Long Bones

Snowflakes in the sky? Not quite as catchy as “smoke on the water/fire in the sky” and honestly a lie as even though it looks like it should be snowing, it isn’t. Our weird warm spell isn’t quite over, but unseasonably warm is now around 30. I have never ever had a winter in Fairbanks that there wasn’t snow for this long. Last year we had snow in September. September!! And frankly, after the leaves fall the banks are ugly until the snow comes down. So please please please let it snow!

And can I redeem myself as I lose weight?

This article came out sometime in September in the New York Times magazine. Basically it goes into detail about the theory of social contagion which actually seems to be pretty much fact. People gain weight if their friends gain weight. In fact, people gain weight if their friends’ friends gain weight. And its true, since I gained weight, Shondar has, Colleen has, Kromey and Flickerbrain have. Nini hasn’t. So maybe it was me? After all I gained a bunch of weight first.

The cool thing is that it should work the other way – if your friends all start getting healthier you will too. Since I’ve lost all this weight Shondar and a friend at work have started losing weight too. It could be coincidence. Or I could be influencing my contacts in a positive direction.

Here are the before pictures:

The Long Bones is on the left, the Shondar is on the right.

You can’t tell by looking at it but I am 6′0 and Shondar is 5′3″. Our BMIs are almost identical but our body types are about opposite.

We went to Old Navy and found some mannequins to emulate. My idea was that clothes would fit better on me because my body shape is long and tall and not so good on Shondar because she is shorter and curvier. However:

The trendier clothes were obviously built for a less curvy figure:

By the way, you’ll never see me in skinny jeans again (after the next picture). Ugh. So even though the close were built for taller women without important things like boobs or hips or a waist (like me!) Shondar could still fill out a shirt like mad:

Also, clingy shirts clung in the wrong places on me, while they made Shondar look amazing (it doesn’t help that the only one in my size was white and see through):

Shirts with more float and flounce looked better on me: If there wasn’t enough definition I looked good and Shondar looked lumpy:

This could alo be called a love song to Gladware 3 cup/24 oz containers.  I work in downtown Fairbanks Alaska and while Fairbanks is quite a small city at the lunch hour I am still within walking distance (one mile) of a barbecue joint, an awesome Italian place, a Greek restaurant, two Thai places, a Korean food restaurant, three coffee shops, two diners, a really nice restaurant/wine bar, and three bars. At least – I just thought of another restaurant that I’m not sure how to classify. Lots and lots of food options. In fact, Big Daddy’s Bar-B-Q and Banquet Hall is literally one parking lot away from my window. So we can say the temptation to eat out is insistent.

Office View - the orange building is Big Daddy's

Thank goodness for my perpetual lack of financial skills in this one area. I cannot afford to eat out all the time – I could if I budgeted right but there’s always a book or a skirt or a movie…and then all of a sudden I can’t. So I was already not in the habit of eating out every day when I started losing weight last April.

Gladware sealed the deal. Here’s my tip – when you are at home at night preparing a clean and healthy meal for you and your family (if you have one – I don’t), make one extra portion, immediately toss it into a gladware/tupperware/genericware container and put it in the fridge. That way someone won’t accidentally munch on it as a second helping or a snack. You could label it “My Lunch” if that’s a problem in your house. Then put the container in the fridge and grab it as you leave. You don’t have to worry about packing a lunch in the morning before work or trying to scrounge a meal from the condiments drawer at the office (or, the horror, ordering take-out Chinese!!).

Now I know that there are these crazy people out there who are not enthusiastic about left overs. I know people who just refuse to eat them, they throw away whatever is left over from dinner and never look back. While I don’t quite understand these people I do say there are plenty of low calorie solutions that still involve bringing lunch to work with you. For instance, toss together a salad – hold the dressing out so it doesn’t get soggy. (In fact, I keep a bottle of balsamic vinegar on my desk). Make sure you measure out your portion of dressing – it adds up fast!! Or you could make a whole wheat sandwich with lots of vegetables and hummus and low-sodium cold cuts. Add some fruit and you’re set. None of these take up a lot of time in the morning and all will save you from huge restaurant portions.

First thing first:

Weekly Weigh In – Monday, October 19, 2009

Starting Weight: 280
Current Weight: 201.4
Total Loss: 78.6

This totally rocks by the way. It would have been a little more but I tend to eat a little over budget on the weekend so I get a tiny uptick. Still, so so so close to 199. I have no idea how long its been since I was under 200 lbs.

Second things second:

Sorry I’ve been neglecting the blog for the past couple of days. I have had a busy busy three day weekend. Happy Alaska Day everyone! I spent my Alaska day weekend winterizing my house and doing a nice thorough autumn cleaning. I’m kinda sorta a complete slob but oddly enough I like having my house clean. Its a cruel dichotomy.

Third things third:

It’s definitely winter here in the interior but still an incredibly mild one. It’s been getting down into the teens at night and barely over freezing during the day. Still no snow. Though it is supposed to snow a bit during the night tonight. I hope so. After the leaves are gone Fairbanks is ugerly until the snow falls.

Shondar and I conducted an experiment today: Our BMI’s are within a few tenths of each other and our bodies are completely different shapes. The idea was to go to a whole bunch of different clothing stores and try on different outfits to show how different body types fit into different outfits.

The results tomorrow, I’ve got friends over now

http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/ok-mr-lifshitz-why-must-models-be-so-skinny

The above is an article at DoubleX that I found really interesting. Well, I found the question really interesting and the fashion industry insider’s answer.

Models are long and skinny because clothes hang better on them. The clothing on display at major fashion houses and runways is all about art, about fantasy. Not about what a real woman wears.

Here is my corrolary question then: Why not design clothing that looks spectacular on curvy bodies? I’m not by any means an artist, but I did minor in art in college so maybe I have a smidgen of authority here. When I create a piece I am naturally drawn to rounded forms. I find the play of light and shadow more interesting on a sphere then on a plank. The commenter says “Quite frankly, any kind of buldge (fat, breasts, hips, a butt) distorts the line that clothing was “designed” for, particularly avante garde clothing.”

I find it a little bit lazy that designers don’t work with that. They have picked thier medium and their canvas is the female form. If fashion designers were truly interested in a sleek form with minimal bumps and curves they would design for men. After all, it isn’t about what real people really want to wear.

So its a cop out. I respect the creative skill of my favorite designers, and even the ones I don’t like, to not just compensate for but celebrate a woman’s figure. Fashion is about fantasy sure, but women with real bodies are buying into the fantasy. I don’t think its responsible for the titans of haute couture to present an unattainable, unhealthy ideal and then when women are making themselves sick to achieve this ideal (or sick because they can’t) they disclaim it because it’s all about the image.

That said, it isn’t entirely their fault. They don’t have any power we don’t give them. The subtle encouragements of a society which celebrates figures which are for the general population achievable by a rigorously enforced regimen of heroin and anorexia affect all of us. And we all, or almost all, enforce it. After all, we buy the glossy magazines, we gawk at cellulite. If we could secretly photoshop our family pictures, how many would resist?

I don’t have a solution. I’m still going to buy fashion magazines and I’m not going to stop dieting. But I am going to hit my healthy weight and not try and go further. I’m going to buy clothes that suit my body and not let it get me down when something looks good on the rack but not on me.

So there is this other thing: I have dermatillomania, aka chronic skin picking disorder. You’ve probably heard of the condition some people have where they can’t help but pull their own hair out, right? This is the same thing except that I pinch, scratch and pick at my skin. I can’t help it, I need it. I can’t adequately describe the force of the compulsion, I’ve tried…it is this pressure on my mind when I feel the desire, and a tension in the spot that I must pick at.

The longest I have ever gone without picking was 21 days. Three weeks. It was the second hardest thing I have ever done in my life, eclipsed only by surviving the death of my father.

It comes and goes though. I probably pick everyday a bit, but sometimes there will be a day, or week, or irregular span of time when the need is acute, undeniable, and constant. Then I bleed.

Part of CSPD is the picking trance…I’m not exactly aware of the passage of time during a bout of CSPD. In fact I’m not exactly aware of much. This is a huge problem in the real world. I can’t exactly tell my boss that I didn’t finish a project because I couldn’t stop messing with my arms and suddenly it’s five. It takes an incredible push of will to pull my mind out of a picking trance – I can’t always do it – I have to first notice that I’m in one and then wrench my consciousness out of the hole. I manage sometimes, like today thank goodness, but not often enough.

The crappy thing (the? As if there was only one) is that there really isn’t any treatment or therapy for it. So I’m pretty much stuck. Let me amend that – they’ve had some success with OCD meds and cognative behavioral therapy but not much.

My mission, should I choose to accept it:

Tonight I am updating the blog roll.

I am becoming a bonafide empress of all meals squash. Or maybe squash is becoming the heralded ruler of all things meals? There is a brief window in the fall in which the grocery stores here in the banks suddenly up the squash ante by offering a multitude of varieties instead of just butternut, spaghetti and acorn squash. Every fall I revel in tiny tender delicatas, gnarled hubbards, multi-colored turbans and endless amber cups, butter cups, blue kuris and sweet meats. I am in squash heaven.

As I mentioned before, I eat really simple meals and my take on all this squash bounty is to cut a slab of whatever I’m eating at the moment, set it on a microwave safe plate with a little bit of water and zap it for five minute intervals until tender. Squash rocks like that.