Looking back; looking forward

Christmas Day is, in some ways, the last day of the old year. Yes, there is another week left of the year, but it is a fallow time in which we finish up the last bits of the dying year and begin to look at and plan for the coming year. Some say that there is no good reason for this divide, that one day is just the same as another. I don’t think that’s true. Our lives are marked out by meetings and partings, by ritual and expectation, and I think the new year is one of those marks by which we measure and in which we can find inspiration.

Over the last few days, I’ve found myself reflecting. The last year was on the whole successful for me. I lost 50 pounds, biked over 2000 miles, and began taking the first steps toward running right at the end of the year. I made a lot of delicious bread and other food, I spent quality time with family and friends, and I did some good fundraising for an excellent cause.

There were some parts of the year that weren’t as successful. There were people I love with whom I didn’t get spend nearly enough time. I spent way too much time on the computer and didn’t read nearly enough books. I let my yard and garden run to wild. I didn’t get a single quilt or piece of jewelry made. I barely practiced juggling, or spinning poi, both skills I want to learn/improve. I feel like I handled the basics but let a lot of time slip by me around the edges that could have been put to much more fruitful use.

So my biggest resolution for the coming year is to take back my life from the computer. It’s a wonderful tool, and I don’t intend to abandon social networking and all the support it’s given me. The reality, however, is that I haven’t even been using this tool very well. I’ve barely journaled at all, one of the things I seriously regret. I mostly sit refreshing Facebook and Spark People and not actually accomplishing much. There are too many evening hours spent just frittering away my time, time I could be making something creative and beautiful, or tending to my garden, or practicing, or reading a book.

I’ve known this was an issue for a while, and I’ve tried to change it without much success. This time I need to take it more seriously. I need to set a timer to limit my social networking, and when it goes off I need to get off the computer and on to something more productive. I’m going to have to experiment a bit with determining how much time I should spend online.

And then I have to get offline. My life doesn’t need to be lived electronically. I have better things to do with it.

Biking to Death

How has more than a month passed since I last wrote in this journal? Time flies.

It’s been kind of crazy busy, and a lot of that has to do with the biking. I’m closing in on 1,000 miles for the year–assuming this weekend goes as planned, I will surpass that mark. And now I have a riding companion. My older daughter, Erin, is living with us temporarily while she is getting resettled here in Cleveland, and she has taken to this biking thing like the proverbial merganser to a lake. We are a well-matched team, and companionably putting in the miles.

July 4 was a bit of a challenge, though. Patti’s Paladin’s had a breakfast training ride, for which I assumed we would ride our usual 20-mile path. This is the path that is 5 miles steadily uphill, 10 miles of rollercoaster hills, then a 5 miles cruise back to Patti and Mike’s.

The predicted heat index for July 4 was 104 degrees.

So I was already steeling myself for this ride–though not really prepping myself, in that Ferrett’s birthday party was the night before and I didn’t actually get to bed until after 3am. And I had to get up at 6:30 in order to finish the fresh bagels I was making to take to the breakfast. (Which went over with great success, and many people being gobsmacked at the notion that anyone would make bagels at home!) So I wasn’t exactly rested and refreshed for the ride.

Then Mike informed us that the ride would be to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and back. Which meant that all the downhill was at the beginning of the ride. And we would have to climb back up the cliff face that is the climb back up to Cleveland Heights. At the end of the ride. In the mounting heat.

Gulp.

Erin and I started out with the rest of the pack. The rest of the pack consisted of 9 men who have a combined body fat of about 12 pounds, and that crazed look that says “25 miles an hour is an okay average speed, if you’re really not up to more” We were pedaling hard to keep up. On the downhill portion of the ride. Once we flattened out and headed west along the shoreway, I have to confess that I abandoned Erin to the tender mercies of one fellow rider who had stayed back to help her along. Mostly because I knew that if I slowed down to accommodate her, I would lose far too much momentum and we would just fall further and further behind. I had to just concentrate on the slowly receding rider in front of me and try to keep that distance from increasing.

By the time we pulled up under the trees at the Rock Hall, the temperature was 91, the heat index was 100, and I was vaguely nauseated. Erin pulled up behind me and said, “I think I hate you a little bit right now.”

It was all right, though; I hated me a little bit just then, too.

I could not imagine biking uphill all the way back to Mike and Patti’s. And I realized that we didn’t have to: we were already halfway to home, where Ferrett was still waiting for us to let him know we’d finished the ride and was planning to drive over for the post-ride picnic. Our house is at a much lower elevation. There would not be a steady, uphill ride with a big cliff in the middle!

Now, my friends on either coast will laugh at me for my struggle against this relatively minor elevation change. And I fully acknowledge that back when I lived in Alaska I used to bike up and down mountains. But I have to say this in my defense: I’m old and fat! Also, humidity is a bitch, and so is heat. If it had been in the 70s, I would have attempted the ride back.

With weather that felt like 100 degrees? No. Bloody. Way.

So Erin and I continued west, accompanied briefly by this collection of bike warriors. We biked along the shoreway and through shaded neighborhoods, and that part was good.

Then we got back out into the sun, and things began to go pear-shaped. Neither of us is good with heat, and the sun was beating down on us with mid-day intensity. We were still drinking water, and still moving forward, but our pace was going off and we were starting to get leg cramps. By the time we were 3 miles from home, I was genuinely worried about heat exhaustion.

Did I mention that there was a Severe Heat Warning in effect?

Fortunately, I remembered that there was a McDonald’s nearby and steered us toward those golden arches. I never imagined that I would find myself this grateful for the existence of fast food. We locked up our bikes and staggered into the blessed air conditioning. Erin was trembling. We ordered large drinks and grabbed packets of salt and sat for 20 minutes in the cool, gulping down iced beverages and eating salt straight from the packets. Recovered, we were able to finish the ride back to the house, showered, and went back for food and companionship. But it honestly took most of yesterday for us to really feel recovered. I honestly think we were on the edge of being in serious trouble. And I hope this heat breaks soon, because I can’t imagine going through this for 75 miles.

Oh, and I also made the next bread in the BBA challenge, cranberry celebration bread. I was just as unimpressed with it as I expected to be, but at least it’s over now!

Riding in a Critical Mass

Last night I attended my first Cleveland Critical Mass bike ride. Don’t feel badly that you don’t know what that means; I didn’t know about it until a few weeks ago. Critical Mass rides happen on the last Friday of the month in about 300 different cities all over the states and in some other countries. Here in Cleveland we had about 400 riders. In other places they have over 1,000.

400 riders strung out along a roadway was an incredibly impressive sight. We must have stretched out close to half a mile. I can’t even imagine 1,000.

The point of Critical Mass is not speed or getting to a destination first. The point is to raise local awareness of bicyclists and our right–nay, requirement–to share the roads. Did you know that in many states, including Ohio, it’s a misdemeanor for adult cyclists to ride on the sidewalk? This is because sidewalks are for walking, and people walking are generally traveling at 2-5 miles per hour. Whereas cyclists are generally traveling at least 8 miles an hour, and easily can be traveling 18, 20, or more. Cyclists are a hazard to walkers. They are operating vehicles, and belong on the street.

And the fact is that cyclists are safer on the street. I have been clipped by a car once on the street, it’s true. But I’ve had many near-collisions when riding on the sidewalk, because people are not looking for a bike on the sidewalk moving at 12 mph when they back out of a driveway or pull up to an intersection. They see me when I’m on the street.

Still, there are people who don’t understand the law who still honk at cyclists, yell at them to get on the sidewalk, and even assault them. A recent instance I read about was someone whose kid was pelted with a milkshake that was thrown from a car window. I’ve had people swerve at me, and someone open a passenger-side door in my face just to frighten me.

I’m not sure where this level of anger comes from. Yes, you might have to slow down and pull over to the left to get around a cyclist. But you’d have to do the same if a UPS truck was stopped there, and I don’t see anyone honking at the UPS guy. I sometimes have a sneaking suspicion that some of the resentment comes from thinking that the cyclist feels superior to people driving the car, or a guilt that the driver feels for driving along, drinking a milkshake while these cyclists are exercising.

I know that I’ve been cursed at with “fatso, get off the road!” As if my wide hips are taking up more space. My very presence offends some people.

I’ve learned to be more assertive in my biking, and also more cautious. I try to stick to roads with four lanes, and to bike toward the middle of the right lane so people don’t try the slip past me when there really isn’t enough room. I also bike at off hours or against the rush hour traffic so that I’m not frustrating tired people who just want to get home from work as soon as possible. I take my share of the road, but try to do so with respect for drivers.

And I obey traffic laws. I stop for red lights. I yield at stop signs–a full stop is incredibly wearing on the knees, so I cheat a bit, but I give up the right-of-way when it’s not mine to take. I signal my turns. I try to be a good citizen.

Still, it’s hard to be a cyclist at times. And cycling alone always seems more subject to verbal abuse than cycling with a group, or even just two.

So last night, cycling with 400 people, was a kind of empowerment. We rode through neighborhoods where kids ran to the fences, waving wildly at us, adults smiled and called out encouragement, and drivers waiting at intersections honked their horns not with impatience but in celebration. We were a novelty, this enormous group of cyclists.

We were a parade.

Maybe the people who smiled at our dinging bells and honking horns and smiling waves will remember us. Maybe when they come along a solitary cyclist pedaling down a narrow street, they will recall the crazy, happy atmosphere of last night’s ride.

And maybe they will be just a little more patient, give just a little more room, and we can all be better citizens on the road together.

Pedal to the Point–so close to $2,000

This is the last day for the initial push for Pedal to the Point, so one final nagging/begging for now, and I promise not to bug you again–at least not until July

I’m getting close to raising $2,000, and I’d like to reach that number before the end of the night. To those of you who’ve already given, thank you SO MUCH for your generosity!

A couple people were having problems with the main page link not leading to the donation page link. I think the site has that worked out now, but here’s the link directly to the donation page.

And thank you thank you thank you!

Where I was; where I’m going

Yesterday I wrote a little about how I’ve been making changes in my life and that I had chosen not to write about them in this blog. Today I feel compelled to expand on that a bit so that readers can really understand what riding in the MS Pedal to the Point 150-mile ride really means for me personally.

Last August I underwent a minor medical procedure. Prepping for that procedure meant stepping on a scale, something I had avoided for a couple years. During that time I had also pretty much avoided all exercise as well. But the scale was a moment of truth. And the truth was, I weighed 299 pounds. One pound short of 300. By far, the most I’ve ever weighed. I was shocked and dismayed, and determined not to let the scale tip over to that next number. So I started eating better, cooking more at home, staying away from junk food.

But not working out. That took another month, because it just seemed overwhelming. Oh, I took a couple short walks, but it was easy to tell myself that I’d exercise “later”–a time that never came. Then in September I realized that my size was having a negative effect, to be blunt, on my sex life. There were things I wanted to do that I was no longer capable of doing.

Sex is a great motivator.

September 19 is the date on which I embarked on a campaign of seriously taking care of myself. Since then, I have gone from being someone who could barely tie her own shoes to someone who just biked 41 miles on Monday and is going to bike another 20 today. Through sensible eating–and never dieting, mind you–and exercise, I’ve lost 60 pounds. I’ve gone from barely squeezing into a pair of size 24 jeans to slithering into a size 16 dress. I have a lot further to go. But I’ve come a long way.

And I’m very much aware that the odds of long term success are against me. Study after study shows that almost 95% of people who lose weight gain it all back within 5 years. That’s scary to me, because I’ve done it before.  Yoyoing is a part of my personal history since college. I don’t want to fail.

So I am not focused on weightloss; I am focused on fitness and health. The weightloss has been a wonderful side effect, and one I’m quite happy to enjoy, but even more important to me is that I may still be 80 pounds overweight, but I can ride 41 miles, and by August I will be able to ride 75 miles for two days in a row. That is my victory state, not a number on a scale.

Also? The sex is awesome.

Making peace with myself

One of the things I haven’t written about much here is my current efforts to get back into shape. Part of that is embarrassment: I did so well a few years back, then lost the battle, the war, and additional territory. No one likes to talk about their failures. But it’s all part of me, and part of living graciously is being healthy and capable. So I guess I’m going to start talking about it.

One of the most important aspects to me about all this is that I don’t believe in dieting and denial. It’s the perfect setup for failure. I believe in moderation, intentional eating, and movement.

The other night, I sat in the movie theater surrounded by the delicious smell of popcorn, but didn’t want any. A friend brought over home-baked cookies, and I ate only one. We bought my favorite Girl Scout cookies, and they are still in the snack drawer, leaving me untempted.

If I think about these things, the question in my head is, “Does eating this taste better than the progress I’m making feels?” And most of the time, the answer is, no.

When the answer is yes, I do indulge myself. I didn’t deprive myself of one of my friend’s delicious cookies. Tonight I will be attending a party where the hostess is an amazing cook, and I will definitely be eating some less-than-healthy snacks and having a couple drinks. But I am confident that I will be retaining my center and will not just go crazy at the snack table.

I am in a good place, mentally, about my progress. But I can remember that less than a year ago, the answer to the question of “Is eating this more important than my health?” Was “YES! Yes is is! I don’t care about my size, I don’t care how I look, all I care about is the smooth, chocolatey taste of this entire can of frosting going down my throat.” That was the person I was a year ago. I can remember it vividly.

I don’t understand her at all. I can’t comprehend why she felt that way. I am baffled by her complete unwillingness to take a walk around the block, let alone actually work out.

But here’s the thing that I have to remember: she is still inside me. She’s quiet right now, but there will come a day when something triggers her to come roaring to the surface. I’ve made the smug assumption in the past that she was completely tamed, completely eradicated, only to wake up and find that she had taken over and a year’s worth of hard work had been erased and she was completely in control.

I can’t beat her by hating her. She is part of me, and self-hatred is self-defeating. I have to be vigilant for her reappearance, but when she does? I need to look at her honestly, ask her why she is here. What is it that she fears? What is is that she needs? What does she want? I have to take the time to love and understand her, and give her the things that she needs that aren’t food. She is empty and aching, and food is her methadone for what she honestly needs.

She started to surface last night. I’m home alone for the weekend, I’m still not feeling very well, even though I am improving daily, and I was suddenly filled with overwhelming sadness, loneliness, and a sense of helplessness. Part of me said, “eat those leftovers you’re saving for lunch tomorrow, and break open a bottle of wine; it will make you feel better.”

I have to say, it was a real temptation. But I took a deep breath, centered myself, and asked, what is it that I really need? The answer was that I had been up too late the night before, gotten up too early in the morning, and was exhausted beyond the usual measure because I’m still getting over being sick. What I really needed was not to stuff my face and watch maudlin movies. What I needed was sleep. And so instead of inhaling the contents of the refrigerator in an act of defiant self-hatred, I went to sleep.

She is quieter today. Perhaps she will eventually learn that food is not the answer to pain. But she can’t learn it if I treat her with disdain. She’s part of me, and *all* of me deserves to be loved. Love isn’t always giving yourself what you want; it’s taking the time to really understand what you need.

The anatomy of dinner decisions

The 5-year-old who lives in my head: WAAAAH! You didn’t feed me ALL DAY!!! I’m starving!!

Me: I’m sorry. This day didn’t go anything like it was supposed to. Let’s make dinner now.

5yo: WAAAAH!!!! I’m too hungry for cooking!! Let’s eat the leftover Girl Scout cookies!

Me: You know that isn’t going to happen. Let’s see what we have in the fridge.

5yo: There’s heavy cream, and butter, and a great Amish raw milk cheese. Let’s make cheese sauce!

Me: And put it over…what?

5yo: What do you mean?

Me: It’s sauce. It has to go over something.

5yo: I’m not getting you.

Me: Are you suggesting that we just eat cheese sauce all by itself out of the pot?!

5yo: Oh my god, if you’re gonna be that way about it, just make it thinner and call it soup!

Me: …

5yo: Oh, fine! What’s your idea?

Me: We have all these wonderful greens that we got at the market the other day….

5yo: Salad?! You can’t be serious! I’m hungry!!!

Me: Well, I can saute up some onions and red bell peppers and mushrooms.

5yo: MEAT!!!

Me: Okay, and some grilled steak sliced thin. Oh, and I have some avocado.

5yo: A WHOLE red pepper! A WHOLE avocado!!

Me: That’s a lot of–

5yo: Whole! Whole whole WHOLE!!!!

And that is why I am currently eating a salad the size of my head. It’s actually very tasty, and the 5-year-old is quieting down.

And it’s certainly healthier than a pot of cheese sauce.

Paean to a Pair of Shades

I wore the same sunglasses for 26 years.

Not the same kind of sunglasses. The same sunglasses.

And this was not a pair that lived in the car and were only worn while driving. I wore these glasses camping, kayaking, biking and skiing. They went with me to the neighborhood park, national parks, and amusement parks. They were perched on my nose during an Alaska river trip at the moment when I realized that I was pregnant with my first daughter.

She’s getting married next spring.

Are these glasses some expensive pair of Ray-Bans that I’ve obsessed over? Nope. Are they such a gorgeous pair of glasses that I can’t bear the thought of losing them? Uh-uh. They are a pair of Uvex tinted safety glasses that cost me a princely $9.95 at the eye shop in our local grocery store in Fairbanks, Alaska. Ferrett regards them as the ugliest sunglasses he’s ever seen–he told me once that he admired my self-confidence in continuing to wear them.

So why do I keep wearing them? Because they do everything I need in a pair of sunglasses: they are large and wrap close to my face. They continue at a right angle to protect the side of my eye. They even have a brow ridge. My eyes are basically sealed away from the dust and pollen that drive me crazy and ruin my day. I love them with all my heart.

But a quarter century of wear takes its toll on a pair of shades. And it’s gotten to the point where I put them on and it’s like looking through fog. It’s hard to give them up, but it’s time to hang them up. So after shopping around, trying a few other styles, and thinking about it, I’ve purchased replacement glasses.

Another pair of Uvex glasses exactly like the ones I’ve been wearing.

Yeah, they aren’t glamorous. But they do the job I want them to do. Today I wore them for the first time, riding my bike for 12 miles. I’m just as comfortable, but without the feeling that I’m squinting through haze.

The old pair? They’re still in my bike bag. They got to go along with me on the ride. I will have to find a place of honor for them. They’re old friends who’ve been with me almost half my life. That’s a long, long time.

A Day of Reckoning

For over a quarter century I have been drinking Lipton Sugar Free Instant Iced Tea, a concoction of chemical sweetness and caffeination that has kept me going through raising kids, working, divorce and remarriage, moving across country, and more.

It’s vile stuff, really. But I am addicted.

This food product does not fit into my current determination to eliminate chemicals from my life. I have stopped eating prepackaged foods, have stopped buying foods produced in artificially low-fat versions, and am committed to cooking real food from scratch. As part of my determination to eat clean, I vowed that, once these final jars of the tea were gone, I would stop drinking it. In preparation, I had limited myself to only one large glass of it a day, rather than throughout the day. I could see the end coming, so I was getting ready.

Yesterday I made what I thought was my next-to-last glass of this instant iced tea. Today, I went into the kitchen to ceremoniously make the final glass. A glass to savor, to appreciate. A glass to say goodbye.

As it turned out, there was only a little dusting of the tea in the bottom of the jar. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice it yesterday, but there was only enough for one weak ounce of tea.

I was, shall we say, dismayed. I had a plan for this. And that plan was smacked down.

Oh, also? It’s That Time Of Month. It was kind of a perfect storm of “NOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

So here I am. I’ve made a cup of hot tea to stave off caffeine withdrawal, and I have a big glass of water. I’m pleased to be getting this last daily dose of artificially manufactured food out of my life. I expect that in a matter of a few days I won’t miss it anymore.

But that is not this day.

Gluten hysteria is just that

In the long quest to find The Answer To All Diets, people rush from one fad to the next, one year embracing cabbage soup, the next eating nothing but bacon and steak. One year gulping down juice fasts, the next eschewing fruit entirely. We want the golden ticket, the easy fix. And every guru who comes down the road with proclamations of the One True Way leads people in his or her path, the newest Pied Piper.

Eventually people grow tired of eating in the prescribed way and drop out of the parade, feeling like failures. Then the voices of science and reason begin to penetrate the insanity, and most people return to their previous weights, discouraged and cynical, but waiting for the next bandwagon to jump aboard.

Currently, that bandwagon is gluten. Gluten is the Great Poisoner of People. We’re told that the staff of life is EEEEEVIL, and that we can all be thin if we just stop eating bread. People are swearing off gluten left and right. Gluten-free substitutes crowd the grocery shelves.

I admit that I have a personal interest here. I am, after all, a bread baker. It’s dismaying to read that this food I love is the Cause of All Fatness. It’s also very suspicious to me, because people have been eating bread for centuries. Our obesity epidemic is a recent phenomenon. So the assumption that bread is the root of all evil doesn’t make much sense to me.

Now, there is no doubt that certain medical conditions preclude the ingestion of gluten, particularly celiac disease. But for people without that disease, scientists are now warning that gluten avoidance may be bad for their health. This article from the Atlantic Monthly warns that cutting gluten out of our lives may lead to other deficiencies. And that there is no scientific evidence proving that gluten ingestion causes weight gain.

I concede that some people DO lose weight on a gluten-free regime, but that appears to spring from a general improvement in their diet: less fast food, more fresh fruit and veggies. The elimination of bread isn’t the key.

So once again, it’s sensible eating that makes the difference. Not some secret ingredient. There’s no magic bullet.