Addendum…

I just reread the last post, and realized that the weight gain was only a little about indulging whims.  Actually, the indulgence was only a subset of what really goes on.  It has something to do with a deep belief that food is the way to care for myself.  When I feel too lonely, or depressed or sad, or even angry food is always there.  It offers sustenance that extends beyond corporeal nourishment.  I’m not sure how to even talk about it here.  It can provide comfort where there is none, it fills spaces in time that could just as easily be filled by companionship and laughter, if there were some of that to be had.

Taking it even deeper, I could say that it is safer  to fill the gaps in the heart with food than with people because at least food is predictable.  At least I know the outcome of eating.  The taste, the feeling of fullness, even full to feeling sickness ~ all those things are constant.  Unless food is somehow tainted I can count on the outcome of eating it.  I have learned in this life that I can’t count on the outcome of relationships with people, be they friends or lovers.  At some point I seem to have made a choice between people and food, and food was safer.  Not more satisfying, really, not that at all.  Just safer.  Less possibility of betrayal, hurt, whatever is so threatening about trusting others.

So that is the habit that I truly need to change, and it truly is an inertia that goes way beyond that of eating a piece of steak or a cup of ice cream.  The other day someone asked me if I am “open” to meeting new people.  I answered that of course I am, I just don’t meet anyone to create new friendships with.  Then a few days later, I stopped into the health food store for lunch and as I was going out the door I looked up and saw that a man was looking at me.  I opened my eyes wider and smiled and said “Hello.”  I felt the difference in that moment of being open or not.  That man was not the issue – I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him again – the issue was that I felt myself literally open my eyes and say hello to another person.  And I felt a shift.

So, we’ll see.

The physics of change

I really don’t know much about physics – I think I just feel smart when I use the word. I’m not sure if physics has any connection to what I have in mind , but here it is: Changing a habit or a way of being is so slow, so hard to do, takes such attention and above all, persistence. You just have to keep chipping away at it. I have been overweight for I don’t know how many years. It depends on how overweight we’re talking. I thought I was overweight for a long time, when I weighed far less than I will ever be again. So, my point is that for years I have indulged my every whim, and now I am trying to instill some reason and it is so up and down. Three steps forward and two steps back. I think inertia has a part in it. You go in one direction for so long that it is hard to stop and change the direction of the motion. (Physics, see?) I lose less than a pound a week, which is fine as long as I go in that direction. The thing is, sometimes I just crave (and I mean CRAVE) the wrong food. Sweet, salty, greasy. No carrots, thank you. Nothing reasonable appeals to me. I am trying to learn to consider what I probably need nutritionally that is causing the cravings. Do I need protein? Am I thirsty but don’t recognize it? To a good eater who has led a reasonably balanced life those may sound like silly questions, but for me they are real. So my best bet at this point is to get the stuff I don’t want to eat out of my house so I don’t have to rely on being responsible, remembering my big picture goal.

Which is…well, in the short run that someone who doesn’t know (and so is being polite) that I am on WW notices that I have lost weight. I don’t know why I care what others think. I don’t actually, I just want some validation from outside myself. I know that my skinniest jeans (Really NOT skinny at all, but for me.) are very loose now, but I wonder if maybe they always fit like this and I just forget. Or if they are stretched out now.

Anyway, I have mde some healthy changes I think. Let’s see: Green drinks in the morning (now with ground flax seed. Ick.), drinking more water, eating more fruit and vegies, no Ben & Jerry’s for almost three months, eating plain yogurt n the morning, walking places rather than driving, and only about three small lowfat lattes a week. And no Ben & Jerry’s. I don’t miss it. Really.

It’s physics, simply physics.

Who knows what will become of any of us, really?

Today in the newspaper of the town in which I work, I saw that the police are looking for two men suspected of murdering three people last week. When the murders happened, I waited with bated breath to see if I knew the victims. It wouldn’t have been the first time, by a long shot. Fuzzy images of another funeral for a young man lurked in the back of my head, and I will admit to feeling relief that I didn’t know them. I felt shock and no small measure of heartache, then, this morning when I saw that one of the suspects in the case was my student, a part of my Baile Folklorico group about twelve years ago.

Nicolas was not noticeably angry, at that time. On the contrary, he was a peaceful guy who always had a ready smile. He lived in a decrepit trailer in a run-down mobile home park with quite a few family members. Now that I think about it, they seemed to be kind of a jumbled family group. His closest friend was his cousin, and they lived together. I’m not sure which of their parents they lived with. In subsequent years we had more family members come through our classes. They always lived in poor housing, either at the Vin-Boy trailer park or the migrant worker camp in East Linda.

I ‘ll always wonder if I could have done anything that might have changed the outcome for Nicolas. What can we possibly do beyond the reach of our classrooms? Life is so much bigger, so much more demanding than we can touch, no matter how much we give. Did he become angry and violent? Did he just get caught up in something that escalated faster than he could get away from it? They say he wasn’t in a gang, but that doesn’t really matter, in the big picture. Lots of lives are going to be that much more turbulent as the ripples spread. It makes my heart hurt.

Small changes: because small shifts can move everything.

1. Begin the day with a Green Drink every day for 30 days. (Began March 10)

2. Plain yogurt every morning for 30 days. (Began March 17.)

3. Track everything I spend. Just watch for three months. (Begin March, 2008)

4. Walk half an hour a day. (Begin March 20.)

(God, this all sounds so mundane, trivial, middle-aged. Oh well. Consider the source. Small shifts, it’s all about making small shifts.)

Work and Spirit

In choosing categories for this post, I chose both work and spirit. I feel that I have lost the spirit for my work lately, and it is bothering me deeply. Before I was a teacher, I looked around a lot at other people, and I wondered if anyone really liked their job, and actually wanted to go there each day. Then somehow I got the idea to become a teacher, and for the first time ever, I discovered what it is to have passion for what you do. For fifteen years I went to school each day with enthusiasm. Whatever was going on in my personal life I was able to leave in the parking lot. Family crises, school crises, I was able to meet them all with equanimity, at times with grief, and sometimes even grace. I felt like I was making a difference.

When I was asked to become an administrator, I felt like I could make a difference on a larger scale. Last year I worked hard and I did a good job. I connected with kids, teachers and school sites. I still felt the passion, if in a different way, still doing something that mattered. Then this year that changed. I was given a different job to do, one for which I had no passion at all. I have seemed to sink into inertia, and can’t imagine even having energy anymore. I can’t even remember what I ever liked to do, or think of what I might like to do. I used to fantasize about going to Cal and studying for a PhD. I would get so excited just reading about a program they offer in culture and literacy. Although I told myself it was impractical and too expensive, something for a younger person to do, I still thrilled at the thought of it. Even that has changed. I visited Berkeley the other day, and came away feeling like studying there was on the bottom of my life list. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to do anything again.
It’s funny how now that the job that has taken my passion away has been eliminated, I feel depressed, and without control over my life. I don’t know what will come next~ certainly nothing I fear or dread. The worst case scenario is I will be returned to my passion, the classroom. I think I fear that I have changed, and that would no longer bring me the joy it once did. Or maybe I just fear losing the pay I now make. I think the key in all this, is the feeling of powerlessness. For some reason, I was put on hold this year, and now feel that I am a sacrificial lamb to the teachers’ union’s charges that too many administrators have been hired recently. I’m seen as expendable because I’m doing something that anyone could do, not the things that only I can do, or that I can do best.

I think the only way out of the depression, the robbing of my feeling of power, is to take control of those things over which I still have power. The condition of my home, the food I eat, the exercise I practice. I know that it takes only a small shift to make big changes begin to flow. I will start there, with calm and with joy and see what comes next.

Green drinks, deja vu

Day nine of the green drink saga. Today I learned that I need more than one cup of frozen blackberries if I’m going to use five spinach plants. I also need to blend it a little more – I was picking spinach out of my teeth today, and my drink tasted pretty spinach-ey. Which is okay, because I like spinach, but still. I prefer it to be a little more disguised if it’s going to be in my morning drink. Overall, I think I have more energy and am willing to attribute it to the green drinks. I haven’t lost an extra chunk of weight yet, but maybe over time that will pick up. It still seems like a good way to begin the day. It certainly can’t hurt.

Why weight?

Yesterday I discovered that I have in fact lost 10.8 pounds, rather than the 8.6 I thought I had lost.  Now this is small beans, I guess, but to me it represents payoff.  I just think it is interesting to notice how intricately the mind and emotions are tied in to the whole weight thing.  When I think I am not losing, I want to give up.  I think I’m not capable of it.  I judge myself, feel inferior, and incompetent.  Then when I find that I have in fact lost weight, I walk a little taller, think my stomach sticks out a little less.   I feel like such a studette, sure that someone will be noticing my new lithe figure.  Actually I feel pretty out of control.  Like if I can’t control what I think or believe about myself, what about everything else I care about?  Do I have any control of my life at all?  Is this where I just “let go and let God?”  Coming back to Earth, the green drinks seem to give me energy and keep me full all morning.   That is my opinion after only three days.  Will they lead to good news on the scale?  Isn’t it enough to feel great?  No?  Okay then, keep up the blended spinach and we’ll see in a while.  Today I put pineapple in it because the strawberries were gone.  Still good.  This is like a great secret, that you can drink your greens and it is painless.  I like them cooked, but I want to get the most from them, so bring on the blender.   It only looks ugly, and a non-transparent glass pretty much takes care of that if it is a problem for you.  I don’t care as long as it tastes okay.   Enough.  We’ll see if I am still so enamored of them after a month.