Sun and Soup

The dropping temps and crisp air are getting me excited for two things: soup and Thanksgiving.

Yes, I recognize that these are both technically food-related.  However, this year, I am particularly excited about Thanksgiving because we will be spending it in Florida with family.  This means I will be lovingly surrounded by some of my favorite S-words (not swords, as Sean Connery might say): sun, sand, sustenance. 

"Sustenance" for me is both physical and emotional.  Delicious food and being taken care of.  It's amazing how that can be so important as an adult. Sometimes all you need is for someone else to make decisions. And I, for one, am looking forward to going with the flow as one of the chitlin, so long as there is some beach time in there.

My love for the beach is a bit odd considering my genetic makeup. I'm pretty sure very few of my ancestors ever saw the sun on a regular basis. My body was built to withstand hard Scandinavian winters and Baltic farming duties. And yet there are few things that bring me more joy than playing in/around water and in full sunlight.  Despite my pale as all get out alabaster complexion, I actually don't burn that badly...mostly I turn into one big giant freckle and must avoid too much time sans SPF due to relatively predictable rashes of sunpoisoning. And yet, all I ever want is sunshine. Given the stress and uncertainty of the last few weeks, I can't even begin to tell you how much I am looking forward to this trip. I am actually day dreaming of beaches and flip flops as we speak.  But I am also at work, so I would be better suited to get back to the present and try to actually earn my keep.

Which brings me to another welcome S-word: soup.  This time of year, soups are perfect one-pot meals to feed a lot or a little and freeze the leftovers. Plus they're (usually) easy to make and (often) oober healthy. I've made a couple of nice ones so far (the marvelous M was especially fond of my recent potato-leek experiment), and today I'll share one that I think is filling and fun (or, at least as fun as flavors can get).

Butternut Ginger Soup

Makes about 8 servings.

4 Points+ per serving.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium butternut squash
• 1 small onion
• 2 carrots
• 1-2 stalks celery (optional)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• a 2-inch piece of raw ginger (yes, I actually mean that much)
• 3 cloves garlic
• crushed red pepper flakes
• 6 cups +/- water or stock (veggie or chicken would work best; I used chicken bouillon) 

Directions:

• Peel the squash with a very sharp vegetable peeler or with a paring knife. Discard seeds and cut into 1.5-2 inch chunks. Be warned: the skin of the squash is extremely drying, and will dry out your skin something fierce if you don't scrub real well after peeling/chopping. No joke, it's uncomfortable.  Thanks to the illustrious N for this tip!
• Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, carrots and celery and cook until onions are translucent.
• Add finely chopped garlic, salt and pepper and saute another minute or two.
• Add water/stock and squash chunks. Season generously with salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes (a few good shakes, the ginger is spicy too).  
• Grate fresh ginger with microplane/other finer-toothed kitchen implement directly into pot.  Yes, it seems like a lot of ginger.  You'll just have to trust me.
• Bring to a boil. Once boil is rolling, cover and turn heat down a bit to simmer for 20 minutes for so, until squash chunks are tender. Once tender (e.g., once you can easily squish the chunks with the back of a spoon on the side of the pot), turn off the heat.  
• If you have a fancy-pants immersion blender, now's the time to bust it out. If not, use a large coffee cup to ladle a few mugfuls into a blender. Cover and puree for about a minute, or until it's as smooth as you like. Important Note! the heat from the soup will want to expand in the blender and blow the top off, so make sure you are holding it down tight with an hot pad or towel before hitting that puree button.  
• Pour pureed soup into a separate pot while you repeat that last step with the remainder of the soup (or if you have a fancy-pants immersion blender, don't worry about it).  Return the whole thing to the original pot on the stove to reheat and check seasoning.  Fun fact: if you're looking for a bit of extra creaminess, add a dollop of sour cream before serving. 

Any other treasured soup recipes you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them! 

If Wishes Were Fishes

Hello friends.

Firstly, my apologies for abandoning the internet adventure of #FitAnniversary (hashtag, see how hip I am?) for the last couple of weeks.  It was touch-and-go for a while, particularly in the "dealing with life like an adult" department.  That is to say, I spent days on end in my sweats, diligently plugging away at internship applications, while wholly ignoring other would-be important bits. You know, things like laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, showering, answering the phone, etc.  Combing the coping strategy of ignoring the to-do list (and, I'm sorry to say, my husband), with managing the emotional freak out that comes with trying (mostly in vain) to control what little is realistically within one's grasp led to consuming food that came from either the phone or the pantry (read: all the carbs). At one point last week I was so anxious that all I ate was popcorn, as it required grinding my teeth against airy kernels instead of each other.  Going to the gym was out of the question, as that would require time, of which I felt I had none. Furthermore, that whole concept of inertia was working in full force.  Meaning that, since I was primarily an object at rest, I was perfectly willing to stay at rest, and not particularly enthused by the idea getting myself in any kind of motion.

Needless to say, last week's weigh in was not pretty.  Up 1.4 lbs.  Ugh.*
*Note: when I weighed in yesterday, I had lost that 1.4 and an extra 0.2. Woot!

(c) National Geographic. Effin love those guys.

Amidst my anxiety, I was also plagued by wishes.  Many of which are old and tired and definitely never coming true.  After last week's abysmal weigh in I found my brain returning to that old standard:

I wish to be thin.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I wish to wake up thin.  Or even more basically, I wish that being thin were easy. As a red-blooded American, I can easily fall victim to the desire for instant gratification. Obviously I know weight loss takes time and hard work, and I'm doing my best to make both happen (er, or at least getting back on the wagon). But this has been such a long-fought battle that sometimes the wish to be thin comes unbidden. I find myself bargaining with God about how good I would be to my new body, how well I would take care of it, if only I could skip over this hard part of actually losing. The worst part is that I know better. I know better than to waste time and energy wishing things were different, and yet, I still do.  I find this to be true in my clients as well; wishing for things to be different. We all have unfulfilled needs and desires, and wishes do nothing more than exercise our fantasies about them. Which has its merits. But for me, right now, wishing to be thin does nothing except discourage and frustrate me.  Def not things that are helpful to Fit Anniversary.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across this article by xojane.com favorite Emily. Her irreverent and revealing stories have resonated with moi before, but this article shot straight through me, first with the title:

"There will never be anything effortless about my body."

Hrmf.  Oh, Emily.  Why you gotta be so full of truthiness.

When I think about it, being human generally means being a work-in-progress. Foreva. Whether this be about your weight, your relationships, your management of internal or external strife, we're all working on something (or should be, at the very least). We make mistakes.  This will always be true. We can always do better, but not in the disapproving-because-you-need-to-be-perfect way. More like an it-is-what-it-is sort of way.

When he was in seminary, J and I used to have this argument about whether God loves us because we are flawed or in spite of this fact. It comes down to being worthy, I think.  Either we are worthy of love because of everything we are, including all the brokenness, or we are worthy of love despite the fact that we are broken. He of course argued that the fact that we are eternal fuck-ups is what God loves about us humans. At the time, I thought of God more like a parent, who is supposed to love you no matter what, even if they don't particularly like it when you fuck things up. So he took up the side of because and I took up the torch of in spite of.  Looking back on it, it makes sense that I would have felt that way; at the time, I could not conceive of being loved because of all the ways you fall short. It's a very hard thing for humans to grasp, or at least for this one it is. But I'm working on it.

And I'm working on viewing my body in this way too. I'm trying to love it because it is mine -- flub and all. The effort extends to the exercise world; I can end up talking myself out of any physical activity because it's not what I feel I should be doing. So I try to accept what I am able to do, period.  Yesterday I hated everything about going to the gym, especially the idea of running.  I'm not sure why I was so furious with the treadmill, but instead of avoiding the gym altogether, I forced myself out of bed and onto an elliptical machine.  Hey, it's cardio. And I get to watch Frasier reruns on the miniature TV fixed to the top of it.  And you know what? I'm ok with it. My body gave me a solid 40 minutes of elevated heart rate and calorie burning, and I love it for doing so.

Perhaps the wish to be thin, or for this body and existence in it to be effortless, hearkens back to the in spite of mode of thinking.  Wishing to be thin separates the me that is lovable from the me that is fat. But they are one and the same. And certainly I am not one because of the other.

Tonight, when I am watching the election result pour in over the latest CGI maps of blue and red, I will make every effort to love my country because it is flawed. It makes me think of that Winston Churchill quote: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." I love my country because it is mine, red, blue and in between. Not in spite of the fact that there are people with whom I vehemently disagree, or practices to which I am wholeheartedly opposed.  I love it because I am blessed with the chance to live in a country where both can be true. That I have the right to speak my mind and have my voice be heard, along with all the minds and voices that grate my nerves.  I love this country, not for what it should be, or what I wish it was, but because of what it is -- failings and fortitude alike.

Rs and Reminders

A few weeks ago, we explored the immense and gorgeous FDR memorial in DC.  Turns out that the FDR memorial is awesome, in the truest sense of the word: awe-inspiring and extremely powerful. The lovely C suggested that all our representatives in Washington should regularly be made to experience the gardens, the paths and the words planted there.  A homework assignment to remind those in power of what's important.  Which is brilliant, of course.  Somebody legislate that shit el pronto.

The memorial itself is very tactile, and designed so that people of all ranges of physical ability can experience it. Which I also love. There is stone and greenery and water and art aplenty.  But the most striking pieces of the memorial are the words.  Quotes from the 32nd president adorn nearly all of of the erected structures.  Lemme tell you, whoever selected those words did a really amazing job.  I was continually floored by the honesty of those words, and how accurately they seemed to capture a number of very complex human sentiments. Basically I wanted to come back every day and sit in the gardens, read books and do homework with FDR. The hope being that if I surround myself with greatness I too shall be great, or at least produce something great, like say, my my personal statement for internship (now in its 15th iteration). Or a great neuropsych report.  Because who doesn't want to write a great one of those.

Near the end of the memorial, this quote appears large, stretched out on granite against a backdrop of trees.

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be out doubts of today.  Let us move forward with strong and active faith."

I was floored.  I'd never heard this quote before, though the sentiment has been presented to me so often that you'd think I'd get it through my thick skull.  Standing in front of this stone wall, amidst the trees and the Potomac, I felt grace, gratitude, and frankly, God, rip through my heart.  Sometimes even I know when the universe is trying to send me a message. In that moment, all I wanted to do was sit on the stone floor and stare at the wall until all the gravity of the sentiment and its meaning had been absorbed, assured that when I moved from that spot I would go forth into the world free of doubt and forged in faith.

But we had been walking for like, eight hours.  It was time to go home and play Rock Band.

Believe me, I am self-aware enough to know that it would be advantageous to have that quote permanently inked on my arm as daily reminder to get out of my head and over myself. But since visible tattoos are not on the table for moi at the moment, I alone am responsible for reminding myself to let go of doubt in favor of faith, and push forward in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today, despite my inability to predict it or prevent it from happening.

This week I've been doing the same Couch to 5K run over and over again, because it's been killing me every time.  Yesterday, after being bolstered by my ability to make an incredibly arcane and stupid stats program do what I wanted it to, I took to the treadmill and ran it yet again.  And just like before, it got difficult and I got tired.  Usually I find myself trying to anticipate the little voice that tells me it's ok to "slow down and walk." But until it comes, the conversation in my head usually goes something like this:

I can't do this.
It's too much.
Why can't this be easier?
I hate running.
Eff you, skinny biatches for whom this is the "easy" run.
I suck at this.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.

When it gets tough like this, at least in the workout world, I try to channel my dear friend, the redoubtable R, who recently biked across the entirety of the US of A to get to internship in Tacoma, WA.  I recognize that we are very different people (and that he's just a little bit crazy, which I love about him), but I can't help but think of him when that anti-Thomas-the-Tank-Engine shite comes rolling through my mind.  If R can bike 100 miles a day with a bleeding arse and a busted knee, I can put one foot in front of the other. So I do.  And every time a thought like that came through, I just crossed it out. I can't do it. Nope, not stopping there.  Moving on.

And low and behold, it was the first time all week that I got through the run without needing an extra break and without conviction that I would keel over at any given moment. Thanks, R. ♥ And FDR.

Sunday (too much) Funday

I love Sundays.

I'm guessing they are pretty big fans of Sundays too.

You may know this about me.  There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is how I get to spend a good chunk of my Sunday: with my church peeps.  This is a set of undeniably awesome people who get together to do some if not all of the following activities:

• laugh
• goof off
• sing
• hug
• play
• eat

Yesterday was unique for the latter in that it was the first Sunday of the "coffee house" series, where we gather folks in the church rectory for coffee instead of funding the chain coffee shop down the street.  This is great, because we get to do all of the aforementioned activities with free coffee and treats.  The problem, of course, is the treats part of the equation.  Sunday is often my day of rest -- well, not really, as Sundays are usually pretty busy.  Perhaps it's more accurate to says that Sunday is my day of sanctioned laziness.  And prior to Fit Anniversary, this also often meant a day of sanctioned crappy eating.  Especially because there were often free treats to be had.  I anticipated this happening, so I deployed some of my strongest pro-dieting tactics.  Number 1: make delectable treats and then give them away.  This strategy was successfully executed with a little help from some world-famous Molly Squares, recipe courtesy of the vivacious K who swore me to secrecy many years ago.  Suffice it to say: they are mind-blowingly good.  And not at all good for you.  So I delight in enjoying one and setting the rest loose on unsuspecting parishioners.  Which I did.  Win.  Number 2: busy thyself with things other than eating.  Yesterday it was also part of my job description so that was convenient.  The youth group kids and I helped some younguns decorate pumpkins.  Really, what happened is we encouraged each other and others nearby to play with glitter, stickers, feathers, pipe cleaners and pumpkins. Which kept me busy and thus also from stuffing my face.  Number 3:  talk instead of eat.  That part was easy as there were plenty of people to talk to instead of chowing down on the requisite goodies present at the coffee house.  

These strategies worked fairly well until the end of the coffee house when the summarily lovely S pawned off a whole mess of leftover food on me by activating an annoying (admittedly overactive but extremely entrenched) reflex: guilt.  

"If you don't take it, I'm just going to throw it away."
"No! ...really?"
"Oh yes, it's going in the garbage unless you want it."
"Well, 'want' is a rather strong word..."
"Ok, I'll toss it then."
"Wait!"

And that's how I came home with 10 hot dogs,  24 veggie dogs, 16 buns, a pound of macaroni salad, a package of shredded cheese, an unopened  bottle of relish, cut veggies, french onion dip, and an entire oversized bag of ruffle kettle chips.  Contrary to what the broke-as-a-joke-grad-student part of my brain might believe, food that is free of charge is not free of calories.  While, yes, I did cave and bring home a plethora of food that was not needed, I managed to confine my indulgences to veggies and dip (ok, and some chips) while watching football.  

My strategies for earlier in the day allowed me to feel slightly less guilty when we took friends who we hadn't seen since our wedding out for a truly Baltimore experience: piles of steamed crabs, hushpuppies, corn fritters and a very creamy crab pretzel shared between the four of us.  Between the beer and the Old Bay, I was certain that Monday's weigh in wasn't going to be pretty.  In fact, given my tendency to overdo things in the spirit of Sunday Funday, I was seriously contemplating moving the day of reckoning to anything OTHER than Monday.  

But my beloved J peer-pressured me into going this morning, despite numerous excuses and much whining on my part.  And the news was good! J is down 1.8 and I'm down 0.4.  We'll take it!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

...and while you're at it, take all this other crap with you too.

I apologize in advance for my grumblings.  In my part of the world today, it is wet and dreary, and I in turn am listless and achy.

Getting Older Unfun Fact #58: If you ever hurt a part of your body whilst you were growing up, thought it healed and forgot about it, the rain will remind you.

A combination of this lovely weather, actually running on a regular basis (woot), spraining an ankle every other week all those years in volleyball (not to mention the time during West Side Story when I slipped on the ice at a cast party, effed up my ankle and still had to dance on it for two months) has left me with creaky bones and feeling whiny.  Oh, and I'm blocked in the writing department, which is making me really whiny, because I can't afford it.  Internship apps go out in t-minus 29 days, and I've got a slew of cover letters, edits, and essays to write. Not to mention, you know, my job, which requires me to make edits to prep manuscripts for publication, aka: writing.

Well, I'm not having any of it. Sorry, world. And readers. There will be no lexical gems in this post.  It's as if some impish spirit shoved a wad of gum into the gears of my brain, and now I'm mired in my stuckness.

You won't regret it. Promise.

There is an absurdly large part of me that wants to pack up, go home, park myself in front of the TV with a big bowl of popcorn and watch season 2 of Downton Abbey (incidentally, everyone should watch that show.  I don't even like period drama and can safely say that show is the shiz-nit).  Come to think of it, that may happen anyway, as popcorn is well within my points budget for today, though I will have to fight with J for reign of the television  And rather than just continuing to feel badly all day, constantly losing focus and then feeling guilty for not getting anything done, I'm more interested in doing something to feel better and getting on with my life.

Actually, this is a fairly novel approach for me. Not so long ago, the typical course of events in response to writers'/responsibility/getting crap done block would be to:

1. Try harder.
2. Try even harder.
3. Stare blankly into space while chastising myself for not doing more/better.
4. Lament my failure to accomplish things.
5. Feel guilty.

Of course, the result here is exactly where I was in the beginning: not getting anything done. Only now I feel guilty and bad about myself, which makes it even harder to get anything done.  Ridiculous.  Not to mention entirely unhelpful.  

So in the interest of Fit Anniversary, and because I already gymed it up this morning, I'm trying a healthier tactic. I will go home, I will make the aforementioned popcorn (which is truly not that bad for you...also, I'm obsessed with my whirley pop), and allow myself to be stuck for a bit.  When I'm not feeling so stuck anymore, I'll try to do some things, write some things or clean some things.  Whatever I do, I will endeavor to actively avoid steps 3-5.  

And since I can't stop it from raining, I'll just have to sit with that as well.

Old Habits Die Hard (and other trite observations)

It's true though.

Turns out a lifetime of using food to celebrate success, strengthen relationships and heal perceived wounds is one of those habits that hangs around.  Despite my recent efforts, events of the past week have thrown me for a loop.  And, as most people do when they get knocked out of balance for whatever reason, there are all kinds of emotions that can accompany the process of getting off track and putting oneself back on.

The charming C and her beloved, the delightful D came down to visit for the weekend.  Which was AWESOME.  Such great people, such great times, with lots of food and wine to celebrate.  Luckily, we also spent the majority of a day traipsing around DC, which burned plenty of calories.  Not enough to completely make up for all the wine and food, but I was still down another 3.2 lbs for weigh-in on Monday, and J is down 0.6.  He was disappointed in that number, but I say down is down is down.  Onward!  (er, downward?)

More celebration ensued with the birthday of the marvelous M, which included numerous but oh-so-delicious pints and pies.  Unfortunately, our new-home baseball team losing embarrassingly to our old-home baseball team.  We consoled ourselves by yelling enthusiastically from the stands and drinking over-priced tallboys.  And J with his favorite stadium creation, bacon on a stick (read: a skewered slice of pork belly smothered in some sort of glaze).

Yesterday was far less fun, but no less caloric. All my patients cancelled or no-showed on me (which, in my memory, has never happened.  Or at least not since I had more than one at a time).  But that's neither here nor there, because the extra time allowed me to delve more into this tempestuous shit-storm we call internship applications.  Of late, I have been feeling pretty good about this portion of my life, which is a welcome change.  Creativity is flowing in the essay/cover letter department, I had mostly narrowed down a list of places, I am chugging along in plugging in all the minutia.  A fire has been lit under my tush because I've only got about a month before all this crap goes to seed, so there has been a little panicked energy behind my latest internship-related endeavors.  So, I used my time well, I felt things were going in the right direction, and I had two afternoon meetings set up in the service of the "Get A an Awesome Med Psych Internship" Project. Meeting 1: helpful and relatively confidence-inspiring.  Meeting 2: Oy.

Now, please bear in mind that I am grateful EVERY DAY that I am a part of this team.  They have been so incredibly helpful, supportive and encouraging.  The fact that they like and believe in me enough to support me through not one, but two years of externship has been a huge blessing, and I know it.  And the best part is that they care about each other, which I have discovered is an extremely important part of chemistry of a workplace, and definitely something that's a must where ever I go next.  Whatever my own response to the advice and guidance given as a result of these of these meetings, it has nothing to do with how much I respect and appreciate these folks.

So the fact that my response to the harsh truths borne of Meeting 2 was to sob like my pet unicorn died has nothing to do with the deliverer of said truths.

Of course, my deeply ingrained behavioral response to my feelings of disappointment, discouragement and deflatedment was to buy:

1. Bread.
2. Wine.

Luckily the Payless that used to live right next door to the grocery store went out of business, other wise you bet shoes would have been added to that list.  

Does it count that I bought a whole wheat baguette? No?  Dang.  

Desired wineglass not to scale. Bigger, please.

Thus old habits have been interfering in the dieting department for moi.  To our credit, however, things have remained  pretty steady in the exercise department, for both J and I.  No gym dates this week yet, but we have had a couple of actual dates, which have been much needed and just as nice.

Unsolicited Advice, Piece #267: No matter how long you've been with your partner, date them. Take them out, show them off to the world, even in those moments when you're not particularly fond of each other.  This is an essential ingredient in a happy, lengthy union.  I've decided.

While this particular habit of eating as celebration and consolation has not served me well this week, others have.  Like reaching out to those I love, making rewarding plans for after I've actually accomplished something, and talking things over ad nauseum with J.  Many thanks to my beloved husband for making dinner, hugging, listening and being a much-needed voice of reason last night during my unicorn-slaughter-meltdown.  

What's the saying about how many times one must repeat a behavior for it to become a habit?  Like 30?  Here's to attempt #1 of 30 of going to the gym instead of the grocery store during times of high-intensity.  Cheers.

Speed Bump

Yup. Still fat.

Ugh, I'm so in love.  Must resist.

I guess I was hoping that working out every day and eating right would be making this whole thing go faster. Or maybe I was feeling slumpish and wanted to dig my way out of it by shopping through my closet for fun fall things, hoping to find some forgotten pieces would fit. Alas, they still don't. To lament the fact that most of my wardrobe remains ill-fitting and squeezes me in all the wrong places, I switched to coveting shoes instead. It's fall, I deserve boots, no?

slumpish [sluhm-pish]: adjective. The feeling one gets when in a slump, stuck in a rut, dug in a hole or has otherwise lost momentum.

Actually, I don't really feel that way when it comes to FitAnniversary.  For the most part, things in the food-n-exercise department are going fairly well.  But I may have overestimated how many problems can be solved with being more healthy on a regular basis. As if solving the problem of being overweight and out of shape works as a panacea for the rest of the crap in my life. Low and behold, there remain many things that need my attention and not enough hours in the day to address them all.

Something that I am classically not very good at is enjoying the present moment. It's not a very attractive quality, and I am fully aware of it. Especially because I often tout the benefits of remaining present with my clients. But it's hard for me to live that way, especially when things are unpleasant, stymied or anxiety-producing.  I find myself searching for a fast-forward button to get past the unpleasantness (sidenote: I think the advent of DVR has made me considerably worse at this. Perhaps commercials are the universe's way helping me practice patience).

Let's fast forward to the part where I am thin and have an internship.

At one point I had a supervisor who, while totally harmless, was not the most likable person. He would pretend he was a man of modern medicine, but really he was a huge Gestalt hippy at heart. Which of course, made him kinda weird in our books. One of his oft- (over?) used favorite interventions/implorartions was to chant "Be here now" with various tones and inflections.

BE. Here, now.
Be here now.
Be here, now.

We as a group would shrug off this statement as a relic of his training, but there is something to be said for the combination of those three little words. The invitation, or command, to let go of all else in favor of what is happening in front of you. Right here, right now. This idea stands in stark contrast to my desire go fast forward through less desirable portions of my life. Which, let's face it, are a big part of this whole "living on earth" business. On the opposite end of this spectrum is the unrealistic desire to capture and keep those moments which I do enjoy or are going well. Part of the problem with taking pictures at a party, despite my love for capturing people, moods and moments on film. But there is a part, however small or unconscious, that wants to keep this forever. The trick about time is that it just keeps going, unfettered and unbidden by our human desires to speed it up or slow it down. And in that sense, what else is there to do but to be here now?

Here's to living in the present moment: fat, slumpish or otherwise.