My Dear Daughter,

Finally, I decided to weigh myself. I mustered enough courage to hoist myself on my bathroom scale. I hardly ever weigh myself, against the popular belief to weigh yourself everyday, or at least every week or month, wherever your inclination falls. Well, the scale stated that I have gained weight. Me who works out everyday, eats very healthy, and drinks nothing more than water. It is very frustrating that the weight has climbed up instead of going down. I don’t know if you can relate to that. But it is a real issue with those of us who are trying to thin out our midsection and are doing all the right things according to the weight loss protocol. I have not mentioned this at the dinner table, because I know you and your brother will label this as a first world problem. The exact same way, my mascara crisis was labelled a few years ago.

It was winter break, we were headed to Houston Texas. Few hours into the drive, I went through my mental packing checklist. That is how I have always done, have a mental run though my suitcase. I always start with my head – yes the shampoos are packed, face wash, foundation packed. OMG mascara? a cry of exasperation came out of my mouth. It got all three of you looking at me! What’s wrong? I said, I have forgotten something important at home. That morning after application, I had put my mascara tube on the side of the sink and left it there. All of you asked – is it the gift that was on the kitchen counter or is it a toothbrush? It is my mascara. I can’t do without it.

It is very hard to explain to anybody, the love and attachment with mascara. Very few can relate to the importance of mascara in women’s life. I didn’t wear makeup growing up, until later in my life. Once makeup entered my life, it became my closest friend. These days, eyeliner, mascara, and earrings are my staples. I couldn’t miss my mascara on my morning makeup routine. Then I heard a unison voice, “mom that’s a first world problem” Well, it might be, according to the short lecture that followed from you and your brother — people are fighting to survive and have no shelter above their head and here you are worried about your mascara? That is true, but I still need my mascara. Your father agreed to stop at the makeup store and let me shop for it.

As I was growing up, I remember my mom wearing lipstick. I never had any desires to even try it myself. I grew up with the concept that pretty women do not need makeup. The beauty shines through the action and lies in the heart. I still believe in that, but if you want to add some colors in your face, that would not be wrong either. You can call me highly influenced by feminism. And you wouldn’t be wrong about it. I fought with my father to work outside the house. I held a job right after class ten which was very unusual in our society. I wanted to go to college instead of getting married and I followed through. Still growing up with that kind of mindset, makeup entered into my life. It gradually creeped in, once I started working as a nurse in the Surgical area.

I finished my nursing school in 2002. Then started working in surgery. While I worked in surgery as a circulator, your entire face and head were covered up to prevent sources of any kind of contamination to the surgical field. Only body parts that would be visible were my eyes and my hands. My eyes are beautiful, there is no doubt about that. But lining the shape with your colors of choice and adding mascara to your lashes enhances the beauty. I was a mother by then. The hardcore feminism in me had given space to holistic approch to things and concepts. By then, I had understood, the makeup is done solely for myself. It made me feel good, helped me to lift my mood and boosted my confidence. Since then, I have been doing eye makeup. So, how can I live without mascara now? It could be the crisis of the first world only, but it sure was a crisis for me.

That crisis got resolved as soon as we stopped at a makeup store. These days I have another crisis going on. I have been working diligently to thin out my midsection. You can call this another first world problem. But it is really frustrating for people who are trying to achieve that goal. I have been working very hard and faithfully putting all my efforts into an all round approach everyday. I eat healthy and have been avoiding all simple sugars, but the number on the scale do not want to budge or the protruding belly and the love handles on the side are still making their stand even with all the odds. I am not a weight conscious person. That is the reason weighing is not my priority. The sole desire of thin midsection and being able to eat unrestrictedly forever encourages me to tie up my sneakers every morning six days a week.

My day starts at 5am without any failure. After a glass of hot lemon water and preparing lunches for myself and your brother, I start my “Hour of Power” routine. I am following your tradition of naming everything. I still remember — all your tiny toys had names and your first car “Fabiano,” how can I forget that? I have named my workout session too. Because I believe everything deserves a name. In my “Hour of Power” sessions, I focus on strengthening different body parts everyday. The routine of cardio, muscle strength, stretches and just plain old pilates are my allies to achieve the goal. My body has been following these sessions for months. I have been so consistent and faithful to the routine, I think my body is accustomed to the routine. I need sweaty sessions, just like a coffee drinker needs caffeine in the morning.

The experts on the field say that, if your body is craving for those sweat sessions, it is time to focus on making it difficult and challenging everyday. To answer that need, I have created different routines by incorporating different body parts each day. There are upper body, lower body, yoga, Pilates, and planks days. I try to mix and match and try to challenge and confuse my body everyday. I have also learned from fitness gurus that workouts have to be progressively harder. Even though the routine does change everyday but my body experiences the same sweaty, speedy heartbeat in each session every morning. I have been dedicating an hour of my precious time to “Hour of Power” for months now. But there has been no change in my midsection.

With that kind of consistency, the numbers on my scale should be changing for the better, but there has been no deceleration. They are either not budging or climbing up. Then, I concluded maybe it’s time to focus on my diet. I am a healthy eater. There is no doubt about that. But I still started to tweak my diet. My day starts with lemon water and ends with a glass of hot water and apple cider vinegar. Majority of the night my kitchen is closed by 6 PM. In between those two drinks there is a tall cup of tea and two boiled eggs in the morning. The lunch is always served with either salad or smoothie. Hot green tea follows each lunch with some dry fruits like dates, fig, mangos, or a square of dark chocolate. The coconut water, a piece of fruit or a cheese stick takes place for late afternoon snacks as needed. After work, the first thing we do as soon as we get home is to have dinner. Dinner is usually served with veggies, protein, and a small amount of carb.

I am a water drinker. I drink several liters a day. I carry my water to work, which made me invest in an extra lunch bag for water hauling. I have been constantly trying to tweak my diet and working on getting better each day. These days there are hardly any simple carbs except two spoons of sugar in my “after workout tea.” I have not been able to give up this habit of mine. For some reason, the milk tea with ginger does not taste right without some added sweetness to it. My sweetness for the tea comes from unrefined cane sugar. I know it’s a weakness. But every morning I enjoy savoring that sweet, gingery warm smoothness in my mouth and in my tummy. It feels so right and divine. I am lulled to this weakness and most probably will stay with me until my death. I appease this habit.

I do get tempted by all those goodies in the markets, made to perfection for our enjoyment. Anyone should be able to enjoy them in moderation that appeals to one’s taste buds. After all, companies have invested so much and retailers have perfect them for our consumption. I consider them as special treats on special occasions. And, I do enjoy them and have occasional splurges on them. After all life is meant to be fun and food to be enjoyed.

The other day, a dear friend of mine gave me a bag of Lindt dark chocolates when we went to her house to drop off food for her. By the time those dark chocolates were handed to me, we had finished our dinner and I had been craving for sweet gooey, warm drinks. She hands me a  bag of savory, smooth, sweet/bitter mouth melting goodness. I could not resist. I unwrapped the foil of the first one. The perfectly round smooth sweetness melted in my mouth. It was too good to give up and worry about any diet. I kept opening a new wrapper and ate seven of them without any hint of guilt. My rationale was that my body must have needed those sweets. And that was it. I put it up and did not eat a single candy from the bag anymore. The rest all got eaten by your brother.

That was not the only weakness of mine in recent months. The other day, I was shopping at Costco. In the Costco we shop, the bakery aisles are next to the vegetables area. As I came out after loading my carts with salads and fruits, I could see a lady putting out the boxes of freshly baked croissants on the tables. I could tell they had just come out of the oven. I could smell the fresh, buttery, baked goodness. The layers and layers of boxes with steam trapped inside looked so tempting. It was irresistible. I got a box. Once I checked out and washed my hands, I opened the box, the buttery fresh smell lured me to pick one and bite into it. I could feel the texture, the warmth of it, soft, pliable, melting in my mouth. I picked up another one and another. I couldn’t not hold myself but eat three of them right there and then. That was it. I was done. After that, I didn’t eat a single one out of that box. Besides occasionally having moments like these, I am pretty consistent with my healthy habits.

Could these splurges be holding me back from getting into my desired shape? These very rare happenings should not be undermining my everyday “Hour of Power” and consistent healthy eating and drinking habits. What else could be the reasoning behind no change in my midsection? I went to the web to research this problem. There is a lot of information on the web. The information is mainly coming from two groups of people. One group that wants to provide pure knowledge and help others and the others that are motivated from a business perspective. There are all kinds of weight loss products in the market. I focused on the first group,as I do not believe in consuming weight reduction supplements. During that search, something really caught my attention is hormonal changes in our body. As we get older, the body goes through lots of changes and shifting in hormones. These kinds of changes affect us in shaping our body and the places that we hold fats. Especially for women, as we get to menopausal age the shift in our body’s hormones makes us hold excessive fat in the midsection, which can be detrimental to our overall health making us prone to metabolic diseases.

During the research process, the work of Jason Fung MD really caught my attention. Dr. Fung is a Nephrologist that practices medicine in Canada. According to him, obesity is not the lack of balance of the equation between calorie intake and calories output. But obesity is the issue of hormonal imbalance. It is caused due to the body’s resistance to insulin. Insulin resistance refers to the fact that for a given amount of insulin, it is more difficult to move glucose into the cell. One of insulin’s jobs is to help move glucose from the blood into the cells for energy. When blood glucose remains elevated despite normal or high levels of insulin, this is called insulin resistance. The cells are resisting insulin’s pleas to take up glucose. But why is this happening? His theory is the cells are resistant to insulin not because the transportation doors are closed, but due those cells are already overflowing with glucose and they can’t take any more. So, the insulin is forced to transfer them to the area that will be turned into fat for later use. This overflowing is a result of metabolic processes and cellular physiology caused by poor diet and lack of sleep, poor stress management and inadequate physical activity.

Dr. Fung has formulated a new understanding of obesity by developing the argument that obesity is a hormonal illness of excess insulin. With all food consumption, especially carbohydrates, insulin is secreted to drive blood sugar into cells. Insulin is more importantly a fat storage hormone that blocks the burning of fat and causes excess sugar to be turned into fat through lipogenesis. Repeatedly eating carbohydrates causes chronically high insulin levels and the steady accumulation of fat causing different metabolic diseases.

His concept is very fascinating and it made sense to me. He explains them in layman terms which made it easier to uptake his inputs and incorporate them in my daily life. Since last year, I have been following him on YouTube and trying to adopt his concept in my lifestyle. His most effective treatment plan for insulin resistance is intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It is focusing on eating within a shorten time window and fasting rest of the time. There are different approaches to it. Dr Fung fasting regiments are set up according to the requirement of an individual’s needs and their desires to achieve the desired goal in a timely fashion.

According to him, keeping a long gap between eating helps the body to use the stored fat as an energy. He does not follow restrictive food groups but encourages healthy eating. According to him the ideal plate will have lots of vegetables, less carbs, high fats with moderate protein. He had taught me to close my kitchen by six PM. I have learned to wait for my hunger or create a big gap in between my meals, like we did while growing up. There were only two meals and a snack when I was a child. These days, it has become a meal and two snacks. The caloric need of our body changes as we get older. The bulk of vegetable and fruits covers my plate. The good fat has made its venture back to my diet. I am full heartedly enjoying my avocado, nuts, and whip cream consumption. There is no guilt attached to it.

I love food. I love eating. We all deserve a healthy, nutritious plate. I am not a fan of restrictive dieting. But, I do want to stay healthy and be able to enjoy my colorful, full plates forever. I have learned that the secret to that goal is to eat healthy, drink plenty of water, and have a sweat session in your routine everyday. This will make your life wholesome and productive. Wholesomeness and productivity is always rewarding.

Once you formulate healthy habits, they will grow in you. Gradually, the water starts testing better, the craving for the nutritious plate and sweat sessions will be part of you. They will become a “fun thing” to do. The “Hour of Power” will give you mental strength each day. Mine does. It helps me to clear my mind, keeps me focused, and gives me energy for my high demanding job each day. I do not have any health issues. So, far I am not on any prescribed medications. The seasonal cold and headaches stay away from me. I feel vibrant and strong. These years are the best years of my life.

Even though I feel great, my midsection still protrudes, little more than I would like it to. The love handles still fold down when I wear jeans. So, I have gotten smart and have learned to wear high or mid rise jeans, so they will tuck in my love handles. I work out everyday, still have not earned a stereotypical “bikini body” yet. But I am disease free and full with health and vitality. I enjoy life and am grateful for each moment of my day. If this is the reward of getting up early and sweating out every morning, I will sign up for it all over again. If eating healthy is the reward of vibrant health, but not a stereotypical “bikini body”, I am okay with that too. I will wholeheartedly continue my hard work and exchange for a healthy and productive long life. I won’t hesitate to say give me my health and strength in exchange for a stereotypical “bikini body.”

Well, my daughter, thank you for hearing me out and letting me vent my frustration. It is always a great relief for me to be able to unload my frustrations. Also, releasing stress is considered a key to vitality and health. Healthy life is the best gift I can give to my family. I’m working hard on it. But I can tell that I’m headed to a vibrant and long productive life.

With love,

Mamu