Monthly Archives: May 2004

Stress over weight loss plan/cost

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Today I went in for the full plan at the Quick Weight Loss Center. It’s very restrictive. And it’s expensive. If I bought everything I need for the year today it is an additional $1200. If I don’t buy it today, over time I will pay $1700 over the initial fee.

Money stresses me out more than a restrictive diet. Although this can be considered an eating plan, it is very restrictive. It is only good for you foods. Do you ever get to have a cookie again? It doesn’t look like it.

You have between 13.5 and 16 oz of meat per day. But you may only have beef twice a week. And never two days in a row or in the same day.

You can only have one serving of canned tuna a week. And you only get half the can. Normally I have a can as a serving. You also can’t eat tuna on the same day as you eat beef.

You can have 16 oz of chicken a day, every day, if you want. Of course, I am not a big chicken fan, so that doesn’t thrill me. I’d rather be a vegetarian again than eat chicken every day.

There are lots of fish you can have. But I have never liked fish. Never wanted to like fish. Never enjoyed any fish that wasn’t covered in bread. (Except tuna.) But you can have 14 oz of fresh tuna a day. Or 16 oz of cod. Or 16 oz of flounder. Or 14 oz of lobster. Every day.

You have four servings of veggies a day. But two are cooked and two are raw. But they all have to start raw. You have to cook them fresh. So if you want green beans, they have to be in season.

You have three servings of fruit a day. You may not eat them together; they have to be spaced out in the day and they shouldn’t be eaten after dinner. You need to have four hours of wake time before you go to bed after you’ve eaten a fruit.

You may have two cups of coffee a day. Or two diet sodas, that are not brown. (You can’t have the caramel coloring.) You may have unlimited decaf coffee or herb tea, but not unlimited decaf tea. In fact, decaf tea isn’t even on the list anywhere.

You may have only six eggs a week, which means twice a week, because if you have eggs, you have to eat three of them. You can have egg beaters, but I’d think I could do my own egg whites for a significantly lower price. And you can have egg beaters every day if you want. I guess they are trying to limit the cholesterol.

You must have 80 oz of water a day, no more, no less.

You must have, once you pass the prep phase, two supplements a day. Only one is allowed to be a bar. And the bars are tiny. About a third of the size of a Myoplex bar. You’ve seen those small Atkins candy bars? They’re that size. For the other supplements you can have a drink or a dessert. The drinks are actually pretty good. As the woman in the class with me today said, “It kind of tastes like jello that hasn’t been put in the fridge.” I think it will taste good with ice in the blender, though it is very foamy. And there’s a recipe for a creamsicle, which is orange diet soda pop and the vanilla mix. Then freeze. Someone said it’s good.

You also get two starches a day. But these are tiny portions of starches. Half of a six inch corn tortilla counts as one starch. Half of a bread stick, a particular kind, counts as a starch. You do get two slices of Melba toast, if you can stand that. I’ve never been fond of Melba toast. But maybe if you put some sliced strawberries on it or something.

That’s the whole plan. Oh, except you get 1 T of either light margarine or light mayo per day. You have to eat those.

Then there’s the Essential Fatty Acid pills, the vitamins, the minerals and other stuff (but not ephedra), the carb blockers. Those are $1000 total. Then there’s the nutritional supplements. Those run about $650. For a year. I know that’s not much for food for a year, but this isn’t food. This is in addition to your food.

The good thing about the plan is that you don’t have to buy all your food there. I did that with Nutrisystem 13 or so years ago. It was fine while you were doing that, but the day you stopped buying your food from them, you ballooned up, because theirs was specially prepared.

So, the good thing is that even though it is VERY restrictive, you do eat regular food.

The bad thing is there are no off days, no light days, no “eat anything you want” days. So every bite you have off the program, hurts you. –Plus, it invalidates your warranty if you tell them about it. But if you don’t tell them about it then you’re not getting all the help you want/need.

So here goes day one of 365 days under QWL’s plan. I’m supposed to lose 3-5 pounds a week. That will be interesting to see happen.

The prep phase: 3 days

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Okay, here’s the three day preparatory eating schedule.

Two eggs for breakfast.

ONE meat, but any and all of that kind of meat that you want.

beef

veal

liver

lamb

chicken

turkey

fish

Raw green vegetables. As much as you want. But they can’t be cooked.

Two oranges a day. They originally said one but today they told me to have two.

80 oz of water

And you can have 2 cups of coffee a day.

Reasons to lose weight

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Just in case I forget.

Because I said I was NEVER going to wear a size 16 again. And just because I did once, for a funeral, doesn’t mean I should keep on doing it.

Because despite my grandmothers and my mother and my brother all doing it, I do not plan on getting Type II diabetes. And the only way to avoid that is to lose weight.

Because I want to be able to go out with my husband and not feel uglier than the other women around.

Because I want to look good.

Because I want to feel better.

Because I want to be horny more often. (Weighing less improves my libido tremendously. I’ve been mostly making do on “I’ll get excited if I just get going.”)

Because there is no reason to live my 42nd year fat.

Because I don’t want to turn into my mother. (Though she’s been significantly overweight since she was 30.)

Because I want to be healthy.

And because I want to know that any health issues I have are not exacerbated by a weight problem.

Because I want to wear my size 10s again and know they’re loose. (If I reach my goal weight I’ll be smaller than a size 10, but still.)

Because my husband loves to go shopping for clothes for me when I’m smaller. (I don’t like to go when I’m heavier.) So we can get several exciting dates out of buying skinny me new clothes.

Because I don’t want my kids to be embarrassed to say I’m their mom because of my weight.

Because I don’t want to end up with closets full of different size clothes. (Although, right now I have one closet with seven dresses, multiple tops, and three pairs of slacks in it.)

Because being skinny is more fun than being fat.

Because being skinny is sexier than being fat.

Because I want my husband to be able to carry me around. (He’ll have to work on his back problems, but…)

Because it’ll be fun to have giant boobs that everyone is sure are plastic, that aren’t.

Because I want to be as beautiful as I can be.

Because guys looking at you because you’re cute is better than guys ignoring you because you’re not.

Maybe I’ll make this a hobby. “What’s your hobby?” Being skinny. That’s my hobby. I’m going to be skinny for fun, for health, for laughs, for sex…

Freaking out over weight loss

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I am freaking out that I just paid some people $700 to tell me what to do for a year. To talk to me, to tell me what to eat and what not to eat, and how and when not to eat it. What the heck have I done? Can I have buyer’s remorse and get out of this?

If I was sure it would work, even if it takes more than 16 weeks, then I hope the stress and panic would go away. But Quick Weight Loss hasn’t done anything for me yet except ask me to sign three or four slips of paper, one of which was a check.

They “guarantee” I’ll lose 3-5 pounds a week. Believe me, I’ve done weight loss before. I have NEVER lost 3 pounds a week consistently. In fact, just last week I was thinking, “One pound a month. That’s all. I can work on losing one pound a month.” But now I’ve paid to lose 3-5 pounds a week. If I don’t? Will they be like Nutrisystem was when my weight plateaued and accuse me of lying and fudging the system? They say they won’t, but I don’t know these people. They don’t know me.

I told my husband we may have to invest in 24 hour camera surveillance on me to prove I’m doing what they said, when it gets to the last weeks. But, really, I don’t expect it to take till the last few weeks.

I don’t care how much water I don’t drink, or do, and how much I avoid processed sugar and salt, I will do something extravagant if, in four weeks, I have really lost and kept off 12 pounds. (I’m trying to do something that would be positive. Not negative here.) So, 28 days from now is June 17. If on June 17 I weigh 173 (I hate to have to admit to this weight, but I am desperate.), I will…

Hmm. What could I do that would be positive? What do people normally say?

Eat my hat.

Hmm. That’s the only one I can think of. I don’t think a hat is on my diet. I could take a walk. A really long walk. Surely even in the heat of summer a long walk would be good for me not bad for me. But somehow I doubt it. Maybe a long walk will be bad for me. What else could I do? Go out dancing with my hubby? We don’t like to dance and I HATE cigarette smoke.

I’ll have to think about that. Something incredible but not bad for you that I could do to celebrate losing 12 pounds of scale weight. (Hopefully not lean body mass either.)

If I picked something really cool, I could repeat it every 28 days. It would become a reward system, a new celebration. Maybe even a replacement for comfort foods.

A 20 mile walk. A 10 mile hike. Something fun. Something different. Something special.

Think. Think. Think.

Quick Weight loss

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I spent $700 today so that I would have something to blog. Well, that’s what my husband said. “If you go to the Quick Weight Loss center, you’ll have something to blog.” So, now I have something to blog.

I told them I wanted to lose 54 pounds. That’s probably more than I want to lose, but I know it’s the MOST I want to lose. They told me it will take 16 weeks. Four months. In 9 months on BFL I lost 45 pounds. I started ten pounds heavier. I stayed at that for several months. I couldn’t lose more. I exercised more. I ate less. Nothing. So I gave up. Now 18 months after giving up, I’ve gained back 25 pounds.

My goal is NOT to ever be this heavy again. In fact, I said I’d never wear size 16s again. That I’d go naked before I did that. But I had to go to my aunt’s viewing (you know, when the person’s dead) and I didn’t think I should go naked to that. So I now have some slacks that are 16s. I am seriously thinking about giving them away, but first I need to make sure that I can go to church in some clothes. Wouldn’t want to go naked to church, either.

So I am going to the QWL for short.

Here’s what I was told.

1. Eat one of these meats, as much as you want, as often as you want, for the next three days. But you can only eat one type of meat. –I chose beef.

2. Eat any of these raw green vegetables. (Then, in case you don’t know that they aren’t green, they tell you not to eat carrots or tomatoes.) They have to be raw. And you can’t have raw peas, no matter how green they are.

3. Have 2 eggs for breakfast for each of the next three days.

4. Have a half an orange twice a day for the next three days.

5. Don’t weight lift.

6. Come in tomorrow.

So, there you have it. You too can start the diet. I’m going to. I went and bought eggs and oranges. Doesn’t that sound good? Egss and oranges. (Yuck.)

However, they “guarantee” three to five pounds a week weight loss. If I can do that without losing lean body mass, it will be a miracle. I am, of course, perfectly willing to accept miracles.

So I guess I’ll be blogging.

After Death

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Actually, I want to talk about the afterlife. But that’s what we mean. After death. After life comes death. After death comes?

I believe in Heaven and Hell. I believe that in the end, those who know Jesus will be in heaven. But will it be a city with streets of crystal and gates of semiprecious and precious stones? Maybe. But that wouldn’t be the part I’d be describing if I got to go there.

I had a dream, many years ago. God spoke to me and told me to tell a friend something. I woke up. I thought I should write it down. But then I thought, who could forget something God said to them? I repeated it word for word. No way would I forget a message from God. Then I went to sleep again. The same thing happened. I’d dreamed this twice. I definitely should get up and write this down. But I didn’t. Then I went to sleep again. This time I was in Heaven. I was behind two people, listening to them talk. And I knew that the 19-25 year old woman with the bobbed hair cut was my friend’s daughter. They finished talking, about what I don’t recall, and she looked at Jesus and said, “I’m going to get back to work now.”

That’s my first view of Heaven.

Last year, a friend of mine was dying. She died in November, but she started dying in June. There was nothing we could do and her condition got worse, regardless of what was tried. A few weeks before she died I dreamed of her. She was in her 30s in my dream, even though I didn’t meet her until her mid-40s. Her hair was electric blue and short. She was gardening. I know this was Heaven because she was wearing a dress and she trimmed the hedges by running her hand over the top of the plant. The big transparent yellow leaves that were edged in green just slid right off the plant.

That is my second view of Heaven.

At my aunt’s funeral this weekend I realized that there are people who know and love me who are in Heaven now. When I get there, I won’t just be meeting people I didn’t know, but folks I loved. Some I loved better than others, but still. I wonder bout some of the people I love, if they’ll be there, but I figure I won’t know if they’re not. How can it be Heaven if you’re sad because someone you love isn’t there?

Of course, I also wonder how it can be Heaven if there’s no hot sex and multiple orgasms. Jesus said there will be no marrying nor giving in marriage in Heaven. I figure he left out orgies as a given. But I still have trouble imagining perfection without sex. I admit to the possibility, God is omnipotent, after all, but I find it doubtful.

I Thessalonians says that Christians have “fallen asleep” in Jesus. (I Thessalonians 4:14.) At the funeral this weekend, the preacher says that the people get to rest, to sleep, till Jesus comes again. But that is not what the passage says and that interpretation contradicts Jesus, so I don’t that is what it means.

How does it contradict Jesus? Jesus told a parable. Now I know a parable is a story told to make a point, but do you think Jesus would tell a lie? Why would he need to? He knows every story from the beginning of time and before. If he wanted a story to make a point, he could use a true one. So I am sure that when Jesus spoke of the rich man and Lazarus, that it was true. The rich man and Lazarus were dead. The rich man asked Abraham for a favor. Abraham said it wasn’t possible to give him water. So the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus to tell his brothers the truth. That means his brothers were still alive; they weren’t dead. So I don’t think we sleep after death.

I think that we go where God is going to put us. Perhaps we are outside of time then, with God. Or perhaps we go and then we all show up at judgement for a formal hearing kind of thing. But we aren’t asleep waiting to wake up with Jesus. He said so.

It says in Hebrews 12:1, after a listing of many heroes of the faith, that “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders…”

You are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Now this word can mean testifiers and martyrs. But you can’t be surrounded by them unless they are around. And the Greeks had relay races, so if the writer had wanted to say they’d passed the baton, he could have. He’s saying as Christians we are surrounded by witnesses who are gone. That’s the one thing those people have in common. They’re in the afterlife. (Note: Enoch did not die. He “was not for God took him.”) So how can you be surrounded by a bunch of folks that are gone? Well, if they can see what’s going on. If the folks ahead know about the folks behind.

I admit my theology has trouble with that point. It’s not clear. But someone’s got to be able to see into this world because I Corinthians 15 clearly states that baptism for the dead is useless unless there is a resurrection. And how can baptism for the dead be useful if the dead aren’t around to know stuff?

Also, it says in I Peter 3:18-22 that Jesus went to preach to the spirits who were in prison from the days of Noah. What prison were they in? I’m thinking hell. (A Roman prison could resemble Hell I am sure.) Jesus went somewhere after his death to preach to spirits who had disobeyed God.

Remember when Mary saw Jesus in the garden and he said, “Don’t touch me. I haven’t yet returned to my father.”? Well, it seems to me that’s why he hadn’t. He’d been busy. However, please note that Thomas was told, two weeks or so later, to touch Jesus. So he must have gone home in the interim.

When someone you love dies, you want to know where they’re going. And you’re hoping it is not south.

The funeral weekend

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My aunt died on Thursday. I did go to the funeral. I put an overnight bag together and flew out Friday afternoon. But on the way to the airport I found out the funeral was not Saturday morning, but Saturday afternoon. So I changed my flight and didn’t get home until 9 pm Mother’s Day.

Good things:

I got to see my cousins. Some of us talked a bit. They know I was there, even though I had to get a sub to get my finals in and I had to grade after I got back.

I enjoyed the visit. It was good to see relatives, even ones I don’t agree with.

I spent some time with my dad and went out to the graves of my grandparents.

I got to see my friend Jess, who lives in Lubbock. We talked.

Bad things:

Jerry is dead.

Jimmy and my cousins are devastated.

I cried more on Saturday than I have in months, all put together.

Jess is still devastated by the loss of her fiance to a car wreck four months ago. She has lost weight and is depressed.

Death is just not right.

Death

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My aunt died today. I had hoped she would live till next week, so that I could see her. But she didn’t. And I didn’t. I had work, teaching school, through this week. And I just couldn’t see taking off to go up there when she’s rallied several times before– even gone home twice when doctors said she was at the end.

This time she was, though.

The funeral is Saturday morning, which I hate. Because I still can’t go. Finals are that day. I have to be there and grade them.

I thought maybe I could go up tomorrow, but someone would have to be with the boys and there just isn’t anyone. My mom’s too sick to go, too sick even to have the boys hang out at her house.

She’s dead. Her oldest daughter is one year older than I am. Her youngest is 27. Shonda, the youngest, just lost a baby. Now her mom is gone too.

You know, I haven’t seen Jerry a lot recently. Life gets so busy sometimes with kids and work and all. But just last night I was thinking about how she talks. Now she doesn’t anymore.

Jerry and Jimmy and our families were close. My dad’s falling apart. His siblings don’t all know yet. My mom’s too sick to travel and my sister’s having contractions, so she can’t go. My middle sister is afraid to fly, so she probably won’t make it either.

Ga. When my mom dies, will there be anyone there? Or will they all be too busy, too stuck in their life, to make it?

I loved Jerry. I love her kids. But in a way I don’t want to go to the funeral. What will you say? How can you stand the crying? But if I don’t go, what does that say to her family, who I do love? Will it say I don’t care?

I’d have to fly up, if I could go at all. And I’d have to fly up tomorrow night and fly back Saturday night. And the airport with the reasonable rates are an hour from here. And even then someone would have to come to the airport to get me.

AAAAAHHH!

I hate death.

Wednesday and HS is over

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It’s Wednesday and high school is over.

I had a parent come in today, after the final, wanting me to change two grades for a child. Some of the points were valid, but those papers were turned in multiple weeks ago. Ugh.

The final today was 50 words to put in sentences. I had the sentences; the student had to have a word that worked in the sentence. I didn’t think it would take too long. But I had one student take 2 full hours on it. Another took almost that long.

The students don’t like sentence tests because they are harder. The students argue that it ought to be enough if they know the definition or a synonym. But words aren’t duplicates. There are nuances to words that students don’t get from a synonym. For example, “depict” and “convey” are very similar words, but they aren’t interchangable in all circumstances.

I am much less stressed now, though I still have stuff to do. I guess whatever was wrong is better now.

Stress

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I have been stressed for probably the last three weeks. I have not really known why. I assumed it was because of all the grading I was doing. And, of course, the problem I had with my eye going out of focus made grading worse.

However, I’ve seen an eye doctor, who says I’m just getting older. (I thought I was supposed to lose close in focus, not far away focus.)

And my grading is mostly done, except for the 12 papers that I will get on Saturday.

But I’m still stressed.

I thought it might be money. I decided I needed to talk to my husband about it. I thought we had plenty of money, but not as much as I thought we “ought” to have. Turns out we’re doing okay on that. Better than I thought.

So why am I still stressed?

While I was writing I realized I probably gave up on eating correctly about three weeks ago. I didn’t just throw in the towel all at once, but I did start throwing it in about then. So I’ve been eating less healthy food and adding to my fat deposits. That might be why I’m not feeling as well. And not feeling as well might be making me stressed.

I do know for sure I am stressed and not sick, or at least not only sick, because I had a nightmare Sunday night. I dreamed I was riding in the car with my husband and he started talking to me, saying really cruel things. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I asked if he believed them and he said he did. It was a horrible dream. I woke both of us up in real life, crying out over the nightmare. He reached over to me when he realized I was crying and moved me over towards him. When he was sure I was awake he cuddled around me. It took me a while to quit crying, but I did know that it was just a dream and not true. But it felt awful. Glad it was just a dream.

When is surgery worth it?

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This is a big question for me right now for two reasons.

First, I have fibroids and my dr. says eventually I will need a hysterectomy. After reading about hysterectomies on the net, my husband is totally opposed. My parents think I should have had the surgery two years ago. The only reason I really care (these days) is because the price of our insurance is outrageous and the only way we can get new insurance is if I have the hysterectomy. We’ve been turned down by 12 different carriers because they say I’ll eventually “have to have” the surgery. You know, you don’t HAVE to do anything- except die probably. Of course another plus would be no more birth control pills, which I take to avoid 20 days of period each month.

Second, my mom’s doctors are split on whether she should have stomach stapling and body sculpting. Mom’s back surgeon, a wonderful doctor, says Mom needs both. Mom’s regular physician, also wonderful, says she shouldn’t have either. What’s up?

My mom weighs around 290. Even at 5 ft 9 in, that’s too much weight. Plus her lymph nodes aren’t working, so she’s carrying between 20 and 60 extra pounds of fluid. Which puts her over 300. Her legs are going out. The surgeon now says that it is because she weighs too much. They’ve done the back and neck surgery and her pain is better, but her legs are carrying too much weight.

Mom’s regular physician says, yes, that’s true. But my mom is a diabetic. She has had trouble before with anaesthetic and with bleeding, and she’s been on blood thinners for a year now because of clots. He says there is no reason for her to do the surgeries which matches the danger having the surgeries would put her in.

Both my dad and my sister think Mother should have the surgery. Mom’s thinking of doing it just to shut them up. (Not the best reason to have surgery. Especially if one of your doctor’s thinks it’s potentially life-threatening.)

I think she would be better off with the surgery, if she could get through it. But I don’t know that it will do any good. Her eating is psychological, not hunger. If she doesn’t eat less after the stapling, she’ll just mess up her stomach more.

When one doctor says Right Now and the other says Not Ever, what do you do? When your doctor says “eventually” but your finances are arguing for now and your husband is arguing for never, what do you do? I don’t know. I’ve been going for the “If I don’t do anything I won’t have to make a decision my husband won’t like and my parents won’t be upset because I’ve made the decision against their suggestions.”

I’ll probably keep on with that.

Serenity at our house

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Today we brought Serenity home.

Serenity is a seven week old brown, tan, and white beagle puppy. She is sweet and very quitet, so far. She was very sweet riding home the hour in the car. She wandered around the house and the yard for about an hour and then laid down next to my husband and took a nap. She’s now in her crate napping.

Since I’ve got allergies to cats and some dogs, we went about picking what type of dog to get very carefully.

Supposedly there are three kinds of dogs which are less likely to trigger allergies: poodles, schnauzers, and beagles. My son said that poodles looked like evil rats with afros. He’d seen pictures of show poodles only. Plus, of course, poodles are girly dogs. So we went for beagle. We researched them. We read about them. We went to websites on them. We talked to owners and vets.

And today we drove an hour away from our house and picked up the last offspring of Precious and Skipper Gipson. At least the last out of this litter.