One small Oscar for acting, one giant leap for civil rights. And my waist.
I have never been more loud and proud to live 'round the corner from the Kodak Theatre. One global "f#$k Prop 8" speech made wading through tents and barricades all week worth it.
Flaabers, I cannot tell a lie (unless some witty screenwriter with black glasses has penned it and some other witty yoohoo with a megaphone yells action; to wit: check out this "commercial " my sketch comedy team Mr. Fusion made). Maybe it's my born-and-bred Beltway ethics, but I am compelled to be brutally honest with you.
This whole staying skinny thing is really, bloody (Mary-style) hard. Harder than Dick Cheney's head. Harder than marketing Gigli 2: The Nepalese Adventure. Harder than Justin Timberlake in a box. Yesterday, my colonic lady said to me that for her kicking sugar is harder than kicking crystal meth. She meant it. She kicked crystal meth years ago and finds forgoing cupcakes challenging. I laughed, but not because I thought her statement absurd. It was the laughter of the commiserate.
Thankfully, I've never been compelled to try hard drugs. You'd think, however, given the epic nature of my skinny-struggle, that I was attempting to kick a junk habit worthy of Irvine Welsh documentation. I may as well be chasing the (chocolate-covered) dragon. Playing songs with Mr. Tambourine Man. Happily warming up my Smith & Wesson. And the worst part is, je suis too fatiguée to care. I am sliding down the caloric rabbit hole into rather contented complacency. My married gay friends are being done in by yet another yuppie who just can't be bothered. Bang, bang, shoot, shoot me NOW.
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Once upon a pre-Flaab time, I enlisted the help of a registered dietitian. It was like having a (tiny, blonde) arsenal by my side with diet detractors firmly in her cross-hairs. Kim, my solider-de-skinny, and I became fast friends with mutual clients. Should you fail to have read/retained every entry on this blog, I am Pilates trainer (which does make me wonder if the $625 I could owe the sanctimonious S-O-Bs attempting to "protect marriage" by un-marrying my near and dear Mr. & Mr. friends would be tax deductible...)
Together, Kim and I are writing a diet and fitness book, Travel Well. Travel Well literally tailors personalized fitness and diet plans to those who roam. (The book's introduction will be written by la creme de la creme of advice columnists...)
Think this graphic is on-the-nose? Try the tips!
Kim taught me a lot of what I used to construct my "Fly by the Seat of my (VERY SLIM) Pants" Diet. I took some of it, added my own, and ran smack into these infallible tips:
+ Portion is everything. Eat about a third of any restaurant portion and half of almost any other portion. Let it settle. If you were hungry enough for a meal, you are probably already full. If you were fall down-and-die hungry, you might need a second third of the restaurant portion and another quarter or so of a regular portion.
+ Never drink fruit juice. It's all sugar, high calories, and unless you drink it within five minutes of juicing, it has almost no nutritional value. Best to eat fruit and get the fiber.
+ Exercise is key: the lower your overall body fat percentage, the higher your resting metabolic rate because muscle cells burn more calories than fat cells, even when a body is at rest.
+ You really don't need every food group at every meal. Balance throughout the day is important but too much food is too much food, especially if you are full and don't really need any more calories at a given meal.
+ Drink tons of water. You need it anyways, but sometimes it is easy to mistake thirst for huger and you can end up snacking when you really just need a big ol' glass of H2O.
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(SPOILER ALERT) When Jamie was voted off of Top Cheflast night, officially ki-boshing Team Rainbow, I had an extra glass of wine. I could practically hear the backers of Prop 8 cheering "Score one for the family!"
But then today a 9th Circuit Court here in (thankfully rainy) So Cal. "deemed unconstitutional the government’s denial of healthcare coverage and other benefits to the same-sex spouse of a Los Angeles public defender, calling into question the validity of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act." (Carol J. Williams, L.A. Times 2/5/09)
Thank God, I say, not only because Civil Rights should be a no-brainer, but because 8 more glasses of wine and the 'Protect Marriage' a$%holes will wind up with my $625 come June.
Who knew a federal judge could so effectively strengthen my resolve? Just think how thin and calm we'd all be with less injustice in the world...
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Having lived in San Francisco for years, I can't remember not knowing who Harvey Milk was. It is truly fantastic that Milk buzz has swarmed my fair LA-LA Land (and beyond) because now maybe enough people know who Milk was that he can earn his rightful place in the civil rights pantheon.
I also can't remember not knowing about Dan White and his infamous Twinkie Defense. That murder could be chalked up to a lard-laden desert capable (along with la cucaracha) of surviving a nuclear holocaust is INCONCEIVABLE.
Twinkies don't have the power to change any aspect of a (wo)man, save the waistline. Boycotting carbon date-able snacks won't change the world but if it deprives those yeson8 fu%^ers of my well-padded donation, then the only Ding Dongs and Snowballsin my future will be made solely from (good 'n dirty) organic stuff.
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Flaab, I beg your forgiveness for my recent stint in absentia. Though it may seem, Flaab, that I have all but forsaken you for much (thank heavens for it in this economy) work and ma vie boheme, nothing could be further from the truth. You complete me. We're like naked and jaybird, flat and pancakes or Obama and Change. I cannot Schlameelsans your Schlamazel.
Flaab and me, We go together like...ding a de dinga a dong
And as a way to prove my loyalty, I hereby commit to you, Flaab, all over again. Though, we can't legally marry (in California, anyhow) I doth declare a whole new enemy for us to take on: THE BACKERS OF PROP 8. (Conveniently found in case of necessary failure dontion at www.protectmarriage.com.) You see, Flaab, we ought to be able to marry who we like and by golly, donating more money to the people who've already spent too much bushels to stop us from doing just that makes my stomach flip.
Prop 8 may have passed but the fight will go on and on in appeals court after appeals court. It seems, Flaab, that our new enemy is working already: these stomach flips ought to keep me just as slim as the day we met...
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Mustard makes my world go 'round. Tangy on the tongue and easily applied to any and all edibles, mustard makes skinny (read: raw veggie) snacks taste sinful. Just slather and smack lips together.
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I would like to thank, rather sincerely and of all people ever, Heather. She-who-should-not-have-been-named (or even remembered) inspired me to Fly By the Seat of my (VERY SLIM) Pants straight through the loss of my LAST FIVE POUNDS. On the journey I discovered that my runner-up arch nemesis is none other than Wheat. Oh yes, Wheat has chaf-ed my innards for the last time.
Guess I won't be a star in Kansas City anytime soon.
Flaab forced me to assess exactly what goes into my beloved mortal coil each day. I've always eaten well; as an hyper-allergic kid I had no choice. (There were only five foods I could eat - for years.) But my bet with Heather got me off my flaab-y ass and into Book Soup where I mulled over Eat Right For Your Type. Having learned I circulate B+ plasma, curiosity compelled my (rapidly slenderizing) digits to flip open Dr. D'Adamo's tour-de-force.
Now those are digits I'd like to have...
It turns out much of what no-I-swear-I-can-drive-stick stalled my wee-tot system is on the 'bad for B+' list. So for once, I followed directions, ix-nayed wheat, chicken, and several other things I'd rather not have and I FEEL GREAT. My digestion has accelerated to human speed and my belly is as flat as the Earth circa 1449.
So here's to you, Heather! You c^%t. Egads! Have you served your purpose? Am I on my own again? Am I a Batman-less Joker? A Simon-less Garfunkel? A Bush-less Jon Stewart? Only time (and wrath) will tell...
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I am hosting a (very) small soirée tomorrow in honor of CHANGE. The Big O(bama) Party will feature aphrodisiac hors d'oeurves and wine. If I were a wealthy woman, I'd cover the table with oysters and truffles (the fungi); as it stands, we'll have lil'-death inducing avocado "caprese," carrots with white bean-rosemary hummus, banana bread and chocolate truffles. The savory half is pro-maintenance, the sweet half pro-flaab. We can only hope that post-inauguration, Congress is more unified than our snacks.
A Beltway native, I am currently quite homesick and nostalgic. My mother says the traffic is abysmal. I'd still kill to be there. My oldest friend's birthday is January 20th and tomorrow she'll be the happiest she's been about her (every fourth) birthday in at least an octuplet of years. Growing up, we had insane field trips to the Library of Congress, the Smithsonians and Congress itself. We never took one birthday trip to the Mall, though. Swearing-ins were never this interesting. Thank God things have CHANGE(D).
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My latest film got into a little festival (great) and another one looks to have trotted out of post (production) with saddles a-blazin' (also great). Though me, myself, and I are solely responsible for picking a job contingent upon staying lean, some days doing so is just plain mean.
If only real main-ten-ance were as easy as making these sh^%ty graphics.
Today is one such day. Thank God I have Shirley Temple to quote. Singing "Tomorrow" over and over again is just bound to make me laugh through my tears.
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Maintaining a high level of performance at anything is a full-time job. Thus, it seems that even in these tough economic times, I have more Jobs than an Apple founder family reunion. So I turn, as I often do when spread thinner than that guy hanging from the wire in Beetlejuice's Office for the Deceased, to a personal hero for guidance. Coming from a dance background, Twyla Tharp ranks high on my list of Ten Most Wanted Creative Bandits. Her book The Creative Habit is a good (cheap) kick in the can.
Twyla says "Being creative is an everyday thing, a job with its own routines." Her book is also filled with exercises designed to unplug even the most constipated imagination. My favorite is Egg.
My name is Humpty (Dumpty).
Twyla instructs, "...Egg is a great way to start a creative session. It couldn't be simpler: I sit on the floor, bring my knees to my chest, curl my head down to my knees and , and try to make myself as small as I can...I cannot become smaller, I can only expand and grow. And so it becomes a ritual of discovery for me." The idea is to keep finding new movements, new ideas from the Egg until it is no longer interesting. I just want to unscramble my brain long enough to get dressed.
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How is it that smooth, round circles are vicious? Vicious implies blood dripping from gnarled yellow teeth wild-eyes-akimbo.
Sid didn't hold a candle to this kind of vicious.
Yet the circle of weight loss and the maintenance there of is vicious indeed, if in a more passive-aggressive, co-dependent, group therapy (blogs anyone?) way. When you're on the wagon, you've mounted with the moxie of Calamity Jane, guns a-blazin'. When you've tumbled off, however, nothing could be more overwhelming than chasing after it, lassoing its horse, and reverse-cartwheeling aboard - especially + the five pounds of blub you acquired post-tumble.
So a second question begets itself: what more can I do to stay on the wagon FOREVER this time? My rotator cuff hurts from so much lassoing and the lil' white marks around my hips are starting to stretch with each tumble. Being on the wagon feels better than just about anything short of a lucrative three-picture deal with Smoke House (which would be impossible to get sans wagon, anyhow). I walk tall (and the line) with pride when I am thin, rested, hydrated, spit-polished and purty.
The Thinker's hair was naturally bronzed.
As bored as I get at the hair salon, the mani-pedi chair or under mountains of wax, I am new baptized after a cut/color/buff/Brazilian. Maintenance is more than weight maintenance. It is self-maintenance. It is one JUMBO wagon barreling towards Headheldhighland and I vow, now and forever, to hang on for dear life. After all, I got hitched to a man - it's high time I got hitched to me.
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Marketing works like this: with just one shiny new something, things you would normally do only when threatened with reverse liposuction (or would avoid altogether in favor of cocktails that make you forget about all suction - until the third cocktail, at which point you can think about nothing but suck-tion, especially if your cocktails are made with tequila) are suddenly EXCITING! FUN! INSPI(RED)!
Quick recap: Endurance has never been my strength. I wheezed (sucks to my assmar) my way through childhood. Running became a regular activity only after the 2006 World Cup, which ended with Zidane's headbutt and Italy's victory. I decided to play soccer in a local league and to play soccer, you must run. So I started running. To date, I have played exactly one pick-up game but my ass looks a whole lot better for trying. Then I got injured. And squashy. And bet Heather. Now I'm healed and once morehaulin' (much firmer) ass.
She's going the distance. She's going for speed.
The first round of store-bought optimism, you may remember, came in the form of new Reebok Trinity running shoes. One run with those kicks strapped on and I felt like the mother, daughter and wholly sweaty ghost of fitness. My latest purchase, however, has enabled me to conquer the universe and beyond. One ipod shuffle (a red one so some proceeds go to charity)and I looked forward to running today! So entertaining was my featherweight accessory, that I ran for 2.5 miles without once digging into my pocket for the white flag. My endorphin rush took me higher than Bob Marley was when he recorded the cut of "Redemption Songs" blaring through my headphones. Thank God almighty, I've bought in at last.
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Crawling out of the whiny hole and into the light, I feel warmth on my just-the-right-amount-of-bone-y shoulders. (Since I live in Los Angeles, such warmth is oddly palpable, even in January.) Whilst basking on a rock, albeit in the middle of Ventura Blvd., it occurred to me that while vintage dresses should be treasured, vintage running shoes should be tossed.
Vintage silk 1930s French dress. My Mommy loves me.
I figured if the lure of shoes (a $285 pair to be exact) was catalyst enough to burn the LAST FIVE POUNDS, maybe new running shoes will keep them perma-smudged. I slithered off my rock and into Runnergy for a little athletic boost. Last week I ran and il me plaise.
She's like the wind.
Maybe, I thought, if my Skeletor feet had lime green air beneath them, I could enjoy running as much as all else lime: the Brits...vodka gimlets...key lime pie. And by God, it worked: I ran as soon as the sun went down (skin cancer is the one thing I will not channel from Ms. Hepburn) and I liked it. I really liked it. One quick clean-up and a très facile wriggle into my (VERY SLIM) pants later and off I went to dinner with a notably brighter outlook.
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Losing weight is turbulent but it can also be exhilarating. It's a lot like dating. Maintenance, on the other hand, is a marriage. Where a diet is something new and (usually) borrowed, maintenance is something old and, dare I say, blue.
For us girls who live to Fly by the Seat of our (VERY SLIM) Pants, maintenance can seem a bit dull and lonely. I feel like a kid whose long-anticipated birthday party just ended and I am once again all alone in my house holding cake I really should not eat.
So, I sought solace in the only sensible place for us arty/wordy types: the dictionary. (I think I'd have been an etymology junkie even withoutIone Skye's brainy cool turn in Say Anything.)
maintenance c.1369, "bearing, deportment" [from O.Fr. maintenance, from maintenir]
maintain c.1250, "to practice habitually" [from Anglo-Fr. meintenir, O.Fr. maintenir] and "hold in the hand" [from L. manu tenere]
c.1350 "to carry on, keep up"
c. 1375 "to keep oneself, to support"
c. 1340 "to defend in speech"
Buoyed by the chance to face the calm seas of maintenance both de- and sup- ported, my let down may be perking up. Who knew maintenance could be defined as "defending in speech?" (Pipe down, smarty pants.) "Defending in speech" is my default setting, my Irish spitfire biological mandate! Just today, I successfully defended myself in traffic against an insane, gesticulating as%$ole in a black '72 BLEEP. It figures that if I can maintain one way, maybe I can successfully maintain more than one way...
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So, this is how it ends: not with a bang but with a whimper. Having defeated Heather, saved my $285 and re-purposed much of Daniel Waters' very dialogue, I am on to stage two: Maintenance.
Maintenance is like purgatory. It is the rock to my Sisyphus. It is the wall to my brick. Or head. Lest I entirely neglect to celebrate my recent victory, I offer this, a final ode to the kind of school that makesIch Luge bullets believable:
BE AGGRESSIVE
B-E AGGRESSIVE
B-E-A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E
(I never made cheerleading in Junior high; I learned this cheer from Faith No More.) Rid once more, of those LAST FIVE POUNDS, it is tempting to think that I have Flown by the Seat of my (VERY SLIM) pants for the last time, that I am home free, that my problems are solved once and for all. Should such delusions creep in, I will bear this accurate hard candy-turned-hard rock anthem in mind. Each time my hand reaches for a poor, abandoned See's candy or fails to reach for my running shoes, I will hear an eerie combo of Mike Patton and Heather #3 (McNamara) chanting betwixt my ears.
These LAST FIVE POUNDS have been off before, only to return with a vengeance. This time, its New Year, New Administration, New Equilibrium. Steady As ME Goes.
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Writing is flaabulous procrastination. Right now, I am not running. I am also not eating, so perhaps delay has its just desserts...
I fell into a burning ring of...passion
Perhaps passionate procrastination is the real Secret. Passion: any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate (dictionary.com). When I do something I love, I am no longer obsessed with food, my body, its image or some foil-beamed vision of the female figure. Time passes beautifully and effortlessly. It is only when grudgingly doing that which I feel obligated to do that boredom, tension and self-loathing drive me to the ice box (and tears).
Right now, I am writing (love) a blog inspired by Heather (hate). Another 200 words and I'll be a size two.
Los Angeles has too many overpaid, undereducated self-help gurus running amok, so my ($285) buck(s) stops here: I vow to obsessively do what I genuinely love rather than obsessing about weight. Simple yes, easy no.
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Flaab.com WORKS! You bet $$$ on how many pounds
you want to lose; and you get your $$$ back when you lose them.
However, if you eat like a swine, miss your deadline,
and don't lose the weight, your money goes to
KILL THE WHALES (a puppy mill, your most detested enemy, etc.)
PoUnDsToLoSe: 0 lbs DeAdLiNe: 6/3/2009 tHeBeT: $625 tHeEnEmY: The Backers of CA Prop. 8/protectmarriage.com tHeDaRe: I will give up wine and coffee for a month, which is BIG. Believe me, it is even bigger than my ass. tHePrOgReSs: no change (click to see!)
about me: THE FIRST FLAAB MAINTENANCE BLOG!
I originally bet that I'd lose 5 pounds by January 3rd or my worst enemy "Heather" would get my $285 (enough to buy designer shoes, albeit on sale.)
About me: I'm an actress, writer and Pilates trainer. Right now, I've got: three indie films festivaling, two pilots (not) airing, and an (i.O. West) improv team. I'm also writing a play and two books including "Travel Well," a fitness/diet/travel title.
My BA in theatre & dance is from Hampshire College. A former pro figure skater, I now teach Pilates in Los Angeles. I am fabulously bi-coastal, though my Hollywood home happily houses my husband and two porky cats. I love punk rock.
www.ilanaturner.com
Kenneth: Ilana! The new stats should be up on the home page :) Thanks so much for the great idea! Micha: Wait wait wait, did I just read that you live in LA? I just moved to Los Feliz area, and I get lost a lot...that's a lot of my exercize. Micha: Ilana, that's a great dare. I cannot give up coffee for a week, I'm an addict! (And from Seattle...) Bonnie: Just watched the Crackle and Space trailer on youtube; very compelling... Bonnie: Ilana the 6th grade photo is a classic of the genre. And love the Heathers reference; adore that film Carly: Ilana you are hilarious! You can do it! e.jean Carroll: By the way, I AM looking at the sixth grade picture and it is the funniest thing on the site! e.jean Carroll: Thank god! Welcome Ilana! But now we are all waiting to see that sixth grade picture again!!!!! Alek: All right! Back in action.
Deanna Director: e.jean! This site is absolutely Flaabulous!
