Apologies!!!

I apologize for an intense drop in posts.  I’m doing some life reformatting which includes making money off of my writing and making this a better site.  It’s taking some time but I think it will be worth it in the end!  Thanks!

Fat Girl Running: Fast Food Tips for Losing Weight Without Much Effort

Longest title ever?  Also, this is mainly regarding foods you’re not cooking at home.  If you never eat out or grab fast food, these probably won’t help you too much but I’ll post on at-home stuff later.

I just want to elaborate on the food topic for a quick post because people give me way too much credit for my weight loss.  Let’s get some things straight.

• I didn’t really diet. I don’t deprive myself of anything I want ever really.  I didn’t religiously count calories, I didn’t have weight goals to hit.  Anyone on a diet plan with numbers you have to follow are far better than I.
• I weighed myself constantly.  I know you’re not supposed to do this but I was just learning my body and whether I gained 2 pounds or lost 2 pounds, it didn’t matter to me because my focus was whether I had a happy, fulfilling day or not.  If happy and fulfilling came at 260 or 160, so be it but the happy and fulfilling were not and are not contingent on those numbers.
• My weight came off over about a 2-year period, I’m still not at my goal weight and that’s fine if I never make it.  I’m happy 80 pounds lighter and I have put back on zero pounds since 2007.

NOW my diet and exercise routine is very different and I’m active but that’s not how I started.  I made simple changes that had huge effects on my mind and then on my body.  They weren’t always easy but they eventually became habit so here’s a quick list.

1) Get a To-Go Box Immediately
You might get a funny look but it works like magic for me.  If I go out to a restaurant, I’m getting what I want.  I don’t want to go to a steakhouse and get a salad.  I want a steak, maybe a burger.  And I probably want mashed potatoes or fries or onion rings or mac and cheese.  And bread.  And if that’s what I want, that’s what I will be getting.  I’m also the kind of person who feels obligated to clean her plate and who mindlessly eats.  Doesn’t matter how many fries are in front of me, if we’re talking, I’ll eat them all.

So these days I order whatever I want off the menu and when it arrives, if the portions look out of control and sometimes even if they don’t, I’ll immediately ask a server to bring me a to-go box.  I cut my burger or chicken parm or section off my orange chicken or whatever and toss half into the box.  I throw half of all my side orders in there too.  I put the box either in my purse or on the seat and eat what’s left on the plate.  By the time I’ve finished that, I’m usually full.  Not sickly full or tired but satisfied enough that there’s no point in going through the hassle of re-plating my take home box.

This doesn’t really work for fast food chains.  The thought of eating cold McDonald’s makes me want to gag.  You have to eat those fries on the way home because if they get cold, they’re done.  That brings me to #2.

2) Kiddie menus are your friends
That is, if you’re allowed to order off of them.  This mainly pertains to fast food but depending on the restaurant and the menu, it might work other places.  For instance, at McDonald’s a value meal is gigantic.  Nothing we haven’t heard a million times before.  The Happy Meals are so small if you’re relearning (or learning for the first time as I was) what a portion is.  That is why I love the Mighty Kids Meal.  It’s the perfect in-between.  A value meal will get you 10 chicken nuggets, a large fry and a large drink.  A Mighty Kids Meal will get you 6 nuggets and a small fry.  For comparison, the Happy Meal is 4 nuggets and a small fry.

My other suggestion for places like McDonald’s is to get a value meal and split it with your partner or your kid.  Kid might not want to do that which is why you’re lucky you’re the parent and can just do stuff like that!  That way you know you’re not going to eat the whole thing but you’re also not trying to salvage that Double Quarter Pounder for tomorrow *gag*.

Another place that has a great kiddie menu is Qdoba!  I actually think they might have an age-limit on theirs but if you’re grabbing it to go, they don’t know if you have a kid back at the house!  Their kids menu chicken quesadilla is the PERFECT size for an adult.  I think you get a small drink and a small handful of nacho chips with it.  I switched over to doing this when I worked in a plaza with Qdoba and I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much money every day or eat that much for one meal every day.  After eating off kids menus, it’s really interesting to see how much extra they give adults and actually experience what children are putting into their bodies.

3) Don’t Keep Deliciousness in Your Home
For me it’s ice cream.  I can’t have it in my house because I’ll eat it all really quickly and I won’t feel bad about it because I love ice cream.  It’s not cost-effective to buy a single serving of ice cream at a time but that’s the point.  Ice cream isn’t a necessity.  I don’t need to get it at the best deal in the largest quantity.  So I have to work for my ice cream.  I have to decide if I REALLY want it.  Maybe I’m just really thirsty?  Maybe I just need calcium?  Drink some water or some milk.  Nope, still want ice cream.  I’ll put on my shoes, walk or drive to the store or the ice cream place and pay for a cone what I could pay for a half-gallon at the supermarket.  And then I have to walk or drive back.  The nights that I really wanted that ice cream, it’s delicious and worth the time and gas.  Most nights I just don’t want to put all the effort into it so I pour myself a huge glass of water and get over it.  I had the choice and I opted for no ice cream.  Deal with it and drink your water.

Is this healthy eating?  No.  But let’s be serious, jumping from a life of fast food and salt to kale, almond milk and quinoa salads isn’t easy and might not even be something your aspire to do.  Never judge yourself for being honest with yourself and trying.  It doesn’t matter if people around you don’t see the effort it takes to resist getting one or two value meals at a drive-thru, you know the effort it takes and you have every right to be incredibly proud of yourself for making different decisions – or the same decisions and acknowledging the consequences.  It’s all about awareness.

Dark Girls: A Sliding Scale

Hopefully you watched that trailer of the upcoming documentary Dark Girls.  It’s a pretty captivating clip.

When I watched this preview I found it interesting that while I am aware of this problem, I was not grasping how deeply it was affecting people.  Hearing these women talk about how they wanted to be lighter was eye-opening for me because as a child growing up, I also wanted to be lighter…or darker.  I am sort of a light-skinned girl.  I am but only because I’m mixed (black/white), there was little chance I would have been very dark.  In my town you were more than likely white or maybe you were Asian (probably Cambodian but Indian and others as well) and then there were a few black kids. 

When I was very young, I wanted to look like my mother.  I’m sure part of my wanting to look like her came from our closeness but part of it came from wanting to belong somewhere. Nobody on TV really looked like me.  Absolutely nobody in my town except for my brother looked like me and I just thought blonde, straight hair and white skin was normal.  It’s slightly embarrassing how much I was in love with the show Today’s Special because I really really loved watching how Jeff (a white man) and Jodie (a black woman) interacted.  Today’s Special and Sesame Street.  Thank the heavens for them. It was the rare time I felt like there were other people in the world who had similar lives.  Because I totally lived with muppets.  Just kidding.

I still love how this show made me feel.

Prince Concert Encounter

Nights like the one I just had are why I started this blog.  My days just always seem to go a little bit differently than most people’s do.

I went to see Prince at The Forum in Inglewood for his 21 Nite Stand / Welcome 2 America Tour.  He was playing all weekend but I was supposed to be in San Jose on Saturday and Sunday following and I lost count of how many shows Prince had already done so I bought a ticket for Friday thinking it might be my last chance.

My Thursday leading into Friday was wacky to say the least and I didn’t get much sleep.  I didn’t really feel like going to the show but what if I didn’t go and Prince didn’t perform any more shows for TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS?!  I would be devastated.

New Experience: Grubwithus

When I love, I love hard.  It’s this all-consuming, never ending sort of love.  I just adore my friends.  I don’t even have the words to express it.  I love my family.  I want to hug them all so tightly it hurts.  I love ice cream and gelato in a way that just isn’t right but it’s so effing delicious every time.  I love running and it makes my heart swell with joy to even think about it.  I’m sure I have some chemical-release disease worthy of being on House but since I have no health insurance, I’m just going to live with my love.

My newest love is Grubwithus.  It’s very new to LA but the idea is just genius.  In fact, I can’t even explain it well enough so I’ll link you to the LA Times Blog post about it, you go read it, we’ll meet back here and I’ll just share my experience with you.

Fat Girl Running: I Was Obese!

My mentor buddy at WriteGirl pointed out that anyone who hasn’t known me for more than 4 years probably thinks I have low self-esteem when it comes to the whole Fat Girl Running thing. I don’t. I just used to be fat. Obese, actually. I started running and eating differently and now I straddle the line between healthy and overweight. I’m happy either way so I don’t really bother checking the scale much these days.

Here are some before and after pictures.

Bridesmaids

Please go see Bridesmaids.

I saw two different screenings of it and am going to pay to see it this weekend. You heard me right. I am PAYING to see this movie after I’ve already seen it. We all know how “thrifty” I am so that’s probably the biggest endorsement I can give.

It’s hysterically funny and really, really refreshing. It’s not a chick flick. It’s not a rom-com. It’s a funny movie.

It’s also really fun if you’ve ever had anything to do with a wedding ever.

History is Made: Revisited

Years ago, when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America, I published this post on how the night was momentous for me in ways I hadn’t expected.

I feel like America has seen me and has said that I’m okay. I really feel a part of America…I mean, there’s a biracial President headed to the White House and he didn’t have to pick or deny any part of himself to get there.

In true Em Rich fashion, I had assumed the best.  Much like election day, this hubbub over Barack Obama’s birth has affected me more than I thought.  America has seen me and has said that I’m…relatively okay…if I’m willing to be treated differently.  America has not accepted me.  As proud to be an American as I am, this is deeply saddening for me.

I’m realizing that my hometown might be a sampling of America more than I’d care to admit.  I grew up around a lot of racist people.  They didn’t know they were being racist.  They didn’t mean harm.  But they were.  A lot of “really great” racist jokes followed by, “You know I don’t think that but it is funny, right?”  Or a blanket statement about black people followed by, “But that doesn’t include you.”  Or sometimes people would throw on “You know we love you.” at the end because I guess that somehow makes it better.

SAY!  You don’t like all blacks but you like me?!  Well.  Aren’t I special?

It makes my stomach churn and my heart break to watch it play out on the national stage.  Because our President is brown there is a chance he is not American.  Every other President was definitely American.  Donald Trump even vouched for GW Bush.  George Bush is from Texas and so if you have a southern accent, who needs a birth certificate?

Being the Queen of Bestowing Benefits of the Doubt, I would maybe have cut America some slack if Barack Obama had two non-American parents, claimed to have been born overseas on American soil but with shady details and was not already the POTUS.  This is what bothers me when Donald Trump says he’s not racist.  Barack Obama is white.  He is.  Just like every other President the United States of America has ever been.  It’s not up for debate.  He’s white.  He’s also black.  But he’s just as white.  And so this whole thing is based SOLELY on the color of his skin.  Because he’s brown. Sorry, Mr. Trump, that makes you racist.  It sucks, I’m sure, to realize that so late in life but that doesn’t change anything.  The man had proved he was born in the USA and you continued to deny it for no reason.  You had no reason to deny it except that he’s brown and that just left room for doubt.

If for some reason Barack Obama was born with fair skin and light hair,  this wouldn’t have even been a question.  Not even necessarily because people wouldn’t have thought it but because people like Donald Trump would have felt guilty about accusing one of their own.  It’s easy when someone is clearly different.  You can dissociate yourself from them.  Harder when you see yourself in the person you’re attacking.

Barack Obama is white.  He’s also black.  He’s biracial.  The way I do my mixed math is that 1+1=3.  Black + white = black/white/biracial.  I consider myself 100% white, 100% black and 100% mixed.  Combining the two does not make 50/50, it creates 3 wholes.  It’s one of my favorite things about being biracial.  I feel so apart of everything.  I feel more than full (like 300% full).

So what does this mean for me if there is a white man in office who can be considered suspicious because his skin tone is darker than other white folk?  It means we’ve got way more work to do than is even comfortable to think about at the moment.  It also means I was wrong about a lot of you.  It means I haven’t escaped those judging stares and prejudices I thought I did when I left my hometown.  It means I have to be wary.

My favorite television show of all time is the original Twilight Zone series.  Towards the end of the first season, Rod Serling wrote an episode called, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” in which a black out in a suburban town and the seed of a thought from a child about aliens causes paranoia that there are aliens in the neighborhood taking on the physical look of neighbors.  They turn on each other.  I couldn’t help but think of this episode while all this long-form birth certificate poo was hitting the fan.  How do you prove who you are when the people asking won’t believe the truth?

There’s an exchange at the very end of the episode between two aliens that has always stuck with me.  And yes, I realize how silly it sounds to quote aliens from a TV show but Rod Serling was just that good.  Here’s a link to the last 8 minutes of the episode where things get bad but I’ve pulled the exchange in text below if you want to skip it.

Second Alien: And this pattern is always the same?
First Alien: With few variations. They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it’s themselves. All we need do is sit back and watch.
Second Alien: Then I take it this place, this Maple Street, is not unique?
First Alien: By no means. Their world is full of Maple Streets. And we’ll go from one to the other and let them destroy themselves, one to the other, one to the other, one to the other…

I’m certain I’m not the first person to see this comparison but it doesn’t make any less interesting to me.  That episode always left me unsettled and wondering what I would do in a situation like that.  But this birth certificate nonsense has proven that at his point there’s really nothing I could do.  It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known me, where I’m from or what kind of person I am.  It doesn’t matter how a part of you I feel.  I’m brown and in America that still means different and not okay…

yet.

Twitter Encounter

Not like that.

I was driving home from work yesterday, heading east on Hollywood Blvd when I passed the Music Box.  The marquee informed me that Childish Gambino/Donald Glover was going to be performing that night.  As soon as I got home I checked to see if there were tickets left.  SOLD OUT.

Sadness.  I love Donald Glover.  He was that kid in some 30 Rock episodes who then wrote for 30 Rock.  I majored in Television.  That pretty much shot him to idol-status at the time.  My friends and I were jaws to the floor when we heard he was doing that.  Yeah, he’s awesome in Community and I love Childish Gambino but alsooooo he wrote for 30 Rock.  I do like his rhymes though and not just because he mentions mixed chicks in every song.  Seeing that the show was sold out, my little heart was defeated.

So I posted a tweet about it.

Here’s a question. WHY AM I NOT SEEING CHILDISH GAMBINO @DonaldGlover IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD AT THE MUSIC BOX TONIGHT?! #lifefail

Very shortly after that I received a reply from someone I didn’t know.

Good question.  you should.  i have an extra ticket if you’d like…

Long story short, I took a chance.  I stopped making dinner, ran out of my house and down the Music Box to meet this guy who offered me a Childish Gambino ticket for whatever I could afford.

Worry not, I made him promise not to kill me over twitter and I had told a couple of friends what I was doing so they’d know if I went missing.  Robert Stack’s voice from Unsolved Mysteries was narrating my entire walk to the venue.

I did not go missing.  I got to see a really awesome show for $5 and met someone new!  It was all very exciting and very out of character for me.  I probably won’t do it again but for this one night it worked out!

How was the show?  Well, he took the g out my waffle, all I got left is my ego.

You’re probably gonna want to pop your earphones in if you listen to this at work.

Oh and should this ever reach Donald Glover somehow, I would just like to note that I was the tall, mulatto girl with plastic black frames standing squarely in the middle of the floor.  I’m not saying you saw me but just in case.  Just saying.  That was me.

Fat Girl Running: LA Marathon 2011

It came.  I ran.  It’s over.

Wouldn’t that be the most anticlimactic post ever? Come with me, back to that Sunday and I’ll tell you all about my monsoonathon experience.

Sunday, March 20, 2011 (italicized and bold for dramatic effect!)

I did not want to run this marathon.  I was so busy the days leading up to it that I was skipping meals, not resting enough and just felt that I was not going to finish.  My mother was supposed to arrive in Los Angeles on Friday night.  I was informed by myriad sources that people can have trouble sleeping the night before a race so FRIDAY night is the night you want your best rest.  My mother was arriving at 10pm.  I made it very clear that I would pick her up at LAX and when we got back to my apartment, I would be going immediately to sleep.

Her flight was delayed.  So I picked her up at 2am.  2am on the night I was supposed to get my best night’s sleep.  The following day (Saturday) included a 5 hour WriteGirl workshop and the Expo.  I know, you’re telling me I should have skipped the workshop but it was a songwriting workshop and I just couldn’t miss out on the fun.  My mother and I spent a short time at LA Marathon Expo which was kind of interesting.  I would have liked to spend more time there.  I saw my name on the Honda car(!) and picked up my bib number and goody bag.  It was overwhelming.  I like running but hardly consider myself a runner or running enthusiast and here I am standing among moisture-wicking socks and Sweaty Bands and discount Brooks shoes and GU gel and Lululemon goody bags.  All of these brands I own or have tried.  I’m probably more of a runner than I thought.

SUNDAY.  I get up at 3:30am because I am SO tired.  I get up, dressed, drink water like someone about to take a urine test and shovel oatmeal down my throat because real talk, this fat kid does not like eating that early in the morning.  Once I’m set my mom and I hop in the car and drive completely out of the way to get to Dodger Stadium.  I live 4 miles away from the stadium on Sunset Blvd.  But Sunset Blvd is closed.  So I have take 42 (exaggeration) freeways to go 4 miles.  I get lost.  My mother doesn’t know how to use my Blackberry google maps so it’s kind of a mess.  I make it there in plenty of time.  It rains a little bit but nothing a New Englander such as myself can’t handle!

I say goodbye to my mom as she comes around to get in the driver’s seat.  I always have a hard time saying goodbye to my mother.  It’s strange and I’m not sure why it is but even as a kid I was just never okay with her dropping me off.  I did have a nightmare this one time that I think plays a part but without going into it, I sobbed like a baby when she dropped me off for ice skating lessons when I was 10.  It was startling to us all because it’s not like I was at sports camp, it was just a one hour lesson.  And so as I’m hugging my mother goodbye, again, she will be at the finish line, I’m trying to keep the anxiety out of my throat and tell myself there’s really no reason to cry.  She leaves.