2.7.18

In my youth, the scariest thought I could summon was not that there was a monster under the bed, but that somehow a long, slithery snake had decided to have a nap tucked lengthwise between the sheet and the mattress, over the edge to where the sheets were tucked in – and after I risked putting my bare, vulnerable feet down toward the undoubted snake pit, it would decide it was time to slither out, its flat reptilian eyes scanning the horizontal landscape between the sheets to find something to latch onto and maybe eat.

Unlikely? Utterly. Chilling? Sha.

But now I’m an old lady. Screw the snakes; I have a new terror:

I fear the ringing phone, followed by the voice of someone saying “Where ARE you? We’re all WAITING for you!”

In the last month or so, I’ve missed multiple appointments and plans. Really – multiple. One phone call during which time I was going to browbeat the members of the fundraising committee for my high school reunion into doing EXACTLY AS I WANTED, and I had good plans, too. Instead, I sat at the kitchen table thinking about working on a job but really moseying around Facebook like a waste product while, far from my awareness, the rest of the committee agreed to something utterly boring. DAMN it!

And then – I more than owed Eleanor, Steve, and darling Caroline a meal for all they’ve cooked for me, so I invited them to brunch at a local restaurant on Sunday. When Sunday arrived, I curled my toes in solitary splendor and turned over and went back to sleep. They called me several times to make sure I wasn’t wrapped around a bridge abutment with an 18-wheeler on top of me, but I never answered the phone. Too busy snoring. They had brunch without me, and rightly so. I was humiliated.

And today, I KNEW my appointment with Grace was at 9:30 at Body Dynamics; I was paying attention. Yet even as I knew it, I also decided I didn’t have to leave my house until 9:30. At 9:35, I chastised myself – silly. You’re running five minutes behind schedule; there goes your bubble of time for traffic.

At 9:40, charming Devon at Body Dynamics called me to see if I was making the up-close acquaintance of a bridge abutment. We’re expecting you – where are you?

(And it’s not the first time Devon and I have had such a call, either.)

I’ve gotten foggy about time. I don’t know what’s going on. If I’m found comatose in front of my computer, someone tell the EMTs “She said she was having trouble keeping track of time,” so they can trepan me in the right area of the skull.

Is it just because life is in upheaval with all the workmen tromping through my house at odd hours? Have I actually lost the ability to set up things outside of the normal schedule? Is there a brain tumor creating little bridge abutments in the grey matter? Am I just an idiot? Is this the true beginning of old age?

No me gusta.

Now I fear the call that lets me know I’ve screwed up again. If you really wanted to be cruel, you could prank me easily… but who would be that mean to the hopelessly disadvantaged?!

I spend so much time focusing on my physical health. I think it’s time to look into my mental alertness!

You’ve been warned; if we’re planning something, a reminder call, text, or email might help!

Yes, I’m using the alerts on my phone. They are USELESS to me. (Thanks for the suggestion, though.)

 

 

2.6.18

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of people who make noise: People who are proud of what they’re doing and want to tell you about that – and me, because I talk all the time whether I have something useful to say or not.

(My college roommate used to say “Talking to Pru is like – not talking” because if she didn’t answer my question quickly enough, I would answer for her … How annoying of me. Aren’t you glad you and I are separated by a computer screen?!)

The chattiness of successful people is particularly apparent on social media. Most folken don’t leap to update Facebook when something stupid or boring happens. We save up our brio or pride or aggression for vigorous posts and brush aside the daily quotidian. That’s human nature.

But it means that sometimes it looks like EVERYONE BUT YOU is making progress. And that’s just untrue.

For every person posting about losing inches or pounds, or meeting a goal, or adding another lap on the stairs… there are uncounted numbers of people who feel most comfortable lurking on social media who think THEY ARE ALONE in not achieving.

It can make you feel… weak. Like you’re less than you should be; like you’re letting down some mythical standard.

This isn’t speculation on my part; I suffer from this all the time. People who I love, and who I trust love me, have accomplished things that I haven’t even considered doing yet. As an extreme example, my friend Victoria has not only done her taxes but already gotten her refund. COME ON! That’s asking too much of me to witness. It’s EARLY FEBRUARY, for Pete’s sake!

I think it’s worth at least one lone post to say that I don’t want ANYONE to feel bad about what they have and haven’t accomplished in terms of their health. This isn’t the first time I’ve said it, but I’ll say it again because I believe it so strongly:

We are all dealing with the maximum we can handle every day. None of us are lounging.

So if you wish you’d done more about protecting your health, you aren’t alone. And there is no value in judging yourself for past decisions. That’s the past. When the time is right, when you have the capacity to add something, you’ll make one or more of the small steps that will help you to a healthier life.

You know it and I know it.

You have it in you to make the tiny, marginal choices that begin a healthier process. But if you can’t do it today, then stay strong in spirit. Don’t put yourself down, because if you don’t zealously guard your own good opinion of yourself, who else is going to do it?

I make a lot of noise, I know – and you’re kindness incarnate for reading my blog. My journey is fraught with tiny traumas and dizzying (to me) successes, and I don’t have the delicacy to shut up about them. But don’t let my noise fool you. My taxes aren’t done, my bed is unmade, and the aforementioned Victoria is waiting for several writing jobs from me that I put off so I could work out. We all do the very best we can… whether noisy or silent.

Onward, my silent friend!

 

 

2.5.18

There was a time when if I had music on, chances were good it was a John Mayer playlist. These days, it’s most likely to be Ed Sheeran.

(I like charming men who play the guitar and who can hold a melody against my inevitable harmony. Anyone who knew Jonathan will recognize that I was lost with his first chord.)

Like every other human on the planet, I go through phases… and I evolve.

Not “evolve” like “My god – she can breathe underwater!” (although wouldn’t that be cool?). I mean that time and experience teach us things. If you have a dog, you learn to put your shoes away and not leave them out, a target for gnawing slobber. That’s not a fad; you evolve to make a permanent change. If you have a car, you keep an eye on the fuel tank and fill up before you hit dead empty – maybe even filling up before you’re terribly low because the weather’s going to turn nasty and it’s nicer to stand outside waiting at the pump when the wind isn’t stripping heat from your bones.

But sometimes it’s tough at first to distinguish the difference between a fad and an evolution. Maybe the only difference is time.

I’m thinking (of course) of fitness. I’ve gone through exercising fads, and far more dieting fads. I’ve held to them with rigid determination… until I failed in the plan, in which case – hey, that Ed Sheeran’s music is GOOD. I’m putting John Mayer aside for the moment.

(Translation: No more exercise. No more diet.)

My fads are characterized by intensity – by the aforementioned rigid determination. I focus all my will on the effort, and it’s hard to divert me. Until, that is, something succeeds in diverting me. At which point, game over. No second life.

But in an evolution, failure is just part of the process. Sometimes the dog DOES steal my shoe. Sometimes I find I’m gassing the car in the middle of a blizzard. Yet neither of those things is permission to stop correcting that behavior.

(I’m working this out as I type.)

So here’s my quandary. Is my current determination to improve and maintain my health a fad? Or an evolution? Do I trust it will continue?

In more practical terms – do I throw out the size 22 pants?

Day-to-day events weigh on the side of evolution. I’ve missed fitness sessions at Body Dynamics; I’ve skipped the Home Exercise Program; I’ve eaten entire containers of ice cream AND KEPT WORKING ON FITNESS.

But my sense of self shies away from that. I’ve always been fat; I’ve always hated exercise. I have a supermodel brain and a hausfrau body. To even THINK that my progress could be – sheesh, I can’t even write the word “permanent” without looking for wood to bang on or something to fork the evil eye at. We don’t tempt fate that way. Don’t say that out loud. As Al Swearingen said in “Deadwood”, “Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh.”

I hope I’m evolving to better health. But John Mayer thinks it’s a fad.

 

2.2.18

Overweight people don’t trust their bodies. At least, I never did.

After all, I could ignore reality and eat whatever came within arm’s reach (and I have quite long arms) and the number on the scale would stay exactly the same.

And I could diet like a herb-eating hermit monk, adhering to barbaric rules for a shockingly long time and discover that I had gained weight. GAINED weight.

Plus – every time I lost ten to fifteen pounds, I gained back forty. I wouldn’t be this pudge today if not for diets.

All that leads to a “what the hell does it matter” attitude. We’re supposed to lead a “cause and effect” life. If you live off doughnuts, you begin to look like a doughnut. That’s what commercials and doctors promise us, anyway. If you live off kale and wheat grass, handsome people will invite you to join their beach volleyball game.

(Which sounds actually like a nightmare to me, as volleyball makes me cry and I hate the beach, so – no wheat grass for me, thanks!)

But fat people have contradictory experiences about weight management all the time. THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT FOR US. So all this training with the Body Dynamics team in Falls Church, VA has really opened my eyes, and I’m learning a huge amount about what actually has to happen if I want to go from a size 22 (two years ago) to a baggy size 18 (today) and eventually to some stopping point that I begin to trust will be even farther down the hall into the “normal” women’s clothes department.

Like – I’ve learned that the scale is almost certainly the worst measure of health you can use. It’s like saying “What color do you think this sweater is?” and the answer being “It’s definitely a color.”

Thanks for that info.

The scale can’t tell you how much fat you’re thoughtfully carrying around as you make your way through your day, nor how much muscle is carrying you around. It can’t tell you how likely it is that you’ll burn more calories in your sleep, or what your cholesterol is, or your blood pressure.

And here’s what I learned recently: It can’t even measure when you’ve lost fat.

Look at this article I got from Michelle Grady: http://100down.org/the-whoosh-effect/ or read my summary here:

Let’s say you’re a good girl and eat purely and healthfully for a WEEK (which is a damned long time to eat purely – Chip the nutritionist says that for every eight good meals you eat, you can and should have two that are just for joy). You know what happens when you get on the scale.

Nothing. Same as it ever was – same as it ever was. Look where my hand was, same as it ever was. (Are you making the Talking Heads cutting gesture down your arm? Wisdom from the Gospel of David Byrne.)

Well, it turns out that your body is obediently losing fat – but for reasons that are as yet unclear, it’s also replacing that fat with water, which it holds onto for a while. Your bulgy places might feel a little extra-squishy, or maybe you don’t notice a thing.

(In that case, I recommend envisioning your fatty liver getting a spa treatment. Ahh, that’s better!)

Then – and it’s often triggered by a higher-than-normal calorie meal – all of a sudden you find you’ve gotten up to pee a few more times than usual in the night and when morning comes, the scale has taken a nose dive. (Assuming you stayed pure and good and didn’t gorge on everything within arm’s reach.) (See above re: large wingspan). Whoosh – you peed away all that water your body was holding in place of the fat that had been melting at a constant rate.

It happened to me last night. I’ve been attempting to rein in the sugar cravings for a while, but yesterday was totally crowded. I’d spent the entire afternoon with my crazy mother. I still had many more things to accomplish in the evening. I had three things in my shopping cart: A rotisserie chicken. A head of cauliflower. A container of Ben and Jerry’s. (Oats of this Swirled; my particular brand of heroin.)

Tired. Grumpy. Stressed. Guess what I had for dinner? Right – the ice cream.

No, I didn’t scoop out a third of the container to carefully parse the sugar out over three days. I sat down with malice of forethought and a spoon and got around the entire thing in one sitting. And enjoyed it, too.

THEN I cooked up the cauliflower and ate it. The whole head. With butter.

So all things considered, this morning should have been a bloodbath at the scale, right?

I weigh 224 – the least I’ve weighed in modern history. I think I whooshed.

There’s mention in the article (check the link) of something called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, which sounds MOST alarming, so I tend to think the magazine article is at least grounded in truth… plus I believe I’ve experienced the whoosh phenomenon myself.

And I bet you have, too. Whoosh, anyone?

The Whoosh Phenomenon is so astonishing to me – and yet I also feel like shouting out “I’ve experienced that!” – that I had to have a “you’re kidding – right?” meme staring the delicious Hugh Laurie. He is the most dreamy curmudgeon on the planet, IMHO. Whoosh.

2.1.18

People walking with me tend to end up looking at me kinda funny.

It’s justified – I admit. I hit a stretch of flat travel more than four or five feet in length (a hallway, a parking lot, whatever) and I start thinking about my alignment. How do I walk right??

So my conversation trails off and my eyes get glassy. I’m focusing so hard on the internal (on the position of my pelvis, if you must know) that the outside world mists over. I could easily walk in front of a car and not realize it.

So while small children in my path are forced to scuttle left and right, I tuck my tailbone, and envision cross garters going from my low hips to cross just below the belly button and connect to the bottom of the opposite ribs. I ensure my shoulders are down and my butt is flexing. I extend through the top of my femur.

It’s most definitely not natural, and my muttering “ribs – keep the ribs down” doesn’t help. But all of this put together means my low back does NOT hurt when I walk. My low back stays happily out of the whole thing, and really: I’ll take that benefit.

Both Barbara and Grace (my trainers at Body Dynamics) have walked a careful line between encouraging my determination and wincing whenever I interpret their instructions as a command to GRIP my muscles as tightly as humanly possible. Barbara, the more cerebral of the two, says “I’m not comfortable with the word grip. Can you tone that down?”

(The answer is – No. My muscles are on a regular light switch. You can have them on or off; take your pick. I am not yet equipped with muscle dimmer switches; I can’t ease back.)

Grace, a person of movement and sensation, says “No – don’t grip. SOFTEN your muscles.”

(This is Grace-speak that I, frankly, have not yet fully interpreted. How do I soften something that requires gripping at max force if you still want the effect that the clench provides? To soften something is to let it go slack – right? Apparently not. Grace sees some alternative; I don’t understand it. This will take still more time to figure out…)

Yesterday, Grace paid me a compliment. “When you started, we helped you to build up the muscles you needed. But now you have them – and now you have to trust them.”

I was immediately filled with foreboding. Trusting my musculature does not come naturally to me.

She went on. “Instead of thinking about tucking your tailbone or cross-bracing your obliques, I just want you to think about being TAAAAAAAAHHHHHL.”

“Tall?”

“TAAAAAAAAHHHHHL.” She made an effortlessly graceful gesture with her ballet dancer hand to indicate the stretch of a spine. “Forget about the rest. If you think about being TAAAAAAAHHHL, then your body will be in the proper alignment.”

I had one of those “Whachoo talkin’ bout, Willis?” moments. I have walked for blocks in the wrong direction because I’m focused so hard on the muscles I’m using to walk down the street and now she says just thinking about being tall will take the place of all that??

Between you and me, I already have a petty complaint about height. Now, I know that Grace isn’t saying that I should feel tall because I AM tall; she could and would say the same to anyone, of any height. If you walk around envisioning a string coming out of the top of your head being pulled to the ceiling, you’ll have better alignment – theoretically.

But I actually happen to be tall; I’m 5’10”. I’m PROUD of being 5’10” because on actuarial tables, you get to weigh a few more pounds than women who are 5’9”. (Yes. THAT is why I like being tall. Having a perpetual problem with obesity has dyed my personality THAT thoroughly.)

But when I went to my new doctor the other day, the nurse measured me and announced with heartless disregard that I was five feet and 9.41 inches.

WHAAAAAT??

That’s not even nine and a half! According to statistical norms, we have to round my height DOWN to five-nine! GIVE ME MY HALF AN INCH BACK!

I almost demanded a re-measure; I was stressed that morning! Shrunken! I wasn’t standing as bitterly tall as I could possibly stretch! Get those brokers back in here – I want to reopen trading!

I didn’t. But I was already feeling aggrieved about my height, so being told to think TAAAAAAHHHHL hit me weird.

Anyway, that’s what I’m doing now. I’m walking around being TAAAAAAHHHHHL. Except for being tough to keep up over longer distances, it feels deceptively easy. I don’t trust it.

This is the only photo I have of Grace; I took it last year. She’s gotten an adorable haircut since; with bangs. So cute. If she told you to think TAAAAAHHHL, you’d do it just from the swanlike example she sets.

1.31.18

I can cook. Really. If left to my own devices, I will not starve to death, nor will I find myself subjected to rickets, beriberi, or any other nutritional deficiencies…

…but there’s no denying that my family has politely requested I forego the traditional “Mother” role in the kitchen.

I can’t blame them. Cooking makes me mean. I don’t enjoy it, I’m not good at it, and as for the alchemy that results in the meat being hot and fully cooked at the EXACT same moment as the vegetables, well that’s clearly arcane, occult knowledge that requires sacrificing a small mammal under a blood moon, and I am NOT that kind of heathen. Hmph.

My mother, both of my sisters, and even my son are effortless, instinctive chefs. They are all fully capable of throwing together something luscious with just whatever happens to be in the fridge and the pantry as soon as you look a little peckish. They’re prone to giving directions like “a pinch of this” and “oh, you know – until it tastes right” when asked “How much of this do you use?”

I, on the other hand, approach every cooking attempt as if it was an eleventh-grade biology lab, with Mr. Domizio in a natty 1970s plaid suit looking at me with despair. If I ask “how much,” then I want the answer to be “exactly two and a half teaspoons and not a grain more.” I level spoonfuls of things before adding them. I get out scales and weigh things. I cook in a way that makes my son hysterical; before he died, my husband was equally entertained – until I lost my temper and barked at them both to GET OUT IF YOU EVER WANT TO EAT ANYTHING EVER AGAIN EVER.

Wisely, they did.

(This fussy and anal-retentive style of cooking actually makes me into a very tired but mostly successful baker, as it happens. Not that baking EVER helped anyone live a more nutritious lifestyle.)

My point – and I do have one – is that I am about to offer a kitchen tip. I am fully aware of how remarkable that is, and how, in whatever antiques mall in the sky that Jonathan is currently in, he is rolling on the floor in great, hearty gusts of laughter. BUT HERE IT IS ANYWAY:

When the pear you want to put in your morning yogurt is as hard as winter ice on the sidewalk, you can haul out the mandolin and shave it. Makes it edible and releases what juices are there.

That’s all.

Now that I look at it, I think of the times I’ve seen “shaved pear and fennel salad” on a menu, but I don’t much like fennel, so I’ve never had it. Still, it makes me realize that shaving a pear on the mandolin might not be such a new concept…

Oh, never mind. It might be new to YOU.

Let us go forth and attempt good nutrition!

Breakfast. So good. Shaved pear (for that “chef” touch) with golden flax seed, wheat germ, walnuts and pistachios, and whole-milk no-sugar organic plain Greek yogurt. Makes me hungry to look at it. (Let the dog lick the bowl. He deserves a happy gut too.)

 

1.29.18

She thought she was safe in the Macy’s housewares department. Tucked away at the very top of the mall, surrounded by curtains and flowery sheets and enameled fondue sets, she thought she could relax her guard.

Then she saw him, hiding at a table of See’s Candies left over from the holidays.

She clutched her collar nervously to her throat and hurried on – but not twenty feet later, at a pre-Valentines’ Godiva display… there he was again! Smiling knowingly. Watching her lower her eyes fearfully and scurry past.

Out the mallside door and into the filtered, processed air of shining brass rails and escalators and palaces to consumerism. She fled Macy’s and sought refuge in the nearby steak house. Spotting her dining companion waiting at the hostess stand, she exhaled in relief – only to gasp again at what she saw at his elbow:

The dessert tray. Creamy cheesecake. A skillet of warmed apples in syrup, wrapped in buttery pastry and crowned with a slowly-melting orb of ice cream. Berries – innocent, healthy berries – trapped in their screaming terror in the claustrophobic embrace of sugary flavored whipped cream. O the horror!

I am stalked by sugar. It is EVERYWHERE.

I went to lunch with my financial guy at that steak house at Tyson’s II. Fortunately, Rick is a fellow sufferer; he, too, is beset by demon sugar. He ate a kale salad and I had wild field greens and we compared our work-out routines and our breakfasts. We turned our eyes away from those around us, not comfortable witnessing what they were doing to themselves with mashed potatoes and rib racks and mac and cheese – what we LONGED to do – and told ourselves that lean cuts of meat and plenty of veggies with water, water, more water was enough for us.

(Actually, I decided I was going to have to kill off the unknown Mrs. Rick and take him for myself when the waitress asked what we wanted to drink. “Can I just have water with a wedge of lemon, please?” he asked, and I had to restrain myself from throwing myself on him and sobbing into his neck, “Me, too! That’s what I order, too! Oh, you poor darling!”)

(I’m pretty sure Rick doesn’t follow The Adventures of a Fat Lady in Fitness Land; wouldn’t he be surprised?? Oh, I’m sorry – tell me again about long term versus short term capital gains; this time I PROMISE I’ll pay attention.)

I know enough to fork the sign against the evil eye when the dessert tray is wheeled past, but I’m still having to snatch back my hand when the bread basket appears, or the French fries are laid all hot and tender and crispy on the table. I never look pasta in the eye – that only encourages capellini – but like any abused wife, I secretly miss its dangerous nature and long for its delicious toxicity to fill me once more. Like Piper Laurie in “Carrie,” I’d scream my shameful secret: “And I LIKED it!”

It’s a process. A constant challenge. And sugar stalks me wherever I go. I wonder if I can take out a restraining order? NO CLOSER THAN FIFTY FEET, YOU! BY DAMN!

PS: I am aware that my small battle with sugar is not at all as serious or alarming as an actual stalker, and I apologize to those who (rightly) see no humor in the situation.

1.28.18

Gaw, I love to brag!!

I’m talking clever HUMBLE brags – but they’re brags all the same. “I’ve only sponsored 17 orphans; I feel so bad that I haven’t done more.” Or “isn’t it awful how hard it is to get the new hood on my Mercedes waxed?”

(Full disclosure: I DO need to get the hood on my car waxed, but I have not sponsored 17 orphans.) (Just one.) (Humble brag.)

But I do NOT love to disclose my failings. Who does?

So I’ve been silent. A few people were kind enough to notice, which is very flattering. (I think that’s a humble brag, too.) I’m doing home renovations (painting, repairing, etc.) and it’s caused a typical amount of chaos. But chaos, it turns out, is not typical for me. It reminds me of the post-dead-husband period, when I was in deep mourning and processing that by purging all the crap out of the house.

Now I’m surrounded by the crap of moving the contents of three rooms into two other rooms, and I find I’m having flashbacks to that time of shock and confusion. I felt (and it was all feeling – no logic) that I’d fallen back into a very bad time and mindset. So somehow I stopped doing my home exercise program. (Because – where the hell is the yoga mat? Where did I put the weights? That theraband could be ANYWHERE. I give up. NOT MY FAULT.)

(Totally my fault.)

Then I had to haul the kid back to college and then I went further to visit my college roommate, and somehow I lost everything that Chip (the nutritionist at Body Dynamics) told me about eating to benefit my body. I had a total Road Trip mentality; by the ride home I made a pit stop in which I deliberately walked past bottled water and small packets of nuts and instead willfully bought an extra-large hot chocolate (because they didn’t have tea – Erwin, Tennessee. Sheesh.) and a packet of chocolate doughnuts.

You really can’t get much lower than that in the downward spiral. At least, I can’t. (Humble brag. No Mad Dog 20-20 or bath salts or child hookers HERE. My heroin is demon sugar.)

I was indulging like a junkie, and feeling BAD like a junkie because even if I tried to suppress the knowledge of what all that sugar was doing to the house party in my gut, I KNEW I was doing myself harm – and after being such a good steward of my health for so long, too. So I fell silent.

Because who likes to expose shame?

But then – good things started to happen despite my despair. First, I have steady appointments with trainers at Body Dynamics (Barbara and Grace, both of whom refused to believe I was now so decrepit that they ought to treat me like a first-time client) and two exercise classes there – and I kept all of those appointments out of habit.

Then I started with a new doctor. (I used to be with Carefirst Blue Cross, but they decided they could get away with almost doubling my rates in the new year so I gave them the boot and went with Kaiser Permanente.) Of course they did blood work, and my results came back with very encouraging numbers.

And I remembered: It’s not a week – or even two – of indulgence and shame that brings the cholesterol and A1C up to “you’re in trouble” levels. You can screw up – you can get into a vicious downward spiral of emotion and gluttony and sloth…

…but spirals go upward, too. You don’t HAVE to go down.

And it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been going downward. You can go upward with just one tiny effort, which stops the downward curl. Every choice is a new opportunity, and every good choice makes the next decision a tiny bit easier.

So I’ve trotted up and down the stairs for five minutes both yesterday and today. (Today was actually five and a half minutes because I forced myself to do an eighth lap – and those extra 30 seconds may seem brief to you but they’re a badge of total, panting, sweaty honor to me.) (Humble if pathetic brag.)

I’m doing my HEP again. I’m avoiding grains and sugars when I can. I’m drinking my water. I’m paying attention and remembering that beating myself up doesn’t help. I have forgiven myself and am continuing my journey.

And I’m beginning to clean up after the renovations. That feels like progress.

What a long, whining blog. You get brownie points for getting this far, because unlike real sugar, brownie points don’t upset the house party in your gut at all.

Onward!

1.12.18

It’s such a scandal; the pancreas told the small intestine that the liver was mocking the small intestine.

“She said WHAT about me??”

“Well, I heard that she said you were all puffed up – that you’d never fit into a bikini.”

“Who EXACTLY did you hear that from? I want to know! They can say it to my face!”

“You have no face; you’re a duodenum.”

“That’s doo-ODD-in-um to you.”

“I thought it was DOO-oh-DEE-num.”

“Never mind. Who’d you hear it from?”

“Don’t say you heard it from me, but it was the kidneys.”

“Those snakes. I thought we were friends!”

“Calm down. Maybe I heard it wrong.”

“You don’t just say that about someone without checking. All puffed up. Come on – I’m not swollen. I can fit into my high school jeans. Do I look fat? I’m not swollen; I have large bones.”

“Again, you have no bones. You’re a… small intestine.”

“Well, you’re a gland.”

“There’s no need to get personal. Really.”

Inflammation is all the rage in health circles. Poor digestion. Joint pain. Obesity. Cancer. Autoimmune responses. Arthritis. It’s all attributable to inflammation.

As a bloggist (self-appointed grandeur), I am aware that I should go research the very latest news on inflammation. But Christ – then you’d have to read it. And bla, bla, bla, intestinal lining. My eyes are glazing over.

Instead, I offer the above dialog as my version of “inflammatory.” If you want to soothe your inflamed innards, provide those fussy organs with avocados. Salmon. Walnuts. Broccoli. Ginger. Apples. Remember: sugar – demon sugar – is a definite inflammatory. A real mixer. Internal battles are sure to break out where sugar has been, and sugar will sit in the corner and smile evilly at the chaos she has wrecked.

You can encourage the scandal of inflammation, or you can broker peace and enjoy a little balance and harmony. The food choices will make the difference.

This is one of the first things that shows up if you Google “angry intestines.” Damn, I love Google images.

 

1.11.18

You know those infomercials that suck you in at two in the morning? You know perfectly well you should be asleep, yet there you are watching in fascination as ripped blondes and stunningly beautiful male torsos gyrate through a workout in a groovy converted warehouse gym while being shouted at by a former Marine drill sergeant who nevertheless somehow broadcasts his overwhelming approval by how his students are WORKING it as they leap high, drop to the ground, do a push up, and leap up again, over and over again.

Yeah, I’ve watched them too. And I’ve found myself thinking “Well, I’D like to have abs like that blonde lady’s.”

There’s always a passage where they show the “before” pictures, and all those buff bodies look just like blobby people before they surrendered their will to the drill sergeant. They looked like me. You too, probably.

So it’s simultaneously fascinating and shaming. After all, they once looked like me – and now LOOK at them. It must be my self-discipline; the only thing standing in the way of that eight-pack body is that I’m just lazy.

Then 60 Minutes or 20/20 does a searing exposé in which they uncover the fact that all the students have ALWAYS been gym rats, and the “before” photos were taken a year after a significant sports injury. Given the chance to sit on the couch and eat Doritos, even athletes will take it (even as they itch to get back in the gym and do more wind sprints) – and they, too, can blob up.

Of course, below their blubber is STILL an eight-pack – so when they sign the agreement with the drill sergeant and begin to melt back to their natural state, it LOOKS like a normal blobby person can do this, too. It’s a con, in other words.

I’m thinking about that because I HAVE A NEW OUTFIT to work out in. I’m pretty sure I love it, but there’s a chance I look like Botticelli’s “Primavera” about a year after a significant sports injury.

Primavera, for those not up on their Italian renaissance iconography, stands not just for spring but for youth, freshness, innocence, hope. (And now that I think of it, it’s entirely possible that “primavera” means “first greening,” which I think is the very best phrase for springtime I’ve ever heard. Don’t tell me if that’s not what the Italian word means.)

I assume she’s pretty buff, in her Renaissance “I’m pregnant like Mary” way; under her flowing robes there’s the 1500’s  equivalent of a six-pack. (She’s too modest to show off the eight-pack; you have to show a LOT of belly to see the lowest striations in the fascia.) So say she pulled a hammy at a Maypole dance and had to sit out the festivities for a bit; think she’d come back looking a bit like this outfit??