Reb Tevye, Stop Singing in My Head!

The topic at Weight Watchers this week was tradition. As we head into the treacherous holiday season, I am thinking about the land mines that must be navigated. Many things will conspire to knock me off my path in the coming six weeks. The obvious one is the quantities of food that will be in my environment from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Less obvious are the expectations of how much time must be spent with the family and the ways in which we interact. I am pondering which traditions nurture me and which traditions harm me. And once the traditions are labeled and sorted into their columns of helpful and not-so-much, then I must decide which battles do I actually want to fight?

"Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe and aren't even aware of." --Ellen Goodman

Done With Detox?

I don't want to set myself up for disappointment here, but I think I'm through the worst of this lifestyle change. My mood has been consistently up for over a week. I get out of bed in a good mood, spend my day exercising, taking care of my food choices, and general mental health maintenance stuff like reading, corresponding with friends, and practicing math for the GRE. I'm loving the running challenge and the weight is slowing dropping off. I'm averaging 2 pounds lost per week. Tomorrow marks the end of week 8 and I genuinely feel great.

Of course, that little voice in my head is saying, "Yeah, but you've been here before. You're successful for a little while and then something will derail you." That is true. I have been here before. About a year after my divorce I started Weight Watchers and exercising. But I was still in the middle of fighting with Angus about custody crap and then the bankruptcy process started. I wasn't ready to let go of my coping mechanisms. I was so busy trying to tread water fast enough to survive that there was no energy left over to actually attempt swimming... if that metaphor makes any sense. :)

This time feels different. I was drudging through it last time and resenting it every step of the way. My head is clear this time. I'm not going through any trauma. I have a secure, supportive living situation for me and the kids. I made peace with Angus a long time ago. Just recently, through some IM conversations, I've made peace with Robert as well. I'm in a good place. And I'm not resenting the food changes or exercise. I'm eagerly doing them. I'm proud of myself instead of feeling like it's a punishment. I want to keep these habits up long enough that the next time life throws me drama, and let's face it, drama is inevitable for us all, I will NOT be derailed. That's a feeling I've never had before.

Running

I'm taking a break from the family history work today. I want to talk about my running. I am loving it. I'm up to running 8 minute stretches with 2. 5 minutes of walking between. There are 5 weeks until my first race. I am so freaking excited!

I've decided that my commitment to myself for 2010 is to run a race every month, whether short or long. I'm starting with the 5k in December. Luckily I live in "Track Town, U.S.A." so there are 2 or 3 road races every month. When I'm done with my current training program I'm going to start one for a half marathon. The Eugene Half Marathon is in May. Which got me thinking, what other big races could I do?

My goal is to complete the San Francisco Marathon in July, 2010. I have amazing friends there who I know will support me tremendously. Part of the race goes over the Golden Gate Bridge. How awesome and poetic is that? I am going to do it. Which got me thinking, where else could I go?

Hmm... I have good friends in Detroit, Miami, New Orleans, Sacramento, Milwaukee, Houston... What if I traveled to races? I could visit my friends, have places to stay, have the encouragement of awesome people, and earn medals! That is my new fantasy. So if you're reading this and would like me to come and race in your town, drop me a line. I'm going to take trips in the next couple of years to any and all who will have me!

Here I come!

Food Family Part 3a

I'm supposed to write about my sister Erin today. I don't want to, so I've been procrastinating all morning. I feel like I've told this story a million times. Plus, I'm angry that she had such a huge impact on me. As if her taking over the world for my teen years wasn't enough, now I have to deal with her legacy? Enough already. But I guess I can't deal with the present until I get over the past. There's no doubt in my mind that the majority of my food issues come directly from my experience with Erin and particularly, Mom and Dad's response to her. So I'll start at the beginning and see how far I can get today.

When Erin was 12 and I was 15, she began to starve herself. She had been experimenting with being a bad-girl for the past year. She got caught smoking and shoplifting. But when she found anorexia, she found her true passion. She is 4'11" and managed to get herself down under 70 pounds. I honestly can't remember the exact number at this point, but the first digit was 6. Needless to say, she was hospitalized. She was placed in the psychiatric unit because she refused to follow the doctor's orders. They had to immobilize her and use an IV to give her calories. Their goal was to put enough weight on her that her menstrual cycle would return. Apparently, that's the body's reaction when it is severely underweight. Your cycle stops because your body cannot support a pregnancy. So the bar for getting out of the hospital became periods. Meanwhile she was going through individual psycho-therapy and once a week we all had to do family therapy. At the time this made absolutely NO SENSE to me and I was pretty uncooperative about it.

I really thought it was black and white; either she's mentally ill or she isn't. If she's insane, then no amount of family therapy is going to do anything. If she's not insane, which frankly, I don't know how you could do that to your body and not be full-blown nuts, then she's in control of her actions and she's choosing to do this. Again, why would family therapy make her choose something else? If she's doing it on purpose for attention, then don't give her the attention. If she's mentally ill, then accept that and get her treatment. Somehow, I'm sure because of my inability to articulate much at 15, this got translated to, "Why don't you just punish her?" To this day, when Erin does something stupid like steal food from the house and I chime in with an opinion, my parents mock me by saying, "Just punish her."

But I digress. After spending most of her 8th grade year in the psychotic unit, Erin got smart. She realized that she could control her weight and keep herself at the magic number that would keep her out of the hospital by being bulimic. This number is somewhere in the 90s. Although, her periods never really returned to a regular, monthly normalcy. The doctors let her come home with the agreement that individual and family therapy would continue.

I thought things were really bad for those months that she was in the hospital. Mom and Dad were never home. I came home from school by myself, ate dinner in front of the TV, and went to bed. I didn't see my parents much as all. It turned out that these were the golden days of the "Erin Years" as we now call them. It was the quiet before the storm. When Erin moved back home, her bulimia encompassed our lives.

I need to dispel a common myth about bulimia. It's not that someone will eat a regular meal and then go throw up out of guilt. I've never seen that, except for in the movies. Real bulimics ritualize food and then the process of purging is a ritual too. First, Erin would go into the kitchen and cook elaborate quantities of food. She'd take a whole loaf of bread and turn it into French toast. Then maybe she'd eat a whole box of crackers with cheese. Then she might eat a whole box of cereal with milk. Then she'd bake a batch of cookies and eat them all. She would literally clean out the cupboards. This process could take up to two hours. Then she would wait for some internally prescribed time to let her body digest a portion of the food. Finally, she would lock herself in the bathroom and take an hour-long shower so that she could vomit in the tub. This process would happen twice a day. And in this manner she was able to keep herself just at that magic number that would keep her out of the hospital.

The first practical problem was that Mom and Dad couldn't keep food in the house. There were three other people who needed to eat. After a whole bunch of stupid strategies, they decided the only thing left to do was to lock the food up. They put a heavy duty bolt on the refrigerator and they moved all the dry goods into a hall closet, which they bolted as well. Then they hid the keys. That was somewhat successful in reducing their skyrocketing food bills.

The other practical problem was that there was often splatters of vomit in the bathtub and also, anyone who was home had to listen to her puking. It was simply gross. At one point, the people running family therapy (we needed 2 therapists) suggested that Erin could have a bucket in her room so that only she had to deal with the results of the puking. That idea didn't last very long because since Erin didn't clean up after herself in the public space, she sure as hell didn't clean up well in her own bedroom. Mom got disgusted and the bucket went away. Ultimately, they decided that the puking was just something that we all had to live with.

And now I'm emotionally tired and need to stop this for today.

Food Family Part 2

My mother is a glutton. I don’t know how else to describe it. She takes a perverse pleasure in an abundance of food. For some reason, it’s the quantity of good food that makes her feel… whatever it is it makes her feel. I’ll try to illustrate. There are usually 6 people at Christmas dinner. When she makes the giant turkey, she also makes a ham. For side dishes, she makes a vat of mashed potatoes, a large pan of sweet potatoes, 2 giant pans of stuffing, corn, another vegetable, rolls, a relish tray, and crackers with a salmon spread. Then there’s pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, jello, and several different kinds of cookies and fudge. There is enough for 20 guests easily. All of this is just for our family of 6. You might think this is just holiday insanity. Oh no. This is how she cooks for us normally. If she makes hamburgers, there are also baked beans, potato salad, a green salad, corn chips, potato chips, and again, the relish tray.

I once attempted to talk to my mom about this need for massive quantities for food. Her denial of personal responsibility was immediate. “Oh, it’s a Southern thing. That’s the culture I was raised in.” Hmm… let’s examine that, shall we?

Mom was born in California in 1949. Her parents were share-croppers from Arkansas who moved when the war ended. They had been barely getting by with one daughter and then when Grandpa joined the Navy, he saw that there were opportunities elsewhere. They moved to Port Hueneme, California and Grandpa took a job on the naval base as a civilian. A little while later, Grandma found herself pregnant again and that was my mom. Mom was the first in the family to be born in a hospital, the same hospital that I would be born in 25 years later.

They lived a basic, working class life. Mom essentially grew up as an only child because her sister was 12 years older. She got married and moved out when Mom was 5. They were comfortable, but hardly living in luxury. I’ve heard Mom bitch that they would never let her get a big Christmas tree because it was too expensive. They were also devout Baptists, so extravagance was definitely not part of their vernacular. But she was exposed to her Southern roots. In the summer, they would drive to Arkansas for their family vacation.

Now remember she comes from share-croppers. These are farmers who don’t own their own land, but rather work the cotton fields of land owners in exchange for living on the land and a small percent of the crop yielded. In other words, they were dirt poor. When she talks about her extended family, she talks about her dad bringing them groceries because they would literally be subsisting on biscuits and flour gravy. She was the “wealthy” kid from California.

Now where in the world does she claim this “culture of abundance” comes from? Her plain Baptist parents? Her barefoot, cotton-picking cousins? Please, explain to me how you get the cultural expectation of needing a turkey AND a ham for Christmas dinner out of that? I might buy it if she would admit that her need for abundance has something to do with feeling deprived as a child, but that’s a stretch. Pete was deprived. Nanci, who changed the “y” to “I” in the 60s to be cool :), had two good, upstanding parents, a stable home life, and plenty to eat.

I honestly don’t get it. I have been disgusted by it for most of my adult life. I am embarrassed to sit down to dinner most nights. It’s too much. But it get’s weirder of course…

During my childhood, Mom told me not to eat too much because I would get fat, all while providing more food than any one person should ever eat. She was particularly invested in my breast size, repeatedly offering to pay for reduction surgery, even though I repeatedly told her, “No way!” So eating too much would make me fatter but Mom kept laying out the spread anyway. And you can’t turn it down. She takes it very personally if you don’t eat what she has cooked. Jesus, watch out if you don’t appreciate it. A common refrain is, “Jenny, why can’t you just say ‘thank you’!” So I’m a bad daughter if I DON’T eat it and I’m a fat daughter if I DO! What the hell is the right choice here?

See, Dad’s hang-ups make sense to me. Plus, he acknowledges them somewhat, even though he seems incapable of changing them. Mom’s weirdness over food makes NO SENSE. Why do we need so much? Why does she need us to be so fawning and grateful? Why can’t she acknowledge it’s about her needs, not ours? And most importantly, why can't she make the connection between the volume of food and the obesity that plagues us. It baffles me.

But not as much as the true psycho of the family…

Food Family Part I

Alright. I've decided to tackle the three major food influences in my life in the order of easiest for me to understand to least easy to understand. That makes my dad first up.

My dad's name is Pete. He was born in 1943 and grew up in Minnesota and then Florida. Ironically, his parents picked up and moved to Florida, leaving his extended family behind, when he was 12. That's the same age that I was when my parents uprooted us and took us to Siberia. Oops. I mean Oregon. Pete has one older sister and two significantly younger siblings, a boy and a girl. The two young ones are 8-10 years behind Pete. What else? Oh, yeah. His parents were both raging alcoholics, I'm talking passed out in your own vomit kind of drunks.

Now his dad was a glazer who traveled a lot doing work on old churches. It was his mom who was home with the kids. She was drunk a lot, which meant that Pete had to take care of the little ones. His older sister was out partying and she was eventually a full-blown drunk herself. In addition, Pete also had to clean up his mom and get her into bed when he found her lying on the bathroom floor in the aforementioned puke. You can imagine that Dad is not very forthcoming with details from his childhood, so I'm not clear what their income situation was. I don't know if his mom worked. I do know that food was scarce and Pete and the young ones, who were basically in his charge, went hungry sometimes. And the last piece that you need to know is that both of his parents had a wicked temper and razor sharp tongues, especially his mom. I knew this woman growing up and she was sharp! She had a quick wit that could be used for good or evil. I have wondered if my tendency to blurt out sarcastic observations is not in my DNA thanks to her.

As a result of this upbringing, two major trends developed in Pete. The first was that wicked temper. The second was a compulsive need to protect food. He likes to direct how much each person gets, when they get to eat, and what they get to eat. And here's a big one, if you take something onto your plate, you damn well better finish it, because we do NOT WASTE FOOD. It's this intense scarcity mentality. When you combine that with the wicked temper, things can get dicey for his girls. There are two major incidents that stick out in my mind that basically summarize the relationship between me and Dad over food.

The first happened at the family dinner table. I must have been 5 or 6? Like always I was given a serving of that night's vegetables. I'm pretty sure it was peas. And like almost every night, I didn't eat them until last because I hated vegetables. Really, I didn't want to eat them at all but I always had to. For whatever reason I started whining about it this night. I wasn't going to eat them. They were now cold, I didn't like them, yada yada yada. This infuriated my dad. He yelled at me that it was my fault they were cold, I should have eaten them right away, I have to eat my vegetables, they're good food, etc. I mean he was really worked up. Well I dug in and refused to eat them. I was crying, Dad was screaming, my sister got sent away from the table, and Mom was stuck in the middle. It was a scene. Finally, my mom came in on my behalf and said there was no need to force me to eat the peas. Something snapped inside my dad and he got up from the kitchen table, walked over to the door that led to the garage, and put his fist THROUGH the door. Are you with me? He punched a hole the size of my 5-year-old head IN A DOOR! Are you picturing this? I think I peed myself. What happened next is a blur of screaming and slamming doors and getting sent to bed early. The message was clear. Dad was crazy and survival dictated that you did what he told you to do, even eating cold peas.

The next time was at my birthday party, let's say my 7th. I don't remember actually, but I was still pretty young. It was a typical party with a bunch of kids and games. We were having hot dogs for lunch. Dad served me a hot dog with mustard on it. I said I liked ketchup. I didn't want to eat one with mustard. Dad said that's too bad. He already made this one with mustard and he wasn't going to waste it. I whined that somebody else could eat it. I wanted one with ketchup. The temper started to flare as he tells me, I made this one for you, Jen and you should be grateful that you get one. You're going to eat this one. I started crying. I don't like mustard Dad! The temper snaps. Oh yeah?! He takes the hot dog and mashes it all over my face. In front of all those other kids, at my own freakin' birthday party. Yeah.

What lessons were drawn from these incidents? Definitely that my dad was to be feared and I did fear him for about 20 years after that. Now that he's 65 and I'm 35, I feel sympathy for his food hang-ups but I don't fear him anymore. If anything, he might fear me. I inherited that temper too. And now I'm in the position of defending Griffin and Molly against him. That makes my temper come out real fast. Also, that food is something that should not be taken for granted and that we have to make sure there is enough for everyone. My dad still barks at Griffin if he takes a second helping of something. And this is my favorite weird rule, you are not allowed to take the last piece of something. He's adamant about this one. But EVERYONE follows this rule! As a result, I have seen a last piece of pie sit on the counter for days because the rest of the family is afraid to eat it until Pete gives the go-ahead.

What can I learn today? I don't know yet. I think writing about it is the first step to getting it into perspective. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3. Maybe I can makes some sense out of all of it.

Puke In My Shoe

Today has been very eventful. It started early with my Weight Watchers meeting. I'm out of the 240s now! I stuck around afterward to talk to Judy, the leader. I really like her and her meetings. Many, no most, leaders focus a LOT on quibbling over calories. "Oh, look at this great new product! It's made almost completely from petro-chemicals but you can eat the whole boxful!" Once I actually witnessed this huge argument over how many calories are in carrots. Hello?! We are not fat from eating too many carrots!! Anyway, Judy runs the Saturday Sunrise meetings and she takes a much more philosophical approach. She wants to talk about habits and emotions, the "whys" behind bad choices.

So afterward I stay to talk to her about my reluctance to get into the kitchen and prepare healthy foods. After listening to all of my lame excuses, "It's too much work. I don't want to think about food," she says to me, "What about being in the kitchen are you afraid of?" Huh? Afraid? Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with all of these emotions about my history with food, particularly my family members and food. Many of you know that my little sister is bulimic and my parents literally kept locks on the refrigerator and cupboards when I was a teenager. Who me? Issues with food?

I told Judy just that little snippet and she asked, "Where is your sister now?" I kinda looked at the floor and replied, "Uh, she's still bulimic and now she's also a user who can't hold a job." Judy nodded and said, "And you're trying awfully hard to not be like her." Just like that, not a question, a matter of fact statement. Jesus Christ. I started crying. She gave me a hug and said to think about food and family this week.

Well, I didn't have time for that. I had to jump on the freeway for a two hour drive up the coast. My first choir performance was today. It was fantastic. I was jumping and singing and clapping so hard, the shirt under my robe was soaked in sweat. Now my robe I smells funky. :) Then the people who invited us to sing gave us a big potluck dinner. I ate too much. :( Then I had to jump back in the car and drive home to Eugene. I'm so exhausted.

I came right to the computer because I wanted to get that conversation with Judy down before I forgot it. Here's the cherry on top: I've been dealing with post-nasal drip ever since I got sick. It makes me cough pretty hard sometimes. So I'm sitting here at the computer, hacking away, and trying to clear the phlegm from my throat. Suddenly I was gagging and felt that big meal coming up. Not wanting to puke on my laptop, I turned to my right. Unfortunately that's where my shoes were. Ugh. Now there's puke in my left shoe. :)