Crane Technique!!

What’s funnier than a grown-up dressed like Daniel-san from The Karate Kid?  Mot much, apparently.  I know this because I recently started taking Aikido.

By “recently” I mean less than a month ago.  I tried it because my friend has been taking it for a year and convinced me to try a class, despite my extreme reservations.  To my surprise, I loved it.  I also loved that there were a number of beginners and all adults at this particular dojo.

Aikido is new enough that every time I go (twice a week at the moment), I’m still sore for three days after and I feel like someone has been beating up on me.  They sorta have been, but not like you’d think.  Aikido is a little different than other martial arts.  There’s no crazy round house kicks (or Crane Technique), or leaping into the air while shouting “HI YA!” Thankfully.  Instead, Aikido was founded by a Japanese martial arts master named Morihei Ueshiba in the early part of the 20^th century who believed strongly in the value of peace and reconciliation.  He wanted to adapt his knowledge to a purely defensive martial art, one which would aim for a more “morally evolved” goal of redirecting attacks–often by moving the attacker off his/her center of balance—without permanently harming or killing them.

The result is a surprisingly dance-like sequence of partnered moves with a lovely flow.  As a former dancer and childhood gymnast, this feels natural to me.  Like dance, Aikido requires memorizing sequences of steps and executing them as cleanly as possible.  This is not to say that it is all pretty and prance-y.  For one thing, there’s lots of throws and rolls, which are very cardiovascular-intensive and take some getting used to (keep your head tucked like a turtle or you’ll be sorry!).  There’s also lots of grabbing people, pinning them to the floor and being pinned, and having wrists and shoulders twisted in pretty painful ways.  I am not an aggressive person, nor one who particularly likes stranger-touching, but I am surprisingly okay with all of that.

The best thing about class is that it requires my full attention, so that the hour flies by and only at the end do I realize how hard I’ve been working, how purple my face is, and how dangerously close I am to hurling.  Being fully engaged in the moment is the essence of mindfulness, which is something I strive for and believe is important to fully enjoying life.  Put another way, I seem to achieve to the state of flow described by psychologist Csíkszentmihályi in his super-famous work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, describing his theory that folks are happiest when they are completely absorbed with the activity at hand, akin to being “in the zone”.

Do you engage in types of physical activities that help you achieve “flow” and motivate you to exercise more consistently?  My own motivation to go to Aikido class is surprising to me.  It’s been awhile since I’ve done a physical activity where it’s as much mental as physical; where the activity itself is the reward instead of some imagined future fitness outcome.  I can’t say that I get these feelings of flow while jogging on the treadmill, or even in the class I took at my gym last week (I kept checking the clock), but I imagine some people do.

If you don’t have a “flow” form of exercise already, how can you find one?  The exercise experts are always exhorting us to find fun physical activities, but what these are for us as grown-ups might not be obvious (or, at least, they never were me).  According to Csíkszentmihályi, a “flow” activity should be difficult enough to command your attention and drown out the other thoughts—I think especially the ones about weight, appearance, self-consciousness, etc.—but not too difficult as to make the activity impossibly frustrating.  For me, recalling my childhood skills and abilities provides a clue to my compatibility with Aikido: I have always been fairly coordinated and flexible, and my dance background makes picking up new steps fairly easy (p.s.- Aikido is still really hard).  Maybe you’re a person who enjoyed roller skating as a child and was pretty good at it too.  Perhaps you could join a roller derby team or an in-line skating club on Meetup, or maybe your innately good balance means you’d have a knack for skiing or cycling.

Even if you have ideas about what activities might be a good match, my experiences suggest that cultivating an openness to trying new things–even if you feel fat, unfit, or old—is key, because it’s unlikely that the first new thing you try will both be fun and fit your schedule, finances, people preferences, and comfort level.  I have been periodically trying new things since I started my blog over a year ago, and Aikido for only less than a month.  Trying new things has reminded me of the pleasures of being a complete novice, which can outweigh the frustrations. When you’re a novice, the fast rate of learning and improvement is hugely rewarding.

“Fun” as a grown-up is much the same as fun as a kid; it’s an unfussy, natural melding of things like effort, novelty, mindfulness/flow and social interaction. As children, the difference is that we are open to the fun of trying new things, before we learn to fear failure and looking silly.  Trying to be more open and child-like can help us find the fun in exercise too.

image via HaPe_Gera on Flickr

Winter/Spring 2012

Course Description: This course is intended to encourage the practice of behaviors consistent with the student’s most deeply-held personal values.

Course Goals: Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:

• Demonstrate practice in creating and using a reminder system to assist in keeping in more consistent touch with close friends and family that do not live locally
• Have strengthened local social networks by initiating more social activities
• Have strengthened local ties to community by initiating volunteer work
• Continue developing personal traits by practicing valued hobbies/pursuits

Textbooks: TBA

Video Resources: TBA

Grading: TBA

Exam #1: Connecting with Close Friends and Family

By the end of February, the student will have developed a computer-based reminder system for contacting both close friends/family

Class Assignments through the End of February:

Student will:

1)      Attend at least one meeting of the Zen Sitting Group

2)      Practice guitar 5x weekly for at least 15 minutes

3)      Placed a call or email to volunteer placement service

4)      Initiated a social activity at least once weekly

Winter/Spring 2012

Course Description: This course is intended to give the student an intermediate-level study of physical education and balanced eating.

Course Goals: Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:

• Demonstrate an expanded repertoire of cooking recipes
• Demonstrate the acquisition of a daily exercise habit
• Demonstrate a continued willingness to attempt unfamiliar physical activities in the name of fun and fitness
• Be more cognizant of negative body image messages and thoughts

Textbooks:

Cooksillustrated.com

Video Resources: TBA

Grading: TBA

Exam #1: Cooking Intensive Month

By the end of February, the student will cook at least 4 new entrée recipes this month, plus 5 new ways to cook side vegetables.

Class Assignments through the End of February:

Student will:

1)      Continue daily tracking of Weight Watchers Points Plus.

2)      Continue tracking healthy behaviors daily, and will try to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

3)      Continue attending weekly Weight Watchers meetings.

4)      Follow scheduled exercise plan, including weekly Aikido classes and gym visits as specified.

5)      Initiate at least 1 more meeting of cooking club.

"She's Aliiiive!!!"

So my blog fell off the face of the earth last spring.  No one has heard from me or known where I’ve been.  How the heck did that happen, and why?

Looking back at my last post prior to my disappearing act, it paints a rosy picture of lots of positive, gradual changes happening in my life.  I don’t think I was being totally honest with myself about my frustration about not losing much weight during the first six months of blogging, not to mention my stress at work and feeling a bit overtaxed and under-energized.  I fully intended to keep blogging after I returned from a brief trip.  After coming back, I just didn’t feel like writing, so I didn’t.  I was distracted by work.  At the same time, I started feeling worse physically and actually gaining weight.  Somehow a month went by, then two.

Around that time (late spring) my allergist noticed I had an enlarged thyroid, which led to lots of testing and an eventual diagnosis of hypothyroidism and the start of medication.  Specifically, I have Hashimoto’s, which is the autoimmune form of hypothyroidism common in the U.S. that requires life-long medication, often has a gradual onset over many years, and includes super-fun symptoms such as weight gain, extreme fatigue, low mood, slowed thinking, and other metabolic symptoms.  I kept gaining weight throughout the fall (15 pounds all together—topping my max all-time weight by 10).   Blogging was the last thing on my mind; just a flicker of guilt when I would see my logo on my toolbar.  I was feeling like garbage and just trying to keep functioning.

These past several months have not been a total Black Hole of Despair; more like a Grey Hole of Blah.  There have been some excellent things, even some blog-worthy things.  I started learning to play guitar over the summer and taking lessons to keep me on track.  My playing still isn’t pretty, but it’s getting decent and I really enjoy having something else to do with my time.  I’ve had a great reunion with many grad school friends as a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s weddings, and had a similarly good time at a family wedding. My husband and I took a backpacking course at a local outdoors club in the fall, which led to a number of fun backpacking and hiking trips, and some enduring friendships.  We realized we were very happy to reconnect with our inner granola-crunchers, and cannot wait to break out our shiny new gear and plan trips when it warms up this spring.

My energy and motivation to work on myself has really picked up over this past month especially. Incidentally—or perhaps not so incidentally—this coincides with my thyroid levels finally stabilizing.  Lately, there have been a lot of positive changes in my life that I’m really excited about, and along with them a desire to write again.  Plus, there’s the nagging reality of an incomplete project floating out there in cyberspace and in my brainspace.  So here I am.   Sorry I’ve been gone so long—I didn’t call, I didn’t write.

I am busier in my life than ever, so I am scaling back GUU to its fundamentals.  I am completing two “courses” that fit in line with the hodgepodge of healthy living and life routines that I am working on—I am calling these “Healthy Living 103” and “Authentic Living 101”.  Importantly for my schedule, I am only setting goals for my syllabi one month at a time so that I can focus on the things I really care about the most and check my tendency to over-commit (and want to hide).  Ain’t got a clue how often I will be posting, but  I am looking forward to being back.  Let the blogging commence!

Image via incurable_hippie on Flickr

As of this week, I have officially finished HALF of my year-long experiment in getting my act together! Woo hoo! I haven’t posted because I’ve been hard at work on a series of three “big picture” posts to discuss some of the things I’ve been thinking about in conjunction with this Half-Blogiversary, starting with this one about weight loss.

You could say I am a bit conflicted about weight loss as a blog topic. You could say I have been going through a bit of a Blogdentity Crisis. Over these past six months, I’ve posted a lot about healthy eating and lifestyle change, but much less about weight loss. Everyone can see from my toolbar that I want to lose weight, yet I deliberately avoid posting my weight loss results on any sidebar, link, or cutesy little ticker with a happy bunny bouncing his way down the scale.

Several months ago, I posted about the fact that I wasn’t doing a lot of the traditional weight loss activities because I was afraid of falling into patterns from the past associated with trappings of “Being on a Diet.” All those old activities had led me to diet burnout, weight obsession, and ultimately, weight re-gain. Since starting my blog, I hadn’t been following a certain diet plan, I wasn’t counting calories, I got rid of my bathroom scale, and I wasn’t restricting any foods per se.

In the interest of taking a different and potentially healthier approach, I instead tried to focus on acquiring new and pleasant habits like cooking, learning to run, and lifting weights. Accordingly, I tried to focus my posts mostly on these activities. I was trying to eat healthily and sensibly, in reasonable amounts. You could say I have been trying to eat intuitively (though I had never heard that phrase when this all began).

At the time that I started my blog, I recognized that this strategy might lead to minimal or very slow weight loss. I acknowledged at the time my deep ambivalence about ignoring calorie counting in particular:
“When I served as a therapist on this research study, I counseled my patients that not counting calories is akin to trying to save money for a Mercedes without paying attention to how much anything costs, how much you’re spending, or how much you have in your bank account. In other words: crazy and doomed to fail. I meant it, and I saw plenty of examples that confirmed what the research data show”.

But I was afraid to do things the way I used to do them—even when those things worked—because I know previous weight loss attempts did not stick. There was always a backlash, always an immediate falling back to all of my old habits.

Okay, Miss Smarty-Pants, you might wonder, How has this plan been working out for you?

My second pic in the Dream Jeans. They've moved up about an inch since last month, so that's something

Let’s get down to brass-tacks, weight-loss facts. I do know how much I’ve lost, because I still weigh myself occasionally at the gym. I lost about 3-4 pounds the first month of my blog, and around 4-5 more by the end of January. That’s about a pound a month after the initial weight loss. I gave that some serious thought last month: given that I’d like to lose somewhere around 20 more pounds to be in a healthy BMI (and would ideally like to lose 30 more or so), at that rate of weight loss it would take me 2-3 years to lose all the weight.

When I had this realization, I was torn. I didn’t want to make deadlines for myself that could detract from my focus on positive changes. At the same time, I also didn’t want to wait three years to lose the rest of my weight.

How many times have we heard things like, “Gradual weight-loss that is part of a lifestyle change is the only kind of lasting weight loss,” or “diets don’t work.”? The problem is this: how gradual is gradual? How do we know when a behavior change is habitual? How do we know when we’ve “really” changed? Moderation is a knife’s-edge between indulgence and extreme self-denial. Its meaning is murky, there are no rules, and there is no clear path to get there.

One reason that diet prgorams can be helpful in the short-term (though usually not the long-term) is because they are clear and specific. Yet diets are also extreme, and in their extreme-ness they are unpleasant. Who wants to live a life without a single carb? Is a life devoid of butter what we really want? Diets are all about self-sacrifice. Part of me has been tempted to panic about my modest weight loss; to immediately cut out all carbs so the weight will start flying off again like I know it would. Then I remembered: Oh yeah. I hated dieting, even though I tried to convince myself that it was kind of enjoyable to eat weird things like nothing but egg whites or turkey chili for breakfast. I hated eating barely any fruit.

When dieting, I was not changing any habits, I was temporarily adopting different habits that I planned to ditch the second the extra weight was gone, and then what would happen? I would go back to my old ways. I gained the weight back before. As most of my maintenance blogger friends have said in one way or another, much of the work begins in figuring out how to maintain weight loss. So where did that leave me when I had this realization about my extra-slow weight loss a few weeks ago?

Instead of burning all of my whole-grain bread and bananas in a giant bonfire, I decided in mid-Feburary to kick things up a notch by making one change: I started tracking my calories again. I have been using the “Tap N Track” app on my iPhone, and (with one or two exceptions) I have stayed in the 1200—1600 calorie range. Since starting that, I’ve lost another 3-4 pounds in two weeks. Truthfully, the loss is probably attributable to the magical Trifecta of tracking calories, meal planning, and weight lifting, but the difference is there: my pants have all of a sudden started hanging on me and my body and face are starting to look different to others.

Given my positive results with calorie counting already, it is tempting to say that I should’ve counted calories from the start; that I threw the baby out with the bath water. Yet that’s not really what I think. I think I had to go to the opposite extreme and see if trying to “ignore” weight loss but not ignoring healthy behaviors would work.

Fast forward to nearly half a year later, and my habits have changed. I eat out much, much less. I cook at home, and prepare lunches to bring to work. I eat healthy things for breakfast everyday, like green smoothies, oatmeal, and cottage cheese with fruit. Exercise is an ever-evolving but consistent habit. I meditate more. Who knows if I would have had the energy for all of that if I was focusing my attention on calories?

My point is that I have needed a slow weight loss up until this point to allow time for step-by-step change. In my wisest of minds, I think that I’ve thrived with a more gradual approach. I have had to make decisions coming from a place of what I sincerely I want and need, not because of dieting rules and orthodoxy. It’s been a lesson in choosing, instead of feeling obligated.

Maybe part of the reason “diets don’t work” is because we feel they are imposed on us, and because we lose a sense of our choice and power in the process. On the flip side, though, didn’t Spiderman’s theme go something like “With great power comes great responsibility”? I am trying to walk the tightrope between trying too hard and not trying enough. I’m in the gray area between my old overindulgent habits and my old Extreme Dieter habits. Even though gray areas are uncomfortable because of their uncertainty, I believe this is where I will find peace with my body and my eating habits.

so thoughtful, right?

One thing I felt grateful for was receiving a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift from my Blogger Valentine Swap partner,  “The Fat Mom.” She sent me a thoughtful assortment of mani/pedi things, a thoughtful note, plus a really cute water bottle (I can never have too many of those)!  I absolutely loved it and was so glad to get the chance to meet someone new.

The second thing I was grateful for this week was my Gym Buddy.  This is going so well—we ended up motivating each other to go to the gym at 8:00 one night, something that would have been hard without the social support.  We both can tell we’re getting stronger doing Rachel Cosgrove’s weight lifting program, and have been meeting 2 to 3 times a week.

We started Phase Two of the program today, and it was a total butt-kicker.  One of the exercises in Phase Two is holding the Dreaded Plank Position.  It’s still totally awful, but I can definitely hold it longer that I could back in the day.  Like I told my favorite blogger Ellen awhile back, Rachel Cosgrove points out in her book that the plank strengthens the pelvic floor muscles, which can reduce Old Lady Incontinence problems.  As someone hoping to be an old lady in the future, the idea of peeing myself is a less than welcome prospect and one that has given me newfound respect for the plank.

We looked completely ridiculous trying to do assisted chin-ups.  Rachel Cosgrove shows the proper way to do them here:

Like she recommends, we used a band looped around the bar because we’re not strong enough to do them without it.  The problem for us was all the chin-up bar was too high to reach comfortably, and it took both of us (plus a trainer we drafted)  several minutes to maneuver us onto the bar and get our knees onto band.  This was an awkward game of Twister and involved lots dangling, grunting, and elastic bands popping off dangerously close to our faces.  Once we got some extra height by standing on a bosu ball, the whole contraption worked much better.  Even with the elastic band under (both of) our knees, we were both still too weak to do a chin-up without the other person pushing up with all their strength too.  The Sunday Afternoon gym-goers got quite a show from us today, but at least we had each other.  It was almost fun to look ridiculous since I had company in the effort.

The third thing that reminded me how lucky I am this week was something I reflected upon while writing a stack of thank-you notes this week: receiving the world’s most amazing graduation gift.  For my Ph.D. graduation, my family and friends each hand-embroidered a square for a quilt representing the different stages of my life: there are squares from my childhood hobbies like dancing and gymnastics, from each of the schools I went to, from the various places I’ve lived, trips I’ve taken, and accomplishments I’ve made.  There are 25 squares all together, made by nearly 20 people.  Here’s part of my quilt here:

so amazing!

How many people have such a loving set of family of friends who are so generous with their time that they’re willing to hand-craft a visible reminder to me of being loved?  It makes me feel amazing and unique every day when I look at it.

I am a lucky girl indeed.  What happened to you last week that made you feel lucky?

I’ll leave you with my favorite square, the one stitched by my mom:

I wanted to share with you one of my absolute favorite mindfulness exercises I’ve learned about so far because it’s something that everyone can do, whether or not you have the time or inclination for other kinds of mindfulness or meditation practices.  In a way, in fact, you have to do it , at least until we all convert to those mobility hover chairs from the movie Wall-E.

It’s taking a short mindful walk.

Weird. That's exactly what the route from my bus stop to work looks like . (Image via DavidSpinks on Flickr)

Yeah, yeah. You probably either have an exercise routine down, or don’t feel like adding any walks to your life.  The great thing about this exercise is that you’re not supposed to do anything different or extra, you should use a walk you already do every day, ideally one between 5 and 20 minutes long. For me, I have about a five-minute walk from the bus stop to my office, so that’s what I’ve been using.  Maybe you walk your dog, or have a walk from where you park at work.

Here’s what you do:

1) Every day (or as often as you can remember), bring your full attention to your physical movement and body sensations as you walk.  That’s right.  You just notice what it feels like to walk.  You don’t walk in any special or different way (unless you want cars to honk at you and small children to ask their parents what’s wrong with that you): you’re just noticing the physical sensations.

2)  Instead of focusing on your breathing (as you might do during meditation), keep bringing your attention back to the feelings in the soles of your feet.  This is where the walking action happens–the transfer of the weight and such.   Use this sensation as an anchor, and every time you get distracted (which will be a lot), gently turn your mind back to the sensations here.

3) Count your steps as you walk; for example, count up to 8 and then count back down to 1.  This’ll serve as another anchor for your attention and help to keep you focused on the task at hand: noticing each step.

4) If it helps, you can use a word or a phrase too.  For example, every time I get up to 8, before I start counting back down to one I think the phrase “walking mindfully.”  Maybe that’s too new-agey for you, but I like it .

5) As you walk, notice any pleasant or unpleasant physical sensations or thoughts, and see if you can let them go and relax your mind and body.

6) Have special appreciation for any pleasant sensations that come your way: the feel of the sun, the sensations of wind, the pleasant feelings in your body, any cute people you pass .  After taking a moment to savor the moment, re-direct your attention to the sensations in the soles of your feet again.

I have been doing a mindful walk nearly every work day for a few weeks now, and I’ve noticed  that I feel a more “awake,” centered, and pleasant when I walk in the door to my office: no small feat because I am not a morning person.   Maitreyabandhu talks about finding “Islands of Mindfulness” in our day to help us be more aware of living our lives, and this is one that I’ve found easily.

Let me know how it goes if anyone tries it!

In other Spiritual and Existential Studies 101 news, I am going back to the Zen Sitting Group meeting this Sunday–I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes.  Have a pleasant end of the work week–it’s 50 degrees and sunny in Pittsburgh, which may signal the Apocalypse, so I’m enjoying it while I can .  Perhaps during my mindful walk today…

My decision to finally have a doctor look into my dizziness totally paid off–it turns out I have this totally minor vestibular disorder where particles from your inner ear get knocked loose and float around in your ear canals, messing up one’s balance.   Wanna know how it’s treated?  Gravity.  Yup, I’m serious: you do a series of head positions until the pesky little granules back float back where they ought to be. The doc “adjusted” me in the office, and my dizziness has totally vanished.

The fact that there was such an easy fix for my medical problem (it feels like a cure learned at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) seems ludicrously lucky.  I didn’t realize how worried I was until I felt the relief of not having to worry anymore.  In the back of my mind–so quiet that I didn’t even notice–I now see that there was a mental laundry list of the Top Ten Scary Things that could be wrong with me causing microscopic amounts of stress that were  probably building up to potentially toxic levels of concern.

"Wingardium dizzy-osa"

I, my friends, am an Avoider.  I’m not ashamed to admit it; it’s how many of us cope with anxiety.  It’s the root of 90% of the world’s so-called procrastination.  Funny thing is, I know from studying psychology that avoidance doesn’t fix anything.  On the contrary, it feeds the anxiety and makes it worse.  Take for example, let’s say, a person with a phobia for driving over bridges. The phobic person becomes so terrified of bridges that they avoid them completely, making bridges seem even more unfamiliar and scary.  By avoiding bridges, the person deprives themselves of the chance to confront their fear and realize that they can drive over a bridge without freaking out and careening over the edge or having a heart attack.  Successful therapy for the phobia is gradually, step-by-step, having the person confront their fear a little at a time so that they can realize that their nightmare scenarios are unfounded, and that they are stronger than they thought.

So what does this tell me?  I have to be as brave in my own life as the patients I’ve treated for anxiety disorders.  I have to use my insight to look inward at things I might be afraid of and avoiding, and then confront it head-on: no delays, no denial.  Sometimes, the confrontation is hard, scary, and maybe worse than we could imagine.  More often though, as this week has reminded me, we find that that the monster under our bed is a bogeyman of our own imagination, which we would have known if we just had the Cojones or Ovaries to get up and check sooner.  Life is hard enough.  I’m going to do my best to stop making it harder by worrying myself into inaction.

A hospital. Looking ominous. (Image via Lonewolflucha on Flickr)

Let’s face it: doctor’s offices are miserable places.  Sometimes they smell vaguely of pee.  They’re a place where we get jabbed with needles that suck our blood like vampires, scolded for our various bad habits, and get trapped for hours waiting past our scheduled appointment time, thumbing through inspirational stories from issues of Reader’s Digest circa 1989 while some sick guy coughs on us and the Muzak morphs into something sinister.

Sometimes they are places that deliver bad news.  If you’re like me, sometimes you have an experience with medical staff that makes you wary of doctors themselves.

For example: about three years ago, a doctor thought I might have lymphoma.

I had strangely swollen lymph nodes throughout both of my armpits, and one was especially “hard” and ominous-feeling.  My doctor was obviously concerned during my exam, and she ordered me immediately to see a specialist to rule out other issues, have extensive blood work, and have a chest x-ray.  Within a week, I had done all of those things.  The specialist confirmed that he had nothing to add and that it all hinged on these tests.

I waited for word from my original doctor about whether or not I had cancer.  No one called me.  I called the doctor’s office, and they told me the doctor would call me back when there was news.  I waited some more, and the days become a few weeks.  Finally, I called the blood and x-ray labs to make sure my results had been sent over to my doctor: they had been, over a week before.  I called my doctor back and asked to speak with anyone from the medical staff to find out why I hadn’t heard and when I might hear, and was again told the doctor would call when there was news.  No one called.

I was starting to get really concerned.  Why hadn’t I heard anything, since it had been at least a week or two since all my results were sent over?  A few more days passed with no word.  Finally, I called the doctor’s office again, nearing my breaking point.  I requested to schedule another appointment with the doctor so that I could discuss my test results in person, since I was getting no answers over the phone.  Then the most unbelievable thing happened: the assistant refused to let me schedule an appointment, claiming again that the doctor would call when there was news.  I couldn’t believe it.  All my fear, frustration, and confusion over the past weeks came crashing down on me in that moment.

I started sobbing on the phone—something I’ve never done before, ever.  I tried to explain through my tears that I knew the doctor had all of my tests, and I didn’t understand what the hold up was and why I was being prevented from meeting with the doctor to hear this very important medical news.  That got their attention.  Not only did they schedule me another appointment that week, but the head nurse came to the phone and told me that she glanced at my tests and did not see anything immediately concerning.

At my appointment with the doctor, the good news was I did not have lymphoma, or anything else apparently wrong.  She had been waiting to call because she had not heard anything from the other specialist (the nurse called him after my crying jag).

The bad news was that my doctor treated me like a Crazy Patient.  She expressed her “concern” over my mental health for having such an extreme reaction over the phone, asked me if I thought I needed antidepressant medication, and calmly explained that my hysterics had very much upset the office staff (!) and seemed disproportional to the situation. She chided me for not finding another way to get in touch with her, like her direct email, which was “plainly listed” four pages deep into the office’s website.  Her apology was of the “I’m sorry you had such a nuts-o reaction” variety.  I was fuming, having never before felt so small and misunderstood.  I ended up actually apologizing for getting upset on the phone, reassuring her that I wasn’t depressed, and trying to explain how the situation had spiraled.  Later, I had fresh empathy for my own therapy patients with mental health diagnoses, and wondered how dismissed and ignored they must sometimes feel when interacting with doctors.

Ok, that was an overly long story, but it’s an experience that stuck with me.  I’ve continued to go to my yearly gynecologist appointment, but have definitely avoided going for other complaints.  I did go see a doctor, though, about two years ago when I started having a few moments of dizziness several times a day.  The doctor explained that  it was probably inner ear fluid and it would go away soon.  It did.  Problem was, I have been continuing to have a week or two of dizziness periodically ever since then and have never had it checked out.  I have become one of those people that stoically avoids the doctor, even when it probably isn’t a good idea.

In my ongoing efforts to take better care of my health, yesterday I went to a new doctor for the first time to discuss my dizziness, get a check-up, and to test my blood sugar and cholesterol (one of my course assignments for Healthy Living 102).

I was so glad I got a recommendation for a primary care doc, because it was very much an Old-School doctor experience in the best sense of the phrase.  The doctor had her own practice.   There was a ten minute wait, followed by a personable exchange with a warm, funny human being who took her time, listened carefully, and put me at ease.  They drew my blood right away, there in the clinic.  She referred me to a specialist at the vestibular clinic for my dizziness, but was clear that she thought it was probably nothing serious.  I told her about my swollen glands a few years ago, in case it was relevant, but didn’t mention the other doctor’s cancer fears or anything else I’ve told all of you.  She smiled. “Oh, honey.  If you had lymphoma or anything else serious, you’d be dead by now.  There’s nothing like that wrong with you.”  Even so, she carefully checked, to be sure.

Even though I knew my swollen glands three years ago had been nothing serious, her reassurance felt like closure to me.  She did it without even knowing that I needed it and without making me feel silly. This is what doctor’s experiences are supposed to be like.

Sigh. If only all experiences with doctors were McDreamy. He totally looks like he's listening, right?

Having finished graduate training in psychology and working with a lot of medical doctors along the way, I am wiser now about the practice of medicine in general.  I know that doctors are human beings who can make mistakes and should be challenged and questioned.  A good doctor is one who is willing to be challenged and explain their reasoning, to listen, and to refer you elsewhere if they aren’t certain.  I also know that medical school (in my opinion) does not provide sufficient training in reflective listening and validating concerns, things that have been fundamental in my therapy training.  From what I have seen, doctors are trained to question and diagnose, but not to communicate.  There’s a big difference between the two styles.  Thus, there’s going to be a lot of variability in the quality of our interactions with doctors, and we owe it to ourselves to “shop around” to the best of our ability.

After my appointment yesterday, I resolved never to dismiss my own fears about my health, just because a doctor had once been dismissive of me.  I remembered to trust my instincts and judgment, because they tend to be pretty good.  Obviously, there are people who take going to the doctor too far, ranging from those who take antibiotics for every little sniffle to those with serious, diagnosable mental disorders like hypochondriasis.  But I think many of us are like me, tending more to avoid doctors.  I know that some doctor avoidance has to do with insurance and our country’s medical system, but that’s a whole different post.

Coincidentally, yesterday afternoon I happened to catch Fran Drescher on a TiVoed episode of Oprah, who said this about her brief, successful fight with uterine cancer: most any disease is survivable if it’s caught early.  It seems so obvious that the consequences of ignoring slight physical symptoms (missing a major medical problem) are much greater than the consequences of overreacting to a physical symptom (feeling silly and wasting a bit of time and money).  Even so, I think our country is full of people who are afraid of doctors and aren’t being proactive about their health.  I am fortunate to have excellent health insurance, and lots of choices.  Given these facts, I don’t ever want to neglect my health again.  I’m glad to have come to my senses and found a doctor that I can see as a partner in maintaining my health.

This leads me to a few questions:  What have your experiences with doctors been like?  Do you avoid getting your medical concerns checked out either because you are afraid, or because you have had bad experiences with the medical profession?  How do you take responsibility for your own health concerns?

Here are some things you missed:

1) I finished month one Spring Semester of GUU!  So far I am on track, only behind in 2 assignments (attending a ballet class and watching the first 3 episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos).  Here are a few things coming up in February: 2 exams (Cooking with Daniel and Coupon Crazy Month, which I wrote a bit about last week), getting my cholesterol checked, trying to understand 401Ks, reading a book about body image, and reading/listening/watching things by Pema Chodron, Suze Orman, and Carl Sagan.

As with last month, I will be continuing to budget, exercise at least 180 minutes a week, keep a daily meditation/reflection habit, and limiting my eating out at restaurants to 3 times a week.

image via parhessiastes on Flickr

2) I attended my first meeting of the Pittsburgh Zen Sitting Group last Thursday night, feeling a little nervous beforehand because I didn’t know what to expect.  My hour and a half with the Pittsburgh group followed the same traditional Japanese Zen practices that I became familiar with during a weekend-long, silent meditation retreat I attended in college led a Japanese Zen master.  If I hadn’t gone to that retreat, I might have found the practices last week a bit odd or esoteric.  By “traditional,” I mean that the group leader was in black robes, and we meditated on the floor, sitting on cushions in some variant of the lotus position and holding our hands in a certain way.

Weirder by our Western standards was the walking meditation, lots of bowing, and some chanting of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism at the end.  The different portions of the evening were signaled by the ringing of a bell (since the whole thing is pretty much no talking), which is actually a cool-looking metal bowl known as the “singing bowl” that’s struck with a stick-looking-thingie to make a bell noise.  Not everyone knows about Zen Buddhism, so I’ll write another post about it sometime and further explain the basic principles, but here’s a link with some basic info for those who are curious.

Yep.  I felt a little silly and self-conscious during the chanting and bowing portions.  Fortunately, the group leader prefaced all of this with a very approachable description of what we’d be doing and why, and a short explanation of Buddhism and meditation.  Even though I knew a lot of this stuff from my studies during actual college, he was very down-to-earth and approachable.  Like what I’ve been doing at home, they use a basic breath counting technique during meditation, counting each in- or out-breath up to ten and then starting over either once you reach ten or anytime the mind wanders.  Although I was distracted a lot (of course), I managed to get through a 45-minute meditation without any difficulty—the time pretty much flew by. Overall, the people I met were nice and it is a good way to practice meditating, so I’m looking forward to going back soon.

3) I successfully completed a Weighty Month exam (eight weight lifting sessions in one month)!  How did my Exam Buddies fare?

Speaking of buddies, I found a workout buddy!  One of my friends who is also a member of my gym agreed to give the Rachel Cosgrove program a try, and I think she’s a convert.  We’ve worked out together a few times over the past couple weeks—finding a time we can both go to the gym has been the obvious challenge—but I really like having another person along.  Aside from it just being more fun, I’ve worked out much harder when she has been with me.  It’s not a conscious thing, but I suppose it’s easier to “space out” or cut corners when by oneself.

I’m still liking the Rachel Cosgrove program, and enjoying my recovery shakes and foam-rolling .  My weight hasn’t changed much this month, but I am definitely feeling stronger and I’m focusing on that right now.  The first “phase” of the Rachel Cosgrove program is the “easy” part (note: it’s not easy) in which you are mostly using your own body weight to gain strength, so sometime in the next month or so I’ll move on to the second phase which has much more intense workouts with the free weights.  Supposedly, that’s when the REAL butt-kicking begins.

4) I volunteered at the food co-op, fulfilling both my volunteering goal and earning me a 10% food discount for the next week.

Ethical dilemmas about my Coupon Crazy month exam are already coming up.  Case in point: I need to buy chicken.  Chicken isn’t really “in season” now as I’m coming to learn–local chicken farmers have a lot more for sale during the natural growing cycle of the chicken (in the spring), which means that they sell very little in the winter.  As a result, my co-op was all sold out of chicken.

I bought all the other ingredients for the recipes I was planning this week, so I’m backed into a corner and have to buy it.  The question is this: do I “cheat” and buy slightly more ethically farmed chicken at another store like Whole Foods, or do I follow the letter of the law on this exam and buy mass-produced chicken, for which I can probably find on sale or a even a coupon?  This exam is showing me that there is going to be an ongoing tension between saving money and buying high-quality food that is more in line with my principles.  As I’ve said before, I want to spend less this month without sacrificing the quality of my food, so I’m probably going to end up “cheating” and buying the chicken at full price at another health food store, and resolving to plan my meals better next week—probably using a meat other than chicken.

So those are my updates.

On a somewhat related note, did anyone else see the Vegan Experiment on Oprah yesterday?  For those that didn’t catch it, she and several hundred of her staff tried to eat vegan for a month.  They also showed footage from inside a slaughterhouse, one of the first times a company has agreed to let the media film.  I was excited to see Michael Pollan as one of her guests, since my readings last semester turned me into such a big fan.  I really liked the show’s take home message: our meat-dominant diets are unhealthy, and any small steps towards eating more vegetarian and vegan meals can be good for our health and for the environment.  That’s the reason I’ve been cooking so many vegetarian meals and I have so many linked on my side bar.

Yep.  I’m definitely buying the local chicken.

Speaking of food, it’s dinner time .  You all have a good Wednesday!