Really Smart Phone - New Features

I believe that most of these features are within our technological capability and I believe that most of us could use one or more of them at some point.  Moreover, several of my criminal defense clients should not be allowed buy phones without these features

• Text block plus - has two features that prevent the user from sending inappropriate or stupid texts. 
• Really? - Activating this feature sends the warning message "Really?" to the user whenever they send a text that contains a message clearly not meant for texting (examples: "This relationship is not working out", "I love you", "I have (list any disease, illness...etc) )
• Huh? - Returns the message "Huh?" instead of sending the message, whenever the user attempts to send a text that makes no sense. If that text is sent after 11:30 pm, the phone will also return a list of cab companies.

• Live Person Alert - When the phone picks up the sound of people's voices within a certain vicinity, the phone returns the message "there are live people near by, it is unnecessary to use the calling or texting features of this smart phone."  

• Dating Features
• He/She is not that into you - If the user attempts to text or dial a number or contact a number of times without any response, the phone automatically blocks any calls/texts to that number and de-friends the contact on Facebook. 
• He/She is probably not that into you - Allows the user to control the level of stupidity they display to potential suitors. With this feature, the user can enter any number into a "potential dating pool". Anytime the ratio of calls/texts out to calls/texts in goes above 2:1, the phone sends the following text, (you have contacted 555-1212 15 times for every time they contact you. press 1 if you are an idiot and would still like to proceed with this call/text.) The error message continues until the ratio is back under 2:1. If the ratio goes above 20:1, the He/She is not that into you feature is automatically activated. 
• Do not call - This feature allows the user to enter in a number of someone they should not call or text for whatever reason (they are married and the user is not, they have a long criminal record, there is a restraining order). Any time the user calls that number, the message "to continue making this big mistake, press one, otherwise hang-up"
• Red Flag - Pops up an actual picture of a red flag when certain phrases or texts are entered into the phone (You can't really meet my family, can you drive me to court?, You're the one I want, baby, she means nothing to me, can you lend me another 50 bucks....etc)
• Wingman Plus - This important feature allows the user's 5 closest friends to activate any of the above features for any number they deem necessary. It also sends a text to the user's most reliable wingman any time the Do Not Call number is dialed or the He/She is just not that into you feature is activated.

• Call your mom/grandmother - calls the users mom at regular intervals. This feature will eventually come standard on all phones and is activated by the user's mother. It can only be deactivated by a very good explanation of why the user's mother is not worthy of a phone call. 

• Call your girlfriend/boyfriend - Sends a reminder to call the user's significant other if there has been no contact in a designated period of time.  If the reminder is ignored, the phone auto sends a list of appropriate ways to dump someone. 

Kitchen Disaster: A Beginner's Cook book

I started cooking a lot a couple of months ago and I love it. I love trying out new recipes, making unhealthy foods healthier by switching out ingredients, figuring out how to use the odd new ingredients(fennel anyone?)  Sean and I are eating healthier(though we still take far too many trips to what Sean lovingly calls, "Old McDonald's Farm") and I am teaching him that food doesn't always come out of a box.

However, along the way there have been some missteps. Mostly due to the fact that I was unwillingly to follow a recipe until my late twenties and I rarely let my mom or dad teach me how to cook anything.  Here are some of the recipes and substitutions that did not work out:

AWESOME BEER,
AWFUL SHRIMP MARINADE

 Porter Boiled Shrimp - My friend's husband is a fisherman and at one of their parties his mom told me a nice recipe for shrimp. Boil it in beer until it turns pink and season it with old bay. I tried this twice before my disaster; 1) once with a nice citrus beer and once with a cheap pale ale.  The shrimp were wild caught US gulf prawns and they were amazing. The next time I got shrimp at the store, I came home to find that the only beer available was a mocha porter. You know, the dark, coffee-ish beer.  And that is what my concoction tasted like: shrimp boiled in coffee.

Boiled lettuce - I subscribe to a CSA, they bring me absolutely amazing in-season fruits and vegetables every week and I love almost every bite. The problem is that the greens spoil quickly. During the winter, I would take the Kale, Chard and Collard greens and boiled them in vinegar, wine, or broth. It was tasty and made the vegetables last longer. The thing about the above greens is that they are bitter, and continue to retain their texture after boiling.  I did not get that lettuce would not do the same thing. It was limp and the wine I boiled it in made it taste vinegary, but not in a good way. And according to my co-workers, boiled lettuce does not have a pleasing look or aroma. 

 Convenient Salmon Lunch - I usually do salmon well. I buy a fillet from the guy at the farmer's market. I brush it with olive oil and squirt a little lemon on top. I bake it until it is flaky and it tastes amazing. Then, I use the leftovers to make salmon caesar salad.  This particular salmon had three problems: 1) I bought it sight unseen from a large online grocery outlet, it said it was wild-caught sockeye, but who knows, 2) I waited to bake it until one day before the "freeze by" date and 3) I didn't bring it for lunch until three days after I baked it.  I guess I am lucky that my sense of smell is poor because I microwaved my salmon the same day that one of my co-workers cleaned all of the old food out from the fridge and my salmon was apparently ten times worse. Needless to say, I am not allowed to bring salmon to work anymore.

Oh.....and I also suggest that you do not freeze shrimp and then saute it directly from frozen.....ewww

To tan or not to Tan....doing Florida as a pale chick

So, I am caucasian and live in Seattle. As a consequence, my skin color is somewhere in between vampire and polar bear. When I get make-up, I do not even even need to pick a shade, I just get the lightest one available.  I have come to terms with being fair skinned and I am usually anti tanning booth(I am just not into the getting skin cancer to look a little less blindingly pale).

But a combination of conceit and a desire to not turn into a lobster has taken over as I prepare to go to the keys in Florida and experience this weird yellow ball that non-Seattlites call "The Sun".

First, the lobster. I remember this water park in Denver, called water world. Growing up, we would go there during the summer and play in the pools, slide down the slides and otherwise generally engage in water merriment. The day after the water park, without fail, I would be beet red. I would blister and and peel and be miserable for at least three days. It didn't matter if I forgot the sunscreen or used super spf 5000 magic sunscreen. Sun as a child ALWAYS was followed by painful red body parts and a giant bottle of aloe vera.

Next, the conceit.  I picture women on a beach in the Keys in the following way: All perfectly put together, wearing very small bikinis with not a pale girl or lobster in sight.  I am not super fond of going to the beach and blinding everyone with my radiant whiteness, or in the alternative, getting sympathy for the awful burn I achieve the first day of my visit.  The idea of going to a tanning booth to stave off the burn and create a little color before I go is so appealing......and a tan might make my surgery scar slightly less visible.

But then comes the downsides. I am not a girly girl. I care about how I look, but I also buy most of my make-up at the discount store and I get my hair cut at Rudy's Barbershop. I buy all of my clothes at one chain because I understand how to make the colors match(and not everyone believes that I have achieved color matching). I am afraid that the very act of walking into the tanning salon will ruin my reputation. I will have to start carrying around a purse because it was designed by a snotty person in Milan and I will have to buy my make-up at Nordstrom instead of Bartell Drugs.

Also, there is the problem of the health risks associated with tanning. All of the science-y health people keep saying that we need to protect our selves from the sun's UV rays, use good sunscreen, etc.....etc.... We need to limit our time in the sun and we need to wear hats and other gear that prevents sun related damage (like cancer, aging spots, etc....) And tanning is basically sitting in a bed of highly concentrated UV rays with no protective equipment.

And really, the health risks should make the decision a no brainer.....I should just make sure I get super expensive wonder sunscreen before I leave. I should apply it every hour and avoid too much sun....but it wouldn't be that bad to get a head start on the sun......

Weight Watchers wins my too much time on my hands competition....

As I indicated earlier, I have had a lot of time on my hands after my back surgery. So, I experimented with using a calorie tracker and weight watchers online system to track my food intake.  Weight watchers, despite the increased cost, wins.  Here are the top 11 reasons:

11) If a food item is not in the database, it is easier to enter it into Weight Watchers than a calorie counter. All you need are the carbs, fat, protein and fiber. You don't have to enter in the entire label, which is annoying and takes a long time.

10) Weight watchers has tons and tons and tons of awesome recipes on the site. You can enter in ingredients that you have in your pantry and the online software will actually find a kick ass recipe for you using your ingredients. This is good for me since I have decided that I finally need to start learning how to cook using recipes (Without recipes, I end up boiling shrimp in porters and boiling lettuce instead of collard greens, mmmmm........)

9) My sister, who lives in Ohio, is also on weight watchers, and we are doing a challenge together and can send each other messages and support on the site, which is cool. It is not cool that my sister lives in Ohio. She really should live in Seattle. But because, according to my friends, I am not allowed to force people to move to Seattle, we will have to do the online weight watchers support.

8) Weight watchers has this healthy checks function, which has you click a check box every time you drink a glass of water or eat a fruit or vegetable. It is a really good reminder that I do not ever drink enough water. I will note that some calorie counters have the clear liquid counting feature.

7) You cannot survive on weight watchers without eating tons of fruits and vegetables. Without fruits and vegetables, you end up eating around 1000-1200 calories a day, which sucks and would make me incredibly hungry. However,  you can eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want without penalty on the program. So, I figure, even if I were to gain weight with weight watchers, at least I would be eating a lot of healthy food while doing it.

6)  It is easier to get weight-losss benefits from exercise on weight watchers.  When I am in non-back injury mode and exercising several hours a week, I tend to eat at least enough calories to make-up for my work out and then some. Example: after a 1000 calorie run, I might have a 1200 calorie hamburger at red Robin with a beer as an after workout treat.  This plan of eating tons after I exercise does not relate to lots of weight loss. However, on weight watchers an activity point is worth far less than a food point. So,  if you trade activity points for food, you end up eating less than the amount you workout, making the workout a weight loss instead of a weight gain activity.

5) If you go over your point total for the week, your point deficit shows up in a nice bold red color. -5 points  remaining is what my online software says this week. This is good because it reminds me every time I look at it, that I cannot eat tons of food until my points reset for the week on sunday.

4) Even if you go over your points total for the week, everything starts fresh once a week on weight watchers. It is as if the krispy kreme donut spree(mmmmm donuts), the hamburger at red robin and the pounds of shrimp and salmon I ate last week disappeared into the ether. Every week, I get to try again and there is no penalty for being a dork the last week. Calorie counters just keep going and going and are constant reminders of my shortfalls.

3)  The weigh-in is very supportive. If you gain weight the computer provides a nice caring message about how things happen and how you will do better next week. If you lose weight, you get a really great message even if you only lose .1 pounds. And the fact is, that all of the weight I have lost over the last several years has stayed off mostly because I lost it in .1 pound increments. Better to lose slowly and stay thinner, than lose quickly and gain it all back.

2) There is a list of healthy food on the site and there are little green triangles next to super healthy foods and foods that will fill you up for very few calories.

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY WEIGHT WATCHERS IS BEST IS:

1) Weekly points. Without any remorse, I can choose to have a day where I go out with friends, eat a bunch of fries and hamburger and have a couple of beers. I just enter in my wonderful guttony into the online calculator and it subtracts my unhealthy food choices from my weekly points. Now, I can't do that every night (but wouldn't it be cool if I could), but I can go to the awesome pig roast I was invited to next weekend without worrying about whether the pork and mojitos would go to my thighs.

Weight Watchers v. Calorie Counting

Because I have too much time on my hands right now, I am using both Weight Watchers and my favorite calorie counting app, Tap&Track, to record what I am eating. I am pitting them against each other and judging them in the following areas:

1) Ease of Entering in restaurant foods
2) Cost (Tap&Track wins this, it is 3.99 for a lifetime, WW is about18 bucks a month)
3) Ease of entering in specialized foods and recipes
4) Accuracy
5) Usefulness of nutritional information available from app/website
6) Helpfulness of community forums/posts

I think this will be an interesting project, because most reviews concentrate on whether the darned thing makes you lose weight.  I think this is important, but the ability to use and stick to the tracking system is what makes the difference in long term success. If you lose weight, but get annoyed at having to enter your information and give up tracking, you are way more likely to gain the weight back than if you find the process easy and unobtrusive.

Also, I am interested to really delve into the support options on Weight Watchers. These features and the nutritional information are really what make the program cost more, so my question is: is  all of that extra stuff worth it? 

Redlissa's Diet Plan: Part II, the sedentary diet

I have been racking my brains over how to continue to eat tasty food, not gain weight (and thereby make my back even more useless) and not exercise for the next six weeks. We will see how it goes, but gleaned from my diet/food policy books and personal experience, this is how I plan to not exercise and not gain tons of weight. Given how much I ate and exercised, I have had to shave off 1000 calories a day to maintain my weight.  I am hoping that, if this works, my ideas might help other people that have to be sedentary.  I have not gained any weight over the first two weeks of sedentariness, and hopefully I will be able to keep it up.

Here is the outline:

1) Figure out what you are willing to give up entirely and what you are not willing to give up while unable to exercise.
2) Eat lean protein and lots of fruits/vegetables
3) Find mindless activities to take place of mindless snacking
4) Drink a lot of that clear liquid beverage with the magical hydrating powers.
5) Track every darned morsel that goes into your mouth.

Here is how I am going to do it:

First, I have had to decide the things I am just willing to give up completely while I am injured as well as the things I am NOT willing to give up, ever, under any circumstances.  I am completely giving up alcohol. I love my microbrews and tasty glasses of wine, but I am on narcotics and I have no interest in seeing what the combination will do for me.  At 100-180 calories a pop, it just isn't worth the extra calories. And on top of the increased caloric intake, the nice buzzed feeling makes most people, including me, very interested in eating more crap. I am also completely willing to give up pastries. I LOVE sugar, I LOVE everything about sugar, but I realize that for a significant decrease in calories I can have myself a nice piece of melty dark chocolate instead. A typical cookie that I would eat (think, the nice big chocolate chip cookies from the bakery or local restaurant) has 500 calories. Even the most indulgent chocolate bar has 400 or less and I can usually get my fix at 190 calories of chocolatey goodness(the equivalent of 190 calories of chocolatey goodness).

When I am sick, I like my damned comfort foods. I like hamburgers, fried chicken, fish and chips and french fries. I am not willing to give fried crappy food up just because I am injured. But I am willing to do the following nerdy activities to lower the cost of comfort. I order the plate of comfort and then have the waiter take the plate away when I am half finished. In the case of fast food, I just toss half the food before I start eating (I know its nerdy, but it works).  Half a hamburger at red robin is like 500 calories, doable, a whole hamburger is like 1/3 of a pound of fat added to my already broken back. I am also willing to restrict my emotional fried food eating to when I really, really need it (only once or twice a week, not every time I feel sorry for myself because I am injured.)

Second, I have had to up my percentage of healthy foods.  These are the foods with lots of nutrients and very little calories. I am eating at least one or two servings of fruit or vegetables at every meal and I am always including a protein so that I feel satisfied at the end of my meal. This morning, for breakfast I had an apple, a yummy serving of almonds and two chocolate infused rice cakes (I actually like rice cakes)

And I am increasing, if it is possible my intake of seafood. Salmon, halibut and shrimpies have lots of protein and not very much in the way of calories(3 oz of smoked salmon is 100 calories, 9 huge, beautiful US gulf prawns are 54 calories and a quarter pound of halibut is 158 calories).  For lunch, I am going to have a local greens salad with green goddess dressing, smoked salmon and some tasty dark chocolate all for 400 calories. mmmmm......yes seafood and chocolate are the world's perfect foods.

Third, I am working to find new and exciting mindless activities to engage in that are not snacking.  I think I am going to learn how to knit while I am sick (my mom bought be the tools a couple of years ago and taught me how, I just have to use them), I have mass levels of angry birds and plants v. zombies to play(thank you Wendy) and there are always scrabble and pencil puzzles.

Four:  I am going to start utilizing that drink you all call water. It comes out of the faucet and some people drink it instead of diet coke. Apparently, the lack of caffeine and hydrating powers of this mystery substance will make me less hungry and more able to function. We shall see......

Finally and MOST IMPORTANT: I am tracking every darned thing that goes into my mouth.  There are  100s of apps, journals and online universes for this purpose. I really like Tap&Track on the ipod. I have the time to track since I am not spending time exercising and I know exactly how much is going in my mouth.  Excepting one very deep fried and chocolate covered day, I have been averaging around 1500 calories a day while ill.  I am going to try and drop that to 1400, but I am not going to stress if I fail.  

I track because there is little margin for error while I am sick. If I eat too little, I will just start feeling sicker and weaker because I am not eating. And every pound of weight I carry causes increased pressure on my spine, knees and all of those joints I am going to need in the future.

Moping, back injuries, sports and attitude

So, I have been laying around my house brooding for the last week and a half. Somehow, I managed to herniate 3 of the discs in my lower back, one of them enough that I will likely have to have surgery.  If my pain isn't better by monday, time to go under the knife.  Because I am into running, yoga and have been working out 6-10 hours a week for at least a year, the last two weeks have been slightly hellish.  I have been told that my job is to lay on the couch with a pillow between my legs for support.  And because I am on vicodin and in pain, I can't concentrate well enough to do things like read books, make intelligent conversation (though I have made plenty of unintelligent conversation) and clean the house.

So basically, I have spent the last two weeks moping, brooding and fishing for sympathy. You would think that this would have gotten worse when the surgeon told me that I could not run anymore, ever.  I gave him these puppy dog eyes and pouted a little, thinking that this might change his mind, but he wasn't up for it. Instead he told me that after my six weeks of complete absence from exercise, I could take up swimming.  He mentioned swimming like five times in between discussions of the recumbent bike, stair master and possibly after a while the elliptical.

At first, I was not pleased, I pouted on my own for a bit and then his discussion made something click. I realized two things in about five minute period while illicitly driving home from my appointment. 1) The reason I like running is because I love movement, I love seeing how far my body can go and what it can do and 2) I needed to quit my damned whining.

So, I have turned a corner both sports and attitude wise. I have now found a sport, swimming, that will allow be to continue moving and possibly give me the chance to push my body to do new and exciting things. They have open water swimming events in the sound, I can join a master's swimming team if I get good enough. I have found private lessons at my gym for when I am ready to start training.  And swimmers can get their bodies into hella good shape with relatively low impact.

All my attitude needed, it turns out, was something to look forward to. I was brooding because I could only see a future of eating fries, gaining back the pounds I worked to hard to take off, and eventually losing a lot of my mobility to weight gain and back problems.

 Now, I am excited about the weeks of painstakingly watching every movement I make and tracking every morsel I put in my mouth until I am well enough to learn how to swim.  As I get better I can read books about perfecting my freestyle stroke and maybe I can start figuring out what gadgets I can take with me in the pool.

Speedos, googles and swim caps...here we come .... and I am sure I will have plenty of missteps and adventures to blog about in my new sport.

Adventures in Ballard: Elissa Style

I love Ballard.

 

I love being able to run to the beach at sunrise(See video).  I love taking my son to the farmer's market to buy salmon and halibut directly from the guys that caught the fish. There is an amazing yoga studio, a perfect gym, several great bars and I can watch the boats go through the locks whenever I want. AND one of the best playgrounds in town in just three blocks from my house. 

 I do not love how ridiculously stupid I was in Ballard yesterday.

I was going to the very beach pictured in my sunrise running video for a wonderful early evening service. Knowing that said beach is usually crowded, I decided that my son and I could walk the 1.6 miles to the beach and back (I did not bother to bring bus tokens for the way home because the bus route to the beach takes 20 minutes and involves 1.4 miles of walking) Instead, I brought warm clothes for Sean, a cell phone, a credit card (in case we needed to take a cab to get home), a camera and snacks for the journey. 

Things I did not take into account:

1) 1.6 miles is a very short distance for a 33 year-old marathon runner. 1.6 miles is a marathon distance for a 4 year-old.

2)  Flip-Flops are GREAT walking gear for hanging out on the beach. Flip-flops are horrible shoes for getting to the beach. Flip-Flops are especially bad for moms who are carrying their children down steep dirt staircases to get to the beach. Flip-Flops are even worse for moms who are carrying their children down steep dirt staircases when it starts raining. 

3) When there are clouds in the sky this often means it will rain.  

4) When my 4 year-old, who I had been carrying on my shoulders for an hour, refuses to put on his rain coat this is a good time to take cover.

5) Taking cover at Anthony's restaurant would have been a great idea, if Anthony's restaurant wasn't about a mile from the beach.  

5a) Counting the several available parking spaces, where I could have parked my vehicle, just added insult to injury. 

6) It often stops raining soon after it starts in Seattle, so by the time I got to Anthony's, we had missed the service we were originally going to AND it was now just cloudy and somewhat beautiful outside. 

7) Waterfront seafood restaurants, like Anthony's, do not actually cater towards people in Flip-Flops and jeans who are wet from the rain, and, covered in sweat from long walks carrying their children on their shoulders. (Though, I will say that they were very nice, sat us at a hidden table, right next to the window overlooking the sound. They got us our food quickly and I tipped them WELL)

8)  Cabs in Seattle do not have car seats, so calling a cab to pick me and Sean up from the beach was not particularly well thought out.

9) Calling Tam to come pick us up (which he very graciously did) was a particularly humiliating phone call to make. 

However, having Sean with me made the whole experience a fun adventure instead of a disaster. He was happy the whole time, loved looking at all the trees going to the beach, had fun on his shoulder ride and thought the "fry sticks" at Anthony's were particularly tasty. 

This is Sean's apple juice at Anthony's.  Both the waitress and I were concerned about the cup in came in. She smelled it, and I taste tested it three times before I let Sean drink it. (He probably thought we were weird)

The Only Elissa version of Plane travel with a child

The day started out great. My sister made us roasted potatoes, eggs benedict and mimosas.  She is a great cook, uses mostly fresh organic ingredients and makes everything as healthfully as she can. Then the cousins wore each other out for a couple of hours before I headed out to the airport.

This is when the fun started.  Sean and I got to the airport with the four bags I packed for the two of us for our three day adventure to Dayton.  I packed six shirts and  seven pairs of pants for sean, which might have been necessary if we were going somewhere with no laundry facilities AND if Sean hadn't insisted on wearing the same baseball shirt the entire time. Amazingly, I still forgot things, such as my glasses, which for an almost blind person are a necessity.

I had the four bags and a worn out 3 year old that refused to walk anywhere. So, I did the best thing in that situation. I ran my bags into the airport, left them unattended and then ran back to the car to grab the almost sleeping preschooler from my sister.  The airport staff was not particularly thrilled with my complete ignorance of the "Absolutely no unattended baggage ever, no we are serious, rule." But they let me pass.

Sean chose the security line as the best place to have a temper tantrum. His tantrum was justified. He was thirsty and they had water at the store before the security line. He could not understand why we had to take off his shoes, force his toys all onto long belt and walk through a metal detector just so that he could get a glass of water.  Hell, it does sound rather ridiculous to make someone wait to buy water until the other side of the security checkpoint.  As we age and mature, we learn to say rude things to the security guards under our breath instead of being held kicking and screaming through the line as our shoes are pried off our feet.

Next up: the dramamine overdose scare. We got water in the shop post security and I got sean calmed down. I bribed him with a mickey mouse activity book (as I have been told by many people before, the plane is a good time to keep your kid quiet, it is not a time to employ good parenting techniques). We went to the local, random american food restaurant chain and had chicken nuggets and chips. While there, I proceeded to split Sean's dramamine pill in half and gave him the proper dose for a three year old, one half pill). Unfortunately, the other half fell on the floor and I gave up looking for it after about thirty seconds.

The dramamine is important for Sean, he has an actual diagnosed vomiting disorder AND he regularly gets motion sick. I have only been on very few trips with Sean that did not involve at least one change of clothes and a spray bottle of Febreeze.  But now that he is old enough for dramamine, we give it to him, he eats it, and we do not see random american restaurant food on the seat of the plane.

As we left the restaurant, Sean casually said, mommy, I am taking the other half of my medicine, you forgot to give it to me. The poison control, emergency room and missed flight issues all rushed through my head as I used my mom super powers to quickly remove the half-pill from his mouth before he swallowed it.

Then we got to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, the most evil airport in the world. The first thing out of Sean's mouth was the phrase, "I am hungry and tired", okay cool, I have got this under control, we will get our seat assignments, grab a snack and then he can sit in my lap and sleep on the plane (Did I mention that I took Sean, my three year-old on a red eye from Dallas to Seattle? Oops....)

I went to the evil seat assignment minion and kindly asked for a window seat for my child. I explained that my child tends to throw up and that, as his mom, I was pretty sure that he would not behave well in the aisle (I envision Sean, my active little guy, continually taking his sitting belt off and running up and down the plane. I know my son.) She said, in that take back to the SNL sketch of the late 90's way, "I'll see what we can do, it will be hard enough to just get you seated together." Sean was tugging at my pant leg at the time, so I did not have time to compute her phrase, more on this later....

We went to dinner. I had a pint of beer.  I needed it. Then Sean proceeded to fall asleep on the nasty floor of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Okay, he wasn't sleeping, it was more like shutting his eyes and then whimpering that it was too loud and too bright and that he was "tired".

The seat minion then called me up to the counter to explain the good news, she got us seats in the aisle and center on the plane.  I asked if there was any way she could request someone to move out of the window, and she said the following choice phrase "You are lucky you even got seats together. People had to voluntarily move to accommodate you having seats together." At which point, I flew off the handle (well, Elissa style, so no real flying, but my voice was slightly raised.) I said, "you had to put me in the same row as my three year-old"and gave her a dirty look.

Later on, when sean was lying with his seat belt on, sleeping, in the window seat (the kind lady next to us actually volunteered it without prompting), I had to laugh about the evil seat assignment minion. I  spent a great deal of time thinking of scenarios where my single and/or childless by choice friends would randomly end up seated next to some other person's three year-old. And when asked where his mother was, the preschooler would say, "the seat assignment lady said there was no way for us to sit in the same row".   I am sure many of us parents would long for this forced plane babysitting, but I bet that seat assignment lady would have found us seats together instantly when the involuntary babysitter made a complaint.  :)

For his part, Sean did not throw up, he slept the whole way back on the plane and was very cuddly as he slept....

Ode to my treadmill

I knew when I saw the envelope at the bottom of my staircase that the news was not going to be good. The note was nice enough, with phrases like, "I tried to deal with the treadmill, but it shakes and vibrates my entire apartment", "I support your desire to stay in shape/lose weight, but it just doesn't work in this house." , "The sound is actually going to make me go crazy".  It wasn't out of the blue, my neighbor had never said anything, but it takes a strong dose of denial to think that running on a 200-pound treadmill in the upstairs of a house built in 1908 would work out long term.  Every time I stepped on it, I tried different walking stances to make the sound in MY upstairs part of the house less intense.  But deep down, I knew it just wasn't going to work...and the letter sealed the deal.

And there was the issue with constantly worrying that  my energy sucking treadmill would start some kind of fire in my circa 1908 ungrounded outlets.  And so, as with many of the loves in my life, my relationship with the treadmill was intense, beautiful and short on realism/long term possibility.(See Dance Dance Revolution, my bike wind trainer that threw out my back, the ab roller, the eight sets of hand weights, etc....). So, here is my ode/dear john letter to the treadmill.....sniff, sniff....

I met you on a rainy day in November. You came in a box and took several hours to put together. But you were perfect in every way. You had an Ipod dock and speakers that played any variety of music that I desired.  I could climb hills to Jay-Z and then jog it out with Emmy Lou and Roger Miller. You always loved my taste in music and never said anything when I put on a bad one-hit wonders from the late eighties(You even let me play Cococabana, Love is a Battlefield and Make Me Lose Control over and over again).

You were there when my son was sick and napping upstairs and I couldn't leave the house. I could run for an hour or two while he slept on the couch and come back to vomit duty stress free and healthy. You let me work out the, "why the heck do live in a city where it rains more than half the year blues" and allowed me the chance to train for the Seattle Marathon even when it was getting dark at four PM.

You allowed me to avoid the 100 pound girls in the tiny sports bras at the gym. You let me avoid the guys who wear awful tank tops and lift heavy weights just to impress those 100 pound girls. You gave me the courage to wear polka-dotted sweatpants and a neon green top while working out.

There were problems, of course. Occassionally, my son would walk in on us when "Big Pimpin'" or "Party Up" was blasting on the speaker system. That was just awkward and involved very quick manevuers with the volume control that I do not want to ever have to repeat. You came with an intermediate and advanced workout series with Jillian Michaels. The workouts came on SD Cards and we both know that I occassionally pulled them out and threw them on the floor mid workout (because Jillian Michaels is MEAN and her workouts are too difficult).

But those issues did not change the fact that you were, and still are a brilliant workout machine....And now it is time for me to give you to another person who will hopefully give you the love and attention you deserve.

I am moving on to a gym with a kids club where my son can hang out. I realise that I will just have to forgo workouts on days that my son is sick.  I realize I am going to have to wear normal workout clothes and god forbid, use headphones. 

But we both knew this would happen sometime...it is time to say goodbye.....it isn't you, it is me....I need my neighbors to not call the police with noise complaints....I need my son to have a fun place to play while I am working out that doesn't cause me to worry that he reaking havoc somewhere else in the house....and I need the additional things that a gym can provide that you can't (sorry dear, but there aren't any treadmill based yoga classes or weight machines.)

We will always have the basement guest room....

Redlissa's World: Parts of the Redlissa diet plan (for dieters and t...

Redlissa's World: Parts of the Redlissa diet plan (for dieters and t...: "So, I now qualify for the National Weight Control registry (keeping more than 30 pounds off for more than a year). Apparently, this gives ..."

Good yoga instructors and Beginner Syndrome

I officially admit that I have hit the stage in my yoga practice where I have Beginner Syndrome. For those of you who have never experienced this phenomenon, let me explain. Beginner syndrome (BS) occurs when you are still really pretty new to something, but have decided that you know what you are doing. In the case of computers, the guy who learns how to make tons of advanced changes to the settings on their computer, and then proceeds to make those changes on your computer, which subsequently results in a dark purple screen with everything written in Chinese, has BS.

The second year law student who gives bad legal advice to their friends and family because they somehow think the first year course have taught them anything about real world legal problems has BS.  Any person who has experience babysitting and decides to use this knowledge to give parenting advice to people with children has BS.

Side Crow 

In my case, the BS was subtle.  Although many people have practiced yoga for years, I had decided that I was some kind of advanced pose practitioner ( I have never claimed to have the yogi mind thing down). after 10 months of diligent practice.  I mean, I had taken a 4 week introductory class AND I can do a damned headstand.

In my state of BS, I decided that I could walk into any studio and utilize my vast yogic knowledge about form and that it didn't matter who was teaching me. So, I switched from my studio with a good reputation for experienced teachers, to the crowded studio with no adjustments and very little instruction.  I went for a few weeks, priding in my ability to look like a ballerina in dancer pose, my ability to look like a semi pro break dancer in side crow, not noticing that because I was not really paying attention to my breath or my posture, my deltoids and lower back were gradually weakening. And then there was the day my BS symptoms got so bad that I thought I could go to two back to back classes.

That was the day my back went out. And, after going back to my studio tonight, I also realized that I have a deltoid injury as a result of the BS.

This brings me to the important part: GOOD YOGA INSTRUCTION IS VITAL to healthy practice and let me guide you through a badly taught class and my awesome class tonight to illustrate why.  (As an aside, I have worn HR monitors to both classes once and I burned 700 calories in each class, so it wasn't as if I got some extra calorie burning love in the poorly taught class.

In my class tonight, we went back to mountain pose(basically standing up straight) three times and spent several breaths there working on our posture.  The instructor, who has several years of experience, said things like, make sure your shoulder blades come together in the pose,  spread your feet out wide, he came around to check our breathing and adjusted everyone at least once. During my 5 classes at the other studio with various teachers, I got exactly one comment about how I was doing a pose and I never was moved or adjusted.

In my class tonight, the instructor saw that I had to modify a pose (due to my deltoid issue) and came around and helped me do the modification correctly.  In my other class, the instructor would briefly mention that modifications existed but would only demonstrate the most advanced form of the pose she could think of.  That only encourages those of us with BS to attempt poses that our bodies do not want to do.

My class tonight was an intermediate level class (meaning that I was the most beginning student there), but the instructor spent a lot of time focusing on the basics that people with BS tend to forget. He spent time telling us how to protect our backs and explaining how to move from one pose to the next.  The other instructor just called out the poses and checked several times to see how she was doing on time.

Regular crow (I see at least 5 things I am not doing correctly, can you spot them? :) )

I will admit two things, I would not be 1/10th as good at leading a class as the inexperienced instructor  from the studio that caused my injury. And I am sure that there are people, not me, that have enough experience that they can just go to a class and they know how to put there bodies into the right position. However,  beginners and people with BS are not those students. We need guidance, adjustments and instruction to get us through class healthier than when we started.

So, getting over my BS, I officially readmit that I am still very new to yoga and I am no longer going to accept instructors and classes that do not provide guidance and assistance to people who think that they know what they are doing, but who actually don't.

Parts of the Redlissa diet plan (for dieters and their friends and family)

So,  I  now qualify for the National Weight Control registry (keeping more than 30 pounds off for more than a year). Apparently, this gives me the authority to pontificate about how people can lose weight

Before I go to my advice, my stats:

I have lost almost 70 pounds of non-preggo related weight and I have kept 60 of it off since January of 2010.  It took me a full 3 years to lose it and I don't have any plans to actually join the weight-loss registry.

So, here it goes, in somewhat random order:

1)  Don't tell any woman you love that you think they are fat. EVER. Even if they are family, even if they are at risk for dire health consequences.  The problem is that our society has all this crap with beauty and weight and self-esteem.  Only rarely did someone point out my BMI to me when I was overweight, and all it did was make me reach for the cookie jar. Leave the BMI quotations up to the medical professionals. I lost weight when it was time for me to lose weight. Other people's opinions didn't make much difference.

2) If you are really concerned about the health risks of your friend/lover/wife/mother/sister's weight, make them feel good about themselves with flowers, chocolates, tickets to the football game, whatever makes them happy. Even if they don't lose weight, they will appreciate that you actually care about them.

3) For the weight-losing folk out there, buy cute clothes. I have no sense of fashion so I do not know what these clothes look like. However, I know that attractive, well fitted clothes come in all sizes for men and women and some of the most attractive people I know are overweight, happy and well-dressed.

4)  Eat lots of those multi-colored things that come out of the ground or grow on trees. They fill you up, they make you regular and they have vitamins. Whenever I stop eating them, I gain weight, whenever I start eating them again I lose weight.

5) Drink the clear stuff that comes out of the tap. I do not do this and as a result, my weight fluctuates 3-4 pounds every day depending on how dehydrated I am.  I am trying to drink water I swear, it will happen eventually.

6) Any movement is awesome, but don't kid yourself into thinking that taking the stair up to the second floor of your office building made up for the Big Mac you had at lunch.

7) It is amazing how much crud we can stuff into our stomachs without knowing it, so I keep a diary (like most of the National Weight-Loss Registry folk) of everything that goes in my mouth. Sometimes the diary says 4000 calories, sometimes it says 1500 calories, but I am a firm believer that I would have had 7,000 on the 4000 day and 3000 on the 1500 day, without tracking.

8) If it takes more than three normal bites to finish the cake, cookie or pastry, it is more than 300 calories.(this rule only goes for tasty pastries, there are some diet pastry-like items that have fewer calories, which gets me to my next point)

9) Never feel like crap about gaining a couple of pounds or eating something horrible for you(as long as it tasted GOOD). I have found that feeling like crap generally just leads to eating crap (This is the corollary to "you are what you eat")

10) It is perfectly acceptable to gain a few pounds during an overseas trip, a vegas weekend, finals, while studying for the bar exam.....etc..... If you are doing something super cool, forget about your weight and have fun.  If you are doing something super stressful, worry about the stressful activity, not your weight. (And if people comment about the weight gain....just make an off hand comment about their ugliest feature. e.g, "I know, I totally need to lose a couple of pounds. Maybe we could make a pact and I could lose the weight while you look into plastic surgery for your crook nose")

11) Finally, the most important tip is the Ryan diet plan. It is simple, effective and almost impossible for most of us to follow: "Eat less, move more"  Until the people who decide these things come up with a magical way to lose weight that does not involve eating less than your body burns, the 2/3 of the american population that is overweight or obese should probably take that phrase to heart.

12) As was noted in an earlier post, or a few earlier posts, I do not eat well. I move more than I take in, but I still have a long, long way to go before I could claim that I eat well.  Food and movement are two of the main activities in our lives and we need to think about them in terms of more than what will lead to the best looking abs or what will provide the greatest satisfaction.

Yoga Injury

I had a "brilliant" idea on Friday. I decided that I was going to go to two yoga classes in a row. I thought this would be a great way to test my limits and learn something new about myself. What I learned: It is stupid to go to two hot yoga classes in a row.

I started at hot hatha, which is basically a class where one holds several poses for long periods of time to work on strength and focus.  I was rocking it in the first class. My leg went over the back of the head while I did the dancer pose.  I was able to do a few poses where I was balancing on one leg and I was in head stand for a significant period of time. I looked at the back mirror while doing a backbend.  I was feeling very self-righteous and unyogic.  And then I went to the second class.....

It started out okay, but I could tell that something was not quite right with my back. I felt a twinge right over my right hip, so I was like, cool, I will be so super awesome and do the modified versions of the poses. But the twinge was still there....and then I did warrior one, I was working hard to move my hips in line and then did a slight back bend and.....*$#%^ .....no more yoga for Elissa. And, the self-righteous feeling, gone.  First, I tried to move my broken frame to my mat and lay in child's pose. Child's pose was not possible, my arms flailed out in front of me but I could not sit on the back of my legs. Next, I rolled over and tried savasana (corpse pose), but laying on my back was excruciating.

So, I did the next best option, I quietly ratcheted myself up and moved quietly out the door. I walked around the building until the class was over and as I went back in to pick up my mat, it actually took my a minute or so to get back to a standing position to get to the car.

But I decided that this experience was actually very good for my yoga practice. Doing stupid things is a good way to learn how to silly people can be.

Lessons Learned:

1) Yoga is not a sport and so trying to do advanced moves as an advanced beginner is just silly.
2) When the body first twinges, STOP then.
3) Over confidence almost always leads to some sort of humbling experience.

Next class: will listen to my body and do what I can......

Two faced meal.

As I was sitting in my house recovering today, I had the occasion to look around my kitchen and recognize the odd mix that is my diet. 

I am really into food politics. I watch the movies about GMO foods (from both sides). My kindle books right now are a biography of Cod, a book on the philosophy of food and a book on the history of food. I can quote obesity statistics for most of the country, I know what the calorie counts are of everything I eat, and yet, my diet is just weird.  And my weird diet has made me really become aware of the benefits of locally produced organic food.

 Almost all of the vegetables in my house are organic, from the  local CSA(the fruits and vegetables themselves come from the entire west coast, but are 100% organic.) They are a bit bruised when they get to my house, but they taste absolutely succulent.  The apples are flavorful, the oranges are juicy and not sour or bitter and the strawberry was simply perfection.  When I make my boiled greens for the week, I can actually taste the difference between the chard and the collard and the kale even after I have boiled them in wine or chicken stock. 

The non-organic veggies in my house are the opposite. They are canned and frozen and flavorless. I have corn on my counter that looks brownish yellow and is packed in some sort of watery product. The fruit cocktail cups for my young son's lunch cannot possibly contain fruit. The little squares of juice infused squishy things taste okay, but nothing like a real pear or a real apple. 

Then, in a fit of convenience, I decided to buy a set of packaged and over-processed food like-main dishes to have around the house. They are convenient, and confession, they don't taste awesome. My cupboards are filled with different mass produced preservatives mixed with different varieties of corn and soy products. The nutrition labels give the deceptive picture that what I am eating is low-calorie and is fortified with all of the vitamins an adult woman could need.  And, because of my food politics reading of late, all I can think of when I eat my box of stuff that is meant to approximate an entree is that I know where this thing comes from and it ain't a fishing boat in Alaska or an organic farm upstate.  

And for me, I realized that the main issue is that I don't really know how to cook so I get scared and either go out to eat or eat food-like substances. I can make chili (but all of the ingredients mostly come from cans), I can make quiche (but I use a trans-fatty pie crust from Marie Callendar's).  

So, protect your children (I will probably accidentally leave the oven on),  and get ready for emergency phone calls and texts regarding my inability to figure out how to clean up the flour I spilled on the floor and the weird smell emanating from the sushi rolls.

I am officially, in a month, when all of the processed crud has finally departed my kitchen, am going to become a person who eats only food. :) 

Slowing Down

Last week I went to get my metabolism tested. My hope was that I can rev up my metabolism enough to stop taking my daily dose of thyroid medication and that I can get past my current running plateau.  There was good news, my metabolism is now actually slightly faster than most people (this is really good news for someone with hypothyroidism, generally people with low thyroid counts have really slow metabolic rates). There was very bad news as well: to get any faster, I am going to have to start lifting weights and I am going to have to increase my aerobic base.

This is now my most important training tool

First, the weight-training thing sucks. I thought that yoga was a convenient way to get mind-body exercise and avoid weight-training(unfortunately, the person doing my assessment is a vinyasa yoga instructor, and said, "not so much", I should really do both). I don't like lifting weights, I don't like looking at weights, heck I don't even like the smell of weights. It's boring.  The whole idea is to do the same movement several times and gradually do it with heavier pieces of metal.  Who even invented this torturous activity? I wonder if some fitness expert back in the day actually said to himself, "you know what would be awesome? lifting and squatting with heavy objects in a repetitive motion. This will make me strong and able to impress the ladies." I am NOT impressed, inventor of weight-training.

Increasing my aerobic base is just code for slowing down. The idea is that training my body to run at really slow heart rates will train my body to run for a really long period of time without wearing out. Great idea, in theory. However, I run because I love the feel of flying as my feet barely tough the ground passing by each other. I love going slow enough that I can breathe in the salty air by my house, see the boats go by on the ship canal and still run fast enough to enjoy the wind hitting my face as I glide towards Golden Gardens.  "Running" at 4 or so mph is unlikely to feel like gliding or flying.  It is more likely going to feel like clomping.

But I have to say, as a constant optimist, I did enjoy some things about my first "slow" workout. I was able to think the entire time I was running. I never ran out of breath and I always knew exactly how hard I was working.  I have had this constant heel pain in my right foot on my runs. Generally, I just run through it and call the pain a "character building experience"

 As I was running slowly, I figured out what I have been doing wrong to cause the pain. I hit midsole on the left foot, but heel strike on the right. And I hope it looks less weird than it sounds: I limp when I run. My right foot falls down heavier than my left every time. I was actually able to make adjustments to my form while I was slow running, and for the time being, the heel limp is gone.  

I will admit that this heel has made my running life miserable many times 

The slow base building training is supposed to last eight weeks and then I can speed up (and frankly ditch the weights). I am going to put my trust in the expert and hope this nonsense works as well as she described it. 

Off Topic: Morality and Theft

This is part of a short series of blog posts about my day job as a criminal defense attorney.

As a criminal defense attorney in a large suburb of Seattle, I tend to represent a large number of thieves. It may be a surprise to some of you, but there is a great deal of diversity in the theft community. I divide perpetrators of theft into two categories: 1) the unsympathetic thief and 2) the sympathetic thief.

In the first category, I represent the drug addicts who steal your car stereos and the traffickers who steal and then sell their wares on the black market. I have the 18-22 year old women who steal Seven and Juicy Couture because their wealthy parents won't buy $200 jeans for their young adult children. (I did not have any idea what Seven jeans were until starting my current job, I thought Fergie was singing about wearing a size seven). I have young women and men who steal to see if they can get away with it . They usually buy many items and then add an additional freebie to their purse or pocket. On the face of it, all of these individuals look like pariahs.

In the second sympathetic category, I have the homeless men and women who literally steal a sandwich from Safeway. I represent individuals with mental health issues who have serious impulse control problems and have tremendous difficulty keeping themselves from pocketing things (usually small and weird) from the local drugstore. In addition, I have actually had young mothers who steal food, diapers and medicine for their young children. Although, this second category of thieves are also taking things that don't belong to them, they are much more sympathetic to me and the court system.

The first group commit the same exact crime as the second, but we naturally gravitate our affection to the second group. The sympathetic and unsympathetic thieves both know what they are doing when they steal and have the intent to carry out their crimes. Both groups are equally guilty of their thefts. However, my sympathetic thieves get less jail time, lower fines and fewer long term repercussions from their actions. Why? Because the second group is deemed to have better motivations for their actions than the first group.

I can almost bring a judge to tears (okay, not quite tears) explaining that my client stole tylenol because she knew it would make her toddler feel better and she did not have the educational background to access resources like WIC. But I never get very far trying to explain why my client needed the juicy couture handbag with the gold chain clasp.

And I agree with the sentiment, the second group does deserve a better shake than the first, but I keep wondering why. The actions of my two groups of clients are not different, just their motivations......And this is where I started visualizing my own reasons for not stealing.

In my example, I picture myself walking into a store. It is always Nordstrom or Bartell Drugs. I go to the a section of the store with costume jewelry and pick up a long silver chain off the rack. I put it in my pocket and walk around the store looking to see if anyone is watching. I visualize myself walking out of the store with the necklace and the first thing I see is a "loss prevention officer" (the new PC term for a security guard), who proceeds to take me to the back office. Then I see the police officer questioning me and hand cuffing me. I fast forward to the future and see myself living in my parents' basement because no one wants to hire someone with a theft on their record. I don't steal, because I do not like the risks or consequences of getting caught.

What I don't think about (until I examine my motivations) as I am visualizing my crime. is that my friends and neighbors have to pay higher prices for their purchases because of my poor behavior. I don't think about the horrendous example I am setting for my son. I don't think about the loss of trust that my thieving behavior creates in society. I am just as selfish in this example and thoughtless as my most unsympathetic clients. I am just too risk adverse to steal.

In my example, my motives for not stealing were just as selfish as the motives of the girl stealing juicy couture, but the court isn't punishing me or rewarding me for my poor motivations. I didn't do anything wrong, so why should I get punished(and trust me, I agree that I should not get punished for my thoughts, we don't live in Minority Report). so, why is there a difference in how we treat the juicy couture thief and the mother who steals medicine for her kid? They both are committing the same crime. In some ways, I feel like they should get treated the same, but intuitively, I don't want my sympathetic and unsympathetic clients treated the same way by the court system. I want mom with tylenol to have her case dismissed and I want juicy couture girl to go to jail for a few days to learn a lesson.

Maybe, we, as a society are only supposed to look at people's motives when they behave badly....?

Or, more likely, is it that we assume that the people with bad motivations for stealing have done it before and will do it again, so we want to punish them more(but then we are just punishing people for crimes they have not yet committed)?

Redlissa's World: Smoking Pete's BBQ - or why I will probably gain 2...

Redlissa's World: Smoking Pete's BBQ - or why I will probably gain 2...: "http://www.smokinpetesbbq.com/ The end of all of my healthy eating was innocent. I wanted to take Sean out to dinner and I wanted to walk. ..."

Hot Yoga: Part II (the attitude adjustment)

I went back to work on Monday after my horrendous hot yoga experience on Friday night (See Hot Yoga) and was told that I went to the wrong class, with the wrong teacher on the wrong night. I was also told that I might need a bit of an attitude adjustment.  Apparently, I am used to being in an advanced class and used to doing one type of yoga over and over again. I have gotten used to know exactly how class is "supposed" to go and what the room is supposed to look like. At my studio there are lots of people of varying shapes and sizes, but they all wear prana tights or shorts and racerback t-shirts. A person in a bikini would be very out of place at my studio.

So, I went to a different class at the Hot Yoga on Monday night. It was a modified Bikram type class.  There were some issues. First, I was really overdressed this time and suddenly realized that the nakedness was not an excuse to create a girls gone wild video after class ended. I was wearing my racerback t-shirt and long black tights and I felt like I was going to start melting into the floor by the end of the class. "Ah" I thought, "people wear fewer clothes here for the same reason that people who live in San Diego wear less than people in Seattle". I am smrt, as in Homer Simpson.

Second, this class was completely different than my regular yoga class. The poses were different, the breathing was different, etc.... It was great for my body, my mind etc... to have to learn new ways of moving. However, it was not a great day to learn these new ways of moving. Unfortunately, I had been at the eye doctor a couple of days earlier and am not allowed to wear contacts for a week. So, I was stuck in a hot room without any ability to see the people around me. This was a problem when the teacher kept saying, "look at the person next to you or in front of you if you need to see the pose demonstrated."  All of the poses looked exactly the same from my vantage point: body blur.

Still, despite the problems, the atmosphere was great(there were no leerers or groaners, well at least none that I could see). I had to focus a lot to keep up with the class since I was completely dependent on the teacher's instructions to do the correct movements.  The sweat was refreshing and I was sore for two days after the class (I always take sore to mean: turning into iron woman.)

I am not sure I am a hot yoga person. I love my studio and tonight I smiled and sighed a happy sigh as I was working through my sun salutations. However, I think I will change it up every once in a while to try something new and adjust my often temperamental attitude.

namaste.

Smoking Pete's BBQ - or why I will probably gain 20 pounds in the next month

http://www.smokinpetesbbq.com/

The end of all of my healthy eating was innocent. I wanted to take Sean out to dinner and I wanted to walk. So, naturally, I picked the place closest to my house.  Unfortunately for my waistline, the closest place to my house (three blocks away) lives a small piece of BBQ heaven that is going to systematically destroy all of my health and dieting goals.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into this little hole in the wall joint was the lack of pretense. The guy behind the counter, who had one of those "I just got back from fishing beards", didn't say hello when I walked in. There was no table service, only a counter and a guy in the back slicing pulled pork and slathering BBQ sauce on it.  The floor had that half painted concrete look and the beer case had a bottle opener on top (did you expect that they would open your beer?) Oh man,  I could instantly tell this place was going to be trouble. 

Next was the beer fridge. It was as if this place was designed for me. The atmosphere wasn't pretentious at all, I could have worn my cowboy boots and a hoodie and I would have been fine. But the beer was microbrew at its best. They had Rogue Ale. A brief aside....Rogue Ales is the best beer on planet earth. It is simultaneously the smoothest, freshest and most micro beer you will ever get. And, recently, I had a reason to attempt to get a nice six pack of Rogue Ales shipped. Although I eventually realized that the cost of shipping would be astronomically high, the guy at the warehouse spent a few hours over a couple of weeks talking to me about my options.  So, the mere presence of this amazing beverage made my day. The Rogue Ale alone would have ruined my diet and my pocket book(The Rogue people know how good their beer is, so it isn't cheap). 

Next came the music. Oh, the perfect music. While I was there I heard, Muddy Waters, Emmy Lou Harris and Jimmy Buffet. Add in some Paul simon and I might have cried.  For those of you who do not share my taste in music, imagine a pre-teen girl going to a restaurant and only hearing Justin Bieber and Katy Perry for an hour.  To me, the music was that good. And they have live bands on Thursday nights. 

I sat down with my pulled pork sandwich, collard greens and coleslaw and realized that I might end up eating here on a regular basis (I am sorry skinny jeans, but I am in love with the BBQ joint down the street, I am not sure I am going to be able to wear you much longer). The pulled pork was succulent, perfectly fatty and had an ample oozing of spicy BBQ sauce. The bread tasted like it was made that morning and then grilled right before it made its way to my mouth. MMMM.....The collard greens weren't the healthy kind that we all make with our Full Circle Farm boxes. They were the sweet and succulent and superbly unhealthy kind with the bacon. Yeah, my veggies contained bacon.  The coleslaw was nothing special, but next time, I will just order the baked beans and get it over with.  

I didn't check to see if they had sweet potato pie. I think I will avoid the dessert counter for at least a couple of weeks (I am not ready to give up on my current set of regular fit jeans just yet).  

I think I probably should go hit the treadmill, STAT......

Hot Yoga

I went to my first hot yoga class last night. My colleagues and friends have suggested that I step out of my yoga shell and I felt like I went from my nice cozy yoga shell to an episode of the yoga twilight zone. I walked in the door to sign in and I saw two women in bikinis (okay, bikini tops with very short spandex shorts). Yes, they were incredibly attractive (and made me feel instantly like an octogenarian whale), but my studio never has people strutting around in very little clothing. (PS they both had lower back tattoos, you know the kind). I went to the dressing room and put on my green prana capris and top and felt like I was WAY overdressed for the occasion.

The room was actually the temperature of a sauna and it had full length mirrors, somewhat like a dance studio everywhere. My studio intentionally avoids the mirror thing so you can concentrate on what you are doing and not whether you look awesome doing it. I rolled out my mat and was inclined to just lay on it for the hour long class.

I looked at the other students walking in: it was AWESOME. Several college co-eds, a couple of soccer moms and three morbidly obese dudes who were clearly not there for the health benefits of the class. One of the morbidly obese dudes was so out of shape that he made groaning noises a few times throughout the class. I was concerned for the men, with the intense heat, the half-naked women and the actual exercise portion of the class, I was a little worried about ambulances and fire trucks coming in to interrupt the class.

Eventually, the bikini barbie came in and started leading the class. She led it like an aerobics class, complete with the bright bouncy voice and a "come on, just one more set" attitude. The actual class was kind of fun. I drank a lot of water and the heat made me more flexible so I was able to get into poses I normally avoid. However, I did not enjoy glaring at my, not 4 pound co-ed body in the mirror as I tried to concentrate on my breath. And I really didn't enjoy listening to the men having heart attacks around me.

I am not someone that is under the illusion that modern yoga practice is an ancient Hindu art with tradition that goes back centuries (if you believe this to be true, please read Yoga Body by Mark Singleton). However, I do believe that Yoga is, at its core, a physical and meditative art.  And I get a lot out of my classes because of the combination of both aspects.

I don't see my self going back to the barbie, fat man, sauna version any time soon. I may, however, try a different hot yoga studio to see if there are any that are less, well....

Fast Food....and worst diet imaginable.

I tried to watch supersize me today. I made it 24 minutes and 58 seconds before feeling like I was going to throw up. I had to turn it off. (I can't watch someone eat that much food and throw it up).

My 2200 calorie breakfast, lunch and dinner diet was the amount an ACTIVE 240 pound woman would need to maintain their weight My actual diet of 3,000 to 3,200 calories was enough to help maintain the weight of a VERY ACTIVE 300 pound person.

However,  it made me reminisce about my past eating habits. I thought I was eating okay, I didn't understand what was wrong with my eating habits when I was eating like everyone else.   After reading all of the books on the obesity epidemic, I am beginning to realize that my problem is precisely eating like everyone else in America.  I was gaining weight, just like the other 30 percent of obese americans and I was doing in ways that almost seems mundane.

Back when I was 60 pounds heavier, I used to eat fast food like 5-6 times a week, at least. I would think nothing more than ordering a 460 calorie spicy chicken sandwich and 420 calories worth of beautiful, greasy french fries.  I always order a diet coke to go with my bad diet choices. It is a good way to pretend that the lard shaped hamburger like substance I put in my mouth was really not that bad.  The sandwiches at fast food restaurants are greasy and covered in sauces and yet, I can pretend that every ounce is just "meat and potatoes", like grandma used to fix.

For breakfast, it was a blueberry muffin and a mocha (this is before I realized I was dairy intolerant).  Unbeknownst to me, my two thing breakfast was costing me 800 calories. And the muffins we never good enough at Starbucks to justify the extra calories. I mean, they are tasty, but not like thee warm muffing that came out of the oven on saturday mornings when I was growing up. There was no butter, no wafting smell of blueberries and dough baking gloriously in the oven. Just a sugar coated blueberry muffin with  an overpriced coffee drink.

I would generally have a sandwich and chips for lunch. Each slice of bread is 100 calories and, when you add the mayo, the cheese and the turkey a sandwich is generally between 400-500 calories. The chips, if you are good and get the small bag (which I totally wasn't) run you 140 calories. So, if I didn't have a snack, my three meals were about 2200 calories, give or take.

The problem is the sweets.....mmmmmmm.......sweets :). I ate decently cruddy stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but those were not (and still are not the important meals of the day.) There is dessert one (that wonderful, beautiful 200-400 calorie cookie that went with lunch. It was fatty and sugary and heavenly to the taste buds and it would buy me satiation until around 3 pm

At three I needed to be really satisfied (no, not in that way.), so I ate a snickers bar.  I pretended they were healthy because of the protein in the peanuts. The snickers bar was another 280 calories. After dinner, it was ice cream, a small cookie, a brownie or a chocolate bar. All in the range of 400 calories and all marvelous. Sometimes, I would add a veer or wine to me dinner for another 125-150 calories.

To put the numbers in perspective. I am 5' 8'' and weigh 4 pounds (like I am ever going to reveal my weight, I am in the healthy range for my height, but like most women, I think I need to lose another 10 pounds). My 2200 breakfast, lunch and dinner diet is the amount an ACTIVE 240 pound woman would need to maintain their weight (See Mayo Clinic Calorie Counter)  My weight never got closed to that high, but I had severe back problems (that still haunt me today), high glucose counts and knees that would often buckle when I walked.  My actual diet of 3,000 to 3,200 calories was enough to help maintain the weight of a VERY ACTIVE 300 pound person.

My retroactive eating diary made me think of two things: 1) Weight itself should not be the issue, what we put in our mouths and how we move our bodies should be. Whether I had been thin (with one of those annoying super fast metabolisms) or 300 pounds, my diet SUCKED. There were none of those green things or red things with antioxidants and fiber goodness. I ate more sugar and fat in a day than I should realistically should be eating in a week. Instead of concentrating on why we all are bigger than we used to be; thereby screwing up our body images and self-esteem, maybe we should concentrate on the utter Suckitude of the american diet.  Potatoes and soybean oil are not vegetables. Beer is not liquid bread and the blueberries in the muffin do not count as a serving of fruit.  2) The first realization, made me realize that I am still eating way more fat and sugar than a normal person should ever consume (but, on the plus side, I have added those fruits and vegetables to my plate.).

Food, Inc...Thoughts on how we eat

I finally watched Food, inc.  One thing before I get to the review. If you have a weak stomach or eat chicken regularly, do not eat while watching this documentary. It will make you sick to your stomach.

POSITIVES: Brings up major issues with the way we eat.  We tend to eat food like products (overly processed food stuff) instead of actual food.  Everything we eat has some chemical laden product in it and even the fruits and vegetables we buy are pumped full of things to make them look better for the marketplace. (look at the segment on apples, it was pretty revealing)

We tend to ignore the ethical consequences of industrial meat production.  I know that most of us eat meat,  and kill the animals to get it, but we don't have to treat the animals like assembly line car parts while they are alive.  We don't need to get into a philosophical debate about whether animals feel pain to decide that treating living things with respect is a good idea. Watching the chickens at the poultry processing plant was enough to get me to buy free range chicken.

We also ignore the microbial safety issues of eating industrially produced foods.  Food safety is a huge issue.  And realistically most food borne illness involves our food having contact with poop of one sort of another. Seriously, poop. Even if the poop did not give me an illness, I expect that the USDA and FDA are going to work on my behalf to keep poop out of our food supply.

The movie provided my take on buying products from so-called "evil firms". Companies sell what people buy and we are not going to overturn the food system in a week buy switching to food produced in gardens in our back yards. Buy organic from Walmart, buy the veggie burger from chili's and get the locally sourced fries from the fast food restaurant.

NEGATIVES: The film was very well, slanted. It was one sided and did not include any view points from people in the food industry.  Because of its radical slant, the movie did not provide an opportunity for family farmers who make their living selling food to large multinationals to input their opinion. Many farmers depend on the current food system for their livelihoods and cannot afford to promote organic and local at the drop of a hat.

I know what I am doing when I purchase and eat fake food. I know what I am doing when I go to McDonald's. But that does not mean that I am going to stop going to McDonald's occasionally or that I am going to make it to the farmers market every Sunday. I like buying local, I like buying organic, I love my CSA and I love the farmer's market. But right now, for instance, I have a lot of stress and have decided to pick the convenience of pre-packaged meals over the stress of grocery shopping and the expense of restaurants.

As long as we make healthy food decisions most of the time and are aware of what we are doing when we make unhealthy decisions, I believe that there is a place for the Good, the Bad and the incredibly fake in our diets.

The movie also ignored, in my mind, the fundamental problem with sustainable farming on a large nationwide scale.  How do we create economically viable and sustainable farming communities that produce food inexpensive enough for the poor to eat? If we go back to lower production levels of meat, grain and produce, how is it possible that the food would be cheap enough for a family to eat? And if there was enough competition in the marketplace to lower the cost, how would farmers make enough money to survive?

Looking like an idiot and other tips for living a healthy life.....

I have decided that the ability to make a fool of oneself is essential to health and happiness(Of course this maybe partly because I have a high threshold for embarassment).  We miss out on so much in life because we are unwilling to look silly in front of others. People who are willing to look and feel silly get to take risks and try things that other people are too embarrassed to attempt. And people who are unable to laugh at themselves often fail to laugh at all, a trait which has to be incredibly stress inducing.

So, here are some ideas from my repertoire of ways to look silly(ps, these are not good things to try in court, at the DMV or anywhere else where looking serious and sane is a must :) ) :

1) The random move - When people get grumpy at the office or I see a lot of stress around me, I randomly do a yoga pose, a push-up or some other dance move. I look horribly silly, but it never fails to break the tension and create smiles. Then we can get back to our work a little happier.

2)  The concoction - Ever since I was little, I experimented with food. My diet pokes, my sweet potato with Stubbs and cheese, the ever popular purple mole sauce (don't ask, I think that there are people still mad at me for using kitchen utensils to make this). Sometimes it is AWESOME, and sometimes, there are messes that cannot reasonably be cleaned up at the end. My mom always reminds me of the time I tried to make gum by mixing pasta, sugar and water and putting it the downstairs fridge to ferment. When she unexpectedly opened the fridge one Tuesday afternoon, and Hitchcock-esque group of large black flies came out. Despite the missteps, these food items have made me interested in cooking and I do make one damned good chili concoction and an aften amazing quiche.

3) The unique sense of style - Okay, as an attorney I have had to stop this bit of silliness. It is freeing to not worry about whether my clothing matches or is in style. My favorite outfit in college and graduate school was a pair of green velour overalls, matched with a pair of blue converse sneakers and a white T-shirt. I walked around barefoot for most of my sophomore year of college and I regularly wore corn rows in my hair. After being mistaken for wearing pajamas at work one day, I realized that my sense of style no longer fit my career goals (mostly, remaining employed.) But, I completely recommend shucking style to the wind until you are at an age where you have to eat more than ramen noodles.

4) Silly Dancing - Dancing is important for the soul, and I have never let the fact that I have no rhythm stop me. I remember going to a dance party once and attempting to do moves from the Dance Dance Revolution song I just learned. People were staring, but I didn't care I was having fun and getting exercise. If you refuse to dance because you look like an idiot, you are missing out on one of the most simple pleasures in life. And how could you ever try Zumba without a dose of silliness?

5) The wrong kind of music - People in Cobain, Starbucks, Pearl Jam Seattle do not seem to share my love of old fashioned country music. There are few people here that could tell the difference between Loretta Lynn and Lucinda Williams. But because I am willing to show off my country stripes and I don't care that cowboy boots look silly in Seattle, I get to enjoy the music I love and  I don't have to listen to it in a secret closet in the back of my bedroom (but wouldn't it be cool if there was a secret closet in the back of my bedroom?)

So, add some flair, do a random move, sing a silly song out of tune or do something else that makes you laugh today. I know I will ;P