This past week, Jim and I spent a lot of time cleaning out part of the barn.  It is a horse barn with four dirt floored stalls, a concrete tack room, concrete hay storage area, cement floored center isle, and loft.  We use it for many things, but no horses.  Our sheep have two stalls in front that give access to the outdoors and I use the center area for dyeing and wool processing.  My carding machine is housed there.  The tack room is full of undyed yarn.  One of the rear stalls is filled with pool equipment and outdoor furniture.  The loft and the other stall are filled with junk.

We found receipts and canceled checks from 1977, a box of vinyl record albums, and six boxes of paperbacks.  I thought they were long gone and re bought several titles.  Also, trophies from Jim’s drag racing days in the 60’s, our first hi fi equipment, and for some unknown reason, two porta potties from our boating days.  (Jim tends toward the pack rat genre.)  Having a lot of storage space has its disadvantages.

When we finished that task, I turned to my dye area.  I wanted to organize everything in preparation for the dye workshop here next month.  It was very therapeutic to go through all of the jars of dye, wipe off the dust of the winter and place them in their proper category.  I found I have a large Rubbermaid container of purples and reds, and very few yellows.

Another thing I did was take inventory of the supplies I use, including cups and syringes for applying the dye to yarn.  I like to recycle, and have an interesting collection of dye recepticals, including the cups that screw on top of laundry detergent bottles, old mugs, plastic specimen bowls,and my favorite because they are graduated, urine specimen cups from my days in the OR. (they were unused….)  I also found a selection of cups that read like a history of my dietary attempts.  There is one from Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Optifast and the latest, Medifast.  I referred to the soup that came with that one as ‘shit soup’.  Sorry, Mom.

In the past year, I have gone from eliminating sugar and white flour from my diet, to getting rid of all wheat, to wheat, dairy, fruit and now the latest.  I have decided to try a raw diet.  I explained to my husband that it was either that or methamphetamine.   Knowing what this would do to his dinner, he replied, ‘try the methamphetamine.

A raw diet is exactly what it says.  Nothing is cooked.  It is also vegan.  You eat fruit, veggies, grains and nuts.  Nothing is cooked.  So far, I have had fruit smoothies for breakfast, another for lunch, and a salad for dinner.  I have to buy a cook (non) book for recipes because after a few weeks, a Whopper with cheese and a large chocolate shake are sounding mighty good.  Today I was at a loss for what to do for lunch because I was out of fruit.  I took the left over salad from yesterday and threw that into the blender.  It was very green.  It also tasted horrible.  Did I say nothing is cooked?

Why am I doing this to myself?  I cannot accept the fact that I will never weigh less than 160lbs.  Evidently, doctors cannot, either.  I went to a guy in the city who does a special procedure for arthritis.  He, as every other doctor has, mentioned my weight.  It took all of my strength not to hurl myself on top of his lean, lanky body and beat the crap out of him.  My loving husband took over for me this time; he explained to the gentleman that for a good portion of my adult life, I was a competitive athlete.  I race walked all over Mt. Holly for years, walking a minimum of 60 miles a week.  My weight?  160lbs.  Once, for a short period of time, I think I weighed 156.  Turning 40 years had a profound effect on my body.  It was as  though Someone turned the thermostat up twenty pounds.  I know weighing less will take some pressure off of joints.  Losing weight will possibly help lower my blood pressure.  I will look better.  (All that extra skin can be shoved into my brassiere.)

A few weeks ago, I saw a segment of Oprah in which a very slender gentleman talked about the Restricted Calorie Society.  In this society, everyone is a proponant of a dietary lifestyle in which calories are restricted to levels that I thought would be unhealthy.  But evidently not.  In his 50’s, the man weighed in at 130lbs.  They showed him running on a treadmill with his shirt off.  They said he had the body of a 16 year old athlete.  I’m sorry, but why do we want this?  If I am going to yearn after someone’s bod, its going to be that guy who does the Bowflex commercials.  He’s not eating the skins of apples, yeast and some greens for breakfast.

After I watched the program, I went to the website and joined the society.  It’s sort of like buying that next piece of gym equipment.  If you buy it, possibly by osmosis, you will get into shape.  Maybe if I joined this group, my calorie intake would magically diminish.  When I told my friend Trisha about it, she had the same response Jim did. ‘Why?”

What I am really afraid of, and all my friend know, that in spite of my efforts, next year I will be just as fat as I am now.  I will drink all of the green, slimy, yucky smoothies I can, eat enough sprouted garbanzo beans to propel a tractor, and the scale will not budge.  But at least I will feel like I am doing something in the right direction.

Off to peel a turnip.