History--in case you care!

Childhood

My mom was a great cook. She had grown up in a large Mennonite farm family during the Depression and she certainly knew what to do with the raw ingredients. She was always willing to try new things as well, and Dad was willing to encourage her.

I thought it might be because I was the youngest of five daughters that Mom hadn't really taught me how to cook (though she was happy to pass off the cookie-and-cake baking early on). Checking in with my sisters, though, I find that some of them learned less about cooking from Mom than I did. I think she found it easier to do it herself than teach us how...and we certainly made a messier kitchen than she did.

Couple that with the fact that I attended a boarding school during my high school years and you got a gal that knew great down-home cooking but didn't know how to get there. When I lived at home between college years, Mom continued on with her cooking plan: making my favorite meals the first half of the summer because I'd been away...followed up by making my favorite meals for the last half of summer because I was soon leaving again!

No one in my family had a particular weight problem when I was growing up, though I weighed a little more in high school than would have been necessary. I got sick once (a 'flu?), lost the excess, and didn't gain it back for years.

Adulthood

When Jim and I got engaged I was three years out of high school and couldn't cook, but knew I wanted to...NEEDED to! His mom also was a cook-from-scratch kinda person, and he was used to good home cooking. In the months before the wedding I followed my mother around the kitchen with a pen and paper, writing down what she was doing. It drove her crazy when I counted the number of peppercorns in the palm of her hand before she threw them in the soup pot. "The exact number doesn't matter," she would insist, but I knew I needed at least a rough idea!

We were married in the summer of 1980, two kids on a lot of love and a very limited budget. We lived near Jim's family, and I learned more about cooking from his mom, who treated the whole teaching affair quite differently from my own mother. To Dea, teaching someone else how to do it meant she didn't have to do it herself.

When our kids were born in 1981 and 1984, I knew that I wanted them to grow up healthy. Fat and cholesterol hadn't been invented yet, so it was relatively easy. After the first baby, my weight dropped quickly back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 117#, but after the second, I hung onto a few pounds. As the years went by, my weight crept up a tiny bit at a time.

Occasionally I would notice that I wasn't as slender as I used to be, but I certainly wasn't fat by anyone's definition. I went for more walks and more bike rides. I switched to skim milk and lower fat mayonnaises and sour cream. And still the pounds snuck on.

In 1996, at 25 pounds over my earlier weight, I decided to do something about it and started a "serious" walking program with a neighbor. It made no difference. I began reading up on weight loss, and decided that weight training was the answer. My friend and I walked down to see the three local gyms and talked to folks there, decided on one, and plunked down our money for a three month trial.

I was a little daunted that the guy figured 90 minutes 5 times a week would be the appropriate regime for me. I had a full-time job, a husband and two young teenagers in the house. I had a busy life and did not see how I could fit this in without taking time away from my family. Major time. However, the guy said that's what it would take for serious results and Jim said to go ahead if I wanted to, that life would bend around it.

I kept at the gym for over a year, going several times a week for at least an hour. I hated it. I didn't lose weight. I did gain fitness, though, and stamina. I knew I was healthier, that it was good for me and that numbers on the scale weren't everything.

The money crunch came when we started renovating our house and I switched to a lower paying but less stressful job. There was no money for gym fees. I let it drop.

Several years went by. In 2000 we moved to the farm we purchased from Jim's folks. I hung loose for the first few months, then got disgusted with myself and decided BY GOLLY I was going to lose weight. I'd added another 10 or so pounds in the meanwhile.
I exercised every day and counted every tedious calorie. By starving myself, I managed to drop about five pounds before I landed a job that started at 6 a.m. and blew my program out the window.

A few months later I switched jobs, but my momentum was gone...and the new job was completely sedentary. Add pounds here.

In the spring of 2003, with our son and his fiancée living with us, Jen and I decided to lose weight before the August wedding. We joined Curves, setting a target of 20 pounds to lose in the five months. The gals at Curves thought that was doable and encouraged us to try just the exercise program at first. Lots of people lose weight just by exercising more, we were told. Only do the diet if exercising doesn't do it. I was at 156#.

I should have known my body better than that by then. I lost a few pounds (less than 5) and some inches. I definitely felt better. But the extra weight was sticking to me like glue. Some months I would lose a pound or two, and the next month I would rediscover them. I thought back to counting calories and shuddered. It was the closest I had ever come to being successful, but I couldn't bear the thought of being that harsh with myself again.

Meanwhile, my loving husband was telling me things like: "You look good for a woman your age." What the heck is that supposed to mean? He was trying to be supportive, really he was. But he didn't know how to help me anymore than I knew how to help myself.

Fast forward to the summer of 2005. He got a job out of town, working four days and then home for four. Several nights a week there was no one to cook for but me. That was really hard. I vacillated between eating terribly and conscientiously. But I was getting near the breaking point.

I didn't like it when it came. At the end of August I was lifting bales to feed the cows when Jim was out of town (I DID mention the farm, right?) and my neck and back just seized up. I had often been sore after doing the chores, but a good hot shower usually took the worst of it away. Not that night. When I awoke the next morning, I knew I was in trouble. First stop was the chiropractor; she encouraged me to see my doctor and get x-rays done.

The result? Degenerative damage to the discs in my neck (third and fourth vertebrae if you're into knowing such things). What did that really mean? Arthritis. And a rootin' tootin' flare up of it. (No, the damage was not caused by lifting bales, but all my sisters deny dropping me on my head as an infant, too.)

I spent ten weeks in a lot of pain. At first I hung onto the fact that my doctor said it was a flare-up, and that what flares UP must flare DOWN. It was hard to stay optimistic in the light of a wall of pain from morning till night. I hunkered down into survival mode as I just wished someone could unscrew my head and screw it back on straight. I felt as though my neck was cross-threaded.

In mid-November my headaches started lifting, and some days I didn't really have one at all. And then there was Christmas, and I was still in survival mode, so you know I baked (and ate) all the goodies I love. While I did nothing at all to keep active, because, you know, it hurt.

My doctor had said that long term, going back to Curves would be a good thing. So with his approval, I went back in January. The first day on the circuit, I moved very slowly, just testing out the feel of each machine and noticing which muscles were used and whether or not it was going to hurt. Of course, they ALL hurt. I spent a few days back on painkillers, but a week later I went again. I still could put no effort into the workout, and it still set me back a full week. And again.

In February, I added a few walks to my exercise plan. Short ones, if the weather was nice. Still once a week at Curves.

On March 8 I stepped onto the scale and nearly had heart failure. One hundred and sixty eight pounds? And a half? Not a chance in the world was I going to take THAT sitting down. If I'd been looking for a wake-up call, I now had it.

The Dedicated Era!

The time had come. I literally hit the wall. There was absolutely no way in the world I was going to gain one single pound more, and all this excess bulk had to GO. I could barely reach down to tie my shoes.

I made two decisions that day: I was going to exercise every single day BY GOLLY if it killed me. And I was going to watch what went into my body even if it meant the dreaded calorie counting.

The exercise regime turned out to be the easy part, because by then my body was starting to acclimatize back to the Curves routine. I vowed to go to Curves Monday, Wednesday, and Friday without fail. With Jim's shifting schedule, that meant I could go on my lunch hour when he was working out of town, and when he was home I'd get up an hour early and do my workout before going to work. On the other days I'd get up early and walk. Briskly.

Food was harder. I "like" to eat. I eat for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. I eat because I'm bored, because I'm stressed, because it feels good in my mouth, because there's just a bit left over and who will know? Trying to figure out the calorie count of homemade food that first week nearly drove me loopy. It did give my fingers something to do besides put food in my mouth, though. And my willpower was absolutely solid. I decided the first step would be to up my intake of vegetables and fruit. I had been woefully bad at this.

A few days later my mother-in-law noticed my calorie counting notebook open on the table when she dropped in and mentioned that I might be interested in seeing this new diet book she'd bought, called The G.I. Diet Book. She loaned me her copy and I read the whole thing through.

I was skeptical. Not counting calories sounded too good to be true. I'd previously read a bit about Atkins and diets like that where carbs are bad and all protein is good, no matter how fatty it is. That didn't make sense to me. Even counting calories was deceiving, because brown rice has more calories than white rice, so you'd get more calories if you ate healthier food???

But the G.I Diet made sense. It stands for Glycemic Index. The author of the book, Rick Gallop, says:

The glycemic index measures the speed at which you digest food and convert it to glucose, your body's energy source. The faster the food breaks down, the higher the rating on the index. The index sets sugar (glucose) at 100 and scores all foods against that number.

Sugar is quickly converted into glucose, which dissolves in your blood stream, spiking its glucose level. It also disappears quickly, leaving you wanting more.

When you eat a high G.I. food and experience a rapid spike in blood sugar, your pancreas releases the hormone insulin. Insulin does two things extremely well. First, it reduces the level of glucose in your bloodstream by diverting it into various body tissues for immediate short-term use of by storing it as fat--which is why glucose disappears so quickly. Second, in inhibits the conversion of body fat back into glucose for the body to burn.

Where do carbohydrates fit? In the handy (but not all-inclusive) chart Gallop includes in his book, you will find carbs in every category from low G.I to high G.I. This made total sense to me. The low-carb fad seemed to me to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The idea of figuring out which foods--carbs or otherwise--were good for my body by NOT causing an insulin spike sounded awfully good to me.

I went out and bought the book and read it again.

Gallop's handy chart is color-coded. He lists a great many foods in three categories: Green (as in the green from a traffic light, meaning GO), Yellow (caution is advised) and Red (if you want to lose weight, don't even go there.)

In my second week post Hitting The Wall, I jumped into the G.I. Diet with absolute determination. Not to mention glee at leaving the calorie counting behind. According to Gallop, I could eat any amount of Green Light food that I wanted, and I lived by that list.

On April 8, I weighed in at 155#. If you are doing the math, that was thirteen and a half pounds lost in one month. I could feel the difference in the way my clothes fit, and a few people (besides my supportive husband) were looking at me as though they couldn't quite figure out what was different about me. New glasses? New hairstyle? (You know the look!)

We went out for lunch one day and I discovered a Thai Chicken Salad that was right on the diet. Jim, who has no need of diets being 5'11" and 170# and having an active job, ordered a burger and fries. With gravy. I eyeballed it while I ate my salad. It was a good salad, but it wasn't fries and gravy. Then he did the unthinkable. He decided he was full, and pushed the plate away. It now rested at the table's midpoint, well within my reach. I eyeballed it and had another bite of salad. Then, with my left hand, I reached down and felt the extra in my jeans at my hip. These jeans had been tight a month before. Now I had fabric I could hold, a good half inch folded over.

I had a freeing thought. I could eat these fries if I wanted to, but I don't want to. Not today. Today I like having loose jeans. Another day I can choose to eat fries if I want.

Another day I was home alone and sorely tempted for a really bad snack. I can't even remember what it was now. I thought, who will know if I cheat? Then I laughed out loud. Who was I doing it for? My body would know, and that was what mattered, not whether Jim or anyone else would find out.

The exercise plan has worked also. When we've been away from home on Curves days, I've substituted more walking. I've starting running and am up to 6 km of combination walking and running. For my birthday in May, Jim bought me a new bicycle with shocks and a raised handlebar that allows me to ride upright without stressing my neck. I often ride for my exercise, particularly on Saturday mornings when I can just pop in a water bottle and ride for as long as I feel like it.

Today it has been more than six months since March the eighth. I have lost 30 pounds and am within five pounds of my goal weight. Since March I have lost a total of 26 inches from my bust, waist, abdomen, hips, and thighs. My body fat has gone from 38.4 to 27.2.

I have more energy than I can shake a stick at. I doubt a day has gone by that I haven't been at least aware of my arthritis, my pain in the neck. It rarely is bad enough to take meds for, but I certainly overdo things from time to time and pay for it. Some day I will probably have another flare-up, but my goal is to keep as strong as I can and postpone that day as long as I can. I'll be in far better shape going into it.

I've even had French fries a couple of times. They didn't taste quite as good as I remembered them.