Colonoscopy…a Diet Aid?

I’m not a fan of bathroom humor. Like that scene of Bridesmaids when they’re all in the bathroom wearing the expensive bridal couture, not my favorite part of the movie. I tend to like more sophisticated, spontaneous humor kinda like…my blog? Ok, don’t want to be too full of myself here (although I probably already passed that line), but I hit a milestone birthday earlier this year, and for achieving such a monumental feat, I was rewarded with the obligation of going through a routine colonoscopy. Oh boy!

Having never experienced one before, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Now…well, I guess I’ve lived to tell the tale, so to speak. But rest assured I will NOT tell the tale. Well, truth be told, I don’t remember a THING about the procedure itself, which is how it SHOULD be, but the most disgusting part of the tale was the procedure prep.

But, true to my word, I will NOT go over the excruciating details. Let’s just suffice to say it was GROSS!! Aside from the gross part of the prepping, there was the day prior which I thought was going to be the hardest part, fasting. They advised only liquids, juice with no pulp, no milk products, soda, no food except clear jello. So, knowing how I obsess over my weight and dieting and all, I took this as perfect opportunity to use this as a dieting aid. I ate….nothing. I did cheat and have the usual two teaspoons of half-and-half in my two cups of coffee that morning, despite the fact that they said NO MILK in one’s coffee. I didn’t think they’d mind, so I guess I cheated on that front.

And I had planned to indulge in some sugar-free jello I purchased specifically for the occasion. I’m not a fan of jello. Even as a child when I Mom used to make the jello with banana slices suspended in it, I was just never a fan.

However, what I missed on the procedure instructions was the warning staring adamantly at in me, IN ALL CAPS stating not to have anything RED OR PURPLE. Well, gee, my choice of sugar-free jello was pretty limited to begin with. I had the option of purchasing either cherry or strawberry. I know I am probably the only person on the planet who does not like strawberries, and while I LOVE real cherries, the taste or smell of anything artificial cherry makes me want to gag! So, I picked the lesser of evils: strawberry. What I failed to realize was that strawberry was indeed RED!! So, I had to give up on the zero calorie ingested day and I broke down and ate two of my husband’s real jello in orange flavor. Man, did you know those little sugar filled jiggly things are 70 calories each?? I would NEVER waste calories like that on any normal day!

One of the things that surprised me about this day of fasting was that it wasn’t nearly as miserable as I thought it was going to be. Yes, it did mess up a perfectly good Sunday, one of only two days a week I get to get stuff done or goof off. But surprisingly, I managed to get quite a bit done around the house, before my husband and I ventured out to get our Thanksgiving turkey (fresh, not frozen!). And I even dragged the aforementioned husband out to do a little shopping for house stuff, which is highly uncharacteristic of him. I know he took pity on me both for not being able to eat, and also because I had “the procedure” ahead of me. Fine with me, got me out of the house, and FINALLY got those frames I wanted for these adorable little watercolors I picked up at an estate sale a while ago.

Anyway, I digress. My point was... it wasn’t so bad fasting. I found diet coke to be a very suitable companion during this time too. It helped me to keep moving and forget the fact that I didn’t get to eat anything! While my husband heated up the leftover spaghetti and meatballs I left for him, I ate those two 70 calorie orange jellos. But then the nightmare really begins. It’s not the procedure, it’s the prep that kills you. All the stuff you have to drink, and the subsequent outcome (no pun intended) of drinking all of that stuff. I will NOT give you details on the outcome (no pun intended) of the stuff that you drink, but the stuff itself that you drink is just disgusting. I mixed mine with sugar-free crystal light, and at first as I drank it I thought, ok this isn’t so bad, it just tastes like lemonade, but the more you drink it, the more disgusting you feel. And this concludes the details on this end (again, no pun intended).

After the procedure, my husband took me out for breakfast. I wasn’t really hungry so I had a cup of coffee and a pumpkin muffin. OMG it was the BEST pumpkin muffin I ever had!! But that’s not the point. The point was that I was still kinda tired and groggy so I didn’t want a real breakfast. After the coffee and muffin we went home and the FIRST thing I did when I got home was to weigh myself. How pathetic is that? I go through all the crap (again, no pun intended) of prepping for this procedure, then actually going through the procedure, all of which is EXHAUSTING but what’s the first thing I do when I get home? I strip naked and weigh myself. And lo and behold….I was down three whole pounds!! Kinda makes it all worth it?

No…no it does not!

Respectable or Just…

In my last blog I commented about my friend’s .8 loss as being a “respectable” loss. Now that I had a .8 gain this week, does that make it a substantial gain? Is there a double standard when it comes to the amount we lose, vs. the amount we gain?

Last week Amy lamented about her .8 loss. I told her to buck up and be proud. This week, BTW, she lost 3 pounds, to which I responded with, “You suck!” Naturally, she knows I’m kidding, but am also a tad envious. Truth be told, I talked her into joining, so I DEFINITELY want her to be successful.

But let’s not dismiss the double standard we have about weight loss vs. weight gain. I made a cardinal mistake this week. I engaged in a social type activity the night before weigh-in day. Crucial mistake. I should know better, I’m no weight watcher virgin! I’ve been down this road time and time again!! But, in an effort to get together with friends, I agreed to make dinner for them. I figured it was the lesser of evils. If I cooked, I could make a weight watcher meal and still stay on track. Good in theory, not so good in practice, however.

I had high aspirations, though. I made pork cacciatore, a dish I made previously which was a weight watchers recipe. I made a salad, tossed with a light vinaigrette, which I precisely measured before adding, I even made an apple and cranberry concoction to serve over light vanilla ice cream. It was quite good, actually. I added cinnamon and sweet ‘n low to the concoction, my guests were none the wiser.

Here’s where I missed the mark. In an effort to be the perfect hostess, and let’s face it, anyone who knows me even a little, knows I LIVE for that kinda thing! I am always lamenting about how Martha Stewart has my career!! So despite the fact that I wasn’t planning to eat any of the hors d’eourves I put together for them…I did anyway. And I don’t think it was the actually calories that did me in, but my old nemesis salt, aka water weight! Gets me every time, and typically, I avoid it like the plague before I weigh in, but it lured me in under the guise of olive tapenade. I may have only been 25 calories per serving, but what I failed to calculate was the nine million grams of sodium it so obviously included as well!

Thus, at last night’s weigh-in when I was up .08, the woman who weighed me in said, “it’s only .8” Yeah, ONLY! How do I justify that after my “respectable loss” lecture I gave Amy last week? Truth be told…I can’t. I gained, pure and simple. Was it a “real” gain, I guess we won’t officially know till next week, but unofficially, yeah, it was just water weight, cause this morning, not only was my scale down the one water weight pound, but also an additional pound, which was about where I was the day before weigh in. Now I know, NEVER engage in ANY social activities the night before a weigh in. NOW I know!

Long Time No Blog…

Ok, I realize that saying “long time no blog” is the understatement of the year, since it’s been well over a year since I’ve taken pen to paper or more literally, finger to keyboard in an attempt to post something. And I’m not quite sure what finally motivated me to come back to this. Ok, I do know. My husband and I recently went to a Halloween Party with my friend Jesse. During which Jesse continued to make reference to being “Fat and Happy.” Jesse was referring to a blog I wrote about that subject. He LOVED that blog. Truth be told, I think Jesse is the biggest fan of my blog. He thinks I’m hysterical, and a “great writer.” Naturally I will forever adore him for those words alone.

But, it has been far too long since I’ve blogged, although I wish I could say it’s been far too long since I’ve obsessed on my weight. That seems to happen whether I write about it or not.

In the past year lots of things have happened. I got a job, a contract job that lasted 10 months. Since I was working for the state, there was no additional funding to keep me on, so I had anticipated joining the ranks of the unemployed yet again. But alas, the job fairies were good to me, and I landed yet another contract job, for another 8 months. While I’m still too new at this job to discern if I actually like it or not, I do have to admit I am LOVING the 15 minute commute!! Sure beats the 45-hour commute I had at my last job. But, I did leave behind some very good friends at the last job, in addition to a certain sense of comfort and security there. But mostly I miss my friends. Plus, as you can imagine, I hate being the “new chick,” which is where I am right now. But, in this rough economy, you gotta do what you gotta do. So, I will stick it out and hope for the best. I do think I need to start looking for a permanent job, though. Not wild about contracting. The money is GREAT, but I’m not really that good with change, so I very much don’t like looking for a job every year.

But, let’s not get off topic here. This blog is about food, self-image, and all things diet. So I know what you REALLY want to know is, where am I diet-wise? Well, ironically, I’m probably almost exactly where I was when I wrote my last blog. But true to form, I also lost about 20 pounds, and then gained it right back.

I do want to confess that I did a diet I am not proud of myself for following. It’s called the HCG diet. You take this stuff, and limit yourself to 500 calories a day for anywhere from 3-6 weeks. I did one six week round and lost 25 pounds. I gained most of it back, then did another round and lost some again. I can’t even remember the numbers. The last 3 week round I lost 17 pounds. After that I started gaining again, and true to form, I gained back ALMOST all of it, yet again. So, I broke down and went back to my tried and true way to lose weight…Weight Watchers. It’s kinda like an old boyfriend the way I always go back to it. It works, it’s there for me after I have dallied with other diets, it takes me back, no questions asked, and it does its best to keep me on track. Wait a minute; I do not recall any old boyfriend being like that!! Perhaps that’s the way I would like to remember my old boyfriends.

So far I am doing ok. Not fantastic, but good, acceptable. I convinced a friend to join with me, which is always a good thing for me. Plus, it’s nice to see her once a week. Now, SHE’S doing phenomenally well!! So when she whined about her .8 loss last week after her stellar first week loss of 7, SEVEN pounds, I told her that .8 was a “respectable” loss. And it is. It’s not the 20 pounds per week we all want to lose, but it is respectable. And I know if I continue on this path, I will someday get back to a “respectable” weight, living in a “respectable” size, and I guess for me, that’s really what it’s all about.

Anyway, I imagine this blog is not one of my best efforts, but I did want to at least make an attempt to get something out there to get me back into the routine. Hopefully I will have lots of new fun things to report, including some really good recipes I am coming across.

If any of my readers (and I so hope you’re still out there!!) has any comments, feel free to comment away. I love feedback, but only if it’s glowing . I love feedback! And thanks for reading.