What To Do With Busy

If happiness could fuel our bodies, I’d be as energetic as my 2-year-old granddaughter, Mae. Audrey’s birth yesterday, while obviously expected, filled me with a familiar yet inexplicable joy.

But happiness is calorie-free, so after taking care of three small children and eating an all-over-the-charts, nutritionally sketchy diet for three days, this nearly 50-year-old body is beat.

Lifting 20- to 50-pound children, climbing stairs, cleaning “accidents” (Mae is being potty trained), washing clothes, washing dishes, washing children…I thought I was in pretty decent shape, but I’ve discovered muscles I never found working out at the gym.

And forget about my resolve to eat healthy. Resolve got tossed out sometime  Monday night, like one of those old t-shirts you find obscurely lying in an alley, dirty and torn from the weather and from being run over by pickups and garbage truck; barely recognizable as a shirt. I had the option of eating a salad for dinner last night, but I opted for Tex-Mex Bean Casserole and Frosted Mini Wheats instead. What the…? My only excuse was that it was easier and I was busy.

I’ve been busy before and I’ve managed to stay mindful of my eating. But the kind of busy I’ve been involved in these last three days is a busy way outside my experience. That said, I’m beginning to understand what so many of you tell me you struggle with: how to find the time to make a plan and time to implement your plan. Believe me, I have a new-found appreciation/empathy/soft spot for your schedules and your struggle to do what you know is best for YOU.

When I started this whole weight-loss thing in 2005, my parenting duties were greatly reduced. Carlene and Cassie were grown and living away from home, and my stepsons visited their usual 6 weeks in summer and during Easter and Christmas breaks. I was self-employed and lived with my (then) husband, who was also interested in losing weight. I had personal time and personal space. Time and space to think about and implement my plan.

As you can imagine, today I’m carb-o-blah. Exhausted. Pretty much useless. Happy? Yes. But I’m definitely in need of a food adjustment. A food adjustment and advice.

I would love to hear from those of you who do double/triple/quadruple duty as parents or caretakers or employees or employers. How do you make yourself a priority? How did you learn to work your food and/or fitness plan into the fabric of your busy schedule?

It's an Audrey Rose!!

Waving goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.

I got the call at 7:30 last night. Water broke, bags are packed, it’s baby time. I threw a bag together and headed over to the Conti ranch.

The kids were still awake and their nervous excitement was palpable. Cassie and Matt left at 8:15 and the kids waved goodbye. The kids and I talked and read books and by 9:30, they were out like lights.

Audrey Rose is a text baby, similar to Mae. Cassie texted me throughout the night with updates on her status. Two centimeters at 2:30, five at 5:00, seven at 6:30.

“My epidural wore off on the left side. I can’t believe you went natural with us. Shit hurts man.” To which I replied, “I had no choice.”

A few minutes later: “Will be pushing in about 10-15 min. 8 cm.”

I knew the next half hour in Cassie’s world would be beautifully chaotic with pushing and panting, doctor’s commands, blood, pain, and sweat. I saw her birth Claire, so I know she births babies with determination and grace. I also knew my son-in-law was giving her 110 percent. And so I sat in the quiet and played Words With Friends and ate a banana and thought for sure Cassie was birthing a boy.

Claire woke up and came downstairs and sat next to me on a stool. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s the baby, a boy or girl?”

I told her I didn’t know yet. She asked for a banana and she showed me how she peels them. Claire had climbed in bed with me at 2:30 and we talked for an hour before she fell back to sleep and did her typical Claire arm dive onto my nose a few times. Queen sized bed and the girl sleeps right next to me. I’d want it no other way.

At 7:15, my son-in-law sent the first photo of the baby: “It’s Audrey Rose! 6 lbs 14 oz!”

I was wrong again. I’m 0 for 4 on grandbaby gender guessing. Do NOT take me to Vegas.

“You have a sister!” I told Claire and showed her the photo.

“Ohhhh! She’s so cuuuute! It’s a really, really pretty name!”

I texted and called family and friends as Claire typed the alphabet on my computer: Abcdefghijklnmopqrstuvwxyz

“Why are people so excited?” Claire asked, as my phone dinged and dinged.

“Because so many people want to know who Audrey is,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, and kept typing.

Luca woke up and was in the bathroom doing his business. Claire went upstairs and said, “You were right! We have a sister! Her name is Audrey Rose!”

“Awwwww….that’s so cuuuute!” said Luca, flushing the toilet.

“Wash your hands!” I yelled up the stairs.

“I did!” he said.

“Dude, there’s no way you washed your hands yet. Wash them!” I said. The water turned on. I won.

Luca sat on my lap as I continued my texting quest. He typed his own line on my computer: jhzg4etreegrfetsgqwhewfhtrthygtyhy56htreh…. Naming each letter and number as he typed.

Matt sent me another photo of Audrey and I showed the kids.

“Are we gonna have THAT baby?” Luca asked. Yes, dude, that’s the one who’s going to live in your house for the next 18 years, at least.

Mae woke up at 8:15 and I brought her downstairs. I showed her the photos of Audrey.

“Mommy’s baby,” she said over and over.

“Yes, that’s Mommy’s baby. Her name is Audrey.” Mae insisted I keep Audrey’s photo on my computer screen. If I responded to something on Facebook, she’d say, “See Mommy’s baby!” and I’d have to bring the photo back on the screen. Like Luca, I don’t think she fully understands that “Mommy’s baby” is coming home to stay on Thursday.

In a few hours I’ll hold Audrey Rose for the first time. If there is ever a more perfect moment than holding a newborn baby, I don’t know what it is.

Today is my father’s birthday. He is 82. He is beyond thrilled that his great-granddaughter shares his birthdate. Dad has understood the precarious nature of life since he was a child. His father died when Dad was 6 and his mother was 9 months pregnant with his brother. There is no more perfect gift to him today than Audrey Rose.

But my perfect gift today wasn’t Audrey. While her being here is awesome and I can’t wait to get to know her, my perfect gift was a text from my son-in-law. I had thanked him for Audrey, to which he replied, “Hey, thanks for Cassie. She’s just an awesome woman.”

*tear* It doesn’t get any better than that.

"I must have done something good."

You’d think I was the one having a baby this week, not my daughter. Over the weekend, I cleaned everything in my house, down to the shower curtain and the vacuum cleaner filter. Today, I’m roasting squash, cooking beets and Brussels sprouts, and making homemade seasonings, and brown rice and pumpkin pudding. Later, I’ll do laundry and take the Jeep through the car wash. I have homework to do, but right now I don’t have enough concentration to tell you the difference between an amino acid and antifreeze.

I’ve been excitedly nervous prior to each grandchild’s arrival, but this one (affectionately known only to me and the friend that coined the name, “Caboose”) is different. Cassie developed a large subchorionic hematoma in her first trimester and it set us all on edge, especially Cassie (who wrote about it extensively on her blog, Sisters From Different Misters). But her fear and (undeserved) guilt gave rise to a unique resolve that Cassie somehow always finds, no matter what hits the fan. A resolve that radiates outward from the deepest recesses of her soul, the place she processes the things most people would wallow in.

The best example I can give of this is when Cass was 15 and her best friend, Tony, died in a car wreck. It took her years to work through her pain and loss, and her body is a testament to that process. When she got married, she considered using makeup to hide the symbols tattooed on her spine and on her wrists. But she said they serve to remind her where she was and how far she’s come. On her wedding day, she refused to hide or pretend to be something she’s not.

Cassie after the P'burgh Marathon, 2012

Sometimes I think of my grandchildren as makeup gifts from the universe for the ass-kicking I took in my early adulthood. On the flip side, I know I didn’t always make good decisions, either. That’s when I think of my grandchildren as personified forgiveness. But Claire, Luca, Mae, and Caboose wouldn’t be here without their amazingly resilient mother; a girl I birthed, but – in many ways – can’t take credit for. Who she is comes from within. That she is here on this earth, well, all I can say is, “I must have done something good.”

Fueled By Worry

Grandbaby #4 will be here sometime in the next…oh…few, several, maybe ten days…who knows…which means my phone is never off and always charged.

You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but then, does a mother ever get used to worrying about her children? Cassie has had fairly easy pregnancies and deliveries, but still, it’s difficult to accept there isn’t one thing I can do to guarantee she and the baby will be fine. This isn’t a skinned knee we’re talking about.

And as if worry wasn’t enough, self-doubt joined the fun. Do I have what it takes to be a good support to my daughter and her husband? A good Grammy to four children?

I’ve eaten my way through those questions more than a few times and…you guessed it…I got no answers. Just a sluggish feeling with a side of guilt.

You know the saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees”? Yeah, well, sometimes the answers I seek can’t be found because I’m looking in the wrong place. Leave it to a 5-year-old to be my guiding prophet.

Last night I took Claire to her taekwondo class. On the ride there, she talked about who will be at her house to take care of her when her mommy’s having the baby. She rattled off a list of all the people she wants around her: me, Papa Larry, Grandma Julia, Papa Frank, Auntie Carly and Uncle Ben. She said she wanted to sleep in her bed tent and wanted Luca to sleep in her secret hiding place (AKA, her closet, which has a sheer curtain for a door and lots of pillows inside. No mention of where Mae would be in all this. Luca is her best friend. Mae’s someone she escapes from once in awhile.)

Claire was talking faster than usual and I realized she was seeking reassurance that everything will be OK, that if she woke up one morning and Mommy and Daddy weren’t there, that she would not be alone. And it hit me. I know how to do that! I know how to make Claire feel safe. I’ve been doing it for more than five years!

When I woke up this morning, I made my intention for the day to be mindful of how I was taking care of myself so that I could best take care of the people who need my help. I have no control over how or when gbaby arrives, but I can control what goes in my mouth and my physical activity.

Mae, Cassie, Claire and Luca. #4 is in there somewhere!

So with a bit of new-found courage, I threw on some clothes, ate a sensible breakfast, and headed over to Cassie’s to watch the kids so she could go to her OB appointment in peace. I sat on the couch and all three kids grabbed their blankies and snuggled up around me. I asked Cassie how I’d possibly have room for another baby and she said, “You have long arms. They’ll all fit.” When I got home, I worked out for the first time in two weeks. The endorphins were like long-lost friends. I’d missed them so.

Over the next few days, I will do what I’ve done the other three times: prepare and freeze meals for the family. And when Cassie comes home from the hospital, greeting her on the stove will be a pot of wild rice soup, and in the oven, tater tot hotdish. There’s a place for food to offer comfort. It’s just not a very good counselor.

I’m still worried. That won’t change. I mean, it’s my daughter. But I won’t let worry consume me. I’m letting it fuel me.

Adventures In Maintenance

During weight loss, we’re rock stars. The scale goes down and people notice. But when the scale stops moving and the compliments wane, we’re more like the roadies, the people who work long after the music stops and the fans go home. No one pays us much attention, but we’re imperative to the success of our former rock star selves.

Adventures in Maintenance (AIM) is Shelley, Lori, Cammy, Debby and Lynn, former rock star weight-loss bloggers who now write as roadies of weight maintenance. Collectively, we have lost 528 pounds and have been maintaining for 24.5 years. We formed AIM because we know what it’s like to take aim at maintenance. The perfect shot is really hard, but you can get close with practice.

As bloggers, we want to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. Although we will continue to write independently, on the first Monday of each month, we will post a blog on the same topic.

One subject, five voices. And you, our readers. There’s a larger conversation to be had about weight maintenance, so we encourage you to add your voice. Let us know what topics you’d like us to address, and when you read our posts, add your comments. Together, we can dispel myths, encourage each other, and take a blogger’s AIM at the heart of maintenance. Look for our first AIM post on Monday, March 4 and the topic is: “What’s Different This Time.”

Allow us to introduce ourselves:

Shelley
For those of you new to my blog, My Journey To Fit, I’m Shelley and I’m a mom to two grown sons, Sam and Max, and wife to Jeff. We’ve been married for nearly 29 years.

I’ll be turning 50 in a few months, and quite honestly, I’m pretty dang excited about that…losing my excess weight has allowed me to BE and DO so many things that I never thought would be “me.” And while I don’t know what is in store, I’m happy to be physically able to take on whatever catches my fancy (and yes, I realize I sounded like a 90-year-old with that phrase).

My blog has evolved over the years, starting with my diet adventure and grudging acceptance of exercise, to the discovery that I liked running (I was the one who said I’d never run…lesson learned, never say never!), along with shopping for clothes (so much more fun now that I’m not relegated to the plus-size department), and my hobbies – I learned to knit last year and have been torturing treating my readers with updates and pictures of my knitting projects. Who knows what’s next?!

Why am I participating in AIM? Well, I stumbled onto a couple of maintenance bloggers – coincidentally, one was Lynn – before I lost my first pound. What struck me right away was that not only had these women, who were as big as me, lost weight, but they were keeping it off. Bingo – that made me realize that this time, if I truly wanted this to be my last diet, I was going to have to do things differently so that I didn’t regain the weight like I did every other time I dieted. Making changes with the idea that they were going to be on a permanent basis, instead of temporary cutbacks, was the key to my success. While I haven’t kept off every single pound I lost, I’ve managed to keep nearly all of them at bay, and I’ve finally realized that I don’t have to eat my way through life to be happy.

Lori
My name is Lori and I write the blog Finding Radiance. I chose that name because that ended up being what I was striving for. Not a specific goal weight or size, but being happy within.

I had struggled with my weight for most of my life. Lost and gained several people throughout my adult years. LOL! I have done many weight-loss programs and most were successful to a degree, but something was missing since I kept putting the weight back on. That something was really learning to love myself and develop a better relationship with food. Also important was discovering exercises that I love. I turned into quite a biker and love strength training!

My blog talks a lot about food because – quite frankly – I love food. The biggest thing for me was learning to let go of guilt about food or feeling like I only had to eat carrots and cottage cheese in order to lose/maintain my weight.

You also will see a lot of the general things in my life. I often post about whatever is in my head, my latest home improvement projects, and my cat (she is very popular) because as a maintainer, life is more than just the scale – and that is how it should be. I do struggle with maintenance at times, but it really never is a perfect road.

I was thrilled to be asked to be a part of AIM because of the deep respect and admiration I have for these wonderful women. There is definitely a hole in the weight maintenance world. It’s like once you lose weight, you disappear from the blog world. Kind of like the Bermuda Triangle for weight-loss bloggers. That needs to change because there is a ton of support for when you are losing, but not much when you are maintaining, and not much is written about what to expect or how to handle some regain or when you start having body acceptance issues. (What? You mean I won't look like a supermodel once I lose weight??). I look forward to where this journey takes us!

Cammy
I'm Cammy, of The Tippy Toe Diet. I started out trying to lose weight at the “chubby” level and eventually dieted myself to the edge of morbid obesity. I spent years (and years!) cycling through one diet plan after another, but I could never maintain any of them for the long term. The repeated failures battered my self-esteem and part of me wanted to just give it all up, but thankfully, some little spark of hope remained.

In 2007, I adopted a different approach. Instead of trying to follow other people’s diets to achieve other people’s ideals, I spent some time thinking about what comprised my ideal. In doing so, I realized that I didn't really care about being thin or skinny or any of the other media-defined measures of success. What I really wanted was be healthier, more vibrant, and yes, a smaller size. More importantly, I wanted to do it in a way that I could sustain for the rest of my life. And, by golly, I wanted it to be FUN!

Recognizing that the completely-overhaul-your-entire-life-starting-this-Monday approach had never worked for me in the past, I implemented changes in my lifestyle slowly, sometimes in teeny little steps. My blog, The Tippy Toe Diet, chronicles those changes – the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t – and continues to serve as a journal of my new explorations. I might have lost 100 pounds, but no way am I through changing! It’s too much FUN trying new things to stop now!

I'm honored and excited to be an AIM blogger because I admire and respect each and every one of the other bloggers and appreciate their points of view. I’m looking forward to learning from them and to sharing my own thoughts, all in hopes that this scattershot approach might be of service to others who are either in the maintenance realm or striving to get there. Our stories, our paths, and our struggles might be different, but our “aim” is generally the same: a healthier and more vibrant life. At a smaller (or, at least, not a larger) size!

Debby
I’m Debby, from debby weighs in. When I started my blog, the byline was “thoughts on weight loss and life.” Recently, I decided I knew nothing about weight loss, and changed my byline to “on living a whole and healthy life.”

Like most overweight people, I have a LOOOONG history of mostly being overweight, with many forays into attempted weight loss, some more successful than others, but all of them with one trait in common: I gained back all the weight PLUS some. And so, when I was about 30, I decided that I would never diet again. And I didn't, for a long, long time. Until one day in 2005, shortly after my 50th birthday, a friend asked me to go to Weight Watchers with her.

At first I turned her down, and said, “But we can be accountable to each other.” After a miserable two weeks of starving myself, I realized I needed a little help, and agreed to go. But this time was different. This time I knew it had to be for the rest of my life.

This time I had the help and support of many friends. I sought out women at work who just lived a healthy lifestyle, and quizzed them on what they ate. I read everything I could find about maintaining weight loss. I read science journals and the latest research, and when I hit a little snag, I hired a personal trainer, who taught me more about eating healthy whole foods than she did about exercise (and she taught me a LOT about exercise!)

It took about two years to lose 100 pounds, and it was only then that I discovered the world of blogging! There was Lynn, in People magazine, and the little box at the bottom of the page said to check out Lynn’s blog on the internet. A whole new world of friends opened up to me.

Since then, maintenance has definitely been an adventure, and these four women have been constant traveling companions. As everyone eventually does, I had a couple of years that were extra stressful, and I regained 25 pounds. It only took two years for me to figure out how to start losing weight again(!) and that is where I am in my journey now. I never stopped working on living a whole and healthy life. And now I have added “aging gracefully” to that work. Its an adventure, that's for sure!

Lynn
I’m Lynn and I blog here at Lynn’s Weigh. When I began this last trek down the scale in 2005, no one but my doctor and I knew what I weighed. Three hundred pounds sounded intangible and scary. But I grew tired of that albatross and so I launched my first website, Lynn's Weight-Loss Journey, complete with numbers and photos, and immediately I felt lighter. My weight was no longer a secret. It was, and still is, what it is: a number. It’s not who I am.

Like my AIM partners, I realized this last time IS the last time because I approached weight loss differently. I finally understood that if I wanted a permanent change in my body, I had to make a permanent change in my attitude. Head before body. And no celebratory Dairy Queen blizzards once I met goal!

As you know (since you're reading this from my blog), I write about life as a nearly 50-year-old mother to four grown children, grandmother to three (almost 4!) grandchildren, writer, foodie, and exerciser, all through the lens of a person maintaining a 150-plus weight loss. There are more than 1 billion websites out there, but our little AIM consortium is just what the ‘net needs.

We Can All Use A Litte "Self-Inspiration"

I’ve been “should”ing myself crazy these last few weeks. “I should eat more spinach,” “I should go for a walk,” “I should not buy those potato chips.” I don’t know if it’s the winter doldrums or just plain laziness, but asking anything of my body or mind lately is like asking grandson Luca if he wants jelly on his peanut butter sandwich. The answer is always a resounding, “No!” (Followed by a five-minute explanation of why he used to like jelly, but doesn’t anymore, and then making you pledge that you will never, never, EVER put jelly on his peanut butter sandwiches ever again because he doesn’t like jelly anymore. Just peanut butter. But not chunky peanut butter. Just plain peanut butter. And no jelly.)

Recently, a friend was explaining the details of a complex job he was working on, saying that a lot of people in his field go through the motions without ever knowing why. To him, he said, “It’s not enough to know how, but you have to know why.”

In weight loss and maintenance, that inquiry can be reversed. It’s not enough to know why, but you have to know how. I know why eating an apple is more healthy than eating a Pop Tart, but knowing how to choose the apple instead of the Pop Tart requires more skill than simply reaching for and biting into the apple.

Either way, bringing curious attention to both the how and the why is the only way to combat the “should”s. Asking “Why am I ‘should’ing myself up a wall?” is more difficult than mindlessly burying my nose in a bag of Kettle Brand baked potato chips, extra crunchy with sea salt (I don’t care how low fat they are…they are devil spawn), but in the end, a better choice. 

I’m going to be Ms. Obvious here: doing the right thing isn’t always the easiest. But planting reminders of what matters most along our journey can help when we run into the “should”s and the resounding “No!”s.

Writing – whether it’s in a journal or a blog – not only gives me clarity in the present moment, but over the last eight years, has left a paper trail that guides me back to my intentions when I’ve lost my way.

One of my blog posts that reminded me why it was imperative that I extract my face from the potato chip bag was, “What Is Your Deepest Intention?” from 2009.

“I had to decide if I wanted to eat my way to an early death or live the healthiest life I could for as long as I could. That decision became my deepest intention.
“Did I falter once in awhile? Yes. But ultimately, I always went back to the intention.
“That intention continues to guide me in maintenance. Without it, I’d behave the same way I always did when I got to some weight goal: by not paying attention to my food intake and slacking off on exercise.”

Creating a volume of writing is like creating a safety net, a place you can fall when you forget that what you’re thinking and doing has all been thought and done before. You just need a reminder that you’re not alone. You have your former self!

If you’ve kept journals or blogs throughout your weight journey, how often do you go back and re-read your words? Perhaps – in the doldrums of winter – you could use a little self-inspiration to help recall the whys and the hows of your journey, too?

Don't Forget The Inside

A friend said to me the other day that when we met a few years ago, I rarely looked him in the eyes when we talked. I thought about that for a moment and realized he was right. In fact, I didn’t look at anyone directly for more than a few seconds.

What used to be naïve vivacity had – over the years – turned into cautious reticence, and even though I weighed 130 pounds and was three years into maintenance, I felt like a fish out of water when I first moved to Pittsburgh in 2010. Self-judgment, avoidance, insecurities…you name it…followed me like a pack of lost dogs.

Cassie – my daughter with the grandbabies – made it her mission to get her old mother outside her comfort zone, and sent me an email about a yoga class that was starting at a local library.

“Yoga?” I said, sounding vaguely like a tired 2-year-old. “I don’t want to do yoga.”

“Mom,” she said with a sigh. “It’s not about yoga. You need to meet people, get out more.”

But…but…I liked the comfort of my new fortress. I liked sitting on my couch surrounded by my stuff. I knew enough people. Besides, it was hard enough for me to understand who I was. How was I supposed to explain me to anyone else?

Reluctantly, I showed up at Oakmont Library on Saturday morning, November 6, with a yoga mat under my arm and a Xanax under my tongue. I looked around the room. Skinny women with shiny hair, dressed in pink and yellow spandex and sipping water from earth-friendly metal water bottles, gathered in one corner. They laughed and talked and stretched their gazelle-like necks like gymnasts.

On the other side of the room were women like me, alone and wearing loose shirts and crop sweat pants. Dressed in my “Love is a four-letter word” t-shirt, I laid my mat a few feet away from a woman with short red hair and stunning blue eyes. Her name was Debbie and she’d never done yoga, either. Something about her made me instantly comfortable, and when our instructor had us fold our bodies into thread-the-needle and Debbie said, “I wonder if anyone’s ever farted in this pose before,” I knew I’d found a friend who’d get me, crazies and all.

Al Roker, in his book “Never Goin’ Back,” writes about weight loss that “…whatever issues you have will still be your issues. Losing weight will not take away those problems any more than it will make you more popular, funnier or more successful, or fix your relationship.”

Expanding a bit on my blog from last week, “The One About My Ass,” that last part about “fix your relationship,” was and still is true for me in regards to the relationship I have with myself (all of me, not just my backside). 

Who I believed myself to be prior to losing weight – years prior…all the way back to childhood – changed very little when I lost weight. By the time I moved to Pittsburgh, I’d figured some things out about food and exercise and how my body and mind responded to this new care I had for myself, but still I sweated and panicked walking into a yoga class.

For me, it’s the whole judgment thing, and no one judges us more harshly than ourselves. I remember meeting my daughters at a restaurant when I weighed 300 pounds and I knew, logically, that most of the diners didn’t notice I was there. But in my mind I imagined everyone thought, as I walked in, ‘Oh my, she’s big.’ And probably a few did, but certainly not everyone. Because I knew I was big and I felt big and I was ashamed of being big, I assumed everyone had those same judgments about me or anyone else who looked like me.

Stepping outside our self-judgments and holding them in conscious awareness is just as important as feeding ourselves well and exercising. The person at the bottom of the scale doesn’t have to have the same insecurities and fears that the person at the top of the scale did, but often it’s only the weight we think we have to shed, not our negative self-perceptions or inner conflicts. Those will somehow magically mend themselves when we get to goal.

I’m glad my daughter urged me to go to that yoga class two years ago, despite my trepidation. While I dropped yoga, I gained a friend. A dear friend who gets me, crazies and all.

We all need a Cassie and a Debbie in our lives. People who support us, accept us, force us outside our comfort zones. But more important, we all deserve the loving acceptance that only comes from within, no matter our size.

If you’re on your way down the scale, or even if you’re already there, don’t forget the inside, too.

Food Is Like Brylcreem: A Little Dab Will Do Ya

Sally Albright is my hero

All the while I lost weight and during my first few years of maintenance, I was married. Larry supported me (still does…he’s a great friend), and even lost 20 pounds himself. I didn’t have to explain why I was ordering a salad with light dressing on the side or ordering an entrée with a to-go box on the side so I could put half of the meal in as soon as it arrived. He didn’t mind that I asked questions of our server about how the food was prepared or requested the chef to please go easy on (or omit) the oil.

I touched on it in “Throwing Out The 300-Pound Pitch,” but until last week, I never gave any deep thought as to how two people co-exist in Foodland. Dating again, I was more concerned with how to explain the past seven years. And thankfully when I met Steve a few weeks ago and I recited the whole weight loss thing, he didn’t run screaming in the other direction. What he said – with a great big grin on his face – was, “I love to cook.”

Turns out, Steve’s a foodie. And I mean hard-core. He reads Wine Spectator, and studies the cookbooks of Paul Prudhomme (“Chef Paul” from K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen), Anthony Bourdain (oft smart-ass chef and author of “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”), Thomas Keller (award-winning owner of the Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry), Eric Ripert (world renowned French cook and owner of Le Bernardin in New York), and Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, whose restaurant in Pittsburgh – Lidia’s – is on Steve’s date list.

What I first knew about Steve was that he’s a union carpenter and owns a beautiful red Harley. He can match me song for song, artist for artist in music trivia. He wears cowboy boots; drives a pickup; looks smashing in a pair of Levi’s; holds every door open for me; loves his cat, Boo; and can drink a Starbucks latte as readily as diner coffee, and Budweiser as easily as 20-year-old Glenlivet. All of this I can deal with. It’s the butter, the cream, the Italian food that has my maintenance brain spinning. And not just any Italian food. “Good ‘country Italian,’” he said. “You know, that sort of rustic Italian.” Um…no, I don’t know. But I have a feeling I’m going to find out.

I talked to him about how I choose to eat and he assured me that wasn’t a problem….just before he said, with a devilish grin, “But you know I’m your food anti-Christ.”

I’ve loosened the chains a bit over the past two years, but other than using a bit more oil in my cooking and eating whole grain pancakes and consuming a few more sweets lately than I care to admit, I don’t stray too far from the plan that got me and keeps me where I am. When I go out, I order the safest thing on the menu: salad, or occasionally a garden burger, sans the bun. I haven’t ventured into many restaurants that employ several bona fide chefs, and I’ve certainly not dated a capital F Foodie who cooks with butter and cream and makes his own lemon sauce to pour over lemon cake:

Last weekend, Steve and I wanted to go out for brunch. We went online and looked at menus and chose The Cornerstone because it offered eggs Benedict with duck confit. OK, back up. HE chose Cornerstone because it offered duck confit. But I found something that looked interesting, too. A risotto made with wild mushrooms, butternut squash, and kale. After we were seated, I asked our server if the risotto could be made vegetarian. She said, “I’ll as our chef.” A few minutes later, she came back and said, “Why yes, we can make it vegetarian, but not vegan because the chef uses butter.” Not a problem, I said, and yes, I would like a fried egg on top. Toast? No, thank you.

The risotto was the first non-vegetable/non-egg-white focused breakfast I’ve eaten in more than 7 years. It was fabulous, but I felt a bit guilty, and I panicked about my plan for the rest of the day. Subsist on water, an apple, and some edamame for dinner? Walk five miles?

“Shut up!” I told my brain. “You can do this!”

And I did. I enjoyed the risotto, eating slowly and stopping before I was full. Steve didn’t care if I cleaned my plate. He only noticed because I pointed it out.

Remember how I said I was looking for someone who didn’t eat Doritos in front of me? Well let me tell you, Doritos have nothing on mussels sautéed in garlic and wine, bruschetta on French baguette, and bleu cheese dipped in honey. Steve eats these things, yet never pushes them on me. It is I who must be disciplined to eat one or two mussels, a bit of bruschetta, and a piece of bleu cheese. It is my challenge to taste all the flavor these foods have to offer without going crazy and consuming them all.

A few weekends ago, we went to Oakmont Bakery for coffee because What’s Cookin’ at Casey’s wasn’t open yet. I told Steve the story about how, when I was a little girl, my dad took care of my brother and I on Saturday mornings so Mom could sleep. He’d let us dress in anything we wanted (I was a stripes-on-plaid kind of girl) and he took us to the bakery for a donut before we went to the car wash. I always got a glazed donut with chocolate frosting. As Steve was paying for our coffee, he asked the cashier for a glazed donut with chocolate frosting.

My first thought? ‘OMG, I can’t eat that!’

My second thought? ‘Wow…that was really sweet of him.’

We took our coffee and donut to a table and I savored two small yet amazingly awesome memory-filled bites of glazed chocolate donut. I got teary thinking about those days and how much I love my dad. Not once did Steve say, “Come on. Have another bite.” He was just happy that he’d made me happy.

Food can be that conduit to memories, as long as we understand it is like Brylcreem: “A little dab will do ya.” Take the meaning and savor a bite. Leave the rest of the calories behind.

How do you navigate the really good, memory-invoking food waters?