Blegh, getting motivated again

This Saturday at Weight Watchers the instructor talked about motivation. It was the first time I had been in a couple of weeks, and I really needed to get motivated again. I told myself I was kind of following the plan, but I wasn't tracking or counting or making sure I got enough fruit, etc. I had a late night Jack In the Box binge again, which I foolishly do about once every other month. I ate way way way too much! So I definitely needed to get my motivation back. One thing I decided to help is to use the idea of an anti-charity. I heard about it on one of those news lite shows in the morning, where this website is doing it. Basically, you have certain values, and you decide that every time you engage in an undesirable behavior, gain a pound, etc. (whatever you decide), you donate money to an organization that stands for the opposite of what you believe in. I am strongly pro-life, so from now on for every dollar I spend on Jack in the Box, I will donate a dollar to Planned Parenthood. That should get me to think twice when I have the munchies. It seems that no matter where I live, there is a Jack in the Box a few blocks away. Hopefully this means that problem is behind me.

As for the rest of the stuff I eat, I still needed re-motivation. I seem to be motivated by fear, so since I already AM this fat, there's no motivator of "I don't want to get fat". However, I just learned that my flaky and inconsiderate (but thin and beautiful) sister in law is getting married in a month in another state and wants my husband and I to be there. So suddenly I have a very good reason why I need to ramp up my weight loss efforts. Sitting at the computer writing about this isn't the optimal way to lose pounds, but I am going to include a picture in this post. In a month, I'll post another picture and hopefully there will be a noticeable difference. My plan is to make sure that I don't get tempted to cut calories too drastically so my metabolism doesn't slow. I'll keep eating my allotted 25 points a day, try to use as few of my weekly flex points as possible, and exercise like crazy. I was up 30 lbs. from last year, now it's 26.5. So I am hoping that I can lose 16.5 in a month (hey, reach for the stars) through sensible but rigorous means, and disguise the other ten by wearing flattering clothes.

I was starting to suspect that my antidepressant was causing weight gain, but also I was getting more depressed and it wasn't working. So I went to my psych, and he switched me. I've only been on the new one, Lexapro, 2 days now. He said SSRIs don't cause weight gain, but I have no idea why he thinks that since it seems to be the medical consensus that weight gain is one of the best known side effects. Anyway, my emotional cravings are back to normal—they had been higher for a couple of weeks—and I am feeling a little better. Don't know if that's placebo effect, or maybe because I got a new computer game :P but I'll take any improvement I can get.

Well I don't think anyone reads this anyway (it's just as well) but here is the nasty picture of me weighing 181.5 at 5'5".

A little progress

I took some Benadryl last night and it made me so groggy I forgot to set my alarm for my Weight Watchers meeting this morning. Oops. So I weighed in on my home scale for this week.

SW: 185

CW: 178

GW: 135

I am so jazzed that I made it to 178! I wanted to lose 2 lbs. a week to be at 165 for our anniversary. I actually lost 3 lbs. this week, so that gives me a good head start. I needed a short motivational mantra to tell myself when I didn't feel like following the program, or when I felt like vegging out on the couch with a bag of chips (or chocolate chips). I asked Yahoo Answers for motivational phrases, but didn't really get what I was looking for. Then I came up with one all by myself. "Today is the last day I will be this fat." Some might see it as a bit harsh, but to me, it encourages me to take it a day at a time and not to let one slip-up ruin the whole day or week. Even though I need to lose an average of 2 lbs. a week, I am not setting goal weights for every week, because that can backfire with me. I end up having some kind of slip-up, and then I tell myself that I'll never reach the week's goal weight so I might as well just stuff my face. Then the next day or week, I am tempted to starve to get back on track. That kind of yo-yoing is not healthy, but it is what I have done in the past. I am pleased to say that this time I have consumed a fairly consistent amount of calories from day to day. Yay me!

Once I lose 10 more, I will have so much more to wear. It seems to be coming off mainly my hips right now, so my pants will be the first to come back to me! Hooray!

Thought about it…

I took a bath and thought about how I'm feeling and what I wrote, so time for a quick update.

My fifth wedding anniversary is in about 8 weeks. If I adopt the tough but realistic goal of losing 2 pounds a week, I can lose about 15 pounds by then. That would put me at only 10-ish pounds above my pre-unemployment weight (since I gained 30 but have already lost 4), which I can hide by dressing smart and using the right undergarments. I would be at 165 at that point. Until this year, that was my all-time high, so it's an important number for me. It's like coming back from the stratosphere and down to something that I've known and dealt with before. My anniversary doesn't seem so far away, and I was thrilled! to discover that I could get back to a manageable number by then. 185 felt unmanageable, and 181 still feels a little hopeless. But if I can get back to 165, I at least know I've gotten thin from there before.

Here's how I'm going to do it (pretty simply): I am going to stick with my Weight Watchers plan and track every bite, sip, and nibble. I am going to aim for the recommended amount of liquids, fruits, vegetables, and oils. No food is off limits, as long as I stay within my allotted number of points for the day. I am, however, going to try to avoid beer, as it makes me bloated and leads me to want to overeat. However, if I really crave one, it's after 6, and I have enough points to "afford" it, then I can still have one. Also, no more random swigs of wine or other drinks before 6. The reason for that is that a couple of times, I thought I'd just have a glass of wine with my late lunch, and then it relaxed me too much, and then I just kind of ate and drank and chilled the rest of the day. It's embarrassing for me to admit, but I have to cut out the denial if I really want to change, so there you have it.

Today, I'm having a sick day, but there are a few things I can still do. I can look up a Weight Watchers meeting for tomorrow to get me back on track. I can dig out my tracker and write what I ate for the past two days plus today. (I usually do my meetings and start my tracking on Saturdays, but I missed this week because of a graduation I attended, and then used that as an excuse to not track my points Saturday or yesterday.) I will immediately resume measuring what I eat and drink so that my tracking will be accurate. I will cut out the picture of the flat-bellied model that led me to all this reflection, and put it somewhere it can inspire me daily. I will walk slowly on the elliptical for as long as reasonably possible. And perhaps most importantly, I will keep knitting and cross-stitch projects by the TV so I have something to do with my hands besides mindless snacking.

I'm gonna do this!!!

Pissed off!

I am really pissed right now. I was going through my Victoria's Secret catalog, and there was one skirt that showed off the model's flat belly. I am sitting at home, sick, unemployed, bloated, and fat. I am a little teary right now because I was stupid. I had a good figure. I had it twice, and I lost it because I was stupid. Once I worked so hard to get there, I started stuffing my face again because I was deluded. I thought that once I got skinny, I would be one of those girls that could eat whatever they wanted and not get fat. If that was true, how did I think I got fat in the first place? I know I have to work to maintain my figure, but I had it and I gave it up. Now it takes so much more work, all the time, probably for a year (and that's if I stick with it) just to get what I had before. I am so mad at myself. I went from 130 to 150-160 and maintained there for a while. That wasn't ideal, but would have been good enough. Now I'm 180. No part of me looks good. Even my once-reliable waist is now thick. My chin is fat. My fingers are fat. I can't hide from it. I am so sick of it. But then I get depressed and demotivated. It all seems like too much, and the comfort of eating is so much more immediate. I struggle every day between wanting to change the body that I hate so much and wanting to numb my body image depression with food.

I can't last this way for long. Once I get a job, I will have to fit into my work wardrobe. I used to go out all the time, but now I'm afraid to go out because I might see someone I know. Being unemployed for a year means I sit at home. I don't walk around campus like I used to. Even with exercise equipment here, I won't get to the level of exercise I got before. I probably spent an hour each day just walking to and from the parking lot and from class to class, and then I did cardio on top of that. Being unemployed also means I have access to my kitchen whenever the hell I want. If I get a whim, I don't have the rest of the class period for the craving to pass—I just waddle to the kitchen and satisfy the urge. I have effing red stretch marks on a part of my body that I used to consider my belly area, meaning suitable to show off in a swimsuit, but now is part of a hip, needing to be covered. Those will never go away, no matter what the lasers and creams promise. I used to feel sexy and even thought of sex as a good replacement for a workout sometimes. Now, even when I'm horny, I don't want to have actual sex because it's not sexy, it's gross, I'm gross. A blob of dimples and stretch marks flopping around—that's all I am in bed. Disgusting.

How could I let this happen? Whenever I saw fat people as a kid, I would wonder why they didn't start turning things around once they reached chubby. Now I know it's a stupid complicated delusion called denial. I can't blame it on my hard time anymore. Yeah, I've been unemployed for a year and gained 30 pounds in that year. But I also had all the time in the world to stop it from happening. I don't want to be this anymore. I don't want pictures of happy moments to be overshadowed by how fat I look. I don't need to have another issue in my brain. I need to harness this feeling, put it in a box, and crack it open whenever I feel like giving up. If I hadn't given up so many times in the past 2 months, I would have lost more than 4 pounds at Weight Watchers by now. I would have been below the 180 mark, which is no longer obese. I am teetering on the edge of obesity right now and I hate it and I want it to stop TODAY. I am hungrier for feeling good about myself than I will ever be for food. I have never wanted any food enough to come close to crying over it. But writing about my self-hatred is making me teary. I remember a couple of years ago, I went ice skating with my husband. I was wearing low rise jeans, and I fell face first onto the ice. I ended up scraping my hip and bruising my hip bone. That's how thin I was. I couldn't even get low rise jeans over my butt now. I need to remember this feeling of wanting to go back, and use it to motivate me when the challenge seems insurmountable.

SW: 185

CW: 181

GW: 135

Four pounds down, forty-six to go.

New Focus

I stopped blogging for a while because I changed my "no rules" approach to losing weight. Not that anyone reads or cares, but I have this thing where I change my approach all the time. It's something I'm kind of ashamed of, so I end up keeping it to myself whenever I change my own rules. I crave consistency in life, but sometimes things don't work and you have to try something else. The "no rules" approach was just too difficult for me. I continue to believe that it is a really good way to do things if you can. But there's being mindful and there's losing weight. I want both, but the latter does not necessarily require the former. I was using weight loss as a channel for learning mindfulness, but I think I need to learn them separately. Honestly, I want my jeans to fit again and the whole "be mindful in every moment" approach was just taking too long. I'm not looking for a quick fix, because I've had enough quick fixes to know that you always spring back to the way things were before. But I do need something that shows consistent results. For that, I joined Weight Watchers. I've been to four meetings so far and I've lost almost 4 pounds. I'm a little disappointed that it's not more, but the best part is that I am not fluctuating from week to week. It's always a move downward, no matter how slight.

I also had a big shake-up in my life. I don't want to go into too many details, but my husband and I were involved in a domestic dispute. The actual physical contact was mild (he picked me up and carried me a few feet against my will, and then I backhanded him), but for reasons I still don't understand, when I was alone in the bedroom about to go to bed, he called the police on me. Since he had slight redness from the slap, the police took me into custody where I spent three nights in jail. The prosecutor decided not to press charges and thought I probably shouldn't have been in jail. The three nights gave me a lot of perspective. I was all alone with nothing to do for the first day. Then a guard gave me some magazines that were two years old. I was cold, I had no pillow, the bright lights were always on, I had heartburn like mad, and I just cried and cried and cried. I worried about what this would do to my career. Even though I should have done it a year ago, I still have not fully processed my moral character application, which is a requirement to be admitted to the Bar. This is already a source of great shame and embarrassment for me. I worried that this would make it take even longer, that every potential employer would ask me to explain this incident. To my relief, it turned out that since I was released without a charge, nobody will find out about this unless I work at a high security government job.

I was so furious with my husband for putting me in this position when he knew the damage it would cause. There was really no explanation for what he did. Sure, I did not do the right thing when I slapped him, but involving the police? Aside from his physical size and strength and ability to protect himself, I was not even threatening him. At first I just wanted to leave, to go far away from my life and make a new start. I figured I could find an apartment in Texas or Idaho or someplace for $500 a month until I got a job there. The second day, I woke up thinking, why should I leave? I love my city, I love where I live. I was not the one at fault here, I was the victim. Why should I have to pack up and leave in shame? Let him find somewhere else to stay. I fantasized about the day I would get out--lying low until he went to work, and then surprising him at the office with a big red suitcase packed for him.

I wondered how much he knew. After all, the only phone call I made was to cancel a doctor's appointment I had that week. Nobody had to know. But in the back of my mind, as much as it would have been easy to hate him for it, I couldn't. I would have had fewer tears, more resolve, more fire in my belly if I could hate him. But I pictured him and how he must be. He probably wasn't able to eat. He probably didn't even watch TV. He was probably just sad, that way he gets when he just wants to sleep until everything goes away. I hoped he was sorry for what he did, and I worried that I couldn't take it if he wasn't. The more I obsessed about what he did and what he was doing and what he was going to do when I returned, the more I realized that he is my world. I've never had a friendship like the one I share with him. We don't communicate very well, but we'd been working on it. Sometimes we just understand each other so well, like two halves of the same person, and sometimes we seem to have grown up on different planets. He has shown me so much outside of myself and the world I knew. How could I hate someone with whom I shared the deepest friendship I'd ever known? I missed his smell, his puffy lips and his warm dry hands with the bruised knuckles. I missed the way he says words like "tour" and "jewelry". I missed the mystical eyes that couldn't be assigned a particular color. I was so nervous coming home. I didn't know if he was prepared for it.

I was released at dawn on a Wednesday, and I walked home. Funny they were more than willing to escort me there, but I was on my own to get home. I thanked fate for not sending me to the county facility—how would I have gotten home then, I wondered. I slipped into our apartment, grabbed my purse in the entryway, and slipped out again unnoticed. I took my car down to the ocean bluffs, walked to a coffee shop, and then strolled along, waiting. I still didn't know what I would do. Would I pack him a bag? Would I leave? Or would I give in to my sentiment and see how things went? On the way back home, I stopped to get gas, just in case. My card was declined, and I paid cash. When I got home, I spent an hour in the shower. Could I wash off the shame I felt for the situation in which I had found myself? I looked up my bank statement online. Overdrawn. Great. There goes the apartment in Texas. With my checking overdrawn and my credit card maxed out, I also worried how he would react when he found out. Would he wish I had stayed in jail, where at least he didn't have to provide me food and shelter? I decided to wait a few days, because now, suddenly, I needed him even more. I checked the fridge, which contained burgers, steaks, and beef stew. I guess he took advantage of the situation to eat the things I didn't buy.

Then the phone rang. I picked it up, thinking it might be him. It was his matter-of-fact matriarch grandmother. She wanted to know if I needed money for my moral character application. Clearing my throat and wiping away tears, I told her that I didn't want to accept her money without telling her the truth about my relationship with her grandson. I skimped on the details of the fight, but told her that I had spent the last three nights in jail and I wasn't sure where the relationship was headed. Her advice was just what I needed. In her straightforward way, she told me to be an adult and not to run away from my problems. She said all relationships have their struggles, especially when two strong-willed people are involved, and that it would be worth it to work it out. Then, without any sentimentality, she said she would send the money anyway, implying that she knew I would stay.

Still not ready to talk to my husband, I e-mailed him at work and asked if he could schedule a session with our marriage counselor that day. He replied immediately and was able to do it. We met with the counselor and talked a little, and I knew that things were going to at least be safe and civil at home. I was satisfied with that for the time being.

It's been a few weeks now since all this happened. He kept me waiting for an apology, but he finally gave me one. I told him about the money and we worked out a financial plan that will carry us through until I start getting paid more. I feel that we have treated each other with so much more respect and kindness since this situation. We both saw how blessed we are and how much we have to lose if we don't make this relationship work. I was always taught that God can use bad situations to accomplish something good, and I am seeing that firsthand now.

Alcohol self-audit

I have been suspecting for some time that a principal factor in my weight gain, both recently and in patterns over the years, is alcohol. I am not looking forward to addressing this, but I've come to believe it's necessary.

Growing up, my parents never drank. I guess my grandma, the sweetest lady ever, was an alcoholic. She had a hard life, and drinking was an escape for her. My mom knew that that was in her genes, and because her mom's alcoholism was so hard for her, she never wanted to have any alcohol herself.

When I started dating my husband, he was a bit of a drinker. When I went out with him, people would think I was older and I would often not get carded as I would if I was with friends. He is 4 years older than me, so early on in college I only had alcohol when I went to his place or to a nice restaurant. When we got married (I was 19), I got used to having it around, and he would get me drinks at clubs or parties. When I turned 21, I already knew what I liked. I fancied myself a bit of a connoisseur. In law school, I enjoyed everything from wine to beer to hard liquor. I never got drunk when I went out, and only occasionally got drunk at home. I never did anything dangerous like driving after drinking, and I never missed class because of a hangover like some of my classmates. When I was on periods of low carb dieting, I would only drink rum and diet coke, or red wine.

But sometime in there, I started to think my husband drank too much. He's a big guy and has been a moderately heavy drinker for years, so having four or five drinks barely buzzes him. Well, I'm learning now that a lot of times when I have a habit that I don't like in myself, I point it out in my husband and blame him for it. So when I thought he was drinking too much, it may have meant that I thought I was drinking too much. The family I was raised in didn't really give me an idea as to what level of drinking was healthy and responsible, and what was too much.

While studying for the bar exam, I avoided alcohol. I had a glass of wine here or a couple of beers with friends there, but for the most part abstained. After I finished the exam, I popped the champagne cork and the relieved celebratory drinking did not really slow down for a couple of months. I would take swigs of liquor during the day, which I thought wasn't a big deal. But when I type it, I cringe a little, knowing it sounds bad. I cut back a couple of months ago, but because I have been drinking like a guy for a few years and I'm heavier than I've ever been, I have a pretty high toleration. Some nights I don't keep mental tab of how much I've had. I don't get drunk, but the drinks are adding up and giving me cause to reconsider my habits. And that little feeling of guilt or shame is telling me I need to grow up and stop drinking as much as a college kid. The fact that I think I have more refined tastes doesn't excuse the amount I drink. The calories are really adding up. I think this is a big part of why I gained 20 lbs after the bar exam.

For me, the bigger deal is my family's history of alcoholism. I did a couple of self-tests online, and they show a high probability that I am abusing alcohol, but they indicate that I'm not yet alcohol-dependent, another term for alcoholism. If I keep abusing alcohol, it could turn into dependence, and then I'll have to forgo it forever (or be an alcoholic, which isn't an option). Alcohol abuse help websites say that most people who determine to cut back are able to do it without a problem. If you have a problem cutting back, they say, it indicates you may be alcohol dependent. So, I have determined to set some guidelines for myself.

As everyone reading this blog knows, I am against hard and fast diet rules. But I feel like alcohol is kind of a different animal. With food, you have to eat or else you will die ("breathatarians" notwithstanding). If you don't listen to your body telling you what kind of food you need, you might suffer from deficiencies. But nobody needs alcohol. If it's doing something to you that you don't like, you can just give it up. With food, your stomach indicates that you are full, and then you (ideally) stop eating. With alcohol, the more your body gets the more it wants. So since built-in systems don't really help with alcohol intake, and since I want more than is good for me, I will have to give myself some rules. The incentive is for me, if I find myself unable to stick to the rules I give myself, I will join AA. That's a huge incentive to stick to the rules. I do not want to give up all alcohol forever. It would be like giving up chocolate or coffee forever. Joining AA is a lifetime membership, and for people I know that have done it, it is lifechanging and in some ways life-defining.

Since I don't want to have to do that, and since I am serious about sticking to these rules, I have made rules that are easy enough to follow once I get in the habit. The first month of a habit change is always the hardest, right? And I've been at this for two days already. Score! So my new Rule of Twos, which I will stick to for the rest of the year, is as follows: No more than two beers or sugary drinks per week and no more than two drinks on any given night. That doesn't mean I will have two drinks every night, but I can if I want to. In addition, in order to accommodate for holidays and other festivities, I am allowed to have up to four drinks on one night per calendar month. Like I said, this rule is pretty lax, but it is something I can stick to, which is important, and it also encourages me to keep track of what I drink, which puts a halt to random swigs while cooking or cleaning the kitchen. I think the limit on beers is especially important, since beer contains maltose, which spikes blood sugar more than eating sugar cubes on white bread, causing cravings. The liver also likes to deposit the resulting fat on the front of the belly, which is something I would rather have flat, thank you very much. I love English stouts and Belgian ales, so this part of it will be a little tough, but I will just have to make sure I enjoy and savor what I do have. And that's the whole point, right?

Here is a copy/paste from About.com regarding signs of alcohol abuse or dependence. Number 1 and 3 apply to me.

• Have you ever felt you should Cut down on your drinking?
  
  
• Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?
  
  
• Have you ever felt bad or Guilty about your drinking?
  
  
• Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover (Eye opener)?

One "yes" response suggests a possible alcohol problem. If you responded "yes" to more than one question, it is highly likely that a problem exists.

Whip it!

Hello!

So I've been doing pretty well this week and I'm actually looking forward to my monthly weigh-in! I hope so badly that the uptick was just a fluke. I was steady at 174, and then while I was eating normally and starting to exercise more, it went up to 177 again! I am really hoping that I was just retaining water or something. All those years I thought I was fat in the 140s and 150s, I never thought I would be excited to be in the 160s. I wish I appreciated what I had. But the good news for me is that I don't have any medical condition (other than "aging") that precludes me from getting back to that. Also, I remember that my diet was not restrictive at those weights, and that I could have what I wanted in moderation. If I could get to 130 like that, it would be ideal, but I am willing to settle for higher if it means a more relaxed lifestyle.

My personal goal is to be below 144, because that is the weight I would have to be at if I wanted to join JAG, an idea I've been toying with. Coincidentally, it's also the weight I was the day I got married. I was size 8 or could squeeze into a 6. I have a picture of me on my honeymoon, at a baseball game, wearing white pants and a tube top and looking very cute. The pants won't even come up my thighs now, but hopefully the weight will come off just by reversing the habits that put it on. At 130, I would be comfy in a 6 and could maybe squeeze into a 4. My new motto is not "I think I can" but "I CAN DO IT!" I just tell that to myself whenever I feel hopeless about the situation.

Exercise has been going better. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the gym I had been going to went out of business in August. It was privately owned and felt like a spacious New York loft. The owner was always there and would greet me as I came in, asking me how I was doing, how bar study was coming along, and encouraging me that the I was in the right place and I would pass the test. It was never stuffy or overly air conditioned, just cooled by the ocean breeze. It had all the big screen and personal TVs my little ADHD brain could want. It was never crowded, the people who were there had good attitudes but pretty much left me alone. And it was three blocks away. Basically, it was the ideal place for me because it made me actually WANT to go. All the gyms in the area now are $65 a month and up, located near a crowded mall area, and are way too trendy for a square like me.

So, I got the Chuck Norris approved Total Gym and put it in the spare room. The older models go for about $300. For the most part, I really like it. I was able to find replacement exercises on it for all the stuff the free trainer session at the gym taught me. It's kind of fun, and it takes less time than weight lifting at the gym because you don't have to go to a new machine for each exercise. But, sometimes I like a little more energy, a little more pressure. I kind of like being in a gym with a bunch of guys and pretending that they are watching me to see if I will finish the set with good form. I like trying to run faster than the person next to me. What I do now is open the window and hope a neighbor walks by. Not quite the same, but it's something.

Also, my curvy hips and chest (even when I'm much thinner) appreciate the non-impact exercise an elliptical machine offers. Now my cardio options are pretty much limited to jumproping in the alley or going for a walk/jog. With all the stop lights around here, street cycling won't get my heart rate up. I'm afraid to ride fast on the boardwalk because one time some kids jumped out in front of me at a sandy spot and I almost fell off my bike trying to brake. Well, that and the pedestrians, who have their own sidewalk just a few feet from the bike path insist on walking on the well-marked "bike only" path in large groups and then looking at me like I'm the rude one for ringing my little bike bell to pass them. Grr. I usually only run on the treadmill, and only when I'm below 150 (so it's easier on my joints), but now outdoor running is pretty much what I have to do, and it's uncomfortable. My chiropractor, who's a marathon runner, told me that I should power walk with spurts of jogging until my body can handle more sustained jogging. I've never been very athletic, but I used to go to the gym very regularly, and it sucks to be in this position of starting almost from scratch. The good news is that with only 10 or so full workouts on the Total Gym over the last couple of weeks, I am already able to increase the resistance a notch and my husband is telling me I look more toned in my neck and arms. Yay for that! But I know that for me, it's the cardio that really helps me lose.

To encourage myself to do more cardio, I gave myself an incentive. I bought an MP3 player to replace the old one that died last summer. A lightweight 2GB one with a screen was only $30 on the Creative website, came with a sports armband, headphones, and a charger. So even though I'm almost broke, I figured it was cheaper than buying an elliptical. Hey, I'll get the elliptical when I get a job. And it's definitely cheaper than diabetes or heart disease, both of which run in my family and correlate with overweight-ness.