A Reckoning Between Two Wheels

Sometimes, it takes a perspective shift before seeing yourself clearly

So I’ve had a heckuva week, friends.

I don’t talk a lot about the health journey I’ve been on. That’s deeply personal in a lot of ways — for me, for anyone.

But I remember the person I was, the pain I lived with, the unhappiness I felt, and how downright scary some things were, some of the time. And I remember that, every now and then, I heard about someone who’d been in a similarly bad way, who’d changed everything, and who had amazing results to show for it. I dreamed that maybe I could have a similar turnaround. Maybe this can be that story for someone else.

Let’s back the truck up a bit.

Last week, I hit the scales at 100 pounds lost. Today, it’s 104.

That’s over three years. That’s me consistently losing weight at exactly 30 pounds a year for 3.5 years.

If you’d told me on that 2018 day I was sitting breathless, in pain, scared and hopeless in a terrace apartment in Palermo, Sicily, that I’d be 104 pounds lighter, able to walk 5-6 kilometres without a break or much pain, and able to do just simple things without taking a break — I’d have known then that giving up my dream would be worth it.

This was me shooting a video for a thing I was being paid for, and I was so fucking mortified to be video-taping myself. This was the week I decided I had to stop being a nomad, because climbing the 88 steps to this dream terrace apartment in Palermo was killing me. This turning point led to today — but I didn’t know it then. I was about 350 pounds here.

Knowing You’re At Your Bottom: Not Fun

Being a nomad and seeing the world was my dream, and I quit because I physically couldn’t do it anymore.

I still remember that moment in Palermo — within a day or two of the photo above —when everything in me said I had to stop travelling, and I’ve never been sadder or more certain in a decision, and never had more self-loathing after making the required choice.

Here’s the part of writing that I hate having to do, but in the modern era of discourse, it’s required:

Yes, there are adorably cute’n’chonky people with full figures that are healthy, happy, and don’t need to do a damn thing for any of our approval. You don’t get to decide who’s healthy or not just by looking at them. Weight isn’t a metric of health.

Okay?

Me, I was not a healthy chonky gal.

I lived with chronic pain and systemic inflammation in every part of my body. I was exhausted, depressed, and confident that I would be dead before 60 if I continued on that path.

Today, everyone in my life says the same: They were deeply, deeply worried about me.

You could see how unhappy and pained I was in my face, in my eyes. I had health concerns going on that I never spoke about (which are none of your business) and I needed to confront them.

I don’t care what size your body is, if you’re living with chronic inflammation and pain and there are areas of your life you can make improvements in, then that’s something you need to explore.

When the Only Way Up is Out

My nomadic life was a reactionary life with zero comforts, no security, constant uncertainty. Know what sucks for anxiety? All of that.

I lived with bad furniture everywhere I went, I drank booze every day, ate simple carbs with every meal, and made a lot of really poor life choices out of ignorance and apathy, to be frank.

Despite living such a poor quality of life, coming back to Canada, though, felt like failure.

I quit the adventure of my lifetime because I physically couldn’t hack it.

I was angry, depressed, and resentful, but I knew I had to quit, I knew I needed to fix my body. I didn’t know if it was even possible to back up the truckful of unhealthy habits I’d created.

It would take years of constant tinkering with my health to get where I am now.

And this is me last week — my rosacea is still a problem, but my skin is finally starting to clear up after years of bad rosacea-related acne. I’m down from a 4X to an XL for my pants. I’m still a ways from where I want to be, but holy smokes, I’m getting there. But geez there’s a lot of silver hair there, eh? Ha. Well-earned.

“A Journey of 1,000 Miles Starts with a Step”

Amusingly, my anxiety gave me the biggest head start on this new path I walk. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, my anxiety made it impossible for me to go into the liquor stores near where I lived in Ottawa, which were rife with malcontents refusing safe-distancing, etc. The result was, my anxiety helped me stumble into a life of near-sobriety.

Suddenly, I was drinking maybe once a week. Down from the 350-400 or more bottles of wine I consumed annually by the end of my travels. Talk about your big changes.

These days, I’ve become someone who overpays for a tiny half-bottle of wine, if I decide to drink at all, but I’m such a healthy person now that drinking anything affects my system. And I like the feeling of NOT doing that, so, I pretty much just don’t drink.

So far in 2023, I think the tally is 7 bottles of wine, 2 beers, and one highball.

But cutting booze is largely how I started. I just started drinking a little less. These days, sugar has also been kibboshed, which I think takes care of two of the worst toxins we willingly consume.

I still have both — but they’re a conscious choice and a big treat when I do. I’ve already got a sexy, expensive red wine saved for my 50th birthday in September. So, it’s not about denial, it’s about making good choices, really.

A Better Lifestyle, Not Self-Denial

Somewhere along the way, I realized there’s no better person to embrace a healthy lifestyle than me — I’m a fantastic intuitive chef and learning to be healthy in a tasty, delicious way should absolutely be in my wheelhouse.

So, over time, I’ve gravitated to making all my own food. That way, I know exactly the kind of fat, sugar, and salt I consume.

I started with bread. These days, I do everything from rehydrating my own beans and making yogurt to making crackers, pasta, bread, salsas, dressings — you name it. I rarely ever use manufactured goods anymore. I’ve got condiments, of course, but even those I’ll try to use sparingly.

I make delicious food. Real food. And fat isn’t a concern to me — sugar is. I eat healthy fat and animal fats with zero concern, in generous amounts.

Last night I feasted on Baharat spice-rubbed chicken legs, hummus, homemade labneh (just thick strained yogurt), zhug (a Yemenite herbed condiment like chimichurri but with Middle Eastern flavours), rustic wheat crackers I make from scratch, and some tomatoes. It’s delicious, it’s healthy, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

This was one meal for me. No apologies! I don’t snack much at night, usually, so this was it. Hummus, labneh, three small chicken legs cooked in the air fryer, roma tomato, my famous crackers, and a dollop of zhug, and note the generous pour of olive oil. Healthy fats are good! Processed fats are bad! This was heckin’ yum.

This morning, some huevos rancheros with homemade pinto beans, Manchego cheese, yogurt, salsa, and my flour tortillas.

Among my favourite breakfasts is this honkin’ feast — all the things are homemade, including the Greek yogurt. I freeze my homemade flour tortillas here (total of 80 grams for the tortillas), and then it’s unsweetened homemade salsa, maybe an ounce of cheese, and a half-cup of my homemade beans, pintos, which I refry with lard and spices. Like I say, my diet isn’t about fat — I’ve cut processed food, sugar, and alcohol by about 95%.

I’m going high-protein but you will NOT take my carbs away! Cheese is a trigger for my acne, so I’m being more careful on that front, but I refuse to deny myself. I’m finding out which cheeses don’t affect me, and which do.

Luckily, my insulin levels are great — and so’s everything else, these days.

But food has become my passion. I love cooking, tinkering away in the kitchen and creating delicious components that I can jigsaw together over the coming week for delicious, complete meals.

Stopping Let Me See How Far I’ve Come

I don’t know where all of this is going, but finally blowing past 100 pounds this week has been crazy for my mindset.

I was stuck in a 92-98 pounds loop for what seemed like about 3+ months, losing faith that I could get further on this journey, but you know what shifted things?

First, I splurged on expensive Sicilian olive oil, three litres of it, and decided I’d make more vegetarian-inspired foods I could finish with a glug of sexy, tasty oil.

Then, I tried a cracker recipe — a bad one — after seeing a lavash-style cracker on Masterchef Australia that I wanted to try making. “Lavash” is a seeded Middle Eastern flatbread, but I wanted a nice textural cracker with whole wheat flour and seeds.

The recipe was awful! It was goop! I had to fix it. I added a bit of this, a little of that. It took three trays to bake the batch of my concocted crackers and the third tray was quite different from the first! I enjoyed it, though — way more than I thought I would.

Since then, about 3-4 weeks ago, I’ve made crackers weekly. Those who’ve tried the crackers love them.

With crackers, I now make things like baba ghanoush, muhummara, labneh, red pepper bruschetta, etc — all vegetarian accoutrements that are lovely on crackers, but no cheeses.

Somehow, that flip to a little less carb, but whole wheat, low-fat, sugar-free crackers has made me more satisfied and more veggie-focused with meals. It’s been a huge switch. And adding a half-cup a day of homemade full-fat Greek yogurt has also been big for my digestion and appetite control. My skin seems to be clearing up too.

My body loves the changes I’m making, that’s for sure. It shows — I feel it all over, I’m leaner, I have more energy, less inflammation, and I’m excited about what it means for my future.

I have my weaknesses, but these days I control them instead of them controlling me. Hawkin’s Cheezies are one of my great loves, but now I buy the overpriced small bag so I only have a bit, and I’m okay with that.

Change is Brilliantly Wild Ride

I know I haven’t been writing here, but I’ve had probably one of the most… catalytic spring/summers of my life. From a cancer scare to some other challenges I’ve been facing, yet, somehow, I’ve stayed the course and come out victorious, living better than ever.

I still need a secure job. I’m working on that. But having had the time over the last two to three months to make my most recent food changes and unlock these better choices has been absolutely invaluable.

In the past few months, I’ve learned how to re-frame my thinking about the end of my nomadic chapter. I’ve learned how to look at different obstacles and problems I’ve confronted and I’ve made a lot of peace with myself.

There are very, very, very few people who could possibly understand what it’s like to be living a life where you get to wake up daily in places like Crete, Sicily, Rome, Bangkok, etc. and then to feel like you have to give that life up because you couldn’t do the one basic thing of taking care of your health.

There’s a LOT of anger and self-loathing that comes with that. I can’t begin to tell you. So much anger.

People were like, “You should write about your travels!”

Oh, the thing I had to give up because I became so incredibly unhealthy, I couldn’t even walk up any stairs anymore? Because I couldn’t walk 500 metres without wanting to sit down? That life? Pfft.

And I’m still not there yet. But a part of me looks at that woman, that unhealthy and sad woman, and thinks, “You fucking bad-ass — look what you accomplished anyhow! Go, you!”

And I love that I’m beginning to think that.

I mean, hey, I saw a good chunk of the planet just before a global pandemic changed everything and the world started to burn. Nice timing, lady. Pity I was out of shape, but at least I didn’t let the opportunity slip by. Good for me.

When I first moved here, this was as far as I could walk. I’d come here, sit down, think about life, walk home. It’s about 500 metres. But now, I’ll walk to the other end of my area, then sweep back along the sea for a last glimpse here, and sometimes never even sit down along the way — and 3-4 kilometres doesn’t even require me taking a break. I don’t lose my breath when talking/walking with people either.

“Yeah, I Did That”

So, yesterday, when I hopped on a bike and I realized I’d probably been on one maybe 20 times since 2015, including the four times that led to a double-crushed nerve in my shoulder and two inflamed neck vertebrae in late-2020, well, it was a big moment.

I wasn’t prepared for hopping up on the seat and feeling so… thin and healthy and… aerodynamic and strong.

I nearly cried.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so free like that on a bike as an adult.

Not when I lost 75 pounds in 2008, and never at any other time. It was magic.

And when I looked down and realized I had about 8 inches from the steering post to my belly, and just 2 summers ago, my belly used to hit that steering post – man, I just about lost my cool and blubbered in public.

This is me now. I still have a belly, but it’s 7-8” back from that bike post it used to rub against. My god, this felt amazing.

Real talk: I have a non-serious, but sometimes-kerfuffling condition that may never resolve, and it may mean I’ll never be able to do long-distance bike rides again, but just being able to run errands close to home would be magical. There’s just something about being able to glide around on a bike.

But that magic gets lost in translation when you’re an awkwardly heavy woman struggling for balance, with chronic back, neck, and shoulder pain.

After a year of Qi Gong and ALL THE WALKING, though, it turns out balance, my grasshoppers, is fundamental. And I don’t have chronic pain anymore.

I’m sorry that I don’t write that much these days.

It’s been really important that I live in my head and figure out my life and put some demons to rest. Somehow, this summer has become My Summer of Becoming.

I’m finally becoming the version of me that I’ve worked so hard for over the last three years: Healthy, strong, and more confident.

It wasn’t until I got on that bike and looked down, and saw this — all that space between my still-a-bit-flabby belly and the steering post — that I realized my still-imperfect self is a pretty dang good version of me, and I like the me I’m becoming. THAT “ME” took the garbage out last week and went “Meh, I’ll walk around the block…” then got home after a nearly 4-kilometre amble because I just felt so DAMN GOOD when I was walking.

So, this is where I am now: The cusp of what looks like a much, much healthier future, one with more adventures, more dream-chasing, and a heckin’ lot of tasty food along the way.

All I need’s a job that ends the constant uncertainty that has enveloped my life since 2015. I’m looking forward to having a job I love, an income I can rely on, and a team I can grow with. Bring it, universe.