Friday Goals

Well, I will definitely be GOMA this weekend. Lots to do!

• Go on hike Sat morning (see events page for details)
• Take picture for holiday cards
• Take annual family holiday portrait
• Attend yoga class
• Meet Barb for dinner
• Start sorting and wrapping
• Start assembling gifts
• Start assembling holiday cards
• Write annual holiday letter

I don't think I will have to SOMA this weekend at all! Go me!

And what non-couch activities do you have planned? Do tell!

As explained in my first blog post, I created this web site in hopes that I can help motivate other people like me to get to the summit. Today, I was asked to clarify this a bit further.

Who are people "like me"?

Well, I am morbidly obese. I have struggled with it all my life. True story: Growing up, the main exercise I got was running off to hide in the woods behind the softball field during gym class. There were train tracks back there, and I remember being afraid of the trains, but that was not anywhere near the fear of being in gym class. Seriously, as a child that young, I was so filled with shame and self-loathing that I would rather have been hit by a train than have people see me in shorts, be picked last for the team and all the other joys of gym class.

I'm 45 years old, but I try not to act it. True story: I was having dinner with some (older) friends a few weeks ago. I mentioned how happy I was that I went to a rock concert at a club a few days prior, I told how great the concert was [Blitzen Trapper] and how I stood by the stage screaming and dancing and the band high-fived me coming off the stage. And the BEST part was that the bouncer made me show ID to get into the club! To which my "friend" replied, dead serious, "Really? Was he going to give you the SENIOR DISCOUNT?"

But I digress. What I mean when I say "people like me" I mean other folks who struggle with their weight, and are not neccesarilly young and athletic.

What it is "the summit"?

Well, when I think back to being in that gym class, I remember the terror, the knots in my stomach, the abject horror of the thought of someone seeing me run, having someone see my body parts jiggle and bounce, having people see me sweat and breathe hard and always come in last. I was able to overcome those fears as I wrote about previously. But for many obese people, those fears are still there, and they are what keep us not just from exercising, but from enjoying life.

For me, the summit means not just facing those old fears head on, but being done with them and putting them in the trash where they belong. Your personal summit might be coming along on that first hike or bike trip with me listed on the events page. For others, it might be replying to a blog post annonymously and saying, "I'm here, I'm reading, I'm too scared to come out to an event but I'm listening, and maybe someday..."

The Goal of This Site

My main goal with this web site is to get people who might otherwise stay inside -- out of shame, out of fear -- to get outside with me. I'm not going to turn you into a super athelete, I just want you to know that being obese does not have to mean that you have to hide indoors in shame and fear. I am proof of that. Come outside with me into the light, there is comfort and joy in numbers.

Comments from previous blog:

(Anonymous) at 2009-12-10 20:16 (UTC) (Link)

Is this thing on?

But you're my "People Like Me."

A Taste of Tuesday

On occasion, I like (well, "like" is a bit of a strong word -- more like "tolerate") using that big heaty thing in my kitchen... oh, what's the technical term for it... oh yeah! The stove! I use the Stove on occasion. The fact that there really aren't a lot of lap band specific recipes out there, coupled with the fact that I don't like any that I've found, have caused me to create some lap band friendly recipes of my own. Now, by lap-band friendly, I mean stuff that generally has some nutritional value, tastes good, and doesn't make me throw up.

I created the following recipe while trying to make chicken pie. Most chicken pie recipes call for some kind of dough or pastry, which isn't particularly lap band friendly. So I wanted to make a crustless chicken pie. But crustless chicken pie is chicken stew, which I didn't want either. So, I came up with this casserole that firms up. Then I got sick of making it with chicken, and threw in some sausage. Now I usually leave the chicken out all together, but you can do what ever floats your little boat. So I now present to you:

Dee's Not Chicken Pie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 packages of Adel sausage (I usually use the chicken and apple one, but any will work), chopped (or 2 packages of cooked chopped chicken (I use the boneless skinless thighs) or 1 package of each chicken and sausage)
• 1 bag frozen veggies, thawed or nuked for a few minutes (I like the pea, carrot, corn and green bean mix, but use whatever you like)
• 1 container ricotta cheese (I use fat free -- I don't remember the size, but it's bigger than the small one)
• Shredded cheese to taste (I use 1/2 bag of Sargento low-fat cheddar or the 4-cheese blend. The Kraft Free cheeses are less expensive but they don't melt well and generally taste like ass.)
• 2 eggs or 1/2 cup egg beaters
• Black, white and red pepper to taste (I tend to use lots being the spicy chick I am.)

Directions: Beat the eggs and mix in the ricotta, shredded cheese and spices. Fold in the veggies and meat. Spray a casserole dish with Pam and dump the mixture into it. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes or until the ricotta is set.

Note: I usually break this up into 4oz servings and freeze, it freezes and nukes really well.

Diet Tip From Dee!

Okay, I promised in the FAQ that this is not a diet advice site at all. But I do have one diet tip that I would like to share that I just discovered recently. To curb your appetite, always eat your breakfast while checking your friends page on Facebook. In recent days, I have been treated to:

• Close up pictures of a friend's infected foot
  
• Pictures of another friend eating what appears to be a cricket (apparently a delicacy in some places)
  
• By far the most disgusting, pictures of another friend eating a Windows 7 promotional 7-patty Whopper.
  

Of course, this diet tip only works if you have slightly... odd... friends, but it actually only takes one or two to help you curb hunger!

Bon appetit!

Friday Goals

Well, it's Friday again. Time to set some goals for the weekend. Unfortunately, my last set of Friday goals were derailed by illness, so my goals for this weekend are pretty similar:

• Paint Timmy (I finished his paper mache tonight, and put out the call for rebar on Freecycle)
• Go the Cocoa Village Arts and Crafts show. RSVP to me if you plan to come along!
• If Timmy is dry and has legs and shoes, take him out to be photographed for the annual holiday card. If he does not have legs and shoes, stay home and rectify the situation as time is getting short!
• -Alt--If it doesn't look like Timmy will be complete, see if I can safely use Rudolph one last year

So tell me -- what are your goals for the weekend? Watching TV doesn't count!

Perspective

Sometimes when I am feeling down I try to think hard about what is that is really missing from my life. It's far too easy to convince myself that if I had more money or was thinner or had something I could be happier. But the fact of the matter is what is almost always missing is just perspective.

A true story: David was gone for most of the summer on a consulting job. One morning, I awoke to find all 5 of our cats WAY too interested in my slippers lying beside my bed. I got out of bed and lifted my slippers to find one very unhappy frog under them. The cats all converged, and with my husband 500 miles away, I had no choice but to wrestle the poor frog away from the cats myself. This is probably TMI, but I generally sleep nekkid... so there I am, nekkid, holding a very unhappy frog with 5 very excited cats wanting their toy back. With one hand holding the frog, I wrapped as much of myself in a blanket as I could, and went out onto the side porch to release the frog. I muttered to myself and the frog, "Dang, it, I bet no one in the world is having a bad a day as I am already."

The frog turned around, gave me the stink eye and said, "YOU? YOU? You are having a bad day? I just got attacked by 5 freaking cats!" Well, okay, he didn't actually say the words, but I saw it in his little froggy face. And I realized that no, I was not having the worst day in the world, and in fact, I probably was not even in the top 10. And I most definitely was not having a worse day than the frog.

The next time you are feeling down, perhaps needing a little motivation, step back, take a deep breath, and remind yourself, "At least I'm not the frog!"

On Being Good and Bad

One of the things that comes up often in relation to eating is the concept of "good" and "bad" foods. Salad=good, cookies=bad. I've spent a lot of time in the past associating what I eat with how I judge myself. If I had a hunk of cake, I was a bad person, if I had a salad I was good. Even knowing that raw veggies upset my stomach, I would still feel good about myself for eating a salad, despite being curled up in the fetal position from the stomach pains. But at least I was "good".

In hind sight, it's easy to say that this was completely insane on many levels. In the first place, food is just food. It isn't good or evil, and consuming food doesn't make me good or evil. But more importantly, why judge myself at all? As an atheist, I don't believe anyone or anything is inherently good or evil, especially not food. But for some reason, I, and many fat chicks, feel the need to judge ourselves by what we eat or what the number on the scale is.

I think we need some perspective. Here is my list of foods that there is legitimate reasons for feeling good or bad about eating:

Bad Foods:

• Wheel bearings -- despite the high iron content, they hurt your teeth
• Chick peas -- they are nasty and feel like you're eating little tiny icky eyeballs. And worse, at parties they sometimes disguise themselves as cheese dip, when in fact, it is Hummus, which is ground chick peas, which is the only thing more evil than whole chick peas.
• Hitler's brain -- I saw a movie about this once. Not something one should eat.

Good Foods:

• What ever you need or perceive that you need to sustain your mind and body.

The point here, is that food and consuming food does not make you good or evil. Whether you are good or evil depends on your own definition, which, at least for me, changes from day to day, and minute to minute. Right now, my definition of "good" is someone who keeps the litter box clean. My definition might be something different in the morning, but it doesn't ever have to be anything more; I don't need to rate myself as good or evil, I just am.

Your mission -- should you choose to accept it -- is to just be. Don't call yourself good or bad, and if you feel you must make a judgment, make it over something real, not about something you ate. Unless you ate some chick peas, in which case, you probably are evil.