Menopot

The only thing I have done these past five days to keep the I'm not Oprah promise to myself is EXERCISE.  I purchased a Weight Watcher's magazine.  Read an insightful bit of news.  It appears that women after menopause can lose up to ten pounds of muscle each year. Do the math, if your weight remains the same, the muscle tone you once had is now what the article calls your "menopot." How disgusting is that?  Menopot - spare tire menopausal  women get around the middle that makes them desperate for an elastic waist band.  My brain finally put it together.  I couldn't figure out why lifting weights was soooooo important. Now I know.  It is the muscle that burns fat/calories.  If your muscles start disappearing after menopause, then there is nothing left on your body to burn fat.  You could literally starve yourself and still remain a gelatinous blob. "The old metabolism has ground to a halt" is really the truth.  I suppose I could go on Survivor and not lose a pound cause even eating coconuts all day would be too many calories for a gelatinous blob. So, while my weight has evened out I will continue to exercise.  I do not ache, limp or hobble so some muscle tone is reappearing.  Just not through the middle.  I'm shrinking, slowly, very slowly from the top down and the bottom up.  My shoes are sliding off and so are my glasses.  
I'm currently reading three books.  My neighbor gave me Eat, Pray, Love.  On chapter 17.  I never want to give up on a book because I always think somewhere I'll find the part that makes it a book on the best-seller list.  I haven't gotten there yet with this novel.  I obviously have nothing in common with the author.  I really need to get to the Eat part, but it will be sad if she eats her way across three countries and encourages everyone to do that. 

Took my granddaughter to the zoo today and purchased a year membership.  We had a lovely time. 

Oh, the other book I am reading is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.  And I haven't gotten past the foreward written by Lewis.  He is defending how and why he wrote what he did and the different approaches to the subject matter he did or did not support.  And the other book I had to stop reading for a while till I recovered from the story line.  Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.  It just got toooo sad. 

I'm headed to the pool to work on the menopot.  That is officially my new disgusting title for my flab.  

Sincerely,

I'm Not Oprah

Trigger Finger

I met friends at the pool at 6 am this morning.  Once again, exercise is not the problem.  It's the food and always has been.  These same friends were with me last night while I ate two bowls of home-made big red ice cream, (my favorite.) I ate the two bowls.  They did not.  I need to ask them why and how they resisted.  Swimming with them was fun.  One likes to read.  One likes to talk.  So I am covered for whatever exercise mood I am in. 

Speaking of friends, I want them to sign up as a follower of this blog.  One of them sends me text messages when I don't blog.  So, if you're reading this sign up.  I think it would make me accountable to keeping up with the emotional issues that go along with weight loss. 

The weekend of performances went well at the theatre.  Audiences were good.  I had an awful experience. I will try to explain what my part of the production is.  I sit in the booth above the stage.  I really thoroughly enjoy this spot.  I am part of the show but the audience does not see me, (except in this particular production I run down the steps three times to be Little Red Riding Hood's Granny. The I run back up the stairs while throwing off the wig and shawl to run the computer.)  It sounds amateur, I know.  The director did me a favor letting me take part, because it IS fun, just a bit nerve-racking.  And the other granny was doing a show in the metroplex and could not be in our show till this coming weekend. 

Back to the awful experience.  It involves my nemesis....the computer.  If you have read this blog before, you are aware of the fact that computers are not my favorite thing to deal with. Just revisiting what happened is making me feel sick again.  That is why I am writing this event in my blog.  I lost my appetite completely.  Skipped lunch. Those two things RARELY happen to me. If weight loss is really about emotion as much as anything else I need to examine this further.  My emotions made me lose my appetite and my emotions make me eat way toooooo much. Hmmm, there is something needing to be examined.

Getting on....the lights, sound effects and music are all built into hundreds of cues.  They are put in the order of how the show happens, of course.  And if you mess up in hitting the space bar to fire the cues off then the entire show comes to a screeching halt, or pages and pages of dialogue are missed, or a song stops midway through, or a baby cries when birds are to sing, or the giant speaks when violins are to gently waft in the background, or the stage simply goes black while 130 audience members just sit and wonder what happened.

Now you have the picture of the mistakes that have occured while I am sitting at the computer.  It sounds pitiful.  Perfectly mirroring the look on the face of the owner of the theatre as he scrambles to repair the damage.  Since I'm a volunteer he can't fire me.  He could reassign me to simply making popcorn for concessions. He calls it trigger finger. You're so anxious to hit the cue at just the right moment. When he gave me the job it sounded so easy.   SO.....

I have three days to recover and try again this weekend. 

Sincerely,

I'm Not Oprah 

    

Scarf

To many more educated than I, the word scarf carries several definitions.  When I blog I keep my dictionary app handy.  I just looked up scarf.  I do believe I missused or misspelled this word. Perhaps I was looking for a different word with a different spelling, but pronounced similar to scarf.  I was picturing a dog, scarfing down food, hurriedly, without any effort to taste or enjoy.  Like my yellow lab with a piece of cheese.  Or me with chocolate almond ice cream.  I was HORRIFIED to learn from my handy dictionary app that scarf also means to masturbate while strangling oneself.

Not really the meaning I was going for.

Sincerely,

I'm Not Oprah

Pie Night

Tonight is pie night.  A fun tradition at our theatre celebrating the halfway mark of each show.  Since we live in town and the majority of the performers are from out of town, we are hosting the soiree.  It's early in the day and I am already worrying about the amount of will-power it will take to politely refuse cherry, key-lime and coconut cream. If they just happen to bring butter brickle pistachio I won't eat a slice. I could spend 6 hours in the pool.  That might eat up enough calories in advance.  I could invite the guests in and leave to take a walk around the neighborhood.  I will be grappling with this most of the day and will probably have to blog several times as I attempt to rewire my brain around pie night. 

Weigh in was four ounces less than yesterday.  Yes, ounces.  After menopause, metabolism slows down to the pace of a slug....no slower than that. 

Sincerely,

I'm Not Oprah

Coming out of the Blog Closet

My daughter knows about my blog.  She appears to be ok with it.  My husband knows, my neighbor knows and a couple of good friends.  I still find it odd to put something out on the world wide web that ANYBODY can read.  It is a form of accountability. When trying to re-wire your brain to think and do healthy, low-calorie, low-fat things, accountability helps. And when you're around those who know about your struggle, you really can't look them in the eye and scarf down a triple dip chocolate almond sugar cone from Braum's.  My husband came through the door the other night and I quickly, though deftly, hid the chocolate malt balls I was munching on while watching a movie.  I did not weigh in for two days.  Made an extreme effort to get back on track and today weighed a decent amount.  An amount that shows me something is working. 

Still swimming everyday, but when the eating doesn't match up, there is no weight loss, no matter how many hours I spend doing water aerobics.There is such a large part of me that says "Ten pounds is good.  You've stopped snoring, you've stopped aching, and now clothes are more comfortable. It's time to stop." 

I'm not going to.  By what the doctor says, I am obese.  That sounds soooo disgusting.  Not morbidly obese, but as one doctor told me, "You're chubby."  What would you do if your friends just told you to your face..."You are obese."  Bettter they should say what my favorite cartoon of all time says...

Old woman says to her husband while she is standing in front of a mirror trying on a dress, "Charles, does this dress make me look fat?" His reply, "No, my dear, it's the fat that makes you look fat."

Sincerely,

I'm Not Oprah

Friends and Food

I can't seem to have friends without food.  Meeting over lunch and dinner is so common.  And my willpower to say no to the shake, cheeseburger and fries combo is non-existent.  I have no will-power.  I guess I need to face it.  I use to tell myself I didn't spend a lot on shopping because I just didn't put myself at shopping malls that often.  I was strong enough to resist the shopping temptation.  But that's not true.  I really don't like to shop.  Some women make a habit of shopping.  I avoid it, not because of my great willpower.  I just find it BORING.  And I think I told myself my willpower was so strong in high school and college, that it kept me out of trouble...no dwi (dui's present tense), no major drunken embarassing moments I barely remember, simply because my willpower was so strong.  WRONG.  I never liked the taste of beer, still don't and barely can finish one bottle of wine in a month and that is with my husband drinking with me. So, I have to admit it...where food is concerned I need more inner strength.  I know half the battle of weight loss is simply recognizing where the problem lies.  Most people don't have thyroid problems...they have mental problems.  I think Oprah would agree with me on that.  No special emphasis on the last statement. I somehow am writing in italics and I CAN'T GET IT TURNED OFF!!!!!!!!! Well hell.

My lack of willpower AND computer skills are depressing me.

Sincerely,
I'm Not Oprah  

Welch's Grape Juice

I gave Welch's grape juice a bit of a plug because their plastic jugs deserve it.  When exercising in the past, I started using (and I am using them once again) Welch's grape juice jugs as underwater resistance and flotation devices.  They work great.  I highly recmd them.  The hand grips are just the right size and the grips are in the middle of the jug.  Purchase the Light Welch's ( I swear it taste exactly the same as fully sugared.)  Enjoy the beverage, don't throw the lids away, peel off the labels, and toss jugs in your swim bag.  There is nothing like it for a very good arm workout. Just be creative and your shoulders will reappear after being hidden by fat for years.

Plus, after swimming now for two weeks, I no longer ache.  I don't hobble or wobble after getting out of the car.  I don't limp and I am MUCH more flexible.  Which puts swimming way up on my list of favorite exercises.  I still don't put my whole head under. And, of course would not be seen dead without my cover-up on.  But swimming is what I would have to recmd.  I guess I am going to have to join the fittness club when my little neighborhood pool closes for the winter.

One last observation before I hit the sack, I never realized how many calories beverages have.  I am craving orange juice.  On hot, extremely hot summer days I crave a huge glass of orange juice.  My biggest stuggle last few days has been going over the calorie count just because of beverages.  The forzen margarita I had  Saturday night certainly didn't help. 

I'm still not Oprah