Traffic Jam

On Saturday mornings I have to drive to my part-time work, because its about 20 miles south of San Francisco. This morning on the way back the traffic began to get heavier and slower the closer I got to the city, and I began feeling impatient to get home and make lunch. I decided to pull off the freeway and take surface roads instead. Unfortunately, when I did that I seemed to hit every red light for the last five miles. It was very aggravating. One thing I knew from experience, however. No matter how much I wanted to speed up the pace, no matter how angry I might be at all the other cars ‘in my way’, there was simply NOTHING I could do to get home any faster. This was just like the situation last week where I got stuck downtown in the car driving Richard home from Costco. So I settled in, and did my half-hour penance. At any rate, it so happens that when I did my “official” weigh in this morning, I found I was just slightly above the self-imposed ceiling I have for my weight. My first reaction was to be disappointed and sad (although the number wasn’t a surprise). Walking away I figured “oh well, I’ll have to get crackin’ this week.” It wasn’t a bright prospect. But, much like the Saturday morning traffic, today’s “information” was just a part of life. There might not even be an identifiable cause for what’s going on to jam things up. I just have to acknowledge that it simply won’t be smooth cruising at 70 mph for the rest of my journey. I’m not certain which “surface roads” I’ll be taking this week, but I have a couple of ideas. The last few days I’ve been working on reducing my excess night eating. I’ve also been getting a little bit more sleep. And, of course, there’s that whole darned “healthier choices” bit. All I can be certain of is the destination. I’m going to get back down below my ceiling. How long it will take and how bumpy the road will be, I can’t say. This morning in the car, I just listened to upbeat dance music, and that helped a lot. So, its time to charge the iPod and sit less, move more.

Visualize This!

Like a lot of people I know, I spent many years perfecting the art of beating myself up and telling myself that I was no good unless I was perfect. Its taking me a long time to change that attitude. And unfortunately the flip side of perfectionist thinking is disastrous thinking (oh well, I blew it, I can't do it, might as well give up, etc.). What I do know is that when my eating and activity patterns are healthy and sustaining, I'm easily able to visualize and feel what it's like to be successful. That sense of success then becomes self-reinforcing. A virtuous cycle. Conversely, when I lose touch with my own sense of success, no matter what's going on, I feel stressed, sad, and despairing. Even when the facts at hand indicate that there's really nothing wrong at all. Its like I have these blinders on that keep me from noticing all the things that ARE working. The last few nights I've been having some trouble "closing down the kitchen" after I've finished dinner, even when I'm comfortable and satisfied. Last night, for example, Devin asked me to come sit on the sofa, but I didn't want to because my stomach felt very full. Nevertheless, I got up from the table where I was working and had another snack!! I was berating myself about this today while I was at the gym working out on my lunch hour. I kept repeating the scenario in my head and telling myself that I could kiss my abs goodbye and that I had better get used to looking bloated again. It was a discouraging (and pointless and destructive) monologue. Back in the locker room while I was changing back into my work duds, I was thinking about other things and suddenly I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was surprised. Rather than a bloated failure, obviously with no discipline or self respect, I saw a middle-aged guy in incredibly great shape, with great muscle tone, and looking healthy and trim. (Not to mention 'young for his age'!) It was a funny shock. All those dire scenarios seemed incredible in that moment. It is, unfortunately, hard to hang on to those positive moments. But the lesson was very useful: wallowing in dark thoughts yields distorted perception. When I can instead allow myself to believe that things really aren't so bad at all, that's when I see the truth. In other words "get in shape, fatso" isn't likely to result in anything but anger and self-sabotage. Whereas, "Hmmm.. not too bad for an old guy" just might be the ticket.

Meet and Greet Treats

At my new job, my cubicle is adjacent to the admin who supports the head honcho of my department. Early in the afternoon I heard her mutter something about how she “had to go get the cookies.” I shrugged it off, because I had other things on my mind. Of course when I got to the afternoon meeting with the VIPs in my department, that’s where the treats appeared. In fact there were two huge trays: one of cookies and one of brownies. There was also coffee and bottled water. Fortunately, as low man on the totem pole (its my second week on the job) I got to sit on the perimeter of the room rather than at the main conference table. Interestingly enough, before the meeting started my boss asked me to “pay attention to the body language and non-verbal communication of the clients at this meeting and let me know your impressions of their attitude towards our new program.” So there I was, watching people –and, okay lets get REAL … watching the COOKIES and the BROWNIES. Hey, I figured watching whether the clients were eating brownies would be a good indication of their non-verbals! What fascinated me was that the only thing which was depleted immediately was the bottled water. Two people had coffee. At any rate, I got busy taking notes and paying attention to the substance of the meeting (and I’m sorry but you’ll have to give me a lot of credit because when cookies and brownies are present, my mind wanders). In fact, I only saw one person eat anything at all, and it was one of our senior management people (he knocked off a couple of brownies). The rest of the stuff stayed right there on the table, untouched. Somehow, all the other meeting participants were either so wrapped up in the topic at hand, or else simply weren’t tempted. Who knows? Fortunately, at the end of the meeting, there was one bottle of water left (which I naturally absconded with). And fortunately I had another meeting to go to, so I excused myself from the duty of cleaning up. I fled from the room and down the stairs. After all, I only have so much resolve.

Photo Op

A few months ago I stopped trying to post pictures on Jack Sprat because blogger.com was having so many technical difficulties. So it never dawned on me that I might try and show a couple of the pictures from my walking tour. But tonight, after writing a pretty boring piece about the "Great Spinach Shortage of '06" I figured anyone out there still reading this blog would probably just prefer a photo essay. So here goes! No matter how many of these villages I walked through, they never lost their appeal. It was hard to believe the morning I took this shot that I was going to be walking as far as that distant horizon! I had to go over what seemed like thousands of fences like these. You can see that it was not easy to figure out where these trails were going! This was a B&B in the coastal town of Blakeney. So beautiful that I almost cried. Or maybe it was just the wonderful bathtub ... Oddly, I found it impossible to capture the tremendous scale of the Norfolk coast. This shot was actually from the top of a very, very tall stone sea barrier, with the wave far off in the distance. Cheap disposable camera!!

Why oh Why?

As far as I’m concerned, losing weight isn’t as much about food as it is self-knowledge. Okay, that might be a little skewed, but I know that it wasn’t just swapping healthier ingredients in my recipes that has helped me maintain a 50 pound weight loss for four years. It was really digging into my motivations, my actions and my challenges, and setting goals and learning to forgive my mistakes that made the difference. So I find it fascinating that sometimes when I ask people to tell me WHY they want to lose weight, they don’t have an answer. I mean, considering what a tremendous undertaking it is, you’d think that we’d all know exactly why we’re doing this. But in fact, there are a lot of times when the whole “why bother” thing is very hard to answer. Similarly, I like to ask people “how do you know if a particular food choice is worth it?” This question is quite often greeted with a blank stare. Perhaps because each of us imagines that we know automatically what makes a food worth eating. But asked to think about it and articulate what goes into that choice, a lot of times we find it impossible. Well, aside from the fact that they say the “unexamined life is not worth living” I do think it can be a valuable exercise to be very specific and precise about what this is all about. Losing weight in a healthy way and maintaining that for the long run is a process that requires lots of changes big and small, a fair amount of commitment, and a great deal of patience. Since it can just as often be frustrating as it is rewarding, discouraging as it is promising, and difficult as it is common sense, healthy body weight management is not to be taken lightly (so to speak). So, here goes: Why bother? The primary reason I want to maintain my weight loss is vanity. I simply like being thin – I enjoy how I feel and how I look. I also do this maintenance thing because I want to be able to run a mile without being winded and to have a healthy heart. And to some extent, I ‘bother’ with it because of the sense of accomplishment it gives me. What's worth it? Number one, a food has to taste good in order for me to eat it. I don’t touch celery or cucumbers. Blech. I don’t care HOW low they are in calories. Secondly, a food has to be satisfying – either because of how it makes me feel (such as a veggie and eggwhite ommelette) or how it tastes (a small, rich piece of chocolate). Third, a food has to ‘make sense’ to me in terms of its caloric content. I love ice cream and find it delicious and satisfying, but I’m careful with it because I’d rather remain thin and have less of it, then go overboard and gain weight. Why do you bother? What’s worth it to you?

Green Without Envy?

This morning I was reading some “person on the street” interviews that solicited views on the removal of fresh spinach from the marketplace due to contamination concerns. Almost every single person expressed either complete indifference or outright dislike of spinach. In addition, several people opined that basically all produce is contaminated in one way or another and should be avoided. Funny, five years ago, I would have agreed with these people. After all, to me a salad was iceberg lettuce and shaved carrots. A vegetable was anything green that had to be cooked like hell and covered in cheese. And a little went a very, very long way. Most vegetables that I bought ended up rotten and had to be thrown away. Man, what a difference a half-decade has made! I was actually really depressed when I heard of the e. coli outbreak and was sorry that I learned about it too late to stock up before all spinach was removed from the shelves. I always wash it and I mostly use it in cooking, so I wasn’t too worried about catching anything. What was worse for me was that a lot of “mixed greens” were also removed, and so the produce pickings were pretty slim. So for salads this weekend, I had to make do with some Romaine lettuce I got at Costco on Friday (splitting a big bag of it with my friend Richard). The one upside was that I decided to go to the Chinese market and dig up something to fill my fridge. I got a few of the usual things and then remembered that I had just seen a recipe for okra – one of the few vegetables I’ve never tried – and bought a package of it. Turns out okra is pretty good – especially when sautéed with onion and garlic, with some added mushrooms and topped with salsa. Mmm mmm good! I sure hope that the scare is over soon, and that safety measures are put into place and spinach is returned to its proper place in the market. Until then, however, I’ll just keep reminding myself that there are new and greener horizons out there. The world of vegetables can’t be underestimated if even an old hand like me is continuing to discover uncharted waters. Jack Sprat the sailor man?