Jo's Boys

East Meets West: Macrobiotics

My reworking of how I eat (and what, and when, and why) has led me toward more Eastern ways of eating and thinking. 

Now, Christians, espeically southern sorts of Christians, aren't know usually for their embracing of Eastern sorts of ideas/eating patterns, but I am entranced by the harmony of Eastern thoughts. 

My journey toward a healthful eating plan has, as I have blogged before, led me into many different eating forays, such as raw juicing (of fruits and vegetables) and then into raw foodism (eating raw fruits and vegetables almost exclusively) and now, as I've lost pretty much all of the weight I'm going to lose, I'm finding myself drifting toward a more macrobiotic diet.

Not that I'll end up completely macrobiotic.  At least, I don't think that I will.  Eating 50-70% whole grains in my daily diet isn't for me... at least, I don't think it is or will be.  But I'm mindful that my husband, who has lost almost as much weight as I have, will need to eat much more in a macrobiotic fashion than I will, incorporating much more whole grains (such as brown rice, whole oats, barley, etc.) and eating many more legume products than I will.  So, in the knowledge that I will, at some point when he lives with us again, be cooking for him again, I have been reading as much about macrobiotics as I can get my hands on.

Which is why I'm blogging about this prior to finishing my autobiographical meandering about my what is now 85 pound weight loss:  I checked a book out of the library and I need to take it back this afternoon, and I wanted to blog about it.

Unfortunately for us, my husband's immediate family, gathered together and lumped into a ball of people, seem to have had (and died of) every form of cancer on this earth.  No joke.  So I've been reading about not only how to eat well and healthfully (and lose weight, etc.) but also to stave off (or do our best to stave off) cancer.

 

I love the simple mindfulness of the Eastern way of living (and eating).  And in his book, Michio Kushi has a very nice entry about how we can reflect:

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"To establish genuine health, we must rethink our basic outlook on life... Self - reflection involves using our higher consciousness to observe, review, examine, and judge our thoughts and behavior as well as contemplate the larger order of nature or what we might call the law of God... Self-reflection may take many forms, including a short period each day in quiet meditation or prayer.  Questions we might ask and areas we might seek guidance in include the following:

1.) Did I eat today in harmony with my environment?

2.) Did I think of my parents, relatives, teachers, and elders with love and respect?

3.)  Did I happily greet everyone today and express an interest in their life?

4.)  Did I contemplate the sky, the trees, and the flowers and marvel at the wonders of nature?

5.)  Did I thank everyone and appreciate everything I experienced today?

6.)  Did I perform my tasks faithfully and thereby contribute to a more peaceful world?"

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I've been trying very hard to find peace in the midst of daily activities that are cyclical and neverending.  Feeding the children and pets, cleaning up the kitchen, reading alound, having the children do their work, feeding them again, cleaning the kitchen again, doing the laundry, cleaning/tidying, having the children clean/tidy, facilitating their showers/baths, etc... all of these activities are cyclical and go on over and over again, day in and day out.  It is incumbent upon me to try to carve out time to relax, reflect and rejuvenate (or at least try to).  I'm thinking that this is going to be the bedrock of peace and calm in the midst of the storm.

In Which I Will Actually Cook Bacon

To begin with, I will freely admit to always being jealous of Jeni's Blog Titles .  They're so witty ~ or they used to be when she was blogging ~ that I'd always wish that I had thought to use "In Which" and then title everything else as a continuation. 

Well, now that she's not blogging at the moment, and to remind her that she needs to continue blogging, I will plagiarize her signature blog titles for a while.  Because she's not using them.

Now, bacon is a particularly noxious substance.  I mean, the stuff is just GROSS.  When I cook it on the stove, it splatters absolutely EVERYWHERE and even pops and crackles and tosses grease all over my kitchen (and arms and clothing).  I've even been burned while cooking bacon on the stovetop!!  No, no, no, I told the 13 year old.  No more bacon for you. 

But the problem is that my 13 year old son LOVES bacon.  So I knew that I had to find a compromise. 

So I went online and found the solution!

Did you know that you can cook bacon in the oven? 

Even better: did you know that you can cook bacon in the oven on parchment paper?  And then throw all the parchment paper away and the grease with it?

Oh happy, happy day.

So I take a shallow jelly roll pan (has small sides but sides nonetheless, as opposed to a cookie sheet) and I cover it completely with parchment paper.  Then I put on the dish gloves because I can't STAND to even TOUCH bacon because then the nasty bacon smell gets all over my hands and won't come off.  (Ew!  Ew!!!)

Then I pop the bacon in the oven at 350 for about 13 minutes and voila! 

Bacon for the 13 year old. 

It's  a happy 13 year old. 

And to clean up, you just fold up the parchment paper and you're done!

It's a beautiful thing. 

Me and My Attitude

On the last post, Jeni sounded absolutely shocked and doubted that I could actually, truly be the author of my latest blog posts, since they sounded grateful. 

GULP!

I suppose my blog, in earlier times, must have been a bastion of ungratefulness and crankiness or something.  That was never my intent!  Even a cursory reading of the Old Testament will show even the simplest-minded reader that ungratefulness is a grevious, glaring sin and that being unhappy in one's circumstances is akin to rebellion against God. 

Speaking of the Old Testament, I've inherited (after begging and begging for it) the absolute BEST and I mean the BEST BEST BEST adaptation of the Bible for children on the planet. My grandparents had it on their shelves, having been given it when my mother was born, and my grandmother passed it on to me and I've been reading it to the children.  My WORD what and EXCELLENT EXCELLENT book:

I just can't even tell you what a wonderful book this is.  Now, my copy is different from this copy - it's older - but I can't imagine that my copy is much (or any?) different from this one.   Hurlbut's Story of the Bible - just amazing.   And it's HUGE.  And we've been reading through it for quite a while.  It's so very thorough - especially the stories in the Old Testament that most Bible translations leave out or gloss over.  And it just really places a great deal of weight on the moral/theological lessons behind the stories.  What a gem.

Anyway, so I'm sorry if my former blogging habits have sounded so - I don't know - whiny or selfish.  I'm trying to work on that.

Speaking of wonderful books, I really love it when people blog about what they're reading to their children (or what their children are reading), so here's another book we just finished that my sons both LOVED:'

The Devil's Storybook by Natalie Babbitt (yes, I stole the image from Amazon). 

And can I just say that Natalie Babbitt is an excellent author?  The children loved listening to Tuck Everlasting (I didn't listen or read it and so, I can't comment, but I watched the movie and found it to be touching).   I was actually hesitant at first to read this to them because I thought- well- are we supposed to be reading about the Devil?  But it's pretty much a set of trickster tales and the boys just LOVED it. Thankfully, there's another one that she wrote and that one is coming, also, from the library- The Devil's Other Storybook - and every day my little one asks if it's in yet.   That's high praise for a book. 

It's Been A Year

Today is a strange, bizarre and sad anniversary for me and my husband, for as of today my husband has now been away from us for a year. 

(Background: if you're new here, my husband took a new job back when houses were actually selling in our area and then the market CRASHED.  We couldn't sell our house and so he's stuck out in Portland, Oregon and we're stuck here in Florida because our house won't sell.  And, thus far, there aren't any jobs back here.)

A year ago, we were full of hope.  An exciting new adventure!  The house was going to sell and we were going to move across the world (well, from Florida to Oregon) and start a new life somewhere without cockroaches.

'Twas not meant to be.

He's gotten to visit us every couple of months, but that's not a whole lot, you know?  And the truth of the matter is that I'm very, very lucky that we're only in the situation that we're in, because hey:

1.)  He could be away for a year FIGHTING A WAR

2.)  We could be in severe financial ruin, like another family in our subdivision that put their house on the market a few months before we did and immediately BOUGHT ANOTHER HOUSE (dumb!).  They can't sell the first house here in our neighborhood and now the husband was LAID OFF from his new job (yikes!) so now they have the new house that they bought on the market, too, and it's not selling either!  So they have two houses on the market (neither of which will sell) and they've cashed in the husband's entire 401k and he got laid off and they're about to have to declare bankruptcy.  Wow.  I'm sure glad that's not us. 

3.)  All of us are healthy, albeit lonely for one another, but you can't fix health problems with a new job. 

So, it's been a year. 

A whole year.

A whole, entire year of me homeschooling the children All. By. Myself. 

Yep. 

Just me.

All alone.

Here.

::crickets chirping::

So what has this year taught me?

I've learned how to be reallllllllly self-sufficient. 

I've made routines for keeping the house clean.  This is a big deal, actually.  I didn't used to have routines, and having to keep the house perfectly clean when it was on the market taught me how to have clean-house routines.

I've learned that no, I won't die if my husband is away.  I used to think that life would end if he wasn't here every night.  A couple of years ago, I thought he was going to have to leave for a week (a WEEK!  HA!!) for a training seminar and I totally had a freakout cow.  A WEEK!?!  A whole WEEK!!???  How was I going to survive!?!?!

*snort*

I learned that making dinner sucks.  And it actually sucks even worse when there's one adult in the house.  So I stopped making meals and we started eating much, much differently.  The children and I eat tons and tons of fruit, for example.  Our grocery bill has thanked us.  And this is probably going to be a permanent feature in our lives, because I will NOT go back to starting dinner at 3 and cleaning up after 9 and having everything in between be about cooking, eating and cleaning up after FOOD.  Screw that. 

I also learned that it's easier to lose weight when you're not cooking for a husband.  For real.   And my husband learned that it's easier to lose weight when your wife isn't cooking for you.  Because here in Florida, I lost 64 of the 83 pounds I've been talking about in this past year, and he's lost 64 pounds, so if you total that up:

My husband and I have lost 128 pounds this past year. 

And it was only because we weren't together.  Because when we're together, I cook and we eat.  So we'll have to work through that when he lives with us again.  Which will hopefully happen in our lifetimes. 

I learned that I have to be patient and wait for what God has in store.  I have no idea what the HELL IT IS but I'm just sort of sitting here and waiting.  Which is different than what I did even a couple of months ago.  Even a couple of months ago, I was frantic and freaked out.  Now I'm sort of mellow and resigned.  At this point, I really do feel like whatever is meant to happen will happen and whatever isn't supposed to happen won't happen and there's no sense in stressing out over it. 

The children and I are well fed and comfortable here in our home that will never sell.  I'm thankful for the things that we have.

83 Pounds ~ The Great Weight Blog Entry, Volume 1

It seems wrong, somehow, to write up a post that talks about how much weight I've lost but not include pictures.  You have to understand, dear Reader, that everything is packed.  (Not that we're moving.  It's just that I don't have the heart to unpack.  Because we're not moving.  Because we can't sell the house.  And yes, my husband is still in Portland, Oregon.  And as of tomorrow he will have been gone A YEAR.) 

I can recall the existence of a few totally HIDEOUS pictures of me that were taken when I was 83 pounds heavier and I'll have to search for them.  Mostly, at that time, I threatened anyone and everyone with immediate death if they took pictures of me, so there really aren't but one or two shots of me from that time. 

In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it.   

I hesitate to give exact figures because... well... that's just difficult for me to do, but I don't mind giving BMI figures because that's less personal and, after all, it's not like I'm telling you my weight!   :)

When I was at my heaviest two years ago, my BMI was  32.7.

That's really pretty high.

(FYI -

Here's a really good site that discusses calorie usage, BMI and such.

Also here's another BMI related site.)

Anyhow, according to everything, a BMI of 32.7 is "obese."

At that weight, I was actually only about 16 pounds away from being "severely obese."

It showed not only on my frame, but also in my blood tests.  More on that in a second.

At this point, I'm at a BMI of 18.8.  One of those sites call this BMI "underweight" but it's not.  Other sites discuss how a BMI from 18.5 and up is normal.  But I'm not paying a whole lot of attention, because I was also trying to lose weight not just to get slimmer but also to normalize my abnormal blood test results.   The two goals are very separate. 

I'm in my early 30s, so to have abnormal blood tests (for which the Dr wanted to medicate me!) scared me half to death.  There are diabetes, cancer and heart disease in my family, so three years ago when my blood tests were:

2004 Blood Tests

Total Cholesterol:  206 (normal 100-199)
Triglycerides:  252 (normal 0-149)
HDL:  37 (normal 40-59)
LDL:  119 (normal 0-99)
Triglycerides / HDL:  6.8 (ratio should be less than 2)
HDL / total cholesterol:  .179 (normal should be greater than .24)

I was stunned. 

I had performed these blood tests courtesy of State Farm, who was trying to figure out whether or not I was going to die within the next 20 years, statistically speaking.  I had not anticipated such awful numbers. 

I trolled the internet looking for information and found out that I met 3 out of 5 of the "Metabolic Syndrome" indicators, which meant that I had "Metabolic Syndrome":

Metabolic Syndrome

1.)  A waist measurement of more than 35 inches for women (for men it's greater than 40) ~ check

2.)  Triglycerides greater than 150 (wow, did I ever meet THAT requirement in spades!)

3.)  HDL less than 40 (check!)

4.)   Blood pressure greater than 130/85 (mine was getting close)

5.)  Fasting blood sugar greater than 100 (thankfully, this was the only one where I was okay, since diabetes is incredibly strong in my family).

But I had three out of five of the indicators and I was a stone's throw away from having four.  I officially had Metabolic Syndrome, which meant that I was at an increased risk for diabetes and heart disease, which are both strong in my family's line.  At THIRTY!!!   Yikes!!

This was a severe wake up call... but I had no idea what to do about it.  To say that normal everyday doctors don't help you figure out how to really, truly handle these problems is an understatement.  They wanted to put me on cholesterol-lowering medication (the 29 year old P.A. that talked to me is on it herself and told me how it was "no big deal!") but these sorts of medications, of course, come with possible side-effects, get metabolized through the liver, etc., and I didn't want any part of it. 

But I was stuck, because the only diet in my life that had EVER worked for me was the Atkins diet.  Every time I had a baby, I had to use Atkins in order to come even remotely close to losing the extra pounds.  I would literally eat bacon and cream cheese, like a good little Atkins girl, because I had to do the "fat fast for the Fat Fast" since it was so dadgum hard to lose weight (if you've ever been a faithful Atkins diet book reader, you'll know what I'm talking about).  So I would dutifully nurse my block of cream cheese throughout the day, knowing that it was all I could do to lose the weight.  I look back on that now and just shudder. 

But you cannot nurse a block of cream cheese all day long if you have insanely high cholesterol.  Oh sure, I bought the garbage in the Atkins books about how eating bacon and cream cheese was actually good for your heart, but as I did research I found that all the other health studies showed that animal products are insanely bad for you -let alone bacon and cream cheese - and that vegetables and fruits are what are good for you.  But I was in despair, for how could I possibly ever lose weight on fruits and vegetables when everyone KNOWS that carbs are bad and make you gain weight? 

I had twelve years of Atkins dieting brain that I had to reprogram.  And it took a LOOOOOOOOONG time. 

I will say that the first 5 pounds was very easy to lose by doing not a whole lot.  I think I caught a cold and then a stomach flu or something from my kids and between those one day I stepped on the scale, noticed some pounds were missing, and felt a tiny sense of joy and hope.  It's absolutely amazing what a little weight loss feels like in the beginning, because when you think of how much you want to lose, the very idea of it was overwhelming.  At that point, I was 63 pounds heavier than I had been in high school and college and even when I was working at a career full time (it's so much easier to pile on the pounds as a stay-at-home-mom.  Life is so stressful and it's like- - I'll kill you if you come between me and that plate of cookies, I swear I will!)

So at that point, I just wanted to lose the 63 pounds that would get me back to what I considered normal.  Never, ever, in my wildest dreams did I think that I could make it... and if you'd told me that I could make it and surpass it I would have laughed out loud at you.  And then probably eaten a whole stack of Oreos out of despair.  (Which would bring up a whole 'nother thing about sugary food addictions, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.)

At that time, I was on the phone frequently with a dear, sweet soul that for some reason has stopped blogging.   She, also, was trying to stay away from sugar and eat well (though she didn't need to lose weight and has a totally darling figure) and she discussed with me different tactics she was using to increase her health.  She had a juicer and she juiced fresh vegetables and fruits, often in combination, and pointed me in the direction of some websites that discussed it.    

Since I was aiming for a total reversal of blood test problems AND weight loss, and since my dieting background (a la Atkins) was always extreme, I grasped onto juicing and held on tight.  I bought a juicer (thankfully, from Williams Sonoma so that when I hated the juicer because of a multitude of its juicer sins I was allowed to return it because Williams Sonoma is a totally awesome store and they stand behind their products) and dove right in. 

Success!  Well, and failure.  The success was that I started losing weight.  The failure was that I was ALWAYS HUNGRY.  Fresh juice, while really healthful and good for you, kept me from being voraciously starving for all of a half hour or so... and, of course, since I'm used to dieting extremes I had to go all out and pretty much "juice fast."  I'm sure that if you incorporate jucing into a wonderful diet regimen you would have a much easier time of it but, again, all I am is dieting extremes.

But I was losing weight!!  And it was much better to lose weight by juicing than it was to lose weight with a daily block of cream cheese.  So more success than failure, especially since "juice fasting" really helped me reset what I craved.  The juice helped me increase my tastes for fruits and vegetables, since those had never, ever been anything I cared about in the past.  And now, all of a sudden I was juicing produce I'd never even heard of, let alone eaten before! 

I was doing all of my shopping in the produce section of the grocery store- and I usually just walked on past that stuff.  So the juicing part of my diet journey really did help set the stage for where I ended up, because if I hadn't begun juicing I never would have ended up losing weight the way I have been for a year.  Juicing helped me begin to break some of my food addictions (bread/sugar/chocolate) and gave me a framework to keep looking for a healthful diet that I could lose weight on.  Prior to juicing and Jeni, I had no hope. 

Tune in next time, when I go from juicing to what I'm doing now!  :) 

Hints:

Eat to Live by Joel Furhman

Disease Proof - the Eat to Live Website

The World's Healthiest Foods

Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition - or CRON for short - which teaches you how to eat what you need to eat and why

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Oh, and for those who may read this who are at the beginning of their weight loss journey, I wanted to include the following:

I think it's pretty notable that, even after losing 83 pounds, I can see a difference in myself but, to me, it's not that much.  I will not say that I still think I am fat, for I do not think that I am still "fat" or "overweight."  I'm not quite sure what I thought I'd look like after losing a lot of weight, but I think that, even when we lose weight, our inherent bodily flaws are still there.

After the weight loss, I still have the flabby kangaroo extra-skin pouch and the stretch mark remains on my tummy.  That's always the part that I've hated.  I've given birth to six children and one set was triplets who were polyhydramnios (way too much extra fluid - and just in case you're new to my blog, they didn't survive for long after birth) and so my entire abdominal area took a SEVERE beating.  From the emergency c section (hip to hip, that was closed with SIX STAPLES) to the total trashing of my stomach muscles and skin, I suppose I figured that losing weight would help make that area less... I don't know... gross and scary.  It has not worked out that way. 

So the lesson I've learned that I would like to try to pass on-- inherent bodily flaws are STILL THERE for me, even after profound weight loss.

A picture for you

It's been a while since I've posted any pictures ~

My children are getting big!

A pertinent verse (or two)

Habakkuk has a wonderful verse that is quite applicable to my life right now ~ at least, it's a wonderful verse that I am trying to live out in my life right now:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

~Habakkuk 3:17-18

There is a wonderful blog entry that I found about this verse.

I'm so very glad that I am Reformed.  I absolutely could not handle my life right now if I were not.  I simply do not know how people make it through rough times without strong faith.

I would love to blog more, but it would all sound whiny.  How unattractive would THAT be?

(Very.)      

Ravenclaw?! Whoda Thunk...

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

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Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

Hi Guys!

Thank you all so very much for your very, very sweet comments.

I actually had NO CLUE that people were still checking in here.  I certainly do not deserve to have anyone come by, since I never seem to update!  But I will try to be better about that.

But not right now!  For some reason, I am having a wicked time with my computer tonight.  This probably has something to do with the fact that Oldest has been playing all manner of online adventure games lately and everything I am typing seems to get messed up.  So I have to shut down the computer and start over.

Read any good books lately?  I have listened to two on CD (while in the car going from place to place) that were WONDERFUL. 

~  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

What a FABULOUS story.  I absolutely adore this genre- sort of like a lower key Angela's Ashes (which was also phenomenal).   I was truly depressed when the story ended and then I was even MORE depressed to hear that there was no sequel!!!!   

~ The Glass Castle by Jeanette something or other (I am so lazy tonight!).  Walls, maybe?  Anyway, it was a wonderful story but do be careful - there's a drunk father in the story and he uses some seriously foul language from time to time. 

There seems to be some debate as to how much of TGC is strictly autobiographic and how much might have been fictionalized but I don't care - it was a great story. 

Yes, I am still married...

I have to remind myself this over and over again sometimes. 

Okay!  Just in case anyone at all is still reading my blog (Bueller?  Bueller?) ~

I wanted to come on and post and say Hi, I'm still alive, etc.

Let's see... some stats are now in order:

• My husband has been gone for nine and a half months.  He got to come home last month and see us for two days.  This month he gets to come home and see us for three days.  He's already been told that he doesn't get to come home at all in August.
• The bottom fell right out of the housing market.   We've pretty much given up all hope of selling the house.  We're trying to regroup and see what our options are.  We don't have a lot of them.  For now, he's out there and we're out here and he pretty much never gets to see us.
• He missed our 10th wedding anniversary, my birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween and all federal holidays in between
• The children and I are just now starting to get back into the groove of homeschooling and such without him.  I think the absolute shock of having him gone has worn away a bit and now we're trying to transition from "trying to cope day by day" to "trying to bloom where we've been planted."  It's a subtle distinction, but I'm hopeful that we'll make it.
• I've now lost 63 pounds in the last two years, 40 of which have been since my husband left 9 1/2 months ago.  Go me!  Except that losing weight sucks royal.

I took this DARLING little online quiz, thanks to Jen Ig, who is just wonderful and fabulous and her blog is such a blessing (see sidebars), and I found out that my wonderful husband is, in fact, EXACTLY like Col. Brandon. 

Except that he didn't come into our marriage with a random love child.  Which is always a bonus. (And, you know, my copy of S&S is packed and I'm sitting here racking my brain trying to recall whether or not the book actually has the girl being Brandon's or not.)

But I have always adored the character of Col. Brandon and yes, he's just like my husband.  Quiet, kind and sort of unassuming yet very strong when circumstances demand.  Very, very into duty.  Yep, I'm married to Professor Snape (Whoops!  Wrong movie!) Col. Brandon.  :)

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You scored as Col. Brandon, Your husband/boyfriend is most like Col. Brandon of Sense & Sensibility!  He is very attuned to your tastes and enjoys sharing them with you.  While he resists being flashy, he is very generous, though he will never be overbearing, even if he is correct.  The two of you engage in many pursuits together and enjoy a romantic, steady relationship. Col. Brandon 90% Darcy 75% Edward Ferrars 65% Edmund Bertram 55% Tilney 30% Captain Wentworth 25% Knightley 25% Who is Your Jane Austen Boyfriend/Husband? created with QuizFarm.com

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