Category Archives: Starting Again

Just Weight – Featherstone Returns

Intro: After a long, long hiatus (or period of forgetfulness, or distractions, or what have you), I am revisiting this project. My original topic (fitness trackers) has long been abandoned. New theme to be determined…soon.

It’s been one hell of a year. Emphasis on hell. Maybe I’ll delve into the hell part at a later time, but today’s focus is on weight and emotional eating and the fallout from terrible grief.

Last year, I embarked on a significant weight loss journey with great success. I mean, really great success. (I did Ideal Protein, which is a fantastic program. You should try it!) I never felt deprived, I was in control, I was powerful. I looked pretty good, too, which is something I haven’t been able to say about myself in, oh, well, over 20 years. Control over what I chose to eat. Control over emotions (hence, emotional eating.) It felt awesome, and boy, was I smug.

The first two months of 2016 weren’t bad. There was promise. New job, big plans for the year. Started the year thin(ish) for the first time in…anyway. Then, I lost my Dad. My brother and I lost our Dad and my mom lost her husband and my kids lost their grandfather and it was sudden and painful and to say that it is sad is understating it immensely and it’s been seven months and it still hurts and sucks and I miss my Daddy so much and I can’t process it and YES, that was the worst run-on sentence ever and it still is, but I don’t care because it is still so painful and raw and I don’t see how I am ever going to be the same. Oh, and that’s the hell part of the year.

But this is about weight and how I absolutely fell apart – or, more accurately, blew up. It shouldn’t matter so much, but we all know it does, and it’s talked about every day in some way or another in some media outlet or another. The mirror doesn’t lie. I now have to face the fact that, aside from a few days or weeks here and there over the past seven months, I channeled my grief into a smorgasbord of carbohydrates. I know better. I’ve done better. If you look at me, though, you don’t see a grieving person. You see Jabba the Hutt.

I started Weight Watchers in August, and had a tiny bit of success for a few weeks. It’s a great program, and I am not here to put it down, but it’s not for me. Too permissive. Too slow. (One week, I lost 0.2 pounds, which I attributed to the fact that I went home and changed into leggings before weigh-in.) What turned me away for good, though, was the first meeting in which I spoke out loud, about six weeks in. I opened up and shared my loss and my struggle with emotional eating and even that I had lost a pound that week despite thinking I’d fallen hard off the wagon. Silence. OK, let’s move on. Then someone announced that they only gained 1/2 a pound that week, but they tracked every day, and the room erupted in applause and I am pretty sure that person got a sticker. That was also my last meeting.

I guess I am saying all this because I have to face it head on and course correct and all sorts of other clichéd expressions. I also need to put it out there because I have been avoiding people like the plague, people I love and care about and miss terribly and need desperately but I don’t want you to see me like this.

Now it’s out there.

We get to erase the slate and reboot soon, and I plan on taking every advantage of that. Stay tuned.

As the New Year Begins

At sundown, we officially enter my favorite time of year. It’s customary fare to take stock of the past year when a new year approaches, and I save that for the calendar new year, sharing highlights of all stripes. For me, I look at this New Year always, always, as a fresh start. And what better timing than right now.

The year of 5776 is not going to start with a bang. No blowy things, no silly hats, no Champagne, no loud parties, no worries about who will kiss me at midnight. This year kicks off with ultrasounds and surgery, with saying goodbye to good friends and facing (brief, I hopefully say) unemployment. In a word: uncertainty. Sure, every day starts with uncertainty, some may argue (I may have even argued this myself). This is different. This is maybe even a little scary. When you don’t know what’s going on inside your own body? When your body, the very one you’ve given extra love and attention over the past six months, the body that’s about 75% of its former size, decides to say, fuck you, you think things are going to be so easy now that you’re smaller? They’re not. NOW pay attention. It’s more like terrifying. And all that makes the thought of having to go out with a sharp new haircut (that’s also coming soon) and a well-tailored new outfit (ditto), flash a winning smile, and tell people why they should hire moi a bit like deciding to become a human impersonator.

Now, it may be scary, but it’s not all bad. Also ahead on the horizon are: a new job (see, I am optimistic and confident!), a new home, a Giants Superbowl win (there’s that optimism again!), and a journey of a lifetime in Poland and Israel. I s’pose slogging through the bad stuff will make all that comes next that much sweeter.

And I am lucky, because I get to celebrate the start of 5776 with the people I love most (though some are miles away). That alone makes the New Year sweet.

I’ll happily be stepping away from the screens for a few days, and looking inward and upward instead. I’ll be starting fresh and doing my best not to repeat stupid mistakes. Most of all, I will let the peaceful, quiet joy that accompanies the start of the New Year take charge and let myself believe, as I take a bite of the apples and honey, that everything really will be all right….’cuz it will.

A sweet, happy, healthy New Year to all.

Second Year, Part One

It’s the end of the summer (I am OK with this) and it’s been a while. I am off the idea of fitness tracker comparisons (I love my Jawbone UP2, anyway, and maybe I’ll talk about it sometime) and I never made it with the recipe integration (I leave this to the experts) so I am just going to go with whatever moves me that day.

Two days ago, I left R Featherstone at school for her second year. (We agree that we prefer “second year” to “sophomore” – the latter of which, when you think about it, does sound sophomoric.) The days before were filled with shopping, not shopping, packing, and, especially, not packing, not to mention reading other people’s Facebook posts about sending their kids off to school for the first time and how (insert powerful emotion here) that felt. Not really me, this year, with the mad posting. We both kind of knew what to expect.

Or did we? We filled the car to the gills, making me take a moment to pat myself on the back yet again for purchasing a monster truck (technically, a midsize, I think, SUV, but to this girl, it’s a monster truck) that would hold almost everything. We had to leave the “micro fridge” at home for the time being as the “micro” portion of it turned out to be a misnomer. Anyway, we’ve packed before, check. And we’ve done the road trip together, check. But what we didn’t pack last year was perspective. Perspective, if not folded neatly, would have filled the entire monster truck. Between the two of us, we had classes, scheduling, finance issues, separation issues (both of us, dare I say), discovering where we needed some extra help, and home and work issues. Layer all this on top of a been there, done that attitude, and some unexpected bubbles emerge.

The three hour drive allowed us time both to talk sans most distractions and get too much coffee. I resisted the urge to lecture on everything (R may disagree) and was able to listen and enjoy hearing from this evolving – gasp – young woman. Not terribly stressful.

What R didn’t know, and maybe won’t until now, is how much I miss her when she’s not around. On occasion, we joke about her staying home, or me camping out in her dorm. It’s great fun. My life sparks when she’s nearby. We’ve got this good thing going, a language of our own, things that make us laugh ’til we’re doubled over. I have fun with her that I simply can’t have with anyone else. All that, I realize, is completely selfish of me. My world may light up when she’s here, but her world blossoms and brims with opportunity when she’s not. Perhaps that’s the most difficult part. Yes, we need each other, but not as much as she needs to grow and explore this crazy, rich world around us. I will always be here, stepping back to let her surge forward, but close enough to grab her hand on this crazy ride – if she’ll let me.

Poking My Toe in the Water Again

A couple months ago, I blurted out, during a “get to know you” exercise, to a colleague that I have a blog (although I didn’t tell him what it was called). Then I remembered I hadn’t written in said blog in quite some time. To give you an idea how long it’s been, when I tried to log in today, I wasn’t even sure I knew the password.

Since this all started with activity trackers, I will pick up where that left off, or would have left off had I left off there. About, oh, like, um, a year ago, I decided that the Next Big Thing for the Featherstone family would be the Lumo Lift. This little device was so tiny and subtle that it would be worn on the – for me, anyway – bra strap. Not only would it track footsteps and all that, but it would – get this – vibrate every time I slouched. (Well, not just me, but the user….anyway.) At last, today, I took mine out of its package (there are two others unopened) and gave it a test run (after I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to attach the thing). I also plugged in my Jawbone UP to see if the two were in synch.

The Jawbone was DOA. Didn’t track a thing, and didn’t respond to my iPhone’s request for data. Fail. The Lumo? Well, it didn’t buzz once unless I set it on “coach” mode, in which case, it didn’t stop buzzing (and I am telling you, I wasn’t slouching that whole time, either). I spent a good part of the time checking to see if it still was attached, or catching it when I fell. Finally, when I was in the mud room getting more paper towels (gotta love this color commentary) it fell off, and it remains there now. It lasted a good, say, seven hours, and I am being generous. Good thing I got it at the advanced sale rate of like $69.

Meanwhile, I had charged up the Fitbit, and found two of the three bands I have for it. Now it’s charged up, tucked into its pink (magenta?) band, and wrapped snugly around my non-dominant wrist. I’ve gotten about 25 steps in before settling into bed and beginning this entry.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend is having an intense Facebook conversation with a woman who found him after 15 or so years. It’s 11:33 pm our time. Whatever.

Anyway, more to the point: I am back on the devices and therefore back here. I’ve also started (four weeks ago, to be exact) a new eating plan, and I am down 17 pounds (insert cheering emoticon here). That feels pretty good. Besides, if I am going to blurt out that I have a blog, I may as well populate said blog. Let’s see what happens.