Update and musing on Portion Porblems

Well, Whedonfest is over and now time to get back into the serious work of trying to fix issues in my life.

Lets see... the Job fair gave me some interesting options as well as show me a MA program that sounds interesting and a good use of my skills. So there is some hope on the job front.

Ankle still hurts, so a lot of good exercise options are out. I need to get that looked at but the MRI isn't until 21 Aug and that means it isn't until probably September that something will be done about that. Totally fucking sucks. Maybe I just need to ignore the VA and treat this myself? It is worth considering.

My faith is going well, but I really should meditate more. I feel better after doing it so there really isn't a reason that I am not meditating except for the fact that my depression is making me want to hide from the world rather than deal with it. Gotta get over that crap.

House is semi trashed, but duh... Whedonfest. It did really well this year, but we do need to catch up on making the home environment serene...

So there you have that update. Now onto the other stuff.

Okay, so I am at 261 right now and that is disturbing. I hate this craziness that’s going on with my weight. It is really bothering me, especially because it isn’t like I eat badly. I like vegetables and salads, and all sorts of good for you food. Hell eating just chicken or fish would not be a huge hardship. The problem for me seems to be portion control. I don’t eat a lot of deserts or empty calories but I eat a lot of normal food.

I like food and truly enjoy eating excellent food. I am not sure as to why I seem to be more focused on eating larger amounts of food than I should but I need it to stop. I suppose I should get to weighing and measuring all of my food, so I only eat single portions and the like, but I am worried that I will fail. I guess that is a common worry for most anyone doing any weight loss plan. I just don’t seem to have a good idea in my head as to what exactly good portion sizes are. I know the pack of cards and those other measures but in a lot of ways that doesn’t really seem to help me. I guess I need to hunt that all down again and start seriously following it.

The other issue tied into this is that I seem to be the one in my family that ‘finishes’ food, thus getting extra. I have a difficult time turning down food or not completing my meals. Part of it has to do with the fact that my mother constantly talked about eating her monies worth. Paying for food and then not eating ALL of it really bugged her. She talked about that wasting money, which it is, but the message I took was not avoid over ordering but rather eat everything and then some, so there is a good value for your money spent.

Growing up, my mom loved taking my brother Brian and my best friend Tony out to all you could eat places. The joke about ‘You here four hour. You scare my wife.’ seemed to be very true in relation to our meals. Granted teenaged boys really burn calories but my mom did get a smug satisfaction when we would go someplace like Chesapeake Seafood House and eat all their food. The place stopped having an all you can eat night after we went there for the third time and ate for something like two + hours. It was obscene. But my mom considered it a great value.

I love getting the all you can eat sushi at Cathay and Cindy and I actually sit back and calculate the value of what I have eaten versus the value of what we paid. My personal best was a little over 60 dollars of sushi for 14 dollars. That is a lot of sushi. Now I don’t feel so bad about that, as sushi is not really that bad for you and that much sushi didn’t blow my weight watchers points for the day. But it does let me know that I have developed a similar mindset.

I have been proud lately of actually eating my meal and leaving food, especially eating out. Part of that is the ever increasing size of portions and the other bit is that I recognize that I DO NOT need to eat everything on my plate, that getting full is a great stopping point. I don’t like feeling bloated and way over fed. I get really food coma-ish and that is not comfortable.

Places I really enjoy the all you can eat thing and it not be a problem is at Ruby Tuesday. I can eat huge amounts of salad and be fine. The only bad things I eat there are the cottage cheese and maybe pickled beets. I really don’t put too much extra cheese on the salads as well. So that is not too bad, but otherwise, I really do eat a hell of a lot, volume wise. I need to eat less volume and I am sure that alone will have a major impact on my weight. Maybe even reducing the bad cards and sticking with the complex carbs the body needs. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like nothing but a hog, stuffing itself for market and that isn’t good for anyone.

I hate this shit.

So I am going to try and reduce my portion sizes. That will hopefully help. Add in eating better and that can hopefully really help my weight. I have a lot of hopefuls here and those are never guarantees, but you gotta try. I don’t want gastric bypass, but if I can’t do this and I keep gaining then it might be the only decent option I have available. Man that sucks. Effort first then surgery… The fact that I am even considering it distresses me but I am aware that I don’t want to heat into the upper twos or the threes and low fours that Brian got to. What a crap time to realize that HRT probably shifted my metabolism closer to my mom, sisters and brothers. So it goes.

Any way, here’s hoping that I can make this work.

Sometimes it hurts to move, and I am not sure if that is good or bad

Life has become all about moving around and getting things done. Too busy to be sedentary at the moment with keeping our house clean while processing Cindy's Mother's house. I ache everywhere from yesterday and I am sure I will ache tonight. This whole situation sucks with great suckatude. But it is a form of exercise.

Interestingly, I have been craving food that is at least moderately good for me. More salads and small portions. I am famblished all the time but nothing sounds good. Maybe Katie's pickiness is contagious. GAH! Anywho... I have actually lost a little since this whole mess has started, like 2 pounds or so. It's a something. If this whole situation weren't so screwed up I am sure we could cook, but we don't have the spoons for that, either of us but my Beloved has all but had her silverware tray stolen.

Well, back up today, then taking Sunday off and then back up Monday. Bleagh... the world of suck is everywhere. But at least I am still moving, and that might mean weight loss and better health at the end of this nonsense.

Good Friday

Well, I am certainly doing better today. I have not been nauseous at all, which is a good thing. I have done well with points and even made a really kick ass pasta sauce with three huge cloves of garlic, onions and canned tomatoes. It was yummy and had a nice kick after I was done seasoning it. Had it over penne with foccia. Tasty. I did pretty well this week, ending with flex points left over and everything. How cool is that?

So I am kind of looking forward to the weigh in tomorrow. I do hope that I have managed to lose those 3 pounds I gained back and then some. That would certainly make me feel better. Tomorrow's dinner though is going to be a free meal as it is Seder and I want to have all of the tastiness as well as my wine. So that should be fun. If I am good the rest of the week I should still lose.

Le Whine

Well, this week has sucked royally. Between stress and migraines and other pain, I have exercised little and eaten more. There were several days of major stress eating. I am trying to be good but some days it isn't easy.

That is going to be the hardest part of this Jihad, the working through such things and staying on points. I know it won't be easy and I am kind of dreading my weigh in tomorrow, afraid I have gained back, but so it goes. That's life and there is not much you can do about it except pick your ass back up and keep on going. Quitting isn't really an option if you want to live. You gotta live life on your feet and moving forward.

Sounds easy but it is not as easy as most people think.

Two days for the price of none

Sunday was pretty good except for the stress eating at the end of the day. But the food was purely for medicinal purpose only. Purely.

Today was a hell of a lot better. I earned some points doing T'ai Chi and stayed within them. That was good. Being able to have spaghetti and meatballs was a nice treat. We even had Garlic bread.

The sauce was great. I caramelized some onions in olive oil with some chili flakes. Then came the 5 cloves of garlic. When the onions were a deep golden color I added the wine. After that cooked off some, then the tomatoes. Lastly the jar of basic sauce are herbs. It was excellent.

St. Paddy's

St. Paddy's turned out to be a bad food day, but that is because I ate one of the prepackaged Yakisoba noodles. 12 points for something with a fairly blah taste, even after I tricked it out. Enough cleaning for some exercise, but again not much.

This prepackaged thing really bugged me. The packaging was listed as 2 servings for a single container. This isn't something that is meant to be shared with others so I was a bit bent to realize that a huge chunk of points were washed right down the drain with that. I really think for things like that the packaging should reflect the fact that it is going to be eaten by one person in one sitting.

It's like cokes and stuff, listing 2.5 servings per 20 oz bottle, when that is clearly going to be consumed probably at one sitting. Thankfully I saw a 16 oz coke with a full bottle label data. That was almost refreshing, pun intended. You know the whole Coke refreshing ad campaign... sigh...

Anyway, with obesity being such a major issue in this nation shouldn't labeling be more consumer friendly rather than company friendly? Granted it is basic math, but to be able to hold the bottle and see how many calories and such you are holding is a hell of a wake up. It is good marketing to break it into individual servings that few is any follow but realistic labeling would point out just how bad some of this crap is for you and that could be bad for business. Soft drinks alone are a huge market with a whole lot of money coming in. To label what things really are might dent profits and we know how unamerican that is. It is almost a crime to want to lower profits in the interest of health.

The fact that the soda industry has also pushed the high fructose corn syrup market, making it the number one additive to most everything, is another hit against your health. I read somewhere that soda and specifically the HFCS causes damage to the pancreas, which can lead to systemic issues. We have basically sweetened our way into bad health.

Now, I am not really all that enamored with sweets. Natural sweeteners in certain foods is generally pretty good for me, though chocolate is worth the sweet. But how many of those use the straight HFCS? Well, more than you might think and that disturbs me. So many things are sweetened with it that the total accumulation you can get from one meal is staggering. Straight sugar is bad enough but this stuff is far worse.

Maybe we can start getting foods that are not sweetened to within an inch of their lives? One of the reasons I prefer real Chinese food to American Chinese food is the sugar. Many of the Chinese dishes aren't that sweet but the American market almost demands it. Just ewwww...

So... anyway... I hope you had a good St. Paddy's and stuff.

Day in review, Tuesday

Let's see... Monday went well... a little exercise, staying mostly in points, all good. Today, went over on points but a chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk were worth it. I also went to a pain management group today in Nashville. It might be helpful as the woman leading it is mixing western and eastern approaches. Should be interesting.

Starting WW

Well, the anniversary was awesome. We ate at Bonefish grill and then went to Arrington Winery for a tasting. It was a lot of fun and it was a nice day overall. Granted, today I had to do a lot of housework, which does mostly count as exercise. It took a few hours but I did get a huge amount of the house clean.

Today we are starting with the Weight Watcher program. I lost over 20 pounds on that program and that was before I was given Remeron and it caused me to swell up. That sucked but the program did work for my Beloved and I. It isn't the most complex system around, just mindful eating and exercising. The point tracking does make you conscious of the food you are consuming and that is often all you need to lose the weight. It works if you stay motivated. This blog is supposed to help with that. :)

As for exercise, well we have talked about that and I do hope that I can manage to lose what I need to and get back into something that resembles shape. It certainly couldn't hurt.

The Problem with Weight Loss

Okay, so what is going on with me and weight loss? I can’t seem to get motivated to begin and keep going. It isn’t like weight loss is all that mysterious or strange, eating better, healthier and exercising. This isn’t rocket science but I really don’t seem to driven to change. Why?

I figure part of the problem is my self-perception. For the longest time I hated myself and hated my body, thanks to the trans thing. I still have issues with my body, at least one part and that does keep some of those feelings lingering, like my body isn’t worth the effort to keep healthy and to lose weight. This is of course amazingly stupid but who ever said the psyche ever made any sense. It isn’t my body’s fault that I was born male nor is it my body’s fault that I am mentally female. Things just sort of worked out that way.

Honestly, I should take care of my body now that I am a good way down the path of transition. My body is starting to match myself finally and I shouldn’t let one small body part derail all the other good things have happened. Hopefully I can get past that as being healthy can make surgery easier on my body and will make healing from that easier.

As for exercise… well, I know lots of exercise knowledge. I have done lots of martial arts, PT in the Army and having been on a crosscountry team and a swim team. I know what to do and my body remembers doing those exercises, I just have to do them. Doing stretching, a little Yoga, basic calisthenics, and Tai Chi would be a good start along with walking. I want to get back to swimming as I enjoy it a great deal and it is a great full body exercise. As I lose weight, I can move into more vigorous exercise and martial arts. That will be nice as I really do miss doing more of that.

As for food… well, I like to eat. Food is a great goodness and my wife is a hell of a cook. I think my biggest issue there is the amount I eat. I do eat several portions at the same time, especially in things I like, which is honestly most things. Portion control is more of my issue than what I eat. I am not really a big dessert eater so that isn’t where I am getting the influx of calories. But eating a bit smarter might help with the weight loss thing as well, especially if I can actually eat more vegetables and fruits. Actually, I am certain I don’t eat enough fruit so that should probably change.

I am rather partial to the meditrasian diet, as a lot of my favorite foods come from those regions. Sticking with whole grain pasta and maybe more brown rice would help a bit more and I actually like both. Maybe trying some of the Asian noodle variations like buckwheat pasta and the like would be good as well. I don’t know. The wife and I need to talk about that. Eating more fish would be good as well and less red meat. I mean, sure, steak every once in a while, but I do like chicken and fish a lot, with some meals being basically vegetarian. Gotta try something at this point.

I am just hoping that I can actually keep focus in this. I know that most any food is okay in the right portions and such, but I am worried about sticking to that. I am hoping that this works out for a change and that I can actually get past this. I hate being this weight, but I guess it does serve me right. I was pretty smug about being thin when my mother and brother and sister were all obese. Now, both my brother and sister are lighter than me, which is freaky. I have no idea if my mother has lost any weight, but I kind of doubt it. So, if that is a part of this, guys I am sorry for feeling that way about you. It was unkind and uncalled for.

Well, I hope that things can start to change starting Wednesday. If we can get the damn shopping list together and such, maybe. I just am tired of being fat. Ever since I started HRT I have swelled nearly non-stop. This is just sad.

Any way… you have to start somewhere… right?