Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

weight loss

Digging out of a Hole

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I don’t often need to listen to Weezer but when I do it really pumps me up. Because if they can rhyme “front” with “violent…lunt,” then I’m pretty sure I can do anything I put my mind to.

What’s with these homies dissin’ my girl?
Why do they gotta front?
What did we ever do to these guys
That made them so violent?

Wednesday was a crappy day. And I’d like to make the disclaimer that I know I have an easy, charmed life, but some days are just hard. I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to accomplish and I did do a bunch of stuff that I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do. And that makes me feel bad about myself. When I feel bad about myself, I consider that a crappy day. And I had been sliding toward it for about a week.

It was one of those days where you don’t want to do anything you should do for the very reason that you know you should do it. You don’t know what I’m talking about? Feel free to move along.

One of the big problems stemmed from the fact that I decided to try Weight Watchers a few weeks ago. Mother Oprah says she’s finally found peace with food by using Weight Watchers so I thought, Why not? Bring it, O-Money! The problem is that a few weeks into just about any diet, I get angry.

What the chicken? I’m sick of chicken. No one can make me eat this delicious chicken breast. Even me. Even though I’m the one setting the limits, I get mad that the limits exist. “Accountability is the worst,” I say! So, I ate the whole house on Wednesday. And it didn’t even taste good.

I do much better emotionally when I simply make small changes to my eating habits, rather than going all-in on a new “lifestyle.” But I don’t always do so well with my weight when I simply make small changes and I’ve definitely packed on some hibernation pounds this last winter…er…two years.

I’m also having a harder time than I thought I would managing my time with my kids all in school. I have an overwhelming list of things to do and several hours each day to do them. I have great organizing systems in place. But I have such little motivation to do the hard things on my list.

I wouldn’t call it a midlife crisis but it’s definitely a housewife crisis. I’ve always been a stay-at-home mom and now, for 6 hours a day, I’m a housewife… and a writer. No little kids to raise. Just a bunch of their crap strewn all over the house I feel the need to pick up, volunteer commitments, a ton of personal writing and blogging goals with no deadlines or accountability, and this feeling that I need to be contributing more financially but that I have no idea where to start. I wish I could just write and make money but it’s not that simple. There’s a little thing called marketing and I haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

And my next Drops of Awesome book is coming out and I love it, but when I have days like this I think… who am I to help people feel happy? I do not have everything figured out. I need Drops of Awesome thinking just as much as anyone who reads my stuff.

I ruminated on this for a couple of days. I’m writing books about this stuff and yet I still need Drops of Awesome thinking as much as anyone who reads my stuff. And I kept plugging away. Periodically weeping in the shower over my own inadequacy. Reaching out to friends. Driving to that stupid Weight Watchers meeting to weigh in, even though I knew my weight would be up… re: Snow Day Cinnamon Roll Gate 2017.

And then last night it hit me with full force. I NEED DROPS OF AWESOME THINKING JUST AS MUCH AS ANYONE WHO READS MY STUFF! Like I actually need it. Literally. I have to focus on it. I have to reboot my thinking patterns. That’s the way out of this hole.

It’s actually quite silly how often I come to this earth-shattering realization and recommit to being nice to myself and focusing on my wins. I am much more consistently good at reminding other people to turn off their negative voices than I am at turning off my own.

But last night I took a few minutes to think about what I’d done well that day and the day before, the awful waste of life day. And I found that I’d done quite a lot that I hadn’t given myself credit for. And I woke up this morning motivated and ready to face the day. A bit.

I was tired, but I decided to make a nice breakfast and then maybe lie down. But while I was making breakfast, I thought I might as well pack the kids’ lunches for them. And while I was at it, I loaded the breakfast dishes and washed the griddle. I have a tradition of leaving it out dirty for a day or two but I decided, what the heck?! And since I was awake and alert and, you know, cleaning griddles, I might as well sit down in my pajamas and type up this blog post. It was like that children’s book, If You Give A Dog a Drop of Awesome. It might come full circle to the point where I cook again tonight around dinner time. Crazy.

I’d like to say a word about friends. I need them. I talked and cried with a few different friends over the past few days and they listened to me. And helped me clean my kitchen. And offered to drive my kids to things so I could stay home and feel crappy about myself. And gave me hugs. And shared their stories of sadness and personal struggle. And they’re probably the reason I was able to figure this out and pull myself out of this self-created hole.

They didn’t tell me my sadness was irrational, although it probably was. They didn’t tell me to suck it up because I have a cushy life and have no right to feel sad. They were simply kind to me. And that sparked in me the desire to be kind to myself. And that’s what I needed.

Often when I’m feeling down or shameful or self-critical, I want to hide and be alone. But that’s never the answer. We need each other. And we need to see each other at our worst because it gives each of us a chance to be at our best and show love.

Which brings me back to Weezer. Why do any of us homies gotta front? Be real. Be Awesome. Be kind to yourself. It’s simple but it’s really hard sometimes. We can do this.

Sometimes Good Food Tastes Good

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I’ve been dieting and REALLY NOT DIETING and then dieting again for most of my adult life. I fluctuate in size and in most other measures of health and I work hard to shield my kids from my food weirdness. However I’m sure I shield them less than I intend to and it’s not ideal.

I’m a vegan.

Nope. I’m Paleo.

I eat whatever I want, dangit!

Whole 30 for life.

Chocolavores unite!

What my kids see is just food. On the table. Some of it’s good. Some of it’s less so. They know I’m always cooking some weird new thing and they mostly accept it, although sometimes with grumblings and rumblings.

Often, when I’m trying something new, I make two complete meals, one for me that I tell the kids is to help my body be healthier, and one for them to keep them happy.

Currently I’ve stripped it back to a Drops of Awesome approach to diet and nutrition. I try to rack up as many good choices as I can and I don’t stress too much about the junk that slips in now and then. It’s working at the moment, in that I’m not stressed about food and it’s become like a game to see how many vegetables and tablespoons of flax seed I can consume each day.

So you’ll see my plate overflowing with roasted vegetables and chicken and my kids are piling up on white rice and cheese. Everyone’s happy.

fruit-salad6

However, I was recently reading Jonathan Bailor’s book, The Calorie Myth, an exploration of hundreds of medical studies about how our bodies actually evolve with diet and exercise. It had a section about helping our kids form good habits with food and I thought, “If I’m trying to eat more vegetables, lean meats, and good fats because that’s the healthiest way to eat, why did I give up the battle of encouraging my kids to do the same?”

They may not be having problems with health or fitness now, but if they keep eating the way they are, they will have problems in their future. It’s a difficult thing to figure out because, if anything, my kids struggle with being underweight, so I feel justified filling them up with empty calories to bulk them up when what I should really be doing is helping them eat more, higher-quality foods.

The problem is, I’m willing to eat healthful food simply because I know it’s good for me. My kids expect things to taste good. So, the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on adapting favorite recipes to make them a few Drops of Awesome better for everyone. I’ve had some hits and some misses, but more hits and it’s encouraging.

Yesterday when the kids got home from school, rather than letting them get their usual bowl of breakfast cereal, I spread lettuce leaves with a Greek yogurt dip they like, filled them with sliced turkey breast and made little roll-ups. They all gave me the stink-eye at first. But every one of them ended up loving the new snack.

Then for dinner I took a family favorite, cheeseburger pie, made it crustless, and changed the topping. Instead of topping it with a bunch of cheddar cheese, I topped it with a little cheddar cheese, some low-fat cottage cheese, an egg and several egg whites, and broccoli florets.

I held my breath. This was a major overhaul. But they all, LOVED it. Even the pickiest, Wanda, asked for seconds. And in the family prayer, Magoo said he was thankful for all the yummy food I’d been making lately.

We’re making progress.

The cherry on the top came at lunch today when I surprised Wanda with leftovers. She hates leftovers on principle. However, today she was ecstatic to eat her “new favorite meal,” the healthier version of cheeseburger pie.

“I like this better than mac and cheese!” she said. High praise, my friends. “What’s the real name of this dinner? I want to know because last summer in swimming lessons my teacher had me yell out my favorite food when I did a cannonball at the end of class and if she has me do that again next summer, I want to yell, ‘THIS THING!’”

THIS THING, indeed. Drops of Awesome.

17 Days of What?!

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I don’t watch Dr. Phil anymore. There was a time when I was a new mom with one baby when I would watch me a little of the doctor and the Oprah, of a weekday afternoon. But those days are no more. I’m too busy. I feel like I’ve seen it all before and if I haven’t seen it, it’s probably not something I need to be seeing.

I just don’t watch TV during the days.

But I’m glad someone does because a friend of mine was watching Dr. Phil and he highlighted a new diet program. Yes. I know. And I was talking to this friend about being at the absolute end, END of my rope with my body and the weighing what I did when I was full term with Wanda even though there’s no baby inside, and MOM ARE YOU SURE THERE’S NOT A BABY INSIDE, yes I’m sure. I could stand to lose over fifty pounds.

It’s called the 17-Day-Diet and I hate diets and it sounds cheesy and the book looks cheesy and the doctor who designed it wears a lot of product in his hair but the concepts make sense. It’s about learning to eat less and eat the right foods by eliminating a lot of things from your diet and then adding them back in slowly in 17-day cycles.


Photo credit: xenia from morguefile.com

So for phase one I’m eating lean meats and lots of vegetables and fruits, probiotic dairy and a small amount of healthy fat. That’s it. I’ve done this for 2 days and that means 15 more to go before I decide if I want to move on to phase 2 or stop. I can commit to anything for 17 days.

I’ll let you know how it goes. So far I feel really good. I haven’t been hungry, although I’ve had some cravings. My energy is good and weight is tumbling off. It’s designed to be a fast, healthy weight loss so I’ll let you know how much I lose after the first cycle.

Today I didn’t make it to the gym or out walking and then Laylee came home barfing from school so I was stuck inside on a gorgeous sunny day. I decided to get my exercise from the DVD that came with the book.

The exercise instructor was chattering away about how great I was doing and what to move next and just how I should shake it. Noticing her perky, patronizing tone, Laylee said, “Mom? It’s weird. It sounds like she’s talking to kids.”

And it really did, which is sad because why do we talk to kids like that? Nobody really likes to be talked to in that voice, especially when they’re sweating like a ham.

Summer Swimsuit Challenge

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I want to ask you to take a bold swimsuit challenge with me.

It’s summer and it’s swimsuit season and I am sick of hearing myself talk smack about my own beautiful body every time I slip on that little black swimming suit. Sick of it. I’m sick of other people complaining about their bodies. I’m sick of hearing everyone enumerate all their many flaws.

I’m raising daughters and I want them to love their bodies. I get angry at the way media portrays physical “perfection” and insinuates that anything less than a photo-shopped super babe is unacceptable.

For almost 30 years, I’ve been complaining about my body’s flaws and it needs to stop if I want my girls to have a fighting chance at loving their own bodies. I frequently look back at old pictures of myself 2, 5, 10 years ago and think how great I looked and then remember that at the time I thought I was a tub of lard.

Yesterday Laylee was in a bathing suit and she said, “I like my body. I like being skinny.”

I looked her in the eyes and said, “I’m so glad. I love my body too. All the little wrinkles and parts show the journey I’ve been on in my life. I think my body is beautiful.” She seemed surprised because I’ve so often talked about the weight I want to lose and the improvements I want to make.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah. Really. I’m grateful for this body.”

She told me she loved my body too and I decided that if I really want her and Wanda to grow up loving who they are, then I’ve got to stop putting myself down and start trying to really feel the love for myself and be confident.

Please commit with me this summer to not flinch, cringe, make faces or put down your body verbally when wearing a swimsuit. Wear it with pride. Have fun in the water with your kids. Remember that the people who you have fun with are not the ones constantly ripping on themselves. The obviously fat people are the ones constantly tugging and covering up and talking about how fat they are. Don’t be that person. Get your confidence on.

Leave a comment if you’re ready to join me in the swimsuit revolution.

I, Captain Barbossa

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The other day I was sitting at dinner watching Dan drink water. He just drank it, gulped it down, an entire glass like it was nothing. I licked my parched lips, felt the soreness in my dehydrated kidneys and the ache in my shriveled stomach.

“That’s amazing,” I said.

It was beautiful to watch. I imagined it was me drinking, swallowing a whole 12 ounces of water with no fear of yorching it up moments later and I was transfixed.

I find myself staring at my kids while they eat, enjoying each bite in a voyeuristic sort of way, asking them to take just one more. I prepare food that I normally love but cannot stomach right now and when I do risk a bite, it inevitably comes back up.

I turned to Dan at dinner.

“I feel like Captain Barbossa!

I’m unable to eat but twistedly delight in watching other people enjoy the pleasure. Please eat a bite of the apple while I watch the slobber drip down your chin.”

Mwahaha!

Pathetic.

Word Up on All the Pregnancy Deets for My Bloggy Homeslices

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We’ve wanted this baby for a long time. In Proud Daughter of Eve’s comment on my last post, she referred to a post I wrote back in August of 2006 about feeling ready for another baby after weaning Magoo.

My heart was ready but my brain and body weren’t. If you’ve read this blog for long, you know I had a rough time after Magoo was born. You can follow this link to read the whole story but the Reader’s Digest version is, I was overcome with severe panic and anxiety disorder a week after his birth that caused a near complete breakdown and required serious medical intervention.

He was also a huge baby, 10lbs. 8oz., and he ripped my body apart. I used walkers and canes and those little motorized carts at the grocery store, needed Dan’s help to dress myself, and went through some intense physical therapy.

It was rough. We fought through it and when I wrote that post in 2006, I was mainly physically recovered and on brain meds and feeling good and really ready to continue our family. The timing just didn’t seem right. Although my doctor told me that I could get pregnant on the medication with little chance of even minor effects on the baby, I wanted to be drug free and proud before we tried again.

A little over a year later I was off my meds and feeling great. I started working out and we began trying for a baby. In November of last year, I had what we think was an early term miscarriage and all the postpartum symptoms came flooding back. It was hard to want to keep going with our family plan and the idea of living life as a family of 4 became very appealing to me. I told Dan I thought I was done. He sweetly and calmly told me he didn’t think so. I knew he was right. Our family is not complete yet.

The thought of waiting another 3 years to wean off medication before trying again was too much to take and I went back to my doctor to hear more about the studies and what they revealed about the safety of my anxiety meds. Satisfied, we went forward with our plan.

When I’m trying to have a baby, I become sort of obsessed with pregnancy tests. I firmly believe that the more tests you take, the higher chance you have of becoming pregnant. Just keep taking them and one day one will be positive.

In early January, it was that test-taking time of the month so I took a couple without achieving my desired results. A couple of days later I was dropping Magoo off with Eve on my way to a doctor’s appointment and I asked her if she had any spare tests lying around I could borrow. Then I did a stupid thing and asked her if I could use her bathroom. It wasn’t until after I’d peed on the stick that it occurred to me it may be positive. If it was positive, then Eve would find out before my husband. Not cool.

Of course it was positive and I called frantically from the bathroom, “Can I borrow your phone?”

“AAAAAAAAAA!” she screamed as she passed the receiver through the crack in the door. I dialed all of Dan’s 10 phone numbers and he answered none of them. Crap! So, I exited the bathroom and walked for the front door of the house without a look in Eve’s direction. “I will not speak to you at this time,” I mumbled.

She followed me to my car, screaming like an excited cheerleader. I carried the stick in my purse for the rest of the day, too excited to think how disgusting that was. And soon I got a hold of Dan and we rejoiced and freaked out a little and I called my naturopath, my OB and my brain doctor. The team was in place.

Brain meds were closely monitored. I was immediately put on progesterone because my levels were far too low for a pregnant woman and we scheduled my first ultrasound for the 8-week mark. Almost as soon as I started the progesterone, I began to feel nauseous and sick with the most miserable heartburn I’ve ever experienced. Honestly I hate that stuff with a passion.

At the ultrasound, I was fairly sick but doing alright. Until we got a look at the baby. It was teeny, much smaller than expected. This meant that either my dates were wrong and I was pretty sure my dates were not wrong or that the baby wasn’t growing as expected. I tried to hold it together until the doctor left, telling me not to worry, that we’d just check again in 3 weeks to see if it had grown 3 week’s worth. Then I fell apart. I think I cried for 5 hours until I felt peace. Then we just waited.

Each day I got sicker to the point where I was throwing up sometimes several times a day. The heartburn made drinking water painful and I had no energy, barely keeping down enough calories to function. The first trimester of my pregnancy is brought to you by PBS Kids and the Wii.

I wanted to blog about what was going on but didn’t want to explain everything if things didn’t work out. I also have a hard time telling strangers about my baby when it still looks like a translucent seahorse with an alien-like melon head and nubs for arms. I want to be sure it’s human before I announce it from the rooftops… er internet tops.

So three weeks later, I returned to the doctor to check in. The nursed asked how I’d been doing. “Well, I’ve been really sick,” I complained. She smiled her nursely smile that says, “All pregnant women feel sick,” and nodded reassuringly. Then I got on the scale and she kept sliding the weight down and down. I had lost 12 pounds in those three weeks. “Wow!” she said, looking me in the eyes, “You’ve been REALLY sick.”

“Yeah.”

The ultrasound showed that the baby had grown even more than expected in a three week period and it waved its little flipper hand things at me wildly while its heart beat strongly and I felt my whole body relax.
I'm incubating a gray blob with duck lips!
I’m due sometime in mid September. My sweet Wicked tickets are for the first week in September so hopefully I will have stopped barfing by then and not yet have dropped my load. The day after the show seems like a fine due date to me.

Weight Watchers refunded my money and it turns out that the pregnancy bulimia diet is a much more effective form of weight loss than WW ever was so I guess it all worked out in the end.

I’m still sick. I’m still spending more time lying down than standing up. I eat crackers a lot and sometimes they stay down. I’m grateful and nervous and excited all at once. And don’t get me started on the kids. Never in the history of the world have two kids been more excited about a coming sibling. First of all, its presence allows them to play video games until their brains rot, one of their greatest wishes. Secondly, they’ve been begging for a baby for years, wondering why everyone else gets a baby but us.

They weigh in on names. Laylee likes Lucy and Daisy, Summer, Spring and Faller. Magoo is partial to names that remind him of “good sings” like Big Cheese, Light Bulb and Fred.

I’m not sold on any real names yet but I’m already coming up with internet aliases. I’m thinking Kip for a boy or Wanda for a girl. Is it wrong that I think of their blog names first? Don’t answer that.

I Don’t Need to Be the Biggest Loser, Just the Loser with the Biggest Thumbs

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I’m a little bit sick still in my throat but I’ve been working out anyway. Somebody came over and left a crusty comment about how I should be working hard instead of railing on a reality TV franchise and I just want to tell you all that there is such a thing as humor and that I am working hard and I feel at least 1.7% better about the health of my body after one week of serious exercise. Yipee!

For those of you who asked, the book I’m using is The Biggest Loser Fitness Program intermediate routine #1 with cardio on my off days. I’m also supplimenting with Super Paper Mario for the Wii for thumb strength and map-reading skills. For those of you who didn’t ask, that was probably too much information.

While I’m doing all the working out, Laylee is occupying herself well. The latest is up at Parenting.

Biggest Loser – EXPOSED

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It has come to my attention that the entire Biggest Loser franchise, Jillian Michaels specifically, is not working to help overweight Americans but rather attempting to kill fat people.

I started watching last season when Dan was working a billion hours and there was nothing on TV Tuesday nights and heaven forbid I do anything productive after 8 o’clock at night. I was inspired by the alleged “transformations” of the “contestants.” I even softened my stone-cold veneer for a few moments and cried once or twice…
every episode… for the whole season.

Now I’m somewhat fluffy myself and after watching several episodes while chowing down on my favorite snack foods, the propaganda started working on me. I thought, “I could do that [snarf, snarf, crunch crunch gobble gobble]. They’re so inspir[munch munch]ing! If she could lose that much weight, I could totally [swallow gulp gulp] shed the pounds I have to lose and tone up like a swimsuit model.”

Am I the only one who can’t stop eating while they watch that show?

So I bought the Biggest Loser Fitness Plan book, which was approximately as uncomfortable as purchasing my first box of tampons. You know if someone sees you buying feminine hygiene products they might know you’re a… a… a girl and if you buy a BIGGEST LOSER book, they might suspect you of being overweight because I’m sure they couldn’t tell by the pinchable pudge of your too-loveable-for-a-person-over-the-age-of-2 cheeks.

After doing the workout one time yesterday, I’ve finally figured out their master plot.

It’s true that the producers want to decrease the number of overweight Americans. They plan to accomplish this by convincing us to try the diet and exercise routines, effectually picking us off one by one like puffer fish in a barrel when we can no longer raise our arms or effectively move our legs.

It seems fairly obvious to me at this point that the so called “contestants” are really just smoking hot athlete/models in remarkable stage makeup for a show that is to weight loss what the WWF is to real wrestling. No real pinchable overweight person can live through these workouts.

“Ow!”
~Kathryn Thompson~