit from a little more direction. This does not mean my roadmap will constrain me; if circumstances arise that make it necessary for me to deviate to preserve my sanity, keep me from harm, or protect my family, I will gladly leave it behind. At the very least, though, I expect it will be interesting to look back at this next year and see what's come to pass.

This post was inspired by the intent suggested by one of my Forrest yoga teachers at a practice I went to at the beginning of my Chicago staycation two weeks ago. It resonated with me more deeply than any other thing she's ever said in class, and probably more than any other comment a teacher has made to me except for Ana Forrest herself. Talya asked our class to imagine ourselves two hours later, at the end of class, having accomplished everything we wanted to during practice. Then she cued us, both during the intent-setting time and throughout the practice, to use our intent to guide us in working the asanas. Knowing where I wanted to be gave me a touchstone and kept me from bailing or vacating, as I've been known to do. I've never experienced Forrest abs like that before, and even though we went deep into the hips later on, I found a peace in the intensity that often eludes me. I'm hoping and wishing that carrying this out into the real world will bring some wonderful prizes--peace, self-awareness, surrender without struggle--and even more wonderful surprises in 2010.

December 31, 2010, 11:30 p.m. CST [Note: at this point, we KNOW this is hypothetical, since I don't think I've seen the clock strike 11 unless I've already been asleep and have reawakened with my periodic insomnia. I can't believe I used to party until 3:00 a.m., although to be honest, that was all before the kids were born]: As the year is drawing to a close, I can look back at 2010 as a year of evolution and positive change in my life. Leaving my active bulimia behind me is like seeing the sun after a long Chicago winter. Although I'm afraid I will always define myself as "recovering" instead of "recovered," the fact that I no longer binge and purge has brought me better health, a stronger yoga practice, and a renewed interest in investing in relationships with others. I have reached out to my students, my neighbors, and my family and have been able to narrow the gulf that my eating disorder created. I didn't tell many people about why I have been so crazed and distant over the past four or five years--after all, there is no point in offering explanations if they won't illuminate, and some people just don't GET how universally EDs infect the lives of those who suffer from them--but the people I have confided in have been supportive and understanding, and I hope that I can use my experiences to help others one day.

Along these lines, I am encouraged by how my relationship with my family continues to improve. I can't believe that I was checked out of my kids' everyday lives for such a long time. I won't beat myself up about this--since I have to trust that I needed to walk this path to wind up here, there is nothing else I really could have done--but I missed a lot of valuable time with my children that I can never get back. Making things up to them without letting them walk all over me has been challenging, but I think I'm succeeding. My older son's grades have gone up thanks to my insistent but subtle and gentle intervention, and my younger son's issues with prevarication (or lying and manipulation, to be blunt) seem to be resolved as well. No therapy or tutoring bills yet--hooray!

As far as my husband and I go, we are holding the course. Marriage is hard even when everything goes well, and we have had a few curveballs thrown our direction. Once I got the bulimia under control, we resumed marital therapy. I was able to communicate my anger about the past to him in a way he understood. By letting him know that I didn't blame him anymore, but needed him to listen to and acknowledge what happened in the past without saying "It's all in the past; can't you get over it already," I finally worked through and dissipated my rage. He is still trying to understand what it's like to go through life as a sensitive woman, but now I'm trying not to take what I might have deemed as insensitive, insulting, or critical comments in the past as anything other than attempts to ask questions or make conversation. So even though we are coming at each other from completely different time zones, we are taking baby steps to narrow the gap.

And my relationship with myself... it's always been a little schizophrenic. On one hand, I recognize that I'm a pretty special woman and have a decent amount of self-esteem and confidence. On the other hand, there are situations where I feel such withering self-hatred or paralyzing insecurity that I wonder why I'm even here taking up room on this planet. I know that at these times, it's my mind telling me lies, twisting the words that people unthinkingly said to me in the past which now color my views on my appearance, my weight, and my tendency to be less than perfect. I've spent the past year practicing loving myself. I am more than just the physical boundaries of my body, my job, my test scores, my net worth, and my body fat percentage. I am a fascinating, loving, beautiful human being who sometimes needs to remind herself of that once in a while. With practice, it's gotten easier to tap into that love. I'm not narcissistic or self-indulgent. Rather, I'm working on extending the kindness and compassion that I try to extend toward others toward myself . And as I feel more compassionate and less judgmental toward myself, it feeds on itself, making me still more compassionate toward and less judgmental of others. I'm a more compelling teacher; when I was up there worrying about my pot belly or back fat last year, it took the focus away from my students. Now, it doesn't get in the way that often.

Most of the time.

Beating bulimia necessitated changes in the way I ate, and my family was forced into these changes along the way, since I cook for them. The changes have been gradual, and no one seemed to object throughout the year (indeed, they were pretty much used to everything by the end of 2009). We go through loads of fresh produce every week, buying organic as much as possible, but not getting militant about it. Anything packaged has as short as an ingredient list as possible, and we minimize our consumption of frankenfoods. Although the kids still ask for soda once in a while, there's no huffing and puffing when I tell them "no." Lord knows what they do when I'm not around, and I won't be in their everyday lives for that much longer, so it's good to know that these battles have been won, at least on the home front. We eat grass-fed beef that I buy in Wisconsin every few months (we have never met the cows, but I don't think that would be a problem--although their death is caused by us, so is their life, which is a pretty good one as far as things go for steers), organic chicken, and wild salmon from Alaska. The family has learned to like the taste of leafy greens, winter squash and sweet potatoes, and even my low-glycemic desserts made with tofu (shhh--it's a secret!) or avocados. And I've traded in my cake decorating turntable and icing tips for my Crock-Pot (we have a meaningful relationship during the colder months) and my Aroma rice cooker.

Most importantly, I feel as though I've found my dharma. While I have written about my path to it over the past year, it's been a gradual coming-to-awareness for me that is only dramatic when looking at where I was last January. I have found my focus: while nourishing myself physically and spiritually, I realized that others were in need of the same nourishment. Now I am guiding them and helping them find their paths. Whether I make money from this path isn't really the point; my renumeration goes far beyond that. I feel as though I've been given a second--or third, or fourth or nineteenth--chance to really DO something, and the fact that I've seized on it with such passion makes me so grateful and happy.

I've become a blogger, maybe not as widely read as others, but legit and prolific. I bit the bullet and finished my Forrest homework and got my certification, even though I still think Carolynn Myss is a bit of a kook and hard to read and listen to. I was able to attend many of Ana's intensives and workshops, and hope one day to complete her advanced teacher training and maybe even assist if that's something that still appeals to me when it becomes available. I've managed to learn to like strength training; even though I don't think I'll ever love it, it's not as detestable as it once was, and taking into account what it does for my body and my metabolism brings it from "barely tolerable" into "manageable to somewhat pleasant."

Oh--and I can do an unassisted pull-up in the gym and pike up into handstand in yoga.

[Note: the last paragraph is a reach. But hey--this is my forum, and if setting my intent really works, it would be very cool to be able to do these last two. If this works, next year I'll write about getting into full lotus.]

Happy New Year, everyone. Let's make 2010 everything we can, and live it to its fullest, even through the tough times.

Gratitude

2009-12-19T13:56:00.000-06:00

With 2009 drawing to a close and 2010 just around the corner, it's appropriate for me to step back and take a good look at my life. As I've written on more than one occasion, my life has been blessed. As I've also written, I tend to be a drama queen who focuses all too often on what's missing rather than what's there. Instead of writing the year off and pushing all of my goals and expectations two weeks forward, this year I'm using this lame duck period to reassess where I've been, where I'm going, and what I want to work on changing in the months ahead.

It goes without saying that striving toward recovery is my number one goal for 2010, and I think I will be there within twelve months. And although I'd still like to drop the ten or fifteen pounds that have been plaguing me for the past year or two, it would be so much nicer (and mentally healthier, too) to drop the "need to be thin to be good" mindset that I've been lugging around with me for the past three decades. The only time that I was truly thin, the rest of my life was a complete shambles. If I need to live without integrity and stability in order to fit into a size 2, then a serious reexamination of my priorities is in order.

But I digress. Today's post is about what IS, not what will be. I hope that by setting out everything for which I'm grateful--and I do mean everything, even if it's shallow, immature, or has no redeeming virtues other than my gratitude--I will generate enough positive energy for a running start toward accomplishing my goals after January 1. And even if that doesn't happen, at least I'll have a touchstone I can refer back to when the shit starts piling up around me as it always does. This is my truth. These are my blessings:

1. My children. They are my finest legacy. Not only am I grateful for having two bright, healthy and happy boys, I am proud of myself for having raised them to be good men. This is not to say that they are perfect. Get real--one is a teenager and the other is a tween. But I'm not a perfect mom either, and I don't think any of us expect perfection. We do the best we can, cross our fingers, and pray. Every so often, when one of them says or does something that breaks my heart with the sheer beauty of the gesture, I know that every sleepless night, dirty diaper (and dirty look), mind-numbing play date, and offensive video game was worth it.

2. My health. I have been less than kind to my body for most of my life. Like most teenagers and twenty-somethings, the idea that I would actually AGE was unthinkable. So I tanned with baby oil, drank entirely too much, did every illegal drug that was offered to me, got into strange cars with stranger men, ate junk food prolifically, didn't take vitamins (except when I was preggers), fluctuated between not exercising at all and running 8-10 miles at a time, lost and found ten or twenty pounds every few months, didn't wash the makeup off my face every night, didn't wear sunscreen unless I was at the beach (and only applied it once a day when there), heated food in the microwave, went three years without going to see the dentist, exercised through injuries to show how tough I was, and committed countless other inquities against my body that I've probably blocked out or forgotten. And then in my thirties, I ate pounds and pounds of sugar, butter, artificial colorings, and hydrogenated fats (oh, I could tell you horror stories about the products sold to commercial bakeries that rival sausage-making muckraking) for years while getting virtually no exercise in my second career as a sugar artist and pastry chef. In spite of this cavalier lack of care and attention, I'm doing pretty well. Although my eating disorder has definitely taken its toll on my health, I don't think I've incurred any lasting damage. My skin is definitely sun-damaged, but on me, this manifests as freckles, which are cute and suit my personality. In spite of my summers at the Jersey shore and as a lifeguard and swimming teacher, my crows' feet are just popping up, and I'm consistently told I don't look old enough to have teenagers. I'm in the best physical shape of my life, thanks to regular exercise and yoga. And I feel like my diet is getting cleaned up, too. My body doesn't run on dirty fuel as well as it used to, so if I want to feel my best, I need to take care of myself. I don't have any major or chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart issues (other than mitral valve prolapse, which I consider a non-issue since 40% of all women have it). My mom died from breast cancer at the age of 50, and I've been getting yearly mammograms since my 30th birthday. If I do get cancer at some point in my life (which I have been expecting to get ever since my mom was diagnosed--morbid, I know, but I like to say hope for the best and plan for the worst), I am confident that I will be strong enough and in a good enough mental place to meet it head on. My health is something that I have control over, but I feel like I'm in a much better place than I have any right to be, given my past lifestyle, and for that, I'm grateful.

3. My father. My dad will be 78 next month, and the older he gets, the more I marvel at my luck in having him around this long. His family has a long history of heart disease and high cholesterol, and according to him, he should have been dead 40 years ago. He changed his lifestyle so he would be around to take care of his family (in a sad and ironic twist, my mom was the one who got sick and died) and has been doing just that ever since. He's had some physical setbacks in the past ten years--a broken back, spinal stenosis, and a gradual weakening of his legs and loss of balance that makes it difficult for him to get around. But he's still here, and still in good shape for a man his age. His mind is almost as sharp as ever and although he can still drive me absolutely crazy with some of the shit he says, I love him and love the fact that he's here for me 100%. This is the man who bought me birth control pills, for God's sake, before I went to Europe when I was 21 (I was too embarrassed to ask my doctor, so I asked my father? Go figure). He had an incredibly successful career as a doctor, but I think he was just as good a father, even if he doesn't believe me.

4. My husband. This is a tricky one. But regardless of how I feel about my husband on any given day, the fact remains that I am married to a good man who adores me and who would give me the world if 1) I asked for it; 2) he heard me and listened to me and understood what I was asking for; and 3) he could find it on sale. Just kidding. We've had our share of difficulties over the past three or four years, which is probably payback for all the years we let things slide because it was easier, and his tenacity and dedication to our marriage is remarkable. I know that no matter what happens, he will be there for me if I need him, because that's just the kind of guy he is. He's honest, smart, a hard worker, a good and loving and involved father, and actually a lot of fun when I'm not nagging or haranguing him. I'm not an easy person to live with, and I imagine most people I know would have me screaming and climbing the walls if I had to live with them for nineteen years. So while I've done my share of screaming and wall-climbing, it's been way less than it would have been with most people, and life is rarely dull when we both make an effort at things. This in one I really need to work on--part of me wants to be free, but just as large a part is terrified that if I ever do get free, I'll realize the immensity of what I've lost and regret it always. I don't want that. To be continued....

5. My financial stability. It's a mixture of hard work, smarts, and good luck, but I don't have to worry about where I'm living and where my next meal is coming from, and in this day and age, that's HUGE.

6. My brain and my abilities. When push comes to shove, I can do just about anything I need to do, and often a lot more. I take my competence for granted, and although I don't want to get all conceited about it (after all, we really don't have anything to do with how smart we are, right?), I need to appreciate it a little more.

7. Getting into bed at the end of the day. We have an awesome bed--it's all puffy with a big duvet and I have three down pillows. I don't get into bed during the day for any reason so it's all the more enticing at nighttime. Now, if I could only sleep a little better...

8. Ambien CR (see above). It's the first sleeping pill that's ever worked for me. I like it a little too much, so I have to be very careful, but it's nice to know that there's another option to terminal insomnia.

9. Big floppy cashmere sweaters. XXL, preferably, with cuffs that are slightly tattered.

10. Forrest yoga. It brings me peace and centers me when I need it, and pushes my buttons when I get too complacent. Ana Forrest is a remarkable woman and I need to remember to thank her next time I see her.

11. My yoga students. They inspire me to be a better teacher. I hate the thought of being an energy vampire, but when I teach a good class, there's nothing like the high I get from riding off their energy.

12. The internet. What did we ever do without it? I have ten years' worth of old cooking magazines that are obsolete. Search engines and html are also included in this category. And mp3s. Etc...

13. My lil' bro. He is awesome--gorgeous, talented, funny, sweet, a great dad with FABULOUS real estate in Southern California. It's great to have family you love and even better when they live in places you'd pay to visit. His wife isn't too shabby either.

14. My friends. I don't have a lot, but they are quality all the way. Three of them are from high school and although we don't talk much, it's a miracle how we can always pick up right where we left off. The ones from college are just as good. One of my resolutions last year was to be a better friend to my friends here in Illinois, and this one definitely requires my efforts. But when you're in the shit, having good friends gives you something to grab ahold of to pull yourself out. It's well worth the investment of time and energy. Remember this.

15. My mom. She wasn't around nearly long enough, but what a wonderful legacy she left. I miss her every day.

16. The people I can't write about who have helped me grow and develop as a fully integrated woman, body, mind and soul. I'll always be grateful.

17. Geneen Roth, who was the first to let me know that I was not the only one who was absoluately deranged about my eating, dieting, and body image. Thank you for returning me to sanity--even if only temporarily.

18. Rachel Cosgrove. See previous post.

19. Fleur de sel, Popeye's fried chicken, Nutella, gianduja, salted ciabatta from La Farine, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Stanley's Fruits and Vegetables, Argyle Street, New York City, the Jersey shore, Paris and the Luxembourg Gardens, Garrett's chicago mix, the Metra North Line, Lucky Brand jeans, personal audio devices for listening to music on cardio equipment, elastic waistbands when you haven't been on the cardio equipment, Oil of Olay, Smashbox mascara, Le Clerc (buy it in Paris), Anais Anais, and anything else I may have forgotten.

20. Second chances. We do very few things where we can't take a do-over, even if it doesn't seem that way at the time. Although life isn't a dress rehearsal, it's not a one-night show either. Keep trying and eventually you'll get it right--or good enough.

21. Being old enough not to care so much about what other people think, and young enough to still be silly. At least some of the time.

Happy and healthy new year. I will be away from my internet till after the first of the year. Love and best wishes to all.

The Deranged Housewife

I <3 Rachel Cosgrove

2009-12-17T14:14:00.000-06:00

I admit it. I have a girl crush.

If you're my husband and happen to be reading this and are getting into a lather, anticipating some serious girl-on-girl action, please let me clarify: it's not that way. It's not that I want to be WITH Rachel Cosgrove; I just want to BE her.

And I don't really want to be her either. As complicated and messy as my life is, most of the time I'm pretty happy being me. Instead of being Rachel, I'm fine with taking lessons from her on how to improve my life, so I can be a better me. Rachel can help me live up to my Higher Self.

If you have no idea who Rachel Cosgrove is, I can give you the Reader's Digest condensed version. She and her husband Alwyn (who also happens to be adorable in a completely understated, focused and Scottish way) own a gym in California where they transform their clients' bodies. They are all about intensity, supersets, complexes, and metabolic training. They scorn treadmills and endurance cardio (for fat loss, that is--they agree that there is a place for that kind of training if you're preparing for an event). Alwyn has co-authored a number of books, including "The New Rules of Lifting for Women," and both Cosgroves are contributors to Figure Athlete and T-Nation.

Rachel walks her talk. She trained for and finished an Ironman and lost her abs in the process. According to her, the long hours of training every week turned her body into an efficient fat-burning machine, which sounds good until you realize that a fuel-efficient vehicle (read "body") burns less gas (read "calories."). But sixteen weeks after crossing the finish line, she had shredded her abs back into shape by strength training three times a week and doing high intensity cardio another three days.

What it boils down to is that I really like her attitude. She seems like the kind of trainer who doesn't pussyfoot around the hard stuff. You're not getting the results you want? Don't try feeding her any of this bad genetics/slow metabolism/I'm- following-the-plan-but-not-losing garbage. She will see right through your excuses and make you face the fact that you're not training hard enough and not eating clean enough. Not in a mean way, of course, but she doesn't hand-hold or mollycoddle. Losing fat can be really hard work, and getting ripped is that much harder. If you take it easy, thinking it will come easy, you'll be disappointed. If you're not out of breath and tired during your workouts, you're not training hard enough.

I LOVE that. I see what goes on in the gym and find a lot of it appalling. This morning, there was a trainer working with a woman who was about five years younger than me, in her late thirties or ealy forties, who looked to be very healthy and only a little overweight. She could have been doing some major huffing and puffing, but instead, she and her trainer didn't stop talking the entire time. Rachel would NOT have been happy. Rachel would have told the woman that if she could carry on a conversation, she should have been working harder. Much harder. This is the kind of trainer I want.

So I bought Rachel's new book, "The Female Body Breakthrough." And now I like her even more. Rachel had bulimia, and although she glossed over her struggle in the book (I would have loved to read more about her recovery and the steps she followed to get there), the fact that she was unflinchingly open about it impressed me. When people come to her with food issues, she doesn't pay lip service to their struggles. She understands because she's been there. Her program helps you feed your body kindly and rationally. It teaches you to nourish yourself, not to punish or starve yourself. No tough love in the kitchen, only in the gym.

There's a four month exercise program in "Breakthrough" that I'm really looking forward to trying. Some of the exercises are familiar and others I've never seen before, let alone done. But for now, my husband and I are committed to working through "Afterburn," Alwyn's older program. We're only two weeks into it, so it will be a while before I can report on how "Breakthrough" is working for me. But the eating program is another story. Rachel has set out ten nutrition rules to follow for the first month, and I will be giving these rules my all till the end of January. At that time, I'll reevaluate my results and move on to Phase 2 if my bulimia is under control and I feel that I can handle a slightly stricter regimen. These rules are what I've been trying to live with for more than a year, but for some reason, having Rachel deliver the message is much more compelling to me than listening to my overly made-up, fifty-something peroxided nutritionist telling me the same thing. Here they are, along with my commentary:

1) Eat breakfast within 15 minutes of waking up, followed by a meal every 3-4 hours. This is my Waterloo. While the 5 or 6 small meal thing is doable, I hate eating first thing in the morning. I wake up early just so I can eat my breakfast at 7 since I currently need at least an hour to wake up before I feel like I'm ready for food. We'll see if this changes over the next month.

2) Eat a high quality source of protein at every meal and a mixture of different proteins. I pretty much do this already, assuming nuts count as a high quality source (if not, I've gotta figure something out). I rely heavily on Greek yogurt for my snacktime meals and have no issues eating animals, so I'm golden. Currently, cottage cheese gives me some GI distress, but hopefully my digestive system will continue to recover at the same time I do.

3) Eat a fruit or veggie at every meal. I eat one at most meals now. I've started adding fruit to my oatmeal at breakfast or a handful of frozen spinach to my egg whites if I'm not having my oatmeal. Most snacks are raw veggies with a protein or fruit and yogurt, so this is about as easy as it gets.

4) Eliminate all processed carbs. Well. If it were this easy, we'd all be supermodels. Nevertheless, I don't disagree that this is wonderful advice and something we should all aim for. I will do my best and try to keep my processed carbs along the lines of high quality homemade stuff and not Little Debbie's.

5) Use healthy fats and oils freely. Yes! Avocados and nuts, here I come!

6) Eliminate caloric beverages and drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day. Already there. What's more, Diet Coke is only an occasional treat these days.

7) Eat whole foods instead of bars and shakes whenever possible, except immediately after a workout. Done. When I contrast the volume of real food I could eat with a protein bar, the real food always wins out. I get to eat way more, and it tastes way better. Protein bars are for emergencies only.

8) Supplement with a multivitamin and omega-3 fish oil daily. Trying to remember to take them is tough, but I've been working on it ever since I first saw the nutritionist. I don't love those fish oil burps, but they're becoming a part of my life.

9) Always include a workout shake during or within 10 minutes of finishing a workout. I'm assuming this means weights? Anyway, another toughie. During is not an option, because I work out at such a great intensity that if I've eaten anything within 90 minutes, it literally starts to come back up the same way it went down. Yuck. And the last thing I want to do when I have that nauseous exhausted feeling at the end of my HIIT is suck down a protein shake. I'm working on getting it in within 30 minutes of my workout, and will try to take it down from there.

10) Keep a journal and stick to these rules 90% of the time, saving 10% of meals for splurges. Well, I keep a journal except when I binge. And my binges really aren't splurges, because you're supposed to enjoy splurges. Binges are like clubbing myself over the head with a hammer. Again, something to work on.

So Rachel, I'm putting myself in your hands. I've given up a lot of my weighing and measuring--for now, at least. I'm working on implementing these ten strategies--nothing more and nothing less. I'm going to focus more on fueling my body intelligently and focus less on weight, size and numbers. I hope that trusting in the process and surrendering to it will bring me both peace of mind in my relationship with food and abs that look more like yours than Rosie O'Donnell's. Thanks for sharing your story, your past, and your tips for carving out a future.

My Pre-New Year's Resolution

2009-12-15T05:30:00.006-06:00

Matzoh crack made non-denominational with saltines.

Nothing wrong here, right? Well, think again...

I spent a good five years of my life not just baking, but mastering scores of desserts, confections, cookies, pies and cakes. I embarked on a quest to find the perfect brownie, not realizing at the time that it's all relative (one person's perfect brownie might only elicit a "meh" for another); however, in the meantime, my friends were subjected to more than one tasting at which I literally presented twelve different contenders. I can tell you the chemical differences between brown sugar and white sugar, and why you'd use baking soda in a cake with the former and not the latter. I know the ramifications of using a higher cocoa butter content chocolate in brownies (firmer brownie, use more sugar and less chocolate), in mousses (same as brownies except use more liquid), and in cookies (none except taste). I've made macarons that I've been told rival the ones at Laduree. I don't mean to commit sacrilege by this last disclosure. I'm only repeating what someone told me.

In case you're new to this blog, I did NOT have an eating disorder when I was a pastry chef. Although I've had "food issues" my entire life, it's not a euphemism--it's the truth. Perhaps at times I might have been diagnosed with a form of compulsive or binge eating, or "eating disorder otherwise specified," but my bulimia did not kick in until more than a year after my store closed. Therefore, when my therapist marvels over the irony of the two--my eating disorder and my love for reading about, creating, and eating food--I don't find it surprising at all. The seeds of my bulimia were planted at an early age and when the circumstances of my life created an environment for it to manifest, manifest it did--and flourished. In the meantime, the part of me that tended to get obsessive about food used the creative aspect of pastry to indulge herself. It makes total sense.

In fact, I think many people who have or had eating disorders gravitate toward fields that have to do with food. At a Geneen Roth workshop years ago, I met a sad, anorexic cake decorator who tearfully told me that she hadn't know what she wanted to eat (besides popcorn) for years. Many restaurant chefs eat compulsively and have weight issues because of it. And although I'm speaking (writing?) out of my butt here, I know that tons of nutritionists, dietitians, and food coaches are drawn to that field because of their eating disorders or recovery from them. So far from being unusual or the poster child for irony, I feel like more of a stereotype.

Be that as it may, my recovery from bulimia has to dovetail with my love for food and eating in some manner for it to be successful. I understand and accept that I cannot continue to cook and eat as I have done in the past, and have modified my habits a lot to accommodate my illness. However, I've been reluctant to say goodbye to the old school baking that I love to do and am so good at. Hence my turtles and Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies.

And hence my binges on the same.

Let's be real. There's a correlation between my baking and binging. It's a direct and causal correlation without any ambiguity or need for clarification. When I bake, I binge. Maybe not that day, but within a day or two, the knowledge that something amazing is in the house becomes too much for me to resist and I take a taste. The taste leads to more and more, and pretty soon, the sugar flooding my bloodstream saps my resistance and my commitment to recovery and leads me further down the primrose path to hell.

I bought a box of saltines several weeks ago, intending to make mock english toffee (you know, where you pour the syrup over the crackers to extend the expensive ingredients like butter). I had a few recipes lined up so I could make more than one and taste-test them (a favorite pasttime and popular with my family as long as I limit the contenders to two or three and not twelve as in the past). I was doing this to USE UP MY SUGAR. Yes, I have too much sugar in the house, and so instead of wrapping it up or throwing it away like a normal person would do, I start adding butter and chocolate and eggs to it to make more crap that I don't need. Another facet of my pathology.

So last night was the night. I used the Cook's Illustrated recipe for Poor Man's Toffee and the Matzoh Crack recipe from the link above, with saltines replacing the matzoh. The Poor Man's Toffee was supposed to be made in the microwave, but microwave cooking scares me. The syrup cooks unevenly, and the risk of the bowl shattering, spilling hot syrup everywhere, is just too frightening. I got second degree burns on my finger as a four year old (making candy apples, of all things--it still amazes me that my mother let a toddler work with a hot sugar syrup, and I attribute this more to her ignorance about all things having to do with food than to any lack of care or involvement as a parent) and am still a little phobic about hot sugar syrups. Thus, I made the first batch on the stove. To make a long story short, I undercooked the syrup just a little, but enough to make the toffee wonderfully or overly chewy, depending on your preference (I like the former, my husband the latter).

While the first batch was setting, I moved on to the Matzoh Crack version. I have made this before, many times. As a Jewish pastry chef, it's pretty much de rigeur to have on hand during Passover, and it's so easy to make that I could turn out a batch or six every day (and have been known to do so!). I had never thought of using saltines instead--brilliant! A little softer and saltier than matzoh, a new riff on an old classic--what could be better?

I'll tell you what could be better--dressing up the candy for the twenty-first century. As the caramel was cooking, I starting thinking "cinnamon." I had a Tupperware container full of toasted almonds and imagined topping a cinnamon toffee with the almonds when I realized I was halfway toward Mexican toffee already. So I added what I thought was a generous amount of cinnamon and cayenne to the caramel (note: if you use cayenne, stir it in at the very end of the stovetop cooking period; otherwise, you get the pepper spray effect) and sprinkled coffee powder on the hot caramel before I topped it with the darkest, most bittersweet chocolate I had in the house. The almonds were the last to be added and the whole pan went into the fridge.

This toffee kicked ass. It was sophisticated, not too sweet, and not obvious at all. The cayenne amped up the bitter notes of the chocolate and added a warmth without being overpowering. The cinnamon added more warmth and complexity, and the saltines were an afterthought, a nearly invisible but necessary counterpoint to the drama of the candy, keeping it from being too much.

But you know where this is going, right? Well, maybe not all the way. No purging was involved, which I suppose is a big step for me. But I overate--a lot. And at this point, it was like playing with matches. It would have been so easy to scrap everything and put off my plan for the next day. And as I was lying in bed, mind racing with negative thoughts and plans for how to compensate the next day (which I also shouldn't do), I realized that to an outsider, it would look as though I want to fail. Why else would I keep exposing myself to food--and not just any food, but food that has a biochemical response on my body in so many ways?

It is just so fucked up. I can indulge my passion for food in healthier ways. I am making wonderful soups and chilis, playing with yogurt parfaits and tofu ice creams. My Crock Pot has finally emerged from its box and we've become intimate in an indecently short period of time. Heck, I've been known to take a picture of a plate of raw veggies because the colors and abundance on the plate are so gorgeous. Giving up sugary and fatty cooking doesn't mean I have to walk away from food. I just have to shift my parameters.

So last night, I told my husband that I'm done. For the next four months, I will not make a single dessert that calls for white or brown sugar in the recipe. I will throw out that bag of sugar that's still hanging out on my pastry stone. Sugar will be in my house, because I also use it for cooking--did you know it can tenderize meat and enhance the Maillard reaction?--but will no longer be used in large quantities and as a sweetener.

When my husband and I were newlyweds, he used to go out with a friend of his from college. This friend, who was also married, liked nothing better than to go to bars and hit on women, just to see what would happen. I HATED the fact that my husband went along with this and HATED that he saw nothing wrong with it. "He's just talking to them," he'd tell me. "Nothing is going to happen." And maybe that was true. But when you go out of your way to put yourself in situations that create the risk of an outcome, you can't act surprised and innocent when that outcome unexpectedly occurs. It IS expected, if not intended, and it's completely disingenuous to argue otherwise. That's why they have something called "felony murder" in criminal law; if you commit a felony without any intent to harm someone but someone winds up getting killed in the course of committing the crime, you're guilty of first degree murder, even though you never meant for anyone to get hurt. The fact that you're putting yourself in a dangerous position evidences your intent.

To put it succinctly, actions speak louder than words.

Yesterday I wrote about how sometimes, I wonder if I'm really ready to give up my eating disorder, if a part of me doesn't want to hold it close, embrace it, and take it out of its box when I need it. My cooking would tend to support this conclusion. I can say I hate it, that I want to be normal, and pay whatever lip service toward recovery I need to, but the fact that I'm melting butter and sugar, pouring it on starch and covering the mess in chocolate certainly tells another story. And interestingly, I read this last night:

Recovery from an eating disorder is usually provisional--most of us who do
recover still have it lurking somewhere in the back of our minds. It lives there
quietly for years. But if the pressure is enough, it comes out. We fall back on
it. It is as old and familiar as a longtime lover. We aren't afraid of it. It
stills our thoughts. We know it. When we are at points in our lives where we
know little else, the eating disorder is our long-lost oldest friend.

Marya Hornbacher, "Madness."

So even if I'm mad, I'm not alone in my madness. Reading Marya Hornbacher's frightening story made me realize that what I'm doing, all of the planning, tracking, monitoring, even backsliding, is the right path. It's not dramatic and exciting. It can be soul-crushingly monotonous. But it's the way out. Bulimia is NOT my friend, although it's familiar. It turns me into my lesser self, and I want to be everything I can be. I've wasted so much time already. If I have to compromise on what I make in my kitchen for a few months, or a few years, or even the rest of my life, then I will do it.

One Step Forward.... No, Wait, It's Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

2009-12-14T14:19:00.003-06:00

My therapist constantly challenges me to go a week without binging and purging, and I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It is good in that it enables me to set a goal, one that is reachable but requires some effort and dedication. When I do manage this, I feel a sense of accomplishment and a little pride.

On the other hand, I'm an "all or nothing" kind of girl, so when I've blown the week, I'm habituated to nuke it to all hell. Getting back on the wagon can be rough, especially if I don't have two binge-free days under my belt. That seems to be the magic number after which it gets easier. Once I have to admit that I haven't gone the week, it seems only marginally more painful (in my sugar-addled brain, at least) to go whole hog and make the binge worthwhile. And afterwards, there's that sense of shame, the flip side of the pride I felt in the last paragraph, that I couldn't do something this simple. Which leads to self-mutilation, and so on, and so on....

At my last appointment, I was able to go in and say that I had been binge/purge free for nine days. This was huge for me. And one of the reasons I considered it something more than just a nine-day success is that there were a number of episodes when I overate. Ordinarily, I'd throw in the towel, barf, and eat some more. But these three or four times, I sucked it up. I made a cup of tea, took some fish oil (it's good for you and tastes disgusting if you puke), and waited things out. Yay for me.

And ever since then, I've been struggling. It's not like it used to be by a long shot. I'm definitely on my way to recovery. I feel in control of my eating more and more. I recognize that I have an illness that needs to be monitored. I need to be vigilant about the situations I put myself in, so I can build up my strength and resistance when circumstances beyond my control put me in other situations. Practice makes perfect.

I have reasons for each failure, but they're starting to sound more and more like excuses to my ears. For example, the first episode after the nine-day streak came when I was playing with low-carbing it for a day and a half (a la "Cheat Your Way Thin," which I've GOT to post about--I'm not sure if it's brilliant or a "hot mess," as my fave morning DJ likes to say) and got too hungry. I should know better, right? Then I had to get up in the middle of the night--OK, at 11:15--to pick my little guy up from night skiing. I should NOT have been on the road, as I was hallucinating slightly, and the truffles that I had put in the car to keep out of the house were lurking in the back seat, singing their siren song while I was waiting in a dark, cold car, feeling sorry for myself.

And so it goes. I had a fight with my husband.... again. I feel sick. I didn't go to the gym. I did go to the gym so I earned it. Just this once. I'll stop after the first of the year. There's an excuse for every occasion, for every outfit, every day, every binge. Each is as valid as the next. And each is still an excuse.

A lot of my trouble comes with getting cocky and playing fast and loose with the rules that work for me. I don't really know why I rebel against these rules, and am currently trying to embrace them. I've gone back to logging my food in advance, since knowing what and when I will eat takes the choice and drama out of the picture. I need to drop my fascination with calories and accept the fact that if I go beyond 2000 on a given day, even on four given days, the world won't end and I won't die. I need to stop playing diet games, trying to string the space between meals out as long as possible, maybe even skipping the last meal of the day. It's just counterproductive; all that happens is that I get way too hungry and lose control. What's gotten me this far is simple: lean protein at every meal (every once in a while I'll use nuts as my protein and fat, but an ounce or two is such a mingy serving that I'll usually go with a chicken breast or some shrimp), lots of veggies, limiting fruits to two or three a day, no white sugar (a/k/a the Antichrist), no bread unless it's sprouted wheat or weird and disgusting (bread is my Waterloo, and it's easier to avoid it altogether unless there are handcuffs around to keep me to normal-sized portions), and eating every three hours or so.

It's hard--I feel like I'm always eating, finishing eating, or getting ready to eat again when I have five or six meals a day. I'm not sure why I've struggling so much with this. It works. I don't get hungry, I don't feel all that deprived, and I am healthier than I've been in years. The weight is starting to come off, I think (I don't usually weigh myself), since I've been lifting heavier and heavier. So what little obstinate part of me can't accept that I'll always have to eat more times a day than anyone else? Some people would LOVE to do this!! Or accepting that I will never be able to eat past the point of fullness without risking a binge? Again, who in their right mind chooses to overeat to the degree I feel compelled to? (rhetorical--I know lots of people who would raise their hands and say, "Me!"). Planning and tracking my food isn't a big deal; I eat mostly the same stuff now. I just need more practice, maybe even more practice failing (although not much more, I hope). I AM getting better. Some things about it just suck.

And if I'm being totally honest, a part of me doesn't want to say goodbye to bulimia forever. There's a certain drama and self-indulgence that appeal to me, and the castigation afterwards is so familiar it's like wrapping myself in an old blanket. Or sackcloth and ashes. Whatever. So recovery means saying goodbye to an old friend. Although I want to say I'm ready, maybe I'm not. Maybe I'll never be, and life will be about one day at a time. Having it be this hard forever scares me.

But I don't have to think about forever right now. I need to think about seven days. And after that, twenty-one days, which is the length of time my therapist says it takes for a new habit to kick in. I take this statement with a grain of salt--fleur de sel, perhaps?--but twenty-one days seems monumental to me now. I'm looking to the next seven. Here's to next Tuesday, when I hope I can report that I'm on my eighth day.

Hangover

2009-12-13T10:15:00.004-06:00

Yes, I have a hangover and didn't even have the pleasure of drinking last night. I've been up late several nights in a row, and last night, we went to a CHARITY BALL (maybe "ball" isn't the right word, but "event" sounds so dry) with friends. As an aside, the entertainment was Crosby, Stills and Nash (yes, it was a high-falutin' even that raised almost $3 million to fight type 1 diabetes; some major heavy hitters were there), and while it was SO MUCH FUN to see them, they are the "don't" column in the article on "Graceful Exits While You're Still Good." David Crosby in particular looked like he'd rather be somewhere else, like at a bus stop maybe, and all three of them looked like they'd parcelled out a few centuries of fast living between them.

Although when they hit the right notes on the harmonies, it really was trans-splendid (ref. "Annie Hall").

I didn't drink, but yesterday was a bad bad day for eating, and although I was done with my bingeing and had a workout (a good one, too!) under my belt before we left, I did eat dessert at the benefit. I don't know why--it wasn't that great. Maybe I felt like because most of the day had been such a washout that I could go back to eating clean after midnight--that "all or nothing" mentality that's so destructive to weight loss, eating habits, and goal setting in general. Whether it was the sugar and fats, or just being exhausted for days in a row, it feels like I was slamming down margaritas last night instead of watching senior citizens play the guitar. I'm alternating between having a headache and feeling nauseous, and although I ate breakfast, I feel so bloated and full that I wish I hadn't.

This eating breakfast first thing in the morning when you wake up is killing me. Even on days when I've eaten clean the day before, it takes my appetite a good 1 1/2-2 hours to get going. I love eating when I'm hungry and hate feeling like I have to stuff down my breakfast, especially when I really do love my breakfasts (it's the best meal of the day as well as the most important!).

Enough complaining. Back to the sofa so I can hopefully tap into enough energy to squeeze in a workout, or maybe some hot yoga--or maybe both!--before the day is over.

Yoga Weekend (Pathetically Late Posting)

2009-12-13T09:03:00.006-06:00

First of all, I have to give major props to all bloggers out there, food and otherwise, who manage to get to their keyboards more than once a week. I don't know how the daily bloggers do it, let alone the ones who blog more than once a day. When you take into consideration the quality of the posts that I read (there is so much good writing out there that it's not worth my time to read the bad stuff), the amazement factor goes up. So if you're reading this and I've EVER posted a note to you, take it as a huge compliment and a recognition of the amount of time, energy, and talent you bring to what you do.

Moving right along to last weekend (which I may or may not remember in toto), my four days of Forrest yoga, teaching practice, and personal process work... Now it probably becomes clear why I posted that one time immediately after my training. It's really hard to sit down and recap what you've experienced that day, and not just because you're tired. Oftentimes for me, there is an emotional shift where I feel something has changed, but describing the feeling or stating exactly WHAT is different is impossible. It's just a feeling, usually that something is slightly off, even if it's a good change--probably because we are creatures of habit and change, even positive change, is stressful and anxiety provoking.

The second day of training was much like the first: practice for two hours in the morning, followed by a two hour break, followed by teaching skills and assists. I actually had to miss the assists because I went to teach my class. Although taking a training to become a better teacher often trumps your regularly scheduled classes if there's a conflict, I feel like I've missed an awful lot of my scheduled classes already this fall. They are on Mondays and Fridays, and if I have a weekend trip planned, I usually bail on one class or the other to make the trip a little longer and more relaxing. So I blew off my training and taught, and although my teaching usually improves after a workshop, I didn't feel it was particularly strong. Part of it has to do with feeling self-conscious about how much I talk and how little I breathe while teaching--but more on that later.

Once I got back, we did some more sequencing and put together a class that I thought we were going to teach. But NO--our teachers had something much more diabolical in store. They had recorded the class we practice taught the day before, and we had to take our recorded class-- listening to our voices, our words, our awkward pauses, our verbal farts--and then talk about it afterwards. Listening to myself teach was a revelation. Although my voice sounded normal (I was afraid I would sound lispy and dorky), I DID NOT STOP TALKING THE ENTIRE TIME I WAS UP THERE. I would give a breath cue and then an action cue, and then would segue right into the next breath cue without giving the student enough time to finish the last breath. There was no silence, no time to settle into the pose and explore what you were feeling. I was too busy telling everyone what to do. On the plus side, my teaching did not suck. It was actually good, and the cues were all good too. Sometimes crap falls out of my mouth that makes no sense, and at least it didn't happen then. But a few minutes into my segment, I just wanted to bitch-slap myself and say "SHUT UP!"

Some of the process work we did, which normally happened at the end of the day, involved visualization of spending time with our younger self, imagining we could give that self what she wanted and was denied when she was younger, and our future self, using that more enlightened and complete person to serve as a model and a guide for the life we want to live. I have a difficult time with my future self. I keep envisioning my mom, who died when she was fifty. I am 44 1/2, and there's a part of me that knows, on a visceral and reptilian-brain level, that I too will die when I'm around that age. As I get closer, it becomes more and more difficult to imagine living past then, and since I'm almost at that age now, my future self is pretty close to my present self. I'm not trying to be morbid; it's just how my life has been colored ever since my mom died. I understand it's not uncommon for people who've lost a parent (especially of the same gender) to feel the same way. Everyone has to die sometime, and if I'm going sooner rather than later, I need to make the most of my time left.

For our practice teaching on day 3, our teachers assigned us restrictions and limitations on the way we taught in an effort to address what our weaknesses were. Most of the people in my class had to sing or dance while they taught so their affect was less flat. My restriction? Give three word cues per pose while trying to channel my inner bad girl. I could communicate through physical gestures and demonstrations, but was not supposed to talk more. Well, I just couldn't do it. To say "Press down through the outer edge of the back foot" is way more than three words, and that's just one part of setting up an asana. It was very frustrating, and the teachers kept interrupting me because I was going over their word count. Probably the high moment of the teaching came at the beginning, when I called everyone over to the wall in my mom voice because they weren't moving fast enough. They all listened, it got a big laugh, and it only took one word.

And then for the moment of awareness: when we did our process work that evening, we had to think about how teaching with those limitations made us feel. At first, I felt pissed off. Three words is an incredibly low and arbitrary number, and for the classes I teach--all level classes with a lot of beginners--there is no way they could have a meaningful yoga experience without more cues (although maybe not as many as I give). I was unhappy with the restriction and unhappy with the fact that they kept pointing out when I wasn't following it. And then I started asking myself why it bothered me so much. This is what I wrote:

When I lose my words, I feel like I lose my voice as a teacher. Words help me feel secure. I'm lost without them. I can hide behind them and fake it. It's much easier to use more words than fewer. I'm uncomfortable with silence.

The more I thought about it, the more came up. I know that I am a very lucky woman, and some of the luck I've made, but a lot has been handed to me. I'm healthy, don't have to worry about having enough money to have a place to live or enough to eat, and have good friends (if not a lot of them). I'm bright, accomplished and articulate. I'm in good physical condition, can pull myself together to look presentable if I need to (and sometimes, if I'm feeling stoked, I can even pull off hot) and don't need major plastic surgery--yet. I'm gifted at most things I try, don't have to struggle with learning new things, and if I haven't excelled at everything I've done, at least I haven't failed at everything either. But even knowing these things about myself, I see myself as kind of a schmoe. I'm still the chubby friend who tags along with the thin pretty girls and doesn't get the guy. I'm the uncool one who tries to be accepted and then winds up saying or doing something embarrassing that completely ostracizes me. I'm the daughter who was almost good enough, but not quite. The yoga teacher with a pot belly who can't get into lotus. The wife who isn't sure if she still loves her husband. The pastry chef who opened her own store and then had to close it when nobody came.

In fact, the only thing that I truly believe that I have, unquestionably, is my intellect. I am smart. If I'm not the smartest one, I can hold my own with the smartest one enough to give him or her a run for the money. I was the one who scored in the 99th percentile in all my standardized test (yes, I got pissy if I went much below 98th). I went to top ten colleges and grad schools and graduated in at least the top half. Heck, I was on Jeopardy (didn't win--the dang buzzer killed me). And the way I communicate my intelligence is through my words. When my words are taken away, my power is gone. I become vulnerable, and I do NOT like feeling vulnerable.

That's why I was so pissed off at Steve and Talya. I didn't want them to make me open to hurt. I didn't trust them or the people in the room. I don't trust my family and most of my friends either. It's easier to keep people at a distance--even intimidate them a little. I was shocked when a friend of mine told me she was a little scared by me when she first met me because I seemed so sure of myself, so articulate, and so competent. She felt like she could never measure up. Little did she know that's EXACTLY how I felt too, and projecting the opposite was my way of feeling like I could measure up to HER.

I suppose this is something I've always been aware of, at least subconsciously, but it came right up to the surface when I started asking myself questions about all the chatter. Of course, the next step is trying to transcend it, which is so hard. I came home from opening myself up at the workshop and started hitting the turtles, probably trying to still that uneasy feeling in myself and groping toward something familiar (sugar/binges) to assuage it. It didn't descend into a binge, but I've stayed away from Forrest for the week. In fact, I had planned on being in class right now, but I'm here instead. There are plenty of good reasons why I haven't gone, but I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with presenting myself after the weekend and not wanting that exposure again. There is only one person I can remember in the past ten years that I've opened myself up to completely, and it turned out that my judgment was way off and events wound up biting me in the butt. So obviously I'm scared. And my husband is very uncomfortable with discomfort and fear and full disclosure and would probably prefer to live his life like Mary Tyler Moore in "Ordinary People." Home doesn't always feel like a safe place for me. Moving forward with this knowledge will be tough.

The weekend ended with a gratitude circle, and one woman said something to me that resonated. Actually, the thing that touched me initially was the less important thing; she had come to a number of my classes when I taught Forrest yoga and mentioned that she was surprised to see me at the workshop because I was already "such a good teacher." It was nice to hear and also surprising, because I always got the sense that she thought I was a bit of a fuckup (projection, TDH?). Then she went on to say that the stuff I shared, about being vulnerable and keeping people away, made her see me in a different way, but a good way and one which made her feel closer to me and helped her process her own shit, and she was grateful for that. One of my teachers came up to me after that and told me to remember it, that laying myself out there can help others and make me a better teacher in fostering others' growth in ways I might never expect.

So that's it. No sequencing, unfortunately, since I went into yoga brain after the practices and couldn't remember a thing. I'm caught up on the Forrest stuff and have a list of blog topics that I hope I can explore in the coming weeks, now that the cookie exchange is over, the latkes are cooked (the house REEKS of oil but they came out well--of course, anything with all that fat, starch and salt is bound to be delicious), and the kids only have one week of school left before the holidays. Staycation in Chicago, here we come!

Quick Catch Up

2009-12-10T06:45:00.004-06:00

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post. Actually, I can believe it, since when I do a training, I have a tendency to go into a fugue state which carries over into post-training life and keeps me from doing everything I had planned.

Or maybe I'm just lazy.

Anyway, I'm glad I wrote the last post, because I've probably forgotten much of what happened the following three days, although there were some rather large "a-ha" moments that I'll share in my next post. But first things first; a quick recap of the week:

Finished training;
Overate sweets without bingeing and purging;
Listened to myself teaching yoga on audio without wanting to slash my wrists, dive into a cheesecake, or otherwise self-mutilate;
Started "Afterburn" with my husband and was ready to kill him after a half hour ("What does 'navel at the apex' mean?" I dunno--what's a navel? What's an apex? Figure it out--you went to an Ivy League law school, n'est-ce pas?);
Tried "Cheat Your Way Thin" and utterly failed, although I lasted 12 hours longer than I usually do eating low carb;
Cleaned my house in preparation for the cookie exchange, making me wonder why I don't do it more often until I realize how much time it took and how little time it will take for it to morph back into disarray; and
Participated in the cookie exchange, making Mexican Chocolate Chip cookies which were not nearly as good as the prototype I made a few weeks ago.

I need to plan out the class I'm teaching this morning, which I'm less than enthused about, partly because I feel as though I'm coming down with something and partly because it's frigid outside. It snowed yesterday, a sloppy wet snow, and then got incredibly cold last night, so I know conditions are going to be brutal outside. Plus, it's supposed to be single digit temps with winds up to 45 mph (do I sound like the weather lady?), and it would be so nice not to have anywhere to go so I could chill and watch the DVDs I checked out of the library on Tuesday. No such luck, however. My Thursday morning students are hardcore about their attendance, if not their practices, and most come regardless of how horrible the weather here gets. What I'm trying to get at is that I'll post again this afternoon, hopefully, in which I'll go into detail about the training, because it was really good. I found out a lot about myself as a person, a teacher, and a physical being.

Notes From Training, Day 1

2009-12-03T19:27:00.003-06:00

Today was Day One of Forrest Teacher Training at Turbodog Spirit Center. My two primary local teachers, Steve and Talya (they're married) offer this training every year, and this is my third or fourth. I took their first training before I trained with Ana, and it helped me immeasurably. And even though I've been teaching for a few years and have completed other teacher trainings, I still learn something new every time I go deep with the two of them. They are very, very good teachers.

So a quick rundown of what we did today (I am hoping to write a deeper entry about what I got out of it when it's over, but honestly, I'm beat. I've been up since 5 am and we did some emotionally grueling work at the end of our session today, so this entry is just a recap in case anyone--Allie perhaps? wants to know exactly what goes on at these kind of events. ):

This morning's practice was hippy and groiny with some twists thrown in. I have to modify my straight leg forward folds because of a hamstring injury, and my low back tweaks out on other poses, such as twisting arm balances. But for me, the worst thing about it was that I couldn't eat beforehand and my energy level was really low. When I woke up this morning, I just didn't feel that good; yesterday was a GI distress day, and I hope this nonsense ends soon. I would like to have my digestive system back intact, thank you very much. The good thing about the practice is that the theme was stepping into your power, and I was able to access my power enough to give myself the steam to make it through the practice, which was 2 hours long. Here's what we did:

Setting the intent (stepping into power)

Pranayama: 200 rounds kapalabati in bada konasana, followed by holding breath till it became "interesting," followed by 3 uddiyanas with forward folds.

Shoelace side bends toward foot (usually it's toward thigh) > neck stretch in shoelace side bend > twisting shoelace toward foot

Elbow to knee, talking ourselves through (about a million times) > abs with mat, talking ourselves through (another million)

Dolphin > raising one leg > raising other leg

Lunges on wall three ways

Agni sara in horse stance, four rounds fast, four rounds slow

Forearm balance splits > forearm balance twisted root

B Series with Standing Poses:

> Warrior II > Warrior II with eagle arms > reverse warrior > extended side angle pose > scissors

> interlock > easy bird of paradise > standing pigeon > flying pigeon > pigeon (my fave!!!)

> twisting lunge > twisting lunge interlock > pigeon back foot in > twisting pigeon toward foot

> pyramid > ostrich > head to ankle > roadkill/roadkill prep for those who can't put their heads under their legs, like me

hug knees in and roll on back before collapsing into

SAVASANA!

And even better, then it was breakfast time, and a two hour break before coming back for assists and adjusts. Assists were a high point for me. I often freak out when I have to do complex assists and teach at the same time, and today I got permission to take pix of the teachers, so I have a photo journal of what we learned. This means I don't have to try to take a thousand words to describe hand and body positions that a picture can do clearly and easily, so I'll have a clear record for two weeks from now, when my sieve-like brain has released everything I learned today.

We also got a little pep talk about speaking our truth, which is a biggie for me, the quintessential people-pleaser. Something that resonated with me is when Talya said that sometimes, we're not sure WHAT our truth is because we're so used to living outside of it that we lose touch with it. I was thinking about what Abby wrote in her post about the dichotomy between what she wanted and what she needed (sorry if I'm misquoting here) and my own issues involving what I'm supposed to do versus what's right--whether it's relating to my eating, my marriage, my life choices, etc. Talya said that the best way to decipher what our truth is when we're so disconnected is through feeling. I know that it's hard for me to listen to my heart and my body, because my mind is so used to having the power that it takes over and drowns out what might be the truth. Hopefully, being aware that this is going on is a preliminary step toward getting in touch with my truth eventually.

So after assists, we worked on sequencing, which isn't really a trouble area for me. I've been sequencing my own practices for close to two years, and I'm pretty analytical and good at following rules; my practices are tight, logical and safe. Next, we practice-taught the class we sequenced. Everyone did the practice and we switched off teaching every ten minutes. I had to teach visvamistrasana, which I've never taught before, mainly because it's an advanced pose that I can't do (dang ego gets in the way), and my students would just stare at me in horror if I even showed it to them. I pulled it off even though I was talking out of my ass and got some good feedback.

Finally, we did some process work about fears we had about our teaching, and then we broke into pairs to delve more deeply into our fears. I thought my fears had to do about my body image--prancing around in spandex--and my physical practice, which is strong but certainly not as spectacular as most of my teachers' practices. However, when I went deeper, I think I found out it was about my total fear of people not listening to me or wanting to hear what I say. In fact, that's probably one of the reasons that I'm not putting myself out there with my blog. Yes, I'm blogging honestly and laying as much out here on the internet as I can without hurting anyone in the process, but I'm so scared of reaching out to other people and inviting them to read what I have to say. I feel like I don't make a lot of sense most of the time, and worse, no one will want to be friends with the bulimic middle-aged mommy who's still dealing with pain from when her parents didn't listen to her. Coming to this realization helped me make sense of a lot of the ambivalence I was having when I was teaching at the big name Chicago studio. Oh my God, did I feel like an imposter there, and the fact that I wasn't drawing a large crowd or consistent repeat students made me feel even worse--even though the time slot and location were horrible. My defense mechanism is to completely clam up when I'm afraid no one is listening, so at least I don't give them the opportunity to reject me. Every class last year was a type of rejection, till finally I had to call it quits.

So all in all, it was a good day, especially in light of how lousy I felt when it started out. Coming home was a rude awakening, since my kids were quite ungracious about helping me with stuff (unloading car, dishwasher, etc.), but now everyone is fed, the kitchen is clean, my post is written, and I think a long hot bath is calling my name. And then it all starts again tomorrow at 5 am.

I'm too tired to proofread really well. Please forgive me. And enjoy.

Random Stuff

2009-12-02T06:36:00.006-06:00

I love my dad and think he's an inspiration. Please don't get the idea that I don't. I'm a kvetch and love to complain, especially if I can do it with a modicum of humor and self-deprecation. It's clear that my dad is not perfect and a deeply flawed human being. It's also very clear to me that my dad and I are very much alike, and much of what I see in him that I dislike are simply the qualities in myself that I'm a little too vain to acknowledge. My dad is funny, very smart, tenacious, loving, vulnerable (deep deep deep down inside), interesting and interested, well-travelled, and most of all--the only dad I'll ever have. His own dad died when my dad was only twelve, plunging his formerly comfortable middle-class family into years of hardscrabble living, moving apartments as rent that was not available became due. His mother, my grandmother, was mentally ill, and although her manic-depressiveness was probably not manifesting the way it was when I was a child, I'm sure that throwing that into the mix just made it harder on everyone. Dad skipped a year of high school and worked his way through an Ivy League college, taking extra credits and going to summer school so he could finish in three years and save a year's tuition. Next on the agenda was medical school, through which he drove a cab when his schedule allowed. He lived at home while his friends were shacked up together in bachelor pads drinking kegs of beer. He worked his ass off, met my mom, got married, and became a successful doctor. Throughout his life with us, his primary motivation was to make a lot of money, not to stoke his ego, but to make sure that should he die young, we would NEVER be left in the same circumstances as he and his brother were. The fact that he loved what he did and was amazing at it (voted Best of Philly in his field many years in a row) was just icing on the cake. I grew up with him as my knight in shining armor, the standard to which I held all men I met. He and my mom might not have had the happiest marriage, but he was as good a husband to her as he knew how to be, and when she was dying, went to every extreme to make sure she had explored all the options she needed to, even if his medical judgment was shaking its head in exasperation. Dad and I have had some major ups and downs since I've been an adult and at one point, I didn't really speak to him for two years, but thank God we've worked things out as well as we could and were able to salvage our relationship. It's changed, and it's not as good as I'd like, but it's still a good one. Most importantly, he knows that in spite of the fact that we piss each other off, I love him and know he loves me.

Update on Mary, her computer, and additional drama in her life: I bought Mary her computer yesterday and will give it to her on her birthday next week. She has seemed a little more bubbly than in weeks past, and yesterday she shared the reason: she's met a man. Apparently, her bike was also stolen right from her backyard in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, and she filed a police report, knowing that the bike would never be returned but believing it was the right thing to do. Well, to make a long story short, the cop who took her report has been calling her every day for the past month. She is skittish about getting involved with him--let's just say her luck with men rivals her luck with computers--but is happy with the attention nevertheless. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into some story like Internal Affairs or that one with Ray Liotta and Madeleine Stowe where she's stalked by the cop. Mary deserves some good luck now, don't you think?

A fuzzy shot of my smoothie, in which you can see the newest addition to our family in the background. In case you can't, it's a grey burro pinata that my son named Juandissimo Grandissimo (I wanted to call it Burrito but was overruled).

I loved my smoothie this morning. Nothing exciting, nothing with international flavors, not even that healthy, given the frankenfood quotient. But very very delicious, and hopefully easily digestible, since I sucked the whole thing down and am going to the gym to do my last Turbulence Training workout on the program, followed by spinning. It was just some Jay Robb vanilla protein powder (egg white is best for my GI system; whey can sometimes clear the room), my four innards of glucomannan, sprinkles of guar and xanthan, about 2 tsp. of butterscotch SF jello, and a tiny splash of SF caramel syrup. That and my soy cafe au lait should carry me through till late morning, when I will have my whipped oatmeal/banana hot protein mush.

I'm hosting the cookie exchange next week! It's yet another thing in my life I get to grumble about; I can think of maybe one or two years when my cookies haven't been the best of the group (admittedly, I have somewhat of a professional advantage, but still...), and some of the cookies are downright gross. That being said, it's always fun to taste everyone's creations, match cookie to baker, and then slam the yucky ones behind the baker's back. No one does this to me, of course. At least, I don't think so.... This year, I'm making Mexican Chocolate Chip cookies, which are insanely good and very different--the Mexican chocolate gives them an undefineable flavor in a good way, as does the cayenne. The dough is made and scooped into little balls in my freezer, and all I have to do is pop them in the oven on the day of the party. Did you know that this is a GREAT way to make just a few cookies at a time? Cookie dough freezes beautifully, and if you preportion it and freeze it, you can usually bake it straight out of the freezer and wind up with only as many cookies as you want to eat, fresh from the oven. While the mixer was out, my younger son and I also made Palm Beach brownies from Maida Heatter's cookbook, the kind with the peppermint patties in the middle. They're not my faves, but pretty darn good. I had two skinny end pieces last night on a somewhat empty stomach and felt my blood sugar just skyrocket. Funny how that happens now, or maybe it's just more noticeable. Or I'm prediabetic (god forbid).

PS in the afternoon: The smoothie was a little too much to drink so close to workout time. I do best on pure caffeine mixed with a little milk or soymilk--coffee beats a Red Bull every time. But this was strength plus cardio, so I felt like I needed a little more to carry me through. Instead, it backfired and made me more tired. I'm so used to not eating before my workout, which is how I existed for all but the last two years of my life, and it's still taking time to adjust. Usually, I work out later in the morning, so it's not an issue, but on those days when my exercise or yoga begins before 8:30, my eating tends to be more haphazard. And that's not good. I'm always interested in what others are doing and what works for them, but ultimately, I know that I need to find what works for ME, which might not be the same.

Anyway, enough blathering. I will try to post a day-by-day breakdown of my teacher training over the next few days, both so I can remember it and so I can decide if we Forrest yogis are really all as crazy as all of the other Chicago yogis think we are (not that they're NOT crazy!). Ciao.

My Thanksgiving Holiday

2009-12-01T11:57:00.003-06:00

I really wanted to write this one before Thanksgiving, so I could do a postmortem on my fears and predictions. However, life (and the turtles and our holiday party) got in the way and so I'll try to extrapolate what my pre-Thanksgiving concerns were with the benefits of hindsight.

(It would be REALLY REALLY nice if I could figure out a way to blog with my iPhone. However, I think my thumbs are just too big and not quite dextrous enough. Remind me one day to write about how they failed me on Jeopardy.)

(It would also be REALLY REALLY nice if there was a way to do footnotes. Eh, there probably is. I love footnotes--writing them, not necessarily reading them. Must be the ex-lawyer in me.)

Just as I have for the past several years, I spent Thanksgiving with my dad and his wife in southern Florida, near Miami. If you've read my previous posts, you might have gleaned that I have some issues with my father. This is true. Being with my dad can sometimes whisk my self-esteem back to where it was when I was a teenager. In case you don't remember your teenage years, or you were one of the rare few who was secure with himself or herself, my self-esteem was in the toilet. I hated myself and thought I was worthless. Unfortunately, my parents couldn't do much to buoy me up. I always felt that if I were just a little better--smarter, prettier, thinner, worked a little harder, ate a little less--that my dad would have approved of me as a whole, focusing on the As on my report cards and not asking why I got the B+. I was SO close, but not quite there.

Let me take a break at this point to assure you that yes, I know a lot of this was my interpretation of his words. I never doubted that he loved me and thought that I was a terrific daughter, that he was proud of me and my achievements, and that he only wanted the best for me. It was just hard for me to take his criticism; he had grown up with an older brother and no sisters, and probably had no clue as to how sensitive and fragile adolescent girls can be.

A lot of the criticism and negativity came from my weight. As I wrote previously, I was "fluffy" but not fat. But the fact that I didn't wear a size 5 was hard for my dad to stomach. He grew up as a chubby kid and was teased relentlessly, and didn't want me to go through the same agony. The real irony is that my dad was the one who inflicted the most trauma on me; none of my peers ever teased me except for one asshole in high school (who, in fact, was overweight himself) who asked me why my pants were always so tight.

I realize now that by making my weight his issue, my dad placed himself squarely inside his own personal samskara, the Hindu wheel of suffering that embodies negative karma. His preoccupation with my weight wasn't really about me; it was about him reliving his childhood through me and wanting to change it. When I didn't, or couldn't, change it for him, he took out his frustrations on me. The more I work through this issue, the more easily I can approach my dad with compassion and understanding as opposed to bitterness.

At least from a distance.

When I'm with him and his wife, things often come crashing down around my head, and for the past few years, I've found myself in the candy aisles of CVS, looking for something with a lot of fat and sugar and chocolate that is eminently chompable so I can swallow my frustrations instead of venting. My dad doesn't understand venting. He gets really defensive and it spirals into an argument and then we have to tiptoe around each other the rest of the week. His wife isn't any better--she's one of those chronic dieters who's always going off and then self-flagellating because she's been "bad." Really. She calls herself "bad" when she eats bacon in a damn salad. What a frickin' Calvinist. This is the woman who, when I was working 16 hour days in my bakery, wouldn't let me get Chinese takeout for her dinner because it had too much sugar, and then proceeded to eat three triple chocolate chunk cookies the next minute. Both she and my dad will comment on what other people are eating, whether they should or should not be eating that much or that little, given their body size, and evaluate their characters based upon what's on their plates.

What I'm trying to say is that given my history with my dad, the pathology in his household surrounding food, and the typical holiday angst at this time of the year, trying to keep my bulimia in check during the past week was shaping up to be a really tall order. I talked with my therapist beforehand. Her mantra, which she repeated quite a few times, was to "be prepared." I KNEW that things were going to come up that were unpleasant. I had to figure out a way to deal with them.

I'm happy to write that I was puke-free the whole time I was in Florida. I think I was binge-free too; Thanksgiving was very controlled, and although I overate, like everyone else in the country, I'm sure, I never went into binge-brain. This was in spite of my dad's obnoxious drunken comment to the Thanksgiving waiter, completely unsoliticed, by the way, that I wasn't drinking because I was pregnant. In spite of feeling my dress that I had packed pull around my hips (I switched it out for another, less tight one). In spite of not being able to sleep three nights in a row because my husband was snoring (the fourth night, my stepmother took pity on me and gave me an Ambien. She DOES try hard and means well, and I am grateful to her for taking such good care of my dad so he doesn't have to be alone. Of course, he pays her credit card bills... Oh, why can't I just stop sniping and be nice?). The high point was probably sitting at the dinner table after Thanksgiving and commenting to my husband that I was done eating, that I was full--I had found that balance between a little too deprived and a little too full, either of which could lead me into a full-blown binge. It was a wonderful, freeing feeling.

Being with my family or going into my past is a very dangerous place for me right now. I had a week of such out-of-control eating on our summer vacation back east (where I grew up) that I can't even find the words to describe how scary it was. It was like I was possessed by something else that was compelling me to commit slow, painful suicide through sticky buns. I had a week of yoga after the vacation, and moving into the twists, even the easy ones, let me know how bruised my internal organs were. It was certainly my lowest point, although visits to my brother in Los Angeles engendered the same type of frenzied behavior. Staying in the present with my routine is safest for me, but I don't want to become a prisoner to my disorder. Having a binge-free week in Florida tells me that I don't have to be, as long as I plan and am careful.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did binge when I got home. The turtles were waiting for me, and I felt a little cheated by my free day on Thanksgiving, mainly because the desserts at dinner sucked. So I gave myself another free day (or should I say free-for-all) which degenerated into a binge because really, it's pure rationalization to have two free days in a row even if the desserts DID suck. And then there was the free day two days later...

But now I'm back. The kids are in school, and the fridge is stocked full of the usual suspects: egg whites, yogurt, veggies (raw and roasted). I've sworn off alcohol for the month, at least until December 31 (that's the end of the month!), and my husband and I are starting Afterburn together in a week. I am signed up for a Forrest teacher training starting on Thursday, and I've noticed changes in my body, both in appearance and strength, since I've been doing TT's Abs for Women. And the turtles, at least all but 10 of them, are officially gone--in the mail to Chicago, Washington DC and Santa Monica. They are a trigger for me and I hope that by next year, I'll be able to make them, but I won't venture toward the recipe till next Thanksgiving.

I am very fortunate and need to give thanks more often for the blessings that I have in my world. When I'm in the middle of a bulimic episode, it's hard to channel this gratitude; instead, I find myself wallowing in self-pity and scary, quasi-suicidal thoughts. Having made it through this past vacation, in a somewhat toxic environment, in good spirits and good health, I've learned that I have the strength and wherewithal to yank myself up out of the hole I've dug myself into. It might take a day or two or three, but there are concrete steps I can take if I want to get better, or even just feel better.

And for this, I am ever so thankful.

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True...

2009-11-30T13:04:00.003-06:00

Last week, I came home from yoga to find my cleaning lady a little more subdued than usual. And as soon as she began to tell me why, a huge mental "NOOOOOO!" went off in my head.

Turns out some guy approached her offering to sell her his laptop computer for $350. "It was still in the box," she told me. (Can you see where this is going yet?) She negotiated him down to $200 and went home happy as a clam. However, when she went to turn the thing on--surprise!--it didn't work. Someone had removed all of the innards from the laptop, leaving her with a worthless shell. Needless to say, the guy had disappeared from the neighborhood where the deal went down, and all Mary had was a hole in her wallet where $200 used to be.

This infuriated me on so many different levels. I hate that con men pick on the easiest victims, the elderly, people new to the city or the country, people who are less educated or more naive. I hate that this idiot cheated Mary out of money that's scarce and earned through hard work. I hate that Mary didn't question this guy's story and wonder why he was selling a good computer instead of returning it to wherever or whomever he bought it. But mostly, I hate that this whole episode has contaminated Mary, and myself to a lesser degree, with another thin, slimy layer of cynicism and mistrust of our fellow humans.

In my world, one of the worst feelings is that someone has pulled a fast one on me. It's not so much losing or being cheated out of something that's rightfully mine, but the shame of victimhood that magnifies and actually eclipses the underlying offense. Someone stole my bike when I was sixteen, and I felt worse about having the bike taken than I did about not having the bike, if that makes sense. It was personal; someone took MY bike. I think if my husband were to confess to me tomorrow that he had been having an affair for three years, I'd be more upset about being fooled by the deception than by the underlying betrayal (this is not to say that I wouldn't rip his balls off as well). When Mary told me her story, I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. It wasn't about the money; it was about feeling stupid and shamed.

I don't know if Mary felt the same way. I know that a lot of how I feel is related to my own pathology of needing to have things in a certain order. It's important for me to be right, to be the best, to be good. When this order is disrupted, when things happen outside of my control, things become NOT RIGHT and that's when I get into trouble. Maybe Mary's religion (she's a devout Catholic) helped her come to grips with this episode. Maybe she's just more humble and less narcissistic than myself (then again, who isn't?) and can see this not as a personal affront but just some scumbag making a quick $200. I hope so, because she is a genuinely good and open person, and I know that my fear of being hurt and taken advantage of has closed me off to a great deal.

I try to learn from everything I experience, but far from making me stronger, some of my experiernces have, if not crippled me, then at least constricted my capacity to let others in. Way back when, some person or people must have taken advantage of me or betrayed me to such an extent that the pain was greater than any potential payoff was worth. Hence, I learned not to wear my heart on my sleeve, to hold back, to play it safe, to not take emotional risks.

In many ways, my aptitude has served me well. I've never been taken in by a scam artist (some early phishing emails almost lured me in, but I saved myself in time); indeed, whenever someone I don't know approaches me on the street, my first instinct is to ignore him or her and walk on by. Although it might keep me from engaging in a friendly moment with a stranger, it also is an easy way to bypass panhandlers, pickpockets, tourists, and other annoyances of urban life.

But when you're so closed off to the possibility of pain, you close yourself off to the possibility of joy as well. This is something that Ana Forrest said to me the first time I met her, and it will stick with me forever. You don't get to pick what you get. Sometimes, fortune smiles on you; sometimes it laughs. When you connect with someone on the street, you have the opportunity to make a friend for life or lose all the money in your wallet. When you allow yourself to fall in love, it comes at the risk of a broken heart. Tiptoeing around the passion instead of throwing yourself into it fully will dilute its pleasure.

Obviously, there's a huge difference between allowing a con man to talk to you on the street and opening your heart to your friends, family and lovers. A person of sound judgment will know when to lay down her shields and when to keep them up. But it's scary to let yourself be completely vulnerable even with people you love and of whose love you're sure. Those who can get past this fear have the relationships that the rest of us envy.

I told Mary that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. But then again, I'm basically a cynical and closed-off person compared to her. Mary has not had an easy life and has had her heart broken many more times than I have. Yet she still can trust and believe in the best in people, whereas my first inclination is doubt. There has to be a balance between the two of us where openness, tempered with caution, can protect the heart enough to allow meaningful relationships with appropriate people.

In the meantime, this whole experience has made one thing easier for me. Mary's birthday is just two weeks before Christmas, and I usually struggle with ideas for gifts. This year, it's going to be a laptop--in its original wrapper, with a receipt, but this time, with the innards intact.

Insomnia

2009-11-18T05:45:00.005-06:00

What happens when you wake up at 3 in the morning and can't get back to sleep? In my house, this happens:

They are fleur de sel turtles and they are delicious! About the furthest you can get away from clean eating, they incorporate cream, sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup (the real deal, not the Antichrist), salted cashews and milk chocolate (from Trader Joe's, of course). To top it off, I usually sprinkle with a pinch of fleur de sel, but this morning, I was too tired to shuffle through the spice drawer so I grabbed the first ridiculously expensive salt. That means this year, it's Maldon Sea Salt from England instead of the usual gathered from the shores of Brittany. I am such a salt whore. Every time I visit my brother in LA, we go to Surfa's and I buy salt, among other unnecessary and delightful items.

Why in the world would I make these things, especially considering I have major problems with portion control as far as they're concerned? This year, I probably would not have gone to the trouble if not for my yoga teacher. He led my first training and thinks I'm the bomb for knowing how to make turtles from scratch, putting salt on top of them, and sharing them with him. His birthday is at the beginning of December, which is also when he leaves for India for the winter, and it's become a tradition for me to give him a bag of turtles for the plane ride there. Given what I know about him, it's unlikely that any turtles actually land on foreign soil; they're probably pretty well digested by that point. My teacher is so into these things that when he introduces me to other people, he brings up my turtle-making prowesses more often than not. "And she puts SALT on top of them!" Give him a break. He's from Nebraska and doesn't get out much.

My husband asked me why I feel compelled to make turtles for this guy, and I told him that it's because I love making things for people who are as passionate about the end product as I am. "Well, I like the turtles too," he said, clearly a little miffed. Yeah, I told him, but when I make them and you're around, you eat them and complain that you can't stop eating them, you're going to get so fat, and can I please get rid of them as soon as possible. There's a big difference between someone singing my praises about my abilities with chocolate and salt to perfect strangers and someone who is, in my opinion, giving you a signal that although he appreciates the effort, it's best not to do it again. To me, it's the same thing as telling me I have a pretty face; I read WAY more into the subtext than the actual words. Do we see positive energy on one hand and negative energy on the other? I do. I don't know if he got the point or not.

Anyway, I am definitely putting a few turtles aside to enjoy this Saturday, along with my St. Germain martini, ham sandwiches, and assorted munchies at our lights parade party. Okay, maybe more than a few. Oh, I am so tired but buzzed as well from the sheer pleasure of looking at my pretty little turtles and knowing how happy my teacher, waxer (yes, that's on the schedule too. Is that TMI?), and assorted friends who do NOT complain about food--and it's surprising how many DO--will be when they get their clear plastic bags tied up nice with a ribbon. Sheer yumminess. Sharing turtles is even better than eating them alone.

I may even save a few for my husband to prove to him that I don't hold a grudge.

Messages From The Universe

2009-11-17T13:17:00.005-06:00

Although I'm more of a believer in free will than in fate, I love the idea of a higher power looking after me. As a student and teacher of yoga, the concept of the "universe"--as in a universal plan, or receiving gifts from the universe--is comforting. I imagine a large, fluffy, amorphous parent looking after me. And the logical part of me loves to find meaning in things, whether the meaning is part of the universal plan or merely my overactive imagination.

I think that finding this meaning is part of the human condition. The world can be a scary and confusing place, and without some type of master plan, we're all swirling around in some vortex of randomness and chaos. Believing in some organized theory enables us to explain the unexplainable. For example, the idea of all-powerful gods gave ancient societies the tools to process and accept natural phenomena, senseless human aggression, and coincidence without having to understand it. Maybe somewhere deep in our reptilian brains, we crave the parental control that we were so eager to escape as teenagers. Knowing that the universe has a plan for us can make it easier to accept the inevitability of heartbreak and defeat if it's for a greater purpose, which hopefully reveals itself one day.

Even though I enjoy the mental gymnastics associated with connecting two seemingly unrelated events, I don't believe in a universal plan. I have a friend who loves to say that everything happens for a reason, and I always call her on it. While I do think that we can take something positive away from every horrible thing that happens to us, attaching a reason to random events somehow seems to put responsibility for the event onto the person who is harmed. When Carolyn Myss writes that she has seen people repress rage to such a degree that it turns cancerous, it makes my blood boil. Maybe the elevated cortisol levels in the human body lower the immune system somewhat, but finding a direct causal link between internalized emotions and cancer is both illogical and insulting.

That being said...

Last night, when I was up in the middle of the night (yes, sadly, the sleep isn't what it was a few weeks ago, although it's still better than it's been over the past few years. I'm falling asleep early and then waking up in the wee hours for one or two hours and managing to get back to sleep), I "found" a copy of "Appetites" by Geneen Roth. I love what Geneen Roth writes. She can take that big messy ball of all of the unarticulated feelings that I have about my body, food, relationships, and love, and set it out in a way that not only makes sense but is heartbreakingly eloquent. And although not all of her books resonated with me when I first read them, I find that when I return to them in a few months or years, there's always something new I can take away that I didn't catch the first time around.

I had been thinking about "Appetites" just a few days ago. I was reading "When Food Is Love" and had wanted to re-read "Appetites" as well, feeling as though there was something I was missing there. I bought the book years ago and knew it was around somewhere. But looking for a book in our house is like trying to find that old needle in the haystack. We are all readers, and getting rid of a book, particularly a good book, is sacrilegious. Our house is large and old with lots of shelves in lots of places, and I had resigned myself to going to the library when I found the book tucked away with my kids' old video tapes (yep, video tapes, not DVDs. When I say old, I mean old).

And when I started reading it, I started dog-earing pages. If I had a highlighter, I would have marked the whole thing up. I wanted to put some passages in here, but the book is upstairs and I'm downstairs and wanted to write this post before I forgot it. But I see so many similarities between Geneen's and my struggles with our eating both for health and for pleasure. Reconciling eating what you want (to break free from an eating disorder) with following a medically prescribed diet (to regain your health) can be really, really difficult, especially when you've grown attached to certain foods that may be harming you. I didn't get that far into the book--fortunately, I was able to fall back asleep pretty quickly--but I'm looking forward to going deeper and maybe finding some more of the answers I've been looking for (or sharing her frustrations at NOT finding those answers).

So was it a gift from the universe? The cynical part of me wants to scream "DUH!!! This is a book you OWN! You had thought about it and were probably going to look for it eventually. It was going to turn up one day." And yet, the fact that it turned up last night, in a place I rarely look, right when I needed it, makes me feel a little more plugged in to the universe, whether it's in my head or not.

AWOL

2009-11-16T14:41:00.003-06:00

I'm finding it really hard to sit down and figure out what to write about. When I first started posting, it seemed like every few hours or so, I would think of a funny, compelling, or moving subject to write about and would promptly forget it when the next subject came calling. But for the past week, it seems like my wellspring has run dry.

Instead of trying to figure out why, I'll keep it light. Here's what I've been doing:

1. Turbulence Training for Women--the advanced version, of course. I think I might actually be liking strength training. Please don't tell my yoga friends. When I'm done with a kick ass workout, I feel that heavy tiredness in my muscles and an incredibly calmness in my mind that is becoming increasingly addictive.

2. Getting ready for our pre-Thanksgiving party. I don't cook Thanksgiving anymore. We go to my dad's condo and have our traditional dinner of sushi and shrimp cocktail. What--doesn't everyone eat like this? Yes, there's turkey too. But so I don't miss cooking for a crowd on the big day, I throw a party the weekend before and make a deconstructed feast with all my favorites so I don't feel deprived when the desserts at the condo suck (another unfortunate tradition).

3. Teaching yoga. Rusty Wells inspired me, and my students love it.

4. Celebrating the anniversary of my husband's and my first date/hook-up/whatever. It's been 21 years--almost as long as we lived before we knew each other. We celebrate this date because it's exactly 6 months apart from our wedding anniversary, and it became a habit. It was actually pretty fun this year. We ordered a bottle of wine and drank the whole thing (VERY unusual for us at this point in our lives).

5. Working on feeling good about my body. This is a toughie. We were watching old DVDs of the family last night and it was from the pre-weight loss days, and I kept hearing that horrible mental chatter every time I saw my arms or boobs or thighs. At one point, I thought I was some cleaning person setting the table instead of the mom. Granted, it's because of what I was wearing, but STILL.... I've got to get past this.

6. Trying to chill about my eating. I've given myself a free day a la BFL and had a completely liberating experience on Saturday. You can't cheat if it's not illegal. And if you have to "save up" for your free day, the idea of bingeing on crap can be less appealing. The jury's out on this one, but I'm staying hopeful.

7. And finally... MAKING SMOOTHIES! I'll be forever grateful to Smoothie Girl and Protein Girl (the dynamic duo) for blogging about the ins and outs of smoothie development. I'm mostly old school, sticking to variations of chocolate with coffee or banana (why mess around with perfection?) but occasionally branching out, especially with pumpkin and cranberries. They are definitely helping keeping the munchies away in the afternoon, and I am beginning to look forward to the smoothie hour.

Hopefully more heavy and thought-provoking stuff to come, but right now, the baby needs to have a molar pulled. So we're off to the dentist.

Sweaty Palms

2009-11-11T07:19:00.003-06:00

I am deathly afraid of heights. And my kids make fun of me because whenever we go to the circus, or to a movie, or even watch a TV show where someone is up really high and there's a risk that he or she could fall, my palms start to sweat. A lot. I can try to talk myself out of feeling tension, reasoning with myself that "NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN," and yet my palms still know the truth and continue to squirt. In fact, they're sweating even now as I write this. It seems that just the idea of someone being up high, maybe clinging to something and trying to save him or herself, makes me worry.

Are you seeing the metaphor yet?

I've always worried that if I should fall and was able to catch myself by clinging to a cliff's edge (not bloody likely on the prairie, but still) or a railing (maybe a little more likely, but come on--would I really get close enough to the railing to tumble over? Wait--maybe the balcony I'm standing on will collapse...), my hands will begin to sweat and I'll slowly but inexorably begin to slip off, knuckle by knuckle, finger by finger, helpless to do anything but to watch myself fail and resign myself to the inevitable fall. Hopefully I'll never find out whether the adrenalin in my fight-or-flight response has an antiperspirant that will allow my newly popping delts pull me up over the edge. Chin ups are good for something, right?

But often, when I imagine myself slipping, the agony of waiting for the inevitable is often worse than the inevitable itself. So I just let go. I don't give myself the chance to fail, but in doing so, I also take away any chances of success I may have as well.

If anyone hasn't figured out the metaphor yet, please let me know and I'll give you the crash course in metaphor-figure-outing. Really, folks, subtlety is not one of my strong points.

I need to learn not to give up, not to expect to save myself every time, although I may be able to do it more than I think. I'm pretty sure that the consequences of my slipping and falling metaphorically are not as dire as those of falling fourteen stories down onto the pebbled patio in my grandparents' Miami Beach condo complex (a common vision I had when visiting them as a child). Yes, it will be difficult for this perfectionist to feel her fingernails peeling back (metaphorically, of course), and to have her palms sweat as each successive metatarsal loses its grip with the surface. But nothing is inevitable unless I have already decided that it is. This is particularly true for things I am in control of, believe it or not. I am responsible for making good and mature decisions about how to live my live, what to put into my mouth, who I choose to associate with, and what kind of legacy I will be leaving when I'm gone. I need to remember that slipping and falling is okay. It's not life or death, and the important thing is that I pick myself up, dust off (or wipe off, as the case may be) my sweaty palms, and begin climbing up to the top of that cliff again.

The Arugula

2009-11-08T06:54:00.003-06:00

I just picked through the container of arugula leaf by leaf. It was beginning to turn, although most of the leaves were still fine, and I needed to find the wet, dark, wrinkly pieces that were making the container smell skunky. And this I did with my full attention.

I am TIRED. BONE-WEARY. But in a good way. I'm in the final stretch of a weekend intensive with Rusty Wells, yoga instructor, showman, and motivator extraordinaire. Over the past one or two months, I've felt myself holding back on my physical practice. Poses like inversions and arm balances which used to appeal to me now hold little charm. I'm drawn more and more to restorative poses that open my body without my having to break a sweat. I'm attributing this mostly to my evolution (seeing yoga as meditative and a lifestyle rather than a workout), but I'm sure that my strength and intensity training has more than a little to do with it; I'm just too darn tired to stand on my head.

Rusty made me remember why sometimes, just burning everything away in a red haze of sweat, music, and muscle can be restorative in and of itself. I knew what I was in for. I took one of his classes last year and was sore for a few days, but felt it in my body for more than a week. I LOVED it. So when I saw he was coming back for the entire weekend, I signed up for the whole thing. Ten hours in a forty-eight hour period, and aside from the fifteen minutes of chanting at the beginning and five to ten minutes of savasana at the end, all out. I was nervous, given the recent scaling back of my physical practice and also because I have a few injuries on my left side that can make practicing for more than two or three hours a day very uncomfortable.

I've been extra careful this weekend. I've nursed my hamstring, modifying poses subtlely and not-so-subtlely (e.g. pigeon for splits = subtle; twisting pigeon for triangle = not-so=subtle) and didn't participate in the series of six full backbends, choosing bridge instead so my back wouldn't tweak out by the end of the day. But in no way have I held back in throwing myself into the joy of the practice. I love the sweat. I love the feeling of working my muscles till they're trembling and then going beyond the point of fatigue. I love learning new ways to approach old poses that will make my own students either love me or hate me, or maybe both. And I love how food has kinda taken a back seat to survival for the past few days.

Which brings me back to the arugula. I am packing up stuff to take with me tonight, since I'll be staying in the city. I didn't want to waste what we have in the fridge here, so I put together a giant salad with some chicken I baked up last night. So I was standing there, happy not to be holding a bent leg pose, picking through the arugula leaf by leaf and worrying if I was being obsessive. I probably am, a little. But I feel like it's a healthy obsession, like my desire to push myself physically, tempered with pragmatism and the knowledge that I don't have to be perfect, that I don't have to give 100% all the time. I think that batting for the fences is terrific; life without goals would be boring for this perectionist. But knowing when to back off, whether I'm going into full splits or deciding to eat "dirty" without it leading to a binge, keeps my obsessions from drifting over the line into something unhealthy.

I think you need to be at least a little obsessive to recover from an eating disorder. There's a circuit in my brain that doesn't connect the right way, and I need to plan ahead for things that are second nature to others. It's a fact that I've been reluctant to accept, but the more I admit to myself that this is how I need to live my life, at least for now, the less power my eating disorder has over me. This is why I can smile when I see myself sifting through the arugula, knowing that this small act defines me: I'm a nut, but at least I'm aware of it and can laugh at myself.

I feel like I'm getting something back that's been missing for a long time. I feel less DERANGED.

How Can I Get Past This?

2009-11-05T08:47:00.006-06:00

One of the reasons I posted the pictures of my "great date" is because I can. Believe it or not, I was having problems not only getting pictures to post on my site, but actually getting the pictures off my iPhone and onto my computer. Can anyone spell "Luddite?"

I was so proud of myself that I showed the post to my entire family. They know that although I'm more than willing to talk to them about anything I post, I'd prefer that they didn't read the blog. I don't always proofread my posts as thoroughly as I should (after all, I see this primarily as a therapeutic tool for myself and also a way to get me writing for a few moments every day), and in conversation, things are much less likely to be misconstrued than they are in a reader/writer relationship. Also, the topics I choose occasionally lead to peppy dinnertime conversations (NOT the bulimia, folks--in case you're curious), and I love encouraging mature discourse so we don't have to listen to the latest status of my son's Farmland game.

When I showed the post to my husband, I commented that I would never make a similar post for him, because it would make him so mad he'd spit. To which he replied, "I'd be thrilled if you did a post like that about me, because it would show me that you cared enough about what we do together to share it with the world." This brought the fact that we inhabit two different decades crashing down on my head once again.

You see, as far as my husband is concerned, I am trapped within a time warp. I relate to him as though it were the early 90s, when we were newlyweds. And let me preface this by writing that my husband is a very good man. When we were in therapy, our therapist told him that if her daughters weren't already married, she would want them to marry someone like him. He is honest, dependable, trustworthy, organized, and a grownup. Most of the time. I never have to worry about whether he is where he says he is or who he's with. He is utterly devoted to me. He is brilliant at what he does and carries out the responsibilities of primary breadwinner, father and husband cheerfully and wholeheartedly. He is interesting and interested; it's usually not to hard to find something interesting to talk about with him, and although most people start to bore me after a while, he never has.

So what's the downside, you ask? I don't want to go into it right now; there's PLENTY of time for that. :) All you need to know is that in the salad days of our courtship, he was unable, for whatever reason, to let me know how he felt about me and to accept my love for him. I was crazy about him--I had found a guy who had all of the qualities I was looking for, and apparently he liked spending time with me, too--but I wasn't permitted to share my excitement with anyone. When I talked about him with other people, he became defensive and critical ("Why are you talking about me like I'm not here?" "No one really cares about what you're telling them." "You didn't tell them about me, did you?"). He hated it when I would strike up random conversations with strangers, telling me that I was intruding on their space and embarrassing myself. Although I'm sure he told me about lots of things that he loved about me, what I remember is feeling tolerated instead of cherished. More often than not, I thought he saw me as a cute fuck-up, smart but somewhat incompetent and unreliable, who he kept around for her charm and warm body. I certainly didn't feel like I was his soul mate or an integral part of his life until I told him I wanted a divorce and learned that he had always loved me the way I wanted him to. He had just never let me know in a way I could appreciate.

Unfortunately, I had grown tired of showing the world how crazy I was about him and hearing how crazy I was, period. So I stopped showing the world. And as time went on and I had no acceptable way to express or show my love, I stopped feeling it the way I once had. They say that once somebody begins to die, there's a pretty big window for the rescue crew to come in and resuscitate the body. But after a while, there comes a point of no return, beyond which there's really nothing you can do. Maybe you can maintain a pulse through heroic efforts, but when you stop, the body stops. That's how I feel we are now. I'm not sure if we've reached the point of no return, but it's so hard to bring back feelings that have been dead for such a long time, so much harder than it would have been had we caught all this earlier, or acknowledged that it was happening.

I know now that my husband was afraid of putting himself out there for fear of rejection. He negated all the positive things I had to tell the world about him because he felt unworthy of my approval. According to him, the more people I told about him, the more likely it was that someone would realize that I was too good for him, tell him, and I would move on. By criticizing me, he was leveling the playing field in his own stupid attempt to maintain our bond. I see how his father treats his mother and understand why it's difficult for him to understand the concept of tact, kindness and patience. Indeed, given his background, he's made monumental progress. And I cannot overemphasize his willingness, now, to examine his behavior, learn from it, and grow into a more evolved, feeling, compassionate, kind and demonstrative human being.

He has become, or is close to becoming, the man I wanted him to be when we married. I can see this and recognize this on an intellectual level. However, my visceral reaction to him is the same one I had years ago. Hence my comment to him about posting his picture on my blog along with details of our day. I expect his reactions to me to be the ones from before, not the ones I usually get. I see him as critical, judgmental and uncomfortable giving and receiving affection, when he tries his best to be understanding, accommodating and loving. I am married to his ghost, tied to my negative perceptions of him by a web of my own making. And I don't know how to break free. I am trying, every day, for the sake of what we once had, for the sake of my children and our extended family, and for my own sake--because I know that my life with him, while not perfect, is probably better than my life without him could ever be. In the past, with my body image issues, I've tried to fake it till it became real, which worked for me some of the time. So that's what I've been doing. I do my best to love him in ways that feel authentic to me. It might not be what he wants, but it's all I can give right now. I do feel as though there's been some improvement, although not as much as either of us would have hoped for. I suppose all both of us can do, since we've committed ourselves to making this as good as we can, is keep trying and plugging away, having faith that progress, however little, is better than stasis.

I suppose everyone will know if and when we've succeeded: when you see the photo of his face above a plateful of food instead of my son's.

No School On Tuesday

2009-11-04T16:20:00.003-06:00

Guess who I got to spend the day with yesterday? My favorite lunch date in the world: my little guy.

He was the biggest grouch for the first five years of his life, so it's twice the pleasure to hang out with him now. And he loves his Vietnamese food as much as his mom does.

Get away, ladies--he's all mine!

My date was great, but my lunch wasn't so shabby either. I got pho #19, as usual, with mystery thin meat and mystery meatballs. I follow the "don't ask/don't tell" protocol when I go for Vietnamese and usually walk away quite happy. I did suffer from an MSG vise-grip-temple headache, again as usual, for an hour or so afterwards. And I'm sure I'll forget about it when I get my pho jones going once again in another few weeks.

Yes, that's a lime you see in there. I dump just about everything I can into the bowl--bean sprouts, lots of weird herbal leaves, jalapenos--the whole shebang. I'm sure I get laughed at by the Vietnamese in the restaurant. But I love it all--the taste, the ceremony, the way pho warms you up like nothing else on a cold Chicago day or how it seems to help even the worst hangover.

Note to self: the lotus root salad with shrimp and pork does NOT give me MSG headaches. It's also quite lovely and photogenic. But alas, it's also gone.

Between Grief And Nothing

2009-11-04T07:04:00.002-06:00

I like to think of myself as a closeted bad girl draped in the clothing of a good girl. When I was younger, I gazed with awe at the Catholic girls who stood at our bus stop, skirts rolled up and socks pushed down, shivering in the cold as they smoked their pre-school ciggies and cussing as they talked about guys and parties and beer. I was half-terrified, half-mesmerized. I wanted to be one of them so badly, to wear too much blue eyeshadow, to have to use Binaca before school, to kiss guys named Patrick and TJ on Saturday nights in the corners of dark rooms with loud Van Halen playing. Alas, it was not to be. The fact that I'm Jewish ruled out Catholic school pretty definitively, and although I did get to wear a hot little skirt for field hockey, I had to buy the biggest size and still had a major muffin top going on even after I let the button out. Rolling it up was out of the question. And I never could get the hang of smoking. I tried through the first part of college and finally threw in the towel during a study abroad vacation in the former Soviet Union, when the idea of smoking a horse-shit smelling cigarette after a night of downing shots with our new Russian friends seemed even less appetizing than being the geek who couldn't blow smoke rings.

This is not to say I didn't channel my inner bad girl in other passive-aggressive ways. I shudder to think of what I lived through and what could have happened if I hadn't been so lucky. I got into strange cars with strange men in strange cities. I put weird powders up my nose (turned out it was crystal meth, which this suburban mom LOVES telling her middle-aged friends about today). I gave my body to men a little more freely than my self-respect likes to remember. I leapt without looking. And during all of this, in retrospect, I can see that I was looking for myself.

My parents were very loving and good to me, but I had very little opportunity to make my own decisions and go my own way if it wasn't the same way they thought I should go. There were several instances in my adolescence where I came up against them and fought the good fight for things I really cared about that were NOT bad girl things. I can't remember winning a single battle. I felt steamrolled, unheard, and ultimately powerless. And so I turned to food, which not only comforted me, it gave me a chance to exercise my autonomy (I was NOT supposed to eat that stuff, especially that much of it) and also gave me a chance to yell a silent but resounding fuck you to my parents. I started sneaking food shortly after I started dieting (the dieting came with my parents' whole-hearted approval, at least at the beginning; the sneaking, obviously, did not) and continued until I left home for college.

Now it's thirty years later. So why do I still turn to food? When I felt more pain than I had in my life, ever, when it felt like taking each breath was a labor that was becoming too much, when I wanted to scream and claw myself and sleep for weeks and let my head fall under the water in my bathtub so the agony would stop, food was the antidote I settled on, returning to it like an old friend. Oh, and did it do the trick! The pain I feel from my eating disorder is a completely different kind of pain. I got rid of the emotional pain of loss, all right, but in exchange, I'm walking around with a huge albatross around my neck with no idea of how to get it off.

I can't decide if the bulimic is my bad girl or my good girl. Eating junk food, of course, is something my bad girl would have done in the past. But no one cares now. And just as you can't have a tug of war if there's no one to war against, you can't be bad when there are no longer any rules for you to break. No one in my life now cares about what I eat or don't eat. It's only ghosts and echoes. The good girl I am doesn't like to make a fuss or draw attention to herself, so maybe she's the one who's eating, stuffing everything down instead of going out and raging and screaming and feeling feelings that she was taught were inappropriate. But puking isn't something a good girl would do; even my parents, who wanted me to be thin more than anything and who would have seen my size two clothes as an accomplishment on a par with my National Merit Finalist designation, would have been horrified to find me with my head in a toilet. So which one is it?

Of course I know there is no good girl and no bad girl; it's all me. I'm no Sybil, as much as I might feel like her some days with all of these food voices swirling around my head. Now that I'm older, not only do I accept the fact that I can still be a bad good girl, I embrace it. I love that I am brave enough to take chances but grounded enough to have a little (more) sense about the chances I take. I thrive on new experiences, but traditions and routine feed me as well. It's okay for me to be the geeky girl at the bus stop and not one of the Catholic smokers; the only thing that wasn't okay was that I didn't know that at the time. So if I am fine with who I am and what I am now, why do I still use food the same way I did when I wasn't?

"Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief." This is by William Faulkner, although I heard it for the first time in the Richard Gere remake of "Breathless," possibly one of the poorly-acted and cheesiest movies of the 80s (although compelling in a campy and addictive way if you watch it repeatedly, as I did--and not to see the Richard's equipment in the full-frontal scene, but to write a paper for my film class instead. Yes. Really. I mean it.). We all have a choice over whether we will honor our feelings or deny them. Like Ana Forrest told me the first time we met, if you don't open yourself up to the scary bad feelings, you're shutting yourself off from the joy too. In my opinion, living life on a flat line isn't living, it's waiting to die. I want the drama, the peaks and valleys, the exhiliration of soaring, and if the skin-shredding pain is the price I have to pay, then I simply have to find a way to ride that pain out.

When I overeat, I grow numb. I choose nothing. This is not what I want. I love that clean, zinging feeling that I never appreciated before of being well nourished and well-cared for. But when the going gets tough, for whatever reason, I am having a really hard time embracing the grief.

Sometimes life throws gifts on your path that make it easy to find your way. I was given that gift a few years ago, and was able to feel for the first time in ages. And although the pain was greater than what I thought I could bear at the time, I know now that it was a true, clean pain and it was a small price to pay for what I received at the other end. The pain I feel now is a diry, sluggish, grey pain that I want gone. I want to feel, even if I don't want every feeling.

I choose grief.

And Now For Something Completely Different....

2009-11-01T18:57:00.004-06:00

I don't know why more people don't know about this. But I just about peed my pants when my brother showed it to me. I DID howl. Literally.

My little brother is a really good guy with a great sense of humor. Wait--maybe I should rephrase that; he and I have the same sense of humor, so he always knows the funniest youtube videos. For example, he turned me on to recut trailers like this one:

and this one:

There are a lot of really bad recut trailers out there, and lil bro finds the best. He has his own youtube 15 minutes and didn't even post it himself. This commercial helped buy him a really nice car in the 90s:

More Yoga--Rambling

2009-10-31T13:31:00.005-05:00

Me in astavakrasana (my vanity pose. Don't I look smug?)

I love yoga. Recently, however, I've been having a hard time getting to class, any class, and I haven't been practicing as much as I should. And I DO need to practice, because I teach, and I firmly believe that teachers need to be students to keep themselves fresh. Also, when I take too much time off, things start to happen. My body starts to tighten up. I lose flexibility and strength in my shoulders. I feel a little clogged in my midsection. So this morning, instead of making up excuses why I should stay home or go to the gym, I hopped into my car and drove for 35 minutes to Turbo Dog Yoga, where I practiced for two hours.

Like I wrote a few weeks ago, my primary practice is Forrest yoga, although I play around with a lot of other styles (a yoga slut is what I am). Forrest yoga places a huge emphasis on core strength, moving with your breath in long, steady controlled movements. Ever try sticking your legs straight up in the air and lifting your head and shoulders up at the same time? Hard, right? Now try keeping your head and shoulders lifed the whole time and doing modified bicycles, bringing your elbows to opposite knees while lifting the hips off the floor using the lower abs. Try breathing slowly, deeply and evenly at the same time without grunting or holding your breath. I dare you to last three or four reps. We did it for ten today, and then did two more sets of different abs after that. Yowsa!

My core is crazy strong from years of Forrest yoga, but I think that it's also one of the things that keeps me away from classes. You see, when I began practicing Forrest, my pooch was this cute little thing that only showed up when I was all the way up in my crunch. I viewed it with the kind of affection you'd show a naughty child--not the most wonderful thing in the world, but I could live with it given everything it could do. Now, there's a layer of fluff that covers it, and when I crunch, there's no where for the fluff to go but up. This is a particular problem on my inhalations, which would inflate anyone's stomach and make mine look like a barrel. I don't like looking at it and usually keep my eyes closed during abs so I can focus on feeling and not get involved in a spiraling, self-mutilating dialogue that will lead me nowhere except to the refrigerator.

It had been two weeks since my last Forrest practice when I got to the studio this morning. For the first time in a long time, I was really looking forward to the practice. Recently, I feel like I've been dragging myself there. I have a lot of pain in my lower back on the left side and am recovering from a hamstring injury, so my practice doesn't always feel great, either at the time or afterwards. When I'm going through an episode of bingeing and purging, I'm achy and feel like there's broken glass in my joints. And the longer I stay away, the more afraid I become that I won't be able to stick my handstands and forearm balances or that the binds will elude me. These fears only serve to keep me away longer, which makes it more likely that they will come true. So I was surprised that I really wanted to go today.

But my body needed it. And I'm so glad I was there. I brought more focus and awareness to my practice and the area I designated for attention than I have in months, maybe even a year. I used my area as my anchor and breathed into it during abs instead of avoiding the pooch of my tummy. My teacher is always meticulous about providing modifications for her students with injuries, and so I worked plenty hard in spite of not being able to join the rest of the class in splits. My hips are still talking to me, but in a good way.

Forrest students are encouraged to allow their emotions to bubble up, so a practice can be noisy, with people crying or yelling during poses. My practice was silent today, though. I was so deep within myself that I think I went below the pain (although I YOWLED a few weeks ago in a groin stretch and even surprised the teacher with my pent-up rage). Right now, I have that tired but peaceful feeling, and although I know it will wear off soon enough, I'm enjoying it immensely. I feel like I've gotten an unexpected gift and hope that connecting with the joy of the practice once again means that other parts of my life will start falling into place.

Why Redux

2009-10-30T08:26:00.004-05:00

In my obsessive and compulsive way, I've been thinking about what I wrote yesterday. I meant the post to apply largely to myself; I certainly don't want to cast aspersions on any blogger I've ever read or second-guess anyone's motives. It's just that I look at myself and know that I really shouldn't worry about weight, at least until I get my eating firmly under control, unless it becomes a problem and threatens my health or well-being (and emotional well-being doesn't really count. I've admitted that I'm absolutely crazy where weight/body image is concerned, so my goal here is to shift parameters and learn to love my body instead of forcing it to change). And yet I still do worry.

It's a grey area for me that's so confusing to write about. For example, why do I exercise? I exercise because it makes me feel better. It usually gives me more energy and puts me in a better mood. At the very least, it boosts my morale to know that I can still do what I do. There are a lot of women my age who can't, won't or don't (or all three!). But I also exercise to burn calories, shrink my butt, and make my deltoids pop. That's why I started, and it's just as strong a motivation as the previous factors I addressed. I could say that the ends justify the means--whatever gets me into the gym or on my mat doesn't matter, as long as I do it--but the fact remains that if my exercise is motivated even in part by obsessive negative thinking, I'm feeding my obsession and negativity by exercising. I do tend to get a little panicky if too much time passes between workouts or I injure myself and can't do a specific exercise for a period of time. Similarly, I have healthy and non-healthy motivations regarding food. The non-healthy ones are self-evident: I undereat to manipulate the shape of my body and overeat to soothe my emotional distress. But there are times when I can overeat non-obsessively, having one or two cookies or a few bites of cake for dessert. And I feel like another person when my eating is clean. Sugar does more and more of a number on me, as does overeating, and I when eat five or six small meals with lean proteins and lots of veggies and maybe a few whole grains, I feel better both physically and emotionally. For me, the difference between being on a diet (which has such negative connotations to me, fosters a sense of deprivation, and sets me up for failure) or eating to nurture your body and your spirit (which is based in self-respect and giving to yourself rather than taking away)is in my head. In my world, two people can follow the same food plan even if one has an eating disorder and one doesn't. This is how I know I have to fix my brain before I can truly fix my body.

What I'm trying to get at is that I can only address my own motivations, examining why I eat the way I do and why I struggle so much when sometimes it seems like a waste of time. I can point to other people and project my own feelings upon them, but it's presumptuous of me to do this. For all I know, the person who "reads" the most disordered to me is in a better place than everyone else. Another point: others only know what we choose to share. Sure, it's possible to read between the lines of a post, but how much can we actually write about ourselves before we run out of space or our fingers cramp? How much can we even articulate about things that are essentially inchoate? I am usually pretty good at getting to the kernel of things in my writing--I used to be paid for that kind of stuff--but I have such a hard time untangling my own feelings and putting them into words that I have to believe others do too.

We tend to see the beauty in others more easily than we see it in ourselves. Choosing to chase some external idea of perfection is one thing, but choosing to support yourself through your lifestyle is another. And if your external supports your internal, then that's fine too. I know mine don't go together and probably never will--loving the way I look will probably always be a struggle for me--but if you can do it in a healthy and non-obsessive way, that's great. I wish I could.

Why?

2009-10-29T07:49:00.005-05:00

Since I've started blogging, I've been looking (mostly lurking) on other blogs to troll for ideas and inspiration. Given that my two major obsessions are body image and cooking, a lot of my surfing finds me reading about others' struggles with their eating and their weight.

It's no surprise to me that virtually all of the blogs I've found addressing body dysmorphyia are written by women. And most of the healthy cooking blogs are too, as are the vast majority of weight loss blogs. I am touched in a profound way nearly every day. There are tales of success and failure, photo logs of meals, exercise journals and plans, even playlists so I can see what other people listen to when they work out! And in each blog, whether it has 2 or 200 entries, there is a human being courageously sharing her innermost thoughts, hopes and struggles with the rest of the world.

Sometimes I find these blogs uplifting and motivating; at other times, I'm afraid they trigger me. But on the whole, knowing I'm not alone is good for me. Lurking on blogs, while addictive, is certainly the lesser of two evils, and I've learned quite a bit from what I've read.

I've been thinking about something, though. I understand the whos, whats, hows, wheres and whens of the authors' efforts to eat better, exercise, and lose weight. But what about the whys? Why do many of these women work so hard at what they do, whether it's eating clean or strength training or losing weight? I know that there are a lot of pat answers I turn to, as do others: we do it to look better, to feel better, to take better care of our bodies so we can live longer and healthier lives. But there is often a self-flagellating undertone to these comments that belies the positive motivations. "I was bad." "I cheated." "My eating has been terrible." "I haven't exercised for X days." "I'm so fat (the varient on this is something like "Life would be perfect if I could just lost 5/10/25 pounds").

I write about this not to lay blame on anyone else or judge them, but to examine myself. I am 100% guilty of the same type of thinking. While I want my eating to be about my recovery and know that it has to be given priority, there is a little--OK, not so little--part of me that wants to drop the 10 pounds I've put on over the past two years. And when I ask myself why losing weight should even begin to compete with my recovery, I could trot out all of the standard responses, but the truth is that I'm vain and I'm insecure. I feel like people judge me because of my weight, they they mentally keep track of where my body begins and ends and form their opinions about me based on this. Feeling thin makes me feel fashionable and powerful, like I can hold my own among the VERY thin and VERY fashionable women in my town. It doesn't matter that many of these women are not healthy, that they have eating disorders of their own or are addicted to exercise or severely restrict their eating to the point where they can't even try a new restaurant, I still feel like if I'm not thin, I can't even get into the ring.

This type of thinking is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, it taps into my insecurities and magnifies them. Why does there have to be a competition at all? Is it real or just in my head? What am I actually competing FOR? There IS no competition. It's not high school. No one is prom queen or most popular. I should be past this stuff by now. Buying into this thinking also gives shallow and narrow-minded people power over my self-image. I shouldn't care about what they think if all they care about is how I look. I'm more than my waist size. I despise many of the superthin women--not individually, but as a group (I'm sure they are lovely people)--because they spend their days on their appearances when there are so many other interesting and important things to worry about. And finally... I'M NOT FAT. I'm a hair under 5'4" and a hair above 130#, which puts me toward the high end (but not in danger of going over) of the BMI index for normal weight. And I hold my weight well. When I thought I looked good, I was at 115# and some people were telling me I was too thin. So I know on an intellectual level that all this worrying is just a big waste of time. And yet I continue to plan my meals, count my calories, and hold onto all the beautiful clothes I finally bought for myself when I was a size 2/4.

The bloggers who post their pictures, for the most part, look amazing. They have figures anyone would envy. But some still struggle with getting to the gym every day, with losing a few more pounds or lowering their body fat percentage another point or two. And I suppose my question is "why?" Why does it matter so much? Will it make you a nicer person? Will it make your husband or your kids love you more? And if it will boost your confidence or make you feel better about yourself, why? Is there a way to feel good about yourself without engaging in a protracted war with your body? It seems so futile and so silly to me when I take a step away from it. We will all grow old one day, God willing. I know my girls are starting to sag and my body is beginning to change in other ways to prepare itself for the larger Change. Why can't I embrace these changes and grow old gracefully? Do I really want to be the grandma running around in her size 2 Seven jeans with that big space between her inner thighs? When I see these women, I can feel my bone mass draining away. They just don't look good. So why is this our ideal?

When I find the answers, I'll let you know. I'm nowhere near getting them. But I am trying to think nice thoughts about my body. This morning, I decided that my skin was soft and that even though there's a layer of jiggle that I don't like, my body is pretty firm and looks okay. I can always buy new clothes; I don't have to torture myself with ones that are too small or don't fit well. I need to keep reminding myself that it's about getting better, that is really is about being healthy for me, and if this means I have to eat a 500 calorie breakfast and a fun size bag of M&Ms at night, if my abs will never be ripped and my arms never cut, then I will have to come to terms with that too. It's better that I'm a happy, healthy, and whole woman instead of a broken, deranged thin one.

Maybe I should start reading some political blogs too.

Catching My Zzzzzzzs

2009-10-28T13:32:00.012-05:00

I've had intermittent insomnia for about seven years. It never seemed that bad. Once you get used to functioning on less-than-optimal levels of sleep, it's not a huge deal. New moms and medical school residents do it all the time. But when I told my therapist how much I slept each night (anywhere from three to seven hours), she was appalled.

I've never been a good sleeper. When I was too young to know better, I attributed it to being born in the evening (applying a convoluted theory which involved assuming that being born so close to bedtime threw off my circadian rhythms). I couldn't sleep on airplanes or night trains in Europe unless I was horizontal. Strange beds were hard; if they included a strange bedfellow, sleep was out of the question. It got really bad when my oldest son (now 14) was born. I would lie in bed, watching the numbers on my clock change, getting more and more upset because I wanted to sleep so badly, but with every minute that passed, it was one less minute of sleep I was going to get. No one believes me, but I KNOW that I didn't sleep more than an hour or two each night. I was so upset, tired, and tightly wound that it was almost impossible for me to nap, too.

When I opened my business in 2004, a normal night's sleep was about four or five hours if I was lucky. I owned a bakery, which everyone knows demands brutal hours. But it wasn't just the hours; it was the anxiety, too. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, seized with a sudden terror that there was an order that I hadn't filled or that I'd never finish everything I had to that day. I would inevitably work myself into such a froth that I gave up on the idea of sleep entirely and would schlepp myself to the store at 2 or 3 a.m., when I didn't really need to be there till 6 or 7.

This is what you would have seen if you came into my store:

Once the store closed, I did manage to get more sleep, but that's when the anxiety over the marriage and the eating disorder started. Although I had nowhere to be so early in the morning, sometimes I'd just drive out to McDonald's and have a few cups of coffee because I didn't know what to do with myself in a dark and slumbering house and didn't want to wake everyone.

My therapist firmly believes that my lack of proper sleep exacerbates my eating disorder. And worrying about my disorder keeps my up at night with the same script playing through my brain: what I ate, what I didn't eat, what I'll eat tomorrow, and how bad/good it was that I binged/didn't binge. So when a naturopath I've worked with in the past offered a workshop on stress, insomnia, and diet, I told the family that I'd be out that night and hustled my butt to my yoga studio, where Dr. H taught us the ropes.

The night didn't start out too auspiciously. Within the first half hour, he advised us not to eat after sunset as I was spooning meal 5 (yogurt and blueberries) into my mouth. Oops! However, I'm thick-skinned, ornery and old enough not to get all bent out of shape when this happens, and I laughed it off. We also went head-to-head (in the friendliest and most respectful way, of course)on his milk proscription. I don't have issues with milk one way or the other, although a food reactivity test has shown otherwise, and I eat dairy products regularly (see yogurt and blueberries, above). I'm willing to listen to people who argue against it, but the fact that milk may be contaminated with cow pus (really--ALL of our food is contaminated, and if I can't see or taste it, I don't worry about it), has antibiotics and hormones (not if it's organic, dude), or shouldn't be consumed by us because we're the only species that drinks milk after the age of 2 and from other species (get real--we're the only species that has the wherewithall to get the milk from other species, and other species are VERY happy with cows' milk if humans give it to them. Plus, we're the only species that does a lot of things, like cultivating and cooking our food. Does this mean we shouldn't do that either?) doesn't carry much weight with me.

Whew. That was a long sentence!

But these were just two blips. The evening was interesting and I slept really well when I got home, maybe because I felt optimistic about fixing my sleep problems at last. Dr. H recommended the usual: cutting out caffeine, exercise during the day, and meditation and deep breathing. What I didn't know about were the supplements: 5-HTP, L-tryptophan, melatonin, phosphatyl serine, and black elderberry. These supplements support the body in various ways--by increasing energy and attention, improving mood, and helping you release serotonin, the relaxation hormone, at bedtime.

A few days and many $$$$ later, I had bought all of these babies and just started taking them last week. It's been a short time, but my sleep has been really good for the past week. When I had my girls' weekend, I slept better than ever for two nights without waking up once. For this to happen at home is great; in an unfamiliar room and bed, it's miraculous. Once I got home, it actually became harder. My husband doesn't exactly SNORE, but he's not the quietest sleeper either. Let's just say he's a heavy breather. So I've been waking up once or twice in the middle of the night, but can usually get back to sleep, sometimes after a short bathroom break (is that TMI?). Last night, it took almost an hour, but I did get back to sleep and didn't have to read in the guest bedroom at all.

The best part? I feel good. I've been a little run down lately, and although I still feel tired, it's not that bone-weary feeling I get sometimes. When you're really tired, little things can set you off, and for me, that's a recipe for disaster. If I don't binge because I'm better rested, then maybe I won't worry as much about my eating before I go to sleep or when I wake up in the middle of the night. And if I don't wake up in the middle of the night, then I'll be better able to sit with my feelings and not binge. And so on....

But please don't tell Dr. H that I haven't given up coffee and have to get through my stash of Trader Joe's Breakfast Blend before I will even consider switching to decaf. However, I HAVE started using soy milk in my morning joe. It's because of the protein (soy has more), not the pus, but maybe Dr. H will make an honest woman of me yet.

Does It Get Easier?

2009-10-27T13:46:00.005-05:00

I've been working on my recovery for a year now, with varying degrees of success. If you take a snapshot of where I was last year at this time and this year, I think I'm in a better place. But I'm disappointed at how long it's taking me to get it. In opening circle of my teacher training, someone said that she committed to ending her eating disorder on a special day in her life and didn't ever do it again. Now, I know that I need to take these words with a grain of salt, especially given what I've learned about this person since then, but when she spoke them, I assumed that there would come a moment of truth for me too, a clicking of the switch from "OFF" to "ON" so I could leave ED in the dust.

Not so. The more I struggle, the more I'm coming to terms with the fact that this is going to be a long, slow slog through the muck. And that's okay. I love instant gratification. Don't we all? But I'm willing to tough it out if I know that the end result will be worthwhile. And really, what alternative do I have? Giving in to my binge-voice only leads me into a horrible depressive state, makes my joints and my body ache, saps my desire to do anything except play Spider Solitaire, and isolates me from people, even the ones I love most who accept me with all of my warts. The only good thing about bulimia is that it allows me to avoid dealing with my feelings on a temporary basis. And it's NOT good; when the power of the food wears off, everything comes back with a venegeance, accompanied by all of the above symptoms I just listed.

The problem is that I HATE working this hard on something that I truly believe should be second nature. My therapist tells me that this is an illness, and presumably, one of the symptoms of the illness is that I'm incapable of eating like a normal person (for now, I hope) and that I have to work my recovery every day. I need to be strong and sit with my cravings and my agony and not give in. But it's so confusing, because cravings and struggle and giving in all bring back memories of dieting, where it feels like you're holding your breath for so long that when you finally release it, the next inhale seems like it can consume the world. When I finally give in to the binge, it's like taking that breath. Will I be able to hold my breath forever?

I suppose I don't have to address that now. If I can get through a month, I'd be thrilled. I understand why AA tells you to take it one day at a time. If you thought about forever, you'd go mad. I can stand just about anything if I know it's only for a day.

The fact that something is natural doesn't mean it's easy, and I don't need to let my inability to eat normally escalate into another form of ammunition I can attack myself with. When my oldest son was born, I knew that I was going to nurse him and I knew that it would be fine because it was natural. Right? Wrong. No one told me how godawful painful it was. When I felt him latch on, all I could feel were the little rows of sharp razors my two-week old had cleverly hidden under his gums. The mother/child bonding experience, which I envisioned as a beautiful, pastel Impressionist painting, resembled something out of a Stephen King novel. For the first time, I understood, on a visceral level, how someone could shake her baby to death. Fortunately, I was able to control myself and eventually, Danny and I both got the hang of it. After a month or two, it became easy.

Clearly, there is a lesson here.

I can go for a week eating five meals a day, never feeling all the way full. Then one day, I won't stop eating. I'll eat till I'm stuffed and I'll keep going. Or I'll play dieting games with myself, trying to stretch out the time between meals, trying to pick lower fat foods, or cleaner foods, or eliminate more fruits or starches. In short, I'm overthinking. But when I try not to think about it and abandon my planning and tracking, it's all too easy to convince myself that eating crap is "good practice," or "testing myself," or, when worse comes to worse, "the last binge and I'll be abstinent starting tomorrow." Ring any diet bells? I've traded one thing for another, and my recovery tactics are making me crazy.

I've read a few books that are helpful; The Four Day Win by Martha Beck is what I'm working with now. She advises you to set ridiculously achieveable goals for yourself and claims that when you implement these changes in your life, they become habit after only four days. I'm not sure how accurate the four day thing is for me--I can be very stubborn--but I love goals, and I love achieving goals even more. Making them accessible prevents the perfectionist in me from walking away when the going gets tough. I have a list of goals, such as not eating crap after dinner, not bingeing or purging (duh!), and sticking to a regular schedule in most aspect of my life. But for this week, my goal is to drink a protein smoothie in the afternoon between 3 and 4. It will fill me up, give me something to look forward to if I'm feeling like I need a treat, and carry me through the tough time between the kids coming home from school and dinner. After this goal gets cemented, the next challenges are to eat my fifth meal without guilt and to allow myself one treat/cheat every day without question. Although I think it's stupid to force myself to eat a spoonful of Nutella if what I really want is an apple, knowing I can have a chocolate bar or a homemade cookie or ice cream or a hoagie or pizza EVERY SINGLE DAY means that I don't need to eat them to excess in the last supper frame of mind. I also need to remember that treats in moderation (and believe me, at this point one candy bar or one piece of pizza is incredibly moderate) taste so much better.

I'm hoping that this can move me a baby step forward. Last night, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what my treat would be. It caused me so much anxiety that finally I threw in the towel and just made myself a second smoothie (and then I had anxiety over the almond butter I threw in to fill me up and the carbs and sugar in the half banana I added too. It just doesn't stop). But eating breakfast every day made me just as upset last year, when my nutritionist told me I absolutely had to, no questions asked. And now I love my breakfast. Maybe at this time next year, I will be loving my treat/cheats just as much, and having them whenever I want, but not more.