Some Things I've Learned About my Body

You know, every body is different, everyone is different, but every body is a little different, too.

As I go on this journey of body and food and health, I'm learning things about my body and I'm learning to accept things about my body. Here are some things about my body, they are okay, they aren't bad, some people will share each of these things, some won't. They are part of what make me unique and make my body mine.

• I have thick legs. From big thighs to big knees to big ankles, my body keeps width and breadth and fat in my legs more than anywhere else. My thighs will always touch, and my calves will always be big. But in addition to being large, my legs have a great capacity for muscle. I remember being on crew and having nearly the most powerful legs on the team, and now as yesterday I did 40 squats, 30 calf raises, and 30 lunges yesterday along with an hour of cardio and hardly a groan or whimper from my legs today I'm reminded that my legs are strong; they are get-me-places legs. I used to hate my legs, but now I think that it's very unfortunate that I had such a limited idea of beauty that it would even cause me to turn against myself.
• My ribs are wide from the front view and narrow from the side. This is sort of the opposite of what I expected or wanted when I was younger. There are only a few inches between my hips and ribs in my  waist so when I get smaller a lot of the smaller happens from the profile view, it makes my waist-to-hip ratio from the profile look to be about 60% where from the front it looks to be about 80%. Really, this is just how different bodies are. Would I be so bound to societaly approved idea of Caucasian beauty that, like the Victorians, I'd have my floating rib removed to make my waist look smaller from the front view? I'm ashamed to say that in my early 20s I would have considered it. Now, no, I wouldn't. 
• I have wide shoulders. 

Lemons and Fruit Water

I've decided to try and add more lemon to my diet. It doesn't seem difficult at all and I've read a lot about the benefits of lemon.
It became really apparent to me today that I could do this easily because I'd made a pitcher of lemon water. I can't remember if I blogged about fruit water but it's something I've been trying this summer; making fruit waters (last summer I tried making your own fruit popsicles, which were nice but required  a lot of cleaning and blending. I'd probably enjoy it more this year but I'm not really feeling it). I know the blogs I read talked about eating the fruit after the water was gone but I've found the fruit has gone sort of soft and flavorless by the time the water is gone so it just goes the compost. Some of them were good, like the melon water, others haven't been so good. Yesterday I chopped up a skinned lemon and half a skinned lime and tossed it in to make lemon water.

It's delicious.

Like, shockingly delicious.

I may drink the whole pitcher tonight.

Lemons aren't very expensive. Thus, Yay! I have found a way to incorporate more lemons into my diet.

P.S. The reason I don't use lemon juice is because a lot of the lemon juices have added sugars or flavorings or preservatives. It just seems better to use the real thing, you know?

Regular Lunch

Hey folks. I wanted to show you guys what I would normally eat for lunch, or, say, my second meal of the day (which can really happen any time between 11 and 6).

Here we have a plate with a serving of salmon. I might switch this up salmon, talapia, chicken, beef, eggs if I'm feeling really lazy, nuts and Greek yogurt if I'm feeling really really lazy...

Also, we have about two servings of pasta. After I took the picture I added half a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, organic cayenne powder, organic paprika, Parmesan cheese, and three chopped basil leaves. That's pretty normal for me though usually I'll add garlic instead of cayenne. I felt spicy today.

The veggies are one large sauteed mushroom and the other half of the giant zucchini I got from my garden a few days ago. To them I added garlic and pepper and a pinch of salt (1/6 of a teaspoon), and sauteed them in a tablespoon of olive oil. And, because I felt like it, though I don't do this every day, I shredded a little mozzarella over the top.

Then I proceeded to eat only half the plate before I was stuffed and put the rest in the fridge for dinner. Ah well.

Garden Update with Pictures! 6/27

My Garden in June.

The entire thing, taken from standing on a stool.

my oregano is doing beautifully

cayenne pepper

My garden extension, 4 kale plants and a tomato

Basil. I have 24 basil plants

watermelon flowers, I do have a small watermelon started

New endive since the first ones are going to seed

Cucumbers are growing

an areal shot of the sage 

The replanted thyme. It's coming back quite well and I presently have cuttings of thyme
sage, and rosemary all in glasses, hoping they take.

tomatoes!

My chard is doing very well

Dinosaur kale, which I always confuse and call dragon kale.

Regular kale. I see why it's more popular, it's not as
tough

broccoli, hasn't made a head but the leaves are pretty good. I learned last week
that the broccoli of a friend down the road has only made one head
and most of his plants are MUCH smaller than mine.

More tomatoes!

I know I planted a Mexican zucchini and something; I think it's pumpkin...

Wonderful lettuce among the Russian kale

Zucchinis!

Exercise

Yesterday I did use the 8 lb weights when I was on the stair machine. That was good as I started sweating after about 9 minutes and continued to the entire 45 minutes.

I still used the 5 lb weights for the exercises, I admit I'm a little concerned about the extra 6 pounds doing damage to my weak spot. Did the 40 squats and 30 calf raises. I feel a little tender in my shoulders, probably from holding the 8 lb weights plus the normal shoulder exercises but not sore at all in my legs.

I held the plank pose both front and on each side for 3 sets of 40 second each. 2 minutes in total. I also did 2 sets of alphabet bicycle crunches (A-A through Z-Z would is one set). Abs are not sore.

15 push-ups. Pecks are sore. Seems to be about the only part of my body that is.

I plan to get to 50 squats and 20 push-ups. Holding the plank poses for 2 minutes strait is also a goal. Not quite sure what I'll do after being on the stair machine with 8 lb weights gets easy, but I'll deal with that if I get there.

Body and Health Update 6/26

I've decided to break this up into subheadings since I'm discussing different things:

Exercise:

I bought new weights yesterday.
8 lbs this time. I was finding that I could go nearly an hour on the stair machine with the 5 lb weights, and 90 minutes without them. Having a work out where the "cardio" takes 90 minutes isn't feasible. Though, it was fun; I watched the Lord of the Rings extended edition over the last week. Originally I wanted 7 or 7.5 lb weights but they didn't have them at Target. All they sold were 6 and 8 pound weights (I should clarify, they did have 7 lb kettle bells, that were more than $20 each, I just don't have the money for that). Since 6 is close to 5, 8 pounds it was.

With the increase in weights I intend to drop the time of my cardio back to 48 minutes (aka, the length of an episode of Fringe).

The stair machine from Wal-Mart is holding out quite well, despite a marked increase in the time I spend using it.

My work out has moved to 1:45 of plank and side planks, though I have split it up into 35 second holds rotating. I think I could pretty easily move it to 3 sets of 40 seconds each, but I found that a minute and 1:10 were pushing the limits of my attention span, the rotation of shorter times allows me to effectively distract myself. I have also moved to 2 alphabet sets of bicycle crunches. The first time for this increased amount was yesterday and I'm surprised that I'm not sore. My workouts also regularly feature 40 squats, 30 calf raises, and 12-13 push-ups in addition to the shoulder exercises I do with the weights while I am on the stair machine. I also have started doing a some squat jumps on the days where I'm energized. I have begun to stretch more as well, as sometimes I feel a bit stiff after long workouts. I stopped doing the high knees, they were good for my cardio level but drained me so quickly that I found myself actively resenting them, and the goal is to enjoy working out, it's not supposed to be mental "work". maybe I will try again later, but not now.

Eating:

I'm still doing the no sweetener thing, still enjoying it, still plan to do this the rest of my life. I do go through days or a period of a few days where I will crave candy/ice cream/cake/chips/croissants. I usually just end up eating more fruit, or pasta.

I've also noticed that a lot of my food cravings come from external food triggers/hunger stimuluses, which are often quite strong, and which just piss me off. I mean, really piss me off. People trying to manipulate me makes me angry. Being hungry makes me irritable. When I'm hungry and know it's because advertisers/businesses are manipulating me through my animal urges, well, it's not a good mood. It also makes me angry because people who fall pray to these incredibly powerful and subtle manipulations are villainized for it but the companies who do it are praised.

"Regular" American food (read; mac and cheese, pigs in a blanket, white bread, sweets, potato chips) has been giving me stomach cramps if I eat it, even though it is eaten rarely. If, by chance, I end up having two events in the same week (like I did last week, a dinner with friends Thursday night and then a wedding with a dinner Saturday night), it seems to be worse.

Case in point, I've been feeling gassy and bloated and gross all week. I think I'm beginning to develop an aversion to processed food. At the wedding I found myself thinking 'do I really want to eat this?' rather than 'Yay! Rule free event!'

Also, I've begun regularly taking vitamins, which only leaves  me nauseous about half the time I take them. I have learned I can't take them with breakfast, apparently an egg, a piece of buttered toast, an apple, and coffee is not enough of a "meal" to keep me from spending the next 3 or 4 hours swallowing down bile. Also, taking them at night is torture. So, lunch, which is undoubtedly my biggest meal of the day and the one I eat the quickest, is really the only acceptable time to take them (I say them because I take a multivitamin as well as one of 3 B supplements, usually folic acid, and a kelp supplement since my budget has restricted the buying of seaweed snacks).

Weight:

The last time I was on the scale, which was mid-month, I was 178. This means that I have lost (a little more than) 15% of my January body weight and that I am no longer "obese." I admit that I am hoping to be less than 175 when I move.

When I look in the mirror, I still see the same person. I still regularly refer to myself as fat.  I know it bothers my sister, who says I am not fat, but I think that her and I are coming from such disparate directions that I cannot explain it to her. To me, this makes sense; I don't change, the appearance of the girl in the mirror doesn't change. If how she looked/looks is "fat" than I will always be "fat." Part of my identity is being "fat." Why am I to try and find a new word that fits for merely "overweight"? Would any stranger be so kind? No. Additionally, I have no desire to join a part of society that would have rejected me previously (and, likely, still does). If I was an outsider I have no interest now in being part of the group.

I have been wondering recently what is likely to happen to me if my weight falls into the only-slightly-overweight category (1 to 10 lbs). This, assuming I continue with my present style of eating and exercising, is a reasonable conclusion at some point in the next year. I do not believe my discomfort with the privileged thin culture will have changed at all. At the same time, I do understand that there is a strong feeling of general distrust and animosity among larger folk towards people who are thin, whether they have "achieved" it or whether they were simply gifted with it. Will I find myself a true outcast or will I find that there is an entirely different sector of people, one largely ignored in the us vs. them war-on-fat?

But I digress.

Sizing:

In addition to having now lost 32 pounds, I also easily fit into a size 14. I can put on a size 12, but I am not a believer in if-you-can-zip-it-it-fits, and the bulge around the top says I am not yet a size 12.

I went through quite a lot of my old clothes in the garage and found that the smallest size seems to be a size 11, which is about a size 8-10. This was both when I was a junior in high school, and when I was on Crew in college. I think one can pretty reasonably argue that 8-10 would be my "ideal" size.  I also find it interesting that there was something like a 15 pound difference in my weight between the two times I wore the same size. Though I do wish I'd known then what I know about sugar now.

The smallest point of my middle is 33.5 inches, just above my belly button is 36, and the widest point of hips/butt is 43. Recently the measurement around my ribs seem to have grown, from 34 to 35 inches. I don't know why or if I'm just not measuring the same.

Sleep:

Sleep is still difficult. Even when I am utterly exhausted I find it hard to fall asleep without some assistance. I find it very hard to quiet my mind long enough for sleep to take hold, and I often jerk back in to waking just as I'm about to fall asleep. I often fall asleep around 1 or 2 a.m. And I am more than capable of sleeping 9 hours a night, which my body does every time it gets the chance.

On a lighter note, I have begun to dream of DC and they have been good dreams. This is very unexpected but leaves me much more optimistic than I have been, because I believe that my subconscious still believes I have made the right decision, in spite of my conscious doubts about my ability to make any right decision.

Update on Me and The Magic Eye Gift of Beauty

Sorry I haven't given an update on my garden. It's had its ups and downs but generally it's doing very well and right now I don't have to buy any veggies except maybe an avocado or an onion or some mushrooms from the grocery. Hopefully I will actually get around to giving an in depth garden update. I should be doing some very important other things so there's a fair chance I'll do the update instead.

I did my monthly weigh. I've now lost 31 pounds, from January 5th to June 11th. I no longer fit the medical definition of "obese."

I kind of want to discuss that.
I guess I'm not "fat" anymore, at least by a Southern definition. I know that the definition of fat varies incredibly. I feel like it should be a big deal, and for about an hour it was.

But... when I look in the mirror I see the same person I saw 31 pounds ago. I might catch glimpses of differences but overall she looks quite the same to me. No significant change of any kind. Other people see a change. I don't.

I've come to understand that about myself.

I don't expect to "see" a change.

I could lose another 31 pounds and I would still see the same person.

So, it's not about (can't be about) changing how I look, to look better, because my eyes can't see anything else. It has to be about health, about kindness to myself, because "better" is a result I will never be able to see with my eyes.

When I look at myself I always see the same "flaws" and the same body. I've learned that I can't create myself beautiful, I have to learn to see myself beautiful. Like seeing a magic eye picture, I have to learn to look differently, or I'll never see what I want, no matter how the picture changes.

I don't feel much different, but I can pull my knees closer to my chest now, and when I'm driving and I wedge my foot against the door (I know, if I get in a car accident it's going to break my leg) my knee doesn't touch the steering wheel now. Also, my clothes are loose and sometimes I can see some muscle tone in places I couldn't before.

The biggest change is my endurance. Work outs can now go 90 minutes. I can hold a plank pose for a minute (three minutes in a row with roughly a 10 second break in between), I can do 7 or 8 real push ups, the weights I hold while doing cardio are heavier. Those are the big differences.

Hopefully, one day I'll be able to look in the mirror and see a beautiful body, no matter the size or shape, and that once I can finally look with the right eyes I'll be able to help other people see with those eyes, too.