A choir person to my toes

I joined my first choir when I was 6. My huge Presbyterian Church had a music program for all age groups, starting with first-third graders, then fourth-sixth graders, junior high girls (the boys’ voices were changing), and high school, plus of course the Senior Choir for the adults. Returning college students sang for Christmas Eve and sometimes in the summer. There was even a Choir Recognition Sunday every spring where choristers moved up to their new choir, getting an age-appropriate hymnal with their names in gold. Moving to the high school choir meant getting your own copy of Messiah. I still have mine.

We learned how to be good choristers. It was more than just learning the music and not poking your neighbor when you were singing. We learned to watch the director like a hawk. We learned how to count, how to breathe, how to mark our music, how to take care of our music and our robes. We learned that not coming to rehearsals had consequences: you couldn’t sing on Sunday if you missed the last rehearsal. We learned not to wear flashy things like red turtlenecks under our robes or dangling earrings because we were to look the same so we didn’t distract the congregation from the words and the music. We learned to worship through our music with every note and every breath.

For most of my life, joining the choir was how I made friends and found community every time I moved. I could sightread and had a decent voice – not a soloist, but an alto who blended smoothly with those around me. I’ve worn purple and white robes while singing in a cathedral choir, but usually black with white in my other Episcopal churches.

Not singing now is hard. While watching the memorial service today for the legendary Brian Jones, my director at Trinity Church, Boston, I found myself breaking into the alto parts I knew so well to the familiar music. I saw beloved faces of friends who were there to sing and knew of others around the country, watching as I was, adding our voices in our own ways. My neighbors may have been overwhelmed by my enthusiasm. I know the cats were confused.

But I also realized as I looked at Trinity that I couldn’t sing in a church choir now even if I had a way to get there — because they all have stairs. Every church throughout my life has needed the choir to navigate stairs to get up into the choir loft, as well as getting from the choir room to the sanctuary in the first place. They’re not accessible for someone like me. There are ways for people to take communion in those churches, but I don’t know how on earth I could ever manage singing from my wheelchair except as I did this morning, singing at home.

So I’m extra grateful now for the opportunities I had with the many choirs I’ve had the great good fortune to sing with. Singing Messiah and requiems and concerts. Singing for weddings and funerals. Going to England. For Candlelight Carols at Trinity and Easter Vigils in Portland and Charlottesville. For the Allegri Miserere and Ubi Caritas and the B-Minor Mass and Faire is the Heaven and Cornerstone. And most of all, singing for a normal Sunday morning liturgy and hearing the sopranos break into a soaring descant on a favorite hymn and knowing I was home.

Another milestone

Today I’m celebrating the loss of 90 pounds in 9 months. It’s astonishing. NINETY pounds. That’s the weight of a newborn baby calf or baby hippo. Or two SUV tires. Or six bowling balls. And my BMI is down 16 points. I’m still morbidly obese (oops, that’s now Class III so it sounds less terrible, but it’s still the same) but I’m closing in on “just” obese.

The last 10 pounds came off slowly but they still came off. To be honest, I’m actually glad the rate has slowed down. Oh, it’s wonderful to watch it just fall off almost by magic, but it takes the brain a long time to fully process that your body has changed so much. I’ve been so very fat for so long that it’s a big part of my identity. When it changes, do I know who I am? Do I recognize myself in the mirror? Am I still the same person inside or has that changed along with the physical changes?

I always thought that I was the same inside but now I’m not sure. I’ve been through a lot these past 3 years. I started losing 75 pounds during Covid to get myself down to a weight where spinal surgery was possible. When I got there, it was too late to prevent the nerve damage that now has me in a wheelchair. I gained all of that weight almost as fast as I lost it, plus more, as I lived a sedentary, more isolated life in a place with great food but with a wheelchair. Now I’m really seeing that the 90 pounds I’ve just lost got me back to the same weight as I was when I had surgery.

But I’ve lost that weight again in the same circumstances. Same home, same sedentary wheelchair life, same limited life – but I lost 90 pounds instead of gaining them. I’m stronger now, more at peace with the hand that I’ve been dealt. What I eat is up to me and no one else. And I’m very aware of how my body feels and understand the pressures and strains I’ve put on it with the extra weight I carried all my life. It’s different now. So am I.

Holding myself accountable

Last week I wrote a post with a list of action steps I would take to start turning around my sloppy eating habits. Here’s how I’m doing a week in:

Throw out frozen chocolate covered raspberries – Done. Ooof, it was hard. They’re so tasty. But they’re gone.

Throw out Quest chocolate peanut butter mini cups – Not done, but hid them in the fridge and limiting myself to one after dinner which I count (38 cals, 2g protein, 2 carbs, 3 fats).

Eat in the Dining Room 3-4 days a week instead of 6-7 – Last week ate there 4 days and brought leftovers home for extra meals. I’ve marked up this week’s weekly specials menu for 4 days that work best, including today, which was taco salad with black beans and elote corn. Yummmy, and I have leftovers for 2-3 more meals.

Pre-Plan and Track Meals and Snacks – I’ve been planning meals while drinking tea in the morning, entering foods and snacks into my Bariatastic app. It’s reminding me that looking at metrics before I eat keeps me from eating really tasty things that are full of carbs and fats I’m trying to minimize.

Put measuring cups and spoons on the counter and use them – Done. I have a clear plastic holder with my colorful cups and spoons. AND I pulled the food scale out of the pantry and up on the counter. I’ve been using all of them. And let me say that 1 oz of mini pepperonis is a whole LOT more pepperonis than I thought it was.

Limit protein snacks to one bag a day – Mostly happening. I try to drink one bottle of protein and eat one bag of chips, which I like better than most of the other protein snacks. Plus that one little itty bitty Quest peanut butter cup which is a treat, not a snack. Snacks need to take longer to eat 🙂 When I get the munchies, I’m reaching for 1/4 of a pre-cut Honeycrisp apple.

Set reminders to get liquids in – Not done, but I’ve had 64-72 oz every day anyway. This morning I had 50 oz before I went to lunch! It helped a lot that I could stay near a bathroom today.

Schedule NuStep time – Not done. I ended up with a left shoulder impingement last week and my PT advised me to give it about 5-7 days rest and only do gentle stretches. Today I hopped on the NuStep for the first time in 2 months and did 25 minutes while reading my Kindle. And for the first time EVER, I didn’t need to use a leg lifter to get my legs in the right position. This sped up the getting on/off process considerably which felt great. I have nothing scheduled this week so am scheduling NuStep time for Wed, Fri, and Saturday at 2:00pm. Scheduling has to vary from week to week depending on visits to doctors and shopping.

Thaw out meat sauce for dinner – Ah, no. I decided on two mini pizzas made using Mission Carb Balance street taco tortillas (the itty bitty ones) with 2 TB of pizza sauce, 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, and 1 oz mini pepperonis. It was wonderful and I already had the ingredients. Go me.

I don’t always need help

My next door neighbor is very dear and very close to me in age. She also has advancing Alzheimer’s and is probably a few months away from a move to memory care. There are so many things she can’t do anymore and I help her with many of them involving words, electronics, money, and as a sounding board. In return, she helps me with physical things like getting my mail and taking out my trash, both of which I greatly appreciate. It’s balanced.

We went shopping at Home Goods today. Since most outings are to a doctor’s appointment or to the grocery store, this was a real treat. But I found myself getting stressed about my friend’s constant unwanted and unasked for help.

Yes, I’m in a wheelchair, but that doesn’t mean I need help to do everything. I’m not afraid to ask for assistance when I do need it, but after over 2.5 years, I’m really good at managing most things. I know that people try to help me because they are, well, being helpful and kind. But they are not giving me the chance to help myself or to know what kinds of help I might need. It isn’t necessarily what you think I need.

I want to throw things at people who keep helping or offering help when I don’t need it and have politely told them so. The first time it’s okay, because no one knows if I really do need help carrying something or reaching a shelf or whatever and they are being kind in offering assistance. But once I’ve said, “Thanks, but I’ve got this,” I want them to believe it and stop asking.

And then another part of me remembers that in order for people to be able to give, I have to open myself to receive. That’s at war with the part of me that thinks I’m weak and dependent if I don’t do as much for myself as I can. After all, I live alone and the cats are no help with laundry, cooking, showers, or getting dressed, so I do all the things on my own, though they do try to help me make my bed. What would it hurt me to give someone else who needs to be needed the chance to help me?

It’s not about me all the time, especially if I let myself open up and be at peace with accepting help even if I don’t want it.

Slacking off into sloppy eating

I’ve lost 88 lbs in 9 months which is a ton of weight, but my eating has gotten sloppy. As a result, the pounds aren’t falling off as quickly as they were when I was paying better attention to what I was doing. Oh, I’m watching it and I’m tracking everything. Well, almost everything. Maybe not a few of those chocolate covered raspberries in the freezer. But I’m using my tracker for food, liquids, vitamins, and more, and I know where I am with my macros. Mostly.

So why is this so hard? Because I’ve gotten complacent. I’m not watching my portions as carefully as I did when I started, and that’s dangerous. I’m also eating too fast. I need to remember to put down my fork or spoon between bites and draw out the meal, not snarf it down quickly. And I haven’t been working out on the NuStep in about 2 months. Not good. It’s sitting in the next room. Yes, getting on and off is a project but it’s easier than it used to be. So just do it, already.

I can do better and I must do better. If you’re eating with me, you will think I’m doing great because I’m recognizing when I’m full and stopping with lots of food on the plate. But I’m snacking a lot on protein snacks, mostly chips because I like the crunch. There are infinite kinds of protein chips. Some taste like cardboard, others are quite tasty, and I have individual portion-controlled bags of them in different flavors. Why? Why can’t I be content with chomping on an apple slice instead?

I’m also having problems getting my liquids in, which is another bad habit that I need to break. Plain water doesn’t taste good post-op so I do best when I drink diluted peach tea and/or diluted sugar free lemonade. I know that, so why don’t I always have a glass of it next to me to sip? Oh wait, I can’t drink for 30 minutes after I eat. And I’m snacking more than I was before, which delays the liquids. Cut the snacking and increase the liquids.

Well, if I can stop snacking, I’ll have more calories and other nutrients available for meals that are filling and satisfying. Eating up in the dining room is back to being normal and I felt more in control of things when I ate in my apartment. But not being with people over a meal means I’m out of the loop on social news such as who went to or came back from the hospital. In senior living, that’s important stuff.

But right now, controlling my eating is the priority. So here’s what I’m going to do:

• Throw out the frozen chocolate covered raspberries.
• Throw out the Quest chocolate peanut butter mini cups.
• Eat in the Dining Room 3-4 days a week instead of 6-7.
• Pre-plan and track my meals and snacks.
• Put measuring cups and spoons on the counter and USE THEM.
• Limit protein snacks to one bag a day.
• Set reminders in the app for 9:00, 11:00, 2:00, and 4:00 to get liquids.
• Schedule NuStep time in my calendar with a reminder. Do 20 min. 4 times a week for a week, then increase to 30 min.
• Thaw out a bag of meat sauce to eat for dinner.