Synchronized Swimming

Thought I'd take a minute to post real quick and let you guys know that I did go swimming Tuesday. We had a lot of fun and I got sunburned everywhere I didn't have sunscreen (eyelids and scalp...wth with the scalp burn? it isn't that thin is it?). I spent almost the entire hour and a half keeping busy, whether I was swimming laps or walking or doing strength training. I felt it when I went to get out of the pool, but the next day I was fine which makes me wonder if I was really doing anything at all lol. I want to hurt, I want my muscles to ache!!

Tanner and I are a great swim team btw! He swam a few laps with me at the beginning and then went off to have some fun with the kids. Every once in a while, I would give him a choice of getting out of the pool to go up the massive slides they have there (its quite a job for him to climb) or come and swim one lap back and forth.

I'm going to get some diving sticks or something this weekend so that we can incorporate that in our workout as well. The diving sticks are great too because it gets the kids interacting with him. I was so upset Tuesday because Tanner and a few kids were playing with his water football having a great time, a kid came up and started talking to him so Tanner told him he was deaf and looked for me to interpret. I swam over and asked the kid what he wanted to say, but I could already tell that the sound of Tanner's voice had freaked him out. He just put his hands up and said "no, thats ok, nothing." I told him it was fine, tanner was just deaf and I could interpret for him, did he want to play too? Again the kid acted like he was going to catch it from Tanner or something and just swam off :( It honestly doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it makes my heart break for tanner :( He could have cared less though, he just went on playing with the other kids lol so who has the problem with it?

I've also sorted out a scam to get Tanner more motivated to exercise. It's going to sound bass ackwards, but I think it makes sense. We are going to have one night a week where we eat out and Tanner gets to pick the spot...as long as he gets 20 minutes of physical activity a day in at home. If he doesn't get the 20 minutes a day, then we don't eat out that Friday. The food isn't so much a "reward" per se, but more of a way to make it make sense to him: If you work out, then you can afford to splurge every now and then. You don't work out, you can't afford it. We'll see how well this goes over. He's gotten rather used to fast food.

Erik took him to tour the high school and he said that Tanner was pretty much the heaviest kid he saw there :( Again, the guilt is immense. I sometimes wonder if I'm ever going to be able to undo any of the damage we've done in regards to his ideas about food. I swear to you, the kid does not have a FULL sensation. He eats and I KNOW he has to be stuffed, but he will ask for more. I know it is partly because of some of the medication he is on, but geez...when you can out-eat me, you are consuming at the professional level.

Ok, I hear him coming in the door as I write so I have to sign off so that we can go to pool again! Not sure how to keep my scalp from burning though...any suggestions that don't involve me donning some dorky headpiece or putting sunscreen in my hair? Trust me, I have quite a look going in just the swimsuit.

I was reading today that Utah Congressman, Rep. Jim Matheson, introduced a bill yesterday called the LEAN act (short for Labeling Education and Nutrition). It would require that fast food chains and restaurants post calorie counts for the foods they sell on the menus we use to place our orders. I assume this would include drive through menus as well as in-restaurant menus. Apparently, it also allows them to disclose information upon request of the customer in a number of ways which could include an appendix at the back of the menu, by offering a supplemental menu, or by including an insert with the main menu. It also stipulates that all nutritional content be available for consumers upon request (but not required to be on the menu itself).

Honestly, I already thought there was a requirement for restaurants to have nutritional information available upon consumer request, but maybe not. I for one think it is a great idea. I know that once I sat down and started looking at the calories and fat in some of the meals I typically ordered at these restaurants, I was shocked. It prompted me to find healthier items on their menus that I could order in the future, which I’m guessing will have a direct impact on my weight loss efforts.

One thing I would hope this legislation might do is motivate various fast food chains and other restaurants to come up with healthier fare. I can’t help but think that many people would alter their choices if the calorie count for their meal was staring them in the face. If that happens, demand goes down for the unhealthy options and the powers that be have to come up with healthier meal plans providing more variety for those of us watching our waistline or just simply trying to live healthier.

One article I read actually had people griping about these requirements, complaining that they didn’t think Congress should be “butting in” on their choices and forcing the restaurants to make this information easily available. I’m sorry, but I don’t get this line of thought. It isn’t as if they are forbidding McDonald's from selling the Big Mac or forbidding the consumer from purchasing whatever they want, they are just making it easier for the consumer to make an informed decision about what they are consuming. In a time where childhood obesity and adult obesity is soaring, I think it’s definitely a good idea to help educate people about what they are eating. I just don’t understand the reasoning of a person who would rather keep their heads in the sand and embrace their ignorance.

What about you? How do you feel about this type of legislation? Too invasive or long overdue?

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Put down the banana and step away from the scale and nobody's going to get hurt!

Since weighing myself this past Monday, I’ve been fighting the urge for daily weigh-ins. My weight has always been unpredictable, even when I’m trying to lose weight so I really want to know whether I’m still headed in the right direction. However, as we all know, your weight can fluctuate daily and even throughout the day. Chronic weighing usually just ends up making us crazy and contributing to our stress level which…you guessed it….makes us more likely to stress eat. In my case, chronic weighing also is closely connected to my bulimic days so it's not a healthy pastime for me.

Until today, I had successfully managed to avoid my scale. I think what prompted today’s weigh-in was something I feel was a “cheat” last night. It wasn’t really a cheat because even adding it up in my head, I know that I was still under my calories and fat for the day, but for some reason, psychologically it still feels like I cheated.

I have been super exhausted the last few days. I think it’s due to finally (TMI alert: skip to the next paragraph if you’d rather not know the ins and outs of my cycle) getting my period after several months. With Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) you can have very unpredictable periods. When you go for more than two months, you are supposed to contact a doctor for something to trigger a period; I think they use some kind of progesterone pill. Often, I notice that when I get back on my glucophage or lose a bit of weight it will trigger a period and that is what happened in this case. During my period, I generally tend to have at least one day where I am completely wiped out, so I don’t know if the several days of lethargy I’m currently experiencing are due to the fact that my body is making up for lost time or if I’m still trying to adjust to an earlier work schedule. I think it’s probably the former.

Yesterday when I got off work, I went right to bed. I knew I had about ½ an hour before T got home and I thought that maybe I could get a little nap in before he got home. I had to work a bit later that night and knew I’d never make it if I didn’t get a little refresher nap. I ended up falling right to sleep, T came home and had received a new game from gamefly so he was happy to entertain himself a bit while I grabbed another half hour or so of rest. By the time I woke up, it was getting late and to be honest, I just didn’t feel like cooking. We could have had sandwiches, but T was moaning about that so I just grabbed the keys and went to our local Popeyes. From my earlier research I knew exactly what I could get without going off plan. I knew I was going to have to get rid of the skin and I’ll tell ya…I knew it was going to be hard. I tried to talk T into getting rid of his, but he wasn’t having any of that. I did manage to trash the skin AND the biscuit and just had a chicken breast with mashed potatoes and a corn on the cob. So why do I feel like I cheated??

Anyway, that brings me back to the beginning of my story. As I grabbed my yogurt, banana and fiber bar for breakfast this morning, the scale was calling my name: “Come on Michelle, you know you probably gained a pound just looking at that crust, and you didn’t wear gloves when you disposed of the biscuit…who KNOWS what damage you did!” Crazy I know; It isn't even as if anything I ate last night would register on today's scale. I realize it made no sense, but I still put down my breakfast and stepped on the scale. I was down a pound from Monday. Not exactly the loss I had hoped to see, which is why, boys and girls, YOU DON’T GET ON THE SCALE MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK OK??? I was happy to see a loss period though. Guess we’ll see what happens by Monday.

Trying to remember my current mantra: “It isn’t about the scale, it’s about getting healthier. The rest will follow!” repeat as needed.


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Rabbits Don't Weigh 450 Pounds For a Reason

Yesterday, I found myself in a bind when it came time to get dinner for T and I. I finished work at 5pm and immediately jumped into the shower. I hadn’t had a chance to get one that morning and felt horrible so there was absolutely no putting that off. Earlier, I had told T’s dad that I would get his meds picked up (he’s been sick the last few days) so that E (T’s dad) didn’t have to make the trip himself. He was rushing to get to work and I felt like picking up T’s meds at the CVS drive through was at least one thing I could do. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that Tuesday nights were also the night I had to schedule my following week’s worth of work at my second job and that happened at 6pm, which meant that dinner was going to be an hour or two late.

T is very much a stick-to-your-routine kind of guy. I usually start making dinner no later than 5pm so that we can eat no later than 6pm. So, in T’s world if its 5pm and mom is in the shower, T assumes mom has forgotten about feeding him this evening and he goes into panic mode:

“Mom, you in there?”
“Yes sweetie, just taking a quick shower, I’ll be out in a minute”
“umm, ok well its 5 o’clock”
“I know, I’ll be out in just a few minutes”
I can almost hear the heavy breathing just outside the bathroom door. I’m officially being stalked.
“So, what are we going to do for dinner?” T yells through the door
“T, I’ll be out in just a minute honey ok? Can we talk about it then?”
more heavy breathing from the other side of the door.

The conversation went on like this until I had finally managed to finish my shower and by then I was completely frazzled. I promise you, I have not ever ever ever forgotten to feed this child, but he stalked me as if he knew I secretly planned to starve him for jollies that evening.

Because I knew things were going to cause dinner to run late, I figured we were probably going to have to pick something up while we were out getting T’s meds. I asked T what he wanted to get for dinner. His first suggestion was Bill Millers, one of his favorite BBQ places. I have no idea what the nutritional content of their sandwiches are, but I’m guessing it isn’t good. I make a quick stop at the Bill Millers website so that T and I could check out the nutritional value together and discovered that they had conveniently chosen to only share nutritional information on foods most people wouldn’t associate with fattening fare (ie. Salads, turkey breast, skinless chicken…DUH we know those are relatively healthy!). If you get a chance though, take a look at the fat content of some of their salad dressings; unreal!

I turn to T and remind him that we both promised each other that we were going to start making healthier choices and suggested sushi as an alternative. He thought this was a great idea and the evening ended happily with a nice healthy sushi combo from our favorite sushi place.

Later, I started thinking about how I should probably plan ahead for situations like this since these are the sort of situations that usually trip me up. Yesterday was especially challenging because I hadn’t had lunch so I was starving by the time we went to get something to eat! You mix starving + a meal out and it doesn’t usually equal healthy food choices at Chez Supersquared. So what I did, after getting my satiated stalker into bed later that night, was get on the computer and take a look at what I USED to eat and compare it to healthier food choices I might make in the future. Again, while I knew the stuff I typically ate was riddled with fat, I honestly was shocked when I added everything up.

I’ve included some of my typical meals below along with my plans for healthier choices should I find myself at any of these places in the future. Read them and weep (and rejoice in my healthier selections):

McDonalds
Extra Value Meals, Big Mac, with large French Fries & large Coke
Total calories: 1350
Total Fat: 54g

Alternative:
Caesar with Grilled Chicken, without dressing
Iced Tea
Total Calories: 220
Total Fat: 6g

Popeyes
Chicken: Mild, Breast, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuit, corn on the cob
Total Calories: 900
Total Fat: 39g (13 just from the biscuit alone!)

Alternative:
Mild Breast without breading, Corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans
Total Calories: 500
Total Fat: 9g

Wendy’s
Chicken Club Sandwich Crispy, large French fry, large coke, large frosty
Total Calories: 1930
Total Fat: 65g

Alternative Meal:
Garden Sensations, Cranberry Pecan Chicken, no Dressing with baked potato, plain
Total Calories: 530
Total Fat: 6g

Pizza Hut
Cheese breadstick, 3 pieces of pepperoni and mushroom pizza, two cinnasticks with icing
Total Calories: 1135
Total Fat: 40g

Alternative
2 slices Thin and Crispy Veggie Lovers with very little cheese
Total Calories: 290
Total Fat: 15.5g (wow on the fat, probably won’t eat at pizza hut that much longer)

Jack in the box
Ultimate Cheeseburger, French fries and large coke
Total Calories: 1900 (1010 for hamburger ALONE)
Total Fat: 99g (71g from hamburger ALONE)

Alternative
Asian Chicken, with Grilled Chicken Strips, without dressing or condiments and fruit cup
Total Calories: 250
Total Fat: 1.5g

Notice Jack in the box gives us the best and absolute worst of both worlds. As I looked over these totals, it made me think of an endocrinologist I saw once. He looked me straight in the eye and told me that there was no way anyone could eat themselves up to 400+ lbs. I’m sure he thought that’s what I wanted to hear, but even I knew that was a crock in today’s world. Just substituting a few meals a week at your local fast food restaurant may cause problems depending on your overall eating habits and activity level. It is very easy for me to see how I got to the size I am now. While I do have some biological things going on that make it harder for me to lose weight (minor thyroid problems & PCOS), I have always owned the fact that nobody gets to my size eating celery and lettuce. I have made very bad food choices and LOTS of them. This was a great wake up call for me. Do you have any other tips you might share about how to go about trimming calories when you eat out?

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Pig shower pic
Fat Bunny Unadulterated