Afraid So

Food facts I wish were true:


There are no calories in food eaten standing up. This includes the truffle you snatched from the box at the back of the pantry, the mashed potatoes you ate out of the pot while you cleaned up after dinner, and the cheese cubes put out as samples at the grocery store to entice you to purchase more.

There are no calories in the broken potato chips at the bottom of the bag. When chips break, all the calories leak out.

There are no calories in any food if you eat only a handful. A handful of walnuts, a handful of M&M’s, or a handful of little marshmallows don’t count.

There are no calories in liquids used to wash down your daily pills, even if it’s milk or orange juice. Besides, you drink them standing up by the refrigerator, don’t you?

These daily nibbles seldom make it into my food tracking for the day. I call them “off-track eating”. Tracking every bite I put into my mouth just seems so compulsive. Maybe this is why I usually meet my daily calorie goals, but don’t lose weight as fast as I’d like.


Here is a poem I found on The Writer’s Almanac website right after I broke my ankle. It was written by Jeanne Marie Beaumont


Afraid So


Is it starting to rain?
Did the check bounce?
Are we out of coffee?
Is this going to hurt?
Could you lose your job?
Did the glass break?
Was the baggage misrouted?
Will this go on my record?
Are you missing much money?
Was anyone injured?
Is the traffic heavy?
Do I have to remove my clothes?
Will it leave a scar?
Must you go?
Will this be in the papers?
Is my time up already?
Are we seeing the understudy?
Will it affect my eyesight?
Did all the books burn?
Are you still smoking?
Is the bone broken?
Will I have to put him to sleep?
Was the car totaled?
Am I responsible for these charges?
Are you contagious?
Will we have to wait long?
Is the runway icy?
Was the gun loaded?
Could this cause side effects?
Do you know who betrayed you?
Is the wound infected?
Are we lost?
Will it get any worse?


writersalmanac.publicrad
io.org/archive.php

Everything Nice

A lot of people eat when they are stressed out, and I have been known to do some "stress eating" myself. But a lot of times when I'm stressed out I clean house, or when I'm really crazed, I start a home improvement project.

When my daughter moved to California I cleaned every window in the house, inside and out. I think cleaning house makes me feel like I'm in control of something in my life.

Holidays seem to bring out the home improvement strategy of stress control. Although, since home improvement is stressful in and of itself, the strategy has some flaws in it. One 4th of July I got the notion to remove the wallpaper from one of my bathrooms. Removing wallpaper is one of the nastiest jobs in the world, but I was getting along pretty well until I pulled on the sink cabinet to try to get the wallpaper out from behind it and broke the hot water pipe. My screeching woke my husband up from a nap to turn the water off at the basement shutoff valve. (Forget trying to shut it off under the sink when scalding water is spraying out.) We couldn't get a plumber on the holiday. The guy who showed up the next morning just rolled his eyes when I told him what had happened.

So this morning I woke up feeling antsy and decided to paint the room I use for my treadmill. A quick trip to Home Depot and I was ready to go. I patched the nail holes and removed the switch plates. I moved out the few pieces of furniture, and decided no drop cloth was needed since I plan to replace the carpet with bamboo flooring. Things actually went pretty smoothly, but by the time I got the primer up I was exhausted.

I'll get t he paint color up another day. Or, if I have any sense, I'll call my favorite painter and pay him to finish the job. My treadmill room will be a beautiful space, full of everything nice to encourage me to exercise.

Outside a moderate breakfast and lunch, I did no eating at all today. I ignored the gluten free brownies and mint meltaways. I stayed away from the Pumpkin Spice Latte at the Starbucks next to the Home Depot.

I didn't walk on the treadmill today, but I think painting definitely counts as exercise. I can plug in the treadmill and walk on it again tomorrow, even if I don't finish the painting.

The following poem is by Beatrix Potter. My daughter loved it when she was a child.

Appley Dapply, a little
brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard in
some-body’s house.

In somebody’s cupboard
There’s everything nice,
Cake, cheese, jam, biscuits,
-- All charming for mice!

Appley Dapply has little
sharp eyes,
And Appley Dapply is so fond
of pies.

Beatrix Potter

A Lovely Thing

Does anyone but me find the holiday season stressful? I'm trying to just enjoy, but we all have so many expectations and don't want to disappoint each other. Added to all that is trying to eat healthy and find time to exercise.

Yesterday was my birthday. I got many lovely gifts and my family took me out to eat at my favorite Chinese restaurant. I planned ahead of time what I was going to eat: Chicken corn soup and Steak with Green Peppers. I shared the steak dish with my husband. He ate most of the meat and I ate most of the peppers & onions, so that went pretty well. Then my husband gave me a box of Fannie May truffles. I love those things. I had one, and some of the Cadbury chocolate also in the house, and was over my calorie count for the day. I've got to hide the chocolate.

My daughter is home for the holidays. I love her dearly and I only see her once or twice a year because she lives on the opposite coast. We have so much to talk about, and so much last minute shopping to do. Well, mall walking is exercise, too, and I've planned our trips to avoid mall food.

This morning I got a spark mail from my sister. She is as stressed as me, with more reason, but she took time to write and tell me about the deer she saw in the field by her home. I'm so glad she shared that peaceful moment with me.

Here is a poem for her and all of you to enjoy. It's written by Sara Teasdale.

The Coin

Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor thief purloin---

Oh, better than a minting
Of a gold crowned king
Is the safe kept memory
Of a lovely thing

The Revenge of the Maple Tree

I finally had the maple tree in my front yard removed last summer. It was too big for the space, it kept the grass from growing, and the roots were threatening to crack my new driveway. I knew some day the limbs were going to take down the power lines to the house. Plus, every fall that maple dropped leaves all over the yard. So I paid an itinerant tree crew to remove it.

A month later I slipped on a wet leaf and broke my ankle in three places. Coincidence? I think not. I think the trees in the back yard heard the cries of distress as their colleague headed for the wood chipper and took their revenge when the opportunity presented.

The following poem speaks to cutting down a tree and also is a fine poem for a snowy winter day.

In winter in the woods alone
Against the trees I go.
I mark a maple for my own
And lay the maple low.

At four o’clock I shoulder axe
And in the afterglow
I link a line of shadowy tracks
Across the tinted snow.

I see for Nature no defeat
In one tree’s overthrow
Or for myself in my retreat
For yet another blow.


Robert Frost

Promises to Keep

We are in the middle of a huge snow storm, expecting 12 to 20 inches before it's over. Since I don't have to be out in it this weekend, I'm happy to sit inside and watch it come down. My kids are both home for the holidays. My Christmas shopping is almost done and wrapped. I just need to relax and enjoy.

In my old life I might have cooked bacon and spoon bread for breakfast and served up hot cocoa. This morning I was satisfied with high fiber cereal and blueberries. I still might make ovaltine later, but only after I shovel snow.

In honor of the first big snow of the year, I'm sharing the following Robert Frost poem. I've loved this poem forever.

Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


We all have promises to keep, but sometimes we just need to stop and look around and enjoy what we've been given.

Random Acts of Eating

I posted this blog on another site: SparkPeople.com. I did a lot of posts on that site while I sent on a weight loss journey. I'm going to transfer all of those posts to this site, with the original dates.

The best time to track your food is before you eat it.

Last Friday my husband and I decided to pick up my son at his apartment and have dinner at Fuddruckers. It's close to my son's apartment, and there are things there I can safely eat. I usually get a grilled chicken sandwich (without the bun because I'm gluten intolerant), a baked potato with butter and sour cream, and a strawberry milkshake. Those milkshakes are awesome: rich and creamy, with chunks of whole strawberries blended throughout. We're not talking McDonald's "shakes" with artificial flavors and precious little milk. We're talking the real thing.

But I sat down before we left to "track" this meal on my nutrition page. What a wake up call! The only strawberry milk shake I could find when I searched the food list was like 390 calories for 10 ounces. Fudd shakes are probably twice that size. That would be 780 calories for the shake alone. Couldn't do it. Better get diet Coke or water instead. The grilled chicken sandwich was about 6 ounces of lean chicken breast. I decided to eat only half of it for a more normal serving of 3 ounces. I also decided to skip the butter, and eat only a tablespoon of the sour cream. And I added a side salad, no croutons, dressing on the side. Now I had a reasonable food plan. Armed with this plan I ate a reasonable meal and enjoyed our night out immensely.

Last night I was watching Monday Night Football and snoozing in front of the TV. Suddenly I decided that a small snack was in order and got into the jar of roasted, salted pecans. They were delightful and I ate a couple of handfuls. Then I sat down to "track" my snack. Oops. Pecans in all their roasted, salted loveliness are full of fat and calories. How many nuts is in an ounce? How many did I actually eat? Granted, nuts have "good" fat in them, and a little bit of fiber, but I didn't need any more fat or fiber in my diet yesterday, so I blew my goals.

Oh well. Sometimes you need to remember that fat is not a personality disorder. One unplanned snack is not an eternal condemnation. I will hide the pecans at the back of the pantry and eat them again after I've tracked them into my food plan for the day, and not before.

My poem for today is one I can totally identify with. It's written by Joyce Huff:

The Hymn of a Fat Woman

All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.

My Mother Used to Say

My mother gave me a bit of wisdom one time when she was teaching me to iron. Ironing was a weekly chore in the days when everything you wore needed to be ironed, and I was probably eight or so when my mother decided I could learn to help.

I started with my Dad's white handkerchiefs, and was doing my best to make them perfect, when my mother suggested that I hurry things up a bit. I told her, "If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well."

"That's not true", she replied. "There are a lot of things in life worth doing whether you do them well or not. Some things are only worth a little bit of effort, and ironing handkerchiefs is one of them."

My mother also used to say, "All cats are grey in the dark." I never asked her how she knew.


This poem by Tess Gallagher always reminds me of my mother.

I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.

The Best is Yet to Be

I could say that I've struggled with my weight all of my adult life, but that wouldn't be true. There wasn't much struggle there.

I was a skinny child and an average sized adolescent. I gained weight in college, but lost it in my senior year after a nasty two-week bout of flu. I was quite slim when I married at age 23. Over the next 10 years, and two children, my weight crept up to what was to become my adult poundage. I knew intellectually that I was overweight. I even joked about shopping at the fat lady shops for clothes, but I never really felt fat. I just accepted my weight and got on with my life.

We lived in Bermuda for 5 and 1/2 years and kept pretty active with swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving. After we returned to the states and eventually settled in Virginia, I joined the local county recreation center and swam or did the treadmill for 30 to 45 minutes a day, six days a week for about 10 years. I even did the weight machines 2 or 3 times a week. My husband and I went out to eat a lot and my weight didn't vary much. I lost some weight after developing gluten intolerance, but after my digestive problems were diagnosed and solved by a gluten free diet, the weight came back.

After Bermuda I had returned to the interesting, challenging job that I'd left before my daughter was born. I bought nice clothes so I would look professional at work. I shopped for plus size clothes, but I shopped at Victoria's Secret, too.

As I aged, the excess weight began to take it's toll on my health. I took medication to control my high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I developed diabetes and took more medication to control my blood sugar. Unfortunately, one diabetic drug I took, Avandaryl, caused me to gain 30 pounds. I switched medication to Metformin and 10 pounds came off immediately, but the rest of the weight I'd gained seemed to want to hang around.

I couldn't really worry about my own health at that time because my husband's kidneys failed and he had to go on dialysis and finally get a kidney transplant. Since the transplant his health has been wonderful and things have settled down a little.

Then this past year my right leg began to swell and I had several episodes of cellulitis. I saw a specialist who prescribed compression stockings for me. I asked how long I would have to wear them and he said, "Until you lose 50 pounds." My first reaction was, "Well I guess I'll be buried in those suckers, then." But when I thought about it I decided I would give dieting a chance. I knew my sister had lost a lot of weight and kept it off with the help of Spark People, but I decided to go it alone, and I lost 12 pounds in 6 weeks.

Then life intervened again. I slipped on a wet deck and broke my left ankle in three places. I used 2 months of my accumulated sick leave to recover from the surgery and found myself with no ability to be active, and a lot of time on my hands. So I joined Spark People and starting tracking my calories. I really enjoyed that and found it helped me to eat rationally. I lost another 8 pounds and hope to lose 30 more.


I love poetry. I don't write poetry, but I collect poems and like to share them. Here is a poem by Robert Browning that I've always liked:


Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be;
The last of life, for which the first was made;
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: See all, nor be afraid!”


I'm living a good life, but I still believe "the best is yet to be."

Happy Birthday Emily Dickinson

Today is Emily Dickinson's birthday, so I am sharing the following two poems. Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets, and Billy Collins is another.


Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes

by Billy Collins

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that Reason is a plank,
that Life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.


by Emily Dickinson:

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

Table Talk

My son and I were talking about favorite books recently and I remembered doing a blog entry on that once. I just went back and re-read it and I'm not sure I would change the list although I've read a lot of books since. If you want to read my list follow the link to my November 2005 Blog.

The question that came up with my son was why do we like some books and not others? I tried to explain why each of my choices was on the list, but sometimes we just like what we like.

My poem to share today is by Wallace Stevens.

Table Talk

Granted, we die for good.
Life, then, is largely a thing
Of happens to like, not should.

And that, too, granted, why
Do I happen to like red bush,
Gray grass and green-gray sky?

What else remains? But red,
Gray, green, why those of all?
That is not what I said:
Not those of all. But those.
One likes what one happens to like.
One likes the way red grows.

It cannot matter at all.
Happens to like is one
Of the ways things happen to fall.

Now it's your turn to share by sending me your list of favorite books.

A Poem for Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods is married to a super model, one of the most beautiful women in the world, yet he has been having sex with cocktail waitresses. This is difficult to understand, but maybe he married a really beautiful woman and then discovered she had nothing to say for herself, or maybe he married for status, but really just likes his women a little on the trashy side.

Here is a poem on the subject by Charles Bukowski:

the way it is now

I’ll tell you
I’ve lived with some gorgeous women
and I was so bewitched by those
beautiful creatures that
my eyebrows twitched.

but I’d rather drive to New York
backwards
than to live with any of them again.

the next classic stupidity
will be the history
of those fellows
who inherit my female
legacies.

in their case
as in mine
they will find
that madness
is caused by not
being often enough
alone.