August 6, 2003

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  Well, there goes half of another week.

  
  

  First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their encouragement and comments. It is really easy to feel isolated working from home and not getting out with people very often. This computer really is my lifeline in many ways…

  
  

  I made it through the first 2 days of drinking Supergreens. Yesterday I was able to consume all 4 liters as recommended, and so far today, I am halfway through my first. I ran out of distilled water and forgot to get more yesterday, so today I am just using my regular well water-filtered with the Brita filter. They recommend using distilled or reverse osmosis purified water, but this can’t be too bad until I go out and buy more water. Our well water is already rather alkaline, according to the testing we just had done this spring. And maybe it is my imagination, but the Supergreens taste better in it than in distilled water.

  
  

  I am still running to the bathroom like crazy, which wasn’t really conducive to a good night’s sleep. I know the flushing effect will slow down once the initial detox is over and my body gets used to the new level of hydration, but meanwhile, I feel like I am peeing more than I am drinking — and that’s a lot! I had been suffering from frequent uncomfortable swelling of my feet and ankles, which I know was mostly just fluid retention (it happens a lot when it is hot out, too), and I think that will be the first unpleasant symptom that Supergreens takes care of. That alone is wonderful!

  
  

  About diets

  
  

  Now, I know I may have given the wrong impression in yesterday’s blog. This is not a diet. At least not the way I am using it. I am just drinking the 4 liters a day of water with Supergreens and Prime pH, as a supplement to my normal diet. That’s why it is a Big Experiment. We are trying to see if it really does offer 60% to 80% of the beneficial results of changing over to the complete Alkalarian lifestyle, by just using the Supergreens and Prime pH and not doing anything else.

  
  

  However, before I started on this experiment, I had already begun to modify my eating and drinking habits a bit, partly because I knew I had started to make the wrong choices too often, and partly because the doctor noticed an elevated blood sugar level in my last blood test. Again, I am not dieting, I am just trying to avoid too much fat and refined sugar, which is not a good thing for anyone to eat, regardless of weight or health condition.

  
  

  So, yes, I am still eating ice cream now and then, but I have switched to the lower fat varieties. I still eat PB&J sandwiches (a staple food in this household) but with an all-fruit spread rather than regular jam. I am drinking fruit juice/seltzer spritzers (plain seltzer with a splash of fruit juice) instead of straight fruit juice, sweetened ice tea, sodas, or fruit drinks. And I am eating salads again, at least several times a week with my meals. Hopefully I will get back in the habit of having a nice salad at least once a day, with low fat dressing. I switched from 2% milk to 1% milk. Just little changes. No dieting. It just doesn’t make sense.

  
  

  You see, I have dieted before. I have lost as much as 60 or 80 pounds at a time. And it just came back, plus some. I am not unhappy with my size because of my appearance or some cultural aversion to fat. I feel better with “some meat on my bones” and I don’t mind staying that way. But, there are those health factors, so a moderate weight loss is a good compromise, but the main thing I want to do is improve my heath and vitality. The weight loss will be a side effect.

  
  

  Oh Hell, let me just lay out a few numbers here (yes, I am taking The Plunge):

  
  

  I am basically a large (Goddess-sized) woman —  5′ 10″ tall, and sturdily, strongly built, although always relatively proportionate. A balanced, quite curvy, voluptuous figure. I have always been very physically strong, even rather muscular, and have always done a lot of heavy physical work. I grew up as one of the guys, and tend to work and play like one of the guys too.

  
  

  I started out life as a skinny, underweight, anemic and somewhat sickly kid, born almost 2 months before my due date. By third grade I was no longer the tallest and skinniest kid in the class. I was always among the tallest, but went from average to a little pudgy and then back again. My weight has varied quite a bit throughout my adult life. but it has had a generally upward trend. This is often attributed to what they call yo-yo dieting. That may be a factor, but in my case it is also both metabolic and genetic. I come from a “big” family, who all have trouble losing weight. I have tended to be hypoglycemic for most of my life too, with my blood sugar sometimes dropping radically if I do not eat frequently and properly.

  
  

  Teens

  
  

  I averaged around 140-150 lbs in high school. I was a size 14 then. But I have found out from selling used and vintage clothes, that a 1970′s size 14 is more like a contemporary size 10. The manufacturers have gradually been cutting their clothes larger over the years to accommodate the American obsession with numbers. In college, it went up to around 160, with a brief spike up to 205. Then I had my first major weight loss.

  
  

  Twenties

  
  

  After that it was an up and down thing, with my weight often reflecting the condition of the rest of my life. My 20′s were very turbulent times. Emotionally I was a wreck. I went through several bad relationships. I lost my mom to cancer. I was doing a lot of drugs and entirely too much drinking. I went as low as 132 pounds (when I was very ill) and as high as 210 or so. I fluctuated between a size 10 (my lowest size ever) and a size 18.

  
  

  Thirties

  
  

  When I met my husband, I ran into serious trouble. I had never really had many “bad eating habits” as such, and found that his diet was the complete opposite. As many women do, I accommodated him by switching my habits to match his. This was the beginning of more serious gains. Too many bad habits to even list. But he has since become very health conscious, and I retained some of the bad habits I had picked up.

  
  

  Then in my 30′s, after my disability became an issue (I have lots of trouble with my feet, a whole list of things, you may or may not know about, Dear Reader, but I am not going to get into that now) and I started to become less active, my weight began to go up slowly and steadily. I would diet a while when my life was stable, but then things would happen and I would slip back into bad habits. I was trying to survive with a business that was floundering for most of the 12 years it was in existence, and many other things were going on in my life. Frankly, my weight was the least of my worries. Dress size during these years was between 20 and 26. But I did quit smoking, drinking and doing any “recreational drugs”. 

  
  

  Forties - (now)

  
  

  Then I turned 40. By this time I was well into the delightful experience of peri-menopausal symptoms, too, and I knew my metabolism was changing along with my hormones. I reached a high of 275 then lost about 40 pounds, then went back up a few years later to 285, got back to 250, then went back up again and so on — until I thought I was stabilizing at around 260 lbs, 3 years ago. I was more active than ever, bike riding, surf kayaking, just generally feeling great. I was fitting comfortably into a size 22.

  
  

  And then the shit hit the fan again. First sinus surgery, and a long road back to recovery (I don’t do well with anesthesia) Then a badly sprained wrist, which kept me inactive for most of the summer. Bad experience with the loss of a job, then a new job which started poorly and went downhill from there. Broken foot. Tendonitis in the other foot. Quit the job and couldn’t find a new one… and the weight went up again. Gained back all I had lost, but figured that was okay, I lost it once, it would go away again. I entered the fall of 2002 at about 280 lbs. Then my dad died, and we went through all the hassles with the house and estate. It was the crappy winter to end all crappy winters. I didn’t even notice the weight I gained.

  
  

  When I last went to the doctor I weighed in at somewhere around 312 pounds. Ugh. I never in my life thought I would go over 300. Oh yeah, and I am a size 26 or 28 now, but needed a 30 in some pants when I went shopping about a month ago…

  
  

  When I weighed myself on Monday morning before starting on the Supergreens, I was 301 lbs. Hopefully the 3 will go away soon and I will never have to see it again. I am already fitting in a few things that were a tad too snug before.

  
  

  Shhhh…its such a taboo topic…

  
  

  -a bit of a rant-

  
  

  I don’t have a whole lot of problems with admitting my weight and sharing my story, even though I know that people who do not know me are prone to judging me based on the stereotypes of “fat lazy cow”. I am not embarrassed by who I am. This is me, if you are too narrow minded to give a chance to get to know me as I am because of your prejudices against anything you find less than beautiful, then it is your loss.

  
  

  -rant over-

  
  

  Fortunately my husband doesn’t read this, because he is the one person I cannot divulge my weight to. He has a real problem with it, and admits to that, even though he tries to overcome it. And he is the one person I wish would be more accepting and supportive. He doesn’t say anything negative, but what he doesn’t say speaks louder than words sometimes.

  
  

  Goals

  
  

  Well, like I have said over and over, I am not as concerned with my size as with my health. But I know when I reach the point of discomfort, and I have. I was feeling pretty darned good at 250. I would like to at least get back to there. But my feet and knees would definitely benefit from a few more pounds off than that. According to the height/weight/age charts if I get down to 210 or something like that I would just be overweight and no longer obese. I would be happy to get to size 18 or below so I could shop in “regular” stores and catalogs, too. 

  
  

  If I was to pick an ideal number (anybody got a magic wand?) I would say 175 would be great at this point in my life. Anything smaller and all this stretched out skin would just look bad. Nips and tucks are not an option. For crying out loud, I can go for days without looking in a mirror or even caring to. I would never waste perfectly good money on such a low priority as mere appearance. I would rather be saggy and go on a European vacation than pay a plastic surgeon to tighten up things that very few people are even going to see (after all, I do live the life of a semi-recluse, by choice)

  
  

  -oops, I guess that was another rant — sorry-

  
  

  Anyway, there you have it. That’s me. All of me. Sometimes more of me, sometimes less of me. For the pictorial version, see the changing photos up there on my banner.

  
  

  Updates to come, I’m sure…

  
  

  ---

  Riding on a completely different train of thought…

  
  

  The electrician was here this morning. I now have light in my kitchen. Lots of it. The replacement fluorescent light is nothing fancy, but it sure is bright. I was getting tired of cooking in the dark.

  
  

  The bad news is now the recessed fluorescent over the kitchen sink is acting up. It may need to be replaced next.

  
  

  As Rosanna Rosannadanna used to say; “it just goes to show, if it ain’t one thing…”

  
  

  

  
  

  ‘bye for now! I am off to mix up some more swampwater (yep, that’s what this stuff looks like)

  
  

  

  
  

   

  • 11:35 am
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