In a further attempt by the fates to convince me that my current web host was never meant to be a permanent home for my site, the great blog "white-out" of 2009 is officially over.  After several long and frustrating web chats with people named "Elizabeth" and "Katie" and "John" (read: Sushma, Irevina, and Sanjay) it was finally determined that the puzzling disappearance of my blog from view for the last 30+ days was due to a "server glitch".  You read that right.  Satisfying answer, no?  I thought so too.

Then, to add insult to injury, my laptop went on strike and refused to have it's battery charged.  A replacement cord was procured (Angry note to the personal computer industry: Please rethink your policy of not having a standard cord for laptops so that my only readily available option for a power cord replacement is to purchase a universal cord with a bazillion different terminal ends for $139 from a prepubescent sales"man" named Mark who uses the word "bummer" 8 times in three sentences while explaining that I could order my specific cord on-line for less than 20 bucks, but that since I don't want to wait a week to use my laptop there will be a $119 penalty for my impatience. You suck.) and I'm finally back and surfing the web.  And thank goodness, because I'm not nimble enough to type this much text on the teeny tiny touchscreen keyboard of my iPhone.  Yes, even my FINGERS are fat.

Anyhoo.  I'm back, and the concerned emails and message board posts about the issue were all appreciated.  I apologize for the white-out and hope you'll tune in later tonight as I catch up my entries both here and on my tandem blog (www.saragetsskinny.blogspot.com).

See you soon!

This past February, I turned thirty eight years old (in the Happiest Place on Earth© and with Tom Cruise by my side. No kidding, I swear!). People tell me that being in my late thirties hardly qualifies me as elderly, but I confess that I don’t really believe them. To me, the litmus test for “old” is simple: You are old as soon as you no longer understand the young people—and I don’t. I don’t particularly care for much their music, I don’t get their clothing choices (how do they even keep their pants up when the ‘waist’ falls below their butt cheeks? Is this the reason for the triangle stance they’re always lounging in?), I can’t STAND texting lingo, and I think most of them could use a haircut for God’s sake. If that doesn’t qualify me as old, nothing does.

But even if 38 doesn’t qualify me for the senior citizen coffee discount at the local Burger King (which my 63 year old parents take unholy advantage of, I might add. My mother has actually gotten up early and driven to BK to pick up coffee for herself and my Dad all the while ignoring the perfectly good coffee maker in her own kitchen. I suspect it’s because the local grocer doesn’t give her 25% off of her bag of coffee beans just because she happened to be born in 1946.), there are still some venues in which I’m definitely not a kid anymore. One of them is right here in the blogosphere.

I started my website (http://www.skinnysara.com/) in late 2006, and that means that as weight loss bloggers (or “floggers” as we’re sometimes known) go, I’m practically a geriatric. Do a web search for weight loss related blogs, and you’ll turn up approximately a kajillion sites. Start clicking on them, however, and you’ll soon realize that the vast majority of them fall into two categories:

1. Relatively new blogs by people who are in the first several weeks or months (or days, even) of their current weight loss effort, and

2. Pages long abandoned with their last entries a static reminder of better times.

Given that weight loss is generally impermanent in nature, it makes sense that the websites it inspires are equally so. If statistics say that only about 3% of us will ever achieve the holy grail of weight watchers everywhere by taking (and keeping) the weight off, then it’s probably safe to assume that some 97% of weight loss bloggers will disappear along with the success they had at the scale. I understand this, but it still makes me sad.

One of the most insidious side effects of obesity is often the loneliness that comes along with it. The internet broadened the definition of community to a global scale and helped to bring people with common interests together in a way that has never been possible at any other time in history. It’s been an especially welcome tool for the weight loss community, I think. Since the fat is off limits for discussion in nearly every venue of polite society, it can be really hard to feel like you’re not the only person on earth who is dying beneath the weight of that silence.

For me, the internet finally gave me a place that I could look out over the crowd and see my own face staring back at me. I have taken so much solace, inspiration, and solidarity from reading the blogs of other people battling obesity. I revel in their successes, I am angry for the injustices they face, and I am heartened by the fact that they’re out there writing down all the things that we’ve never really had a place to say out loud before. And when they fade away, it makes me sad.

Most blogs are started in the early stages of the journey, in those first heady days of success when it feels like we’ve finally got this whole weight loss thing figured out and we’re anxious to share our secrets of success with the world—to tell them that if WE can do it, so can they! In our weight loss childhood we’re full of the hubris of youth, the certainty that our goals are in sight. It’s a force to be reckoned with, one that is powerful simply by virtue of the fact that it hasn’t been tested by reality yet. But when the fall comes (and make no mistake it WILL come), it often catapults us right into the next phase—a little something I call the weight loss “adolescence”. Our bodies are changing, often faster than our minds can catch up to them, and of a sudden what was once so easy feels a little awkward. What we once knew for certain, suddenly doesn’t seem so simple anymore. It’s a rough period. One that, frankly, most of us never make it out of. And it’s been the death knell for many a weight loss blog. When we stumble, when the high we’ve been riding (and writing) out starts to wane, many of us just stop talking. Our blogs become ghost towns, our past successes frozen in time and our silence speaking volumes about the present.

I understand how it happens, how we’d rather say nothing than admit that all those things we were so very sure about turned out not to be as fool proof as we thought. I’ve taken a hiatus or two myself over the last three years because it’s hard to admit when we struggle, especially when we’ve been so sure that we never would again…and said as much, to the whole world. It’s sometimes easier to fade away than to admit that we just weren’t as infallible as we thought we were. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, though. I wish there was less shame tied up in stumbling and that our setbacks and spectacular wipeouts could feel less like failure and more like progress. I wish we could learn the lessons of adolescence and finally grow up and realize that there is truly no end to this journey, no final battle to be won.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a well written, if somewhat pointed, post on a newer weight loss blog filled with broad stroke assertions and the hubris of youth with a note that said “I’ll check back in a year and see how they feel then”. It made me smile. I regularly read some young blogs and all the hope and joy and certainty…and I don’t resent it. I do envy it sometimes, though. I try to soak it in. I use it to remind myself what power there is in new success, and how easily it can slip away.

When I started blogging, I promised myself that I wouldn’t do what so many of my heroes had done before me. I wouldn’t fade away when things got rough, and I’d do my best to try and accept that if I’ll be battling my obesity the rest of my life then it’s a pretty safe bet that the fight isn’t always going to be an easy one. So here I am, bruises and all, still fighting. Over the hill? Maybe. But I can see another one in the distance, and another after that—and I want to make my way up and over all of them.

(Read today's other Theme Thursday posts here)

We had a terribly boring dinner last night. Seriously, while edible, it was also bland--the kind of meal that you can barely even remember well enough the next day to describe it in any detail, appetizing or otherwise. In retrospect, the only adjective that perfectly describes it is B-O-R-I-N-G. And maybe the (non)word “Meh”. And the very fact that it was so unremarkable is what makes it noteworthy enough to tell you all about it.

Every so often I am seized by the realization that, as a citizen of a country that is a study in excess, that I need to take steps to simplify my own little corner of this gimme-gimme world. Generally this manifests itself in two distinct ways:

1. I go stomping through the house armed with a hefty bag and an attitude and pick up the assorted flotsam that’s found it’s way into my cupboards, closets and various flat surfaces. If it can be pitched, I pitch it. If it can be donated, I bag it up. If I need it, it’s granted a reprieve and put away for future use. At the end of this exercise I torture myself by dwelling on just how much good will (read: hot fudge sundaes) I could have bought with the cash we spent on yesterdays essentials that somehow became today’s trash. Then I get over myself, enjoy all the pretty order, and get back to the business of accumulation.

2. I get out a pad and pen and take a detailed inventory of everything in my cupboards, pantry, fridge & freezer (and my super secret stash of goodies in the Rubbermaid tub out in the garage. Shhhh. Tell NO ONE.) and vow that until we’ve gone through all the food we already have in the house, we’re not buying any more.

This is not particularly a hardship, mind you. At least not at first. I have a somewhat liberal view of what constitutes a ‘staple’ food, and so am rarely without the fixins for an impromptu feast on hand at any given moment. Drop by my house unexpectedly for dinner and it’s a good bet that I can probably whip you up something tasty enough that you’ll be glad you stopped by. I thank my Sam’s Club membership and all that time I spent in culinary school for my propensity never to be without all the basics of a damn fine meal. But those same things, combined with a food issue or two that I happen to possess, also means that I often find myself with more than enough on hand to feed us for weeks at a time, and I’m seized by the need to use it all up before accumulating more.

So after purging my kitchen of what has passed it’s prime (like, say, a cake mix that expired in January 2007 or a long ignored box of hamburger helper that I remember having before we moved into the new house in December 2006) and armed with a detailed list of what’s on hand, I set about using it up in creative and delicious ways. The first week or two is pretty much status quo as the old favorites make their way through the rotation. As fresh produce supplies are dwindling (thank you Debbie Meyer’s Green Bags! Can’t live without ‘em) the menu gets a bit subdued as bags of frozen veggies are hauled out to round out unremarkable meals. It’s also about this time when you start serving up all those things that someone pleaded with you to buy only to realize that maybe the fact that they are sold by the gross should have been a hint as to the adjective that best described them (I’m looking at YOU son, and the horrible mini-taco appetizer fiasco. Yes, I know they taste like unwashed feet, but they were 12.99 so I’d develop a taste for toes if I were you).

When the cupboards and appliances start to get noticeably bare, the fare becomes hit and miss as tends to happen with forced creativity (Hmm. What can I make with pork chops, frozen ravioli and sugar free tapioca pudding mix?) until I’m eventually facing down an ancient can of sugar free cherry pie filling and an unopened box of frozen spicy black bean veggie burgers and dreading the possibilities. That’s when it’s time to make list and head out to start accumulating all the things we’ll finally be eating when the whole cycle repeats itself in a few months. Ahh. The Circle of Life.

We’re well into phase two at the moment, and after the last onion had been chopped two days ago and there was nary a can of condensed soup in sight, last night’s dinner of steamed rice, frozen green beans and grilled marinated chicken breasts made it’s way to the table. It was a fine diner. A serviceable dinner. A sensible dinner. A simple dinner. A dinner that most people would happily consume without a second thought. It just wasn’t a typical dinner. Not for me, anyway.

There are people in this world who view food simply as fuel. A necessary part of their day to be consumed and converted to the energy they need to live their lives. I’m not one of those people. Food isn’t incidental in my life, it’s not a pleasant diversion—it’s an event, a sensory experience, an fascination and a thousand other things it probably shouldn’t be…but it is. I’m convinced that while I will likely never be cured of my obsession with food, part of learning to manage my obesity is in learning to make food less important in my life.

As I prepared last night’s dinner, I found myself ruminating on the ways it could have been better. A handful of fresh chopped parsley, chicken broth, some caramelized onion and a teaspoon of chopped almonds would have turned that steamed rice into a damn fine pilaf. A sprinkle of parmesan would have livened up those beans, and a peanut-sesame marinade whipped up on the fly would have made that plain old chicken breast delectable. But, alas, my rapidly improving Old Mother Hubbard impression wouldn’t allow for those kinds of tweaks. And so I sat down with a sigh to my boring meal…and you know what?

It wasn’t half bad.

I enjoyed the food, the company, and finished the meal with a satisfied tummy—and palate, surprisingly enough. I wasn’t tempted to lick my plate, I didn’t find myself coveting what needed to be boxed up for lunch tomorrow. It wasn’t an event, it wasn’t a sensation, it was just a meal. Sometimes food is just food.

Who knew?

In a world where the corporate dress code is increasingly a charming relic of the past, my office seems to be one of the last holdouts. In the last few years we’ve seen a few relaxations of the strict business professional atmosphere, most notably the recent abolition of the mandatory hosiery rule and the inclusion of open toed shoes on the list of acceptable footwear choices.  So when we get a chance to get our denim on (at the cost of a $5 donation to rotating charitable cause), there’s nary a suit or skirt in sight.  Today we get to participate in what many workplaces celebrate on a weekly basis: Casual Friday!

As a fat girl from way back, I have to admit that the love affair this country has with jeans was somewhat lost on me.  While I could find jeans in my size, but the very nature of denim as heavy and constricting (not to mention the fact that the inner thigh friction swish of denim is WAY louder than that of softer fabrics) and not particularly comfortable most of the time lead me to rarely choose them over more forgiving garments that didn’t hug every curve (read: lump).  As I lost weight, though, I started to appreciate the magic of a good pair of jeans.  For the first time in my life I wasn’t relegated to whichever pair I could fit over my ass and still manage to button—I had choices.  I could try on different cuts, different leg styles, find the right rise for my newly discovered waist and hips.  It was a whole new world.

Unfortunately the jeans I’d finally learned to fall in love with simply don’t fit me anymore (I believe that it’s somehow related to the 40+ pounds I’ve gained, but I can’t be sure) and I gave in a few months ago and bought some new jeans.  Jeans that were not one, not two, but THREE sizes larger.  I reconciled myself to them by asserting that they were only a temporary fix and I’d be back into my beloved smaller jeans…eventually.  It turns out that I’m moving in the right direction, and my current fat jeans are starting not to fit--getting loose enough to be annoying, but still not loose enough to be unwearable. 

So when I put them on this morning I found that even a trip through the dryer (which I never would have DREAMED of doing at my highest weight) wasn’t enough to shrink up the extra give in the waist and so I had to reach for the old staple of my thin wardrobe that had rarely seen any play as of late: a belt.  I pulled my favorite (and only, for that matter) old worn wide brown leather belt (which I didn’t even buy in the fat women’s section of the store! Sure, it had two “X”s in the size, but still—REGULAR section!), threaded it through the loops on my jeans…and realized pretty quickly that it didn’t fit.  I’ve got jeans that are getting too big, and a belt that’s too small.  Son of a bitch.

After a few deep breaths I managed to fasten the belt using the first hole and was still able to breathe, so I hastily slipped on my shoes, herded the kid out the door and drove off to start the day.  The morning passed uneventfully enough for a while, and after my first cup of coffee made it’s way through my system I stopped off in the bathroom and one of those sideways strange angle glances in the mirror stopped me in my tracks.  My ill-fitting jeans cinched by an ill-fitting belt have combined to create a perfect storm of unattractive consequences.  

It wasn’t so long ago that I clearly recall looking in that same mirror and liking what I saw.  My size 18 jeans hugged in all the right places, elongated my legs (which always seem too short for my 5’11” frame and need all the help they can get), held in place firmly by my belt onto my newly defined hips visible beneath a soft long sleeved white t-shirt under the super cute red fleece vest hung fashionably over it and the toes of my sleek black shoes peeked perfectly out from beneath the boot cut hem that barely skimmed the floor. 

But today I saw a different woman staring back at me.  Swollen feet stuffed into loafers disappearing into jeans that covered lumpy thighs and a baggy crotch below a round stomach and a roll of fat above a too-tight belt that pressed just enough through the cotton of the simple v-neck shirt over it to announce it’s presence to the world.  I wanted to flee the building, grab my purse and use my cell phone on the way home to call in “fat” for the rest of the day, climb into bed and cover my head and have a good cry about what I’ve become.  I really, really wanted to do that.  But instead I took a deep breath and went back to my desk and told myself that since I already had my big girl pants on literally I might as well hitch them up, metaphorically speaking, too.

Then an hour ago life, as it often does, decided to add insult to injury and Mother Nature bestowed upon me a wardrobe malfunction of the variety that necessitates changing one’s pants as practical matter.  So I came home, put on some non-jeans work appropriate attire, and sat down to tell you all about it.  (Lucky you!) 

So here I sit, infinitely more comfortable, but feeling defeated nonetheless.  But I’m also determined that the next casual Friday will be less of an ordeal.  I’m finally back on track and the scale is heading in the right direction, and today helped me remember where I want to get back to—and beyond.  Everyone needs a nudge in the right direction sometimes, and today was just the kick in the pants I needed. 

I’ve been a little stressed lately. Ok, a lot stressed. But while the atypical shenanigans afoot in my life lately might be making my head spin like the Tasmanian devil, you’d likely only notice this if you looked very, very closely—and only when I didn’t know you were looking. While I might be fairly well known for having a penchant for the dramatic in some (read: many) situations and will fight ferociously for the well being of those I love (or hell, who I barely know if I detect the faint whiff of injustice in the air), I tend to hold my emotions pretty close the vest when something is bothering me. This has always been my M.O. according to the people who raised me. My father tells me that even as a very young child trying to get me to divulge what may or may not be bothering me was a lot like performing dental work on an unwilling patient, like say a raccoon. With rabies.

There is, however, one relatively reliable barometer of my mental status at any given time. If you want to know if I’ve got a lot on my plate, then just look to see how much I’ve got on my plate.

I admire those people who, when the going gets tough, fall squarely into the “tough gets going” category. When there’s a crisis to be tackled at work or in the life of someone I love, I am totally one of them. But in my own life, when the going gets tough—the tough go to Long John Silvers. Or at least they did last night.

I didn’t set out to engage in fried fish therapy, mind you. In between drop off and pick up duties I actually intended to stop for a few things at the store and then hit the gym. Instead I wolfed down up a #7 seafood lovers platter with a side of clams and then took a nap (which is pretty much the same thing, right?). I could tell you that I felt bad about it at the time, but it would be a lie. Despite the fact that I’m not really even a fan of Long John Silvers (seriously, I think they should cut out the middle man and just replace all their dining room seating with toilets), every bite I took of that meal had exactly the effect I desired, each mouthful dulled the rising panic within me and left me calm and sleepy and tired enough to forget about everything that drove me to eat it in the first place. It was a familiar feeling.

Looking back over my life and at how my weight has fluctuated through the years, it’s not terribly difficult to see a pattern emerge. When harmony reigns, the balance in my life is reflected in my eating patterns and my resolve is strong and sure. But when that balance is thrown off kilter, the ground feels less sure beneath my feet and I find myself stumbling around trying to regain my footing while old habits seep out of the cracks in the foundation that seemed so strong just moments ago. I find myself reaching for food and the comfort it brings, the hazy calm that settles over me with each bite, with each swallow, with each sigh of relief that comes when the gaping hole inside of me has been filled up for the moment. Never mind that it won’t last, or that the low that follows will spin me farther into despair. All that matters right then is that temporary comfort is better than the alternative.

When the fog lifts, it occurs to me that the first step to restoring balance in my life is often taking control of my weight, and restoring my power over food usually snowballs into giving me the energy to deal with the things that threw off my balance in the first place. When I look back to see what lessons I can take with me for the next time things go haywire, it frustrates me because the line between cause and effect is blurry. Balance equals control, chaos upsets control, loss of control makes chaos worse, rock bottom chaos leads to regaining control, control facilitates balance (lather, rinse, repeat). The chicken versus eggishness of it all makes my head hurt.

So when I woke up at 5 AM with a headache, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Neither was that familiar feeling of self loathing it brought with it. I spent some time kicking myself for what I’d done, mentally listing and re-listing my sins and calculating the damage, thinking about how long it had been since I’d done something like that. As I lay there in the dark I asked myself if this was as low as I needed to go, if I was ready to be in control again. Turns out I was. So I got up, brushed my teeth, put on my sweatpants and went to the gym.

I feel good. The darkness is lifting, and what I couldn’t face last night doesn’t seem as scary today. I feel in control, like I’m ready to find balance again.

Lather, rinse…