And it goes on …

“I have gained and lost the same ten pounds so many times over and over again my cellulite must have déjà vu.” -Jane Wagner

I have, by my scale’s account, lost nine pounds so far on my weight loss endeavor. I think that’s pretty good, considering that I really only started trying to lose weight less than a month ago. When the average recommended weight loss is one to two pounds a week, I consider nine pounds in three weeks to be a major triumph.

But what I’m really pleased about is that I can already feel the results in my clothing. Right now, I’m wearing an old pair of pajama bottoms that I was pretty sure I would have to retire because they were bordering on uncomfortable when I would put them on. They are by no means loose at this point, but they are comfortable. I no longer feel like they’re trying to squeeze the life out of me. And I’m noticing it in my dress slacks too – they feel a little looser every time I put them on lately. That’s quite a switch from them being a little tighter every time I put them on.

As I’ve said before, I look at this as a lifestyle change; I have changed the size of the portions I eat, and a good deal of what I’m eating on a day to day basis. But I refuse to give up everything that I have enjoyed in my lifetime. I know that “eating clean” is the big thing these days, and I support anyone who wants to do that – more power to any one on their diet, so long as they aren’t eating small children and domestic pets. But I am finding the “clean eating” group to be a very preachy set of folks, which I find both annoying and amusing. Many of these people aren’t on a dieting website to share their knowledge of what they’ve been doing all their lives to maintain their perfect physique and unquestionable ability in the gym. Most of them are there for the same reason I am – they needed to lose weight. Some of them needed to lose a LOT of weight. I need to do that myself, so I am not throwing rocks at anyone in that position. But the reality is that anyone trying to lose weight should do what works for them, not what a bunch of uneducated folks on an internet website says someone should do.I think a lot of fear-mongering takes place on the internet, and it causes people who don’t educate themselves to run around either giving bad advice, or following the bad advice others have given.

For me, I am living the life I feel most comfortable in. I doubt that I will give up things like buying my meat at the grocery store, certain convenience foods, a soda or two a day, and sugar. I like the convenience of some items, and the taste of others. And cutting portions and counting calories is working for me – nine pounds lost in a little more than three weeks proves that.

One thing I have begun to realize – but not yet ready to fully embrace – is that I need to cut back somewhat on the carbs. And there’s a simple reason for this – they are very, very tasty, but they are very calorie-laden. One cup of pasta has at least 200 calories, whereas one cup of most vegetables, without oil or butter, has about 50 calories. If you do use some oil or butter, that would double the calories to 100 per cup. I can eat a lot more veggies for 200 calories than I can a pasta side.

That said, I’m making spaghetti for dinner tonight. I ran my recipe through a calorie calculator and found that half a cup of my sauce has about 100 calories, so dinner consisting of one cup of pasta, half a cup of sauce, a slice of garlic bread and a salad will have about 450 calories, and it will definitely fill me up. Who can ask for anything better?

Plan for the coming week:

• Continue to track what I’m eating every day, even if it’s not the best thing for me to eat.
• Do a better job of meal planning for lunches, and have it packed up and ready to grab before I go to bed every night.
• More water, fewer sodas. I have been drinking, on average, three sodas a day. I would like to cut it back to two. I am thinking of replacing one soda with club soda – I have a SodaStream machine here at home, and I love it. Club soda has no calories and no sugar.
• Join a gym (!)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

Weekend Recap – Weight Loss Edition

I woke up this morning and stepped on the scale to find I’ve lost another 2 pounds over the weekend. At first I wondered if I should be concerned – I mean, I am trying to lose weight, but I’ve lost more than six pounds in less than two weeks. It just seems like a lot to me. But then I realized that there are probably a few things driving this rapid weight loss – I have a lot to lose, I’ve become fanatical about portion sizes, and I’ve cut back my soda consumption by half or more. I am pretty sure my body has been shocked into losing weight just through portion control and a lack of almost constant soda consumption.

On Friday night, Chris and I decided that we’d like to have shrimp for dinner. I went to the grocery store where we usually buy seafood, and found shrimp to be $12/lb! W O W. I don’t know why it’s so expensive, but it floored me. Last time we bought fish from this same store, it had a musty taste to it – in two years it was the first time that had happened, but it sort of turned me off to buying fish there. My dad (the consummate fisherman) tells me that fish gets a musty taste when it’s been improperly frozen. And the fish wasn’t exactly cheap – $8/lb. We could only really afford to eat it once a week or so. I’ve never really been a fish person – it’s only been in the last couple of years I let Chris talk me into trying it, which is odd considering I’ve spent my entire life on the Texas Gulf Coast. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve had more than my fair share of fried fish when I was young, but my dad really likes catfish, and I really do NOT like catfish. We’ve been buying “fresh” tilapia and I like it, whether it’s grilled or pan seared or lightly sauteed, or even broiled. Still, it wasn’t my favorite meal, but I could eat it, and I know that fish is good lean protein that helps with cholesterol issues. But … $8/lb for the cheap stuff! Wowza!

It occurred to me that we live fairly close to a good source for seafood – the Texas coastline. I called my parents, who live much closer to the water than we do, and arranged to go over. My dad took Chris and I to Seabrook, a sleepy little town down old 146 headed toward Galveston. Most people in this area are familiar with Seabrook’s cousin Kemah, a booming touristy area right across the waterway. Seabrook was more or less annihilated in Hurricane Ike back in 2008, but they are back on the map now. I was so happy to see all the seafood places rebuilt down there. My dad directed us to a place at the end of the street (I wish I could remember the name, but at least I know where it is) which carries all sorts of seafood – red snapper, tilapia, shrimp, squid, clams … the list is practically endless. And the prices! If only I could convey my delight at finding tilapia for just $2.49/lb. And red snapper at $2.99/lb (which at the grocery store mentioned above, runs right around $13/lb). And shrimp – any size you could want, in any state (head on, deveined, deveined and peeled, etc) all for less than $6/lb. We bought 2.25 pounds of shrimp, four huge red fish filets, and eight nice tilapia filets – for our family, about six meals – for $25. We brought it all home and that night, we had shrimp and pasta in a garlic butter sauce. Last night, we had tilapia. I cannot tell you the difference in the taste of the tilapia we get at the grocery store and what we bought at Seabrook. The fish from Seabrook was incredible! It was so good and flaky. It was everything I never knew fish could be, since I’ve never really liked fish to begin with. The rest of the fish and shrimp we froze “the right way” and will be eating over the coming two weeks.

We have also decided that we’ll make the drive to Seabrook once every couple of weeks to get fish, and try to eat it two or three times a week, because it’s moved from being the most expensive protein we purchase, the being one of the cheapest. And honestly, the taste is just amazing.

Frankly, I was a bit skeptical about buying tilapia in Seabrook because I’m pretty sure I’ve never caught one in the Gulf (and I do love to fish even if I didn’t like to eat them). But the proof was on my plate last night. Fish is back on the menu, and more often than ever now.

 

Success!

This morning I stepped the scale to see that I’ve lost 4.6 lbs since last Friday. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about this. Even though I decided when I started this (again) that I would not obsess over it, I will admit that I’ve been weighing myself every couple of days to see if I was making any progress. I chose Friday to be my official weigh in day because a) I wanted some motivation to keep going through the weekend, and b) if I’m going to do any cheating, it’s most likely going to be on the weekend, which gives me time to make up for it the next week. Yes, I’m bad and I know it. But like I’ve been saying, this is not a diet for me; it has to be a new way of living and relating to food.

I’ve known people who give up just about everything they find tasty when they make a “lifestyle change” and if they can live like that, I applaud them. I know that I can’t do it. I enjoy the flavors that life offers – cheesecakes, steaks, sodas, etc. But I also am quite happy to eat steamed broccoli, chicken, fish and other foods that are supposed to be better for me. It isn’t that I necessarily disagree that these foods aren’t good for me – it’s that I don’t believe any food is truly bad for us, unless consumed in excess. I suppose that even eating too much broccoli may have some sort of downside.

Earlier this week, I read about Stacey Irvine, who at 17 years old, hasn’t eaten anything but McDonald’s chicken mcnuggets since she was 2 years old. Not being a big fan of most British foods, I can sort of see how something off a fast food menu might have its appeal to a young girl, but at the same time I am repulsed by mcnuggets because they are not very tasty in my opinion. This girl has been eating them for 15 years, which of course means she’s seriously lacking the vitamins needed to keep herself in good health. I don’t think anyone can look at her diet and say she’s eating well. But if you look at her picture, she isn’t overweight; she looks reasonably healthy. I would never ever recommend anyone eat a single nugget, let alone base their entire diet on it, but this girl is eating crap every day and her problem isn’t being overweight. In moderation, and in conjunction with a mostly healthy diet, one could conceivably eat a mcnuggets meal once or twice a month and probably not suffer any long term effects (though why anyone would want to do that is beyond me). The same principle would then apply to virtually any food or restaurant – when it isn’t your main source of nutrition, one can eat virtually anything on occasion and not suffer long term effects, least of all weight gain.

Where most people fail in this scenario is that they give themselves a “free pass” to eat whatever they want once, then again. And again. And again! I’m guilty of it. If I go on a business trip and I have no choice but to eat out, I will have a steak three nights in a week because “I don’t usually do this.” But then I’m also having a dessert every night because “I don’t normally do this” and a couple glasses of wine with dinner because “I don’t normally do this.” In a week, with that mindset, I can easily gain five pounds. And I’m weak; if I do gain that five pounds, I’m much more likely to decide that I can’t lose weight and it’s not meant to be than to admit that I’ve been eating crap all week and it’s my fault. Who wants to admit they made stupid choices?!

The things that have worked for me over the past week:

Not obsessing over whether or not I stay within my calorie limits. If I go over by a bit, I don’t really care. If I go over a lot, I take a look at what I did and what I could have done better. I’m trying to learn from my mistakes.

Measuring everything, either with a kitchen scale, measuring cup or measuring spoon. In fact, it’s worked so well I’m going to buy some measuring cups and spoons for the office.

Preplanning my meals. Knowing in advance what foods I plan to eat so I know about how many calories I will be eating. If it changes (as it did once or twice this week for dinner) I’ll adjust, but I found it incredibly helpful to write down what I intended to eat then checking to be sure I stuck to it after each meal.

Having some low-calorie high impact snacks around. I thought I didn’t care much for peanut butter, and when I tried the off-brand they offered at work, I was right. My husband encouraged me to try something from the grocery store (he loves pb) so I did – I tried Jif Reduced Fat and Peter Pan Honey Roast. I really liked them both, but the Honey Roast was the best. It has only 5 or 10 calories more for the one tablespoon I ate than the Jif, but the taste is oustanding. A regular serving size is two tablespoons, but when I’m pressed for calories, one tablespoon and some crackers or a banana really does help fill the void. I also really enjoyed the Special K Chocolately Pretzel bar this week – it’s 90 calories and totally satisfies my sweet tooth, though I must admit it didn’t do a whole lot for me when I was hungry. Coupled with some fruit, though, or maybe some Weight Watchers String Cheese (the best string cheese on the market, in my opinion), it was pretty good.

What I haven’t given up:

Dr. Pepper – at least, not entirely. I will admit that I was drinking way too much every day. Some days I would drink six cans. I’ve cut back considerably to two or three – three on the two days I had a migraine. I can’t really help it – I crave them when I have one. I would like to cut back to one or two, but for now I’m happy with the way things are.

Good food. My husband has jumped on the bandwagon, and we are looking for ways to maximize flavor without sacrificing calories. Last night, we sauteed three cloves of garlic in half a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. Once the garlic was soft, we removed it from the heat and added two cups of steamed broccoli, half a cup of steamed carrots and a whole large steamed onion, sliced into big pieces. It was sooooooooooooo good. You cannot imagine! A cup had just about 115 calories, and it went very well with our grilled chicken and rice. I walked away full, satisfied and happy.

Ice cream. OK, so I happen to like the Weight Watchers and Skinny Cow ice creams – who cares?! For 140 calories,  I can have one (giant sized) Skinny Cow vanilla ice cream sandwich or a WW Giant Fudge Bar (mmmmmm) or a WW drumstick. For 200 calories, I can have TWO of the WW English toffee bars, which means one is only 100 calories.

I’m still not really exercising much – in fact, I really only exercised in the form of house cleaning on two days. But still, I lost 4.6 pounds! Yes, I know that much of that might be water weight, but it is STILL nearly five pounds gone. It’s five fewer pounds that I have to drag around with me everywhere I go. I’ll take that!

So, for the coming week, my goals are to make some things over the weekend for lunches and breakfasts for the week (have you tried the Fiber One Muffins? So good, and only 140 cals if you make them with applesauce). Try to move my body more in the form of some sort of exercise. And continue logging my food – I cannot tell you how helpful www.myfitnesspal.com has been for that. There are lots of “free” websites out there that you can use to log your food – I also like www.fitday.com – but I don’t think they are as user friendly or as helpful as MFP.

I may start posting some of my recipes here too … I’ve found that some of my recipes are surprisingly low in calories, and others I’ve tried that are low cal are fabulous. I might just have to share those …

 

Results Not Typical

Have you ever seen a commercial where people are touting a weight-loss method, claiming to have lost 50, 60 or even 100 pounds or more by following the diet? You’ll notice, if you are observant, a note in small print at the bottom of the screen that says “Results not typical.” The reason why the results aren’t typical is because most people don’t realize that in order to lose weight, they really do have to change everything about the way they look at food and the role it plays in their lives. Honestly, I am one of those people.

I have a problem with food. I love it. I enjoy eating out with my husband, or cooking at home for family and friends, and I like eating whatever it is I want to eat. I really haven’t wanted to change the way I look at food because I didn’t want to know that my love affair with it was over. I don’t usually eat a lot of super fatty foods every day – I’m not chowing down on hamburgers and fries every day, but I don’t always make the best choices either. Long ago, I started moving away from fried food, but I can’t seem to shake the sweet tooth I was born with and have nurtured for years. If I could kick, or at least vastly reduce my Dr. Pepper habit, though, I could probably lose a considerable amount of weight. And after three weeks of tracking what I eat, I have come to a realization … I don’t really need to change what it is I’m eating, I just need to adjust my portions. And I need to exercise.

For years, I haven’t understood how anyone could get away with eating only 1400 calories and not be starving. To some people, I suppose 1400 calories might be a lot of food, but I am not one of those people. I have found, by tracking my food intake, that I’m pretty comfortable eating between 2000 – 2200 calories a day. The trick is being able to eat enough to keep me from being ravenous while losing weight. I will never be one of those people who can eat 1200 calories and not end up going stark raving mad one day, eating everything in the kitchen in a fit of hunger that cannot be satisfied. I started doing some research, looking for answers, because it doesn’t seem possible that eating 1200 calories could be healthy for anyone over a long period of time. The answer, it seems, that one should be tracking the “net calories” one consumes. Suddenly a lot of things started to make sense to me, when I found this.

Let me back up just a little bit. I can lose weight, I’ve done it in the past, but I’ve never been able to maintain it for an extended period of time, because I would get discouraged thinking about the next “level down,” i.e., the next time I would have to lower my caloric intake to continue to lose weight, instead of plateauing. Or, I would be so hungry I would binge eat and then feel so bad about it, I would abandon my weight loss efforts completely, telling myself that clearly I’m just meant to be overweight, because who can survive on so few calories? I would eat tons of vegetables, fruits and high fiber foods to feel more full, but most of the time it didn’t work. I would drink a lake’s worth of water, but I wasn’t thirsty, I was HUNGRY (for the record, I think I know the difference between being hungry and being thirsty; I have never bought into the theory that if you feel hungry, drink a glass of water first because you may just be thirsty). I would work out at the gym for an hour, eat my 1600 calories, and never lose any weight at all. But, if I worked out at the gym for an hour and ate 2000 calories, the weight would melt off. I was told that was the wrong way to do it, though, so each time I tried to lose weight, I would try to follow the conventional wisdom of eating a certain number of calories and exercising. For me, it just didn’t work.

What I was doing that worked for me, but seemed “wrong” to most people (including myself) was eating my net calories. It’s very simple really – your body needs a certain number of calories to keep it going when you get out of bed in the morning. This is what you need to sit around the house, doing not a whole lot of everything. Everything else you do – laundry, playing with the kids, grocery shopping, etc – adds to the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. This is called your basal metabolic rate, or BMR. I am using this site to calculate my BMR because it allows you to plug in the level of your activity over a 24 hour period to see how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight. The important thing to remember is that you have to be honest about your activity level.

Most people agree that for weight loss, you should eat 80% of your total daily estimated expenditure (TDEE). For me, that’s currently about 2200 calories. I’m shooting for about 2000 a day. Now, here’s where people get lost. Say you exercise for 30 minutes and burn 200 calories. If I’m trying to get in 2000 calories a day using net calories, I will need to eat an additional 200 calories to replace the 200 I burned exercising. So, in effect, I’m eating 2200 calories that day, not 2000. But it works out to a net of 2000 calories because I burned 2000 calories exercising. Seems simple right?

Except that it’s not so simple for a society that’s had it banged into their heads that they have need to eat fewer calories and exercise like mad people to lose weight. I have become convinced through watching my friends, doing my research and testing out every weight loss theory under the sun that this is the right way to lose weight and find an eating plan one can stick to for the rest of their lives. I think that what makes plans like Body for Life so popular – and so successful – is that they don’t focus on your caloric intake. Instead they focus on making sure you’re eating enough of the right foods to fuel your body and adding in exercise to burn the “extra” calories you eat. I am convinced that the reason why our recent ancestors didn’t have the problems with weight gain that we did is because they didn’t sit at desks all day. They were out working with their hands (and usually their entire bodies!), which burned a lot of calories. So while their diets may have been full of fried foods and sweets (at least in my family; I didn’t sprout a sweet tooth without decades of family history), they were burning those calories off by working hard. Nowadays, we have to go to a gym to get a tenth of the work out our forefathers got every morning before breakfast!

Now, to test the theory, I plan to spend the next several months tracking everything I eat, as well as the exercise I get, to find out if I’m right. If I am, I should see a pretty decent weight loss in that time. And, I should also finally have an eating plan I can live with for the rest of my life. At no time should I really feel deprived or hungry or otherwise ready to eat the entire kitchen. Wish me luck!

 

It’s been on my mind …

That I really need to post. But I have no one particular thing that’s ON my mind right now. It’s more a hodge podge, as an old friend would say, of things that have happened, or are happening, in my life at the moment. So, if you’re willing to take a walk through the minefield that my insanity can lay …

I went back to the doctor today for my shoulder. I’ve been worried, because I was supposed to see him around the week of Christmas, but couldn’t make it happen until now. And even so, the person who made the appointment for me set it up at the wrong location. I did go, and he seemed to be pleased by my progress. He told me that I’m impatient and that I expect too much. Yeah. Like I’ve never heard THAT before! He gave me new exercises and told me not to lift more than ten pounds. Yay.

But before I could even get in to see the doctor, I heard someone come on the loud speaker and call a “Code Blue” … which even with my limited medical knowledge, I knew was a serious cardiac episode. After about ten minutes or so, I saw an ambulance pull up out front and a nurse came rushing out to direct them to the right place. The nurse looked like she was nearly in tears, which did little to sooth my nerves. When I was finally called back and escorted to the exam room where I would see the doctor, the nurse had to take me a “back way” – the employee entrance, because they were still working on the man who suffered the episode. I asked if he would be ok, and she said that she thought so; it was an allergic reaction to an injection. I resolved not to have an injection of any sort today; I’m not stupid, after all.

I’ve been busy making soaps, and you can read all about it here, so I won’t go into details in this post. But it is one of the things that’s been on my mind a lot lately. I am a bit irritated with a vendor right now – I wouldn’t admit this on a regular basis, but the truth is, the doctor was right today; I am definitely impatient. And that does not apply only to my recovery from this surgery. I have a vendor who hasn’t exactly been timely in getting my orders out the door, so now I’m searching for new vendors from whom I can order those materials. I don’t like having to re-test every single item for quality … I mean, I DO retest each batch I get in, of whatever it is I’ve ordered. But I hate having to search for vendors, try them out and determine whether I want to do business with them on an on-going basis. But I shall …

I’ve been back at work for a week and a half now and all I will say about that is … I still want to win the lotto. Yeah. That’s about all I have to say about that.

We are looking for a new home, and let me tell you, I hate looking at houses because even when you’re just renting, it is a HUGE decision. I am trying to appease myself by saying that we only have to stay in a place for three and a half years because we plan to move after Travis gets out of high school. He’s halfway through his freshman year now, so …

Speaking of Travis, I have an ARD meeting for him tomorrow afternoon. It’s going to be interesting to see what they have to say this year, because … well … it just will be. More about that after the meeting. I am not hopeful at this point.

Hmmm … I think maybe I should consider going to bed now. I haven’t been getting nearly enough sleep lately, I think, and it would be nice to sleep for five hours at least. So … until next time, good night!

 

Two days down, three to go

In my first week back in the office since mid-November. And I don’t mind telling you, it hurts. Everything about it hurts. This morning, Chris threatened to leave me at home if I didn’t get out of bed and get moving. I think I hated him for about 10 seconds. Then I realized he was probably right and … I got up and got dressed. I didn’t like doing it but I did.

And I’m sort of glad I did. I’m getting caught up, more or less. Actually I never fell that far behind. The nature of the work that I do sort of pushed me to check in periodically while I was out, for the first six weeks anyway. After that, no one was in the office, and I felt no guild for being completely “gone”. But the first six weeks, I checked in a couple times a week, just to make sure my email wasn’t blown up with crazy questions, or to make sure that no one had slid a million dollar charge into my project without my knowledge.

But mostly I’m glad I was in the office today because it was my boss’s last day in Houston. He’s gone on the be on site with the project in Africa, and I didn’t really know that today was “it”. I thought we had another week or two before he left. But around 2 pm he came in and said his good-byes. I am sad to see him go; he’s a good man and his heart is in the right place (something that’s so unusual among corporate types). And he took me in when I really had no where to go, despite my so called “troubled past” with my former supervisor. He took a chance, and I hope that I returned that trust and the favor by giving him some of the best work I’ve ever done. I really, truly hope that he was satisfied with my job performance, because I would hate to know that I returned his kindness with mediocre work. Good-bye, Richard, I’m going to miss you. I hope we someday have the chance to work together again!

Tomorrow I return to the office for day three of assimilation, and I’m hoping that it’s easier than today was. All day I had a slight migraine and I couldn’t get rid of it. That made it pretty difficult to concentrate and I have things I need to finish. The high point of the week will likely be Thursday, when I plan to go to lunch with some girls from an old group.

Still, I think I may need to start playing the lotto. I’m pretty sure I’d make an awesome entrepreneur, if I could just spend more time working on my stuff, and less time working on everyone else’s!

 

I haven’t posted much

Lately because I have a torn rotator cuff, and frankly I haven’t been in the studio because holding scissors & rulers & cutters makes my arm ache. I have a doctor’s appointment with a surgeon next week, so I should know more then, but in the meantime … I’m going to try to see what products I have to review and post about those.

Thanks to those who have written asking where I am and if I’m ok. I’m alive and a little worse the wear but I’m fine!

 

But for the grace of God …

I thank God every day that I have two healthy, normal, well adjusted teenagers. When they were younger, I would bring myself nearly to tears thinking of all the things that might have gone wrong in their young lives, and I would be grateful and say a little prayer to thank God for not giving me a child with a major problem. I never lost a baby to miscarriage, I didn’t have any trouble getting pregnant, and even though both my children were born by C-section, I didn’t have really bad pregnancies when compared to others. I was fortunate.

Recently a girl on a board where I post found out that her unborn child has an abnormality in chromosomes 13 and 14 (I think) that will cause her to either lose the baby before it’s due in October or else lose the baby within hours after the birth. I don’t know her, really, just what I’ve read here and there about her life with her husband, but I am absolutely devastated for her.

I just don’t know if I could do what she’s doing without completely losing my sanity. I don’t know if I could carry a baby to full term and then give birth to it, knowing it would die before it saw 24 hours. From what I’ve read, some of these babies don’t see the first 24 minutes.

While thinking about her plight, I was reminded of many women I’ve known over the course of the last several years who have dealt with similar disappointments and losses. My own mother lost two babies before they could come to term. My cousin’s wife was never able to conceive at all. A friend who’s had difficult concieving … I consider myself truly blessed.

If you’re interested in DairyGirl’s story, you can check out her blog. She has decided to chronicle the situation and how they cope with it over the course of the next few months. Personally I think it’s a good idea because it will give her (and her husband) an outlet to express all their emotions – and I’m sure the emotions are all over the place right now. I would be railing against the wind right now, but they seem to be fairly calm, taking it one step at a time, living life the best way they know how to at this point.

I think I might have to revise my superhero list in light of this …