Five reasons I still love me some Dr. Oz.

Oh people.  I love me some Dr. Oz,  but Ive been burned before.

Allow me to elaborate.

I used to HEART me some Dr. Phil.

Back in the day, when he was merely an occasional guest on the Oprah Show, I was completely smitten with that man.

Id Dr. Phil myself myriad times a day (“Whats the WORST that could happen?”)

Id find myself creating my own wacky Phil’isms (“You see, if a monkey cant read upside down then you should take that job or he might get himself a down pillow!”).

Basically I thought he was smart, stern, wise, and no nonsense.

UNTIL HE GOT HIS OWN SHOW.

And then, for me at least, he swiftly went the way of the Springer.

So you can see why I was sad & not excited when my healthy living boyfriend, Mehmet fave Dr. Oz got his own television show.

It seems Oprah has the golden touch—unless said ‘touch’ involves bestowing upon you a 60 minute TV time-slot.

That said, for me and for *now*, Dr. Oz has escaped the Oprah Curse & is still is somewhat of ‘balanced’ healthy living role-model.

Allow me to share exactly why.

His information is clear, concise & easily understood.  I recall seeing him asked once what one unhealthy food we should all completely avoid.  I was nervous & curious what he’d say. Being an intuitive eater I practically define myself by the fact NOTHING is ‘off limits.”  His answer?  Anything white which is not a fruit or vegetable.  Clear, concise, easily followed and YES, even for me, VERY TRUE.He is consistently empathic.  And authentic. I can’t imagine he’s ‘acting’ or as he’d be on the stage/in the movies rather than hanging with us in the healthy living realm.  He possesses an inimitable ability to relate to everyone & discover/find commonalities where there seemingly are none.  All of my favorite bloggers possess this skill, too.  It’s truly a gift.He’s firmly anti-multitasking.  As I am.  Admittedly I should watch his show more (I pinky swear I will when we procure us that extra hour in the day), but Ive heard him say repeatedly how important it is to do one thing at a time, finish that task, and then move on.  Sure he paralleled this to his time as a surgeon (insert joke here he DID NOT MAKE about jumping from body to body mid-operation) but in my opinion this applies to all of us.  I know when I multi-task I end up doing nothing well and rarely completing any task.He believes ‘fitness small stuff’ adds up. (PLAYouts anyone?) In the land where too many trainers & experts advocate long, lingering workouts it’s refreshing to hear him sing the praises of his 7 minute morning workout.   I have nothing against long & lingering, I just know for many of us that isn’t an option. I also know I had many clients skip workouts because they didnt have a a full hour to dedicate to exercise.  Im anti-SKIPPAGE.He validates my repetitiveness, err, consistency.  My morning meal tends to be the same.   I love my breakfast. It works well for me time-wise.  Ive also heard him say people who eat the same things over & over (day in and out) consume fewer calories overall.  Im not sure there’s science here (anyone?), yet I do agree with him when it comes to repetition! Change is good. We need to shake our ‘stuff up’ so we dont plateau, but it’s ok to have  a place in your life where you dont.  It’s fine to have an aspect of your life where you just LET GO AND GET ROUTINIZED!  For me that place is my morning meal.

Im a firm believer in & tell anyone who will listen:

Find gurus! Read books! Buy magazines! Watch movies & television shows! Listen to doctors and professionals around you—but remember, in the last analysis, you are the expert of your own body.

One of the people I listen to/information-gather from is Dr. Oz.

Now you.

Do you love you some Mehmet as I do or have you, as many have, turned on The Oz?

In your mind has he been a victim of the dreaded Oprah TV Show CURSE?

Please to also tell me how much you ADORE I rock the 1980's photo-shop in the picture above.

Edited to say: I just saw on Twitter, where I procure all my information, The Dr Oz show is reviewing the JumpSport Fitness trampoline tomorrow! My yammerings of love above remain, even though The Tornado & I werent invited on the show to share our rebounding wisdom.

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I Still Believe

If there’s a theme song for perseverance, determination, and…in the footsteps of my last blog…resilience, it’s “I Still Believe” by The Call. When I listen to it, I believe I can do anything. Michael Been sings as a man who’s been to heartache and back many times, and the contemplative lyrics were meant for such a voice as his. And mine. And yours. And anyone else who’s not given up.

So much of what we strive to do in our lives – what we really deep down want to achieve – is in defiance of what we’ve been told (by others and ourselves) we can’t do. How many times have you lost weight, only to gain it back? How many times have you started exercising, only to quit after a few months? When have you heard (and by whom?), “You can’t do that! You tried before and failed! Come here. Have a cookie.”

<--------raising my hand

We all have a voice inside us urging us on, telling us what it thinks we should do. Often times, it’s a not-so-wholesome plea: “____ will like me more if I do _____.” “I’ll be happy if I just do ______.” “Life will be perfect once I have ____.” But sometimes, after some contemplation and planning, or just due to plain stubbornness, what we hear is a wholesome plea: “You want this for yourself.” “You’re worth it.” “I believe in this goal and you!”

But I still believe
I still believe
Through the shame
And through the grief
Through the heartache
Through the tears
Through the waiting
Through the years

For people like us
In places like this
We need all the hope
That we can get
Oh, I still believe

What we do in response to that voice is what makes the difference between striving and retreating. I wrote in a post on Lynn’s Weigh on Facebook the other day that I’d agreed to do something outside my comfort zone and that my initial response was to eat mindlessly – to just stuff M&Ms (which I didn’t have in the house, thank goodness) or roasted soybeans (I’d just bought a 12-ounce bag) in my mouth as I contemplated my commitment: to fly to New York in early February and tape a segment on weight maintenance for “60 Minutes Australia” (same show as the U.S., just down-under).

Doing TV turns my stomach into a slip knot. (So how come I “wanted” to eat after I sent the “Sure…I’ll do it!” email?) TV makes me sweat, my heart palpitate. I wake up in the middle of the night wondering what the heck I’m going to wear, and I worry that during the interview I’ll get dry mouth and sound like I’m chewing marbles. This worry and future thinking is not very mindful/Buddhist of me, I know. But I never said I was enlightened.

I’d initially said no to the “60 Minutes” offer, telling the producer I wasn’t the poster child he might be looking for because I’d gained some weight and was struggling with arthritis. His reply? Oh…his reply. Made me rethink a whole lot about the “truths” I’d convinced myself of recently:

“May I say it sounds like you are being a little tough on yourself! You're are still half the weight you once were and despite your body having some issues, you are still living healthily and not stacking on too many pounds.

“It’s not so much the 'poster child' we are after, but the real story of someone who has broadly succeeded in not reverting to their former weight, and being determined about it.”

Determined. I read that word over and over. ‘Heck, yeah, that’s me! Doggedly determined. I’ll be damned if I’m going back to where I was. I’ve come too far, worked too hard, learned too much to do that.’ In the passion of that moment, I wrote back and said I’d do it. That’s when the knot formed in the center of my stomach and I wanted to eat. But instead of consuming copious amounts of whatever, I took a bunch of deep breaths, got dressed, and went to visit my grandkids. Because what I realized is that despite the stress and the doubt, my deep down desire is to make weight maintenance part of our culture’s dialogue. To make it as popular as weight loss. If that’s truly my goal, then that voice inside me can say all it wants about my fear of being on TV. My will is stronger.

I still believe. In me. I still believe that through the bumps in the road, through the temptations and heartaches, through the worries and self-doubts, that I can do what I (and others) tell me I can’t do.

I still believe. I hope you do, too. Listen to that song and let it sink into your bones. Dance to it in the kitchen. Let it drive you on the elliptical. For people like us, in places like this.

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I Was Being Greedy, But Still Lost 2-lbs Over The Holiday. What! How’d That Happen?

In the last 10 days I’ve lost 2 pounds. That’s quite remarkable for this greedy time of year, especially when I confess to you the eating I engaged in leading up to and over the Thanksgiving holiday: There was carbohydrate fanfare (I love me some hot buttery rolls and stuffing), sweet potato pie delirium (I basically ate damn near an entire pie), and excess coffee shop snacking.

It was all very glorious.

My eating was obviously NOT as moderate as planned in these past 10 days, so how the hellz did I manage to drop poundage anyway?

I was actually a little confused at first myself. But then I did a brain re-wind to review not just my greedy eating, but ALL of my eating and ALL of my other actions. Sure, I’ve been a little very greedy lately, but here’s what I was doing the rest of the time:

I Haven’t Missed Any Workouts: I didn’t miss them because I planned them beforehand, even picking out my workout clothes the night before so I’d be ready. I workout 5 times per week for about 45 minutes, including warm-up and cool-down.

I Increased My Fitness-Funk Ratio: I love a good challenge. And a good challenge makes you sweat, causing extra fitness funk to be released (can you smell it?). I’ve been going hard on my workouts. I like it that way. The combination of NOT skipping workouts, plus going hard proved to be effective for continued body transformation over the holiday. Plyometrics and bodyweight exercises are still my workout-beasts of choices, but now I’ve added 10-minutes of speed rope onto the end of EVERY workout. It’s been a real game-changer. Have you been game-changing lately?

I Barely Stopped Moving: My couch-azzing has been very limited lately. Sitting around less, moving around more. You know how that goes. I’ve been so busy lately, but instead of bitching about my busy-ness, I just been busting it out and getting sh!t done. I could have sat around lazy, whining about how it’s not fair I have to do so much, but instead I just buckled down and did what I had to do, which equated to more movement in general, and we all know what more movement leads to: a sexy bod. (uh huh)

I Made Fantastic Choices In-Between the Pie Slices: Salads, healthy homemade soups, lots of water, consistency with the Shakeology, sensible food portions in general… all of this matters. So if you’ve been guilty-greedy, don’t say to “hell with it”, because every food choice you make in-between the greediness is still a step in the right direction.

So there you have it. And this totally supports my motto: Find Balance Between Fitness and Your Greedy Side. Especially around the holidays. What’s your own ninja plan to deal with random splats greediness?

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A Run-less Yet Still Sensational Sunday at Comic-Con

I didn’t get my long run in today for the Half Training. :( No excuses here. I just wasn’t feeling it. I’m going to do my best to get it in tomorrow. I have to carve out an hour and a half for myself, not sure if the baby will last a full 8 mile run.

Anyway, I had a GREAT day. Actually, a great weekend! A little over indulgent in the food department but you’ll have this. Tomorrow is a new day.

Here’s my Sunday in pictures. I’m posting these and then going to bed! I’m exhausted!

A great start to the morning. Brotherly love. :)

Camping out in the hallway as we organize laundry.

A little show from goofy big brother.

More laundry bombing! :)

We had NO food in the house except fruit.

Someone is LOVING his solids!

A little game of war.

A family outing!

Action figure heaven!

How could we not?

The boys were having fun!

We came home and watched Pee Wee’s Great adventure. This was his reaction.

And this was Little Bean’s.

I just had to throw this one in. I love this picture!

After the movie, Little Guy and I went grocery shopping. It took all the energy I could muster. I’m wiped!

Hope you had a great weekend!

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I'm Still Here! Three Weeks in Photos

Man…the weather turns nice and I totally disappear from the blog-o-sphere! I lurk early in the morning, reading blogs and always promising myself I'll write one. I have a lot to tell you because a lot’s been going on. The wretched winter and the non-existent spring kidnapped my writing discipline. Give me some warm weather and I’m a college student on spring break. I lose all focus. I mean, it’s sunny, I have a bike, I have legs, I have grandkids full of energy…
However...the intoxication of warmth is becoming the norm, so I promise to be around a bit more. Thanks, as always, for sticking with me.

Thought I'd share a photo diary of what I’ve been up to.

There was Luca’s 2nd birthday
Hanging out with Cooper
Biking with Claire
Playing with Mae-Moo
Helping potty train the Luca Duke
Sliding and swinging with Luca and Claire.
I still love to slide down a big old metal slide. I'm also teaching Claire to swing. You know how many muscles it takes to swing? Pull back with your arms, stretch your legs out going up and back going down, repeat for 10 minutes. Takes some calf and ab strength, I tell you what. We found an old school slide the other day. The metal kind with steep stairs and hardly any guide rail. The three of us climbed up the stairs and slid down without falling on our butts at least 20 times. I had to bribe them with bubbles (“Let’s go blow bubbles at Grammy’s!!”) to get them to stop.

I’ve been hiking and biking alone, too.

Not a sign you want to see going up the grade on a steep hill
I hope this finds you enjoying your spring, too. I wish you the joy of a slide and a good swing. I’ll be in touch soon. Promise :)

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Still Decompressing Plus a New Food Journal.

I’ve been spending a lit of time on twitter and reading all the FitBloggin recaps. Oh! and the pictures were posted! It’s been nice to just be.

I did write the second part of, I’m a Crazy Breastfeeding Momma!

Other than that I experimented with a new food journal. Twitter is just not working for me anymore. Too much to mange with multiple accounts. Instead I plan on keeping it offline and then just posting it here nightly.

Here’s what I came up with… Oh! and this is what I ate today…

I may make this every day! Such a treat. Nibbled the husband’s Dorritos. Stopped myself after 3-4. I was just eating them becuase they were there. The few I had where tasty. This was the end of it. I love having leftovers to grab for lunch! Cause I saw it and I wanted it. lol I have to admit, these things are better then I thought they be and this one is only 80 cals! I was hungry and I wanted to up my veggies so I peeled about 5 carrots and hit the hummus. The PopChips were a total add on becuase I didn’t want to stop dipping! Note: Hummus now gone. SO GOOD! I was hungry and I wanted something to hold me over until dinner. I made them with beef and bulked up with veggies and beans. So good! Was a little hungry before bed. This totally hit the spot. I added some frozen blueberries at the end. SO GOOD!

Ran 2 miles today! It was tough. I lost a lost of stamina. Had to stop and walk a buch of times but I felt great afterwards! Posted the Nike+ chart on Facebook.

I also walked Little Guy to the park after school.

Did "ok" in the water department. It’s all I really drink but I wasn’t married to it today. Just a few glasses, mostly with meals and after the run. Took a multi-Vit mid day when it popped into my head.

What do you think? Do you keep a food journal? If so, what works for you?

Disclosure: Got free samples of Attunebar, PopChips and Larabar at FitBloggin.

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I’m Not Sleeping but Sunday’s are Still Sensational :)

Yesterday was rough! I traveled about 3 hours to NY for a cousin’s baby shower, just me and the Little Bean. In and of itself that wouldn’t have been a big deal. But getting home at 10PM and then trying to get some sleep while nursing a 3 week old just wasn’t happening. I vented a little on Baby’s First Year blog. Little Bean seems to have his nights and days mixed up. It’s pretty normal and I know it will pass but right now it’s killing me! I’m exhausted.

But I’ve been keeping up my food journal!

It’s the little things I do for me that help me stay sane. :)

Here’s my Saturday in Food….

It all started with a bowl of Grapefruit Oatmeal.

On the road I had a banana and a Larabar.

At the shower the meal started with a nice salad.

Then a small plate of pasta. Have I told you this party was on my Italian side? ;)

For the main course we had our choice of a few dishes. I went with the salmon.

It came with a side of fried mashed potatoes. That’s what that mozzarella stick looking thing is. I took 1 bite and left the rest. Why? Well because I knew…

The cake was coming.

After the shower I went to visit my great Aunt and Uncle. Again, on the Italian side. Of course I couldn’t escape without eating something. They bought an Italian cheesecake just for us. I didn’t really want it but I couldn’t turn it down either. SO I took a half of slice.

YES, that is actually half of what they hard portioned out for a serving. Unbelievable, right?

On the 3 hour ride home I decided on some protein. I discovered this gem a few months ago and it’s now my go to road snack when I need to pick something up in a pinch. Only 80 calories a serving and a nice lean protein!

Today started with a serving of a new experimental soup I was making for GreenLiteBites. It came out great and I hope to post the recipe tomorrow! (with better photographs as well. ;)

After the soup I straighten up in preparation for our houseguests. A couple of my friends were bringing over their kids to meet the baby. I made everyone grilled cheese on whole wheat and we tons of fruit and veggies on the side. It was a great lunch! I didn’t snap a photograph as I was too busy hosting. :)

After everyone left, Little Guy and I made some of my "Not Your Grandma’s Chocolate Chip Cookies" Honestly, I just had a craving for them! I’m happy to say them came out great AGAIN! I’m also happy to say I stuck with a serving, unbelievably. Especially considering last time I made them, I downed at least 10. I just couldn’t stop myself.

In the afternoon, Little Guy and I went out to pick up groceries while The Husband stayed home with Little Bean. We also stopped at the candy store for a treat and I picked up this yummy chocolate bar.

It was a nice size serving for 190 calories. As you can see, Little Guy got something too. ;)

When we got home we put away the grocery. Honestly, we kind of just threw them in the fridge but hey.. at least we are prepared for the week.

I mean we are really prepared. :)

Notice the pot on the stove in the background. I made a huge batch of hard boiled eggs for the week.

Once everything was put away we made dinner. Using a package of Trader Joe’s pizza dough, I made a fabulous pizza out of leftovers and some fresh greens we just picked up tonight.

Honestly, it was DELICIOUS! I mixed some leftover taco meat and chicken in some leftover sauce I had in the fridge. I added a layer of diced up baby spinach and kale then topped it with some fancy shredded mozzarella and mexican cheese blend. The Little guy loved it too. :)

At the end of the day I sat with my two boys, nibbling on pizza and doing crafts.

There was no other place I wanted to be at that moment. It was the perfect ending to a fabulous weekend.

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The CHOCOLATE & VICODIN blog book tour reaches the end of the line. (But you might still win a book!)

The CHOCOLATE & VICODIN blog book tour reaches the end of the line today with its last stop. Check out the interview and review at Sheesh with The Merry, who you might remember better from Cranky Fitness. Big thanks to everyone who took part in the tour!

The blog tour has been lots of fun, and their are still a few opportunities to win a free book if you visit the posts listed in the full blog tour itinerary here. In addition to the blog tour, several other blogs have been kind enough to post reviews and host their own giveaways. You can find out more about them on this post and this post on my news blog.

Don’t forget, you might win an iPod or gift certificates to Amazon or iTunes simply by spreading the word about the book here!

I’ve got one last radio interview scheduled for tomorrow on LA’s public radio station KPCC during the Patt Morrison Program at 5:40pm EST or 2:40pm PST local time. Please note the time as it has been changed from the time I originally announced. I also want to thank Flyleaf Books in advance for letting me use their landline for the interview. They are the shiznit.

After that, the bulk of my book promotions will be done and I can catch up on all the web design work I’ve been neglecting. (Dear clients, I am so, so, so, so, so sorry.) I’m grateful for all the press and media attention the book has gotten, but talking about my headache so much has really made the headache flare up. So, I will be sorta glad to go back to my life of relative anonymity and quietly read all the nice emails chronic pain sufferers have been sending me. Those messages alone make the book worth writing.

Thank you to everyone who has helped support the book! I really appreciate it.

"Smart, unflinchingly honest, and laugh-out-loud funny."– Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice

PastaQueen.com is a fascist regime ruled with a benevolent fist by PastaQueen and the macaroni military. Lively discussion is encouraged, but any comment may be deleted or edited according to the whims of your monarch. Please read the official rules of commenting etiquette for more details. Spammers are publicly beheaded and their blood is mixed into our spaghetti sauce. Comments are occasionally disabled some time after an entry has been posted to keep the blog on a spam-free diet.

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Dine out--and still lose weight

As I mentioned in last week's blog, my #1 tip for successful weight loss is to LOSE THE WHITE STUFF.  The easiest way to make this change at home is to avoid putting any white stuff in your grocery cart.  That includes white rice, white flour, white pasta, white sugar.  All are generous sources of calories but absolutely zero nutrition.

Dining out presents its own set of challenges when you're trying to eat healthy.  Just remember these tips for making whole grain choices: If you haven’t cut bread out of your diet completely, ask for whole grain rolls, crackers, tortillas (corn or whole wheat -- instead of white)Choose oatmeal or whole grain bagels for breakfast (over white bread or white bagels) Ask for brown rice instead of white rice Ask for whole grain pasta Choose whole grains for your starch course when available instead of potatoes or white rice; (e.g. polenta, brown rice, wild rice, bulgur/Tabouleh

If enough customers are interested, you may be in for a surprise the next time you go back. Restaurants want to keep their customers happy and coming back -- make your desires known! Unless we request more nutritious whole grains when we dine out, refined grain products (white stuff) will likely remain the standard choice at most dining venues.

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In Spite or Despite, Life is Still Good :)

I know, I know…I haven’t blogged since Tuesday. What a crazy week! I was helping out in the Conti Infirmary where everyone – my two g-babies, son-in-law and very pregnant daughter – have been alternately sick the last two weeks. The illness has passed, so they can welcome g-baby #3 into a relatively germ-free house within the next few days. Cassie’s due date is Friday, but she went a few days early with Claire and Luca...so…Monday? Tuesday? So exciting! I brought the kids to the mall on Friday to ride the carousel and those 50-cent rides that jolt kids around for a couple of minutes, but they imagine they’re driving a car or flying a space shuttle. Amazing what joy a roll of quarters will bring a 3- and almost 2-year-old and their Grammy.

The other thing that’s kept me from blogging is the news I got Wednesday from my knee doc. What we thought was just a meniscus tear (something that could be repaired with a simple scope) turned out to be much more, and the knee surgery I had in June, the one we thought bought me at least 5 years with my original equipment, turns out to have been in vain.

I’m getting pretty good at reading MRIs and x-rays. Most anything in bright white isn’t good. No, no, no. You don’t want to see bright white. But we did see bright white. A big old mass of bright white on my upper shin bone, lit up like the Griswold Christmas tree. It was fluid, which means, for lack of a better word, death. The bone, said my doc, is dying.

“We see this in women ages 40-65,” he said. “But usually it’s in women who are heavier than you.”

Doc doesn’t know about my obese past; all the years I spent going up and down the scale. At that moment I figured why tell him? Nothing I said would change the diagnosis.

So I walked out, a little stunned. My five years of reprieve from a total knee replacement is most likely down to 12 months or less. But rather than be angry, I was resigned. Sad, but resigned. I’ve done the anger thing. Anger is like snake oil. It cures nothing.
?
The sign on the exam table in knee doc's office?In April and May 2010, I wrote two blogs about how I live with the consequences of living most of my adult life on a weight roller coaster and more importantly, being morbidly obese for several years.
In the Refuse to Regain post, I wrote: “I haven’t wanted to explore this, mostly because there’s not a damn thing I can do about it now and I can’t change the past. But the question is begging to be asked, the question I’ve avoided since making goal three years ago: Do I have all this arthritis in my knees, shoulders, wrists and toes because I was overweight and obese for so many years? Like stretch marks and loose skin, is arthritis my daily reminder that, for years, I fed my insatiable desire for starches and sweets; gained and lost and gained and lost a lot of weight; and for the most part treated my body like it was separate from me?


“The answer is probably not a resounding ‘Yes’, but it’s not ‘No’ either. I am, in many ways, responsible for the shape of my body now. The choices I made about diet and exercise and the things I declared acceptable (basically ignoring the weight elephant in the middle of the room) accelerated the degeneration of my knees and feet, and perhaps contributed to the degeneration of my wrists and shoulders.


“Even though I give myself a lot of credit for stopping the weight before it got any higher and for losing the weight which has given my other systems better health, here on the other side of weight, displaced anger still exists.”

We all lose weight for a variety of reasons: to avoid heart disease or avoid or regulate diabetes, to look better or fit into a size-smaller wedding dress, to be able to play with our kids, to fit in an airplane seat. All good reasons. But how many of you have lost weight because of the potential for osteoarthritis? My guess is not many. I certainly didn’t have a clue obesity could cause this arthritic mess of a body I’ve got now.

On Lynn’s Weigh last year, I wrote: “Even now, I get angry when I think about what I’ve done to [my body] and for what it can’t do anymore, much of it due to having been morbidly obese. But…I promise myself to do my best to stop the cycle of anger, grief and guilt I put myself through with much frequency. I will do this by journaling more positively and finding alternatives to self-flagellation as solutions to my perceived failings.”

Nearly a year later, I’m…eh…doing OK with stopping the anger cycle before it gets looped around. I try not to live in regret, but it still pops up once in awhile.

My plan now is to: 1) pay close attention to the pain, which right now isn’t too bad; 2) get educated about total knee replacement in “younger” people; 3) play with my grandkids; 4) keep working out; 5) keep my weight stable; 6) don’t beat myself up.

G-baby #3 will arrive soon. Very soon. And right now, despite the knee and wrists and everything else, that’s all that matters.

Life. It’s good. And if I’ve learned nothing else through this, it’s that there’s redemption, regardless of what we’ve done to our bodies or ourselves in the past.

*** I need to add that if you comment about how you know someone who's had a knee replacement and have said it's the best thing they've ever done and they wished they'd done it sooner, let me know how old that person is. 47 is really too young to have a knee replacement because replacements wear out in 7-10 years and the next knee is never as good as the first. You get mileage on the first one, yes you do, but I'm trying to think ahead. I'd love to hear from folks who had TKR in their 40s. Thank you!

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The CHOCOLATE & VICODIN blog book tour reaches the end of the line. (But you might still win a book!)

The CHOCOLATE & VICODIN blog book tour reaches the end of the line today with its last stop. Check out the interview and review at Sheesh with The Merry, who you might remember better from Cranky Fitness. Big thanks to everyone who took part in the tour!

The blog tour has been lots of fun, and their are still a few opportunities to win a free book if you visit the posts listed in the full blog tour itinerary here. In addition to the blog tour, several other blogs have been kind enough to post reviews and host their own giveaways. You can find out more about them on this post and this post on my news blog.

Don’t forget, you might win an iPod or gift certificates to Amazon or iTunes simply by spreading the word about the book here!

I’ve got one last radio interview scheduled for tomorrow on LA’s public radio station KPCC during the Patt Morrison Program at 5:40pm EST or 2:40pm PST local time. Please note the time as it has been changed from the time I originally announced. I also want to thank Flyleaf Books in advance for letting me use their landline for the interview. They are the shiznit.

After that, the bulk of my book promotions will be done and I can catch up on all the web design work I’ve been neglecting. (Dear clients, I am so, so, so, so, so sorry.) I’m grateful for all the press and media attention the book has gotten, but talking about my headache so much has really made the headache flare up. So, I will be sorta glad to go back to my life of relative anonymity and quietly read all the nice emails chronic pain sufferers have been sending me. Those messages alone make the book worth writing.

Thank you to everyone who has helped support the book! I really appreciate it.

"Smart, unflinchingly honest, and laugh-out-loud funny."– Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice

PastaQueen.com is a fascist regime ruled with a benevolent fist by PastaQueen and the macaroni military. Lively discussion is encouraged, but any comment may be deleted or edited according to the whims of your monarch. Please read the official rules of commenting etiquette for more details. Spammers are publicly beheaded and their blood is mixed into our spaghetti sauce. Comments are occasionally disabled some time after an entry has been posted to keep the blog on a spam-free diet.

View the original article here

You should double-check that you’re still on my mailing list

The short version
If you think you’re subscribed to my mailing list, you should double-check that you are. Just go to this page, submit you email address, and if you’re already subscribed it will tell you.

The long version
I started my mailing list over three years ago when Half-Assed was coming out. After I was through promoting that book, I neglected the mailing list for the next two years. If it were a plant, it would have turned brown and crinkly. Now that Chocolate & Vicodin is coming out, I took the old list and imported it to Mail Chimp, a well-regarded e-newsletter service that has cool tracking features and reports.

I sent out my first email a month ago, but was sure to add a little note at the top telling people why they were getting the message and how to unsubscribe if they were no longer interested. Evidently, six people didn’t remember subscribing to the list and didn’t read the first line because they reported the message as spam, which caused MailChimp to temporarily suspend my account. I had to remove all the addresses I’d imported, leaving only the ones that had signed up after I started using MailChimp. I then had to personally send a message to all the old addresses asking those people to resubscribe. However, due to technical issues I’m not 100% sure all those people got the message, and there’s no way I’m going to send another message spamming people by telling them I don’t want to spam them.

So! If you want to be subscribed to my list, you should probably go double-check here. If you’re already subscribed, the form will tell you. Otherwise you’ll just have to click a confirmation link in an email.

Thanks! I promise that someday something I run will go totally smoothly with no bumps or bruises. Someday. Yes, someday.

"Smart, unflinchingly honest, and laugh-out-loud funny."– Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice

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