Irony

I've spent the last week psyching myself up for going to the gym. I went out and bought two new fitness outfits and a new combo lock.
I pep talked myself, read fitness blogs, looked at photos of fitness models and got excited about getting into working out again.
Ironically, I did something strange to my lower back yesterday and now it hurts to stand up and even walk.
I guess the pep talks will have to continue for a while longer.

Shift of focus

I'm terrible about keeping up with blogs. I have the attention span of a housefly, coupled with extreme laziness.
However, I find that my weight loss journey completely stalled right around the time I went to Burning Man.
You see, I knew that I would not be able to manage what I ate very effectively in such a hostile environment. Who wants to think about how many sodas you've consumed when you're in the middle of the desert and your whole body is busy freaking out about theheat, sun, and dust storms?
I naturally assumed that this week of hardcore living might actually be good for the waistline, seeing as how food is usually fairly spartan in preparation and availability there and you ride your bike around everywhere.
Sadly, this Burning Man was also the year that we expirmented with storing meat in the deep freezer and bringing out a portable gas grill.
I gained 8 pounds while at Burning Man.
Shortly after Burning Man, I was surprised with a trip to Paris for my birthday, which included several fine dining experiences.
I sort of gave up trying to count and monitor what I ate at that point.
Life just... you know... gets in the way, sometimes.
Keeping a regular fitness regime is even harder for me, seeing as how I've always been sort of pre-disposed to long naps and bouts of excessive laziness.
So now, it's time for me to jump back into healthy routines and goal-setting.
I don't want to be obsessed here, but I also don't want to live with the same looming beast of obesity that my mother and granmother do.
I truly, deeply want to be that super energetic woman who truly loves working out and being physically active.
It's time to catalog what worked for me in the past and what didn't and see if I can make some sense of what I'm doing here, and what will work best in the future.
In a sense, I'm fortunate.. I have a max of 50 lbs I should lose, and only 30 to be considered within the "normal" range... This is a very small number when compared with the weight loss challenges some people face.

So, let's start with what's worked for me in the past:
1. Eating Clean.. making 70% or more of my meals consist of fresh fruits and veggies and/or whole grains. Cutting dairy down to 1 serving a day and meats to less than 3 times a week. Refraining from processed foods and refined sugars whenever possible
2. Bringing lunch to work so I know exactly how much is in what I'm eating
3. Moderate working out with an emphasis on strength training at least 3x a week
4. Counting everything that goes into my mouth. Not eating it if I don't know how to count it.
5. Staying active and interested in fitness, nutrition and weight loss communities online

What hasn't worked:
1. Gluten-free, Vegan, or No carb diets
2. Hoodia
3. Telling myself that appearance doesn't matter (it may not actually matter in the great grand scheme of things, but I'm kind of shallow, and it matters to me A LOT)
4. "Intuitive" eating. Sadly, my intuition tells me that it's ok to eat pizza and cheeseburgers every day.
5. Obsessive self-recrimination. Unsurprisingly, this is demotivating.

Oh baby, it's Haute Couture!

After reading Tanya Gold's article about how, at a UK size 16 (US size 14), she was not able to find any high end designer shops that carried her size, I became a bit obsessed with the idea of whether or not I could fit into a high end designer brand, or if I was "too fat for fashion" as well.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I generally despise the body image dictates and exclusivity of high fashion. I despise anything that sets women up for hating themselves because they don't look like what they see in the magazines.
I hate this entire culture of thin is in and curves are out, and I wonder about what it says about our society and the increasing masculinization of the feminine beauty ideal.
Who was it who decided that models needed to look like 12 year-old boys, anyway? The predominantly gay male designers, perhaps? Hmmmm, or maybe it's just that Anna Wintour has a sick anorexia fetish that she wishes to foist upon the entire world.
At any rate, I found myself becoming a traitor to my own cause as I pondered whether or not I could fit into a designer brand. Any designer brand. Truth be told, I wouldn't be able to tell a Versace from a Gaultier and would feel like a shallow twit if I could.
I basically know what the Chanel logo looks like, and that Chanel perfumes smell like bitches or old ladies and that's about it.
So I decided to start my quest with Dolce & Gabbana. Why? Because of this skirt:



I know nothing about Designer sizing. 29, 24, 22? What does that mean? Does that mean inches in waist? What if my hips are bigger than my waist? Is it in Centimeters?
I decided to err on the side of caution and grab a size 29, the biggest they had available.
I nervously wandered to the fitting room and pondered what it would mean to me if I could fit into this deliciously tacky skirt. At only $300 on sale, surely I would need to have it. Surely, it was a skirt to put all rockabilly chicks and Peggy Bundy wannabes to shame.
Surely, I would never fit into a $300 size 29 Dolce & Gabbana skirt.
Wiggle up the hips, and lo and behold, it was a size too big! Did you hear me world? IT WAS A SIZE TOO BIG!!!
Sadly, the bold animal print of the skirt also made my ass look enormous, as animal prints often do. I decided not to buy the skirt, after realizing that perhaps it made my butt look just a bit too ghetto fabulous to be considered in good taste.

The moral of this story is, just because you can fit into designer clothes does not mean they will look good on you.

Eyeballing Portion Sizes

If you've ever travelled to another country, you may have noticed how much smaller the portion sizes are there.
Americans like to point to any number of factors contributing to this country's soaring obesity rates, but the simple fact remains that we simply eat too much of the wrong kind of things.
I remember, when I began watching what I ate a year ago, I was utterly shocked at what an actual serving of cheese was supposed to be.
1oz? 1oz? That tiny bit of cheese is all I'm supposed to eat all day? I used to eat half a block at a time, just as a snack.



In just 20 years, the serving sizes have doubled, if not quadrupled in size. It's no wonder we are considered the fattest nation on earth.

When you are trying to watch what you eat, every bit of food you put in your mouth becomes not just food, but a breakdown of calories, fat grams, carbs, and portion size.
Going out to eat becomes an activity fraught with anxiety because you don't know how much butter they put in something, or whether or not that amount of mashed potatoes on your plate is about a cup's worth or a half cup.

It would be nice to say that it's better to not be neurotic about it and to just go ahead and sit back and enjoy the meal, but that's near impossible when you are crying yourself to sleep because you can't see your collarbone anymore.
After all, not paying attention to how much you were eating is what got you fat in the first place.
I have friends who suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia and they will tell you that even after they've recovered, they never do quite manage to give up counting calories or examining portion sizes.
I think about what I will do once I lose this last 20 pounds, and wonder if I will forever use a tablespoon to spread my peanut butter, because then I will know exactly how much I've used.
Perhaps this obsession with weight and food has replaced corsetry as the way in which society keeps women figuratively constrained.
Regardless of the negative moral or psychological connotations portion sizing and calorie counting may imply, it still cannot be argued that doing this is the single most important part of dieting. As such, the question still remains: What do you do when you're going out to eat? Do you bring measuring cups and spoons with you everywhere you go?
I hope not. How tacky would that be?
Instead, I've found that there are many ways in which you can eyeball your portions to make a relatively accurate guess as to what exactly something like 3oz of chicken breast is supposed to look like.
This website is a great start: http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsmart/qt/eyeportions.htm
In the end, regardless of what Dr. Atkins or anyone else tells you, it still holds true that calories in, calories out is the only formula needed for successful weight loss.
I must admit, however, that I find the calories in part far more fun than the calories out. My next blog post will be about me going to the gym for the first time ever in my life. Stay tuned. There may be tears.

Fat Bottom Girls

Yesterday, I bought a cute retro-style gingham pattern dress from Ambiance in Noe Valley. The dress is slightly too tight and probably not tight in the right places, either.
Regardless of the fact that it makes me look a bit like a Desperate Housewife, circa 1964, I decided to wear the dress to work today.
Is it just me, or are the windows of retail shops extremely unflattering? I was shocked looking at my reflection this morning as I made my way through the financial district to my office.
My ass in this dress looks so big, that I actually look like I am leaning forward slightly and pushing my butt out as I walk.
I have always had a big ass. It's genetic. My mother has a big ass too, as does my grandmother and her mother before her. We are a family of fat bottom, tiny waisted gals.
This got me to thinking about a medical term called Big Butt Syndrome, or steatopygia if we want to be polite. This is a medical term that refers to the presence of excessive accumulation of fat on the buttocks and thighs, and is often accompanied by abnormally long labia.
Of course, most women do not have Big Butt Syndrome. Not even the fattest, curviest woman you know technically has Big Butt Syndrome.
Steatopygia is generally found in certain African tribes such as the Pygmies of Central Africa or the Khoisan Bushman of South East Africa and is thought to be a genetic adaptation to famine. It was thought that women who stored excessive fat in their lower bodies were probably more capable of surviving times of little food, in addition to being able to physically produce healthier offspring.
Being a member of modern Western culture which tells us that only our upper bodies are sexy when they abnormally large, it's hard to imagine that there was ever a time and a place where a woman with these types lower body features would ever have been considered the most attractive of the bunch.
Although, you still do see some evidence of fat= attractive in cultures where food is scarce, the importation of Western culture and it's beauty standards across the globe is quickly eradicating the love of bigger women and replacing it with it's own love of women who look a bit like plucked chickens to me. All breast and muscle with skinny legs.
Sadly in Victorian times, African women who had Steatopygia were often carted around America and Europe in freak shows to be gawked at by stupid white people in funny hats and corsets.
The most famous of these sideshow acts was a woman by the name of Saartjie Baartman, who was a Khoisan tribeswoman in the mid-1800's. She is most commonly referred to as the, "Hottentot Venus".

I can only imagine what Saartjie's life must have been like, beginning as a slave and ending as a curiosity. The stories of her being forced to gyrate her nude buttocks at crowds of people are painful and heartbreaking to read. I wonder if she ever elicited the kind of primitive awe in people that a living Venus should have elicited.
I hope she found dignity and power in her role as earth goddess, personified, and that she died with her head held high.
Here's to you, Saartjie. I'm proud to be a member of the tribe of fat bottom girls.

To Veggie Box or not to Veggie Box?

Living in the splendidly fertile agricultural state that is California, I am fortunate to not have to go far to acquire freshly grown, healthy organic produce whenever it suits me.
I don't have to pay very much either, which is also a bonus because I am not only poor, but I am also cheap.
For the past 8 months, I have been receiving monthly organic produce deliveries from Farm Fresh To You .
Their farms are located in the Capay Valley near Chico, California and everything is grown organically, so you don't end up with bizarre things like monster-sized apples or bell peppers who are so perfectly formed and colored you would swear that they were wax replicas.
In fact, the best apples I've ever had in my life have come from this place.
I've had a great time these past few months trying to figure out what the hell to do with vegetables I never normally would cook myself. I've learned that Chard is wonderful in casseroles, and that Japanese Pumpkin is so sweet that it's better in cookies than it is in curries.
It's been amazing, but in the end-- I've decided that June will be my last delivery box month.
The truth is that even one medium box a month is too much veg for me. It's even too much for me AND my boyfriend, on the rare occasions when I actually remember to cook for him as well. It makes me sad to see that wilty lettuce in my fridge that I so casually ignored in favor of one too many sushi take-out nights or the flashier, "sexier" vegetables such as eggplant and Oyster mushrooms.
I tried to take my friend M's advice and freeze it for making soup stock later on, but I know in my darkest of hearts that I'll never get around to it. Most of the frozen lettuce in my freezer these past few months has gone to feeding my tadpoles who have since sprouted legs and gone on to being carnivores.
I do encourage everyone to invest in your local organic farms and seek out similar delivery programs in your area if possible.
Those of you in Northern California, I highly recommend Farm Fresh To You as an alternative to the much more expensive Planet Organic.
Besides, if you tell them I sent you, there's a free box of tasty, tasty fruits and veggies in it for me.

Carb Watch Pitas, yum!

In the past year or so that I've been dieting and trying (stress on trying to) exercise, I've discovered that bread and related products (pasta, rice, etc) is one of the great saboteurs of a healthy eating regimen.
It's just so high in carbs, fats and calories that it turns an ordinary sandwich into some kind of spiral of shame where you feel that even eating half may be pushing it for the day. This is even worse if you're one of those types who still champion the cause of Wonder Bread and other nutrient deficient processed sliced bread brands.
I highly recommend against eating such things, but we'll save that rant for another blog at another time.
Recently, I've discovered the Middle East Baking Co's Carb Watch Pitas. These little babies are a miracle to your diet, no matter what kind of diet kick you're on. (Especially those of you doing Atkins or South Beach).
These pitas aren't as bready or sweet as most pitas out there. Rather, they have a satisfying slightly doughy texture that reminds me of fresh Roti or other basic, peasant-food type flat breads.
Because of this doughier texture, they can be a little harder to cut open and stuff them, but I find they're just as good if you roll them like a tortilla or bake cheese or veggies on them flat like a small pizza crust.
I'm in love with these things, and are fast replacing regular bread as my staple of choice when making a quick and dirty lunchtime sandwich, or I need something to sop up my soup with.
Take a look at this nutritional info. Wow! Only 6 carbs per half a pita.:

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1/2 Pita

Amount per Serving
Calories 35 Calories from Fat 15
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 1g	2%
Saturated Fat 0g	0%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 150mg	6%
Total Carbohydrate 6g	2%
Dietary Fiber 3g	12%
Sugars 0g
Protein 2g	4%

Calcium	10%
Iron	2%

---

Est. Percent of Calories from:

Fat 25.7% Carbs 68.6%

Protein 22.9%