Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

PMS.

Pre-menstrual syndrome.  Do I need to spell out that godforsaken, emotional, mental basketful of goo that us lovely women get to enjoy every 28 days or so.

Sometimes, I swear that the surge of progesterone is likely to rival any hallucinagenic (although, I personally cannot attest to that.....it's what I imagine it to be).  Maybe that explains that crazy man who ate another man's face off earlier this week in Miami.  Admit it, you have had those moments of hormonal rage that could make you want to think about face chomping......(in my household, it's usually the testosterone of my family that incites my flesh off bone imagery).

In any event, with the surge of my hormones, my body image swells like one of those soak in water overnight creatures your kids get in goodie bags.  Yes, from the time I have gone to bed and have risen in the morning, I look in the mirror and this is honestly what I see.  (Note the brain searing image on your left).  <------------

So maybe I am PMS-ing while I write this....but I do not lie, nor do I exaggerate.  (You can stop laughing a the exaggerate)!  That picture is how my brain depicts the reflection of my mirror for a few days once a month!  My husband tries to persuade me that is definitely NOT how I look, with a master level of disgust and how would I ever fathom myself looking like that.  I remain stunned that he cannot see what it is that I so clearly see. 

Can hormones really warp your vision for a few days?  I say hormones are a weapon of mass destruction.  Imagine if us women were in charge of the world!

Late last week as I was having a particularly "fat" feeling day, a friend and I were chatting, and she said something that, well, stopped me in my tracks.  As I was whining about my weight, she simply said, "...but not everyone is as beautiful as you are."  I simply poo-poo'd her with her ridiculous compliment.  I do not see myself as beautiful.  Really, though - who does?!?  My friend came back with a compliment so bitch-slapping powerful that it stopped me dead, speechless for a few moments......"You are so gorgeous, it's actually disorienting!"  Wait.  What?

How could I not take this compliment from a friend who is known for her absolute brutal honestly (which I find awesomely refreshing, by the way).  I thanked her and smiled to myself for a little while.  One, because it's so great when a woman genuinely pays another woman with a compliment.  Two, because she made me feel, at that moment, I may have looked like this super-star Gabrielle Reece.

I further thought to myself, what a shame.  I absolutely feel 100% beautiful, powerful, strong, confident and so much more on the INSIDE.  What is wrong with me that I cannot feel it on the outside?  What exactly will it take to make me feel it on the outside?  I have many beautiful friends and I would feel so badly if they admitted this is how they feel.  Yet, I'm sure there are many of you out there, right?

With that observation, and amongst the salt-lick bloat of the remaining days of PMS, I try to remind myself of this image below.....there are a couple of weeks every month where I am actually disorientingly beautiful (and always, as any Curvy Girl mom will tell you -actually disoriented!  Who isn't with three kids?!?).  I cannot promise that I won't have any more fat days, but  I will try to have a more balanced perspective. 

Tell me, how do you see yourself?

Outnumbered

 

I thought pregnancy math was bad. I realize now that grown-up weight loss math is so much worse.

For example, take a woman who weighs, say, 150 pounds before conceiving and add on 50 pounds for the pregnancy (it is her first baby -- nobody makes that mistake twice). If she gives birth to a 7-lb baby and a 1.5 pound placenta, how is it possible that she leaves the hospital weighing 202 pounds?

You see? Pregnancy math never adds up. And neither does weight loss math if you ask me.

I have tried a little bit of everything over the years, having been slightly overweight for my entire adult life. I have tried Laws of Attraction, Vision Boards, meditation and the Power of positive thinking -- my Zen-like mindset resulting in a growing sense of appreciation for nothing more than my growing ass. I have done Weight Watchers, gluten-free diets, veganism and I flirted with eating ‘right for my blood type.’ FitDay. Com. MyFitnessPal.com. SparkPeople.com. Something about being fat.com but I can’t remember that one anymore. My username – and my clothing size – hasn’t changed.

But I am starting to wonder if maybe the mathematical approach isn’t entirely flawed. Maybe those math minds have the right idea, and this should be well within my capabilities. I come from a long line of semi-autistic math nerds who can barely look you in the eye but who can solve the world's problems via quadratic equation. People for whom the term "nerd" is the highest of praise.

Calories in, calories out – isn’t that the way weight loss is supposed to work? Recent research has supported the notion that it isn’t necessarily that simple – that eating high-protein food with a low glycemic index is a more important focus than counting calories or points or whatever. In other words, it’s what you eat and not how much of it you are eating.

But in many ways, I am starting to come full circle back to calorie counting while using the knowledge I have accumulated in guiding my food choices within the caloric range I am shooting for. Maybe now I will stand a chance in the battle of the bulge.

Calorie counting? Meh. It hasn’t been a successful approach for me, personally, but maybe I have fudged the numbers a little too much. For example, if a glass of wine is supposed to have 162 calories, maybe I can’t use my glass beer stein and expect everything to add up.

Maybe the search term on SparkPeople has to be a little more specific than “Ice Cream Cone.” Anyone in Massachusetts who has eaten at Kimball’s knows full well that their kiddie-size ice cream cone could feed an entire Girl Scout troop.

And maybe when I click little icons indicating that I drank 10 glasses of water, I might – mathematically speaking – have to be more specific and indicate that the water was actually carbonated tonic water mixed with gin.

Clearly, I need to revisit the idea of calories in, calories out. These days, I am measuring calories, ounces, slices and minutes on the treadmill – just for shits and giggles – to see if it does boil down to simple math. My trainer – who I demonized last week but who was really just trying to help – warned me not to give up too easily. She said it can take up to a month for the results to really start kicking in.

Which indicates to me that even though it’s based in math, there’s still a little magic in there somewhere.

Why Diets Need Vacations

OK, OK. You aren't even supposed to BE on diets. You are supposed to be in a new LIFESTYLE. You are supposed to be changing direction that is ONGOING and a diet is a time period, or whatever. Or as Garfield would point out, it is a nasty word with the word DIE in it. But I digress (as always...)


So diets or changes or new outlooks or whatever you want to call what you are doing with yourself and food and those too tight shorts from last summer- they need a vacation. From time to time one needs to say, On this day- whatever goes. And I tell you why: wonderful things happen over food and you don't miss it when you are just going with the flow. And you don't spoil it by being in a sugar free rage. And you don't insult anyone when you chow down.


I have spent this Memorial Day weekend with 80% of my family in a house my parents designed and had built. I have brought friends to this house. And even though the place is huge and filled with couches and soft chairs and a space with a pool table, everyone ends up in one of 2 places- on the bricks (fair enough with the water views and sun shining and beers) or in the kitchen.


This kitchen was my mother's vision. She said everyone is always in the kitchen in every house everywhere. This includes my tiny kitchen in my house- people stand around jammed in there until I push them into other more larger spaces. My mom got rid of any thought of a dining room and made a gargantuan kitchen and threw a round table in it. THEN, when that wasn't enough, she had a man build a round table cover that was larger than the table and fit over the table to make it even bigger when the house was packed with peeps. We can seat 10 to 18/20 people that way. The kitchen is always filled when people are here. Over cocoa puffs and coffee, newspapers and donuts, lunches with bag of chips thrown in the center of the circle, 5pm with drinks and dips, and dinner with long talks during and long talks after, while various people are washing and scraping and tupperwaring. This table is our home.


Of the 5 Burke children, 4 love to cook. There is a definite hierarchy of who cooks. Dave first, Ter sous. Ter cooks, Owen sous. But every now and then it gets to be me, mom sous. Generally when we cook, we automatically are doing a healthy thing by knowing what we are making, and what is going in it. But I sometimes have to look between my fingers at what my brothers are doing. That was 2 sticks of butter. Really? Buttered steak? How much cream was that? (seriously, 2 sticks of butter?).


Oh but the eating is so fine. The conversations so funny, so intellectual. The food is rich and that heel of bread is just left on the cutting board for you to snag. Say yes to one more glass. Get filled with the food and the company. Say yes to desert. (Say no to the sambuca. Do that for yourself.) Agree to a longer walk tomorrow and another piece of cheese tonight. This isn't every day. It doesn't count if it is every day. But let it be now when all that good stuff is going on.


I cooked tonight- a great seafood stew (whose recipe will be available to y'alls at some point). What is great is I know it was very healthy and fresh. And that bread was perfectly crusty. And that birthday cake was just so box made perfect (Why F that up by going by scratch??) and I passed on the ice cream on the side (because I had ice cream after mini golf already, but who is counting?) and we all sat there and chatted, and remembered, and laughed, and learned something new. And there wasn't one bit of salad anywhere and I am still alive.


Happy Summer, Curvies et al. To a great season of cookouts, get aways, and friends meeting at the creameries.

What Is Love? A Recipe To Score!

What is love?  Baby, don't hurt me......<insert "Night At The Roxbury" Will Ferrell head shake dance>....oh wait, sorry, back to you guys! 

So, today, it's my 16th wedding anniversary and I felt compelled to share a true love recipe.  NO!  Sorry, after 16 years, this recipe is NOT related to my marital vows to my beloved husband; but instead, our holiday/anniversary weekend is going to be spent at the soccer field (where else?!?!).  As a tradition has become, especially at the soccer field,  I make these delectable, wonderful cookies and they are all the rage amongst kids and adults alike.  SCORE! 

Basically, I use my favorite Toll House recipe but I swap out the semi-sweet morsels with white chocolately goodness and I add a cup of cranberries.  Depending upon the crowd (teachers - yes; unknown students - no), I add about a cup of chopped pecans.  True love affair in a cookie, if you ask me. 

Lately, I prefer the pan cookie method - it's less time consuming (just smooosh that dough onto a sprayed cookie sheet) and the cookies stay wonderfully moist.

Seriously, these things are so worthy that for year after year, the recipients of my cookies at Christmas received these reliable morsels of love.  They come out great....every.....single....time.  Go ahead, you know you want to!  Just don't blame any extra curvaceousness on ME.

White Chocolate Cranberry Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) white chocolate chips
• 1 cup of dried cranberries
• 1 cup chopped nuts preferably pecans

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION: Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan. Prepare dough as above. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack. Makes 4 dozen bars.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm

These past few weeks, I have had several moments....several things that seriously make you go "Hmmmmmm."  "What the fudge" moments; moments that make me really want to find a soft corner, so I may curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb.

Fudgy Hmmm Moments, they go quite like this:

• My husband proudly announcing since we started the whole vegan/vegetarian thing earlier this spring, well, he has lost 16 pounds.  Yes, dear, I am so pleased for you!  Yes, dear, you look like a stud.  Yes, dear, I really want to kick you in the face and throw a massive hissy fit.  (I am down 9 and holding.....and I work out a gazillion times harder than he does and I did NOT have two greasy cheeseburgers last weekend.  Please refer to last week's post, Life Is NOT Fair).
• I am about to be married sixteen years.  Yes, you read that right.  SIXTEEN.  16.  SWEET FABULOUS SIXTEEN.  I have been married just shy of half of my life.  May 25, 1996. 
•  My daughter is just three months shy of high school.  I am NOT old enough to have birthed a freshman.  Dang, , I agree she looks remarkably like me, but I swear my 24 year old vagina did not birth her.  Hmph, okay, I am a terrible liar. 
•  Yes, we are shopping for semi-formal dresses.  You know the kind.....strapless, mid-thigh, all feminine beauty aspect enhancing dresses.  My jock daughter is going for the absolute knock-out look for her semi-formal and I am hyperventilating into a plastic bag.
•  Said daughter will be going to Washington, DC for her class trip for four days.  She has never been away from her mommy's vagina (wait, that's right, I didn't birth her).  She will be fine.  I will be in that aforementioned fetal position.  I am thankful for whomever invented the cell phones.  Thank you.  I will be that mom that texts her daughter. 
•  My son.....will be a middle schooler.  The son who has suddenly embraced showering daily.  The son who has suddenly started fumigating the house with body spray in the early morning hours.  The son who was fixing his hair in my car reflection before scrimmaging the girls' soccer team last week.  The son who reminds me on a daily basis that he is "Awesome!" and he's got "swag".  What happened to dinosaurs and Bob The Builder?  <Insert sucks my thumb>
•  My "better" half who has demonstrated for the upteenth time that his smaller size pants in his closet now fit him wonderfully!  Won't I have another look?  He wants to know, why do I wear the same pants all the time?  Why won't I wear some shorts when it's 88 degrees outside?

 Hmmmm, I guess I have no choice but to continue on doing boot camp.  I will embrace the lightning speed in which my children are growing; I may not like some of it...but I will have to etch each milestone in my memory bank.  I will celebrate my anniversary milestone and truly, truly be happy my husband has embraced our new healthy lifestyle.  Because I know, all my flubs and flabalanches will be loved by him regardless of whether or not I approve of my current body image.  With that, I dedicate a very Happy Anniversary to my spouse, my partner in crime, the daddy-o of my children, my own personal comedian, the guy who has put up with so much in our long time together.  <3

what you might refer to as a bad day

A conversation, both real and imagined

Trainer: Amanda. Welcome to the gym and good job showing up for your complimentary personal fitness consultation. It will be very un-complimentary.

Me: As long as I don’t have to step on the scale, I’m cool.

Trainer: Ok, let’s get you on the scale.

Me: Oh goodie, that’s my favorite thing to do in front of other people.

Trainer: Oh please! It's just you and me! Here, just (I get on the scale) oh. Ok.

Me: Yeah.

Trainer: So, yeah. Well, you carry it well.

Me: Thanks. Bitch.

Trainer: What are your goals here?

Me: Be active with my family. Maybe make some new friends. Swim.

Trainer: And were you hoping to lose weight?

Me: I guess? Actually, I didn’t really care much about losing weight until you brought it up.

Trainer: You weigh too much. [awkward silence] So why are you overweight?

Me. Ouch. Well, I don’t really know. I love to exercise, I eat really well.

Trainer: Well, it’s something.

Me: Yeah, I just don’t know what.

Trainer: Maybe you eat too much.

Me: Yeah, I guess. Maybe. But I eat an almost completely vegan diet, very little gluten but plenty of whole grains. Minimal sugar. Too much booze. Which, frankly, is a coping mechanism for events like this one right here.

Trainer: How is that working out for you?

Me: How’s your smug attitude working out for you?  Not so well, I suppose. But you seem to have more of a problem with it than I do.

Trainer: Look, you weigh too much.

Me: I HEARD YOU, BLONDIE! Wanna say it 5 more times so I can drive my car into a tree on the way home?

Trainer: Let’s measure you.

Me: Oh fantastic! Even better than the scale – the tape measure.

Trainer: Hmmm.

Me: What’s “hmmm”?

Trainer: You actually aren’t that big. And you are very muscular. And you have a very proportionate figure. An hourglass.

Me. Uh, thanks? God, you suck so bad right now.

Trainer: And you passed the fitness test with flying colors – great flexibility, stamina, endurance. You just weigh too much.

Me: Got that. Thanks. Maybe you could stop saying that?

Trainer: Just keep up what you are doing with your exercise. And try to eat less.

Me: Eat less. Awesome. Thanks, Einstein. This has been MOST helpful. I will go ahead and do that. Well, ok. Thanks for all your…help?  Suck it.

Beauty in Friendships and in Self

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.


~Audrey Hepburn


I think what I find most attractive in people, women in particular, is not their faces alone. That, to me, would be like finding a blank movie screen attractive. It is what plays across their faces. When there is nothing behind their smile, there is no real smile to return. When they are lost in a discussion between a close friend, their attentiveness and love for the person shows in the openness of the face, and sharpness of the interested eyebrows. When they are laughing at a joke, there is vulnerability. When they are searching for understanding, the earnestness of the words and pleading of the eyes are breathtaking.


When I used to spend time with friends, I felt like I was in a category. I was the fat friend (even when I wasn't heavy). The funny friend. The nervous friend. I have noticed lately that I feel less labeled. Probably because I have stopped labeling myself. I have thrown out my label maker. I don't use it on myself nor on my friends. My heart does all the work for me now. I am mature enough to be graceful about it- no need for proclamations. I know who is a good friend for me because the friendship is clean and unconditional. We don't get along because we are at a party. We just get along. We don't get along due to a shared interest. We just are. They add to who I naturally am. I can add to who they are.


So, these are things I have thought about over this Spring. Going through life changes and being as graceful as I can about it has caused me to be more introspective. To be more perceptive. And you'll be amazed by what you see when you just shut up for a while.


Do something awesome for yourself. Go email, call, text, facebook...reach out to a friend or 2 and tell them why they make you more you. And with that should come a thanks.