Michele dragging her son Devon for a picture
As I started to round the corner into the kitchen I heard my two sisters talking to each other on the phone, “You should have seen her last night. She went crazy binging on lettuce.” “ha, ha, ha, ha…,” I said jumping out from the shadows. “Very funny.”
You see, I may have painted a rosy picture in my previous post but the reality is that I am with my family and we all know that with family comes tears, judgment and irritation along with the love and the peeing in your pants with laughter.
My family finds it difficult to be patient with me when I obsess about anything, which at the moment happens to be my Nutritional Cleansing Program, and they most definitely want to stick their fingers down their throats if they happen to witness me jumping up and down in front of the mirror because my large breasts seem to be disappearing. I wouldn’t even think of saying to them, “I think I have the breasts I have always wanted, just a handful and nothing more,” especially if Wade is in earshot.
These glories are all mine to try my best to keep to myself lest I nauseate any of my other family members by appearing too vain or eager to lose weight or narcissistic.
All in all, I will say that the first ten days of the program were a cinch for me when on my home turf but in the ten days that I have been in Nantucket the challenge has become far greater and I am surprised and proud of myself for not falling too far off the wayside to indulge on what I have always loved the most about Nantucket, the family dinners with the good conversation sparked by glasses of chilled white wine and accompanied by bread fresh off the racks at the bakery, Steamers dripping with melted butter, tomatoes from Bartlett Farm that taste like heaven when put together with cucumbers, goat cheese, basil and my mother’s famous Balsamic salad dressing and succulent corn on the cob topped off with the plumpest blueberries, raspberries and peaches, I’m drooling all over my keyboard just writing about it.
The reality is that where I miss the concept of depriving myself of eating or drinking whatever I want, whenever I want the frustration dissipates as soon as I put my loose fitting clothes on and I feel total elation rush through my body. You know that feeling? The feeling you get before holidays or before you are going on a getaway weekend with your husband or for me the feeling that something good is about to happen that I have always felt right before Halloween. Come to think of it, Halloween is the day that I met my husband so maybe I always knew somehow…anyway not to go off on a tangent or anything but I am loving that feeling of pure, essential happiness that I am doing something really good for myself, regardless of the obstacles.
It is as if I am metamorphosing into a rejuvenated and hopefully more refined version of what I was before and I like it. Now people are warning me to not get too thin, as if that would ever happen to me who can’t seem to make it through two entire days of cleansing without sabotaging myself at 9pm with chilled white wine to finish it off with a bang.
After day fourteen I was bored with it all, bored with the attention to myself, bored with explaining to other’s why I wasn’t eating and bored with not being able to eat the fruits of nature while on an island that I used to associate with hedonism in my teens. And so I did what I always do, I rebelled by going out to dinner with my family and having two glasses of white wine and half a dozen oysters on the half shell, and I felt marvelous, maybe a little too marvelous. My sisters and I perused the shops afterward and found a sweet Bulgarian girl who I unloaded my philosophy of life on, “You are young and beautiful and you seem so adventurous. The world is your oyster, go explore it,” and I saw her eyes widen with Shakespeare’s famous quote from his play “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. “I’m going to write that down in my journal and never forget it,” she said as I floated away on the cloud that I was on.
The next day I returned to the program and was none the worse for it and today I will have Michele take pictures of me and again in ten days when my thirty days will be over. Hopefully, I will have attained my goals before jetting off to New York City for the BlogHer ’10 Conference, which in itself is going to be a whole lotta fun to write about.
Eat ya later!
You completely hit it on the head about what it is to be with family. They evoke the emotional extremes…for sure! You have me intrigued about the cleansing system (something I have wanted to do for years) but my hesitation is having to commit to selling myself…we can chat more
Hi Meagan,
If you are intrigued about the cleansing, do not worry about the sales aspect. That is only a part of it if you wish it to be. The only reason why I am doing it is because I truly believe in the product and because I want to help people feel as good as I do.
I’m there for you if you need me!
You have WAY more willpower than I do! I’m trying to lose a few pounds, and it’s not going well. I’m the kind of person who would rather eat whatever I want and run an extra mile on the treadmill to burn it off. Now that I injured my hamstring and can’t work out as much, I’m gaining weight like crazy. And I know what you mean about spending time with family and eating. I just visited my parents, and I feel like all we did was eat and drink wine. Of course I had a blast, but it wasn’t very kind on my waistline. So good for you for sticking to it!
BTW, I’m insanely jealouse that you’re going to Blog Her. I would love to have gone but I have plans that weekend. Plus I have no one to watch my kids. Have fun!! Can’t wait to hear all about it!
.-= WifeontheRollerCoaster´s last blog ..Top 10 Things to Remember When Going to the Beach With 5 Adults and 3 Kids =-.
I am impressed with your willpower! But then again I sense an ironwill strength in you. I can totally relate with WifeonRollerCoaster,I’d rather burn it off! I took a peek at your website and am really interested.
.-= Vivianne´s last blog ..Flourishing in Your Life- Take Thriving Breaks =-.
Vivianne,
Me??? ironwill? Not exactly! I mean, I’m a Taurus which means I’m stubborn but I most definitely love my yum, yum. I think I was just sooo ready and not liking that I was working out a lot and eating healthily but not getting results, as I got older.
If you are really, really interested email me or call me on my cell: 970-379-3864 and let’s talk.
Love ya, Jillian
Oh no my friend I would so rather burn it off also but it wasn’t working, no matter how high the mountain, no matter how hard the work out and I am so happy that I have found something healthy that works and I am determined to keep it off.
I wish that all of you were going to BlogHer so that we could spend an entire weekend together in the city and get to know each other even better!
Remember to get the sand out of your tushi, or was it your children’s tushi? I haven’t used that word Tushi is sooo long but I love it, I think I’ll return to it. Thanks for reminding me to use tushi or popo instead of bottom…how boring bottom is in comparison…ohhh, think I need to go to the beach!
I so wish we could meet up at BlogHer also. I’ve only been to one conference, the milblogging one, and it was a blast. I hope to continue going, but of course I would have to deal with my whole anonymity issue. It was tough at the milblogging conference because people kept asking me personal questions that I couldn’t answer!
Glad I could remind you of the word tushy. My 6-year-old is going through a synonyms of body parts phase, and I so prefer tushy over butt. And yes, it was their sandy tushies, not mine.
Thanks for the wonderful comments over at my blog. Life is never easy as a mil spouse, but it’s nice to have such an amazing blogging community to commisserate. And BTW, that’s part of the reason my comments on your blog are so sporadic. I’m following over 200 mil spouse blogs!!! I’m struggling to keep up with everyone else while at the same time keeping up with my own blog and other writing endeavors. Blogging is so much more time-consuming than I ever imagined! But I love it.
Hope all is well with you and that you’re having a great weekend!!
.-= WifeontheRollerCoaster´s last blog ..Top 10 Things to Remember When Going to the Beach With 5 Adults and 3 Kids =-.
OMG – we have the same breast fantasy!
Soul-sista…
Swati
.-= Swati´s last blog ..Single Mom Watches in Horror as Her Local Starbucks is Repeatedly Violated =-.
Congrats on doing something so good for yourself! I’ve always thought you looked gorgeous, btw. And isn’t it funny – I’ve always wished for more than the (modest) handful I have…
.-= parentingadabsurdum´s last blog ..Life with boys =-.
I work in a bathing suit store in Nantucket called Letarte and Jillian came in to try on suits after being on her cleanse for three weeks…….What else can i say but…OH MY GOD!!!! Her body is completely different….like she looked HOT, beautiful, gorgeous. I have known her my whole life, she has always struggled with 5 lbs here and there (in her own head!) Now she is this lithe, lean close to Victoria Secret model body. I was soooooo happy for her as she burst into tears, so overwhelmed as to how her body was amazing and looked good in a bathing suit. Like come on, who really looks good in a bathing suit in a dressing room with those horrid lights beeming down on every bulge on your body? Jillian!
It is true, Michele and I were making fun of her when she binged on a lettuce head, and then stressed about it…but look who is laughing now!
I, who am training to be a pilates instructer, have the worst eating habits. My cleanse consists of wine, wine and more wine! I need something like her cleanse called Isogenics to teach me to be healthy and put the right nutrients in my body to keep me healthy, strong and motivated.
Will i start tomorrow? (as i wonder if i can substitute water with wine???)
Mouse – no way, really? Close to Victoria Secret model body??? Maybe not but I will tell you this, it is through your support and positive words that have helped me to achieve this goal. It definitely helps to get confirmation from your friends and sisters, even if they make fun of you in the process.
I can’t wait to go out on the town with you and your friends tonight and see how I feel then but whatever you do, don’t let me get on stage at the Comedy Festival or at the Chicken Box tonight after my reintroduction to alcohol.
Your loving sister, Jillian
Hiya Peryl,
You lucky dog you! Go small baby!
Really Swati? Let’s go bra shopping together girlfriend!
[...] “Sisters are a beautiful thing, until it turns ugly,” somebody said to me the other day when I told him I would be with my two sisters and all of our children over the holidays. He was right about that but in the past few years, my sisters and I have been working hard on listening to one another without allowing our sensitivities to overrule our practicality and it works, most of the time. [...]
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