Darn. This just stinks. I thought I had it this time. I needed to lose weight again, Ok, the honest truth is more often then not I need to lose more then a few pounds. I am not one of these women who 'forget' to eat or who are 'just stuffed' after having one slice of thin crust pizza. I love food. I love good food. Forget candy and Twinkies and potato chips. I love making a cake from scratch and homemade schnitzel and anything with herbs that has to rise. So when a friend commented that she had lost 15 lbs just by taking a weight lose pill I was on board. I have done my share of diets, with success, but as I near 50 it gets harder to get the weight off and then it seems to come back on all the faster when I am not diligent. I am already a big exerciser so this was not my ticket to skinnytown. In fact I have often wondered while doing my twice weekly 4 mile run how fat I would actually be if I didn't exercise. This pill was my e-ride back to hipbones.
Hipbones. I remember those. I, unfortunately, distinctly remember a day at the beach when I was 21. I was laying on my back, covered in baby oil and happened to lift my head and look down at my toes. OMG (ok, we didn't say that 'back then' either but that is what I was thinking) I could see DOWN THE FRONT OF MY BIKINI BOTTOM! My bikini was stretched across my hipbones and my stomach was so flat- yes, actually CONCAVE- that I could see down my bottoms. I quickly looked around, especially behind me to make sure no one else was looking down the front of my bottoms too! Skinny and dumb. Those were the days!
Anyway, again I digress. My diet pill. Possible side effects sounded worse then being 30 lbs overweight. Possible accidents- might want to wear a pad, stomach pain, frequent and urgent trips to the bathroom- they suggest taking while you know you can spend a few days at home. Wow, how could you not lose weight with this going on. Kind of like having the flu and not only knowing when you are getting it but signing on. Call me desperate but... sign me up. I found a weekend when we had no plans and popped a pill with my dinner Friday night and then hung near the restroom waiting for my side effects to begin. Well, almost hoping they would as that would show this was having an effect on me. Saturday, woke up and took a pill with breakfast and worked out at home skipping my Zumba class. Nothing. Pill and lunch. Dinner and another pill. Went to bed but left the light on in the bathroom, just in case. Woke up having slept through the night. Didn't even get up to pee. Did they say something about kidney damage? Sunday came and went with no activity as well. Wait, there was NO activity. Are you kidding me- how can I lose weight if I don't even drop one kid off at the pool? I get constipated on this pill that promises such drastic bowel issues. This isn't fair! I was counting on a weekend in the bathroom. I was hoping to rent my food. A whole week goes by and I have to increase my coffee intake just be be 'normal'.
I gave it two weeks. I owed it to my hipbones.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
My mom.
I had no other choice but to be an awesome woman, my mom set the bar pretty high. The sad part is that she looks at me and at times sees what she thinks are her mistakes. I think far from this. When I was born my mom was really sick. Did not recover from my birth and the Doctors even told my Dad to pick out a coffin and to consider leaving me with the nuns as they already had a 15 month old at home. Instead, I lived my first months with my grandparents until my mom recovered and was back on her feet. This past summer, as a woman in her 60's and me in my late 40's she confided to me with tears in her eyes that she has always felt guilty about this choice and feels terrible that I don't have the connections with our immediate family like my siblings all do.
Funny how I don't see it this way. First of all, she did her best in that situation and I don't see how she had any other choice. Secondly, I needed love and attention which my grandparents gave me and were able to focus on just me. Lastly, my brother was attached to her and would have had more difficulty had he been away from her. I would have done the same thing.
What I do see are the gifts my mother gave me. My mom was a slender, active, attractive, Jackie Kennedy type young mom. Pictures of her when we were toddlers are amazing. My mom had it together even when she had 3 kids 3 and under, and then later a fourth.
Up until the time we were in junior high my mom was a stay at home mom. I remember her face watching at the door as we walked up the street to school. Shopping at the day old bread store. Mom going over our homework and grades sitting at the kitchen table with her cup of coffee. (years later I found out she didn't drink coffee she was having a coke but didn't want us to know) I remember the dresses she made for us, matching hers most of the time. Her friends coming over to play bridge in the afternoon. Letting us make homemade donuts even when lit the linoleum on fire. The way she picked up the house and applied fresh lipstick just before my Dad came home.
My mom let us be kids. We spent summers at the lake complete with every motorized land and water gizmo invented. She water skied with us into her 50's. We went tobogganing in the winter coming home to a warm fire and hot chocolate even though she was right there with us on the toboggan. We watched the Wizard of Oz with huge bowls of popcorn and malts EVERY year even though we woke up with flying monkey nightmares for weeks after. Summers were spent outside ALL day with the caveat that we had to be in the house when the street lights came on. We made lightning bug rings, clover crowns and spent evenings playing kick the can with 30 of our closest neighborhood friends. We went to church, and dressing up to go every time. Every week we went to our grandparents house, pretended to fall asleep in the car on the way home, JUST so Mom and Dad would carry us up to bed and let us sleep in our clothes
As we got older my mom went back to work. She is an intelligent, creative person who was ready to put this into play outside the home. She was a temp for a while, describing each new experience and how fun each job was. Her confidence and ability to go back to work, and in a meaningful, important position after years of being home raising her kids sent me the message that she could, and wanted to, spend time with us as our mother but could also contribute outside our home as well. When I did the same thing a few years ago I didn't realize how hard it was when she made it look so easy. I was in turmoil not knowing who I was or what I wanted after so many years of knowing exactly who I was and where I was going.
My mom had, and still has, a large group of friends and even closer handful of really good friends. Her closest friends are the same she has had since those bridge playing days from 40 years ago. She is a wonderful, caring daughter to my elderly grandparents (who are still alive) an incredible sister to my uncles, a loving grandmother to my kids and their cousins. My Dad is lucky to have her but he isn't too bad himself.
My mom has given me so many gifts and they all started with her first gift of allowing herself to heal (and live) and me to be loved by people who loved us both, my grandparents, so she could be around to do all the things that came in the years to follow. Mom, I love you and your first gift was that you loved me enough to make sure you could give of yourself for years to come.
Funny how I don't see it this way. First of all, she did her best in that situation and I don't see how she had any other choice. Secondly, I needed love and attention which my grandparents gave me and were able to focus on just me. Lastly, my brother was attached to her and would have had more difficulty had he been away from her. I would have done the same thing.
What I do see are the gifts my mother gave me. My mom was a slender, active, attractive, Jackie Kennedy type young mom. Pictures of her when we were toddlers are amazing. My mom had it together even when she had 3 kids 3 and under, and then later a fourth.
Up until the time we were in junior high my mom was a stay at home mom. I remember her face watching at the door as we walked up the street to school. Shopping at the day old bread store. Mom going over our homework and grades sitting at the kitchen table with her cup of coffee. (years later I found out she didn't drink coffee she was having a coke but didn't want us to know) I remember the dresses she made for us, matching hers most of the time. Her friends coming over to play bridge in the afternoon. Letting us make homemade donuts even when lit the linoleum on fire. The way she picked up the house and applied fresh lipstick just before my Dad came home.
My mom let us be kids. We spent summers at the lake complete with every motorized land and water gizmo invented. She water skied with us into her 50's. We went tobogganing in the winter coming home to a warm fire and hot chocolate even though she was right there with us on the toboggan. We watched the Wizard of Oz with huge bowls of popcorn and malts EVERY year even though we woke up with flying monkey nightmares for weeks after. Summers were spent outside ALL day with the caveat that we had to be in the house when the street lights came on. We made lightning bug rings, clover crowns and spent evenings playing kick the can with 30 of our closest neighborhood friends. We went to church, and dressing up to go every time. Every week we went to our grandparents house, pretended to fall asleep in the car on the way home, JUST so Mom and Dad would carry us up to bed and let us sleep in our clothes
As we got older my mom went back to work. She is an intelligent, creative person who was ready to put this into play outside the home. She was a temp for a while, describing each new experience and how fun each job was. Her confidence and ability to go back to work, and in a meaningful, important position after years of being home raising her kids sent me the message that she could, and wanted to, spend time with us as our mother but could also contribute outside our home as well. When I did the same thing a few years ago I didn't realize how hard it was when she made it look so easy. I was in turmoil not knowing who I was or what I wanted after so many years of knowing exactly who I was and where I was going.
My mom had, and still has, a large group of friends and even closer handful of really good friends. Her closest friends are the same she has had since those bridge playing days from 40 years ago. She is a wonderful, caring daughter to my elderly grandparents (who are still alive) an incredible sister to my uncles, a loving grandmother to my kids and their cousins. My Dad is lucky to have her but he isn't too bad himself.
My mom has given me so many gifts and they all started with her first gift of allowing herself to heal (and live) and me to be loved by people who loved us both, my grandparents, so she could be around to do all the things that came in the years to follow. Mom, I love you and your first gift was that you loved me enough to make sure you could give of yourself for years to come.
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