the Diva Platform

Yes, yesterday I did go to Fat Camp, but it was my last visit with the Shrink, which means I have a lot to tell you. Since I was out at Jerry Springer–the Opera (pretty good, but mainly bizarre) and then had to go out with the Boy for his dinner because we have no food in the house, I didn’t get enough time to devote  to writing a proper entry. I’ll do that for Monday. We mainly discussed future behavior, and FCS tried to prep me for life without Fat Camp (or as much of Fat Camp). It’s weird to think that I only have a couple of weeks left in my first module, but it’s nice that we did talk (and brainstorm–which has really become the bane of my existence when my appointment is the first one in the morning and my brain isn’t awake) about what’s next.

We also talked about rewards and instant gratification, based on my thinking last week that I lost weight, hence, I could have a food reward. Of course I need to change that sort of thinking, and FCS and I had a decent conversation about this too.

At any rate, here are the numbers:

Last week: 184.0

This week: 183.1

I’m still doing well, and my numbers are going down in a decent way. This week has been odd since I’ve been sick: I haven’t been exercising, but at the same time I didn’t eat much for a couple of days. Now that I’m feeling better, it’s time to kick it back into gear.

I don’t know if Fat Camp will repeat the other tests on me, but I did buy a new scale this week. I wanted a digital, since I’m having trouble getting what I think is an accurate reading on the dial. I did step on the old scale this week and was pleasantly surprised when the dial didn’t dink up as far as it usually does.

The new scale does weight (to every .2 pounds), fat percent, and body water percentage (so you can see how hydrated you are). I was pleased to see that I’ve lost about 5% body fat as well. I felt pretty good about that as well.

Still, I won’t feel like I’m being successful until I get into the 170s, and at that point I won’t be going to Fat Camp every week. This will be difficult, but I hope (and I think) I’m getting enough help now to be able to deal with what could potentially be the harder step.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m under the weather, I like a good bit of schlocky around to comfort me. My brain’s too tired to deal with something remotely intellectual, so I try not to tax it too much. Instead I crave things like bad daytime television and Jell-o and wrap them around me like a big security blanket. The schlock keeps me safe and protects my brain until it’s ready to come back out and face the world again.

With this bout of sickness, I didn’t find the magic cure while I was at home. I kept falling asleep during morning talk shows, and I never even made it to the living room for the afternoon ones. Jell-o doesn’t have much appeal anymore, so I didn’t even seek it out. Instead, the schlock I needed worked its way into my head today at work:

Meet you all the way, meet you all the way, Rosanna yeah
Meet you all the way, meet you all the way, Rosanna yeah

Why, yes, it’s lyrics to the Toto hit “Rosanna.” Why did I get a Toto song, of all things, stuck in my head? Well, I have a slight thing for them–well, just for this song and “Africa.” I dig “Africa,” and I believe that’s because we used to play it in high school band. You know what’s rockin’? A bassoon playing the bass line of Toto’s “Africa.” Yyyeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh! So ever since then, I’ve dug this two songs and keep them tucked safely away in my box of guilty pleasures.
By any account, I shouldn’t like Toto: It was created by a couple of guys who were session musicians that worked with Steely Dan, and I do not like Steely Dan. I may have them messed up with some other 1970s band, but I always think these guys are jamming with flutes, and seriously, my version of classic 70s music does not include flutes because flutes do not jam.

But if I was flipping through the radio dial and heard Toto, I’d stop. They are one of the few “easy listening” bands I’d stop for even if the station was Lite FM or something similar, which aren’t usually in my listening sphere. Toto and Steven Bishop. “Tootsie” is one of my favorite movies and I’ve always loved the theme he wrote for it….these songs are always on in places like the dentist’s office, and to me, that makes the visit that much easier to take. Then invariably the song will end, I’ll be on a schlocky high, and the station will announce the call letters, and I snap to, thinking, “I can’t listen to lite music! My brain will rot!”

Funny how today the lite music is making me heal.

I’m still pretty sleepy, but I’m at about 90%, which is well enough to get back to work. Not that I want to, but sometimes bills have to be paid. Still, it’ll be nice to leave the apartment and generally feel useful. And maybe, just maybe, by tomorrow I’ll be more in ranting mode. Take me away from the general public for a couple of days and I become totally docile. That’s just not good. Or is it?

If I was a celebrity, you’d be reading about me checking into a hospital for “exhaustion,” and then you’d wonder what was really wrong with me. I’m not a celebrity, so I have to learn how to get extra fluids into my body on my own, but I’m still massively exhausted. I think it’s a couple of crazy weeks with not much sleep, the trip to Europe where I didn’t get a ton of sleep, a long week of even less sleep, and then this trek to Minnesota (where I got a fair amount of sleep, honestly). My body has said, “No more!” and has become a coughing phlegmball that needs to sleep constantly.

I was hoping that a long nap (i.e.–5 hours) would be the kind where I’d wake up and feel MUCH better, but it didn’t work out that way. I’m hoping a good night’s sleep with some Nyquil will do the trick, but I’m actually not so sure. I may seriously need to sleep all day Tuesday as well.

This weekend we helped the -Sans move their stuff up to White Bear Lake, MN to store it while they’re in Japan. The move went smoothly and the road trip was fun. I’ve never been to Minnesota before, which was a little bit of excitement for me. We didn’t do a ton, but it was nice to be at a house with a yard. When you live in the city, that’s a luxury.

Besides the move, I was intent on getting some new beer to sample for one of our side gigs, Beerdorks.com. The Twin Cities were far enough away that some of their regional microbrews don’t make it onto the shelves at Binny’s. “Some,” I suppose is an understatement, since we hauled home a good 80 bottles of beer, about 50 of which are in our refrigerator.

Now you know what we’ll be doing over the next week or so. Tune into Beerdorks to see what we think of the stuff!

Remember in high school when you first started studying mythology, and the teacher told you that the Greek gods ate ambrosia, but nobody really knew what it was? I can tell you what it is: bacon tempura.

Last night I went to the “Everybody Loves Bacon” dinner at The Chopping Block with Astrochick and Eddie Glick. This was a demonstration course, meaning it was a lot like watching a show on The Food Network in person. Not a bad way to spend an evening, that’s for sure.

Here’s our menu:

Bacon and Cheese Fondue: Excellent

Spinach Salad with Soy Ginger Viniagrette and Bacon Tempura: A lot of work for salad dressing. I’ll get to the tempura in a minute

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin with Bacon Sweet Potato Gratin: Excellent and really interesting. The pork was delicious–I’ve never seared meat before cooking it, and it does amazing things for the meat. The sweet potatoes were really interesting–nice texture to them.

Bacon and Strawberry Cobbler: Not bad! Our chef added peaches too. Really, if you don’t mind fruit desserts, this one is pretty darned good. The bacon adds a nice salty to the sweet.

But let’s get back to that bacon tempura, shall we? Every summer you hear about state fairs showing off their deep-fried creations–twinkies, Mars bars, pickles. How come there hasn’t been massive coverage of bacon tempura? I mean, this is a fatty meat that is coated in meal and deep fat fried.  How much more American can you get?

Seriously, it was beyond fantastic–every bite I took, I said, “Whoa!” or, “This is amazing!” I think it could be a dish all on its own, or even better, served with that bacon and cheese fondue. It’s a little bit of heaven sent down to you…and in my case, it had really better be a little bit, otherwise Fat Camp won’t be happy with me!

Another appointment with my Fat Camp Nutritionist, another day I feel like this weight loss thing won’t be so hard. Honestly, I cannot tell you how much my FCN helps me put things into perspective and makes me feel that eating correctly is not so difficult.

We didn’t even look at the food logs I’ve been keeping. Instead, FCN asked what I typically ate for each meal and surmised that caloric intake was probably around where it should be (~1500 calories/day. This is less than my resting metabolic rate of 1676, so just keeping it lower than that will provide that cushion where I can start burning the excess weight). I told her it was pretty discouraging and demoralizing to have to sit down with the book and figure out all the calories, and she told me to stop counting the calories. FCN told me that I could just glance at the log and figure roughly where I stand for the day. If my intake is not 1500 calories straight across the board, that’s fine. If I’m really struggling to get it exactly, then she’d be a little worried. The goal is to get a healthier relationship with food, not to freak out about it even more. She said our bodies were pretty good at telling us what to do and how much to eat; it’s just our environment that can screw that up.

I do still need to keep the food log. After all, we’re not out of the woods yet, and when you write down what you eat, you tend to be a little more aware of what goes in your body. And if you’re like me, you’re seriously lazy about it and will actually not eat something just because you have to make the effort to write it down.

FCN gave me some acronym to help me think about what I’m eating (as is par for the course, FCN said to take this light-heartedly and not totally swear by it:

PACE

P = Physical hunger

A = Accessibility

C = Craving

E = Emotional

Really, when you want to eat, you should think why and then see where it fits in the acronym. If it’s not P, you’re probably getting bored with your food choices, and you need to add some variety. Will this gimmick work for me? Probably not, although I’d probably spend enough time trying to remember what A-C-E meant that I wouldn’t be hungry anymore.

FCN stressed the need for variety in my food choices. I do tend to eat the same thing for breakfast–cereal and a banana–so mixing it up on weekends would be a good idea. It’s OK to eat pancakes–just watch that I don’t put a ton of syrup on them. Condiments are notorious for helping pack on the calories, so I just have to be careful there. Lunch is similar–lots of Lean Cuisine, but at least I haven’t duplicated too many of them yet to get bored (and they’re on sale at Jewel for the next week or so, so I’ll be stocking up). I also need variety in my snack choices–buy one type of snacks one week, and then buy another type the next week. That way I won’t feel deprived, but if I limit the number of snacks I have lying around, I also won’t feel like it’s a “big party” and want to eat them all at once.

The other trigger that will help me lose weight is adding more cardio to my routine. FCN said cardio would be the key because if I’m more active, I MAY be less hungry. I don’t know about that one (I usually get more hungry when I start working out more though), but what makes me want to work out more is the idea that FCN said if I do more cardio, I could lose up to two pounds a week.

Speaking of weight loss, how did I do this time?

Last weigh-in: 185.6

This weigh-in (2 weeks later, 1 of which was spent in the land of pastry and gelato): 184.0!

Again, I am really happy that I’m still doing so well, especially given the fact that I was on vacation, and I’m used to gaining weight when I’m on vacation. The Boy chalked that up to being in Europe. “You automatically lose weight in Europe,” he said. “Those are the rules I guess.”

The Boy also had to remind me of how he supports my weight loss. “I eat all the good food before you can eat it, and then you don’t get fat. That’s how I help.” He does a good job of it too.

I am starting to notice the weight loss. Clothes are starting to fit differently, which is both good and bad. I’ve got summer clothes I can fit into now and some that I’ll fit into better as I lose weight, but I don’t want to buy anything new until I’m much closer to goal weight. I don’t feel like shopping for clothes that will last me only a couple of months. I mean, I’m still wearing Old Navy Messenger Pants from at least 7 years ago. I like my clothes to last!
The progress continues. I just have to keep it up–I still have these feelings when I weigh in that if I do well, I can eat. “I dropped a pound! Let’s eat something to celebrate!” Not the best mental state to have, I realize, but I’m working on it.

To help me with Fat Camp, the Sans loaned us their Playstation 2 and the Maya workout game.  They also loaned us Dance Dance Revolution (and seriously, my plug & play cannot even hold a candle to the real thing) and We Love Katamari.

The PS2 will have to go back to its owners this weekend, so I’ve been cramming in what I can.  A workout with Maya in the morning, and a little Katamari with breakfast.  Well, the Boy and I have been pretty intent on getting through a couple of levels of Katamari that are really stumping us, and we ended up playing most of the evening.  Hence the reason I have Katamari on the brain and don’t have time to tell you about the world’s smallest kitchen.  And I didn’t want to play simply to avoid doing my Fat Camp homework.  I really really wanted to get through the campfire level.
Yes, I did get some of my Fat Camp homework done, but not a ton.  This week I’m back with the FCN and we’ll be going through my calorie totals to see if I can cut anything out, etc.  Writing down your food intake isn’t so bad, although I’m not very good at getting down every meal (there are many scraps of paper lying around with what I’ve eaten, but I haven’t tied it to a day…that kind of thing).  I know I could sit down at the end of the night at put it all together, but the end of the evening is usually a mad scramble to finish things on the computer and get to bed at a decent/semi-reasonable hour.  Calculating the calories is simply horrible and really demoralizing.  I write down things in terms of numbers (5 almonds) or cups (1 c. broccoli).  My calorie book doesn’t necessarily calculate the calories in the same manner.  They usually work with ounces.  So I’m guesstimating a lot, and I’m trying to err on the high side so I don’t miss some calories I’m sure I’ve consumed.
Because it’s so frustrating to deal with the numbers rather than just portion sizes and feeling full, I needed a little break.  Or a lot of break if Katamari is the distraction.  Katamari is this odd Japanese game where you have a ball and you try to roll up loose objects in a room.  Different rooms have different goals (size of your Katamari ball, how fast you can go, etc.), and we’re just starting to get decent at being able to play the game.  It’s also got a catchy theme song.

After we give back the loaner, the Boy and I may actually break down and buy a PS2.  I never thought I’d be a video game person, but I do like working out with Maya, and sometimes it’s just fun to play.

People have asked me what I’ve brought back from Vienna as souvenirs, and I’m almost embarrassed about my shopping habits while I was there. I did go crazy in the Manner shop, and the amount of Manner wafers I have in the house kind of shocks me. I don’t know how I got them all home.

I went into a bookstore on Monday and banned myself from going in anymore during the trip. I bought a book for a friend, a copy of Generation X in German, and a British book called Nul Points that is about the Eurovision Song Contest. Of course, I wanted to buy about five other books, but I restrained myself because I knew I’d have a hard time getting them all home. I even refrained from buying any magazines, and that’s quite a feat for me.

But the books and the candy were not my most prized souvenirs. Nope. That honor goes to my new El pass holders and butter dish.

Last year when I was in Munich, I found a little plastic holder that my El card fit into pretty well. It worked great for me because I was constantly losing my pass in my bag (and when you have a 30-day pass, you really don’t want to lose it), and the plastic holder helped me find it a little easier. Of course, last month I lost both of them, but I thought maybe I could find something similar in Vienna. I was right, and I bought three of them. I figured if I lost one a year, by the time I lost all three of them, I’d have enough money to go back.

The butter dish is nothing fancy. It’s clear plastic, but I got it because I’ve been buying Irish butter. European butter is about twice as wide as one of our sticks, and storing it gets to be a hassle. Sabrina had a nice little butter dish that she used, and a light bulb went on in my head thinking that it would be good to have one of these so that I didn’t have to deal with messy, buttery foil wrappers. I’m quite excited about using it!

Oh, and I stocked up on some hand lotion and got a pressed penny too, but really, the butter dish and el pass holders were the major finds on my trip.

My friend Sabrina didn’t watch much TV and I didn’t have time to during my visit, but when I got to the hotel, I turned that baby on. The Austrians watch a good number of American shows, but they do dub them into German, which is always fun. At one point, I thought it would be fun to be one of these dubbers, because once you’re a dubber for an actor, you’re always that actor. In my view, it would be easy/lucrative to get work if you’re say, the dubber for Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts. The dubber for “the next big thing” who doesn’t pan out to be so wouldn’t be as fun.

So what was on? “Dr. House,” “Die Simpsons,” “South Park,” “Scrubs,” and more….all in German. I saw the “South Park” Scientology/Tom Cruise in the closet episode, and that in German is even more hilarious.

When nothing decent was on the regular channels, I’d flip over to the sports channels. I got both Eurosport and Dubai Sport in the hotel, and really, ESPN needs to learn something from them. Show us more sports besides every football, basketball, and baseball game in America! Eurosport had a track meet, as well as a good amount of Strong Man competition (I realize Strong Man is a staple for bar viewing, but it was great to see).

Dubai Sport had table tennis, synchronized swimming from the Athens 2004 Olympics, and handball. Handball! When’s the last time you saw handball on TV? That’s what I thought. Dubai Sport also had low-cost ways to cover these things. The table tennis had no commentators. Handball had commentators but no on-screen graphics. To show you the score, they put a shot of the scoreboard in the corner of the screen. It was pretty awesome, I thought. Honestly, I think it would be great if more Olympic sports got coverage outside of the two-week Olympic period. It’s certainly got me a little geeked up for Beijing 2008 now.