Shopping War Story Number Three

So, see the previous two posts for the set up on this series.

My third encounter was the most disturbing and left me with more 'I should have said' and 'I should have done..' than the other two. I was back at Costco again, on a week day after Christmas early enough in the morning that the parking lot was fairly lightly filled. I'd just filled my gas tank and was cruising along fairly quickly at the front of the parking next to the building. As I neared a row just before where the doors to the store are, I spotted a car backing out in a front spot, and slid right into it as they backed around to go the other way. As I pulled in, I felt a little surge of satisfaction at finding such a close spot to the door so quickly. I couldn't see past the car backing out very well, but thought there was a car pulling up on the other side of the backing out car and thought that there was probably someone there who was eying the spot as well, but figured as we both were there at the same time, there was no unfairness for me to get it since I was in the position to get it first.

I was turned away towards the passenger side gathering my purse up when there was a sharp, angry rap on my window. Dismay. That other driver was obviously pretty upset with me. I rolled down the window, and a young woman was standing there. She started in immediately, outrage evident in every word and tone. "You could see I'd been sitting there waiting for that spot!" I glanced up, and sure enough, now that the other car was gone, I could see there were actually four cars waiting behind hers. Dang. I was certainly in the wrong here, even though I hadn't known she had been there waiting. She went on, "My mother is elderly and handicapped, and..." Aware that there were all those other drivers waiting, and not wanting to prolong things for anyone, I cut her off, saying, "I'm sorry. How about if I go ahead and leave the space so you can use it?" Her demeanor instantly softened, and warmed. "Oh! Thank you! That would be wonderful!" I just smiled and said, 'It's no problem at all.'

I backed out and moved farther along a couple of rows to the other side of the doors into the store, and found an uncontested spot identically in the very front slot. So I didn't lose anything by moving. But my composure was shaken, and I felt really bad that I impulsively took advantage like that and caused that young lady such an upset. Really I don't think in the long run it ever hurts us to be aware of others and try to quietly be kind to them. I'm pretty oblivious when I'm out shopping, don't usually look at others or pay much attention to them. My war stories have reminded me to be more aware.

War Story Number Two

See the previous post for an introduction to this one. This is my second Christmas shopping war story.

The next place I went after Costco was Albertson's, which is across the street. I didn't need a whole lot, so when I was done I decided to go through the self-check. The lines at all the registers were long.

As I was pushing my cart in that direction I noticed I was walking along more or less between two men pushing carts that were also lightly loaded. Then I became aware that they were both putting on more speed and navigating to get in front of me. I recognized that competitive energy, not confined to men certainly, but typical of what I see in Harry when he is anxious to be the first in line somewhere. I was in a hurry too, but suddenly it seemed so inconsequential, which of us had to wait an extra couple of minutes because of not getting ahead of the others. So I slowed down, let them pull ahead of me, and looked to see where I could fit in after them.

It turned out, as they charged ahead, vying for the further self-serve spots, the shopper at the first self serve spot gathered his things and left, leaving me an empty spot to get started with my purchase immediately. I didn't look to see where the two men ended up, really this time it didn't matter.

Christmas Shopping War Stories-A Season of Peace?

The tensions of the season pop up in stores and parking lots as we get closer to Christmas and the time gets short. I have three war stories to relate. I'll leave the conclusions to the reader.

This post is story number one.

First, I was in Costco with three items in my cart. Self-service lines were long, so I cruised along the ends of the checkout lines for one that looked shorter and with less loaded carts. Coming to the last one, I made my pick. Three people ahead of me and not too much in their carts. I parked in behind the last cart and settled in to wait. Then I glanced up at a woman who was nearby when I joined the line. She was giving me that 'look', indignant daggers of -don't you dare get in front of me!-I was surprised. Whatever peripheral awareness I'd had of her was that she didn't have any cart and wasn't carrying anything, so I hadn't paid much attention to her, assuming she was going to move in some direction or another to wherever she was going.

Seeing her indignant challenging glare, I looked around to see if there was some way she could be trying to stand in the line, and saw her several young daughters walk up pushing a full cart. I guess she'd hurried ahead to save a place in line while they caught up with the cart. I was taken aback by her silent challenge, and opted to give way, though not entirely gracefully. My eyebrows went up as I quietly said, 'O-Kay.....' and shifted over to the next line.

I settled in to wait again, thinking my own thoughts about things that needed doing until I suddenly tuned in to one of the daughters saying, "yeah, and she looked at me like, you're not getting in line in front of me.." Since only a minute had passed I figured she must be talking about me and I mused about how our perceptions of the same thing were so different. I resisted the urge to turn and say, "You know I can hear you.."

But that wasn't all. It turns out whoever was in process of being checked out at the first register when I tried to join the first line was involved in some prolonged transaction. The line I moved over to clipped along pretty quickly in comparison, while the woman and her daughters cooled their heels in the same place I left them when I changed lines. By the time I was unloading my items to be checked out they were a little closer, and by the time I was paying they were three back and starting to unload their cart. They were still three back when I wheeled my cart past that check stand. I'm sorry, but I have to admit there was a small smile on my face...

The First Official Weigh-In of 2011

This was my first post new year weigh in at the weekly TOPS meeting. I found out the first TOPS weigh in of the year is special. Since we are starting a new year we are setting a new benchmark, so we can say whatever we want instead of 'Down' or 'Up' or 'Turtle' (stayed the same) Those who were down had no problem saying so, but those who were up could say 'Happy New Year' , or 'WHAT-EVER'.... me, I was surprised to be able to say 'Turtle'-I was so sure I'd have a gain this time.

I decided to change some things with this weigh-in. The first weigh-in of the year is a good time to do that. I'm so tired of skipping breakfast, and going without water the morning of meeting. I'm always trying to minimize the damage from a week where I didn't do enough to lose anything, and even may have gained some. I decided to eat breakfast, drink water and take my lumps on the weigh in and then eat and drink every week from now on.

I weighed several times to see what difference it made. After a light breakfast and not much to drink I was up half a pound. An hour later after one last trip to the bathroom I was up another .2 pounds. Now how do you gain weight taking in nothing and even lightening the overall load a little? Dang. I was thirsty still, so I drank another six or eight ounces of water on the way to the meeting. What the heck, I was setting a new starting weight, right? Last week the meeting scale weighed me half a pound heavier than my scale at home. This week it weighed me half a pound lighter, so I showed the same weight, even after food and water. That was encouraging.

Then I worked on sticking to a healthy reasonable food plan and was starving hungry all day until I ate a quarter cup of cashews. There's something not right here.

Envying an Anorexic

Wait, wait, before you think I'm nuts, it's not what you think! I would never aspire to anorexia or any other eating disorder. My own battle with overeating has been enough of a long and painful road for me to know better than that.

Let me explain. Yesterday I watched the re-broadcast of Oprah's interview with Portia Degeneres. She has just written a book that reveals her struggles with bulimia and anorexia. I do not in any way envy her experiences or desire to be even a little anorexic, no matter what. What caught my attention was why she struggled and how she overcame it.

It sounded like pressures to be a thin actress and feeling insecure got her obsessed with being thin and in control of her eating and the deprivation created binging and purging.

Now she realizes her normal weight and size are a good thing and she accepts being a healthy weight. The pressure is off. She also feels loved and lovable and worthy of being accepted and successful. She said that the key for her now is never to restrict herself from any food, that as long as she can eat as much as she wants whenever she wants, food becomes normal and she doesn't need to eat or over-eat any food. She finds she just wants to eat to feel good and energized and the food amounts and kinds take care of themselves, as does her weight.

I'm watching Oprah listen to this with the same perplexity I'm feeling. We're both trying to figure out how applying that to ourselves could possibly have the same result it does for Portia. I know Oprah eats chips when she's stressed, I go for chocolate. Emotional eating is different than binge eating from over-dieting. Eating a good healthy diet doesn't entirely fix emotional eating, and emotional eating is much less tied to food deprivation.

Right now I'm feeling that tension with food that doesn't feel healthy. I'm aware all the time of needing to eat less to support my goals to lose weight, and so hunger and eating and food are all heavy with anxiety for me. I weigh in every week at my TOPS meeting and I'm in a bad cycle of desperately trying at the last minute to get some weight off before meeting and eating in relief for a few days after. This is not why I'm doing the accountability of weigh ins. I have to figure out how to be honest in my whole week and put the weigh-in into a healthy place in that.

It's January and It's Raining Diet Experts...

This is the week when TV programming bursts its seams with diet experts and diet advice. Pretty much every news cast, every news variety program and most of the talk shows are highlighting this year's no-fail ways to keep that weight loss resolution.

I make resolutions to lose weight, monthly, weekly, daily, but the January resolution is the big guns resolve. January first is the quintessential clean slate, and it one cannot resist planning for that big change to start now. I'm sure I'm not alone and all that advice is being sucked up by an avid audience looking for their final weight loss solution too.

I've been watching this stuff all week. I have that feeling that if I don't tune into all the shows focused on weight loss that I will surely miss that crucial secret-the thing or combination of things that will unlock it for me this time. Surely when Dr. Phil gets his 17 day diet teams started, and the newest biggest losers huff and puff their way through their first challenge, and when Dr. Oz unveils his new can't fail plan with its panel of expert consultants, there will be the motivation and the inspiration I need to succeed.

Today I was jogging on my mini-tramp (resolution 1-I will exercise every day!) and watching Dr. Phil get his teams started with this new 17 day diet he is promoting. I've been wondering why he is suddenly so gung-ho for this guy's plan when he has his own 'can't fail' book for losing weight that advises against the drastic calorie reduction this diet espouses. He was so positive about it that I'd decided to go online and buy it as soon as the holidays settled down so I could have it for the new year diet start. As always, I researched it first to see what was being said about it in reviews. One reviewer gave a sample of menus for the different levels and I ran them through my diet program to see what the calorie counts were. The starting cycle day's menu added up to 700 calories a day. I'm thinking, "How in the world would I eat 700 calories for three (make that one day!) days, let alone 17!"

In the end I decided not to buy the book. The book was written for dealing with holiday weight gain and avoiding plateaus, but and may be very good for both, but I don't see myself holding for over two weeks at a time to calorie levels as low as these.