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?

Want to leave a comment? Click on the word "comment" below.

Der! Pictures are posted below..no really they are.

Sorry about that guys, I got a little trigger happy and posted without actually including the pictures. If you actually wanted to see my ugly mug, they are now included in the post below :)

"It looks like two pigs fightin' unda a blanket!"

I've always loved that movie :) Has to be one of my favorites right next to "You know I love ya more'n my luggage." Gotta love Clairee.

As you can see, I have some new pics below. I took them for + sized girl's challenge. I read about the challenge and even though I had just taken my before pics, I figured I should probably take another one in a lighter shirt that fit a bit snug so that as I lose weight, you can actually tell the difference. I went into my closet and grabbed the first shirt I could find that I knew I could probably get on, but that would be snug. I have to tell you that I have this shirt in three different colors...ALL still have the price tags on them. As a matter of fact, I have about three closets full of clothes that still have price tags on them. Why you ask? I'll tell you why.

Every time I got pumped about dieting in the last decade, I would usually buy myself a ton of "incentive clothing" on clearance from various online plus sized shops. I knew that I would be working my way down through the sizes at some point so I thought it would be a great way to motivate myself and prepare for the new me that was on the way. The last clothes I wore in anything under a size 20 was way back in the early 90's so even if I could get back into them, a majority of them are SO dated (I actually found a pair of those harem pants (see above)if you can imagine that...WHAT was I thinking?) So, I have probably spent loads on new wardrobes that have just sat in my closet collecting dust. I have long refused to buy anything new in my current size so I've been relegated to tshirts and the shirt you saw me in my previous before pictures (in several different colors). So, if I saw something on sale, I bought it in a smaller size and stuck it in my closet for ...whenever. I know its crazy, but I've just learned to embrace my crazy.

It was to one of these closets that I went to find something I could wear for the pics. I also thought that it might be nice to actually see what I have in there and pull a few pieces out so that I can actually SEE them on a daily basis. Anyway, I put on this top, look in the mirror and the first thing that popped into my head was that line from Steel Magnolias. The next one was that it looked like I'd dumped a head of lettuce on my head..I'm just not sure about those ruffles what do you guys think? I'm hoping that as I slim down, it will hang the way it's supposed to and look better. With two others in the closet, it better!

So there you have it, new "before" pics and a confession about my penchant for buying clothes much to small for me when they go on clearance.

Oh! I also wanted to say that while I'm on this competition I won't be able to post my weight loss or gain for the week so I'll just be posting whether I lost or gained. Once the contest is over (which is set for June I think or whenever one of us gets to 30lbs lost)I will let you know where I stand weight-wise. Let's hope I'm the first to 30! That would get me very close to passing under the 400-pounder bar. Good luck to everyone else in the contest!

Weigh in, confession, and clarification about Lung Cancer

First I want to chime in and let you guys know that today I weighed in at 448.4, so that was a loss of 1.6 lbs. At my size it really should have been more, but I'm used to losing weight slowly. I'm going to be adding in more activity and fiddling around with my meal plan to see what might get my metabolism going a bit faster. We'll sort it out eventually.

I do have a confession. I took Tanner out to eat at an Italian place right up the street from us and ordered their smoked chicken lasagna with spinach. I have no idea how many calories were in it, but I'm wagering it wasn't diet friendly. The good news is I only ate half of the lunch portion and brought the rest home for my ex to eat ;) This wasn't a spur of the moment decision. It wasn't a "binge." It was a very calculated and planned "cheat." I'm looking at a total of 300 lbs I have to lose and I think if I start out expecting that I will NEVER indulge in moderation (like any normal person who doesn't have a weight problem), I will just be setting myself up for failure. I knew going to lunch that I would allow myself to choose anything off the menu that I wanted, but I told myself I would only eat half. I ordered the smaller lunch portion, ate half and had the waiter box up the rest. The result? I came home without any of the typical guilt I feel when I have a spur of the moment cheat or worse, binge. You know, the sort of guilt that typically makes you beat yourself up, then binge again, only to beat yourself up some more and so on, and so on. I ate it. I'm over it. I'll be back on plan for the rest of the week. It's kind of an experiment I'm trying, we'll see if it helps me stay on plan over the long haul.

Now on to answering some of the comments from my post late last night. First I want to thank those of you that were touched by it. It started out being about RFL and before I knew it... All of this stuff was coming out about my mom and what I went through when she was sick. It was a very real and very heartfelt admission about a very difficult time in my life. It was cathartic in a way and I think, for the first time, I really came to terms with something that had been bothering me for the last 7 years.

Val commented and pointed out that she had also lost her mother to lung cancer, but chose not to focus on the fact that she had smoked because of the stigma so many lung cancer patients have to deal with when diagnosed. I completely understand where she's coming from. I not only came face to face with this when my mother was diagnosed in the form of doctors who treated her like a pariah; in fact, the doctor that gave her the diagnosis treated her horribly. I wasn't there, but she recorded it for me and immediately after telling her that she had lung cancer, my mother asked for information to help her quit smoking. The doctor, in a voice void of any kind of compassion, said "It's a bit late for that, but I can write you a prescription for wellbutrin if you want." He continued to talk down to her and treat her like a second class citizen for the remainder of her visit. We had other problems along the way. Some doctors treated her with the compassion they might have for any cancer patient, but every once in a while, regardless of the fact that my mother no longer smoked, we would run into some jerk who would feel the need to rub a very sick woman's nose in the fact that her smoking may have had something to do with her cancer. God, for a while, I suppose I was doing the very same thing as I struggled with my own anger over her diagnosis.

As I've said and as Val also pointed out, we ALL make lifestyle choices that could impact our health negatively. I read an article just yesterday that said that people who have had a lifetime struggle with obesity and have spent most of their life obese have a life expectancy equivalent to those who have smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. The difference is...when people who have made other lifestyle choices, whether its eating themselves into obesity, drinking, worshiping the sun, or a million other things we know is bad for us; when these people get a breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, melanoma or any of the hundreds of other cancer diagnoses caused by lifestyle, they are often met with the compassionate concern we are familiar with when someone receives a life-threatening diagnosis. People reach out to them. An overweight woman diagnosed with breast cancer isn't likely to have people asking her if she ate at McDonalds regularly; insinuating that her diet gave her breast cancer. An ex-alcoholic won't tell someone about his past battle with the bottle as an apology for his disease. If a lung cancer patient tells someone they have lung cancer, I can tell you that 9 times out of 10, the next question out of somebody's mouth is "Oh no, did you smoke?" With that question, depending on the patient's answer, people decide whether the patient is worthy of true concern or compassion. I think you know what happens if the patient answers in the affirmative.

Aside from the way this stigma affects how patients are treated by doctors, other professionals, and the general public, the stigma of lung cancer has a very real and deadly impact on research. According to the Lung Cancer Alliance's Report Card on Lung Cancer (please take a look at this to see just how bad the disparity is between lung cancer and other cancers), despite being the number one cancer killer, it remains one of the most underfunded, under-researched cancers and is largely ignored by the powers that be in Washington. Many people aren't even aware that more people will die this year from lung cancer than from breast, prostate, colon, leukemia, ovarian, and cervical cancers COMBINED. This, despite the fact that 50% of people diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked or are former smokers. It's unfair and it's just flat out WRONG. Nobody deserves cancer...period.

So, to Val, I apologize and thank you for pointing out the impact this stigma had on our own mother's diagnosis, treatment and mortality. I knew all about this well before your comments, but last night, I was just caught up in relaying a particular experience and working through my own feelings "in the moment." Unfortunately, I probably crafted a post that somewhat perpetuates this very stigma. I hope this post makes up for it to some degree.

Thanks to anyone who actually made it to the end of this post :)

Why I Relay: Remembering my Mom

Create Your Own
I was thinking about a way I could motivate myself to stick with my new commitment to exercise regularly. I have to confess, that I haven't done my walks today... I need to get my ex to haul the vacuum up here so that I can clean up the last bits of dust and debris off the treadmill and then I'll be good to go. I promise to walk laps around my living room later, if I have to, but I will get the walking in. As I was trying to think about a goal to work towards, It struck me that it was Relay for Life season. I have participated in Relay for Life in the past, but the last time I participated was with my mom several years ago. As I thought about participating in a RFL team this year, I couldn't help but remember my mom.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Relay for Life, it is a 24 hr walk that raises money for the fight against the big "C" and is the American Cancer Society's signature fund-raising event. The last time I participated was in 2001, the Spring before my mother was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. My grandmother already been touched twice by cancer (breast and kidney...both primary cancers) and we had recently learned that her cancer had returned. My grandmother had also lost a brother just months before to bladder cancer. My mom and I were walking around the track and talking about the fact that we were walking in memory of Uncle Fred and in honor of my grandmother. I remember wondering silently if next Spring would find us walking in memory of my grandmother too. I never in my wildest nightmares thought the next year would be my last with both of them.

My mother had a bigger than life personality and she was loved by many people, but just as quickly as you could fall in love with her, she could piss you right the heck off. She always had lots of advice and she doled it out generously. God help you if you didn't take it...she'd have a few choice words for you then. Mom also loved a good argument and she wasn't always quick to admit when she was wrong. In spite of all that, She was an amazingly loyal and generous friend and family member who would give the shirt off her back to help those she cared about. Many people came to mom for help and advice because they knew that if Linda had your back, you were set. She was the type of person to secretly pay a friend's bills while they were going through a rough patch or anonymously send a care package to brighten their day.

We had our share of arguments as I struggled for my independence as an adult and I begged her for years to stop smoking. When she was diagnosed, I remember being so angry at her. I was angry because I thought she had been selfish continuing to smoke and now I was going to have to find a way to prepare myself and my son for her death. She didn't know it at the time, but the type of cancer she had never has a good outcome. I had been working for the American Cancer Society for some time and knew all too well what the survival statistics were like. She would be lucky to make it a year. She lasted 11 months.

At one point on the way home after one of her treatments, we stopped at a gas station and I went in to pay. I was behind this guy buying cigarettes and all I wanted to do was drag him out by his collar to look at my mother sitting in my car. I wanted to scream at him about how I'd spent the night before with her in the bathroom as she vomited from her treatment and ask him if he thought the cigarettes were worth it. I truly was raging silently inside just barely keeping a lid on all the pent up rage I had at losing my mother. Somewhere in the middle of this inner self righteous tirade, I looked from his hands holding the cigarettes to mine holding a package of twinkies and it hit me how much of a hypocrite I'd been. I was doing the same thing only with different ammunition. I wish I could say that I walked out to the car and asked for my mother's forgiveness, but I didn't. I was too ashamed. It's probably one of my deepest regrets.

I not only didn't ask for her forgiveness, but I didn't change my ways either. I'm fatter now than I was then. I've selfishly been feeding my addiction and robbing my son of years with his mother. I am dooming him to the same fate...losing his mom at much too early an age.

Today I signed up as a team captain to head my own Relay for Life team. I doubt I'm going to make it 24 hrs; I'll be lucky to make it once around the track at one time. I don't have much time to prepare for it either, but even if I'm the only one on my team, I'm going. This year I walk as an unspoken apology to my mother and as a pledge to my son that he hopefully will not have to learn what it is like to bury his mother for a very long time.

So thats why I Relay. I would encourage you to check out your local area for a Relay you might participate in. If you can't participate, consider a donation to the American Cancer Society. For more information, check out the video on Relay for Life below.



I'll keep you guys updated on my progress and thanks for reading :)

Yesterday's Food Log

Operation Action: Let's Get that Fat Butt Moving!!

DISCLAIMER: no kitties were harmed in the production of this post. I don't smoke and don't even have a cat, but thought you guys might enjoy the humor.

Ok, so I have this treadmill sitting beside me as I type this. Poor, lonely treadmill that cost an arm and a freaking fat leg to accommodate my size and I bet it probably has a total of 50 miles (and not all of them mine) logged on it since I purchased it about 3-4 years ago. I know the mileage because when we moved a year ago, I had to have a guy come out and make sure it was good to go and he told me it only had about 50 miles clocked...delivered through a sarcastic grin that said "I'm not surprised it's been used so infrequently by the size of you."

Actually he was very nice about it, but I was still mortified. It didn't help that he was pretty buff and sorta cute and here I was this middle aged sow getting her treadmill tuned up for god knows what reason because she obviously wasn't using it.

Anyway, I digress. Today starts my path back to physical fitness. As I said, I'm going to start off doing 5 minutes x 4 times a day. I'm going to do my first 5 in the morning before breakfast and before work. I'll do my second 5 on one of my 15 minute breaks, the third 5 on my lunch, and the last 5 after I get off work. My goal is to work my way up to 10 minutes 4 x a day by the end of the month without having a heart attack, acquiring shin splints, or otherwise harming myself.

I'm also going to start having T join me after school doing the seated exercises and wall pushups I learned about here . He is dying to go to the Y and work out on their weight machines. I'm going to tell him that he has to lose 20 lbs before we will get him started there and he has to do these exercises with me as part of getting there. I think it will work, we'll see.

I have a feeling Monday's loss isn't going to be the amazing 10-pounder loss we saw last week (cuz I stepped on the scale again!)but I know I just need to give my metabolism a push by increasing my activity. What do we repeat to ourselves anytime we start moaning about how much we haven't lost?

"It isn’t about the scale, it’s about getting healthier. The rest will follow!”

I'm also going to continue with my food journal so that I can have a way of tracking what I'm eating. It's helpful. For instance, I was trying to evaluate my food log yesterday...where am I spending the most fat? Looks like those darn fiber bars are doing the lion's share of the damage. Those are definitely going to be reserved to maybe 1/2 a bar per day as a treat. Should be fun to see whether increased activity and better attention to what I'm putting in my mouth equals a bigger loss next week.

Another mantra that is helping me keep perspective is:

Every day I'm healthier and stronger than I was the day before

I know I sound like Jack Handy, but whatever works right?

Yesterday's Food Log
BTW, can you guys take a look at what sparkpeople is recommending for my daily allowances? At my size, I can see the caloric intake but the fat seems really high. Could I really lose weight with a fat intake that high? I have been trying to keep mine around 20g/day, no higher than 30g (obviously I do go over now and then)

I unknowingly crossed over to the Dark Side :(

I'm going to start posting my food logs again. It was kind of a pain because I couldn't just insert a pic of my sparkpeople page that would fit and still be readable so from now on Im just going to link to the most recent log in my photobucket. If you are really interested in keeping up with what I'm eating, you can click on the link and see for yourself.

I'm afraid I have very bad news for yesterday though. I was doing just fine until dinner time. I took a nap after I finished work and when I woke up I was starving. Still half asleep, I fumbled downstairs with the smell of pizza tickling my nostrils. I remember thinking that it was *just a frozen pizza* and it couldn't be as bad as Little Ceasars or Pizza Hut and they were small pizzas to begin with, so I grabbed three pieces. I know my logic was fuzzy, but I was half asleep and obviously still dreaming about a world where you can consume pizza that won't go immediately to your hips; it was a good dream. I finished eating, went out to our living room to chat with the "fam," watched a little TV and then decided I was still hungry. I walked back into the kitchen and dug out the boxes for the pizza so that I could get an idea about where I was for the day caloric/fat-wise and about had a coronary. Each slice of pizza had 17g of fat per slice!!!! Now, if it was like...THE BEST PIZZA EVER, I might not feel so defeated, but this was crap pizza. I wasted a good cheat on crappy food. Nothing sucks more than that.

I ask E if he was aware that he bought a pizza that would immediately clog all our arteries and of course he said "no." Must be nice not to have to worry about things like that. I secretly hoped he'd finish off the pizza himself and grow girl hips that I could make fun of.

In reality, its my own dumb fault. I'm responsible for what I put in my body and nobody else. Note to self: Nothing shall pass thy lips until thine eyes have shrugged the foggy web of sleep else ye are doomed to leave thine diet among the detritus of failure.

Yesterday's Food Log