Keep on Running

You know that feeling you get when you’ve exhausted all of your options in trying to reach a goal and you just have to tread water for awhile?

 

Like this.

 

Well, I’m kind of there with my weight right now. I hate to even think about it because I know being healthy is a lot more important than being a certain size. That being said, I’ve gained some weight since being diagnosed with hypothyroidism and starting on Synthroid. This apparently happens to some people—while the drug is supposed to help the thyroid and metabolism get in order, until you’re on the right dosage, some weight gain can happen.

Grr.

I’ve talked to my doctor, she told me it’ll be fine, that I’m super healthy otherwise, and that I have to remember that not only is my thyroid out of order, but my pituitary gland is too. My whole endocrine system sucks. A sucky endocrine system is not ideal for a girl who already has to struggle with weight.

When I saw my doctor the other day I told her that while my diet is not 100% perfect all the time, I know for sure that it’s good enough that I shouldn’t be gaining weight at the pace it’s been coming on, especially with the amount of working out I do. At any rate, I’ve basically been told there’s not much I can do but continue what I’m doing and wait for the medicine to do its thing. And so that’s what I’ll do.

It makes me think of that old Spencer David Group song.

The only difference is I’ll keep on spinning and Body Pumping. Running hurts my knees.

Project Tasteless Challenge #3: The “I Have Two Useless Degrees and am $23K in Debt Because of Entenmann’s” Wavy Cake

We called it “wavy cake.”

You might know it.  It comes in a white and blue window box.  It’s chocolate.  It’s decadent.  It’s dangerous.

It's fucking Entenmann's

Source

When I found out that the third Project Tasteless Challenge was comfort-food based and appropriately named “The Girls Who Eat Their Feelings Challenge,” several foods came to mind–bread and butter was an especially heavy contender, as were chips and onion dip–but deep down, I knew that the comfort food nearest and dearest to me was wavy cake and that I would have to make one.

My mother always watched what I ate and I never shunned my vegetables.  As a kid, I was a pretty good, wholesome eater and I didn’t fuss, but I did always have a sweet tooth.  My mom didn’t deny us sweets, but she didn’t load us up on them either.

My dad on the other hand…

When tasked with feeding us breakfast in the morning (a rarity for a reason), my dad would take my brother and me to the corner gas station and tell us to get what we wanted.  I actually remember eating a package of Sno-balls (yes, those disgusting pink coconut-crusted chocolate marshmallow cakes) and a Yoo-Hoo for breakfast one day.  When asked to go to the store for milk, my dad would inevitably return with two half gallons of ice cream too.  I’ve heard one story many times about when I was three, before my brother was born; my mom had to work an overnight shift at the hospital where she worked and when she called my dad to ask if I ate my dinner, they had this conversation:

Dad: “Yeah, she ate her spaghetti, and then I gave her a doughnut.”

Mom: “A doughnut?”

Dad: “Maybe it was three doughnuts.”

Mom: “WHAT?!”

Dad: “She liked them!”

So yeah, my dad definitely wired me to have this sweet tooth.  I guess I never really had a chance of escaping it.  One of our favorite sweets to eat together was the aforementioned “wavy cake”–which is officially known as the Entenmann’s Chocolate Fudge Cake.  My dad could eat a whole one in one sitting, but he’d always share some with me.  There was something about the perfectly decorated topping and the way you could pull the fudge icing off and eat it separately that really appealed to me and I always got excited when my dad brought a wavy cake home.

Though I was always a pretty good reader, I wasn’t always a great speller.  I had trouble with my spelling words in first grade, so my dad struck a deal with me: we would study the spelling words together, and for every word I spelled right, I’d get a bite of wavy cake.

And I wasn’t supposed to tell my mom about this study method.

Uhh, trained to eat my feelings, reward with food, and secret-eat much?

The funny thing is that now–some 20 years later–my dad and I are the healthy eaters and exercisers in the family.  We both watch what we eat, we both exercise every day, and we both watch our weight, but that wavy cake–I think we could both still destroy a wavy cake.  And, of course, all that studying paid off and the cake-method worked.  I learned how to spell and I went on to be an English major and got a Master’s in Creative Writing.  Thanks to the power of Entenmann’s wavy cake–sorry, Chocolate Fudge Cake–I have two completely useless degrees and $23,000 worth of students loans to my name.

Okay, so maybe my degrees aren’t completely useless, but you try hearing “So what do you do with an English degree?  Teach?” every time you meet someone new.

And yes, I do teach.  Le sigh.

Now, these days, I’d be hard-pressed to buy an Entenmann’s cake since I’m pretty into making things from scratch, and I even think it’s a little odd that of all things, that’s what stuck out to me as a memorable comfort food, but my mind just kept coming back to it.  When I was a kid, a storebought cake seemed like a big indulgence and it felt special. I thought this cake was fancy, with its perfect topping and neat square shape.  My mom’s homemade cakes, while always delicious, never looks as pretty as those silly Entenmann’s cakes, so I didn’t think they were nearly as special.  This cake definitely makes me think of my childhood and even though I (almost) never dare to indulge in it, chocolate cake in any form is a definite comfort food for me, so lo and behold, for the Girls Who Eat Their Feelings Challenge, I present to you the “I Have Two Useless Degrees and am #23K in Debt Because Of Entenmann’s” Wavy Cake.

God, I rule. Look at this fucking thing.

It was a labor of love, I tell you.

I searched high and low for a copycat recipe, but I wasn’t successful, so I settled on a recipe for a chocolate fudge cake with fudge frosting and hoped for the best.  I’m pleased with the results.

Recipe adapted from Carroll Pellegrinelli.

For the cake you’ll need:

• 1-2/3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• —
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup water
• —
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1-3/4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup milk (I used fat free milk and it was fine, though probably not as delicious)

For the icing you’ll need:

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup milk (again, I used fat free and the world didn’t end)

To make cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a SQUARE 9×9 or 8×8 baking pan and whatever other pan you have for the leftover batter.  Yeah, this actually yields some extra cake, but you want the square one to be for the wavy cake.  Combine the first set of ingredients with a wire whisk and set aside. In a microwavable container melt chocolate with water.  This can be tricky, so keep an eye on it–chocolate burns! Microwave 1 minute and check chocolate. If not melted, continue microwaving for 10 seconds at a time. Set aside. It might seem a little thick and pasty, which is okay. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and mix. Pour in the chocolate a little at a time and mix. Combine completely. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk until all is used. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 27 to 35 minutes until tested with a toothpick and cake has pulled away from the pans.  Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.

To make the icing:

Sift together powdered sugar and cocoa. I actually used a whisk because I don’t have a sifter, but this method left balls of powdered sugar and cocoa in my mixture.  Melt butter. Add butter and vanilla to sifted mixture. Stir. Add milk to get desired spreading consistancy. If more milk is required, add by tablespoon at a time. If you have lumps or balls of sugar and cocoa in your frosting, load it into a mini food prep processor and give it a few pulses.  Ta-da! Smooth frosting.

Put that shit in a piping bag and pipe those waves on.  Get them right!

I’m letting this cake sit on the counter overnight in the hopes that the fudge frosting will set and be able to be peeled away from the cake just so.  I hope my coworkers are as stoked about wavy cake as I am, because this sucker is going to straight to the office.

I can’t be trusted with wavy cake.

Wavy batter

Smooth fudge frosting. Uh, let's not just eat that whole thing with a spoon, okay?

Look, homemade wavy cake with decorative fall fruit. That makes it healthier, right?

In the words of my friend Alex, “I’m gonna eat the fuck out of this.” Then I’m going to cradle my two degrees and my student loan bills and rock back and forth for awhile.  Then I’m going to call my dad and ask him if he remembers how he helped me learn how to spell.

Wavy.  W-A-V-Y.  Wavy.

Size Matters and Matters of Size

As a health and weight-conscious person, not a day goes by when I don’t think about size.  I’m not necessarily talking about waist size or dress size, but size in general.  Size tends to be a touchy subject for people, and not just overweight or formerly overweight people, but for most people, and I don’t think that’s as widely realized as it should be.

Today I overheard some people talking about body size.  One was commenting on how thin someone else is and mentioned that she’s been meaning to ask my friend Stephen how he stays so thin—he was within earshot.  I happen to know this is one of Stephen’s pet peeves; we’ve discussed it in depth before.  He and I took a little walk later and talked about it again; he made a really good point—he said it bothers him when people ask how he stays so thin because he would never ask someone how they stay so fat; it’s rude and inappropriate to comment on someone’s size.  Social norms dictate that to ask someone such a question would be insulting, so people (generally) don’t do that.  Those social norms don’t seem to go the other way.  Many of my thinner friends are constantly asked about their physiques and most of them have been teased for their thinness.  For some of them, their thinness is genetic; some people simply have higher metabolisms than others and burn calories at a much faster rate than others, even when at rest.  Some people, like my friend Stephen, don’t overeat and food is not an issue for them; they eat until they’re sated and then they stop eating (I know, this is a wild concept for some of us, me included).  Some people work really hard to maintain their figures and body weights; they diet and exercise for it.  And of course, some people use unhealthy means to achieve thinness.  It’s different for everyone, but one thing is for certain: there’s no easy fix.  To ask a thin person how he or she stays so thin is not ever going to yield the desired results. People want to hear magic.  They never get it.

On the same side of the coin, fat people are fat for different reasons. Genetics can certainly play a role.  Cultural influences, upbringings, poverty, and medical issues can all be factors.  Some people simply eat too much and move too little.  For me, it’s a mix of most of those things.  Genetically, I am built to birth a whole litter of sturdy children to work the farm. The women on both sides of my family hold onto weight; I am shaped exactly like my paternal grandmother and there’s nothing I can do to change that.  Cultural influences and my upbringing have also affected my body weight; my family is Italian, and food is love. To this day, both of my parents still try to soothe me and celebrate with me with food.  It’s what they know.  It’s how they were raised.  They know about my struggles with food, with my body, and with my weight.  They know I have to watch what I eat and that I’m serious about exercise.  They’re thrilled when I’m a thinner version of myself, which is something I really grapple with, but they still can’t help but bring out the ice cream every time we get together. I was raised to like food and to like to eat—and I do.  I also have a tumor on my pituitary gland that makes my metabolism move like a snail through molasses; it’s being medicated now and my hormone levels are still leveling out (and I’ll live) but seriously, pituitary tumor+genetics+food-centered upbringing=I never had a fucking chance.

No matter what size someone is, people generally don’t like to have their bodies scrutinized. I am as guilty as the next person of jealously commenting on friends’ thinness; a lower body weight is something I’ve always coveted and it’s something I work so hard for now, so yes, I have told friends that I wished I could be naturally thin, like them, or that I could eat anything I wanted to, like them, or that I could never exercise, like them.  Since I’ve always said those things out of admiration (and jealousy) for people I love and respect, I haven’t always thought about how it made the recipients feel, but I’ve become aware of the fact that is does not make people feel good.  I remember my mother telling me a story about a coworker of hers when I was young–maybe 10 or 11, right when I first started being very self-conscious about my body–the woman broke down in tears when another coworker of theirs commented on how skinny she was.  She explained that she had tried her whole life to put on weight because she was ridiculed for how thin she was.  People asked her if she was anorexic or bulimic all the time.  She wanted to gain weight, but she couldn’t, and she was sick of people commenting on her size.  I’ve always kept that story in the back of my mind and it has come to the forefront during times when I’ve seen friends of mine hurt or embarrassed by comments about their thinness–including comments I’ve carelessly made.  People comment on thinness because it is held in such high regard in our culture and because we’re size-obsessed.  I’m hyper-aware of fat talk and it’s truly grotesque how often people bring size up.

It’s kind of a slippery slope.  It’s so hard not to be offensive these days.  Everybody talks, few people listen, and everyone is self-centered; we worry about our own issues much more than we do about other people’s issues.  I know I’m very sensitive to weight and body related issues.  For example, when I read this mortifying Marie Claire blog post I was horrified (seriously, Marie Claire, WTF are you doing?  More on this later). The general idea of this blog post is that fat people are disgusting, slovenly,  and unworthy of love and affection.  I can’t make this shit up. This kind of attitude hits especially close to home for me because, although I work insanely hard to maintain the weight and body I have right now, medically I’m still considered overweight, and I realize that there are people who think that way about me who have no idea that I spend hours at the gym and consider everything I eat.  The attitude is that anyone who is overweight is an out of control pig who doesn’t move and has no self-control, but that’s simply not always the case and it’s ignorant to assume that it is, just like all thin people aren’t anorexic or bulimic or on meth.

I took a break from writing this post to go to a spinning class earlier.  When I got there, two little girls about 10 years old were asking the instructor for help setting up their bikes.  I’m not exaggerating–they couldn’t have been older than 10.  One of them said quite candidly to the instructor, “I’m fat so I need to work out.”  10 years old. The instructor said “You’re not fat.  You’re not skinny, but you don’t need to be skinny.  You’re just right, you’re healthy,” and the little girl gestured to her friend and said “No, I’m fat.  She’s skinny, but I’m fat.  I need to work out.” Neither of the girls were overweight; actually, the one who was calling herself fat was the thinner of the two, but they were both completely average weights for their age.  The instructor let it go at that point.  The whole exchange is haunting me.  The words “fat” and “skinny” resonate so hard with people.  “Fat” means “bad,” “skinny” means “good,” and kids and adults alike are obsessed with the terms and labels and people base their self worth on these words. Size is everything for some reason.  Hateful articles like the one on the Marie Claire blog promote the idea that “fat” equals “bad,” instead of the word simply being what it is, which is an adjective.

This is seriously fucked up.

I’ve posted this video before and I’ll probably post it again because it says so much so eloquently:

Fat talk and skinny talk affect both men and women, and not for the better.  Perhaps if we focused less on size and more on health, and were all a little more tolerant, this could change.

Perhaps.

Working It Out: Just Do It/Feel The Burn!

You want to know something about working out?  A lot of work has to go into it.

Aaaaaaaaaand...one.

There are times when I’m in the middle of a spinning class or Power yoga or Cardio Strength and I just think to myself, “God.”

“This.”‘

“Is.”

“So.”

“Hard.”

And it really is.  It can be so, so hard.  But it can be so good, too.

I don’t really think about how good exercise is when I’m doing it.  I’m usually too busy trying to talk myself into pushing it just a little bit longer or trying not to throw up. It’s often just something that I have to do, the same way I have to brush my teeth and wash my face.  I just have to do it and get it done.  I don’t often think about the benefits of teeth-brushing or face-washing; I do those things because I know they’re good for my health, my teeth, my skin, and my general well-being, and because I was taught to do them every day, but I don’t think about them until I’m getting my annual check-up at the dentist or buying new face wash.  I just do them.

I’ve kind of gotten to a point where I just do exercise.  I’m mostly on autopilot.  I do it well.  I put a lot of time, energy, and effort into doing it, but in the end, I just do it.  I don’t think about it while I’m doing it.

However, I’ve found that I think about it when I’m not doing it.  When I’m standing in line at the grocery store and I flex my calves to get a stretch, I think about it.  When I lug a 25 pound box of cat litter from the car into my house and my arms feel strong and powerful, instead of like limp noodles, I think about it.  When I crouch down to pick up something I dropped and I come back up quickly without a tremble in my legs, I think about it.  I’ve come to really appreciate my own strength and the different ways the effects of exercise show on my body when I’m just doing every day normal things. I find myself savoring those moments when I notice and I’ve tried to start reminding myself about how good those moments feel when I’m huffing and puffing my way through an exercise class, trying to just get through it.

It’s kind of amazing when I stop and think about it.

I feel the burn and it feels really good.

How’d Ya Do It?: Revealing My Weight Loss Secret

When you lose a significant amount of weight, people always want to know how you did it?  How’d ya do it?  How’d ya do it?  HOW’D YA DO IT?  They’re always sorely disappointed when I tell them I did it with diet and exercise.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m in the business of dream-crushing.

Diet and exercise? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Diet and exercise is the simple answer to the question, but truthfully, there’s a lot more to it than that.  Because I spend so much time talking about and thinking about my body, how I use it, and what goes into it, a lot of this stuff seems pretty standard to me, but the diet industry is a big screwed up enterprise and people get all kinds of information from all kinds of sources and more often than not, it all ends in disaster. Low fat.  Low carb.  Liquids only.  Slim Fast.  The Hollywood Diet.  Atkins.  South Beach. The Cookie Diet.

Seriously, have you fallen for The Cookie Diet?  C’mon.  Does the phrase “Satan in a Sunday hat” mean anything to you?

Personally, I’ve never had much success with commercial diets. I’ve tried a few and I’ve been disappointed by every single one.  That’s not to say that they’re all bad.  Weight Watchers and South Beach both have some good principles and I know people who have had success on those diets; they’re just not for me.  I tend to do best when I listen to my body and stay honest with myself. Over the years I’ve learned what really works for me.  Now when I say “diet,” I literally refer to the way I eat, not what I do to lose weight.  That being said, over time I’ve developed a few go-to methods for losing weight healthily and keeping it off, but one is really key to any and all of the weight loss success I’ve had in my life.

I write that shit down.

This is such a standard suggestion, but it is key for me.  I keep a daily journal of what I eat.  If I eat a perfect 1,400 calories all from natural whole foods, I write it down.  If I have a handful of carrots in the middle of the afternoon, I write it down.  If I eat a cupcake, I write it down.  If I drink 10 margaritas, I write it down.

Hey, it’s been known to happen.

It’s certainly not the most glamorous suggestion or one that hasn’t been suggested before.  Logging what you eat is a big one for nutritionists and dietitians, it’s all over the health magazines, and it’s always suggested by the different (reputable) commercial diets.   There’s a reason for this.

It works.

Some people keep food journals, some have Excel spreadsheets, some write on the backs of receipts they find at the bottoms of their purses.  I use an online food and calorie tracker.  There are hundreds of them out there.  I’ve spoken to a lot of people about food tracking.  Some say they just can’t do it.  I’ve had several people tell me they really could not possibly keep up with writing in a notebook or logging into a website and plugging in their food intake every day.  That’s their own business.  I’ve talked to others who say they get too obsessive with it.  I can see that.  It can become the kind of thing that preoccupies you, especially when you first start doing it.  I don’t have those problems though.  This is a method that really works for me.

I think this all comes back to self-discipline, or a lack thereof. I tend to think that if you can discipline yourself enough to jot a few notes in a notebook or log a few meals on a website everyday, you can discipline yourself enough to make conscious choices about what you eat and how much of it you eat.

I don’t think anyone safely loses weight without a little bit of self-discipline.  To me, journaling is an easy and safe way to keep myself in check so that I don’t have to fret over a calculator during every single meal.

And that’s how I did it.