PDA: Pretty Dang Awful

A few years ago, we took an amazing trip to Italy. While we were in Venice, our tour group broke into smaller factions and decided to see the city by gondola. One of our travel companions reluctantly joined Clint and I in our little boat, cringing that she felt like she was crashing someone's honeymoon by going with us. I assured Mary that I was raised Southern Baptist, and we don't even really acknowledge each other in public, much less get romantic. It doesn't matter how many people are in our gondola, because Clint and I are not people who embrace (no pun intended) PDA: the all-too-common public display of affection.

Here we are on our non-touchy feely gondola ride (Mary isn't pictured
because she captured this moment for us).

Let me make sure I fully illustrate to you how little ooey, gooey show of emotion there is between my husband and me: we have been married for seventeen years--eighteen in December!--and we are more than secure in our relationship. We love each other, but there's no need to make everyone else watch it. Kissing, hand holding, canoodling...not for public consumption. We are more likely to give each other a playful shove, a punch on the arm, or an eye roll. We don't write each other flowery love notes (okay, maybe on a special anniversary once in a blue moon), and after all these years, I think that sometimes Clint forgets I'm actually a girl. Case in point: the last blog post that I wrote was about our diet, and my nutrition coach not only read it, he sent me a very kind text message afterward about it. Heart warmed, I sent the text from my coach to Clint, who responded...well, here's a screen shot below so you can see for yourself:

That last line is what I want you to notice; particularly, the word "bromance." According to dictionary.com, a bromance is a close relationship, similar to a romance but platonic, between two MEN. The only problem with that is I am not a dude! And I would like to think my adoring spouse knows this. I believe this bromance incident just goes to show that we are definitely not the public display of affection type of couple.

That's not to say the rest of the world feels the same way. In fact, we frequently find ourselves exchanging amused/disgusted/bewildered glances at the things we see other couples do and say in the plain view of the general public. We know another couple (friends of our friends) who actually hold hands when we go to dinner...while we are all eating. I can't imagine loving someone so much that I would give up the ability to knife and fork my meal, but apparently, these love birds can't go through appetizers, entrees, and the possibility of dessert without hand holding one another. They are not newlyweds, so we can't use that as their excuse, either. I suppose we should be thankful they can stay in their own chairs and no lap sitting is required, not that I would stay to witness it. I have to give it to them, they are good for my diet: watching their clasped hands during my dinner is an excellent appetite suppressant.

Just this past Friday night, I made a stop by the Redbox inside our neighborhood grocery store to see if there might be any movie worth renting for the weekend. While I waited, the guy (I can't bring myself to call him a gentleman) in front of me treated his date to a neck and shoulder massage as she perused the DVD titles. They took a break from reading movie plots to kiss and then nuzzle each other. I could not believe my eyes, and I could not stand there another second, even for the sake of a $1.29 movie. I realize the Redbox process is sexy, but contain yourselves, people. Moments like those were made for Netflix.

If you find yourself, like me, longing to retreat from the public throes of passion, I have to warn you that not even social media is safe these days. It seems enamored couples are getting a little too social--without fail, my newsfeed is regularly littered with lovey dovey posts to boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, and the like. I am, quite frankly, baffled by this kind of behavior. What prevents these posters from simply turning to the person that they claim to adore so much and telling them in person? A phone call can be an excellent and private way to convey this message if there is distance involved, and best of all, it rarely involved uncomfortable witnesses. It is more meaningful if it's said through Facebook, in front of your family, friends, acquaintances, and a few people you aren't even sure how you know who are in your online circle of friends anyway? Do we all need to bear witness to the fact that this person is your heart, your soulmate, your world, the one you are so happy you "get to do life with?" Ugh. I think I'm breaking out in hives just typing that...even from here, it's too close for comfort. I really think the sentiment would be much more sincere one on one, without your sixth grade Social Studies teacher's husband scrolling through and getting involved.

Please do not involve me in your social media romantic sentiments. I'm allergic.

The point I am hoping to make is simply that PDA is pretty dang awful for all of us involuntarily involved. Love makes the world go 'round, but out in the open it makes the rest of us want to get off the ride. By all means, be passionate, adoring, infatuated, smitten; just enjoy all of that from the comfort of your own home rather than at the dinner table in your favorite restaurant, or Lord help us all, aisle three of the grocery store. Channel that energy until you two are alone, and then focus on each other without the rest of the world looking on and distracting you. Just make sure you don't accidentally call your lovely wife a dude. I hear that women really hate that.

The Diet Dirt

I've been on a new diet for five weeks and counting now. In the meantime, my trusty iPhone keeps auto-correcting the word "diet" to "dirt," and lately, I'm not sure it's wrong. Apparently, it's too much to ask to be able to eat and drink whatever you want and still be able to button a pair of pants, so it had become increasingly clear that the plan Clint and I developed while I was recovering with my broken ankle was, in fact, not the best plan for us. The most fun and delicious and enjoyable plan, to be certain, but not the best for little things like health, well-being, or appearance.

There's a lot of truth here...and also a lot of tacos. 

Once we decided to put down the tacos and put a plan of action into place, we knew we wanted to try something different. As you may be aware at this point, I have been on and off some type of diet since I was around six years old. In this battle of the bulge, I've tried low calorie, low fat, low carb, Slim Fast, Super Shred, South Beach, Isagenix, Plexus, AdvoCare. I've done the one where you lose 10 pounds in three days (very sustainable, as you might imagine), I've done intermittent fasting, I've done liquid diets and meal replacements and supplements and B-12 shots and body balancing...whew! There's not much that I haven't tried, although I think I know by now that what it really comes down to is eating less, moving more, and moderation. Believe me: if there was a magic pill or potion, I would have come across it by now.

We found a nutritional coaching program that helps you simplify the bevy of diet advice out there by having you focus on macronutrients, or macros for short. The three that our program tracks are your proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. We were each assigned coaches who reviewed our personal information and gave us our numbers: the total amount of proteins, fats, and carbs we are supposed to consume each day. You can go about reaching these macro numbers any way that you please, but you should ideally come within five grams (plus or minus) of each one.

Let me start at the beginning with the coach who was originally assigned to Clint and to me (kudos to them for trying to keep married people on the same team). I got this fellow's email and read through his very enthusiastic, warm welcome, and then found his invitation to follow and befriend him on social media at the bottom of his message. Imagine my surprise (and intimidation) when I got this visual of my coach (well, I added the smiley face just to soften him up a bit):

Something tells me this gentleman and I have very little in common.

Naturally, Clint thought the coaching assignment was awesome. He would look at the pictures on our new coach's Instagram and instinctively flex, as if he was going to get buff by association. I decided that, for my part at least, a change in coaching would be necessary. After a couple of messages to the diet organizing powers that be (dutifully but adamantly explaining that I'm more Garden & Gun  than Muscle & Fitness and I would very much appreciate a mentor who grasps all that), I was reassigned. Meet my new coach, whose identity I have cleverly concealed for his privacy's sake.

Yep, coach, that's more like it.

Once I saw this new coach actually wearing a shirt--and one that endorses tacos no less--and I read through his quirky, funny social media posts, I knew we were in business. I hope the company warned him about the impatient, neurotic, diet-crazed lady that was about to come his way, but if not, he's started putting all of that together by now, believe you me.

How's it going so far? It's not easy. We are dutifully measuring and recording every bite of food that goes into our mouths, weighing every morning (simply the best way to start your day, isn't it?), and logging everything into a spreadsheet for weekly check ins with our respective coaches. 

I've become a person who weighs out broccoli, for Pete's sake.

Naturally, Clint can have more food than I can, so I feel like he is always eating. After dinner every night, I am resigned to a sad little cup of sugar-free Jell-O with a very measured two tablespoons of sugar-free Cool Whip, and Mr. I-Still-Need-Protein is in the kitchen eating fistfuls of sandwich meat and beef jerky. I'm learning to love egg whites (lots of bang for your macro buck), and Clint is noshing on hamburger patties (protein) or Gummy Bears (gummy candy is an easy way to add carbohydrates without throwing off any of your other macro numbers).

Since I have been dieting for so long, I guess I have at least acquired a bit of knowledge about how these things work. Poor Clint, not so much. He's been watching his weight since I've known him, but he's also just always asked me what to eat and followed along. Now, we find ourselves in the land of many, many questions as he navigates his own set of diet guidelines and has to plan out what to eat on his own. Among the things he's asked: do pickles have protein (while holding the jar with the nutritional info printed right there for all to see), are gingerbread muffins a carb, and what are the macros in celery? If eye rolling burned calories, I would never need to diet again. Sadly for me, it clearly doesn't.

So far, I've lost five pounds. As we used to say growing up, "That's like taking a cup of water out of Lake Hartwell." (This is a regional reference: please feel free to insert any large body of water of your choosing to customize the phrase, but you get my point). My coach is reassuring me that anywhere from half a pound to one and a half pounds a week is the preferred pace for sustainable weight loss, so I'm trying my best to keep plugging away. If the scale is just a number, why does mine have to be so high? 

You've probably heard the old adage: how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Please correct that to: measure out your elephant portions, carefully weigh them, track them in the My Fitness Pal app, and only eat that sucker if it fits into your macros! I assume elephant is high in protein.

Until next time, if you need me, I'll be over here savoring every last morsel of this sugar-free Jell-O.