I can’t wait to write about my Vegan Valentine’s and all the new info I learned just from one day of experimenting.
BUT…
I told myself I would do some sort of record keeping. Some sort of measurement of my progress.
As a teacher (at heart) I am pretty fucking sensitive to measures and tests. Children often get summed up by a test score. And it often doesn’t look good, and it often doesn’t give a real sense of the progress they have made.
So I want to be careful in how I judge and weigh myself here. Clearly, the easiest answer is to track my weight. If I think my weight is holding me back, I should track if I am losing any.
But just like my former students, there is much more to me than a number. There is much more to this journey than a number.
So what really matters?
For my students, I feel like it matters what NEW things they can do (what they have accomplished), and what fuel they have been feeding their brain. Did they memorize a fact, or did they do an experiment so they truly understand the reasoning behind the fact?
What have I accomplished and what fuel have I been feeding my body?
For now, I think I will measure the following: plant-based and meat-based meals, exercise, eating in and eating out, treats, low body performance moments, and new accomplishments. I hope most of these are self-explanatory. Eating in must be better for me than eating out for no other reason than portion control. I think eating more plant-based meals will be better for my body in many ways. Sweets are clearly not a healthy choice. I also want to keep track of what makes my body feel bad, but also what it accomplishes each week.
Week 1.
Out of 21 meals… (3 meals a day x 7 days a week)
Plant-based- 4
Meat-based-17
Eating Out- 10
Eating In- 11
Treats- 15 (and this is moments of treating, NOT number of treats. Each moment might have involved a couple of cookies, not just one)
Workouts- 3
Low Body Moment: Eating mainly waffles for breakfast. Afterwards, I wanted to curl up and die/fall back asleep. Food should be energizing. If it makes me wanna go back to bed 30 minutes later, I’m doing it wrong. Damn refined carbs.
Accomplishment: By my 3rd walk around the neighborhood, it actually felt doable. I can get my body to move.
What do I make of all this?
Goals for this week:
Lay off the sweets. Aim for one sweet a day instead of indulging twice a day. Jeez EJ.
Plant-based- Three out of the 4 were me shoving a banana with peanut butter in my mouth as I ran out the door. This is not a meal and shouldn’t really count. Goal–eat full meals.
Workouts- Keep it up. It’s a slow start, but it had to start somewhere.
So it’s not just about the number on the scale. It’s about making healthy choices, building a new lifestyle. This is week one. This is where I am. And now I have a better picture of where I need to go.
Come check back tomorrow to read all about my Vegan Valentine’s Day. It was nuts. And exhausting. Is cooking a workout?
First. A shout-out to the hubby for the reminder of that AHH-MAZING song. And for the following Roxette-powered walk around the neighborhood.
Anyway. Valentine’s Day is this Sunday and I am taking the time to explore my heart. I think I’ve got the basics. It pumps blood. I need it to live. But what can I do to take care of it? Perhaps keep it around a bit longer.
Heart disease is America’s #1 killer. Fatty deposits build up in our arteries–particularly those around the heart. Ya know–the ones that give your heart muscles blood so it can keep pump, pump, pumping away.
According to Dr. Michael Greger in How Not To Die (grim, i know), the first symptom of heart disease is often also your last. You feel fine, and then, whoops, you die from fat-filled arteries. So–pretty important to not let your arteries get fat-filled to begin with.
And it’s not genes, it’s diet. When people move from a low-risk area (like central Africa) to a high-risk area (like the US) “the disease rates skyrocket” (Greger,19). People move, they eat more crappy American food, they get sick.
So if it’s diet, it’s a choice. Put fatty food in your body, clog up your arteries. Eat plants and fiber, save your heart.
Now this book is awesome. I’ve just read this chapter on How Not to Die From Heart Disease, but it’s great. Very readable. Enjoyable, yet terrifying. And chock-full of great research like the following:
300 autopsies on American soldiers who died in the Korean War showed that 77% of these twenty-ish aged lads already had “visible evidence of coronary atherosclerosis. Some even had arteries that were blocked off 90 percent or more.” (21)
So keep in mind, this is BEFORE the crazy amount of fast food we have today. Keep in mind these are soldiers–who I feel must have had to pass some sort of basic level of fitness to be able to fight. Keep in mind these soldiers probably had blood work that must have shown them as healthy enough to fight. Keep in mind this is the 50’s when there was way less obesity in our country.
I’m just going to say EEK. ‘Cuz i’m pretty sure no one would clear me for battle.
I mean, if there’s this much fat hanging out on my muscles and tummy, how much is sitting in my arteries?
So as Dr. Gregor points out, I’m not just looking to prevent heart disease, I’m looking to reverse the damage I have clearly already done. I think we can all agree without the use of x-rays or other imaging tools that I must have some issues in this department.
Dr. Gregor cites William C. Roberts, the editor in chief of the American Journal of Cardiology as naming elevated LDL cholesterol in your blood as “the only critical risk factor” (21) for plaque build-up. He says apparently you can be “an obese, diabetic, smoking couch potato and still not develop atherosclerosis…as long as the cholesterol level in your blood is low enough.” (22)
According to my book, this process starts even before birth. Babies (who died shortly after birth) were more likely to have arterial lesions if their mothers had high LDL. One study of older children discovered that fatty streaks “were found in nearly all American children by the age ten.” (21)
So what the hell did I do to my kiddo in the womb? I ate a SHIT-TON of burgers while I was pregnant. And steak. And milk. It’s all I craved. How are my poor son’s arteries doing?
A Look at My Cholesterol
LDL is how the cholesterol gets dumped in your arteries. Ya know, it’s the bad cholesterol. Studies show a clear correlation between cholesterol levels and atherosclerosis. If a low LDL is the saving-grace for your heart, then…
How low, is low enough?
My book says 50-70 mg/dL for your LDL. And the lower the better. “That’s the level seen at birth, that’s the level seen in populations largely free of heart disease.”
My latest LDL is 62.
The chart shows under 100 is what is recommended.
I feel so… healthy? My LDL is within range. That’s some good news.
The book also says an LDL of 70 corresponds to a total cholesterol of about 150. This is the level below “which no deaths from coronary heart disease were reported in the famous Framingham Heart Study.”
I don’t know this study, but it sounds like we should aim to have a total cholesterol level below 150.
Mine is 162.
The current goal for Americans is to have it under 200 according to my lab report.
So… my LDL is ok, but my total cholesterol sounds high.
I am not a doctor and I don’t know what this means.
Your total cholesterol is High, but your level of “bad” LDL cholesterol is optimal. This could mean you have a high level of high-density lipoprotein, or “good” HDLcholesterol, which protects against heart disease.
Oh happy days. I feel… healthy. Again.
BUT.
This website (credible?) says there are TWO kinds of HDL. One is good, one actually helps contribute to heart disease. You have to get an expanded lipid profile to figure that one out.
Always something new to worry about. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
BUT the good news–heart disease is reversible. A study of folks with advanced heart disease that got put on a plant-based diet showed that “as soon as they stopped eating an artery-clogging diet, their bodies were able to start dissolving away some of the plaque that had built up.” (24).
Biggest take-away: “Your body wants to regain its health if you let it.”
Dr. Greger illustrates this with the idea of whacking you shin on a table. If you step back, it’ll heal. But if you keep whacking it (eating badly) it’ll keep hurting. You could even go to the doctor to get meds for the pain, all the while continuing to whack your leg. You’ve fixed the pain, but haven’t done shit about the underlying cause of the pain.
I’m just going to pause, smack my forehead, and say duh. But holy crap! Do many of us actually LET our bodies heal and be healthy the way they want to? It sounds so simple. But we, as a society, are clearly just fucking this up.
And it’s not just that we are clogging up our arteries with these yummy/unhealthy choices. There’s actually more bad news.
Eating crappy food also affects the functioning of your arteries. A study showed that just one Sausage and Egg McMuffin “can stiffen your arteries within hours, cutting in half their ability to relax normally. And just as this inflammatory state starts to calm down five or six hours later–lunchtime!” (25)
So, not sure exactly why inflamed arteries are bad. But it doesn’t sound good. I mean, inflammation usually hurts.
Like chest pain kind of hurt. Another study found that putting people suffering from angina on a plant-based diet lowered their occurrence of chest pain within weeks- much faster than “their bodies could have cleared the plaque from their arteries.” (25)
This book is making a pretty good argument for eating lots of plants and not so much meat. Another example:
Brazil nuts. Four nuts a month lowered cholesterol levels. This study was only done on 10 people–so completely not scientific evidence. But it can’t hurt right? 4 nuts in a month. The good doctor does warn against eating too many–they contain high levels of selenium, so eating too many good put you over the “tolerable daily limit.”
So NOW What?
Eating plant-based meals is not foreign to me. I’ve got several vegetarian cookbooks I love and often cook out of them. Well, let me rephrase. When I cook, it is often out of them. And it’s tasty and yummy.
But so is steak. And cheese.
And we are back to the balance question again.
But the thing that is really sticking with me from this day of researching heart disease is the inflammation issue. Why keep putting your body through that kind of strain? I mean, I’m plenty stressed as a person anyway. I don’t need my arteries all inflamed and tense as well.
And the fact that I apparently rarely cut my body a fucking break. If a plant-based meal gives the body a chance to rest and start to heal, don’t I want to do that as much as possible? I mean–I quit my job in order to heal. The least I can do now is eat a fucking salad.
So, though Valentine’s Day often refers to matters of the heart in terms of love, I am forcing, inviting my family to partake in a day of heart-healthy meals and activities. A time to treat our heart and arteries to some rest.
I mean. You gotta take care of it… before you tell it goodbye.
Aww puff daddy, pdiddy, diddy, sean combs. You’re so young!
So I digress. Already. But this blog is about the physical AND figurative weights of life. And death is a damn f-ing heavy weight. Fear of it coming. Fear of it happening unexpectedly to self or loved ones. And the heaviest of all- actually watching someone you love die.
My mother-in-law was not my best friend. We honestly hardly knew each other. I spent more time with her as she died from cancer than I did all the 5 years before that. She lived in Toronto- so lay off with the judgement.
But holy fuck her death. Her path to death. It really just leaves me wanting to write ‘fuck’ over and over. But I’ll try to be more constructive than that.
This woman. Her family called her ‘Baby’. She was the youngest girl of NINE children and she always got her way. Or at least, you were way better off if you just let her have her way. She was firey. Spirited. And you knew you were in for it when the lower jaw came jutting out. My son makes the same face when he’s trying to figure out the bullshit around him.
The first time I met her was at a family wedding. I had been dating Daniel for about a year at this point. We had moved in together, but his family didn’t know. Which was super bizarre to me. My parents know EVERYTHING. But I was determined not to let my big mouth get me in trouble. Yet somehow at a dinner, when it’s just me and her at the table, I start talking about gardening. Now, she thinks I live in an apartment, so she understandably starts asking where on earth I am growing a garden. I quickly say some shit about Daniel letting me use his backyard since I have no space of my own. She gives me this “ohhhhh” with a slow bobbing of her head. Then she smiles. Looks me up and down. And I know I am completely busted.
But that is one of my favorite memories. That she clearly judged me and weighed me. That her little boy was worth that to her. I’m not sure he sees that- that all her criticism and worry was love. That she just wanted what was best for him. And she was going to take every opportunity to figure out if I was the best.
Over the years I felt like I became the listener. She would talk on and on about her weight and health. She even felt open enough to talk to me about my husband’s ex-wife, and how sad she was when they divorced. Well, I’m telling myself it was openness and trust, even if it might have just been tacky and rude.
And then the cancer came.
Surgeries and chemo were had. The fiance (at the time) cried. I couldn’t believe we were facing something so serious just a couple of years into our relationship.
But she made it through. And to our wedding. Gorgeous as ever despite her post-chemo hair. Cuz did I mention? This woman was gorgeous.
Beat up picture, beautiful lady.
At our wedding.
So marriage. Pregnancy. Baby. She was now Nana, which was great since I never knew what to call her before that. Three years and some months pass from the end of her chemo and then… It’s back.
The discomfort in her abdomen she’d been feeling for months is another tumor. Making itself at home on her bladder.
We don’t cry. We are confident that since she beat it once, she’ll beat it again. Now, shh, don’t quote me any statistics on the chances of surviving recurring cancer. I’m sure our optimism was stupid. But that’s what she needed- optimism. She couldn’t stand for people to cry around her. Ever.
Again, chemo happened. Once or twice. We were all prepared to go see her for the next round of chemo because she just seemed so down. Apparently poisoning your body to kill cancer cells doesn’t feel too good.
But the next round never came. The tumor actually grew over the course of her chemo. It grew. Science is actively trying to kill it and it grew. All her hair is gone, she’s sick all the time. But the damn thing grew. Like “fuck you chemo. You can’t stop me. I’ve got mutant cells to grow. Get out of my way.”
So surgery gets put on the table. And oh. my. god. I’m going to have to bitch about Canadian health care here for a minute. Yay it’s “free”. Yay everyone has access. But how the FUCK did it take from late October to early December to figure out this surgery shit? We sat here for a month and a fucking-half on pins and needles, poised at any moment to buy a plane ticket to Toronto to be there for this surgery. Ya know. In case she didn’t make it.
But the surgery never came.
Early December we find out the doctors have decided that it isn’t safe to operate. That the tumor is too big and has invaded too much to be successfully removed.
And here’s how THAT phone call went:
Nana is crying, but doing that whole “I’m not crying” thing. She tells us the news. My husband has this visceral, body-wrenching spasm that I realize is him allowing himself to cry for like, a millisecond. Nana now cries, but she’s apologizing because we’d already bought plane tickets to come for the now nonexistent surgery. The woman has been handed her death sentence but she’s crying over plane tickets. Now, we all know that’s not REALLY why she’s crying. But that’s the excuse she picks.
I don’t even know how to encapsulate the next 6 months that lead to her death. These are crazy, uncertain times. My family basically stops living or making plans. We are never sure if we can leave town or make plans to see friends because most weekends are waiting to see if she’s going to keep living another week. Every other week feels like it’s going to be the end. And then it’s not. Which, yay. I guess. Because her quality of life is just getting worse and worse and she’s really starting to suffer.
But we, my immediate family, are suffering too. I am having panic attacks at least once a week on the way to work. I switch to a half-time position so I can at least provide my family with a good dinner and a somewhat clean house. But I end up cowering on the couch a lot watching Netflix. I start taking Prozac. And then Klonopin for the anxiety. And I just miss my husband. No blame here- he’s clearly devastated and working his way through a whole shit-ton of emotions built up from his childhood. But I miss him. I’m usually the depressive one. And now I’m being asked to lead the way, keep the family on track. And that is fucking exhausting.
And through all that, we are on the cancer roller coaster. What do I mean by that? Let me illustrate.
We get home from our Christmas in Canada on the 29th. The day we leave, Nana seems very tired and confused. And super unsteady on her feet. Soon after, she is taken to the hospital. Her calcium levels are high and making her brain not work right.
Now I know milk does a body good, but did you know too much calcium puts you in a coma? Probably hard to do by drinking milk, but when your cancer is leeching it from your bones, your calcium levels can get out of hand. At least this is my non-doctor understanding of the situation.
So it is December 31st. New Year’s Eve and my best friend’s birthday. We are hosting a small party for her. And then Daniel’s brother calls to inform him that Nana is doing terribly in the hospital and that he should come to say goodbye. This is TWO days after we just left Canada. Mind fuck. And a bit of a wallet fuck too.
So New Year’s/birthday party consists of my husband packing, buying plane tickets. And all of my friends quietly whispering about what the fuck is going on. Happy Birthday!
But Nana doesn’t die here.
She gets better and goes home. Amazing. So we go see her in February in case this is one of her last good times. Which, in hindsight, it kind of was. Then Daniel goes again in March when she’s back in the hospital and not looking well. Then we all go in April when she’s talking about stopping the fight. We go to say our goodbyes.
I remember we all sat in the living room with the doctor and Daniel’s brother on the phone, and we talked about quality of life and if she should keep fighting. Her meds were keeping her alive- but alive meant barely eating and sleeping most of the day. Alive meant dealing with catheters draining both her kidneys into bags she had to drag around the house. Alive meant a lot of frustration for everyone involved.
The doctor seemed to think we wanted to kill her off. Which is not the spirit behind what we were feeling. We wanted her to stop suffering. But in the end we all agreed she should move back into the hospital where she would at least be safer and have more support to care for her.
It was during this time, this sad, sad time, that she and I really bonded. She didn’t think she could talk to Daniel about death, about questioning what the purpose was of continuing to live. But she could talk to me. Because I could hear it without crying. Well, I cried later in private. But she didn’t know it. We could talk about quality of life and she could tell me how angry she got sometimes that this was happening. She could cry about not seeing her grandchildren grow up.
And I felt useful. The thing with unbeatable cancer, with just waiting for death to come, is how out of control you feel. Nothing you can do will help or change things. You just have to BE. And how many of us are good at that? So it was nice, in these few moments, to feel like I was helping.
So to the hospital she went. And the day came for us to fly back home. I felt like we wouldn’t see her again- we were all preparing for the end. She asked about the dress she wanted to wear for her funeral- apparently she wore it to my husband’s first wedding. (Do you see a pattern here?) But this time she asked if I was ok with it. She wanted my ok. Who got to judge who now? But of course I wasn’t judging. I was flattered she thought of me and my feelings during this dreadful time. I mean, when else is it ok to be super selfish if not when you are dying?
We said goodbye. But like, in an everyday, see you later, kind of goodbye. But all knowing it was more than that.
But it’s not goodbye. She keeps fighting. We Facetime. Which is weird to see someone and talk to them after you’ve said THE GOODBYE. As the weeks go on, she’s clearly getting very weak and starts having hallucinations.
And then at some point at the end of May, things stop working. Her drugs can’t fight the rising calcium levels any more. So they stop the drugs. And she falls asleep.
And doesn’t ever really wake up.
Our life becomes this wretched guessing game of “how long can Nana live without water?” When should Daniel go back to be there for the end? We have to maximize his time at work, but not have him miss her death. These conversations are morbid and tacky. But they are reality.
After several days, the doctor finally says she only has a couple of days left. Husband buys yet another ticket to Canada, leaving behind instructions for his funeral attire. Which we have been getting ready for months. I pretend to work, feed the kid, and hyperventilate often about when I should head to Canada. When she dies? Several days after since funeral arrangements take a while?
The two days the doctor predicted stretch into 4. I have no idea how the body does this. You always hear how imperative water is, but this woman is lasting day after day with no water. No IV. Just lying in her bed unconscious.
Eight Days.
That’s how long she lay there. That’s how long her family kept vigil. That’s how long I waited at home wondering if I should go to Canada or not. And finally I couldn’t take it any more and just bought tickets and went up there.
She died while we were in flight.
Lucky timing on my part I guess. Got to be there with the hubby that night, yet didn’t have to watch her go. ‘cuz I’ve seen that, and it wasn’t nice.
I think at first we all felt relief. Relief she wasn’t suffering, relief we didn’t have to WAIT any more. Which I know sounds awful, but you try expecting someone to die at any time for six months. That shit is wearing.
And then we all had tears. And breakdowns. And my almost-3-year-old is just really trying so hard to process all this. “Where’s Nana? Why’d she die? Oh….” with his head hanging and a sense of sadness I’m sure he can’t even make sense of.
He came to the funeral, but sat in the back with my parents. They are amazing by the way- coming all that way to pay respect and help watch the kid. When they brought him, he wanted to see Nana. Ya know, all laid out in the casket. It made everyone cry. Like everyone. The poor little kid looking at his dead grandmother. He of course cries- but mainly because everyone is looking at him, not because he understands what is going on.
But we make it through. And we make it home. And we cry more and have more breakdowns. And we try to keep moving.
This weekend is her first birthday since her death. So we are all thinking of her. Mourning her.
My son is even in on the action, asking about Nana at least twice a day. He wants me to recite the story of why and how she died. My mistake I guess for trying to be open and honest with him about death.
But he’s gotten stuck at the point of the story after the funeral. He remembers them pushing her casket out. And putting it in a car. “And then what mommy?” He wants to know where her body went next.
And I can’t say it. I can’t say that they threw Nana in a fire and burned her up until she was just ashes. Or however the fuck cremation works.
So I’ve finally come up with that Otto (grandpa) took her body back to the Philippines so she could be buried with her mommy and daddy. But then that is just a ton of questions about “who are Nana’s mommy and daddy?” And of course Daniel is traveling and I don’t know the answer to this.
And it’s scary as shit. I’ve quit my job, leaving my poor husband as the sole bread-winner. I left teaching mid-year. Which no one does. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my teaching certificate. I’m at home now, every day, struggling to be productive and useful.
And healthy.
That’s the whole point. Why I’ve said goodbye to this huge part of ME- teacher, to reach out into the unknown and try to make something of myself. Something I can live with. Be happy with. Because I haven’t been happy.
And my theory goes that these two are intricately connected- health and happiness. How can I be happy if I don’t feel like me any more? If my damn body won’t do the things I want it to do? If my unhappiness is driving me to eat mad amounts of donuts and chocolate? Which then leads to my body doing even fewer of the things I want it to. Which then leads to unhappiness, which then leads to… oh you know how this goes.
So my goal, my focus, for this very quarter-life crisis, unfocused time, is to find the balance of health, motherhood, social merriment, and all the other things that make life complicated. To find out what really matters to me- what makes life worth living. And, as I’m 35, I have to take the future into account. It can’t just be about today and what I can do in this moment. But where do I want to be down the road- when my child has a child? What quality of life can I start building for myself? Guaranteeing for myself for the future?
As of right now, my weight is definitely holding me back. Lowering my quality of life. I weigh about 225 pounds, placing me in the “considerably obese” category according to my doctor. And I’m tired- like all the time. And I can’t chase my kid or even go for a good walk at this point. And this is not me. I am not the couch potato. I fucking climbed mountains in Peru. And Chile. And Yosemite. And some of those I did totally alone with 40 pounds on my back.
Hiking in Yosemite.
THAT is ME.
And though my kid makes it pretty clear I will be having limited alone time in my near future, I want to climb another mountain damn it. Even if I have to drag the little bugger with me.
I know there is this “Body Positive” movement and this “Health At Every Size” movement. And I really want to explore this. Because my experience right now is that my body is not positive, nor is it healthy at this weight. Can I climb a mountain at 225 pounds? Maybe- I know there is one lady who probably weighs more than me and is planning to do an Ironman. Which is amazing. But is that healthy? Like, long term, on your joints?
And as far as body positive- loving yourself, doing away with fat shaming. Yay and cheers to that! But as much as I shouldn’t beat myself up for how my body looks, isn’t it FAIR to be disgruntled with it’s limitations? If it won’t DO the things I want it to do?
So that’s part of the project- research. What does science say about obesity and health? I think conventional wisdom says obese is not healthy. But then there are all these articles that pop up to show us that BMI isn’t everything. You can have better blood work as a fat person than lots of skinny folks.
But what all is involved in being healthy? In being prepared to have the most productive life ahead of you as possible? I shall investigate.
So I hope you will join me on my journey. My journey to get healthy, to move my body, to eat better, to FEEL better, and to research how all these parts are linked together. How to rise above my weighted life.
the first symptom of heart disease is often also your last. You feel fine, and then, whoops, you die from fat-filled arteries. So–pretty important to not let your arteries get fat-filled to begin with.
