So it's been a full eight months since I've blogged, and a lot has changed. My dad died. I bought a new house. I passed prelims. In that order. I had the most stressful semester of my life. This summer has been full of change. Amber has a new (temporary) job. I learned how to install and mount a medicine cabinet (even if it's crooked). We painted the entire interior of our house. I did a lot of physical activity this summer, hoping that it would subside a lot of the grief I still get from losing my dad. I still cry every once and awhile about it. I just can't believe that he's not here anymore. He doesn't exist, at least not in the material world in which I reside. To be honest, because that's what blogs are for, I've had an existential crisis since my dad passed. Witnessing his death was one of the most profound and memorable experiences of my short life. And it is short. His life was short. He would have been only 58 years old right now.
I realize that this is "normal". That grieving people go through this. I put my "healthy living/lifestyle" experiment on hold - not because I wanted to, but because I had to. In fact, I had a hard time holding on to the goals, the PhD, the house, friendships, family, strong relationship, spirituality...all of my growth goals got put on hold. I tried to exercise during the last six months. I actually tried all of my coping mechanisms. They just didn't work. For the first time in my life, I didn't have a solution. Maybe that's what grieving is. I tried exercise. I tried going out with friends. Meditation. Yoga. Studying. Not studying. Long walks. Gardening. Baths. Talking. Silence. Nothing made me feel "better". Then I realized, I would never feel "better" - in the sense that I would never feel the same way I did again. No one ever tells you that losing someone is like losing your current reality. My reality, not just his, will never be the same.
I thought I was prepared. Mel = preparation. I'm surprised I haven't started stock piling water and canned goods for 2012. Maybe this fall ;). You can't prepare for death. I was told that he was going to die for 31 years, and he didn't. Death was always knockin - with comas, with illness, with hospital beds, with conversations about death. Let's just say I have no problem writing a will, or purchasing a life insurance policy, or thinking about my own death. I've been comfortable talking about it from the age of 3 or 4. Still, real death is different. I felt his body right after he had passed. He wasn't there anymore - already stiff, already cold. His bright blue eyes were gone. And now they live within me.
I know how cheesy this sounds. It always sounded so cliche when I heard other people talk or write about it. And I know this blog post has little or nothing to do with my physical health. Or maybe it does. Losing my Dad this year was one of the worst experiences, but it's also a new chapter, a new book. It has to be. Most change "hurts" - both metaphorically and physically. This change has taken a toll - on my soul, on my body. But resilience is appealing to me - especially in the fall. Fall brings back the beauty of habit, of routine. It left for awhile in the summer - a time that is reserved for pleasure and letting go. But it's always comforting to know that there will be another season, another chance to come back, reinvent, reconnect. Another moment to let all the reflecting and philosophizing metamorphise into something tangible, something physical. A moment to take action.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Saturday, December 18, 2010
2010: Looking back (forward)
It's been a decade since 2000. A whole decade has passed - I have successfully completed my 20's, a BA and MA, a relationship, a cross-country move to the east coast and back, a (more than) few jobs, a (more than) few friends, and a few mishaps, to say the least. I've gained 65 pounds and lost 25 pounds; I've cut off a few friends and gained a few more. And after one complete decade in my adult life, I can honestly say how fast 10 years goes, and if the next ten years goes as fast as this one did, I'm bound for being a crazy old lady much sooner than I had prepared for.
But this blog post is actually just about looking at the past year, so that's what I'll try to focus on. The spring was lazy, well, lazy with a full courseload, a much colder and snowier winter than we were used to, a polyp surgery for Amber, and a first completed PhD year for me. It was a crazy year of traveling. We went to Minneapolis twice (once for a romantic getaway in blustery January, and the second time for an old college friend's beautiful wedding). We went back to my alma mater, Augsburg College, during my first trip back there, and walked in the same quad where I had walked ten years prior. It's odd being gone from a place for so long - never having visited after you left that life and those friends and that era. It's almost like walking through a memory, through a movie set of one of your past lives. I didn't know anyone on campus at that point, and I didn't really want to, but I started to remember things, the way I felt mostly at the ages of 18-22 alone in Minneapolis, that I hadn't felt in a long time. I knew the roads, too. You always know that you have lived in a place when you visit there again years later and still know how to get around.
In the summer, I helped my friend, the one I moved out to Balimore with in 2005, move back to Madison in her UHaul. I really feel like I'm getting to know the Wisconsin to Maryland route, in a UHaul, quite well. Then we were off to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was a new region for me to explore, and one of the most spiritual and truly beautiful places I've ever been to. The road trip, the movement through these spaces, was just as profound as our destination at the Center's annual portfolio review for Amber. On the way back, we had to take a different route, of course, through different states. We drove along Route 66 from New Mexico to Texas to Oklahoma to Missouri and finally Illinois. I'll always remember reading the Route 66 history to Amber on my iPhone's wikipedia app. It's funny the things we know we'll remember and the things we think we'll forget, but end up remembering anyway in the oddest of circumstances.
Then there was London. I have the know-how and I'm well-traveled enough to travel alone internationally, but I have to say after having been with Amber nearly three years, I was lonely-without-wanting-to-be during my first few days in London. I had a great experience with my Democracy course, and I loved trying to navigate the windy, unnamed streets, but I was happy to come home. I'll never forget my afternoon of solitude at an open-air cafe in Notting Hill, though. That was the best.
It's funny how my memories and stories have always not only been split up chronologically, which isn't s surprise, but also by the academic calendar. Spring is for taking cooler classes, Summer is for conferences and traveling, and Fall is for getting down to business. I'm not sure if I'll ever get out of this mindset because I actually kind of like it - not just because I'm a weird academic, but because the energy and rhythms of the university actually directly align with the seasons, and the weather, and the pulse of me. This fall has been a blur - sure, I tried to fit the quitessential fall activities in: apple picking at a lovely Mississippi town in SW Wisconsin; birthday weekend at an inn in a historic mill town; dressing up as Lucille Ball for Halloween (the red wig was a little much); but these moments are a backdrop, like it or not, to my intellectual pursuits - I spend a lot of time in my head, which I very well should be as a second year doctoral student at UW - but these little getaways, even if it's just down the street for a walk or to do dishes or a romantic dinner, help me stay grounded - there's a life outside of the campus and grad school! I have to remind myself of that.
And this winter. It came on suddenly, with a snow storm shortly after Thanksgiving. I was ready for it - or at least in the mandatory (it seems) holiday spirit - listening to 94.9 Christmas music all the time since mid-November. We had put up the tree, wrapped a few presents (or at least had the presents wrapped FOR us under the tree!) and even started thinking about our trip to Baltimore after Christmas, but in true Midwestern spirit, I don't feel it's Christmas-time until the first snowfall. And it's not really Christmas unless it's a White Christmas.
And that's where I'm at right now - at peace after a long, stressful semester - one of the busiest to date. It's quieter now, with only about 5,000 more words to write and two more papers to upload to an email. All the presents wrapped, kisses given, cats fed, plans made. I can breathe, and breathe I should. 2011 isn't proving to be any less sordid, any less adventurous, or any less crazy. But that doesn't mean I don't want to jump right into the next decade with both feet - and hands, and eyes, and heart - forward.
But this blog post is actually just about looking at the past year, so that's what I'll try to focus on. The spring was lazy, well, lazy with a full courseload, a much colder and snowier winter than we were used to, a polyp surgery for Amber, and a first completed PhD year for me. It was a crazy year of traveling. We went to Minneapolis twice (once for a romantic getaway in blustery January, and the second time for an old college friend's beautiful wedding). We went back to my alma mater, Augsburg College, during my first trip back there, and walked in the same quad where I had walked ten years prior. It's odd being gone from a place for so long - never having visited after you left that life and those friends and that era. It's almost like walking through a memory, through a movie set of one of your past lives. I didn't know anyone on campus at that point, and I didn't really want to, but I started to remember things, the way I felt mostly at the ages of 18-22 alone in Minneapolis, that I hadn't felt in a long time. I knew the roads, too. You always know that you have lived in a place when you visit there again years later and still know how to get around.
In the summer, I helped my friend, the one I moved out to Balimore with in 2005, move back to Madison in her UHaul. I really feel like I'm getting to know the Wisconsin to Maryland route, in a UHaul, quite well. Then we were off to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was a new region for me to explore, and one of the most spiritual and truly beautiful places I've ever been to. The road trip, the movement through these spaces, was just as profound as our destination at the Center's annual portfolio review for Amber. On the way back, we had to take a different route, of course, through different states. We drove along Route 66 from New Mexico to Texas to Oklahoma to Missouri and finally Illinois. I'll always remember reading the Route 66 history to Amber on my iPhone's wikipedia app. It's funny the things we know we'll remember and the things we think we'll forget, but end up remembering anyway in the oddest of circumstances.
Then there was London. I have the know-how and I'm well-traveled enough to travel alone internationally, but I have to say after having been with Amber nearly three years, I was lonely-without-wanting-to-be during my first few days in London. I had a great experience with my Democracy course, and I loved trying to navigate the windy, unnamed streets, but I was happy to come home. I'll never forget my afternoon of solitude at an open-air cafe in Notting Hill, though. That was the best.
It's funny how my memories and stories have always not only been split up chronologically, which isn't s surprise, but also by the academic calendar. Spring is for taking cooler classes, Summer is for conferences and traveling, and Fall is for getting down to business. I'm not sure if I'll ever get out of this mindset because I actually kind of like it - not just because I'm a weird academic, but because the energy and rhythms of the university actually directly align with the seasons, and the weather, and the pulse of me. This fall has been a blur - sure, I tried to fit the quitessential fall activities in: apple picking at a lovely Mississippi town in SW Wisconsin; birthday weekend at an inn in a historic mill town; dressing up as Lucille Ball for Halloween (the red wig was a little much); but these moments are a backdrop, like it or not, to my intellectual pursuits - I spend a lot of time in my head, which I very well should be as a second year doctoral student at UW - but these little getaways, even if it's just down the street for a walk or to do dishes or a romantic dinner, help me stay grounded - there's a life outside of the campus and grad school! I have to remind myself of that.
And this winter. It came on suddenly, with a snow storm shortly after Thanksgiving. I was ready for it - or at least in the mandatory (it seems) holiday spirit - listening to 94.9 Christmas music all the time since mid-November. We had put up the tree, wrapped a few presents (or at least had the presents wrapped FOR us under the tree!) and even started thinking about our trip to Baltimore after Christmas, but in true Midwestern spirit, I don't feel it's Christmas-time until the first snowfall. And it's not really Christmas unless it's a White Christmas.
And that's where I'm at right now - at peace after a long, stressful semester - one of the busiest to date. It's quieter now, with only about 5,000 more words to write and two more papers to upload to an email. All the presents wrapped, kisses given, cats fed, plans made. I can breathe, and breathe I should. 2011 isn't proving to be any less sordid, any less adventurous, or any less crazy. But that doesn't mean I don't want to jump right into the next decade with both feet - and hands, and eyes, and heart - forward.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
212 on November 17- apparently I love math today
OK, so I've only lost 4 pounds in the last two months, which comes down to about .5 pounds a week, HOWEVER, I did find out an interesting little fact during my four pound, two month journey:
For every pound you want to lose, an average human that burns about 1800-2000 calories on their own (by just sitting, walking, breathing every day), you have to burn an ADDITIONAL 3500 calories to burn ONE POUND. This, of course, is in ADDITION to your regular 1600-1800 calorie diet, which means that losing weight just comes down to an equation, net calories, energy in, energy out.
Although this equation can be depressing at times, it simplifies the issue. As long as I burn/take in less than 1200 net calories, then I should be burning 600 calories a day or so extra, which means about one pound a week. Technically.
In other news, I'm 212 pounds. This number is significant to me because I actually remember weighing myself in 2004 and seeing this number, which means, if we're going with the regressive I-remember-when-I-weighed-this-much model, I'm back to age 24. Or in other words, if you put this weight loss journey into tri-mesters (238-212; 211-186; 185-159), I have reached the second trimester. Math soothes me sometimes, it's true.
Lastly, I've decided that in order to commemorate this event, and to push me over the edge for the next 26 pounds, I am going to participate in a two month Fitness Challenge at a local gym - a gym that focuses on strength and endurance training, but doesn't have any electrical equipment. The average person that participates fully in this challenge loses about 17.7 pounds of body fat and gains 5.5 of muscle. I'm hoping I can just lose the full 23.2 pounds, and pick up the muscle on a rainy day.
For every pound you want to lose, an average human that burns about 1800-2000 calories on their own (by just sitting, walking, breathing every day), you have to burn an ADDITIONAL 3500 calories to burn ONE POUND. This, of course, is in ADDITION to your regular 1600-1800 calorie diet, which means that losing weight just comes down to an equation, net calories, energy in, energy out.
Although this equation can be depressing at times, it simplifies the issue. As long as I burn/take in less than 1200 net calories, then I should be burning 600 calories a day or so extra, which means about one pound a week. Technically.
In other news, I'm 212 pounds. This number is significant to me because I actually remember weighing myself in 2004 and seeing this number, which means, if we're going with the regressive I-remember-when-I-weighed-this-much model, I'm back to age 24. Or in other words, if you put this weight loss journey into tri-mesters (238-212; 211-186; 185-159), I have reached the second trimester. Math soothes me sometimes, it's true.
Lastly, I've decided that in order to commemorate this event, and to push me over the edge for the next 26 pounds, I am going to participate in a two month Fitness Challenge at a local gym - a gym that focuses on strength and endurance training, but doesn't have any electrical equipment. The average person that participates fully in this challenge loses about 17.7 pounds of body fat and gains 5.5 of muscle. I'm hoping I can just lose the full 23.2 pounds, and pick up the muscle on a rainy day.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
216 on September 8
Well I reached an all-time low of 214 last week, but gained 2.5 pounds over the weekend when I was wandering around the city of Madison tasting cheese curds and Indian food and pasta and beer. Now I'm constipated. In other news, in order to rectify the situation, I've gotten up at 6.40 am the past two mornings and worked out before my 9 am classes. Go Mel.
So now I go back to memory - fitting well with the memory/space/rhetoric English class I'm sitting in right now. The last time I was 214 .... well, I remember being 212 when I was in my first year of grad school (the first time, in 2003). I go back to this era because my body size now "fits" (literally) the same shape, and so now I (kind of) look like I did when I was 23. In theory. My hair is better now. Maybe I can get to the point where I can say I am better now.
I've lost 24 pounds.
So now I go back to memory - fitting well with the memory/space/rhetoric English class I'm sitting in right now. The last time I was 214 .... well, I remember being 212 when I was in my first year of grad school (the first time, in 2003). I go back to this era because my body size now "fits" (literally) the same shape, and so now I (kind of) look like I did when I was 23. In theory. My hair is better now. Maybe I can get to the point where I can say I am better now.
I've lost 24 pounds.
Monday, August 9, 2010
220 on August 9
August 9, 2010.
So I renewed my gym membership today at the SERF at UW-Madison. 30 bucks for a locker all year. Not bad. I remember when I got a tour for the same facility exactly a year ago when I moved to Madison. I had to force myself to go in, ask for a tour, get on board. Looking back, I've attempted to interweave my work out schedule into my work/school schedule. Someone in my office said that it's good that I'm trying to work out during the week - he didn't during his first year and "didn't spend enough time on himself". I was proud the day he said it, but on a statistical level, I really have only been working out once a week. Twice a week if I was really lucky.
For some reason, I still lost five pounds in the last few months. I'm trying to figure out what I've been doing differently - I don't have a personal trainer (yet), I'm still only working out 2-3 times a week (even though I guess that's more than once a week!), I continue to go out to eat (but now I may order a salad or cole slaw instead of fries or a veggie burger), and I really haven't changed my stress level (although I know I should).
Lately I've been worried about PKD (polycystic kidney disease) because I have a 50% chance of getting the genetic disease (my father has it). I started researching online, mostly at pkdcure.org, to figure out what to do differently to slow the progression of it. It turns out that all the same "stuff" that they tell us slows down the disease also is what everyone is supposed to be doing anyway: exercise and nutrition. That simple. I figured I would try it out considering I should be doing this anyway.
Things I learned today on the site:
I should only eat 80 grams of protein a day, preferably not animal protein
2400 mg of sodium a day. I have no idea how I'm going to calculate this. Good thing I have a calculator on my iPhone!
Antioxidants - blueberry,avocados
Omega-3's. I didn't know flaxseed has this.
Onward and upward!
So I renewed my gym membership today at the SERF at UW-Madison. 30 bucks for a locker all year. Not bad. I remember when I got a tour for the same facility exactly a year ago when I moved to Madison. I had to force myself to go in, ask for a tour, get on board. Looking back, I've attempted to interweave my work out schedule into my work/school schedule. Someone in my office said that it's good that I'm trying to work out during the week - he didn't during his first year and "didn't spend enough time on himself". I was proud the day he said it, but on a statistical level, I really have only been working out once a week. Twice a week if I was really lucky.
For some reason, I still lost five pounds in the last few months. I'm trying to figure out what I've been doing differently - I don't have a personal trainer (yet), I'm still only working out 2-3 times a week (even though I guess that's more than once a week!), I continue to go out to eat (but now I may order a salad or cole slaw instead of fries or a veggie burger), and I really haven't changed my stress level (although I know I should).
Lately I've been worried about PKD (polycystic kidney disease) because I have a 50% chance of getting the genetic disease (my father has it). I started researching online, mostly at pkdcure.org, to figure out what to do differently to slow the progression of it. It turns out that all the same "stuff" that they tell us slows down the disease also is what everyone is supposed to be doing anyway: exercise and nutrition. That simple. I figured I would try it out considering I should be doing this anyway.
Things I learned today on the site:
I should only eat 80 grams of protein a day, preferably not animal protein
2400 mg of sodium a day. I have no idea how I'm going to calculate this. Good thing I have a calculator on my iPhone!
Antioxidants - blueberry,avocados
Omega-3's. I didn't know flaxseed has this.
Onward and upward!
Monday, July 26, 2010
225 on July 26
Well, it's six months since my last blog post here. I'm still 225, no more and no less. Slow and steady, and sometimes plateauing is how I'm starting to view my body transformation. I have learned that "just" maintaining my current weight is done by working out 2-3 times a week and eating better (less and less meat, I'm tellin ya!) ... but in order to lose it like I lost the first 15 pounds, I'll have to work out at least 4-5 if not more times per week as well as not go out to eat. This going out to eat is really what is holding me back. It's become more of a social event (things I ask friends to do, being out and about, trying new restaurants, interacting with the people in the restaurant, etc) than really an eating thing. The extra calories are just a side affect of my choice to "socialize" by going out to eat instead of in. I also feel like I'm not as full (weird, and probably true) if I eat at home. However, I do have more of a sense of peace if I cook at home, eat at home, and that's it.
Our new idea is that every time we want to go out to eat (pretty much every other day) that instead of using that money for food, tip, etc, we would put that estimated amount toward our credit cards. That way we are still spending the money we would use, but be putting it toward our debt.
In other news, we have learned (and attempted) to start eating a meat-free, (light) wheat, (almost) dairy free diet. If you start restricting the ingredients but look for cool alternatives, it seems to work well. I'm still all about taste. Grilled portobello mushrooms drizzled with basting oil and feta cheese now replaces hot dogs on the grill. Rice replaces fries or potatoes. Order a side salad, bean salad, or coleslaw with a veggie burger instead of fries and a burger. These small changes are what make the difference. Not the big ones. I'm beginning to think there are no big decisions.
Our new idea is that every time we want to go out to eat (pretty much every other day) that instead of using that money for food, tip, etc, we would put that estimated amount toward our credit cards. That way we are still spending the money we would use, but be putting it toward our debt.
In other news, we have learned (and attempted) to start eating a meat-free, (light) wheat, (almost) dairy free diet. If you start restricting the ingredients but look for cool alternatives, it seems to work well. I'm still all about taste. Grilled portobello mushrooms drizzled with basting oil and feta cheese now replaces hot dogs on the grill. Rice replaces fries or potatoes. Order a side salad, bean salad, or coleslaw with a veggie burger instead of fries and a burger. These small changes are what make the difference. Not the big ones. I'm beginning to think there are no big decisions.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
225 on the sixth day of January
I think it took a solid year to really start thinking about this weight loss thing. I mean, what is weight loss anyway? Is it just the pounds coming off, or is it something more? What emotional work do I need to do simultaneously with pounds shedding off? Is it just about moving more, eating better, or is there something deeper going on when I think about losing weight, or actually lose the weight?
I'm smart, I'm outgoing, I'm pretty. Or at least that's what I tell myself. So how did I gain a total of 100 pounds in 10 years? The freshman fifteen just became the sophomore ten and the junior twelve and the senior nine. It just kept going. Once I was over 180, what's another twenty pounds to two hundred? And once I hit the two hundred mark, I just didn't care.
It's almost like that now, the same process, when I'm losing the weight. My body is going back to the past. I think: the last time I was 225, was probably my first few years of Baltimore. Since then, I gained 13 pounds. I was 238 in January 2009. I've lost those 13 pounds, so now I'm back to age 27-28, still teaching English. What happens when I hit 212? That will bring me further back to age 25, when I first ventured out to Baltimore, when I was scared shitless.
The problem is that I can't attribute my weight, especially my lower weights, to different points in my life. It's going to be hard not to say that I'm reverting back in time, but instead moving forward. The 30 year old Mel that just happens to be 200 pounds is not the same as the 24 year old 200 pound Mel. The 31 year old Mel that just happens to be 170, is not the same Mel that was 19 years old and the same weight. And that's fine with me. I don't want to be that person any longer, but that doesn't mean we can't share the same weight.
My goal is to break 200 before the summer. I have all the tools, blueberry shakes, hummus, knowing when I'm full, group fitness, weight training, support. I've USED all the tools. Now let's just see if I'm up for the challenge of persistence. Maybe I can apply just 23% of the tenacity I used for applying for grad schools or fixing computer issues, for instance, on my health.
I'm smart, I'm outgoing, I'm pretty. Or at least that's what I tell myself. So how did I gain a total of 100 pounds in 10 years? The freshman fifteen just became the sophomore ten and the junior twelve and the senior nine. It just kept going. Once I was over 180, what's another twenty pounds to two hundred? And once I hit the two hundred mark, I just didn't care.
It's almost like that now, the same process, when I'm losing the weight. My body is going back to the past. I think: the last time I was 225, was probably my first few years of Baltimore. Since then, I gained 13 pounds. I was 238 in January 2009. I've lost those 13 pounds, so now I'm back to age 27-28, still teaching English. What happens when I hit 212? That will bring me further back to age 25, when I first ventured out to Baltimore, when I was scared shitless.
The problem is that I can't attribute my weight, especially my lower weights, to different points in my life. It's going to be hard not to say that I'm reverting back in time, but instead moving forward. The 30 year old Mel that just happens to be 200 pounds is not the same as the 24 year old 200 pound Mel. The 31 year old Mel that just happens to be 170, is not the same Mel that was 19 years old and the same weight. And that's fine with me. I don't want to be that person any longer, but that doesn't mean we can't share the same weight.
My goal is to break 200 before the summer. I have all the tools, blueberry shakes, hummus, knowing when I'm full, group fitness, weight training, support. I've USED all the tools. Now let's just see if I'm up for the challenge of persistence. Maybe I can apply just 23% of the tenacity I used for applying for grad schools or fixing computer issues, for instance, on my health.
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