Well, it’s only been 10 days or so by the calendar that my fridge gave up the ghost. But it sure feels like a month!

Long story short: don’t buy a Samsung refrigerator. (At least, not in San Francisco)

Short story long: Our fridge is a fairly uncommon one and so it took a lot of calling and a lot of persistence to figure out what to do. The vendor (Best Buy — don’t go there!) washed their hands of it — they sold us the fridge two years ago, but since we didn’t buy an extended warranty, they couldn’t even be bothered to help us find a repair service that we would pay for out of pocket. The manufacturer (Samsung) was totally lame and couldn’t have been less helpful than if they were the Soviet consulate during the cold war. Major dead ends.

Lots of local repair shops either were closed over the holidays, didn’t return calls, or didn’t service Samsungs. More dead ends.

Devin finally found a guy willing to come out and diagnose the problem, but when he did discover the faulty part, he told us that he wasn’t going to order it. We’d have to do that ourselves. And when it came in? Well, then we could call him and he’d see what he could do.

So, desperate times/desperate measures. Devin ordered the part over the internet. And it came today!

We have an appointment with the “Reluctant Repairman” (as I call him) tomorrow at 5 p.m. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but really … it would be SO NICE to have a working fridge again.

Wish me luck!

My refrigerator is still broken. The one repairman we could get to come to the house offered to fix it, but only if WE ordered the part (a computer circuit board). Devin went ahead and did that, but even with expedited delivery it won’t come until the end of the week.

Welcome to customer service in the Big City.

In the meantime, did you know a bag of ice from Safeway weighs 8 pounds?

Now, sometimes there is coincidence, and sometimes the Universe is telling us something. In this case I think it’s the latter. Because as I think about it, over the past six months, I have ranged between 5 and 8 pounds over my ideal weight. Just enough to be bothersome, but not (so I thought) a red flag.

Except that when I walk to the market these days, the whole way there I debate on whether I should buy one bag of ice or two, or perhaps none at all. Because the prospect of schlepping those eight pounds the six blocks back to my house is not at all appealing.

In fact, tonight I walked Paco over to Safeway and bought some (heavy) groceries along with a bag of ice, and I actually had to REST on the way home! I can only imagine how hard it is on my body when I am carrying around that much excess baggage all of the time. (Not only that, imagine how hard it was to carry more than six TIMES that much around before!)

Fortunately, I’m pretty much in the groove right now, and I feel reasonably confident about my progress back towards goal. But as temptations arise — and no doubt they will — all I have to do is think about those bags of ice.

And, responding to the question posed on the label, “Yes, one bag is DEFINITELY enough!”

I pushed myself pretty much to the limit today on my Sunday Long Run. I knew I wanted to do at least ten miles. But I ended up doing 15.3 miles, which is right there at the top of my range. You can see from the graphic that there were a couple of really brutal (and long) hills involved.

Of course the views were really nice the whole way and the weather was perfect (sunny and low 40s). I also had good music, courtesy of my smart phone, which was streaming tunes from the internet.

It was pretty exhausting, but the most interesting part about it to me was that I was reasonably sure the entire time that I was capable of running the whole thing. I pondered walking or potentially calling Devin if I got stuck, but at no point did it feel grueling or punishing enough to want to do that. It was hard, but the “good kind of hard” if that makes any sense.

I’m convinced now, in fact, that if I had to, I could run an entire marathon. I have no desire to do that, and I never have, but it’s amazing to me that I now know I’m capable of it. Most of my life the idea of running 26.2 miles seemed about as plausible and taking a rocket to the moon. Others could do that — extraordinary people. But me?

This puts me in mind of something I was thinking about yesterday. As far as my weight loss and maintenance are concerned, I know that what I’ve done is fairly unusual (that is, lose a lot of weight and keep it off). But I don’t feel like I am that unusual of a person. I’m pretty normal. I have a busy schedule, lots of demands on my time, and I’m fairly lazy. I have extremely limited willpower. For example, yesterday I had to drive all the way back to San Mateo (a 40-mile round trip) because I left my checkbook at the center. Afterwards, I was so tense and stressed out that I felt I *HAD* to have a cookie, and I walked up and down the main street until I found one … a VERY BIG ONE.

It’s true that my accomplishments “may not be typical” but I don’t ascribe that to some kind of superpowers I have. I have no secret talents or skills that allow me to achieve things. Just ask all of the people who passed me while I was running today! (And look at my food journal, filled with all the junk food I ate after my run today).

The point is, one of the reasons I feel qualified to be a “role model” is that I am so excruciatingly normal. I screw up my eating, I get emotionally overinvested in things, I blow off the gym, I get off track. I make mistakes. I’m truly imperfect. (Not to mention that I’m pushing 50!).

So while it wouldn’t be fair for me to say “if I can do it, you can do it,” I can nevertheless tell you that whatever you set out to accomplish, the primary obstacle you need to overcome is your belief in yourself. Once you have stopped disbelieving, you’ll be ready to start achieving.

Tonight we went to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Korean barbeque restaurant to celebrate a friend of Devin’s birthday. It’s a very authentic place where there are charcoal pits at each table where you grill your meat. We typically get this bul-go-gi thing where they bring out a dozen or more small white dishes with seaweed, miso paste, pickled radish, fried sardines, bean curd and other tasty (and to me, exotic) sides. You then take broad leaves of lettuce, and you use those as wraps for all of the ingredients, which you wash down with a hot tofu soup that’s literally bubbling when they bring it to the table.

I’d say on a scale of 1 to 5 this place gets a zero in decor (it’s shabby and unkempt looking) a zero in ambience (the room is filled with smoke from the grills and doesn’t look particularly clean) and a minus one in staff friendliness. We know this, and yet we go there for the same reason that everyone else does — the food. And despite the ugliness of the place and the surliness of the service there is almost always a long line and a hour-long wait.

Knowing what I do from past experience I always have something to eat before we go (tonight I had some chicken broth and some crackers) and I always wear clothes that can go immediately into the laundry when we get home (because they will reek of smoke from the grills). Still, there’s nothing that can really prepare you for the wait in the overcrowded foyer, which is alternately hot from the cooking and unpleasantly cold from wind that rushes in the door when it’s opened (this must be a consequence of all the exhaust fans that are running).

Besides, in the crush of people, the staff makes no attempt whatsoever about “fairness” when it comes to who gets seated. For one thing, they only take reservations if you speak Korean. Otherwise, if you call ahead and ask in English they say they don’t take reservations but don’t worry because they’re “not busy tonight.” So you show up with all the other suckers in the foyer and stand there astonished while party after party after party is seated ahead of you. It’s infuriating, unfair, and probably illegal, but it is what it is.

And STILL people line up to eat there.

Tonight we waited over an hour in the press of the crowd, and literally one minute before we were to be seated, the birthday boy announced he had had enough, that we were not to spend our hard earned money in a such a wretched place. Devin and I watched, astonished, as he marched out of the restaurant literally as they were clearing our table. It was too much for his friend to bear — watching the chaos, enduring the mobbed waiting area, and seeing the inequitable treatment of the patrons.

Acknowledging the righteousness of his anger and resentment, Devin and I nevertheless wanted (desperately) to finally be seated at our table and order!

But it was not meant to be. Heart-breakingly, after over an hour wait, we handed our hard-won table over to another party that eagerly accepted this last-minute gift. Having sat there listening to them for the past sixty minutes, I knew that they were from out of town and were clearly relishing this bizarre and unique experience.

I’ll bet they enjoyed themselves.

Ironically, in the end we walked exactly one block, where an identical restaurant serving the same food in the same style, run by the same family, had no wait at all. We were seated instantly, and in a few moments were enjoying our dinner. It’s funny, but this slightly cleaner, slightly friendlier, slightly larger place just doesn’t seem quite as appealing as it’s counterpart. Maybe it’s the case that sometimes we don’t want what comes too easy. I don’t know.

What I do know is that Korean barbeque is great bang for the caloric buck. We ate till we were full (or rather, I ate until I was satisfied and my dinner companions ate until they were stuffed). And other than the grilled meat, we mostly ate plant-based ingredients which were generally healthy (although with an extremely high sodium content). I enjoyed the idea that I could get so much sensory pleasure from the variety, from the aromas, and from the sight of it all, and not leave the place feeling bloated.

I don’t blame our friend for stomping out of the first place. And after tonight’s experience I don’t think I’ll ever go back, either. Why put up with being treated so shabbily? There really is no food that’s so good it’s worth being humiliated over. Maybe I’ll even call the health department. Maybe I’ll call the city to find out if there preferential treatment of Korean-speakers is illegal. Maybe I’ll spread the word about what a hellish place that restaurant can be.

Or maybe I’ll just be tempted to go back and have the bul-go-gi, wait or no wait.

There’s an ex-Christmas-soon-to-be-mulched tree lying on the curb in front of my condo tonight. It will hopefully be joined by the one from our house tomorrow, when Devin and I have a chance to drag ours down there. For me it’s always a little bittersweet to see those forlorn and abandoned-looking trees. They signal the end of the holiday season with all of its bright lights and good cheer and catchy music, along with the promise of gifts and happy family reunions. At the same time, bare trees also mark the end of a two-month long food fest, as well as other generally excessive behaviors (drinking, spending money, etc.) and they feel like a sign post that says “Back to Normal, Folks!”

So I can’t explain it, but I like January.

One of the reasons that people come up with “new year’s resolutions” is the obvious fact of the calendar year starting over again. But January lends itself generally to more sober and reflective behavior because it’s when we are able to put a lot of stuff behind us. We’re done with the holidays, some of us are busy paying off bills, and it can be a time where getting back to the routine actually feels good.

I joined Weight Watchers the first Wednesday in January 2002 at an old community church building (now closed and condemned) in the Castro neighborhood. The reasons I ended up there were many, but I do know that among those was the idea that I was sick of the old behaviors in my life and I was desperate for something new and different. I recall a sense of shame at having “failed” to lose weight and resentfulness about having to join a group program, but clearly my sense of need outweighed any initial embarrassment or reluctance I felt.

I’m not much of a dreamer, and at that time I couldn’t really imagine what lay ahead. In fact, I’m not sure I would have been able to stick with it if I had. There was a certain “ignorance is bliss” factor that helped me out when I was first beginning to do weird new stuff like eat vegetables and keep a food diary. It seemed unlikely that I would ever succeed at such things, but I figured I’d give it a chance.

Probably the reason I’m attracted to visionary people (like my husband and my boss) is that I so admire their ability to believe in the future — to see possibility, opportunity, and good fortune. That’s a quality I simply don’t have. I’m hopeful and occasionally optimistic, but for the most part I tend to stay grounded in the here and now and I operate with a healthy skepticism about the chance that things will all turn out okay.

That’s why I’m glad January comes around once a year, because it puts this type of crystal-ball gazing right in front of me. It’s a time when I’m willing to peer a little into the future and escape the nitty gritty details of daily life.

This year, what I’m picturing is how I can use the lessons of the past 12-18 months to help me do a better job at maintaining much closer to my goal weight. Weight Watchers has a new award for people that are at their goal weight for 10 out of 12 months in the coming year, and I really want to get that sucker at the end of 2009. When I envision myself at goal, I know that there are two things that I will be extremely happy about: (1) my clothes and (2) my body. I’ve been putting off buying new work slacks for the past 6 months because I know that I’m not currently a 29″ waist (which I am when I’m at goal). So I’ve been gasping and tightly closing my pants all of this time, with the idea that come goal weight time, I’m going to go crazy getting some new stuff.

I also know that, despite my age and the changes in my workout/exercise routine, when I’m back at goal I’m going to feel a lot more comfortable with how I look naked. I’m already seeing a small amount of definition in my abs and arms as I begin to make progress. And while it seems improbable, my past experience leads me to believe that losing just 6 pounds should do the trick. I may be a middle-aged and wrinkly old crank, but my instinct tells me all is not lost. At the gym I see plenty of men older than me who are perfectly fit.

So there you have it. My hopes and dreams about 2009. I’m worried about whether I’ll be able to keep my job, and about whether Devin will be able to keep his. But those are things I can’t change. I have no control over the economy. But I do have control over myself, and the ability to improve on my healthy habits. So I’m willing to dream, just a teeny bit, about what it will look and feel like to weigh 152 again.

It will happen!

Well I’m happy to report that I’m writing from the cabin at Lake Tahoe tonight — internet connection resolved! Paco and I were bored lying around the house with nothing to entertain us but the broken fridge, so I asked my boss for a day off, and after kickboxing class this evening, I bundled the dog, my ski clothes and any remaining non-perishable food items into the car and headed up to the mountains.

It was fun to surprise Devin! (I texted ahead to make sure there was room at the cabin — 9 people and 3 dogs!).

The drive up was non-eventful — my favorite kind of trip. I noticed, however, that after a completely sane and calm eating day, I couldn’t help but stop at the Safeway in Placerville and buy three large bakery cookies to “keep me company” on the last leg of the trip. After I scarfed them down I realized that one would have sufficed….because having eaten three, I still wanted three (dozen) more. And since no amount of cookies would ever be “enough,” I could have done with just one.

If that makes any sense.

Live and learn, right? I suppose the kickboxing class will compensate for some of the damage. Unfortunately I forgot my running shoes, so I don’t know how much exercise I’ll be getting the next two days. On the other hand, there is a FUNCTIONING fridge here, so I purchased some healthy food (in addition to the cookies) and I have no excuse to eat poorly while I’m here.

My WWer leader was really inspirational today and she mentioned a great story involving our friend Richard. It made me feel so good to have his spirit of wisdom, kindness, and understanding invoked. I miss him, but after what Kelly spoke of today, I feel he is still around, lending me a helping hand.

Tomorrow: skiing

Well, it turns out that my forced isolation in Tahoe last week was a good thing. It wasn’t until I got to work this morning and realized that I was relaxed and actually in a GOOD mood that I understood just how much I needed a vacation. And all day long people in the office were talking about how “short” the holiday seemed, whereas I felt like it lasted exactly enough time. With no internet and no urban distractions, I guess time just slowed down a bit for me.

Another good thing about being away from the office for an entire week was the absence of daily temptations. I seem to have fallen into a pattern of snacking on various cookies, candies and chocolates that my office mates are constantly bringing to work (even if those treats never seem to appear in my food journal!). Having spent a lot of time NOT doing that, I had the opportunity to learn a healthier habit. When I was back at work today, my eyes did glance at their table of cookies and candies several times, but it wasn’t quite as tempting as in the past.

There’s nothing like a little success to make you feel successful!

I can only hope that my lack of a fridge will also teach me some new lessons. For one thing, I’ve had to give up several foods that are staples for me, but which require a freezer (veggie burgers, smoothies made with ice and frozen fruit, popsicles, etc.). I also am required to buy single servings of salad, so instead of making the same old one every time, I have to find what I can at the market or at salad bars.

I’m gaining a lot of insight into why our ancestors were so adamant about “cleaning your plate.” The fact is, if you can’t refrigerate food, it will spoil pretty fast. Anything you don’t eat, ends up being wasted. This is true for healthy foods like fruits and veggies, too. You can’t cut up an apple or a bell pepper and leave half of it on the counter for two days.

For me, this is all about my age-old struggle with falling into patterns. It doesn’t matter whether what I’m doing is healthy (like hitting the gym, or eating nutritious foods) or unhealthy (like eating low-quality chocolates dumped on the table at work). When I get stuck doing the same thing over and over, the results just aren’t that good. So even if it feels “safe” to eat certain foods at certain times of the day, when I’m forced to change that routine, I have an opportunity to learn something.

At the same time, I can’t wait until we can get a repairman lined up to fix our Samsung fridge. Getting my freezer back, like getting my internet access back, will not be a bad thing. No, not at all!

This morning I woke up in a rather dark and unsettled mood. The loss of my refrigerator affected me much more profoundly than I could have imagined. Thinking it over, I see now that when it failed and all my food was lost, it was if a trusted friend were saying to me “listen, I know you relied on me in the past, but from now on you’re on your own.” Seriously, I’m practically in mourning!

So, I did what any normal person would do, I got out an ice chest and went to the supermarket to buy a couple of bags of ice.
Only, when you look at the receipt from my shopping trip, the first thing you see on it is “Lrg Cinn Roll twinpack - $1.99″ Because, er, the first thing I did was walk to the pastry section and buy the biggest honkin’ sugar-coated insulin-buster I could find. (And a twin-pack no less!). It was like an alien had taken over my body — I walked like a zombie straight to the scene of the crime and grabbed my cinnamon rolls before I even began to LOOK for the ice.

Oh well, guess I shoulda seen that one coming.

On the positive side, when I got everything home, I started to make breakfast only to realize I wasn’t hungry for anything. The emotional upset over the inoperative fridge apparently caused me to lose my appetite (and boy oh boy is that a new experience for me). So I had the cinnamon roll, and then made a sort of breakfast sandwich thing (toasted an english muffin, added a poached egg white, a dab of mustard and some fat-free cheese). I am very proud of myself because I didn’t try to stuff myself with more food in order to feel better. In the end, I had one unhealthy thing, one super healthy thing, and called it a day.

Then I put on my shoes and ran 12 miles.

The rest of my eating day was fair to partly sunny. I managed to eat some fruit, some vegetables and had a salad both at lunch time and again in the evening. There were a few other junky things in there (crackers and chocolate) but at no point did I eat to the point of discomfort. I really paid attention to my body’s signals of hunger and fullness.

Devin and I have been on the phone off and on today trying to get a refrigerator repair person scheduled, with only marginal luck so far. Supposedly someone from the authorized repair network will get back to us “no later than Wednesday.” (Today is Sunday). I’m steeling myself to the idea of not having a fridge for a week because with the New Year’s holiday and then the weekend coming, I seriously doubt this situation is going to be resolved any time soon. In the meantime, I have an ice chest with six yogurts, some relish, butter spray and a couple of veggie patties. I also have plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables on hand.

I call this “roughing it!”

Well I have to admit I’m inordinately proud of myself — turns out I lost a pound over my Christmas vacation! While weight loss is generally worth celebrating in itself, what I’m happiest about is not the number on the scale, but the effort that it took to bring about that success.

Which is to say — it did take SOME effort, but it didn’t take an extraordinary effort. I did have to work at strategies for eating and exercising, but none of it was crazy or unreasonable. Not only that, I experienced more than one slip-up without letting it get to me.

While I preach this all the time to other people, it was good for me to experience the lesson that “you shouldn’t do anything to lose weight that doesn’t make sense as a long term strategy.” In other words, starvation, deprivation, extreme exercise and weird diet fads are useless primarily because they are short-lived and unrealistic. What we need are ways to make just enough changes to reduce the calories in/calories equation while still living a normal life and engaging in normal activities.

At the moment, I know that I need to implement a program that will help me return back to my goal weight steadily, gently and solidly. Yes, I would love to wake up tomorrow five pounds lighter and not have to think about it any more. But the reality is that I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning the same person that I was all day today. So what I have to do is make each day’s activities as helpful as possible in working towards my goal.

So, I’m feeling a strong resolve and am pleased as punch with the way things have gone the last few weeks.

Which is a very good thing, because even though I have returned home from vacation, I am facing a brand new challenge. My refrigerator died today, and along with it, all of my healthy frozen foods were spoiled. And since I won’t be able to get it fixed until next week, I’m going to have to start figuring out how to be a healthy eater without refrigeration.

It’s all about the attitude. I can either let this new obstacle upset me and wreck my progress, or I can face it the same way I did my vacation. With a plan and a belief that I can do it.

Real life, here I come!

This is how Devin, Paco and I spent Christmas! Snow-shoeing in a blizzard!