How did you do it???? ....

As a high profile working mom I can't count the number of times I've been asked the "How do you do it" question referring to efforts to succeed as an involved working mother and at my career. The reason this bugs me so much is that I chafe at questions that women get asked that men never get asked. I also think it leaves the impression for younger women that there is something slightly wrong or off about women like me who choose demanding (and fulfilling, rewarding, etc...) careers and family. Also, let's just admit it doesn't take much to irritate women of a certain age, okay? (I can use gendered stereotypes in jest -- that is one of the rules for this blog. I just made it up.) I've written about this before and I've been working through some thoughts related to work and family that I'll write more about later, but recently I've been asked the question in a new context.

I started a new job last January and I had to fill out an I9 form so the government (and President Trump) can be sure I am a US Citizen. They can't, apparently, just write that I was elected to multiple offices, so this has been proven before. Because HR is in Tampa and I was completing the paperwork in Vermont, I had to get my paperwork notarized. Luckily, the very nice Clerk's office in Williston, Vermont offers this as a free service to residents. I pulled out my passport and will admit looking at that picture, next to the new picture for my ID at work gave me some great reinforcement that the effort I've been putting toward getting myself healthy has been worthwhile. Here are the two pictures:

So, when I showed the Williston clerk the Passport, I really should not  have been surprised when she stopped, halfway through the paperwork and said, "Umm, you have lost a lot of weight?" When I said, "Yes, thank you!" Her question was the derivative of the "how she does it" --"How did you do it?" The clerk was around my age, not as heavy as I was in the Passport photo two years ago but not in shape like I am today. I gave her the really simple answer: Crossfit. But the real answer is much longer and because I know how many women struggle with weight, I decided to write this post. I have been writing and re-writing it ever since and mulling whether I would ever actually post it. Of all the issues I seemingly opine and pop off about, the most difficult and deeply personal is the discussion of weight.

Over a period of two years I lost a considerable amount of weight -- like, over 75 pounds (78 as of today, but who's counting?). I have also kept it off now for almost a full year. And, I have gotten much stronger and fitter than I have ever been before. I was almost my current weight once or twice before as an adult -- when I ran (and finished) the Boston Marathon (circa 2004) and during my first campaign for the State Senate in 1990. The 1990 version was definitely not as healthy -- the weight loss was fueled by long days working and skipping meals with a lot of cigarette smoking and not a small amount of alcohol to keep me going. The 2004/5 ish running version was healthier -- I was in my early 40s and running a lot, and I even started some personal training for a period of time with some weights. However, for most of my life I have battled with my weight and as the pictures above attest, three years ago I had reached a new 'high.'

So, this isn't totally unrelated to demanding work and parenting -- because the truth is for me, someone who is NOT and will NEVER be naturally thin -- when I was travelling all the time, when my CEO role was very business development focused (lots of dinners and drinking) and you are struggling to fit in volunteering for the school events and attending the athletic events and maybe the occasional conversation with your husband, 'me' time is hard to come by. And when you are tired and stressed, when I did get me time I tended to go for the pedicure not the gym. Or the wine. Or pizza .... maybe nachos on a really bad week.

I don't know if the truth of how I lost this weight is meant to be inspirational to others who struggle or a "back off" to those well-intended (usually fit and thin) family and friends who offer unsolicited advice to women, like me, who have struggled with their weight -- maybe a little of each. Because the truth is (remember, people asked!): It was hard -- especially at first (like for the first 6 months); it was expensive (seriously expensive); it took a lot of time (not just over a 2 year period, but a significant time commitment each week) and it was what worked for my competitive type A personality and with my celiac disease (gluten intolerance). So unlike Tom Brady (and this is the closest I will ever come to criticism of TB12) I am not sure if what has worked for me at 53 will work for everyone. But I've been asked so many times to share my story, I guess with this blog I am finally ready to share .... and frankly, my struggle with weight is the hardest part of my life story so here goes:

What I did:
Here is the Cliff Notes version: Eat Less, Exercise More and make small changes, one at a time.

The before and after pictures took more than two years. I think I could have lost the weight more quickly and there were definitely periods of time that I had accelerated weight loss. BUT, I am hopeful that the path I've followed has actually led me to make sustainable changes to my life so that my lifelong yo-yo of weight gain and loss is over.

Now for the more explicatory "How I Did It":

My go-to gym look.

I basically did three things -- found an exercise routine I loved, and committed to it and built up slowly -- Crossfit (I know, I know, but it is true); Drastically changed my calorie intake -- at 50 plus, the scale even with exercise was not budging much without limiting myself to around 1000 - 1200 calories most days with a heavy emphasis on protein and very little carbs; Made my primary care doctor my partner -- in the beginning I weighed in and met with her monthly, and I still go every 3 months. She suggested some of the diet changes, didn't sugarcoat the difficult nature and we explored lots of possible medical interventions as I struggled with the early, slow weight loss -- including possible surgery or bands, which I didn't do in the end (ironically, I had lost 'too much weight' by the time we looked into it) but I did start taking a drug called Qysmia (https://qsymia.com/) which I will talk more about. But the hardest thing has been to change my relationship with food. Because at the end of the day, I am sorry to report that basically what I did was Eat Less (of the right stuff) and Exercise More a (at a gym I have grown to love, and a program that works for me).

Before I explain more about what I've done & how I've done it, I want to tell you that one of the things I liked best about Dr. C -- who is a woman not a ton younger than me, with four kids and skinny as hell -- is that she never sugar coated it for me. I have had so many skinny people look at me through the years (at least this is my perception) as if losing weight was the easiest thing in the world and they could not understand why I couldn't just do it and be thin. That was in my head A LOT. I have thin siblings, thin friends and colleagues (I would try so hard not to like them ....) and I spent a ton of time trying to figure out what they were doing differently than me. Now, this is pretty ironic because in every other area of my life -- and certainly in all the advice that I give my teenage daughters -- I have learned a really important lesson: play your own game and don't be distracted by what everyone else is doing! I think one of my strengths as a leader is that I know what I am good at (and what I suck at) and I try to spend most of my time doing things I am good at and delegating the things I am not good at (it still shocks me when I meet people who want to spend all kinds of time proving that they are good at something they suck at .... but it happens a lot.) YET .... when it came to my weight and my physical health I was ALWAYS looking at everyone else -- people I knew, images I saw around me and in the media -- and trying to figure out what was wrong with me.

Here is my reality:

This shit is hard! Yeah, eat less and exercise more sounds so simple but it has not always been so for me. I will admit, I have tried sprinkling stuff on my food (I can't believe I did that in public), and pretty much every diet known to man.

I grew up with siblings and now have raised a daughter for whom weight management is a completely different game than the hand I was dealt. When I mentioned this to Dr. C, she said, "yes, we don't know why that is, but it is definitely the case that some people can consume more calories than others." Now, I cannot tell you how motivating and free-ing it was for me to hear, after almost 50 years that I wasn't just the laziest piece of crap in the world, but that actually, it might be harder for me. This was a big break through moment for me. Realizing -- yeah, this is hard and maybe it IS ACTUALLY HARDER FOR ME. (And other people too.) It put me in the mindset that has brought me success in every other area of my life -- play my own game. I had to figure out what would work for ME. Not whether it was fair that my brother John ate Top Chef hamburgers every night from Burger Chef all through High School and you could still count his ribs, or that all my sorority sisters seemed to be drinking exactly what I drank yet they looked different in their Limited V-Neck sweaters walking to class .... and on, and on. Play my game. So -- in regard to diet and exercise: I have no idea if what worked for me will work for anyone else. If you ever hear me suggest to you that it will, please punch me in the face. But, I will also try to be uncharacteristically self-reflective about why some of these things worked for me so that others might find pieces that will either work for them or help them unlock a formula that suits them. But play your own game.

FOOD & DRINK/CALORIE INTAKE.

I like them both. :) Hence the name of this blog and the budding Reality TV series of the same name that a college friend and I are launching (at least in our minds and our wine-fueled Facebook sessions during Bachelor episodes .... but I digress).

I have tried every diet that exists. I had success with Weight Watchers but with Celiac Disease and travel it can be hard to manage the point system. I did once suggest to a WW board member that they do a Gluten Free Point System. I don't have a problem sharing my fabulous ideas with people. I also read all the low/no carb diet books and those are pretty consistent with a Gluten Free diet. For a while I used a REALLY expensive, low calorie home delivery meal service that delivered all your meals and snacks for a week -- I lost a ton of weight with that pretty quickly, and also not unrelated, my gall bladder! But the cost was just not sustainable and truth be told the food wasn't that good. When I was running a lot of miles and training for long races in my thirties and forties I found that I could lose weight if I was attentive to what I ate but not overly restrictive -- Weight Watchers with the ability to add points for exercise worked well there. But all of these approaches always felt like diets that I did for a while. I tried to stop thinking about food and embrace the Locavore movement up here in Vermont and just be focused on eating high quality, non-processed foods (also expensive) and to 'let go' of the need to be thin/lose weight. That was the biggest disaster of all. I stopped weighing myself and then I got really sick, ended up in the ER with a bout of viral meningitis which was terrible but perhaps even worse was when they weighed me and the scale hit a number that was several deciles higher than I had ever seen. Now, I knew I wasn't losing weight and that my clothes weren't fitting so well and pictures weren't looking great .... but that number FREAKED ME OUT.

So for food there are a few simple things that have worked -- but mostly staying with it, not freaking out when I fell off the wagon, having some built in cheat days and changing my relationship with food (trying most of the time to see it as fuel, and some of the time as a treat or celebration; realizing that just because I eat out a lot doesn't mean I should treat every restaurant meal as a special occasion and order the Gluten Free option that appealed to me the most and always order dessert; find meals that worked for me and repeat them; and don't use travel or stress as an excuse to over indulge -- at least not consistently; and try not to put myself in challenging food situations too often -- so buying more healthy foods at the house and less unhealthy, ordering some food delivery options that I like so I always have an easy grab and go option, and joining a gym in Tampa where I will be many days each month that has appealing healthy food options for breakfast and dinner).

Alcohol consumption is a different story. Even with increased exercise and decreased calories, if some of those calories came from wine or alcohol at night the scale did not move in the desired direction those days/weeks. What was that about???? So, I had to really, really limit alcohol consumption. At first I avoided social events with wine -- because I felt like I was already giving up the food I liked and everyone else seemed able to eat at those events (cheese -- have I mentioned my love of cheese?) and what fun was it to go somewhere and drink water for gods sake? But I slowly was able to change my mindset to being able to socialize without food or drink -- but this was hard. I tend to set certain periods of time where I basically don't drink at all -- like January, or Lent. Or a month when the gym is doing some kind of health/wellness challenge (usually one summer month then January). And, even when I am drinking, I have tried to restrict wine for the most part, to my cheat day. If I want a drink on a week night I have tried the low-calorie spiked seltzers. In general, I've just really limited the amount of calories I get from alcohol. Sad but true. And, I have found that I can actually enjoy being out and about without over-indulging in food and drink.

A few tips:

The Slow Carb/No Carb book is sitting on my night table to read, but I have adopted some of the basic tenets of that.

Recently, I have adopted the Isagenix program. Its protein shakes and snacks fit very closely what I was doing on my own and while some of the online stuff feels a little cult-ish and sales-y, I like the taste of the products, the ease of ordering snacks and a mapped out plan (2 shakes plus a fork and knife meal, a few cleanses a month is pretty similar to what I was doing on my own), and a colleague at my new work has had amazing results and I am trying to push to a new frontier and stay healthy with the new demanding work schedule. So far this has been a great tool.

Smoothies: I've found that peanut butter powder in a shake with low-sugar, chocolate almond milk and a frozen banana tastes really good and is a good breakfast or lunch meal substitute. I've also started ordering a Chocolate/Peanut Butter/Espresso smoothie from the gym after morning workouts. It is pretty high in fat, but all good fats, but has a ton of Protein and tastes delightful.

Soups/Prepared meals. You name it, I have probably tried it. Blue Apron, Sun Basket, Splendid Spoon. I really liked Sun Basket for the GF options but my husband is a fussy vegetarian and my daughters are just fussy .... so it can be hard to find options everyone likes. Too often I'd end up being the only one who ate the meals -- newsflash: Eating four servings of anything isn't a good weight loss strategy. I like Splendid Spoon a lot. The smoothies aren't as good as my homemade chocolate peanut butter ones, but they are lower calorie and more diversified in healthy ingredients. The soups you have for lunch are awesome. And you can pause any week, change selections. And it is surprisingly affordable. We've also started using Daily Harvest Shakes which one of my daughters has found she likes alot -- better than the powder protein shakes. Again, we make them with unsweetened almond milk and she uses them as a meal substitutes.

Dinners. Did I mention my husband and I are basically Jack Spratt and his wife? And my kids are fussy -- like, really, fussy? Most nights if I am home to cook, I am preparing 3 different dinners. For that reason, having a few, repeatable and simple go-to's works for me. I've found some "Fresh Express" salads -- the Southwest Chopped (https://www.freshexpress.com/products/kits/southwest-chopped-salad-kit) -- from Shaw's is a particular favorite -- where the ingredients are all in the package. I add grilled chicken and some avocado to those. There is a great local meat provider (Shelburne Meat Market:http://www.shelburnemeatmarket.com/)  that does awesome marinated meats -- expensive but really tasty. They also have a marinated asparagus that is the bomb. I forget which diet plan recommended drizzling olive oil on veggies and torching them (I mean roasting) at 425 degrees till they are a bit crispy -- adding just salt and pepper to taste -- but that has been something that I found I really liked and met the low carb/low calorie eating that has been successful for me. That is a go to side or full dish if I throw some heartier veggies like carrots or sweetpotatoes in.

Late night eating. This is another killer. I probably struggled the most with trying not to eat after dinner. Some days are still better than others. Not having a glass of wine helps. Two things I did when I just couldn't subdue the hunger and cravings: herbal (usually fruit-flavored like peach or raspberry) tea with a little honey or a small bowl of cheerios. I try most nights not to have anything after dinner except to keep drinking water but some days ....

Snacks in general I've tried to keep simple, high in protein and no sugar. (And limited) Almonds are a go-to, as is single serving cheese, celery with Peanut Butter (I have found the new "Natural" JIF to be really good) and carrots with hummus. But in general, I have really tried not to snack between meals or if I do to do one small snack in between meals. I don't want to be counting points or calories all the time so figuring out a formula and repeating it tends to help me. On days I've had a bunch of almonds or celery with real Peanut Butter, I would try not to do cereal at bed time. So while I have one cheat day a month, I also have a few 'variations' like the cereal or the heavier snack that I try to allow myself one of on a day I am really struggling. Here is an area that I've found some of the prepared Isagenix snacks -- especially the "IsaDelight" chocolates with Sea Salt to be terrific.

Cheat days/Vacations. This is the place where Slow Carb and I agree and Isagenix and I might part ways ... While I do think I have fundamentally changed my relationship with food, I still like food and I still like alcohol. I don't know if I would be here if I had told myself it was "all or nothing forever". I have scheduled cheat days. Sometimes I know I am going to have a lax week -- like on vacation or the holidays. I try to still workout and make at least good "bad" decisions but I don't beat myself up. I think it makes sense and that it has been important to me.

Lastly, water. I do not drink enough water. Our gym occasionally does a challenge where one of the ways to score a 'point' is to drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day .... and I find when I am really focused on it I can definitely do it. But it doesn't make the middle aged female urological issues any better, I can tell you that. I am not sure I believe that drinking water makes me less hungry. BUT, I definitely feel better and sleep better when I am appropriately hydrated. At other times when trying to drink enough I prefer non-carbonated drinks with a little flavor. I try to be mindful of sugar, sweetners, calories, etc.... but if I am doing everything else well, I have decided that Vitamin Water (even if it isn't zero) isn't going to kill me.

MADE MY DOCTOR MY PARTNER.

The first thing I did -- in the beginning after I was discharged from the hospital for the illness -- was to engage with my doctor. Full disclosure: She is what many folks would call a 'concierge doctor' -- my husband and I pay her a set amount each year and she handles all our primary care and doesn't bill insurance. At first, Dr. C and I met monthly (and yes, weighed me in, took my blood pressure). But even with that level of commitment and accountability which had usually worked for me, the scale barely budged. First, all the things I had done in my thirties and forties to lose weight didn't seem to work as well in my 50s! And, I also talked to her about the fact that when I did limit my calories to the level needed to actually lose weight I was hungry all the time and it made me a raving bitch -- which I could mostly contain at work, but my kids and husband took the brunt. She suggested that I try to increase my protein intake -- and I did that. It worked maybe a little.

She was very encouraging of my workout regime. I expected her to frown on CrossFit - but her approach was always very fact based and non-judgmental. Basically -- try things you like, and that you will keep doing. As I really 'took' to CrossFit she was genuinely interested in what I liked about it and in my progress.

Even so, I kept hitting weight plateaus that I found really frustrating. After nearly a year of consistent exercise, decent diet and eating habits but only about 43 pounds of weight loss I was STUCK at the 200 lb level. It just seemed I could not break through. She introduced the idea of more significant interventions like a stomach sleeve or surgery which I was very willing to try. We both found it quite ironic that while I was still in the "obese" category, I had lost enough weight that my insurance would no longer cover those options.

At this point she mentioned a drug intervention with a million caveats. It was NOT a panacea, the research was really mixed and the results at best had shown incremental weight loss of a few pounds on average. The drug was called Qysmia. She thought she might be able to convince my insurance company to cover it and that given I had done a lot of good work on diet and exercise, and I definitely still had significant weight to lose, it was worth a try as long as my expectations were modest. I started off with the lowest dose (after discovering my insurance WOULD NOT cover the drug which, with a 'frequent buyer card' costs almost $200 a month) and the biggest thing I noticed almost immediately was that I was not ravenously hungry in between meals. I think the thing my family noticed was that I was not a complete bitch (there is definitely a correlation here).

I have been on Qysmia now for just about two years. In that time I have lost another 25 - 30 pounds and kept the weight off and I definitely feel like the Qysmia helped enormously. Most of that weight came off over a four month period where I really worked hard at the gym and on diet -- and I don't know if I could have done that without the help of appetite control. Additionally, I have noticed that when I stray a bit from my regimented eating plan, I still notice that I am getting full sooner and even if I am eating nachos on occasion, I STOP when I am full and that is almost always before I devour four servings. I have a hunch that my metabolism seems to work more effectively too -- but again that might be all between my ears but I feel like I can maintain new found (low) levels of weight with working out and Qysmia and reasonable eating while I need the significant shakes/calorie restriction if I want to LOSE more weight. I did try to go off the Qysmia for a week last month and whether placebo or real, I had a bad eating week. I am wondering when I get to my goal weight what the verdict on taking the meds will be ... it is a conversation I am nervous about, just like I was nervous about going back to work and travel.

I have also continued to see my cholesterol and sugar improve fairly significantly which is really rewarding. I still check in with my Doctor quarterly and while this accountability should not drive me at this point it really does. At my post-Christmas check in I had gained a few pounds and then leveled off. I have basically been 'stuck' again at the 75 lb weight loss for the last six months. It was both knowing I was seeing Dr C. soon and my encounter with my new colleague and her Isagenix story that remotivated me to try to break through to the next (and last) barrier. At the next 10 lb increment, I get to my lowest college memory weight. At 20 lb I will be at the lowest point I would reach at the end of high school basketball season. And if I reach my BHAG goal of total of 100 lb weight loss I will get to middle school weight .... although the mid-range of healthy weight for my height. I am going to discuss this with Dr. C tomorrow.

**Update**
So, Dr. C isn't kosher with my 100 lb goal. She thinks that it is too aggressive and that I would have to do things that are drastic and more focused on vanity than good health to get to a weight that I haven't been since middle school. Why does she have to be so damn reasonable??? Do they teach you that at medical school. *sigh*

EXERCISE.
The other thing that was hard was getting back to working out. After I ran the marathon I swore I would never get out of shape again. But a bad case of plantar fascitis that flared up every time I tried to run and sometimes even walk did me in. My husband actually convinced me to try Crossfit after meeting a nurse at the hospital who worked out at a local gym. If you could see her (it wasn't till I was a month or so in that she confessed her boobs aren't real ... but everything else is just as spectacular and is) you would know how skeptical I was. And it was one of my twin daughters who started going with me and then helped me to keep going -- although with the caveat (that I subsequently broke and then smashed) that I not become one of those crazy people who post all the time about CrossFit!

My husband is usually right about a lot of things. And while he is likely correct that HIIT (high intensity interval training) can be effective for everyone, it is definitely a great fit for my personality. But the real jackpot was the gym that I joined. So, I definitely miss my husband and kids when I am away and travelling. But I really miss my gym too. The people and the exercise have been a true and unexpected blessing. Certainly the results that I've gotten in strength and weight loss must be a part of the affinity I feel for them. But is also how supportive such a wide range of athletes have been for me that has been special. And so many of them had no idea who I was or what I did which made it even more meaningful for someone like me who had been in the public spotlight.

Now, when I started at CrossFit I didn't think it would be 'the thing' for me. I had run the Boston Marathon and then developed a killer case of plantar fascitis which led to the soaring weight gain. Every time I would start to feel a bit better and try to run, the pain would flare. It was really depressing. So my initial thought was -- do XFit until I was strong enough and had lost enough weight to run again. I never thought I would enjoy anything as much as that feeling of running long distances. But the truth is running takes a LOT of time and is hard to do in the winter weather. Not only that, I enjoyed it most when I had a training partner to run with and it had been a long time since I had that.

One of the first days at XFit one of the 'real' athletes told me that the first 30 days are the worst. Everything seems hard, confusing and foreign. That was definitely true. And I was sore for much longer than that. In fact, I still have a lot of workouts that can make me really sore. But I no longer approach the white board with shaking trepidation. Yes, I know there are some workouts that are going to kick my butt, but at this point I've basically proven XFit is not going to kill me (and I didn't always feel that way). The great thing I liked and still do is that XFit is really scalable. Which means there was always a workout that could challenge me and the best athlete in the gym. And, I can see improvement all the time -- against myself and, truth be told, against other athletes, too. It would be a lie to say that it wasn't rewarding the first time I didn't finish LAST in a workout.

I am not only achieving new fitness firsts (although the damn pull up remains an enigma ... but I am determined to get there!) but I have muscle definition in places I never had before. And, I am also able to run -- this week I went for a long slow run in Tampa and had one of those glorious days where you felt like you could just keep running forever (and I worked through some great knotty work issues).

This summer, the biggest test and change of all came. We moved back home to the farm and away from 'my' CrossFit gym. I really miss it and them. Luckily I have found a new gym that is getting XFit certified in North Adams and it also does some boxing and strength and conditioning workouts that I like. It isn't the same -- it is actually very different because I know a lot of the people there from high school whereas in Vermont I didn't know anyone. But it is good different. And, I have started using the gym at my apartment in Tampa and running more outside which I am enjoying. Lauren, one of my twins, who was my XFit buddy, and I have begun to do a really relaxing yoga at the North Adams gym on Sunday mornings and I am loving that as well. And this weekend we will run the Fenway Spartan Race -- which I did last year and really enjoyed. I am still working out at least 4 times a week and really miss it if I go more than two days without a workout. And I start to get nervous if I miss a few days worrying I am back sliding. I probably will always have that fear. But I do feel like something has fundamentally changed.

And, I am about to finally post this blog .... which, even if no one reads it will kind of commit me to keeping on the right path. Right?