YOU were keeping me fat???

So dude.  Do you remember The Sixth Sense? (Best movie EVER!!  I'm really hoping that M. Night Shamalama [Yes, that is what I call him.  Shamalama.  Like "shamalama-ding-dong."] can go the distance with this new TV show he's doing - I think it's called Wayward Pines.  I think he's seriously misunderstood.  Yes, his version of Avatar:The Last Airbender was really, really awful.  But think of all the good movies he's done, people!!  The Sixth Sense!  That one with the aliens!  Lady in the Water [Hey, don't diss on Lady in the Water.  It's one of my faves.]!  That one where red is The Bad Color!  What is that one called??  The Village!  My sister's kids called that show The Billage, and her son called the color red, "Bad Color."  Not "red."  "Bad Color."  Just for a little while.  It was super cute.)

Um, major Dickensian parenthetical paragraph [hey, that's alliterative] up above.  And I hate Dickens!!  Sowry.  (I'm saying that like Gilbert Blythe says it in Anne of Green Gables.  May the actor who played him rest in peace.  I'm still in mourning over that.  Gilbert Blythe was my first imaginary boyfriend.)

So anywho, in The Sixth Sense, there's that part where Haley Joel Osment goes to Mischa Barton's funeral, right?  And she very creepily slides this box with a VHS tape in it out from under her bed to give to her dad.

*Shiver.*

So then Haley Joel Osment takes the tape to her dad and is like, "She wanted you to have this."  And he watches this tape, and in horror, realizes that his wife had been poisoning their daughter with, like, pinesol or something.

And then he comes up to her, and he says, "You were keeping her sick???"  And she's like, "What?  I'm the only one wearing red at my own daughter's funeral.  I feel so symbolic."

Not really.  She just looks around.

Anyway, the look on that dad's face is so sad.  He's so betrayed, right? Betrayed by his beloved wife!!!  She killed his daughter!!!  And was working on his second daughter!!

I find a parallel in this situation with my own life.  I do.  With the Love of My Life, bean burritos.

I mean, look at those babies.  Aren't they just crying out to be eaten?  So melty.  So warm.  So squishy.  So awesome.

My love affair with bean burritos has been a long and happy one.  They have gotten me through many a harsh time.  When Ben was in China for a year, I ate two every. single. day. for lunch.  My high school friends will attest to my eternal love for the bean burrito.  I had two for lunch.  Every. Single. Day.

So I had this little boyfriend that I met at EFY when I was sixteen.  He lived in California.  We wrote each other prolifically.  I mean, we were serious.  Until I started crushing on a guy at my school.  But for a good six months there, we were in lurrrrve.  One week for mutual, my laurel group made, like, clay pendants and cooked them in the oven and then glazed them or whatever, right? 

I made a bean burrito pendant necklace, put a leather string through it, and sent it to my California Man. 

I'm sure he appreciated it a lot.

I was kind of a spaz.

(Was?)

He loved that about me.

Anyways.  Bean burritos.  The love of my life.

So last spring, I was like, dude, I need to lose this extra weight.  My cousins were all looking so lithe, and I asked them what on earth they were doing, and they were all, My Fitness Pal!  So I started doing it.  Calculating my calories.  Learning how many calories are in the food I was putting in my mouth.  And when I saw the calories in a bean burrito, I was shocked!  SHOCKED!!   

For one of those skinny guys in the picture above, probably 300 calories.  And it's tiny.  Is one of those going to fill you up?  No.  Last spring, I had been regularly eating some big old honkin' bean burritos.  One a day for lunch.  Every day.  Do you know how much those were costing me? 

1,000 calories. 

And I was supposed to be on a 1800 calorie-per-day diet!!  How was I supposed to keep supporting my coke habit?  And my bean burrito habit??

What about my Ben & Jerry's habit??

I felt so betrayed.  This is me:  "You were keeping me fat??"

This is the burrito's response:

"It was you?  All this time???  Youuuuu were keeping me fat???"

Response:

You betrayer.  I see you wearing your symbolic red bandana.  You should be arranging a vase of red flowers, you evil, calorie-filled meal of lusciousness.

So I realized the evil of the bean burrito and started staying away from them.  With My Fitness Pal, I was slowly learning what I could get away with and what I could NOT get away with.  If I had a bean burrito, I couldn't have one of my other meals that day.  And that's not such a good plan.  I did find that I could still have a coke if I didn't have Ben and Jerry's.  Or, if I knew there was going to be dessert at the Relief Society activity, I skipped my Coke-o-the-Day.  I was slowly learning.  And losing.  I lost about 14 pounds until cancer hit.

And during chemo and radiation, you don't give a rat's about what goes into your mouth.  You are just trying to survive.  If something tastes amazing, you go with that.  I did a lot of grilled tuna, for some reason.  Did I count calories?  Nope.  And I gained it all back.  Which happens when you're on steroids during chemo, I've found.  So poofy.  So, so poofy.

Anywho, I lost a little bit after chemo, when I was off steroids, and then I lost a little bit more when I was doing radiation, because my appetite was so poor.  When it was done and I lost my fake boob and all the dust settled, I started feeling better, and I started My Fitness Pal again.  I've slowly but surely been losing about a pound a week.

And I'm down 25 pounds!  Almost to my goal!  It feels amazing.  People ask me all the time what my trick is.  Here it is:

No more bean burritos. 

I can't find a place here with burritos that I like. So...that helps a lot.  I still hit the Ben & Jerry's occasionally, but not, like, every day.  I no longer indulge in a midnight bowl of cereal.  I drink buttloads of water.  I get sick of just plain old water, so I drink a ton of propel.  It helps me with my coke cravings.  I still drink one coke per day.  It's pure bliss.  I have a strict rule about lunch now:  I eat a big old salad.  Or a tonnnnn of vegetables and a little bit of lean meat.  I eat normal dinner and still adore my cereal breakfast.  I know I could do better, and there are times that I rock it.  And other times that I don't.  Oh, and at dinner, I fill half my plate with veggies or salad and make sure I eat that first.  Then meat second.  And then I'm usually too full for the carbs.  That's a nice trick.

But mainly, no more bean burritos.  They're just not worth it.  Especially here.  (I shall be gorging myself on my Idaho bean burritos when I visit there this summer.)

For the first time in, like, 15 years, I'm really happy in my skin.  I'm taking ballet and modern classes right now, and I can jump!  I can move through space!  It feels so great not to be ashamed of my body.  I can wear a leotard and not shrink away in shame.  I'm a dance teacher now (yes, I got a job!), and a dance teacher needs to be able to heft herself around.  To spin.  To jump.  My goal isn't to look good in a bikini.  I don't wear bikinis.  And that skin has stretched to its max, guys.  There's no bouncing back from four babies, dude.  My goal is to be strong.  And that's it.  I'm trying to see if I have a picture that shows the lighter me...  Here might be one:

Ben and I at the Hawaiian temple.  We did a session there.  I don't know.  I don't know if that's a very good picture of me.  Oh well. I'm down a couple of sizes and liking it a lot.  Theeee end.

Oh, and I'm going to make you look at more pictures of Hawaii for a sec.  You know you want to:

 My one boob looks super-awesome, no?

 Waimea Falls!

I felt like I was in South Pacific, that part where the army dude and that Hawaiian girl are frolicking on Bali Hai, and like, going down natural rock water slides and stuff.  Ben and I didn't do all of that underwater kissing stuff, though.  How can people doooo that without feeling like they're drowning?  Certainly it's not comfortable.