If You Are Not Thin, Are You Fat?

  

My 7 year old daughter is overweight.  Since she was a toddler, she has been much larger than other children her age.  

The doctor's often marveled at how chubby she was.  At 12 months old she was about 30 pounds.  She was so roley-poley that she never actually crawled because it was tough for her to get her belly off the floor.  Our pediatrician said that she would likely be a late walker because of her large size, but low and behold, she was an early walker.  At ten months old she picked herself up and began moving.  

As she's gotten older, she has gained a real appreciation for food (sort of like her mama).  She likes buying it, chopping it, preparing it, cooking it and of course, eating it.  She's a pretty healthy eater also. It's not unusual for her to ask me to pack her a salad for lunch or to choose and apple or grapes to munch on as a snack and her vegetables are always the first thing she eats.  Just yesterday she was telling me that when she grows up she'd like to open a really fancy salad restaraunt with a huge salad bar (because I'm a responsible mom I explained to her that really fancy restaurants don't have salad bars ,to which she scoffed and said, "I don't care.  Mine does.") I'm not going to claim that she doesn't love her sweets, because she does... she's seven, after all.  But we don't have a house that is packed with candies and cookies.  

So, as far as her body goes, my daughter is probably always going to be a little bit overweight.  It's just the way she is.  And that is quite normal for her.  She is healthy, active and most importantly, she really likes herself.  

As a person who has struggled with her weight and who has let her weight define her value as a human being for all of her life, I am worried about passing my unhealthy perceptions and attitudes about weight onto my confident and happy child.  I suspect that my struggles with body image and self-esteem regarding my weight is one of the first things that people associate with me, sadly.  This quality in me has become, unfortunately, definitive across the boards.  

Many will say, "well, it doesn't matter what you do, because the world will make her feel badly about herself anyway..." and I have given this a lot of thought.  At this point, children have pointed out to my daughter that she's larger than they are.  All kids note differences.  And my daughter says things like, "I really experience the joy in being chubby," or, "I wouldn't be so cute without my adorable chubby cheeks," or (and I squirm as I write this,) "Look at my fat belly, it's from all those healthy foods I eat."  She is aware that she is a larger person and she truly loves herself and accepts herself.

So, everything concerning the way my daughter feels about herself and her health is wonderful, but the world is a pretty fucked up place for women. And I wish that I could take her to a different world where as she grows up, everyone and everything isn't going to insist that there is something wrong with her.

My child deserves to live in a world where she is ENTITLED to like her overweight body. My child is ENTITLED to feel beautiful at a weight that society has arbitrarily deemed "too much."  I deserved this as well, but it was not the hand that I was dealt.  I will be damned if my daughter is going to experience the shame that I have felt without seeing me in the front lines fighting for the preservation of her self-esteem.  

All of the women in the pictures above are generally thought of as big, thick, chunky, chubby women.  This makes me wonder, if you are not thin, do people think that you are fat?  If you are big, are you fat?  Is there anything truly wrong with being a little bit fat? Or, having some meat on your bones? Is it less attractive?  To who? Is it less healthy? According to who? 

Frankly, I have seen women who outweigh me by 100 lbs run faster and harder than I can.  With far better endurance as well.   

I am 36 years old.  I have 2 children.  I am 5'10.  I weigh 150 pounds.  I wear a size 8 to 10.  My BMI is 21.5 and I work out more often than I don't,  yet the world makes me feel like I'm a little bit big.  I am, in every respect, totally normal.  

Now, because I am on fire right now, I am going to do something brave.  I am going to post the bikini pictures that I took and intended to post after meeting my goals and transforming my body.   This is really hard for me to do.  Even taking the picture was diffiuclt.  I can not imagine going out in public while wearing this.

I am posting these pictures because I want to make the point that THIS is what normal is for me.  This is what healthy looks like on me.  Do I have meat on my bones, YES!  I have a little extra chub in a whole bunch of places.  I am also stronger than ever.  I am in better physical shape than I have ever been in.  I have a healthy diet.  I am a totally normal, average person...  and that, my friends, is not thin for me.

This is what average looks like for ME.  

This is what I look like.  This is how I wear "healthy."  

And I am really sick and tired of living in a world that says average and healthy is chubby.  

I want my daughter to live in a world where she can be her own size.  She can define what is comfortable with her and not be criticized and told that there is something wrong with her.  And because I can not take her to a different planet, it looks like I'm going to have to change the world.

And that starts with changing myself.  

And now I'm going to go and have a good, long cry.  

Appointment with the Doctor

I finally had my doctor's appointment in San Francisco yesterday.  It was such a relief to address the problems that I've been having, as they become more aggravated by the day.

Luckily, it seemed to him that my issues are pretty straight forward.  My previous doctor forwarded all of my past blood work and he was able to review that along with my history.  He ordered a pretty insane amount of new blood work, and I won't have the results until December 7th.  That said, it's his suspicion that I need an adjustment on my thyroid medication.  Also, a hormone test that I took back in 2007 indicated that I had some adrenal exhaustion that was never addressed.  It's very common to experience this with Hashimotos, I guess.  He did a simple test for it in his office that was pretty interesting.  He took my blood pressure sitting down.  And he took my blood pressure standing up.  A normal person's blood pressure will rise slightly when they stand.  Someone with an adrenal issue's blood pressure will dip slightly when they stand.  Mine went down 12 points!!!  This was enough of a dip to warrant a hardy reaction from him.  I don't why, but there's something really satisfying about seeing a doctor look a little bit thrown off by a test that they've given you.  On the other hand, the fact that my blood pressure went down is pretty bad, so I'm trying not to feel too satisfied by it.  My physical examination showed signs of anemia.  I didn't quite understand the problem, but it was something about my eyes.

We discussed my diet a bit and as suspected he believes that it's really important for me to be gluten free.  No more cheating.  No more fresh baked bread or grilled cheese sandwiches.  He didn't seem to think that I needed to go vegan.  Lean proteins are great and I should eat them.

One thing that he did mention was making some lifestyle changes in order to reduce my stress.  It's likely my stress level that has depleted my adrenal glands.  When he asked me what I do I told him I'm a stay at home mom, which has been my standard answer for the past 8 1/2 years.  My girls are in school all day, so most people think that I am a professional soap opera watcher.  He asked me to take him through a day in my life... so I did.  He said, "You said that you didn't have a job!  You have 3 jobs!!!!" And I suppose that's true.  I am stretched too thin all the time, to the point that at night I have no patience for my children and no love for my husband.  This is not a healthy way to live my life.   This week has been particularly bad.  I deal with stress by going to the gym.  I only go to the gym on days when the kids are in school.  If they aren't in school and I want to go, Jay has to be home.  He's usually asleep when he's home, so I'll get up at 5 or 6 in the morning and go for a 60 minute session or something easy like that.  When we were in Denver, I was able to go to the gym at the hotel the first day but I wasn't able to go the second day (I had been out until nearly 4 AM, and up by 7).  The following day Jay went back to work and he wasn't awake for me to go.  On Monday the kids didn't have school.  On Tuesday I went back to the gym.  On Wednesday I went, I had to be at the school to make pies with the third graders and was only able to stay for 1/2 an hour.  On Thursday I went but I got really stressed  by all the things that had to happen that day and about the state I had left my house in that morning (I hadn't even made the beds).  Jay was away on Buddy weekend and texted me about when they wanted to come back to the house.  And I just got really overwhelmed by what a mess it was, how I hadn't done my grocery shopping or even folded the mountains of clean laundry in my bedroom... and I had to leave the gym and deal with some of my real life stuff.  I got in 40 minutes on the elliptical and that was all.  Then,  yesterday I had to skip it because we left for San Francisco at 7 AM and when we got back to Concord, Jay had Buddy weekend and the girls were about to get out of school.  I had no real way of dealing with my stress.  I guess the worst thing to do is to become so stressed out and stretched thin that you can't make time for yourself in any respect.  Between my work for the school and the work I'm doing for my father and the general duties of a mom, I have these moments where I feel I'm going to snap.  I get totally overwhelmed and have trouble putting it all in order.  I also helped to organize a parent driven program at the school called Motor Perception and because I completely forgot about it this week, no volunteers showed up and it had to be canceled.  This was very embarrassing and upsetting.  I think that I need to buy one of those old school calendars to carry with me.  I really hate the idea of keeping a calendar electronically and I need a way to keep track of everything that I have going on.  It's too much to remember, particularly with the kids getting older, having their own lives and hobbies and activities and friends and play dates and parties and needing to keep track of all of their stuff as well.

I am going to start knitting again.  In order to take my stress down a notch I like to drink wine at night.  It really helps me.  I feel my whole body just melt into a state of relaxation when I have a glass of wine.  But alcohol  depletes that adrenals and I need to heal mine.  I feel like knitting would help a lot with this.

Hashimotos Disease Really Sucks

For years I have had my hashimotos disease under control.

I was diagnosed with hashimotos the first year that we moved to Philadelphia.  It was a seriously tough year for me.  I was pretty overwhelmed by the city and petrified of driving in it (and we lived in center city).  The girls were still tiny and in order to go anywhere I needed to put them in the stroller and walk.  But I had become depressed and exhausted. My weight shot up and even walking  6 blocks to the park with the girls was completely exhausting.  I didn't have any friends to help pick my spirits up and that paired with fatigue and a tendency to eat emotionally caused terrible weight gain.

At some point I began working really hard to lose weight.  We got a treadmill and I started to make some big changes in my diet.  It was around this time that I went vegan for the first time.   After a few months of working very hard I decided to weigh myself.  I was shocked and horrified when I got on the scale and it said that I weighed 242 pounds.  I was at my mother's house (I didn't own my own scale at that time) and I fell apart.  My mom urged me to contact my doctor.  I had been using a natural doctor who had diagnosed me with mild hypothyroidism and had treated me with thyroid boosting supplements, rather than medication.  At that point we believed that we could turn my thyroid function around by giving it a little help, but it didn't work.

When I went into my doctor's office I put my head and in my hands and exploded into a giant, fat, depressed storm of tears.  I felt hopeless.  I felt 100% out of control of my body.  I felt scared and resigned to the fact that I could not change and my healthy efforts were in vain.  My doctor was certain that it was my thyroid and tests confirmed that I had developed an autoimmune disorder called Hashimotos Disease.

I began a fairly high dosage of medication.  And though I should be using a vegan, gluten free diet, I have never been able to entirely commit to it.

For the past 4 years my medication has helped me.  As soon as I began taking it my energy level returned to  normal, I stopped feeling depressed and within a year I was back down to a normal weight.     And the only time I remember how terrible I felt before I was diagnosed with Hashimotos is when I forget to take it for a series of days.

But lately, something isn't working for me.  I have started experiencing new symptoms of hashimotos that I didn't previously have.  First, my periods, which have always been relatively light, started coming very heavily.  And the breast tenderness that people all get right before their period was as bad as it was during pregnancy and lasts THE WHOLE MONTH!!!!!  And now, I am losing wild amounts of hair.  I can't even touch my hair without strands of it falling out.  I am losing handfuls of it every day.  I am also feeling fatigued.

At first I thought that I was having a hormone imbalance, but my good friend Amber also suffers from hashimotos and is quite a bit more knowledgeable than I am (I stopped learning about it when my medication worked for me), told me that my symptoms are all associated with hashimotos.  I haven't had my blood work checked since we moved to California and my old doctor has continued to refill my prescription  So, it's time for me to see someone new.  I am going to make an appointment with a  specialist in San Francisco this week.  Hopefully they can help me get to the bottom of this problem.

Also, I am going to make the switch to a vegan, gluten free diet.  I drag my heals on this.  Though I do love lots of vegan food and even like to cook it.  I don't want to eat it all of the time.  And I especially don't want to be gluten free.  I know that I have to and that the foods that I eat are likely causing inflammation that is exasperating my hashimotos disease.  I don't know why I can't seem to get my head in the game for this change.  I just have to do it.

And that's what is happening with me these days.  In other news, my workouts get harder and harder.  I'm still at the gym 6 days a week.  Each day I work out anywhere from 60 minutes (always straight cardio on these short days) to 2 1/2 hours.  One day I was even there for 3 hours (but I don't think that I'll ever do that again. lol).  I have also been working for my dad, proofreading and editing the documents for his consulting business.  Between my time at the gym, my room parent duties and my new job, I haven't had much time to blog.  I'm going to make a big effort to make it happen more though.

I hope that everyone is well!

Weight Update 1 Month

I did really well this week.  Last Friday I indulged in a few skinny girl margaritas, but other than this transgression, I have eaten well and moved a lot.

I am also deep in the throws of a terrible and heavy period (sorry, if that's tmi) which is hopefully why when I got on the scale for weigh day today I was up one pound.

And now I feel like crying.

How can I be working so hard and GAINING weight.

The potential culprits:

1.) My period.

2.) Jay bought diet pepsi at the grocery store.  I normally don't drink much soda.  Occasionally I'd get a diet soda if we're eating out, but otherwise it's not something that we normally have in our house.  Because I'm not eating sugar, the sweetness of the soda tastes really satisfying and I've been drinking them up.

3.)  Iced coffees.  Lots of em.  Milk has too much sugar, so I've been drinking them with half and half.  No sweetener, but I've been making them pretty light.  Now that I've given up wine, iced coffee is the one delicious treat that I have in my life.  I guess I'll replace them with water and see what happens.

Other than these three things, I am doing everything right.

I feel so discouraged.

Why does this have to be so hard?

Naples

For the record, I tried to post this blog update on the ipad and failed miserably.  First, I was unable to add the picture and then I couldn't find spell check, but the final straw was when I wasn't able to separate my thoughts with spaces.  So, in conclusion, the ipad is great for many things, blogger is not one of them.

The girls and I flew out of San Francisco on the red eye to Naples last Wednesday night and got here early on Thursday morning.  Abandoning all reason, care for beauty, aging and health, I continue to be a sun-worshipper.  There is just something about the sunshine that is like medicine for me.  Laying waterside, pool or ocean, with a book and a cool drink makes me feel incredibly joyful.  I love watching the girls playing without anywhere to go or anything that has to get done.  I love California, but since moving there our lives have been incredibly hectic.  Between the accelerated demands of private school education, all of the girls' extracurricular activities and their social lives, Jay and I have had very little time for ourselves or each other.  My days have been pretty saturated with the stuff of new surroundings.  Not only settling in, but errands, cleaning, caring for Sidney Holler's failing health and trying to help Groovy James assimilate into his new family.  On top of that, I have my crafts, which I've been trying to make a little time for each day while the girls are at school.  There's a project waiting for me at home, on hold, that I can't wait to return to.

Jay is sitting this vacation out.  His new job is simply too new for him to leave for a week, which I completely understand.  He's begun taking on some real responsibility there and is coming home feeling happy, satisfied and fulfilled by his job with Twitter.  I'm crazily proud of and excited for him.  He's definitely found his place in the world and the culture there suits him.  He's going to be working 12 hour days and will have every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off, plus he'll have every other Saturday off.  We are really looking forward to this.  Honestly, Jay has worked a lot of 12 hour days in his career, but done it 6 or 7 days a week, instead of 3 or 4.  I have a feeling that every week will feel like a vacation.  I am really looking forward to the summer, when we can take advantage of our days together.  We can choose to be lazy and enjoy our new backyard, or to adventure together as a family.  Speaking of family adventures, on the tail of one huge move there is already talk of another.  It looks as though we may have the opportunity to move internationally with the girls in 2013.  This, of course, is a tough call that I think we should revisit at the end of 2012.  At the moment, I'm exhausted by what feels like constant relocation.  I want my girls to feel normal and for things to be quiet for awhile.  Also, what about our pets?  I do not think that Sidney could survive a flight in cargo, so she'd need to be re-homed. In and of itself, that feels like an impossible obstacle to overcome.  On the other hand, we have always said that if offered the opportunity to live internationally with our children, we'd take it.  My time abroad was certainly more an education than college and I do wish the same for my children.  So, I am going to focus now on making our home in California, keep an open mind and just wait and see what happens next year.

So often, when I'm busy I fall into some unhealthy ruts.  For instance, I drink too much wine and not enough water.   I don't get enough exercise.  I eat the leftover toast off of my children's plates.  These small things really add up and work against me.  I have done a little soul searched over the last few days and have decided to make some changes when I go home.  Truthfully, I feel pretty terrible when I act in unhealthy ways, and when I fall into these types of bad habits things like my weight feel out of my control.  So, I am ready to take control.  

But for now, I'm going to go and slip into my swimsuit and head over to the resort pool (pictured above) with my mom and the girls.  The kids are working out with my mom's trainer today and I'm going to lounge in the sun with a book and let my skin soak in the vitamin d.

Kale Chips

I received a bunch of kale in my Planet Organic order this week and decided to give kale chips another chance. I overcooked a batch that I made a few weeks back and they ended up brown and bitter. And I'll tell you, when kale chips go wrong, they go to a very dark place. Everything about the experience is just putrid. There's no peeling off the crispy edges and salvaging a bite.

I've never had much of a sweet tooth. My weaknesses are all crispy, crunchy and covered in salt. When we ate dairy and wheat I loved Cheese-Its (especially the giant kind). As a matter of fact, outside of them being horrible for you, I'd probably prefer to eat a Cheese-It more than anything else (embarrassingly). But, things like Cheese-It's and pretzels are snacks of the past and kale chips are my food of the now.

I have to admit, they were very easy to make and when not overcooked they were delicious. I was really enjoying the snack until my children discovered them and confiscated the plate. I found them to be quite filling too.

Here's how I did it.

I preheated the oven to 375 and lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

I cleaned and removed the stems from a large bunch of organic kale. After rinsing again I dried the kale in a towel.

I ripped the kale into pieces and spread it on my baking sheet and drizzled olive oil over top. I then sprinkled on a bit of garlic salt and just a few cracked fennel seeds. We're not huge fennel eaters in our house, so I wanted there to be a little burst of flavor every so often, but not in every bite.

Then, I baked them for 10 minutes and they were done. Delicious!

My Favorite Day of The Week!

It's Thursday! I love Thursday.

Generally, Thursday morning doesn't have ANYTHING on say, the occasional Saturday morning adventure or on a lazy Sunday morning full of a whole bunch of nothing but a blessed bloody mary and marathon of Mad Men.

Thursday begins like every other day. My husband flicks on the lights and forcefully drags me out of bed We get up at 6 and everyone complains that they are too tired to live and at least one person hates what I made them for breakfast. Someone will cry when brushing her hair (sometimes this is me) and everyone will gripe when it's time to get dressed (including me).

But on Thursday morning, something MAGICAL happen when I am dropping Jay at the train station and the kids off at school. Someone comes to my house and drops off a large green carton full of really healthy, wonderful, often locally made/grown food. Every Thursday I come home and am greeted at the door with what I have come to feel is treasure. Sure, sometimes during the week I go into my order and tweak it, depending on whether or not I still have purple onions left from last week. But sometimes I don't look at the order at all. So, when I open the green box everything inside is a big surprise!

The company who does this is called Planet Organics. I know that there are a lot of co-op's out there and a lot of produce delivery services available, but Planet Organics rocks my world. I mean, I find the entire thing completely exciting. After all, nothing is more depressing to me than a trip to Whole Foods, where I go to grieve for the fact that I am not a millionaire and inevitably walk out of feeling a.)hungry, b.) robbed and c.) like I will return to a house full of genetically-modified-high-fructose-MSG-Nitrate-infused -apples that have been injected with Red #5 and casein just because my daughter is allergic to it. Planet Organics is pretty much Whole Foods, but small, independent, friendlier and online. So, I signed up for a delivery each week. And in case you missed it, it comes on Thursday. I pay a certain amount of money and they fill my basket with stuff and deliver it. We have two lemon trees, a peach tree and an orange tree, so I clearly don't want any of those. I was able to go in and just check a box that said to never deliver them to me. I also was able to check off preferences, like I always want cilantro.

It really doesn't get better than this. You know, you can even give them a key and they'll let themselves in and unload your groceries for you. No joke. I think that's a little creepy, so I don't do it. But I could do it. And I like options.

Migraine

It's been years since I was hit hard by migraine. After having Lila I went through a terrible period of nearly constant migraine. After recovering from that I have gotten one here or one there, but nothing severe. I haven't had a period with multiple migraines that are all back to back.

Until this week, of course.

For unknown reasons I experienced several terrible migraines this week. Yesterday was the worst. I am able to fight the pain of them off with medication, but then other things happen. Like, my head feels groggy and I don't process thoughts as well. Last night, my plans to drink wine and watch movies went in the garbage disposal. I ended up tucked into my bed and in a deep sleep immediately after putting Lila to bed. Jay set my alarm for 6:30 because I notice that a disruption in my sleep pattern seems to make things worse and when I got out of bed this morning I felt so much better.

Let's hope that this isn't something that's going to happen to me often. I can live with many, many things... migraine is not one of them.

I suspect that I am getting them because my hormones are a little bit weird this month.

I hope I don't have...

Hopefully I'm okay.

I got a call yesterday about the blood work that I had done. It turns out that one of the tests was for hormones and mine were out of whack. They asked if I could come back on Wed. after 8:30 and said that I could walk in and that would be fine. I planned to go right at 8:30 so that I could hop over to work as soon as I was done.

Then they called and said that the Dr. wants to see me and that I'd need an appointment. They said that she wants me to have another test and recheck my blood work and that she'll talk to me tomorrow at 10:30. I asked for an earlier appointment because I have to be at work at ten, but unfortunately we're having a blizzard tonight and they're not starting appointments until 10.

I asked T if it was okay if I stepped out and he was really nice about it and told me that I could put a note on the door and close the store while I went. After talking to him I got really scared that I wouldn't be able to get back in an hour. I mean, what if it took two hours and I left the store by itself for that long? I just know that I'd feel sick leaving, but I'd be an anxious mess about being away for so long. So, I called the office back (they must love me) and asked for some assurance that I could be back at work (it's only two blocks away) by 11:30. The receptionist said that generally she thought that an hour would be an appropriate time allotment but that because they were shuffling so many appointments and because of the snow... she couldn't promise me that it would work out. So, I canceled.

But then I was telling L about it and he told me to call J and see if he could just work from open to close. Which I did. And he agreed to.

Don't I work with an incredible bunch of people? Every single person who I talked to about this bent over backwards to make it happen so that I can put my health first.

Jay is going to go to work and then (because school will definitely be canceled) will come home to watch the girls (who are not allowed in the dr's office- WEIRD) and then he'll have to go back to work.

By the way, I am sure that there's nothing truly wrong with me. My Hashimotos disease causes all sorts of problems and it's likely related to that. Of course, it's a little bit freaky when you have some blood work done and a dr. wants to see you immediately...

Here's what I tend to jump to:

a.) OHMYGODIHAVEAIDS

b.) OHMYGODIHAVECANCER

c.) OHMYGODTHEY'REGOINGTOTRYTOFORCEMETOHAVEINVITROFERTILIZATION

...to be continued.

GabaBun

I took Bunny Kaitlyn for her pediatric depression evaluation at our holistic doctor.

I really do feel as though Kaitlyn has actual, chemical anxiety. I don't doubt that it's increased situationally, but I also think that there's something deep within her that makes her sad, anxious and horrifically self-loathing. I have never seen a six year old who is so hard on herself. This afternoon we were talking about how she has some stress because her pencil eraser at school is broken. I was like, "Ask Teacher T for a new one..." and she said that she doesn't want to because if she has an eraser than it's as if it's okay to make mistakes. I was like, "It IS okay to make mistakes. It's even GOOD to make them."

Anyway, our doctor suggested that I give Kaitlyn a chewable supplement called GABA, which is a natural anti-anxiety supplement. I have to say, I've found it really effective.

It treats the following:

• You often feel anxious for no reason.
• You sometimes feel “free-floating” anxiety.
• You frequently feel “edgy,” and it’s difficult to relax.
• You often feel a “knot” in your stomach.
• Falling asleep is sometimes difficult.
• It’s hard to turn your mind off when you want to relax.
• You occasionally experience feelings of panic for no reason.
• You often use alcohol or other sedatives to calm down.

Outside of the alcohol symptom, Kaitlyn experiences all of these. Today was the first day that I gave it to her before school and I totally saw a difference. She wasn't particularly cheery, but she didn't cry and she didn't seem super-stressed the way she often does in the morning.

Also, to boost serotonin, I bought a big chunk of real, actual chocolate from Whole Foods. I've been giving it to her sporadically with the hope that it will brighten her spirits. I mean, if it doesn't boost her serotonin, it should at least make her feel perky!