This past weekend was an event I look forward to attending every year.  It was a total blast, and I’m looking forward to next year’s event already.

The reason that I mention it is because one of my concerns with events like this is mobility.  There have been times when I have been in such pain, because of my knees, that just walking a couple hundred feet was pure agony, if I was able to do it at all.  Six months ago, when I began this journey, I dreaded going in Walmart because just walking to the door from the parking lot was a huge trip.  When every step is painful, any distance seems like it takes an eternity.

Well, Friday night, our group decided to walk over to a restaurant that was just down the street, because no one wanted to drive.  I immediately felt some anxiety over this; it wasn’t more than a couple hundred feet, but it was up and down hills, across parking lots that were more pot hole than concrete, and not only was I not sure about walking, but I was afraid of falling.  I live in fear of falling, because that’s what sent me to arthroscopic surgery several years back: a hard fall to one knee broke loose a small bit of a bone spur, and it lodged within my kneecap. Both of my knees have a number of bone spurs again, and I really don’t want the same thing to happen.

I sucked it up and walked.  And I did it.  Not only that, but I did it with no problem, and I kept up just fine with everyone else.  That left me with a huge feeling of accomplishment.  I also did this without my leg brace, which can, at times, cause more problems than it solves.  I was able to get around pretty easily all weekend.

Not only that, but I had yet another confirmation of why using a scale as your primary marker of success is a bad idea.  Last year, I mentioned in this blog that I’d bought some short that then fit perfectly; I was at 285 pounds at the time.  I’ve been wearing those same shorts for a while, now, including this past weekend, and they’re bordering on being big on me… at 298 pounds. They fit me looser at 298 than 285, and I know without a doubt that the reason for it is because I’ve been exercising for the entire six months of this current effort.  That wasn’t true last year; I finally started exercising, in part, because I wasn’t losing weight and felt like it was finally time.  Without going to check, I think the lowest I got last year was 283… so I am essentially a smaller size now, at a heavier weight, than I was last year.

WIN.

Half a year.  6 months of working on making myself better through diet and exercise.  26 weeks of improving my lifestyle. That’s pretty awesome.

I try not to think too far down the road, but I will admit that hitting that half-a-year mark gives me thoughts of where I might be in another six months, or even a year down the road.  I’m starting to allow myself to think about participating in events that require a bit more physicality from me, as well as losing more weight.  I do have to reign myself in and remember that this a day-to-day process, and I can’t depend on the next six months producing another 36 pounds off… but I confess it’s still a nice thought to believe it’s possible, and it is.

I’m very glad to have made it this far, and at the moment, I am strong and confident that this effort will continue.  I have good reasons to want to become healthier; incentives to hold in my mind on days when my confidence is flagging. One of the events I’ve been looking forward to is this weekend; it’s an outdoor festival that I attend every year, and it requires a fair amount of walking if you want to fully enjoy the time there.  I can hardly wait!  This is a reward for me.

What will the next six months bring?  It’s up to me.

No more bench sitting for me.  I need to be back in the game, and I feel like I’ve been sitting out and not participating like I should be.  I think this is the reason why I haven’t been seeing the progress I was hoping to see.

Today, I’m back at it.  I’ve already been down to the gym, and my food intake so far has been on target.  My goal this week is to get back to clean eating, as well as a regular exercise schedule of five times a week.

I have a fear of falling off the wagon; of just sliding back into not exercising, since I hadn’t been to the gym in over a week, and of going back to sloppy eating, because frankly, there are areas I could clean up.  I want that part of me that tells me that I might as well jump off the wagon and stay off of it, to STFU.

That part of my brain has been nagging at me, lately, and telling me that I’m fat and undesirable, and I’ll never be good enough.  That I’m still the fattest person in any given room, that I’m still judged for it, that I’m not making progress — so the solution is to just give up, because it’s easier to just let myself go back into a depressive state and tell myself it just doesn’t matter.

I know with every fiber of my being that the solution to still being fat is NOT to allow the behavior that promotes it, but there’s that dumbass part of my brain that insists that the effort isn’t worth it and I should just eat whatever I want, and sleep in.  I’m reminding myself that this is a battle I’m engaged in, and that changing my lifestyle will take the investment of my time and energy for months and years to come.  Those thoughts that sabotage me, that make me feel like I’m not good enough, need to be dispatched.  Yes, I’m recognizing that those thoughts exist; but I think I need to, in order to work against them.

I’m almost half a year into this effort.  I’ve put in a lot of good work.  I’m sticking with it.  Yes, I’m still the fattest person in the room in many situations.  Yes, there are those who judge me for it, or think to themselves “at least I’m not as fat as her!”  The mental boost I derive from knowing I’m doing something positive for my health, regardless of how it may appear to those around me who don’t know, is so much better than the mental state of recognizing that my size is an issue and knowing I’m doing nothing. And as long as I keep at that good work, there will come a time when those situations are no longer a description of me.  I know that’s possible; I’ve done it, before.

It’s time to get off the bench and start the next inning with my head in the game.

As you can tell, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve tried on my goal pants.  Honestly, I’ve been hesitant about it because I’ve been fighting a lot of demons since coming home from vacation a couple of weeks ago, and was afraid I’d gained weight instead of losing.  I’ve been concerned that if the pants fit worse, I’d lose what little mojo I have right now.

I sucked it up and tried them on this morning.  They actually fit better!  They’re far from being loose, and I wouldn’t wear them for the day just yet, but they were definitely easier to get on.  Yay!  I really didn’t expect good news, but I know I needed it mentally.  Knowing that I’m still making progress is going to help me push through and get fully back in my good habits.

Unlike my first try-on pants (the capris with the “slimming panel”), these are tighter through the thighs rather than the gut.  So, it’s a changed area of emphasis for reducing.  Not that I’m trying to spot-lose; there really isn’t any such thing.  The body doesn’t lose fat uniformly, but it also doesn’t shed it in just certain places of focus.  It loses it in the reverse of how it was gained, and considering most of my recent weight has been in my butt and thighs, it’s likely that’s where I’ll be losing the most over weeks/months to come.

In other news, I got in two workouts this week, and will get a third one today.  It’s not ideal, but it is an improvement.

On another note, those who live in my geographical region can relate: over the past couple months, the heat has been excessive.  Heat has been nearly record-breaking in duration, and in my area, there was a new high temperature set last week; it was the highest recorded temperature ever, since 1878, and not just for that particular date.

Although most of us have air conditioning, I could still see and sense a difference in people.  Intense heat brings just about everyone down.  You feel lethargic, like just thinking about moving will break you out in a sweat.  It just zaps both physical and mental strength, and no one wants to do anything until the heat breaks.

Now that the temperatures are lower, and more like average August temperatures, I know I feel lots better.  This weather actually feels cool after multiple weeks of 100+ temperatures.  I feel better about moving, and I feel better about myself, too.

Finally, it’s important to me to get back to hard work.  I think around the four month point, I hit a mental failure point where my mind just keeps telling me that I should just say “screw it” and eat what I want, that there are rewards to eating things I like, and that I shouldn’t be concerned with the consequences.  That I should just relax.  That’s a very strong pull.  I have to want my goal more than the instant rewards of eating junk food and sitting on my ass.  I have to keep the thought that what I attain in the long run is much more rewarding than eating a bag of Fritos right now.  The temptation has been strong for the past couple weeks, and I need to work on leaving that behind me.

I can tell I’m not in my zone.  I have some work to do on this brain of mine, and it’s time I buckled down and did it.

I’ve been doing fine with food, to a point.  I could be doing better.  I could be doing better with every part of my program.  So, I guess this week is really about fessing up to knowing I could be doing better, and not making excuses about it, because I have already fought down a ton of excuses.  Regardless, the facts are that I haven’t put in the work that I so desperately need to during these past couple of weeks, and I have no one and nothing to blame for it except myself.  I’m letting laziness and doubt set in.  I cannot move forward unless I buckle down, be vigilant, and mean it.  Thoughts and words aren’t going to get the weight off; if that were the case, I would have been Twiggy long ago.

I realized on Saturday that I hadn’t tried on my try-on pants from Friday, and then I didn’t really care that I hadn’t done it.  I knew that they wouldn’t be any further toward fitting, since I’d just come off over a week’s vacation, but once again, I have to be vigilant.  I have to do those things because they remind me to keep on the course.  I don’t want to be obese forever.  I don’t want to continue to handicap myself by carrying so much extra weight. I don’t like being a burden.

I think, in some ways, having the vacation to work toward helped me out.  I have another event in early October; I need to buckle down and get back to work, so I’ll enjoy that event.  I was happy that I was able to do a fair amount of walking without too much pain while in Florida.  I can do that, again, but it takes getting myself dedicated to the cause. And the cause is a healthier Lisa.

Originally, I had set up a try-on goal of six weeks. I’m changing that right now.  The try-on jeans are tight and certainly not worthy of wearing anywhere.  It’s August; I should be able to reduce my body enough to make them more comfortable by the beginning of October, so that’s my new goal.

Sometimes, talking it out helps.

Flippin’ heck, my mind is getting away from me.  I didn’t post on Monday or Friday, so this post covers both.

Week 14.  Wow.  I’m thrilled to still be in this journey, and I think I’m making good headway.  But… I sincerely need to buckle my brain down.  Not only did I forget to check in on Monday, but I’ve also been dealing with some mental demons this week. And the sad part of it is — I’m doing well!  This blog is here to remind me that I have to remain vigilant, that I have made myself promises that I intend to keep, that I need to remember that the journey toward ideal health and weight loss is as much mental as it is physical.

So, Week 14 found me still fighting the good fight, overall.  I still have done well with exercise; I have yet to miss a planned session, but I’ve also been tempted to just stay in bed a few times instead of getting up and working out.  That’s a bad mistake; not only is the pool more likely to be available in the morning for swimming laps, but I just do better both mentally and physically if I get my workout done first thing.  Waiting until later in the day presents me with too many opportunities to just put it off.  While I believe my body could use a break, I’m going to have a week’s break from formal exercise next week, when we are on vacation.

As for the mental demons, I’ve found myself wishing for foods that aren’t really acceptable.  I haven’t caved in, but I have craved, which is unusual for me, and it’s a sign that I might be trying to derail myself.  I’m letting doubt creep in, as well as allowing myself to want foods and miss foods that aren’t good for me.  For the most part, I keep myself in a mental place where food just isn’t an issue, so allowing that in is a sign that, as I said earlier, I need to watch myself and not allow the slip.  That’s especially true, since we’ll be on vacation by this time next week, and I still haven’t come up with a solid approach for how I’ll handle things food-wise.  I’m going to do some thinking about it this weekend.

Finally, the pants try-on: I nearly forgot, but I did try on the jeans yesterday, Friday, which is my usual day for doing that.  Good news: they are starting to feel less constricting.  Just slightly, but there is a difference.  Terrific!  I needed that little boost.  I need to remember, especially next week when I’m wearing clothes that wouldn’t fit just a few months ago, that I’m making progress and I have much to be proud of.

There are no significant changes in how the try-on pants fit, but I would have been shocked and pleasantly surprised if there was.  I’m only two weeks in on this pair.  Even if I lost two pounds a week, a four pound loss on a 300+ lb. woman is barely over 1% of body weight, and not likely to be visible, unless I lost four pounds in my chin.  😀  And I’d take that, believe me!

Otherwise, things are going good.  I completed another successful workout week, despite not being able to exercise on Monday because the gym was closed for the holiday weekend.  I added time to three of the four sessions, so I made up the lost fifth session.  And I learned that my body just isn’t quite ready, yet, for hour-long workouts, particularly swimming laps.  On Tuesday and Thursday, I swam 50 laps, which is 4000 feet, or over 3/4 of a mile.  And believe me, by lap 50, I was done.  Still, I’m proud that I finished yet another week, and my body needs the weekend rest.

Last week, I started adding in some calories.  I did this because I had let my daily calorie intake drop far too low; my energy levels were declining.  So, I added about 200-300 calories a day back in, and I’ve noticed a difference.  I think I had hit a point of diminishing returns; the possible extra loss of decreasing several hundred calories a day was offset by not having the energy to do anything else.

My body is doing well.  Yes, my knees still ache, but I’m still a big woman.  The candida patches behind my knees are gone, I have more stamina, I’m able to just move easier, get up from the couch and other seated positions easier.