Grandmothers

Lately I look in the mirror and see my Grandmother Rock’s face (which isn’t a good thing since she’s been dead for more than 30 years). What’s remarkable about this is I don’t resemble her at all. I have my Grandpa Rock’s round face and temperament, and my Grandma Andrews’ sturdy calves, slender ankles, and shelf-like bosom.

But when I’m tired, the resemblance to my maternal grandmother, Violet Stubbe Rock, stares me in the face. The lilac shadows under my eyes and the hollows around my lips are hers.

Her remarkable fashion sense (she rivaled Imelda Marcos in number of shoes until she, like me, developed bunions) eludes me to this day. She also had a way with the rouge pot and knew exactly how to layer on scents (Tabu and Amber).

Playing dress-up at her house was one of my favorite childhood pastimes. Her flowery housedress discards, tucked into an old hardbound suitcase, were paired with real reptile-skin platform pumps (four-plus pairs: two ruby red, two emerald green, plus one brown pair of peep-toe).

The days I spent at her house (my grandfather died when I was ten) were dictated by routine: I’d get up and watch TV while munching on Pop Tarts or those marvelous 70s snacks: Space Sticks, reputed to have gone up into the stratosphere with the astronauts. Much later, she’d come down and have her usual breakfast: orange juice, coffee, toast, and a cigarette.

Later, we might go shopping at Sears Roebuck & Co. for clothes or the dime store for paper dolls. When I was younger she’d take me miniature golfing (my favorite) or to the Elks Club to swim. We also played countless hours of gin rummy or double solitaire for nickels. She loved to gamble. Often we’d ‘dine’ at Howard Johnson’s where I’d gorge on clams or spaghetti and chocolate milkshakes. Grandma Rock would order a ‘double bubble’ martini with her meal.

Evening time my grandma would knit and smoke, and we’d watch Twilight Zone re-runs or old Clark Gable movies. Also part of our ritual was the ‘midnight snack’ which consisted of M&M’s, miniature marshmallows, and sometimes cashews. This long-time tradition ended when my grandmother was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes. The summer of the Watergate hearings I spent time watching the proceedings at her house and  following her exchange plan ‘diet.’ I lost 20 pounds and went on to lose a total of 45 my freshman year of high school.

Eventually emphysema and alcoholism took their toll, and she moved into a nursing home in her 60s. She died five months before I got married at age 22.

Her IQ score was off the charts, and in the 1930s Violet headed off to college to study journalism with a fur coat and her own car. She dropped out and married my grandfather, who graduated with a pharmacy degree and later bought his own drugstore.

She loved to drive and, as chronicled here before, would take my mom and her siblings plus great grandpa on car trips all over the country. My grandfather could never leave his business. The only state that ever did her in driving-wise was West Virginia (birthplace of my younger son and ‘home’ for 15 years), pre-interstate highway.

Whenever I’m stressed I crave M&Ms mixed with mini marshmallows in a little paper cup.

And wish all of life’s problems that cause those lilac shadows under my eyes could be solved by a ‘midnight snack.’

Slow and Steady Wins the Race…Sort Of

Monday night was the final meeting of the local Y’s ‘Resolution Solution’ program. Faithful readers (and long-suffering family members) know I tend to wax ad nauseam on the topic of fat…much more so than family and faith.

Before the final weigh-in and a few rousing games of dodge ball and tug-of-war (it was truly exhilarating channeling my inner 12-year-old), a special guest speaker offered tidbits on longevity and living a good healthy, faith-based life.

The 91-year-old guest’s advice reminded me of my 80-plus father-in-law’s ascetic approach to life, minus the barbell stuff. A good gene pool and prudent living can take one far.

My motto, on the other hand, is everything in moderation, including moderation. I’ve always been an all or nothing kind of gal. It’s only in the last couple years I’ve decided to stop dieting and to start making lifestyle changes.

So when I stepped on the scale after lobbing a small rubber ball at the Y’s pregnant aquatic manager and then apologizing profusely (being in school pre-Title IX was rough!) and didn’t lose as much weight in the 12-week program as I planned to, I took the philosophical path…as thorny as it was.

Since last year at this time (I keep records), I’m down 17 pounds. It was a couple more, but winter is rough. And I’m weak.

Losing just over 10 more will put me at my adult low, last reached on what I call the ‘grief diet,’ a plan never to be repeated. Back then, a good friend died way too young; and my husband fell ill and I thought he was going to die (he wasn’t), etc. I’m a stress eater, but when the stress reaches the nth degree even I can’t eat. Not the way to go.

Needless to say, I gained most of that weight back and am now slowly and steadily getting it off. Ten more pounds, and I’ll call it done. Honest.

Years ago cartoonist Berke Breathed, creator of the strip Bloom County, put his character Opus, a penguin, on a diet. Poor Opus was searching for the magic cure for weight loss.

Imagine his surprise, and mine, when we both discovered the secret is ‘eat less, exercise more.’

It’s not glamorous or quick, but it does work.

Who'da thunk?

Baby Steps

At noon today I headed to the YMCA for a ‘last chance’ workout with two young trainers who I was sure would kick my aging posterior. Instead I left exhilarated after an hour on the treadmill, elliptical, and weight machines followed by a great bout of stretching to cool down. This special session is part of a a three-month program called ‘Resolution Solution.’

Last January the Y offered another program where participants were challenged to do things such as attending different exercise classes for one week. When it comes to group exertion I’ve always been a lone wolf (or a cowering coyote!). The only exceptions were an aerobics class I took 20 years ago after the birth of my first son and a faculty wives hiking group in Flagstaff that introduced me to the splendors of the Southwest and the strain of switchbacks on my then-young knees!

But with my neighbor encouraging me, off we went to 5:45 a.m. classes.

Did I mention I also have NEVER been a morning person?

One year later I can say that nearly every weekday morning (except for Thursdays in the summer when that day’s instructor ran a Boot Camp, which I will never do!) for the past year I’ve gone to a combination of zumba, toning, body sculpting, and step classes.

What hooked me?

The variety, the awesome instructors, the camaraderie of a great group of women, the decision to approach getting in shape at fifty as a lifestyle change rather than a diet...all were factors.

Yes, I’ve lost weight. And over the holidays I gained some weight. But for the first time I’ve kept off more than I gained, and also for the first time I’ve decided not to beat myself up about weighty matters. I have some good friends I can talk about this with (thank you Susan and Angie!), and we all agree it’s a process.

And I’ve been processing for a long time.

I have this little ‘obsession’ that drives my mother and husband bonkers…and rightly so. Beginning when I was 9, I can recite from memory what I weighed most ages of my life. (3^rd grade 89 lbs.; 4^th grade, 120 lbs., 5 foot two and 3/4^th’s…oh to weigh that now! And the list goes on.)

On two occasions (and I’m now slowly aiming for three) I have lost (and eventually regained) a significant amount of weight. The first time was the summer between 8^th and 9^th grade. At the end of 8^th grade we went on a picnic to a park on the shores of Lake Superior and were joined by high schoolers as chaperones. It was a different era. One boy was so beautiful he took my breath away, and I still remember thinking if that’s what awaited me in high school, maybe I wanted to lose weight. So I did.

My starting weight in May 1974 was 175 pounds. I lost 20 pounds that summer (through a combination of staying at my grandmother’s and eating following her diabetic diet and by counting calories when I got home). By January 1975 I was down to 130 pounds. Okay it’s a big obsession with me. For the record, there were gorgeous guys in that high school.

Over the years, the pounds crept back on. By the time I hit 40 I was at an all-time high, precipitated by hitting George Foreman-worthy numbers during my second pregnancy a few years previous. Then my foot-taller husband was diagnosed with diabetes and lost 65 pounds. I didn’t want to be the fat wife of the thin man so I promptly…gained nine pounds that year, going from 180 to 189. Did I mention I’m five foot two? (I lost the ¾’s somewhere along the way.)

Then I lost more than forty pounds again on the what I call the ‘stress and grief diet.’ Please don’t try this at home. I’m a stress eater but this time the stress level was so great, it took my appetite away. My spouse’s diabetes was followed by a cancer scare, and that was followed by a horrifying period. A dear friend died at the age of 49 at the same time my husband fell ill with a mysterious ailment. While sick, he continued to work long hours at his job. Unable to eat much more than cottage cheese and apple slices, he got dangerously thin. And for the first time in my life, I was too distraught to to eat. The diagnosis was his liver having a horrid reaction to a cholesterol drug change, and he recovered fine. But there was a point where I worried he was going to die. He wasn’t, but….

The weight I dropped didn’t come back for a while, but then my Viking-blooded older son took off for a year at the tender age of 16 to be a foreign exchange student in Germany. That combined with the usual stresses of being a working mom, packed the pounds back on. Food (and my friend Susan whose daughter, Emma, had also been on an exchange program) provided comfort.

Then came a cross-country move. I made a difficult transition from working outside the home fulltime to fulfilling my life-long dream of writing fulltime. Finally last December found me with my head in a bag of holiday M&M’s, stress noshing. The same son was in Europe again on a college study abroad program, and he and his girlfriend were stranded in Denmark during a wicked snowstorm.

I had an epiphany a year ago right then and there among the red and green M&Ms. Candy (cake, cookies, brownies, fudge, chips, dip, name-your-poison) isn’t the answer to anything. This is a continuous struggle for me. People gave me fudge for Christmas, which I ate. However, I did leave the holiday M&Ms I bought unopened.

The point of all this is baby steps.

At the first meeting of Resolution Solution at the Y on Monday night, one of the trainers advised us to set realistic goals for the 12-week program. We weighed in that night and will weigh in at week six and week 12. Until last year I would have set as my goal, 24 pounds in 12 weeks or 30 or…you get the idea.

Now I’d like to lose six pounds in six weeks. That would include the five fudge pounds I put on between the first of December and now. And if I lose three pounds in six weeks, well, it’ll be three pounds less.

I will never stop obsessing over the numbers on the scale. After all, I was the only layperson in the crowded room who knew how many calories are in a pound (3,500).

But I will continue to try to pay attention to how good exercise makes me feel and how bad candy is for me. If once in a while I want a piece of chocolate (or, more likely, a donut), I will indulge. And I won’t berate myself afterwards.

What do I weigh now? Less than George Foreman and more than I did in high school.

I’ll let you know in 12 weeks.

The Weighting Game

When my husband was diagnosed with diabetes in May 2001, he embarked on a diet to lose the excess pounds that no doubt contributed to the disease. He succeeded. With diabetes prevalent on both sides of my family, I also took this as a wake-up call to drop weight. Also, I didn’t' want to be the short, fat wife of the tall, skinny man.

 I promptly gained nine pounds that year.

 Eventually I  lost a significant amount of weight, too.

 Which I promptly gained half of back when my then 16-year-old took off of for a year as a foreign exchange student in Germany.

 If you 'Google'  Yo Yo Dieter, I"m sure there's a picture of me right next to poor Oprah.

 I can rattle off what I weighed most years of my life the way avid baseball fans can deliver rapid-fire batting averages:

 Third Grade: 89 pounds (on the scale at school...I'll take a public flogging over a public weigh-in any day of the week)

 Fourth Grade: 120 pounds...at the height I am now (stretching toward five foot three inches)

 End of Eighth Grade: 175 pounds...at the height I am now. Throw in a unibrow...the middle school years were not what I'd call the ' Wonder Years'....

 Mid-Summer 1974-155...I'd discovered there were cute older boys in high school...for gosh sakes! And my maternal grandmother had been diagnosed with diabetes so I followed her exchange diet with her that summer.

 High School (The Wonder Years) 130 pounds

 College (Ditto The Wonder Years) Between 130-140 pounds

 August 14, 1982-My wedding Day....163 pounds (love was and is fattening!)

 April 1990-First Pregnancy weigh-in: 163 pounds on my scale at home; 165 on doctor's...in layman's terms I was a chubby first-time mom according to doctor's notes, which I somehow saw at some point...

 August 1995-Giving birth to second son...number worthy of George Foreman!

 And so on and so forth.....

 Right now I'm smack dab in the middle of high vs. adult low. Until this weekend of overindulgence, I would have said losing 12 more pounds and maintaining it would be just fine with me. Now of course...that number has 'inched' up somewhat.

 In a little over two months, I enter a new decade. Am bound and determined to hit a 'happy weight' and stay there. 

 What's your happy weight?