I've been making changes in my thought processes and actions to ensure for a sustainable weight loss by not counting calories, by not weighing myself, not denying myself of favourite foods etc(i.e. not being too restrictive or military-like), but now I need to do a two-week bootcamp. Why the sudden change? Because my hubby is arriving in two weeks! He finally got a visa to come to Canada. Yay! But it is yikes for me due to my bulging body, including my bulging tummy(not pregnant). It has been a long time since him and I were in the same geographical location, and I do not want to loathe my body like I did the last time I visited him. Extra body weight is a big intimacy killer, and I definitely want to be intimate with hubby, and vice versa.
So, I will be doing 1,000 ab crunches a day, interspaced throught out the day, eliminating fried food, junk food and my beloved pink lemonade, and watching my portion sizes, or rather trying to watch my portion sizes. Success at weight loss boot camps is near impossible if we don't acknowledge the pain of what we are going to have to give up; our favourite fast foods, drastically changing our eating habits and exercise habits etc. Likewise we have to find an advantage or advantages that out-weigh the disadvantages of losing weight(either in bootcamps or more sustainably), or we won't succeed. For me, the advantage was intimacy. I treasure intimacy more than I treasure my beloved food. What are your advantages?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Don't lose hope!
I had meant to write my next blog this Tuesday, but it could not wait. Today, I had a cathartic moment that will certainly impact my life, my perspectives, and hence my weight loss journey. I had meant to head to church then do my groceries, but it seems that the Big One Upstairs had other plans for me. When my alarm clock went off this morning, I hit the snooze button twice, and then finally got ready. However, by the time I headed out the door, church service was going to be pretty much over by the time I got there. As I took a couple steps out my apartment building, I was greeted by tons of cyclists whizzing down the nearby street. They were riding for the Tour de l'Isle, the Montreal Island cycling event created by Lance Armstrong to raise money for cancer research. It was a sight to behold. I wheeled my grocery cart along and people on the streets were standing by watching the cyclists whizz by. I thought to myself, why not watch too? I was not in a hurry to get anywhere. So, I parked myself and my grocery cart at the corner of the intersection where the cyclists were turning onto.
As, I watched, I was overcome with emotion. I thought that for many of these people, this was just a fun event to participate in, and be all idealistic. They were naive; they had not been affected by cancer. I used to be one of these people. Before returning to Canada, my dad had died of colon cancer. My mom and myself had believed that if he had been in Canada, he would not have died. When I was a candystriper at the Ottawa hospital, one of my top picks to volunteer at was the Grimes Center which was for people with cancer. I was so happy when I finally got placed there. I got to direct the patients to their appointments and weigh them. I thought that working in a cancer department was so sexy.
Mom felt that if dad had eaten his vegetables, he would not have gotten colon cancer. Later on in life after my mom suffered a fall, subsequent disability, and inability to continue in her career as a registered nurse, mom started reading about nutrition, buying supplements and alot of fresh produce, and other anti-cancer foods, and photocopying articles on foods to eat and giving these articles to me and my brother. With these foods and having both her parents live to their late eighties or later, mom was not going to get cancer, or so I thought.
My mom's interest in nutrition further fuelled my latter career choice; I got accepted into the McGill dietetics program for the fall of 2007. I was bright, enthusiastic, motivated and ready to take on the world. Then colon cancer struck, again. On June 24th, 2008, my mom's birthday, I boarded the train for Ottawa to celebrate my mom's 63rd birthday. My mom was in the hospital. She had been complaining of back pains the last time I had gone to see her, around my birthday in May. She had gone to the hospital then, and before heading back to Ottawa, I had seen her off in the hospital. I had not heard from her since; when I called her home phone, nobody picked up. I had called my brother and left a message, saying that I was having these crazy thoughts that mom was dead and stuff, and laughed the thoughts off on the message I left for my brother. My brother did not call back. A few days before my mom's birthday, my brother and I were able to get in touch. I wanted to know if mom was still in the hospital, or back in her apartment so I knew where to go to when I got in from Montreal. My brother said that my mom was still in the hospital. I think I must have asked how she was, and my brother simply said they were running some tests. I did not suspect anything.
I got in to Ottawa late in the morning. As I had not yet boutght my mom a present, I decided to do some present shopping. Getting presents for my mom was getting harder these days. She had pretty much all that she wanted or needed. In 2005, my mom had learnt that she was eligible for widow's benefits. Having these benefits greatly helped my mom, and she was no longer living on a meager disability benefit, so my mom had more money to buy what she wished. Plus, over the years, my brother and I had been getting her items that she had said she wanted or that we felt that she needed. So come June 2008, I could not really think of anything that my mom wanted or needed, save perhaps a nice wall portrait. As the place I would have gone to purchase this portrait was near my mom's apartment and I was not going to be going to mom's apartment, I chose instead to buy some nice knick knacks at Pharma Prix to make a get better package. My mom loved anything to do with the British royal family, so I found a magazine that dealt with royal families around the world, including the British one. My mom also loved Oil of Olay moisturizers, so I got her one. I picked up some other knick knacks that I can't recall. I got to the hospital and stopped by the flower shop to buy her some flowers and a complimentary get-better note to go with them, and then sat down on a bench in the hospital mall to wait for my brother. The details below are foggy as by necessity the brain has to forget things in order to decrease overwhelming grief.
My brother was late in coming. He did not appear to be his usual gruff self. We went up the elevator to my mother's ward. My brother took a little while at the nurse's station before we went to my mom's room. I think mom was sleeping when we got to her mom. We woke her up and she was not her usual self. She was very lethargic. We later learned that the nurses had given her alot of drugs. My brother had bought some stuff at Swiss Chalet and we sat down and he handed one take-out packet to me, and one to my mother, which he opened up. My mom looked at her packet and refused the fries, saying, she said "Maybe this(the fries) is why this is happening to me". I laughed at my mom's comment and said that it was nonsense, that fries could not be causing her back pain. My mother looked at my brother in some quizzical way. My brother then took me outside my mom's room, and going to the nurse's station together, he inquired of the nurse if there was a free conference room available for me and him to talk. There was no room, but my brother found an empty patient's room and sat me on a chair while he sat on the unmade patient's bed. He told me that mom had been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, and it was terminal, and that mom had not wanted him to tell me about the news until I was done with my spring classes as she did not want my studies to suffer. I went numb; I could not believe this was happening, it must all be a terrible mistake. Dad had died of colon cancer in 1990, colon cancer could not be taking my mom now.
June 24, 2008 was a day I would rather forget. My brother, who was living with a roomate in a 2 bedroom apt at the time, took me to mom's apartment to try and recuperate. He asked if I needed anything as he was going to get supplies to last me the next little while. The results of my mom's biopsy(the definitive confirmation of the diagnosis) would be ready the following day, and the medical team of social workers and other medical personnel would be meeting with us after. I did not really need much; I had no appetite, but given that I had originally only meant to spent the day in Ottawa(prior to the news) and then head back to Montreal to relax abit after my hard spring studies and get ready for my first dietetic placement, I had no toiletries. My brother went to purchase some items and I was left alone. I cried and cried and got a severe headache from all the crying. However, despite the pounding headache caused by my sobbing, I could not hold back the sobs. My brother got back, and had to provide me some headache medication. He wanted me to lie down and watch some television, but when I turned the television on, all I could think of was "Oh, this was mom's favourite television program(I was already beginning to think of her in the past tense). I just needed to cry. I needed my mommy. I went into the bathroom, and fully clothed, I sat in the bathtub and wept. The bathtub was like a cocoon, my mom's womb. My brother knocked on the door after I had been in there a while to make sure I was alright. I then went into my mom's bedroom, put on my mom's pink sweater that she wore around the apartment all the time, climbed into her bed, and lay in the fetal position under the blankets. I still needed mom. My mom's elderly mom in Nigeria still needed mom; my mom was her only child.
My mom died on October 16, 2008. Life was very hard after my mom's diagnosis, and one key event tarred my love of Quebec, and hence, the french people. After an event with a taxi dispatcher(I never had such a bad experience in Ottawa or Ontario for that fact) during the turbulent times of my mom's illness, my love affair with Montreal, the french people and the french language vanished. With my mom dying, my Montreal french dream was becoming a nightmare I wished that I could wake up from. To deal with this horrible nightmare, I turned to my drug of choice, food. Food was my happiness and my comfort. I tried to complete my studies in the allocated time; my original completion date was supposed to be December 2010, but I could not do it alone. Two months after I first started blogging about my weight loss journey, I had to withdraw from my dietetics studies in March 2010 to recuperate.
Fast forward to today. Things are much better. I have worked through alot of obstacles and I am reuniting with dietetics. This week, I received final confirmation that my husband(who I married six months after my mom's death) should be reunited with me in June after an excruciatingly long immigration process, and an excruciatingly long time apart(I last saw him in August 2009). I am back on the path to exercise and wellness, though I am still looking for a summer job. It does not help that my french is not that good; you need french for pretty much every job in Quebec. Learning french had to be put on a back-burner to focus on other things.
And, as I continued to watch the cyclists whizz by, I let the emotions flow over me. My cynicism gave way to sorrow, sorrow that cancer had taken away both my parents. People cheered on the cyclists, and the cyclists whizzed by in appreciation. They were full of hope, and later, I began to hope that no matter how stupid the hope was, that there would one day be a cure or cures for cancers of all sorts. A cyclist passing by, gave me a high five. My dad's last words to my mom on his death bed were "Don't lose hope!". It is indeed important to not lose hope in our daily struggles because hope, no matter how stupid it is, is better than the alternative, despair. Despair had destroyed my joie-de-vivre, my zeal for life, and without hope, my tough times felt even harder, and I turned to food to comfort me.
A little girl had been watching the cyclists, young and old whizz by. Some time later, she and a few of her friends donned their helments, mounted their bikes and joined the throng of cyclists with much enthusiasm. Later on, after I finished my grocery shopping, I sat on a bench and watched the passersby, enjoyed the sights and sounds of my Quebec neighbourhood, and joined the "throng" of passersby in enjoying the day. A few of the cyclists on the tour had exclaimed, "Vivre le Quebec!", and I too now raised my heart to echo that same sentiment.
xoxo, Fat dietitian-to-be
As, I watched, I was overcome with emotion. I thought that for many of these people, this was just a fun event to participate in, and be all idealistic. They were naive; they had not been affected by cancer. I used to be one of these people. Before returning to Canada, my dad had died of colon cancer. My mom and myself had believed that if he had been in Canada, he would not have died. When I was a candystriper at the Ottawa hospital, one of my top picks to volunteer at was the Grimes Center which was for people with cancer. I was so happy when I finally got placed there. I got to direct the patients to their appointments and weigh them. I thought that working in a cancer department was so sexy.
Mom felt that if dad had eaten his vegetables, he would not have gotten colon cancer. Later on in life after my mom suffered a fall, subsequent disability, and inability to continue in her career as a registered nurse, mom started reading about nutrition, buying supplements and alot of fresh produce, and other anti-cancer foods, and photocopying articles on foods to eat and giving these articles to me and my brother. With these foods and having both her parents live to their late eighties or later, mom was not going to get cancer, or so I thought.
My mom's interest in nutrition further fuelled my latter career choice; I got accepted into the McGill dietetics program for the fall of 2007. I was bright, enthusiastic, motivated and ready to take on the world. Then colon cancer struck, again. On June 24th, 2008, my mom's birthday, I boarded the train for Ottawa to celebrate my mom's 63rd birthday. My mom was in the hospital. She had been complaining of back pains the last time I had gone to see her, around my birthday in May. She had gone to the hospital then, and before heading back to Ottawa, I had seen her off in the hospital. I had not heard from her since; when I called her home phone, nobody picked up. I had called my brother and left a message, saying that I was having these crazy thoughts that mom was dead and stuff, and laughed the thoughts off on the message I left for my brother. My brother did not call back. A few days before my mom's birthday, my brother and I were able to get in touch. I wanted to know if mom was still in the hospital, or back in her apartment so I knew where to go to when I got in from Montreal. My brother said that my mom was still in the hospital. I think I must have asked how she was, and my brother simply said they were running some tests. I did not suspect anything.
I got in to Ottawa late in the morning. As I had not yet boutght my mom a present, I decided to do some present shopping. Getting presents for my mom was getting harder these days. She had pretty much all that she wanted or needed. In 2005, my mom had learnt that she was eligible for widow's benefits. Having these benefits greatly helped my mom, and she was no longer living on a meager disability benefit, so my mom had more money to buy what she wished. Plus, over the years, my brother and I had been getting her items that she had said she wanted or that we felt that she needed. So come June 2008, I could not really think of anything that my mom wanted or needed, save perhaps a nice wall portrait. As the place I would have gone to purchase this portrait was near my mom's apartment and I was not going to be going to mom's apartment, I chose instead to buy some nice knick knacks at Pharma Prix to make a get better package. My mom loved anything to do with the British royal family, so I found a magazine that dealt with royal families around the world, including the British one. My mom also loved Oil of Olay moisturizers, so I got her one. I picked up some other knick knacks that I can't recall. I got to the hospital and stopped by the flower shop to buy her some flowers and a complimentary get-better note to go with them, and then sat down on a bench in the hospital mall to wait for my brother. The details below are foggy as by necessity the brain has to forget things in order to decrease overwhelming grief.
My brother was late in coming. He did not appear to be his usual gruff self. We went up the elevator to my mother's ward. My brother took a little while at the nurse's station before we went to my mom's room. I think mom was sleeping when we got to her mom. We woke her up and she was not her usual self. She was very lethargic. We later learned that the nurses had given her alot of drugs. My brother had bought some stuff at Swiss Chalet and we sat down and he handed one take-out packet to me, and one to my mother, which he opened up. My mom looked at her packet and refused the fries, saying, she said "Maybe this(the fries) is why this is happening to me". I laughed at my mom's comment and said that it was nonsense, that fries could not be causing her back pain. My mother looked at my brother in some quizzical way. My brother then took me outside my mom's room, and going to the nurse's station together, he inquired of the nurse if there was a free conference room available for me and him to talk. There was no room, but my brother found an empty patient's room and sat me on a chair while he sat on the unmade patient's bed. He told me that mom had been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, and it was terminal, and that mom had not wanted him to tell me about the news until I was done with my spring classes as she did not want my studies to suffer. I went numb; I could not believe this was happening, it must all be a terrible mistake. Dad had died of colon cancer in 1990, colon cancer could not be taking my mom now.
June 24, 2008 was a day I would rather forget. My brother, who was living with a roomate in a 2 bedroom apt at the time, took me to mom's apartment to try and recuperate. He asked if I needed anything as he was going to get supplies to last me the next little while. The results of my mom's biopsy(the definitive confirmation of the diagnosis) would be ready the following day, and the medical team of social workers and other medical personnel would be meeting with us after. I did not really need much; I had no appetite, but given that I had originally only meant to spent the day in Ottawa(prior to the news) and then head back to Montreal to relax abit after my hard spring studies and get ready for my first dietetic placement, I had no toiletries. My brother went to purchase some items and I was left alone. I cried and cried and got a severe headache from all the crying. However, despite the pounding headache caused by my sobbing, I could not hold back the sobs. My brother got back, and had to provide me some headache medication. He wanted me to lie down and watch some television, but when I turned the television on, all I could think of was "Oh, this was mom's favourite television program(I was already beginning to think of her in the past tense). I just needed to cry. I needed my mommy. I went into the bathroom, and fully clothed, I sat in the bathtub and wept. The bathtub was like a cocoon, my mom's womb. My brother knocked on the door after I had been in there a while to make sure I was alright. I then went into my mom's bedroom, put on my mom's pink sweater that she wore around the apartment all the time, climbed into her bed, and lay in the fetal position under the blankets. I still needed mom. My mom's elderly mom in Nigeria still needed mom; my mom was her only child.
My mom died on October 16, 2008. Life was very hard after my mom's diagnosis, and one key event tarred my love of Quebec, and hence, the french people. After an event with a taxi dispatcher(I never had such a bad experience in Ottawa or Ontario for that fact) during the turbulent times of my mom's illness, my love affair with Montreal, the french people and the french language vanished. With my mom dying, my Montreal french dream was becoming a nightmare I wished that I could wake up from. To deal with this horrible nightmare, I turned to my drug of choice, food. Food was my happiness and my comfort. I tried to complete my studies in the allocated time; my original completion date was supposed to be December 2010, but I could not do it alone. Two months after I first started blogging about my weight loss journey, I had to withdraw from my dietetics studies in March 2010 to recuperate.
Fast forward to today. Things are much better. I have worked through alot of obstacles and I am reuniting with dietetics. This week, I received final confirmation that my husband(who I married six months after my mom's death) should be reunited with me in June after an excruciatingly long immigration process, and an excruciatingly long time apart(I last saw him in August 2009). I am back on the path to exercise and wellness, though I am still looking for a summer job. It does not help that my french is not that good; you need french for pretty much every job in Quebec. Learning french had to be put on a back-burner to focus on other things.
And, as I continued to watch the cyclists whizz by, I let the emotions flow over me. My cynicism gave way to sorrow, sorrow that cancer had taken away both my parents. People cheered on the cyclists, and the cyclists whizzed by in appreciation. They were full of hope, and later, I began to hope that no matter how stupid the hope was, that there would one day be a cure or cures for cancers of all sorts. A cyclist passing by, gave me a high five. My dad's last words to my mom on his death bed were "Don't lose hope!". It is indeed important to not lose hope in our daily struggles because hope, no matter how stupid it is, is better than the alternative, despair. Despair had destroyed my joie-de-vivre, my zeal for life, and without hope, my tough times felt even harder, and I turned to food to comfort me.
A little girl had been watching the cyclists, young and old whizz by. Some time later, she and a few of her friends donned their helments, mounted their bikes and joined the throng of cyclists with much enthusiasm. Later on, after I finished my grocery shopping, I sat on a bench and watched the passersby, enjoyed the sights and sounds of my Quebec neighbourhood, and joined the "throng" of passersby in enjoying the day. A few of the cyclists on the tour had exclaimed, "Vivre le Quebec!", and I too now raised my heart to echo that same sentiment.
xoxo, Fat dietitian-to-be
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