Diet, schmiet.

I know I owe everyone (including myself) a real blog post and I promise to get one soon. Things have been busy and all has been well, but I realize that I need to keep blogging a priority because it is an extension of keeping myself a priority. I love documenting my life (especially since I can barely remember this morning) and I love feeling connected to my friends.

That said… in a spontaneous moment, my friend Jo shared with me her excitement over a dinner reservation she had last night. Chef Ludo Lefebvre has smartly begun (and brilliantly executed if you ask me) a new dining experience he’s calling LudoBites. The idea is to take one of the many LA restaurants that are only open for breakfast and lunch and open it for dinner under his menu and leadership. Think of it like an art installation at a gallery, where an artist takes up the wall space for a month or two, only in this case, the artist is a chef and you get to eat the art!

After stopping by his website and poking around, it was easy to become excited as Jo’s passion for food and fun is exciting and contagious. Within minutes, I had a reservation for myself and The Mister scheduled a half an hour after Jo’s. An hour later, Jo called and said she got us at her table and my heart smiled knowing we were in for a night of revelry.

I am not sure what it is, but chefs get me excited. I think it has to do with their work ethic and how hard they have to work to make a name for themselves. Ambition and hard work turns me on. I have no problem admitting that. So you can imagine how happy I was with Chef Ludo. Every bite of food was better than the one before. The butter that came with the bread was described more as icing. The creamy polenta with oxtail and black truffle was worthy of a competition with Heidi’s. Check out Jo’s website for a complete review of the food as I would never do it justice.

It was hands down one of my favorite meals and I am thankful that Jo, Peter, Charles and Robert let us tag along! Oftentimes living in a big city, we take for granted some of the food and restaurants we have, but last night, I knew I experienced something special and today I am counting my blessings as well as the minutes on the treadmill.

No, I know!

THE best couple to dine with.

New friends Robert and Charles

Some cute guy we found roaming the streets.

He refused to look at the camera, but he's back there preparing minboggling things for us!

Seared Foie Gras

Jo with Ludo's beautiful and sweet wife Kristine. You know how when you meet someone you can just tell they're good people? She definitely has that vibe and is stunning to boot!

For Jo, he reenacted the photo below. Try as she may, he kept his shirt on!

Happiness is a FABULOUS dining experience.

Check it out for yourself in the Los Angeles area. Divine.

To read more from the evening (including a complete review of the food we ate), and to be informed by one of the coolest foodies you could know, visit MyLastBite.com

Charles’ also has a food blog at 1hundredmiles.blogspot.com

And of course, to see what all of the hubbub is about, be sure and check out Chef Ludo’s website: www.ludolefebvre.com/

You can also follow him on Twitter and see where his next restaurant adventures take him: twitter.com/chefludo

Autumn McEntire and Jessie McNamara on this week’s show

Click the photo to be taken to The Baub Show

Photo from NoH8 Campaign

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Let freedom ring

I’m lying in bed with both of my men.
Deep into the 2nd season of Alias.
Dixon, Sydney, Vaughn. Like old friends.
Have spent the week listening to Kristin Chenoweth and David Sedaris. Feeling inspired and hungry to start writing again.
Who knows what will come out?
Possibilities are endless.
That is the beautiful brilliance of words.
Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday.
Eat plentifully (and healthy of course) and drink well (and responsibly). More blogging soon.
xoxox

sent through digital vibrations from my cell phone.

My Birthday Wish

My friend, the fabulous Eric Scot, shot this for me today. It’s my new publicity shot for The Baub Show. It’s rare that I would be so smitten with a photo of myself and I don’t dare have a bit of regret for saying that. We should all love photos of ourselves because they are snapshots of our lives and we should all be living lives we are proud of. Today I am celebrating mine, with this photo and on this day because now that it is midnight, I am officially one year older.

As a gift to me, go out and do something nice for you and include someone else and make the world a better place! xoxo

NoH8

How is it Tuesday already?

I’m out running errands right now and realized I never posted to my blog on Sunday (I did make it to Starbucks but thought I’d write from home but the day was fast and blurry). That said, I did hit 25 pounds on Sunday! I’m looking forward to 30 pounds. It seems significant to me for some reason.

How are all of you doing with your diets and goals? Remember this is a journey and not an overnight project. If you feel like you started off strong and just sort of faded back into your own ways, START AGAIN. Remember every day is new!

Don’t forget to call in or listen and chat live in the chat room at 830 tonight. My guest is Katie Thompson and my co-host is none other than Eric (Beneric) Johnson. Should be a fun show and we’d love to hear from you! Check it out at thebaubshow.com

Happy Tuesday everyone!

sent through digital vibrations from my cell phone.

Happy Father’s Day

Doing the math. Setting yourself up to WIN

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Facing my inevitable birthday in the next few weeks, I find myself learning a lot lately and I am taking this as a sign that I am still not yet old.

At seventeen, I knew that I knew everything. Didn’t we all? At twenty-one, I still knew it all, I was just growing more wise. Around twenty-five, I began scratching my head. At twenty-seven, all I could think was, “what the fuck”? By twenty-nine, I thought I knew nothing, which in reality meant I finally knew enough. Enough to ground me soundly into my thirties where my thirst for learning about myself had been quenched, and all that was left to discover was the meaning of life. Or so I thought.

I find myself here at thirty-four full of knowledge and dare I say, “some wisdom”. I also find myself learning a lot of big ticket items about myself at a time I thought I was done learning and just sort of aging. I mean, I can meet someone at a party and know everything about them and their personality after about four hours. After 34 years with myself, what could I possibly have left to learn about Me? A lot, but at least I am gaining more clarity each day.

What on Earth am I getting at?

That was my long winded way of saying I’ve been having a lot of “aha” moments lately and I am getting ready to share my latest with you right now. I want to explain (in my personal opinion), why, for the first time ever, I am feeling not only confident that I am going to, and am in fact, taking better care of my body and I am not doing it begrudgingly or with torture to myself.

When we have a large amount of weight to lose, it becomes this big number in our mind. Let’s say we have 100 pounds to lose. Next you have to divide that into how many months you think it would take to lose. To do it healthy, you’re looking at a minimum of 9 months. Off the bat, we’ve set ourselves up with two dauntingly ominous  numbers. But we’ve reached a breaking point and find strength to drudge forth and commit to beating those numbers. We put ourselves on some sort of plan, herein referred to as a diet.

Next, think of how good we are with managing our time and prioritizing projects. We know that if we have a major project to do, we know how much we need to get done immediately, how much we need to do along the way, and how much cramming we will do towards the end. That is just the way our brains are programmed.

Applying this rationale to our dieting goals, you can quickly see how we set ourselves up to fail. We start out really strong, but the second a small temptation presents itself (a cheat), it becomes really easy to say yes. Not because we aren’t strong or full of will power (which is how we have always viewed it), but instead we have this weird invisible thought that says, “well, I have 9 months to take the weight off, so this one cheat won’t matter. I have plenty of time to get this project done, er… to take this weight off, so I will go to that Bikram class or that aerobics class or the gym next week. We treat dieting like a project that we can accomplish at the end if we just cram properly. One cheat or excuse or justification easily slips into another cheat and suddenly, we’ve given up and slip into the familiar “why bother”? Then the punch in the stomach happens. That red circle we forgot we drew on our calendar and wrote, “congratulations on reaching your goals!” arrives. We look in the mirror and we are fatter than we were when we started and now psychologically we feel worse than we did nine months ago. What’s the best way to handle this type of depression? More eating and hybernating of course! Does any of this sound familiar?

Finally, my “aha” moment I promised:

I hit my personal rock bottom. I couldn’t find any motivation or inspiration, even though if I were to count my blessings and look back on my journey, things were going very well for me and that should’ve been inspiration enough. But it wasn’t. I remembered visiting Kristie Alley’s house with a friend a few years ago. He was staying with her and all of the cupboards were filled with Jenny Craig food. I will always remember him saying, “we eat all of the time, but you can’t help but lose weight!” I knew if it worked for Kristie, it would have to work for me. I was out of options.

While I did it for the obvious reasons, there has been one unexpected lesson that has come out of it and is helping  me to win. Remember those ominously daunting numbers I referred to above? They have suddenly been divided by 52. Once a week, I go to my weigh-in and the days in between, I find myself making completely different decisions. My weekly goal is between 3 and 4 pounds in 7 days instead of 140 pounds in the next year. If I want to lose 4 pounds by Sunday I am conscious of what I am putting in my mouth. Four pounds is attainable! When I am seeing that I am not quite there, suddenly I am WANTING to go take a Bikram class today or go to the gym today or drive to Slimmons today without dragging my feet or putting it off until next week. I’ve given “Project Me” a weekly deadline and it is making all the difference in the world, because the competitor in me likes to meet my deadlines, or at least give it my all trying.

Here’s where it gets crazier…

It is bleeding into my personality. I am HAPPY. I am getting happier every day. Because pyschologically, I am doing right by me. I am acheiving goals. I am making this happen. It is EMPOWERING. I urge anyone who is reading this and feeling the pangs of what I was talking about above to find someone or something or some way to check in with each week. Whether it be Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers or even a spouse that you get on a scale in front of at the same time each week, I PROMISE you this makes a difference. I had always known this, but by never truly applying it, I never grasped it’s full effect and I am only sorry I didn’t realize it sooner.

I really want this for myself and I really want this for you if you are feeling the same. I’d love to see us all at the finish line a whole lot healthier and full of life!

Finn in a box

Remember when Finn was a little baby and all he wanted to do was get inside that box?

He finally made it! Don’t you remember the days where all you needed was a blanket and a box and you were HAPPY. You were sitting in a magical castle or in a tent in the woods or a faraway land, all from the comfort of your living room. Sweet memories.

Surviving the gloom with a smile

I’ve inadvertently developed a new tradition. Every Sunday, after my weigh-in, I walk over to the Starbucks, order an Americano and type a blog from my cell phone. I can’t explain it, but it makes me happy.

Today I thought I wouldn’t and shouldn’t be doing it. I have people expecting me places and running around to do. That’s also what helped me realize that this 15 minutes I’m taking for myself is that much more important.

My weigh-in went well. I lost over a pound and a half but not quite two pounds. My consultant said that was normal since I had such a big drop last week. Personally I’m thrilled I lost anything at all. This was a tough week.

I get that June gloom happens every year, but I don’t ever remember it raining! I’d be lying if I said the gray clouds weren’t affecting me. Richard you may notice is popping up on various TV shows this week that are taped in New York, so he only taught on Tuesday and that was the extent of my working out. The gloom has left me wanting to snuggle up in warm cotton and watch TV. I haven’t, but I also haven’t pushed myself out the door to do anything else.

Despite all of this, I’m still feeling happy and accomplished. I think of how I’d be doing through all of this gloom if I weren’t in my present state of mind. I’d in fact be wrapped up in cotton, watching TV, eating out of control and ultimately wallowing and feeling horrible about myself once the sun returns. I’m happy to not be that person right now. I’m feeling an accomplishment that I am smiling right now and eating healthy under a gray heavy sky. I’m happy that I’m making myself a priority right now so that I can be that much more present for everyone who needs me this afternoon. I’m confident that I’m going to have a great week, have some great exercise sessions and eat healthy and delicious food.

I am thankful for all of you that read my last post and who have shared yourselves so generously with your comments.

What are some routines you have for yourself that make you happy? I hope you take the time today and this week to do them for yourself.

xoxo
Bob

sent through digital vibrations from my cell phone.

Taking a Me moment

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since Sunday! You’d never know it, but I have so much to say!

I’m finding myself full of gratitude these days. I’m so thankful for the love and support I get from my friends. People don’t realize it, but I grew up shy, awkward and fairly friendless. That all changed in my last few years of High School and I’ve never taken any of it for granted.

This week in particular, I’m feeling my friends showing up for me and it is a reminder of just how fortunate I am. Tuesday I premiered my brand new radio program, The Baub Show. Not only did I have great friends show up on the air with me, but many listened along and participated. On top of that, every person I’ve asked to be a part of it has said yes without hesitation.

Asking your friends for anything, especially to show up for you, is not always an easy thing. It leaves you exposed and vulnerable, which is why when they say, “yes”, your heart is already open and receives the love so much more fully.

I talked on the show about living life with more intention and asking the universe for what I want. This is a theme that has been popping up for me lately and I thought I was participating better in it. It wasn’t until my friend Jo reminded me that the universe is listening and I need to stay responsible with my words.

I could hear the vibration of that comment loudly in my ears when I found myself talking about my radio show with friends. I’ve shyly promoted it and brushed it off as a “hobby”. In my mind I had decided I’d wait for it to be a success before I took pride in it and properly promoted it. How backwards is that?

I also found myself doing this when I first drove myself to Jenny Craig. No one, not even my supportive better half, knew that I was going to do it. The internal pressure I had put on myself would’ve crushed me if I had failed not only myself, but my friends who’s support I rely on.

But since my first LH2.0 post, my friends have been nothing short of supportive and some even inspired. Not one has brought up my diet failures of the past or the wagons I’ve fallen off. Instead, they are right there in the wings cheering me on and filling my heart with warm light that’s helping to keep me on track.

I decided last weekend that my radio show and anything else I set out to do will also be shared confidently and pridefully with everyone I know and most especially with the universe. I will also walk more confidently in my body that has grown stronger with each workout these last few weeks.

I will show and feel more gratitude for my friends and my body and my life. I will continue my evolution and hold my head with pride. I will host my radio show and not think it silly, but a stepping stone to help Ryan Seacrest with some of his workload. I will imagine myself in a sexy photo shoot in a thinner, healthier body that show cases all of my angles and sides and not just my face. I will not take for granted or disconnect or sleep away anymore years of my life.

I am me and I am me with pride. I will walk this journey holding the many hands of my friends. I know that with their love and support, I have nothing to be shy and embarrassed about.

I hope if you’ve taken the time to read this, that you know I’m thankful for your time – even if we’ve never met. I also hope you’ll take a moment to journal, blog or even email yourself some things you are thankful for, some people you are thankful for and some goals you’ve prevented yourself from achieving because you’ve felt silly or embarrassed. Find the strength in your gratitude and the universe will help you get it done.

Sending you all loving thankful vibes from my cell phone.

xoxo Bob

sent through digital vibrations from my cell phone.

It’s Happening!

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Winning with patience

I’m sitting at Starbucks right now, texting this from my cell phone, so please forgive me if this is littered with typos and incomplete thoughts.

Today feels good.

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was turn on my TV and flip over my coffee table (I wasn’t taking any chances with the padded rug).

I turned on the WiiFit and began entering my information once more. Then it asked me to step on the board and I don’t remember an exhale leaving my body as the screen politely asked me to wait.

“Congratulations! You are obese!”

This will likely and hopefully count as the only time I will ever be happy to hear this! What it means is that I have lost enough weight to be able to get on my WiiFit and that all of my hard work is paying off.

The machine then told me that my weight is 326, my BMI is at 40% and my Wii age is 35! That last one made me happiest!

From there, I headed off to my Jenny Craig weigh-in. Their scale confirmed the results with 327. Exactly 20 pounds from the day I started.

Today is and has been an incredible set of goals achieved and I’m feeling that much more motivated to keep it up.

I have more to say and more goals to share and I’ll likely hop on line this afternoon to share them. In the meantime, it’s a beautiful sunny day outside. I’m going to finish my Americana and take my bike for a spin. I hope you’re doing something great for yourself today. Whether you believe it or not, you absolutely deserve it.

sent through digital vibrations from my cell phone.

The baby is here!

Welcome lil baby G to the world! And she’s pink! (But pink in that healthy way – she’s PERFECT!)

The happy parents are likely going to kill me, but I could not resist!!!!

Wendy is great. Steve is great. All’s well!!!

Origins of Marriage

I feel much better after having watched this video.

Visual re-enforcement

So yeah, remember that full length mirror I was telling you about? I’ve actually discovered an even worse visual reminder that exposes our even worse angles: A friend’s photo of you, posted and tagged on Facebook.

They mean no harm. In fact to them, they only see the memory and the laughs they were having at the time. To them, you look exactly like you do and so the photo is just an organic snap shot of the moment. They were there in the room with you that day and had the full 360 degree view of how you looked, not just your full frontal, smile for the camera, hiding behind someone else, pose.

Using a social networking site like Facebook or Myspace,  or even when you post an online personal somewhere like Match.com, you only post your best side. Your best angle that shows off your best features. Your friends however, aren’t trying to showcase you. They are posting the memory to document and look back fondly on an experience. Because of this, every so often, you are forced to see a photo of yourself that you’d prefer were removed from every mind, memory and data base on the planet. But why, I wonder?

The only person we are hiding that memory from or pretending it didn’t happen is ourselves. The people who were there with us remember the whole thing. They saw our behavior and our appearance first hand. I think we need the reminder of a bad photo to have a better sense of who we are and how we’re doing. I’m surprised at how many people remove their tag from the photos as if that makes it disappear. It doesn’t. The photo is still there on Facebook for all the world to see, it’s just a little bit harder to find.

I decided awhile ago to keep all of my tags. I think it is better that I know and keep track of what is out there instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. Seems like a new theme I’ve adopted lately. Not only am I talking about the pink elephant in the room, but judging by this latest photo found on a friend’s Facebook page, I myself AM the pink elephant in the room.

If I had seen this photo a month ago, I probably would’ve burst into tears, asked my friend who posted it to remove it and eaten food until my stomach hurt and my throat burned. Today, I look at this photo and think, “today I will continue on my diet. I will not consider straying and when it comes time for me to go to the gym, I will go quietly with no internal struggle.”

I can’t hide that photo. It’s me. And from the looks of it, I was having fun in a multi-million dollar mansion on a sunny California day in April laughing with two of my best friends. I’m making a choice to be thankful for this photo instead of humiliated, in spite of the fact that my belly looks like I will be the next Octo-mom.

Definitions of Baub

In my attempt to succeed at one of my many goals (to post a minimum of 5 times a week), I was struggling with a few topics I’ve had on my mind this evening. As usual, instead of sitting down to type, I procrastinated and caught up on my Google Reader. Fortunately, I came across a post from Snackiepoo and felt inspired to steal rip-off create my own list of POSITIVES that define me. I’ve been making lists of everything that is wrong with me for years. We are so quick to critique ourselves and list what we’d change, but how often do we take the time to say out loud our defining traits or features we like or are proud to be?

I am…

…smart

…authentic

…funny

…tall

…honest

…resourceful

…lucky to have such great hair

…loyal

…a confidante

…a good kisser

…strong

…healthy, in spite of my weight

…of sound mind

…a good dancer

…not afraid to behave silly

…a great friend

…wise

…fun to have at a party

…a good listener

…a caring adviser

…able to light a room no matter how far apart the walls

…hopeful

…optimistic

…a good catch

…a pretty great boyfriend

…a fantastic cook

…an appreciator of good jokes and guttural laughter

…deserving

…inspired by my friends and the many people I love

…trying.

Who are you? What wonderful things define you?

Well ain’t that a kick in the head?

I have been forced to deal with a few blows this weekend. It’s been a lot for me to process and I figured, “what better way to start off the week than with a huge gut sized dose of reality and over-sharing?”

Strike one:

Yesterday morning, I woke up at my friend’s beach house feeling good and only slightly guilty for the few glasses of wine I had enjoyed the night before. So I trotted off to the Bally’s in Hermosa (a first for me) and got a good work out in so I could enjoy the rest of my Saturday guilt-free. When I got back to the house to shower, I saw something in the mirror that I am not sure I have ever seen- a full length, nude side-profile of yours truly. Our bathroom at home is too small for any such visual, so for the last four years I have lived here, this has been an image easy to avoid. In a large enough bathroom where you can back far enough away from the mirror to fit your whole self in… it is a vision one can not avoid.

I felt like one of those cartoons, where the person from the front looked normal, but their side profile, they were thin as a pancake after a piano or giant anvil had landed on them. Only what I saw in the mirror was not a pancake, but a person who looks like they could win back to back pancake eating contests. The vision was startling and disturbing and did not sit well with me, but I persevered.

Strike two.

I had my Week 4 weigh-in this morning. I lost nothing. I gained nothing, I lost nothing. I lost zero point zero pounds. I have gone to the gym 3 times and one aerobics class at Slimmons. I found out the wine I had on Friday was fine because I had cut out other calories and there is only 110 calories a glass. My body is apparently “adjusting” and I should see great results next week. I hope so, because I am not going to lie, it was a little deflating.

But again, I persevered. I ran to the market and filled my cart with vegetables, fruits and lo-cal necessities, ready and focused on my week ahead.

Strike three.

When I got home, I contemplated going to the gym before I glanced across my living room and decided it was time to conquer one of my fears: the Wii Fit. My friend Joy bought it for me for my birthday. My birthday is June 27th and she bought it for me LAST YEAR. Everyone who has one tells me they get on it and their “Mii” inflates to how fat they are and declares them fat or obese depending on their fitness test. Worst yet, it records their weight, a number I guard more closely than a face-lifted, botox injected woman walking down Rodeo Drive. Friends love to come over and play Wii and I have not wanted to take any chances of my “Mii” popping up on the screen revealing my stats.

I asked Andrew to set it up for me, but waited until he left for work, so that my Wii Fit could be as honest with me as it needed and I could prepare myself for the harsh reality it would unveil. I wasn’t prepared enough. Five shots of vodka MAY have prepared me for what happened next, but I doubt it.

The Wii Fit has a weight limit. 330 pounds. Since I can not write this post without you figuring out the math yourself, I will take this as a cathartic moment and admit my truth: I am at 331 pounds. Perhaps now you know why I walked out of Jenny Craig four weeks ago on the verge of tears. After entering all of  my information, it asked me to step on the board. The screen went blank and a message read: “I am sorry, you are over the weight limit. Restarting now.” Strike three, I am out.

The ray of light.

I am not giving up. I have one pound to take off before I can get on that stupid thing. Four weeks ago, I couldn’t get my bathroom scale to register (it has a cut off of 335 pounds). By next weekend, I plan to step on my Wii Fit and conquer it. It has taken me a year, but it is time. And now that I have shared that number out loud, I have nothing left to hide. My weight can only go down from here and my spirit can only raise up.

I will be leaving for the gym shortly.

This has all been a great wake up and a truly remarkable revelation for me because, like I said in my first one, I have been asleep for the last few years. As much as my muscles are tender and sore, my energy is up and I am feeling empowered to keep on keepin’ on.

How did your weigh-ins go this week? Any set backs? Don’t let them discourage you. With the same commitment we had to gaining the weight, we must be as dedicated to losing it. I’m excited to see us all one year from now, thinner, happier, more confident versions of ourselves!

It’s time we upheld traditional marriage