Foraging into 50 Day 3 Evening Food Blues

I obviously have to eat some sort of a healthy filling snack in the afternoon to keep me from doing what I did when I got home. Once again, I caved in to starvation issues (and stress) and ate the following: 1 slice of low salt cheese, 1 slice of bbq chicken, 1 slice of low fat cheese and a pickle and 10 cold shrimp. and that was enough until supper. 1 slice of meatloaf, sweet potatoes and green beans. none of that too terribly bad except for the pillsbury biscuits. i did step on the land mine this morning and dropped another pound but i bet i put it right back on with this evening's "foraging" and then some ... yuck. i hate stress. i could go back to smoking and drinking coffee 24/7 but i'd probably have a stroke and die and miss the 2012 Red Sox season and that is just not acceptable to me.

Oh wait - I forgot the dessert - a scoop of friendly's multi colored sherbert and a snack size hershey bar broke in half.

i keep seeing commercial for weight watchers online. i balance my checkbook. i can't be keeping tracks of points AND write a blog at the same time and work and be a single parent and and and and and ....

(throwin' up my hands in self disgust).

i hate being overweight.

Movin' forward ....

Foraging into 50 Day 2 Addendum

I really now understand why eating lunch is important because otherwise, you will do what I did. Forget to eat lunch, stuff a Luna bar in my mouth on the drive home from work, then "forage for food to tamp down the hunger at 3 p.m. So let's see what did I eat: hummous w/hot sauce mixed in and carrots (that's not too terribly bad at all); 2 pieces of my veggie quiche (i could have just had the one) and then the snack sized butterfingers called my name from the bag on top of the fridge. I only ate two.

And my co-worker brought in a box of DD coffee AND munchkins today. I limited myself to only 3.

Rollin' my eyes at my utter lack of discipline BUT looking at what I did eat and not feeling too guilty. Actually, I have no guilt at all. I either change my eating habits or not. simple as that. it's only day 2 and it's up to me.

movin' forward.

Afterthought: i had a flat belly in high school and throughout my 20s and early 30s. i was never overweight in my life until i got pregnant. my stomach came in the door before I did. i was horrified what physical changes pregnancy did to me. I clearly was not meant to be pregnant. it was the grossest most disgusting traumatic physical event I have ever experienced in my life. I thought I had an alien growing inside of me (although the initial ultrasound showed what appeared to be a small shark on the screen) and of course the first time my son kicked the shit out of me, all I could think of was the movie Alien with Signorey Weaver and the scene where the alien pops out of the guy's stomach right at the dinner table. that was enough to make me swear off sex for the rest of my life because I'd slit my throat and stick an icepick in my eye before I ever got pregnant again. As it was, from the time i figured out I did get pregnant which was Sept. 1999 to February 2006, I did just that - no sex. But now we circle back to the beast-like thing I became during pregnancy and the hideous deformities that suddenly appeared after I gave birth. I did have a c-section which I GLADLY would have performed on myself but I trusted my OB to do it correctly because there was no fucking way I was pushing a 9 pound 22 inch kid through a hole the size of the place where my doorkey fits into my front door. I get the stretchy pussy muscle thing. But that was just NOT going to happen. If whomever created us human beings wanted pussies to stretch into tomorrow, they would have made the vaginal area of womens' bodies out of bungie cords.

I wished I could have just skipped the physical aspect of pregnancy and just had my kid handed to me through some portal or something. he's nearly 12 now and he is the best thing that happened to me - but not to my body. Gross. I throw up in my mouth when I see pregnant women. brings out the serious ewww factor for me.

i don't know what the hell happened but my stretched out belly just never returned to its position -flat on my body. Instead, I can't quite describe what it is today. I KNOW surgery can fix this (shit for hellfire damnation if that whackadoodle Octomom can get her belly fixed enough to put on a bikini, then so can I. Except one small teensy weensy problem.

See me rubbing my thumb against my first two fingers? Yep, Money baby. lots of it. I got the weight and the Body Mass Index count but no moula.

Do plastic surgeons do pro bono work?

Foraging into 50 - Day 2

I just realized that 'foraging' has the connotation of looking for food LMFAO! And this whole self-preservation thing is completely the opposite LOL LOL LOL! (smacking my forehead). Well, perhaps it could be considered as foraging for self preservation before, during and after turning 50. that works for me.

So I got up, made my son breakfast, saw him off to school, synched my Ipod (which by the way is one of the absolute drop dead ORIGINAL WHITE Ipod shuffles that were first made about 30 billion years ago. If Steve Jobs were alive, I'd write to him to tell him that his stuff is definitely long-lasting. I want a newer updated one but I'm reluctant to part with this because it still works fine.

I took a walk - about an almost 20 minute one and actually took a route with some small inclines. I didn't keel over dead. I was not winded which I suppose is a good thing. And after all the log rolling I did yesterday, I wasn't even in the kind of pain I've been in for the past year WITHOUT log rolling. Hmmmmmm.

Degenerative disc disease is not reversible. And given the two gene mutations I have - one of which is C677T which is present in many autoimmune disease patients - I really wonder what the hell is going on inside my body in addition to all the other shit  nevermind carrying around 50-60 pounds of extra weight. That just cannot be helpful at all (duh - ya THINK?)

So I'm sitting here listening to my hero of the year - Porcelain Black and her song This is What Rock 'n Roll Looks Like. I wanna look like her. Her figure, her HAIR, and I want lick my lips at my current flavor of the month (that on again off again off off off and on on on again guy) for the past near 7 years.

Pulling myself out of that reverie (pipe dream? I wish? get real isn't going to happen?) I now have to contemplate breakfast. I've been pretty content with Kashi's Autumn Wheat cereal (I'm actually counting the biscuits - I get 28 in a serving which believe it or not fills that bowl. I COULD use a SMALLER bowl which would make the bowl appear fuller (there is a psychological aspect to eating food) and if the bowl is YELLOW (which I have in Fiestaware) and adding strawberries or blueberries to the cereal makes it even all the more appealing. I drink non-fat milk so there's no issue there.

Packing a lunch. Boston lettuce, a half of cut up apple, 1 serving of tuna in water, zuma tomatoes and my non fat wasabi dressing (which I really have to say is pretty freakn' good). it's made by Maple Farms - I need to write to that company and declare my undying loyalty and maybe score some coupons, too. I'll probably throw in a luna bar for a snack and a bottle of water. I need to get rid of the crackers at work. And get it in my head that I need to do something with my hands at all times to keep them occupied other than eat. I could think of a more than a few things but that would require the male species to be around and I just can't get what I want these days ..... Sucks to be me. Maybe I should advertise for a younger guy.

You know what I saw today on the HuffPost? A video of a guy who proposed to his girlfriend by creating a Lego film. The guy is an Atlanta, Georgia filmmaker named Walt Thompson and I was so blown away by this - the utter ROMANCE oh be still my beating heart and even my son thought it was extra cool! I told him that is how you propose to a girl - with something extra amazing, extra creative and romantic all rolled into one. Of course you have to be completely sure she'll be receptive and say yes. some girls don't like that shit.

I'm telling ya - if I could find a guy who would propose like that (baseball themed of course) I'd throw all caution to the wind and get married for the third time (that third time's the charm thing).

But I'd make damn sure he has money. And it's not a golddigger thing or anything. I'm perfectly capable of working, but more importantly, I'd appreciate him, and in turn, I'd be able to spend more time writing and contributing financially by finishing my novels because I'd have the time and the space and some lake house office that I can write uninterrupted.

Are there guys like that out there?

Hey, i'm still waiting for my note in the bottle to be found - the one I threw into the canal in Westerly, Rhode Island in August 2010. With my luck some shark ate it or an octopus snagged it and it's firmly entrenched in some bottom of the ocean cave. that's my life and my luck.

anyways, off to eat breakfast. I did exercise with my stretchy band things (I put it around the tree out back) and am wondering if the stretchy band is going to snap and rocket back to my head, knock me out and leave me with a concussion on the ground.

There's a great new excuse for not showing up for work.

I'm outta here for now.

Foraging Into 50 Years - A Single Mom's Journey to Self-Preservation & Losing Weight To Stay Alive - Day 1

50. Half a decade. Nine days till it's been 18,250 days since I've been on this planet.

It's looming like the mothership hovering over Devil's Tower in Close Encounters of The Third Kind.

LOOMING.

And it' "ear-roding EAR-roding" my sense of self-esteem, self-confidence and self-preservation.

Why? Because I am overweight and I have a son who needs me to be healthy because I'm all he has. And about 40 billion other reasons that will bore people to death because everyone will say "yup, been there, done that. Movin' forward."

But let me tell you about being overweight (althought I am sure bazillions of women will read this and go, yup, check, have that, see that, ewww that).

I am 5-7. I weigh 191 pounds. There, I said it. And I don't give a shit anymore who reads that and says OMG PAULA IS A FREAKING MOOSE!

Bite me.

The Spanx hide the weight really well. And given that I have this amazing center of gravity below my 40Cs and above my thighs, that is the center of all the weight. That's the only reason I remain upright.

I can, however, still see my feet. I've never not been able to. I suppose that counts for something.

But after a three-month 60 pound weight loss during the summer of 2010 which left me even more sagging that I had been prior, I put 30 pounds of it back on in one year. Whether it was my age kicking in, my hormones being totally fucked up or that I moved into a new home and got comfortable because my son and I were safe from the monsters who nearly killed us in 2010, I don't know.

But last night was a wake up call. Something happened - well, Facebook revealed one its secrets in such a completely random coincidential manner - and this "secret" threw me for a loop. Jesus, it's one thing with the ring. It's another thing about the white pants.

And I spent the night assessing and re-assessing years gone by, the last six in particular that I've been the ultimate "giver" and finally decided that the next 50 years belong to me and I am going to become a taker.

But in a good way. I'm taking my dignity (what's left of it) and going to attempt to channel it upwards into what I hope to be a future of good health, sound mind (well, maybe because people already tell me I am certifiably off my rocker and I LAUGH because it's a compliment to me) and a body that when I look at it in the future, I would go "ewww, I'm gross" or have to stretch out my arms in front of me so that the tractor tires on my back will even out when I am bent over and getting screwed from behind, and I won't have to put a pillow under me when I am in same position because the rolls on my back are being evened out from my arms being stretched out in front of me but leaving my hanging sagging belly fat to dance to its own tune.

You get the ewwww picture. But really? Overweight women are truly creative when it comes to manuevering to a position to cause less jiggle, less tire action, etc. I'm tired of doing that. I want to focus solely on my self and not be bombarded with negative thoughts about how I look from behind, or the front, or sideways or from a distance.

And this is just about being naked. Wait till I write about me and clothes. The above-mentioned brings out the eww factor in me. I hate being naked. I hate taking a bath, I hate taking a shower. It has nothing to do with being clean because I'm a freak when it comes to that.

I just hate the way my body looks, what it has become and the fact I have to "hide" it from the world because it's the bane of my existence, the harpoon in my side 24/7/365.

I can blame it a bit on pregnancy from 12 years ago because I was horrified beyond all comprehension when I stepped back and looked at myself after I had my son. I could not believe what happened to my body. And it's been downhill ever since.

I hit rock bottom last night. That "secret" on Facebook just made me shake my head and go, that's it. I'm done. Time to get off my ass.

I'm not going to "diet" but I am going to change the way I eat. I am a stress smoker but I stopped that about 10 days ish ago. Cold turkey. Done it before a million times. But each time I look at my son, I have to convince myself that I can't smoke - at all.

And no smoking means more hunger and more hunger means emotional eating. Been there done that, too.

That's gotta stop.

Writing keeps my hands busy. It passes time that I otherwise would be foraging for food in my kitchen and eating for no apparent reason at all.

It doesn't change overnight. It's a mindset first. I have to want to change. I can't float along like a bottle on the ocean with a note it that says "rescue me" and hope someone finds it and does same.

That's for fairy tale fanatics.

This is real life, real time, right now.

50 is NOT an even number unless you divde it by 5 and get 10 and that's an even number.

10 pounds at a time. 10 pounds for each year I've been alive.

50 pounds to shed on this soon-to-be 50 year old single parent.

So maybe the sags might be more saggy but the rolls will remain on the bread shelves at the supermarket and not on me anymore. My legs are actually nice and my tattooed butt isn't too bad.

Duct tape (ohhh they have colored duct tape now) will most definitely help. But damn, I bet it will hurt peeling it off. Instead breast lift ha ha ha ha ha. OUCH.

Seriously: Humor and laughter have gotten me through the worst of times. So I LAUGH in the face of of the enormous task ahead of me (removing five albatrosses hanging around my neck) and regaining my self-esteem and self-esteem so that the next 50 years will be productive, healthy happy ones for me and for my son because really when push comes to shove - nothing else matters to me as a mom.

Movin' forward ......