The Next Hundred Pounds

MINDFULNESS

The weather in New York has been chilly, but sunny and nice. There’s a lot of fall color, beautiful to see --- we do have some in Texas, but it’s much more subtle, and most of it won’t even show until December!

Despite the bumpy start, it’s been a good trip. I’ve had two good voice lessons and a coaching. A little background for the civilians, based on FAQ: yes, professional singers usually continue to study with their teachers. The voice is a sensitive and unique instrument which requires regular calibration! Every new role presents new challenges; even a familiar role feels different as the voice matures and changes. A voice lesson is about vocal technique: the how-tos, if you will. A coaching is done with a skilled pianist who is knowledgeable about repertoire, diction, style, and singing, but is rarely himself a singer. Coaches do not (or should not) offer technical advice. Instead, they work with you on the fine points of the music and the language. Ideally, I would have one voice lesson and one coaching every week, but in reality for a pro, that rarely happens . So I try to pack as many lessons and coachings as I possibly can into every trip!

I also had a good audition. Keep your fingers crossed, or as we say in my family, send good vibes! The economic disasters are starting to hit opera companies; a couple have already closed and many are scaling back on their seasons. A friend still hasn’t received half a fee from a job done last summer, and it doesn’t look like that fee will ever materialize. Contrary to popular belief, very few opera singers get rich doing what we do. We are all free-lancers, which means we are self-employed and get no benefits, plus we pay double taxes (and commission to our agents!). You can see how, when a  contract or, worse yet, a paycheck for work already rendered falls through, it’s a big deal. My friend who isn’t getting paid lost money on that gig because it was necessary to be on the road for a month to rehearse and perform. And opera singers do not have expense accounts.

With budget as well as waistline in mind, I’ve been careful here, but not as careful as I could have been.  Sometimes convenience and exhaustion have trumped my obsession with not gaining during my travel. I’m ok with that --- it just means having to work harder and be extra careful when I get home. Most importantly, though, I have been adhering to my principles for Bunny Slipper Camp --- I’ve planned as well as I could, and I have been mindful. 

I WILL BE MINDFUL.

I WILL REFUSE TO DILUTE THE LIVING OF MY LIFE BY OVERDOING.

One of the most valuable principles of the Beck Diet Solution is to be mindful of what you are eating. It’s very easy for us to sit down with a bowl of popcorn or nuts or M&M’s and pop one after another into our mouths, consuming many more calories than we thought of or planned without really paying attention. And if we’re not paying attention, what is the point of eating?

The same is true of the holidays in general. These are supposed to be times of joy, of reconnecting with family and friends, celebrating, fun, and indulgence. But too often we rush from one engagement to another, or overload ourselves with activities and tasks that ultimately aren’t so important. A great deal of pressure is put on us by the media, and much of it is focused on making us feel inadequate and threatened. Find THE PERFECT GIFT or you’re a loser as a friend. Spend a lot of money or your family will think you’re cheap and selfish and no one will have a good holiday! Make your house look like this one in the magazine (which has been expensively and professionally decorated by an entire team of people whose job it is to do this, and in which no one actually lives anyway) or you aren’t in the spirit! Cook this fabulously complicated meal! Buy this fabulously expensive dress and all the right accessories to go with it! Spend, eat, do, attend, make, buy, decorate, chase after the impossible dream.

Stop. Just stop and breathe.

You do not need to spend a fortune. You do not need to make yourself or your house look like something out of a magazine. Anything that costs more than $5 is not, in fact, a “stocking stuffer”.  You do not have to make your entire holiday meal from scratch (unless that’s what you like doing).

What you do need to do is slow down and concentrate on what is REALLY important. We are in a major economic slump. Nobody needs to be out spending a lot of money right now. It’s the perfect time to have an old-fashioned, slow, down home style holiday season. It’s the perfect time to be mindful of your choices, and to choose what makes you sane and happy rather than what makes you frenzied.

Now is the perfect time to practice saying to yourself, “So what?”

So what if you don’t go to four different New Year’s Eve parties? So what if you stay home and pop popcorn and watch old movies  and play board games with your loved ones?

So what if you don’t buy any new outfits for the holiday season? Don’t you have enough already? Can’t you play around with what’s in your closet and come up with something fabulous from what you have?

So what if you don’t get, or give, a lot of presents? How much stuff do we all really need anyway? What would be the big deal about giving gift certificates instead of running around like a chicken with your head cut off, doing mad shopping?

Now is the time to choose the things you really enjoy, as well as the things you must do, and let the rest go. If you really love cooking the entire holiday meal from scratch (and I really do), then make the time to do it, and love every moment of it. If you really love shopping for the perfect gift for each and every person on your list, by all means do it. But make the time to do it in such as way that you are concentrating on the real reasons behind it --- because you love this person and you want to make them happy, because you love this particular task and it fulfills you in some way. Be present in what you do.

The rest of it we really don’t need.

This holiday season, I am making a list of tasks that need to be done, and when they need to be accomplished. I do enjoy shopping but I have neither the time nor a great deal of money for it this year, so I suspect that a lot of people on my list are going to get a modest gift certificate or some homemade baked goods, and as usual, I’ll take the kids shopping after Christmas for something they really wanted and didn’t get.

This season, shoot for quality over quantity. Shoot for the intimate and meaningful over the mass-produced and commercial.  It will be healthier for your mind, your body, and your budget.

EMERGENCY RATIONS

Emergency is the mother of invention! Well, emergency might be a little extreme. No one’s going to die if they have to fly into New York without makeup on, or style their hair without gel (well, somebody like Heidi Klum might. Then again, she probably looks amazing without any styling at all). Still, I am pleased that I managed a little camoflauge, using only a pinky nude lipstick and some very overpriced-yet-low rent eyeliner and mascara I picked up at the hotel’s  understocked gift shop. Hairspray makes a fine styling product, even applied to semi-dry hair. However, there were some close calls with the round brush, which I have yet to master. I almost had to fly with a big round brush hanging off the side of my head, hopelessly entangled in what’s left of my hair.

I’m even more pleased with my breakfast discovery. It’s been a long time since I had any Philly cream cheese, and maybe it was just this packet, but it tasted like donkey butt. Not that I know what donkey butt tastes like. I’m speculating here. And the $3 fruit cup from Starbucks consisted largely of underage melon paired with grapes well on their way to raisinhood. However, as it turns out, half a banana smooshed onto a bagel and studded with a few cashews turns out to be exxxxcellent. Nutrition-wise, I’d prefer an English muffin or some whole wheat toast to a bagel, but sometimes you gotta work with what’s on hand.

As it turned out, today was a day about improvisation.  The nice people at the Continental counter in Houston raised my hopes high (your bag is in LaGuardia, they said!) only to vilely dash them on my arrival (your bag is in Newark, they said!). I was forced to scavenge the airport for warm clothing, as my coat is in the suitcase and the sweater I’ve been wearing since yesterday morning is not sufficient for the local weather. By the time I dealt with filing a claim, it was too late to do anything but go straight to my voice lesson, driven by one of those New York cabbies who has no idea how to get to upstate Manhattan from the airport. At least he was nice. After my lesson, I called and wrangled with someone about the bag some more, and got pretty pissed off when the convenience of the delivery guy was repeatedly mentioned. I might have said something about how inconvenient it was for me to have my bag taken to Newark when I was flying to LaGuardia, not that they care. By the time that was over, I just had to get to my coaching. So, lunch was a protein bar. At least I wasn’t pigging out.

By the time the coaching was over and I’d finally heard from Continental that they will get around to bringing my bag sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. this evening (!!!) , I was exhausted, cold, and hungry. I gave up and went to Niko’s  for a salad and their delicious, and I think, healthy, bouillabaisse (it’s in a light broth with lots of very fresh veggies and herbs … SO good). I ended up bringing half of it home. And I did have dessert. So, the rest of the trip will be on the austerity plan.

In order to combat the dreaded travel pounds, I’ve decided to stick with yogurt breakfasts for the trip; and soup and salad lunches. Surely I can get some soup that isn’t cream-based and aggressively salted. For dinner, I’ve decided to try getting Egg Beaters and some pre-chopped veggies, and making omelettes. I’d prefer fresh eggs but I’m only here a couple of days, so I don’t want to buy half a dozen.  Also, the weather looks better this time around, so I should be able to get some exercise in.

But enough of my travel adventures.  It’s time to continue with HOLIDAY BUNNY SLIPPER CAMP 2008, and more on planning.

In my last post on the subject, we discussed making time to make time. I have some special challenges this holiday season. Eric and I usually do the big Thanksgiving meal, which is quite an event; but this year, I will be in San Antonio doing my concert the week before. The final performance is the day before Thanksgiving. Our usual weeklong shopping and cooking extravaganza is probably not going to work out this year, and this is especially disappointing, since Eric is going to be in France for Christmas. (We luuuuurvvve to cook big fancy meals for the whole family).  We plan the menu far in advance and carefully plot what can be prepared early. We have a battle plan for the week, and cook every day leading up to the Big T. Being ultra-organized means a more enjoyable holiday, and more time spent with our family and friends.

It’s just harder this year.  I have my audition trips. I have a week of rehearsal during which I will sometimes be making the long drive between San Antonio and Austin, or staying over in a hotel  (still no word on whether I will have access to a kitchen). Thanksgiving.  End of the semester and lots of make-ups for my students,  which further disrupts my normal schedule. More audition trips. And don’t even get me started on Christmas. I have to make it through this month without going insane and eating an entire chocolate cake, or falling off the workouts. It’s very important to me to keep losing weight, even if it’s only a little.

So, I’m sitting down with my PDA (right now! On the flight, since I’m a captive audience!) and scheduling in all the big things. I am going to plan my food out roughly, as far in advance as I can. I’m going to make a tentative holiday meal plan. We usually go all out, but I think this time we’re going to focus on making the most delicious healthy things we can, rather than throw caution to the wind and load up on fat and sugar.  There was a time when that would have seemed horribly restrictive to me, but since I enjoy cooking and experimenting with food, it now seems like an attractive challenge; and definitely more appetizing.

One thing we do always schedule into our holiday is a big family walk. Last year, we put the turkey in to roast and headed out to the trail for a brisk, refreshing jaunt. Later, after the meal, the whole gang went out to the park for a little stroll before convening back home for dessert and coffee. Such a lovely, civilized way to do things.  We did something similar at Christmas, taking all the kids to the park to let them run off some steam, and I hope this will become the new  extended family tradition.

Of course, as current events conspire to teach us, the best-laid plans often go awry. In helping myself with eating on plan, a while back I created an informal list of alternative meals I could always have if my planned one fell through. For example, you can find a grilled chicken salad just about anywhere.  You can find yogurt and fresh fruit in many places. The problem for me now is that I have become über-picky about the nutritional content of my food. I want it fresh, organic if possible, and more or less plain. Yesterday, of necessity, we had lunch out at Hyde Park Bar and Grill, which is usually very good. I thought I was safe ordering a pasta dish with veggies; the waiter said that the only sauce was olive oil and parmesean cheese. I asked for the cheese on the side and specified that I did not want any oil ADDED to the pasta; it would be enough to cook the veggies in a little and put them on top. But the dish arrived gleaming with grease, and couldn’t have had more than a half cup of diced veggies on it (none of which appeared to be the promised garlic). Not to mention that there were probably about six servings of pasta in that bowl. I picked out the veggies and left most of the pasta in the dish.  At least they respected my request not to salt it.

So, sometimes I just have to do the best I can, like today, and make up for it when I can. I’m going to work on coming up with a new list of things I can likely grab when traveling; mere sustenance is not enough; you need satisfaction as well.  The banana-cashew mash is definitely going on the roster! Wish I’d thought of it before the donkey butt cream cheese debacle.

THE GLAMOUR OF TRAVEL

There’s a theatrical superstition about dress rehearsals. You don’t want your dress rehearsal to be too good; if it is, it may suck the juice out of opening night. Ideally, the dress rehearsal still has a few bumps and lumps, still leaves a little to be desired, so you can ramp up the energy for the opening.

Would that the same were true of travel. Would that a bumpy ride indicated smooth sailing upon reaching one’s destination! Because, if it did, I would be assured of having a kickass audition on Wednesday.

I’m writing from the Sheraton Airport in Houston. I did not make it to New York as planned tonight; thanks to weather delays and a variety of mechanical and sundry mystery issues. Not only did I spend several hours sitting around the airport this evening, but I once again failed to bring my carefully planned dinner. (This time, at least, I caught my mistake in time to replace it with a healthy salad).  Long story short, should the gods of travel be sufficiently placated on the morrow, I will be on the first flight out and should arrive in Manhattan in time for my voice lesson (and boy, would it suck it if I didn’t). Armed with a twelve dollar food voucher and the realization that nothing would be open when I board the plane, I stocked up on goodies at Starbuck’s: a cup of fruit, 140 calories. A bag of cashews, 150 calories for 1/3 of the bag. An ounce of cream cheese, 100 calories for an ounce.  The barrista, when asked, disappeared into the back for a long time and then emerged to tell me that a plain bagel was 110 calories. I don’t know where he got that info. Calorie King says it’s 430 calories. Can that be right? MyFitnessPal says 330. The Daily Plate says 280. Yeeesh!  Guess I’ll play it safe and have the fruit, half a bagel, and half the cream cheese. The rest will be emergency rations!

It’s going to be interesting arriving tomorrow and finding out whether my luggage made it to LaGuardia, or went to Newark with most of the people on my flight who chose to go there tonight rather than waiting for morning.  Interesting because I have no clothes but the ones on my back. My coat is in the checked luggage and I have a light sweater. I may be buying souvenir sweatshirts at the airport tomorrow morning. I just hope my luggage makes it to my lodging, because otherwise tomorrow is going to be about shopping for a new audition outfit.

Yes, the life of an opera singer is exciting. Sometimes I wish it were a little less so!

THE BEST-LAID PLANS ...

No sooner did I pontificate about planning, than my own fledgling plans were thrown into an uproar by a few emails from my agent. Now, this is part of the job of a singer, and I’m kind of used to it, but it always discombobulates me a little because my duckies, I do like them to be in a nice, straight little row.  As a result of all this good news (auditions!) I have not yet taken my own advice to MAKE TIME TO MAKE TIME. But I will, I will. As one of those people who needs lots and lots of toys to keep herself out of trouble during long flights, my next trip to NYC will be the perfect time to map out the holiday season as best I may. I don’t need to be reading all those trashy magazines anyway.

A last-minute audition has come up, so I’ve been rushing about the last few days making travel arrangements, shuffling my students around, booking voice lessons, coachings, and an accompanist for the audition, practicing, learning a new piece in Czech (a language I do not speak and with which I have no prior experience), getting the haircut my agent insisted on, learning how to style the new haircut my agent insisted on, taking my dress to the dry cleaner’s, copying resumes and photos, shopping for a new concert gown, finishing up an article for Classical Singer Magazine, and all manner of equally glamorous chores.  I am proud that I have MADE myself keep exercising. Tonight I went to the gym and did a full hour on the elliptical, although I would have much preferred to stay home and watch the Ugly Betty DVD with my husband. But there is no rest for the ample-assed, even the newly diabetes-free AA.

You see, it’s going to be a very busy and challenging November, program-wise.   I leave for NYC on Monday, and as we all know, I fear the dreaded Travel Pounds.  The last trip was a success but also very difficult; I have decided that while yogurt and salad are lovely healthful meals for warm weather travel, they are not going to cut it when baby it’s cold outside. There are some good soup places in NYC; maybe I can find some soups that aren’t full of cream and laden with sodium. At least they all have to post calorie content now.

As soon as I hit the ground from NYC, our anniversary looms. Immediately after that, I’m off to San Antonio for the week to rehearse for the concert with Andrea Bocelli. I’ll be staying overnight several times, and I have no idea where they’re putting me up, or whether I’ll be able to cook or at least store food. And then it’s Thanksgiving, and then there’s another trip to NY.

Don’t get me wrong, I am THRILLED to be so busy with my singing career; but the schedule is conspiring against my exercise and eating plan! I am going to have to be especially vigilant. It’s harder when it gets colder; you want to eat more, and eat more heavy stuff.  And it’s harder to get outdoor exercise in.  But this is the job. This is my life. It’s just what I gotta do.

ANNOUNCING HOLIDAY BUNNY SLIPPER CAMP 2008

The fall decorations whizzed in and out of the stores sometime in September, the better to make room for months of Christmas buildup. The older I get, the crankier I become about the relentless commercialization and the rampant consumerism surrounding the holidays, as well as the added pressure to look! buy! dress! eat! party! decorate! a certain, abominably expensive, way. We don’t have to buy into it people, literally or figuratively. And we certainly don’t have to give in to the next two and a half months of piehole-stuffing. Now is the time to strategize for the holidays, so we can ENJOY them, not battle them, and come out the other side feeling like we’ve celebrated rather than been through hell and back.

We’ve all heard of Boot Camp, but the holidays are no time for Boot Camp. We want to take care of ourselves, and we don’t need extra pushing or pressure. We need comfort and coziness and safety. So, to borrow a term from my wise friend Kim, I am declaring the next two months HOLIDAY BUNNY SLIPPER CAMP 2008.

This is my challenge to myself, and to any of you who choose to take up the gauntlet, from now through New Year’s. Yes, it is a weight loss challenge, but more than that, it is a physical and mental health, lifestyle, and perhaps even spiritual challenge. And it can be boiled down to the following five commitments:

I will plan.

I will be mindful.

I will refuse to dilute the living of my life by overdoing.

I will inhabit the moment.

I will show love for myself and for others by making self-care a priority.

 
I’ll elaborate on each of these goals in turn, beginning where you almost always should: with a plan.

I will plan my food and stick to eating what is on my plan. I will plan my exercise. I will make time in my daily or weekly schedule to plan food and exercise, as well as to shop and prepare. I will also plan time for gift shopping, decorating, housecleaning, and whatever else needs to be done so that when the holidays are upon me, I can enjoy time with friends and family and not feel rushed and overwhelmed.

If you’re playing along at home. I want you to get the following:

• Your PDA, DayPlanner, a big calendar, or whatever else you use to mark out your time. I have a PDA which is great for day-to-day events, but I also like to write them down on my wall calendar and sometimes even in my free online Google calendar, so I have easy access at a glance.
• A small notebook or whatever you use as a food planner
• Anything you use to write to-do lists
• A kitchen timer or stopwatch

MAKE TIME TO MAKE TIME

If you’ve got time to sit here reading my blog (and I’m so happy that you do!) you have time to schedule your holiday season. You don’t have to do it all right now. Set your timer for five, ten, or fifteen minutes, whatever you’ve got. We’re going to make a business plan for surviving the holidays, and we’re going to start by MAKING TIME TO MAKE TIME. Breaking our tasks down into small chunks, and programming in some accountability so we can see our progress (and what’s left to do!) will make what could be a monumental project manageable rather than overwhelming.

First, if you are not already doing this, I want you to look at your daily calendar and decide when you are going to write your food plan. I usually do mine right before I go to bed every night. Sometimes I even do several days at once, and then make revisions the day before if needed. With practice, this goes very fast and takes less than five minutes. After that, if you have more time, I want to you schedule when you are going to shop and cook. If you have still more, schedule time for making to-do lists, gift lists, etc. No task is too small to list, and don’t bother trying to organize them in any particular order. Just jot down everything you think of. Also, keep this list handy so you can write down things as you think of them. My to-do list is in the same notebook as my food plan.

If you are doing the cooking for your holiday meals, set aside extra time to write the menu, make your grocery list, and plan your cooking. Eric and I make this sort of an  event. We go to breakfast or dinner with our good friend Elden, who always spends the night before Thanksgiving with us, and make a battle plan for menu, shopping, and prep. We start cooking days in advance so we aren’t overwhelmed on the day of. But more on our holiday meal prep later.

If you don’t have time right now to do all this planning, right at this moment I want you to commit to as many five, ten, or fifteen minute sessions as you think it will take. Put them in your PDA or calendar right now, and make those times sacred. No matter what else happens in your day, you have got to make time to plan.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, one of the biggest excuses people use for avoiding  something they really should be doing is that they don’t have time; but the fact is that we all make time for the things that are important to us. Planning is a habit you can get into. This primarily a blog about weight loss, but what that really translates to is good living. When we live our best lives, we are healthier, and health should be our ultimate goal, not just carving off the next few pounds. So for your mental, spiritual, and yes, for your physical health, make time to plan!

One of the great tools for success in losing weight is my daily food plan. Every once in a while, I skip actually writing it down, but most days I write it in a little notebook that goes everywhere with me. It’s like making a little contract with yourself; it’s harder to make excuses for eating things you shouldn’t when you’ve actually written down what you intend to eat for the day. Also, it’s nice not to have to come up with something for dinner at the last minute after a busy, trying day. Too often in the past, Eric and I would go out or eat something unsatisfying at home, which encouraged us to eat more later.

With a plan in place, we spend less money at the grocery store and on last minute dining out, because we’ve taken a short time to plan ahead. Here’s how I make it work:

Two or three times a week, depending on what our schedule is going to be like, I do “big cooking”. On days when I am less busy, I make big dishes like soups and casseroles that we can eat for lunches and dinners several days running; or freeze leftovers for a couple of weeks down the road when we aren’t tired of them. Often I even prep something to be cooked in the next day or so. I also stock certain staples that I know can always turn into a quick meal if neither of us feels like preparing dinner: tuna, beans and tortillas, salad fixings, fruit, nuts, frozen veggies. We often will have yogurt for dinner. It’s become a comfort food, and we never get tired of it.

Since we try to eat mostly fresh, organic foods, we tend to eat seasonally. All summer long we enjoyed lots of berries, but it’s hard to find organic berries now, so we’re eating my fall favorite, Honeycrisp apples and pears, instead. Foods taste better when they’re in season, and we eagerly anticipate favorites. It helps keep us from being bored with our menus, which is great because we tend to rotate a few favorites every other week. For example, we’ll eat a lot of veggie “lasagna” or enchiladas for a month or two, and then it’s getting chilly and we want soup. So we do soups every week for a while, and  so on.

We shop twice a week at two different stores, and it’s very, very rare that we have to run out for extra items. Each week, I have a page in my little notebook dedicated to the shopping list for each store. At the top of the page, I list the “big dishes” I’m making that week, and below I write the various ingredients. When one of us notices we need something, I jot that down. Anal retentive freak that I am, not only do I write the item down, but I leave spaces and list things more or less in the order we’ll encounter them in the grocery store. For example, I know we enter through the produce section, so all the produce we need gets listed first. Then we progress through the fish and meat counters, bulk aisle, canned goods, frozen, cheese and dairy, bakery, and last the deli. It makes it much faster and more efficient, and harder to miss items. My friend Kim is even more organized: she’s created a spreadsheet she can print out each week!

Shopping days are little treats for us, rather than being a horrid chore. Granted, we both work from home and can plan our own days most of the time. We have one weekday during which we never take standing appointments, and that’s a shopping day for us. We get up early and go before the crowds, stopping for breakfast in the café. Our other shopping day is early Sunday morning, and again, we miss the crowds and have a nice breakfast at the store. Then we get our shopping done pretty quickly; and if there are other errands to run, we do those on the way home. We bring our own shopping bags and a cooler for cold items; the fish people are always happy to give us bags of ice!

Not everyone has the luxury of breakfast out and shopping on a weekday morning; but try to find a time to go when there are fewer people in the store. If you hate shopping, give yourself some little treat to look forward to; maybe a piece of good chocolate or a small cup of gelato, taking time to try all the good-smelling lotions and potions in the cosmetic aisle, or buying yourself a few flowers. And take along that list. It will make things so much easier and faster!

We also plan when and where we will eat out during the week. We used to decide at the last minute, when we were too tired or lazy to cook, or when there wasn’t anything appetizing in the house. We often used this as an excuse to eat out, and both our budget and our waistlines showed the results. Now that we have a dining out routine, if you will, we don’t go over budget on either money or calories. There’s still room for occasional spontaneity, and we enjoy eating out much more.

It’s important to keep your daily plans in place during the holidays. Start by looking at when your big events will be, and work around those first. We’ll talk more about those things as we go along, as well as planning holiday meals, parties, and events. But this is more than enough for all of us to get started! Remember, the goal is to glide through the holidays and enjoy them more than ever before; and, of course, to come out slimmer and healthier on the other side.

So, go slip into those cozy, comfy bunny slippers, pour yourself a cup of tea, and start planning. It’s the best gift you could give yourself --- and your loved ones --- this holiday season.

TRICKS AND TREATS

For the record: after a month-long battle and disappointing two-pound loss in September, mo’betta exercise has put me back in the game, and my total loss for October was 9.6 pounds . I did NOT gain an ounce while in New York and in fact lost a tiny little bit. I did not emo eat, either, which was perhaps the bigger triumph.

      Halloween itself was a challenging day, but not because of the candy. Eric and I elected to purchase cheap, crappy candy. In past years, not wanting to be known as a House with Crappy Candy, we have sprung for the Good Stuff. This year, we bought the cheap stuff because

        1. Like most people, our 401K was raided by the Economy Grinch and;

           2. We didn’t want to be tempted.

‘Cause if there had been Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the house, HFCS  (aka Satan’s  Sugar) or no, we would have eaten them.

Speaking of Satan’s Sugar, the war of words over HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) rages on. Check out Tara Parker-Pope’s thoughts in the NY Times Wellness Blog

I asked Dr. Dean to share his thoughts, and he had this to say on the matter:

“I've heard at least one of the HFCS messages, and what came across to me is they were saying it was no worse than table sugar (sucrose). While that is debatable, sugar is bad enough! So if they are comparing themselves to sugar, paradoxically they are not making themselves look very good.

There is a good argument, with the physiologic mechanism established in scientific papers, that ingested fructose causes elevation of serum uric acid. This could worsen gout. So does that mean fruits are bad (fructose is their main disaccharide)? Not necessarily because they have a lot of fiber to slow absorption. But straight fructose is probably not real good. On the other hand, health food stores sell fructose which in past years has been argued to have less impact on your blood sugar than sucrose. So who knows what to believe?

 BTW, check out the first three ingredients in Gatorade: water; sucrose syrup; HFCS. "Sports drinks" are not healthy for us. Water is.”

My personal verdict on HFCS is this: it may or may not be extra special bad for you, but it certainly isn’t good. It doesn’t taste as good as real sugar, the farming and processing of corn takes a ridiculous toll on the environment, the subsidizing of corn takes a toll on the economy and squeezes out other, healthier crops; and bottom line for someone concerned about nutrition is that the foods it is used in are highly processed and often filled with artificial flavorings and colors, and other stuff that your body just doesn’t need, even in “moderation”. So save the calories for something wholesome that actually tastes good and puts nutrients in your body. And if you need a treat, have something high quality, made from scratch with the real thing.

Back to the treats. As previously mentioned, Halloween was a tricky day, so when it got dark, I decided to amuse myself by dressing up to hand out the candy.

Exhibit A: the Blase Milkmaid

My own little Halloweenies had a great time helping me greet people at the door! They love to see all the little kids in costumes (and so do we). One little girl told me I was pretty. Awwww! That was MY treat.

 

Exhibit B: The Halloweenies greet our visitors.

 

Exhibit C: Trick or Treaters! Awwwww! Have some HFCS-laden candy, kids. We were too cheap to buy Fair Trade Organic Chocolate for you guys. But we figure this is what you're getting at home, anyway. (Yeah,  yeah, next year I'll do better).

So now we’re in November, and entering into what Dr. Dean’s kids refer to as The Candy Holidays.  The next couple of months will be filled with challenges for all of us who are trying to stay healthy and lose weight!  Watch this space for a special challenge I plan to issue to myself, and any of you who care to participate. Let’s see if we can make it through the Candy Holidays with a satisfied sweet tooth, and a slimmer silhouette!

TEMPTATION, FRUSTRATION

Walking the thirty blocks back to the apartment after my lesson and coaching last night, past restaurant after restaurant, was a bit of a trial. I get up at 3:30 a.m. for these treks to New York, and usually I land, drop my stuff (or haul it with me), and head off for a voice lesson right away. Gotta get my money’s worth out of the trip, wring every drop of worth from the limited time I have here. It’s one of the prices I pay for not living in New York, epicenter of the classical music scene in the US. The stress of the morning only added to my weariness, and with every step, those naughty, insidious voices in my head were trying to convince me to just stop and eat at a restaurant. Look, there’s an Indian place! You love Indian food! You could go into that diner and get a salad, salad’s what you planned. And maybe a nice bowl of matzo ball soup. It’s cold and your voice is tired. It would be soothing. Hey, maybe you could go down to Whole Foods in Columbus Circle.

It’s like being surrounded by kids in the grocery store, clamoring for gum and candy bars. You want to yell “STFU!” but that would be inappropriate. And crazy.

What I did was be the mommy. Every time my inner child was whining for treats, or trying to convince me there was a “legal” way to get them, I told it sternly, “NO. We are NOT eating out. We are getting a salad at the grocery store and eating it at home.”

Grown-up me won.

She won again today when, after slogging around through the cold rain all afternoon, soup sounded soooo much better than the salad that was waiting for me back at the apartment. I really, really wanted a hot meal. But I had already had my indulgence for the day, and probably a little too much of it (yes, yes, it was that damn dessert cart at Whole Foods, where I stopped for lunch after my audition. At least I took the smallest available container!) so no soup for me!

Also, thanks to the lousy weather, there would be no frolicking in Central Park. Instead I changed my flight to come home earlier. So, I have my pre-flight yogurt --- does that qualify as a liquid, do you think? I wonder if I can get it through security! --- and a lunch from Whole Foods (no dessert this time, thank you) and I am hopeful that when I get on the scale Thursday morning, all will be right with the world. Oh, I won’t weep and gnash my teeth if there’s a bit of a gain (at least, not for very long) but I’d really rather see my good behavior rewarded.

And can I just say how wonderful it is that chain restaurants have to publish calorie content on menus in New York? Because otherwise, I might have convinced myself to warm up with a Starbuck’s hot chocolate that, as it turns out, has SEVEN HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE CALORIES. What do they do, melt a stick of butter in it?

Seriously, I am going to have to find some cold weather alternatives to yogurt and salad for my travels. When my hosts came home and made delicious-smelling toast and eggs, I thought I was going to eat my own tongue, and I’d already had dinner. Hmm. An omelette isn’t a bad idea, provided I could find a place that would let me buy just two eggs!

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT

One thing you can be sure of when you travel is that you can be sure of nothing. Plans may be meticulously researched and laid, reservations made and confirmed, programs to ensure better service enrolled in, but with a single glitch they are all erased, leaving you with no choice but to demonstrate your improvisational skills.

In the case of this morning’s adventure, it could have all been prevented with some actual customer service from Continental (with whom I am, after all, a so-called Elite member, supposedly entitled to certain advantages including a special customer service desk which usually offers a slightly better grade of  service). The flight was crowded and on-board storage quickly filled up, so we were asked to gate-check bags. The flight attendant tapped my computer backpack, but I told her it couldn’t go; however I also had a smaller carryon, and that was fine. It was very early, it was rushed, and I didn’t stop to think about what was in the bag. But I also assumed, as has been the case in the past, that it would be returned to me in Houston. No one said a word about it being checked through to LaGuardia.

That bag contained my purse, my lunch, and my camera, among other things. It was not locked.

After multiple upsetting and fruitless attempts to explain the situation to a progression of marginally interested Continental employees, all of whom wanted to send me to baggage claim despite the facts that 1) my bag was most likely being loaded on the flight I was about to board as we spoke and 2) the flight was at that very moment boarding, I gave up. No one wanted to take a complaint; they simply handed me a phone number. I’ll be writing a letter to Continental’s CEO, thank you very much. It makes me feel like such an old fogey, but really, what’s up with so-called customer service these days? And doesn’t anyone have a modicum of common sense?

I boarded my flight to New York furious and embarrassingly in tears, and proceeded to unleash wrath in the pages of my journal. Even as I was madly seeking catharsis by scribbling the details of my experience, the sneaky thought crossed my mind, “I’m going to have a really good dinner tonight!” There it was, a nasty old habit, trying to worm its way in through a weak spot. The thought that my distress deserved to be treated with food, and not just any food, but good food, high calorie, indulgent, fatty, pound-adding food. And most likely too much of it.

In the next paragraph, I called this saboteur out. “I will NOT,” I wrote, “allow this experience to derail me.” And I poured my wrath out on paper, wrath now swollen with indignation at the audacity of that old, vanquished habit. I poured out my new plan, calling in the reinforcements of tools I’ve learned and honed over the past year.

If you are not an overeater, if you’ve never had issues with food or a weight problem, it may seems very strange to you that the act of losing my carefully planned lunch, or being so upset by a stray thought about  food, would be such a big deal. Well, it is a big deal, but I hope to make it less of one in time. In fact, that’s exactly what I have done. I immediately made alternate plans for lunch. I took a banana from the breakfast cart and can supplement it with a protein bar, if need be. If, when we land, my bag is present and intact, I can still enjoy the healthy lunch I brought. I will not dose myself with an orgy of carbs, fat, and sugar at dinnertime; I will stick to the plan I made before. Even if my purse is gone, I have enough cash on me to buy a grocery store salad.

As I plot my course to a new way of life, it is critical for me to do the best I can to anticipate the bumps and prepare for them. I want to avoid gaining weight during my travels, which requires a great deal of effort and watchfulness, so that stupid little homemade lunch was important. I have to stamp out those sabotaging thoughts when I discover them, especially when they’re sneaky and insidious. And yes, it’s kind of upsetting for one to rear its ugly head long after I thought it banished for good. I guess they’re never gone for good, but at least I can deal with them. Some things can’t be eradicated; some things can only be managed.

So. Here I sit, with about another hour to go on my flight, desperately hoping that no enterprising baggage handler has or will go through my stuff and help himself. (It’s not like it hasn’t happened, and we are entering into times of heightened desperation).  But after my initial flurry of emotion, I clicked into Survival Mode and now I have plans in place, both for dealing with the possible loss of my credit cards and cash, and with handling the stress through means other than eating. More than anything, I am determined not to allow this unpleasant incident to derail my audition. Crap happens all the time. This is far from the worst that could happen to me.

I will deal. I can, and I must.

Update: my bag and its contents arrived safely, thank goodness. I ate my lunch in the cab on the way into Manhattan and now I am resting up a little before I head out to my voice lesson and coaching.  I feel very happy and strong that I didn’t panic about food and overcompensate, and I know I will do just fine this evening when dinner time rolls around!

KEEPING THE WIN

Hurrah! The scale is being much more cooperative this month and showed me a new low this morning. This puts me at a total of 123.9 pounds down, and 34 to go to reach my goal. No doubt yesterday’s metabolism boost helped a lot. I did a full hour on the elliptical yesterday, and it felt really good (except for the fact that my favorite section of the paper was missing … some annoying person keeps removing ALL of that particular section from the various copies of the paper provided by my gym).  Then, Eric and I did our usual walk (aka The Loop, an hour-and-twenty minute jaunt around the trail) complete with 100 crunches and 45 tricep dips. Banish the bingo wings!

This evening, we are going out to dinner at a favorite seafood place.  It’s an unexpected indulgence, meaning I didn’t get to plan for it days in advance, so I am going to try to eat very modestly for the next two days, having several small snacks throughout the day rather than meals. I want to enjoy myself at dinner! I’m cutting out calories at each meal/snack rather than skip eating altogether. For example, for breakfast this morning, I had my usual yogurt and fruit, but I left out the nuts (saving close to 200 calories right there). For lunch, I plan to fill up on carrot sticks and eat smaller portions of everything else. The dinner tonight will have lots of hidden fat and salt, so I want to cut that out as much as possible the rest of the day. I am also going to do two short but intense exercise sessions; a half hour on the elliptical this morning, and a walk with crunches in the evening.

We went to this particular restaurant about this time last year. I had been on Beck for about a month and it was one of our first indulgence meals. I wore my favorite fire-engine red wrap dress, long since passed on to another young diva, but at the time it made me feel tres sexy. According to my journal, I ate a little past fullness, but was back on track the next day. This time, I really will make an effort not to eat past fullness.

A year later, my overall strategy hasn’t changed much; it’s worked so far! Wearing a great dress is part of it. Dressing up makes you feel special, and is a reward in itself, especially if the dress is a smaller size.  I am going to wear that gorgeous teal cocktail dress (smallest size in my closet right now) to remind myself of how far I’ve come and how much I enjoy being slimmer.

We’ve already discussed splitting an appetizer and dessert, and I am planning on bringing home part of my meal. Eric said, “Of course, it’s easy to say that now”, but I have found that if I go into a tempting situation with a battle plan, I am much more likely to refrain from overdoing it.  If I were not still trying to lose weight, it wouldn’t be a big deal; I probably wouldn’t undertake any stringent measures. But I am still battling the scale down, bit by bit, and I don’t want to lose headway. There’s travel coming up at the end of the month; I have to be prepared.

As I move closer to my goal, I have begun to become aware that there are going to be changes. I will always have to be vigilant about my weight; what I don’t know is how vigilant. My trainer says I will not need to eat as much food at a lower weight, and that worries me because I’m pretty happy with the amount I’m eating right now and would find it difficult to cut back even more. Also, I’m pretty happy with the amount of time I am devoting to exercise on a daily basis. I might have to learn to work out more efficiently, though, and burn more calories in the same amount of time.

On the one hand, I feel that my new habits are pretty well entrenched. I don’t eat as much. It’s rare that I overeat. I make much better choices and am mostly happy with them.  I don’t miss eating at fast food places, but I would like to be able to eat out once in a while without worrying about the impact on the scale --- and that’s one thing that being on maintenance will do.

On the other hand, I feel that it would be easy to let my habits slip. It's easy to get distracted, to tell yourself "it doesn't matter just this once". But Just This Once becomes Just This Twice and pretty soon it's Just This Fortieth Time and then you're back to square one.

I am very determined that that is not going to happen. Even skinny people have to watch what they eat. Even skinny people have to make choices. It may be harder for me to make the healthier choice, but I can do it. Maintaining my success is going to be a little bit of work every single day of my life, and some days I will do it better than others. But perfection should never be the goal, only persistence.

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Food Journal

WANTED: BODY BAILOUT!

Eric and I did our walk on Tuesday in and out of rainstorms. It was harder because I trained on Monday, did the elliptical, AND did a quick 50 minute walk, all on top of a very long teaching day. I was very determined to get it all in though. Part of me is scared at how easy it would be to slack off. For months now, I have not gone more than two days (usually travel days) without a Moving of the Butts. But every time I think it might be okay to take a day off, the very next thought is that it would just be too easy to fall back into the habit of laziness.

So, I walk. If nothing else, every day I walk and crunch and step up. And if the weather is bad and I can’t walk, I do a DVD or go to the gym.

I wish I weren’t actually scared of slacking off on the exercise, but it’s one of those things I just don’t trust myself on, at least not yet. I really hope there will come a time when I don’t feel I have to exercise every single day in order to maintain my weight loss, but that remains to be seen.

On the other side of the coin, I’ve started to fantasize about what I could get my body to really look like.  When I started on my weight loss journey, I knew that at some point I would want to start doing some lifting. It’s important not just to lose the weight, but to tone and get fit. It’s possible to be skinny and not be fit (and it’s possible to be “overweight” and fit, too!). I did not want to get to goal weight and be flabby. I’ve got a good chunk to lose still, but I look and feel better than I otherwise might because of my workouts and training.

It would be such a relief to be at the point of my training where it wasn’t all about weight loss any more, and instead about sculpting. At my session on Monday, Doris told me that my bingo wings (you know, that fat that all women have on the back of their arms; some of us more than others!) have really started to decrease and that there is now nice hard muscle underneath. She grabbed a big pinch of arm fat and said, “See! That’s all you’ve got to go!” Nothing like having a woman who has as close to 0% body fat as a woman can have swingin’ on your wings, but there you have it. At least there’s improvement. In Wednesday’s session, we stepped up a lot of things: more weight, pushups (which I hadn’t been able to do previously; now my wrist is stronger), planks with one foot on top of the other. I was excited to be able to do the push-ups and to hold the planks longer than I have before!

Now, I’m never going to have a bikini body (unless Demi Moore’s raft of surgeons stage an intervention/bailout) but I can do better than what I’ve got. It’s addictive, when you start to see toning and shape where there used to be flappy bits. It’s addictive, when you get stronger and can do more.

So, I spoke to Doris about how I could step up my routine a little. Before I broke my wrist back in May, I had been going great guns and planning on a very hard-hitting summer, exercise-wise.  Obviously I was forced to scale back, and I never have gotten back up to the level I was back then. With my professional obligations (I’m currently preparing five opera roles, four of which are brand new) and teaching schedule, I’m not sure how much more I can fit in right now; but I’m thinking that I need to shake up my routine a little and work just a little bit harder. It would be very nice not to have to spend another  whole year losing what’s left of my weight. I’d really like to see this last 36 pounds gone before spring.

That means coming up with a very focused plan. I’ve been working on the weight loss for over a year now, and I am going to have to trick my body a little, keep it off balance. Doris says I need to burn 10 calories a minute when I’m working out.  It’s easy to figure out when you’re on a machine that calculates it for you; when you’re walking or doing other stuff, not so much. So I’m on the lookout for a good pedometer or some other bit of equipment that will give me a reasonably accurate reading.

Today was not the best day for exercise --- we did walk, but that’s all we did, and this after a good dinner of fish, pan-broiled Brussels sprouts, and the most incredible vegan pumpkin pie cheesecake (recipe to be shared soon, never fear!).  So tomorrow really has to be a better exercise day. I was thrilled to discover that my gigantic feet have lost sufficient inches that I can wear shoes previously too small for me, and celebrated by spending way too much money on adorable footwear.  Voila!

(Lila's position is that any mention of cuteness must include her).