Speedo Man and Outsiders/Insiders

Last night I was inspired by a man in speedos.  His name is Jerry Davis and a local news station in Portland showed this scantily clad man jogging between the piles of snow on the streets of Chehalis, Washington.  This is the genius that inspired me - he said that if he's not improving himself, he's working on dying and he's too young for that.  He is almost seventy years old and there he is, jogging much further and faster than I could dream.

People in the town have not always been very supportive of Jerry, but that has changed over time.  Some were disgusted by his presence, while others were accepting from the start.  A quick youtube search about this man will reveal what I'm talking about.  We can be so judgemental about each other until we take the time to get to know each other.

Which brings me to something that has been on my mind.  I noticed a large amount of complaints on fb about newbies populating the gyms to the tone of "Damn them with their resolutions!  They're taking up my space and time!" and scowling remarks as the resolutionists walk, instead of run(HOW DARE THEM!), on the tredmills.  This evidently has the same effect on the regular gym goers annually as they eagerly wait for the resolutions to fail after a few weeks.  I know because I was one of the regulars one year.

I had joined the gym in November and had been going regularly enough by New Year's that I considered myself to be one of them...kind-of.  I was somewhat between the two groups.  I simply began my resolution a couple of months ahead of New Year's crowd, so I was somewhat of a resolutionist-in-disguise as the hardcore regulars accepted me into their group.  Well, should I really say accepted?  It was more like the trainers would call me by first name and acknowledge my presence, I recognized the faces of the men who loudly grunted in the far corner with the free weights, and I was acquaintances with the guy who looked like Nino from the movie Amelie and an old man named Charlie.  None the less, it was significantly different from my previous gym going experiences (I did an ethnography about joining and going to the gym as my thesis for an Anthropology class a couple of years before this and had an extremely different result).  Anyway, I felt this time around that I was entitled by New Years.  Entitled to scowl at densely populated gym as I went inside.  Entitled to getting my time on the tredmill without such a long wait.  Entitled to see these new people as a passing fad.  Entitled to see them as outsiders and not belonging.

It felt good to feel this way.  I felt better than them.  It was ugly, hateful, childish, and false, but it felt good to my weak confidence.  It declared that I was one of the group, an insider at a gym!  WOW!  What an amusing thing this was!  Yet, I had to shun these feelings of entitlement out, because I knew what a lie it was.  I knew that I was one of them and they were me...I had only got lucky for the time of year in which I had joined.  It was as simple as that.

True to fashion, guess what happened?  I came down with a horrible cold mid-January and stopped going.  The end.  I followed my old pattern right along with the some of the resoltionists, and confirmed to the regulars that I was laboring all that time in a disguise.

So anyway, the whole point of this long post is to bring up the myth and reality of Outsider/Insider mentality.  It is a real division if we believe it is.  It is a cohesive social device in a group.  One of the ways in which we establish this social glue is to exclude others.  It is an ugly device in human nature, but it's there.  The bottom line is that this is all false thinking.  We know it is.  We know there are no outsiders and there are no insiders if we use higher thinking.  Jerry Davis is a spandexed one of us.  The resolutionists are only the regulars in an earlier form.  We need to have patience and handle each other carefully.  They are us and we are them...yeah, the ending of V for Vendetta thing.

After all, if we're not supporting each other in improving, we are supporting each other in dying, and we're all too young for that.

Juices is the Reason for the Season!

For my Christmas gift to myself this year, I bought a juicer.  I recently watched a documentary, "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead," in which a man goes on a juice diet for two months and loses 93 pounds.  Although only drinking juice for two months isn't practical, we can definitely take some advice and include it in our diets every other day or so.

If you're like me, breakfast is usually a chore.  I've just never been hungry first thing in the morning.  Now I can throw some random fruits and vegetables in the juicer and ensure I have a healthy breakfast to kick-start my metabolism before my busy days (and apparently it's better for me than coffee, although I still can't give that up completely).  It's fun to experiment with different kinds of juices. Here's a picture of my concoction from today - orange, sweet potato, ginger juice (it's also fun to say).

While I know I won't lose 93 pounds over the next two months, this will definitely help me with my own weight loss goals just in time for those pesky New Year's Resolutions.

Drum roll please...


Hold onto your hats!


I'm down to 168.8!!  That's -4.0 impossible pounds! (5.8 since Aug 14th)

No, I will be one of those people who tell you "this week was better because I did everything right.  I kept track of every calorie!", because that would be a lie.  This week was similar to the ones before.  I cannot explain to you why all of a sudden a body wants to function properly.  It puts up quite a fight sometimes when we are doing all of the right things and still do not see it reflected in emperical progress.  Our bodies can be so stubbornly resistant to change.

Fitness gurus get my [insert "feathers ruffled", or "panties in a bunch", or basically any polite way of saying "pissed off" or "-ing annoyed"] when they make losing weight seem so simple by saying, "It's all about burning more calories than you take in.  It's a numbers game."  Really?  Is it?  Because my body does not go by that simple formula.  It holds on.  It resists.  It fights to keep every calorie packed onto it for an energy savings account anywhere it can fit.  Sometimes it feels like a two-year old with a death grip on a sucker.  You know you're stronger than the two-year old, but it takes a long time to finally pull the chubby, sticky, clenched fingers off the little stick. 

Not that I'm running around stealing suckers from two-year olds world round, but you can imagine...any red flavor especially.

Do I feel different? Yes, a little.  I notice in the mornings that I physically feel a bit lighter...not as much gravity weighing me down I guess?  I've noticed that my stomach has lost some of it's padding.  I don't feel as fatigued during the day as I did before I started exercising more (about 6 weeks ago).  I don't have to rely on afternoon coffee for energy, though I enjoy it when I can.  I have slept a lot better and haven't had any insomniac spells since I started this, which truly is saying something.  There's less time of laying my head on the pillow before I am asleep, and I haven't had to do my countdown trick to get to sleep either....more on that later. 

Bring on Week Six!

Does this deodorant make me look fat?

I'll enlighten you all with a more thorough review of the Doctors Roizen's and Oz's book, "YOU: On a Diet" at some point in the near future (if I can finish it).  So far, readers' waists have been compared to convention centers and the moon, and I'm only on page 75.

Oh, and the accusation that I gained my weight stuffing eclair after eclair down my throat wasn't my favorite moment, either.   I could stand naked in front of a middle school pep rally and not get such insensitivity (although I could get jail time).  I am not advocating streaking your local middle school.

Then, while digging for more pearls among the pig poop in the book, I read another shocker.  Between incessant adolescent and seemingly not-very-well-thought-out similes, the doctors give us a possible excuse for our being overweight - our deodorant, namely deodorant with aluminum (which includes just about every stick of deodorant with an antiperspirant).  Pshew!  For years now, I've been under the impression that I've been carrying extra weight because I love to eat but hate working out.  Thankfully I have something other than myself to blame this on.  Finally!

equals 

Not so fast.  It seems after a pretty quick Google search, there isn't much support for the doctors' claim (they don't provide a citation, either), and, frankly, I'm not sure how much I can really trust them after comparing my waistline to the moon.

THE MOON!

The nerve.

The fact is that a very small number of those of us who are overweight or who have struggled with weight issues can blame the extra pounds on extraneous circumstances.  Again, those people are the extreme minority.  For me, instead of blaming my deodorant, my parents, the cycle of the moon, or President Obama (it just seems easy to blame the president for ANYTHING) for my extra weight, I need to be honest with myself and admit my weight came on from a love of all things starchy and fried, and sometimes nothing sounds better than pizza and breadsticks drowning in garlic butter at 9pm.  For most of us, the responsibility for our wanting to lose some excess weight starts and ends with ourselves, and that's okay.  Own it, and then start taking steps that work for us as individuals to fix it.

Refried Beans and Weight Loss: Krystal's Week One Results

The goals for week one were:
*  Exercising 5 days this week (3 cardio and 2 for weights/toning)  CHECK!
*  Achieve Weight Watchers points 6 days and can use extra points for one day if I want to - (There's a theory backing up this choice- the Wendie Plan)  CHECK!
*  All days multivitamin/fish oil pills and water intake.  6 out of 7 days


I lost 80 pounds of gravity, and am now waif-like.  Thank you, Weight Watchers and Tracy Anderson!
(Insert plastic smile with a gleaming teeth here, complete with sound effect of "ding!)  Okay, now for the real numbers...I lost 1.6 pounds this week and it's a good start. 

I worked for that number.  I mean WORKED!  It definitely made me realize that it's going to take a lot of dedication and determination.  That's alright - I'll do this.  It's time.  I will be like a slug crawling up your arm - slow, focused and consistant.  (NOTE:  I will not be like Mike Tyson and be ferocious with impetuous style and eat your children.)

Relevant Good Thing of Week One:  This burrito-

Made with the following ingredients:

 and

I can't say enough about the Rosarita No Fat Chile and Lime Refried Beans.  They are a true godsend of fiber and refried bean bliss without saturated fat.  Hats off to this little can!  I think it will be on our grocery list frequently in the future.  Matt and I loved it!  SO GOOD!  Also, I have to confess that I'm addicted to Mexican food and if I could I would eat it daily.  This is why I'm so happy about this little burrito of bliss.  You see a simple bean burrito, I see a revelation.

Goals for Week Two:
 *Exercising 5 days this week again, however 2 of the days I will do both the Mat and Cardio workouts back to back (this is what she suggests, however I never did this in the past).
* Achieve Weight Watchers points 6 days and can use extra points for one day if I want to - (There's a theory backing up this choice- the Wendie Plan)
* All days multivitamin/fish oil pills and water intake.
 
Love to all, and thanks for reading!  Now go find those refried beans!  Cheers!

But I'm Only 33

One week ago today, I woke up at 4:37am and couldn't move.  It took me nearly 15 minutes to get from my bed to my bathroom no more than 15 feet away and the entire time I feared that I was going to wet myself right there on my bedroom floor.  One week ago today, it seems, I turned 90 years old.

But I'm only 33.

The evening before, I was packing up some books and I had managed to pull something in my lower back with what was apparently an inappropriate lifting method.  I felt it slip and heard it pop and hurried to take a hot bath in the hopes that any damage could be quickly averted.  I was wrong.  One week ago today, I was reminded how increasingly important it is to take care of myself, especially as I get older.

I quit smoking a month and a half ago and it seems I replaced my pack-a-day habit with a Mac-a-day habit (curses to McDonald's for being everywhere).  In the six short weeks since I quit smoking, I have gained almost 10 pounds.  Pulling my back and being immobile for a week reinforced that it is time to do something about my not-so-young-and-spry-anymore body.  I had horrible flashbacks of a television show on TLC about how the world's fattest man had to be taken by flat-bed truck to the doctor, only after having the side of his house torn down so he could be taken out.  No thank you.

I remember the last time I was thin.  Toni Basil's "Micky" was popular and people called me Sammy.  It was 1982.  I was 4 years old and my love for all things fried and starchy had not yet kicked into overdrive.  When I first started gaining weight, I would pray at night. "Dear God, please let me have my baby while I sleep so I can wake up skinny," I would silently beg with my pudgy fingers interlocked and my young mind clueless about how babies were made.  "Love, Sammy," I would end, so the big guy would know it was me and not some other husky kid in my small town.  You know, just to be sure.

Fast forward 29 years later (how can that have happened so quickly and I still look 26, 27 tops?) and it's time I finally have this stinkin' baby.  I'll be working out consistently and eating foods that are better for me.  This is goodbye to my McDoubles from the dollar menu and hello to much better choices.

I'm not getting any younger.