From the Driver's Mouth

I had an occasion to be in a small group of people Saturday night. In this group there was a man whom I had not met before but found rather easy to talk to. Over the course of the conversation it came out that I'm a vegetarian. I can't remember the way it all came out, but he responded that he was a driver for one of our local poultry plants, but that he did not eat the birds himself. I asked him if he drove chickens or turkeys and learned that he hauls turkeys. I couldn't resist and had to ask him if his job was the reason that he didn't eat turkey. He told me that he wasn't a big turkey eater before taking this job, but he didn't eat them at all now. I of course wanted to know why and he said something along the lines of "If you've seen what I have, you wouldn't be able to eat them". I haven't seen what he has, only heard about it, and I can't eat them. I can't even begin to imagine what he has seen...nor do I want to.

But if this doesn't tell us something about the conditions of the meat processing facilities in our country then what will? And at what point will those who work at these places stand up and say something? I understand that in this economy you can't jeopardize your job, but there are lots of ways to report things anonymously. If things are so bad that it changes how you eat, what else should you be doing?

Bye Bye Fat!

Today is my one year anniversary on Weight Watchers. Yes, for one year I have been counting points and doing weekly meetings and weigh-in's. I had hopes of reaching goal by one year but as the date approached I saw that wasn't going to happen and looked for a new goal. I realized I was very close to the fifty pound mark so that became my goal. Lose fifty pounds in one year.

I was a very good girl this week, only eating a few things off my normal routine and managed to lose 2.6 pounds for a total of 51 pounds!!! That means I averaged almost one pound a week for the entire year. I'm not going to talk about how easy it was or how I never struggled because none of that is true. I made my poor leader work for her money. I had weeks where I would gain and lose the same pound over and over. I had weeks of no loss and weeks of unexplained gains. But as my leader kept reminding me, it's really about averages. She was totally right!

I have about seven pounds left before I hit my goal at Weight Watchers and about ten more after that to hit my personal goal. I can honestly say that this is a lifestyle for me now. I will probably always have to count points and that's fine with me. Food can be an addiction just like any other substance, except you have to have food to live. Weight Watchers gives you the tools to manage food in such a way where you never feel like you are missing out on anything. I know I sound like a commercial, but everything I'm saying is true.

When I joined one year ago I weighed 211 pounds. That was more than I weighed the day I went into the hospital to give birth to my oldest child! I always thought I carried the weight well and didn't look as big as I was. I am also pretty healthy, so I told myself that if my weight ever started to impact my health I would do something about it. This was really stupid considering that our weight always impacts our health even if the outward signs are not currently visible. But, it's what I told myself. So, when I started getting horrible heartburn and the doctor suggested a medication I realized I was done. I refused to go on a medication for something I could do something about and joined Weight Watchers instead.

I didn't tell many people at first. I didn't want people judging what I was putting into my mouth or shaking their head when they realized I'd failed at yet another diet. But, when the weight started coming off and people started asking, I had to come clean. Since then several other people I know have joined and are losing. It's great to see others getting healthy in a way that I know will change their lives.

So, bye bye 51 pounds of fat and hello new me! Don't worry, you'll hear me scream when I hit my goal weight!

Forever Behind

I feel like I'm always behind. It doesn't matter how hard I work at things, something is always left undone and/or late. Right now I'm behind in two of my three classes. One only slightly and the other horribly. I will get caught up on the work, but then in a few days I'll be behind again for some reason. I'm always behind in cleaning and laundry. I am behind on work, and behind (as in haven't done a damn thing) for another blog I'm supposed to be writing for, and really want to write for.

I do waste a fair amount of time on the wonderful world of Facebook, but honestly I don't think cutting that out would get me any less behind. At least when I'm on the computer I usually have several tabs going at the same time and often one of them is work or school. I don't know what my problem is. I am a big procrastinator, but that's only on stuff I really hate and there isn't too much of that. I can't imagine how much of a mess I would be if I still held a real job and had my kids full time. There's really no good excuse for why things are so out of control. I guess it's just one of my many flaws.

Things have been stressful in my life the past few days. I have a habit of things going really really well for a while and then something happens and it all goes to shit in a second. I figure this is likely my fault too and that's why I call it a habit. I'm the common denominator. So, I've been in kind of a crappy mood the past few days. I also haven't been eating well and the stress has caused me to lose almost four pounds. That's the good news though. I'm trying to hit that 50 pound mark before my one year Weight Watchers anniversary and it looks like I might do it. It's not the best way to get the weight off, but I'll take it if I'm going through the stress anyway.

Birthday Recap and Eating Everything in Sight!

So I think the birthday went really well. I have a constant sense of anxiety around birthday's and Christmas because I always want them to be extra special. He seemed to really enjoy his presents and his birthday dinner and he said he had a great day, so that's all I could hope for! I was totally worn out by the end of the day and we didn't even have a big party.

The rest of this week has been insane though. I have been really stressed out the past few days and so I have just been eating everything in sight! I have been craving salt which is really strange for me and so I expect tomorrow's weigh in to be horrible! I had my pity party yesterday and now I will face the music tomorrow and work on undoing the damage.

I've made some decisions about what I want to do with my life during this little pity party so stay tuned!

Eight Years Ago

One of the two happiest days of my life happened eight years ago tomorrow. My Nanner Bean was born!

My ex-husband and I had decided that we wanted to have our children two years apart. I still remember how that played out. There came a point where I said, if we want to have them two years apart, we better get started. Not very long after that I carried the pregnancy test out with a stupid grin on my face and told him that we must be the most fertile couple in the world.


On September 19th, 2002 and two we became proud parents for the second time. He was actually born on his due date which surprised me. I had a doctors appointment that day, but after having contractions the whole day prior to his birth I doubted we were going to make it to that appointment. Sure enough, just before four in the morning my water broke. I jumped up from a sound sleep, said "My water broke!" and ran to the bathroom. Pretty much the same thing had happened with my older son as well. Except that with him, the contractions stopped after my water broke. This time, they kept coming harder and closer together. We had switched to a midwife practice after a less than pleasant experience with our OB-GYN and she had told us to call when my water broke. So, I called and told her what was going on. She told me I could come in whenever I was ready, but that I could wait at home until the contractions got closer together. We called my mother-in-law and told her to come and get our older son and then when she arrived I decided it was time to go. I was going to attempt a VBAC and I didn't want to take any chances.

Everything about my labor was pretty similar to the first, except I had an amazing midwife to help me through it this time. She almost never left the room, let me move around just like I wanted, and I was even able to get in the whirlpool tub. I was pressing on without medication pretty well, but at eight centimeters I got stuck. The same thing had happened with my first and that is when the doctor had decided to do the c-section. My midwife looked at me and said, "You are going to hate me, but I want you to turn over on your left side. It is going to hurt so much worse, but we need to get him out." At that same time she called the doctor to have him make his way in to the hospital. When she told me she was going to do that because she thought he might need to use suction, I was determined to get him out! I turned over on my side and the pain that had been bearable became so intense so fast I couldn't believe it. I gripped the bed rail so hard my knuckles were white! At one point, my ex looked at me and said, "You can relax, your contraction is over." I looked at him and said, "No, I can't relax, it is one BIG LONG contraction! I don't care what that stupid monitor says!"

The midwife had been right, I wanted to kill her, but it worked. I went from eight to ten in just a few minutes and then started to push. I suspect that medication gives the woman a little more control over the pushing part of delivery. I had no control. They had told me that even though it was my second baby, I might still push for two hours since I had never pushed with the first. He was out in fifteen minutes.


I remember looking down and seeing his little body but not hearing anything. I sort of panicked and kept asking if he was OK. My midwife said he was fine. I said, "Why isn't he crying?" She said, "Here you go." and he started right up. He got to stay in the room with us for all of his tests and to be cleaned up and I just watched him and marveled at how amazing he was. He was a champion nurser right from the beginning and thanks to the kindness of the midwives we got to go home with him the next morning.


So much has happened in the eight years since that day. He's the same height as his older brother, but outweighs him by almost ten pounds. He still loves so many little boy things like playing with trucks and just digging in the dirt. He loves to collect things and he is still such the momma's little boy. He still crawls up on my lap (only now he takes up way more than my lap) and he still tells me he loves me all the time. Him and his brother are my whole world and I never knew how amazing life could be until they were in it!


Happy 8th Birthday Nanner Bean!!

Perception VS. Reality

Today was a pretty good day for me. I was not expecting any sort of a loss at Weight Watchers and I ended up losing a pound! It'd been staying pretty well on plan, and early in the week I was able to get a fair amount of exercise before I came down with a cold and didn't feel like it anymore. But this was one of those weeks where I didn't really feel like I knew where I was with things and so I was still surprised by the results. This loss brings me back to being exactly ten pounds from my goal weight, and nearly a fifty pound loss. My one year anniversary with WW is coming up at the beginning of October and I would really like to be at goal by then, but I'd settle for hitting that fifty pound mark.

This nearly fifty pound weight loss has really driven home the concept of perception versus reality. The reality is, I have lost 48 pounds and almost five clothing sizes. The reality is that I can almost wear a size 10 which I'm not sure has ever happened to me. The reality is, I feel amazing and I know that while I still have a ways to go, I look better than I ever have.

But the perception is that I still weigh over 200 pounds. My brain still has the image of the way I looked almost a year ago stuck there like it has been etched on. Someone in my WW meeting said something very wise once. They said it's hard to get the old image out of your head, because your weight didn't just fall off over night. You didn't wake up one morning 50 pounds lighter and so shocked by the way you looked that you just jumped right into that new you.

I didn't get to be 70 pounds overweight by having a healthy relationship with food or by loving my body or the way I looked. Those things have improved nearly 100% since joining WW a year ago, but that has taken a years worth of work. I expected to be so excited about the way that I look that shopping would be a fun experience and I would just be thrilled to wear all of these things that I couldn't wear before.

But, the reality has been much different. The reality has left me standing in Kohl's for two days in a row looking at clothes that I would have loved to have worn a year ago and still not having the courage to try them on. The reality has left me thinking that I can't possibly pay any money for clothes that won't fit again in a few months. The reality has left me leaving with a pair of shoes and a purse (which I love, don't get me wrong) because those are the only items I can trust to fit me and look OK. The reality is, shopping for clothes still isn't that much fun.

But another reality is that I know it will get fun. I know that because this is the life that I have chosen for myself now and because I know I cannot go back to my old weight. So eventually my new body will become etched into my brain and I will enjoy going into the store and trying on those things I always admired. I will know that I can spend the money on something and have it fit in a few months.

I do know things are starting to shift though. I recently went to my favorite thrift store and found a brand new dress with the tags still on that I instantly feel in love with. It was a size 10 but I tried it on anyway. It nearly fit and since it was only $7 I bought it because I know it will fit very soon!

Things that annoy me

I feel like I'm reasonably easy to get along with. Maybe. Who knows.

But some things annoy me. Some things really get under my skin. I won't go into all of them because that could take a while, but I experienced one of them this evening. Perhaps I'm just sensitive, but perhaps people are stupid. I tend to think it's the latter.

I have a friend who owns a little burger joint and I created and maintain a Facebook page for him. I try to post his daily specials as often as I can and let him know what people are saying. Today his special was this amazing chicken salad that his wife makes. You have never had a chicken salad sandwich until you have had one of these. Before going veg I ate plenty of these sandwiches. In fact, since going veg I gave myself permission to have one the last time they were available. My body was NOT happy so when they became available again today I did not indulge. But, I did post the special on the Facebook page.

One of my friends commented that she was corn, wheat and gluten free now or she would be all over one of those sandwiches because they are so good. Another person (whom I admit I do not know) posted this "God gave us wheat, corn, gluten --- and MEAT!!" and basically told her to man up and eat the sandwich. Now, she did go on to say that she shouldn't if she was allergic, but come on! Number one, she is allergic, deathly so. The poor girl has a very limited diet because of her allergies. So while this woman did acknowledge the possibility of an allergy she only did so after basically saying if God made it, then you should eat it. But she basically said anyone who chooses not to eat those things has a problem. Notice the emphasis on meat?

So why is it not OK for someone to choose not to eat those foods for whatever reason? If it is OK to choose not to eat them, is it only OK if it's because of an allergy and not a personal choice?

This is not the first time I've encountered this type of reaction. I have had countless people act like I was some sort of lunatic for not eating meat. I admit to being a little militant about it. I still give my children meat when they ask for it, but I do find myself a little grossed out when I handle it or see others eat it now. Sure, I'd like everyone to go vegetarian for a lot of different reasons, but I know that's not likely to happen. From time to time, I'm sure I have my judgments about meat eaters. But, I don't try to force feed anyone green beans just because "God made them".

And if you believe that God made all of those things (which admittedly I do not) then why do you eat so much crap that God did not make? If you're so concerned with people eating what God made then you should probably look toward a vegetarian diet. Sure plants and animals have always been here, but plants were edible before we figured out a way to eat the animals, so maybe that wasn't their intended purpose.

Oh and I have to get my car worked on tomorrow. That may be more of the reason for the above rant than anything else.