Plateau Be Gone! Week 4: Mirror-phobia

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Using the traffic light system I've adopted for talking about weight loss, today's result was like getting all the green lights when you're running late for work. I'm really pleased.

Given that I've been living off yoghurt, "Up N Go", weetbix and fish*, I really wasn't sure what the scales would have to say (*soft, squishy braces friendly foods). Eating a lot of fish has been fantastic for my skin. My skin tone is more even and it feels softer, too.

Over the past few weeks I have started to notice that I do look different to how I did at my heaviest. This might seem like a ridiculous thing to say, on paper I am approaching 20 kilos lost but my body is changing faster than my mind.

I am well and truly in the habit of avoiding mirrors and photos. When I was gaining weight it distressed me so much to see my appearance that I had to avoid looking at it in order to be able to go about my daily life. 

At the time I was at my heaviest I worked part time in an office in the CBD. It was a fantastic job but the corporate world is full of mirrors and I couldn't focus on the task at hand when my concentration got interrupted by a sickening feeling induced by my own reflection. The lifts in the building I worked in were fully mirrored from floor to ceiling. I trained myself to focus my eyes on the floor the entire time from walking in to walking out. 

The bathroom is another place that went from being just another room in the house to a site of torment. As well as the main mirror above the vanity, there is a row of mirrored cabinets along the opposite wall that faces the shower. I quickly got into the habit of opening all the cabinets in the bathroom or covering them with towels so that I wouldn't have to see myself without clothes. 

I am very much afraid of my appearance. Gaining weight and being overweight was so overwhelming. A lot of things were not going well in my life, but I felt like I ought to be able to get my weight under control by myself. I couldn't. Every time I saw myself in the mirror or in a photo I felt like a worthless failure. How could someone with my intellect not be able to control something as rudimentary as their weight?

Whilst it was horrible, being very overweight was a great learning experience. It gave me a harsh slap of reality about how much of my identity and self worth was wrapped up in my appearance. I wouldn't have readily called my self a superficial person before, I don't think many people would. However, I really did not have anything close to an honest grasp on how closely I tied how I felt about myself to how I looked. I don't think many people do.

Being fat also helped show me who some of my most valuable friends are. Most people treated me incredibly differently when I was overweight to how they did when I was slimmer. I was particularly shocked at how differently complete strangers reacted to me.

Accepting your own appearance is a challenge for many people, and most women and girls I know are constantly grappling with their body image and self esteem. I think a certainly level of insecurity can be normal but a life ruled by insecurity is barely living at all. One thing I can say with confidence is that the mental part of this weight loss business is much harder than the diet and exercise stuff. 

I think we all place to much importance on appearance full stop. We each read way too much into what it means to be too fat or too skinny. Whilst there are valid health concerns for both category, the fact that we subconsciously make value judgments about each other based on how they look is not right. 

Coaching gymnastics helps to remind me of how important the "self acceptance" part of this process is. Hearing primary school aged girls dissect their appearances makes me sad. It also reminds me that if I want to have a family one day, I ought to learn to accept myself so that I don't teach my children how to hate themselves.

I long for the day where I am no longer horrified by my appearance. I don't feel I need to love my appearance, I just need to be comfortable enough with myself that I don't think about it all the time. These feelings are very slowly just beginning to subside but it was not all that long ago that thinking about how fat I felt was on my mind constantly. 

Whilst the number on the scales continues to decrease at a steady pace, the "fat girl" in my head is only just starting to shrink. With time, I hope that both the "me" on the "inside" and the "me" on the "outside" can both reflect health and contentment. 

Sunday Funday

I will admit, I'm less than inspired to write this evening.

I am a bit tired. The medically based events of this week were less than fun and to be honest, a little upsetting. And thanks to my braces, I have been limited to very soft food this week ( I might turn into yogurt or a banana any second now). My mouth feels like I tried to eat a cheese grater and got little sharp bits stuck on my teeth.

On the bright side, I have a job interview on Friday for a medical reception position. Applying for jobs as a uni student is always fun. Employers are rarely all that accepting of the fact that us uni students are completely at the mercy of the timetabling gods. As far as employers are concerned, uni students are fantastic during the holidays but less than ideal during semester time. 

It would be great to gain some experience in medical administration. I would love to get back into administrative work, it is a much nicer gig than retail. Student jobs are hard to come by at the moment so getting some experience that would increase by future employment prospects would be great. Plus a bit of extra money never goes astray. 

Alex will be officially invested as a Prefect tomorrow at a special assembly at school. He has been memorising his oath with the help of his loving family in front of the cricket on the TV this evening. Granny and Grandpa are going along as well as mum and dad, but apparently it is not a sibling appropriate event (much to my disappointment). It will be especially nice for Granny and Grandpa to see to most recent part of the St Kevin's-Griffin family tradition, a tradition that started with Grandpa and now spans 3 generations. 

Please let me know if you have any ideas for blog post topics or would like me to write about something in particular!

Have a lovely week and I hope to be more inspired by the time I speak to you on Wednesday.

Plateau Be Gone! Week 3

I don't think anyone would really want me to represent my week pictorially, so instead I give you a picture of a funny cat from the internet (not one of mine). 

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It is only Wednesday and I have already had 3 different appointments with health professionals this week. The first one was the orthodontist, who was kind enough to bestow braces upon me. The second one was a radiologist and the third was a medical specialist/ surgeon. The upshot of all of this is that my ability to deal with solid food is somewhat compromised and that I will need to have surgery in March. 

I am less than thrilled with this situation. I also don't want any medical or allied health professionals to come near me for quite a while. I have had a health problem for a while that had been worsening but I kept trying to ignore it and convince myself that nothing was wrong.  I was hoping that the scans would come back normal, alas they did not. On the other hand, I'm glad that there seems to be an identifiable cause for these problems and whilst the condition is unpleasant, it is certainly not life threatening. I'm just not thrilled that addressing them will involve surgery. 

The specialist was fantastic. She was so frank and forthcoming, which I found very helpful. I find it really frustrating when doctors will advise you of your options but will not actually give you their opinion as to which option they think is best. I realise this is a cultural shift as a result of patients complaining that they felt pressured into taking their doctor's preferred course of action, or instances where alternatives have not been clearly explained. 

Whilst I certainly believe in the patient's right to make an informed choice, I don't think this means that doctors should present all options neutrally. From my perspective, I want to know which option my doctor thinks is best and why, given that they have spent all those years studying and practicing medicine and I haven't. I did not feel any pressure to do what my doctor suggested and she presented the alternatives as being legitimate and perfectly acceptable. But by knowing her opinion of the options, I felt that I had a clearer understanding of what she thought would procure the best outcome for me. 

This doctor also emphasised the importance of looking at health holistically. Even though she will operate on one of my body's systems, she talked to me in some depth about the importance of being active, eating well and in particular getting enough sleep. This made me feel validated in the efforts I have made to improve my health, whilst reminding me that there is still some way to go.

I am frustrated. Over the past year I have been trying harder than I ever to be as healthy as I can be. Since I have been doing this I have felt more well and have been sick far less frequently. I guess I have come to expect that because I am putting in the effort to be healthy, I feel in some strange way that I don't "deserve" to have health problems. I know this is not entirely logical and that whilst a healthy lifestyle will improve many things, it will not fix everything. 

I expressed this thought to my mum, who very wisely suggested that I see this surgery as fixing a problem as a part of the health improvement process, rather than a setback. This is now what I will try and do. 

In terms of weight loss, I am satisfied with my efforts this week. I have not been all that well, but I still managed to register a "green light" on the scales. It was not a huge change, but another small but sizable step in the right direction. 

Life is full of challenges, great and small. In order to achieve my goals I don't need to be making earth shattering progress each week, but I do need to make sure I'm always moving in the right direction. A steep part of this learning curve for me has been about making positive steps in instances where I have had a number of legitimate reasons not to. 

My overall goal is to continue to craft myself into the kind of human being that I am proud of being and comfortable to be. Part of that is to continue to develop my resilience and become the kind of person who ceases the opportunity for success in situations where you don't just have an excuse, but a valid reason not to do your best. This is a big challenge, but little victories like this give me the hope that one day I might get there. 

Brace face

I am not exactly looking forward to this week. This is why...

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My braces go on tomorrow. Now that I'm nearly 22, most of my friends have been out of their braces for a few years now if not more. The prospect of having them put on does not exactly fill me with joy and I have been told by Kate to eat as many apples as I can today! Whilst braces will not be fun, knowing how much they cost, I am very aware that they are privilege. Whilst I don't think they will be an enjoyable experience, I am very lucky to have them provided to me. No doubt in a year or so I will be pleased I had them.

I have a number of less than fun activities scheduled for this week. That's life, I guess. Looking on the bright side, I have been allocated 5.5 additional coaching hours a week at the gym. This means extra money, but more importantly; more time spent doing what I love.

I am not looking forward to this week. I know it is not going to be fun and I have been feeling a bit flat and despondent recently. Wish me luck and as they say, "this too shall pass".

Plateau be gone week 2(b): 2 Victories!

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I had a great result with the scales this morning. A "green light" if you like. Whilst this pleased me, I am not declaring the plateau over until I've had 3 or 4 "green light" weeks in a row and left the yellow and red light zone long behind me. 

I decided that I won't be sharing numbers regarding weight loss other than when I reach significant milestones. 

I know that many people, certainly most women, have a complicated relationship with the scales. For me, weighing myself weekly is the most effective way to track my progress and keep myself accountable. I have tried improving my health through monitoring my clothing size and measurements, but this theory only encouraged my denial. I would only wear loose fitting clothes and suck my stomach in when I measured myself and convince myself I'd made progress. 

For me, the factual nature of a number on the scales is very useful. I can't deny my way around it and unless there is an exceptional circumstance (say, "that time of the month") it is accurate and it takes the emotion out of it for me and gives me a piece of evidence that I can work with. Denial is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to my health so this kind of monitoring forces me to be honest with myself.

This is not the case for everyone. For some people it is all too easy for the scales to take over their lives. For others it is just not a healthy or effective source of motivation. Whether you are trying to gain or lose weight or address another aspect of your health or well being, there is much that comes down to the individual. 

I do not believe in "one size fits all" approaches. I think people succeed when they find a way to use their individual behaviour patterns to their advantage and create positive outcomes. 

At the end of the day, I am not a dietitian, a doctor or a psychologist. The purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts, feelings, experiences and opinions, I am certainly not creating the "Eliza Brebner Griffin Diet Plan". I am not here to tell you how to improve your health in any way, I am just sharing how I am going about trying to improve mine.

My greatest victory today, however, was not on the scales. My grandmother's fitness has deteriorated rapidly over the past year or so. She has significant problems with her knees and feet that make walking very difficult and as a result she has become alarmingly sedentary. When I was spending time with her in South Australia I was shocked at how a tiny amount of exercise, say, walking 150 metres, would cause her to wheeze. 

What really distressed me though, was how difficult this made everyday tasks for her. As a widow living on her own, her independence is paramount to her lifestyle. The regression simply had to stop but she has not "got around" to do anything about it herself. To be honest, I think she was scared.

Patsy is a woman of her generation in many, many ways. She was a tennis champion in her youth and an accomplished golfer. She played golf up until my Pa got sick, when she would feel too guilty to go out without him. So until her late seventies, she was very fit for her age.

Shortly after I arrived in Adelaide I told her that by the time I went back to Melbourne, she would have an appointment booked somewhere to get her started on the way to improving her fitness. She swung the full pendulum of being completely mortified to very grateful on the issue, but I was determined that by the time I went home, the "ball would be rolling". 

We decided in the end that a visit to her physiotherapist specifically to discuss her fitness would be the best starting point. Patsy tried to convince me on the day I was leaving to let her make the appointment "tomorrow" but I made her made the appointment in front of me. I noted the appointment time down in my own diary and told her to expect a follow-up call.

When I rang her this morning she told me how the physio had arranged for her to have some sessions in the physio gym with a trainer who will be briefed on her medical history so that he/she is aware of her very real physical limitations. Once she has done some initial work to improve her base fitness, she will be referred onto a program that specializes in low-impact exercise for older people. 

Pasty thanked me for pushing her and admitted to me that she never would have "got around to it" herself.  In her mind and the minds of many her age, the term "exercise" equated to sport, swimming, running and this mysterious place called the "gym". In her mind the gym is somewhere that young people and athletes go; scary, foreign territory.  She was obviously very afraid of what she might have to do to restore her fitness and the environment she might have to venture into.

Today she seemed a bit relieved. Her physio is brilliant and the plan she has designed for Patsy will ease her gently out of her comfort zone, but only has much as is necessary to get her healthy. I think once she gets stuck in she will feel so much better in her daily life. She'll be able to play golf more easily, walk longer distances without as much pain and do basic activities like grocery shopping with greater ease.

I really look forward to Patsy being able to get a greater amount of enjoyment from her life. After all that is what "good health" is all about - being able to live a happy, fulfilling and productive life.

Plateau be gone week 2(a)

I've made the executive decision to change my weigh in day to Wednesday. Sorry to disappoint today but weighing in on the weekend just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in terms of planning my week. If I want to have a day where I indulge a little, it will probably be on the weekend. Jumping on the scales after a "treat day" or whatever you want to call it, isn't all that accurate or that good for my morale. There is also the alliteration of "Weigh In Wednesday", which is just too horribly corny to resist.

All in all I've been pleased with my efforts this week. I was very pleased with my efforts in Adelaide. Once you are determined to find a healthy option on a menu, you can usually create one somehow. South Australian white fish is beautiful, especially King George whiting, which is something I love having when I spend some time further west. By having it grilled rather than fried and asking for the chips to be left off the plate, you find yourself with quite a reasonable meal. 

I was surprised at how much easier it was to make better choices outside of my usual environment. It also made me realise how much I let myself "cheat" at times and that whilst I have changed a fair bit, I still have quite a few mindless habits in my daily routine that hinder me. 

The first thing that became apparent to me was that I am suffering from a mild case of "reward syndrome". Reward syndrome is a fitness industry buzz term for "rewarding" yourself after a hard workout with something you ordinarily wouldn't permit yourself to eat. It is a mentality that generations of people were raised with, as was particularly evident to me after spending time with my grandmother. After a day of gentle activity that was walking 9 holes of golf, she suggesting that night that I had "earned" a dessert. 

This is a classic pitfall of people who are claiming that they want to lose weight and "get healthy" but are better at talking the talk than walking the walk. It is a form of self sabotage and reflects a certain lack of commitment to what you claim to be trying to achieve. 

Now, I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be in this regard,but I found myself thinking "if only I ate this well usually, combined with my usual exercise there'd be no way I'd be stuck in a plateau". That little reflection made me realise that whilst I have come a long way, there is still a way to go. 

I no longer do the direct "I've done this exercise today, so now I can eat this" however the idea of not being able to exercise for 4 days really bothered me. When thinking about why that was I  realised that exercise has become a security blanket for me. I do not pay as much attention to my diet when I'm exercising really hard, which is most of the time. I love working really hard in the gym but it has lulled me into a false sense of security about my food choices.

The plateau puzzled me a little at first, but now I realise that as my fitness has improved, my carbohydrate consumption and my sugar consumption have slowly crept up. I don't intend to cut out either nutrient but I need to do a better job of keeping the amounts of those things I consume in check, 

My trip to Adelaide has given me much inspiration for writing. The health of my Grandmother in her old age is one big topic. Being around her reminded me that diet and exercise should not be something you focus on as a young person just to be skinny; being fit and healthy is so important and has a dramatic impact on your ability to be comfortable and independent in old age.

Be kind to yourselves and I'll talk to you again on Wednesday!

Survivor Wattle Park

I write to you from the study at Patsy's place on a rather aged piece of machinery. I arrived in Adelaide on Monday morning feeling a little weary after being peer pressured by my brother to stay up and watch the Wawrinka v Djokovic 5 setter.

Staying with Patsy is a bit like staying with the Queen, if the Queen were to live in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. I only needed to bring clothes for 4 days, which ordinarily would not be all that much. However, staying with Patsy means having what she deems to be an "appropriate" outfit for every activity that one might undertake. She often changes 3 times a day in order to be "proprerly" dressed.

I have seen a good friend, I have consumed the local water (how did I survive on it for so many years?!) I have been to Victor Harbor, I have golfed and I have been on a 6 hour cruise. I am surviving. I am on the weary side at this stage but I will be going back to Melbourne in a few hours so I'm approaching the finish line of this little voyage.

My time now is limited so I will tell you more of my tales on Sunday.