The Next Hundred Pounds

WELL, DUH!

What do you think about this report from the New York Times? I find it rather disturbing, myself. Some of the findings really invoke a “well, DUH!” response in me. Others are more thought-provoking. Some vindicate what fat people have known, and said, all along about being fat; on the other hand, plenty of people are going to use these findings as an excuse to continue living an unhealthy lifestyle; and that’s what I find most disturbing about it.

The article begins with a summary of the findings:

“Weight control is not simply a matter of willpower. Genes help determine the body's "set point," which is defended by the brain.”

Well, DUH. Anyone who has been fat has, at some point or another, directly or indirectly, been accused of “just not having any willpower”, being “lazy” or “undisciplined”, or some similar pejorative. It doesn’t matter how many hours a week you work, how active you might be, what accomplishments and knowledge and skill you may possess, or what adversity you may have overcome by sheer determination and hard work; the very fact that you are fat is visible evidence that YOU HAVE NO WILLPOWER.

OK, so it's a bit of a relief to have the Scientists Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval as quotable proof that we aren’t lazy and weak. Not that it’s going to convince anyone stupid enough to believe otherwise.

And the bit about the body having a setpoint is not exactly news either. The problem, of course, is that when we eat poorly and don’t exercise, we confuse our body. We mess up our metabolism. I seriously doubt that anyone’s natural setpoint is 350 pounds. Unless maybe you’re seven feet tall and built like a linebacker.

Dieting alone is rarely successful, and relapse rates are high.

Well, DUH. Again, no news that diets are unsuccessful. How could they be? For the most part, they require Gandhian restraint, Spartan resistance to pleasure and comfort, and mad Fifi the Circus Poodle hoop-jumping skillz. No one can sustain that forever, and as soon as you revert to the junk food, the pounds are going to come piling back on, and bring friends.

Lifestyle change works, but lifestyle change requires a lot of research and a lot of work that many people may be unwilling, or lack the information, to do.

Moderate exercise, too, rarely results in substantive long-term weight loss, which requires intensive exercise.

How do we define moderate exercise, and intensive exercise? I have no doubt that some people would consider my regime intensive, but I consider it quite moderate. I’m so not into pushing myself to the point of pain and exhaustion. I could never jog. I’ve never seen a jogger that doesn’t look like he or she is suffering. Maybe they only do it because it feels so good when they stop.

The article seems to define “moderate exercise” as twenty to thirty minutes of walking a day, and says nothing about pace. I would call that “light”. When I started my program, I walked about half an hour to forty-five minutes a day at a fairly leisurely pace. Right now, constrained to walking by my broken wrist, I walk an hour and twenty to two hours a day, briskly, and without stopping. In both cases, I continued to lose weight.

Many Americans are not going to take the time to do this much exercise, certainly. They may not have two hours a day, which I admit is a lot for most people. I can’t always manage it either; this is summer-schedule exercising for me. That’s why it’s important to have more efficient forms of exercise available.

Scientists are less sanguine. Many of the so-called facts about obesity, they say, amount to speculation or oversimplification of the medical evidence.

Well, DUH. Again, not news to anyone who’s been living the life. We humans like to have things boiled down into nice little nuggets of neatly packaged information, and damn all those pesky details.

But the notion that Americans ever ate well is suspect…“The meals we romanticize in the past somehow leave out the reality of what people were eating,” he (Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California) --- C.) said. “The average meal had whole milk and ended with pie.... The typical meal had plenty of fat and calories.”

Yes. But the food was, by and large, produced without the use of poisons; seasonal and natural, rather than forced in industrial farm greenhouses and barns; unprocessed and prepared fresh. It had more nutrients and probably tasted a lot better (in fact, having grown up with a farm in the family, I know it did). And people were much less sedentary. They weren’t exactly hitting the gym all the time, but they were walking more places and working with their hands a lot more. They were on their feet.  Read Real Food by Nina Planck; it’ll open your eyes.

Second, scientists recently have come to understand that the brain exerts astonishing control over body composition and how much individuals eat. “There are physiological mechanisms that keep us from losing weight,” said Dr. Matthew W. Gilman, the director of the obesity prevention program at Harvard Medical School/Pilgrim Health Care.

I’m sure this is true. If people are predisposed to like and be good at, say … math and not subjects that require you to memorize dates; making up stories and not taking apart and rebuilding stuff; or sports and not music … why wouldn’t they be predisposed to eat more or less or be attracted to certain foods over others? And why wouldn’t this, along with environmental factors, predispose certain people to weigh more than others and perhaps have a harder time losing and keeping off weight?

On the other hand, I find it very difficult to believe that, barring special medical conditions, anyone is naturally predisposed to eat so much more food than their bodies need that they become grossly overweight. That, I believe, is learned behavior. I am certain that it is, in my own case.

Americans are bombarded, on a daily and even hourly basis, with confusing messages about having it all --- plenty of money, nice things, good rich food, slender fit bodies, lots and lots of fun. We are surrounded by manipulated media images of good living, which encompass all of the above, and are made to feel “less than” if we don’t fit the images we’re fed. You can’t tell me that trying to live up to these impossible standards doesn’t affect how and what we eat, and how we end up looking.

I believe that advertising, magazines, television and movies hold up impossible ideals as reality, and we buy into it, even on a subconscious level. One of my personal goals is to reduce my own consumption of these images, which only serve to make me unhappy and dissatisfied and, yes, fat and unhealthy as I struggle to achieve what is, for me, an unrealistic ideal.

The question here is, what is an unrealistic ideal? I do not believe that being slender, or at the very least, less fat, is in fact unrealistic. I also don’t think I know yet what is realistic for me. I think that’s something you have to figure out once you find yourself not losing any more, and you settle into maintenance. Check back with me on that next year; I hope to have more personal observations to report at that time.

The article concludes with this statement:

The research is just beginning, true, but already it has upended some hoary myths about dieting. The body establishes its optimal weight early on, perhaps even before birth, and defends it vigorously through adulthood. As a result, weight control is difficult for most of us. And obesity, the terrible new epidemic of the developed world, is almost impossible to cure.

This conclusion is going to make a lot of fat acceptance activists happy, but I simply can’t buy into it. As someone who has been obese most of her adult life, but was an active, healthy child who merely thought she was fat, it’s my unscientific, unstudied belief that obesity is difficult to overcome (let’s not say “cure”; it is not a disease!) not because some of us are simply hardwired to be fat, but for a combination of reasons, including:

• Yes, being genetically predisposed to be heavier than some

• Being predisposed to enjoy eating  and/or acquiring a taste for certain kinds of foods

• Perhaps being less disposed to naturally enjoy exercise (however, I believe you can learn to enjoy it!)

• Psychological factors, including protective reactions to shaming; low self-esteem; and the need for constant defense against attack or embarrassment

The conclusion I do draw from this study is that no one does a fat person any favors by attempting to shame, mock, tease, nag, or harass them into losing weight, no matter how benign their motives may be. These tactics clearly do not work and are intensely damaging. The way we look should never determine whether we are “good enough”, and weight loss should always be primarily motivated by HEALTH and not simply the desire to look better in a bathing suit. (That’s a wonderful bonus).  

Well, DUH!

 

RESPONDING TO THE COMMENTS

The comments in the NY Times blog have been overwhelmingly positive, as have the ones here. For that, I am most grateful.  Support from friends and loved ones (and sometimes even complete strangers!) has been one of the important tools that have enabled me to succeed so far in my lifestyle change.

I have to admit a little chuckle, however, reading the remarks of the people who think I must have a lot of money and free time and other special circumstances that allowed me to lose weight.  I am not wealthy by any means, and although I work at home when I am not on the road for a singing engagement, there are never enough hours in the day.

By the time I decided to hire a personal trainer, I had been “relocating fat” for about 7 months and had already lost nearly 80 pounds on my own. I did that mostly through daily walks and work on the elliptical machine at my small, inexpensive neighborhood gym. When I go on the road for singing engagements (as I did several times over the past year),  I use the hotel gym equipment for cardio, I do fitness routines in my  room (downloaded for free from places like Fitness Magazine), I do DVD workouts using my laptop, or I just walk. For weights, I use resistance bands, which are cheap and pack easily.  For the past month, I have been unable to work out with my trainer, bike, or use gym equipment due to a broken wrist, but I walk every day and am still losing weight without it costing me a cent!

As for the time element, who isn't overbooked these days? We make time for the things that are important to us. It takes time out of your day to exercise. It takes time to plan and prepare healthy meals.  It takes time to use the tools and do the work that helps you become healthier. The thing is, once it becomes habit, it takes less time. You get better at organizing your time and making shortcuts. I tend to exercise a lot because it’s become really important to me, but when I started out, I was shooting for half an hour a day, five days a week. I guarantee you that you spend more time than that watching TV. Or playing video games. Or surfing the Internet. Or whatever your favorite downtime activity happens to be.

Although the Times story is billed as one person’s weight loss journey and pushes no agenda, at least one person thought it was “misleading” and offered “false hope”.  He and several others tried to validate the case for refusing to attempt to lose weight, citing various statistics about most people not keeping the weight off after five years, and the dangers of yo-yo dieting.

It’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen five years from now, but I can tell you this: number one, two people in my immediate family have lost weight and kept it off after lifetimes of yo-yo dieting; and number two, I’ve yo-yo dieted for years, so I know all about that. I know what it feels like to be on a dieting high, and I know what it feels like when you start the long slow slide back into the fat jeans. This feels completely different. There is no high. The honeymoon is long since over. This is a little bit of work, every single day, and a little bit of work every single day is not a terrible thing. Can everyone do it? Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure I can. Do you have to have a lot of money and time and special circumstances to make it happen? You can work with what you’ve got. You may not be able to find extra money, but you don’t need it; it just makes things easier. You can make the time, and you can develop any special circumstances you find needful.

I’ve now been working on changing my lifestyle for nearly nine months. This is not temporary. This is not a diet, because diets are temporary. Of course if you go back to your old habits, you’re going to gain weight again.  What’s different about the program I’ve undertaken is that you change the way you think. You learn to defeat old, bad thought patterns. Will I always have to be vigilant? Yes, absolutely.  I’ve accepted that. Will some days be terribly difficult, and will I fall down? Oh, my yes. But I now have the tools to help me get up and keep going. Will I gain some weight back? Most likely.  I don’t have a target weight.  I plan to see where my body wants to settle. My guess is that I will discover a comfort zone, and then I will work to stay within that zone.

My husband and I started our lifestyle change a number of years ago, switching to organics and real food, and educating ourselves about nutrition. I read several of Dr. Andrew Weil's books, including 8 Weeks to Optimum Health. We tossed out all the processed stuff, all the artificial ingredients, all the junk food, and stopped eating out in restaurants so much. We started cooking fresh foods from scratch. Now we find ourselves eating less meat and fewer carbs naturally, because that’s what we enjoy, not because we are restricting ourselves. I do make decisions about having treats and when to have them, but absolutely nothing is off limits.

It is very, very difficult to lose weight and to keep it off.  But I do think what’s missing for most people is the mental aspect. We are defeated not by a Twinkie but by our complicated, often illogical feelings about eating a Twinkie.

This is what I love about cognitive behavioral therapy, specifically Dr. Beck's program, and why it is so very effective. It is very no-nonsense. It’s about the here and now. It’s about defeating negative, illogical thought patterns. It’s about reprogramming the way you look at food. It is practical. And it is work.

For the record, I think it’s perfectly okay for someone to say, “I am not willing to do that work. I prefer to accept myself just as I am, and to defend my choices to a world that often criticizes me for them.” I don’t think you’re lazy or morally lax or a horrible person if you make that choice. I wish you didn’t have to defend yourself against such stupid and unfounded accusations. But please don’t try to tell me that my own work is in vain and please don’t try to discourage other people who might want to attempt the same work.  I believe very strongly in body positivity, and for me, that manifests in making my body strong, healthy, and yes, lighter and more toned. My choice. My preference.  My journey.

I MADE THE NEW YORK TIMES!

Today is a very special day, because finally I can reveal a secret I’ve been holding on to for some time.  A few weeks ago I told you that a major national newspaper was following my story. Well, that newspaper is the New York Times, and as of today they have posted a little story and video about my recent 100 pound weight loss!Several months ago, I was contacted by Tara Parker-Pope, who writes a health column and wellness blog for the New York Times. She found me through this blog,  and expressed an interest in following my story. When I told her that we would be celebrating my weight loss milestone on my birthday, June 7, with an 8-mile hike at a local state park, she told me that she wanted to send a video journalist to interview and film me. Enter David Frank and his assistant Jason Tobias, who followed me around all weekend and shot lots and lots of footage (a lot more than what appears in the video).

They’ve told me there will be some follow-up over the next few months, so stay tuned. And to all who were in on the video, not to mention the celebration --- thank you!

THIS BLOG EARNS ITS NAME TODAY

I'm wearing another very tight t-shirt today, but for a different reason than yesterday. Today I am wearing my tight t because this is the big day I've been working for. That's right, folks. I got on the scale this morning and lo and behold, I've finally joined the Century Club. Five days after my self-imposed deadline, and eight and a half months after I begin following the Beck Diet Solution, I have lost one hundred pounds.

Last September, I came home from an audition trip to New York, got on the scale, and saw the biggest number I'd ever seen. I'd been thinking for several weeks, really since our August trip to Sarasota (see the first pic in my gallery) that I really needed to do something about my weight, but seeing that number on the scale was the last straw. I decided right then and there that I was going to give myself a year to try to lose one hundred pounds. From that initial goal, I'm  three and a half months ahead of schedule.

And, broken wrist aside, I feel great. This is it. There isn't any going back.

I want to make it very clear that I was not an unhappy person at the weight I was. I had plenty of great friends (still do). I traveled all over the country, the world even, singing for a living --- what a great career! (Still do).  I dressed well and took good care of my skin and hair --- people were always complimenting me on how nice I looked. I did what I wanted to do, and even though I disliked exercise for exercise's sake rarely did being big stop me from hiking or doing any other outdoor activity I wanted to do. I met and dated and married a wonderful man who loved me and found me attractive just the way I was (and feels the same way now). Eric's love for me, all of me just as I am, is probably the strongest weapon in my arsenal. I could not have lost this weight without his support but also without knowing that he doesn't care whether I lose it or not --- he just wants me to be happy.

It's important to me to say these things because there is a great deal of irrational fat hatred in the world and I don't want my weight loss to be perceived as part of that. Fat people are regularly judged as moral failures based on nothing else than the way they look. They are currently being blamed for, among other things, the crises in medical care, oil, and global warming. These judgments are based on nothing more than stereotypes and have their foundation in  hatred.  So I want to make it clear that I am losing weight because it is my choice. I didn't like the way I looked or felt at the weight I was, but that didn't stop me from living a full and active life. I do not  look at other fat people with disdain, I do not look at them and see ugliness. But for me, it was time for a change, and I'm happy with my new lifestyle and look.

There are other people I need to thank for their help and support. Kim, my diet coach, who is a wonderfully wise and funny friend and always has good advice or and  a good quip. Jennifer, the therapist I've been working with.  My  online friends at LiveJournal and specifically the Beck Diet Solution Support Group. My  mom,  brothers, sisters-in-law, who love and support me no matter what I look like. All the people who read this blog and comment or email me; and all my terrific friends at home. Your encouragement means the world. Please don't stop.

So. As of today, I've lost my first 100 pounds. Tomorrow, I start on the next 100 pounds, or however much it takes to reach the place where my body is happy. I'm not setting any more deadlines for a while; but the next milestone is to see that scale turn over to the 100's. No rush. After all, this is now my lifestyle. And even when I'm craving ice cream and cookies, I like it.

Mark Bittman on What's Wrong with What We Eat

Mark Bittman is  a New York Times food critic, cookbook author,  and television personality. This is a talk he gave at  something called the Entertainment Gathering in December 2007. It was brought to my attention by Beach Bum, our friendly neighborhood med student. Thanks, BB!

BOOT CAMP DAY TWO: PROVOKING PERVERTS IN THE PARK

If there were indeed no perverts in the park today, getting their jollies watching a bunch of shorts-clad women pretend to be horses and run drills that involved pulling each other across the field in harnesses, there certainly will be on Thursday. Word will get out, you’ll see.

Today was the second day of my personal Boot Camp, and I also attended a fitness class in the park. More on that later.

The day began auspiciously when I was actually able to get out of bed, after all that activity yesterday. I wasn’t even sore. It quickly became even more auspicious when the scale revealed a two pound loss, which puts me at a very happy new low! I am now a scanty 5.1 pounds away from losing my first 100 pounds.  That doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve been slogging away at the weight loss for a while, the losses tend to slow down. I also have a well-established pattern of losing more in the middle of the month, then slowly creeping back up a little when Auntie Flo comes to town the last week of the month. So at the moment, I am cautiously optimistic, but very much aware that the situation is “So close, and yet so far”.

The sky was heavy and overcast, threatening rain, so I was unsure whether the evening boot camp was actually going to take place. Hedging my bets, I decided to hit the gym and do a short run on the elliptical. 30 minutes feels like nothing now, when I’m used to doing 50 and am working my way up to a full hour. But the gym is also no longer very satisfying. I have never been the type of person who can be fully present for longer than … oh, say ten minutes … on a piece of equipment. The only way I’m going to huff and puff my way through fifty minutes is if I have entertainment, and I suffer no illusions that reading the newspaper on the elliptical is the best way to go about it. But that’s what it takes to get me to move.

Anyway, bets all hedged, I continued with my day and this time did much better planning the food and sticking to the plan. I prepped stuff early, so that at mealtime it only had to be cooked. I also gave some thought to my day’s schedule and planned WHEN to eat a little better. One little surprise: I needed a snack between breakfast and lunch. Usually, it’s between lunch and dinner, right after or right before my workout. I ate the same breakfast I usually do (homemade yogurt with berries and nuts),  and at the same time, so I’m not sure what made the difference today. However, because we had an early dinner, I did not end up having an afternoon snack. So it all evened out.

The weather turned out to be very pleasant, but I didn’t get myself together in time to walk, so instead I biked over to the park. It was enormously pleasurable, because I can go nearly all the way on the greenbelt trails, which I mostly had to myself. It wasn’t long before the trainer (we'll call her "Sarge"), her two gorgeous daughters, and the rest of the class showed up. I was quite relieved to find out that I wasn’t quite the oldest, fattest, or most out of shape (although I was certainly in the top three). It wouldn’t have mattered if I was, though. Sarge managed things very intelligently by dividing us into groups and having us drill at different stations she set up. And it was fun. There were a lot of different activities, with varying levels of challenge, and some teamwork was involved. That’s where things like the ‘horse’ exercise came in --- one partner wore the “harness” and the other stood behind. The “horse” tried to jog and the “driver” tried to hold her back. It was quite challenging whichever end you found yourself on, and quite a sight as well. We attracted several male onlookers with that one. It didn’t hurt that a good ¾ of the class was comprised of hot teenage/college age girls. Sarge threatened to make us all wear bathing suits and play volleyball --- Bikini Boot Camp! Uh, I’ll pass.

After an hour of drilling, I hopped on my bike and pedaled back home --- mostly uphill, but nothing that did me in. I’d love to add boot camp to my weekly workout rotation, budget permitting. It’d be a great extra treat for the summer and would certainly perk up the exercise routine.

Finally, a question for the medically inclined out there. Both last night and tonight, after I’ve showered, dried, and swathed myself in my sweats, I’ve been cold. I was cold when I got home, all sweaty; but warmed up in the shower. But afterwards, I had to wrap up. It’s not particularly chilly weather in these parts, and although we do have the AC running it’s not any higher than usual. Does this have to do with my increased exercise? As I lose body fat, I find I’m always cold in restaurants and movie theaters, but this seems to be different. I'm not complaining, mind you, but it's odd to find myself turning into one of those women who is always swaddled in a sweater, even when it's 100 degrees outside!

MAKING SPACE IN YOUR LIFE FOR HEALTH

Today is Day One of Boot Camp May ’08. I have made my food plan for the entire week and done the shopping up through Thursday; and on Saturday, I went out with my little brother, the Bicycle King, and bought a shiny new bike --- my early birthday present to myself, but also a way of re-energizing a workout routine that was getting a bit stale.

Today is also the first day of my summer schedule. I’ve done some rearranging of my daily appointments in order to increase efficiency and productivity, and also to help me prioritize working out.  I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me sooner, but my fall/spring schedule does not transfer to summer. I have completely different activities. Part of the frustration and boredom with my program which I’ve been experiencing over the last couple of weeks was due to an unnecessarily cumbersome schedule.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating:  in order for any lifestyle readjustment to be successful, you have to make room in your life for all the critical planning and preparation.  This week’s revelation is that, not only must you clear out space in your life for this program just like you would clear out a cluttered room in your house, but it’s really essential to make it as easy as possible on yourself to do the necessary activities. That means scheduling time in your week to sit down and plan a healthy menu and make a shopping list. Scheduling time to actually shop. Scheduling time several times a week to get dressed, go to the gym or wherever your exercise takes place, do the activity, go home, shower, and dress again to face the day.

This, of course, requires extra planning and juggling and rearranging.  You might even look at everything you have to do and manage and deal with in your life and think it’s impossible. But we always make time for the things we really want to do; and if you are that busy and flustered in your life, maybe it’s time you reassessed whether you’re mired in stale routines that don’t really serve you best, just because the status quo is the easiest route. I'd like to challenge everyone to take a look at their daily schedule and really think about whether you are making the time you need, and whether you're making it as easy on yourself as you can to achieve your health goals.

You may very well find that your health program takes up a great deal of mental energy, especially in the beginning. It won’t always be that way, but there will be times when it needs more attention, and other times when you can fall back on your routine and not give it much thought. If you have a good routine, that should be the case most of the time.

Speaking of routines, hopefully I’ve tweaked mine sufficiently to contribute to a successful Boot Camp. The day started off well with a nice little dip in the scale. I took the dogs for a lovely 50-minute jaunt, and later, I hopped on my brand new bike and pedaled off to my training session with Dee. It took a bit of investigation, but I found a route that allows me to stay off the actual road most of the time. It’s also a bit out of the way --- if I could only go directly, it’d be less than 5 miles, but those 5 miles are on a busy country highway with little to no shoulder, and I don’t feel comfortable riding there.  It took 35 minutes to get there and 45 to get back (variations due to traffic, direction of hills, and weariness from the butt-kicking I received). Add to that my thirty minutes of training and 10 on the elliptical, and I’d call it a pretty darn productive day.

I could have done better on the food plan, since I made last-minute substitutions. They were all “legal” and within my calorie range for the day, but one of the points of doing a Boot Camp is to renew my commitment to the program, so I will have to plan better tomorrow. For example, there clearly is going to be no cooking or major food prep of any kind on training/biking days.  Clearly those days are going to be cottage-cheese-and-fruit dinners, or else a trip to Kerby Lane for their vegetable plate (which I love).

See? Tweak.

I’ve got 6.7 pounds to get off before June 7. And I want to see them gone --- right on schedule!

SOAPBOX AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK

After they retired, my grandparents bought some land out in the country, and Grandmother always had about an acre garden. One of my fondest childhood memories is wandering through that garden, investigating the various crops, picking ripe vegetables, and sitting on the porch snapping green beans with Grandmother. Nothing smells or tastes like fresh vegetables that you’ve picked that morning. There is nothing in the best gourmet organic supermarket that can compare; no commercially grown food rivals what you can grow in your own backyard, or in pots on your porch.

And if you’ll allow me to step up on my soapbox for a moment, I think this is one of the things that’s wrong with the world, or at least with the U.S. So many people now grow up without knowing what food looks like, let alone tastes like, before it’s processed into oblivion --- no wonder our national nutrition is so awful.  So do yourself a favor this summer: if you have a yard, or a sunny spot where you can put a few containers, plant something. And if you can’t plant something, take a little extra time on the weekend and do your veggie shopping at a farmer’s market. Here are two links to help you find a local farmer’s market:

Agricultural Marketing Service

Local Harvest

If you’d like to try your hand at turning your thumb green, start with container gardening. Containers are easy to relocate and care for; you won’t need to weed; and you can control the soil type handily. Herbs grow extremely well in pots; they’re beautiful, fragrant, and very hardy, needing little care. And fresh herbs (pick ‘em first thing in the morning for the best flavor) add so much to your cooking!  Tomatoes and strawberries do extremely well in pots. There are miniature varieties of cucumbers that also are great container plants --- I grew some last summer and soon had more than I could eat or give away. Other plants that do well in containers include peppers, lettuces, squash, green beans, radishes, and green onions. Check out this website for more information about container vegetable gardening.

If you’ve got even a little space in your yard, you can grow quite a lot. I have a fairly small raised bed that I put in an otherwise useless side yard. I am a haphazard gardener; I plant whatever I think I’ll like and let it duke it out for space. What grows, grows. It works very well, mainly because I filled my bed with excellent soil and add a rich compost and more soil once a year. I have very few weeds and the yield is quite good for a garden of this size. Except for the annual relocation of marigolds, I have very little work to do, and can enjoy fresh veggies well into the late fall. But if you want to get all fancy about it, check out Square Foot Gardening.

My little garden is already starting to yield its bounty. This year I’ve planted yellow crookneck squash, zucchini, cucumbers, several varieties of tomatoes and peppers, fennel, and Swiss chard. I also have cherry tomatoes, red okra, and cukes coming back from last season; along with the Immortal Herb Corner (you can’t kill ‘em!). The squash, zucchini, and peppers are already setting fruit --- just in time for the grill! I like to sprinkle them with olive oil, salt and pepper. They need nothing else. But if you want to get fancy, try some herbs de Provence.

Summertime is pesto time. I love making (and eating) fresh pesto.  I make a lower-fat version simply by substituting water for some of the olive oil, and I don’t put cheese in mine, although some people do. I also don’t really measure; I just put stuff in until it looks like the right consistency. But for you, I’ll try to guessitmate:

FRESH PESTO

¾ cup pine nuts
1 bunch fresh basil
2 cloves of garlic (more or less depending on your taste; I like it fairly garlicky)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Water as needed
Salt as needed

Grind the pine nuts to a rough paste in a food processor. Add basil leaves and garlic; process until smooth. Leaving the processor running, slowly drizzle in olive oil, and then water until desired consistency is reached. Add a little salt) and adjust for taste(be conservative; as it sits the flavors will “marry” and become more intense).

One of my newest, most favorite uses for pesto is on grilled eggplant. If you don’t have a grill, you can just as easily do this in the oven.

GRILLED EGGPLANT

Slice an eggplant in ¼ inch thick slices, leaving the peel on. Brush both sides with pesto. Grill (or broil) until tender (1-2 minutes each side). Add a little more pesto and top with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Return to grill (or broiler) until melted.

Bon Appetit!

BIG DAY

So, yesterday I paid a pretty sum for a woman to kick my butt for an hour. Get your mind out of the gutter --- it was Dee, my personal trainer, and while that was the longest hour of my life so far, I’m hoping that next week will be a little easier as my body gets used to being pushed. Right now I feel exhausted, but tight (in a good way). My last trainer never pushed me like this! We did lots of squats with dumbbells, cardio on a torture device called the Jacob’s Ladder (where I surprised her by doing 2 full minutes --- apparently this was a great deal more than she thought I’d be able to do), crunches, lat pulls … tell you what, I left there exhausted but also feeling “tight” in a good way.

Dee mostly approves of my food plan, as well. She gently encouraged me to get rid of the maple syrup in my yogurt, that occasional half ounce of dark chocolate, and any meats that aren’t lean. I’d get faster results.  I told her that while I wasn’t saying never, this was working for me now, and the key word is sustainability. A world without chocolate is just not a world I wanna live in, to put it bluntly.

“Okay, “she said, “but one of these days, I think you’re going to find that you don’t want those things any more.”

And you know, if that day comes … that will be fine.  If you’d told me a few months ago that I would happily eat salad without dressing, I would have thought you were crazy.

Today was a big day. It was my six-month check up with my doctor, and the last time I was there, I weighed approximately 83 pounds more than I do today. I’ve been fantasizing about this day for months now. Just imagine, WANTING to get on that awful scale at the doctor’s office. It’s certainly something I’ve always dreaded before; a humiliation that had to be endured.  My doctor has switched to a digital scale, plus there was a new nurse, so I was robbed of my fantasy of seeing a puzzled look as she started the scale off too high and had to slide it down to get the correct weight. But it was all worth it to see my doctor get so excited. I’ve mentioned it before, but my doctor is short, slightly chubby, balding, and adorable. He looks sort of like George Constanza, except huggable. OK, maybe more like Sarah Jessica Parker’s “gay husband” on Sex in the City.  Dr. S probably wouldn’t appreciate either of those comparisons, but the bottom line is, he’s cute.  And he was absolutely BEAMING as he looked over my bloodwork, which is now normal, cut my meds in half, and pronounced that I would most likely be able to get off them entirely “in a very short time”.  Getting off those meds has been a dearly held goal of mine ever since I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes several years ago; reversing it completely is the ultimate goal and even more important to me than looking better. So now I have high hopes for the next visit, in September.

In the meantime, my next challenge is a weekend in Florida, where I am going to sing on a memorial concert for my dearest friend, the tenor Gary Rideout. Gary passed away last September after a brief illness, and not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.  His agent has arranged a concert in his honor to kick off donations to a scholarship fund in Gary’s name, and invited me to come and sing. Besides the obvious emotional challenge, I am concerned about the difficult travel schedule and spending a couple of days as a guest in a stranger’s home. I will have a hard time planning my food, so I will just have to fly by the seat of my pants and try to make the best choices I can. I do plan to take some of my protein bars, in case I get in a pinch. I am doing too well now, and my 100 pound goal is in sight --- I can’ t let anything, not anything, interfere.

THE CASE FOR REAL FOOD (PART I)

I always find it so WEIRD when Easter falls in March. It just doesn’t seem right. That said, I am very happy to have had the long weekend in which to recuperate and catch up after my latest gig. We spent it at home, holed up, eating good food and watching the New York City Opera broadcast of Madama Butterfly. But whenever I wasn’t cooking or cuddling on the couch with Sammy and Lila, I was outside doing yardwork. The last couple of years, I’ve missed the chance to plant a spring veggie garden (I’ve been on the road), so I want to be sure and get it in early this year. It’s so nice to be able to pick your dinner out of the back yard!

In further pursuit of fresh local food, I’m toying with the idea of buying a farm share and possibly even a share of a dairy cow. Now, I realize that this sounds pretty hippie-dippy, but I’ve been doing some reading and there is quite a case to be made for raw milk and products made from raw milk, not to mention grassfed beef and critters raised naturally (by which I mean, the way God intended, not necessarily the way Corporate America Farming intends. More on that in a minute).  About the only way to do this is to find a farm that sells directly to the public. Usually you can join a group that takes turns making pickups.

Yes, it’s a lot of trouble. Why go to such lengths?

Quite simply, you cannot trust grocery store labels. They are marketing devices intended to convey a sense of health and nature, or whatever it is the marketing people think it will take to make you buy their product.  They do not show you the whole picture about how your food is produced --- what chemicals and antibiotics it’s treated with, the conditions in which animals are raised, etc.

Take, for example, the term “free-range”, often associated with poultry. In recent years, the horrible abuses that go on in the chicken industry have been exposed. Chickens are kept for their entire lives in tiny cages, their beaks sawed short to prevent pecking each other to death. They are fed hormones to make them overlay and to cause development of huge breasts, the better to satisfy consumer demands for lots of white meat. They are, essentially, tortured their entire lives, and their deaths are often equally inhumane.

Needless to say, most people who learn about these conditions are rightfully upset. Who wants to be the kind of person who tortures animals? But by buying and eating chickens that are ill-treated, we must accept a share of the blame.

Enter big business and their marketing guys. They need to find a way to keep us buying chickens, without cutting into their profits too much. So special labels are born --- labels like “free range”.

It sounds good, right? Chickens are meant to forage. They are omnivores and need a varied diet which includes bugs, grain, and other nice things they find in an open space. The best eggs and meat come from chickens allowed to range freely.

 The label “free range” connotes happy chickens wandering in a farm yard, allowed to scratch and peck and forage and do what chickens do naturally. But in fact, any chicken can be labeled “free range” if it simply has access to the outdoors --- which could be no more than a dirt pen stuffed with other chickens. The birds can mill around, but they certainly aren’t roaming free and they certainly aren’t foraging. They aren’t free range chickens.  The amount of time birds spend outside each day is also not specified by the regulations.

Those California “happy cows” commercials make me very suspicious. They show a few cows wandering about on green hills, enjoying life. I’ve driven through California many times (even lived there for a while) and I’ve never seen green hills (beautiful gold, yes. Green? Not so much!) or cows roaming them. I have seen giant dirt feedlots crammed full of cattle. Cattle need grass and hay, not grain. They need to be roaming over those hills.

Besides being a big fan of animals and treating them well, even if I intend to eat them at some point (which I do), the facts show that animals raised traditionally, with plenty of room and access to the foods they evolved to eat, are healthier. Big surprise there. Their meat is better-tasting and has more of the good stuff we want and need. This is why I’m looking into buying directly from a farm where the critters are pastured and compassionately cared for instead of factory-produced and tormented.  It is both an ethical and a health/nutrition issue.

As for the farm shares, I just think this is really neat. Some farms will allow you to purchase a share of their crops. Once a week, you get a delivery (or go to an assigned pickup) of a big box of whatever is in season and freshly picked. Of course, if the crops fail, you’re out of luck. You share the goodies, you share the risk.

Still, I did the math and I’d be getting veggies to supply a family of four for a week for about $21 a week. I know I spend more on veggies at Whole Foods, and some of those are shipped in from other countries, which adds to their expense (not to mention their environmental footprint).  It’s appealing to think of trying so many different fresh veggies every week (plus whatever I manage to grow in my own small garden). And Texas has a very long growing season, nearly year-round.

If I do decide to try buying my meat and produce this way, you can be sure I’ll report in, not only on how it all works out but also how it tastes and what effect it has on my diet. In the meantime, if you’re interested in finding out more about locally produced foods, farm shares, raw milk, grassfed beef, and the like, I urge you to pick up a copy of Real Food by Nina Planck, and to visit this website and peruse the links.