Debbish

Day 1

May 24, 20104 min read

So, I rocked up to the first one-on-one meeting yesterday feeling quite nervous. I had been on the scales at home. I was going to tell them (the WW consultant) that I didn’t want to know what I weighed in case I had gained a significant amount in the past week (you never know!) AND of course you have to wear shoes for health-related reasons…. But I kinda knew what to expect because I had weighed at home so when I obsess in one-week’s time and get on the scales (constantly) in the lead up to the first weigh-in I will know what to expect.

Anyway, the woman I saw was nice enough. I jumped in early and highlighted my disdain for the usual WW banter. She was pretty good, though did rabbit on a bit about ‘why’ I was doing it. Of course I said I was doing it to lose weight. Then I got a bit more honest and said it was to fit into decent clothes; not despise myself quite so much; have a man vaguely interested in me; and possibly have sex sometime in the next decade. But – bzzzz – wrong answer apparently. I am apparently doing this for ‘me’. Whatever!

So, according to the WW scales (clothed and with sandshoes) I was 132.5kgs.

Because I had done this all before the consultant was fairly speedy in going through the program. Even though I haven’t participated in WW for about 7 years, it seems they are still counting points – though they have changed – requiring me to procure a whole heap of new resources.

Given my age, weight and level of exercise (barely anything at the moment) I can eat up to 25 points a day. Definitely no less than 18 points and if I save any I can bank them for a splurge later in the week.

All in all, the appointment went smoothly and my gag reflex didn’t kick in at all. And, in an attempt to ensure I stick at it, I bought 13 weeks worth of passes. Just in case.

Of course I had already bought corn chips to binge on before starting today. I was tempted to go all-out and get some chocolate etc, but decided to refrain. Corn chips it was. (Oh, and wine. And champagne, though only a bit of each cos it was a school night!). As I contemplated this I was conscious of having done it before. The diet-mentality…. Binging on as much as possible because I was starting my diet the next day and then wouldn’t be able to eat these yummy things.

Of course the WW rhetoric suggests that you can eat whatever you want, as long as you build it into your points total. They obviously don’t know that I can eat 4 family-sized blocks of chocolate in a binge. Or two bags of corn chips….

Corn chips consumed, Day 1 dawned and I had worked out that I could pretty much eat what I usually eat during the day. Daytime at work is never my problem. I am coeliac which can be a problem in terms of accessing easy takeaways, so I take my lunch every day.

I breakfasted – as usual – on toast, with a slice of almost-fat-free bacon and an egg. Yay! I calculated that to be about 5 WW points. I then survived until lunch when I had leftover mince (from Spaghetti Bolognese, though I had eaten all of the pasta previously) for about 6 points.

Of course I was supposed to do some exercise on my arrival home after work, but laziness set in. Also it was dark and miserable, so I consoled myself with some champagne (diluted with soda water) in the bathtub – reading a WW magazine – instead. So, not all bad?! And, the consultant I saw yesterday said not to worry about exercise for about 3 weeks….which (knowing me) is all of the permission I need!

I am currently cooking dinner and decided on a recipe from the Week 1 book – a chicken and noodle soup. I figure it is low calorie (4 points max!) and allows me to fit in a few wines. I know that is the wrong thing to do, but will probably need to wean myself off of my evening wines. I recall doing WW previously and getting to a point when I decided I preferred the extra rice rather than the wine. But, as it is only day 1 (and I am trying to assuage the not-exercising guilt) I will give myself a break.

I will aim to post every day (or as close to that as possible). Hopefully the posts won’t always be this long (it is almost time to watch ‘The Mentalist’; and I vowed to try to eat before 8.30pm!).

I hope writing my thoughts down will keep me conscious of what I am doing. The biggest challenge will be the fact that I have a significant amount of weight to lose. I have been there before. I recall how exciting it is to lose weight and feel great – only to then remember you have 20 more kilograms to go. Coming home on the bus this evening I was sitting there, with this thing-that-is-not-a-diet playing on my mind and before I could stop the thought I wondered if anyone noticed my weight loss. I had to remind myself that I was only just starting. I have to be conscious that my mind and my fantasies get ahead of me and in my mind I have already lost kilos and kilos.

But….. it is just Day one, and there are many more to come.

D-day

May 18, 20104 min read

Today is the day. D-day. Diet number 1,754,343. Or at least that’s how it feels. If you read my backstory you will see that I’ve tried them all. I’ve even tried not-dieting in an attempt to lose weight.

I have spent much money in pursuit of a body that will attract minimal attention in the street; a body that will blend in with the myriad of others going about their business rather than one that may garner a shudder of distaste.

I know, from my 42 years on this earth and my 30-odd years of gaining and losing weight, that dieting doesn’t work. I know that one should make sustainable lifestyle changes. I have tried that as well.

But I am struggling. It’s easy to make excuses and I am as expert as any weight-watcher at doing so. I justify eating junk or takeaway because I am ‘not-dieting’ and therefore can eat whatever I want because IF I dieted the restricted eating would later result in a binge anyway. So, I have given myself permission to be as decadent as I have wanted. I have tried to ‘get in touch with my body’. And no, this isn’t an R-rated blog…! I mean that have attempted to ascertain when I am just hungry enough (ie. 7 on the 1-10 scale) to justify eating, rather than waiting until I am ravenous or when I am just bored and not hungry at all.

Yep, I’ve done them all. And over recent months I have yo-yoed (mentally this time, not physically) as my weight has crept up, wondering what to do. ‘Should I go back on shakes as replacement meals? Or no carbohydrates?’ Both of which I have found help me lose weight quickly, though result in a subsequent desire to eat nothing but carbs!

Nope. No quick fixes. Apparently.

So finally I have bitten the bullet (though not the yummy chocolate ones with licorice in the middle!) and decided to go back to what-worked-best-in-the-past for me. Weight Watchers (WW).

About a year ago WW started offering a one-on-one service at a nearby department store. A friend went and touted its benefits. Having done WW in the past, I often cringed at some of my fellow weight-watchers. Sessions were often targeted at the lowest-common denominator and I wanted to get up and slap the ‘leader’ around for being so patronising; only to find later that others appeared to be truly appreciative for the level of simplicity on offer.

My friend said that she was up-front with the person doing her one-on-one sessions. She said she didn’t want to talk endlessly about recipes and the like. No need to hear how people cater for their partners and children while dieting. No need to talk about the benefits of water, or explain in-words-of-less-than-3-syllables what low GI food means.

So, it was with some trepidation that I made the appointment and will – later today – learn what comes next.

I must admit I am not feeling particularly motivated. I desperately want to lose weight but the idea of limiting what I eat and drink or what I CAN eat and drink devastates me. As a single stressed-out professional, food, red wine, champagne and diet coke are the only good things in my life. The only time of my day I enjoy is that time in front of the television at night, red wine in hand and food before me, stressful day behind me (until I lie in bed and close my eyes – only to be taunted by my daytime stresses!).

Of course I know that I should find other things to do at night to prevent the food and alcohol trigger, but I have tried keeping myself occupied and find myself stressed and frantic at the lack of me/alone time I have.

Today’s initial appointment is a 30 minute appointment and weekly 15-minute appointments will follow. I gather they cost the same as the hour-long meetings, but I am all for efficiency. I have wasted way too much money to care about value-for-money.

But – having done this so many times before – I am conscious that my focus needs to be on what will make this time different from all of the other times (as evidenced by my backstory).

In an attempt to get to my goal weight and stay there:

My goal weight will be realistic and not a weight which I won’t be able to maintain without obsessive behaviour.
I will focus on sustainability – not losing as much weight as quickly as possible.
I will develop a sustainable exercise program and one in which I can envisage continuing and enjoying.
I will seek therapy or counselling for residual issues with food and relationships.

I feel quite nervous as I sit here waiting to head to my appointment. All week I have been slightly excited as if the appointment itself, or commencement of the program will offer some amazing elixir; as if I won’t actually do the hard work, but rather a wand will be waved and all will be well.

I was supposed to walk this morning, but I lolled in bed instead. So, I wonder, what do I think will suddenly be different tomorrow when the time comes to exercise?

Far Eastern Odysseys and Emergency Sex

May 15, 20104 min read

A few things have transpired in the last few weeks which have me thinking. And pondering.

I have been quite unhappy at work for some time. This isn’t necessarily a new thing as I get bored very easily and tend to change jobs with regularity. At the moment however, although I contemplate alternatives, I find myself at a loss to identify what my options might be. This had led me to reconsider a former career in aid and development – a previous life in which I worked and managed projects in developing countries.

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Easter eggs and rabbit ears

April 5, 20104 min read

Easter is again upon us and it is supposed to mean more than chocolate bunnies and public holidays. But rather than contemplate what was purported to have happened nearly 2000 years ago, I find myself relishing glimpses of life just 30 years ago.

For my family, Christmases were spent either in far-western Queensland or on Fraser Island. Both of which presented my parents with logistical nightmares in the 1970s: long car trips on dusty dirt roads; or weeks without access to electricity or shops.

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Yes I Can, Can, Can

March 14, 20105 min read

Originally posted 9 April 2009

I signed on before I really knew what I was getting into. So, it could have been disastrous. In fact, it has actually been quite fun.

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JD Robb: In Death…

March 14, 20104 min read

by J.D. Robb

I have many guilty pleasures. Some just naughty – champagne, chocolate, red wine and so forth. Some a little weird – an early years’ fetish for Dr Spock (the one with the pointy ears, not the child-rearing guru). And some that are mostly embarrassing. Like the ridiculous pleasure I get from the TV show, ‘Murder She Wrote’ and from a series of novels by romance writer, Nora Roberts, under the pseudonym JD Robb.

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Counting down

February 21, 20103 min read

A dozen or so years ago my favourite times of the week were Saturday and Sunday mornings (and not just because they involved not-working). I had stopped partying on Friday / Saturday nights so no longer spent the following morning in a darkened room moaning ‘never again’ and gagging on stomach-settling Stemetil. Instead, up bright and early (well, ish) I would sprawl about on my lounge room floor…leftover reheated Chinese to my right; diet coke to my left; newspapers strewn about in front; and music videos playing on the television.

Though progressing way-too-rapidly through my early 30s at the time, I liked to watch the Top 20, or 10 (or something in between) countdowns. I occasionally heard a song I wanted to hear again, and smugly liked the fact that I was ‘down’ with what the youngsters were listening to. (Of course the fact that I was watching ‘Video Hits’ or [old] ‘Rage’, rather than listening to ‘Triple J’ said something about how un-hip I actually was, but still there I was – ‘gettin jiggy wit it’).

Sadly I find I can no longer partake in this frivolous pastime and not just because I have hard timber floors in my lounge room – making it difficult and uncomfortable to sprawl on my 40+year old bones…. The bigger problem is that it is all-but-impossible to find any music ‘countdowns’ on Australian free-to-air television stations anymore.

I tend to gravitate to ABC’s ‘Rage’ which offers a mish-mash of popular, edgy and retro music, rather than Channel 10’s ‘Video Hits’ which seems to feature (generally non-charting obscure) artists from whatever music festival happens to be on at the time. I know my lack of appreciation for these artists and the myriad of outdoor music festivals says something about my age and taste, but frankly I need more. I mean, how on earth am I supposed to know what songs to like if I can’t find out what everyone else likes?

So, I wonder, why is there no interest in countdowns from free-to-air television stations? Why no new-release video clips, no highlighting of new music? Such shows exist on pay television (Foxtel etc) and even our radio stations still offer regular countdowns and feature new-releases. In fact it seems that The Buggles were wrong in 1979 and ‘video did not kill the radio star’ after all. But instead perhaps the video shows – as I knew them – are dead. Killed by the World Wide Web.

We no longer have to wait on tenterhooks for Molly (Meldrum) to unveil this week’s number one song on ‘Countdown’. We can just log on to the internet and we have the world at our fingertips. YouTube, iTunes and the like. We don’t need to wait for Saturday morning to roll around to see what new songs are being released. A few flicks of the fingers across a keyboard or keypad and we can find almost any video clip we want to watch, buy and download. Just like that.

It isn’t that I don’t appreciate technology – downloading something from iTunes sure beats holding the cassette player with in-built microphone in front of the TV screen and telling everyone to shush. But, I still miss the anticipation of the countdown; the inane babble of the VJs imparting often-useless tidbits; and being exposed to songs that I wouldn’t normally listen to but, because they happen to fall between No.8 and No.6, enjoy. But most of all I miss those comforting weekend hours spent sprawled in front of a noisy, flickering box!

So you think you wanna dance?

January 31, 20104 min read

I am no aficionado of dance. By a long stretch. Or by any stretch. I don’t really know what krumping is and though (I think) I know what a pirouette looks like, I have no idea what an arabesque is.

I possibly offended my sister-in-law and niece years ago when I finally admitted that I didn’t enjoy accompanying them to classical ballets. For me the night was akin to a slow-moving book or movie – where I just wanted those on stage to get on with it. I admit to a frustration with plodding (though beautiful) prose. Ballet presented me with the same problem. Though I could guess at the vague degree of difficulty, it seemed a monotonous and a long-winded way of getting to the point.

Having said that, I suspect a night of endless hip hop or contemporary dance would be as tedious to me. Though I accompany my niece to some of her eisteddfods (and I can happily watch my niece dance until the cows come home) where a myriad of styles are often show, my favourite shows are the end-of-year concerts where there is more variety.

The art of dance itself has garnered more attention and support recently with the advent of TV shows, Dancing with the Stars (which I don’t watch) and So You Think You Can Dance (which I do watch). Note here I refrained from adding Dance Your Ass Off, as I don’t think it lasted long enough on our screens to count as having any impact on its 17 nation-wide viewers!

SYTYCD restarts on our TV screens tonight which I discovered yesterday as I watched an old MC Hammer film clip and marveled at the ability of the African-American chicks (in the video) to shake their booties. This (of course) led to some sort of pondering on genetics and nurture versus nature (I obviously have WAY too much time on my hands!!).

There is no question, for example, that some cultures include music and dance as part of their everyday lives, and not solely for the purpose of eventually ‘performing’ for an audience as many of we Aussies do.

In the mid 1990s I went to work in Mozambique (in south-eastern Africa) as a volunteer with a women’s non-government organization. I recall walking to the shops in my first or second week in the country and being enchanted as I was passed by a convoy of trucks carrying groups of men and women all singing and dancing. They were in the throes of a wedding – always a huge (and loud) celebration in Mozambique. I wanted to ring home and share my excitement at what I had been privy to.

I worked in the head office in Maputo but about a week into my time there, my counterpart and I traveled to the outskirts of town to visit one of the groups we supported. We were greeted by the group at Boane with song and dance. I was delighted. It really was the stereotypical Africa that you saw on television. And, of course I was also eventually dragged up to join the women (after being draped in a capulana – piece of fabric / sarong).

As my time in Mozambique wore on I became more accustomed to the role that singing and dancing played in their culture and lives. Some of the issues we promoted (family planning, safe sex etc) were translated into songs. I sat in a church where a priest-of-sorts and his hen (or perhaps it was a rooster? I couldn’t focus as I was worried it was to be a sacrifice* and wasn’t sure how NOT to react) preached to the masses before one of our Activistas (facilitators) presented a session on AIDs – complete with demonstrating how to put a condom on a fake penis – before we broke into song and dance.

In a place called Xai Xai, I remember some young boys getting up to join the dancing women. And it took me a while to realise that they weren’t taking the piss out of their elders for doing something that they found ‘uncool’. They just wanted to join in.

Of course as time went on, I became more inured to what-once-thrilled me (or horrified-me in the case of many Mozambicans with missing limbs as a result of land mines and homeless children sleeping on the footpaths in rags). I have to admit to occasionally getting frustrated on our visits across the countryside. I wanted to see other aspects of our work in action. Did, I wonder, the singing and dancing ensue when I wasn’t there, or was it all for my benefit? Something in between I suspect. But there was no question about the fact that music and dance brought such joy to these people facing difficulties once unimaginable to me. Something I should remind myself of (as I settle down tonight to watch SYTYCD) now that 15 years have passed since I lived amidst such passion and was fortunate enough to share in it for a while.

*Note. The hen / rooster made it safely through the service though it did run amok at one point. We (the official party) were however served a meal of chicken and rice after the service, so unless there was something special about it, I was not really sure how long the hen/rooster would last in the overall scheme of things!

Coincidentally…

January 22, 20104 min read

I finally saw the much-lauded Avatar last weekend. I was blown-away by how far technology has come since I suffered through queasiness and blue and red tinted lens’ for Jaws 3D in 1983.

I have been entertained by the media reports comparing Avatar’s plot to that of Pocahontas as well as the web postings which do a ‘Find / Replace’ from an excerpt of Pocahontas – replacing John Smith with Jake Sully. Though patting him on the back for his ingenuity, bloggers everywhere are describing Avatar as Pocahontas in Space and wondering if James Cameron merely ‘lifted’ the plot (based on real events anyway!) and added some colour and special effects.

I recently touched on this idea of ‘everything old is new again’ in a blog I wrote about sampling or remixing old songs into new ones, which gave me a chance to revisit with old faves.

But this is different. We see our share of remakes. Some good – Ocean’s Eleven and The Ring come to mind. And some not-so-good – think Psycho and Planet of the Apes. But what I wonder, in a world of remakes and trashy reality television about the world’s worst car-crashes is, are we lazy and purposely stealing ideas or have we just run out of new ones?

I am currently watching two separate television shows, both of which initially had me indignant about the fact that they had seemingly pilfered their storyline from feature films. I couldn’t believe the audacity and wondered why I hadn’t read about copyright breaches. But it appears that all is not as it seems….

My first exhibit is the TV show, The Sopranos, which I am watching half-a-dozen years after the rest of the world.

The show has never really appealed to me, but I was in need of something to keep me entertained during the summer off-season here – other than tennis or cricket – so figured 6 seasons of approximately 13 episodes a season would give me 70 hours (give or take) of TV viewing to stave off the boredom.

I vaguely knew what the show was about (mobsters), but it wasn’t until I watched the first season that I realized how closely it resembled the movie, Analyze This. Both centre around a mob boss seeking assistance from a psychiatrist and the consequences (good and bad) of this action. (Of course latter seasons of The Sopranos focus less on this angle, but it plays a pivotal role in the first season.)

I was shocked at the blatant ‘rip-off’ unless of course the show was meant to be a spin off of the movie. It wasn’t. Meant to be a spin off that is. And, more interestingly, it was not a rip-off. Though the series appeared on TV screens in 1999 – the same year the movie was realized – the TV show pilot was actually filmed in 1997. So, just coincidence apparently. Two separate individuals had the same idea. At around the same time.

Then there is a current summer season offering on our TV screens, which I find myself watching though it is a tad trite and obvious. Accidentally on Purpose sees an older career woman become (accidentally – as if that can happen in this day and age?!) pregnant to a 20-something guy who lives with his always-stoned buddy. Sound familiar? If you saw the movie Knocked Up in which Katherine Heigl found herself in a similar state thanks to a drunken one night stand with Seth Rogen, then the plot is WAY too familiar. And yet, wait for it… Apparently the TV show has not pilfered the idea from the movie. Bizarrely the TV show is actually based on a memoir (of the same name).

Thanks to Jenna Elfman and the dry accented wit of Ugly Betty’s Ashley Jensen the show is watchable. Even if full of clichés.

And, speaking of Ugly Betty, though seemingly a product of the success of the feature film, The Devil Wears Prada, the concept was in fact developed in Colombia as Yo soy Betty, la fea (I am Betty, the ugly) in 1999. Again – apparently just a similar idea manifesting itself in the written word and celluloid in different countries. Perhaps that explains the spate of vampire movies, TV shows and novels raining down upon us?

So, it seems, we are not stealing ideas from others. Nor are we lazy. But, have we run out of new ideas? Are there, I wonder, a finite number of ideas floating about in the ether, and have we plucked them all out?

Hopefully not. Occasionally, amid the sea of formulaic offerings about cops, lawyers and doctors, there are glimpses of creative brilliance. Current fodder such as the serial-killing Dexter, raunchy 30 Rock and Entourage and polygamist world of Big Love offer a glimmer of originality amidst the Battlestar Gallactica and Stargate remakes and lazy low-cost reality television shows.

I am (admittedly) a fan of the quirky, such as Joss Whedon and Bryan Fuller and their shows: Firefly, Buffy, Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me to name a few. However, many of these shows which have piqued my interest did not garner sufficient interest to fend off axe-weilding TV Execs, which makes me all-the-more passionate about supporting new and unusual offerings.

So, as I settle down to Season 4 of The Sopranos and await new seasons of Dexter and Entourage I will continue to hold out some hope for what the year ahead may have to offer.

Day 1

D-day

Far Eastern Odysseys and Emergency Sex

Easter eggs and rabbit ears

Yes I Can, Can, Can

JD Robb: In Death…

Counting down

So you think you wanna dance?

Coincidentally…

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