*The Great Pumpkin

"It's going to take me a month to take off this weight I gained over the last few days," I said aloud, after devouring the delectable Pumpkin Ginger Snap Waffles for breakfast.

Why is that the case? Why is it so easy to put on 6-8 pounds over a very short period of time, and so very difficult to lose those pounds over the next several weeks? I know weight loss is based on math: calories in minus calories out. But there should be some mandatory law of physics that includes the variable of time in the equation. If there's not a law like "If you gain five pounds in five days, you can lose five pounds in five days," there should be. I'd like to speak to whomever is in charge, please.

Seriously, about once a month, I watch the bathroom scale hit some pretty high numbers for my body. I like to speak of this tragedy as though it is something the scale does on its own, something over which I have no control. But we all know better.

In the winter, I blame all of the yummy comfort foods: chowders, hearty soups, homemade rolls, holiday goodies. In the spring, it's Cadbury Mini Eggs, deviled eggs, and Easter baskets. In the summer, it's ice cream, frozen yogurt, cookies, and vacation meals on the road. And in the blessed fall, where I find myself wallowing in the comfort foods of autumn, it's pumpkin-flavored everything! And caramel-flavored everything else. We've had pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin oatmeal, and pumpkin waffles. Today I succumbed to the tempting purchase of Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows.  I don't really like marshmallows, but these are PUMPKIN ones, people!  

How often can one "indulge, just this once" without having to pay the piper? I figured last Monday morning's weigh in would be a terrible comeuppance for Ms. Pumpkin Head.  Guess what! I had only gained three pounds. Not bad, not bad at all. I can take care of that this week.  If only...

If only I hadn't kept trying every single, solitary pumpkin recipe I discovered on Pinterest. I shared the cookies, I promise. I delivered them to a couple of homes.  I probably should have delivered them to MANY houses, and only kept a few cookies at home.  Waffles don't deliver well, and the muffins, well, there were only a DOZEN.  Let's see that's two for my son, and...the rest for me!  As it turns out, THIS Monday's weigh-in was a SHOCKER. Resulting in the quotation at the top of this page.

I would love to blame my weight on a wild hormonal fluctuation, but that probably plays a very small role in what's really going on. There are plenty of people who like the same foods I do who don't consume enough of them to watch their weight roller coaster over any given month. It's time to pack up the perpetual pumpkin chuck wagon, and send it down the trail. It's going to be hard, but it has to be done. If it's true what they say, you are what you eat, I better be careful. I might turn into a very plump and orange Great Pumpkin.

Craziest Diet EVER!

I don't remember the sizes of clothes I wore when I was younger, but I believe even as a child, I needed the girls' equivalent to the boys' "husky" line, known as "plus size."  I was pretty aware of the implication, and I'm sure I was only 10 or so.  I was "larger than average."  Taller also means heavier.  I didn't understand that back then, and even now, I'm just starting to accept my size as just one small part of who I am.

Dieting was something all women do, or so I thought.  My mom was always eating grapefruit and boiled eggs when I was little.  There was the cabbage soup diet. The Atkins diet.  Even lately, it's been Sensa.  Exercise was jogging around the yard a certain number of times, working out with Artie Levin on TV, swimming laps, Pilates, and these days, walking. 

I just wanted to set you up to understand my mindset as a young adult.  I recall that I weighed more than I wanted to weigh.  I would kill to weigh that weight today, which was probably 135 pounds.  I hit 5'7" in middle school, so that was not a bad number.  Technically, there are no bad numbers.  Just poor self-esteem tied to numbers.  It was only a bad number on the days they weighed us in gym class.  

No one was allowed to see the scale, or hear the teacher say your weight. But friends all asked. Kids just want to know they're normal.  My friends were no different.  NO ONE weighed as much as I did.  My friends were all reporting numbers in the low 100s, and the petite girls were UNDER 100. I think my birth weight was just around seven pounds, and then I just kind of skyrocketed to the 100s early in my youth.  I was mortified that anyone would know I weighed more than all of the other girls.  Yes, I was taller, but no one really explained that to me.

SOOO...as I was saying, I found myself wanting to take off some weight. I can remember it was when I was lifeguarding in the late seventies, and I'm sure being around the leaner, thinner lifeguards had me feeling pretty insecure about my weight, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.  It's common knowledge that women should never eat less than 1200 calories on a restricted diet.  I'd never given calories any thought, so I had no clue how many calories were in ANYTHING.

I headed down to the kitchen to check out our food supply.  Freezer first.  My favorite food in the whole world is ice cream.  Hmmm...  Anyone remember "ice milk?"  Ice milk would be called low-fat ice cream these days.  Like ice cream, only a little less creamy, a little less expensive, and a little less yummy.  Remember Mama?  She was all over anything that saved some calories. (And oh, yes, I have become my mother a hundred times over!)

Our freezer contained ice MILK rather than ice CREAM. We had a half gallon of chocolate ice milk in the fridge. Only 100 calories in a half cup.  Good to know.  And how about that?  13 servings in one carton.  100 x 13 = 1300 calories.  BINGO!  I now had a plan.  I would consume one half gallon of ice milk each day, I would not reach the starvation level of 1200 calories per day, and I was just sure the weight would fall right off.

Two problems.  First off, one cannot feel well eating only one food all day long, especially a dessert, for days on end. And secondly, my parents were never going to agree to buy me 15 gallons of frozen dairy dessert products to eat each month.  As I recall, I managed to consume nearly all of that first carton, but I felt miserable.  How could something so yummy make me feel so crummy?

That, folks, was the beginning of my life as a dieting adult.  I've done many extreme things to try to drop a few pounds over the years, but nothing as crazy as the ice cream diet.  It sounds so fun, but it just isn't very practical! 

Anyone care to divulge the craziest thing you've done in the name of weight loss?  There's no judgment here.  When we know better, we do better.  Back then, I just didn't know any better!

Eating with Gusto

This weekend my youngest is traveling with me to see the oldest. My boys are ten years apart. When Bridger was first born, Dylan was the best big brother.  He rocked him, and kissed him, and made him laugh.  They were so cute together.  And then our little Boo learned to talk, and Dylan seemed to resent the Petit Prince.  He became jealous of the talking baby. "You let him get away with EVERYTHING.  You spoil him."  Well, there was probably some truth to that.  Bridger was only two.

Time has a way of softening the hard edges, and after Dylan grew up a little more himself, the boys actually became close again. Bridger worships the ground on which his big brother walks.  My heart melts a little whenever I watch them together.  And I laugh.  I have to; they're so funny together.

Now Dylan has grown up, married to the sweetest little wife, and moved three hours away to Utah's Dixie in Saint George.  My boys miss each other. This weekend will be a treat for us all.

Dyl and Jamie at Crossfit

Dylan and his wife stick to low-carb eating, along the lines of the Paleo diet. If you're not familiar with that, they eat like cave men...whatever grows out of the ground and can be hunted with a spear is what's for dinner.  That's my take on it anyway...they basically eat no processed foods, and get plenty of veggies and protein.  There's not a lot of room for homemade rolls and cookies in their diet, but on the weekends, they splurge occasionally. 

Yesterday I asked if Dylan had any special food requests for the weekend. "Shepherd's Pie!"  was Dylan's enthusiastic response.

"Do you want the real thing, or Paleo-style with cauliflower as a substitute for the mashed potatoes?"

"Real stuff!  I'll help make it if you want.  Thought about adding mushrooms and grilled onions to the burger part."

Dylan is quite the cook and manages their kitchen beautifully with weekly menus posted on their fridge.  He is a master griller and Dutch oven expert.  He continued,  "Do YOU have any requests you would like to do this weekend?"

"Hiking, but only if it's not hot as hell."  Yes, that would be me, speaking like a sailor to my child.  (You should know that Saint George IS hot as hell.  It's not just a figure of speech, so I excuse myself from resorting to this crude language.)

"It's pretty stinking hot, but we'll see."

During the summer, it's always over 100 in Saint George, unless it's raining.  It's a desert down there, so that is a rare and welcome delightful experience!

My kids are all healthy eaters; more so than I. They always have been.  We're all a little obsessed, though. 

I remember once when Bridger was in kindergarten, he was in his booster seat in the back of the car, complaining about being hungry.  

"I think there's a Reese's peanut butter cup back there; eat that." And what did my little five year old child say to that?

"Do you know how many freaking fat grams there are in that thing?"

Yeah, we have some issues.  I recall a 'last day of school" celebration when I offered to take the kids to Bullies, the local drive-in, to celebrate. I'm thinking ice cream cones and milkshakes!  It's a special day, after all.  What did my kids want? The boys wanted sandwiches, and Sierra asked for iced water. Sometimes I wonder if they are actually mine.

And WHY do they have issues?  I blame myself.  After Bridger was born, WAY after Bridger was born, I was still packing the pregnancy weight, and then some. Okay, I can admit this; after my third baby, I weighed 224 pounds. 

I remember the day I had struggled into my swimsuit to go to the pool.  Bridger was standing on the king-sized bed, and he patted my back. 

"Mommy, your back has boobs, too."  Good lord, I WAS big.

Not long after that, I began my first Body for Life challenge.  The nice thing for me was that Dylan was a high school athlete at the time and he was happy that I was eating more protein and making healthier choices.  We experimented together with our protein shakes and making healthy breakfasts. At his request, I made whole grain waffles with oat flour and flax seed oil.  We topped them with fruit or homemade syrup.  And Cool Whip.  There's always my favorite non-food of choice: Cool Whip.  I still struggle to give up that junk.

Sierra is my only girl, the Sierra Sandwich has her in the middle of the boys. She has been on board with most of the healthy eating.  She was blessed with muscles from the start, just like her brothers. She has always had the waist of a wasp and gorgeous, muscled arms, butt, and thighs. She rolls her eyes at me whenever I ask about calories.  

"I don't COUNT calories, Mama Llama." She has a great attitude. Sierra is actually one of my heroes when it comes to having a healthy mindset about life and priorities, in general.

My kids are my partners in crime.  Most of the time, we all try to eat healthy.  Some of the time, we indulge, and when we do, we do it with gusto.  We love Café Rio, Menchies, Swig (a local specialty drink drive-in in Saint George), ice cream, homemade goodies...  

Thankfully, I am the only slave to the scale. 

As anyone who has read my blog knows, I tend to be obsessive-compulsive about so many things.  I did NOT pass the awful weighing habit on to any of them.  I am just glad that my kids seem to be not only health-conscious,  but have a healthy perspective about diet and weight.  I tend to be the one throwing us all under the bus, diet-wise, most of the time.  ("Who wants ice cream? Want me to bake some cookies? Anyone up for frozen yogurt?") They rein me in with their raised eye-brows or their polite "no, thanks" when they think it's time to tone down the gusto.

I am looking forward to some silliness, some visiting, and some good food this weekend.  This IS the good life, and I'm so glad for these sweet kids to share it with.  (AAAAUGH!!!  A preposition at the end?  Can I let it go for once?  Watch me.  I can do this.  I'm going to slowly exit out of this without even fixing it.  Now if I can just not hyperventilate while I do.  Deep breath...breathing slowly. THE END.)