I Hate My Bathroom Scale

Yesterday, once I had the opportunity to wear the thrill of holiday-ness for a few hours, I did something really stupid. (Imagine that)

I stepped on the scale and found myself up by a pound.

Man, I just never learn.

I really don't have a clear handle on why the scale has become such an obsession. For years, I didn't own one and I behaved like an emotionally well-adjusted person and gauged the success of my lifestyle by how my pants fit. Those were the good old days back in San Diego where the weather was perfect, the air tasted of salt and I could shed a hangover AND five pounds with a Bloody Mary and a greasy breakfast. I had abs back then.

I fondly refer to that time as B.C.(before children) because once the babies came, the loins were never the same again. And then I turned 40, had myself a mini midlife crisis and quit smoking. Kicking the habit was the best thing I've ever done for myself but years of all that oral/hand stuff (I know that sounds dirty) had to be replaced and unconsciously, I chose food. What I failed to realize until it was too late was that along with the bifocals, the ongoing battle with gravity and an irrational Aunt Flo, midlife took my metabolism and sent it to Mexico where I'm sure it is now enjoying an umbrella drink.

So, for the past three years, I have been waging a war on flab.

And mostly failing, which has gotten on my very last nerve.

Recently, I learned that the secret to permanent weight loss has very little to do with the exercise and everything to do with nutrition. Yesterday, I learned that the body can be tricked for about three days before it will begin to react to a deficit in calories. Then, thinking there might be a prolonged famine, it slows the metabolic furnace down to a flicker.

And the scale creeps up.

So, chronic dieters like me slash calories even further, which only makes the problem worse. Eventually, all that exertion in the gym and deprivation in the kitchen takes its toll and inevitably, the dieter will find herself staring out at the world from the bottom of a Girl Scout cookie box.

The solution? Eat more, more often and some days, eat less.

Counter-intuitive but true.

I hope.

Unplugged

Today is my first official day off of three.

I am positively giddy.

Whatever shall I do first?

I am unaccustomed to so much unfettered time on my hands and consequently, I am fighting the urge to make lists. There is that pesky dental appointment this afternoon with the kids so perhaps that will be enough to quiet the Type A beast inside.

There are several things that I do want to accomplish in the next couple of days but none of them are marked urgent so they're not really causing me any stress.

I want to plant the square foot garden that Dallas and I created several weeks back. After watching "Food,Inc." and reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma", I decided that this year, we would grow our own organic produce. Of course, the fact that I have killed cacti might indicate that my garden plans are a bit ambitious but I'm going to try. And I'll document every bit of it so together, we can laugh at my mistakes (sure to be numerous) and celebrate (hopefully) my small victories. Did I mention that before any of the planting can take place, the fourteen inches of snow that we got over the weekend has to melt? Oh yes. Welcome to Northwest Arkansas where you can be mowing the lawn one day and shoveling snow off the driveway the next.

I want to work out at the gym as if I were a Hollywood starlet with a personal trainer. I know that I sound like a freak of nature but I am really looking forward to hitting some fitness goals this week. AND I'VE GOT ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO DO THAT.

I want to clean out at least four junk drawers and two closets because order puts me at peace.

I want to spend a lazy afternoon at the bookstore with a coffee in hand.

I want a pedicure.

And a deep tissue massage.

It looks like there is a bit of a list starting here, in spite of my promise to myself to just let it flow, so I had better leave it at that and get on with my holiday.

It's the Food, Dummy.

So, I'm trying to lose weight.

You must be so tired of hearing me say that, right? I know because I'm sick to freaking death of even thinking about food and my bathroom scale and the fact that I work out HARD.

SIX DAYS A WEEK hard.

Sweat dripping off the end of my nose hard.

Breathless, sore, straining not to fart, hard.

Yeah, so last week was a nightmare as far as trying to maintain my routine because I had to eat most meals out and when the energy was flagging and someone offered up a cupcake, I was all, "Give me two."

Early Sunday morning, I hopped on the scale, stepped off and went back to bed figuring that I must have been really groggy because there was just no way that the number I saw could have been correct. Two hours later, I jumped on again and immediately, I wanted to give up, ferry my fat ass down to the nearest Krispy Kreme and embrace the doughnut whore inside of me.

(And yes, I understand that my relationship with food isn't healthy.)

What bothered me the most was that no amount of good behaviour in the gym or in the kitchen made a lick of difference. The scale didn't budge. Since October, I have exercised regularly and been mindful of what I've eaten, limiting my indulgences to a single day a week. I've worked out longer and harder with no measurable results on the scale although I now have the beginnings of some shapely biceps that I kind of like.

My mother's input? "It's the food, Beth. You're eating too much."

In my head, I told her to get stuffed but out loud, I reassured her that I couldn't possibly be consuming fewer calories.

The fitness magazines I read told me that if there was a prolonged plateau in the weight loss, it had to be food related.

"Keep a food journal," they said. Not likely, I thought.

One afternoon at the gym, I had a conversation with a woman I see there regularly. She's roughly the same age and same height but her body is like a sculpted statue of a Greek goddess. I figured she must have some sort of secret because how in the world does someone get that body? So I asked her.

She gave me a lot of advice that day but the thing that stuck with me was when she said, "Weight loss is 20% exercise, 80% food." Hmm...back to that food thing again. No denying it.

So, I started using this iPhone app called "Lose It" that tracks calories and exercise that I had downloaded last year but neglected to use with any regularity. I began this past Sunday by logging the calories that I had consumed that morning for breakfast.

And then I shat myself.

I had two fried eggs, two pieces of toast with butter and two cups of coffee with cream for a grand total of 886 calories which is the equivalent of a Big Mac and small fries.

IT WAS THE FOOD!!

Imagine that.

My handy dandy calorie counter has not left my side since and this morning, a mere three days after my epiphany, I have lost 5.4 lbs.

The only sucky thing about all this newly acquired hope is that I'm going to have to hear my mum say, "I told you so."

Update for a Monday

Hi!

How have you been?

I know that we haven't caught up recently so why don't you grab a coffee, sit back and let me fill you in.

First, work is crazy and there just isn't an appropriate metaphor to adequately describe my career lately. Let it suffice to say that my workday starts early, bleeds into my personal time and invades my dreams. I am both grateful and profoundly tired. Relief is coming but it will be summer before the pressure will ease.

This month, I was lucky enough to convince a client to consolidate two planned trips to Asia into one so instead of having to fly over there this week, I'm in the office. Next week, I have to take a short jaunt to Florida for four days but I'm not complaining. The weather in Northwest Arkansas has been cold and rainy and I welcome the dose of vitamin D coming my way.

In April, I'm taking a new client to Asia. We will be gone for two weeks and visiting Hong Kong, China, Thailand and Vietnam. I really like this client and look forward to helping her solve some of her sourcing issues but the truth is, I'm dreading the trip. It's a long time to be away from my family and to make matters worse, I arrive back to my home on a Sunday afternoon and have to turn right around the following day and fly to Vegas to work a trade show for four days with another client. My children are going to feel like orphans.

I intend to assuage my guilt soothe them with gifts.

Things have been pretty good on the home front, lately, with the exception of teenage daughter. Faced with in school suspension, Saturday school and summer school to make up for the hours missed and the failed classes, teenage daughter waved the white flag. She dropped out.

Of school.

Two and a half months before graduation.

I am not angry with her. I'm just sad.

However, I am angry with her mother who has about as much common sense as a houseplant.

I should probably stop there.

On a positive note, manchild did well enough on his armed services exam that he will be in the recruiter's office tonight discussing his career choices. Dallas and I are beyond thrilled. We know that basic training and adjustment to military life will be challenging for manchild but we think he will adapt and eventually excel. At the very, very, least, he will come out of his service with a marketable trade and a future. Without going into a bunch of gory details, manchild's commitment to study for and do well on the entrance exam, was the clearest example of maturity that we have seen in him yet. In spite of some rather misguided and emotionally manipulative opposition, he made a conscious decision to take control of his life. People are a bit like birds in that some of them take longer to fly. I think manchild is about to spread his wings.

Last week, we celebrated Olivia's birthday, hosted dinner at our house with my clients, sold Dallas's truck, bought a new car, been out to dinner with one of my Chinese factory owners, sold Dallas's Harley, did eight loads of laundry, worked out at the gym six times, cleaned the house, grocery shopped and purchased tickets to New Zealand for Christmas. (more on that later)

Last week kicked my ass.

But this week looks marginally better because I'm planning to drink green beer on Wednesday and celebrate my inner redhead.

Thanks for hanging with me. I'll keep you posted. (pun totally intended)

Are You Watching QVC?

Even though I fit, almost perfectly, the demographic for the shopping channels on television, I had never spent any time watching them and consequently, had never made a purchase.

That all changed last week.

On Wednesday morning, I found myself in gorgeous West Chester, Pennsylvania, attending a mandatory vendor class at QVC. My mood was best characterized as sour, resentful and stressed, especially when we were politely asked to shut off our phones.

Off? As in no power?
(Translation: Only the airlines have the right to ask this of us, right? RIGHT?)

Are you kidding me?
(Translation: I won't be able to monitor and surreptitiously respond to my email and text messages while you are trying to teach this class!)

Ok.
(Translation: Shit.)

You know, I've been on both sides of the retail desk. I've attended every leadership, skills-building, how-we-do-things-101 class available. I've nodded enthusiastically, while sipping purple Koolaid from the management punch bowl, as yet another Kenneth Blanchard book was discussed in detail. I've done the corporate cheer and I've been that knob that says, "There's no "i" in TEAM".

So, my attitude was please, spare me the freaking class because it's not like you've reinvented merchandising and I could be doing a million other productive things instead of SITTING IN THIS BLOODY CLASS. Send me a manual to slog through instead.

Except I was wrong. QVC is an impressive operation. They single-handedly created a niche market that drives billions of dollars in sales. I had no idea. They've got great products that solve problems at prices that make you sit up and take notice. And contrary to my preconceived ideas, the class was enormously helpful. My only regret is that I didn't attend it back in October when we first got our product approved. We would have avoided some of the bumps that we have experienced.

QVC is a brilliant merchandiser and they live and breathe their concept. When you walk in the front doors of their building, there is a giant flat screen television displaying their live feed. In the classroom, between speakers and during breaks, a projector screen was tuned to the QVC broadcast. I couldn't take my eyes off it. In exactly six minutes, I discovered that there was a product I couldn't live without.

Before leaving last Wednesday, I'd downloaded the QVC app for my phone and made my first purchase. Yesterday, it arrived at my door and this weekend, thanks to Miracle Finish I will be giving my kitchen table and cabinets a much needed face lift. I am abnormally excited at the prospect.

Consider me QVC-ified.

Senior Interrupted

I was going to write today about my new fascination with gardening or rather my fascination with the idea of gardening but then I got an email from teenage daughter's school and my whole day went to custard.

Last year, we asked teenage daughter to leave our home. There were many reasons and for the most part, that decision returned the earth to its proper axis. She was happier back living with her mother. We were happy to be free of the drama and our household collectively sighed with the release of the tension. Win-win-win, right?

Turns out, not so much so.

I received a note today informing me that teenage daughter has missed fifteen days of school since returning from winter break, which means she doesn't have enough time logged, even if she were to make passing grades, to get credit for her courses.


Which means that SHE WILL NOT GRADUATE.

At eighteen, nobody can tell you anything because you've got it ALL figured out. I know this. I was once that child and I've lived it. Strangely though, understanding the situation doesn't make it any easier to watch as the opportunities disappear and the choices narrow.

That deafening sound you hear is my heart blowing to bits....

....which, for a second, drowns out the voice in my head that whispers, "You didn't do enough."