Determined To Succeed

Happy Monday, everyone. The weekend is over (as are the Grammys finally – longest awards show ever!) and now it’s time to start the week fresh, excited and motivated. Most of all I am excited and motivated by any and all newcomers to the website today. Welcome. I hope you all continue to read me, become new friends and know we are all in this weight loss journey together. If you are visiting for the first time take time and explore the website and don’t be shy about writing me to tell me what you think. I’d love to hear from you.

Yesterday I just happened to be at the Cherry Hill Mall and I ran into a dear old friend of mine, Cheri, who I haven’t seen in months. She was out and about with her 15-month-old son, Jacob, just tooling around. What a pleasant surprise it was to see her and catch up on a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new. We also had a blast watching her little one learn what walking on “new mall legs” is like in a place populated by giants with lots and lots of bags.

I got to thinking afterward how funny it is how food can work the same way. How when you don’t have a certain food for such a long time (i.e. visiting that “old food friend”) and you revisit it sometimes it’s for the good and sometimes for the not-so-good. That happened the other day with my not-so-smart splurge with a Chunky bar. You guys know Chunky? Besides the fact I used to be quite unbelievably chunky this square chocolate bar featured nuts and raisins and I ate then quite often as a child (another reason I turned into the candy bar’s namesake in physical stature). Well, the other day, on Friday, I decided to have one – for old time’s sake – and believe me when I tell you – eh, not-so-good.

It wasn’t that it was bad, but it was very much like that Throwback Pepsi I had earlier in the week. Just as much as I wanted that cool “old friend” feeling that certain foods can bring the actual foods didn’t. Sigh. And that’s OK. taste buds change. And there are many times when my fried rice is that steady “old friend” I visit from time to time when I need a taste of some comfort to ease my mind about something. For that, and sometimes that alone, my taste buds haven’t changed.

But unlike running into wonderful old friends at the mall running into certain food “old friends” isn’t as great as it should be. Quite the contrary. These “old friends” always leave you cold in the end and with more baggage than when you came for the visit (on the hips, thighs and tum tum). Ironically when I ran into Cheri I just happened to be standing directly next to the Auntie Anne’s Pretzel kiosk and I was soooooo craving a warm(ish) pretzel with gooey cheese.

But friends who support, laugh with you and feel your pain keep you from visiting “friends” who aren’t supportive and actually contribute to that pain. Did I need a pretzel? Hell no. And I would have felt worse after having it and the euphoria of the tastes left my palate. I just needed the company of actual friends, that’s all. And along this weight loss journey please know the company of all of you keeps me going and keeps me motivated just like I hope my words do you.

I’ve always been told I’m the kind of person who never meets a stranger. I’ve always liked that because I feel strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet. On this Monday I hope to add more new friends to our fold and to our journey. I hope to add more fans to the Facebook page. I hope more people find, listen to and download my blog. I hope people who want to lose weight but are scared know they have a home here, because the best trips and journeys happen when you have the company of friends to comfort you in ways false friends cannot.

So today I raise my glass (of water, juice or other healthier beverage handy) and toast you all. To all my old friends, thank you for making the journey easier. And to all my new friends I want you to know I am just like you and understand. May we all find comfort, solace, compassion, wit and companionship on the path to our ultimate weight loss goals with each other and…

…to resist yummy pretzels and gooey cheese in malls.

…to resist ice-cold Coca-Colas, Milky Way bars, beef fried rice and other kryptonite foods.

…to go out and exercise together, even if we’re apart while doing it.

…to check in with each other from time to time to see how we’re doing.

…and most of all, to stand up with each other and say I am doing this because I, like all of us here, am going to reach my goal weight because I am determined to succeed!

Well, it’s finally happened. I finally got off my plateau and dropped a pound.

All I have to say is WOOHOO!

In these battles for losing poundage this pesky little pound was hard fought but I did it and I am pleased. And today I am 236.7. Thank goodness. That was some good news this morning countered almost immediately by the heart-racing, anxious feeling you get when the blue screen of death comes on.

All I have to say is AIEEEEEEE!

(Knock on wood) All seems to be better now and I head into this weekend excited about this new downward trend that I hope continues. Especially since a photographer from the Philadelphia Inquirer is coming to take a few pictures today for an article running in Monday’s edition about my weight loss journey and this website. I am very excited.

I’ve realized something along the way – I need to keep healthier snacks in the house for times like these, when my emotions make me prone to overeating and snacking. I have to admit I’ve had to attack snacking almost as much as I’ve attacked my Coke habit (again, the soft drink not the icky powder stuff). So I went to the store yesterday and got myself several healthier snacks including some awesome looking bananas, some peaches and, best of all, some Clementines. Those seedless oranges are the perfect snack. They not only quench your thirst for something sweet (like a Coke would) but they also give you something to chew. And anyone with a food addiction like me likes to feel as though we are eating something. I don’t know WHY that is. It just is.

I am doubly glad I did because yesterday I wrote another emotional entry in my “Memories of My Mother” blog. It was about buying one  of those Throwback Pepsi bottles you’re seeing commercials for these days. I tried one in hopes I would have a small taste (literally and figuratively) of my childhood. Well, as they say, you can’t go home again and I became very sad. So sad I did what I do. I reached for food.

Although this time I grabbed much healthier snacks after a good cry, and I felt better. So as I plopped down on my couch and watched “Goodfellas” (which is an amazing movie, by the way) I felt a bit of relief that I had the foresight to get those fruits on which to snack. That I didn’t get any Coca-Cola for the house. I just reached for my darling Clementines and they were good. And refrigerated they are the best.

Last weekend I said I was going to be a weekend food warrior. This weekend I think I’m just gonna pull back a notch or two and just THINK about what I’m eating and WHEN. I will be careful in my food and drink choices and take each meal as it comes.  I am not going to predict I will be the best but will just be the best I can be at each meal. That’s all I can do.

That’s all any of us can do. So that by weekend’s end I can be happier, food-wise. And maybe, just maybe, shave another pound off the old waist in the process. I’ll keep you posted.

Have you guys noticed the retro Pepsi commercials hittin’ the airwaves? Seems Pepsi and Mountain Dew “Throwback” sodas are available through the end of February featuring the same original formulas and real sugar.

Even though I am now a devout Coca-Cola drinker I was taken back to very fond memories of the Pepsi I drank growing up as a kid, finding spare change with my mom and going to the liquor store or the corner store to get ourselves a Pepsi to split.

Back then Pepsi and other soft drinks were in heavy but beautiful long bottles. They came in eight packs and you had to pay deposits on the bottles (even more incentive to get you to bring them back to the stores). You had to have bottle openers to even open them. But no matter how much they weighed and no matter how much a pain-in-the-ass they were to carry with bags of groceries, there was nothing – NOTHING – like opening up an ice-cold Pepsi and having good times talking with my Mama.

I still remember the light cloud of white that appeared at the tops of the bottles when you’d open them. And blowing it away before you’d take the first swig made a cool “whoosh” sound over the bottle’s opening. Then the taste of it, the sweet taste of Pepsi, was like a drug. But more so it was something my mom and I did together. Finding that loose change was incredible. We didn’t have money growing up but we had fun and we could always enjoy a Pepsi together.

Sometimes we’d take bottles of Pepsi to our favorite spot on 53^rd Street in Hyde Park (the old benches at the Hyde Park Bank), on the South Side of Chicago and crack ‘em open there. Or even take them to the park. Sometimes we’d buy cans of them and sit in the Laundromat watching the old black & white TV as our clothes dried on “inferno.” Most times, we’d have ‘em at home watching TV and talking. That was the best.

Why am I telling you all that? Because it’s all of those memories of my mother that made me purchase one of those retro bottles of Pepsi the other day.  I got the coldest one I could find (which was pretty cold). And I was so excited. This was a chance to reconnect with my childhood, my Mama, and taste a sweet soda from my kid-dom. I miss my mom so much and I was just so excited to be presented with a chance to have a comfort food and think about how alive my mom was.

But, as they say, you can’t go home again.

The long-necked glass bottles have been replaced by plastic screw-cap ones. And the taste, which seemed way sweeter, was so different than I remembered. Wasn’t this the Pepsi from my late-70s/early 80s youth? It had the same logo. It claimed to be that old formula. It brought back the best memories. But the taste wasn’t the same and I was at once sad and deflated. I wanted so bad to have that swig of Pepsi and imagine me and Mama sitting up watching something on TV talking about her day at work or what movie we’d see that coming weekend.

But you can’t go home again.

So I finished the 20-oz. bottle of Throwback Pepsi and set the bottle on the table. I sat and thought about my Mama and said to myself “Well, Ma. It’s just doesn’t taste the same.” And I could hear her in my head responding “It be like that sometimes, son.”

I guess so, but I wanted to have that smile again just one more time. Not just from the taste of Pepsi but from the look on my mom’s face when we found that change and bought them. I thought about when my beloved first (and ironically last) cat, Tiger, died how I went to get some comfort food egg rolls from my favorite childhood place and how they’d changed the recipe for those, too.

You can’t go home again.

Oh well. Some things change and some will never change. But thank God for memories. They are truly what we have when we miss our loved ones so very much. It’s been over seven months now since mom passed away and I am still heartbroken over it. The world lost a wonderful and bright star that day in June but I can still hear her wonderful voice, see her bright smile…

…and remember the “swoosh” of the Pepsi bottles we opened up together.

I miss you, Ma. Here’s to you. And I hope wherever you are you are having that nice tall Pepsi we both loved so much.