Dear Internet,

This week has been pretty busy! I continue to work out M (bis and tris), Tuesday (shoulder and core), Thursday (chest and back), and Friday (legs and bum). I’ve just finished week 5 and Mr. Lisa told me that he’s super proud of me for keeping up with this and I preened at his comment. FB memories tells me that it is this time of the year, nearly every year for the last five or so years, when I get my druthers into getting in “shape” and then after a few weeks, I stop. I’ve already noticed a difference in my treadmill walking (I amped the incline up to 3 at a 3 mile an hour speed and I’m not even huffing) and my weights. I really wish the equipment I use told me what a “5” meant in pounds so I can have an idea of how much I’m lifting. Also, if the incline mode tells me something other than “3” like percentage of the incline.

My first goal is to walk Pyramid Point which is a step .6 of a mile through woods to the top of a sand dune which overlooks Lake Michigan. Last time I walked the trail, pre-surgery, I would need to stop a few times while getting overrun by the OAPs and the local high school track team who fucking run up that damn hill.  (Not Kate Bush.)

There is also a hill by our cabin that is also steep that I walked last summer and I intend to keep at it this summer. It’s a three mile round trip walk from our cabin to M22 so I’ll save that for the weekends.

We’re still a member of our Michigan YMCA which I will also be taking advantage now that my schedule is my own to do with what I please. I have a few swimming lessons left as well as a few trainer sessions. I am also going to take advantage of their yoga classes as well.

I don’t work out on Wednesdays, Saturday, and Sundays and it feels weird not to. I try to get in at least walk a mile, so I have something and I’m not just sitting all day. With spring soon coming into summer, there is plenty of sunlight to walk and workout outside.

Fingers crossed I can keep up with this momentum.

#

Seven or eight years ago, my therapist recommended that I attend Overeaters Anonymous. OA is set up like AA: a twelve-step program geared for those with disordered eating. I attended a few local meetings and didn’t relate to the women (because all the meetings I attended were women) because many were anorexic, bulimic, stole for food, ate trash, and used money for bills to buy food. I made shitty choices, surely, but did I really belong here? As I feel OA didn’t relate to me, I donated the books and stopped attending.

After my fat girl surgery, food remains forefront of my mind. My therapist, Miles, has done a good job of working with me on my disordered eating but I need more. We’ve talked about me going back to OA in the last six months or so but I’ve kept resisting due to my experience with the local meetings.

But.

But.

Last weekend’s grocery shopping was the final kick in the ass that I need help. I should not be left alone in a grocery store with a cart and no list.

I thought that I talked about OA in the past but it was so far back that the only mention I have is in Issue 115 which is seventy issues ago (or two years).

After last weekend’s debacle shopping, I researched OA’s website to find a virtual meeting and ended up on a deep dive looking for queer friendly resources. Thankfully, someone created a list (which is not easily available on OA’s website) of queer friendly meetings so Tuesday, I joined my first meeting. The moderator was in Germany, and we had many people there from the US, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Myself and a few others gave our pronouns but I think the others were there due to the time rather than the fact it was a queer space.

I didn’t share other than to state my name (Lisa), where I live (Midwest), and my pronouns (she/they). Listening to others share brought up a lot of guilt and shame about my food choices and also drove home I need help.

I’m not buying the Big Book (the AA book) because I didn’t read it the first time. They do have a near 50 page PDF on how OA works, its tenants, and steps so I’ll be referring to that. After I read the PDF, I need to come up with a food plan that is doable. In addition to tracking hydration, I’ve started tracking food yet again but I’m concentrating on protein, net cabs, and sugar. I’ve adjusted the daily maximums to match recommended daily allowances for sugar. Net carbs I’m at 100g (average is 150-200g depending on what sex you were born as) and protein is at minimum 65g which is per my bariatric surgeon. I’ve been far exceeding protein but net carbs and sugar are way out of whack. I’m starting super small with just stop having pop when we go out. We keep Fresca at home which is like drinking sparkle water but I’m a fiend for Coca-Cola and root beer. We live above a restaurant with a great soda fountain and with the good ice so it is not unusual for me to go down there once a week for my 22 oz Coca-Cola habit (Mr. Lisa gets a 32 oz of Cherry Coke).

If you’ve been around these parts for a long time, I’ve talked a lot about my past traumas and my coping skills which in some places (mental health) are great and in other places (relationship to food) is shit. Admitting you need help and allowing to let yourself be vulnerable and admit you have a problem is super hard.

Fat girl surgery, in theory, is to change your relationship with food because you can’t eat a lot of it. I’ve heard theories that that mindset works for those who binge and purge because they can no longer do that but for us who graze all day, not so much. There is so much conflicting information from various clinics on how to handle your food after surgery. Some want you to eat six small meals a day and others day to eat when you’re hungry. It’s also interesting that me, Best Kate, and Kristin all had surgery in the last two years and each of our clinics gave us different instructions.

My own clinic is awful and in the beginning after surgery, Best Kate was relaying my issues with her clinic to get some answers. It’s just, super hard.

I’m grateful Miles himself had the surgery and is coaching me through this. He doesn’t know yet I’ve gone back to OA but I can hear him in my head that he’s pleased I’m taking control.

#

When the idea of forming a serious business started forming in my brain this past winter, I signed up for Coursera’s Google taught program on UX. It is a six month program where at the end, you end up with a certificate and a portfolio. While I worked through the first month, I joined many UX groups on FB and Reddit and followed a few UX hashtags on Linkedin. As the weeks went by, post after post talked about the same thing: lack of work even for experienced UXers. Tech and advertising companies who primarily hire UXers are laying off everyone and and their cousin. Person after person talked about how long they’ve been unemployed (some over a year), or the number of times they’ve been ghosted after an interview, and the obscene amount of work that was pro bono for the employers. Many began discussing about changing careers.

As someone who was just entering the filed, this reality put the fear of god in me and I unenrolled in the class.

(I’ve learned a lot from what I’ve taken and after I complete the next few programs on my list, I’ll be signing back up because a lot of principals can totally work in my work.)

One thing I’m offering is social media management because I’ve been doing it on and off for years for various companies and persons. It’s a Meta (Facebook) run program that while will touch on other channels, will be concentrating mainly on FB and Instagram.

In the onboarding segment, Coursera asks you how much time you plan on dedicating to the work and how often. I choose three days a week at one hour each day. I’m sure I’ll do more but we’ll start with that. Coursera also provided a weekly schedule template (on Google sheets) that you can copy and use for your own.

I changed the time so that from 8 am to 6 pm were in 30-minute intervals and filled out the schedule with known events.

 I was blown away by how much time I’ve already got booked.

And I did not include OA meetings or fill in Saturday or Sunday since those are “no work” days. (Hahaha!) Will I follow this 100%? Probably not. Cousera may get pushed to another day or I may work out at night as opposed to the morning. Lunch may be at 12 pm instead of 1 pm.

For me, the general idea is to know how much time I’ve got open so when I check my daily to do list, I can schedule appropriately for that day.

I’m curious as to others how they schedule their day, with or without a nine to five job. What does yours look like?

#

Discovered that bookshop.org, used by many, many small bookstores to get virtual orders for their shop, could be used by anyone. Thus! I created a bookstore virtual front! The purpose of the virtual store is to gather a small (tiny) monthly funds from book purchases to fund my writing endeavors. If you choose to use my virtual bookstore to buy books, you’ll be supporting an indie bookstore and kicking me a few cents each month. (IndieBound, which helps you find indie bookstores, partners with bookshop.org if you are wondering about their authenticity. Down with the devil™!)

#

I start jury duty on Monday (boo) and I have no idea how that’s going to go. I did jury duty here a few years ago and we’d sign in, sit around waiting for our numbers to be called, and if not, go home. This happened a few days and on day four, I was called off for the remainder of the week. (The canteen for lunch options is terrible.) I’m getting paid $12 a day. This is beyond the pale but it is KY and if anyone could shortchange the people, it’s the government.

This is all to say if I’m in jury duty all week, May 12ths issue is iffy as is May 19^th as we would have just gotten into the cabin on the 18^th and we spend weekend getting it ready for our stay.

As always, I’ll keep you posted.

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Wonderful Thing

Emily Henry’s Funny Story

GOD. I’m an Emily Henry stan. Def recommend her books.

Any who, Funny Story is about two people thrown together by an extraordinary circumstances. Her fiancé and his girlfriend, who are also life long besties, ditch their partners and get engaged themselves. Living in Waning Bay, Michigan, Daphne finds herself without a home, a fiancé, and a friend’s a group. A children’s librarian, Daphne decides to leave Waning Bay at the end of he summer reading program. In the interim, she moves in Miles, the boyfriend her fiance’s new fiancé left for him, while they lick their wounds. If you’re not a romance reader, it obviously ends in a HEA.

Now, the first reason why I’m shilling this book is because it takes place in Michigan and the heroine is a librarian, both things I hold dear to my heart. But what makes it even better is that Waning Bay is in Grand Traverse county, the county next to our cabin. And what it makes it even better than that is that Henry is clearly super familiar with the area because she name checks local stores (Meijer, Tom’s), agriculture (cherries, apples, asparagus), as well as things of interest (wineries, breweries, Cherry Fest, and Sleeping Bear Dunes). This book was 100% written for me.

A month or so ago, I started a cozy mystery series by Amanda Flower that was placed in the same area. The thing with that series (which I DNF ½ through book one) was it was beyond clear the only research Flower completed was that cherries is the main money maker and Traverse City exists. I spent so much time figuring out where Flower was placing villages and things of interest that were clearly made up that I gave up. Flower missed out on so much shit (everything Henry wrote about) that I said fuck it and returned the book.

I have read about 75% if Henry’s catalog (her books have long waits at the libraries) and so far, I’ve loved everything she’s written. Funny Story came out a few weeks ago and it had an obscene wait time of 16 weeks with 20 copies split between nearly 100 patrons. I put it on hold months ago so I got it fairly quickly. I was so excited to get it, I read it before anything else I had checked out and finished it in a day. (If you’re into tracking, I’ve read 51 books out of 125 so far for this year and per GoodReads, I’m nine books ahead of schedule.)

While Henry’s books contain romantic elements, and there is a HEA, I consider her to be more women’s fiction than romance as she tends to throw in some deeper plot lines so it’s not all sparkly. In this case, Miles has a strained relationship with his mother (and in conjunction his father) who gaslights him and is a narcissist. (I know how this feels.)

So, if you’re looking for a mostly light Beach Read, I highly recommend Henry’s books!

Your favorite kitten from the Mitten (again),

lisa x