Sadness? Weight Gain? Blame it on the winter!

"Abracadabrafatsad"!



I blame the winter really...and ours started in May with plummeting temps and frosts way before we're used to it. It feels a bit like the endless winter in Narnia here, and I feel like the cranky White Witch/Snow Queen (Can't remember what she's called without consulting Wiki or my battered copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so I will just call her WWSQ).  And not exquisite like the flawless waif that is Tilda Swinton either - I've been a WWSQ who's been hibernating and getting a little rounder and a little more Rubenesque while she awaits the thaw called Spring that is allegedly supposed to start happening any day now.


Yeah, what of it? Ever heard of Rubens?  

    

Is that...you?

 

So the last few months I have been feeling  a little bit slumped, a little bit blue and well...a little bit sad.  And I mean sad in a couple of senses.  I have moved about 83 thousand times this year and I have "stuff" stashed in 2 storage rooms, 3 apartments and a garage.  I don't know where anything is, and I am currently living in a house that's not mine in a suburb that I don't wanna be in. I have writer's blank/block or just a general inability to write anything that anyone, let alone me wants to read; I have internal struggles to deal with; one or two or three family dramas; and I have had a virus for months that culminated  a little while ago in the mother of all influenzas that laid me flat for 2 weeks.  This, I thought, was my body telling me something - I chose to believe it was saying "...rest...rest...rest." What better time to rest than while the Olympics was on? Yippee!! I thought. I can lie on the couch and watch people in the prime of their lives doing amazing things with not an ounce, a skerrick, a gram, a smidgen, a jot, of fat on them. 

But the coverage was awful and I was too cranky and then too tired to watch anything, let alone amazing athletes and their amazing bodies over and over again in the same two swimming races that the network insisted on playing over and over and over again, leaving me to think I was watching a swimming carnival instead of the Olympics.

Anyway, being ill, alone at home (except for the dog who is more like a cat and sleeps about 23 hours a day) gave me the chance (always on the look out for opportunity) to think about 1) why I was ill and 2) why was I SAD? and 3) why were the lumpy, round, jiggly bits that I had thought disappeared last year returning and placing themselves on various parts of my body?  I came to the conclusion that 3) was the answer to 2) and that 3) and 2) were the answer to 1).

Here is my logic on this one: stress (38,000 moves, no stuff, family dramas,etc) + winter = SAD. SAD + inactivity + stress+ delicious winter comfort food + wine+ stress + a lot more wine  + compromised immune system due to the aforementioned factors = round wobbly bits in the form of fat cells.  Voila! Questions answered and explained.

Why so blue?

But a little more on "SAD".  The dictionary tell as sadness is "emotions experienced when not in a state of well-being".  Yep OK I will agree with that.  My being wasn't well, so I was sad.  SAD however, is also an acronym for "Seasonal Affective Disorder".  Seasonal Affective Disorder is a form of depression that usually occurs in the winter months and can cause the following symptoms:

Depression

Anxiety

Lethargy (lack of energy and enthusiasm)

Weight gain

Oversleeping

Loss of libido

Withdrawal from others

Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities

Dietary changes – for example, increased appetite for carbohydrates

Difficulty concentrating

Depression pattern that follows the seasons – usually symptoms start in autumn, get worse in winter, ease during spring and disappear by summer

OMG! Check out point number 4, and the one about increased appetite for carbs. And it all started at the end of autumn! I found the answer! I went ahead and diagnosed myself! I have Seasonal Affective Disorder!!  Look it up, I am not kidding! It is a real illness!. Best of all, it can be treated! (Did you note all those exclamation marks? I'm excited, how 'bout you?) Some of the cures for SAD are:

Increase sunlight exposure
Get some exercise
Let the light in at home - open the curtains and blinds
Look after yourself - eat well, drink water, cut down on caffeine, alcohol, sugar

But here's the best one:

"Holiday somewhere warm and sunny".

That's it - I'm taking the cure folks...no more SAD for me (and those wobbly jiggly bits can get the hell out of here too!).  I am booking a trip up north...to a writer's retreat, with a gym, a lot of sunshine and no curtains!

Goodbye cranky-impossible-to-please, immune-compromised,  a-bit-too-Rubenesque- for-my-liking WWSQ!  The thaw is about to start!

So, I have done a lot of thinking about being lean and luscious,

but what to do about getting there?

Well, today I went to have an ultrasound on the hip that has been paining me for years. It’s not that I haven’t done anything about it – half a dozen doctors, radiologists, massage therapists and two sports physicians, and several x-rays and cortisone injections haven’t really helped. The cortisone takes the pain away for a little while but it always returns and lately it’s been back with a vengeance - big time. So another ultrasound, 2 cortisone injections and $450 later, I am sitting here with a throbbing hip and high hopes that in a few days the pain will have abated. In two weeks I begin a physio program that I am assured, by my very expensive medical advisers, that this will quell the inflammation in my gluteus medius (one of the bum muscles) tendons and hip bursa. OK good. So I should be able to exercise soon.

So what else have I learned about myself and why I am so fabulously fat? Recapping the reasons: I eat too late at night, I don’t get enough sleep, I have been ill, I take certain medications that may or may not slow my metabolism and make me portly; I have been under a lot of stress for a long time and therefore produce lots of stress hormones that turn on that pesky flight or flight response; I have an injury that prevents most weight-bearing, on-land exercise; and sure there may be some genetics involved. And you know what?

Being miserable about being round and wobbly doesn’t help a bit!

It is time for some action: Drumroll please....
Here’s what’s going to happen: exercise more, eat less, eat better, drink less alcohol, be accountable. Remember why I am doing this! (Remind me somebody please?)

1. Exercise as able. Begin a weekly yoga class and progress from there. My goal is to be able to start running as soon as my rehab program allows until I can run 5 kms in 30 minutes. Okay, okay…no great shakes there, but I am not training for the New York Marathon

2. Eat less. I will restrict my calorie intake to 1200-1500 per day. I will join an online weight loss program with inbuilt diary, calorie calculator, tips, recipes and on-line support. I will record everything that passes my luscious lips .

Did you know that research shows that people who use food diaries are more likely to stick to their diet/eating plan than those who don’t?

3.I will drink 6-8 glasses of water per day

4. I will not torture myself by weighing myself every day – once a week is enough!

5. I will listen to my Jon Gabriel CD every night before sleep – more on Jon later!

6. I will practice meditation every day to lower my stress arousal levels
7. I will eat my evening meal by 8pm and go to bed before midnight
8. I will now take all my doctors’ advice about health and do everything they say so that I don’t prolong injuries and illness…with a view to getting better and off those metabolism spoiling medicines
9. I am not sure what I can do about genetics, except pooh-pooh the research and ignore my more well-covered relations
10. Keep writing

So, where am I now and where have I been?

Well after researching all the REASONS I am Rubenesque,, what the hell does it all mean?

I think it means that apart from eating and drinking too much and not moving enough, that there are a couple of other small issues that are impeding (or likely to impede), my journey into weight loss.

"Oh, here we go again: Look young lady, you only have yourself to blame. Sure, life has thrown some crap at you, but get a grip, no-one is forcing you to consume enough calories each day to keep the population of Ethiopia going".

OK, so if you read my previous blog (thanks mind/critical voice for throwing me that very kind, most eloquent advice) there are a few things that have been thrown into the mix here. Namely these are my use of medication, (anti-d's, NSAIDs) my lifelong lack of sleep, my lifelong presence of stress, the possible /maybe / likely/just take a look at some of my family /likelihood that genetics play a part in my tendency to corpulence. Oh, and don't forget I have often (from an early age), eaten dinner and other things, late at night. Oh and my lifelong battle with thinking I was too fat and my lifelong acquaintance with body-shame and dieting.

You know what? I have tried them all: Diets that is. Jenny Craig, food combining, the Scarsdale diet, the Pritikin, the Atkins, online weight loss programs, every diet in my Mother's No idea and Women's' Daily Drudge magazines when I was young, and the Israeli Army Diet (I lasted exactly one day on this - I just couldn't eat apples for 2 days straight. And by the way, AS IF an army could survive on 2 days of apples, 2 days of chicken, 2 days of eggs or whatever other 2 days of boring food there were). This diet actually had nothing to do with the Israeli army apparently. It had a number of factors in common with crash diets – low calories, poor nutrition, and subsequent weight gain. AS IF an army would do this! I went to Israel recently. I saw Israeli soldiers in the street: what I saw were beautiful young women prowling the streets in their uniforms drinking Starbucks coffee, machine guns slung nonchalantly over their shoulders. Not an apple in sight!

The Scarsdale diet is apparently still popular after the 30-odd years after it was first "invented", It's a high protein, low-carb, low-fat diet. It was the first diet I went on when I was aged 14,,, My mother did it too. What I remember is the rigidity. Every day for breakfast it was 1/2 a grapefruit, with dry wholemeal toast and black coffee. (honestly what 14 year old drinks black coffee!!) Lunch on Day one was sliced ham and tomatoes - all you can eat. Allegedly people lost weight, but it sure didn't teach portion control. I remember one night I was soooooo bloody starving I ate half a leg of lamb! Standing in the kitchen with the great big thing gripped in both hands, tearing away at the succulent meat for as if I would never eat again.

Oh and Jenny Craig - what I remember most is the expense, the disgusting array of packaged food that we were forced to buy on top of the exorbitant fee. Look maybe JC has changed these days (I am talking about the late 80s here) - after all Magda aka Sharon from Kath and Kim , Kenny the guy who made the movie about portable toilets and Dicko from the now-defunct Oz Idol, and any number of "celebrities" are endorsing her these days. But I'm telling you I hated every minute. Yep I lost weight, but it was torture and humiliation every step of the way - public weigh-ins, group meetings, half hour chats with an anorexic weight loss "consultant" in a white lab coat to add that extra air of authority and sense of science.

"Trust me, I have a white lab coat on"

And to be sure that eggs are Israeli Army diet eggs, in time, I put on every single skerrick I lost.

So, I wonder what was missing for me with all these diets, weight loss programs, exercise regimes (at one point I became one of those oft-maligned, so-called "Gym Junkies" complete with an up the bum leotard and Lycra knee length gym tights, and a photographic memory of every step class, every fat-burning, weight bearing, circuit training class that the Northside gym had on offer). Was it the rigidity, the discipline (or in my case, lack thereof) that these diets and programs demanded? Was it my lack of will power? My laziness, my own lack of discipline to follow and maintain a simple diet and a set of exercises? Why was it so bloody hard to be thin???